• Autism: How Jim Carrey & Jenny McCarthy's son recovered fr
• Circadian Rhythm: How to Keep Yours .. in Balance.
• Glasses of Water: Do You Really Need Eight .. a Day?
• Grass-Fed Beef: The Growing Demand for .. in America.
• Healthier Life: 147 Tips to a Happier and ...

• Hormesis: When a Little Poison is Good for You.
• Killing ER Patients, How Hospitals are.
• Lead Lurks in Your Back Yard.
• Lead Poisoning: How Do You Know if You Have?

• Live Healthier ..: The Frugality Cheat Sheet: 147 Tiny Tips to.
• Mercury In Your Teeth? You Need to Watch This Video....
• Mercury Toxicity and Systemic Elimination Agents.
• Skin Care Precautions.

• Sleep Cycle: So Just What Can You Do to Improve Your?
• Television: How (it) Affects Your Brain Chemistry
• Web Sites: The Top 23 Undiscovered.

2007-07-26
Mercury In Your Teeth?
You Need to Watch This Video...
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/1252.aspx

Here you'll see just how easily mercury dental fillings emit poisonous vapors in your mouth when rubbed or heated -- like when you eat or drink hot tea or coffee. You may be shocked at the amounts! This video is worth more than a thousand words when it comes to illustrating the very real danger of amalgam tooth fillings.

March of 2001 (earlier research article published)
Mercury Toxicity and Systemic Elimination Agents
The Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine,
http://www.mercola.com/article/mercury/mercury_elimination.htm

The following paper has been a long time in the making.
I first wrote it nearly three years ago and it was initially rejected by the Lancet and the British Medical Journal but was published last month in the Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine (March 2001).

The end of the article has the bibliography which took quite awhile to compile and has 124 of the best literature documentation I could find on mercury detoxification. ...

... More than 100 million of these mercury fillings are placed each year in the U.S. as over 90% of dentists use them for restoring posterior teeth.

A single dental amalgam filling releases as much as 15 micrograms of mercury per day. The average individual has eight amalgam fillings and could absorb up to 120 micrograms of mercury per day. In contrast, eating mercury-tainted seafood will expose you to about 2.3 micrograms per day -- and that is enough for scientists to call for a world-wide warning.

Mercury vapor from the amalgams passes readily through cell membranes, across the blood brain barrier, and into the central nervous system, where it causes psychological, neurological, and immunological problems. Mercury can persist in your body for years unless it is actively removed. Unless actively removed, mercury has an extremely long half-life of somewhere between 15 and 30 years in the CNS.

The scientific literature shows that amalgam fillings have been associated with a variety of problems such as Alzheimer's Disease,34 35 autoimmunity,36 37 38 kidney dysfunction,39 infertility,40 41 42 polycystic ovary syndrome, 43 neurotransmitter imbalances,44 food allergies,45 multiple sclerosis,46 thyroid problems,47 and an impaired immune system.48

If you still have mercury in your teeth, I highly recommend reviewing my Mercury Detoxification Protocol, which details the things you can do, right now, to help detoxify your body to improve your health. ...

Cilantro mobilizes mercury, aluminum, lead and tin stored in the brain and in the spinal cord and moves it into the connective tissues. The mobilized mercury appears to be either excreted via the stool, the urine, or translocated into more peripheral tissues.

The mechanism of action is unknown.
Cilantro alone often does not remove mercury from the body; it often only displaces the metals form intracellularly or from deeper body stores to more superficial structures, from where it can be easier removed with the previously described agents. The use of cilantro with DMSA or DMPS has produced an increase in motor nerve function.98

Adequate sulfur stores are necessary to facilitate mercury's binding to sulfhydryl groups.

Many individual's sulfur stores are greatly depleted which impairs sulfur containing chelating or complexing agents, such as DMPS or DMSA, effectiveness as they are metabolized and utilized as a source of sulfur. Sulfur containing natural substances, like garlic 99 100 and MSM (methylsulfonylmethane) may also serve as an effective agent to supply organic sulfur for detoxification.101 Fresh garlic is preferred as it has many other recently documented benefits. 102 103 104 The garlic is consumed just below the threshold of social unacceptability, which is typically 1-2 cloves per day. ...

Selenium, 200-400 mcg daily,106 107 108 109 is a particularly important trace mineral in mercury elimination and should be used for most patients.

Selenium facilitates the function of glutathione, which is also important in mercury detoxification.110, 111, 112

Some clinicians find repetitive high dose intravenous glutathione useful, especially in neurologically compromised patients.

.. lipoic acid may also be useful, 113 but some clinicians are concerned about the potential of lipoic acid to bring mercury into the brain early in the stages of chelation, similar to DMSA and N-acetylcysteine (NAC), which has also been used in mercury chelation. 114 Doses larger than 50-100 mg per day should be used with caution.

Vitamin C is also a helpful supplement for mercury elimination as it will tend to mobilize mercury from intracellular stores.115 116 117 118 119 120

Some clinicians will use it intravenously in doses of 25-100 grams IV in preference to DMPS and DMSA.

Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a major carbohydrate component of the extracellular matrix and can be found in the skin, joints, eyes and most other organs and tissues.121 HA is utilized in many chemotherapy protocols as a potentiating agent.122 HA is also being utilized for many novel applications in medicine.123 124 Personal experience has shown that the addition of 2 ml with the DMPS tends to improve the excretion of mercury by two to four fold with virtually no toxicity.

How Television Affects Your Brain Chemistry
2007-10-19
3 minutes, 43 seconds

URL
http://www.5min.com/Video/The-truth-behind-commercial-television-9716

"75% of television broadcast time is paid for by the 100 largest corporations in North America.
Some of those companies have advertising budgets amounting to billions of dollars. Television producers end up compromising their vision and mitigating it for the demands of the advertisers, so they can be financially supported. This makes television more an advertising and promotional than an entertainment or educational medium.

The longer a person watches TV, the more the occipital lobe of the brain slips into alpha wave mode, making the person most receptive hypnotically to anything seen or heard. Images and suggestions are implanted in the viewer.

Images of violence stimulate the fight or flight instinct, yet acting on these impulses is socially discouraged such that the person is imprinted to emotionally withdraw and such impulses to act are suppressed. Cycles of impulse and suppression result in a build up of hormonal aggressiveness which can become expressed as hyperactivity, in children, when the set is turned off.

Confusion is produced in the viewer through exposure to a steady stream of information/stimulation which fractures attention and condenses time into a synthetic reality. The mixture of real, semi-real and unreal imaged events creates a state of unconscious confusion as to when and where to apply what form of boundaries.

[Television demands passive attention.
This encourages alpha wave brain waves which induce a meditative hypnotic receptivity.
Much of the presentation is time distorted so that much more activity is shown within a drama time frame that makes reality appear boring. Fractured attention and time distortion imprint the person to feel depressed and addictive to impulse adrenaline rushes which encourage hyperactivity in children and escapism in adults.]

Mercola Comment:
The average American watches nearly FIVE HOURS of TV a day. ...
Every year between the food industry and drug companies well over $50 billion is spent on marketing messages to U.S. consumers to influence their food and medication choices. ...

Too much time in front of the tube may:

Change your child's views and food choices

Make your kids fat

Make your kids more materialistic

Cause your children to go into more debt as adults

Cause your children to be more aggressive

Lead to smoking

Increase your child's risk of becoming seriously injured

2007-10-30
How Do You Know if You Have Lead Poisoning?
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/10/30/
how-do-you-know-if-you-have-lead-poisoning.aspx

Learn how to spot the early signs of lead poisoning to protect yourself, and your family, from harm. ..

Although lead levels have dropped since 1978 -- when the substance was banned for use in house paint, on products marketed to children, and in dishes and cookware -- children can still develop lead poisoning after exposure to paint chips in older homes, drinking water from old plumbing that has been soldered with lead, or from imported toys.

... Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lead may still be used in two aspects of toy manufacturing.

Paint: Lead is still widely used in other countries and can therefore still be found on imported toys. It may also be found on older toys made in the United States before the ban.

Plastic: The use of lead in plastics has not been banned.
It softens the plastic and makes it more flexible so that it can go back to its original shape.
It may also be used in plastic toys to stabilize molecules from heat. When the plastic is exposed to substances such as sunlight, air, and detergents the chemical bond between the lead and plastics breaks down and forms a dust.

I recommend that, if you have children, you pay close attention to any toy recalls due to lead contamination, because children are notorious for putting things into their mouths, virtually guaranteeing some lead absorption into their small bodies.

Even low levels of lead are harmful, and are associated with:

Decreased intelligence

Impaired neurobehavioral development

Decreased stature and growth

Impaired hearing acuity

There is also plenty of evidence that lead may have some causal effect in relation to ADHD.
One author of a previous study states:

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Similar to the effects observed in children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), experimental animals exposed to lead (Pb) exhibit behaviors attributed to "impulsivity" and 'inability to inhibit inappropriate responding.'"
(Pharmacol Biochem Behav 1998 Jun;60(2):545-52)

Another study examined the lead concentrations in children's hair samples and compared them the attention-deficit behaviors. The authors state:

The striking dose-response relationship between levels of lead and negative teacher ratings remained significant... An even stronger relationship existed between physician-diagnosed attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and hair lead... There was no apparent 'safe' threshold for lead. Scalp hair should be considered a useful clinical and epidemiologic approach for the measurement of chronic low-level lead exposure in children.
(Arch Environ Health 1996 May-Jun;51(3):214-20).

fluoridated water:
Making the possibility of lead poisoning even worse are the studies showing that fluoridated water supplies can increase children's absorption of lead, and, when lead is introduced into your body in sufficient quantities, it displaces zinc, which disrupts brain cell growth.

A chelating process called DMSA can help extract not only lead, but also mercury, cadmium, arsenic, antimony, and may other heavy metalsfrom your body. Heavy metals suppress the effect of a number of enzymes, some of which can be easily tested to see if you may be suffering from an excess of these heavy metals. For more in-depth information about this process, I recommend reading the Mercury Detox Autism Protocol.

But whether you suffer from any of these lead poisoning symptoms or not, you can give your body the best chance to fight the ravages of heavy metals, such as lead, if you maintain a healthy diet based on your biochemical makeup, and exercise regularly. ...

2007-12-01
So Just What Can You Do
to Improve Your Sleep Cycle?
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/
2007/12/01/do-high-fat-foods-disrupt-your-body-clock.aspx

Your sleep/wake cycle, regulated by your circadian rhythm (or your body’s internal clock), has evolved over many years. If you violate these very powerful biorhythms, you are asking for trouble.

What may surprise you is that your body has many internal clocks -- in your brain, lungs, liver, heart and even your skeletal muscles -- and they all work to keep your body running smoothly by controlling temperature and the release of hormones.

Your heart rate, body temperature and hormone production vary with your personal internal clock.
This, in turn, influences such things as:

• The easiest time to detect disease in your body

• The times when you’ll be less sensitive to pain

• The times when you’ll be more productive at work

However, this is a very delicate system, and it is easily thrown off kilter.
For instance, a study back in 1998 found that shining light on the backs of your knees (as opposed to light entering through your eyes as it normally does) can even alter your body’s clock.

Does your diet also impact your internal clock? Definitely.

What you eat sends your body signals about when to wake up and go to sleep.
Your meals, which are typically at relatively consistent times throughout the day, also help to reinforce other time-setting activities.

In terms of foods themselves, protein-rich foods help your body to produce chemicals that tell you to wake up. High-carbohydrate foods, meanwhile, produce chemicals that tell you to go to sleep.

This is why jet lag, which occurs when your body's inner clock is out of sync with the time cues it receives from your environment, can be significantly reduced by eating the right foods.

Another questionable aspect of the study is the fact that the mice were kept in darkness for the entire duration.

Changes in light dramatically impact your health and your biological clock. Mice do not typically live in complete darkness, so I question whether this impacted the results.

How to Keep Your Circadian Rhythm in Balance

Aside from being linked to obesity and diabetes, a disrupted circadian rhythm may influence cancer progression through shifts in hormones like melatonin, which your brain makes during sleep. So it’s crucial that you support your body’s natural sleep/wake cycle.

The following tips will help to keep your body’s internal clock running smoothly:

1. Sleep in total darkness!!
   If there is even the tiniest bit of light in your room it can disrupt your circadian rhythm and your pineal gland's production of the hormones melatonin and serotonin.

   This is the “hidden” secret that most people tend to ignore.
   This was recently brought to my attention when the highly knowledgeable chiropractor who works in my clinic, Dr. Lloyd Fielder, told me that he never fully appreciated the power of this intervention. He recently installed black out drapes in his bedroom and was shocked at how much better he felt -- it radically improved the quality of his sleep.

   So do yourself a favor this holiday season and purchase yourself some black out drapes.
   You will be shocked at how much better you feel, and you will also radically lower your risk of cancer.
   
   

2. Sleep when it’s dark outside and get up when the sun comes up.
   This is another largely ignored -- yet vitally important -- health principle.
   You should at least strive to sleep between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. This means you should be in bed, with the lights out, by 10 p.m. and be up by 6 a.m. If this is difficult for you, keep in mind that people naturally followed this pattern before the advent of electricity. This has been an important part of Ayurvedic medicine for over 5,000 years.

3. Avoid working the night shift.
   It’s been linked to significantly lower levels of serotonin, which may cause sleep problems, anger, depression and anxiety. If you currently work the night shift, I would strongly suggest trying to switch your hours, or at the very least not keeping the night shift for longer than a couple of months at a time (and giving your body a chance to readjust in between). ...

2008-04-22
Do You Really Need Eight Glasses of Water a Day?
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/22/
do-you-really-need-eight-glasses-of-water-a-day.aspx?source=nl

... Distilled water has the wrong ionization, pH, polarization and oxidation potentials, and if you drink it for too long it can drain your body of necessary minerals. This happens because distilled water is like a vacuum without any minerals, so it will actually leach beneficial minerals from your body to balance it out. While this might be beneficial for a short period during some sort of detoxification regimen, it’s usually highly counter-productive in the long run.

Distilled water is also highly acidic.
Most of us are far too acidic already and the last thing we need to be drinking is a fluid that will make us even more acidic.

Distilled water is usually touted as beneficial because of its lack of contaminants.
However, many of the devices that distill water are made of metal, which will actually add certain toxic metals like nickel back to the water and worsen your health. ...

The metal antimony (a silvery white metal of medium hardness) has been found in many commercially bottled water brands, for example. The amount of antimony leeching into the water you're drinking depends on the manufacturer, and can vary greatly. One study that looked at 63 brands of bottled water produced in Europe and Canada, found concentrations of antimony that were more than 100 times the typical level found in clean groundwater (2 parts per trillion).

It’s also been found that the longer a bottle of water sits on a shelf -- in a grocery store or your refrigerator – the greater the dose of antimony present. The biggest offenders were packaged in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) containers. It is believed that the amount of antimony leeching from these PET bottles differs based on exposure to sunlight, higher temperatures, and varying pH levels.

Most municipal tap water -- though generally far from pure -- must actually adhere to stricter purity standards than the bottled water industry. In one study, a third of more than 100 bottled water brands tested for contaminants were found to contain chemicals like arsenic and carcinogenic compounds, at levels exceeding state or industry standards.

Additionally, fluoride (a highly toxic bone poison that should be avoided at all costs) is usually present in both tap water AND filtered bottled water.

Nalgene bottles should also be avoided as they can leach another unsafe chemical called BPA into your water. Glass bottles are best, but if you’re traveling and can’t use a glass bottle, the high-density polyethelene (HDPE) Nalgene bottles appear to be a safer choice, so far. ...

COMMENT
George Glasser
[ Joined on 07/07 ] [ Posted on April 22, 2008 ]
View George Glasser's Profile
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Presently Glasser is a commercial artist specialising in artwork and graphics for the music industry. However, previous to 2003 he worked for the National Pure Water Association as an advisor. Glasser is best known for his Investigative environmental journalist specialising in water quality issues and fluorine pollution. 2001 Glasser and and Andreas Schuld won a "Project Censored" Award for their article on toxicants in water published in Earth Island Journal. Glasser has also been certdited with exposing the source of the fluoride chemical most used to fluoridate drinking water. Many of his articles are still accessible via Internet search by entering "George Glasser".

I did quite a bit of research on water during my days of environmental writing and covering water fluoridation. One of the first things I learned that too much water, no matter the mineral content, still strips electrolytes from the body. The feeling is one of being tired and is called "water intoxication (hyponatremia - dilution of plasma sodium)."

As for ingesting adequate daily minerals (electrolytes) from water; the mineral content of plain water is negligible - you are going to flush out more electrolyres than you take in even from mineralised water.

From my research, the actual meaning of the 2.0 litres of water a day requirement was based on water from all sources. This would include the water content of meats, fruits, beverages, and veggies, and not particularly exclusive to the consumption of 'plain water.'

Many hunter gather groups living in arid and semi arid environments depend on plants and roots for their main daily intake of water - the average water content of roots, leafy veggies and fruits range between 60% - 97%. The hunter gathers also get the added benefit of imbibing a host of essential minerals (electrolytes) that varies according to the fruit or veggies.

This concept that everyone should drink 2.0 litres of water (liquids) a day is flawed in that it doesn't account for climatic conditions, personal needs, medical conditions,etc., and other sources of water in the diet.

As for myself, I drink when I'm thirsty, and I don't drink very much 'straight water' at all.
I've drank predominantly coffee since I was six-years old - and I can count the number of times I've been to a doctor regarding a health problem on my both hands.

If you feel a drop in your energy level shortly after consuming your eight ounce glass of water, it's because your electrolytic balance is low - it's been diluted - you are going hyponatremic, so better a glass fruit or veggie juice than plain water.

2007-05-31 eHealthy News, - Issue 957
147 Tips to a Happier and Healthier Life
http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/
147-Tips-to-a-Happier-and-Healthier-Life-16000.aspx

... Taking nutritional typing into account, some people (carb types) need very little meat, while protein types may actually do worse by cutting down on it.

What protein types can do is to eat their meat raw making certain, of course, that it is from a high-quality source. By doing this, you will likely be able to reduce your meat intake by 50 percent and obtain the same amount of nutritional value, as much of the protein is not properly utilized when you heat it.

The Frugality Cheat Sheet:
147 Tiny Tips to Live Healthier, Happier, Greener and Better
May 10th, 2007
http://frugalist.instantcreditcard.com/2007/
the-frugality-cheat-sheet-147-tiny-tips-to-live-healthier-happier-greener-and-better/

The Growing Demand for Grass-Fed Beef
in America
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2006/06/24/
the-growing-demand-for-grass-fed-beef-in-america.aspx

More than 1,000 U.S. ranchers have transitioned their herds to an all-grass diet -- which cattle are naturally designed to eat -- in the last five years. Sales grew to $120 million in 2005 and are estimated to increase over 20 percent a year for the next decade. ...

Still, purely grass-fed beef represents under 1 percent of the U.S. beef supply, and can cost from 20 percent to 100 percent more than grain-fed beef, due partly to its longer growth cycle. ...

Grass-fed beef is lower in chemicals that can harm you and higher in beneficial fats like CLA, which can even help you lose weight and defeat cancer.

An important point to understand when purchasing your beef is that certified organic beef is not necessarily as healthy as grass-fed, non-factory-farmed beef. Most of the organic beef I have seen are fed organic corn, which still causes most of the negative problems that have traditionally been associated with eating beef.

Typically, most grass-fed beef are fed crops that are not sprayed with pesticides -- it is just that the ranchers could not afford the expensive organic certification process. ...

...

Grass fed Beef online order from Mercola.com
FAQ page, Order page
http://www.grasslandbeef.com/StoreFront.bok?affiliate_no=69

GO to Grassland Profile.

How Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy's Son
Recovered From Autism
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/24/
how-jim-carrey-and-jenny-mccarthy-s-son-recovered-from-autism.aspx?source=nl

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/02/mccarthy.autsimtreatment/index.html

Carrey and McCarthy’s son, Evan, has been healed thanks to breakthroughs that may not be scientifically proven, but have definitely helped, such as a gluten-free, casein-free diet, vitamin supplementation, detox of metals, and anti-fungals for the yeast overgrowths that plagued his intestines. Once his neurological function was recovered through these medical treatments, speech therapy and applied behavior analysis helped him learn the skills he could not learn while he was frozen in autism.

When Evan was re-evaluated after these treatments, state workers were amazed by his improvement. But although Evan is now 5, not a single member of the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, or any other health authority has asked to evaluate and understand how Evan recovered from autism. Instead, they simply posit that he was misdiagnosed and never had autism to begin with.

Carrey and McCarthy believe that autism is an environmental illness, and that while vaccines are not the only environmental trigger, they do play a major role.

Mercola COMMENT..
Rates of autism have increased nearly 60-fold since the late 1970s, with the most significant increases occurring in the past decade. The latest numbers for the U.S. shows it affects about one in 150 American children.

However, according to an article in the Daily Mail (July 9, 2007) the rate of autism in Great Britain may now be as high as 1 in 58! ...

* Pasteurized Milk – Other studies indicate that both autism and schizophrenia may be linked to your inability to properly break down a protein found in milk. Personally I believe this is related to pasteurized milk and have seen many autistic children thrive on raw milk products, especially fermented ones like kefir or yogurt.

When not broken down, the milk protein caseinate produces exorphins -- morphine-like compounds -- that become absorbed by areas of your brain where they cause cells to dysfunction. The findings suggest that an intestinal flaw, such as a malfunctioning enzyme, is to blame for your inability to break down this milk protein.

Researchers have discovered that the protein is absorbed by 32 different areas of your brain, including sections responsible for vision, hearing and communication, which could account for many behavioral symptoms of both diseases. ...

Skin Care Precautions
http://products.mercola.com/natural-body-butter/

AVOID ...
1. Mineral Oil, Paraffin, and Petrolatum
   - Petroleum products that coat the skin like plastic, clogging pores and creating a build-up of toxins, which in turn accumulate and can lead to dermatologic issues. Slows cellular development, which can cause you to show earlier signs of aging. Suspected cause of cancer. Disruptive of hormonal activity. By the way, when there’s an oil spill in the ocean, don’t they rush to clean it up – fast? Why put that stuff on your skin?

2. Parabens
   - Widely used as preservatives in the cosmetic industry (including moisturizers). An estimated 13,200 cosmetic and skin care products contain parabens. Studies implicate their connection with cancer. They have hormone-disrupting qualities – mimicking estrogen – and interfere with the body’s endocrine system.

3. Phenol carbolic acid
   - Found in many lotions and skin creams. Can cause circulatory collapse, paralysis, convulsions, coma and even death from respiratory failure.

4. Propylene glycol
   - Used as a moisturizer in cosmetics and as a carrier in fragrance oils. Shown to cause dermatitis, kidney or liver abnormalities, and may inhibit skin cell growth or cause skin irritation.

5. Acrylamide
   - Found in many hand and face creams. Linked to mammary tumors in lab research.

6. Sodium laurel or lauryl sulfate (SLS) ,
   also known as sodium laureth sulfate (SLES)
   - Found in car washes, engine degreasers, garage floor cleaners… and in over 90% of personal care products! SLS breaks down the skin’s moisture barrier, easily penetrates the skin, and allows other chemicals to easily penetrate. Combined with other chemicals, SLS becomes a “nitrosamine”, a potent class of carcinogen. It can also cause hair loss. SLES is sometimes disguised with the labeling “comes from coconut” or “coconut-derived”.

7. Toluene
   - Poison! Danger! Harmful or fatal if swallowed! Harmful if inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Made from petroleum or coal tar, and found in most synthetic fragrances. Chronic exposure linked to anemia, lowered blood cell count, liver or kidney damage, and may affect a developing fetus. Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) contains toluene. Other names may include benzoic and benzyl.

8. Dioxane
   - Found in compounds known as PEG, Polysorbates, Laureth, ethoxylated alcohols. Common in a wide range of personal care products. The compounds are usually contaminated with high concentrations of highly volatile 1,4-dioxane, easily absorbed through the skin.

   Dioxane’s carcinogenicity was first reported in 1965 and later confirmed in studies including one from the National Cancer Institute in 1978. Nasal passages and liver are the most vulnerable. Dioxane is easily removed during the manufacturing process by “vacuum stripping”. ...

BEST :
1. Organic Aloe Vera Juice ...
2. Organic Virgin Coconut Oil ...
3. Organic Jojoba Oil ...
4. Monolaurin
5. Organic Shea Butter
6. Organic Mango Butter
7. Natural Palm Oil

Natural Body Butter, $11.97 per 4-oz. jar
... Apply Natural Body Butter when your skin is moist, because active ingredients penetrate best when they are dissolved. Don't wipe your skin completely dry (just pat it) after you clean or wash it, when you intend to apply Natural Body Butter.

2008-08-28
How Hospitals are Killing ER Patients.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/08/28/
how-hospitals-are-killing-er-patients.aspx?source=nl

Boarding inpatients in emergency departments
.. A major cause for ER crowding is the hospital practice of boarding inpatients in emergency departments. If there are no inpatient beds in the hospital then the patient stays in the ER long past the completion of the initial emergency work. The problem is that boarding shifts ER resources away from the new patients in the waiting room. A recent study found that critically ill patients who board for more than six hours in the ER are 4 percent more likely to die.

What hospital would promote such a practice?
Those that make money off of it. There are two competing sources for inpatient beds.
The first source is patients who come in through direct and transfer admissions. They are more likely to come with private insurance and need procedural care, both of which maximize profits. The second source is ER patients, who are more likely to be uninsured or have low-paying Medicaid. ...

.. ER medicine is best for acute accidents and nearly always an unmitigated disaster when it is applied for chronic degenerative illnesses.

Far too many negative health and lifestyle choices are made because of a lack of knowledge, and it's my intention to increase your awareness of the health tragedies facing the U.S., and empower you with the tools needed to become a force for good health.

A More Efficient Killing Machine than Cancer.
You’re probably already aware that the U.S. has the most expensive health care in the world.

Ten years ago, Professor Bruce Pomerance of the University of Toronto concluded that properly prescribed and correctly taken pharmaceutical drugs were the fourth leading cause of death in North America. More recently, Johns Hopkins Medical School refined this research and discovered that medical errors and prescription drugs may acutally be the LEADING cause of death, outpacing cancer (which is now our deadliest disease).

This year the U.S. will spend $2.5 trillion dollars on health care, but by 2017, health care spending is projected to exceed $4 TRILLION. (This is largely due to the costs of drugs and surgery and a reliance on a medical system that treats only symptoms and never the cause of disease.)

I wouldn’t mind it one bit if spending two and half trillion dollars provided major health benefits, but as recent studies have shown, this large multitrillion dollar investment is an unmitigated failure.

The 2008 Scorecard by the Commonwealth Fund commission confirms that the U.S. health system is in a continual downward spiral – something I’ve been warning people about for more than two decades -- and despite the ever-increasing amounts of money invested, your chances of attaining good health through it are only getting worse.

The U.S. now ranks LAST out of 19 countries for unnecessary deaths – deaths that could have been avoided through timely and effective medical care. Additionally, one-third of adults with health problems reported mistakes in their care in 2007, and rates of visits to physicians or emergency departments for adverse drug effects increased by one-third between 2001 and 2004.

In essence, what we have here is a trend of health care costs rising, mistakes increasing, and pharmaceutical drug-induced side effects and deaths skyrocketing.

Lackadaisical Attitudes in the Face of Grave Mistakes.
Unfortunately, surveys have also found that physicians, nurses and other health care workers rarely challenge a colleague when they see a mistake being made in patient care.

For a previous study, researchers spent more than 10,000 hours observing and interviewing more than 2,000 health workers at 19 hospitals across America. Among the disturbing evidence they found:

1. Doctors (84 percent) and nurses and other health care providers (62 percent) have seen co-workers repeatedly take shortcuts that could place patients in danger

2. Doctors (88 percent) and nurses and other health care providers (48 percent) work with people who show poor clinical judgment

3. Fewer than 10 percent of doctors, nurses and other caregivers said they directly confront colleagues about their concerns; one-fifth of those doctors have seen harm come to patients as a result of the behavior of those colleagues

Mrs. Green’s demise, captured on video - leaving nothing to the imagination, highlights and brings these problematic attitudes to the fore. The complete and utter absence of compassion and care exhibited by the staff at Kings County psychiatric ER is truly chilling.

The Lifespan of the American Poor Continues to Drop.
According to the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) -- which tracks health care spending -- the U.S. national health expenditure (NHE) grew 6.7 percent in 2006 to $2.1 trillion ($7,026 per person), and accounted for a whopping 16 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Prescription drug spending increased by 5.8 percent that same year.

But despite all these trillions of dollars being spent – more than any socialist-driven health care system – Americans, and especially the poor, are receiving ever-worsening quality of health care – the proof of which lies in the dropping life expectancy statistics.

Considering the fact that life expectancy in the United States as a whole has actually risen by more than six years for women, and seven years for men from 1961 to 1999, the current statistics highlights the problem of poverty combined with unhealthy lifestyles, lack of preventive care, and the exorbitant cost for mediocre health care.

On the one hand, Americans have been spending more and more money on health care over the past decades, yet the life expectancy of certain groups is going down. Clearly, the system is not designed to really care for anyone, but rather to extract maximum profit.

If you think that’s too strong a statement, consider this:
The explanation for the decline in life expectancy in certain areas and income brackets is that it’s primarily caused by a rise in common diseases such as lung cancer, chronic lung disease, and diabetes.

The sadly ironic fact is that these are also some of the diseases that are completely preventable, and – especially in the case of diabetes – 100 percent treatable with fairly simple lifestyle changes, many of which cost nothing!

How to Survive in a Diseased Health Paradigm.
Folks, you need to realize that you CAN Take Control of Your Health. You don't have to stand for this nonsense anymore, ever.

There are a number of basic strategies you can use to avoid getting sucked into the current disease-care paradigm. Following these guidelines will be a powerful way to avoid premature aging, and improve your health so that you can stay OUT of the emergency room, and live a longer, more vibrant life.

1. Eat a healthy diet that’s right for your nutritional type
   --- (paying very careful attention to keeping your insulin levels down)
2. Drink plenty of clean water
3. Manage your stress
4. Exercise frequently
5. Get proper amounts of sunlight
6. Limit toxin exposure
7. Consume healthy fat
8. Eat plenty of raw food
9. Optimize insulin and leptin levels
10. Get plenty of sleep

2008-08-31
Hormesis: When a Little Poison is Good for You.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/08/30/
when-a-little-poison-is-good-for-you.aspx?source=nl

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is a phrase that contains more than a grain of truth. It describes the theory of hormesis -- the process whereby organisms exposed to low levels of stress or toxins become more resistant to tougher challenges.

The theory of hormesis has been around for decades, but has long been met with skepticism or downright suspicion. In recent years, however, biologists have pieced together a clear molecular explanation of how it works, and hormesis has finally been accepted as a fundamental principle of biology and biomedicine.

As an example, exposing mice to small doses of gamma ray radiation shortly before irradiating them with very high levels of gamma rays actually decreases the likelihood of cancer. A similar effect occurs when dioxin is given to rats.

The biochemical mechanisms by which hormesis works are not well understood.
It is thought that a low dose of a toxin can trigger certain repair mechanisms in the body, and these mechanisms, having been initiated, are efficient enough that they not only neutralize the toxin's effect, but can even repair other defects not caused by the toxin.

One of the areas where the concept of hormesis has been explored extensively is aging.
It is thought that exposing cells to mild stress could result in the adaptive or hormetic response that has anti-aging effects. Some of the mild stresses that might work for this include heat shock, irradiation, pro-oxidants, hypergravity, food restriction, and even exercise.

New Scientist August 6, 2008

Mercola ..
The stress theory of aging is concerned only with the adverse, lethal aspects of stress, far beyond the optimal level of stimulation. Excessive secretion of stress hormones such as ACTH, cortisol, and catecholamines are blamed for such life-shortening effects as long-term exposure leads to exhaustion and then breakdown of various biological mechanisms.

Consider antioxidants, for example. An optimal amount of antioxidants in your diet is essential for good health. However, too many antioxidants in your body can have a seemingly paradoxical effect and actually lead to deteriorating health. Researchers have found that an overload of natural antioxidants can actually lead to heart failure due to “reductive stress” -- Essentially, too much of a good thing. ...

Hormetic resistance from mild stimulation is believed to be an evolutionarily acquired survival mechanism. By adapting to challenges to overcome adverse environmental conditions, such as lack of food, your body compensates, making it more robust. Within this context, nutrition wise, the mild stress imposed by reduced calorie intake stimulates your body to defend itself against insults of disease-causing oxidative stress.

Essentially, your body maximizes its energy utilization by allocating greater resources to your essential defense processes and life supporting systems. ...

Another great book that reviews the principle of hormesis is a book written 20 years ago. It was recommended to me by one of my early mentors, Dr. Tom Stone, who passed away a few years ago. The Reverse Effect explores these concepts in great detail.

2008-
The Top 23 Undiscovered Web Sites.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/09/02/
the-top-23-undiscovered-web-sites.aspx?source=nl

1. drop.io
   Drop.io is, put simply, the best file-sharing service we've seen. Just type in the URL you'd like to use, upload your files (up to 100MB), set a password and/or privacy setting, and choose how long the link should live (up to a year from the last page view). Sharing the files is then as easy as sending the URL around. There's no registration, no cost, and no limit to how many URLs you can use.

2. jott.com
   Jott is one of the coolest applications of speech to text technologies we have seen. Once you sign up for a free account, call Jott on your phone and you can leave a message that will be converted to text and posted on your blog, twitter speed or to-do list. The conversion is surprisingly accurate.

3. www.someecards.com
   Given our experience with greeting cards, both e- and real-world, it comes as quite a shock that one of the funniest sites on the Web is an e-card service. Browsing through the site's enormous collection of hilarious e-cards was enough to make us wish we had friends to send them to.

4. Atmospheric Optics
   www.atoptics.co.uk
   Atmospheric Optics is a stunning collection of pictures that illustrate the strange and beautiful visual phenomena created by light, weather, and our atmosphere. Check out photos and explanations for everything from rainbows and ice halos to nacreous clouds and anti-crepuscular rays.

5. Criminal Searches
   www.criminalsearches.com
   Criminal Searches provides the scary-but-useful data on how many criminals live in your neighborhood, what crimes they were convicted of, and, in some cases, their names and personal info. It's all culled from public records, and is presented as a Google Maps mashup. You can restrict your search to sex offenders, search on a specific name to get a criminal history, or do a general search for criminals by city or ZIP code. This kind of data is certainly not for the faint of heart but can be useful in assessing the safety of your neighborhood.

6. Songza
   www.songza.com
   Songza is a search engine that gives you easy access to streamable MP3s across the Web. Enter a song, artist, or both and Songza serves it up free of charge -- you can even build playlists. Where does all this free music come from? Best not to ask.

7. wigix
   www.wigix.com
   Wigix exists for one reason: To give buyers and sellers a cheaper alternative to eBay. If you think eBay's fees are low enough as they are, then you've no need for Wigix. But if you're a disgruntled Power Seller or bidder, you might like its low fees and wealth of features like price histories and social-shopping options.

8. EveryScape.com
   www.everyscape.com
   The big online mapping services offer photograph-based street views that let you see what your destination looks like from the street, but newcomer EveryScape goes even further by letting you explore both the street view and the interiors of buildings, too. The service also helps users find hotels, restaurants, and popular tourist sites with reviews from Yelp.com. Photographers on the ground are shooting as many building interiors as they can as EveryScape continues to roll out to new cities.

9. Farecast
   farecast.live.com
   Plane ticket prices go up and down seemingly at random; you could buy a ticket today only to see the price sink (or spike) tomorrow. Farecast makes sense of it all by tracking pricing trends to let you know when it's time to pull the trigger. Enter in your travel dates, and Farecast will give you a pricing chart going back several weeks, along with a recommendation of whether to buy or wait.

10. others, not of interest.

2008-09-12
Lead Lurks in Your Back Yard.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/09/11/
lead-lurks-in-backyard-gardens.aspx?source=nl

.. Flakes of lead paint from old homes often create contamination around houses that vegetables can take up. Remnants of leaded gasoline might also be in the soil near busy roads.

.. apple orchards .. lead arsenate was once used regularly as a pesticide.

.. Even tiny amounts of lead in the blood can cause learning disabilities and behavioral problems. In adults, lead can contribute to high blood pressure, reproductive problems, and memory loss.

Plant foods do tend to contain some level of lead naturally, as plants absorb soil lead very efficiently, and also retain the lead they have absorbed.

Approximately 7 percent of the lead in the soil will be taken up by the plants growing in it.
Excessive lead levels will kill the plant entirely. ..

Good varieties to grow due to their reduced lead uptake include:
• Tomatoes
• Squash
• Peas
• Corn

Your best bet is to build or buy a raised garden container, and fill it with organic topsoil.
That way you know what your vegetables are growing in. Adding mulch on top of other areas of your yard, such as your flowerbeds, will keep any contamination there from spreading to your vegetable garden.

How to Test Your Soil for Lead

.. The soil should be sampled by taking 6 to 12 subsamples from the area in question.
For garden soils, take your samples 3 to 4 inches from the surface. Mix the subsamples thoroughly in a plastic pail, then remove about one cup for testing. Make sure you use a clean container.

If you suspect high levels of lead in your soil, it may be more desirable to send your soil sample out to a professional lab.

IATL offers several different types of testing, worldwide, including lead tests.
http://monitoring.environmental-expert.com/STSE_resulteach.aspx?cid=5328

.. fluoridated water supplies can increase children's absorption of lead, and, when lead is introduced into your body in sufficient quantities it displaces zinc, which also disrupts brain cell growth. Therefore, installing a high quality water filter in your home is always a prudent idea, especially if you have children.

Low vitamin D and C intake can also adversely affect lead levels, causing more lead to accumulate.

Adults should not have levels over 25 µg/dl to avoid hypertensive symptoms. ..

article on phytoextraction (removing toxins from soil) at
www.bluedominoes.com/
Phytoextraction-Removing-Toxins-from-the-Soil-using-Plants.php

Fluoridation agents are commercial grade, contain heavy metals as arsenic, lead and more. The utilities dept. can provide the AWWA Standard for Fluorosilicic Acid B703-06, see pg. 13.

Fluorides are highly corrosive and leach lead more when combined with disinfection agents. See:

1: Neurotoxicology.
2007 Sep;28(5):1023-31. Epub 2007 Jun 30.
Compound (MeSH Keyword), Substance (MeSH Keyword), LinkOut

Effects of fluoridation and disinfection agent combinations on lead leaching from leaded-brass parts.
Maas RP, Patch SC, Christian AM, Coplan MJ.
Environmental Quality Institute,
The University of North Carolina-Asheville,
One University Heights, Asheville, NC 28804, United States.

Also AVOID using (arsenic) treated wood and wood chips (blackened).