Dead Sea Herbs

Words of wisdom

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book. (Irish Proverb)

December 26, 2011|By Cory Franklin

Chicago tribune

Big business

The tragic tale of Flight 447 should not only be a case study in aviation but also in medicine. Medicine is becoming less of a hands-on science and more dependent on sophisticated tests and high-tech scans. As in aviation, there is an overall benefit; diagnosis and treatment are better than ever. But the same problem bedevils medicine, perhaps more commonly — in difficult situations, inexperienced doctors are often uncertain of how to interpret sophisticated information presented to them, resulting in incorrect diagnoses or inappropriate treatment.

An example of this was recently demonstrated by Dr. James Andrews, one of the country’s leading orthopedic surgeons, who has operated on many of the country’s top professional athletes. He and some colleagues believe the MRI, a staple of orthopedic evaluation, is becoming overused. The test is extremely sensitive and sometimes indicates abnormalities that are not actually a source of problems.

Andrews proceeded to obtain MRIs on 31 professional baseball pitchers, none of whom was injured or had pain. The MRIs showed abnormal shoulder cartilage in 90 percent and abnormal rotator cuff tendons in 87 percent. Andrews’ blunt conclusion, “If you want an excuse to operate on a pitcher’s throwing shoulder, just get an MRI.”

In the context of experience and technology, prominent surgeons like Atul Gawande have promoted operating-room checklists and better communication to assure medical personnel adhere to certain standards, paralleling the experience in aviation. Without question, this process-oriented approach is a positive development that eliminates mistakes and saves lives.

However, the analogy is simplistic and does not extend to every facet of medicine, since medicine involves far more human judgment. In general, aviation operates according to certain predictable rules of engineering and physics. The limited number of variables in a routine flight can generally be anticipated. In contrast, medicine operates according to many poorly understood and less predictable rules of biology and physiology. Where pilots can sometimes elect to cancel a flight or avoid dangerous weather, doctors cannot avoid many unpredictable emergencies in sick patients.

Dr. Richard Karl, the former health chair of surgery at the University of South Florida and a licensed pilot for more than four decades, has long advocated medicine adopt routine safety techniques, training, evaluation and continuing education from the aviation industry to enhance physician experience and minimize the chances of catastrophic disasters. But he candidly acknowledges, “Without intending to diminish either glorious profession, as a pilot type-rated in the Boeing 737 and as a surgical oncologist, I can say unequivocally that surgery is much harder than flying.”

The takeaway is the essential value of human experience — we can never have too many Capt. Sullenbergers, in aviation or medicine. Dr. Cory Franklin lives in Wilmette.

Communication and diagnostics.

It used to be the doctor would start the diagnostic process by talking to the patient, discussing lifestyle, habits and symptoms and manually checking the patient. In many cases that was enough for correct diagnose.

“Nicely explained the relationship between aviation and medicine. Your comment is truer in Western nations where doctors do not have adequate clinical knowledge, as they totally depend on the sophisticated tests for diagnosis, unlike in developing countries, where doctors has to depend on clinical knowledge.”  Health guy…

My mom was brought to the hospital with the pain in the spine. Young “doctors” obviously trained in technology started with multiple tests, sticking tubes and needles all over. My mom was 89 years old. Why did these “doctors” did the test? I don’t know. I wonder if the new. My mom passed away next day. I still think because of all the tests.

It is time for doctors to become doctors again. Not technicians.

Words of wisdom

“Americans can eat garbage, provided you sprinkle it liberally with ketchup, mustard, chili sauce, Tabasco sauce, cayenne pepper, or any other condiment which destroys the original flavor of the dish.”
- Henry Miller

America the beautiful

People who eat lots of red meat may have a higher risk of some types of kidney cancer, suggests a large US study.
Researchers found that middle-aged adults who ate the most red meat were 19% more likely to be diagnosed with kidney cancer than those who ate the least. A higher intake of chemicals found in grilled or barbecued meat was also linked to increased risk of the disease, according tot the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

It is OK if you eat red meat in moderation-once a week maybe. But the portion varies for each of us.
Active lifestyle and proper diet that what is needed to stay healthy.

U.S. guidelines call for limiting high-fat foods including processed meat, and instead eating more lean meat and poultry, seafood and nuts.

Chicago tribune:
But for now, meat-related cooking chemicals “can be reduced by avoiding direct exposure of meat to an open flame or a hot metal surface, reducing the cooking time, and using a microwave oven to partially cook meat before exposing it to high temperatures,” said Dr Daniel.
This is B.S ! DO NOT USE THE MICROVAWE OVEN TO COOK FOOD! This suggestion just tells me how little doctors know.

Don.t cook in there!

Here is an excerpt from the study: Scientific evidence and facts
In Comparative Study of Food Prepared Conventionally and in the Microwave Oven, published by Raum & Zelt in 1992, at 3(2): 43, it states:
“A basic hypothesis of natural medicine states that the introduction into the human body of molecules and energies, to which it is not accustomed, is much more likely to cause harm than good. Microwaved food contains both molecules and energies not present in food cooked in the way humans have been cooking food since the discovery of fire.
Another study: The Swiss clinical study
Dr. Hans Ulrich Hertel, who is now retired, worked as a food scientist for many years with one of the major Swiss food companies that do business on a global scale. A few years ago, he was fired from his job for questioning certain processing procedures that denatured the food. In 1991, he and a Lausanne University professor published a research paper indicating that food cooked in microwave ovens could pose a greater risk to health than food cooked by conventional means. An article also appeared in issue 19 of the Journal Franz Weber in which it was stated that the consumption of food cooked in microwave ovens had cancerous effects on the blood. The research paper itself followed the article. On the cover of the magazine there was a picture of the Grim Reaper holding a microwave oven in one of his hands.

Here is more:
Microwaving prepared meats sufficiently to insure sanitary ingestion caused formation of d-Nitrosodienthanolamines, a well-known carcinogen.
Microwaving milk and cereal grains converted some of their amino acids into carcinogens.
Thawing frozen fruits converted their glucoside and galactoside containing fractions into carcinogenic substances.
Extremely short exposure of raw, cooked or frozen vegetables converted their plant alkaloids into carcinogens.
Carcinogenic free radicals were formed in microwaved plants, especially root vegetables.
Decrease in nutritional value
Russian researchers also reported a marked acceleration of structural degradation leading to a decreased food value of 60 to 90% in all foods tested.

Balance!

Back to the red meat

Another study that followed more than 72,000 women for 18 years found that those who ate a Western-style diet high in red and processed meats, desserts, refined grains, and French fries had an increased risk of heart disease, cancer, and death from other causes.

“The association between consumption of red and processed meats and cancer, particularly colorectal cancer, is very consistent,” says Marji McCullough, PhD, a nutritional epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society.

My suggestion: This is just another example that something can be good for you or bad for you. It all depends on how you use it and on your personal body structure. The same general rule is applicable for all. But details may wary for different people.

The rule of thumb: Moderation. Some of us need meet some don’t. Enjoy your steak but once a week!

Balance your food. Use common sense. For example I love ice cream but I don’t eat it during cold season. Drink hot tea.

In our society it is almost impossible not to have contact with toxins. Use organic cleansers to help your body to get rid of bad stuff. 

Take days off and vacations. Money spend on vacations you will save with doctors and medications.

Have a happy and healthy year!

Don't worry be happy!

Happy Healthy and Peaceful New Year to our readers and contributors!

Health and happiness go hand in hand.

Words of wisdom

A healthy body is a guest chamber for the soul: a sick body is a prison. (Francis Bacon, Sr.)

NYT:

Instant gratification

Patients begin by popping too many pills to deal with a migraine or a simple tension-type headache. When the medications stop, another headache follows, similar to a hangover. Sufferers race again to the medicine cabinet, and before long they are locked in a cycle of headaches and overmedication.

At any given time, more than three million Americans are suffering from headaches they are inflicting on themselves, according to Dr. Stephen D. Silberstein, a professor of neurology and director of the Jefferson Headache Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. “If a patient’s headaches have grown markedly worse or more frequent, the problem is almost always medication overuse,” Dr. Silberstein said.

“Overuse has less to do with how many pills you take to relieve a single headache than with how often you take them,” said Dr. Robert Kunkel, a headache specialist at the Cleveland Clinic Headache Center. “If you get more than two headaches a week and take pain pills for them, you’re at risk.”

Instant gratification

Pain relievers may offer quick relief for occasional headaches, although there is a limit. If you find yourself taking pain medication more than two or three days a week, you may actually be contributing to your headaches rather than making them more manageable. This is a cycle known as rebound headaches.
In the case of a rebound headache, your body actually starts to get used to the drugs. With rebound headaches, your body actually starts craving the drugs, as if they have somehow become essential nutrients! Many commonly used immediate relief medications, when taken in large enough amounts, have been found responsible for inducing rebound headaches.

Here are some incredible statistics. It seems that with current approach to health care the treatment is worse than the disease.

I am not blaming all the doctors here.

I am blaming the whole “Health care” industry that feeds on our health and our ignorance.

* The term iatrogenic is defined as “induced in a patient by a physician’s activity, manner, or therapy. Used especially to pertain to a complication of treatment.”

Furthermore, these estimates of death due to error are lower than those in a recent Institutes of Medicine report. If the higher estimates are used, the deaths due to iatrogenic causes would range from 230,000 to 284,000. Even at the lower estimate of 225,000 deaths per year, this constitutes the third leading cause of death in the U.S.

Another analysis concluded that between 4% and 18% of consecutive patients experience negative effects in outpatient settings, with:

116 million extra physician visits

77 million extra prescriptions

17 million emergency department visits

8 million hospitalizations

3 million long-term admissions

199,000 additional deaths

$77 billion in extra costs

The high cost of the health care system is considered to be a deficit, but it seems to be tolerated under the assumption that better health results from more expensive care.  However, evidence from a few studies indicates that as many as 20% to 30% of patients receive inappropriate care. An estimated 44,000 to 98,000 among these patients die each year as a result of medical errors.

My advise: again and again please educate yourself. Don’t trust the medical establishment. Don’t go for instant gratification-quick pain relief. Pain is worning you of a problem.

Stress relief, exercise, proper food and natural supplements and vitamins will in many cases help with your headaches and many other pains.

For example strong stomach and back muscles will help with your back aches.

So drop the pills!

Is genetic engineering good or bad?

Is physics good or bad? 

Is science good or bad?

Well….It depends!

We humans manage to adapt every scientific discovery to kill each other.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Monsanto’s Corn Is Toppling Over

Monsanto

“As the summer growing season draws to a close, 2011 is emerging as the year of the superinsect – the year pests officially developed resistance to Monsanto’s genetically engineered (ostensibly) bug-killing corn.

“In late July scientists in Iowa documented the existence of corn rootworms (a ravenous pest that attacks the roots of corn plants) that can happily devour corn plants that were genetically tweaked specifically to kill them. Monsanto’s corn, engineered to express a toxic gene from a bacterial insecticide called Bt, now accounts for 65 percent of the corn planted in the US.

“The superinsect scourge has also arisen in Illinois and Minnesota.

“‘Monsanto’s insect-killing corn is toppling over in northwestern Illinois fields, a sign that rootworms outside of Iowa may have developed resistance to the genetically modified crop,’ reports Bloomberg. In southern Minnesota, adds Minnesota Public Radio, an entomologist has found corn rootworms thriving, Bt corn plants drooping, in fields.

Not a Sci-Fi

“[A] 2008 study, conducted by University of Missouri researchers and published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that within three generations, rootworms munching Monsanto’s Bt corn survived at the same rate as rootworms munching pesticide-free corn-meaning that complete resistance had been achieved. Takeaway message: rootworms are capable of evolving resistance to Monsanto’s corn in ‘rapid’ fashion.”

- “Monsanto Denies Superinsect Science,” by Tom Philpott, Mother Jones, September 8, 2011. http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob294.htm

The ecological, economic and agro- nomic disaster accompanying herbicide-tolerant transgenic crops is by now well known: over 10 million acres of superweeds resistant to Monsanto’s weedkiller, Roundup; farm machinery breaking on Roundup-resistant pigweed thick as a baseball bat; Monsanto paying farmers to spray their fields with competitors’ herbicides; a new gener- ation of transgenic crops in the pipelineengineered to withstand older even more dangerous chemicals like 2,4-D.

The Earth population is growing exponentially. We need more and more food.

So what do we do? How do we solve the problem?

The short answer: I don’t know!

The long answer: population grows is in inverse proportion to the advancement of the society.

The conclusion: you decide!

Rejoice!

Beer is actually good for you!

Enjoy!

But what the public doesn’t know is that the health value of beer has been known, documented and applied for centuries. But there are folks out there who don’t want you to know about it.

Beer is made from grains, water and yeast. Grains commonly used are barley and wheat (with cheaper, mass-produced beers relying on corn and rice), both of which are loaded with a variety of vitamins that survive the fermentation and filtering process. And the vitamin value of the yeast is conserved in the hundreds of unfiltered beers that are on the market — both on tap and in bottles.

Surprising Health Benefits of Beer

by Kaboodle.com, on Mon Sep 27, 2010 12:04pm PD

Reduce Your Risk of Heart Disease

According to several studies, including one done at the Institute of Epidemiology at the University of Muenster, moderate beer drinking reduces the risk of coronary heart disease. The reasons are simple: Alcohol can increase HDL (good cholesterol) levels and reduces the chances of hardening of the arteries and thickening of the blood—two main contributors to heart attacks.

Drink Your Vitamins

Years ago, Guinness used the slogan “Guinness is Good for You.” It looks like they might have been right.

According to a Dutch study conducted at the TNO Nutrition and Food Research Institute, beer drinkers had 30% higher levels of vitamin B6 in their blood than non-beer-drinkers—twice the amount of red-wine drinkers.

Avoid Kidney Stones

According to a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, risk of kidney stones was decreased 40% in middle-aged beer-drinking men, as compared to non-beer-drinkers.

Helps Women Age Better

Cheers!

Better Brain Power. While excessive alcohol intake can cause irreparable brain damage, moderate daily consumption actually safeguards a sharp mind, research shows. A Harvard study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed moderate alcohol consumption assisted in preserving the mental faculties of older women,

Tufts University study concluded alcohol can help preserve bone density, a frequent health issue for aging females. Additionally, some bioflavonoids found in hops (a major ingredient in beer) have similar properties as estrogen, which may serve as a natural form of hormone replacement therapy in post-menopausal women.

Prevent Cancer

Early studies show xanthohumol, a compound found in hops, may help inhibit certain enzymes that can trigger cancer and aid the body in breaking down carcinogens. The compound is current being tested in hopes of creating a preventative treatment for prostate and colon cancers.

So my friends enjoy life (and beer) but in moderation! Too much of anything can kill you.

But if your choice is diet soda or beer-go for the beer!

Natural disaster

Here is how we use our food that we are producing by raping the earth:

An average amount of food purchased and wasted per person in the United states annually (National Geographic July 2011)

Fresh fruit purchased 77 lbs wasted 22 lbs

Fresh vegetables purchased 131 lbs wasted 39 lbs

Grain products purchased 173 lbs wasted 36 lbs

Milk purchased 168 lbs wasted 34 lbs

Butter purchased 5 lbs wasted 0.7 lbs

Poultry purchased 70 lbs wasted 27 lbs

Red meat purchased 103 wasted 36 lbs

Sweeteners purchased 121 lbs wasted 24 lbs

So we waste about 20%-30% of our food.

And millions of people on this planet are dying from hunger.

Huber Interview in Acres USA

Filed under: Latest article — son of a farmer @ 6:10 am

In interviews, I’ve compared planting and eating GMOs to “making love to a toxic blow-up doll every night. It’s a poor substitute for the real thing.” That continues to be my best analogy of this dangerous subject. So long as we don’t realize what we are doing, it is difficult to know how severe the problem truly is. Education and awareness are our main sources of winning this fight. As more scientists like Dr. Huber continue to come forward with their studies, I’m confident we’re getting closer to that realization here in America.

The Road Ahead

“As human beings, we should be the fully aware collective conscience – the mind’s eye of this wonderful planet. As farmers, we should be guardian angels protecting the flesh and bone Holy Grail that is our Soil. Instead, we’ve sold out. We’ve exchanged home-grown methods for disparaging schemes because it is easier to do what we’re told rather than adhere to what we feel deep inside us. Now is the time for all of us to realize what must be done, what must change, and to begin that process today. Not tomorrow. Today! The problems existing now were not solely created by inept government and greedy corporations. These problems were also created by a lack of resistance by all people. Yes, the problems exist. No, it is not too late to do something about it. “

- Son of a Farmer, Child of the Earth by Eric Herm

Monsanto Roundup

Feeding the hungry?

Glyphosate’s mode of action is to inhibit an enzyme involved in the synthesis of the aromatic amino acids: tyrosine, tryptophan and phenylalanine. It is absorbed through foliage and translocated to growing points. Because of this mode of action, it is only effective on actively growing plants; it is not effective as a pre-emergence herbicide.

Some crops have been genetically engineered to be resistant to it (i.e. Roundup Ready, also created by Monsanto Company). Such crops allow farmers to use glyphosate as a post-emergence herbicide against both broadleaf and cereal weeds, but the development of similar resistance in some weed species is emerging as a costly problem. Soy was the first Roundup Ready crop.

So what is the solution? Population is growing at the accelerated rate. Food production lags behind. Hunger around the world is getting worse. We need to teach and to help the developing nations to improve the agriculture to have high yield crops with minimal damage to the environment.

We need to work with poor and developing nations to improve their standard of living. This usually reduces the birth rate.

Supplying food to poor nations just deepens their dependency on foreign  help and increases the birth rate.