The Health Plus Letter
May 8 Vol. 6, No. 7
By Larry Trivieri, Jr. – founder & publisher
http://www.1healthyworld.com

You can read all back issues of The Health Plus Letter at http://www.1healthyworld.com/ezine.

Table Of Contents
New This Issue
Quote of the Day
Fast Fact
More Good News About Vitamin D
Self-Care Tips for Preventing and Reversing Sciatica
Recommendations
Medical Freedom
Contact Information

New This Issue

Welcome to another issue of The Health Plus Letter. In this issue you’ll find information on the many health benefits of vitamin D, including how to find out if you are among the many people around the world who are vitamin D deficient and, if so, what you can do about it. I’m also sharing self-care tips for effectively dealing with sciatica. You also find links to a variety of other interesting articles.

As always, please continue to send me your comments and suggestions. And please spread the word about The Health Plus Letter by passing it along to your friends and inviting them to subscribe.

Quotes Of The Day

“The only thing that shatters dreams is compromise.”
-- Richard Bach

Fast Fact

Every day in the United States, approximately 770 people have a near-death experience (NDE).

Source: Dr. Jeffrey Long – www.nderf.org

vol4no9.cfm.

More Good News About Vitamin D

For the last few years vitamin D has been in the news due to the fact that researchers around the world have discovered that a sizeable percentage of adults and children around the globe suffer from vitamin deficiencies and because of the vitamin's surprising health benefits for preventing a variety of disease conditions.

Since it was first discovered in the early 1900s, vitamin D has been known to be essential for healthy bones and the prevention of rickets and osteomalacia, the adult from of rickets. Both diseases are characterized by bone deformities caused by an unhealthy softening of the bones that results in them becoming excessively flexible and brittle.

Until the late 1970s, most health professionals believed that vitamin D deficiencies were rare, due to the decline in cases of rickets and osteomalacia worldwide. More recent research, however, has shown this assumption is not only wrong, but that other serious diseases can also be triggered by a lack of vitamin D in the human body. In addition, researchers now realize that vitamin D isn't a vitamin at all. In fact, it is a prohormone substance that is produced in the body following exposure to ultraviolet solar radiation from the sun. It is then converted by the liver and kidneys into an active hormone that provides a variety of important health benefits.

In recent decades, researchers from around the world have begun taking another look at vitamin D. Among their most interesting discoveries is the fact that every cell and tissue in the human body has a receptor site for vitamin D. What this means is that all of your bodies cells and tissues recognize and respond to vitamin D. More importantly, these same cells and tissues have a wide variety of genes that vitamin D regulate. When vitamin D deficiencies occur, over time many of these genes will no longer function properly. One such result of this lack of proper regulation is that the genes that control normal cell growth start to malfunction, leading to uncontrolled cell growth, a primary hallmark of cancer. It's because vitamin D is able to prevent uncontrolled cell growth from happening that researchers today now recognize vitamin D as an important anti-cancer agent. Today, researchers know that vitamin D helps to reduce the risk of various types of cancer, including breast, colon, ovarian, and prostate cancer.

In addition to these types of cancer, researchers now know that vitamin D can significantly reduce the risk of other diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS), skin disorders such as psoriasis, type I and type II diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and various upper respiratory conditions (including asthma), obesity, and tuberculosis (TB).

Vitamin D Can Also Help To Prevent Heart Attacks and Stroke

Just as your body's cells and tissues have vitamin D receptor sites, so too do your blood vessels. This fact means it is not surprising that vitamin D improves the ability of the heart muscle to contract, making overall cardiovascular function more efficient. Recent research has also shown that vitamin D also helps to prevent and reverse inflammation in the blood vessels, thereby protecting against atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), the risk of which is greatly increased by inflammation. There is also scientific evidence that vitamin D helps to maintain proper blood pressure levels due to its ability to regulate rennin, a hormone that influences blood pressure.

Taken together, the above benefits of vitamin D suggest that it plays an important role in healthy heart function. This fact was confirmed by research conducted by scientists at Harvard Medical School. Led by Dr. Thomas J. Wang, the Harvard researchers studied more than 1700 men and women with a median age of 59. At the beginning of the study, none of the participants suffered from cardiovascular disease. They were then studied for an average of 5.4 years.

According to Dr. Wang, the Harvard study showed that vitamin D deficiency is clearly associated with an increased risk of heart disease "above and beyond established cardiovascular risk factors," especially in men and women already suffering from high blood pressure.

Dr. Wang and his fellow researchers found that men and women whose blood levels of vitamin D were below 15 nanograms per milliter (15 ng/mL) had twice the risk for heart attack, heart failure, stroke, and other types of heart disease over a subsequent five year period, compared to men and women with higher blood levels of vitamin D. Moreover, when other cardiovascular risk factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes were taken into account and adjusted for, the risk for heart disease occurring in men and women with low blood levels of vitamin D was still 62 percent higher than for that or people with the same traditional risk factors who had higher blood levels of vitamin D.

Just as significantly, the researchers also found that the risk for heart disease increased with each level of vitamin D deficiency. In other words, the greater the vitamin D deficiency, the greater the risk for heart disease, including heart attack and stroke. Dr. Wang's study was published earlier this year in Circulation, the official medical journal of the American heart Association.

Chances Are You're Deficient In Vitamin D

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, many people - children and adults alike - suffer from vitamin D deficiencies. According to Dr. Michael Holick, one of the world's foremost researchers of vitamin D, between 30 to 80 percent of all Americans are deficient in vitamin D. In a study he conducted in the Boston area last summer, he found that 34 percent of white people, 40 percent of Latinos, and 84 percent of African-American over the age of 50 were deficient in vitamin D. Similar deficiencies occur worldwide. For example, in India, between 50 and 80 percent of adults and 30 to 50 percent of children are deficient in vitamin D, according to Dr. Holick.

The primary reasons for such widespread vitamin D deficiencies are simple. First, few foods contain vitamin D, and those that do, such as fortified drinks like milk and orange juice, only contain 100 IU of vitamin D, a mere fraction of what your body needs. The main source of vitamin D is sunlight. Unfortunately, in recent decades most of us have been warned away from sunlight exposure due to fears that sunlight can cause skin cancer. (In the last few years, a number of scientists have challenged this assumption.) As a result, most people today, if they get any sunlight exposure, only do so wearing protective hats and clothing or sun block, virtually eliminating sunlight's ability to manufacture vitamin in their bodies.

Given these facts, chances are that you are deficient in vitamin D too.

What You Can Do About It

The first step you need to take to determine whether or not you are deficient in vitamin D is to have your physician test you for it. This can easily be done through a blood test. Be sure to ask him or her to measure your blood level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, also known as 25(OH)D. Make sure that your doctor tests for 25(OH)D and not 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D. The reason for this, according to Dr. Horlick, is that blood levels of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D are usually normal - and even elevated - in people with vitamin D deficiencies, meaning that the 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D test is not an accurate indicator of such deficiencies.

Should you be found to be vitamin D deficient, here are some useful tips for how you can safely restore your body's supply of vitamin D:

Supplement with the natural D3 cholecalciferol form of vitamin D (vitamin D3), since it is generally more effective and safer than synthetic forms of vitamin D.

Avoid supplementing with too much vitamin A while taking vitamin D3 supplements.

Start with a daily dose of between 1,000 and 2,000 IU of vitamin D3, especially is you exposure to natural sunlight is minimal.

Ask your doctor to test your blood 25(OH)D level again after four weeks of supplement use, and adjust your dose accordingly. Retest as necessary after that.

Caution: Do not use D supplements without your doctor's supervision if you have kidney problems, kidney stones or any disease such as sarcoidosis which makes you hypersensitive to vitamin D.

In addition to vitamin D3 supplementation, try to spend 15-20 minutes daily in natural sunlight without using sunscreen. For best results, expose as much of your body as you can to natural sunlight during this time.

If you are dark-skinned, you may require 4-6 times more sunlight exposure than light skinned people. In addition, people in northern states may also require longer exposures to sunlight, especially during winter months.

Note: The best time to benefit from sunlight exposure is between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm, which is when natural ultraviolet light from the sun is at its strongest.

Unabashed Plug

Discover and Gain Control of Your Human Energy Field. Read Dr. Valerie Hunt’s Mind Mastery Meditations: A Workbook for the “Infinite Mind,” the empowering guide created by one of the world's foremost researchers into the human energy field, energy medicine, and the relationship between consciousness and health. Each of the meditations this eBook contains is designed to give you mastery of your mind and to empower you to discover the answers to why you are the way you are, your soul's needs, your unique talents and capacities, and your self-designed destiny. By practicing and mastering these meditations, you will become able to live your life with greater ease and success, speed your self-healing, and dramatically increase your ability to manifest your deepest goals. To order this life-changing guide, visit
http://www.1healthyworld.com/ebooks/Mind-Mastery-Book-Info.cfm.

Self-Care Tips for Preventing and Reversing Sciatica

Sciatica is a condition that manifests as radiating pain from the back either into the buttock and/or the lower extremity (leg) usually on the back (posterior) and outward (lateral) side. It represents pain referred somewhere along the path of the sciatic nerve.

Symptoms: Discomfort, pain, burning, tingling, stabbing, aching anywhere along the path of the sciatic nerve (from the buttock, down the leg, into the foot, although the most commonly affected areas are the buttock and thigh). In very severe cases, the pain may be associated with weakness. Pain can be very severe and recurrent unless the cause is found and treated.

According to Leon Chaitow, N.D., D.O., there needs to be a clear distinction between sciatic neuralgia and sciatic neuritis. Neuritis is an active inflammatory process whereas neuralgia is an irritation of the nerve often resulting from outside mechanisms (disk, bone, muscle, distant trigger point activity). The advice given below regarding diet, nutrients, and herbs can help neuritis more than neuralgia. Manipulative and exercise methods are more helpful for neuralgia resulting from mechanical dysfunction. Sometimes neuralgia and neuritis coincide and both approaches are found useful.

Consider: Sometimes chronic musculoskeletal pain may be secondary to low thyroid conditions, nutrient deficiencies, old injuries in associated joints that ne/ver healed completely or correctly, referred pain from problems in internal organs, or emotional stress.

Special Notes: Treatment must include removing whatever the pressure is on the sciatic nerve (misalignment of lumbar spine), prolapsed (herniated) intervertebral disk, spasm of the buttock muscles (usually one called the piriformis), abnormal stresses on associated joints, or secondary to injuries of the foot, knee, hip, or back that alter the walking gait and put abnormal and asymmetrical strain on the muscles. Insufficient exercise and muscles that have become excessively weak and/or tense can create imbalances, which are the most underappreciated causes of chronic musculoskeletal problems.

Self-Care:

Diet: Since thiamine (vitamin B1) and magnesium act as natural muscle relaxants, foods that are high in these nutrients are good: dark leafy green vegetables, yellow vegetables, whole grains, and raw seeds and nuts. Avoid excess consumption of foods that drain the body of these nutrients, such as caffeinated beverages, chocolate, and refined sugars.

Nutritional Therapy: The following nutrients may be helpful for managing sciatic pain. For best results, consult with a nutritionally-oriented physician. Magnesium, thiamine (vitamin B1), vitamin B complex, vitamin B12 (injections may be helpful in some cases that are chronic and unresponsive to any other treatment), vitamin E, calcium, manganese sulfate.

Aromatherapy: Apply a cold press and lightly massage with chamomile, lavender, or birch.

Ayurveda: Triphala guggulu (200 mg), generally taken 1/4 teaspoon with warm water twice a day after lunch and dinner. Dashamoola tea basti, mahanarayan oil massage, and bathe with 1/3 cup of ginger powder and 1/3 cup baking soda.

Herbs: Mix in equal parts willow bark and St. John’s wort tincture and take 1/2 teaspoonful three times a day. Massage with warm St. John’s wort oil will help alleviate pain. Black cohosh, chamomile, fenugreek, juniper berries, mugwort, parsley, rosemary, and skullcap can also be helpful.

Homeopathy: Colocynth, Viscum album, Lachesis, Rhus tox., Aconite, Arsen alb., Lycopodium, Mag phos., Ruta grav. Dr. Chaitow recommends Atropa Belladonna (6X potency) for neuralgia.

Hydrotherapy: Contrast application (apply daily). According to Dr. Chaitow, a neutral ba/th (body temperature) has a profoundly calming effect.

Topical Treatment: According to Dr. Chaitow, for neuralgic type pain, apply moist or dry heat to the affected leg(s) for one hour, four times a day. This is only valid for neuralgic type pain where heat acts to relax muscles. If there is inflammation (neuritis), heat will inflame the area further. Use hot and cold alternating applications, finishing with cold.

Professional Care: The following therapies should only be provided by a qualified health professional.

Applied Kinesiology, Bodywork (acupressure, reflexology, shiatsu, massage, Alexander technique, Feldenkrais, Trager, Rolfing, Hellerwork), Chiropractic, Craniosacral Therapy, Detoxification Therapy, Energy Medicine (The Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator (TENS), which applies an electrical current to affected nerves, is invaluable for relief of most but not all nerve pains.), Environmental Medicine, Enzyme Therapy, Magnetic Field Therapy, Naturopathic Medicine, Neural Therapy,Osteopathy, Prolotherapy, Traditional Chinese Medicine (combination of acupuncture and her/bal formulas depending upon cause of particular symptom).

Note: The information above was adapted from Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide, 2^nd Edition, co-authored and edited by Larry Trivieri, Jr. (Celestial Arts, 2002).

Unabashed Plug

Learn the Truth about Heart Disease, Stroke and Hypertension. Most of what conventional medicine has to offer for treating these conditions is based on faulty and potentially dangerous assumptions. Discover the real causes behind these diseases and learn what you can do today to prevent and reverse them using safe and natural alternatives that have been scientifically proven to be effective. Read the critically-acclaimed eBook Burton Goldberg’s Definitive Guide to Heart Disease, featuring the contributions of Dr. Garry Gordon, Dr. Stephen Sinatra, and many other leading heart specialists. To order or to find out more about this potentially lifesaving guide, visit http://www.1healthyworld.com/ebooks/Heart-Book-Info.cfm.

Recommendations

Books
Brethren by Robyn Young. This is the first book of a trilogy, and is a very engrossing tale of the Crusades that combines fact with a thrilling tale of adventure.

Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier. As I’ve written in the past, I am a huge fan of comic books. This book is a lavish, tabletop homage to perhaps the greatest comic book creator the world has ever known – Jack Kirby. Written by his friend and one-time personal assistant, it is a treasure trove of Kirby’s work as well as Kirby’s first in-depth biography. Reading it instantly reconnected me to the wonder and delight I experienced as a child when I first discovered comic books.

Websites
http://tinyurl.com/63st8m - Now even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) admits that the flu vaccine doesn’t work. Read more about it at this link.

http://tinyurl.com/6qqzl7 - Remember Vioxx and all the deaths and serious health problems it caused? Well, its story isn’t over. Now comes proof that its manufacturer, Merck, knowingly engaged in deception to market and profit by it. Not that the FDA seems to mind. To this day, Merck has not been charged with any crime, or even fined.

http://tinyurl.com/4falzs- The earth is humming. Honest. This link has more on the story.

http://tinyurl.com/65zbuq - I’ve long dismissed Al Gore’s bloviating about global warming because I’m convinced that the science – despite his claims of there being an overwhelming scientific consensus on the matter – doesn’t support his alarmist views. Nonetheless, his documentary An Inconvenient Truth continues to be accepted as gospel truth by many millions of people, despite the many inaccuracies it contains. And now it turns out that some of the footage it contains, purporting to be actual scenes of glaciers melting and so forth, are in fact fake, special effects footage created in Hollywood. Not that this fact is likely to stop the huge profits Gore continues to make from his stake in the film and the various global warming companies that he has financial interest in. This link has more on the fake footage.

http://tinyurl.com/5prvpf - Thanks to Gore and other global warming alarmists, people around the world are starving to death.

Medical Freedom

Please contact and support the following organizations dedicated to protecting our health freedoms.

Citizens for Health - http://www.citizens.org

Alliance for Natural Health – http://www.alliance-natural-health.org (The leading organization fighting to preserve health f/r/e/edom in England and the EU.)

Institute for Health Freedom – http://www.ForHealthF/r/e/edom.org

International Advocates for Health Freedom (IAHF) – http://www.iahf.com

And to learn how corrupt and extensive Big Pharma’s monopoly is, visit http://www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr/online/research/index.html the website for the Campaign Against Fraudulent Medical Research. In particular, read their in-depth report The Pharmaceutical Drug Racket that you will find there.

That’s all for this week.

Health and Blessings!

Larry Trivieri, Jr.

Contact Information: Due to the inordinate amount of spam this email account receives, I no longer use it to receive emails. To contact me, visit www.1healthyworld.com/contactus

Disclaimer: The Health Plus Letter is a weekly eZine published by Larry Trivieri, Jr. and Library of Health, LLC (dba www.1healthyworld.com) 3 Greenwood Court, Utica, NY 13501. It is made available without charge for information purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical care. If you are experiencing a health problem, seek prompt medical attention.

The Health Plus Letter is fully compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

Legal Notice: The information in this eZine may be freely and widely disseminated so long as full attribution is made as follows: The Health Plus Letter, May 8, 2008, Vol. 6, No. 7. Copyright © 2008 by Larry Trivieri, Jr. All rights reserved.

To Subscribe Or Unsubscribe to The Health Plus Letter, please visit http://www.1healthyworld.com/lists