Natural Health News

Professor William Black, bank regulator, tells the real story behind the crash of 2008, and why it will happen again.  Don’t miss his interview with Bill Moyers.

By Darin Steen

It seems to be common sense: Simply eat higher quality unprocessed foods and eat no junk, processed foods. Yet it can be difficult to determine what foods we should choose.

I highly advise keeping things simple when it comes to healthy nutrition.

Some simple motto’s that may help you are:

• If it rots, its good for you
• The longer the foods shelf life, the shorter your life
• If it comes from a plant eat it, if it is made in a plant stay away
• Lean, Green, and Marine
• Eat real food
• No “sugar free” or “fat free” foods
• Stay away from foods with ingredients you cannot pronounce

How to Find Fresh, Nutritious Food Year-Round

The best foods can be purchased at your local farmers markets. Make sure you pick farmers who do the best job possible to raise the veggies and animals organically.

When organic food companies expand to fulfill more organic orders they tend to lose their quality and authenticity, which is why I encourage everyone to buy from local farmers who produce high quality food for the locals. It’s one of the best ways to ensure you’re eating fresh!

Eating locally-grown foods means eating the fruits and vegetables that are in season in your area. The National Resources Defence Council (NDRC) offers a great tool on their website that helps you determine what fruits and vegetables are in season in your state.

In areas where growing season lasts year round, eating fresh is easy, and your options will naturally be more plentiful. But in more northern areas, adjusting what you eat to what’s in season becomes an inescapable fact if you’re going to eat locally-grown foods.

Here are three great options:

1. If you’re lucky enough to have a local farmers market, that’s the way to go. For a listing of national farmer’s markets, see this link.

   Another great web site is www.localharvest.org. There you can find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies.

2. Another good route for finding local food is to subscribe to a community supported agriculture program (CSA). Some are seasonal while others are year round programs. Once you subscribe, many will drop affordable, high quality locally-grown produce right at your door step.

   To find a CSA near you, go to the USDA’s website where you can search by city, state, or zip code.

3. Here are a some other great resources to obtain wholesome food that supports not only you but also the environment:
• Eat Well Guide: Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals — The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, inns, and hotels, and online outlets in the United States and Canada.
• Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) — CISA is dedicated to sustaining agriculture and promoting the products of small farms.
• FoodRoutes — The FoodRoutes "Find Good Food" map can help you connect with local farmers to find the freshest, tastiest food possible. On their interactive map, you can find a listing for local farmers, CSA's, and markets near you.

For an even more comprehensive list of CSA’s and a host of other sustainable agriculture programs, check out this link.

4. Shop at your local natural food store or health co-op, as many of them get their produce from local farmers.

Smaller Meals More Often

I will keep this simple.

The more often you eat throughout the day, the faster you will rev your metabolism. The faster you rev your metabolism, the more calories you body burns throughout the day.

When you exercise you burn even more calories, and when you exercise effectively to build muscle, you burn even more calories.

Why?

Because muscle demands energy to just sit on your body. Fat does not.

For every pound of muscle that you have in the future, your body burns 50-70 calories more per day. That means, if you gain 10 lbs. of muscle, your body will burn an additional 500-700 calories per day.

To optimize your metabolism, you must eat 5-6 small meals each day. Eat every 3 to 3 ½ hours. Each meal should consist of protein and fibrous carbs together. This is the most important rule for fat loss nutrition.

• Good sources of protein include: eggs, chicken, lean grass-fed beef, tuna, fish, nuts, whey protein, lean pork, buffalo meat.
• Good sources of fibrous carbs are veggies, green beans, salads, spinach, apples.

On resistance training days or any day with intense activity include a couple meals with starchy carbs, but do not eat the starchy carbs with the first or last meal of the day.

Why?

Because your body breaks down starchy carbs into glucose (blood sugar). Your body stores excess glucose as glycogen in your muscles and liver. If you eat too many starchy carbs and your glycogen stores are full, then the glucose will be stored as body fat in your fat cells.

Glucose is the fuel your body and your muscles use for short burst of intense activity, like sprinting, lifting weights, jumping out of the way of an oncoming car, etc.

• Good sources of starchy carbs include yams, sweet potatoes, red potatoes, oatmeal, brown and wild rice, whole wheat pasta, and whole grain breads.

The faster your metabolism is, the more starchy carbs you can eat without suffering ill effects, and the more often you can eat them.

It is easy to start getting in tune with how fast your metabolism is revving. Simply ask yourself, "How high is my hunger level right before I eat a meal"? If you are eating every 3 hours and your hunger level is extremely high then your metabolism is revving high. And this is good for fat loss.

Everyone has a metabolism that was given to them by their parents, but you can speed it up or slow it down within a matter of days by making changes to your lifestyle.

Counting Calories?

I do not endorse counting calories. Doing so is cumbersome and overwhelming. And unnecessary. I have mastered my own fat loss nutrition plan over thelast 20 years of experimenting with fitness nutrition.

What I have learned is that it is much simpler than most people make it out to be.

I have drawn up over 550 precise nutrition plans for folks just like you. And most times the response is, "I can do this. This is easier than I thought."

There is a learning curve that usually takes about 1-2 weeks, however.

While I do not advocate counting calories each day, you do need to get a scale and start learning how many grams of carbs and protein you’re eating in each meal.

The main goal is to count grams of protein and carbs for each meal. And as you discover your own body’s natural hunger patterns and learn a few basic principles of eating for fitness, your will be able to manipulate the protein and carbs for each meal.

Most of the time all you have to do is read the back of the container to figure out how many grams of carbs and protein are in a serving. If the container of the food does not have the needed information, you can get the information online.

There are plenty of online learning tools so that you can figure how many grams of carbs or protein is in ________ (whatever food you are eating). Just google "how to figure out grams of protein and carbs in food".

Stay tuned for my next video and article where I will give you the needed information to determine how many grams of protein and carbs is best for you. Your metabolic needs for fitness and fat loss are different than mine or anyone else, but I have a simple system to figure yours out.

Pre- and Post Work-Out Meals

After resistance training your body needs some fast released carb and protein. This is the only meal that you want to be absorbed fast.

There is a one hour window of opportunity to shuttle in glucose and nutrients to repair the tear-down of the muscle and your energy systems during the workout. If you miss this window, your muscles will not have the nutrients to repair the "controlled damage" from the workout.

Your digestive tract is very vascular, so it needs a lot of blood to work effectively and efficiently at digestion, absorption, and excretion of nutrients and negative by products. After an intense work out the majority of your blood is in your muscles that you just worked.

Hence your stomach and digestive tract does not work very well right at that time. If you ate a whole food meal that typically is good for you, like some chicken and veggies, it would not get digested for 2-4 hours! Thus you would miss the one hour window of opportunity for muscle repair after an intense workout.

Because of this, the best choice for a "post workout meal" would be something that is already predigested, easy to break down, and high glycemic (absorbed rapidly), such as a serving of whey protein and a banana, for example. It’s a perfect combo for a post workout meal.

If your metabolism is running fast, then consume the post workout meal within 10-15 minutes after the completion of the workout. If your metabolism is medium wait about 30 minutes. And if your metabolism is very slow, you’ll want to wait about an hour before eating.

After cardio training, on the other hand, your body needs a slow released carb and protein.

You want to ride the fat burning wave created by the interval cardio session for one hour. For this reason you should wait one hour and eat a whole food meal that is absorbed slow.

A good choice would be some dark chicken meat, or turkey and some veggies. Make sure to wait 3 hours and then have the same meal again. Do not eat any starchy carbs in the meal before, or two meals after, the interval cardio session.

In summary, every last one of us has the ability to stand up and take control of our life. We are all in control of our metabolism, fitness, health, and ability to live long and strong. One of the top ways you can control your life is by controlling the food you eat.

A growing body of evidence suggests that organophosphate pesticides are a prime cause of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. The pesticides are designed to attack the nervous systems of insects, so many experts believe it is not surprising that they also attack the nervous systems of humans.

Forty organophosphate pesticides are registered in the United States. At least 73 million pounds used each year in agricultural and residential settings.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

“The newest study ... examines the effects of both prenatal and childhood exposure to the pesticides ... [E]ach tenfold increase in pesticide levels in the mothers' urine was associated with a fivefold increase in attention problems as measured by the assays. The effect was more pronounced in boys than in girls.”

Overweight American children and adolescents have become fatter over the last decade. Researchers examined shifts over time, and found U.S. children and adolescents had significantly increased body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and triceps skinfold thickness (TST).

The increases were more pronounced in some groups, such as black girls. These groups also gained more abdominal fat over time, as indicated by waist size, which poses greater health risks than elevated BMI.

Newswise reports:

“To examine these changes over time, researchers conducted a comprehensive analysis of nationally representative survey data collected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) since the late 1980’s. They examined the changes in American boys and girls ages 2 to 19, as well as by ethnic groups at the population level.”

U.S. News & World Report offers a few practical methods for headache relief:

Exercising more. Thirty minutes of walking, biking, or other physical activity at least three times weekly is good for managing headaches.

Losing weight. A 2006 found that about 4 percent of healthy-weight participants reported frequent migraines, compared to 5.8 percent of overweight participants, 13.6 percent of obese participants, and 20.7 percent of morbidly obese participants.

Adjusting sleep. As little as one hour more or less sleep than usual can trigger a headache. The standard recommendation is eight hours.

Modifying diet. Certain foods seem to bring on headaches. Alcohol and chocolate affect some people, but a more frequent culprit is coffee, even though caffeine helps relieve headache pain.

Quitting smoking. Two studies found that smoking raised the likelihood of headaches.

Limiting stress. Persistent stress wreaks havoc on your body. However, if your headache pain occurs only after a deadline passes or the exam is over, it is not necessarily triggered by the stress itself, but by relaxing after stress. Instead of napping afterward, try to wind down with exercise.

Musician Patrick Hughes doesn’t have disabilities — he has abilities.

Ben & Jerry's gets all their milk from dairies that have pledged not to inject their cows with the Monsanto-developed genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH). Why, then, can't Haagen Dazs, Breyers and Baskin-Robbins do the same?

The three ice cream continue to use milk from cows injected with rBGH, a hormone that's been banned in Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Australia and all 27 nations of the European Union. Meanwhile, Haagen Dazs and Breyers have the audacity to call their ice cream "All Natural."

John Robbins, writing in the Huffington Post, notes that:

“... [I]njecting the genetically engineered hormone into cows increases the levels of a substance called IGF-1 in their milk. Monsanto's own studies found that the amount of IGF-1 in milk more than doubled when cows were injected with rBGH. Studies by independent researchers show gains as much as six-fold ... [T]he excessive levels of IGF-1 found in the milk of cows injected with rBGH may pose serious risks of breast, colon and prostate cancer.”

Pre-menopausal women with even moderately elevated blood levels of IGF-1 are up to seven times more likely to develop breast cancer.

In nearly all issues, the era of deception and duplicity has reached new heights. Even in the last frontiers of truth, such as the internet, disinformation operations are in full swing.

Prevent Disease, in an attempt to demonstrate the outright lies by national governments and the media, took three examples from the last year alone — the H1N1 scandal, airport body scanners and the BP oil disaster.

You can read the complete article linked below. According to Prevent Disease:

“... [T]he H1N1 scandal reached its pinnacle in the fall of 2009 ... From radio, internet, television, newspapers, magazines, outdoor posters, signage and promotions, you could not escape the flu hype campaigns so diligently pursued by all the malicious agendas at play who only wanted one thing — to promote a dangerous H1N1 vaccine.”

Body scanners have been approved all over the world and marketed as the next greatest airport scanning technology, but they have potentially devastating health effects. And when news first unfolded about the April 20, 2010 BP oil disaster, the immediate response was to cover-up, deny and respond with ignorance.

The ideal happy to sad ratio is 3:1, according to clinical psychologist Timothy Sharp.

The Swedish Medical Products Agency has received reports from health care professionals regarding narcolepsy as suspected adverse drug reaction following Pandemrix flu vaccination.

The reports concern teenaged children who developed narcolepsy symptoms one to two months after vaccination against the H1N1 pandemic. Finland is also looking into the possible link following an increase in the sleeping disorder among children this spring.

According to The Local:

“In the European Union, around 30 million people were vaccinated using Pandemrix. Sweden bought 18 million doses, which was enough to provide two injections for each person in its 9.3 million population.”

The Pandemrix package insert shows that “somnolence”, although not narcolepsy per se, is a known potential side effect of the drug.

Using wet wipes after going to the bathroom can cause severe allergic reactions in some people. Doctors have long known that many of the preservatives used in wet wipes can cause rashes. But the authors of the new report have singled out one chemical, methylchloroisothiazolinone (MCI), as a cause of particular concern.

One patient described in the report had a rash around his anus so painful that he couldn't walk for months. Another man, thinking his problem was caused by his psoriasis, suffered for 20 years, and then improved drastically within six weeks of dropping the moist wipes he'd been using.

Reuters reports:

“While the report only describes four isolated cases, the authors note that wet wipes are becoming increasingly popular among adults ... Among those referred to specialists for suspected allergies ... about 3 percent react to MCI.”

Eating a small amount of high-quality dark chocolate, one to three times a month, could help prevent heart failure in women. However, if you ingest too much chocolate, the protective effect goes away.

A study looked at the chocolate-eating habits of close to 32,000 women over a period of nine years. Women who ate one to three servings of chocolate a month had a 32 percent reduced risk of heart failure. More chocolate than that, and the benefit disappeared — while much more than that (three to six servings a week) actually increased the risk by 23 percent.

USA Today reports:

“The chocolate measured in this study was mostly high-quality dark chocolate without a lot of added sugar ... And the higher the cocoa content, the better. The cocoa content of the chocolate consumed by the women in this study was about 30 percent ... in the United States, dark chocolate is only required to contain 15 percent cocoa solids.”

A new study finds that women who develop a severe form of pregnancy-related high blood pressure tend to have lower blood levels of vitamin D. The condition is known as early-onset severe preeclampsia, and it contributes to about 15 percent of preterm births in the U.S. each year.

Researchers found that vitamin D levels were generally low among 50 women with early severe preeclampsia. Their average vitamin D level in the former group was a very low 18 nanograms per milliliter.

Reuters reports:

“If vitamin D is involved in preeclampsia risk ... then it might help explain why African American women are at greater risk of the complication than other racial groups ... Vitamin D is naturally synthesized in the skin when it is exposed to sunlight. This process is less efficient in people with darker skin”.

Seven year old Kieran Williamson first picked up a paintbrush at age six.  His work has sold for a total of fifty thousand dollars.

Why do pro-mercury dentists resist change so vociferously? Is such resistance is unprecedented? Not al all.

According to Charlie G. Brown of ToxicTeeth.org, during the American Civil War, mercury’s use was prevalent, and even then controversial. Physicians in that era used it to treat soldiers for dysentery, typhoid, malaria, pneumonia, and syphilis.

But some physicians opposed mercury. An early hero of the mercury-free movement was the Surgeon General, William A. Hammond. Hammond banned its use by Army physicians, and immediately, the medical establishment started calling for his ouster. The American Medical Association defeated Hammond, but ultimately lost. Today, the Civil War use of mercury as a tonic is considered practically deranged.

According to Brown:

“Future generations not only will condemn the American Dental Association for implanting a neurotoxin into the human body, but no doubt they will resent cleaning up after the irresponsible dentists who polluted our planet with mercury.”

CNN offers a list of tweaks that will let you wake up feeling incredibly well-rested.

Step 1: Halt your afternoon habit

Drinking coffee or tea right before bed is obviously a bad idea -- but you also need to watch your afternoon drinks. Start avoiding caffeine after 2 PM.

Step 2: Choose sleep superfoods

Avoid a big, heavy meal right before bed, but if you've had a few nights of restless sleep, make a light whole-wheat-pasta dish with fresh vegetables, a little diced chicken breast, tomato sauce, and a sprinkle of Parmesan for dinner. If you’re hungry late at night, try a small bowl of cottage cheese with banana slices.

Step 3: Sip wine sooner

Alcohol may help you relax and fall asleep faster, but it'll make the second half of your sleep cycle restless and unsatisfying. If you like a glass of wine in the evening, have it with dinner -- around 6 PM rather than 11 PM -- and drink in moderation.

Step 4: Take an early soak

Surprisingly, a hot bath might make it harder for you to fall asleep. Your body needs to cool to a certain temperature. Take your bath when you get home from work, not right before turning in.

Step 5: Stretch for sleep

Exercising at night can disrupt sleep. But a little gentle, restorative yoga can help put your mind at ease, steady your breath, and reduce muscle tension.

Step 6: Set the mood for slumber

Bright light too close to bedtime can make it hard to fall asleep. If you like to read in bed, do so in the lowest light that's still comfortable.

Step 7: Ban your BlackBerry

An hour before bed, turn your smartphone off, and put any gadgets on an out-of-reach dresser or in another room so you won't be able to grab it if you get the late-night urge.

Close to 1 million children in the United States have potentially been misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) -- simply because they are the youngest, and therefore the most immature, in their kindergarten class.

These children are significantly more likely to be prescribed behavior-modifying drugs such as Ritalin.  Such inappropriate treatment is particularly troubling because of the unknown impacts of long-term stimulant use on children's health.

According to Science Daily:

“It also wastes an estimated $320 million-$500 million a year on unnecessary medication -- some $80 million-$90 million of it paid by Medicaid”.

Eggs are the culprit behind a U.S. salmonella outbreak that caused hundreds of illnesses each week in June and July. A nationwide egg recall now involves more than a dozen major brands that got eggs from Wright County Egg.

The CDC and state investigators found clusters of salmonella food poisoning among people who ate eggs at the same restaurants. Those restaurants got eggs that came from Wright County Egg. Investigations continue in Arizona, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas.

According to WebMD:

“The brand names included in the recall are Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph's, Boomsma's, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms, and Kemps. Recalled eggs are in six, dozen, and 18-egg cartons.”

Tai chi, an ancient Chinese practice, may be effective as a therapy for fibromyalgia, according to a new study.

A clinical trial found that after 12 weeks of tai chi, patients with the chronic pain condition fibromyalgia did significantly better in measurements of pain, fatigue, physical functioning, sleeplessness and depression.

According to the New York Times:

“Although the study was small ... several experts considered it compelling because fibromyalgia is a complex and often-confusing condition ... Since its symptoms can be wide-ranging and can mimic other disorders, and its diagnosis depends largely on patients’ descriptions, not blood tests or biopsies, its cause and treatment have been the subject of debate.”

Treatment with narrow-band UVB rays may increase serum levels of vitamin D in the wintertime while clearing psoriasis.

Psoriasis affects 1.5 percent to 3 percent of the population, and abnormalities in vitamin D metabolism may be partly responsible for the skin condition. Narrowband UVB treatment has become the standard light therapy for psoriasis.

Science Daily reports:

“[Researchers] assessed 30 consecutive patients with psoriasis who were treated with narrowband UVB three times per week until their psoriasis cleared ... Levels of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] -- the most accurate measurement of vitamin D levels in the body -- increased significantly among individuals receiving UVB therapy ... In addition, psoriasis severity scores decreased”.