Hashimoto's: What I Am Doing To Heal & Re-balance

I need your assistance

2010-08-19T14:30:00.001-07:00

Hope you get this on time,sorry I didn't inform you about my trip in Spain for a program, I'm presently in Madrid and am having some difficulties here because i misplaced my wallet on my way to the hotel where my money and other valuable things
were kept.I want you to assist me with a loan of 2000Erous to sort-out my hotel bills and to get myself back home. I have spoken to the embassy here but they are not responding to the matter effectively,I will appreciate whatever you can afford to assist me with,I'll Refund the money back to you as soon as i return, let me know if you can be of any help. I don't have a phone where i can be reached. Please let me know immediately.
Thanks

Amy

day 15

2009-09-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

Day 15
This post includes some very personal data.

Today I begin a serious look at my food addiction ( mainly for me it is fast food, and involves running from my life, feelings, things I don't think I have any control over.) This is a 20 year struggle. I have committed to myself to begin to look at this today.

It is two fold and involves two different "parts" of who I am.

Part 1:
I believe my food addiction is grounded in my "Little Amy"..ages 8-12.
I believe it is she who runs from the things she can't control. I was sexually abused and ritualistically sexually abused from the age of 2 up to a rape by my best friends dad when I was 8. I think I have finally figured out WHY I run...I run because I can..because it is all about control. I couldn't run as a small child, but I can sure get in that car and run from my life today.

I do not eat the food in the house as part of my addiction, I am always RUNNING away from the house and eating fast food. The running away is grounded in my young child, inner child, who couldn't run as a child, away from what was happening to me. I think this is key and for the first time, today, I'm seeing this clearly.

I'm still processing this addiction. And will continue to do so in the days to come I'm sure.

Part 2:
My adult self, when out and running errands and such, makes BAD FOOD CHOICES for herself due to low self-worth and self-esteem.
I learned a long time ago in a college communications class that someone can have HIGH self-confidence and LOW self-worth and self-esteem. This is me today. I am beginning a plan on how to raise my self-worth..and part of that involves making good healthy decisions when it comes to my food choices. :-)

10:00 Thyroid meds ( 90 mg. of an old formulation of armour). I am thinking I am on too much medication for my thyroid condition. I'll post the blood work results. But my TSH is .2 (reference range is .4-4.3)This means I am on the HIGH end of hypothyroid..I feel my best when the number is around 2.5. Thyroid tests are backwards...so a high TSN means low thyroid function and a low TSH means a high thyroid function. I called Dr. Wilbrands office to see if they can change my compounded prescrition because it comes in gelcaps and I can't split the dosages. I see a new ( first ever) Endocrinologist a week from Thursday. I think being on too much medication is making me tired/fatigued in the afternoons.

Protein shake with hemp milk. fresh strawberries, minerals, sun is shining, ground flax seed and walnuts

ambertose, iron, 2 mag. lac. LAY wafer, zymez wafer, zinc liver chelate, 2 CHEWS ( Chews 4 Health for the sea veggies) ( I can't seem to eat those sea veggies so the next best thing is to get them in a supplement that you CHEW, like food), megazyme, Trophons, b-12

1:30
1/4 green pepper, broccoli, 3 leaves romaine lettuce, 2 hard boiled eggs w/sea salt, w/ 1 tbls of ranch dressing.

1 megazyme, 2 wafers, 2 mag., 2 ioderal, 1 superpill, ambertose

5:30 hand ful of mixed nuts

6:30 baked "white" potato with 2 tbls. of butter, sea salt and pepper, 2 bites of mac. and cheese ;-( 2-zinc, 2-ioderal, 1 super pill

At bed time
trophons, pro-biotic, 2 melatonin

This was my first day, in a long time, with no fast food and no soda. YEAH for me. I stayed HOME the whole day. It was not easy...a lot of crying and journaling. Realizing how much of my life has been wasted in DRIVING AWAY from my family and home. I talked briefly to my three kids that were home last night, Caleb 17, Caterina 19, and Tristan 12 and explained to them that I am going to take this thing one day at a time and I needed their help in making sure we eat at the house at night. For example, don't ask me to run by Taco Bell lol. They all agreed and thought it was nice to actually have dinner at home with each other. :-) Things will change one day at a time.

My mother quit drinking in 1976...and was sober until the day she died ( just a few short years ago). I remember her going to AA meetings and working the 12 steps. The first is to admit that you are powerless..that is a HUGE first step for me, because in admitting I am powerless can trigger my abuse as a child. But today i think I turned a corner on my addiction.

KISS- Keep it simple stupid...I like Keep It Simple Sweetie ( better) lol another AA thing.

One day down.

Adrenal Stress Index

2009-09-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

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Adrenal Stress Index
They received test via mail on 8-25-2009

ASI-Adrenal Stress Index
TAP Free Cortisol Rhythm

6:00-8:00 a.m. 11 ( depressed) ref. range 13-24 nM

11:00-12:00 ( noon) 6 ( normal) � � 5-10 nM

4:00-5:00 PM 6 ( normal) � � 3-8 nM

10:00-Midnight 8 (elevated) 1-4 nM

Remarks:
Depressed morning cortisol, <13 nM, is suggestive of marginal HPA ( Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal) performance. Normal rhythms exhibit highest cortisol value for the day at 7-8 am.

An elevated morning/night free cortisol value may be associated with insomnia, and caused by a stress response to an emotional or mental situation, nocturnal hypoglycemia or chronic pain and overt/hidden inflammation.

What next?
a) consider appropriate dietary modifications and glycemic control that include an insulin friendly carbohydrate-to-protein balance.

b) consider initiating a mild to moderate aerobic exercise program

c) the literature resports ACTH pulse height is attenuated by use of Phosphorylated serine suppliment within 1-2 hours of time(s) of high cortisol.

d) consider the palliative use of natural or pharmaceutical anti-histamine or anti-inflammatory.

e) consider balancing the sympathetic/parasympathetic systems using established techniques, examples: meditation and Tai Chi or heart rate variability coherence ( Freeze Framing).

f) if above changes do not yeild the desired clinical and follow up test results, look for low grade or hidden inflammation and infections. Examples food intolerances, chronic gastrointestinal and other infections.

DHEA
pooled value 8 Normal adults ( M/F): 3-10 ng/ml

ISSN Insulin
Fasting <3 Normal: 3-12 uIU/mL

Post-Prandial <3 depressed Optimal: 5-20 uIU/mL

Depressed Post-prandial insulin within four hours after meal. This may be caused by a small carbohydrate load in the preceeding challenege meal or a reduction in pancreatic insulin release or synthesis. Consider a closer examination of challenege meal composition to rule out pre-diabetic tendencies.

P17-OH 17-OH Progesterone 40 Normal

MB2S Total Salivary SIgA 6 Depressed Normal ranges: 25-60 mg/dl
Borderline: 20-25 mg/dl

A depressed mucosal SIgA may be attributed to one or more of the following reasons:
1-Excessive chronic cortisol output causes a reduction in the number of SIgA producing immunocytes. Appropriate restorative treatments have been shown to produce incremental improvements in SIgA.

2-Excessive sympathic activity causes inhibition of SIgA release from the mucosal immunocytes.

3-Chronic deficits in cortisol and/or DHEA levels.

4-Possible systemic deficit in capacity to produce IgA-an inherited problem. Rule out possibility with a serum IgA test. A normal finding rules out this possibility.

F14 Gliadin Ab, SIgA ( saliva) 6 Negative Borderline: 13-15 U/mL
Posi tive: >15 U/mL
Notes on Gliadin Ab Test:
Gliadins are polypeptides found in wheat,rye,oat,barley,and other grain glutens, and are toxic to the intestinal mucosa in susceptible individuals. Healthy adults and children may have a positive antigliadin test because of subclinical gliadin intolerance. Some of their symptoms include mild enteritis, occasional loose stools, fat intolerance, marginal vitamin and mineral status, fatigue, or accelerated osteoporosis. ( Scan. J. Gastroenterol. 29:248(1994).

***I do not have a gluten sensativity. This is GOOD news.

Blood Work 8-23-2009

2009-09-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

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Blood Work 8-23-2009
Had a CBC with Diff & plt...
all of these results were in range ( all excellent)

TSH 0.267 ref. range 0.450-4.500
Calcitriol ( 1,25 di-OH Vit D) 54.0 ref. range 15.9-55.6
T4, ( free Direct) 0.65 ref. range 0.61-1.76
Thyroid Peroxidase ( TPO) Ab 111 0-34
Antithyroglobulin Ab 1669 0-40
Triiodothyronine, Free, Serum 2.7 2.3-4.2
Hematocrit 39.6 34.0-44.0

What do these numbers tell us?
In my opinion: tsh is too low, need to back off the medication ( am going from 120 mg. to 90 mg. ) Although Naturopath says all numbers look fine. there is some speculation that the antibody numbers come down the more medication you're on. I think my numbers are coming down because of other things..such as the amalgam/mercury fillings being replaced, getting rid of wheat/gluten and grains from my diet.

Vit D and Iron ( hematocrit) are good although having a test for Ferritin levels would be a good second test for the iron levels. I get a lot of sun, and for the first hour i do not wear sunscreen, in fact I quit wearing sunscreen and after about an hour I am wearing a hat and long sleeve shirt, light white cotton. I get Vit. in that Super Pill I take twice a day as well.

Seeing as I was anemic in Nov. 2007 and my Naturopath said it might take up to 5 years to raise my iron levels..I think something is going VERY RIGHT..with my absorption of the iron. :-) This is good.

The two test for the antibodies ( which tell us how bad the autoimmune issue is, Hashimoto's) have come down since the last test and are almost in half since the first test in Nov. 2007 where they were over 3000 and not registerable on their scale ( just said over 3000). So this is yet another good sign. YES still way too high, but we're working on that.

Sharing Information on Health

2009-09-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

I am trying to combine and share on several different sites, my health journey.
So when you see something like days 10,11,12 won't be posted that's coming from my daily blog on my health ;-)

I'm setting up a NEW Autoimmune board in yahoo. A place to present ALL that I have found..I want it to be available to everyone who wants to see it and read it so they can make their own best choices on what their "plan of actions" needs to be.

I'm still posting on my other health board Healing The Body as well.

One day i will probably just be posting in one spot ( when the Cafe is open and running I won't have time to be here as often.)

Anyone reading this post needs to pass the word along to anyone you know who has an autoimmune issue or any health issue as the autoimmune board will be a excellent resource for them in the weeks/months/years to come.

Enjoy your day!

2009-09-13T08:59:00.000-07:00

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Reviewing TESTS and starting anew

Days 10,11,12 won't be posted as I don't have time ;-).
Went to see Dr. Doris Compton ( restorativeendocrinology.com) on Friday (11th) and went over the mineral test results and the Saliva/ Cortisol test results. Also reviewed my blood work.

From this information I am formulating a new plan of action ( which will follow), am planning to start it Monday ( Sept. 14th), but have already been on 2 days of new supplements ( Sat. and Sun.) from Dr. Doris.

I will post the test results and what they tell me about what's going on with me.

I realized this morning, don't ask me why it didn't occur to me before, but trying to figure out "what" to do is NOT EASY, it's just now coming clear to me how complicated my own health picture has become. I long for simplicity in my life and my health...as I have read a lot of information and talked to a lot of people and everyone says something different.

What I am trying to do with the NEW autoimmune board I am setting up in Yahoo is to present ALL the information I know of on autoimmune diseases and work with people on a "plan of action" for their own lives.

It would seem to me that people need all the information, what has worked for others, what hasn't worked and then design a plan on what they want...starting FIRST with what they CAN CONTROL. We can't do anyting about genetics BUT I think too many people have bought into the medical professions excuse of "this is in your genetic history there is nothing you can do about it". Bullshit..I say to that. There IS EVERYTHING you can do about it! Depending on your food choices and your lifestyle choices those gene EXPRESSIONS may or MAY NOT materialize and manifest in your physical body. THERE ARE MANY choices to be made on YOUR PART. I don ot believe you are an aimless victim.

Onward!

On my new plan I will still be 90% raw on most days as EVERYTHING I read on raw is good information. And seems to work for just about 100% of the people that eat that way and live their lives that way. :-)

The Eat Right America Foundation

2009-09-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

Our mission is to promote
scientific research and
public education to prevent
dietary-caused disease,
the major cause of
chronic illnesses
and premature death
in modern countries

Eat Right America Educational and Research Foundation.
The medical profession and the public at large will not embrace nutritional interventions to prevent and treat disease unless well-documented in the scientific literature. Today almost all research funding is directed to "drug-research".

Results from preliminary medical studies have depicted that headaches, asthma, kidney disease, hypertension, diabetes and heart disease can all be improved, effectively treated and even "cured" via nutritional excellence. Nutrition for many diseases can be more effective than drug treatment.

Finding a "drug-cure" helps the bottom line of medical and pharmaceutical industries it will not help the average business. It is a response to dietary-caused diseases that has failed. Treatment is expensive. The average cost to traditional health insurer for the first 90 days after a heart attack is over $40,000. With the exception of a very few congenital conditions, every heart attack is a preventable and needless tragedy.

According to a study published in the January/February 2005 in Health Affairs more than 15 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GNP) went to health care in 2003. The 2003 percent increase was greater than the growth in the U.S. economy as a whole. Health spending rose faster than federal revenues. It is eating away at our profitability.

The rising occurrence of obesity compounds these problems. Obesity is a totally preventable and reversible condition.
The sobering facts are that:

•More then 1 out of 3 Americans are obese. 85% of all Americans die from diseases that can be avoided by adopting a healthy diet

•Corporations will bear the brunt of these costs.

•This crisis threatens to undermine the American economy.

The solution is always obvious in retrospect. Yet, in the moment of crisis, we are unable to see it because it is often hidden in plain view. What is needed is the right question.

Skyrocketing health care costs are a radical problem and require a radically different way of thinking. The question is not: "How can we reduce cost of health care?" That question has a never ending list of answers. The questions that we should be asking are:

Can I prevent these costs from being incurred in the first place? If so, what are the impediments to prevention and how can we remove them? If diseases are preventable then how can we induce people to take the necessary steps to prevent them? These questions will lead to a more comprehensive solution.

Dr. Fuhrman and our advisor board of respected physicians and scientists have been studying this problem for several years. This includes studying and identifying the underlying impediments that prevent people from being able change. It starts by understanding our basic psychological wiring and physiologic nature of food addiction.

Wellness is more than just the absence of disease. It is a multi-dimensional indicator of your physical, emotional, and social state. Total wellness is characterized by superior health and is marked by a socially connected, disease free and long life span.

Difficult problems require a new way of thinking. Traditional diets don't work-they fail to consider the complexities of human nature and the workings of the human hunger drive. Traditional approaches to wellness are inadequate and do not address the underlying impediments to wellness. Our approach is based on the latest scientific research and clinical experience and it is based on modeling excellence. We are in desperate need of funding for studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach to disease and to bring the results of the research to the public for implementation.

Raw vs. cooked

2009-09-08T18:21:00.000-07:00

Raw vs. Cooked?
Certainly, there are benefits to consuming plenty of raw fruits and vegetables. These foods supply us with high nutrient levels and are generally low in calories too. Eating lots of raw foods is a key feature of an anti-cancer diet style and a long life. But are there advantages to eating a diet of all raw foods and excluding all cooked foods? The answer is a resounding “No”. In fact, eating an exclusively raw-food diet is a disadvantage. Excluding all steamed vegetables and vegetable soups from your diet narrows your nutrient diversity and has a tendency to reduce the percentage of calories from vegetables in favor of nuts and fruits which are lower in nutrients per calorie.

Raw vegetables are dramatically low in calories and we probably only absorb about 50 calories a pound from raw vegetables. Our caloric needs cannot be met on a raw food diet without consuming large amounts of fruits, avocado, nuts and seeds. This may be an adequate diet for some people, but in my 15 years of medical practice catering to the community of natural food enthusiasts, raw foodists and natural hygienists, I have seen many people who weakened their health on such raw food, vegan diets. Frequent fungal skin and nail infections, poor dentition, hair loss and muscular wasting are common on such fruit-based diets.

Unfortunately, sloppy science prevails in the raw-food movement. Raw food advocates mistakenly conclude that since many cooked foods are not healthy for us, then all cooked foods are bad. This is not true.

The idea that stirs the most enthusiasm for this diet is the contention that cooking both destroys about fifty percent of the nutrients in food, and destroys all or most of the life promoting enzymes. It is true that when food is baked at high temperatures—and especially when it is fried or barbecued—toxic compounds are formed and most important nutrients are lost. Many vitamins are water-soluble, and a significant percent can be lost with cooking, especially overcooking. Similarly, many plant enzymes function as phytochemical nutrients in our body and are useful to maximize health. They, too, can be destroyed by overcooking. However, we cannot paint with this brush of negativity over every form of cooking.

Only small amounts of nutrients are lost with conservative cooking like making a soup, but many more nutrients are made more absorbable. These nutrients would have been lost if those vegetables had been consumed raw. When we heat, soften and moisturize the vegetables and beans we dramatically increase the potential digestibility and absorption of many beneficial and nutritious compounds. We also increase the plant proteins in the diet, especially important for those eating a plant-based diet with limited or no animal products.

In many cases, cooking actually destroys some of the harmful anti-nutrients that bind minerals in the gut and interfere with the utilization of nutrients. Destruction of these anti-nutrients increases absorption. Steaming vegetables and making vegetable soups breaks down cellulose and alters the plants’ cell structures so that fewer of your own enzymes are needed to digest the food, not more. On the other hand, the roasting of nuts and the baking of cereals does reduce availability and absorbability of protein.

When food is steamed or made into a soup, the temperature is fixed at 100 degrees Celsius or 212 Fahrenheit—the temperature of boiling water. This moisture-based cooking prevents food from browning and forming toxic compounds. Acrylamides, the most generally recognized of the heat-created toxins, are not formed with boiling or steaming. They are formed only with dry cooking. Most essential nutrients in vegetables are made more absorbable after being cooked in a soup and water-soluble nutrients are not lost because we eat the liquid portion of the soup too.

Recent studies confirm that the body absorbs much more of the beneficial anti-cancer compounds (carotenoids and phytochemicals—especially lutein and lycopene) from cooked vegetables compared with raw. Scientists speculate that the increase in absorption of antioxidants after cooking may be attributed to the destruction of the cell matrix (connective bands) to which the valuable compounds are bound.

Another fallacy promoted in the raw food movement and on the web is that the fragile heat-sensitive enzymes contained in the plants we eat catalyze chemical reactions that occur in humans and aid in digestion of the food. This is not true. Plant foods do not supply enzymes that aid in their digestion when consumed by animals. Our body supplies exactly the precise amount of enzymes needed for digestion; we are not ill equipped to digest normal food. The plant enzymes are broken down into simpler molecules by our own powerful digestive juices and even those that are absorbed as peptide size pieces (or with some biologic function) do not function to catalyze human functions. So it is not true that eating raw food demands less enzyme production by your body. A healthy body produces the precise amount of enzymes needed to digest the ingested food appropriately and the enzymes our body uses for other processes are unique to our human needs and are not present in plants. We make what we need from the proper materials.

In conclusion, eating lots of raw foods is a feature of a healthy diet. I always encourage people to eat more raw food. One of my common statements is—the salad is the main dish. Raw food is necessary for digestive efficiency, proper peristalsis and normal bowel function. Certain foods, especially fruit, avocado and nuts undergo significant change with cooking and are best eaten raw. Baking, frying, barbecuing and other high heat cooking methods that brown and damage food form acrylamides, which are carcinogenic. Browning and other high heat cooking methods should be avoided. Cooking techniques like steaming vegetables, stewing foods in a pressure cooker and soup making, do not have these drawbacks. They do not brown foods or form acrylamides.

Eating raw food is necessary for good health and is an important feature of a healthy diet. But that does not mean that one’s entire diet has to be raw to be in excellent health. It also does not mean eating an all raw diet is the healthiest way to eat. It is healthier to expand your nutrient density, your absorption of plant protein and your nutrient diversity with the inclusion of some conservatively cooked food in your diet.

Link LB ; Potter JD. Raw versus cooked vegetables and cancer risk.
Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2004; 13(9):1422-35.

Ismail A ; Lee WY. Influence of cooking practice on antioxidant properties and phenolic content of selected vegetables. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2004; 13(Suppl):S162.

Is Cancer Preventable? Dr. Fuhrman

2009-09-08T18:16:00.000-07:00

Is Cancer Preventable?
We live in an era where the majority of Americans think that diseases strike us because of misfortune, genetics, or unknown factors beyond our control. When serious disease “strikes,” we run to doctors and expect them to fix us with a pill. Most people have no idea that most diseases—including cancers, heart disease, strokes, and diabetes—are the result of nutritional folly and are avoidable. Have you ever wondered why, despite the billions of dollars spent on cancer research over many decades, and the constant promise of a cure which is forever "just around the corner", cancer continues to increase? In spite of more than 20 billion dollars invested in cancer research in the last ten years, the death rate from cancer has increased steadily for the last 75 years in line with increases in overweight and heart disease. Once quite rare, cancer is now the second major cause of death in Western countries such as Australia, the U.S.A. and the United Kingdom. It is not true that this increase in cancer is due to people living to be older and thereby having a greater chance of contracting cancer. Cancer has increased in all age groups, and has been linked in population studies to dietary and life-style factors that promote the particular forms of cancer that are predominant in those populations. Has the “War on Cancer” been lost? The fact is that we now have good evidence to understand the complicated biology of cancer causation and educated individuals can dramatically reduce their risk of ever getting cancer. Not only has cancer incidence been increasing, but the age at which people die of cancer has not increased. The five year survival statistics of the American Cancer Society are misleading because we are diagnosing more cancers at an earlier stage of the disease, so the claims that patient are living longer with cancer is also false. More women with mild or benign diseases are being included in statistics and reported as being 'cured'. The bottom line is that we are feeding a cancer research establishment and the drug industry that will never win the war on cancer. Cancer is a disease of lifestyle choices that cause cancer and when we finally decide to work together to prevent cancer we will begin to win some battles and eventually the war. A report in the New England Journal of Medicine assessed progress against cancer in the United States for 35 years concluding that despite progress against some rare forms of cancer, which account for 1 to 2 per cent of total deaths caused by the disease, the overall death rate had increased substantially since 1950: "The main conclusion we draw is that some 35 years of intense effort focused largely on improving treatment must be judged a qualified failure." The report further concluded that ". . . we are losing the war against cancer" and argued for a shift in emphasis towards prevention if there is to be substantial progress.Environmental causes of cancer include lifestyle factors such as smoking, a diet high in processed foods and animal products and low in fresh fruit & vegetables, food additives, pollution, and drugs and medical procedures. Despite the general recognition that 85 per cent of all cancers are caused by environmental influences, less than 10 per cent of the (U.S.) National Cancer Institute budget is given to nutritional, lifestyle and environmental causes. Less than 1 per cent of the National Cancer Institute budget is devoted to nutrition studies. Our medicine-centered culture and the idea that doctor and drugs are the answer to our every expanding disease-care crisis has permeated our economic climate and has become woven into the social fabric of our society. Treating disease is enormously profitable and big businesses and medical institutions are sustained by almost worthless drug treatments and cancer therapies. The status quo is sustained by the fairy tale that a miracle cure is just around the corner. Your body is a self-repairing and self-healing machine. Human cells have all the features necessary to protect themselves from chemical damage to their DNA that eventually results in carcinogenic changes. A cancer cell is essentially a normal cell whose DNA has been damaged to the point that it can no longer control its replication. The process that is creating our modern epidemic of cancer is twofold. One aspect involves the exposure of our cells to damaging stresses such as chemical carcinogens, radon, acrylamides, high levels of saturated and trans fats and excess animal protein. At the same time, we have a woefully insufficient dietary intake of plant-derived nutrients, which include thousands of newly discovered and undiscovered phytochemicals that are essential for normal human cell function. Our cells have built-in, powerful mechanisms to remove or destroy toxic substances, inhibit DNA damage, repair broken DNA cross-links, and remove cells that are injured or abnormal before they become cancerous, but only if our nutritional requirements for antioxidants and phytochemicals are met.In recent years, the term phytochemicals has been used to refer to the thousands of newly-discovered nutrients supplied by plants that— in addition to vitamins and minerals—are necessary for maximal immune system protection and for the promotion of cellular detoxification and repair. Most of our knowledge about what constitutes the optimal cancer prevention diet comes from both human population (epidemiological) studies and animal studies. Populations that have a high intake of natural, unrefined plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and beans always have a low incidence of cancer, proportional to the intake of these phytochemcal-rich plant foods.Examining data from numerous epidemiological studies, the World Cancer Research Fund concluded that the evidence that fruits and vegetables can reduce the risk of oral, esophageal, lung, stomach, colon, pancreatic, bladder, and breast cancer was convincing. No single substance in a plant-based diet accounts for this relationship; rather, it is the synergistic effect of multiple phytochemical compounds (which number in the thousands).Even though other factors such as chemicals, pollution, and smoking play a role in cancer etiology, the scientific literature still illustrates that a better diet offers dramatic protection even against non-dietary cancer promoters. For example, the Fiji Islands (where smoking rates are high) still has a dramatically lower incidence of lung cancer than Hawaii (where smoking rates are lower). This protection against lung cancer even in heavily smoking Fiji Islanders was shown to be the result of the high intake of green vegetables in Fiji. (1) The National Cancer Institute recommends eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. However, scientific studies suggest that this is still inadequate. More is better and much, much more is much, much better at reducing cancer risk. It is a national disgrace that very few Americans follow this very minimal recommendation to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily. A healthy anti-cancer diet receives the vast majority of its calories from fresh vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and seeds. These should not be seen as the add ons; rather they must be the core of any diet that can be considered healthy.I have spent the last twenty years reviewing over 60,000 scientific articles on the relationship of diet and nutrition to cancer and I have to say that the evidence that we can prevent the vast majority of human cancers is overwhelming. I have comprised a body of knowledge in my books, newsletters and other writings available here at this website to inform and educate people who want to take back control of their health destiny. My purpose is to let people know they do not have to have a stroke, get demented in their later years, suffer with heart problems or get cancer. They can choose to live in a manner that can increase healthy life expectancy and they can do it in a way that is fully pleasurable and tastes great.. 1. Le Marchand L, Hankin JH, Bach F, et al. An ecological study of diet and lung cancer in the South Pacific. Int J Cancer 1995 Sep 27; 3(1):18-23. 5

www.drfuhrman.com

Organic Vs. Conventional ~~Dr. Fuhrman

2009-09-08T18:15:00.000-07:00

Organic vs. Conventional?
The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the majority of pesticides now in use are probable or possible cancer causes. Studies of farm workers who work with pesticides suggest a link between pesticide use and brain cancer, Parkinson’s disease, multiple myloma, leukemia, lymphoma and cancers of the stomach and prostate. (1) The question remains, however, does the low level of pesticides remaining on our food present much of a risk?Some scientists argue that the extremely low level of pesticide residue remaining on produce is insignificant and that there are naturally occurring toxins in all natural foods that are more significant. The large amount of studies performed on the typical pesticide treated produce have demonstrated that consumption of produce, whether organic or not, is related to lower rates of cancer and increased disease protection. Certainly, it is better to eat fruits and vegetables grown and harvested using pesticides than not eat them at all. The health benefits of eating phytochemical rich produce greatly outweigh any risk pesticide residues might pose.If it is available, organic food is certainly your best bet to limit exposure to toxic chemicals. Foods with the most pesticide residue are spinach, strawberries, peaches, raspberries, blackberries, grapes, cherries, apples, and celery. Imported produce is also more likely to contain higher levels of pesticides. (2)Organic food usually has more nutrients than conventional. (3) One study performed at the University of California at Davis found that foods grown organically had higher amounts of flavonoids, which have protective effects against both heart disease and cancer. The researchers found that flavonoids were more than 50% higher in corn and strawberries. They theorized that when the plants are forced to deal with the stress of insects, they produce more of these compounds, which are beneficial to humans. (4) Overall, organic foods taste better, and organic agriculture protects farmers and our environment. 1. Sanderson W.T. , Talaska G, Zaebst D, et al. Pesticide prioritization for a brain cancer case-control study. Environ Res. 1997;74 (2): 133-144. Zahm SH, Blair A. Cancer among migrant and seasonal farmworkers: an epidemiologic review and research agenda. Am J Ind Med 1993;24(6): 753-766.2. Reynolds JD, International pesticide trade: Is there any hope for the effective regulation of controlled substances? Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law, 1997;13(1). Whitford F, Mason L, Winter C. Pesticides and food safety. Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service pp22, Jan. 17, 20053. Worthington V. Nutritional quality of organic versus conventional fruits, vegetables and grains. J Alt Coml Med 2001; 7(2): 161-173.4. Grinder-Pederson L, Rasmussen SE, Bugel S, et al. Effect of diets based on foods from conventional versus organic production on intake and excretion of flavonoids and markers of antioxidative defense in humans. J Agric Food Chem 2003; 51(19): 5671-5676.

www.drfuhrman.com

Avoid Bromide for Thyroid Health

2009-09-06T08:51:00.000-07:00

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Dr. Mercola's AVOID Bromide for Thyroid health
Avoid This if You Want to Keep Your Thyroid Healthy Posted by: Dr. Mercola September 05 2009 Bromides are a common endocrine disruptor. Because bromide is also a halide, it competes for the same receptors that are used in the thyroid gland (among other places) to capture iodine. This will inhibit thyroid hormone production resulting in a low thyroid state.Iodine is essential for your body, and is detected in every organ and tissue. There is increasing evidence that low iodine is related to numerous diseases, including cancer. Various clinicians and researchers have found iodine effective with everything from goiter to constipation.Bromide can be found in several forms. Methyl Bromide is a pesticide used mainly on strawberries, found predominantly in the California areas. Brominated Vegetable Oil (BVO) is added to citrus drinks to help suspend the flavoring in the liquid. Potassium Bromate is a dough conditioner found in commercial bakery products and some flours.Sources: Natural Thyroid Choices: BromideIodine 4 HealthDr. Mercola's Comments: If you are like most people, you probably haven’t spent much time thinking about how much bromine you’re absorbing from your car upholstery or your Mountain Dew. But bromine toxicity is a definite danger from some surprising sources, and it can wreak havoc on your health.Bromines All Around YouBromines are common endocrine disruptors, and are part of the halide family, a group of elements that includes fluorine, chlorine and iodine. What makes it so dangerous is that it competes for the same receptors that are used to capture iodine. If you are exposed to a lot of bromine, your body will not hold on to the iodine that it needs. And iodine affects every tissue in your body -- not just your thyroid.You are already exposed to far too much chlorine and bromine. Bromine can be found in a number of places in your everyday world, including:•Pesticides (specifically methyl bromide, used mainly on strawberries, predominantly in California) •Plastics, like those used to make computers •Bakery goods and some flours often contain a “dough conditioner” called potassium bromate •Soft drinks (including Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Sun Drop, Squirt, Fresca and other citrus-flavored sodas), in the form of brominated vegetable oils (BVOs) •Medications such as Atrovent Inhaler, Atrovent Nasal Spray, Pro-Banthine (for ulcers), and anesthesia agents •Fire retardants (common one is polybromo diphenyl ethers or PBDEs) used in fabrics, carpets, upholstery, and mattresses •Bromine-based hot tub and swimming pool treatments According to van Leeuwen, who has extensively studied the effects of sodium bromide on thyroid function:“Although the bromide ion is widely distributed in nature, the main route of exposure in humans stems from bromide residues in food commodities as a result of the abundant use of bromide-containing pesticides, like methylbromide and ethylene dibromide, for soil fumigation in intensive horticulture and for postharvest treatment.”One clinical consequence of overexposure to bromine is suppression of your thyroid, leading to hypothyroidism, which will be discussed shortly. Another is bromide toxicity.Bromine -- The Bully of the Halide GroupWhen you ingest or absorb bromine, it displaces iodine, and this iodine deficiency leads to an increased risk for cancer of the breast, thyroid gland, ovary and prostate -- cancers that we see at alarmingly high rates today. This phenomenon is significant enough to have been given its own name -- the Bromide Dominance Theory.Aside from its effects on your endocrine glands, bromine is toxic in and of itself. Bromide builds up in your central nervous system and results in many problems. It is a central nervous system depressant and can trigger a number of psychological symptoms such as acute paranoia and other psychotic symptoms.In fact, in an audio interview, physician Jorge Flechas reported that, between 1920 and 1960, at least 20 percent of all hospital admissions for “acute paranoid schizophrenia” were a result of ingesting bromine-containing products.In addition to psychiatric problems, bromine toxicity can manifest as the following:•Skin rashes and severe acne•Loss of appetite and abdominal pain•Fatigue•Metallic taste•Cardiac arrhythmiasBaby Boomers might recall a popular product from the 1950s called Bromo-Seltzer. These effervescent granules, developed by the Emerson Drug Company of Baltimore, were used to treat heartburn, upset stomach, indigestion, headaches and hangovers. Bromo-Selzer’s original formula contained 3.2 mEq/teaspoon of sodium bromide -- hence the name. The sedative effect probably explained its popularity as a hangover remedy. Bromides were withdrawn from the American market in 1975 due to their toxicity.Bromo-Selzer is still on the market, but no longer contains bromide. Bromines in Your Bread Box: Potassium BromateThe ban on bromines have not prevented them from sneaking into your foods and personal care products.You probably are not aware of this, but nearly every time you eat bread in a restaurant or consume a hamburger or hotdog bun you are consuming bromide, as it is commonly used in flours.The use of potassium bromate as an additive to commercial breads and baked goods has been a huge contributor to bromide overload in Western cultures. Bromated flour is “enriched” with potassium bromate. Commercial baking companies claim it makes the dough more elastic and better able to stand up to bread hooks. However, Pepperidge Farm and other successful companies manage to use only unbromated flour without any of these so-called “structural problems.”Potassium bromate is also found in some toothpastes and mouthwashes, where it’s added as an antiseptic and astringent. It has been found to cause bleeding and inflammation of gums in people using these products.Sodium Bromate and BMOsMountain Dew, one of the worst beverages you can drink, uses brominated vegetable oil as an emulsifier. Not only that, it contains high fructose corn syrup, sodium benzoate, more than 55 mg of caffeine per 12 ounce can, and Yellow Dye #5 (tartrazine, which has been banned in Norway, Austria and Germany.) A weapon of mass destruction -- in a can.Even drinking water can be a source of bromide. When drinking water containing bromide is exposed to ozone, bromate ions are formed, which are powerful oxidizing agents. Such was the case in 2004 when Coca Cola Company had to recall Dasani bottled water.Sodium bromate can also be found in personal care products such as permanent waves, hair dyes, and textile dyes. Benzalkonium is used as a preservative in some cosmetics.Finally, bromine and chlorine were the most common toxic elements reportedly found in automobiles, according to the blog of David Brownstein, MD (March 2007). They showed up in the seats, armrests, door trim, shift knobs and other areas of the car. Think about how much time you spend enclosed in your outgassing Chevy… windows up with no air circulation.The United States is quite behind in putting an end to the egregious practice of allowing bromine chemicals in your foods. In 1990, the United Kingdom banned bromate in bread. In 1994, Canada did the same. Brazil recently outlawed bromide in flour products. What’s taking us so long? Another case of our government protecting big industry -- instead of protecting you.Iodine Levels and Cancer RiskIodine levels have significantly dropped due to bromine exposure; declining consumption of iodized salt, eggs, fish, and sea vegetables; and soil depletion. In the U.S. population, there was a 50 percent reduction in urinary iodine excretion between 1970 and 1990. What’s this doing to our country’s health?The Japanese consume 89 times more iodine than Americans due to their daily consumption of sea vegetables, and they have reduced rates of many chronic diseases, including the lowest rates of cancer in the world. The RDA for iodine in the U.S. is a meager 150 mcg/day, which pales in comparison with the average daily intake of 13800 mcg/day for the Japanese.There is a large body of evidence suggesting that low cancer rates in Japan are a result of their substantially higher iodine levels. Iodine has documented antioxidant and anti-proliferative properties.A strong case can be made that your iodine RDA should be closer to what the Japanese consume daily, if breast cancer rates are any indication. Low iodine can lead to fibrocystic breast disease in women (density, lumps and bumps), hyperplasia, and atypical mammary tissue. Such fibrocystic changes in breast tissue have been shown to reverse in the presence of iodine supplementation after 3-4 months.If you are interested in being tested for iodine deficiency, the urine iodine challenge test is the best way to assess your iodine level. Bromine and Your ThyroidAdding to the negative health effects of bromine, the damage to your thyroid health deserves special mention. As stated in the first part of this article, bromine exposure depletes your body’s iodine by competing with iodine receptors. Iodine is crucial for thyroid function. Without iodine, your thyroid gland would be completely unable to produce thyroid hormone. Even the names of the different forms of thyroid hormone reflect the number of iodine molecules attached -- T4 has four attached iodine molecules, and T3 (the biologically active form of the hormone) has three--showing what an important part iodine plays in thyroid biochemistry.Hypothyroidism is far more prevalent than once thought in the U.S. The latest estimates are that 13 million Americans have hypothyroidism, but the actual numbers are probably higher. Some experts claim that 10 to40 percent of Americans have suboptimal thyroid function. Many of these folks may actually have nothing wrong with their thyroid gland at all -- they may just be suffering from iodine deficiency.Seven Tips for Avoiding Bromine and Optimizing IodineTrying to avoid bromine is like trying to avoid air pollution -- all you can do is minimize your exposure. That said, here are a few things you can do to minimize your risk: 1.Eat organic as often as possible. Wash all produce thoroughly. This will minimize your pesticide exposure.2.Avoid eating or drinking from (or storing food and water in) plastic containers. Use glass and safe ceramic vessels.3.Look for organic whole-grain breads and flour. Grind you own grain, if possible. Look for the “no bromine” or “bromine-free” label on commercial baked goods.4.Avoid sodas. Drink natural, filtered water instead.5.If you own a hot tub, look into an ozone purification system. Such systems make it possible to keep the water clean with minimal chemical treatments.6.Look for personal care products that are as chemical-free as possible. Remember -- anything going on you, goes in you.7.When in a car or a building, open windows as often as possible, preferably on opposing sides of the space for cross ventilation. Utilize fans to circulate the air. Chemical pollutants are much higher inside buildings (and cars) than outside.Avoid Unfermented Soy Another major contributor to thyroid dysfunction that I did not discuss above is unfermented soy. Soy isoflavones can wreak havoc on your thyroid.Kaayla Daniel's groundbreaking book, The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food is a powerful exposé that reveals the truth about the soy myths that have infiltrated our culture.It's ironic that soy has become so accepted as a health food when, as Dr. Daniel states, thousands of studies link soy to malnutrition, digestive distress, immune-system breakdown, thyroid- and hormonal dysfunction, cognitive decline, reproductive disorders and infertility--even cancer and heart disease. So if you want to keep your thyroid healthy, you’ll definitely want to avoid unfermented soy products of all kinds, including soy milk

New Blog..6 Months Changing my life one meal at a time

2009-09-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone...
you can follow my food blog..if you're interested..
90% RAW for 6 months.
I am writing down everything I'm eating and putting in my mouth.

I will be posting here as well with other health related matters.

One day i will combine the three places in which I post information.

For now this seems to be working for me.

I have new blood tests results to share...will detail it when I get the mineral test and the saliva test back ( hopefully next week). BUT for now my antibody numbers are coming down..they were over 3000 in Nov. 2007..last year they were around 2200 and now they are at 1169 as of about 3 weeks ago. :-) YES! Something is working!

be well,
Amy

Reversing Diseases IS Possible

2009-08-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.cohenresearch.com/disease_prevention.php

This is an interesting read.
Just because I am posting it doesn't mean i AGREE with 100% of it..as I am still out on an absorbable calcium coming from coral ;-)

Your thoughts?
~Amy~

2009-08-25T13:31:00.001-07:00

Seeing Dr. Lang's associate Dr. Doris Compton.
I encourage anyone who is interested in their health to go to restorativeendocrinology.com and buy the three CD set of Balancing Female Hormones. It is GREAT information and you need it!

I saw Dr. Doris last week. we did a mineral analysis ( nails, no hair since i have none lol) mailed that in Friday of last week. I mailed the indepth adrenal test Monday and also got blood work done Monday ( CBC, all the thyroid tests, and Vit. D). Got a great deal on the blood work at Directlabs.com they have a special running for thyroid tests until the end of the month.

Bought some more books on fasting. Am being thrown off another board in yahoo because of the way in which people "take me" and what i have to say. Truely i didn't mean to get anyone upset. Maybe I should read the fine print. To each their own, I just didn't realize they were so INTO the book they follow that they can't look outside of it for a second. Healing Traditions is the name of the book they follow...which says meat is ok( organic)...not sure that's true for me.

Still looking for answers.

Still walking along the path.

Writing again..YEAH!
~Amy~

Am Back From Vacation and Trying to Catch Up

2009-08-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

Nice vacation but back to work.
I read a book over vacation and am now processing what I read..it was healing and fasting.
I am also in touch with Dr. Janet Lang and am seeing one of her specialist hopefully in the next week.
I saw the new dermatologist yesterday..not impressed and she is sending me down to Washington University to see if they can help me. She won't say the car accident triggered the hair loss..which we all know it did. WHAT exactly happened we don't know. SO...
I'll be back with more soon.
Enjoy your day!

Thyroid/Adrenals/Hashimoto's TOP DOC FRESH LOOK

2009-08-02T10:57:00.000-07:00

WOW! you have to listen to this information and please send anyone you know who needs it to the link as well.

IF you have a thyroid issue you have an adrenal issue!
Hashimoto's starts in the GUT!
ALL things can be reversed.
Bio identicals need to be used according to the bodies design...nothing will make exactly what your body could no matter how close they are to the body.

This is GREAT information. Please share!

podcast link is:

http://www.modavox.com/voiceamerica/vepisode.aspx?aid=39870

RawandJuicy.com her personal story

2009-08-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

The Nightmare Begins

My nightmare began at the end of 1996. At 25 I was what society would consider healthy. A low-fat diet, daily exercise, and drinking water instead of pop. I ate what I thought was a well balanced diet and I was fit and very active. I felt good, had a great boyfriend, now husband, and life was good.. How drastically everything would change.

Migraines & Stiff, Hard, Painful Muscles

I started to fall ill. Terribly ill. It began with a migraine that came one day and never left. Accompanying the migraine was a pain at the base of my skull and severe muscle tightness, and pain. My muscles in my neck and shoulders became as hard as rocks and nothing I did would relax them.

Over the next six years I would bounce from various types of doctors and specialists in the allopathic medical community (conventional medicine) with various symptoms, but the ones that were always a constant were the migraines and the debilitating muscle pain and fatique. It was literally never ending.

No doctor could help me and my list of symptoms kept getting longer. Added to the debilitating migraines and muscle tightness, fatigue and pain was.. 50lb weight gain, extreme excitability/nervousness, panic attacks, shortness of breath, great loss of libido, painful intercourse, fibrocystic breasts, irregular heart beat, chronic sinus infections and yeast infections, lowered immune system and more.

My body was quite simply falling apart. I felt like a 20-something trapped in the body of an 80 year old.. But not a healthy 80 year old, a dying 80 year old.

Hair Loss, Loss of Libido

I started losing tons of hair. I remember calling my husband in to the shower and showing him a handful of hair. I just started crying. He attributed it to the fact that I always colored my hair. He didnt understand and didnt really talk to me about my illness. I really resented that but I know understand he was just scared and didnt know how to help me.

But hair wasnt the only thing I lost. I lost all desire for being with my husband sexually. In fact I became repulsed by the thought of having sex. I completely lost my libido as well as my vaginal fluids. Sex became extremely painful. It would cause bleeding and pain and it soon became non-existent.

The Cure Is Worse Than The Disease

I was taking all of the drugs the doctors were prescribing to me but none of them helped me. No matter what drug I would take I would have side affects from it. The cure was for me worse than the disease.

HYPERSENSITIVE TO EVERYTHING

I had become chemically hypersensitive and couldnt tolerate any drugs. I continued to take Excedrin migraine as they seemed to give me some relief.. But only if I would continually take them. I was taking 6 and 8 during the day. Then at night I would have to take Tylenol P.M to knock myself out otherwise I would not sleep at all.

I became digestively hypersensitive and developed leaky gut. My stomach would bloat out to the size of a 9 month pregnant women from foods though I couldn't narrow it down to anything in particular. It would happen with almost everything.

I became sensitive to noises.. mostly because I had migraines constantly and all noise drove me literally insane. Bright lights and sun were also very bothersome. I couldn't be outside without sunglasses as my eyes would water uncontrollably and make my headaches even worse.

It was if I was ALLERGIC TO EVERYTHING!!

Suicidal Thoughts

I was suicidal from the pain. I was merely existing, not living. I didnt want to live anymore as the pain was too much for me. I wasnt even 30 years old, the thought of even having to live to the age of 50 in the condition I was in was depressing, frightening and horrifying.

Going Crazy

Every muscle, joint, bone, tissue, fiber of my being hurt. Not just mild pain, severe pain on a constant basis. As new symptoms came on some of the others would disappear but the main ones.. The migraines and the debilitating muscle pain and fatique were always a constant. It sounds unrealistic to be in that much pain and for it not to go away. I know. I couldnt believe it myself. I started thinking I had to be crazy because the doctors tests and x-rays couldnt find anything wrong with me. I started to question my own sanity. I started telling myself, you are not sick, you are not sick, your body feels fine, you are not in pain.. But I was in pain, excruciating pain. If someone can get well from positive affirmation alone I assure you that I would have done it. But it is not as simple as that.

Blurred Vision

Somewhere in all this hell my vision started to get blurry, really blurry. So much so I didn't like driving. I couldn't read traffic signs, I couldn't make the 'outlines' of images out. I went to eye doctors but surprise, surprise, they could find nothing wrong with me. My vision didn't even change. How can this be? Was I really going crazy? I couldn't understand how one person could have so much wrong with her yet no text could find out what it was.

The Fake Smile

All the while I was trying to 'pretend' to family and friends that I was 'alright'. I had to go about daily life.. I had to function. I had to work, I had to pay bills, I had to be a part of society. No x-ray, mri, ctscan or blood test could find anything wrong with me. Every test said 'you are not sick'... but I was in torturous pain. If I had to go around family and friends I would take Excedrin migraines, make my appearance, and then come home and drop in exhaustion from the pain and pretending. Sometimes pretending to feel 'good' was actually harder than living in pain. It was if someone painted a fake smile on my face. I didnt want anyone to see me in pain or crying. I was ashamed and embarrassed by my illness.

My husband watched me cry every day from the pain. My muscles were so hard, so sore, he couldn't even touch me to massage me to try and alleviate some of the pain. Thank God for a wonderful man! He stuck by me every step of the way and helped me with everything. Normal every day chores, like washing the dishes caused me terrible pain. I would have to the dishes sitting on a stool because my legs were to sore to hold me up. I could not bend over to tie my shoes without an intense feeling of strangulation. I would start to black out every time I bent over. My husband would tie my shoes for me many days as just tilting my head downward would cause me to feel as if I were going to pass out.

Loss of Feeling

I also started to loss feeling in my face and my extremities. One day it was so bad my mother thought I was having a stroke and rushed me to the doctor. After about 10 minutes in his office the symptoms started to subside. This loss of feeling would come and go over a period of a couple of years but my doctor could never find a 'reason' as to why it was happening.

I was having loss of feeling in my face and extremities but I was also having loss of feeling to the world and life in general. I was merely existed, not by any stretch of the imagination living.

My Immune System Was Shutting Down

I soon was catching every cold and flu bug. But when others would catch it and be sick a few days. I would catch it and literally have it for weeks on end. I was always sick. I was never well. Not even for one day. I was in constant pain on a daily basis.

Sinus & Yeast Infections

On top of everything else I was fighting a constant losing battle between sinus infections and yeast infections. I was living with chronic sinus infections and taking the doctors antibiotics. My body reacted violently against taking the antibiotics, and why shouldnt it? By taking them I was putting toxins in my body. The antibiotics caused me to get severe yeast infections. The kind that are so bad you dont want to have any clothes on and you dont want even move. Some women I am sure will be able to relate to this. It is pure hell. It burns, itches and hurts.

Somewhere in this nightmare the insomnia began I dont remember when but it was hard hitting. For years I didnt get more than 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night, some nights even less. But it was never a full 2 or 3 hours of sleep, that was a total count for the entire night. I would sleep an 20 or 30 minutes, wake up and toss and turn for 15 or 20 minutes and then a fall back asleep for another short period of time, and wake up again and do it all over again. On and on all night long.

I dont remember when the insomnia started but I remembered how it started. I started to have a horrible sensation just as I would start to fall asleep. All of a sudden just as I was dozing off my entire body would jump and I would let out a gasp. I would grab my husband and it would scare him half to death. Whats wrong? He would say, I would only reply I felt like I was going to die. I have no idea what this was but it was so horrific that I actually became afraid of falling asleep. Even though it was just a brief second of time, it was the most horrible feeling in the world. There are no words to explain it.

Panic Attacks

Panic attacks started around this time to. Every morning I would dread my husband leaving for work. I had a paralyzing feeling that he would die and not come home. It became difficult for me to go out in public. I went from someone who loved being the center of attention, to someone who couldnt even deal with looking the check-out girl in the grocery store in the eyes. Even just driving became almost impossible, I felt an overwhelming fear that I would run off the road or a car would swerve in to my lane.

Memory Loss

Memory loss would rear its head down the road too. Im not just talking about forgetting a phone number or forgetting to pick up something at the grocery store, I am talking serious memory loss. I remember one day being in the car with my husband and I got off the exit ramp and just sat there because I didnt know which way to turn to get home. It wasnt like a forgetfulness, it was more of a not knowing. It scared me and I started crying. My husband shrugged it off that he gets that way too but I know he doesnt this was something different. We were only 5 miles from home. It was a road we took for years.

My speech became slurred, which was part of the reason I also didnt like to be in public. I knew what I wanted to say in my head but getting it to come out was another story. I stuttered and changed subjects in the middle of a sentence. I didnt want to get in conversations with anyone for fear that I would be talking and forget what we were talking about.

Add To The Mix Heart Problems

While new symptoms kept appearing I continued to go to doctors and take their prescription drugs. Sometimes the drugs would help me but only as long as I was taking them, as soon as I stopped taking them I was sick again.

One trip to a nurse practitioner for either a sinus infection or a yeast infection, I cant remember, ended up with me in the hospital. She gave me a sulfa drug and I broke out in hives all over my body. I had told the nurse practitioner that I thought I was allergic to Sulfa, she asked me why, I told her I thought I got a rash, she prescribed it anyway. Like an idiot I took it. I took it for 10 days and it did nothing, I didnt get a rash, but it also didnt help my sinus infection. I went back she gave me another round and my body fought back violently! That next day I had hives covering every inch of my body. I was running a high fever and my throat started to close. I called my mother in law who rushed me in to the clinic. They gave me a shot of adrenalin to the chest to prevent my throat from closing. This went on for two more days with the nurse practitioner meeting me and my husband there in the middle of the night twice to pump me with adrenaline. I was too sick to fight back and my husband was to trusting in conventional medicine to ask any questions. A day later my mother carried me in during the day and told them to call the hospital. I remained there for three days.

In the hospital a heart specialist came in the room and told me I needed heart surgery. Scared to death, tubes coming out of me, and all alone I sat there speechless watching him draw a picture of a heart with a bunch of wires coming out of it. I said nothing. I just kept nodding.

The doctor never came back in the room. I told my husband he told me not to worry about it. Needless to say I had a few choice words for him as I was worried about it. From that point my heart started causing me serious problems. My panic attacks increased in severity to the point of running my life. My heart hurt so bad I couldnt even walk to the mail box to get the mail. I was constantly winded. Going from one room to the next wore me out. I was in my 20s why did I feel like a dying 80 year old? What was wrong with me?

I Wanted To Die, But Opted For Surgery

I was desperate, suicidal from pain and something had to give. My husband called me from work one day because he saw an advertisement about a new clinic that was performing sinus operations. We discussed it and thought it might be an option. I called and made an appointment. I met with the doctor and I was so relieved to hear him say that he found polyps and a devated septum. Could it be true? Could I have surgery and get rid of my sinus problems and other pain? He said not everyones migraines go away but many peoples do. I was positive this is what I needed. This too was a horrible mistake.

Once again instead of getting better I got worse. Much worse. I had such a violent reaction to the surgery that when I came home I vomited for an hour straight. But that was just the beginning. By the time night hit I was running a high fever and shaking so uncontrollably my husband was sitting on me to keep me from shaking. He was sitting on my legs and holding my shoulders up against the back of the couch. I shook so hard blood ran from my nose. I begged him not to take me to the hospital, I thought if I went I would die there. I really thought I was dying that night and I wanted to die at home. My husband called the doctor at home three times that night and each time he said shes just having a reaction to the anesthesia. Oh yeah, did I mention that my nose was ripped during surgery, this made me stay under an hour longer. I still have a scar.

A week went by I was suppose to be better. I was worse. A month went by I was suppose to be better. I was not. The ENT (ear, nose and throat doctor) suggested I go and see his friend a neurologist. This would be the second neurologist I would see. He had me keep a sleep journal which was very easy as I simply was not sleeping. I was now literally years with not one decent nights sleep.

He put me on celebrex for my joint and inflammation in my neck and shoulder muscles. He also put me on ambien to help me sleep. My body reacted violently again. Now pills that were suppose to be knocking me out were keeping me wide awake.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

I threw my sleep journal, celebrex and ambien in the garbage. My husband started going to doctors appointments with me because I was very much ready to call it quits. We started looking for another doctor.

FIBROMYALGIA

I ended back up at a doctor who treated me years early when I first started falling ill. A general practitioner/osteopath. He had years earlier tested my blood, did x-rays, etc. but never found anything wrong. He did do chiropractic on me and had me sit in traction for months but I never got better. I stopped going after I spent thousands of dollars out of my pocket and had nothing to show for my money. I didnt have insurance and I couldnt afford to keep going. I didnt see any point in it either as I wasnt having improvement and I didnt really understand why I needed to be cracked.

So back at this doctor he flips through his charts and says to my husband and I, "Shelly you've been coming in her since Jan. 1997 with these exact same symptoms.. Did you have a car accident a fall, blow to the head, anything around that time." I told him "No". My husband agreed. We couldnt come up with anything.

He had me stand up and pushed on some points on my body. Each point hurt. I explained that for years Ive been living this way. I told him no matter where you touch my body, no matter how lightly you touch it, I am in pain. Serious pain! My eyes filled with tears. Every inch of my body hurts and I told him so. He told me he thought I had Fibromyalgia and went on to explain that it was incurable. He said he could give me drugs to make it a little more 'livable', but that it could not be cured. He told me to go home and research it on the internet. I left with a prescription for Prozac. He told me that they didnt know exactly why but that Prozac helped alleviate the pain of some Fibromyalgia patients.

I was pissed and felt like bursting in to tears. I felt Prozac was for depression or mental problems and I did not want to take it. It took everything I had not to lose my cool. We took the prescription and we left. My husband convinced me to take the Prozac and against my better judgement I did.

I just didnt believe I had Fibromyalgia. Yes, I did have all the symptoms of Fibromyalgia but I also had many other symptoms that werent associated with Fibromyalgia like the severe pain at the base of my skull, and the inability to bend over without feeling as if I was going to pass out. It didnt make sense to me.

God Was Guiding Me

Like a good patient not only did I take his drugs, but I took his suggestion and turned to the Internet to do research on Fibromyalgia. God was leading me in the right direction, but it would still be a few years until I realized what he was really trying to tell me. While searching for Fibromyalgia information I found a story of a women who had fallen ill after having taken the birth control injections of depo-provera. All of a sudden a light bulb went off in my head. The doctor asked me what happened around January of 1997 and I couldnt remember, but then it hit me, that was around the time I started on the birth control injections.

I called the doctors office who gave me the birth control injections and told them to look in their records and see when my first injection was. It was in November of 1996. It all made sense.

Hindsight is 20/20

In the very beginning as I started to fall ill I remember that I questioned the birth control injections. I know some of you reading this will ask, why didnt you just stop taking them? Well hindsight is 20/20 as they say. I was stupid, yes. I was foolish, yes. But I am human and I made a huge mistake. Millions of people are making this same mistake and trusting their health to dangerous prescription drugs on a daily basis.

I Put My Story Online

Shortly after I read that womens story I put my own story up on the internet at http://www.abcinternetmarketing.com/depo-provera Almost instantly women all over the world started emailing me to tell me their own horror stories about what happened to them as a result of the birth control injections depo provera. At that point I turned my back on conventional medicine. I refused to believe Fibromyalgia was incurable. I couldn't continue with life if it meant dealing with this severe pain on a daily basis.

Lost In The Maze of Alternative Medicine

I did leave conventional medicine, but very unfortunately, I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. I decided to try alternative therapies. But there too I was lost. Nothing was working. I was lost in the maze of alternative healing. I spent thousands of dollars but I never got well. I tried homeopathic remedies, whole system health scan, cranio sacral therapy, deep tissue massage, eft, etc., etc., but nothing worked. The pain was still there and on the homeopathic drops I was once again getting worse. I told myself at that point.. 'You have two choices.. 1) get well or 2) die'. Again I was suicidal from the pain and the frustration that nothing I did would alleviate the pain.

On The Right Path But Making A Wrong Turn

Once again God was leading me but I wasnt seeing things clearly.

My next doctor was a homeopathic doctor in my home town. He was treating me with spinal manipulations and homeopathic remedies. He also was the first person who talked to me about raw food and fasting. Before you get an appointment with him you are giving information to take home on what to expect with his treatment. There was mention of what books to read, books on fasting and chiropractic. His information also said that our diet should consist of at least 75% raw food.

I read a couple of the books he requested, which had a huge impact on my health, and started increasing my intake of raw food. However he put me on the diet Eat Right For Your Blood Type. This diet did not work. I couldnt eat most of the food that was supposedly beneficial to my blood type and the foods had no problems with and really enjoyed, like tomatoes were suppose to be bad for me. Yet I continued to follow the diet as a good patient. I did not get well. Once again I was worse instead of better.

While ultimately this doctors treatments and diet plan failed me as conventional medicine had failed me, I still learned very valuable information from him. Had I not seen him I may have never learned of raw food, fasting, and colonics. Eventually as I was again was sliding down hill, this doctor told me I needed a colonic. God was still working to try and guide me in the right direction. There were a lot of bumps and turns on the path I was taking but he was still leading me.

I Called Paula

I had meet a nutritionist previously who worked with one of the many doctors I was seeing. I knew she did colonics so I gave her a call. She knew I had been on 75% raw for months, but also had been eating chicken, mozzarella cheese, yogurt and others things that I was allowed on the Eat Right For Your Type diet.

I Went Raw

Paula put me on a 30 day raw food diet, followed by a two week juice fast. After those six weeks I went to a vegan diet which was 'high raw' 80 to 90% raw. Currently I am 100% raw and feeling MARVELOUS!! I don't know if I will go back to cooked vegan foods ever.. too early to say, but I don't think I will. If it's not broke why fix it right?

More Than Dietary Changes

I had to make more changes than just dietary changes however, I also had to make strict lifestyle changes. I had to encorporate daily exercise, fresh air (at least 1/2 hour outdoors daily), sunshine, rest (both physical and mental), I had to let go of all negativity too. I had to let go of any anger or hatred that I held towards others.. I also had to remove myself from being around negative people. You can all probably relate to this. Do you have anyone in your life that puts you in a bad mood just because they are always so negative and in bad moods? If so, you will have to stay away from these negative people. It is an entire dietary and lifestyle change that must be made.

I also had to remove many other chemicals from my life. I had detoxed my body, for the most part, as I am still doing some detox. But I had to detox my home too. I threw out all of my household cleaning supplies, as well as personal and beauty care products and replaced them with safer alternatives.

Learning and UNLearning

On my road to recovery I had a lot of learning and unlearning to do. I continued to read I had a lot of 'un'learning to do. Everything I had been taught about nutrition and health was wrong. The doctors drugs are not safe. Conventional medicine does not cure, it suppresses.

Only our bodies can cure, and they can only do that if we set for them the proper conditions to do so.

When Life Gives You Lemons Make Lemonade

While depo provera was by far the worst thing that has ever happened to me in life, it was also the best thing to have ever happened to me too! Had I not fallen so desperately ill I do not know if I would have ever made a change to this new lifestyle of a plant-based vegan raw food diet, exercise, physical and mental rest, sunshine, pure water, and fresh air. I believe everything that happens to us in life happens to us for a specific reason. I wholeheartedly believe that God intended for me to learn the lessons of the true cause of and cure to disease, and our bodies innate ability to heal itself. I believe that is why I had to take the journey I did. Whether it was just to help myself, or whether it was for the purpose of being able to share my information with others.. I'll never know. One thing is for certain, I'm thankful for it.

A FREE e-book "Dying To Get Well"

2009-08-01T19:42:00.000-07:00

To: ALL Charitable Organizations Fighting Disease

We, the undersigned, feel the great importance and urgency to share with the public the truth about the human bodies ability to heal itself when one sets forth the proper conditions for healing to take place. People all over the world are reversing their illnesses/diseases naturally, solely by dietary and lifestyle changes. Even extreme, life-threatening diseases such as advanced cancer are being reversed via these natural and safe methods. The numbers are too large to be disregarded.

The fact that the undersigned are all experiencing new found health by foregoing the drugging and surgeries of conventional medicine is not coincidence. It can not be ignored. These are not miracles. These stories are proof that when we stop putting toxins in to the body, detox the body, and nourish the body with what it needs to maintain optimum health; then reversal of disease, either in whole or part, will take place.

This is not new information, just information that has been, and is still being covered-up. We, the undersigned, implore the employees and volunteers of all charitable organizations working to fight disease, to read, accept and investigate the truths we are sharing with you in this petition. If it is true that the reversal of disease is of your utmost concern, then the testimonies within this petition should inspire you to at the very least, consider raw foodism/natural hygiene as a non-harmful, natural solution to the reversal of the disease.

For myself personally, I have reversed the torturous daily pain of so-called "incurable" Fibromyalgia as well as severe LGS (leaky gut syndrome), daily migraines, chronic constipation, and chronic sinusitis. I did not reverse these diseases while on the drugs conventional medicine was telling me would 'help' me. My conditions always only worsened when following the advice of my doctors in conventional medicine. The reason being you can not cure a body by filling it with toxins. The toxins of prescription drugs are not the only culprit, the toxins of the SAD (standard american diet) are equally as devastating. The natural steps I took to reverse my disease can be found in my book Dying To Get Well. I send free e-book copies to anyone who requests it. Additionally I will send a free e-book copy to any worker or volunteer of any charitable organization that is working to find a cure to any disease. Please simply send me an email to shelly@rawandjuicy.com with 'PLEASE SEND FREE COPY OF DTGW' in the subject line of the email.

There are far too many suffering needlessly simply because they do not know there is another option, a safe and natural option to heal themselves. The pharmaceutical companies, conventional medicine, and the food industry all play a huge role in keeing our stories,the truth about the reversal of disease, under cover. Please don't do the sick and dying this same injustice. If you are truly fighting to find a cure HERE it is in front of you in black and white. Will you ingore us too?

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Raw Food Diet To Rid Body of All Disease Activity

2009-07-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

RAW FOOD DIET TO RID BODY OF ALL DISEASE ACTIVITY

by zmombomb, Aug 18, 2008 12:13AM

Tags: AUTOIMMUNE', diet, CollyDog, raw, disease

i FOUND THIS ON THE NET..... READ THOROUGHLY!!!

Back in the Sun -- No More Lupus! My Story
by Debbie Seliga
Living Nutrition Magazine vol. 5

I feel like a walking miracle! Not a day goes by without my taking time to to appreciate my self-healing body. I just completed my first healthy year after living for 19 years with lupus, a chronic condition which my doctors told me was medically incurable.

When I was 33 I began having health problems that seriously affected my life: fatigue, exhaustion, migraine headaches, rashes, skin lesions, sun sensitivity, hair loss, joint pain, and more. Previous to this I led an active lifestyle with my husband and two young sons, enjoying aerobics, running, swimming and skiing.

Doctors were amazed when they learned of all my symptoms -- they said I looked like the picture of health. Examinations and tests proved unsuccessful in determining the cause of the problem. Two years later I saw a dermatologist (my 5th doctor) who diagnosed skin lesions on my scalp as a mild case of psoriasis. When a clump of hair the size of a silver dollar fell from the back of my head, I insisted on a biopsy. The results came back positive for "Discoid Lupus." The doctor prescribed Prednisone and Placqanel, and explained that there is no cure nor any know cause for this condition.

After four months I decided to discontinue the medication because of the long-term effects. Staying out of the sun helped me the most, but that was not always possible. Thus, I applied sunscreen strength 50 daily, wore long sleeves, slacks and a hat outside. I sought to learn about lupus by joining the Lupus Foundation and reading on my own. Most people with lupus whom I met shared a common hopelessness about the "disease" and agony over the drug treatments.

My search for information lead me to a chiropractor trained in nutrition and the Bioenergetic Synchronization Technique. He encouraged me to give up red meat plus the "four whites": salt, sugar, flour and dairy. He also introduced me to juicing and the principles of proper food combining. I made these changes and immediately my energy improved, headaches disappeared and other symptoms were lessened. This gave me new determination to find the missing pieces of the puzzle.

The more my body unclogged and cleansed, the better I felt. This motivated me to eat a vegetarian diet and then a vegan diet. I found that if I wavered from eating only the good foods my existing symptoms would become worse and past symptoms would return. While I felt much better, the sun still exacerbated my symptoms and the lupus still dictated my activities.

The summer of 1995 was the worst of my life. It was hot, humid and sunny and my symptoms suddenly became more severe than ever. I saw my rheumatologist for a complete work-up. She listened and examined me carefully, but all she could offer was prescription drugs. I went home scared and discouraged. The reality of the situation forced me to evaluate everything I was doing and why I felt so miserable. I decided my system still needed more cleansing, not toxic drugs.

That week I decided to exercise more frequently. I began by walking every morning for for a half hour or more in the woods. During these walks I gained deeper insight into my health, and it became apparent that exercise helped my body process and remove toxins.

Later in 1995 my son Todd introduced me to the book, "Mucusless Diet Healing System" by Professor Arnold Ehret. It discusses the value of eating raw fruits and vegetables for conquering any illness. During the two weeks of following Ehret's transitional diet I gained more energy and became symptom-free except for the sun sensitivity. The less cooked food and more raw food I ate the better I felt and more energy I had to resume an active life. I no longer had any doubts that I would be able to conquer the lupus. I was much better, even though the sun sensitivity remained.

During my long ordeal I always drew strength from my loving family's support. Todd's keen interests in completely overcoming his own health challenge (severe tendonitis) and fine tuning his raw food eating led him to find David Klein over the internet, and in the spring of 1997 Todd visited David in California. Todd's experience with David's valuable health mentoring led me to speak with David and then Roe Gallo. They offered welcome words of encouragement and new insight into the lupus. They explained that lupus symptoms are nothing more than indications of the body's level of toxemia. I realized that I needed to eat 100% raw all of the time to allow my body to heal. This understanding gave me new emotional strength. It was time to end this journey with lupus.

I stopped polluting my body with sunscreen and began exposing my bare feet to the sun for five minutes each day, with encouraging results. In mid June 1997 I was feeling well and confident enough to try wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Walking outside, the sun rays hit my legs and gave me the most electrifying sensation of my life! The energy from the sun radiated throughout my body. From that feeling I knew I had conquered the lupus!

Today I continue to eat 100% raw fruits and vegetables and work at balancing and simplifying my life. Learning of "the 100% raw food solution" not only helped give me my life back, it has also given me a natural mind-body-spirit connection that is beyond description. At age 51 I am healthier and more energetic than at any other time in my life!

I swim, bicycle, hike, kayak and rollerblade with my family -- in the sun! I now live each new day more easily and joyfully.

Forgot to mention

2009-07-29T18:20:00.000-07:00

Used muscle testing ( kinesiology) before the filling was replaced..very weak on that tooth. Did muscle testing again afterwards...was as strong as an ox. YEAH!

~Amy~

On the other side

2009-07-29T17:09:00.001-07:00

About 3 hours after having 1 amalgam/mercury filling removed.

I have a headache, and my mouth is a bit sore, but that's to be expected.

All in all I didn't have a panic attack..partly due to the fact that the dentist is GREAT. And his staff is great as well. Puts you at ease.

I trust that my highest good is being met with getting these fillings replaced.

I have my next appointment in about a month..the 31st of August to get the next one out.

I would love to hear from anyone who has had their fillings replaced.

I'm tired but good.

Getting My Mercury Fillings Out/Replaced

2009-07-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

today at 2:30...2 of them..will detox for four weeks and get the other two out.
I'm hoping this shows a big difference in my over all health picture in about a year.
Stick with me and find out.

YES I'm a bit nervous but I need to do this for my health. I tend to "panic" but will get through this no matter what it takes.

See you on the other side lol

~Amy~

Cortisol Numbers

2009-07-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

--- In Thyroid_Helpers@yahoogroups.com, "Amelia" wrote:

Ok there are 2 sets of numbers.
Test was through Dr. Fischer and she used BioHealth Diagnostics Laboratory

I am improving although not perfect yet, we are close.

Date Collected: 7-12-08
Cortisol
morning (6-8 a.m) 26.5 (abnormal) Normal Ranges 13.0-24.0
noon (12-1 p.m.) 7.1 (normal) Normal Ranges 5.0-8.0
afternoon (4-5 p.m.) 3.3 (abnormal) Normal Ranges 4.0-7.0
night time (10 pm.-12 a.m.)1.2 (normal) Normal Ranges 1.0-3.0

Cortisol Sum 38.1 (normal) Normal Ranges 23.0-42.0
DHEA-S Average 1.89 (abnormal) Normal Ranges 2.0-10.0

Total Cortisol/DHEA-S Ratio 20.0 (abnormal) Normal Ranges 5.0-6.0

***************************************************************
Date Collected: 3-17-09 (approx. 8 months later)
Cortisol
morning (6-8 a.m.) 18.6 (normal) same ranges as above
noon (12-1 p.m.) 4.2 (abnormal)
afternoon (4-5p.m.) 3.1 (abnormal)
night time (10p.m.-12 a.m.)1.9 (normal)

Cortisol Sum 27.8 (normal)
DHEA-S Average 4.51 (normal)

Total Cortisol/DHEA-S Ration 6.2 ( abnormal)

Getting Mercury/Amalgam Fillings Replaced Tomorrow

2009-07-28T04:47:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit nervous about tomorrow, but will keep my mind on some other things today, like the rooster crowing outside my office door lol have to try and get the chickens contained somehow so I am not up at 6 a.m. when I don't want to be. LOL

So my Dr. Rose put me on a mercury detox supplement and I've been taking that the last few days..will take two a day until tomorrow and then three a day until gone.

I know this is something I need to do for my overall health. The game is already being played in my head..I don't want to get my hopes up too high. I've read many places though that you can't "balance" your hormones with mercury still in your mouth because it is a endocrine disruptor. So I will take this journey and be glad I did, not expecting too much but being very pleased when positive changes occur.

Being Misunderstood

2009-07-28T04:40:00.000-07:00

Well once again it has happened on one of the yahoo thyroid boards. The moderator has mis- understood what I've said, jumped to conclusions and because I don't conform to everything she says I need to do, I'm in denial and close minded.

This makes me sad. I want support in who I am and what I'm doing, I don't need someone to make assumptions about me and then accuss me of being close minded. I think I'm anything but that.

Trying to "explain" myself will only make things worse as she has already "formed" her opinion about me.

So why even go to the boards? I don't know, I guess I can help in some way.

Maybe I just need to stick with the blog and leave the rest alone.

I've been kicked off too many boards to mention, mainly because I don't conform to what is being said on the boards. But I think most people deserve ALL the solutions, not just one. Everyone is different and I don't believe in the "one solution fits all" idea.

The world is on purpose, of that I am sure, and I will trust that whoever gets to the boards are suppose to be on those boards and get whatever information they are to get.

I think the thing that did "it" this time was the talk about the metaphysical side of wellness and dis-ease. This gets to "weird" for most people and it's only, I think, because they truely do not understand it.

Oh well...on to other things for today.

What I learned on the seminar today

2009-07-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

Listened to the first one this evening since I couldn't get to the call..with Dr. Shealy. GREAT! STUFF!

I can't thank you enough for doing what you do.

Some of the things I learned....

I need to be using my rebounder everyday.

Vit. C and MSM makes DHEA

Don't take DHEA by itself

Minimum of 80% of all americans are Vit. D deficient. This deficiency can cause all kinds of autoimmune problems.

Autogenic training...18 minutes a day.

4 ways to increase your DHEA naturally

1. vit. c plus msm

2. magnesium on the skin

3. natural progesterone

4. stimulate the ring of fire

Do these 4 things and raise your DHEA by 250%

Best way to detox is sweating...2 hours a day outside sweating =20 minutes in a sauna.

GREAT STUFF!

Invitation to "Balancing Life" seminar

2009-07-22T20:41:00.000-07:00

I am doing this..it is free..you can buy the CD's for later use...but you don't have to.

The first one was today ..this is GREAT information for anyone interested in their health.

The following is the e-mail from David Wolfe....

I am so pleased and delighted to provide you a unique and intensive
teleseminar series that I am participating in.

Joining me in this series will be an amazing line up of speakers
who will each be focused on helping you manage your life, and to
assist you in finding the gifts within the changes that we are
all experiencing on this planet right now.

This series is about "Balancing Life". We will be discussing what
is on so many people's minds right now; how to balance life in these
dynamically changing times. Together we will discuss new methods and
strategies to transform and create the lifestyles we have always
dreamed about for ourselves and our families.

Sign Up For This 'Balancing Life' Series Right Here

In fact, all these speakers will be sharing their information so you
can learn and be able to immediately apply new techniques to manage
your life to its fullest potential.

Here are just some of the people joining me...

- Mark Victor Hansen & Robert Allen
- Wayne Dyer
- Dr. Bruce Lipton
- Dr. John Gray
- Dr. Daniel Amen
- Loral Langemeier
- Dannion Brinkley
- Gregg Braden
- And Many More (18 In Total!! )

I Know You Will Enjoy Hanging Out With This Group!

To take advantage of this invitation to interact with these
motivational and inspiring leaders, simply do the following:

Step #1...

Go register for your no-cost teleseminar seat here:

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=3128675

Step #2...

Keep an eye out for an email with the details for
listening in on the calls (The email will come
from Lisa Garr).

Step #3...

Make sure you go to the download Internet page mentioned in
your first confirmation email after you register. You will
access BONUS GIFTS that you can use immediately just for
enrolling.

I know you'll like this one :)

Have THE BEST DAY EVER!!!

David “Avocado” Wolfe

P.S. Remember, there are a limited number of seats available
for this complementary teleseminar intensive series, and they're
likely to fill up fast.

So Signup Now, Before All The Spots Are Gone

P.P.S. Also, if you can't make the Wednesday and Thursday LIVE
calls at 2:30 PM Pacific/California/Los Angeles time, they will
be recorded and available after each show for a limited time so
you won't miss a thing.

The RAW MOvement is getting ready to explode

2009-07-22T09:31:00.001-07:00

Just my personal opinion...my feeling...my intuitive "hit" is saying it is going to explode in the next 2 years. Are you ready?

New movie coming out Nov. 3, 2009 FOOD INC. Can see it now on You Tube..or parts of it.

This will give you the support you need to stay on raw food and super foods. People are TIRED of being sick and tired. And eating raw food is NOT that expensive. IF you're suffering with any kind of illness..food needs to be the first thing you change...raw and organic..that is the best food...and if you can grow it yourself or get it locally that's even better. Do this for 6 months and see what happens to your health.

I'm not telling anyone on BDE anything you don't already know.

I'm excited about what's coming.

I'm positioning myself for the shift. My husband and I are currently making plans to develop a CSA ( community supported agriculture) here on the 5 acres we own and grow enough food for 30-40 families and ourselves. We are also opening a RAW cafe in the MIDWEST next year.

Get inspired to make changes in your life...and when you're ready SHARE all that you know with everyone you know. The movement is getting ready to explode...are you ready?

Eat well, live well, be well.

~Amy~

Autoimmune Disorder

2009-07-21T11:59:00.001-07:00

Subscribe To This Site

Autoimmune disorder:
The Immune System Throws a Tantrum

An autoimmune disorder and a hyper-inflammatory response are very similar and may have common causes. The exact definition is subjective but here it will refer to any condition caused by an overactive immune system.

Autoimmune Diseases

An autoimmune disorder, better yet, an autoimmune disease occurs when our immune system fails to show immune tolerance to our own body tissues. We should show be showing immunity to all embryogenesis tissue, that is, all tissue and anything else that ended up in the fetus between conception and birth.

Yet in autoimmune disorders, something goes awry and the immune system starts attacking "self" as if it were "non-self" and they are almost always cell mediated responses. Recall that cell mediated immunity doesn't depend on antibodies but utilizes the activation of macrophages, natural killer cells and cytotoxic T-cells.

It is more common in young people and females, where it appears twice as frequently as in males. The range of autoimmune disorders is vast and the categorization depends on where in the body the attack is occurring and whether it is local or systemic. Local is an attack of a single organ or tissue while systemic is widespread throughout the body affecting a total system.

A Review of Autoimmune Disorders and Diseases

Common systemic autoimmune disorders include:

Rheumatoid Arthritis - a chronic inflammation and erosion of the joints. Can hit anyone at any age but usually manifests between ages 30 and 50.
NIH estimates place U.S. cases at 2 million people. Is extremely debilitating and can shorten life. It is not related to osteoarthritis, a physical wearing out of the joint.

Lupus - a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disorder that can affect skin, joints, blood cells, kidney, heart and lungs. It is ten times more prevalent in females and is increasing in persons of African, Asian, Hispanic and Native American populations.
A visible symptom is a red butterfly shaped rash across the nose and cheeks. Other symptoms include fatigue, pain, fever, and inflammation and possible damage to internal organs.

Sjogren's Syndrome - A chronic inflammatory autoimmune disorder in which the immune system attacks the tissue in glands that produce moisture such as tear and salivary glands.
Ninety percent of sufferers are women over 40 and the NIH thinks there are between 1 million and 4 million people afflicted in the U.S. That's quite a wide range which could indicate that the condition is either under-reported or very misdiagnosed.

Guillain-Barre Syndrome - An acute autoimmune disorder in which the immune system attacks the central nervous system. Inflammation damages the myelin sheath that insulates the neurons axon causing muscle weakness, paralysis, spasms, numbness or tingling sensations and tenderness.
It is a fairly rare condition and NIH estimates about 1 in 100,000 have Guillan-Barre. That should translate to about 3000 cases in the U.S.

Common local autoimmune disorders include:

Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes - An autoimmune disease in which inflammation damages or destroys the insulin producing cells in the pancreas (pancreatitis) resulting in the body's inability to process glucose (blood sugar).
Data from 2005 indicates that 20 million Americans have diabetes but 6 million of those may be undiagnosed. Diabetes claims over 75,000 lives per year in the U.S.

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) - A chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the myelin sheath of the nerve cells axon. This demyelization can occur anywhere in the Central Nervous System causing a wide variety of symptoms.
The process interferes with nerve impulses and causes a progressive loss of motor and sensory control. It affects about 400,000 people in the U.S. and hits more women than men.

Hashimoto's thyroiditis - The most common form of inflammation of the thyroid gland causing a decrease in the production of the thyroid hormones.
It is more frequent in women over 40 and manifests as weight gain, fatigue, sensitivity to cold, weakness, dry skin and constipation. About 1 in 1000 will develop this disease at some time in their life.

Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease - Both are chronic inflammatory autoimmune disorders of the colon. Symptoms include pain, cramping, diarrhea with blood and/or mucus, ulcers and collection of fluid in the lining of the colon.
They seem to affect men and women equally and tend to run in families; indicating a genetic component.

One striking thing about many of these autoimmune disorders is the prevalence in women over men and the mid-life onset; usually in the 40's or later.

Perhaps research needs to be done on the sexual dimension of inflammation. What are women doing that men don't do that would contribute to the higher incidence of inflammation? Food for thought as they say.

Treating the Autoimmune Disorder

So far in the medical community, there are no effective treatments for an autoimmune diseases. Treatment depends on the site of the attack, its severity and symptoms.

Options are limited but consist of relieving symptoms with medication or surgery; preserving organ function with medications or injections; and, lastly, administering drugs, such as corticosteroids, to suppress the immune system.

Sometimes a process called plasmapheresis is applied wherein the blood is filtered to remove the problem antibodies or antigen/antibody complexes.

Situation Sad but not Hopeless

When it comes to autoimmune disorders, traditional medicine leaves a lot to be desired but a couple of natural approaches may offer hope.

The common denominator of all the autoimmune diseases is a miscommunication between the immune system and the healthy tissue or host body. The miscommunication results in a failure of the immune system to differentiate between "self" and "non-self".

Cell-to-cell communication takes place through the glycoproteins and glycolipids (glycoforms) on the cells surface.

These glycoforms are produced in a part of the cells internal machinery known as the endoplasmic reticulum where certain sugars are combined with proteins and fats. Today these specific sugars are highly deficient in our modern food supply for a number of reasons. Without the sugars, the glycoforms are not present in adequate numbers and intercellular signaling suffers.

The emergent science of Glycobiology has yielded a treasure trove on the role of sugars in the functioning of the body, especially in the area of immunology. A commercial product that has emerged from this study is glyconutrients.

Glyconutrients taken as a supplement work to enhance cell-to-cell communication by increasing the intake of vital sugars needed to produce the cells external structure discussed above.

In conjunction with glyconutrient supplementation, a second approach is to ensure that the omega-3 and omega-6 balance is a one-to-one ratio. This requires supplementation with a pharmaceutical grade, molecular distilled omega-3 and cutting back on those foods high in omega-6. This action should result in a decrease in the production of certain inflammatory messengers thus mitigating an unwarranted inflammatory response.

2009-07-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Another blog taken...just for your information...eat well, live well, be well.

Environmental Health:
A Contradiction in Terms!

There is a serial killer on the prowl

and its name is "Environment" Environmental Health is on track to trigger the next Black Plague of the civilized world. Future death certificates may start showing cause of death as "Death by Environment".

Environmental health is what I call the effect that our surroundings have on our health.

It's not some nebulous concept. It is everything that touches our lives; everything we put into our bodies, on our bodies, the air we breathe, the water we drink, our living and working spaces, school rooms, hospitals, and playgrounds.

The environment is our world.

A perfect storm of three converging fronts is poisoning our population at an exponential rate. Those "fronts" are the environmental poisoning by the chemical, pharmaceutical and processed food industries.

The chemical output of these industries has literally poisoned everything we come in contact with.

Our bodies are contaminated with toxic loads unheard of just a few decades ago. Randall Fitzgerald, in his book "The Hundred-Year Lie", documents many truly alarming findings. He shows that...

Tests conducted on thousands of volunteers by five public agencies showed that every resident of industrialized countries are carrying an average of 700 synthetic chemicals, all absorbed from our food, air and water.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has confirmed toxic loads in thousands of test subjects with children showing higher toxic loads than adults.

Random testing of newborn babies in U.S. hospitals found an average of 200 synthetic chemicals in their umbilical-cord blood.

Numerous researchers have independently concluded that whether we ingest these toxins through our stomachs, skin or lungs, their effects are cumulative and setting the stage for a new wave of fatalities that can't be traced to any one cause.

Our bodies were not designed to handle this chemical onslaught and cannot process, remove and repair their damage fast enough.

Chemical toxins eventually end up at the liver where some are stored, some are filtered and eliminated but most end up being stored in body fat where they continue to accumulate day after day.

The inevitable result is rising levels of cancerous tumors, liver and kidney failure, dramatic increases of disease in children and central nervous system or cognitive disorders. Many of these we are experiencing now, others are fast approaching.

The Way Nature Intended It!

Don't Let the Radicals Run Free!

Free Radicals, also known as unbound electrons, increase exponentially as environmental Health declines.

"Oxidative Stress" is the name given to the cellular damage caused by ionization of an oxygen atom. In it's stable state, oxygen has no charge; it's eight positively charged protons in the nucleus are exactly balanced by its eight orbital negatively charged electrons.

When ionized, the oxygen atom picks up an extra electron giving it a net negative charge or loses an outer shell electron giving it a net positive charge.

That free electron is now called a "free radical" and it's on the loose. It can, and will, react with or damage adjacent cells. It is similar to rusting of metal.

When we have an excess of free radicals in the body, not enough antioxidant protection to remove them and failure to repair cellular damage caused by the free radicals, we have all the elements present to promote catastrophic diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cancer.

Even if they don't result in some terrible disease, they will greatly accelerate the aging process.

Blueberries: Nature's Best Antioxidant

Fortunately for us, nature gave us Blueberries and a few other Superfoods with extraordinary antioxidant capabilities.

Today these must be a part of everyone's diet.

The bottom line is that oxidative stress from the environment is growing to the extent that our body's defenses can no longer keep up.

Even with the superfood antioxidants, it is still very difficult to get adequate antioxidant protection from our normal food supply and supplementation with a high quality antioxidant is mandatory.

If you can only love (or afford) one dietary supplement, make it an antioxidant.

Genetically Modified Organisms...

The Coming Environmental Health Holocaust

GMO isn't shorthand for "Gitmo", or "Government Medical Organization" or "General Motors Outsourcing".

It's worse than all of those...it's "Genetically Modified Organism" and it is a scary development in environmental health brought to us by Monsanto.

Ostensibly, Monsanto would have us believe that they are developing super seeds to increase crop yields and save the world from hunger. Both are worthy pursuits but unfortunately, that's just not the case.

Monsanto is possibly the largest agro-business in the world but even that label is misleading. Monsanto is an agro-chemical company among other things providing a wide variety of herbicides and pesticides to the food growing industry.

It appears that the effort to engineer crop seeds is more directed at making them more tolerant of the toxic chemicals that are sprayed on and around the plants than on increasing crop yield.

The objective appears to be aimed at finding a way for Monsanto to sell more chemicals by cornering the market in mutant seeds; affectionately known as "frankenfood". The last thing the environmental health of the world needs is more chemicals.

Why should we care?

First is that the environmental health of the earth can't stand such increases in dangerous chemicals being sprayed on it. The toxins don't stay put...they runoff into our natural waterways where they cause death or mutation of all life that comes into contact with it.

For us, it means when we eat the contaminated fish and cattle, our DNA is exposed to damage by the toxins and strange DNA we consume.

Second, the chemicals don't just sit on the ground or on the leaves of plants. They get absorbed and become part of the plant that we eat. Remember that we are what we eat. How much Round Up would you like with your corn flakes?

Third, the way that the seeds (organisms) are being modified is unnatural. They aren't just cross-breeding similar specifies of plants; they are injecting totally foreign DNA from other species. This does not occur in nature and the long-term results hold the danger of some frightening unintended consequences.

The big lie that genetically modified foods are just the same as conventionally grown foods is being spread by a friendly media as well as the company's own slick marketing. Research tells a different story.

In the "Seeds of Destruction” by Jeffery Smith, we read that food related illnesses doubled between 1994 and 2001; about the same time that GMO foods started appearing on the market.

He shows that such foods contribute to increases in allergies; are carcinogenic; toxic and can decrease nutritional intake.

Cited research is that GMO peas caused lung cancer in mice, GMO potatoes were linked to cancer in lab rats and bacteria in our GI tract was shown to take up the DNA from modified foods under the right conditions.

Fourth is that, just like the superbugs, crop pests and weeds have developed a tolerance for the most widely used herbicides and pesticides. This means that more and more of the chemical must be used to control pests, with a corresponding decline in not only environmental health but our health as well.

There is data showing that genetically modified crops have resulted in a 50 million pound increase in pesticide use from 1994 to 2005. Who knows what it has increased to by now?

Fifth and possibly the most important argument against GMO crops is that the genome (the collection of 26,000 or so human genes and over 3 million chemical base pairs that make up those genes) is not constant.

Genetic researchers have found that our genome, in fact any genome, is very dynamic and changes in response to the environment.

Environmental stimulus such as toxins, chemicals, mutated DNA can turn various genes on or off or damage the base pairs of DNA which is passed on to later generations.

The bisexual fish and deer with five legs aren't just rare oddities. They are a sign of trouble in the environmental health of our wild areas. They are a wakeup call that something is happening to the DNA structure in wildlife and if it is happening in the wild, it is happening to us as well.

GMO food is more widespread that anyone would ever imagine. So far, soy, corn, cottonseed and canola are the most prevalent. In the July 15, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal, is an article that Monsanto is again going after genetically modified wheat.

The effort was dropped five years ago due to resistance from the food industry but now "they're baaack"!

Genetically modified corn is showing up at local farmers markets now. Produce we buy at farmers markets is typically thought of as organic but can we say that genetically engineered food is organic? I think not. Now the environmental health of the wheat fields will be reflected in all our baked goods.

The "Future of Food" 10-minute u-tube video embedded below is an introduction to a longer 58 minute video on the future of food.

At least watch the introduction to see how the green revolution in agriculture became the gene revolution and how Monsanto is working to control the worlds food supply through it patents on seed. Scary, scary stuff. It has to be stopped.

Environmental Health and Water Contamination

There seems to be some madness sweeping the country. Symptoms include fits of temper, episodes of lying, cognitive impairment, inability to remember historical events, and blame shifting.

Is there something in the water or is it just election season again? Well, yes it is election season and the inmates are running the asylum...

BUT there most definitely is something in the water.

For starters, there are the chemicals we add to our water supply on purpose like chlorine and flouride. Then there's a whole host of toxins that our treatment plants aren't equipped to handle. These include a whole raft of pharmaceuticals in our water, such as estrogen, antibiotics and trihalomethanes. The latter are compounds formed when chlorine reacts with organic matter and are known carcinogens.

It's not just our municipal water systems that are at risk. Our country's natural water courses are quite contaminated from airborne particulates, chemical runoff from agricultural operations and industrial effluents. The observed effects on wildlife should have set off some very loud alarms by now...in fact, they have, but is anyone listening?

Follow the link to ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND WATER to read about the scope of the problem and learn what choices are available to us for some measure of protection against these hazards.

A lot of links are included in the site to navigate to various pages but for greater efficiency in searching the site, use the Google Search Box below. Just type in the box what you are looking for, hit "Search", and a new window will open with a list of page URLs at the bottom of the window. Click on the that looks appropriate to your search and it will take you there.

Custom Search

Environmental Health and Air Pollution

According to AIRNow, "Quality of Air Means Quality of Life" and that sums it up nicely. Nevertheless, air quality is but one of several environmental factors having a tremendous impact on our lives.

We know the air quality surrounding major population centers leaves a lot to be desired but the surprising thing is that, because of how tightly sealed and insulated our homes are today, air quality inside our homes is often worse than the outside air. Our homes now have a major effect on our personal environmental health.

Pure, clean air is nitrogen, oxygen, a little argon, carbon dioxide and tiny amounts of trace gases. In our homes and even in nature, there's no such thing as "pure air". So what is it that is contaminating our air, where is it coming from, what does it do to us and what can we do about it?

Consider formaldehyde as just one example. From the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG), "cars, trucks, and non-road engines release more than 165,000 tons of formaldehyde into the environment or 56 percent of total formaldehyde emissions. Formaldehyde may cause lung, nose, and throat cancers, as well as adverse respiratory effects".

Click on Effects of Home and Environmental Air Pollution on our Health to get answers to the questions raised above.

I'm living in a toxic waste dump!

Personal and Environmental Health: Seriously degraded by household products.

If the EPA were to inspect the average American's home, it would probably be declared an environmental health disaster area.

Take a home inventory of all the cleansers, pesticides, paints and thinners, solvents, lubricants, sprays, dry cleaning in the closet, and any other chemical laden product in the house.

Don't forget the basement, garage, and storage shed. The list will reveal an unbelievable amount of toxins that we are surrounded with...breathing, touching, ingesting, living and sleeping with.

Household air pollution is discussed in more detail in the page on Air Pollution in the Home and home air filtration systems.

Navigate there to see how many common items that we use everyday are harming us and the choices we can make to protect ourselves.

Workplace toxins Pickup where the home left off

Environmental health is a major consideration in where we work; office, factory, farm, store, hospital, home office? Are you a student or teacher sitting in a classroom several hours a day? Do you drive for a living; truck, car, delivery van?

It doesn't matter all that much. No matter where we work, the environmental health of our workplace exposes us to a whole host of toxins. Many are similar to those in our homes, others are unique to whatever profession we are engaged in.

Factory workers are exposed to chemicals relative to production; farmers are exposed to some really nasty agricultural sprays and fertilizers; hospital workers have a whole different set of toxins to deal with; and it so it goes for each job and profession.

Glyconutrients The New Kid on the Block

2009-07-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

This was taken from another blogger...Healthy By Nature I have personally been on ambertose for the last 3 months. Was introduced years ago..tried and then life took over. Have been on them seriously for the last 3 months.

Glyconutrients: the New Kid on the Block

According to one Medical Doctor, Glyconutrients are the greatest breakthrough in medicine since the discovery of penicillin.

Who would ever imagine that sugar would become the next frontier in biological science? Let's coin a new word, glycology; "glyco" meaning sugar or sweet and "ology" meaning "study of".

So we have just created a new science called the study of sugar. Following that logic, "glyconutrient" would be "a sugar bestowing nutritional benefits.

Well, we haven't really coined a new science. Actually our "glycology" has been alive and well and growing rapidly for the last 38 years or so only under the names "glycobiology" and "glycomics".

The big discovery that gave impetus to this emerging science was in how certain cells of the immune system communicate and the role that certain glyconutrients play in cell structure and function.

"Glyconutrient" is the name given to the family of neutraceuticals based on the science of glycobiology. A nutraceutical is a nutritional supplement that has pharmaceutical properties.

While the supplement itself does not heal, in the sense that a medicine heals, it provides the body what it needs to heal itself and support specific organ or system function.

Dr. Bud Hawkins, a Las Vegas, Nevada nutritionist and advocate of glyconutrients, is often quoted as saying, "the body can build, defend, repair, regenerate, regulate, reproduce and heal itself if you give it the right tools".

If so, why does it seem to have such a problem in doing all those things? I believe that the answer lies in the fact that we are immersed in environmental toxins, under constant stress, take too many medications, and consume food deficient in many essential nutrients, including glyconutrients. The body is not getting "the right tools" to do the job.

And that is where glyconutrients, the miracle sugars, come in.

Let's be very clear that we are not talking about the simple, refined sugar that we put in our coffee and tea or sprinkle on our cereal. We are talking about complex sugars known as polysaccharides and oligosaccharides.

To further close in on the subject, we know there are over 200 sugars occurring naturally in nature but we are concerned with eight specific glyconutrients.

They are often called essential sugars but I believe this is up for debate since the body can make some of the sugars from other carbohydrate building blocks, at least for a short period of time; more on that to follow.

By the way, carbohydrates are another name for sugars; which means that glyconutrients can be called carbohydrates as well.

The Evolution of a new science!

Glyconutrients are a class of major nutrients that have been among the missing, AWOL, at least until 14 years ago.

Carbohydrates and especially compounds from the Aloe Vera plant had been under study at least since 1952 when a study was published detailing how fresh aloe gel heals radiation burns on rabbits but aged gel doesn't.

By 1970 glycobiology was becoming a recognized science and 500 papers on the subject had been published. By 1980 that number had grown to 1500 and by 1990, had hit 4000. That same year Oxford University in England published their Journal of Glycobiology.

By 1992 the active substance in the Aloe Vera was stabilized and it turned out to be mannose, a sugar. It took a full 40 years after the first radiation study on rabbits to find a way to give mannose a "shelf life".

In 1994 a company now called Mannatech was established for the purpose of commercializing the discoveries being made in glycobiology and in 1996 the world's first glyconutritional dietary supplement based on the Aloe Vera research was brought to the market. It was called Ambrotose.

In 1996 Dr. Robert Murray wrote the definitive chapter on Glycoproteins for Harper's Biochemistry focusing on the eight sugars necessary for cellular communication.

Photo: cells showing external glycoprotein structures

By the year 2000, over 8000 papers on glycobiology had been published.

The year 2001 was a very good year for glycobiology; Dr. Emil Mandoa published his landmark book, "Sugars That Heal"; the March 23rd issue of Science magazine featured "Carbohydrates and Glycobiology" discussing the functional and structural uses of eight critical sugars in cellular physiology...

Dr. John Axford, M.D. and past president of the Royal Society of Medicine wrote on the importance of the sugars in The Impact of Glycobiology on Medicine in Trends in Immunology, Vol 22, No. 5 May of 2001; and the NIH granted $34 million to a consortium of universities to study cell-to-cell interactions relative to glycobiology.

More important articles were published throughout 2002 and by 2003; yahoo listed over 63,000 entries for the glyconutrient, mannose, and in 2005 Google had 324,600 entries for glycobiology and glycoscience.

Sugars? Gimme Two Reasons Why I Need Sugars!

OK, as a teaser, here's two reasons why getting a daily input of glyconutients (sugars, aka carbohydrates) is vital.

First is that the 100 billion neurons in our body require an insulating cover on those nerve's axons. That insulation, called a myelin sheath, is composed of 80% fat and 20% protein.

The 80% fat is a glycolipid and galactocerebroside. Those are complex molecules of fat and sugars, joined to produce the myelin that wraps around every nerve's axon. Know what characterizes multiple sclerosis?

It's a breakdown of the myelin sheath. If we don't get enough of the glyconutrient to build the insulation, might we be setting the stage for MS?

Second is that the surface of every cell is covered with structures composed of one or more of the glyconutrient sugars combined with a protein or lipid backbone. Under a scanning electron microscope, those structures look like a forest of branching trees extending from the cell surface.

The function of those structures (glycoforms) is to identify invading organisms, mutated cells and toxins and to communicate with (signal) the immune system to come dispose of the threats. What if we don't get enough glyconutrients to build those glycoforms? Might we be setting the stage for all types of threats to go unrecognized and cause all types of disease and damage to our health?

There are many, many more reasons to have glyconutrients included in our daily diet as will be covered in the following sections.

Glyconutrients; What are they?

Why do we need them?

Looking back, the fact that an innocuous sugar from the gooey gel of a fleshy, water retaining succulent plant had health benefits was startling enough. But researchers reasoned that if there was one sugar that healed, maybe there was more.

A few more years of research and experimentation revealed that there are actually eight unique sugars that the body combines with proteins and fats to build structures (glycoproteins and glycolipids) having critical functions within the body.

These structures are commonly referred to as glycoconjugates or glycoforms.

Photo: Glycoforms on cell surface

It took quite a few years for the importance of the discovery to sink in since the traditional thinking was that sugars were used for energy production in the cell; period, end of story.

This very shortsighted view still persists today in some circles in spite of a huge body of contradictory evidence.

Consider that Dr. James Lind, a ships surgeon in the Royal Navy published his Treatise on the Scurvy in 1753 showing the relationship between a lack of fresh fruit and scurvy.

It wasn't until 43 years later that the Royal Navy accepted Lind's findings and started putting fresh limes aboard their ships. The attitude of, "by god, I know what I know and facts aren't going to change me", still infects too many people who should know better. Pure Arrogance!

The eight sugars we have been referring to and which have proven to have huge implications for how we heal and stay healthy are: Glucose (Glu), Galactose (Gal), Mannose (Man), Fucose (Fuc), Xylose (Xy), N-acetyl-glucosamine (GlcNAc), N-acetyl-galactosamine (GalNAc), N-acetyl-neuraminic acid (NANA).

Our bodies need all eight of these sugars but the problem is that only two, Glucose and Galactose, are abundant in our modern diets.

The rest are either missing or seriously deficient in our food supply for many of the reasons already discussed in the NUTRITION pages: green harvesting, depleted soil, chemical (toxic) damage to nutrients, food processing and the use of preservatives.

Photo: Eight glyconutrients: six missing

While these sugars are deemed essential, our bodies do have the ability to make the missing sugars for short periods of time and under emergency conditions. Biological manufacture of these sugars from glucose is not part of the master plan of our bodies, at least not as an ongoing activity.

Practical, Commercial Applications

The science behind a new development is always good to know but it's all pointless unless we can put that science and knowledge to some practical purpose. Is getting well, staying well and living the best quality of life possible a good enough purpose?

Since their discovery, glyconutrients and the breakthroughs in glycobiology research have been commercialized into a number of specific formulations available on the market as "dietary supplements".

Without getting into product names or brand names, the applications of glyconutrients to our personal health fall into three distinct categories.

Cell-to-Cell Communication

First is that the essential sugars derived from the early research on Aloe Vera and its essential sugar, Mannose, have been combined into powder and capsule form.

Their purpose is to provide Immune System support by maximizing inter-cellular communication.

It is the essential sugars by which cells communicate with each other. If communication breaks down, health breaks down.

Endocrine Support - Glands and Hormones

Second is that certain of the essential sugars have been combined with other natural nutrients, herbs and phytosterols to produce a supplement to support the endocrine system.

Recall that the Endocrine System is our collection of glands that produce hormones for all the regulatory functions of our body. One hormone that everyone should be familiar with is insulin...we all know what happens when the regulation of insulin goes awry.

Without hormonal regulation, we have chaos; we have disease.

Antioxidant: Free Radical Protection

Third is that the essential sugars have been combined with certain Vitamins and Phytonutrients to produce a powerful antioxidant with very high ORAC numbers. ORAC is Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity and the higher the better.

If the body can't rid itself of free radicals, it will literally "rust" away, resulting it a whole host of health issues...autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases and degenerative health issues.

Target System Support and Specific Applications

In addition to the three applications described above, glyconutrients have been incorporated into a number of supplements focused on specific issues such as Cardiovascular support, weight control, Fitness, Gastrointestinal Support, Sinus support, and several others.

Need Specific Information?

To request information on any of specific applications of commercially available glyconutrients, how to get them, and their cost, fill out the form below, hit submit and information will be provided by e-mail.

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Now let's get back to the science and current state of research in the field of glycobiology and glyconutrients.

The State of the Science

With every passing month, new discoveries are being made in glycobiology and glyconutrients.

Past and ongoing research is continually updating the available information on how the body uses plant glyconutrients to maintain proper communication, structure, protection and adhesion.

We have a failure to Communicate

It is through cellular communications that our body is able to function normally and glyconutrients play a key role. For health and proper immune response, cell-to-cell communication is needed to identify invading organisms such as bacteria, viruses and parasites.

Immune cells also need to be able to identify mutated cells in order to isolate and destroy them before that they grow into a tumor.

It is also good if immune cells can distinguish between the invading cells and self cells or those that are part of our body. Failure to communicate in this area is the source of autoimmune diseases.

The first discovery was that the essential sugars, glyconutrients, are used by the body for intercellular, or cell-to-cell communication. The first implication of proper cellular communication is in immunology.

The sugars are bound to protein "backbones" that protrude from the cell like a miniature forest.

These external cellular glycoforms have specific patterns that are recognized by other cells in the body while invading cells, or non-body cells have different sugar combinations that are not recognized by the body's own cells.

This allows the foreign cells to be tagged for elimination by the immune system. While the structure of nerve cells is different from other body cell types, receptors in the synapse (the communicating end of a nerve cell) have specific sugar "codes" that are only activated by the appropriate neurotransmitters if constructed properly.

Blood typing is another area where the sugars are vital. The only difference between blood types is the presence or absence of one of the sugar molecules.

Type "O" is changed to Type "A" by the addition of one molecule of N-acetylgalactosamine; and is changed to Type "B" by adding one galactose molecule. (See diagram below)

Try mixing up blood types in a transfusion for example and the body will quickly know it is not getting the right blood. The results can be life threatening, possibly fatal.

Glyconutrients also have a key role in the proper functioning of insulin receptors, antibody binding with pathogens (bacteria, viruses, allergens, and anything else that doesn't belong), and even the joining of a sperm cell and ovum in reproduction depends on the presence of the sugars.

I Need Structure!

Glycoforms are critical in the building of many body structures. Connective tissue needs various glyconutrient building blocks to bind connective structure to bone as well as slow the spread of pathogens.

Many people supplement with chondroitin and glucosamine for good joint health, both of which are polysaccharide glyconutrient structures.

Glutathione is an antioxidant used by the body to combat free radicals that can damage healthy tissue. Glutathione is utilized more effectively in the presence of certain sugars.

Another vital function is the transport of protein and a saccharide component of the transport proteins binds the package and determines its destination.

Will you Protect Me?

Glyconutrients have a crucial role to play in keeping invading organisms out of the body. Cell membrane sugars can block viruses and bacteria from binding to and penetrating the cell.

In addition they are used in the circulatory system where they also bind to pathogens thus preventing penetration.

If located on the outer cell surface, glyconutrients can act as a barrier, protecting the cell from the environment.

For example, they can block the adhesion of toxins and foreign invaders while allowing nutrients and harmless molecules to bind and absorb in the mucosal lining of the GI tract.

Adhesion: Let's Stick Together.

To expand on adhesion, there is direct linkage between glyconutrients and platelet aggregation or clotting and restoring stability of tissue.

One saccharide structure called heparin is important in halting the clotting cascade. Clotting is necessary to stem bleeding but a deficiency in heparin can lead to hypercoagulation, blocking vessels and leading to stroke or heart attack.

The Direction of Research

Most current research is clinical in nature. The objective is to discover the inner workings of glyconurients in specific disease pathologies in normal function of the body's systems.

The flip side is to discover what structures, or glycoconjugates, do not get assembled properly and various classes of disease result. One set of defective glycoforms are inherited and are called Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation and are responsible for yet another set of pathologies.

Deficiencies or changes in glycoconjugates are suspected in the onset of numerous diseases, some of which are the leading cause of death.

Many inflammation disorders have been linked to either deficiency of glyconutrients or sending false inflammation signals. Inflammation is closely linked to autoimmune disease.

Glyconutrients have implications for the big "c", cancer. Even a healthy human body produces many cancer cells on a daily basis which are disposed of by the immune system in the normal course of events.

Often, the immune system fails to identify the mutated cancer cells thus allowing them to begin their growth to full blown tumors. Faulty glycoconjugate construction is being investigated as a possible cause of the failure of immune cells to recognize cancer.

Many other disease conditions are being studied in conjunction with saccharide deficiencies or improperly constructed glycoforms. Such diseases include cardiovascular disease, allergies, neurological conditions, hypersensitivity and gastrointestinal tract disorders.

Since much, if not most, of the clinical research is funded by pharmaceutical companies, the focus of the studies are to find ways to synthesize glyconutrients so as to incorporate then into therapeutical drugs.

It's Spreading Faster than a California Wildfire!

Over the last few years, every university worth its salt has established a glycobiology research department. Worldwide, very deep scientific courses on glycobiology and glycomics are appearing in the curricula of most major universities. Just a few are listed below:

Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA
Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, Institute for Glycomics, Brisbane, Australia
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD
Imperial College, Division of Molecular Biosciences, London, England
John Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
Oxford University, Oxford Glycobiology Institute, Oxford, England
Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, Consortium for Functional Glycomics
University of California, San Diego, CA, Glycobiology Research and Training Center
University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Center for Medical Glycobiology, Oklahoma City, OK
University of Georgia, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, Athens, GA
University of Alberta, Bundle Research Group, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

In conjunction with the establishment of the science in universities and research institutes, Glycobiology Associations and conferences are springing up every year. A short list of glycobiology and glycomics conferences since 2003 are shown below:

Glycomics - Carbohydrates in Drug Development, May 5-6, 2003, MIT, Cambridge, MA
Glycomics and Carbohydrates in Drug Development, March 21-22, 2005, La Jolla, CA
Carbohydrates, June 19-24, 2005, Tipton School, Tipton, NH (Gordon Research Conference)
Canadian Micronutrient/Glycomics Conference, Sept. 29-30, 2006, Toronto, Canada
Neural Glycoprotein’s and Glycolipids, Dec. 1-5, 2006, Antigua, West Indies
Glycobiology, Mar. 4-9, 2007, Ventura, CA (Gordon Research Conference)
Society for Glycobiology 2007 Conference, Nov. 11-15, 2007, Boston, MA
11th Annual San Diego Glycobiology symposium, Feb. 8-9, 2008, San Diego, CA.
Society for Glycobiology, 2008 Annual Meeting, Nov. 12-15, 2008, Ft. Worth, TX

A quick internet search on "glycobiology conferences" will show that such events are already planned into the next three years.

Earlier we said that by 2000, there had been over 8000 scientific papers published on glycobiology and related subjects. The trend continues unabated with The number of research papers increasing exponentially.

A cadre of giants is emerging in the field. These are the giants upon whose shoulders future researchers will stand; names like:

Gerald Hart - biochemist at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.
Ajit Varki - Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Cellular and Molecular Medicine and co-director of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center at the University of California, San Diego.
Hudson Freeze - Program Director and professor of Glycobiology at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research at La Jolla, California.
Richard Cummings - Coordinator of Core Facility H at Emory University, Atlanta, GA; part of the Consortium for Functional Glycomics (CFG).
Carolyn Bertozzi - Bertozzi Research Group, University of California, Berkeley.
Jeffery Esko - Professor, Cellular & Molecular Medicine / Medicine Tumor Growth, Invasion & Metastasis Program, Moore's Cancer Center, University of California, San Diego.

...and many others.

Dr. Gerald Hart is well known for his quote in the NewScientist article "Sugar Rush" (vol 176 issue 2366, 26 Oct. 2002, p.34) as, "We won't understand immunology, neurology, developmental biology or disease until we get a handle on glycobiology".

Drs. Ajit Varki, Richard Cummings, Jeffrey Esko, Hudson Freeze, Gerald Hart and Jamey Marth co-edited the Essentials of Glycobiology, the first work of its kind, providing an ideal entry into the field.

It's a massive work with numerous contributors and a most comprehensive table of contents. You can order your very own copy by clicking the link below.

Essentials of Glycobiology

In addition to the reference book shown above, included below is a search box for Abe Books. Select "Keyword" and enter "Glycobiology", then click "Search" and see the scope of books available on this incredible emerging techology.

It really has the power and potential of turning traditional medicine upside down.

What was the question again?

We have not completely answered the question as to why there are glyconutrient deficiencies. Which in turn result in there not being enough glycoconjugates to do the job or improper construction of some glycoforms.

Research has shown that every cell of the body needs these eight glyconutrient saccharides in order to function properly but the problem stems from our food supply and modern diet that is extremely lacking in six of these particular glyconutrients.

The deficieny of glyconutrients in our commercially grown food stem primarily from depleted soil, early (green) harvesting, food processing and preservatives.

Earlier, we alluded to the fact that the body can produce the missing glyconutrient saccharides from glucose using a backup system. The problem is that the process requires a very long chain of enzymatic reactions and needs a lot of energy to drive the process.

Mounting evidence suggests that breakdowns in the process are the cause of many disease conditions. If such a breakdown occurs, and dietary glyconutrients are not available, deficiencies will occur.

Vitamin deficiencies, stress, illness and aging are common causes of the breakdown in the enzymatic chain of events needed to produce the sugars needed to make the glycoforms.

The bottom line of all this is that we cannot get all the essential glyconutrients we need from our food and we cannot rely on our body's backup system to make them for us.

The easiest and most logical solution is supplementation with a blend of the essential glyconutrient sugars on a daily basis.

autoimmunity

2009-07-21T08:10:00.001-07:00

They say that your immune system is weaker when you have an autoimmune disease, this has not been my experience. So they ( the so called experts) have something wrong at least in my case.

It makes me mad to read what I read on-line about disease and how there is no cure for anything..you have to suffer. But yet when I talk to some doctors they all say "off the record-we know differently"...what is actually happening? WHY aren't people given a choice? does it really come down to MONEY...I guess it does ( hangs her head and frowns).

Well I can do the best I can do today for me and my family. Stay focused Amy don't get off track.

Stage 7: Fungation

2009-07-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

Stage 7: Fungation
When the internal conditions have deteriorated to the extent that normal
aerobic, oxidative processes are no longer possible, the cells can revert to a
more primordial means of surviving. Biochemical and morphological changes from
the depositing of endogenous and exogenous toxins bring about degenerations and
death at the cellular level. The cells can carry on their life processes by
anaerobic processes, the same processes that many bacteria use. When the cells
have changed in form and function to this extent, this is when an oncologist
will tell you that you have cancer.

Stage 6: Induration

2009-07-20T11:27:00.001-07:00

Stage 6: Induration
Induration means a hardening or scarring of tissues. Induration is the result of
long-standing, chronic inflammation with bouts of acute inflammation
interspersed. The chronic inflammation causes an impairment or sluggishness of
circulation, and as some cells succumb, they are replaced with scar tissue. This
is the way we lose good, normal-functioning cells-by chronic inflammation and
death of cells.

We also see low oxygen in the cells coming from induration in the blood vessels
as they are glycosolated. Atherosclerosis is a form of induration. With low or
no circulation, toxic buildup, and low oxygen we have the conditions for the
seventh stage of disease: fungation, or cancer.

It's Not Easy

2009-07-20T11:15:00.000-07:00

I am finding that it is not easy to go this health road alone. I have some support on-line but it has been very difficult making changes on my own. Tomorrow brings me to another day of "repositioning" and "rethinking" my direction on the health front. I BEGIN again.

100% RAW food...I feel I must do the 100% because of the addictive behavior with COOKED FOOD. I can be off of it..and I can have one portion and even one bite of cooked food and my body is craving it again. Not fun or funny. It's as if my self control gets taken away. I went through this same thing when I was breaking my addictive cycle with FAST FOOD...I got off of it and then by tempting of a friend I ate some Taco Bell and all of a sudden I was craving it and couldn't think of anything else until I ate some more of it. It's insane but it's what has happened to me.

So much of our culture is based on food and alcohol. I am not a drinker either..but most of our social situations are around food and drink. Not healthy food and drink mind you. I want more restaurants where you get fresh fruit locally grown smoothies and raw food dishes. :-)

I'm looking for local support. But so far..nothing.

~Amy~

Why Dis-ease?

2009-07-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

I think we manifest illness and dis-ease because our spirits are trying to get our attention. We each have a "mission" on this planet in this lifetime. In my opinion. It is our spirits job to guide us, but it can't do that if it can't get our attention. Since we are physical bodies in a physical world we manifest physical illnesses in that physical body. But it's only a side track to what we're really here for. So to explore WHY we are sick, I think we need to look at the metaphysical side of the illness. Also embrace the BODY, MIND and SPIRIT aspects of each individual person.

What is YOUR mission? and does your dis-ease keep you from fulfilling it? Mine is keeping me from fulfilling mine, but I feel a shift in the next few weeks. A huge shift. The INPUT of information I've had in the last 4 weeks has been phenomenal and I'm almost ready to implement all that I have learned. It's an exciting time to say the least. I feel the shift already occurring.

My MISSION is to teach.

~Amy~

Stage 5: Ulceration

2009-06-15T09:23:00.000-07:00

An ulcer can be viewed as a consequence of body degeneration. Ulceration can occur with any body tiisue, but the usual connotation of ulcers has to do with the skin. Tissues are distroyed. the body ulcerated, forming an outlet for the poisonous buildup. The toxic sufferer experiences a multiplication and worsening of symptoms while the pain intensifies.

Modern medical practice is usually to continue drugging, and often commence with surgery and other forms of treatment at this stage. Remember, diabetic foot complications are the most common cause of nontrauma-based lower extremity amputations in the industrialized world. Neuropathy, a major etiologic component of most diabetic ulcerations, is present in more than 82 percent of diabetic patients with foot wounds. The incidence og gangrene is twenty times higher as compared to nondiabetics, and the risk of lower extremity amputation is fifteen to forty-six times higher in diabetics than in people who do not have diabetes mellitus.

Stage 4: Inflammation

2009-06-15T09:14:00.001-07:00

The enervated body is now suffering the results of toxemia. The cells have initially become irritated. The next step of cellular changes and body degeneration is inflammation. The inflammation process produces the common "-itis". With skin it is dermatitis. In the throat it may be tonsillitis and, further on, esophagitis. In the stomach we find gastritis. In the small intestine, ileitis. In the colon, colitis. The heart may have carditis. With the liver it is hepatitis. You can have an inflammation ( an-itis) anywhere in the body.

The medical community has named many of the 20,000 distinctly different diseases. Allopathic practice tends to name the disease after the site where the toxins have accumulated and precipitated their symptoms. Once the set of symptoms is named, doctors usually prescribe pharmaceuticals at Stage 4, which do not remove the underlying causes that we are now familiar with. With diabetes and its complications, we see this stage of disease in the heart, kidneys, pancreas, liver, and nervous system. By allowing the accumulation of toxemia to advance, the body will continue to decline in energy and vitality. Further cellular changes will be found. Left unchecked and unheeded, the next stage of disease is ulceration.

Stage 3: Irritation

2009-06-14T08:22:00.000-07:00

The body becomes irritated by the toxic buildup in the blood, lymph, and tissues, and the interstitial space between the cells begins to resemble a toxic waste dump. The cells and tissues where buildup occurs are irritated by the toxic nature of the waste, resulting in inflammation. The waste products interfere with the proper oxygenation and feeding of the cells as well as causing the accumulation of excess water in the tissues. Pain signals coming from the tissues have at least three causes: lack of oxygen, lack of nutrition ( cellular food), and pressure. The cells, subjected to the lack of oxygen, the lack of food, and the increased pressure from the retained water, begin to send out pain signals. The cells are hence irritated. The conventional answer is either to ignore the pain and discomfort, or to take a "pain" pill, adding more to the toxic burden as the sufferer continues living in the same manner. The toxic sufferer can feel exhausted, queasy, irritable, itchy, even irrational and hostile. This leads to the next stage of disease and body degeneration, inflammation.

Stage 2: Toxemia

2009-06-13T06:50:00.000-07:00

The stagnation of Stage 1 leads to the buildup of toxins in the body, and these substances begin to saturate the blood, lymph, and cells. Stage 2 is typified by sluggish energy, and in the case of diabetes, we already have cells that are developing the preconditions for being insensitive to the signaling of insulin due to their toxic state. John Tilden writes in the chapter "Toxemia" in Herbert Shelton's The History of Natural Hygeine:

"The toxin theory of the healing art is grounded on the truth that toxemia is the basic source of all diseases. So sure and certain is this truth that I do not hesitate to say that it is by far the most satisfactory theory that has been advanced in all the history of medicine. It is a scientific system that covers the whole field of cause and effect-a system that synthesizes with all knowledge, hence a true philosophy.

When this truth first began to force itself upon me, years ago, I was not sure but that there was something wrong with my reasoning. I saw that it would bring me very largely in opposition to every established medical treatment. I held back, and argued with myself....I fought to suppress giving open utterance to a belief that would, in all probability, cause me to be hissed at-subject me to the jeers and gibes of the better class of people, both lay and professional.

Little by little I have proved the truth of my theory. I have tried it out daily for the past twenty years. I myself have personally stood the brunt of my experimenting, and have willingly suffered because of it. Every day this trying-out of the theory has convinced me more and more that toxemia is the universal cause of disease.

As has been stated continuously in my writings for the past dozen years, the habits of overeating, overclothing, and excesses of all kinds use up nerve energy. When the nerve supply is not equal to the demands of the body, organic functioning in impaired, resulting in the retention of waste products. This produces toxemia."

Common sources of toxemia include various exogenous and endogenous toxins, which will now be recognizable as the diabetogenic pre-conditions for diabetes.

Endogenous toxins include:
*Metabolic waste, ongoing, toxic byproducts on the cellular level
*Spent debris from cellular activity
*Dead cells
*Emotional and mental distress and excess
*Physical fatigue, distress, and excess

Exogenous toxins include:
*Unnatural food and drink
*Natural foods deranged by cooking, refining and preserving
*Improper food combinations that result in endogenous toxins
*Medical, pharmaceutical, herbal, and supplemental drugging
*Tobacco, alcohol, and all forms of recreational drugging
*Environmental, commercial, and industrial pollutants
*Impure air and water

The Seven Stages of Disease are...

2009-06-13T06:33:00.000-07:00

I can't seem to keep up with this blog. It's been two months, but I'm back.
This is taken from the book by Gabriel Cousins; There is a Cure For Diabetes

Stage 1: Enervation
Enervation is the reduction of nerve energy, by which the body's normal maintenance and elimination functions are impaired, especially in terms of the elimination of endogenous and exogenous toxins, those created from within ( through normal metabolic processes) and from without ( in modern times including the 65,000 human-made toxins in our environment, and the excitotoxins, food additives, and toxins created by the cooking and processing of food). A person who is enervated is generally inactive, living in a toxic environment and consuming toxins that are not being released from the body in a timely manner.

Enervation is also created by stress, which uses up the vital energy in the body that would be applied to maintenance and elimination. Constipation occurs in the bowel, lymph, and tissues of the body. This is the diabetogenic diet and lifestyle we have been illistrating through out this book.

The Seven Stages of Disease

2009-04-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

Taken from Dr. Gabriel Cousins book There Is A Cure For Diabetes( Why do I post something from a diabetes book on a site for thyroid? because itis all connected. When you begin to correct what's going wrong, you healeverything. You can't heal selectively and my thinking is if there is a way toCURE diabetes then there is a way to CURE anything else too!) :-)The Seven Stages of Disease, formulated by Dr. John Tilden more than 100 yearsago, gives another perspective in how to understand the degenerative process ofdiabetes and how to reverse the process. "Health is what you consistently do,"and the same can be said of ill health. Disease is an acquired state that isearned over the years with identifiable stages that lead to the manifestation ofsymptoms, and even death, if we are not prudent enough to reverse the diseaseprocess and go backward through the seven stages. Even an acute viral-basedType-1 onset requires a disturbed terrain that allowed a weakened immune statethat produced susceptability to a viral infection, resulting in insulinitis anda rapid onset of Type-1 diabetes. Diabetes is a disease process with stagesthat we can progressively degenerate along, advancing the disease condition andcreating complications-or we can reverse the disease process. It depends onwhether we are aware of what is required to live a healthy life. HerbertShelton called this understanding the laws of life. If you understand andfollow these laws you'll be healthy. If you break them you will get sick. Thisis the meaning of Crimes Against Wisdom.Shelton wrote:The laws of life are not something imposed upon the organization of man. Theyare imbedded in the very structure of our being, in our tissues, our nerve andmuscle cells, our bloodstream, into the total organism...Since these laws arefundamental parts of us, we cannot run away from the laws of being withoutrunning away from ourselves.IN the Tree of Life program we teach what these natural ways are, and empoweryou to love by them. Let's look now at the Seven Stages of Disease.To be continued...In the weeks to come we will look at these 7 stages.I'd like to see active discussion on these. :-)Eat well, live well, be well.~Amy~

What I'm Taking the next 3 months

2009-04-14T09:03:00.000-07:00

I have taken most of this the last 3 weeks. Have seen improvement in energy, hair growth, focusing my mind, and less pain in my back from the car accident on a daily basis...not gone by any means but less. Will get new blood work done after 3 months and re-group.

Supplements Amy is taking as of April 14th, 2009(will take for three months)
**Armour 120 mg a day (for hypothyroid)
**Super Ionic (Omica Health) 60 drops a day (Supercharged Concentrated Fulvic Acid over 70 ocean and plant derived ionic trace minerals
**Adrena~Pan-C 12 tabs a day ( adrenal support)
**B-12 sublingual 2000 MCG x2 ( Solaray)
**2-Iodoral w/ Omega-3 ( Purity Products-Omega-3, CoQ10 and plant sterols with Vit. D3)
**2-Iron Complex ( Integrative Therapeutics, Inc.) w/ Vita-C 2000 mg, sustained release ( Shaklee brand)
**Vita-E (Shaklee) 2 soft gels 400 i.u.
**B-Complex (Shaklee) 6 a day for stress
**Tumeric (Solaray) 6 a day for inflammation
**Selenium (Nature’s Way) 3 caps for mercury detox ( 4 mercury fillings in my mouth)
**Ambertose (Mannatech) 8 scoops a day for cellular communication
**Candida Support-2 tabs 2x’s a day (get from Dr. Rose)
**MonaVie 3-2oz. shots a day
**Hydrate II in water to open cellular walls for communication
**Bio-Active Homeopathic:
NADH Plus 3 sprays a day, hold in mouth 2 min.
Pituitary Forte 3 sprays a day, hold in mouth 2 min.
Thyrotox 7 drops 3 x’s a day
Lymph III 10 drops 3 x’s a day
Oligo Bio Iodine 7 drops 3 x’s a day
Lapachoplex 10 drops 3 x’s a day
Bio Aspen 10 drops 3 x’s a day
Diathesis I Manganese 10 drops 3 x’s a day
Bio Active Botanical: Karzan
NEW CHAPTER: Stress Support Multi: 3 tabs a day
Holy Basil 2 gel caps (uplifting, calm, balance)

2 Green smoothies a day- mixed greens (always changing this up from day to day), 1 organic apple( everything but the stem), organic frozen banana, ¼ organic lemon ( peel and seeds), flax oil or ground up seeds, David Wolfe’s Sun is Shinning and Vita Mineral Earth. This includes Spirulina and Chlorella
1 SUPER SMOOTHIE: all David Wolfe’s food…cacoa powder, coconut oil, gogi berries, cacoa nibs, cacoa butter, flax oil or seeds, red maca.

AT NIGHT BEFORE BED:
Melatonin 6 MG.
Bio Active Dios Crème: Natural Progesterone and Pregnenolone:2 x’s a day..at night and first thing in the morning~~ 0 the week of my period, ¼ tsp the 2nd and 3rd weeks, ½ tsp the 4th week.
Herb Lax-6
Pro-Biotic Pre-Biotic Shaklee brand for food allergies and or leaky gut syndrome
Liq. Cal/Mag Floradix brand…2 tablespoons before bed

2009-04-13T13:08:00.000-07:00

Wow it's been over ayear since I posted here.

Today finds me with a "mess" to heal from as I had a car accident Sept of last year and it has presented me with some issues. Whiplash, lost all my hair now, it's 7 months since the accident, my first ever MRI and some new thoughts from DOCTORS who know nothing about HEALING. Oh I do get tired of all the "dumb" PROFESSIONALS on the planet when it comes to health and wellness.

I have a board in yahoo where I am on a journey to heal my body, as i was when i started this blog, however life has presented me with some NEW information and I'm using that new information...it's called RAW FOOD...

One day I'll post what I'm doing now.

until then,
eat well, live well, be well
~Amy~
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/healingthebody

I have a New Board in Yahoo

2008-01-25T10:54:00.000-08:00

I like intereaction...so I have set up a new board in yahoo and anyone is welcome to join.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/totalhealth2008
and it is based on the premise that the food we can either harm us and eventually kill us or it can re-establish the balance in the physical body.

Please join me on this journey.
~Amy~

Root Causes

2008-01-23T09:00:00.001-08:00

I'm thinking the root cause is more than just one thing.
It's a synergistic thing that happens in the body.

There is definitely a body, mind, spirit connection in us as human beings.

I'm running short on time here this morning.
I will be back to post more soon.

Be well...
~Amy~

Thursday Jan. 17, 2008

2008-01-17T06:47:00.000-08:00

Took my mercury test last week.
Got the results back this morning in my e-mail.
Have run the gammet (sp?) of emotions.
Trying to decide what the next step is.

They would like the levels to be less than 4 and mine is 7.5.
So I am in the "elevated" range but not all the way to VERY ELEVATED..so that is good news.

Now what to do?
Do I have my fillings removbed and do a detox.
OR keep my fillings and do a couple detoxes a year?
What does a "detox" involve?

I've learned that through heavy metal mercury poisoning it shuts down your immune response, thus leading to all kinds of health issues.
That's why the EXTREMLY HIGH LEVELS OF ANTIOXIDANTS in MonaVie are helping me to heal. They are allowing my body to begin the detox process naturally. By flooding my system with the juice my body is now handling the free radicals that the mercury causes. Now to what degree and in what percentages I have no idea.

I DO know however I am feeling better. I don't give any one thing ALL the credit because I am doing a lot of changes. More suppliments, MonaVie, exercise, more water, change in diet, no fastfood, etc. SO...

The overall goal yet is to get off the ARMOUR and heal my thyroid and be UNDIAGNOSED from Hashimoto's :-)

I have NO doubt in my mind what-so-ever that MERCURY is playing and has played a role in my over all health picture.

I am back with my naturopath here in Webster Groves...she had not gotten my e-mails from the front office and then mis-placed the ones before Christmas...so she gave me to personal e-mail and so now we're back on track...I trust! :-)

Take care and be well...
Next week I am going to post what EXACTLY I'm doing at the gym.

~Amy~

MonaVie on Rachael Ray

2008-01-12T06:35:00.000-08:00

Ok here's the skinny.
Yesterday during her show Rachael Ray held up a bottle of MonaVie the same juice I'm taking to heal my body.
IF you're interested in finding out more and getting it shipped to your door please visit my site at:
www.TheGreatProduct.com/CarpeDiemFreedom
as I am a distributor of this awesome product.

But it can't work if you don't drink it!

To your health and everyone you know!
~Amy~

Thurs. Jan. 10, 2008..Health Update

2008-01-10T19:45:00.000-08:00

Wow it's been quite a week, and we're not done yet.
I spoke of the MonaVie juice I started taking a few weeks ago.
I am now on 6 shots a day and am seeing wonderful results.
This is THE highest antioxidant food on the planet right now.
Just unbelievable science. And it seems once I teach people what it actually does in your body they want everyone they know on it. So I have been VERY BUSY.

Anyway I took my heavy metal mercury test yesterday.
I was "stressing" out a little bit about it, because on the paper that comes with the kit ( you can get one at Mercout.com) it asks if you are allergic to sulfa drugs. I have not been one to take much of anything, medicine wise, in my entire life, so I had no idea if I was allergic to sulfa drugs or not. I was worrying about having a reaction to it. But I was fine.

I mailed the test yesterday, it goes to a lab in IL right close to me, and it will take about a week for them to process the information. The results go to Dr. Doolie and I will get a copy in my e-mail box which I will send on to Dr. Lou ( Naturopath in Florida)

I have been working out at the gym now for a week. My 19 year old body building son is training both me and my daughter ( his sister).( I actually have 3 boys that are bodybuilders). All 7 of us are at the gym at about 3:00 each day.
I train with weights Mon. Tues. ( Wed. is an off day, I just do cardio this day) Thurs. and Fri. Saturday and Sunday i don't work out with weights but walk for my hour in the morning ( as I am doing every day now) and I try and get outside in the sunshine to just sit still for a few :-)

I can say in the last week my diet has been about 75% changed. I have not eaten any fastfood but one meal in that entire week...yeah me...but watch out for withdrawl if you are doing this same thing..EMOTIONAL WITHDRAWL..I keep my journal close at hand...and sometimes I'm crying for 15 minutes just about nothing...crying is one way the body detoxes :-) so it's all good.

I have had PEPSI still and starting tomorrow, that will stop along with the fast food. So i think I am doing very well.

It can only get better from here.

How do I feel??
I am feeling really good the last 4 days.
I think the combination of the suppliments( I will get the list up here in the next few days),MonaVie juice, diet change, exercise and water is helping to change my cellular chemistry.

I will be getting more blood work done as soon as I find a doctor to do them..I am not going back to my naturopath here in Webster Groves ( Missouri)..she just is not very good at communication...and that is one of the most important things about being in a patient/doctor relationship. So don't be afraid to find someone you really like! :-)

I am sleeping well.
My communication about how I am feeling coul dbe better.
Dealing with a fastfood addiction is a lot like dealing with any other addiction. I have to learn how to express my feelings instead of running and eating them. It's slowly coming around. I tell myself when i walk each morning..I CAN do this. I can do this. I can DO this. I can do THIS. I CAN DO THIS! I need to be a bit more specific for the universal energy to jump in and be able to support me. Affirmations have to be specific in order to work.

I'm off to bed.

Be well...
~Amy~

Mon. Jan. 7th, 2008

2008-01-07T04:57:00.000-08:00

I started working out at the gym last week.
I also started walking last week.

I walked for an hour on Thursday ( ay 5:00a.m. at 9 degrees)
I walked for an hour on Friday.
This weekend was really busy for my husband and I so I didn't get my walking in either Sat. or Sun. but that changes today as my priorities have to change if I want to get healthy. Walking everyday is a must and a top priority.

I walked this monring 5:45-6:45 a.m.

Last week on Thursday my second oldest son began training me and his sister :-) OMG we were sore on Saturday morning.

As I get my routine down I will continue blogging.

What the morning looks like is this.
Get up, take my 2 shots of MonaVie
www.TheGreatProduct.com/CarpeDiemFreedom
then walk for an hour.
Come in take my amour and eat breakfast, take suppliments ( those details will be added later)
BLOG

See ya later.
~Amy~

Botanicalmedicine.org

2008-01-02T12:33:00.000-08:00

I have ordered the following lectures from this site:
Phytochemicals for Elimination of Environmental Toxins Part 1
Phytochemicals for Elimination of Environmental Toxins Part 2
Phytoestrogens, Estrogens and Xenoestrogens
CD-Environmental Causes of Thyroid Dysfunction
CD-Human-Sourced Environmental Thyroid Hazards
Botanical Intervention for Hyperreactive Immune Systems
Immunomodulators of Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia
2006 Southwest Conference sessions 1, 3 and 6
CD-Herbal Approaches to Autoimmune Disease
Herbs for Autoimmune Disease Part 1 and 2
Latest Updates Autoimmune Disease
Herbal Therapies for Autoimmune Disease: Lupus, MS, RA and Scleroderma

I'll be back with more information on all of these when they arrive...they say about 2 weeks.
Stay Tuned...
~Amy~

Wed. Jan 2, 2008

2008-01-02T09:54:00.000-08:00

A new year and a new attitude about my health. That's what it will require to heal this body, mind and spirit back to wellness.

The current issue ( Nov. 2007) of Breakthroughs in Health, magazine is all about Ayurvedic Medicine. As I am reading more and more on this, as I want to totally bring my body back into balance, I believe it is something one must embrace to bring the body back from dis-ease ( of any kind).

Ayurvedic Medicine
( this is a quote from the Editor in Chief of Breakthroughs)
"Tracing its roots back thousands of years in India, Ayurveda embraces the entire person, not just a "one size fits all" solution. Ayurveda treats not just the physical body, but includes the mental, emotional and spiritual components of healing. If something helps heal us, Ayurveda says all the better. To accomplish this, it incorporates other healing systems, including traditional Western medicine, homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic, massage therapy and acupuncture. Remember, it wasn't so long ago the medical establishment shunned and berated the ancient healing art of acupuncture until it had to accept that it can have benefits. It's the same thing with Ayurveda."

I am looking into sites where I can get "this medicine"...I'll let you know what I find out.

be well...
~Amy~

Three Magazines A MUST for the New Year

2007-12-30T07:17:00.000-08:00

As I was sitting and waiting for my Chiropractor on Friday I picked up a magazine Vegetarian Times...VERY GOOD with lots of good recipes for health and wellness. I will be doing som eof them in the Cafe when we open.

That is my first pick on healthy magazines to change your life, make you healthier and change your attitude!

#2 is a must as well...Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine ( A Peer-Reviewed Journal)

#3 gotta have it too! Breakthroughs in Health

Anyone that is interested in healing their bodies have to have these three magazines in the New Year...

The more I read the more I am convinced that my thyroid issue is most certainly a "symptom" of something bigger...my lifestyle and diet!!

Food is thy medicine and medicine is thy food.

I am seeing more clearly as to why i created this in my life as well.
The Cafe has got to be a place where people can EAT healthy.
We just don't have the choices in our society..and it is sad...to get FRESH, LOCALLY GROWN, ORGANIC food...this kind of food actually can help the body heal.

ON a National level..things need to change in this country.

So I am now on the sublingual B-12 and am feeling better. So hard to tell which "change" is causing the shift...but I feel good and have more energy today and that's what counts.

I have cut my Armour dose in half for now from 180 mg to 90..I take the whole 90 mg in the morning first thing on an empty stomach.

I will be back with more information soon.

Trust you all are enjoying the weekend.

~Amy~

Thurs. Dec. 27th, 2007

2007-12-27T17:57:00.000-08:00

Boy it has been in interesting Christmas so far.
As I'm trying to get a schedule going with regards to my health I have been having some issues.

1. My Naturopath here in St. Louis doesn't seem to want to e-mail me back about my questions, not sure what to think about that.

2. On Christmas day my body was giving me fits. I had started my period on Sunday. I have never really had cramps..usually don't know when I'm going to start, always mark it on the calendar. We all decided to go to a movie as the ham was cooking. On the way to the theater I had severe cramping. Then passed some clots after we got there and started bleeding nonstop..scared me and actually made me feel faint and light headed, thought maybe we needed to go to the ER. I sat through the movie..had to get up twice to change tampons and got scared, didn't go into panic but was worried about what the heck was going on. Roger drove home, I felt better as the bleeding slowed down. But then about 7 p.m. my heart started racing and I was not feeling very good at all. Thought once again should I go to the ER. Decided not to and took a hot bath and tried to get to sleep. Was not very successful at that, worried about what was going on with me. Sad that I'm in this "place" in my life and not healthier. Never have had issues around my period.

So what' going on? well my daughter suggested I look up the symptoms of menapause. Yep I have a lot of those. The n there is the Hashimoto's going on..the Candida and the mercury poisoning.

I received my mercury test in the mail yesterday, have not yet opened it to see what i need to do.

I went to WHOLEFOODS and got a sunlingual B-12 for under my tongue. No more shots. I just can't do the shot thing. I have asked my Naturopath how much to take, she has not responded. I am happy about finding this alternative.

Tomorrow I begin on a regimine ( sp?) of suppliments and I begin the "start" of the lifestyle changes.

I looked on-line for a Candida diet and found one at a site called Womentowomen.com go there and check them out..GREAT site in my opinion.

I asked Dr. Lou if i could share all that he has shared with me and he said YES..it belongs to the Universe. :-)
So if anyone needs the information, just contact me and I will forward on ALL that I have.

I read most of the 90 page document on Cayenne Pepper and how it heals the body...I am faxing a message to get the catalog sent to me and I will also order some of his tinctures.

Also another site that looks very good, but costs soem money to join is hormonediva.com
Run by Dr. Larrian Gillespie..author of You're Not Crazy, It's Your Hormones.

Well i think my hormones are going to make me crazy or poor if I end up going to the ER :-( too many times.

So I will be posting what I am taking and how much and WHEN.

I also asked my Naturopath if she thought it was a good idea to cut my dosage in half of armour.
Before i was seeing her I was on 120 mg on even days and 90 mg on odd days. She changed that to 180 mg on all days. I've had a headache for 4 straight weeks and the tremor thing. I wonder as well if the "period bleeding" is from being on TOO much armour.????

Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't just be better to get off all the ARMOUR and start over..healing and balancing...not worrying about the thyroid stuff...I have two people in my life who have done just that. After years of trying to regulate the damn stuff they just decided to slowly wean themselves off of it and change their diet and lifestyle. Both are fine and on no meds currently.

The heart palpitations WORRY me but as I researched the menapause stuff it's part of that as well! SHIT! Sometimes it's easier to just scream and pull your hair out instead of trying to figure all this crap out :-(

I trust you all are well.

I go see my Chiropractor tomorrow..yeah..always feel better after seeing Dr. David :-)

Be well...
Mitakuye Oyasin~All My Relations

Thurs. Dec. 20, 2007

2007-12-20T09:07:00.000-08:00

I feel new hair growth all over my head!
My fingers are sore but i think that is due to typing!

I am gearing up for the lifestyle change needed to heal my body.
I was going to start today but I need to go through my house and get rid of all the bad stuff...and fill it with good stuff. I will do that this weekend.

I did walk this morning.

I am determined to heal my body, no matter what it takes.

~Amy~

Wed. Dec. 19, 2007

2007-12-19T10:58:00.001-08:00

Couldn't sleep very well last night. Which is very unlike me...but my youngest was up, said he had a nightmare about "I Am Legend" the movie we saw last weekend. I thin he and I were "awake" about the same time, maybe I was just picking up on his "plight". I think I took my adrenal suppliment too late in the evening too...that seems to happen..I wake in the night when I take it too late at night...I'm suppose to be taking it in the a.m. and at noon. My heart was racing last night and I just couldn't quiet my brain. I worry too much I suppose about things I have no control over...I don't feel like I'm in control of my health at the moment. I'm working on changing that.

Roger is out of town for the week, I miss him when he's gone.

Suicide is something I think about from time to time...not that I'd ever really go through with it but the thought of not being in anymore "discomfort" or having to worry about whether my heart will stop on one of these episodes, where will it all end up? I don't know...just seems like this life, this time, has been a huge struggle...when does it get easy??

I don't stay in that "space" for too long, I'm a very positive, happy person most of the time. But I am always and forever asking questions...:-) it's me.

No diet change yet...I'm just gonna have to DO IT as NIKE says...and jump off that cliff and not look back...it's WHAT I NEED to do...why so hard? why the resistance??
When I'm ready I'll be posting here most days on what I'm eating, and NOT eating...the first two things are soda and fast food...must go..both of them, IF I want to be healthy again.

Be well....

Mercury Poisoning

2007-12-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

I sent away for my heavy metal mercury test this morning.
www.mercout.com is the website address
I will report back when I receive the test and what it entails to take the test.
Please go to the website to have any questions answered.
I have no doubt that I have one of my fillings "leaking"..I have 4 mercury fillings...not happy about that but what am I to do?
I will check with "doc" to see if removing those fillings is a good idea.

I read years ago when i was first diagnosed that a mercury poisoning coul dbe the CAUSE of a thyroid disorder...I'm going to find out what's going on in my body.

I'm feeling pretty good, still have that high jittery feeling..think I'm on too much ARMOUR but won't get blood tests done yet until after the first of the year ( I think)..will be testing for Celiacs Disease, Pernicious Anemia and Diabetes too..oh joy!

I have not changed my diet yet. That is the last line to be crossed and I'm resistant..even though I KNOW I have to make HUGE changes there...starting off small may work better for me...I'm an admitted fast food addict...and people seem to laugh when I say that but it is TRUE..and NOT FUNNY! I've used "running" away from my house and eatting fast food as a way to NOT FEEL. I've known this for a good many years...am I ready to make the changes??

YES!

Be well...
~Amy~

Saturday and there is SNOW!

2007-12-15T08:22:00.001-08:00

Wow we actually did get snow, sometimes you just can't tell with the weathermen/women...but I know they try their best.

We're about ready to head into town before the next wave hits. We have 3 4x4 vehicles..boys went to the gym..both had to drive,....well it IS fun to drive in the snow I suppose lol

I am feeling pretty good this morning. I have this "tremor" thing...but I think it may be due to being on too much armour...so hard to balance that out since our bodies are always changing.

I felt myself yesterday getting very sad about my state of health and wondering if I will be able to bring it back to where I want it...can I do all the things that Dr. Lou suggests. I certainly don't want to suffer in my last days on this planet and I know if I keep doing what I'm doing and just "cope" with my state of health instead of improving it I WILL indeed end up suffering in the last years of my life here.

I've always tried to look on the bright side and be happy about life no matter what..counting the little things that make me smile and the big rewards in this lifetime. I am still doing that and even more grateful for this product called MonaVie...as I learn more about the industry of health and about my own body...MonaVie is truely a super food . I told my kids the other day that they can be grateful that there is a product like this on the market right now and it has been brought into our lives..no where else does something like this exist.

I have an e-mail into Dr. Lou about the juice and Candida...can we still drink the juice while trying to battle this candida problem? I'll let ya know when I find out.

WHO knows WHY so many things exist...in that WHY am I sick? WHAT makes the body break down...we do KNOW a lot in this arena really though...we know that phytonutrients and phytosterols and plant sugars and antioxidants are VERY GOOD for most people and we are told to eat 3-5 servings of fruit a day...how many people do that? statistics say only 17%..but here's the other things there....you don't get what you use to get from the food we eat...in the 1950's you could eat 2 peaches to get your USRDA recommended allowance of Vit D. Today you have to eat 53 peaches to get the same amount of Vit D...MonaVie has met the public with a product that we NEED..we can't NOT drink this juice...I'm grateful I have it..and you can get it too: just go to this website www.TheGreatProduct.com/CarpeDiemFreedom and if it sounds like I'm trying to get you on the juice I AM! :-) I am 43 and have tried other companies, there is not a company or a product that compares to this one. Multiple Streams of Income people...remember that!

I own 4 businesses...
Carpe Diem Moving Systems LLC ( move corporate households all lower 48 states, we own three trucks and hubby drives one of those trucks)

Coyote Bones Cafe and Enchanted Wine Garden ( set to open in May 2008)

Mystical Doorways ( Master Spiritual Life Coach in just a few short weeks!)

Carpe Diem Freedom ( MonaVie)

I also have a Shaklee business and a Mannatech business..these two companies have GREAT products...that WORK...but I don't have time to talk people into their health. With MonaVie people already know they need their fruits and they know they aren't eating enough of them...it's a juice and has an awesome taste...easy to take and the benefits are far reaching.

Ok time to head into town.
I welcome your e-mails and conversations( keep them coming)...keep spreading the word around people...if you feed the body what it needs to heal IT WILL! It is NOT easy to make the changes, but it's your health and ANY change no matter how small is better than NO CHANGE at all :-)

Be well...
~Amy~

Fwd: Sol and adrenal issue and the CAUSE of disease

2007-12-13T18:35:00.001-08:00

--- In Thyroiditis@yahoogroups.com, "Amelia"
<lakotasiouxgrizzly2006@...> wrote:

Was just reading posts...and in all the stuff I'm reading I think
there are a great number of doctors who only see disease as a symptom
of a bigger issue. Get at the bigger issue and you can solve the
problem. They don't look at all the diseases as "diseases" persay,
they just see them as symptoms. Wonder if this is what the person on
your adrenal board was saying.

What I keep finding over and over and over again is that the ROOT
problem for degenerative diseases and autoimmune disorders etc. is
the food supply in this country and other "developed" countries. Yes
they have disease in the under developed countries but not these
diseases that are DIET related. People in the under developed
countries die from viruses and bacteria not disease you get from
malnutrition!!

So if we take a look at two key issues ( which I am personally
looking at myself)...those two key issues that involve the food
supply in the United States...
we use to be hunters and gatherers...we use to grow our own food and
eat our own food right after being picked.
What is true in the United States today is actually now that I'm
thinking about it 3 fold...

1. We grow our food on "industrialized" farms...meaning the only
thing they add to the soil are chemicals to make it grow quicker and
without BUGS. You can go to the US Government Agricultural site and
do the research on what is put in the soil. It has been known for a
very long time that there is no ZINC left IN the soil in the US. I
think I learned that in High School in 1982. So what are we REALLY
growing??? and then eating??

2. We pick and harvest the fruits and vegetables BEFORE they have a
chance to rippen. This robs the plant of the very process that gives
us the nutrients we need to build health cells and stay alive because
these nutrients we need, develop in the final stages of growing. They
are lost.

3. As soon as you pick a vegetable or fruit it begins the dieing
process and as it is dieing it is losing it's nutrients ( if it had
any to begin with) at a fast rate. This also is NOT big news...we
have known this for years.

So if we know this to be true of our food supply, how do we expect to
be healthy from eating it day in and day out? Why ARE so many people
sick with degenerative diseases and autoimmune diseases??
HOW do we eat for health?

Well the first thing I'm doing is getting help from someone who has
worked with people who have been in stage 4 cancer..he's not lost a
patient yet so I tend to trust his advice. Today I got an 11 page
document of the things I need to do in my kitchen and the list of
ingredients that cause cancer, that seem to be is almost everything
in this country! This makes me very angry! He also told me that I
need to be walking an hour every day...that walking increases your
immune response by 30%!!! I use to walk, every day, no matter
what..and I really felt good then. Also that I need to be at my DNA
weight, which the weight I was at 16 years old. That was 110 pounds,
so i have 80 pounds to lose.

I am buying a greenhouse on-line and setting it up on my property. I
am buying organic and from the Local Harvest store in St. Louis..this
is a local farmers market who sells food grown right here in this
area. I feel like I don't have "many" choices which is sad when you
think about where we live...freedom of choice? in the US?? mmm let's
see...McDonalds healthy, raw, fresh locally grown food? NOPE!
AppleBee's? healthy, raw, fresh locally grown food? NOPE! Ahhh one
of my kids favorite rest. DQ? healthy, raw, fresh locally grown food?
NOPE! Tell me where that freedom of choice is again?? Ahh you say
the grocery store?? do they have raw. locally grown food in there??
no they don't...unless they have a special program in place..which
some do..I am GRATEFUL that i DO have the freedom of choice to buy a
greenhouse and put it up on my property and I am grateful that i have
a LOCAL Harvest store within an hour of my house.

What are YOU willing to do to be healthy??

I raise these questions because the answer to LIFE is not reactionary
medicine ( waiting until someone is diseased and then react to that
disease and basically cover the symptoms) An aspirin doesn't get rid
of your headache, it gets rid of the sensation of pain, you still
have your headache, you just don't know it!!. Now before you jump on
me, I am not saying that whatever you feel is best for you to do for
your own personal health and that of your family is "wrong". We are
all individuals and we have got to be able to make those decisions
about our own health for ourselves. I certainly don't want a
government being in charge of my health...but in a way this
governement, IS already..how many fast food restaurants are in your
town?? Where are the restaurants that feed us raw, organic, healthy
cell building food??? ( I intend to have this kind of good, healthy,
cell building food in my Cafe when we open in may 2008!)
Where is the support, financially for the ORGANIC farmers who are
willing to grow the food that can feed us on a cellular level?? Did
you know that it takes 8 years to certify a field to be organic?
That means it must lay dormant for 8 years before you can grow food
on it and call it organic. WHAT?? Can't we develop a program where
the organic farmer can use that land and have the food labled,
something like, "going organic"..meaning it's not all the way there
but we're working on it? One has to ask the question..why is it so
difficult in this country to get good wholesome food??? It costs
less per square acre to grow organic than commercial. Can anyone say
the word MONSANTO??? who makes the chemicals that are spread on the
fields year after year after year?? MONSANTO. Who is buying up all
the SEED in the WORLD so that they have the only seed left???
MONSANTO....did you know that organic homesteaders HIDE their seed so
that no one knows what they have?? you can go to the organic
homesteading board right here in yahoo and talk to those people.

My auto-immune diagnosis has spawned me into action on so many
different levels. And I am angry at this country for standing by and
allowing dis-ease to be the NORM...and no longer the exception. Do
you realize we are entering a time where our children are dieing
before their parents?? This has never happened before. We have to
wake up and figure out what's going on.

Be well...
~Amy~
http://bodymindspirit-amy.blogspot.com/

--- End forwarded message ---

Thursday December 13, 2007

2007-12-13T11:46:00.000-08:00

Received my 4th B-12 shot.
Heard back from Dr. Lou.
Have the site to order the mercury tests.
I am having all 7 of my family members tested,
The website is:
www.mercout.com
I am upping my juice to 1/3 of a bottle a day ( one MonaVie bottle will then last me 3 days ;-)

How am I feeling:
I certainly have MORE energy..and I have noticed, since being on the juice , I am hummming MORE!!!!! What a funny thing that is lol. I am sleeping DEEPER and more sound and am finding I wake in the morning with a spring in my step. Been on the juice for 3 weeks now, but I am also doing other things, other suppliments and changing lifestyle. My heart "dropping"( my heart skips a beat, doesn't race, except on occassion) is LESS SEVERE..I still have "some" ( maybe 5-8 a day) heart "drops" a day but today and yesterday they were less severe ( hard to explain in print word).
I am noticing my skin is less dry.

Dr. Lou also sent me a "Whole Foods and Other Good Stuff to Help You Look Good, Feel Great and Prevent Illness" list ( 11 pages), due to the fact that I tested positive for the Candida test, so did my husband, my daughter and my youngest son. My third son is negative. My two oldest sons come back from college today and will be taking the test in the morning. Very simple test. So I guess I am getting ready to become very educated on what is in my house and what I am pitching and replacing. He made a point to tell me NOT to send my food ( that I am pitching) to the homeless as they already have enough health issues to deal with. I belive this to be true.

Can it be true that malnutrition and degenerative diseases and auto-immune diseases are LINKED??
If most of what we eat has no nutrition and we eat it year after year after year...YES it would make sense that malnurishment is the cause for many of the dis-eses and illnesses in the world. WOW...I'm feeling smarter by the minute. I think the glyconutrients, and the phyonutrients and the phytosterols are doing something as well to my brain :-) :-) Well of course they are!!!

Be well everyone.
~Amy~

December 12, 2007 Finding Some New Information

2007-12-12T08:18:00.000-08:00

I am still researching and looking into WHY my thyroid gland is not healthy.

One of the things I mentioned I was doing was taking this juice called MonaVie.
It is made from 19 different fruits and so I may have to forgo taking it due to a candida problem ( it is high in fruit sugars, and sugars feed the yeast) , but will check with Dr. Lou ( another Naturopathic Doctor I found in addition to my first one Cindy, a team approach is what works best for me).

I found Dr. Niles on-line in the MonaVie Conference call archives. he has over 33 years in the wellness field.

Below I will include what I asked him and then his response back to me.
You can go to his site and get the downloads he sent to me.
http://www.naturehealsitsown.com/

You can go to my webiste for MonaVie at www.TheGreatProduct.com/CarpeDiemFreedom

The mental stress has lessoned as I have found someone of "like mind". I was raised to know that the body, if given the right foods, can heal itself.

I basically asked him about going into HYPER thyroid from HYPO thyroid while on this MonaVie juice, since it is loaded with antioxidants, phytonutrients, phytosterols and GLYCONUTRIENTS ( which I know is directly related to CELL COMMUNICATION).
I told him I was diagnosed recently with the auto immune dis-ease. While consuming glyconutrients your cell communication will improve thus your body begins to do the things it "should" have been doing, like getting rid of the "yuk", and talking to the other cells about what needs to be happening inside the body. The American diet only contains 2 of the required 8 glyconutrients ( sugars) and these are good sugars not the bad sugars ( do your research). So if I'm eating the normal American diet, my communication between cells is approx. 30%..that leaves 70% unaccounted for or 70% that is NOT taking place at all. So....is your mind thinking??
What kind of cell communicatio is going on in your body? If you are dis-eased or sick your communication is not at it's optimal level. We moved away from being hunters and gatherers for our food. The food today is grown in nutrient depleated soils and is harvested way before it is RIPE. Doing this robs Mother Nature of the process that gives the food the glyconutrients/healthy sugars! So even if you are eating "healthy"...you may be not getting what you think you should be getting in that organic apple.

Eat organic over all else( I've known this for years but seem to manage the old excuses pretty well for NOT eating that way...no more excuses here!)...according to Dr. Lou you get 30% ( I think) more nutrients by eating organic only because the organic farmers are fortifying their dirt with natural nutrient rich substances AND eat as LOCAL as possible...these food items if grown locally have a better chance of containing SOME glyconutrients because they are harvested RIPE and brought to market as soon as they are picked. Better yet...make a garden of your own EVERY season, EAT IN YOUR GARDEN ( as soon as you pick a fruit or vegetable it begins to die and so do all the nutrients inside). And get a greenhouse , even a small one is better than NOTHING, so you can be eating year round the foods your body needs to remain healthy and vibrant and balanced.

His response was this:
"Amy, Ok, what your issue is is inflammation of the total body, not just your thyroid--and the cause needs to be traced. Doing an allergy panel is a good start. You may have candida. Most likely you have a heavy metal issue ( mercury) lurking in your fat tissue--if you want to be tested for that I can help. So, review the attachments. MonaVie is going to provide you a good source of anti-inflammatories, but you have a more complex issue--your overall diet needs some adjustment. Don't worry about hypo-hyper issue, you need to make some big lifestyle changes first. Review the papers and we will talk again. You also need to be at your DNA weight--your weight at age 16. And you need to be active--atleast 10,000 total steps a day and a one hour stroll daily."

The documents he sent me were:
*Reverse Candida Infections and Build Up Your Immune System
*Natural Approach To Prevent and Reverse All Degenerative Yissue Illnesses
*Article 1: Natural Cellular Defense
*Curing With Cayenne

I have written Dr. Cindy here in St. Louis about a heavy metal test and the allergy panel.
As of right now I have not heard back from her.
I took the saliva test that Dr. Lou suggests doing( in the Reverse Candida document)...and I am POSITIVE for Candida ( not a big surprise to me at all.)

I'll be back with a list of books to research if you're interested in glyconutrients and really it's SUGARS...I think the term glyconutrients has been a catch word for advertising. And let's face it people, everyone is out to make a fast buck..so do your research on ANY products you are taking, whether from an MD or a Naturopath or your local health food store or Wal-Mart...in the end YOU are responsible for YOUR health. Not the government, not the city ( who may have not told you what was in the water coming out of your tap), not your parents ( who may have had "bad" genes)...the natural body can heal itself if given the right foods.

Be well...and enjoy this day...right now.
~Amy~

Thursday Nov. 29th

2007-11-29T10:24:00.000-08:00

Ok here is what i am taking/doing...most of it anyway.

Adrenal Suppliment:
Metagenics/Adrenogen Nutritional Support for Adrenal Function ( 2x's a day, a.m and noon)
I have stayed strict to this since she prescribed it for me 4 weeks ago.

Armour Thyroid 180 mg each day
I take a 90 mg pill at about 7 a.m.
and a 90 mg pill at about 7 p.m.
This I changed on the 19th of Nov. 2007 as the blood work came back.

Blue Green Algae
Dee Cee Laboratories, Inc.
Klamath Lake Oregon...500 mg.
I take 2 pills ( whenever during the day, usually in the morning, 1000 mg.)
Started yesterday Nov. 28, 2007

GI-Zyme
Supports Digestive Absorption
Digestive Enzyme
Mannatech Wellness Managment
1 cap a day usually in the morning
Started Nov. 23, 2007

Vitalizer Packs
Shaklee
Based on 12 clinical studies, Vitalizer provides the best spectrum of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, anti-aging phytonutrients, omega-3 fatty acids, and probiotocs.
Each pack contains:
6 pills...I take one of these a day.
I have been on these consistently since I saw the naturopath approx. 4 weeks ago.

MonaVie:
The best juice ever. I am taking 1/4 a bottle every day.
I'll have more on this in another blog.
The company is new ( 2005) out of Salt Lake City.
The juice has many fruits including the Acai berry from Brazil...that has the highest antioxidant level of any berry available on the planet.
Started on this consistently yesterday, Nov. 28, 2007

Meditation each day.
I set an intention each morning, bring in the 7 directions ( North, South, East, West, Above, Below, and Within). When feeling stressed I quiet my mind and just sit in silence ( this is the best stress reducer I know of!) Done most of my life..have to keep coming back to it...life gets busy but have to keep returning to what feels right.

Journaling: I'm a writer and a journaler and no they are not the same thing :-) I write each day as well as journal.

Exercise: Today I am heading back to the gym for 2 miles on the tredmill and some light weight training/lifting. Our whole family works out after the kids are out of school( 5 days a week), from about 3:30-5:00 p.m. ( Our two older boys are at MIZZOU and are bodybuilders, they work out with us when they are home.) I want to get back on my bike but may wait for that until Spring and warmer weather.

Another blog will contain changes I am already experiencing.

Be well...
~Amy~

The Beginning

2007-11-28T18:51:00.000-08:00

I was diagnosed with hypothyroid disease almost 10 years ago ( the exact time doesn't matter to me).

I've "settled" for not feeling my best for quite a few years.

3 weeks ago I decided to try a new doctor and a fresh approach. I switched from my MD to a Naturopathic Doctor.

I saw her approx. 4 weeks ago and she took my history and asked me some questions.
She put me on an adrenal suppliment. She said once a person "presents" with a thyroid disorder they have probably been suffering from adrenal exhaustion for 5-10 years previously.
I am to take the suppliment once in the morning and once at noon.

She also put me on a 1300 calorie diet, which I have yet to "nail down". No more fast food, or processed food. I have yet to be successful at this. My highest weight was 260 pounds in 2005. Today I am 200 pounds and my personal goal is to be at my goal weight of 130 by my birthday next year which is July 25th.

She took three test tubes of blood.

I received the lab results in the mail about 1 week later.
I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Disease. With an antibody level of over 3000 ( normal range is 0-44).
My B-12 levels were "low". They recommended 8 B-12 shots, one each week for the next 8 weeks. Today I had my second shot. So 2 down and 6 to go.
She increased my Armour to 180 mg every day ( previous to that I was on 120 mg on even days and 90 mg on odd days).

I decided to change doctors because I was not feeling well. My intuition was telling me that something else was wrong with my body. I had started a rigerous exercise routine, of biking in the morning with a friend for 12 miles and then in the gym on a treadmill in the afternoons for 2 miles, and light weight lifting, 5 days a week. I was exhausted. Something just didn't make sense.

So last Monday ( Nov. 19th, 2007) I began the new dose of Armour. I felt horrible that day and the next. The heart "dropping" was the worst it had ever been. My heart was dropping beats. By 1:00 p.m. I was exhausted. I had stopped the rigerous exercise routine until I got the results back from the blood tests, etc. I begin again at the gym tomorrow. Starting out slower this time.

Today, yesterday and the day before that I have had little to no heart "dropping" issues.
I attribute this to the increase in Armour, and the increase in glyconutrients.

I will be back later to write out all that I am taking, suppliment wise, and what I have since found out about a new product a friend introduced me to.

This blog is about MY journey with an auto immune dis-ease and how I am dealing with and healing from Hashimoto's Dis-ease...body, mind and spirit.