The Health Plus Letter February 23, 2010 Vol. 8, No. 6 By Larry Trivieri, Jr. – founder & publisher
Table Of Contents Quote of the Day Fast Fact True Health Care by C. Norman Shealy, MD How To Bolster Your Blood-Brain Barrier by Kerry Friesen, MD Self-Care Tips For Preventing and Managing Glaucoma Protect Your Access To Nutritional Supplements Which Are Again Under Attack Recommendations Medical Freedom Contact Information
As always, if you like what you read, please feel free to share this issue with others and invite them to join you as a subscriber to the Health Plus Letter. Thanks for reading!
Quote Of The Day
“It’s never too late to become what you always wanted to be in the first place.”
-- J. Michael Straczynski
Fast Fact
More than 90 percent of all pharmaceutical drugs only work in 30 to 50 percent of the people who take them.
Source: A statement made in 2003 by Allen Roses, vice president of the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline.
Unabashed Plug
Protect Yourself From Energy Pollution With the BioElectric ShieldTM. Energy pollution is all around us in the form of harmful electromagnetic frequencies and radiation (EMFs and EMR) emitted by power lines, cells phones, computers, and many other so-called modern conveniences. By wearing the BioElectric Shield pendant, you can protect yourself from the harmful effects of EMFs and EMR. To obtain a BioElectricShield, visit http://www.mcssl.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=408491. To learn more about how and why the BioElectric Shield works, see my article about it at http://www.1healthyworld.com/ezine/vol4no9.cfm.
True Health Care by C. Norman Shealy, MD
[In light of the fact that the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress appear to be hellbent on passing Obamacare despite that fact that the majority of Americans (61% according to the latest polls) DON’T WANT IT, I am sharing the following timely and sensible article by Dr. Norm Shealy, one of the true pioneering physicians of our time.]
The headline in the January 31 SpringfieldNews-Leader "Hospitals Pressured to Change" addresses only a tip of a bigger than Titanic iceberg. Today the problem it addressed is one great CONFLICT OF INTEREST! This conflict has been going on for 100 years and it was accentuated in the 80's with no comment from the News-Leader. The Washington Post carried a front page article about the unique situation in Springfield, Missouri, where St. John's had taken over almost 300 physician practices, telling physicians that either they could sell their practice to the hospital or leave town! No comment in the News-Leader.
TALK ABOUT A CONFLICT OF INTEREST!! Next the hospitals started their own insurance plan, designed to support the hospital first and their hired physicians secondly.
Two non-profit hospitals have profitable income which may be at least equal to the15% of profit-making insurance companies. Now we have indentured physicians expected to order lab tests and X-rays at hospital facilities which charge 2 to 3 times what private labs charge! The peculiar conflict between the two local hospitals may be unique to Springfield, but the overall problem with Medical Disease Care is nationwide.
The "problems" with American Medicine have been building for 100 years. At the beginning of the last century, there was no medical insurance. Average income was $5000; physicians made $7500 and government employees made $11,000. Medical bankruptcy was unknown. Soon, with the help of the greatest industrial crook of the 20th century, John D. Rockefeller, the AMA assumed virtual control of medical care, closing half of medical schools, half of hospitals, abolishing homeopathy, and beginning a 50+ year attack upon chiropractic and osteopathy.
The evil empire of medical insurance was established in Dallas in the 20's by Blue Cross. Ten years later its cousin, Blue Shield, set in motion a requirement that one be hospitalized in order to have insurance coverage! The first major advance in medical care took place with the discovery of antibiotics in 1928, but they did not become significantly available until the early 40's. In the 40's President Truman made one of his greatest errors. Being unable to get national socialized medicine passed, he and Congress doubled the number of hospital beds and medical students. That further encouraged medical insurance to cover mainly hospitalization.
In 1950 Thorazine® became the first major tranquilizer and the Darth Vader father of scores of other brain and personality changing drugs. That albatross has now led to hundreds of mind-altering drugs which often create more complications than help. This is true of many prescription drugs-high cost and high complication rate, mistakenly called "side effects".
In 1963, President Johnson was pushing Medicare. I wrote him a letter suggesting that government intervention in medicine would bankrupt the country. He sent the FBI to spend a week attempting to have me fired from my position at Western ReserveUniversity. That failed and less than 2 years later Medicare became law. Interestingly, this led to grey flannel suited MBA's taking over hospital administration, which had been done only by nurses and physicians. Costs zoomed. Medical expenses, which had been 4.5% of GNP, became within 5 years 12% of GNP. Headlines around the country screamed about the crisis in medical costs. Today medical costs are 17% of GNP and AMERICAN HEALTH IS WORSE THAN IT WAS IN 1965!! In 1967 I did a survey of patients at one of the finest hospitals in America, Lutheran in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Two- thirds of the patients were in hospital, not because of medical need, but because it was the only way their insurance would cover!
In the 70's Dr. Thomas McKeown wrote one of the most important books on the subject The Role Of Medicine. He emphasized the fact that 92% of all improvements in health in the 20th century came from pasteurization of milk, chlorination of water, adequate handling of sewage, and adequate protein. Dr. Franz Inglefinger, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, wrote a stunning editorial on that book in which he suggested that 80% of illnesses are self-limited or not curable by modern medicine, 10% are miraculously cured and 9% are made worse. "Thus, we wind up barely on the positive side of zero". Shortly after that Dr. John Knowles wrote in "The Responsibility of the Individual", that 99% of us are born healthy and become unhealthy because of human misbehavior. He emphasized that 80% of illnesses are the result of unhealthy behavior!
Early in the 80's Paul Starr wrote The Social Transformation Of American Medicine, essentially predicting worse to come. Early in the 80's Medicare instituted one of the most stupid rules ever, Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG's) so that essentially an ingrown toenail was given the same time in hospital that was given to gangrene of the foot! After all, both involve the foot. The private profit-making insurance mafia quickly followed suit. By the late 80's an editorial in the New EnglandJournal of Medicine summed it up "DELAY, DELAY, DELAY, DENY. By that time physician overhead had grown from 40% to 60% of income. And bureaucratic paperwork required 10 pages for every one page of medical notes! Another error of the 80's was allowing advertising of prescription drugs on TV. Physicians have more than enough difficulty determining which drugs to prescribe. There is no way a lay person can make a rational decision about a prescription drug without significant information from a physician.
Today, we have one of the unhealthiest countries in the world, with by far the highest costs. The insurance mafia is one of the greatest enemies of health and it creates more conflict and stress than any other single industry. Medical costs bankrupt more individuals than any other cause. And according to the JAMA in July, 2000, the third leading cause of death is the American Medical System! Having hospitals compete in this quagmire is ridiculous, just as ridiculous as their owning physician practices. Ultimately there is a solution:
1. We need a SINGLE, NON-GOVERNMENT, truly NON-PROFIT Medical Insurance Corporation, carefully controlled by the public, with revolving trustees to insure no insider manipulations. Every American must be included in this coverage.
2. We need to stop the confusing and aggravating menace of lawyer driven malpractice insurance
3. Prescription drugs need to cost in the U.S .no more than they do in Canada.
3. And, of course, we could PREVENT 80% of illness if people were not:
Overweight or obese
Smokers or drug abusers
Couch potatoes
Junk food addicts
This would be TRUE HEALTH CARE! Today we have mangled, poorly managed disease care with serious ethical conflicts of interest.
How To Bolster Your Blood-Brain Barrier by Kerry Friesen, MD
[As I mentioned previously, I am currently working closely with Dr. Friesen in creating a variety of health products and services that will soon be available to readers of The Health Plus Letter at a significant discount. I’m very excited about this because Kerry is one of the most informed and innovative physicians I know. So much so that I’ve asked him to be my personal physician and invited him to be the co-author of my next book, which will be published later this year. Here’s another taste of what I’m learning from Kerry since I started working with him.]
Just in case you didn’t know, the blood-brain barrier (BBB), serves as a veritable “surge protector” guarding against certain drugs, chemicals and toxins that find their way into your blood stream.
Depending on the biochemical characteristics of specific molecules, they may never find their way into the brain. Good thing, since most drugs are medicines first and neurotoxins second.
But what exactly constitutes the blood-brain barrier?
Blood vessels in the brain (unlike the rest of the body) are lined with endothelial cells that form tight junctions where they meet. In other words, the space between cells that line the blood vessels in the brain is so small as to only permit specific nutritional substances, and nothing else.
More specifically, size matters when it comes to the blood-brain barrier. Large proteins are excluded entirely and unless small molecules are lipophilic (soluble in fat), they too will be discriminated against. In short, the brain is very, very particular about what substances cross the blood-brain barrier and be thankful that’s the case.
All bets are off however when inflammation due to infection or any number of other diseases is present. Under these conditions, integrity of the blood-brain barrier is compromised and a neurotoxic “free-for-all” assault on the brain ensues.
Recent advances in nanomedicine seek to exploit this particular vulnerability of the blood-brain barrier by developing a drug delivery system utilizing nanoparticles. Unfortunately, nanoparticles themselves may ultimately be found to possess neurotoxic properties thus exemplifying the inherent truth the traditional French proverb: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”, that is, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
So what’s an every-day-ordinary blood-brain barrier to do?
Nano-neuro-nonsense on one hand, or fledgling nutritional neuroscience on the other.
Well consider this for starters. Some of the most innocuous substances on planet earth serve as penultimate blood-brain barrier bolsterers. (I think bolsterers is a word).
Coffee, and the caffeine associated with it, has recently emerged as a neuroprotective agent. It’s clear now, the mechanism behind it’s neuroprotective properties includes caffeine’s ability to enhance the integrity of the BBB in addition to coffee’s inherent antioxidant properties.
Fortunately, flavonoids (a.k.a. phytochemicals, isoflavones, proanthocyanidines) can also traverse the BBB, bringing with them potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
The next time you enjoy fresh grapefruit juice, relish the bitterness. The citrus bioflavonoid naringenin accounts for both the bitterness and neuroprotective efficacy.
Not surprisingly, regular exercise improves BBB function even in the event of an ischemic stroke.
Ultimately, maintaining the integrity of the BBB may very well be the most effective way of ensuring life-long” cognitive reserve” and perhaps more importantly, establishing a neurobiological foundation for the “neuroprotective lifestyle”.
Self-Care Tips for Preventing and Managing Glaucoma (Note: Glaucoma is a serious condition and requires ongoing medical attention. If you suspect you have glaucoma, see a doctor immediately.)
Next to cataract, glaucoma is the most common cause of blindness in the United States. It is characterized by a loss of peripheral vision, usually in association with a buildup of fluid pressure inside the eyeball which can damage, and in some cases completely destroy, the retina and optic nerve.
Types of Glaucoma There are two types of glaucoma—open angle glaucoma and closed angle glaucoma. Open angle glaucoma is the most common type of glaucoma and is characterized by the too-slow drainage of eye fluid that is normally produced each day. The slower than normal fluid drainage, which typically occurs in the rear eye chamber, is most often caused by debris building up inside of the drainage channels.
Closed angle glaucoma is characterized by the eyes’ drainage channels being blocked by the iris. Unlike open angel glaucoma, which occurs gradually over time, closed angle glaucoma usually occurs due to the rapid buildup of fluid pressure, and can cause the eyeballs to feel hard to the touch.
Symptoms of Glaucoma Symptoms of open angle glaucoma usually progress slowly, with the first noticeable signs being narrowing of peripheral vision, headaches, tunnel vision, and other visual disturbances, such as seeing halos around lights or having difficulty adapting to darkness.
In cases of closed angle glaucoma, symptoms usually progress quickly—in some cases only a few days—and include intense eye pain, headaches, swollen eyelids, nausea, vomiting, eye redness, and vision loss, which can become permanent if not treated in time.
Causes of Glaucoma Both types of glaucoma can be caused by premature aging, the accumulation of debris and waste products in the eye drainage channels, allergies, eye injuries, eye tumors, poor diet, nutritional deficiencies, and pre-existing medical conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and macular degeneration.
The use of pharmaceutical drugs can also cause glaucoma, as well as other types of vision problems. These include antidepressants, antihistamines, blood pressure medication, diurectics, oral contraceptives, steroids, chlorpromazine, digoxin, ethambutol, gold (used to treat arthritis and lupus), haloperidol, hydroxychloroquine sulfate, and tetracycline.
Self-Care Tips
Aromatherapy: The following essential oils can help to relieve stress and tension, which can contribute to or exacerbate glaucoma: bergamot, jasmine, lavender, rose, sandlewood, and ylang ylang.
Ayurveda: According to Ayurvedic theory, most vision problems are due to digestive disorders. Emphasis is given to regular eye exercises, as well as the use of the herbs amla, licorice, and triphala, and a diet rich in organic, whole foods with abundant quantities of antioxidant rich vegetables such as carrots and spinach.
Diet: Emphasize a diet of organic, whole foods, with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables that are rich in antioxidants. These include bell peppers, berries, carrots, celery, cherries, citrus fruits, dark-green leafy vegetables, kale, mangos, melons, parsley, plums, red grapes, spinach, tomatoes, and yellow squash. Organic egg yolks are also recommended because they are rich in carotenoids, a class of antioxidants. Also be sure to drink plenty of fresh, filtered water throughout the day to help flush out accumulated debris in the eye drainage channels. Proper hydration is also essential for maintaining the suppleness of the eyes’ lenses.
Avoid all processed and fried foods, coffee and caffeinated products, soda, sugar and sugar products, refined, simple carbohydrates, alcohol, an unhealthy hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils. Milk and dairy products should be consumed sparingly, if at all. In addition, be tested for food allergies and sensitivities and eliminate those foods for which you test positive.
Eye Exercises: The following eye exercises are useful for preventing and reversing most types of vision problems.
Rest your eyes for five minutes every 30 to 60 minutes, relaxing your gaze and staring into space.
Blink your eyes regularly. This reduces eyestrain.
Take regular breaks throughout the day to breathe deeply for a few minutes, followed by stretching your neck and shoulders. This helps to ensure that your eyes muscles receive adequate amounts of oxygen.
To further reduce facial tension, yawn in an exaggerated fashion. Doing so helps to stretch and relax your facial muscles.
Cover your eyes with you palms for five minutes and breathe deeply. Do this every one to two hours.
Spend 20 to 30 minutes each day rapidly switching your focus from near to far. An easy way to do this is to hold your finger six to eight inches from your eyes. Focus on it for a moment, then focus on an object in the distance. Keep changing your focus from near and far. This is an excellent way to exercise your eye muscles.
Roll your eyes all the way up and down in a full circular motion for five minutes three to five times a day.
Pin a sheet of reading material to the wall and read it from two feet away (or closer if you need to). Each day, step further away from the wall. With regular practice, you will eventually be able to read the same material from across the room. If you are nearsighted, reverse this process, starting as far away from the sheet of paper as you need to be, then slowly moving closer each day until you are able to read it standing only a few inches away.
Flower Essences: To help deal with unresolved mental or emotional factors that can contribute to glaucoma, the following remedies can be helpful: Aspen (to ease general fears), Clematis (if you tend to avoid your problems by “living in a dream world”), Honeysuckle (for those who avoid the challenges of the present by becoming nostalgic for the past), and Rescue Remedy (for cases of acute glaucoma).
Herbs: The following herbs can be very helpful for preventing and slowing the progression of cataracts: bilberry, curcumin, gentian root, grapeseed extract, ginkgo biloba, and pine bark extract (pycnogenol).
Caution: People with glaucoma should avoid using ephedra (also known as Ma Huang), as well as synthetic ephedra products such as epinephrine, which is contained in most over-the-counter cold and cough formulas, because ephedra can dilate the pupils of the eyes, increasing overall eye pressure.
Juice Therapy: Drink 16 ounces of carrot juice and/or carrot juice combined with fresh squeezed celery, cucumber, parsley, and spinach in two divided doses (eight ounces per serving) each day.
Lifestyle: Avoid eyestrain by refraining from working at computer terminal or reading for long periods of time. Also refrain from watching television of movies in the dark, as well as spending prolonged periods in darkness. In addition, avoid exposure to secondhand smoke and, if you smoke, stop. When outside on sunny days, wear sunglasses that protect against both UVA and UVB ultraviolet rays.
To help prevent and relief eye pressure, regularly engage in mild aerobic exercises such as jogging, brisk walking, and rebounding (jumping on a mini-trampoline).
Nutritional Supplementation: Useful nutrients include vitamin A, vitamin B complex, vitamin C, vitamin E, alpha-lipoic acid, beta-carotene, chromium, flavonoids, lutein, magnesium, N—acetyl-cysteine (NAC), riboflavin, rutin, selenium, taurine, zeaxthanin, and zinc. Omega-3 oils, such as fish oil, is also advised.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM): According to TCM theory, most vision problems are due to diminished liver function. To restore healthy liver function, TCM practitioners combine acupuncture with dietary changes and traditional Chinese herbs, such as ginkgo biloba and ginseng.
(The above information is adapted from Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide, co-written and edited by Larry Trivieri, Jr.)
Protect Your Access To Nutritional Supplements Which Are Again Under Attack
Senator John McCain has filed a new bill that attacks your access to supplements. McCain’s bill is called The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA). It would repeal key sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). DSHEA protects supplements if 1) they are food products that have been in the food supply and not chemically altered or 2) if they were sold as supplements prior to 1994, the year that DSHEA was passed. If a supplement fits one of these two descriptions, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cannot arbitrarily ban it or reclassify it as a drug. McCain’s bill would wipe out even the minimal protections contained in DSHEA. It would give the FDA full discretion and power to compile a discreet list of supplements allowed to remain on the market while banning all others. Please take action to prevent this from happening. Protect your access to supplements by contacting your senators today and asking them NOT to co-sponsor the Dietary Supplement Safety Act but rather to oppose it.
http://www.appliedtaiji.com – This is the website of Qigong and taiji master Dr. Zibin Guo, who I recently had the honor of meeting. He’s developed a very easy-to-learn method of taiji (tai chi) exercises that can performed while sitting in a chair.
http://www.naturalnews.com/028207_brain_health_exercise.html- Go here to learn how to perform a simple three-minute exercise that has been shown to improve brain health. I’ve been practicing it since I learned about it and felt a noticeable difference as soon as I first tried it.
http://acam.typad.com/communitytable - This website, provided by the AmericanCollege for the Advancement of Medicine (ACAM) is an excellent free health resource with delicious meal recipes among its offerings.
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 freedom in England and the EU.)
Institute for Health Freedom – http://www.ForHealthFreedom.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 my email account receives, I no longer use it to receive emails. To contact me, please 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, NY13501. 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.
