Friday, August 20, 2010

The 9 Steps to Keep The Doctor Away

On the recommendation of our wellness trainer, Dr. Michael Norwood, we got a hot-off-the-press copy of The 9 Steps To Keep The Doctor Away. Dr Michael knows of our commitment to fitness, nutrition, preventive and longevity medicine and alternative therapies. He thought we would benefit from Dr. Buttar's perspective, especially regarding toxicity and hormone replacement.

Introduction

"Anyone and any condition can be healed."

"...sit idle, blindly hoping that nothing bad happens, and then potentialy succumbing to the pressures of drugs, surgery and other standard medical treatments."

"Your health is in your own hands (not their hands) and realize the power of being in control of your own body, no person, institution or force on Earth can take that realization away from you."

"The current medical model is simply not working."

"Authority is threatened by evolution of new ideas."

"The old way of practicing medicine is dying. Most of the misinformation that continues to be propagated in the name of medicine and science is actually harmful to your health over the long term."

"These essential principles won't be easy for you to incorporate into your daily life because they're most certainly not based on what you want to hear."

"Doctors are just human beings with a license to make life and death mistakes as long as they are using an approved method with the standard of care."

"You can achieve a level of health beyond anything you've imagined, but you have to first believe that it is possible."

Another Self Help Book?

"One of the most prevalent and dangerous perspectives in modern medicine has been to simply attribute diseases like cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and arthritis, plus a host of other medical problems, to the aging process."

"It's not because you're getting older. It's because your doctor doesn't have a drug to cover up the symptoms of increasing oxidative stress."

Inflammation - The good and the bad

"The ultimate cause of all chronic diseases is the oxidative damage due to free radicals...toxicity-induced oxidative injury that causes the disease process to start in the first place."

"We may not be able to stop oxidative damage completely, but we can significantly reduce the extent of oxidative damage by removing any source of oxidation and thereby reduce inflammation."

"We can also reduce this inflammatory cascade by changing our habits and making specific lifestyle choices."

"The four most important organ systems in the body related to detoxification are among the four primary organs of elimination...the hepatic system (liver); gastrointestinal system (stomach and intestines); integumentary system (skin), which is the largest organ of elimination."

"The liver and GI system are arguably the most important for detoxification and nourishment - the tow major components of healing and rebuilding."

"If the liver or the GI system is not functioning properly, your body is highly vulnerable."

"Cleaning up a toxic world is a monumental task. Cleaning up our individual lives is equally monumental, but it is simpler in the sense that we have greater direct control."

"Every choice you have made in your life up to this point has led to your current state of health."

"You've chosen what to do with your body. You've chosen what to put inside your body. You've chosen what to put inside your mind."

Three Foundations

"It doesn't matter if the toxin is a heavy metal, a pesticide or a food additive. Every toxin uses the same method of creating physiological damage - oxidative stress."

"All chronic disease stems from some type of toxicity."

"Systemic detoxification must be undertaken...the first foundation."

"A significant portion of your immune system (second foundation) exists in your gastrointestinal tract."

"Digestive problems are the first chink in the armor of your immune system and your body is sounding the alarm."

"Imagine how compromised most people's immune systems have become after decades using various drugs (OTC, prescription, illegal), lack of exercise, drinking toxic tap water, or worse, drinking sodas and eating nutrient deficient synthetic filled imitation food."

Third foundation is hormone optimization.

"Imbalanced or low hormone levels can create many problems in the body."



Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Sugar May Be Bad But This Sweetener Is Far More Deadly


By Dr. Joseph Mercola

"...a growing lineup of scientific research demonstrating that consuming high-fructose corn syrup is the fastest way to trash your health. Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium -- and in fact, every living thing on the Earth--uses glucose for energy.

It isn't that fructose itself is bad -- it is the MASSIVE DOSES you're exposed to that make it dangerous.

There are two reasons fructose is so damaging:

1. Your body metabolizes fructose in a much different way than glucose. The entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on your liver.

2. People are consuming fructose in enormous quantities, which has made the negative effects much more profound.

By USDA estimates, about one-quarter of the calories consumed by the average American is in the form of added sugars, and most of that is HFCS.

After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. But with glucose, your liver has to break down only 20 percent.

Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is "burned up" immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.





The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance.

When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat.

I recommend that you avoid as much sugar as possible.

If you want to use a sweetener occasionally, this is what I recommend:

1. Use the herb stevia.

2. Use organic cane sugar in moderation.

3. Use organic raw honey in moderation.

4. Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, which can damage your health even more quickly than fructose.

5. Avoid agave syrup since it is a highly processed sap that is almost all fructose."



To read the full article, go to The Huffington Post.