≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈'s topics - tribe.net

are you: vata? pitta? kapha?

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 13:56:20 GMT

http://www.holistic-online.com/ayurveda/ayv-basis-tri-dosha.htm

i came across this today while trying to figure out the perfect way of eating for me.
thought it might be of interest to someone in here too.

i am giving up the flesh again. i am getting way to many headaches and stuff. it has to be the meat. or all the crap they put in it. i havent been buying organic as of late.

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 27 replies

Anyone used Colonix by Dr.Natura??

TheFunologist — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 19:08:47 GMT

Looking for feedback about a product called Colonix by Dr.Natura www.drnatura.com from people that have purchased the product and used it to increase and create a regular 2 to 3 bowel movements a day.

Let us know how it worked for you

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 13 replies

Are you polluted?

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 09:31:09 GMT

http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden/es.php

In a study led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, in collaboration with the Environmental Working Group and Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 91 industrial compounds, pollutants, and other chemicals in the blood and urine of nine volunteers, with a total of 167 chemicals found in the group. Like most of us, the people tested do not work with chemicals on the job and do not live near an industrial facility.

Scientists refer to this contamination as a person’s body burden. Of the 167 chemicals found, 76 cause cancer in humans or animals, 94 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 79 cause birth defects or abnormal development. The dangers of exposure to these chemicals in combination has never been studied.
_______________________________________________

i think that if you actually knew all that was wrong and polluted you might just lose your mind and the blatant stupidity on the part of the makers of these toxins and the lack of proper government testing and restriction.
instead of dealing with important issues they distract us with the fluff news of credit reports affecting you life, abortion debate,legalizing the burning of the flag, and their blood for oil wars.

top headlines on msn today:
ALSO IN THE NEWS
• NBC: Saudi envoy to U.S. tenders resignation
• Grizzly kills couple at campsite in Alaska
• Report: U.S. to resume making plutonium 238
• Iran leader vows to maintain nuclear policy | Video
• Pump prices rise nearly 8 cents a gallon
• Birdie’s birdie wins U.S. Women’s Open | Video
• Did Princess Diana, JFK Jr. have ‘passionate fling’?
• Politicians vs. generals: the truth about war
• After hard-line victory in Iran, what's next?
• Backstage at Billy Graham's final crusade
• Morocco says death not linked to mad cow
• Graham sidesteps talk of last crusade
• Why Scientology courts rich and famous
• Glaxo working on human mad cow drug
• Nations declaresupport for Iraq
• Walls’ Scoop: Don't talk to Elton John, partiers told
• Yankees rally to beat Mets in 9th inning
• Mark Prior shines for Cubs in return from DL
• Has Web auction pioneer lost its allure?
• WP: Wal-Mart’s Ark. hometown goes high class
• Paul Winchell, voice of Tigger, has died

im all for well rounded....but come on.....

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 2 replies

Oxygen Vs. Fiber cleansers?

Julia — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:37:32 GMT

I would love to know how these 2 types of colon cleansers stand up by those who have tried both. Fiber colon cleansers seem to be the more traditional route... while oxygen cleansers appear to be a more modern solution.

Fiber: http://www.drnatura.com/

Oxygen: http://www.candidablog.com/a-comprehensive-oxypowder-review

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 0 replies

does anyone know what happened to violet?

faern — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 04:12:42 GMT

thanks

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 11 replies

Why is information on the Virginia Tech massacre, being suppressed ?

Leslee — Thu, 03 May 2007 19:45:34 GMT

Why is information on the Virginia Tech massacre, being suppressed ?

Cho Seung-Hui is the 9th School Shooter Under Influence of Psychiatric Drugs — Documented to Cause Homicidal Ideation, Suicide, Psychosis, Mania and Hostility

The psycho/pharmaceutical industry and their minions are
shamelessly using the recent Virginia Tech shootings to push for more forced
drugging, more involuntary commitment, and more mental health "intervention"
.    However, any rational person must ask why there has not been a federal
investigation into psychiatric drugs as they relate to school shootings.

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, why has the major press
failed to ask why a thorough investigation has not been initiated to
determine the role, if any, psychotropic drugs--antidepressants in
particular--have played in most--if not all--school shooting massacres?
Will the press remain silent as Cho Seung-Hui's toxicology report is
concealed?

These drugs have been documented by the FDA to cause mania,
suicide, psychosis, worsening depression and even homicidal ideation .

         If more than 1/2 the shooters were taking PCP or smoking Crack --
there would be an investigation, but those are illegal drugs and do not rake
in billions in profit for vested interests.

         Why aren't these mental health "experts" asking what drugs Cho
Seung-Hui was taking after investigators found "depression medication" in
his belongings?

http://theeffexoractivist.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1620

Thousands of news stories about antidepressants and violence.
http://www.ssristories.com

National FOX News Video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAeABmVOS0s

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 0 replies

Discomfort in the eyes

Vida — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:14:14 GMT

Hi guys, I am on my 7th day of the master cleanse. I woke up this morning with a discomfort in the back of my eyes, and my vision is blurry. I only drank 20 oz of the juice yesterday due to the fact that I was soooo exhausted that I was sleeping most of the day. I felt this discomfort in my eye on the second day as well but it lasted only a few minutes, but today it's already been 3 hours and it's still there. I am really concerned. Has anybody experience this before? Should I stop the cleanse? My tongue is pure white. Please share your experiences with me. Thank you.

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 0 replies

SUGAR- MUST READ

Sun, 26 Jun 2005 08:21:57 GMT

SUGAR: "Thief of life"

"There's no doubt that Americans are addicted to sugar. We consume an average of 150 lbs. per person per year. (Appleton, p.10) For many of us, that means we eat our own weight in sugar every year! So it might be helpful to find out what that means - what sugar really is, what food value it has, and what problems it causes."

SUGAR: THE SWEET THIEF OF LIFE
- Tim O'Shea

"The taste of sweetness, whereof a little more than a little is by much too much."

- Henry IV, Part I

There's no doubt that Americans are addicted to sugar. We consume an average of 150 lbs. per person per year. (Appleton, p.10) For many of us, that means we eat our own weight in sugar every year! So it might be helpful to find out what that means - what sugar really is, what food value it has, and what problems it causes.

The sugar industry is big: $100 billion per year. As with any other billion dollar business, there's bound to be a ton of information that will support such an empire anywhere you look - the media, bookstores, advertising, etc. Boats like this don't like to be rocked.

On the other side is a group claiming that white sugar is poison, a harmful drug, barely differing from cocaine, etc. Some claims are true; others are unreferenced opinion, often bordering on hysteria. For our purposes, we'll focus on what we really can verify about sugar, and hopefully avoid the errors of disinformation on both sides of the fence.

WHAT IS SUGAR?

That's easy - it's that white stuff in the sugar bowl. Refined white cane sugar is only one type, however. There's also brown sugar, raw sugar, fruit sugar, corn sugar, milk sugar, beet sugar, alcohol, monosaccharides, disaccharides and polysaccharides. All these are also sugar.

Start with white sugar. It is made by refining sugar cane, a process involving many chemicals. Or from beets, whose refinement also involves synthetic chemicals, and charcoal. The big problem is that the finished product contains none of the nutrients, vitamins, or minerals of the original plant. White sugar is a simple carbohydrate, which means a fractionated, artificial, devitalized by-product of the original plant. The original plant was a complex carbohydrate, which means it contained all the properties of a whole food: vitamins, minerals, enzymes.

Refined sugar from beets and cane is sucrose. Up to the mid 1970s, sucrose was the primary sugar consumed by Americans. That changed when manufacturers discovered a cheaper source of refined sugar: corn. A process was evolved that could change the natural fructose in corn to glucose, and then by adding synthetic chemicals, change the glucose back into an artificial, synthetic type of fructose called high fructose. (Freeston)

High fructose became big real fast. In 1984, Coke and Pepsi changed from cane sugar to HFCS. True connoisseurs could tell the difference, but there weren't many of us.

Today high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is the preferred sweetener in most soft drinks and processed foods. Read the labels. As of 1997, worldwide production of HFCS exceeded 8 billion kilograms. (Freeston)

Remember, natural fructose is contained in most raw fruits and vegetables. It is a natural food. Moderate amounts of natural fructose can be easily digested by the body with no stress or depleting of mineral stores. Natural fructose does not cause rollercoaster blood sugar, unless the person overdoes it. Natural fructose is not addicting.

High fructose corn syrup, by contrast, cannot be well digested, actually inhibits digestion, is addicting, and causes a great number of biochemical errors, as we shall see. HFCS is artificial; a non-food.

In this chapter sugar means refined, synthetic sugar from beets, cane, and HFCS. The harmful physical effects are essentially the same from all three. More later.

WHAT ARE CARBOHYDRATES?

Everyone knows that food comes in three forms: fat, protein, and carbohydrate. Most foods have all three, in varying proportions.

Carbohydrates are made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The main carbos are sugar, starches, and cellulose. (Dorland, p121)

Sugars are sweet carbohydrates, either single or double molecules: monosaccharides or disaccharides.

Starches are the main form of carbohydrate storage in plants. Starches are polysaccharides, which means strings of more than two carbohydrate molecules. Starches break down to sugars - that's why if you keep a cracker in your mouth for a minute, it begins to taste sweet.

Cellulose is made of long, fibrous strings of carbohydrate, mainly for structural support of a plant. It is cellulose that provides us with fiber in the diet.

Fruits contain mainly sugars, while vegetables contain mainly starches. And both contain cellulose.

COMPLEX VS. SIMPLE

An apple contains natural sugar: fructose. A potato contains natural starch. But these are whole foods containing much more than just isolated carbohydrates. Apples and potatoes grown in good soil also contain vitamins, minerals, and enzymes. Such foods are complex carbohydrates, meaning that they are complete foods.

The problem comes in with processed sugar and processed starch. White table sugar has no nutrients. White bread is a processed, artificial starch. These are not foods - they do not nourish. We call them simple carbohydrates. Even when they are broken down to individual glucose molecules by digestion, it is completely different from the glucose end-product of a digested apple, for example. That's because apples don't simply break down into isolated glucose molecules. Other nutrients and co-factors are present, which are necessary for the body to make use of the glucose: enzymes, minerals, vitamins.

White sugar and white bread require enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and insulin from the body in order to act. And the action is one of irritation, removal, and defense instead of nutrition.

All enzymes and nutrients have been purposely removed from white sugar and white flour by processing. The result is a synthetic manmade carbohydrate, occurring nowhere in nature. The body regards such as a foreign substance as a drug.

Another way to look at it is this: when complex carbohydrates are broken down, the result is a usable glucose molecule. When simple (refined) carbohydrates are allowed to ferment in the digestive tract because they can't be broken down, the results are alcohol, acetic acid, water, and carbon dioxide. (Dufty p 183)

Not so usable, except for the water.

In addition to these by-products, simple carbohydrates do increase blood glucose by an unregulated, unnatural amount. And this is the real problem with refined sugar: the quantity of pure glucose suddenly taken in.

Most books, most doctors, and most nutritionists fail to make this simple distinction between simple and complex carbohydrates. They talk about apples and Coca-Cola both as carbohydrates, because they say that both ultimately break down to glucose, and that's the form the body needs. It's the standard medical approach. Same mentality that thinks vitamin C is ascorbic acid (see Chapter 11). The same mentality that thinks that milk is a good source of protein, or of calcium. Loads of information, very little understanding. These are the type of nutritionists who confuse organic gardening with organic chemistry, and talk about when you buy organic produce in the supermarket, that's the kind that is carbon-based. Or the type of "nutrition" mentality that has bypass patients eating mashed potatoes and gravy and canned sugar drinks the day after surgery so they'll "get their strength back."

Most nutritionists are trained to think that diabetes is genetic and therefore may have to be controlled with drugs.

Like any other area that concerns health, most of what is published about diet and nutrition is unfounded speculation. Worse if they have credentials. Don't get me started.

With sugar, ingestion is far different from digestion: just because you ate it doesn't mean you can use it. This is why counting calories and food combining and blood typing and the Zone and other passing fads are so irrelevant: it doesn't matter what you eat; it matters what you digest.

If you re-read the last three sections, you probably now know more about sugar than 90% of health professionals. This will become obvious when we get to diabetes.

MINI HISTORY

Sugar Blues by William Dufty was a classic book of the mid 1970s. In a compelling, informal fashion, the book provides a broad historical and political sketch of sugar economics from the 15th century to the present. Dufty thoroughly references his basic data with respect to the trade empires that emerged around sugar: molasses, rum, and slaves. The taxes on sugar alone brought great wealth to the rulers of England, France, Spain, and Holland, as well as to the slave traders, shipping merchants, and plantation owners. (p. 33) Many modern fortunes whose names we would recognize today were amassed at this time.

Dufty draws interesting parallels between opium and sugar, as both were things we don't really need, both became sources of huge revenues and taxes, both have some dark history involving immense human suffering, and both can cause physical degeneration and death after a long period of dependence.

REFINING CAME LATER

During the first centuries of the sugar industry, cane sugar was made into molasses and rum, for shipping across the oceans. Sugar itself was raw; light brown in color, and still retained some of the original nutrients. Natural sugar doesn't cause diabetes; if you eat too much natural honey, you just get sick.

The refining of sugar cane evolved gradually, and spread all over the world in a short time. Refining began with old stone mills, powered by rivers or windvanes, where whole wheat was ground into flour. As time went by, machinery got better and better at removing the outer husks from the wheat and leaving behind only the white inner simple carbohydrate, devoid of minerals and vitamins. Same with beets and cane. Processing methods, which stripped away all vitamins, mineral, and enzymes, got so good at making a consistent product of white crystals, that the price of sugar went down and down, all over the world.

Sugar consumption, however, went up and up. What used to be a delicacy only for the rich, evolved to becoming a staple for everyone. Most sources estimate that today sugar makes up about 20% of the calories of the average American diet! Just imagine - that means that on the average, 20% of what Americans eat has no nutrient content. Worse yet, it's physically destructive, as we will see.

Dufty offers layer upon layer of proof that modern mankind is degenerating, devolving as a race, becoming sicker and weaker decade by decade. Certainly nothing in the 20 years since Sugar Blues came out can dispute that idea: look around you. Seems like half our school kids are either on Ritalin, inhalators, or some kind of allergy medicine most of the time. Look at the rise of degenerative disease, cited in Chapter One.

In a more scholarly work, Dr. Weston Price had come to the same conclusions in his landmark journal Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. In the 1930s, Dr. Price travelled around the world examining the teeth and skulls of every primitive race he could find - American Indians, Swiss Alps villagers, Eskimos, aborigines, Scottish primitives, Fiji islanders, and more.

Price's conclusions are not subject to debate - instance after instance, when a people would become exposed to western foods - white sugar and white flour - within a very few years, they would be experiencing rates of tooth decay, tuberculosis and arthritis equal to the "civilized" nations. Price found that as long as a group of people could remain isoloated and eat their 'primitive' simple foods, the rates of tooth decay and degenerative disease were practically zero.

Price's work has never been challenged.

HOW MUCH SUGAR DO WE REALLY NEED?

White sugar, none, according to Dufty. But modern needs are something created by commerce, by advertising, by politics. How many people do you know who drink at least one 12 oz soft drink per day? If the sugar from each bottle could be crystallized out, it would amount to 10 teaspoons. (Appleton, p 16) Put 10 teaspoons of sugar in the bottom of an empty coke bottle and look at it. Is that a lot? In a normal bloodstream, which is about 5 liters, approximately 2 teaspoons of glucose should be circulating at any one time. That means that one coke raises the blood sugar to 5x its normal level, for at least four hours.

Now stop here a minute. This is one soft drink. Do you know anyone who drinks more than one soft drink per day? How about per hour? Do the math.

To that, add the sugar in desserts, ice cream, jams, jello, artificial fruit drinks, and candy. This is not even mentioning hidden sugar found in ketchup, processed meats, baby food, condiments, cereals, and most other processed foods whose label you may chance to read.

And by the way, did you know that alcohol is a sugar? So add wine, beer, liquor. And even tobacco! Getting the picture here? Think you know anyone with only 2 teaspoons of glucose in the blood?

SUGAR ABSORPTION

The simplest sugar of all is glucose. Both natural and processed sugars ultimately break down into glucose, which is a single molecule. Glucose is readily absorbed through the digestive tract. It goes immediately into the bloodstream.

Glucose is necessary for cell function, especially brain cell function.

The level of glucose in the blood is a very big deal. Too much and we become diabetic; too little and we pass out.

The body has figured out many ways to try and keep the glucose level within a certain range: 90 - 140 milligrams per deciliter. (Guyton, p 863)

The pancreas and the adrenal glands work together to fine-tune blood sugar levels at all times. As the blood flows by, the pancreas senses the high glucose content and puts out insulin. Insulin gets rid of the glucose in two ways

into the cells
storage in the liver, in the form of glycogen

.

The adrenals do the opposite; when blood sugar is too low, they send a hormone called cortisol to the liver to get some of the stored glucose out of storage. The body is then ready for action: fight or flight.

A great system, evolved after countless millenia, perfectly capable of balancing blood sugar, with a diet of natural foods. Then manmade sugar came on the scene - a compound that nature could never have invented. This new chemical, offering so much refined glucose to the bloodstream without the benefit of the usual accompanying fiber, minerals, vitamins and enzymes - was an assault on a human biochemistry that had evolved over the centuries. All these precious stores of nutrients which the body had other plans for, must now be mobilized and used up in order to deal with 150 pounds per year of a devitalized non-food. Hence the phrase 'malnutrition of the affluent.'

LAST CALL FOR ALCOHOL

Alcohol is a sugar. It is a refined sugar, and more - it is a fermented sugar. Fermented means half-digested. In the CANCER chapter, we saw how cancer thrives in an environment with little or no oxygen. That's why cancer loves refined sugar - not being well digested, sugar ferments in the body. With alcohol, it's already fermented when we drink it. Fermentation occurs in an anaerobic environemnt: no oxygen..

We know the sources of alcoholic beverages:

beverage -------- source

wine----- grapes
beer----- barley
whiskey ----corn or rye
gin------- rye and juniper berries
rum------ sugar cane
vodka----- wheat

These alcoholic beverages are the fermented sugars of the individual fruit or grain. Alcohol is a super-refined substance. It enters the body with no vitamins, minerals, or enzymes to aid in its breakdown. At least sugar products must pass through the digestive system before entering the bloodstream. But alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream immediately, right through the stomach. Alcohol makes an immediate assault on all the body's stores of enzymes, insulin, vitamins, and minerals, which seek to break it down and maintain the blood's delicate pH. That's how alcohol ages the body so fast - that's why many alcoholics look so old. Chronic dehydration. (See Water chapter)

All the information in this chapter about white sugar can be applied to alcohol as well. The bad effects on the body systems are much worse from alcohol, however, because refining has taken that extra step - fermentation - no digestion necessary before absorption.

Remember that bit of PR a few years ago about how drinking a little glass of wine prevents heart attacks? The only benefit was the natural pycnogenol antioxidant in the grapes - you could get the same effect from drinking grape juice. Another Orwellian marketing masterpiece, from the same people who brought you folksy gems like

we shouldn't eat fats
an aspirin a day prevents heart attack
milk builds strong bones and teeth

ENERGY KICK? TRY ENERGY DRAIN

No matter what athletes you see on TV commercials chugging famous soft drinks, none of them is that stupid. What are they drinking on the bench? Water. The illusion of energy from refined sugar is something that sugar advertisers have capitalized on for decades. That initial burst of nervous energy is immediately followed by a body in crisis wasting energy trying to bring things back to normal. These efforts make the body tired, sleepy, and run down.

Not just sugar advertisers, but many of the medical "experts" who were hired guns for the sugar empire wrote thousands of "research" papers proving that sugar was beneficial and gave people energy. Dufty cites examples of this deception over three centuries. It's still going on today; examples can be found practically every month in the popular magazines. You gotta figure that billion dollar industries can afford to buy a few scientists along the way.

The initial blast of energy is the adrenal shock reacting to a non-food in the system. Fight or flight. Refined sugar stimulates a whole range of physiological responses, all of which are unnecessary, all of which waste the energy of the cells and systems, and all of which are followed by condition of exhaustion soon after the brief rush subsides. Then you're down and the monkey needs another bump.

WHAT DOES REFINED SUGAR REALLY DO TO THE BODY?

An excellent chart on pp 68-72 of Appleton's book gives a quick overview. Some excerpts:

Refined sugar:
suppresses the immune system
causes hyperactivity in children
kidney damage
mineral deficiencies, especially chromium, copper, calcium and magnesium
makes the blood acidic
tooth decay
advances aging
digestive disorders
arthritis
asthma
Candida albicans
decreased blood flow to the heart
causes osteoporosis
causes food allergies
causes eczema
atherosclerosis
free radical formation
loss of enzyme function
increases liver and kidney size
brittle tendons
migraines
blood clots
depression

Appleton references each one of these problems with a different study. These symptoms are just various manifestations of one main mechanism: sugar cannot be digested. Sugar inactivates digestive enzymes. It remains in the tract, fermenting. Some of the toxic mass gradually seeps into the bloodstream where it acidifies the blood. The body tries desperate measures to maintain the normal pH of the blood. The above symptom list shows the end-results of those efforts, the signs of their failure, or else the degeneration of a tissue that has become the final resting place for fermenting debris in an overloaded system.

ACID BLOOD

As we saw in the Water chapter, pH is a big consideration when soft drinks are taken in. If you pour a glass of Coke into,b> 10 gallons of water, the pH will drop from 7.8 to 4.6 immediately. (Whang, p 22) Our survival range is pH 7.3 - 7.45 in the blood. So obviously the body has to go through all kinds of complicated steps to keep our 5 liters of blood from getting too acidic. This process wastes vitamins, minerals, and enzymes which should have been used for normal metabolism. See how sugar can age the body? Worn adrenals, used-up pancreas.

Another problem with an over-acid digestive tract is that the good bacteria, the intestinal flora, are destroyed. Their job was the final stages of digestion. Without them, rotting and stagnation of food is promoted, instead of digestion. Half-digested carbohydrates are described as fermented, just like with making wine or liquor. The half-digested carbohydrates leak into the bloodstream intact and cause problems in the joints, muscles, organs - any place they lodge. Examples of diseases that come about in this manner:

- osteoarthritis
- hepatitis
- cirrhosis
- kidney disease
- chronic fatigue
- colitis/irritable bowel syndrome
- Candida albicans
- reflux/heartburn
- chronic allergies
---------------(See COLON chapter)

Candida albicans is a common yeast infection that goes all through the body. Many researchers estimate that as many as 80% of American women may have Candida. (Anderson) The #1 way Candida occurs is floral imbalance—normal flora keep Candida and other potentially bad organisms in check. Not only does half-digested sugar kill off the good bacteria. In addition, Candida thrive on it. So it's a double whammy, the way sugar promotes Candida albicans.

ENZYME DISRUPTION

Many of the problems listed on the previous page are the result of incomplete digestion and breakdown. Refined sugar has the ability to change the shape of our normal digestive enzymes. (Appleton, p 65) As we saw in the Enzymes chapter, there's a lock and key thing going on here. Enzymes are proteins that have specific shapes in order to break down other specific molecules. When refined sugar changes the shapes of the digestive enzymes that are present for the express purpose of digesting that refined sugar - see what happens? The sugar doesn't get digested. It just sits there and rots. Fermentation.

This is why drinking a coke or a beer just before dinner will kill your appetite. And interfere with your ability to later digest the fats and proteins in the meal. Sugar destroys the digestive enzymes.

MINERAL IMBALANCE

Besides enzyme destruction and acidifying the blood, sugar depletes the body of minerals. Most of the damage to the body resulting from sugar can be traced to one of these three events.

As we saw in the Minerals chapter, many life functions of cells and tissues are dependent on the presence of minerals. The action of many vitamins are dependent on the presence of minerals.

First off, we have seen the importance of chromium for insulin to operate. A double threat is happening with chromium:

- chromium is depleted as the body attempts to metabolize and remove white sugar

- as the stores are used up, there won't be enough chromium left to allow the available insulin to work.

For this reason, many people who are being diagnosed diabetic may be just chromium deficient. Even if insulin is present, it cannot operate on sugars without chromium as a co-factor. (Appleton, p 61) Very often chelated chromium supplements together with eliminating refined sugar from the diet can normalize a patient who was incorrectly labeled as diabetic.

Sugar also causes osteoporosis, by the following mechanism: In order for calcium to be used by the cells, there must be a proper amount of phosphorus also present in the blood. Without the correct ratio of calcium to phosphorus, the calcium is in the wrong form - a harmful form. A form that precipitates out of solution and forms stones in the gallbladder, kidneys, and liver. Sugar wastes our phosphorus stores. Soft drinks contain phosphoric acid, which further disrupts the phosphorus balance. (Appleton, p 83) Without the right form of calcium in the blood, the body borrows calcium from the bones and teeth. Dr. Weston Price proved this in the 1920s. (Price)

It is the imbalance of calcium caused by refined sugar which causes tooth decay, even more than the acidic saliva attacking the exterior enamel of the teeth.

Here's another difference between raw and refined sugar. Raw sugar doesn't rot the teeth. According to Royal Lee

"Refined sugar has lost its minerals and will pick up minerals right out of the tooth..,you can take a freshly extracted tooth and soak it in raw sugar solution, and it will have no effect.. You soak it in the refined sugar and you will eat it full of holes."

Conversations, p 46

THE GLYCEMIC INDEX

The suffix -emia at the end of a word means in the blood. Glycemia means glucose in the blood.

All foods containing carbohydrates affect the blood sugar differently. In 1981, David Jenkins came up with a way to compare foods with respect to their effect on blood sugar. (Miller) He called it the Glycemic Index. The GI is based on glucose, which has a value of 100. An apple for example has a GI of 38 and is therefore said to be low on the Glycemic Index. White bread which is rated at 70 is said to be high on the GI.

White sugar (sucrose) is refined and readily absorbed. Though it is high on the glycemic index (65), white sugar interferes with normal digestion of other foods in the stomach and intestine. White sugar causes sharp drop-offs in blood sugar level after it is removed from the blood, because it has destroyed digestive enzymes necessary for breaking down the other food that is still in the tract, waiting to be absorbed.

Natural fruit sugar, or fructose is generally low on the glycemic index (23). (Miller, p.29) Fructose is quickly and easily used by the cells and thus removed from the blood.

Here we see one of the common errors of Junk Science and the Everybody's-A-Nutritionist phenomenon. Some "experts" will say that it's bad to drink natural fruit juice because of all the sugar. Such a notion is completely without foundation, and shows no understanding of whole foods, the importance of enzymes, or the Glycemic Index. Fruits contain within them the enzymes such as maltase and invertase necessary to break down their fructose into usable glucose. The glucose is then either used as fuel or stored. People don't get diabetes because they drink too much orange juice. They get diabetes from drinking a six-pack of cola every day, or that box of donuts, or a quart of ice cream.

In addition,fruits are loaded with whole food vitamins, minerals, cellulose and natural antioxidants. These are fundamental nutrients.

Alternative-Lite holistic practitioners making recommendations for cancer patients who have refused standard treatment sometimes tell the patients to avoid fruits and fruit juices because "cancer loves sugar." Such unfounded advice is not only incorrect; it deprives the patient of an important source of nutrient forms which is are essential for fighting cancer and boosting the immune system: antioxidants. (See Cancer chapter.) Most credible holistic nutritionists, like MacDougall, Robbins, Dufty, Schultze, Gerson, et al., realize that normal amounts of both fruit and vegetable juices are extremely useful for anyone trying to overcome any immune-challenging disease.

DIABETES

The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates never even mentions diabetes. (Dufty, p.78) Before sugar came on the scene, diabetes did not even exist.

The English physician Thomas Willis first identified and named diabetes in 1674, after England's annual sugar consumption had gone from zero to 16 million lbs. in the previous 200 years. But Willis was unable to say anything bad about sugar since he was King Charles' personal physician, and Charles was making a ton of gold off the sugar trade. (Dufty, p. 75)

Very good statistics were kept in Denmark, comparing refined sugar intake with diabetes deaths:

year......lbs. consumed per person.....deaths from diabetes/ 100,000

1880...............29.......................... 8
1934...............113......................... 18.9

Years of loading up on indigestible sugar wears out the pancreas. You'll remember that insulin, produced by the pancreas, is supposed to allow sugar to be taken into the cells and used. When the body is young, the pancreas works well. Excess sugar in the teen years gets the pancreas used to continually dumping lots of insulin into the bloodstream to get ready for the day's sugar load. Since insulin only lasts about 15 minutes, the pancreas may have to work all day long. Here's where the rollercoaster first begins: all that free insulin will serve to abnormally lower the blood sugar on those occasions when the person forgot to eat his usual 10x normal sugar intake. All that insulin, and all it's got to work on is a normal level of blood glucose. Enter hypoglycemia - low blood sugar. The body gets accustomed to excesses of both sugar and insulin. For awhile. Funny how pigging out on sugar causes low blood sugar, but that's how it happens.

A few years later, when insulin no longer can keep up with the incoming daily sugar fix, the pancreas finally gives up. Unused sugar builds up higher and higher in the blood. The kidneys try their best to excrete it, causing the classic 'sweet urine' sign. That's what diabetes is: constantly high blood glucose. The idiotic solution is to take a drug to get rid of all that extra glucose, instead of simply to stop eating 10 or 20x as much sugar as the body can handle.

Thus we see the stupidity of recommending candy for diabetics to "keep their blood sugar up." Candy just keeps the rollercoaster going for another ride.

Glucose is the prime fuel source needed by the cells. The person becomes ill because all this glucose is in the blood, but not in an environment that it can be used by the cells. So the body starves. Gradually, other problems occur:

extreme thirst
frequent urination
ravenous hunger
dizziness
disorientation
memory loss
coldness in hands and feet
bruising
weight loss
kidney disease
fatigue
the shakes
sores and cuts that don't heal
headaches
skin eruptions

Sound like a blind date?

What is the medical approach to diabetes? Same as the medical approach to anything: sell as many drugs as possible. In this case it's synthetic insulin to the rescue, or at least drugs like glucophage and glypizide.

FAKE INSULIN

The discovery of insulin was supposed to be the big savior. The 1923 Nobel Prize went to Sir Frederick Grant Banting and John Macleod for the discovery of insulin. At first, insulin was difficult to make, and expensive. Only rich diabetics could afford to have glandular extracts from animals injected into their blood to compensate for their own spent pancreases.

But with the arrival of synthetic insulin, which a diabetic would have to inject daily for the rest of his life, all the alarms at the drug companies went clang. Fake insulin could be patented, mass produced and sold from now till the end of time! This was a very big deal, especially with the unstoppable rise in white sugar consumption, which would insure an endless stream of new diabetics.

Dufty tells of a much more important discovery that occurred the year after insulin was discovered, which was kept quiet. In 1924 a top researcher named Dr. Seale Harris discovered the connection between too much insulin in the blood and hypoglycemia. He found out the obvious: all that daily white sugar called up too much insulin. Too much insulin in the blood got rid of too much glucose in the blood, making the patient weak and dizzy when the blood sugar got too low. But what sentenced Dr. Harris to the Hall of Obscurity for all time is that his solution was not some manmade pill that would make billions for the drug companies. No, Harris's solution to hypoglycemia was obvious: stop overloading on white sugar, and thus normalize natural insulin production.

No Nobel Prize for Harris. The medical approach is always the same: if an imbalance cannot be corrected by a new drug, any natural remedy, like sensible eating, is called "unscientific."

Do doctors want to screen people by repeated Glucose Tolerance tests, just to make sure they're really diabetics before they're sentenced to a life of fake insulin? Are you kidding? Some people are put on insulin after a single lab test with a borderline high reading of blood glucose. Or at least given the prescription for the two G drugs listed above.

WHAt's WRONG WITH THESE DRUGS?

First off, fake insulin.

Synthetic insulins are of three main types:

- rapid acting
- intermediate acting
- long acting

Some fake insulin comes from yeast. Scientist have found how to get a compound that is structurally identical to human insulin from baker's yeast. (Physicians Desk Reference, p 1917) Or from E. coli bacteria (p. 1463) Or from pigs: pork pancreas! (p 1477). There can be many different combination prescriptions depending on the doctor's opinion (guess), mixing the three types of insulin at certain times during the day. For each type - rapid, intermediate, and long acting - there is a multitude of different brands to choose from. Like Baskin-Robbins.

The main problem is that even though they pretend it's the same exact thing as the insulin the body produces, it really isn't. It's the usual science/numbers game, pretending that the body is just a car, and if we figure out the parts, we can replace anything. Or like if you dumped all the ingredients for a cake into a mixing bowl and just stirred it all up, what kind of a cake could you expect?

The catch here is timing. The body knows precisely when to put out exactly the type and amount of insulin from the pancreas that is needed. The whole blood sugar regulation process is an extremely sophisticated affair, involving the adrenals, the liver, and the thyroid in addition to the pancreas. We only know part of the story. There's a lot more to the swirling mystery of blood sugar than just figuring out the structure of insulin. Proof of that is diabetes has risen to the #7 cause of death in the U.S. today. (Centers for Disease Control)

Secondly, glucophage. This is a pill given to patients who are first diagnosed with diabetes. Glucophage artificially controls blood glucose by interfering with the body's normal rates of glucose absorption. Although the manufacturer warns that diet restriction should be the primary means of controlling diabetes, (PDR,, p. 797) in practice glucophage often may be prescribed after a single high blood sugar reading, without the certainty that the patient actually is diabetic. And rarely are diet choices evaluated.

Glucophage has several major side effects, which are seldom mentioned:

- kidney damage
- lactic acidosis (fatal 50% of the time)
- nausea
- vomiting
- abdominal bloating
- anorexia

- p 798 PDR

Glipizide is the other popular diabetic pill. This drug requires a functioning pancreas. Glipizide artificially kick- starts the pancreas to produce more insulin. (PDR,, p.2182) The actual way the glipizide lowers blood glucose is unknown. Perhaps that's why it has major side effects, listed by the manufacturer:

- increased risk of cardiac mortality
- kidney disease
- liver disease
- hypoglycemia(!)
- loss of control of blood glucose
- constipation
- skin rashes
- anemia
- dizziness
- headache

Outside of that it should be fine.

All you guys out there on these G drugs --your doctor ever tell you any of this?

Whether you're talking about manmade insulin or diabetes drugs in pill form, one fact has not changed since 1923:

these drugs have never cured one person of diabetes.

Think about it. Did you ever in your life know of a diabetic who shot insulin or took these drugs for many years, who eventually recovered and was fine, with a normal life? Of course not. Did you ever hear of a diabetic who was told to stop eating white sugar? Of course not - instead they tell the diabetic to eat more sugar when he feels weak! That's the game: the point of diabetes drugs is never health or recovery or curing the disease. It's always aimed at one target: sell more drugs.

What's the goal of medical therapy? As always, cover up the symptoms. Since most doctors have no background in nutrition, they generally tell the patient that diabetes is a disease which he will now have for life, that it was genetic, and the only way to control it is with drugs. The doctor won't even ask about the patient's recent diet - such information is irrelevant in making the drug sale. Many actually go so far as to say that what the patient eats will have no effect on the disease, now that the pancreas is worn out. This is why dietary advice is absent after a diagnosis of diabetes is given.

The absurdity and error of such recommendations are appreciated by the thousands of patients, initially diagnosed as diabetic, who have cured themselves completely, simply by cleaning up their diet.

Dr. Stephen Gyland proved in the 1950s, like dozens of other healers after him, that the only way diabetes can be actually cured is to change the diet radically. (Gyland letter) There are many holistic programs which demonstrate consistent success in reversing adult onset diabetes, the most common type. Take a wild guess what the first step is, in the healing process. That's right; no more refined sugar. Including alcohol.

This sounds very simple, but in reality it's incredibly difficult. Look what the patient has to overcome:

1. He doesn't want to give up sugar. He's addicted to it, loves the taste, and needs the short-lived euphoria.

2. The doctors don't say the patient has to give up sugar. In fact, the doctor will tell the patient to eat candy when he feels light headed, to "bring his blood sugar up."

3. Sugar is everywhere: in most foods, in a thousand forms, and it lines the checkout aisles that people have to wait in to buy groceries.

4. There's going to be an unpleasant withdrawal period.

This is where medicine is so well-positioned. Medicine is saying, Don't worry about a thing. We'll take care of everything. Give us the responsibility for your health, and go on eating whatever you want. Your sugar-binges for the past 20 years didn't bring on your diabetes; it's genetic

For a weakening, softening society with declining health, diabetes medication is the perfect solution. It delays the decision, takes the pressure off, and avoids unpleasant pro-action. Great! I can keep on drinking coke, like everyone else! All I have to do is take these pills and the doctor says I'll be fine. Lots of people are doing it.

That's for sure. Lots of Americans are on diabetic medication. And the fact that medication has never cured anyone of diabetes has made us a country where diabetes is now, did I mention, the 7th leading cause of death!

SUGAR AND THE IMMUNE SYSTEM

On the way to becoming a full-blown diabetic, lots of other problems arise from overdose of refined sugar. The most obvious is the destruction of the immune system.

If you're old enough, ever notice how children today seem to be sick all the time, compared with 20 years ago? Today they've always got colds, they're always running to the doctor for antibiotics, cough medicine, or spray inhalators. And what else are they always running for? What is their primary reward for 'being good'? Sugar.

The whole absurdity of the chase-your-tail drugs and big money sugar game was brought sharply into focus recently by two headlines which appeared two days apart in the San Jose Mercury News, one of California's largest and most insipid newspapers. On 2 Sept 99, the headline read :

"S.J. Unified poised to sign Pepsi-only deal."

The story proceeded to detail an agreement between Pepsi and the San Jose city schools to exclude all other soft drinks from the schools' cafeterias and soda machines for the next 10 years in exchange for kickbacks of nearly $10 million! It was so weird - the story wasn't even trying hide the sweetheart arrangement in any way, or suggest that it was anything other than business as usual for a private company to kick back a percentage of the profits in trade for a juicy public contract. Wonder what Coke offered? But the health issues were not even mentioned - tooth decay, allergies, hyperactivity, Ritalin, violence - not a word. Just business.

And then two days later, 4 Sept 99, the main headline in the same paper reads:

"Asthma at epidemic levels"

This two-page article, with its 'Gee, I dunno' stance, reported that asthma among American school children is higher than it has been for 20 years, and increasing out of control. In its standard disingenuous way, the Mercury pretends to be baffled that researchers and drugs have not even made a dent in the number of children who walk around schools with inhalators, take multiple medications, or who die every year from asthma.

"..asthma remains a medical mystery."

The article quotes the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) statistics showing how asthma in the U.S.

" grew more than 150% between 1980 and 1998 - from 6.7 million to 17.3 million" cases."

The article states that in some U.S. cities, as many as a quarter of the children suffer from asthma.

Clinton's answer? Increase medical spending from $110 million to $178 million. Brilliant. Give researchers who after several decades admit they still have no idea what causes asthma another $70 million to continue their investigations. CDC's David Mannino sounds so humble when he states that they're like "..a bunch of blind men on the elephant."

Now stop here a second. This is just like cancer research. Do you think if these researchers whose living depends on getting government research grants actually found a cure for asthma they would tell us? And then what? They'd be out of a job. As long as they "keep looking" everybody's happy - the money keeps pouring in.

In its plodding, predictable fashion, the Mercury goes on to highlight those areas where asthma is worst, and talk about the "epidemic" and quote various experts explaining how mystified they are. And then the requisite heart-rending individual story of the kid who "can 't even go to school any more because his doctors can't find a cure "

Come on!

CURE FOR ASTHMA

You want your kid to lose his asthma? Stop two things for 60 days: dairy and sugar. That's all. Just try it. Both are major allergens. As we have seen, sugar inhibits digestion by destroying enzymes. Undigested sugar just stays there in the tract and in the blood, and then goes throughout the body, lodging anywhere it can, including the bronchioles of the lungs. And what's the body's response to any lung allergen? Mucus. Narrows the air passages, and the body goes into distress because it thinks it's going to suffocate.

MILK

is just as bad. The definition of pasteurization is that the milk is heated until what? All enzymes are destroyed. Without enzymes, it can't be broken down, because now man has created a food that doesn't exist in nature. Forget that we're the only species to drink the milk of another animal. Forget that we're the only species to drink milk after childhood. The main thing is - we can't metabolize it. (See ENZYMES

CALCIUM?

Another joke. Remember all those enzymes that got destroyed by pasteurization. One of them was called phosphatase - essential for calcium absorption. We don't get calcium from milk. Children don't need milk for strong bones and teeth. Milk doesn't prevent osteoporosis. All these ideas were ingrained into our conscious from where? The school dietary "education" programs since the 1950s. Paid for by whom? Right, the American Dairy Industry.

After you find all this out, the killing blow is when you learn that milk causes osteoporosis, because metabolizing all this artificial manmade food steals calcium from the bones and teeth. Who's got the highest incidence of osteoporosis in the world? Scandinavia, Germany, and the U.S., especially states like Wisconsin—places with what? Highest dairy consumption. (Twogood, Appleton, Howell, McDougall. Douglas)

'Lactose intolerance,' - you always hear that. There's no such thing. They want to pretend some people have a genetic defect whereby they can't digest milk sugar. Lactose is milk sugar. But it's not the milk sugar we're allergic to - it's the milk. We all have milk intolerance. No one can digest pasteurized milk!

But we're not allowed to know all this. The above paragraphs challenge three separate billion-dollar industries: the sugar trust, the dairy trust, and the drug trust. None of them wants people to discover that asthma and osteoporosis can be eliminated simply by removing sugar and dairy from the diet. No, no, that won't do. That's not "scientific." Diseases are cured by one thing; drugs. Right? That's real medicine. If people change their diets, they won't need all those drugs and calcium supplements, and even worse, Clinton won't be giving out any more $178 million presents to try and discover the "cure " for asthma.

In his forgotten landmark work, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Dr. Weston Price proves beyond the shadow of a doubt the association between deteriorating health of a country's people and their exposure to white sugar and white flour.

So let's bring this twisted puzzle into focus. With sugar and dairy, we're talking about immune compromise.

The main part of the immune system is the white blood cells. Their job is to circulate and locate foreign stuff. Once they locate something alien to the body, the white cells attack it, destroy it and carry it off. A slight oversimplification, but generally this is a big part of how the immune system works.

Refined sugar interferes in many ways. First of all, refined sugar blocks digestion, allowing undigested food to get into the bloodstream, thus slowing circulation way down. If the white cells can't make their rounds, they can't do their job.

Appleton cites two university studies (p 52) which demonstrated that sugar suppresses the immune system by decreasing phagocytosis. Phagocytosis refers to the Pac-manlike activity of white cells munching up foreign stuff. Sugar greatly reduces the activity of the white cells' little 'flippers' (pseudopods), which are for reaching out to locate foreign debris.

Secondly, the immune system gets sensitized to refined sugar. That means it freaks out at first, trying to normalize the blood. But after awhile, the immune system adapts to the abnormal levels of sugar, and accepts the idea that it will operate at a sub-normal level. The sugar no longer triggers such a violent response, and as a result, neither do other foreign agents. The immune system gets more and more lenient about what level of contamination it will allow the blood to maintain. Overall health declines. This is right out of Hans Selye, the guy who discovered and studied stress.

A third way sugar depresses the immune system is by sticking to protein. In the early part of the 20th century, Louis Maillard proved that refined sugar has a particular capability for sticking to protein foods, like meat, and forming a strange new complex called glycenated protein. Food chemists call Maillard's discovery the Maillard Reaction. We lack enzymes for these weird proteins, and so they don't get broken down very well in the digestive tract. The immune system is then exhausted by trying to attack them year after year, since they are foreign material.

That's why after a big burger and a large coke, you may feel slightly nauseated. The sugar binds to the meat, making a glycenated protein - a foreignburger.

Funny thing is, the Maillard Reactions have been studied not primarily by nutritionists, but by food processors. Food chemists have evolved very sophisticated methods of gluing sugar to proteins, which is useful in the production of bread, pastries, candy, processed meats and fish, beer, crackers, and coffee. Carmelization. Taste and color are their prime concerns, not nutrition. (Scandrett) These foods are chemically processed, making it difficult if not impossible for them to be digested in our bodies.

Lowered levels of immune response is called immunosuppression. Its leads to frequent flu, colds, fatigue, and other diseases of civilization. The more refined the diet became, the more degenerative diseases prevailed - arthritis, allergies, colitis, diabetes, etc. This is not a theory.

SUGAR AND OBESITY

Obesity is defined as being more than 35% over normal weight. In 1993, 30% of Americans were obese. (Fats That Heal, p 405) At the present time, nearly half of Americans are in this category! The percentage increases almost every year.

Excess sugar consumption is largely responsible for obesity. Consuming 160 lbs per year of anything indigestible would probably have a less than salubrious effect on the body. But in the case of sugar, it's worse. Sugar becomes converted to fat. Excess glucose is changed to fatty acids, then triglycerides, then stored as adipose tissue. (Erasmus,p 34) This accounts for Joe Sixpack's spare tire. Or fat little Johnny, who must have his coke every couple of hours.

Worse news is that the types of fatty acids produced from refined sugar are killer types – the kinds that clog arteries. They are not essential fatty acids, which are necessary for complete health, and actually interfere with normal operation of the good, essential fatty acids. (Erasmus, p 35)

SUGAR, CORTISOL, AND MUSCLE BUILDING

The main reason pro athletes don't chug soft drinks is that they know what sugar does to muscle. As we saw in the Creatine chapter, muscle is either torn down or built up by the opposing action of two hormones:

cortisol
testosterone

A third hormone is also involved: insulin. Before this gets too complicated, keep these three facts in mind:

1. cortisol wants to maintain high levels of blood glucose for fight or flight situations

2. cortisol's favorite target is muscle. Cortisol gets amino acids from tearing down muscle. The amino acids are then converted to glucose

3. insulin regulates cortisol

So. We have seen that a worn-out pancreas no longer puts out sufficient insulin. With no insulin, cortisol is not regulated. Cortisol then has a free hand to tear down muscle. Sugar works into this scenario in two separate ways:

1. After many years, a high sugar diet destroys the pancreas's ability to put out insulin

2. processing refined sugar out of the body requires chromium. Eventually, with a high sugar diet, we are chromium-deficient. Chromium is necessary to activate insulin. With no chromium, even the little insulin still present cannot do its job. Result: cortisol runs wild and tears down muscle.

This is why diabetic tend to be flabby - muscle destruction.

Remember all this after a workout. If someone hands you a coke, think of canceling out all the good you just did for your muscles by the workout.

TOOTH DECAY

As noted above, sugar promotes a condition of acidity wherever it goes - the mouth, the stomach, the blood. In the mouth the pH gets lower with the presence of sugar. At around pH 5.5, the saliva begins to dissolve tooth enamel. (Appleton, p98) After eating sugar, the pH of saliva may go down to 4.5 and stay there for 20 minutes or more. This is why the dentists always say that even if you can't brush your teeth after eating sweets, at least rinse the mouth with water as soon as possible. That would prevent much of the dissolving of the tooth enamel.

Again, the definitive study of the effect of sugar on the teeth was done in the 1930s by Dr. Weston Price. Price traveled all over the globe - Scotland, Switaerland, Africa, the South Pacific, the Arctic, Australia, America - photographing and examining the teeth of every primitive civilization he could find. The photographs alone contained in his master work Nutrition and Physical Degeneration tell an inescapable truth - sugar has been a detriment to the human race. In case after case, savages in isolated wilderness had teeth like ivory, from centuries of eating a traditional, natural diet. Then civilization showed up. Teeth became rotten, bones became soft, and the new weaknesses were then passed on to the offspring. Then followed epidemic tuberculosis and arthritis. Dufty also talks about how the missionaries always brought the sugar. And the processed foods. Then come the slaves, and pretty soon everybody's in the real estate business. Ask the Hawaiians. Or the West Africans.

In 1955, Royal Lee noticed that impoverished people in India had "one-thousandth the tooth decay" that existed in the U.S. at that time. Many of those Indians were starving, and wouldn't cook anything that didn't require cooking, yet Lee noticed that "only one person in eighty had any cavities at all." (Food Integrity, p2)

Demineralization of bones and teeth is also promoted by the acidic environment created in the blood by refined sugar. Calcium, magnesium, and chromium are squandered in the body's attempts to rid itself of this non-food.

ASPARTAME

No discussion of sugar would be complete without mention of a phenomenon unprecedented in history: the marketing of a toxic chemical as an alternative to a devitalized food.

Aspartame (Nutrasweet, Equal, etc.) was discovered in 1965 by the pharmaceutical firm G.D. Searle. The whole story of how aspartame and diet soft drinks became a billion dollar industry is a dark tale, beyond the scope of this chapter. We will just look at a few highlights here, which should be enough to make you switch back to pepsi or coke classic. Refined sugar is only like a drug; aspartame is a drug.

Searle, the pharmaceutical compant, was doing research to invent an "ulcer drug" when a chemist James Schlatter licked his hand one day to detect a very sweet taste from contact with aspartame. Noticing that he did not die immediately, he had an idea for an artificial sweetener.

It took Searle and Monsanto 16 years to get aspartame approved by the FDA. The political implications of this food additive which could also be added to drugs to make them taste better - powerful forces lined up at the trough.

From http://thewinds.org/ we find

When the FDA approved [aspartame] for human consumption in 1974, it went against a body of evidence so enormous as to stagger the credulity of virtually any thinking person. "What most consumers don't know," says Mike Wallace of CBS's "60 Minutes," "is that aspartame's approval was one of the most contested in FDA history. Consumers have reported more than 7,000 adverse reactions to the FDA, ranging from dizziness to headaches to seizures."

How could such a toxin get approved for mass consumption? Consider this: aspartame was OK'd during the Reagan Era. Ronnie's appointee as FDA Commissioner was Arthur Hull Hays. A few months after approving aspartame, Hays left the FDA. Take a wild guess what his next job was. A top position as consultant for Monsanto's PR office! Ain't that America/ for you and me

From the very beginning, researchers had problems with aspartame's effects on the body, especially on the nervous system. A more complete list of aspartame's side effects is found in a Feb. 1994 report from the Department of Health and Human Services:

nausea
numbness
muscle spasms
weight gain {!}
rashes
depression
fatigue
excitability
rapid heartbeat
insomnia
vision problems
hearing loss
anxiety attacks
slurred speech
loss of taste
ringing in the ears
vertigo
memory loss
arthritis

Other researchers found that aspartame could cause

brain tumors
multiple sclerosis
epilepsy
chronic fatigue
Parkinson's disease
Alzheimer's
mental retardation
lymphoma
birth defects
fibromyalgia
diabetes {!}
-------- Blaylock

Read these two lists again. This is what people really get when they think they're getting what? A "diet" drink that will let them lose weight and still enjoy soft drinks? And it still causes diabetes and weight gain? Looks like some more masterful marketing, the type that sells vaccines and heart medication and fake insulin and pain killers. And the beauty of it is that the drug companies will get money both ways -

-when people drink the diet soft drinks
-when people then get all these diseases, which require more drugs.

Aspartame is a triple molecule composed of aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol (wood alcohol).

Russell Blaylock, a professor of neurophysiology, is the real expert on aspartic acid. In his book, Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills, Dr. Blaylock reminds us that MSG is 99% aspartic acid. Aspartic acid is a major neurotoxin which can cause virtually any neurological disorder you can think of. (See above list) It does this by producing free radicals that kill nerve cells. Blaylock has over 500 scientific references to back up this notion of nerve damage from aspartic acid.

A chemical that kills nerve cells may mimic several neurological diseases. One is Multiple Sclerosis. With true MS, the insulation around nerves - the myelin - is being slowly destroyed, for some unknown reason. This shorts out the affected parts of the nervous system. The result is a wide range of possible symptoms - numbness, pain, confusion, headache, blindness, organ breakdown, etc. But aspartame may cause the identical presentation, and be misdiagnosed as MS. This would render any treatment for the MS useless, obviously. The point is, if someone has been diagnosed with MS, or with any other incurable nerve disorder, and they're drinking diet soft drinks on a daily basis, the physicians may be barking up the wrong tree. And the patient will continue to poison himself, maybe to death. (http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000/Aspartame.htm)

Aspartic acid is very dangerous to infants, whose nervous systems are still forming and have not developed a defense system as yet. Very similar to what we saw with DPT shots (Sanctity of Human Blood) It may not be wise to give your infant diet anything.

Phenylalanine is an amino acid necessary for brain function. In excess, phenylalanine lowers serotonin levels, causing depression. (Elsas)

Methanol is wood alcohol. In the 1920s when liquor was illegal, people would sometimes resort to wood alcohol, even though the dangers of blindness from doing so were well known. Methanol is a by-product of aspartame after aspartame breaks down in the small intestine, from the action of our enzyme chymotrypsin.

An additional problem with methanol is that it is then changed into formaldehyde in the body. As we saw in Sanctity of Human Blood, formaldehyde is a well-known neurotoxin and carcinogen, documented in every toxicology and pathology text ever written.

Researchers found out that digestion is not even necessary to break aspartame down into these three toxins. If the diet soda sits around in a room where temperature goes above 86° F, formaldehyde is produced. (Moser, p 42) Other researchers have correlated the neurotoxic components of Gulf War Syndrome with the boatloads of diet soda that sat around in the desert sun for weeks, at temperatures above 100° F. But such a thing happens every day in America in warmer climates. Soda delivery trucks aren't refrigerated.

Toxicity levels? The EPA has giving methanol as consumption limit of 7.8 mg per day. Problem is, a one liter bottle of diet soda contains 56 mg of potential methanol! (Monte)

How could something this toxic be approved by the FDA? That's simple. The demand. By 1986, Americans were drinking 20 billion cans of diet soda per year, all of it with aspartame. (Metzenbaum) In 1987, Monsanto sold 8,500 TONS of aspartame, according to USDA figures. After that year, they refused to release production figures. But it's unlikely that production has gone down since then, considering all the foods that now feature aspartame. A partial list:

diet soft drinks
breakfast cereals
puddings
malt beverages
pie fillings
candy
tea
fruit juice concentrates
baked goods
frostings
breath mints
chewing gum
coffee
wine coolers
yogurt
------- Gold, p 9, 10

Then Monsanto found the real motherlode - chewable vitamins. Here is a partial list of the drugs and vitamins which now are flavored by the proven neurotoxin aspartame:

- Mylanta Natural Fiber Supplement, Sugar Free.
- Centrum,Jr vitamins
- Childrens TYLENOL acetaminophen Fruit Flavored Chewable Tablets
- Childrens TYLENOL acetaminophen Grape Flavored Chewable Tablets
- Childrens TYLENOL acetaminophen Cold Multi-Symptom Chewable Tablets
- Junior Strength TYLENOL acetaminophen Fruit Flavored Chewable Tablets
- PEDIACARE Cold-Allergy Tablets for Ages 6 to 12
- PEDIACARE Cough-Cold Tablets for Ages 6 to 12
- PEDICARE Childrens Cold Relief Tablets
- TYLENOL Cold and Flu Hot Medication
- TYLENOL Cold and Flu No Drowsiness Formula Hot Medication
- Childrens Chewable CO-TYLENOLv

- ALKA-SELTZER PLUS Night-time Cold Medicine
- ALKA-SELTZER PLUS Cold and Cough Medicine
- ALKA-SELTZER PLUS Sinus Allergy Medicine
- BUGS BUNNY Vitamin Products (ALL)
- FLINTSTONES Plus Calcium Multivitamin Supplement
- FLINTSTONES Complete Multivitamin Supplement
- FLINTSTONES Childrens Chewable Multivitamin

- DIMETAPP Cold and Allergy Chewable Tablets

- TEMPRA 3 Chewable Tablets, 80mg acetaminophen tablet
- TEMPRA 3 Double Strength Chewable Tablets, 160mg acetominophen

- Zantac Efferdose

- SKAGGS ALPHA BETA Childrens Pain Reliever
- SHOP'N SAVE Childrens Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever
- KINNEY"S Childrens Chewable Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever
- PAY'N SAVE Childrens Chewable Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever
- PEOPLES Childrens Chewable Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever
- PIGGLY WIGGLY Childrens Chewable Non-Aspirin P.R.
- RITE AID Childrens Aceteminophen Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever

- Childrens Anacin-3 Chewable Tablets

- SUGAR FREE METAMUCIL

- ECKERD Sugar Free Natural Fiber Laxative
- LONGS Sugar Free Natural Vegetable Powder Laxative
- PAYLESS Sugar Free Natural Vegetable Powder Laxative
- RALEY'S Sugar Free Natural Vegetable Powder
- RITE AID Sugar Free Regular Flavor Nat.Veg.Bulk Powder
- SQUIBBCARE Sugar Free Natural Fiber Laxative
- THRIFTY Sugar Free Natural Vegetable Laxative

- HEALTH BALANCE Childrens Chewable Multivitamin
- ZOO CHEWS Animal-Shaped Chewable Multivitamin

- MEDIGUARD Childens Multivitamin Supplement (Cherry,Orange and Grape)

- EQUATE Chewable Vitamins Animal-Shaped (with Iron)

- MEIJER CIRCUS SHAPES (Complete with Calcium,Iron and Minerals)
- MIEJER CIRCUS SHAPES (with Iron)

- ANIMAL SHAPES Chewable Vitamins Plus Extra C
- ANIMAL SHAPES Chewable Vitamins Complete
- ANIMAL SHAPES Chewable Vitamins With Iron

- REVCO Childrens Chewable Multivitamins
- LONGS Children's Chewable Multivitamin
- GRAY DRUG FAIR Childrens Chewable Multivitamin

source: Use of Aspartame By Pharmaceutical Companies
Copyright 1996 Leading Edge Research

The above list can be verified by a trip to your local drugstore. The lowest example of bold-faced pandering that can be imagined is palming off known poisons to children by disguising them with cutesy names. Anybody see a correlation with the epidemic asthma levels cited above? What are we doing to our children?

This section is getting too long. The story of the politics and deceit behind the FDA approval of aspartame during the past 25 years is a classic in the usual format: poisons legislated into public use through sweetheart arrangements among manufacturers, legislators, and regulators, complete with the usual fraudulent research, hired-gun medical 'experts' proclaiming the safety of a proven toxin, etc. For the whole slimy tale, start with:

- Deadly Deception: The Story of Aspartame by Mary Nash Stoddard,
Odenwald Press, Dallas, Texas. ISBN 1-884363-14-8.

- Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills Russell L. Blaylock, MD, Health Press, 1997.

Don't miss the part about the Magic Rat. There was a famous investigation of all the research submitted to the FDA for aspartame's approval. The investigators wrote their findings in a document called the Bressler Report. The Magic Rat was a representation of the type of fraud uncovered by the Bressler Report. It seems there was one rat whose name was A23 LM. According to the Report: "that animal A23LM was alive at week 88, dead from week 92 through week 104, alive at week 108, and dead at week 112."

Even Elvis couldn't do that.

Want to know how lame the FDA really is? After the Commissioner and several key lawyers and researchers who were investigating aspartame had accepted lucrative positions with Searle and Monsanto, the FDA had the temerity to come out with a statement like this in 1995:

"FDA has no further plans to continue to collect adverse reaction reports or monitor research periodically done on aspartame." (Thomas Wilcox, FDA branch chief, Food Chemical News 1995)

http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=28&i=13

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 14 replies

The Drugging Of Our Children Documentary

Leslee — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 21:17:56 GMT

After you have seen this please post it on other tribes. You will not see this on TV because big pharma does not want you to see it. It is up to us to save kids lives. Thank you all.

MUST SEE VIDEO!!!!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3609599239524875493&q=The+Drugging+Of+Our+Children&hl=en

http://www.ostrowandcompany.com/film_detail.php?film=The%20Drugging%20Of%20Our%20Children

The Drugging Of Our Children

OVERVIEW

Genre: Feature Documentary
Language: English
Country of Origin: USA
Running Time: 102 minutes

CAST & CREW

Director: Gary Null
Co-Directed by: Producer: Manette Loudon, David
Chmura
Associate Producer & Legal Affairs: David Slater
Editor: David Chmura
Cinematographer: Derek Ramsey, David Chmura
Writer: Gary Null
Producer's Representative: Ostrow and Company

SYNOPSIS

How are large drug companies benefiting from the
latest trend of selling powerful psychoactive drugs to
America's children? Do these drugs really help our
children cure symptoms of supposed mental illness, or
do they tend to increase depression, violence, and
suicide? Are we really treating the root causes of
mental illness, or are we just eliminating annoying
symptoms?

This feature-length documentary examines the alarming
growth in the prescription of powerful psychotropic
drugs for adolescents and children. Leading experts,
as well as Neil Bush, Michael Moore and Gary Null,
provide insightful commentary about the growing trend
to pathologize the behavior of children, and then
require them to take mind-altering pharmaceutical
drugs as a "cure." The documentary recounts the
national tragedy of Columbine and focuses on the
largely unknown fact that teenage shooter Eric Harris
was on the psychotropic drug Luvox at the time he and
Dylan Klebold took the lives of 13 other students at
their high school. Violence and aggression,
precipitated by prescribed drug use, is also explored
in an unprecedented discussion between Mark Taylor,
the first shooting victim in the Columbine tragedy,
and Cory Baadsgard, a teenager on Paxil and Effexor
who, in another violent incident, took his teacher and
23 students hostage at gunpoint in his Washington high
school. The film proceeds to show the dangerous links
between psychotropic drugs like Paxil, Luvox, Effexor
and Prozac – commonly prescribed to adolescents for
anxiety, depression and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
(OCD) - and the increased incidents of violence,
suicide and psychotic behavior often observed in those
children and adolescents who are taking the drugs. The
film also provides compelling personal accounts,
including a mother going to prison and losing her son
to government authorities because she refused to give
her son psychiatric drugs. Leading medical authorities
and mental health professionals speak the unvarnished
truth about current increased diagnoses of recently
devised mental illnesses and the unprecedented
prescription of a host of very powerful psychoactive
drugs to "treat" them. Finally, this documentary
explores safer, alternative methods for treating
childhood mental illness.

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 0 replies

Chocolate and spice Cookies

ZyAnn — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 20:21:08 GMT

Paraphrased by way of Time Magazine, December 4, 2006

IN small amounts we've been told by they who know, that chocolate is good for the heart and blood vessels, but now they're saying its also beneficial for reducing platelet clumping that enables to the blood to flow smoothly. Yippee and Yay~!

Cinnamon & Gloves: According to studies cinnamon and gloves can be helpful in preventing heart disease and diabetes. Components prove to be 30% effective via reducing inflammation/cholesterol in heart disease and controlling blood sugar in type II diabetes.

Ginger: Is a natural painkiller, and known to ease nausea as well as aid motion sickness, comparable to Dramamine. It's also anti-inflammatory---but now researchers have discovered ginger powder killed ovarian-cancer cells in the laboratory at a rate comparable to conventional chemotherapy drugs.

Turmeric: Is a popular spices [a relative to ginger] used in curry sauces, it is also anti-inflammatory. Some studied have proven it to be as effective in reducing inflammation as Ibuprofen. Currently through research it's shown significant reduction in prostrate tumor growth in mice.

Ok, I'm thinking chocolate chip, ginger, glove, cinnamon--oats [for fiber], with a dash of turmeric Christmas cookies, Oh and don't forget the nuts---Haaa~!

.

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 0 replies

HOMEOPATHY INDEX ONLINE! info gold mine!

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 06:57:24 GMT

http://www.publix.com/wellness/healthcenter/Homeopathy.do?id=Index&childId=Homeo

info on all these conditions!
just click on the link above to take you to the main page where you select a condition to learn on how to treat.

A

Acne Vulgaris
Alcohol Withdrawal Support
Allergic Rhinitis
Allergies and Sensitivities (Food and Chemical)
Allergy (Hay Fever)
Anxiety
Aphthous Ulcers
Arthritis (Gout)
Arthritis (Osteo)
Arthritis (Rheumatoid)
Asthma
Athletic Performance
Atopic Dermatitis

B

Backache
Bee Sting
Bell’s Palsy
Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia
Birth (Delivery)
Bites (Insect)
Bladder Infection
Bloating
Boils
Brittle Bone Disease
Broken Bone Support
Bronchitis
Bruising
Burns
Bursitis

C

Cancer Treatment Support
Candida albicans/candidiasis
Canker Sores
Canker Sores
Carbuncle
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Cataracts
Change of Life
Chemotherapy Support
Chicken Pox
Cold Sores
Colic
Common Cold
Conjunctivitis
Constipation
Cough
Cystitis

D

Degenerative Arthritis
Dental Support
Depression
Depression (Postpartum)
Dermatitis (Eczema)
Dermatitis (Rashes)
Diarrhea
Dilutions
Dysmenorrhea

E

Ear Infections
Ears (Ringing)
Eczema
Edema
Enlarged Prostate (BPH)
Enteralgia
Eye (Conjunctivitis)
Eye Strain and Eye Injuries

F

Facial Muscle Paralysis
Fibromyalgia
Fibrositis
Flatulence
Flu
Fracture Support
Furuncle

G

Gallstones
Gas
Gastrointestinal (Indigestion)
Genital Herpes
Glue Ear
Gout

H

Hay Fever
Headache (Migraine)
Heartburn
Hemorrhoids
Herpes Simplex
Herpes Zoster
High Blood Pressure
Homeopathic Potencies
Homeopathy: Basics
Housemaid’s Knee
Hypertension

I

Impotence
Indigestion
Infection
Infection (Ear)
Infertility (Male Impotence)
Inflammation (Bursa)
Influenza
Injuries
Insect Bites/Stings
Insomnia
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

J

K

Keratitis

L

Lower Back Ache

M

Measles
Menopause Symptoms
Menorrhagia
Menstrual Problems
Menstruation (Painful)
Migraine
Morning Sickness
Motion Sickness
Mouth Ulcers
Mumps

N

Nausea (Pregnancy)
Nervousness

O

Osteoarthritis
Osteoporosis
Otitis Media

P

Pain (Back)
Parotitis
Photosensitivity
Piles
Pimples
Pink Eye
PMS
Poison Ivy/Oak
Pollen Allergy
Postpartum Depression
Potencies of Homeopathic Remedies
Pregnancy (Nausea)
Pregnancy/Delivery Support
Premenstrual Syndrome
Prostatic Hyperplasia
Psoriasis

Q

R

Rashes
Raynaud’s Disease
Repetitive Strain Injury
Restless Legs Syndrome
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Ringing in the Ears
Rubeola

S

Shingles
Skin (Boils)
Skin (Eczema)
Skin (Psoriasis)
Skin (Rash)
Sleeplessness
Sore Throat
Sprain
Sting (Insect)
Strain
Surgery Recovery Support

T

Teeth Help
Teething
Tennis Elbow
Thrush
Tinnitus

U

Ulcers (Mouth)
Understanding Homeopathic Potency
Upper Respiratory Infection
Urinary Tract Infection (UTI)

V

Varicella Zoster
Varicose Veins

W

What Is Homeopathy?
Wind

X

Y

Yeast Infection

Z

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 2 replies

OMEGA 3 NIH WORKSHOP VIDEOS

Leslee — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 07:35:53 GMT

http://theeffexoractivist.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=415

These are videos taken at a conference with scientists from around the world on OMEGA 3s Amazing stuff.

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 0 replies

cirrhosis

liabear1 — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 00:57:37 GMT

Are there any liver cleanses safe for someone with cirrhosis?

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 9 replies

Honey helps problem wounds

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:23:57 GMT

Honey helps problem wounds
Medihoney more effective than antibiotics -- Bonn-led study to start soon
This press release is also available in Germany.
A household remedy millennia old is being reinstated: honey helps the treatment of some wounds better than the most modern antibiotics. For several years now medical experts from the University of Bonn have been clocking up largely positive experience with what is known as medihoney. Even chronic wounds infected with multi-resistant bacteria often healed within a few weeks. In conjunction with colleagues from Düsseldorf, Homburg and Berlin they now want to test the experience gained in a large-scale study, as objective data on the curative properties of honey are thin on the ground.

The fact that honey can help wounds to heal is something that was known to the Ancient Egyptians several thousand years ago. And in the last two world wars poultices with honey were used to assist the healing process in soldiers' wounds. However, the rise of the new antibiotics replaced this household remedy. 'In hospitals today we are faced with germs which are resistant to almost all the current anti-biotics,' Dr. Arne Simon explains. 'As a result, the medical use of honey is becoming attractive again for the treatment of wounds.'

Dr. Simon works on the cancer ward of the Bonn University Children's Clinic. As far as the treatment of wounds is concerned, his young patients form part of a high-risk group: the medication used to treat cancer known as cytostatics not only slows down the reproduction of malignant cells, but also impairs the healing process of wounds. 'Normally a skin injury heals in a week, with our children it often takes a month or more,' he says. Moreover, children with leukaemia have a weakened immune system. If a germ enters their bloodstream via a wound, the result may be a fatal case of blood poisoning.

For several years now Bonn paediatricians have been pioneering the use in Germany of medihoney in treating wounds. Medihoney bears the CE seal for medical products; its quality is regularly tested. The success is astonishing: 'Dead tissue is rejected faster, and the wounds heals more rapidly,' Kai Sofka, wound specialist at the University Children's Clinic, emphasises. 'What is more, changing dressings is less painful, since the poultices are easier to remove without damaging the newly formed layers of skin.' Some wounds often smell unpleasant – an enormous strain on the patient. Yet honey helps here too by reducing the smell. 'Even wounds which consistently refused to heal for years can, in our experience, be brought under control with medihoney – and this frequently happens within a few weeks,' Kai Sofka says.

In the meantime two dozen hospitals in Germany are using honey in their treatment of wounds. Despite all the success there have hitherto been very few reliable clinical studies of its effectiveness. In conjunction with colleagues from Düsseldorf, Homburg and Berlin, the Bonn medical staff now want to remedy this. With the Woundpecker Data Bank, which they have developed themselves, they will be recording and evalu-ating over 100 courses of disease over the next few months. The next step planned is comparative studies with other therapeutic methods such as the very expensive cationic silver dressings. 'These too are an effective anti-bacterial method,' says Dr. Arne Simon. 'However, it is not yet clear whether the silver released from some dressings may lead to side-effects among children.' Effective bacteria killer

It has already been proved that medihoney even puts paid to multi-resistant germs such as MRSA. In this respect medihoney is neck and neck in the race to beat the antibiotic mupirocin, currently the local MRSA antibiotic of choice. This is shown by a study recently published by researchers in Australia. In one point medihoney was even superior to its rival: the bacteria did not develop any resistance to the natural product during the course of treatment.

It is also known today why honey has an antiseptic effect: when producing honey, bees add an enzyme called glucose-oxidase. This enzyme ensures that small amounts of hydrogen peroxide, an effective antiseptic, are constantly being formed from the sugar in the honey. The advantage over the hydrogen peroxide from the chemist's is that small concentrations are sufficient to kill the germs, as it is constantly being produced. As a rule much larger quantities of hydrogen peroxide would have to be used, as hydrogen peroxide loses its potency over time. However, in large concentrations it not only damages the bacteria, but also the skin cells.

Furthermore, medihoney consists of two different types of honey: one which forms a comparatively large amount of hydrogen peroxide, and another known as 'lepto-spermum honey'. Leptospermum is a species of tree which occurs in New Zealand and Australia. Honey from these trees has a particularly strong anti-bacterial effect, even in a 10% dilution. 'It is not yet known exactly why this is,' Dr. Arne Simon says. 'Probably it is a mix of phenol-type substances which come from the plant and make life particularly difficult for the bacteria in the wound.'
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-07/uob-hhp072706.php

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 8 replies

phases of fasting

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 04:46:37 GMT

Stage 1 (Day 1 To Day 2)

On the first day of fasting, the blood sugar level drops below 70 mg/dl. To restore the blood to the normal glucose level, liver glycogen is converted to glucose and released into the blood. This reserve is enough for half a day. The body then reduces the basal metabolic rate (BMR). The rate of internal chemical activity in resting tissue is lowered to conserve energy. The heart slows and blood pressure is reduced. Glycogen is pulled from the muscle causing some weakness. The first wave of cleansing is usually the worst.

Headaches, dizziness, nausea, bad breath, glazed eyes and a heavily coated tongue are signs of the first stage of cleansing. Hunger can be the most intense in this period unless the enema is used which quickly assists the body into the fasting state by ending digestion in the colon.

Stage 2 (Day 3 To Day 7)

Fats, composed of transformed fatty acids, are broken down to release glycerol from the gliceride molecules and are converted to glucose. The skin may become oily as rancid oils are purged from the body. People with problem-free skin may have a few days of pimples or even a boil. A pallid complexion is also a sign of waste in the blood. Ketones are formed by the incomplete oxidation of fats. It is suspected that the ketones in the blood suppress the appetite by affecting the food-satiety center in the hypothalamus. You may feel hungry for the first few days of the fast. This effect is temporary. The desire to eat will disappear. Lack of hunger may last 40 to 60 days, depending on whether you are on water or juice.

The body embraces the fast and the digestive system is able to take a much-needed rest, focusing all of its energies on cleansing and healing. White blood cell and immune system activity increases. You may feel pain in your lungs. The cleansing organs and the lungs are in the process of being repaired. Periodically, the lymphatic system expels mucoid matter through the nose or throat. The volume excreted of this yellow-colored mucus can be shocking. The sinuses go through periods of being clogged, then will totally clear. The breath is still foul and the tongue coated. Within the intestine, the colon is being repaired and impacted feces on the intestinal wall start to loosen.

Stage 3 (Day 8 to Day 15)

On the latter part of an extended fast, you can experience enhanced energy, clear-mindedness and feel better than you have felt since childhood. On the downside, old injuries may become irritated and painful. This is a result of the body's increased ability to heal during fasting. If you had broken your arm 10 years before, there is scar tissue around the break. At the time of the break, the body's ability to heal was directly related to lifestyle. If you lived on a junk-food diet, the body's natural healing ability was compromised.

During fasting, the body's healing process is at optimum efficiency. As the body scours for dead or damaged tissue, the lymphocytes enter the older, damaged tissue secreting substances to dissolve the damaged cells. These substances irritate the nerves in the surrounding region and cause a reoccurrence of aches from previously injured areas that may have disappeared years earlier. The pain is good as the body is completing the healing process. The muscles may become tight and sore due to toxin irritation. The legs can be the worst affected, as toxins accumulate in the legs. Cankers are common in this stage due to the excessive bacteria in the mouth. Daily gargling with salt and water will prevent or heal cankers.

Stage 4 (Day 16 to Day 30)

The body is completely adapted to the fasting process. There is more energy and clarity of mind. Cleansing periods can be short with many days of feeling good in between. There are days when the tongue is pink and the breath is fresh. The healing work of the organs is being completed. After the detoxification mechanisms have removed the causative agent or render it harmless, the body works at maximum capacity in tissue proliferation to replace damaged tissue. While a short fast will reduce the symptoms, a longer fast can completely heal. Homeostatic balance is at optimum levels. The lymphatic system is clean except for a rare discharge of mucus through the nose or throat. After day 20, the mind is affected. Heightened clarity and emotional balance are felt at this time. Memory and concentration improve.

Stage 5 (Breaking the Fast)

The sticky, toxic, mucoid coating on the intestinal wall is loose, and the first meal frees it from the intestinal wall. Toxins enter the blood through the colon. The gallbladder dumps its waste in a heavy discharge of bile. This can cause an instant bowel movement upon eating followed by intense diarrhea. If the symptoms are too uncomfortable, an enema will help

________________________________________________

another curezone find. and another reason to see it the whole way through!

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 4 replies

Newbie inquiries

herecomesthesun — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 19:31:04 GMT

I recently did these two cleanses back-to-back:
- http://www.lifeevents.org/gall-bladder-cleanse.htm
- http://www.lifeevents.org/salt-water-cleanse.htm
I found that after the second or third day, what was coming out of my body was clear, as in no "debris" but a bright yellow color. My questions are: is this normal? What is it? Should I hhave stopped after thhis stagge (I did stop after thhat point, even though the salt flush is supposed to last a week). Should you eat, or is there a point in eating since it all just goes through you?
Any help would be appreciated!

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 0 replies

VITAMIN GUIDE

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:06:19 GMT

http://www.publix.com/wellness/healthcenter/VitaminGuide.do?id=Index&childId=Supp

look at this sample entry!
so great!

Vitamin A

Also indexed as: Retinol (A)

See also: Beta-carotene, Drug interactions

Skip to:
What it is
Where found
Helpful for
Are you deficient?
Amount to take
Side effects & interactions
References
What is it?
Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin with four major functions in the body: (1) It helps cells reproduce normally—a process called differentiation (cells that have not properly differentiated are more likely to undergo pre-cancerous changes). (2) It is required for vision; vitamin A maintains healthy cells in various structures of the eye and is required for the transduction of light into nerve signals in the retina. (3) It is required for normal growth and development of the embryo and fetus, influencing genes that determine the sequential development of organs in embryonic development. (4) It may be required for normal reproductive function, with influences on the function and development of sperm, ovaries and placenta.

For some people, water-soluble forms of vitamin A supplements appear to be better absorbed than fat-soluble vitamin A.

Where is it found?
Liver, dairy products, and cod liver oil are good sources of vitamin A. Vitamin A is also available in supplement form.

Who is likely to be deficient?
People who limit their consumption of liver, dairy foods, and beta-carotene-containing vegetables can develop a vitamin A deficiency. Extremely low birth weight babies (2.2 pounds or less) are at high risk of being born with a deficiency, and vitamin A shots given to these infants have been reported in double-blind research to reduce the risk of lung disease.1 The earliest deficiency sign is poor night vision. Deficiency symptoms can also include dry skin, increased risk of infections, and metaplasia (a precancerous condition). Severe deficiencies causing blindness are extremely rare in Western societies.

Less severe deficiencies are more likely to occur with a variety of conditions causing malabsorption. A high incidence of vitamin A deficiency in people infected with HIV has also been reported. People with hypothyroidism have an impaired ability to convert beta-carotene to vitamin A.2 3 For this reason, some doctors suggest taking supplemental vitamin A (perhaps 5,000–10,000 IU per day) if they are not consuming adequate amounts in their diet.

Very old people with type 2 diabetes have shown a significant age-related decline in blood levels of vitamin A, irrespective of their dietary intake.4

How much is usually taken?
For most people, up to 25,000 IU (7,500 mcg) of vitamin A per day is considered safe. However, people over age 65 and those with liver disease should probably not supplement with more than 15,000 IU per day, unless supervised by a doctor. In women who could become pregnant, the maximum safe intake is being re-evaluated. However, less than 10,000 IU (3,000 mcg) per day is generally accepted as safe. There is concern that larger intakes could cause birth defects. Whether the average person would benefit from vitamin A supplementation remains unclear.

Are there any side effects or interactions?
Since a 1995 report from the New England Journal of Medicine,5 women who are or could become pregnant have been told by doctors to take less than 10,000 IU (3,000 mcg) per day of vitamin A to avoid the risk of birth defect. A recent report studied several hundred women exposed to 10,000–300,000 IU (median exposure of 50,000 IU) per day.6 Three major malformations occurred in this study, but all could have happened in the absence of vitamin A supplementation. Surprisingly, no congenital malformations happened in any of the 120 infants exposed to maternal intakes of vitamin A that exceeded 50,000 IU per day. In fact, the high-exposure group had a 50% decreased risk for malformations compared with infants not exposed to vitamin A. The authors noted that some previous studies found no link between vitamin A and birth defects, and argued the studies that did find such a link suffered from various weaknesses. A closer look at the recent study reveals a 32% higher than expected risk of birth defects in infants exposed to 10,000–40,000 IU of vitamin A per day, but paradoxically a 37% decreased risk for those exposed to even higher levels. This suggests that both “higher” and “lower” risks may have been due to chance.

Excessive dietary intake of vitamin A has been associated with birth defects in humans in fewer than 20 reported cases over the past 30 years.7 8 Presently, the level at which vitamin A supplementation may cause birth defects is not known, though combined human and animal data suggest that 30,000 IU per day should be considered safe.9 Women who are or who could become pregnant should consult with a doctor before supplementing with more than 10,000 IU per day.

Vitamin A supplements can both help and hurt children. Many people have heard that vitamin A supplements support immune function and prevent infections. This is true under some circumstances. However, vitamin A can also increase the risk of infections, according to the findings of a double-blind trial.10 In a study of African children between six months and five years old, a 44% reduction in the risk of severe diarrhea was seen in those children given four 100,000–200,000 IU applications of vitamin A (the lower amount for those less than a year old) during an eight-month period. On further investigation, the researchers discovered that the reduction in diarrhea occurred only in children who were very malnourished. For children who were not starving, vitamin A supplementation actually increased the risk of diarrhea compared with the placebo group. The vitamin A-supplemented children also had a 67% increased risk of coughing and rapid breathing, signs of further lung infection, although this problem did not appear in children infected with AIDS. These findings should be of concern to American parents, whose children are not usually infected with AIDS or severely malnourished. Such relatively healthy children fared poorly in the African trial in terms of both the risk of diarrhea and the risk of continued lung problems. Vitamin A provided no benefit to the well-nourished kids. Therefore, it makes sense to not give vitamin A supplements to children unless there is a special reason to do so, such as the presence of a condition causing malabsorption (e.g., celiac disease).

In a study of people with retinitis pigmentosa (a degenerative condition of the eye), participants received 15,000 IU of vitamin A per day for 12 years with no signs of adverse effects or toxicity.11 For other adults, intake above 25,000 IU (7,500 mcg) per day can—in rare cases—cause headaches, dry skin, hair loss, fatigue, bone problems, and liver damage.12 At higher levels (for example 100,000 IU per day) these problems become more common.

A controlled clinical trial showed that people who took 25,000 IU of vitamin A per day for a median of 3.8 years had an 11% increase in triglycerides, a 3% increase in total cholesterol and a 1% decrease in HDL cholesterol compared to those who did not take vitamin A.13 Although the significance of these findings is not clear, people at risk for cardiovascular disease should use caution when considering long-term vitamin A supplementation.

One study found that increasing the intake of vitamin A in the diet was associated with bone loss and risk of hip fracture, possibly due to a vitamin A-induced stimulation of cells that break down bone.14 In this study, a vitamin A intake greater than 5,000 IU per day, when compared to a lower intake, was associated with a reduction in bone mineral density that approximately doubles the risk of hip fracture. Beta-carotene (which can be used by the body to make vitamin A) has not been linked to reduced bone mass. Until more is known, people concerned about osteoporosis may consider taking beta-carotene supplements rather than supplementing with vitamin A.

Data from test tube, animal, and human studies show that excessive vitamin A intake can accelerate bone loss and inhibit formation of new bone, increasing the risk of osteoporosis.15 In humans, small studies have found these effects at about 85,000–125,000 IU per day. 16 17

Taking vitamin A and iron together helps overcome iron deficiency more effectively than iron supplementation alone.18 Supplementation with zinc, iron, or the combination has been found to improve vitamin A status among children at high risk for deficiency of the three nutrients.19

Are there any drug interactions?
Certain medicines may interact with vitamin A. Refer to drug interactions for a list of those medicines.

References
1. Tyson JE, Wright LL, Oh W, et al. Vitamin A supplementation for extremely-low-birth-weight infants. N Engl J Med 1999;340:1962–8.

2. Smolle J, Wawschinek O, Hayn H, Eber O. Vitamin A and carotene in thyroid disease. Acta Med Austriaca 1983;10:71–3 [in German].

3. Aktuna D, Buchinger W, Langsteger W, et al. Beta-carotene, vitamin A and carrier proteins in thyroid diseases. Acta Med Austriaca 1993;20:17–20 [in German].

4. Polidori MC, Mecocci P, Stahl W, et al. Plasma levels of lipophilic antioxidants in very old patients with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Metab Res Rev 2000;16:15–9.

5. Rothman KJ, Moore LL, Singer MR, et al. Teratogenicity of high vitamin A intake. N Engl J Med 1995;333:1369–73.

6. Mastroiacovo P, Mazzone T, Addis A, et al. High vitamin A intake in early pregnancy and major malformations: a multicenter prospective controlled study. Teratology 1999;59:7–11.

7. Biesalski HK. Comparative assessment of the toxicology of vitamin A and retinoids in man. Toxicology 1989;57:117–61.

8. Azais-Braesco V, Pascal G. Vitamin A in pregnancy: requirements and safety limits. Am J Clin Nutr 2000;71(5 Suppl):1325S–33S [review].

9. Wiegand UW, Hartmann S, Hummler H. Safety of vitamin A: recent results. Int J Vitam Nutr Res 1998;68:411–6 [review].

10. Fawzi WW, Mbise R, Spiegelman D, et al. Vitamin A supplements and diarrheal and respiratory tract infections among children in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. J Pediatr 2000;137:660–7.

11. Sibulesky L, Hayes KC, Pronczuk A, et al. Safety of <7500 RE (<25000 IU) vitamin A daily in adults with retinitis pigmentosa. Am J Clin Nutr 1999;69:656–63.

12. Bendich A, Langseth L. Safety of vitamin A. Am J Clin Nutr 1989;49:358–71.

13. Cartmel B, Moon TE, Levine N. Effects of long-term intake of retinol on selected clinical and laboratory indexes. Am J Clin Nutr 1999;69:937–43.

14. Melhus H, Michaelsson K, Kindmark A, et al. Excessive dietary intake of vitamin A is associated with reduced bone mineral density and increased risk for hip fracture. Ann Int Med 1998;129:770–8.

15. Binkley N, Krueger D. Hypervitaminosis A and bone. Nutr Rev 2000;58:138–44 [review].

16. Frame B, Jackson CE, Reynolds WA, Umphrey JE. Hypercalcemia and skeletal effects in chronic hypervitaminosis A. Ann Intern Med 1974;80:44–8.

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posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 0 replies

SAFETYCHECKER FOR MIXING HERBS WITH SCRIPTS AND VITAMINS

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:03:52 GMT

http://www.publix.com/wellness/healthcenter/Safetychecker.do?id=Index&childId=Drug

very useful.

posted in ≈ VIVIFYING VIOLET ≈ - 0 replies