The 'Other' Sweetener That's Made from Sugar, but is Closer to DDT
Posted By Dr. Mercola | April 26 2011 | 79,788 views
Splenda Artificial Sweetener Researchers recently investigated sucralose (Splenda) to see if it could reduce hunger and keep blood sugar steady. They found that it could not.
The researchers hoped to find that sucralose could cause the intestine to produce a hormone that reduces blood sugar and decreases appetite, which prior study had indicated might be a possibility. But the effect did not occur when it was ingested orally -- hunger remained the same and the blood sugar remained the same.
According to FYI Living:
"Worse, other research has shown that artificial sweeteners might contribute to weight gain ... [when the] sweet taste is not accompanied by the calories (energy) our brain expects it to be, the complex systems our bodies have to regulate energy balance may be thrown off kilter. The result is that a diet high in artificial sweeteners may possibly, over time, cause people to seek out more calories from other sources".
Sources:
FYI Living March 10, 2011
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition April 2011; 65(4):508-13
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
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Avoiding sugar is a crucial component of a healthy lifestyle, but, instead of consuming a naturally low-sugar diet based on whole foods, some people are still trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Unfortunately, the belief that artificial sweeteners can allow you to have the best of both worlds is simply not based in reality. It's a carefully orchestrated deception. So if you're still consuming artificially sweetened foods, snacks and beverages because you think it'll help you manage your weight, please understand that you've been sorely misled.
In reality, "diet" foods and drinks ruin your body's ability to count calories, thus boosting your inclination to overindulge. This effect appears to be true for all artificial sweeteners.
Unfortunately, most public health agencies and nutritionists in the United States still recommend these toxic artificial sweeteners as acceptable and even preferred alternatives to sugar, which is at best confusing and at worst seriously damaging the health of those who listen to this well-intentioned but foolish advice.
Artificial Sweeteners INCREASE Your Risk of Obesity
Contrary to popular belief, research has shown that artificial sweeteners can stimulate your appetite, increase carbohydrate cravings, and stimulate fat storage and weight gain. In fact, diet sodas may actually double your risk of obesity!
How's that for being misled?
Studies have repeatedly shown that consuming artificial sweeteners may be ruining your ability to control your food intake and body weight. For example, I have listed the results of six studies on aspartame that found it increases hunger and body weight on my Aspartame Studies page, and research on other artificial sweeteners have come to the same conclusion.
It's thought that consuming artificial sweeteners breaks the inherent connection between a sweet taste and a high-calorie food, thereby changing your body's ability to regulate your intake of calories. The end result is that by consuming artificially sweetened foods and beverages, you end up gaining more body fat than if you were to eat the same foods sweetened with regular sugar!
But weight gain isn't the only health-harming side effect of these man-made chemical sweeteners.
Splenda Destroys Your Gut Flora
Different artificial sweeteners have been found to wreak havoc in a number of different ways. Aspartame, for example, has a long list of studies indicating its harmful effects, ranging from brain damage to pre-term delivery.
Splenda (sucralose) has been found to be particularly damaging to your intestines.
A study published in 2008 found that Splenda:
Reduces the amount of good bacteria in your intestines by 50 percent
Increases the pH level in your intestines, and
Affects a glycoprotein in your body that can have crucial health effects, particularly if you're on certain medications like chemotherapy, or treatments for AIDS and certain heart conditions
They also found unmistakable evidence that Splenda is absorbed by fat, contrary to previous claims.
In response to this study, James Turner, chairman of the national consumer education group Citizens for Health issued the following statement:
"The report makes it clear that the artificial sweetener Splenda and its key component sucralose pose a threat to the people who consume the product. Hundreds of consumers have complained to us about side effects from using Splenda and this study ... confirms that the chemicals in the little yellow package should carry a big red warning label."
I agree. It's truly disturbing that Splenda can destroy up to 50 percent of your healthy intestinal bacteria, as these bacteria are absolutely vital for supporting your general health! Many people are already deficient in healthy bacteria due to consuming too many highly processed foods. This is why a high quality probiotic is one of the very few supplements I highly recommend for most, if not all, people.
Believe me, if you continually destroy up to half of your gut flora by regularly consuming Splenda, then poor health is virtually guaranteed!
Splenda has Never Been Proven Safe for Human Consumption
Splenda was approved by the FDA as a tabletop- and general-purpose sweetener in processed foods in 1998. The FDA claims the approval was based on more than 110 animal and human safety studies. However, what they don't specify was that out of these 110 studies, only two were human studies, consisting of a combined total of 36 people, of which only 23 people actually ingested sucralose.
Additionally, the longest of these two human trials lasted only four days and looked at sucralose in relation to tooth decay, not human tolerance!
Many people have sent me stories about their adverse reactions to Splenda, which are posted on my site. This list alone contains more people than were formally studied in the research submitted for FDA approval!
The remainder of those 110-plus "safety studies" were done on animals, and they actually revealed plenty of problems, such as:
Decreased red blood cells -- sign of anemia -- at levels above 1,500 mg/kg/day
Increased male infertility by interfering with sperm production and vitality, as well as brain lesions at higher doses
Enlarged and calcified kidneys (McNeil stated this is often seen with poorly absorbed substances and was of no toxicological significance. The FDA Final Rule agreed that these are findings that are common in aged female rats and are not significant.)
Spontaneous abortions in nearly half the rabbit population given sucralose, compared to zero aborted pregnancies in the control group
A 23 percent death rate in rabbits, compared to a 6 percent death rate in the control group
Common Side Effects of Splenda
The web site www.truthaboutsplenda.com lists a variety of consumer complaints from Splenda consumption, such as:
Gastrointestinal problems Blurred vision
Migraines Allergic reactions
Seizures Blood sugar increases
Dizziness Weight gain
You can also read the first-hand accounts of many of my readers here, at least one of whom say that allowing Splenda on the market is "worse than chemical warfare" based on the adverse effects she suffered before she figured out the cause. Just as with aspartame, many Splenda users complain of general malaise or "feeling under the weather," along with a variety of neurological changes, such as foggy-headedness, lack of concentration, and "bad mood."
If you have ever suffered any side effects from taking Splenda or any artificially sweetened product, I strongly recommend reporting it to the FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator in your area.
Splenda—"Made from Sugar" But More Similar to DDT...
That's right.
The catchy slogan "Made from sugar so it tastes like sugar" has fooled many, but chemically, Splenda is actually more similar to DDT than sugar.
Sucralose starts off with a sugar molecule, yes, but that's where the similarity ends. (A sucrose molecule is a disaccharide that contains two single sugars bound together, i.e. glucose and fructose.) Then, in a five-step patented process, three chlorine molecules are added to that sucrose (sugar) molecule.
This process converts the sugar molecule to a fructo-galactose molecule.
This type of sugar molecule does not occur in nature, and therefore your body does not possess the ability to properly metabolize it. As a result of this "unique" biochemical make-up, McNeil Nutritionals makes its claim that Splenda is not digested or metabolized by the body, hence it has zero calories.
But, if you look at the research, you will find that an average of 15 percent of sucralose IS in fact absorbed into your digestive system, and ultimately is stored in your body. To reach the average number of 15 percent means that some people absorb more and some people absorb less, depending on your biochemical makeup.
If you are healthy and your digestive system works well, you may be at HIGHER risk for breaking down this product in your stomach and intestines, so for you the adverse reactions may be more acutely felt.
How to Kick the Artificial Sweetener Habit
Sweet cravings are very common for the simple reason that sugar is as addictive as cocaine. Unfortunately, switching to artificial sweeteners will neither reduce these cravings nor increase your satiety. On the contrary, as discussed above, you're likely making matters worse.
Your body also craves sweets when you're denying it the fuel it needs. Sugar (and grain carbs) is very quick fuel and can give your body a boost when it's running low. Again, using artificial sweeteners does not trick your body into thinking it has had its fill; rather it wants more sweets because it didn't get the energy boost with that sweet taste!
A powerful solution to help curb your cravings is to determine your nutritional type, which will tell you which foods you need to eat to feel full and satisfied.
It may sound hard to believe right now, but once you start eating right for your nutritional type, your sweet cravings will disappear. To help you turn your health around, I now offer the full nutritional typing program online for free, so please take advantage of this opportunity to dramatically change your health for the better.
Interestingly, nutrition- and fitness expert Ori Hofmekler recently shared a fascinating benefit of caffeine that can be helpful here. If you like coffee, drinking organic black coffee (meaning without sugar or milk) can help eliminate sugar cravings because the caffeine is an opioid receptor antagonist.
As you may know, sugar binds to the same opioid receptors as cocaine and other addictive substances. But once an opioid receptor antagonist occupies that receptor, it prohibits you from becoming addicted to something else. Therefore, caffeine may attenuate the addictive impact of sugar.
There are a few caveats to using this strategy however, including:
Only drink organic coffee (as it's one of the most pesticide-heavy crops there are)
Drink it black, sans sugar/artificial sweeteners or milk
Only drink coffee in the morning, prior to exercise
Limit your consumption to one or two cups
In addition to eating right for your nutritional type, I highly recommend addressing the emotional component of your food cravings, using a tool such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). It's one of the most profoundly effective tools I've ever used or researched to help overcome food cravings and reach dietary success.
Turbo Tapping is particularly useful if you're addicted to soda. It's an extremely effective and simple tool to get rid of your addiction in a short period of time.
Related Links:
The Potential Dangers of Sucralose (Splenda)
Sucralose (Splenda) U.S. Product List
The Potential Dangers of Sucralose—Reader Testimonials
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Look out for Benzocaine
FDA Warns - Do NOT Use This Pain Reliever... You Could Turn Blue and Die
Posted By Dr. Mercola The FDA has notified healthcare professionals and patients that they are receiving reports of methemoglobinemia, a serious and potentially fatal side effect, associated with benzocaine products.
The condition can occur when benzocaine is used either as a spray used during medical procedures to numb the mouth and throat, or as over-the-counter gels and liquids used to relieve pain from conditions such as teething and canker sores.
Methemoglobinemia is a condition in which the amount of oxygen carried through the blood stream is greatly reduced. In severe cases, methemoglobinemia can result in death.
According to Drugs.com:
"Methemoglobinemia has been reported with all strengths of benzocaine gels and liquids, and cases occurred mainly in children aged two years or younger who were treated with benzocaine gel for teething."
Sources: Drugs.com April 7, 2011
This will probably come as a surprise to most people, but it's just another example of how all drugs have potentially serious side effects—even those sold without a prescription and/or used topically as opposed to being swallowed.
The Potentially Lethal Side-Effect of Benzocaine
Benzocaine is a local anesthetic commonly used as a topical pain reliever. You can also find it in cough drops, throat sprays, and gels or liquids used for teething and canker sores (cold sores).
However, you need to be careful when using these products, especially on children. The FDA is now sounding the alarm as they continue receiving reports of methemoglobinemia, which is a potentially life threatening side effect of the drug.
This side effect has been reported with all strengths of benzocaine gels and liquids, including a single dose of benzocaine throat spray. They're now advising against the use of benzocaine products on children under the age of two, as most of the cases included infants given teething gel containing benzocaine.
Methemoglobinemia is a condition in which the amount of oxygen in your blood stream is greatly reduced. In severe cases, it can result in death.
Signs and symptoms of this severe adverse reaction include:
Pale, gray or blue colored skin, lips, and nail beds Headache Lightheadedness
Shortness of breath
Rapid heart rate Fatigue
Symptoms can appear at any point, either after the initial or any subsequent application, but usually become apparent within minutes to hours of application.
No one likes pain, and when an infant is teething, a parent will do just about anything to relieve their discomfort. However, it's important to realize the potential dangers in reaching for a drug as the first line of defense.
Over-the-counter benzocaine products are typically used for pain associated with cuts and scrapes, sore throats, canker sores, and teething, and there are far safer alternatives to treat all of these discomforts.
Ice—a Natural Pain Reliever
For pain due to cuts, scrapes and bruises, as well as teething, ice is your friend.
I recommend keeping hot & cold packs at home so you have them the moment you need them, because ice should be applied as soon as possible to reduce swelling and thwart inflammation.
Hot and cold packs are available in all sorts of shapes and sizes, to accommodate various parts of your body, such as wrists, arms, knees and elbows.
How to Help Relieve Teething Discomfort
For teething, you do NOT want your baby to chew on liquid-filled ice packs as they might break. Instead, get a teething ring that can be cooled in the fridge. Just check the label and make sure it doesn't contain harmful chemicals like phthalates and bisphenol-A (BPA).
Another alternative is to lightly dampen a clean wash cloth made of organic materials, then place it into the fridge or freezer. Once cooled, your baby can safely chew on that. For more "bulk," simply tie a knot at the end, or fold it a few times.
A Natural Remedy for Sore Throats
Instead of using a benzocaine-laced throat spray, you can soothe your sore throat with raw honey. Honey has long been used as a natural remedy for sore throats and coughs, and modern research has confirmed that honey is such a potent anti-infection/anti-inflammatory product it can rival antibiotics.
A common natural cure for a sore throat is tea with honey and lemon.
The main thing to remember when it comes to honey is that not all honey is created equal. The antibacterial activity in some honeys is 100 times more powerful than in others! Processed, refined honey is NOT appropriate as it does not impart the same health benefits as raw honey when consumed.
So make sure you're only using raw honey, or Manuka honey, which is so potent it is now being used in medical products such as wound dressings.
Another caveat is that you don't want to give honey to children under the age of two as botulism can occur due to the child's immature immune system if the honey is contaminated.
Additionally, keep in mind that honey, if not consumed in moderation, will increase your insulin and leptin levels and can lead to poor health. So avoid using it for chronic conditions. If you or your child tend to get frequent colds, coughs, sore throats or flu, please understand that this is a sign of a poorly functioning immune system. If that's the case, then you really need to stop treating the symptoms and focus on healing the underlying cause.
For guidelines on how to address more chronic cold and flu ailments, please review this previous article.
Raw Honey for Wound Care
Manuka honey in particular can also be applied topically to wounds, in lieu of wound-care creams containing benzocaine or lidocaine. It's anti-viral, anti-bacterial properties will allow the wound to heal faster, which will reduce associated pain.
Good quality raw honey, such as Manuka, offers several topical wound-care benefits:
• It draws fluid away from your wound
• The high sugar content suppresses microorganism growth
• Worker bees secrete an enzyme (glucose oxidase) into the nectar, which then releases low levels of hydrogen peroxide when the honey makes contact with your wound
• A chemical reaction between the honey and tissue also makes healing wounds smell good
Getting to the Root of Canker/Cold Sores
Canker sores, also known as cold sores, are painful ulcerations that typically occur inside your mouth, inside your cheek, or sometimes even on your tongue. This is another common use for benzocaine-containing gels.
However, if you're suffering from recurring cold sores, please understand that they are NOT caused by a viral infection, but rather due to an autoimmune problem. They're typically a reaction to either chocolate, citrus, or wheat, so avoiding these foods can help you end the problem once and for all.
Keep in mind that cold sores are frequently mistaken for herpes sores, but using anti-herpes approaches for canker sores will simply not work. To learn more about the differences between the two, please see this previous article.
The Best Pain Reliever Doesn't Come in a Tube or a Jar
For pain in general, regardless of where it hurts, one of the best remedies is neither applied topically nor ingested. Instead, the gentle process of tapping certain spots on your face and body with your fingertips can help alleviate the physical pain you feel. This process is known as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).
Some of our biggest EFT enthusiasts are people who have used this gentle, safe and easy-to-administer technique to minimize their suffering from pain.
EFT is a procedure that borrows from the much-heralded discoveries of Albert Einstein that everything, including your body, is composed of energy, AND from the ancient wisdom of Chinese acupuncture. In essence, EFT is an emotional version of acupuncture except that needles are not required. Instead, certain release points are stimulated by tapping them with your fingertips.
One of the reasons why it works on physical pain is because your emotions can have as powerful an effect on pain as any opioid, if not more so. By resolving the underlying, often subconscious, negative emotions that might be exacerbating your physical pain, you can get profound relief.
A classic example of this is the work of Dr. John Sarno, a physician who focuses on treating patients with severe recalcitrant low back pain whose surgeries had failed to give them any relief. Still, in this very difficult-to-treat group, he was getting over 80 percent improvements simply by addressing the emotional element of the pain.
EFT also helps you balance out your subtle energy system, which in and of itself tends to dissipate pain.
Best of all, the basics of EFT can be learned by anyone and can be self-applied (usually in minutes). I would encourage you to learn more about EFT and try it out on whatever ails you. You just may be surprised by what you'll find.
Pain-Reducing Supplements
If your pain is acute, such as a cut or scrape, reach for an ice pack first. However, if you tend to suffer more chronic forms of pain, the following two supplements may help:
• Cetyl Myristoleate (CMO): This oil, found in fish and dairy butter, acts as a "joint lubricant" and an anti-inflammatory. I have used this for myself to relieve ganglion cysts and a mild annoying carpal tunnel syndrome that pops up when I type too much on non-ergonomic keyboards. I used a topical preparation for this with really surprisingly good results.
• Cayenne Cream: Also called capsaicin cream, this spice comes from dried hot peppers. It alleviates pain by depleting the body's supply of substance P, a chemical component of nerve cells that transmits pain signals to your brain.
Always Report Drug Side-Effects!
Last but not least, if you experience any side effects from using benzocaine-containing products, please report it to the FDA's MedWatch Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program.
You can either:
1. Complete and submit the report Online: www.fda.gov/MedWatch/report.htm
2. Download form or call 1-800-332-1088 to request a reporting form, then complete and return to the address on the pre-addressed form, or submit by fax to 1-800-FDA-0178
Reporting any and all side-effects of any drugs you use is very important, as it's really the only way we can get the FDA to take notice, and issue precautions that can save lives.
Related Links:
Chili-Based Anaesthetic Kills Pain, But Not Your Other Senses
Eliminating Intense Pain Without Drugs
Pain Relief Without Meds -- 80 Percent Success Rate
Posted By Dr. Mercola The FDA has notified healthcare professionals and patients that they are receiving reports of methemoglobinemia, a serious and potentially fatal side effect, associated with benzocaine products.
The condition can occur when benzocaine is used either as a spray used during medical procedures to numb the mouth and throat, or as over-the-counter gels and liquids used to relieve pain from conditions such as teething and canker sores.
Methemoglobinemia is a condition in which the amount of oxygen carried through the blood stream is greatly reduced. In severe cases, methemoglobinemia can result in death.
According to Drugs.com:
"Methemoglobinemia has been reported with all strengths of benzocaine gels and liquids, and cases occurred mainly in children aged two years or younger who were treated with benzocaine gel for teething."
Sources: Drugs.com April 7, 2011
This will probably come as a surprise to most people, but it's just another example of how all drugs have potentially serious side effects—even those sold without a prescription and/or used topically as opposed to being swallowed.
The Potentially Lethal Side-Effect of Benzocaine
Benzocaine is a local anesthetic commonly used as a topical pain reliever. You can also find it in cough drops, throat sprays, and gels or liquids used for teething and canker sores (cold sores).
However, you need to be careful when using these products, especially on children. The FDA is now sounding the alarm as they continue receiving reports of methemoglobinemia, which is a potentially life threatening side effect of the drug.
This side effect has been reported with all strengths of benzocaine gels and liquids, including a single dose of benzocaine throat spray. They're now advising against the use of benzocaine products on children under the age of two, as most of the cases included infants given teething gel containing benzocaine.
Methemoglobinemia is a condition in which the amount of oxygen in your blood stream is greatly reduced. In severe cases, it can result in death.
Signs and symptoms of this severe adverse reaction include:
Pale, gray or blue colored skin, lips, and nail beds Headache Lightheadedness
Shortness of breath
Rapid heart rate Fatigue
Symptoms can appear at any point, either after the initial or any subsequent application, but usually become apparent within minutes to hours of application.
No one likes pain, and when an infant is teething, a parent will do just about anything to relieve their discomfort. However, it's important to realize the potential dangers in reaching for a drug as the first line of defense.
Over-the-counter benzocaine products are typically used for pain associated with cuts and scrapes, sore throats, canker sores, and teething, and there are far safer alternatives to treat all of these discomforts.
Ice—a Natural Pain Reliever
For pain due to cuts, scrapes and bruises, as well as teething, ice is your friend.
I recommend keeping hot & cold packs at home so you have them the moment you need them, because ice should be applied as soon as possible to reduce swelling and thwart inflammation.
Hot and cold packs are available in all sorts of shapes and sizes, to accommodate various parts of your body, such as wrists, arms, knees and elbows.
How to Help Relieve Teething Discomfort
For teething, you do NOT want your baby to chew on liquid-filled ice packs as they might break. Instead, get a teething ring that can be cooled in the fridge. Just check the label and make sure it doesn't contain harmful chemicals like phthalates and bisphenol-A (BPA).
Another alternative is to lightly dampen a clean wash cloth made of organic materials, then place it into the fridge or freezer. Once cooled, your baby can safely chew on that. For more "bulk," simply tie a knot at the end, or fold it a few times.
A Natural Remedy for Sore Throats
Instead of using a benzocaine-laced throat spray, you can soothe your sore throat with raw honey. Honey has long been used as a natural remedy for sore throats and coughs, and modern research has confirmed that honey is such a potent anti-infection/anti-inflammatory product it can rival antibiotics.
A common natural cure for a sore throat is tea with honey and lemon.
The main thing to remember when it comes to honey is that not all honey is created equal. The antibacterial activity in some honeys is 100 times more powerful than in others! Processed, refined honey is NOT appropriate as it does not impart the same health benefits as raw honey when consumed.
So make sure you're only using raw honey, or Manuka honey, which is so potent it is now being used in medical products such as wound dressings.
Another caveat is that you don't want to give honey to children under the age of two as botulism can occur due to the child's immature immune system if the honey is contaminated.
Additionally, keep in mind that honey, if not consumed in moderation, will increase your insulin and leptin levels and can lead to poor health. So avoid using it for chronic conditions. If you or your child tend to get frequent colds, coughs, sore throats or flu, please understand that this is a sign of a poorly functioning immune system. If that's the case, then you really need to stop treating the symptoms and focus on healing the underlying cause.
For guidelines on how to address more chronic cold and flu ailments, please review this previous article.
Raw Honey for Wound Care
Manuka honey in particular can also be applied topically to wounds, in lieu of wound-care creams containing benzocaine or lidocaine. It's anti-viral, anti-bacterial properties will allow the wound to heal faster, which will reduce associated pain.
Good quality raw honey, such as Manuka, offers several topical wound-care benefits:
• It draws fluid away from your wound
• The high sugar content suppresses microorganism growth
• Worker bees secrete an enzyme (glucose oxidase) into the nectar, which then releases low levels of hydrogen peroxide when the honey makes contact with your wound
• A chemical reaction between the honey and tissue also makes healing wounds smell good
Getting to the Root of Canker/Cold Sores
Canker sores, also known as cold sores, are painful ulcerations that typically occur inside your mouth, inside your cheek, or sometimes even on your tongue. This is another common use for benzocaine-containing gels.
However, if you're suffering from recurring cold sores, please understand that they are NOT caused by a viral infection, but rather due to an autoimmune problem. They're typically a reaction to either chocolate, citrus, or wheat, so avoiding these foods can help you end the problem once and for all.
Keep in mind that cold sores are frequently mistaken for herpes sores, but using anti-herpes approaches for canker sores will simply not work. To learn more about the differences between the two, please see this previous article.
The Best Pain Reliever Doesn't Come in a Tube or a Jar
For pain in general, regardless of where it hurts, one of the best remedies is neither applied topically nor ingested. Instead, the gentle process of tapping certain spots on your face and body with your fingertips can help alleviate the physical pain you feel. This process is known as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).
Some of our biggest EFT enthusiasts are people who have used this gentle, safe and easy-to-administer technique to minimize their suffering from pain.
EFT is a procedure that borrows from the much-heralded discoveries of Albert Einstein that everything, including your body, is composed of energy, AND from the ancient wisdom of Chinese acupuncture. In essence, EFT is an emotional version of acupuncture except that needles are not required. Instead, certain release points are stimulated by tapping them with your fingertips.
One of the reasons why it works on physical pain is because your emotions can have as powerful an effect on pain as any opioid, if not more so. By resolving the underlying, often subconscious, negative emotions that might be exacerbating your physical pain, you can get profound relief.
A classic example of this is the work of Dr. John Sarno, a physician who focuses on treating patients with severe recalcitrant low back pain whose surgeries had failed to give them any relief. Still, in this very difficult-to-treat group, he was getting over 80 percent improvements simply by addressing the emotional element of the pain.
EFT also helps you balance out your subtle energy system, which in and of itself tends to dissipate pain.
Best of all, the basics of EFT can be learned by anyone and can be self-applied (usually in minutes). I would encourage you to learn more about EFT and try it out on whatever ails you. You just may be surprised by what you'll find.
Pain-Reducing Supplements
If your pain is acute, such as a cut or scrape, reach for an ice pack first. However, if you tend to suffer more chronic forms of pain, the following two supplements may help:
• Cetyl Myristoleate (CMO): This oil, found in fish and dairy butter, acts as a "joint lubricant" and an anti-inflammatory. I have used this for myself to relieve ganglion cysts and a mild annoying carpal tunnel syndrome that pops up when I type too much on non-ergonomic keyboards. I used a topical preparation for this with really surprisingly good results.
• Cayenne Cream: Also called capsaicin cream, this spice comes from dried hot peppers. It alleviates pain by depleting the body's supply of substance P, a chemical component of nerve cells that transmits pain signals to your brain.
Always Report Drug Side-Effects!
Last but not least, if you experience any side effects from using benzocaine-containing products, please report it to the FDA's MedWatch Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program.
You can either:
1. Complete and submit the report Online: www.fda.gov/MedWatch/report.htm
2. Download form or call 1-800-332-1088 to request a reporting form, then complete and return to the address on the pre-addressed form, or submit by fax to 1-800-FDA-0178
Reporting any and all side-effects of any drugs you use is very important, as it's really the only way we can get the FDA to take notice, and issue precautions that can save lives.
Related Links:
Chili-Based Anaesthetic Kills Pain, But Not Your Other Senses
Eliminating Intense Pain Without Drugs
Pain Relief Without Meds -- 80 Percent Success Rate
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Frustrated
Sinead and I just spent 4 day with some of here Santa Fe friends that had relocated to Arkansas. Every where you turned there was a golf course and they were all full of overweight men riding around in carts. Doesn't any body walk any more?
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Brain - Gut connection and depression
Mercola posted some great articles since I was in Seattle for the latest IV nutritional therapy seminar. This one is on healthy Gut flora and depression in the brain.
If You Can't Beat Depression, This Could be Why
Posted By Dr. Mercola | April 12 2011 | 128,707 views
Researchers examined the performance of germ-free mice, who lack gut bacteria, on a kind of maze used to test anxiety-like behaviors. The maze is in the shape of a plus with two open and two closed arms; normally, mice will avoid open spaces to minimize the risk of being seen by predators.
Normal mice, as expected, spent far more time in the closed arms when placed in the maze. The germ-free mice, however, entered the open arms far more often, spending significantly more time there than in the closed arms.
According to the study in Neurogastroenterology & Motility, when they examined the animals' brains, they found that:
"these differences in behavior were accompanied by alterations in the expression levels of several genes in the germ-free mice. ... Bacteria colonize the gut in the days following birth, during a sensitive period of brain development, and apparently influence behavior by inducing changes in the expression of certain genes."
Sources:
Neurogastroenterology & Motility March 2011; 23(3); 255–e119
Most people fail to realize that your gut is quite literally your second brain, and actually has the ability to significantly influence your:
• Mind
• Mood
• Behavior
So while modern psychiatry still falsely claims that psychological problems such as depression are caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain, researchers keep finding that depression and a variety of behavioral problems actually appear to be linked to an imbalance of bacteria in your gut!
Germ-Free Mice Engage in High-Risk Behavior
In the featured study published last month in Neurogastroenterology & Motility, mice that lack gut bacteria were found to behave differently from normal mice, engaging in what would be referred to as "high-risk behavior." This altered behavior was accompanied by neurochemical changes in the mouse brain.
According to the authors, microbiota (your gut flora) may play a role in the communication between your gut and your brain, and:
"Acquisition of intestinal microbiota in the immediate postnatal period has a defining impact on the development and function of the gastrointestinal, immune, neuroendocrine and metabolic systems. For example, the presence of gut microbiota regulates the set point for hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity."
The neurotransmitter serotonin activates your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis by stimulating certain serotonin receptors in your brain. Additionally, neurotransmitters like serotonin can also be found in your gut. In fact, the greatest concentration of serotonin, which is involved in mood control, depression and aggression, is found in your intestines, not your brain!
So it actually makes perfect sense to nourish your gut flora for optimal serotonin function as it can have a profound impact on your mood, psychological health, and behavior.
The authors concluded that:
"[T]he presence or absence of conventional intestinal microbiota influences the development of behavior..."
This conclusion adds support to another recent animal study, which also found that gut bacteria may influence mammalian early brain development and behavior. But that's not all. They also discovered that the absence or presence of gut microorganisms during infancy permanently alters gene expression.
Through gene profiling, they were able to discern that absence of gut bacteria altered genes and signaling pathways involved in learning, memory, and motor control. This suggests that gut bacteria is closely tied to early brain development and subsequent behavior. These behavioral changes could be reversed as long as the mice were exposed to normal microorganisms early in life. But once the germ-free mice had reached adulthood, colonizing them with bacteria did not influence their behavior.
According to Dr. Rochellys Diaz Heijtz, lead author of the study:
"The data suggests that there is a critical period early in life when gut microorganisms affect the brain and change the behavior in later life."
In a similar way, probiotics have also been found to influence the activity of hundreds of your genes, helping them to express in a positive, disease-fighting manner.
The Gut-Brain Connection
When you consider the fact that the gut-brain connection is recognized as a basic tenet of physiology and medicine, and that there's no shortage of evidence of gastrointestinal involvement in a variety of neurological diseases, it's easy to see how the balance of gut bacteria can play a significant role in your psychology and behavior as well.
With this in mind, it should also be crystal clear that nourishing your gut flora is extremely important, from cradle to grave, because in a very real sense you have two brains, one inside your skull and one in your gut, and each needs its own vital nourishment.
Interestingly, these two organs are actually created out of the same type of tissue. During fetal development, one part turns into your central nervous system while the other develops into your enteric nervous system. These two systems are connected via the vagus nerve, the tenth cranial nerve that runs from your brain stem down to your abdomen. This is what connects your two brains together, and explains such phenomena as getting butterflies in your stomach when you're nervous, for example. (For an interesting and well-written layman's explanation of this connection, read through Sandra Blakeslee's 1996 New York Times article Complex and Hidden Brain in Gut Makes Stomachaches and Butterflies.)
Your gut and brain work in tandem, each influencing the other. This is why your intestinal health can have such a profound influence on your mental health, and vice versa.
As a result, it should be obvious that your diet is closely linked to your mental health. Furthermore, it's requires almost no stretch of the imagination to see how lack of nutrition can have an adverse effect on your mood and subsequently your behavior.
Have We Become Too Sanitized for Our Own Sanity?
Another study published last year in the Archives of General Psychiatry reviewed the evidence for signs that psychiatric problems might be caused by lack of natural microorganisms in soil, food, and the gut. And it did find such a link.
Rates of depression in younger people have steadily grown to outnumber rates of depression in the older populations, and one reason for this could be the lack of exposure to bacteria, both outside and inside your body.
Quite simply, modern society may have gotten too sanitized and pasteurized for our own good.
Fermented foods have been traditional staples in most cultures, but modern food manufacturing, with its focus on killing ALL bacteria in the name of food safety, has eliminated most of these foods. You can still find traditionally fermented foods like natto or kefir, but they're not the dietary staples they once used to be, and many people don't like them when trying them out for the first time in adulthood.
When you deprive your child of all this bacteria, her immune system—which is her primary defense system against inflammation—actually gets weaker, not stronger. And higher levels of inflammation are not only a hallmark of heart disease and diabetes, but also of depression.
The authors explain it as follows:
"Significant data suggest that a variety of microorganisms (frequently referred to as the "old friends") were tasked by coevolutionary processes with training the human immune system to tolerate a wide array of non-threatening but potentially proinflammatory stimuli. Lacking such immune training, vulnerable individuals in the modern world are at significantly increased risk of mounting inappropriate inflammatory attacks on harmless environmental antigens (leading to asthma), benign food contents and commensals in the gut (leading to inflammatory bowel disease), or self-antigens (leading to any of a host of autoimmune diseases).
Loss of exposure to the old friends may promote major depression by increasing background levels of depressogenic cytokines and may predispose vulnerable individuals in industrialized societies to mount inappropriately aggressive inflammatory responses to psychosocial stressors, again leading to increased rates of depression.
… Measured exposure to the old friends or their antigens may offer promise for the prevention and treatment of major depression in modern industrialized societies."
Researchers around the World have Linked Gut Problems to Brain Disorders
Brain disorders can take many forms, one of which is autism. In this particular area you can again find compelling evidence of the link between brain and gut health. For example, gluten intolerance is frequently a feature of autism, and many autistic children will improve when following a strict gluten-free diet. Many autistic children also tend to improve when given probiotics, either in the form of fermented foods or probiotic supplements.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield is just one of many who have investigated the connection between developmental disorders and bowel disease. He has published about 130-140 peer-reviewed papers looking at the mechanism and cause of inflammatory bowel disease, and has extensively investigated the brain-bowel connection in the context of children with developmental disorders such as autism.
A large number of replication studies have also been performed around the world, by other researchers, confirming the curious link between brain disorders such as autism and gastrointestinal dysfunction. For a list of more than 25 of those studies, please see this previous article.
Other Health Benefits of Probiotics
Your body contains about 100 trillion bacteria -- more than 10 TIMES the number of cells you have in your entire body. Ideally, the ratio between the bacteria in your gut is 85 percent "good" and 15 percent "bad."
In addition to the psychological implications discussed above, a healthy ratio of good to bad gut bacteria is essential for:
• Protection against over-growth of other microorganisms that could cause disease
• Digestion of food and absorption of nutrients
• Digesting and absorbing certain carbohydrates
• Producing vitamins, absorbing minerals and eliminating toxins
• Preventing allergies
Signs of having an excess of unhealthy bacteria in your gut include gas and bloating, fatigue, sugar cravings, nausea, headaches, constipation or diarrhea.
What Interferes With Healthy Gut Bacteria?
Your gut bacteria do not live in a bubble; rather, they are an active and integrated part of your body, and as such are vulnerable to your lifestyle. If you eat a lot of processed foods, for instance, your gut bacteria are going to be compromised because processed foods in general will destroy healthy microflora and feed bad bacteria and yeast.
Your gut bacteria are also very sensitive to:
• Antibiotics
• Chlorinated water
• Antibacterial soap
• Agricultural chemicals
• Pollution
Because of these latter items, to which virtually all of us are exposed at least occasionally, it's generally a good idea to "reseed" the good bacteria in your gut by taking a high-quality probiotic supplement or eating fermented foods.
Tips for Optimizing Your Gut Bacteria
Getting back to the issue of inflammation for a moment, it's important to realize that an estimated 80 percent of your immune system is actually located in your gut, which is why you need to regularly reseed your gut with good bacteria.
Additionally, when you consider that your gut is your second brain AND the seat of your immune system, it becomes easy to see how your gut health can impact your brain function, psyche, and behavior, as they are interconnected and interdependent in a number of different ways—several of which are discussed above.
In light of this, here are my recommendations for optimizing your gut bacteria.
• Fermented foods are still the best route to optimal digestive health, as long as you eat the traditionally made, unpasteurized versions. Healthy choices include lassi (an Indian yoghurt drink, traditionally enjoyed before dinner), fermented milk such as kefir, various pickled fermentations of cabbage, turnips, eggplant, cucumbers, onions, squash and carrots, and natto (fermented soy).
If you regularly eat fermented foods such as these that, again, have not been pasteurized (pasteurization kills the naturally occurring probiotics), your healthy gut bacteria will thrive.
• Probiotic supplement. Although I'm not a major proponent of taking many supplements (as I believe the majority of your nutrients need to come from food), probiotics are definitely an exception. I have used many different brands over the past 15 years and there are many good ones out there. I also spent a long time researching and developing my own, called Complete Probiotics, in which I incorporated everything I have learned about this important tool over the years.
If you do not eat fermented foods, taking a high quality probiotic supplement is definitely recommended.
Related Links:
These Foods and Nutritional Deficiencies Can Make You Depressed or Violent
Probiotics Send Signals From Your Gut to Your Skin
The Healing Power of Probiotics Impresses Researchers
If You Can't Beat Depression, This Could be Why
Posted By Dr. Mercola | April 12 2011 | 128,707 views
Researchers examined the performance of germ-free mice, who lack gut bacteria, on a kind of maze used to test anxiety-like behaviors. The maze is in the shape of a plus with two open and two closed arms; normally, mice will avoid open spaces to minimize the risk of being seen by predators.
Normal mice, as expected, spent far more time in the closed arms when placed in the maze. The germ-free mice, however, entered the open arms far more often, spending significantly more time there than in the closed arms.
According to the study in Neurogastroenterology & Motility, when they examined the animals' brains, they found that:
"these differences in behavior were accompanied by alterations in the expression levels of several genes in the germ-free mice. ... Bacteria colonize the gut in the days following birth, during a sensitive period of brain development, and apparently influence behavior by inducing changes in the expression of certain genes."
Sources:
Neurogastroenterology & Motility March 2011; 23(3); 255–e119
Most people fail to realize that your gut is quite literally your second brain, and actually has the ability to significantly influence your:
• Mind
• Mood
• Behavior
So while modern psychiatry still falsely claims that psychological problems such as depression are caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain, researchers keep finding that depression and a variety of behavioral problems actually appear to be linked to an imbalance of bacteria in your gut!
Germ-Free Mice Engage in High-Risk Behavior
In the featured study published last month in Neurogastroenterology & Motility, mice that lack gut bacteria were found to behave differently from normal mice, engaging in what would be referred to as "high-risk behavior." This altered behavior was accompanied by neurochemical changes in the mouse brain.
According to the authors, microbiota (your gut flora) may play a role in the communication between your gut and your brain, and:
"Acquisition of intestinal microbiota in the immediate postnatal period has a defining impact on the development and function of the gastrointestinal, immune, neuroendocrine and metabolic systems. For example, the presence of gut microbiota regulates the set point for hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity."
The neurotransmitter serotonin activates your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis by stimulating certain serotonin receptors in your brain. Additionally, neurotransmitters like serotonin can also be found in your gut. In fact, the greatest concentration of serotonin, which is involved in mood control, depression and aggression, is found in your intestines, not your brain!
So it actually makes perfect sense to nourish your gut flora for optimal serotonin function as it can have a profound impact on your mood, psychological health, and behavior.
The authors concluded that:
"[T]he presence or absence of conventional intestinal microbiota influences the development of behavior..."
This conclusion adds support to another recent animal study, which also found that gut bacteria may influence mammalian early brain development and behavior. But that's not all. They also discovered that the absence or presence of gut microorganisms during infancy permanently alters gene expression.
Through gene profiling, they were able to discern that absence of gut bacteria altered genes and signaling pathways involved in learning, memory, and motor control. This suggests that gut bacteria is closely tied to early brain development and subsequent behavior. These behavioral changes could be reversed as long as the mice were exposed to normal microorganisms early in life. But once the germ-free mice had reached adulthood, colonizing them with bacteria did not influence their behavior.
According to Dr. Rochellys Diaz Heijtz, lead author of the study:
"The data suggests that there is a critical period early in life when gut microorganisms affect the brain and change the behavior in later life."
In a similar way, probiotics have also been found to influence the activity of hundreds of your genes, helping them to express in a positive, disease-fighting manner.
The Gut-Brain Connection
When you consider the fact that the gut-brain connection is recognized as a basic tenet of physiology and medicine, and that there's no shortage of evidence of gastrointestinal involvement in a variety of neurological diseases, it's easy to see how the balance of gut bacteria can play a significant role in your psychology and behavior as well.
With this in mind, it should also be crystal clear that nourishing your gut flora is extremely important, from cradle to grave, because in a very real sense you have two brains, one inside your skull and one in your gut, and each needs its own vital nourishment.
Interestingly, these two organs are actually created out of the same type of tissue. During fetal development, one part turns into your central nervous system while the other develops into your enteric nervous system. These two systems are connected via the vagus nerve, the tenth cranial nerve that runs from your brain stem down to your abdomen. This is what connects your two brains together, and explains such phenomena as getting butterflies in your stomach when you're nervous, for example. (For an interesting and well-written layman's explanation of this connection, read through Sandra Blakeslee's 1996 New York Times article Complex and Hidden Brain in Gut Makes Stomachaches and Butterflies.)
Your gut and brain work in tandem, each influencing the other. This is why your intestinal health can have such a profound influence on your mental health, and vice versa.
As a result, it should be obvious that your diet is closely linked to your mental health. Furthermore, it's requires almost no stretch of the imagination to see how lack of nutrition can have an adverse effect on your mood and subsequently your behavior.
Have We Become Too Sanitized for Our Own Sanity?
Another study published last year in the Archives of General Psychiatry reviewed the evidence for signs that psychiatric problems might be caused by lack of natural microorganisms in soil, food, and the gut. And it did find such a link.
Rates of depression in younger people have steadily grown to outnumber rates of depression in the older populations, and one reason for this could be the lack of exposure to bacteria, both outside and inside your body.
Quite simply, modern society may have gotten too sanitized and pasteurized for our own good.
Fermented foods have been traditional staples in most cultures, but modern food manufacturing, with its focus on killing ALL bacteria in the name of food safety, has eliminated most of these foods. You can still find traditionally fermented foods like natto or kefir, but they're not the dietary staples they once used to be, and many people don't like them when trying them out for the first time in adulthood.
When you deprive your child of all this bacteria, her immune system—which is her primary defense system against inflammation—actually gets weaker, not stronger. And higher levels of inflammation are not only a hallmark of heart disease and diabetes, but also of depression.
The authors explain it as follows:
"Significant data suggest that a variety of microorganisms (frequently referred to as the "old friends") were tasked by coevolutionary processes with training the human immune system to tolerate a wide array of non-threatening but potentially proinflammatory stimuli. Lacking such immune training, vulnerable individuals in the modern world are at significantly increased risk of mounting inappropriate inflammatory attacks on harmless environmental antigens (leading to asthma), benign food contents and commensals in the gut (leading to inflammatory bowel disease), or self-antigens (leading to any of a host of autoimmune diseases).
Loss of exposure to the old friends may promote major depression by increasing background levels of depressogenic cytokines and may predispose vulnerable individuals in industrialized societies to mount inappropriately aggressive inflammatory responses to psychosocial stressors, again leading to increased rates of depression.
… Measured exposure to the old friends or their antigens may offer promise for the prevention and treatment of major depression in modern industrialized societies."
Researchers around the World have Linked Gut Problems to Brain Disorders
Brain disorders can take many forms, one of which is autism. In this particular area you can again find compelling evidence of the link between brain and gut health. For example, gluten intolerance is frequently a feature of autism, and many autistic children will improve when following a strict gluten-free diet. Many autistic children also tend to improve when given probiotics, either in the form of fermented foods or probiotic supplements.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield is just one of many who have investigated the connection between developmental disorders and bowel disease. He has published about 130-140 peer-reviewed papers looking at the mechanism and cause of inflammatory bowel disease, and has extensively investigated the brain-bowel connection in the context of children with developmental disorders such as autism.
A large number of replication studies have also been performed around the world, by other researchers, confirming the curious link between brain disorders such as autism and gastrointestinal dysfunction. For a list of more than 25 of those studies, please see this previous article.
Other Health Benefits of Probiotics
Your body contains about 100 trillion bacteria -- more than 10 TIMES the number of cells you have in your entire body. Ideally, the ratio between the bacteria in your gut is 85 percent "good" and 15 percent "bad."
In addition to the psychological implications discussed above, a healthy ratio of good to bad gut bacteria is essential for:
• Protection against over-growth of other microorganisms that could cause disease
• Digestion of food and absorption of nutrients
• Digesting and absorbing certain carbohydrates
• Producing vitamins, absorbing minerals and eliminating toxins
• Preventing allergies
Signs of having an excess of unhealthy bacteria in your gut include gas and bloating, fatigue, sugar cravings, nausea, headaches, constipation or diarrhea.
What Interferes With Healthy Gut Bacteria?
Your gut bacteria do not live in a bubble; rather, they are an active and integrated part of your body, and as such are vulnerable to your lifestyle. If you eat a lot of processed foods, for instance, your gut bacteria are going to be compromised because processed foods in general will destroy healthy microflora and feed bad bacteria and yeast.
Your gut bacteria are also very sensitive to:
• Antibiotics
• Chlorinated water
• Antibacterial soap
• Agricultural chemicals
• Pollution
Because of these latter items, to which virtually all of us are exposed at least occasionally, it's generally a good idea to "reseed" the good bacteria in your gut by taking a high-quality probiotic supplement or eating fermented foods.
Tips for Optimizing Your Gut Bacteria
Getting back to the issue of inflammation for a moment, it's important to realize that an estimated 80 percent of your immune system is actually located in your gut, which is why you need to regularly reseed your gut with good bacteria.
Additionally, when you consider that your gut is your second brain AND the seat of your immune system, it becomes easy to see how your gut health can impact your brain function, psyche, and behavior, as they are interconnected and interdependent in a number of different ways—several of which are discussed above.
In light of this, here are my recommendations for optimizing your gut bacteria.
• Fermented foods are still the best route to optimal digestive health, as long as you eat the traditionally made, unpasteurized versions. Healthy choices include lassi (an Indian yoghurt drink, traditionally enjoyed before dinner), fermented milk such as kefir, various pickled fermentations of cabbage, turnips, eggplant, cucumbers, onions, squash and carrots, and natto (fermented soy).
If you regularly eat fermented foods such as these that, again, have not been pasteurized (pasteurization kills the naturally occurring probiotics), your healthy gut bacteria will thrive.
• Probiotic supplement. Although I'm not a major proponent of taking many supplements (as I believe the majority of your nutrients need to come from food), probiotics are definitely an exception. I have used many different brands over the past 15 years and there are many good ones out there. I also spent a long time researching and developing my own, called Complete Probiotics, in which I incorporated everything I have learned about this important tool over the years.
If you do not eat fermented foods, taking a high quality probiotic supplement is definitely recommended.
Related Links:
These Foods and Nutritional Deficiencies Can Make You Depressed or Violent
Probiotics Send Signals From Your Gut to Your Skin
The Healing Power of Probiotics Impresses Researchers
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
How in the world can drugs that cause over 40,000 deaths a year be permitted, let alone handed out like candy?
Depression is NOT a Chemical Imbalance in Your Brain - Here's Proof
Posted By Dr. Mercola |
Visit the Mercola Video Library to view this powerful video contains interviews with experts, parents and victims. It is the story of the high-income partnership between drug companies and psychiatry which has created an $80 billion profit from the peddling of psychotropic drugs to an unsuspecting public. How did these drugs, with no target illness, no known curative powers and a long and extensive list of side effects, become the go-to treatment for every kind of psychological distress?
This is an excellent documentary detailing how the psychiatric drug industry was born and its powerful and profitable partnership with the drug industry, which has turned psychiatry into an $80 billion drug profit center.
• But is any of it based on real medical science?
• How valid are the psychiatric diagnoses being handed out?
• And are the drugs safe?
Fortunately, the evidence is overwhelmingly stacked against psychiatric drugs. It's becoming ever clearer that most of today's psychiatric diagnoses and subsequent drug treatment is a sham, successfully promoted to make you believe it's based on some scientific truth.
But it's not...
What Causes Psychological Distress?
Answering this question is the holy grail of psychiatry. Even before there were psychiatrists, such troubles were blamed on things like evil spirits, or an imbalance of "humors."
The latter was treated by bloodletting, which is perhaps the longest running tradition in medicine, originating in the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Greece, persisting for some 2,500 years through the Industrial Revolution. It was the "aspirin" of the day, used for just about every conceivable condition from pneumonia to depression. Yet, there was never any evidence that it did any good, and many times the patients died. Of course, it was always assumed it was the disease that killed them, rather than the treatment.
Interestingly, we now know that there was good reason why this may have helped men or postmenopausal women. If they had high iron levels this would have been able to reduce their load and thus improve their overall health.
Finally, 19th century scientists began to question its value and medical statisticians who tracked case histories discovered that it wasn't helping much of anything.
The blanket prescription of drugs for every conceivable psychological hiccup has become the bloodletting theory of the 21st century… Of course, in the case of psychiatric drugs, there's tremendous profits to be made by maintaining the status quo and not admitting the error of their ways.
The fact is, psychiatry STILL doesn't understand what causes psychological distress, and the primary theory proposed; the idea that unwanted behavior and depression are due to an imbalance of serotonin and dopamine in your brain, has NEVER been proven.
On the contrary, research has proven the theory is WRONG, yet this evidence has been swept under the proverbial rug.
Despite what the slick advertisements say, psychotropic drugs have no measurable biological imbalances to correct—unlike other drugs that can measurably alter levels of blood sugar, cholesterol and so on.
"How can you medicate something that is not physically there?" they ask in this documentary.
The answer is, of course, you can't!
Doing so anyway is a dangerous game.
The Physical Dangers of Medicalizing a Non-Physical Condition
One significant danger of psychotropic drugs is that they can upset the delicate processes within your brain needed to maintain your biological functions. This risk simply cannot be overstated… The documentary cites some staggering statistics attributed to psychiatric drugs:
• 700,000 adverse reactions per year
• 42,000 deaths per year
How in the world can drugs that cause over 40,000 deaths a year be permitted, let alone handed out like candy?
Even if you DO have a serious psychiatric issue, such as PTSD for example, drugging it away is risky—especially if you're taking multiple drugs. Since the average American takes 13 drugs per year, this is a serious issue.. A number of military personnel have died in their sleep, for example, after taking a prescribed combination of Paxil, Seroquel, and Klonopin. These deaths were NOT due to overdosing, but rather "each case involved a sudden cardiac incident and resulting death," Jed Shlackman wrote in an article for the Examiner last year, adding:
"This adds to growing concern about serious adverse effects of psychiatric medications commonly prescribed to emotionally disturbed or traumatized soldiers."
Several studies have demonstrated the potential for lethal cardiac side effects. For example:
• A literature review of studies from 2000-2007, published in Expert Opinion on Drug Safety in 2008, found that "Antipsychotics can increase cardiac risk even at low doses, whereas antidepressants do it generally at high doses or in the setting of drug combinations."
• A study published in January 2009 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that antipsychotic drugs doubled the risk of sudden cardiac death. Mortality was also found to be dose-dependent, so those taking higher doses were at increased risk of a lethal cardiac event.
• Another study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that same year also found that antidepressants increase the rate of sudden cardiac death.
Are Emotional Symptoms Really Signs of Mental Illness?
Clearly, there are "real" mental illnesses that can destroy any semblance of normalcy in a person's life. But are you mentally ill when you're sad for more than a couple of weeks?
Is losing zest for life a sign of mental illness?
Where does the normal grieving process fit into our modern lives—is it something that should be drugged, or is it a normal phase of life that everyone on the planet has to move through? And when does an emotional phase go from being a natural part of the changing emotional landscape that is life to a problem that needs to be "fixed"?
Many are quick to defend their choice to take drugs. No one wants to "feel bad." But are these drugs destroying lives rather than saving them?
I believe the answer is a resounding YES at this point.
Rather than helping people address the root cause of their suffering, psychiatry has now simply resorted to a chemical form of lobotomy to "make the problem go away."
Drug therapy has been the conventional therapy of choice in the psychiatric field since its beginnings. Insane asylums during the early 19th century employed drugs like morphine and opium to quiet patients' outbursts. By the turn of the 20th century, heroin was peddled as a cure for psychiatric problems, and Sigmund Freud wrote articles promoting the use of cocaine for spiritual distress and behavioral difficulties.
Today, these drugs have become "illicit" and anyone resorting to cocaine to ease their troubled mind is called a junkie… But in essence, all the industry has done is replacing a few dangerous drugs with other dangerous drugs.
The Truth about the "Chemical Imbalance" Theory
As a family physician I have treated many thousands of depressed patients. Depression was actually one of my primary concerns in the mid 80s when I first started practicing, however at that time my primary tool was using antidepressants. I put thousands of people on these drugs and acquired a fair level of experience in this area.
Thankfully I learned more and was able to stop using all these drugs. It was my experience that the chemical imbalance was merely a massive marketing gimmick to support the use of expensive and toxic antidepressants.
Most of you have probably heard that depression is due to a "chemical imbalance in your brain," which these drugs are designed to correct. Unfortunately for anyone who has ever swallowed this marketing ploy, this is NOT a scientific statement.
So where did it come from?
The low serotonin theory arose because they understood how the drugs acted on the brain; it was a hypothesis that tried to explain how the drug might be fixing something. However, that hypothesis didn't hold up to further investigation. Investigations were done to see whether or not depressed people actually had lower serotonin levels, and in 1983 the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) concluded that
"There is no evidence that there is anything wrong in the serotonergic system of depressed patients."
The serotonin theory is simply not a scientific statement. It's a botched theory—a hypothesis that was proven incorrect.
The fact that this fallacy continues to thrive is destroying the health of millions, because if you take an SSRI drug that blocks the normal reuptake of serotonin, you end up with the very physiological problem the drug is designed to treat–low serotonin levels. Which, ironically, is the state hypothesized to bring on depression in the first place.
In 1996, neuroscientist Steven Hyman, who was head of the NIMH at the time, and is today Provost of Harvard University, published the paper Initiation and Adaptation: A Paradigm for Understanding Psychotropic Drugs, in which he explains this chain of events. According to Dr. Hyman, once your brain has undergone a series of compensatory adaptations to the drug, your brain operates in a manner that is "both qualitatively and quantitatively different than normal."
So, it's important to understand that these drugs are NOT normalizing agents. They're abnormalizing agents, and once you understand that, you can understand how they might provoke a manic episode, or why they might be associated with sexual dysfunction or violence and suicide, for example.
How Did it Ever Get this Bad?
Part of the puzzle explaining why we now have a pill for every emotion and psychological trait is that psychiatrists were originally not considered "real" doctors—they couldn't actually "do" much to help their patients, and they certainly couldn't cure them. They realized that to increase their status, they had to make the field more scientific, and it was this decision that gave birth to the medicalizing and drugging of every conceivable behavioral tendency.
Medical journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee Robert Whitaker explains the history of the treatment of those with severe mental illness in his first book, Mad in America. His latest book, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America focuses on the disturbing fact that as psychiatry has gained ground, mental illness has skyrocketed.
Part of the problem is that the criteria for diagnosis has expanded exponentially—you can now be diagnosed as being "ill" if you have trouble controlling your shopping habits, and a child who often argues with adults can be labeled according to the diagnostic code 313.81 -- Oppositional Defiant Disorder. A staggering array of normal human experiences now masquerade as "disorders," for which there is a drug treatment available.
Another factor is the fact that psychiatric drugs CREATE more serious forms of mental illness...
What Does the Science Really Say about the Effectiveness of Psychiatric Drugs?
First of all, when looking at the research literature, short-term trials show that antidepressants do NOT provide any clinically significant benefits for mild to moderate depression, compared to a placebo. As you know, all drugs have benefit-to-risk ratios, so if a drug is as effective as a placebo in relieving symptoms, it really doesn't make sense to use them as a first line of defense.
And yet doctors all over America prescribe them as if they were indeed sugar pills!
However, it gets worse. Research into the long-term effects of antidepressants shows that patients are no longer really recuperating from their depressive episodes as was the general norm prior to the advent of modern antidepressants. The depression appears to be lifting faster, but patients tend to relapse more frequently, turning what ought to have been a passing phase into an increasingly chronic state of depression.
Long-term studies now indicate that of people with major depression, only about 15 percent that are treated with an antidepressant go into remission and stay well for a long period of time. The remaining 85 percent start having continuing relapses and become chronically depressed.
According to Whitaker's research, this tendency to sensitize your brain to long-term depression appears to be the same both for the earlier tricyclic antidepressants and the newer SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors).
In addition, SSRI's have been shown to increase your risk of developing bipolar depression, according to Whitaker. Anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of children who take an antidepressant for five years convert to bipolar illness. In adults, about 25 percent of long term users convert from a diagnosis of unipolar depression to bipolar.
This is a serious concern because once you're categorized as bipolar, you're often treated with a potent cocktail of medications including an antipsychotic medication, and long-term bipolar outcomes are grim in the United States. For starters, only about 35 percent of bipolar patients are employed, so the risk of permanent disability is great.
Another risk inherent with long-term use is that of cognitive decline.
It's Time to Stop the Insanity...
Every year, 230 million prescriptions for antidepressants are filled, making them one of the most-prescribed drugs in the United States. Despite all of these prescription drugs being taken, more than one in 20 Americans are depressed, according to the most recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The statistics alone should be a strong indication that what we're doing is simply not working, and that instead, these drugs are contributing to other serious health problems.
Fortunately, there are other, safer, more effective ways, and some countries are starting to pay heed to the fact that research is actually showing it to be beneficial, rather than bowing to the will of pharmaceutical companies.
Key Factors to Overcoming Depression
Exercise – If you have depression, or even if you just feel down from time to time, exercise is a MUST. The research is overwhelmingly positive in this area, with studies confirming that physical exercise is at least as good as antidepressants for helping people who are depressed. One of the primary ways it does this is by increasing the level of endorphins, the "feel good" hormones, in your brain.
Address your stress -- Depression is a very serious condition, however it is not a "disease." Rather, it's a sign that your body and your life are out of balance.
This is so important to remember, because as soon as you start to view depression as an "illness," you think you need to take a drug to fix it. In reality, all you need to do is return balance to your life, and one of the key ways to doing this is addressing stress.
Meditation or yoga can help. Sometimes all you need to do is get outside for a walk. But in addition to that, I also recommend using a system that can help you address emotional issues that you may not even be consciously aware of. For this, my favorite is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). However, if you have depression or serious stress, I believe it would be best to consult with a mental health professional who is also an EFT practitioner to guide you.
Eat a healthy diet -- Another factor that cannot be overlooked is your diet. Foods have an immense impact on your mood and ability to cope and be happy, and eating whole foods as described in my nutrition plan will best support your mental health. Avoiding sugar and grains will help normalize your insulin and leptin levels, which is another powerful tool in addressing depression.
Support optimal brain functioning with essential fats -- I also strongly recommend supplementing your diet with a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat, like krill oil. This may be the single most important nutrient to battle depression.
Get plenty of sunshine – Making sure you're getting enough sunlight exposure to have healthy vitamin D levels is also a crucial factor in treating depression or keeping it at bay. One previous study found that people with the lowest levels of vitamin D were 11 times more prone to be depressed than those who had normal levels. Vitamin D deficiency is actually more the norm than the exception, and has previously been implicated in both psychiatric and neurological disorders.
Related Links:
Best Kept Secret for Treating Depression
The MOST Effective Treatment for Depression Isn't Drugs... But You'll Never Hear That From Your Psychiatrist
The Unholy Alliance Between Psychiatrists and Psychotropic Drugs
Posted By Dr. Mercola |
Visit the Mercola Video Library to view this powerful video contains interviews with experts, parents and victims. It is the story of the high-income partnership between drug companies and psychiatry which has created an $80 billion profit from the peddling of psychotropic drugs to an unsuspecting public. How did these drugs, with no target illness, no known curative powers and a long and extensive list of side effects, become the go-to treatment for every kind of psychological distress?
This is an excellent documentary detailing how the psychiatric drug industry was born and its powerful and profitable partnership with the drug industry, which has turned psychiatry into an $80 billion drug profit center.
• But is any of it based on real medical science?
• How valid are the psychiatric diagnoses being handed out?
• And are the drugs safe?
Fortunately, the evidence is overwhelmingly stacked against psychiatric drugs. It's becoming ever clearer that most of today's psychiatric diagnoses and subsequent drug treatment is a sham, successfully promoted to make you believe it's based on some scientific truth.
But it's not...
What Causes Psychological Distress?
Answering this question is the holy grail of psychiatry. Even before there were psychiatrists, such troubles were blamed on things like evil spirits, or an imbalance of "humors."
The latter was treated by bloodletting, which is perhaps the longest running tradition in medicine, originating in the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Greece, persisting for some 2,500 years through the Industrial Revolution. It was the "aspirin" of the day, used for just about every conceivable condition from pneumonia to depression. Yet, there was never any evidence that it did any good, and many times the patients died. Of course, it was always assumed it was the disease that killed them, rather than the treatment.
Interestingly, we now know that there was good reason why this may have helped men or postmenopausal women. If they had high iron levels this would have been able to reduce their load and thus improve their overall health.
Finally, 19th century scientists began to question its value and medical statisticians who tracked case histories discovered that it wasn't helping much of anything.
The blanket prescription of drugs for every conceivable psychological hiccup has become the bloodletting theory of the 21st century… Of course, in the case of psychiatric drugs, there's tremendous profits to be made by maintaining the status quo and not admitting the error of their ways.
The fact is, psychiatry STILL doesn't understand what causes psychological distress, and the primary theory proposed; the idea that unwanted behavior and depression are due to an imbalance of serotonin and dopamine in your brain, has NEVER been proven.
On the contrary, research has proven the theory is WRONG, yet this evidence has been swept under the proverbial rug.
Despite what the slick advertisements say, psychotropic drugs have no measurable biological imbalances to correct—unlike other drugs that can measurably alter levels of blood sugar, cholesterol and so on.
"How can you medicate something that is not physically there?" they ask in this documentary.
The answer is, of course, you can't!
Doing so anyway is a dangerous game.
The Physical Dangers of Medicalizing a Non-Physical Condition
One significant danger of psychotropic drugs is that they can upset the delicate processes within your brain needed to maintain your biological functions. This risk simply cannot be overstated… The documentary cites some staggering statistics attributed to psychiatric drugs:
• 700,000 adverse reactions per year
• 42,000 deaths per year
How in the world can drugs that cause over 40,000 deaths a year be permitted, let alone handed out like candy?
Even if you DO have a serious psychiatric issue, such as PTSD for example, drugging it away is risky—especially if you're taking multiple drugs. Since the average American takes 13 drugs per year, this is a serious issue.. A number of military personnel have died in their sleep, for example, after taking a prescribed combination of Paxil, Seroquel, and Klonopin. These deaths were NOT due to overdosing, but rather "each case involved a sudden cardiac incident and resulting death," Jed Shlackman wrote in an article for the Examiner last year, adding:
"This adds to growing concern about serious adverse effects of psychiatric medications commonly prescribed to emotionally disturbed or traumatized soldiers."
Several studies have demonstrated the potential for lethal cardiac side effects. For example:
• A literature review of studies from 2000-2007, published in Expert Opinion on Drug Safety in 2008, found that "Antipsychotics can increase cardiac risk even at low doses, whereas antidepressants do it generally at high doses or in the setting of drug combinations."
• A study published in January 2009 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that antipsychotic drugs doubled the risk of sudden cardiac death. Mortality was also found to be dose-dependent, so those taking higher doses were at increased risk of a lethal cardiac event.
• Another study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that same year also found that antidepressants increase the rate of sudden cardiac death.
Are Emotional Symptoms Really Signs of Mental Illness?
Clearly, there are "real" mental illnesses that can destroy any semblance of normalcy in a person's life. But are you mentally ill when you're sad for more than a couple of weeks?
Is losing zest for life a sign of mental illness?
Where does the normal grieving process fit into our modern lives—is it something that should be drugged, or is it a normal phase of life that everyone on the planet has to move through? And when does an emotional phase go from being a natural part of the changing emotional landscape that is life to a problem that needs to be "fixed"?
Many are quick to defend their choice to take drugs. No one wants to "feel bad." But are these drugs destroying lives rather than saving them?
I believe the answer is a resounding YES at this point.
Rather than helping people address the root cause of their suffering, psychiatry has now simply resorted to a chemical form of lobotomy to "make the problem go away."
Drug therapy has been the conventional therapy of choice in the psychiatric field since its beginnings. Insane asylums during the early 19th century employed drugs like morphine and opium to quiet patients' outbursts. By the turn of the 20th century, heroin was peddled as a cure for psychiatric problems, and Sigmund Freud wrote articles promoting the use of cocaine for spiritual distress and behavioral difficulties.
Today, these drugs have become "illicit" and anyone resorting to cocaine to ease their troubled mind is called a junkie… But in essence, all the industry has done is replacing a few dangerous drugs with other dangerous drugs.
The Truth about the "Chemical Imbalance" Theory
As a family physician I have treated many thousands of depressed patients. Depression was actually one of my primary concerns in the mid 80s when I first started practicing, however at that time my primary tool was using antidepressants. I put thousands of people on these drugs and acquired a fair level of experience in this area.
Thankfully I learned more and was able to stop using all these drugs. It was my experience that the chemical imbalance was merely a massive marketing gimmick to support the use of expensive and toxic antidepressants.
Most of you have probably heard that depression is due to a "chemical imbalance in your brain," which these drugs are designed to correct. Unfortunately for anyone who has ever swallowed this marketing ploy, this is NOT a scientific statement.
So where did it come from?
The low serotonin theory arose because they understood how the drugs acted on the brain; it was a hypothesis that tried to explain how the drug might be fixing something. However, that hypothesis didn't hold up to further investigation. Investigations were done to see whether or not depressed people actually had lower serotonin levels, and in 1983 the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) concluded that
"There is no evidence that there is anything wrong in the serotonergic system of depressed patients."
The serotonin theory is simply not a scientific statement. It's a botched theory—a hypothesis that was proven incorrect.
The fact that this fallacy continues to thrive is destroying the health of millions, because if you take an SSRI drug that blocks the normal reuptake of serotonin, you end up with the very physiological problem the drug is designed to treat–low serotonin levels. Which, ironically, is the state hypothesized to bring on depression in the first place.
In 1996, neuroscientist Steven Hyman, who was head of the NIMH at the time, and is today Provost of Harvard University, published the paper Initiation and Adaptation: A Paradigm for Understanding Psychotropic Drugs, in which he explains this chain of events. According to Dr. Hyman, once your brain has undergone a series of compensatory adaptations to the drug, your brain operates in a manner that is "both qualitatively and quantitatively different than normal."
So, it's important to understand that these drugs are NOT normalizing agents. They're abnormalizing agents, and once you understand that, you can understand how they might provoke a manic episode, or why they might be associated with sexual dysfunction or violence and suicide, for example.
How Did it Ever Get this Bad?
Part of the puzzle explaining why we now have a pill for every emotion and psychological trait is that psychiatrists were originally not considered "real" doctors—they couldn't actually "do" much to help their patients, and they certainly couldn't cure them. They realized that to increase their status, they had to make the field more scientific, and it was this decision that gave birth to the medicalizing and drugging of every conceivable behavioral tendency.
Medical journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee Robert Whitaker explains the history of the treatment of those with severe mental illness in his first book, Mad in America. His latest book, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America focuses on the disturbing fact that as psychiatry has gained ground, mental illness has skyrocketed.
Part of the problem is that the criteria for diagnosis has expanded exponentially—you can now be diagnosed as being "ill" if you have trouble controlling your shopping habits, and a child who often argues with adults can be labeled according to the diagnostic code 313.81 -- Oppositional Defiant Disorder. A staggering array of normal human experiences now masquerade as "disorders," for which there is a drug treatment available.
Another factor is the fact that psychiatric drugs CREATE more serious forms of mental illness...
What Does the Science Really Say about the Effectiveness of Psychiatric Drugs?
First of all, when looking at the research literature, short-term trials show that antidepressants do NOT provide any clinically significant benefits for mild to moderate depression, compared to a placebo. As you know, all drugs have benefit-to-risk ratios, so if a drug is as effective as a placebo in relieving symptoms, it really doesn't make sense to use them as a first line of defense.
And yet doctors all over America prescribe them as if they were indeed sugar pills!
However, it gets worse. Research into the long-term effects of antidepressants shows that patients are no longer really recuperating from their depressive episodes as was the general norm prior to the advent of modern antidepressants. The depression appears to be lifting faster, but patients tend to relapse more frequently, turning what ought to have been a passing phase into an increasingly chronic state of depression.
Long-term studies now indicate that of people with major depression, only about 15 percent that are treated with an antidepressant go into remission and stay well for a long period of time. The remaining 85 percent start having continuing relapses and become chronically depressed.
According to Whitaker's research, this tendency to sensitize your brain to long-term depression appears to be the same both for the earlier tricyclic antidepressants and the newer SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors).
In addition, SSRI's have been shown to increase your risk of developing bipolar depression, according to Whitaker. Anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of children who take an antidepressant for five years convert to bipolar illness. In adults, about 25 percent of long term users convert from a diagnosis of unipolar depression to bipolar.
This is a serious concern because once you're categorized as bipolar, you're often treated with a potent cocktail of medications including an antipsychotic medication, and long-term bipolar outcomes are grim in the United States. For starters, only about 35 percent of bipolar patients are employed, so the risk of permanent disability is great.
Another risk inherent with long-term use is that of cognitive decline.
It's Time to Stop the Insanity...
Every year, 230 million prescriptions for antidepressants are filled, making them one of the most-prescribed drugs in the United States. Despite all of these prescription drugs being taken, more than one in 20 Americans are depressed, according to the most recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The statistics alone should be a strong indication that what we're doing is simply not working, and that instead, these drugs are contributing to other serious health problems.
Fortunately, there are other, safer, more effective ways, and some countries are starting to pay heed to the fact that research is actually showing it to be beneficial, rather than bowing to the will of pharmaceutical companies.
Key Factors to Overcoming Depression
Exercise – If you have depression, or even if you just feel down from time to time, exercise is a MUST. The research is overwhelmingly positive in this area, with studies confirming that physical exercise is at least as good as antidepressants for helping people who are depressed. One of the primary ways it does this is by increasing the level of endorphins, the "feel good" hormones, in your brain.
Address your stress -- Depression is a very serious condition, however it is not a "disease." Rather, it's a sign that your body and your life are out of balance.
This is so important to remember, because as soon as you start to view depression as an "illness," you think you need to take a drug to fix it. In reality, all you need to do is return balance to your life, and one of the key ways to doing this is addressing stress.
Meditation or yoga can help. Sometimes all you need to do is get outside for a walk. But in addition to that, I also recommend using a system that can help you address emotional issues that you may not even be consciously aware of. For this, my favorite is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). However, if you have depression or serious stress, I believe it would be best to consult with a mental health professional who is also an EFT practitioner to guide you.
Eat a healthy diet -- Another factor that cannot be overlooked is your diet. Foods have an immense impact on your mood and ability to cope and be happy, and eating whole foods as described in my nutrition plan will best support your mental health. Avoiding sugar and grains will help normalize your insulin and leptin levels, which is another powerful tool in addressing depression.
Support optimal brain functioning with essential fats -- I also strongly recommend supplementing your diet with a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat, like krill oil. This may be the single most important nutrient to battle depression.
Get plenty of sunshine – Making sure you're getting enough sunlight exposure to have healthy vitamin D levels is also a crucial factor in treating depression or keeping it at bay. One previous study found that people with the lowest levels of vitamin D were 11 times more prone to be depressed than those who had normal levels. Vitamin D deficiency is actually more the norm than the exception, and has previously been implicated in both psychiatric and neurological disorders.
Related Links:
Best Kept Secret for Treating Depression
The MOST Effective Treatment for Depression Isn't Drugs... But You'll Never Hear That From Your Psychiatrist
The Unholy Alliance Between Psychiatrists and Psychotropic Drugs
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