Natural Communities Magazine A magazine devoted to the local natural wellness culture.

A group of nine FDA scientists has sent letters to top politicians, accusing agency managers of intimidating and coercing scientists into changing or suppressing scientific data. In October, the scientists sent a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In early January, they sent another to then-president-elect Barack Obama.

The medical device review process, in particular, has been “corrupted and distorted by current FDA managers, thereby placing the American people at risk,” the letter to Obama reads.

For example, the FDA continues to approve the use of certain mammography computer-aided detection devices for breast cancer screening, over repeated objections from agency doctors and scientists that there is no clinical evidence that the devices work as advertised.

According to the scientists, FDA employees are regularly pressured to conform to their managers’ agendas for medical devices, and are discouraged from raising safety concerns that management does not want to hear. The most recent letter alleges that employees who fail to follow the party line are often threatened with disciplinary action.

“There is an atmosphere at FDA in which the honest employee fears the dishonest employee,” the second letter says.

The letter writers say that although they have complained directly to FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach and Assistant Commissioner for Accountability and Integrity Bill McConagha, many of the most delinquent managers have since been promoted or otherwise rewarded. No one has been disciplined.

The nine scientists have called for a fundamental restructuring of the process for evaluating and approving medical devices, and for increased protection for government whistleblowers.

The FDA has come under increasing criticism in recent years, with both Democrats and Republicans accusing it of suppressing its scientists’ safety data in order to approve products for the benefit of industry. Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have written to von Eschenbach, saying that the scientists’ letter provided “compelling evidence of serious wrongdoing.”

Source:  http://www.naturaln…

Children as young as two years old notice what foods their parents are bringing into the house and tend to mimic those food choices, according to a study conducted by researchers from Dartmouth Medical School and published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

“The data suggest that children begin to assimilate and mimic their parents’ food choices at a very young age, even before they are able to fully appreciate the implications of these choices,” the researchers wrote.

Researchers had 120 children between the ages of two and six take part in a grocery store shopping game, where they were asked to pick anything they wanted from 133 food items including fruits, vegetables, bread, milk, candy, potato chips, soda, desserts and sugary or whole grain cereals. Meanwhile, the children’s parents filled out questionnaires about how often they purchased each of the foods and whether their children accompanied them on shopping trips.

The researchers found that children’s food choices were similar to those reflected by the parental questionnaire. The healthier a parent’s shopping choices, the healthier the child’s.

Most parents reported that they took their children along while grocery shopping.

“Nutrition interventions for children most often begin with school-aged children,” the researchers wrote. “This study suggests that preschool children are already forming food preferences and are attentive to food choices made by their parents.”

The researchers suggested that parents might view a trip to the store as an educational experience, where children can learn to emphasize healthier foods over junk food and snacks.

The study refutes the assumption that children are inherently predisposed to prefer sweet, high-fat and salty snacks over healthier food. The majority of children in the study selected an even mix of healthy and unhealthy foods, while 35 (nearly 30 percent) chose significantly more healthy than unhealthy foods.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.co…..

Eggs are one of the healthiest foods you can eat, and it’s a shame they’ve been vilified for so long in the United States. As a result, egg consumption has been going down for the last 40 years, all because of concerns about cholesterol.

But the idea that eggs are unhealthy is a complete myth, one that’s easily debunked if you look at the evidence.

In this latest study, researchers identified several different peptides in eggs that act as potent ACE inhibitors, which are drugs used to lower high blood pressure. This means they may actually lower your risk of heart disease, not raise it as health officials like to say they do.

One particularly skewed belief is that eggs are bad for your heart; however, eating eggs on a daily basis may prove to hold numerous health benefits, especially a decreased risk of heart disease.

Why Eggs Won’t Harm Your Heart

There is a major misconception that you must avoid foods like eggs and saturated fat to protect your heart. While it’s true that fats from animal sources contain cholesterol, this is not necessarily something that will harm you.

Cholesterol is in every cell in your body, where it helps to produce cell membranes, hormones, vitamin D and bile acids that help you to digest fat. Cholesterol also helps in the formation of memories and is vital for your neurological function.

As Ron Rosedale, MD, who is widely considered to be the leading anti-aging doctor in the United States, says:

“First and foremost cholesterol is a vital component of every cell membrane on Earth. In other words, there is no life on Earth that can live without cholesterol. That will automatically tell you that, in of itself, it cannot be evil. In fact it is one of our best friends.

We would not be here without it. No wonder lowering cholesterol too much increases one’s risk of dying. Cholesterol also is a precursor to all of the steroid hormones. You cannot make estrogen, testosterone, cortisone, and a host of other vital hormones without cholesterol.”

In other words, cholesterol is your friend, not your enemy.

And anyway, numerous studies have supported the finding that eggs have virtually nothing to do with raising your cholesterol. For instance, research published in the International Journal of Cardiology showed that, in healthy adults, eating eggs every day did not produce:

• A negative effect on endothelial function, an aggregate measure of cardiac risk
• An increase in cholesterol levels

So how did the notion that eating eggs will raise your cholesterol, and in turn raise your risk of heart disease, come about in the first place?

The Misguided Lipid Hypothesis … and its Role in Demonizing the Egg

This misguided principle is based on the “lipid hypothesis” — developed in the 1950s by nutrition pioneer Ancel Keys — that linked dietary fat to coronary heart disease.

The nutrition community of that time completely accepted the hypothesis, and encouraged the public to cut out butter, red meat, animal fats, eggs, dairy and other “artery clogging” fats from their diets — a radical change at that time.

What you may not know is that when Keys published his analysis that claimed to prove the link between dietary fats and coronary heart disease, he selectively analyzed information from only six countries to prove his correlation, rather than comparing all the data available at the time — from 22 countries.

As a result of this “cherry-picked” data, government health organizations began bombarding the public with advice that has contributed to many of the disease epidemics going on today: eat a low-fat diet.

Not surprisingly, numerous studies have actually shown that Keys’ theory was wrong and foods like eggs are healthy, including this study from Sally Fallon and Mary Enig’s classic article The Skinny on Fats.

• A survey of South Carolina adults found no correlation of blood cholesterol levels with “bad” dietary habits, such as use of red meat, animal fats, fried foods, butter, eggs, whole milk, bacon, sausage and cheese.

Sadly, as Americans cut out nutritious animal foods like eggs from their diets, they were left hungry. So they began eating more processed grains, more vegetable oils, and more high-fructose corn syrup, all of which are nutritional disasters.

It is this latter type of diet that will actually lead to increased inflammation, and therefore cholesterol, in your body. So don’t let anyone scare you away from eggs (and other animal foods) anymore.

But Wait … The Type of Egg DOES Matter

Eggs are an incredible source of high-quality nutrients that many of us are deficient in — especially high-quality protein and fat. And it is my strong belief that they are a nearly ideal fuel source for most of us.

One caveat: Please choose the higher quality free-range organic varieties. An egg is considered organic if the chicken was only fed organic food, which means it will not have accumulated high levels of pesticides from the grains (mostly GM corn) fed to typical chickens.

Organic eggs are also far less likely to be contaminated with salmonella.

Are Omega-3 Eggs Any Better?

As for eggs advertised as having omega-3 fat added, this may not be as good as the manufacturers are leading you to believe. If they are using flaxseed to increase the omega-3 fats in the eggs, it won’t be as beneficial as if they fed the chickens seaweed or kelp, which have the far more beneficial DHA and EPA, as opposed to ALA in flax.

Also, typically the chickens are fed poor-quality sources of omega-3 fats that are already oxidized. Additionally, omega-3 eggs are far more perishable than non-omega-3 eggs so they don’t stay fresh nearly as long.

If possible, I recommend purchasing your eggs from the farmer directly, as this way you can be certain of the quality. If you cannot find a farmer to sell you eggs directly, then organic eggs from the store would be your next best option.

To find free-range pasture farms you can try asking at your local health food store or visit:

• www.eatwild.com
• www.localharvest.com

When you get your eggs home, store them on the counter instead of in the refrigerator, as this will help protect the nutrients. Although this is regarded as a “strange” practice in the United States, eggs are always stored at room temperature in Europe or South America.

The Absolute BEST Way to Eat Your Eggs Is …

Raw, hands down.  I know that many of you, especially women, will find this particularly difficult to accept. This is primarily because of the slimy texture but if you whip them up in a shake you won’t even know they are there.

Raw eggs are better because cooking them will damage the valuable nutrients like lutein and zeaxanthin, bioflavanoids present in egg yolk that are incredibly important for your vision.

Heating the egg protein also changes its chemical shape, and the distortion can easily lead to allergies.

Further, when an egg is overcooked, such as when it is scrambled, the cholesterol in it becomes oxidized, or rancid, and oxidized cholesterol can increase your levels of inflammation and lead to numerous health problems.

So if you want to get the maximum health benefits that eggs have to offer, choose organic varieties and eat them raw. The next best would be soft-boiled and then sunny-side up, with the yolk still very runny.

If you are worried about getting salmonella from eating raw eggs, as many people initially are, please read my past article on the topic — Raw Eggs for Your Health — to address your concerns. The risk is actually very, very small.

Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar…

Some say that if farmers don’t want problems from Monsanto, they simply shouldn’t buy Monsanto’s GMO seeds. But it isn’t quite that simple. Monsanto contaminates the fields, trespasses onto the land taking samples, and then sues, saying they own the crop.

Meanwhile, Monsanto is taking many other steps to keep farmers and everyone else from having any access at all to buying, collecting, and saving of normal seeds:

1. They’ve bought up the seed companies across the Midwest.
2. They’ve written Monsanto seed laws and gotten legislators to put them through, that make cleaning, collecting and storing of seeds so onerous in terms of fees and paperwork that having normal seed becomes almost impossible.
3. Monsanto is pushing laws that ensure farmers and citizens can’t block the planting of GMO crops even if they can contaminate other crops.
4. There are Monsanto regulations buried in the FDA rules that make a farmer’s seed cleaning equipment illegal because it’s now considered a “source of seed contamination.”

Monsanto has sued more than 1,500 farmers whose fields had simply been contaminated by GM crops.

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

There is a reason why I believe Monsanto to be one of the most evil companies on the planet, and this is in large part due to its activities relating to controlling food production through controlling the seeds to produce it.

For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. But in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court allowed for seed patents in a five-to-four decision, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world’s food supply.

Since the 1980s, Monsanto has become the world leader in genetic modification of seeds and has won at least 674 biotechnology patents, more than any other company.

This is not surprising, considering they invest over $2 million a day on research and development!

But Monsanto is not only patenting their own GMO seeds. They have also succeeded in slapping patents on a huge number of crop seeds, patenting life forms for the first time — again without a vote of the people or Congress. By doing this, Monsanto becomes sole owner of the very seeds necessary to support the world’s food supply … an incredibly powerful position that no for-profit company should ever hold.

How do they defend this blatant attempt to control the food supply? They write on MonsantoToday.com:

“Patent protection allows companies to see a return on their investment which enables further investment in R-and-D and product development. This profit-investment cycle drives product innovation that is responsive to farmer needs.”

Farmers’ needs?

Farmers who buy Monsanto’s GM seeds are required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seeds or sell them to other farmers. The result? Farmers must buy new seeds every year, and they must buy them from Monsanto.

Meanwhile, these same farmers who Monsanto is claiming to help are being aggressively targeted and pursued for outrageous patent infringements on these same seeds.

The “Seed Police”

Monsanto employs an arsenal of private investigators and agents who secretly videotape farmers, snatch crop samples from their land and even fly helicopters overhead to spy — all to catch farmers saving or sharing seeds.

As of 2005 Monsanto had 75 employees and a $10-million budget solely to investigate and prosecute farmers for patent infringement.

And until recently, Monsanto has even been known to sue farmers for GM crops growing on their land that got there via cross-contamination. In other words, a neighboring farm’s GM seeds blew over onto their land, and Monsanto slaps them with a lawsuit.

I realize this seems incredible, but it is true.

Have You Heard of Terminator Seeds?

Creating and promoting GM crops is, in my opinion, a major threat to public health. Patenting those same seeds takes it to an even higher level of evil. But there is another reason why I don’t believe for one second that Monsanto has the virtuous intentions they claim: terminator seeds.

Monsanto is considering using what’s known as terminator technology on a wide-scale basis. These are seeds that have been genetically modified to “self-destruct.” In other words, the seeds (and the forthcoming crops) are sterile, which means farmers must buy them again each year.

This solves their problem of needing “seed police,” but they are obviously looking the other way when it comes to the implications that terminator seeds could have on the world’s food supply: the traits from genetically engineered crops can get passed on to other crops, and often do.

Once the terminator seeds are released into a region, the trait of seed sterility could be passed to other non-genetically-engineered crops, making most or all of the seeds in the region sterile.

Not only would this mean that every farm in the world could come to rely on Monsanto for their seed supply, but if the GM traits spread it could destroy agriculture as we now know it.

How Can You Get Through to Monsanto?

First, I urge you to get informed on the issue by watching The Future of Food. This in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind genetically modified foods is one of the best documentaries I have ever viewed. It will help you understand the very real threat that ALL future generations face as a result of genetic engineering.

Next, hit Monsanto where it counts … their bottom line. By boycotting all GM foods and instead supporting organic (and local) farmers who do not use Monsanto’s GM seeds, you are using your wallet to make your opinions known.

This means abstaining from virtually all processed food products (most are loaded with GM ingredients) and sticking to fresh, locally grown, organic foodstuffs instead.

The True Food Shopping Guide is a great tool for helping you determine which brands and products contain GMO ingredients. It lists 20 different food categories that include everything from baby food to chocolate.

I’ve also compiled an excellent list of resources where you can still find pure, GM-free foods, and I encourage you to refer to it often and also share it with your friends and family.

Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sit…..

Marketing departments like to invent terms that sound good but mean anything — non-enforceable claims don’t result in lawsuits. Here’s an overview of what labels on the meat you buy actually mean:

All Natural: This means meat that is minimally processed with no artificial or synthetic products. It is not regulated, however, so anyone can put it on their package. It is a claim with no clout.

Cool (Country of Origin Labeling):  A USDA regulated label stating where meat was raised, slaughtered, and processed.

Grass Fed: A USDA regulated label meaning, very narrowly, that that animals ate grass. According to the USDA definition, “grass-fed” animals can also be fed grain, and can be raised on grass in confinement, as long as they have access to pasture — although “access” can be, and often is, nothing more than a facility with a door to a small outdoor area.

Free Range: This means only that the animal has some access to the outdoors. There is no regulation for use of this term, except in the case of chickens raised for consumption. “Pasture-raised” is a more meaningful term.

Organic: This label is USDA and third-party certified. It means that livestock wasn’t treated with hormones or antibiotics and was fed a pesticide-free diet.

Vegetarian Fed: This refers only to an animal’s diet and does not guarantee the animal was pastured or raised humanely.

Air Chilled: This refers to the treatment of living animals. Producers and retailers may also make claims about how the animal is handled between slaughter and purchase. Meat may be wet or dry-aged, frozen, and packaged in various ways.

Humanely Raised/Certified Humane: Many ranches now choose to undergo an audit by third parties such as Animal Welfare Association and Humane Farmed to highlight their extra care. This type of label states that no practices such as overcrowding, castrating, early weaning, or denying animals access to pasture used.

Biodynamic: This pre-organic standard treats the whole ranching operation as an interrelated whole. While some meats are technically organic, a biodynamic farm assures the meat also came from a healthy, self-sustaining system.

Local: Producers who take part in this affidavit program state in writing that the animals were raised within 20 miles. This label is not certified or confirmed by a third party.

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

The numerous labels that do little but confuse consumers about the essentials of what they’re buying are aggravating to say the least.

Fortunately, it is possible to find what you’re looking for. I’d like to expand on the “grass-fed” label mentioned above, and point out your very best option when it comes to buying wholesome grass-fed beef and other meats.

The USDA Grass-Fed Label

As of November 15, 2007, the USDA enacted new standards for the grass-fed label. According to this new USDA marketing claim standard:

Grass and forage shall be the feed source consumed for the lifetime of the ruminant animal, with the exception of milk consumed prior to weaning.

The diet shall be derived solely from forage consisting of grass (annual and perennial), forbs (e.g., legumes, Brassica), browse, or cereal grain crops in the vegetative (pre-grain) state.

Animals cannot be fed grain or grain byproducts and must have continuous access to pasture during the growing season.

Hay, haylage, baleage, silage, crop residue without grain, and other roughage sources may also be included as acceptable feed sources.

Routine mineral and vitamin supplementation may also be included in the feeding regimen. If incidental supplementation occurs due to inadvertent exposure to non-forage feedstuffs or to ensure the animal’s well being at all times during adverse environmental or physical conditions, the producer must fully document (e.g., receipts, ingredients, and tear tags) the supplementation that occurs including the amount, the frequency, and the supplements provided.

Sounds good! In order to carry the “grass-fed” label, the animal must have foraged on nothing but grass for its entire lifetime.

But there’s a twist, and a few other issues you may not have thought of.

These standards are voluntary, so in order for you to determine whether or not this standard is actually being met, in addition to the “grass-fed” label, the meat you buy would also need to carry the “USDA Process Verified” label.

There’s another slight problem with this standard. As pointed out by the American Grassfed Association, the definition of “growing season” means that animals could be confined for long periods, and can be kept off of pasture even when there is grass growing.

The new rules also do not restrict the use of antibiotics and hormones in the animals.

So although it aimed higher than any standards we had before, even the USDA grass-fed labels won’t offer you all the assurances you’d expect from truly organic, grass-fed beef.

Another issue frequently overlooked is that of cost to the farmer.

The USDA regulatory system has a tendency to favor big business, which can easily afford the USDA’s costly certification fees. Small farmers, who are often raising food in traditional, healthy ways, then are not able to legally call their products “USDA grass-fed” because they haven’t paid the USDA for that privilege.

Why All the Fuss About Grass-Fed Meat?

Grass-fed beef is vastly superior to grain-fed beef, and in fact it’s the clear beef of choice you should be eating. It is far more important to choose grass-fed than to choose organic, as most grass-fed beef are also organic.

Not only is it raised in a more sustainable way for the environment, and a more humane way for the animal, but it’s the superior choice for your health.

Grass-fed beef, for instance, is lower in fat than regular beef and, more importantly, contains higher amounts of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a fatty acid. Grass-fed animals have from three to five times more CLA than grain-fed animals.

CLA has been making headlines for its extreme health benefits, which include:

• Fighting cancer and diabetes
• Helping you lose weight
• Increasing your metabolic rate, a positive benefit for promoting normal thyroid function
• Helping you maintain normal cholesterol and triglyceride levels
• Enhancing your immune system

The article “Better Beef,” written by California rancher Dave Evans, gives a great in-depth view of the many benefits of grass-fed beef, from environmental sustainability to the sheer difference in taste and nutrient content of the beef.

Keep in mind that grass-fed meat is almost always preferable to certified organic meat also because most organic beef is fed organic corn, which is what causes the myriad of health problems associated with eating beef. If you can find organic, grass-fed meat, that would be ideal.

Your Best Bet When Looking for True Grass-Fed Meats

Remember, grass-fed meat doesn’t have to be “certified” grass-fed for it to give you health benefits.

Your best bet, which circumvents the labeling confusion altogether, is to get in touch with a local farmer (try finding a farmer’s market or community-supported agriculture program in your area to do this) who can verify that the products are raised on pasture, without antibiotics and pesticides.

By going straight to the source, you’re likely getting the absolute best meat there is, USDA-certified or not.

Source:  www.mercola.com

There is no good evidence supporting a harmful effect of regular exercise on normal joints, according to a review of studies.

Exercise is beneficial for weight control, management of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and improving psychological well-being. However, there is also a perception that exercise is potentially harmful to joints, in particular those of the lower extremities.

Researchers reviewed existing studies on the relationship between regular exercise and osteoarthritis (OA) and concluded that in the absence of existing joint injury there is no increased risk of OA from exercise.

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

Osteoarthritis of the knee is one of the most common causes of disability in the U.S. More than 10 million Americans suffer from knee osteoarthritis; women being more commonly affected than men.

Unfortunately, most people have little appreciation for how powerful exercise can be in preserving bone density and joint function, which can help prevent and alleviate both osteoporosis and osteoarthritis as you age.

What is Osteoarthritis?

Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disease, generally caused by wear-and-tear on your joints due to lifestyle, diet and aging. It typically occurs in older individuals, but can also be caused by repetitive stress or acute trauma, regardless of age.

Osteoarthritis usually affects your distal joints, or the joints at the end of your fingers and toes, not the middle ones. Additionally, it’s not symmetrical, so typically you may have it on just one joint and not the other. For example, you may have osteoarthritis on just one knee.

Exercise Will NOT Wear Out Your Knees!

The review published in the Journal of Anatomy provides an overview of the risk factors for the development of osteoarthritis, and the particular role and impact of physical exercise. The authors reaffirm that the notion that exercise is detrimental to your joints is a misconception, as there is no evidence to support this belief.

The only time exercise may exacerbate osteoarthritis is if you’ve suffered a prior joint injury.

Said lead researcher David Hunter MD PhD of New England Baptist Hospital:

“We found that in elite athletes where there was more likelihood of obtaining sports injuries, there was an increased risk of OA in the damaged joints, but in most people vigorous, low-impact exercise is beneficial for both its physical and mental benefits.

The largest modifiable risk factor for knee OA is body weight, such that each additional kilogram of body mass increases the compressive load over the knee by roughly 4kg”.

Instead, the evidence points to exercise having a positive impact on joint tissues — if you exercise sufficiently to lose weight, or maintain an ideal weight, you can in fact reduce your risk of developing osteoarthritis rather than increase your risk. Not to mention the numerous other health benefits you gain from exercise. Other studies have shown that regular exercise can help:

Reduce diabetes by reducing insulin resistance
Promote weight loss without dieting
Reduce effects of aging
Cut cholesterol levels in men with type 1 diabetes
Reduce ovarian cancer risk
Prevent impotence

It’s simply a myth that you can ‘wear down’ your knees just from average levels of exercise and/or normal activity.

Is it Safe to Run?

You may know I started running in 1968 and have run about 1,000 miles a year since that time. I’ve logged in more than 40,000 miles of running in my lifetime.  One would think that if running damaged the knees I might have knee pain, but that has never been an issue for me.

My bias has always leaned toward running, which I do to this day, and as some scientists have discovered, the human body was most likely designed for endurance running.   Over the last few years I have a far more balanced program and only run about 750 miles per year. I have replaced some of the running with anaerobic workouts, plyometrics, core and strength training, and tennis. The variety of exercises has allowed me to be the fittest I have ever been in my life.

However, despite my experience, and the scientific literature, many experts still advise against running as a form of exercise, stating it may be too rough on your knees and can accelerate osteoarthritis. However, research findings contradict this popular belief as well.

A recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, for example, found no evidence of accelerated rates of osteoarthritis among middle- to older-age long-distance runners.

As an additional plus, weight-bearing exercise like running can also help stave off osteoporosis (weakening of your bones) — which is another extremely common problem among the elderly — by maintaining bone mineral density.

“I Already Have Osteoarthritis… What Can I Do?”

If you’ve already developed osteoarthritis in your knee, you’ll want to incorporate exercises that strengthen the quadriceps muscle at the front of your thigh. And, rather than running, you may be better off with non-weight-bearing exercises like swimming and bicycling.

Jump-starting an exercise program can be frustrating at any age or fitness level, especially if you already have a health condition such as osteoarthritis. However, it will benefit you greatly to make the effort to implement a regular fitness regimen, no matter where you are currently.

If you don’t know where to begin, I have plenty of free tools on my Web site to help you get started. My beginners’ exercise page includes plenty of tips and guidelines, as well as links to other helpful information.

Treatment Options for Osteoarthritis

Since osteoarthritis can be a very painful condition, pain relief is usually on the top of the list. Typically, anti-inflammatory approaches such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) and analgesics, like Tylenol, are used for this purpose.

However, while these can be effective pain relievers, it’s very important to understand that the regular, chronic use of these types of medications are associated with significant, and very serious, side effects such as kidney and/or liver damage. In the U.S. overuse of analgesics such as these are very common sources of kidney failure.

NSAIDs also kill some 30,000 people every year due to bleeding ulcers, and the oral drugs have been linked to a host of problems, including heart failure — Vioxx and Celebrex being prime examples of these very real dangers. This is not to say that they are not useful agents in some cases, however you need to use them very cautiously.

This is also why it’s so vital that you seek out the underlying cause of your problem and treat it “at the root,” so you do not need to pursue these types of medications. This is most effectively done by addressing your diet and exercise habits.

Here are my top natural approaches for treating osteoarthritis:

• Get plenty of omega-3 fats by taking a high-quality krill oil. Omega-3s are an essential component that your body needs to reduce inflammation.
• Implement a regular exercise program.
• Eat a healthier diet based on the principles of nutritional typing. Your unique biochemistry and genetics influence the ratio of fat, protein and carbohydrates your body needs to thrive, so eating for your nutritional type will ensure that you get the optimal macronutrient ratio out of your diet.
• Rely on safer anti-inflammatory alternatives for pain relief, such as:

o Glucosamine
o Boswellia
o Acupuncture

Source: www.mercola.com

While American consumers are running scared over the possibility of tainted peanut butter, it’s worth pointing out that the number of people sickened by salmonella (529 at last count) is absolutely dwarfed by the number of people harmed or killed by toxic chemicals that are intentionally put into the food supply.

But that hasn’t stopped people from freaking out over peanut butter. They’re demonstrating a kind of mania that I’ve dubbed, “Pervasive Peanut Butter Avoidance Disorder” (PPBAD) as a nod to the disease mongers of modern psychiatry. You can generate your own disease names, too, at: http://www.naturalnews.com/disease-…

But is this peanut butter fear really warranted?

How many children die of cancer each year from eating sodium nitrite in hot dogs, bacon and processed meat? Nobody has an exact number, but it’s no doubt much larger than 529. Brain cancer and leukemia kill a lot of children, and much of it is caused by chemical food additives. (http://www.naturalnews.com/022288.html)

How many adults suffer neurological impairment and ultimately die from drinking artificial chemical sweeteners? How many people get heart disease and die from eating partially-hydrogenated soybean oil used in margarine, cookies and crackers? How many future adults are going to die early from all the caffeine-spiked energy drinks they’re consuming right now?

And for that matter, how many U.S. adults have been killed by FDA-approved pharmaceuticals? That number is at least 100,000 per year (http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004…) and may be much higher. At 100,000 deaths per year, over 8,300 Americans are killed every month by Big Pharma’s medicines.

In contrast to all that, how many people have been killed by tainted peanut butter?

Eight.

Yep: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Eight. I don’t mean to minimize the value of those eight lives, but if we’re talking about national public safety, we have to keep the numbers in perspective here. Eight lives versus eight thousand killed every month by pharmaceuticals.

That makes pharmaceuticals 1,000 times more fatal than poisoned peanut butter. And that doesn’t even count all the suicides caused by psychiatric medications, most of which never get reported as anything other than suicides (the drugs are usually left out of the explanation of death).

Screaming about peanut butter, but silent about deadly pharmaceuticals

So where’s the outcry against deadly pharmaceuticals? Sodium nitrite in processed meats? Aspartame and MSG in beverages and foods?

The silence is disturbing. People are too busy freaking out over peanut butter to get their heads on straight and focus on the real threats to the health of American consumers.

The real threats are the use of dangerous chemicals in foods, drugs and personal care products. Those chemicals are no doubt killing many hundreds of thousands of Americans each year and adding a huge burden to the medical expenditures by the federal government (and state governments, too).

My question to the remaining sane people in America is simply this: If you’re worried about the salmonella in the peanut butter, why aren’t you worried about the sodium nitrite in the hot dogs?

Or how about the artificial colors in the sports drinks and the hormone residues in meat and milk? What about the mercury used in dental fillings, or the synthetic fluoride chemicals dumped into the public water supply? How about the pharmaceuticals in the water supply, too?

We live in a toxic world, overflowing with cancer-causing chemicals that are routinely promoted to us as being “beneficial.” Peanut butter is the least of our problems.

How to control the population: Spread irrational fear
But the public’s focus on peanut butter certainly does show one thing: The complete insanity and irrationality of many consumers.

Fear mongering is highly effective at shoving the sheeple towards irrational behavior. It worked in the days following 9/11, it worked for the original bailout money fiasco (the stupid Bush bailout, not the stupid Obama bailout, which is even larger), and now it’s working to get Congress to approve a new government bureaucracy: The proposed Food Safety Management Administration (FSMA), a whole new layer of bureaucratic interference with the food supply that’s bound to end up doing to foods what the FDA did to nutritional supplements.

America, get your head on straight! If you’re afraid of peanut butter, your priorities are completely askew. Yes, your health is being seriously threatened today, but not by peanut butter. Your chance of being killed by tainted peanut butter is even less than being struck by lightning this year.

You can send all that recalled peanut butter to my house, by the way. I’ll gladly eat it. Probably 99.999% of all the peanut butter being recalled right now is completely safe. And for the other point-zero-zero-one percent, I’m quite certain that a healthy immune system and the regular use of probiotics will allow me to survive a little salmonella consumption. I’ve eaten far stranger stuff as a kid in the public school system anyway…

About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher and author with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/025585.html

The National Association For Continence (NAFC) reports about 25 million adult Americans experience transient or chronic problems with urinary incontinence — and the vast majority who struggle with passing urine accidentally, around 75 percent, are women. Symptoms can include leaking urine when you cough, laugh, or exercise. The number of people affected by the problem has produced a huge market for products to help cover-up or relieve the symptoms, including panty liners that trap urine, adult “diapers”, surgery and a host of powerful prescription drugs which are being promoted on television commercials as a way to treat the problem by popping a pill. According to the Mayo Clinic web site, the major types of medications used to relieve urinary incontinence are anticholinergics, alpha-adrenergic agonists and estrogen. All these drugs are laden with potential side effects ranging from dry mouth, dizziness, constipation, heartburn, blurry vision and urinary retention to impaired memory, confusion and even cancer.

But the results of a clinical trial sponsored by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and the Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH), both part of the National Institutes of Health(NIH), just reported in the New England Journal of Medicineshows a totally natural approach can solve the problem in many women.

The cure? Getting weight under control and exercising — an approach that was shown to work not only for obese women but also for those simply overweight. “Clearly, weight loss can have a significant, positive impact on urinary incontinence, a finding that may help motivate weight loss, which has additional health benefits such as preventing type 2 diabetes,” said NIDDK Director Griffin P. Rodgers, M.D, in a statement to the media.

The multi-center, randomized clinical trial was conducted at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), Brown University and the University of Alabama and involved overweight volunteers in the Program to Reduce Incontinence by Diet and Exercise (PRIDE). The participants, 338 overweight and obese women aged 42 to 64 years, were experiencing at least 10 episodes of urinary incontinence every week when the study started. The research subjects were randomly assigned to either an intensive six month weight-loss program that included a group diet, exercise, and behavioral modification sessions, or to a control group who received advice about weight control but no ongoing guidance.

At the end of six months, the control group had lost an average of three pounds each and experienced a 28 percent decrease in their number of weekly incontinence episodes. However, the women in the guided weight-loss group fared even better. They lost an average of 17 pounds and achieved a reduction of at least 70 percent of total stress and urge incontinence episodes each week compared to the control group. These same women also reported a greater improvement in the frequency of their urinary incontinence, a lower volume of urine leaked and, overall, less of a problem with incontinence at six months, compared to the controls.

The study concluded that weight loss was most effective for the involuntary urine leakage known as stress incontinence that occurs with coughing, sneezing, straining, or exercise. Overall, the results were so dramatic that the researchers concluded weight reduction should be a first-line treatment for incontinence in overweight and obese women.

About the author
Sherry Baker is a widely published writer whose work has appeared in Newsweek, Health, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Yoga Journal, Optometry, Atlanta, Arthritis Today, Natural Healing Newsletter, OMNI, UCLA’s “Healthy Years” newsletter, Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s “Focus on Health Aging” newsletter, the Cleveland Clinic’s “Men’s Health Advisor” newsletter and many others.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/025559.html

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