Morning everyone!

This information from naturalnews.com shows some groundbreaking new science reveals that the harmful effects of exposure to synthetic chemicals are passed from generation to generation via "epigenetics," causing measurable damage to future generationseven if those offspring are never exposed to the original chemical. The phenomenon of "Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance" (ETI) has now been demonstrated in live animals, and if the implications of this research are fully understood, it would force human civilization to radically rethink its widespread use of synthetic chemicals in agriculture, medicine, food, construction materials, personal care products and elsewhere.

The research, led by Dr. David Crews (and including colleagues Michael Skinner, Ross Gillette and others), is entitled,"Epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of altered stress responses"and is published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America) (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/05/15/1118514109.abstract).

The study, which was funded by a sub-group of the National Institutes of Health (http://NIEHS.NIH.gov), found that exposure to a common fungicide caused neurological and behavioral changes that were passed on to future generations of offspring, even when those offspring had no exposure to the original fungicide. Furthermore, the mechanism of "transgenerational inheritance" was epigenetic, meaning it was "above the genes." It was not coded into the DNA of sperm and egg, in other words. Instead, theexpression of the DNAwas altered and inherited through some mechanism other than DNA.

As the abstract of the study sums it up:

"We find that a single exposure to a common-use fungicide (vinclozolin) three generations removed alters the physiology, behavior, metabolic activity, and transcriptome in discrete brain nuclei in descendant males, causing them to respond differently to chronic restraint stress." (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/05/15/1118514109.abstract)

Why chemicals threaten the future of the human species

This groundbreaking research offers a sobering revelation about the age of industrial chemicals through which we are all now living. This "age of chemicals" ramped up roughly around World War II (late 1930's).

The conventional view of chemicals -- the view advocated by the chemical industry, the cancer industry, the FDA, the EPA, etc. -- is that the damaging effects of chemical exposure are NOT passed on to future generations (unless, of course, exposure happens during pregnancy). Chemicals are relatively safe, the regulators say, because the next generation is always born healthy and genetically intact.

But what this research by Dr. David Crews reveals is that chemical exposure accumulates and is inherited by offspring which then pass on the damaging effects of that exposure to their own offspring. This transgenerational "epigenetic" effect appears to go on indefinitely, forever altering the expression of the genetic code.

"I don't see a diminution. It's the nature of this kind of imprint. It will not disappear," he said. "We are becoming a different species," Dr. Crews told me on a separate phone call, meaning that modern humans, having been exposed to a heavy burden of synthetic chemicals for roughly 3-4 generations, now express their genetic code in a way that strongly diverges from the expression of someone living in, say, the 1920's.

We are, in essence, ChemHumans, forever imprinted with the toxic burden of all the tens of thousands of synthetic chemicals we have foolishly unleashed onto our world, our environment and our food supply.

Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance may help explain the rise in autism, obesity and infertility

Dr. Crews explained to me that the inherited, cumulative effects of chemical exposure may be a key element behind the causes of today's most worrisome disease epidemics: Autism, obesity, infertility and perhaps even cancer.

Autism has exploded in the last century, rising sharply from an estimated 1 in 25,000 children (http://www.autismtoday.com/articles/Epidemic%20of%20autism.asp) to an astonishing 1 in 88 children, according to the CDC. (http://www.cdc.gov/Features/CountingAutism/)

If this trend continues, we may be looking at a near future where every other child is autistic, and at that point questions about the long-term viability of the entire human race start to become unavoidable. Dr. Crews explains that although we cannot rid our world of toxic chemical pollution, we must at least be honest and accurate about the near-term and long-term damage caused by those chemicals so that we can take immediate steps to limit exposure.

"We have permanently contaminated our world, and we are never going to be able to clean up our world. We have to recognize this fact. We have poisoned the environment. There is no turning back, but that doesn't mean we have to continue poisoning the environment," he says.

Dr. Crews believes that part of the answer rests in the realm of "green chemistry" where toxic synthetic chemicals used in agriculture are replaced with far less harmful chemicals that don't trigger transgenerational (inherited) damage in humans or animals.

Watch a full interview with Dr. Crews at:
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=81C330EC0311060BEB98A7C005C57B3A

Urgent call to avoid all chemicals NOW

Anyone who fully grasps the implications of this research mustimmediatelytake urgent steps to radically and permanently reduce their exposure to synthetic chemicals.

"This recent ruling by the FDA not to ban BPA in the United States is, in my opinion, a disaster," says Dr Crews. "It is a fundamental mistake by a regulatory agency."

The most common sources of chemical exposure today include (this is my own list, not David Crews'):

• Foods - pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, food packaging
• Insect repellants such as DEET
• Personal care products (lotions, hand sanitizers, cosmetics)
• Plasticizers such as Bisphenol-A (BPA)
• Dioxins
• Hydrocarbons (gasoline, jet fuel)
• Medicines and pharmaceuticals
• Chemicals used in home construction materials (glues, dyes, formaldehyde, etc.)
• Chemical adjuvants in vaccines

Health Ranger analysis: The genopocalypse approaches

The realization that exposure to such chemicals can cause damage three, five or even ten generations down the line should be a red alert wake-up call for everyone interested in keeping their genes represented in the human gene pool. Chemical exposure causes not just changes in neurology and behavior, but even changes infertility. As chemical exposure accumulates generation after generation, fertility rates plummet.

I have coined the coming collapse of the human gene pool the "genopocalypse." This term has not yet caught on across the 'net, as many people still don't realize what has already begun to unfold.We have already compromised our future as a species right now, even if BPA were banned tomorrow. The heavy chemical burden already unleashed on our world (and our population) will be felt for countless generations to come. And it may very well threaten the survival of not just our civilization, but our entire species.

That's my assessment of the situation, not Dr. Crews. I'm looking at the far darker long-term implications of his research because I remain concerned about the fact that humanity is killing itself through chemicals, nuclear power, GMOs and other serious threats to our survival.

I've even posted an S.O.S. to the world about this very topic:
http://sos.naturalnews.com

S.O.S. means "Stop Out-of-Control Science," and it means that before we kill ourselves (and our planet) with runaway science conducted for the benefit of corporate interests, we must return to the precautionary principle and conduct science with a sense of caution rather than a drive for profit.

Do not misinterpret this as meaning in any way that I am against science. Real science is, indeed, crucial to the advancement of knowledge in our universe. The quest for scientific understanding is a journey out of the darkness of superstition and into the light of awareness. And yet too much of today's so-called "science" has been conducted with no regard for the safety of the human race, the planet's ecosystems or the integrity of reproductive systems in both plants and animals. Genetically Modified Organisms, for example, are a form of runaway genetic pollution that have entirely unknown consequences for the future of food crops on our planet.

GMOs, by any rational standard, are a dangerous experiment that should only be conducted in tightly controlled (indoor, clean-room) environments, not planted in open fields where their seeds are blown away by the wind. By the same token, the mass chemical inundation of our world today is another disturbing science experiment through which we are currently living. What will be the long-term impact of all these chemicals used in foods, medicines, personal care products and industrial processes? Nobody knows, and that's exactly what should scare us the most.

It is a crap shoot. A roll of the dice. And the stakes couldn't be higher: the future of human life on our planet may be either won or lost depending on the outcome. But instead of playing it safe, the chemical industry (and the FDA, EPA, etc.) have all jumped in bed with the American Chemistry Council, an organization whose sole purpose is to convince regulators, politicians and consumers that there's no such thing as a bad chemical! They're all good for you, and in fact the more you're exposed to, the better your life! (Better living through chemistry, remember?)

The research of Dr. Crews and colleagues gives us a stern warning that stands in great contrast to the persistent denials of the chemistry industry. Chemical exposure damages your offspring, and it then goes on to damagetheiroffspring, generation after generation, through an unknown number of generations.

The pesticide-sprayed strawberries you eat today, in other words, may damage your great great great grandchildren. And that's if your offspring are even fertile in the first place, because at some point infertility may lead to a population collapse from which humans may be hard-pressed to recover.

Have we already destroyed ourselves?

The questions we would be wise to consider today include: How will life on Earth 500 years from now be impacted by our decisions today? Cities today continue to dump fluoride into public water supplies. Modern dentistry continues to absurdly insist on putting mercury fillings into the mouths of children. GMO seed companies are openly conspiring with the USDA to unleash yet more genetic pollution across our planet, even working to de-regulate "Agent Orange Corn" -- a variety of GM corn that would be immune to 2,4-D, a chemical that's 50 percent of the recipe for the plant-killing chemical weapon known as Agent Orange.

Make no mistake: We are poisoning ourselves at a level never before witnessed in human history. It is all being done for profit, to appease powerful corporations that have undue influence in government. Regulators, meanwhile, have sold out the People and betrayed us all in order to keep their corporate masters filthy rich. While corporate shareholders revel in their quarterly profits, they are precisely the same people whose children are being poisoned by the very companies fattening their bank accounts!

We are stuck in a cycle of self destruction from which the human race may not escape. And that's if we don't kill ourselves with nuclear accidents first (Fukushima, anyone?)

Have a blessed day folks!

Morning!

I'm as guilty as the rest of you at spending too much time on your cell phone.  For a host of reasons doing so can have a negative impact on your health.  Recent studies coming from the U.K. show spending too much time staring at your mobile phone, reading from your "tablet" mobile device, or working on your laptop could cause you to develop "smartphone face," a condition that some medical experts say is becoming increasingly more prevalent in the digital age. More people than ever are now having their skin tightened and chins tucked in order to fix the sag caused by using too much technology.

Though it cannot be definitively proven that smart phones and tablet devices are solely to blame, saggy jowls, double chins, and "marionette lines" often develop from the angles at which people use their trendy new mobile devices. Leaning your head to hold your mobile phone in between your face and shoulder, for instance, is believed to cause facial skin and muscle to lose its elasticity more quickly than normal.

As a result, the number of people who now seek treatment or surgery for such conditions outpaces the number seeking breast augmentations, Botox injections, and liposuction surgeries combined. And it is this rapid rise in the facial reconstruction category that aesthetic experts have linked directly to mobile device usage, as no other modern habit tends to stretch or otherwise damage facial skin and muscle tissue as much as this one.

"If you sit for hours with your head bent slightly forward, staring at your iPhone or laptop screen, you may shorten the neck muscles and increase the gravitational pull on the jowl area, leading to a drooping jawline," said Dr. Mervyn Patterson from the Woodford Medical Group to the Evening Standard.

Seeing your own face on video chat software could make you more likely to consider facial surgery

Besides the physical damage that may be caused by excessive mobile device usage, the popularity of video chat programs like Apple's "FaceTime" application, as well as other digital communication programs that allow people to see their own faces, is also believed to be a culprit. Many individuals that use these programs become more self-conscious of their own appearances, which leads them to make permanent, surgical changes.

"Over the past 18 months to two years we've seen a steady increase in the number of those option for the procedure (chin implants), but we're around three years behind the U.S. so we expect a similar pattern to gradually emerge," said a spokesperson from Transform, a U.K.-based cosmetic surgery provider, to theDaily Mail.

The situation is only expected to worsen, as up to 80 percent of the U.K. workforce could be working remotely from laptop computers by 2015, according to a 2006 Health and Safety Executive Horizon Scanning report. This would be up from only about eight percent of the U.K. workforce today.

Have a blessed day folks!

Good Morning! 

What is health?  What is healthiness? 

There are a few definitions of health. Search anywhere for healthiness – and you will find yourself re-directed to ‘health’. What about Healthicine?  Medicine is well defined, but no dictionary defines healthicine. A PhD of Health Sciences does not study health, nor science. Health Science is the study of ‘health administration’ – administration of hospitals and other centers for the sick. Healthicines are the arts and sciences of health and healthiness.

Why don’t we have a science of healthiness?  Why are there no experts in healthicine? Spring is here, it’s time for some changes. It’s time to move health to the forefront.  It’s time to wake up to healthicine. To put illness, behind and beneath healthiness and unhealthiness. When we explore the sciences of healthiness – we will see illness in a new light.

What are the foundations of health? The sciences of healthiness requires foundations. How can we claim to study the foundations of illness if we don’t understand the foundations of healthiness?

The foundation of health starts with the foundation of life.  Genetics. We study genetics for causes of illness. It’s time to study genetics as the foundation of healthiness.

Genetics does not give rise to life without Nutrients. Nutrients are the second layer in the science of healthiness.

Genetics and nutrients give rise to Cells. Cells specialize; our bodies contain over 100 different types of cells.

Tissues are collections of cells, with specific properties and roles. Take note: tissues consist of cells, and terrain. The stuff between the cells. The ‘dirt’ that our cells live in, consists of nutrients, toxins, inactive chemicals, and dead cells. Healthy tissues consist of healthy cells and healthy terrain.

Organs are created when tissues and cells work together for specialized purposes. Organs are created by genetics, nutrients, cells and tissues; and their healthiness depends on the health of your genetics, your nutrients, your cellular health and tissue health.

As we move up the hierarchy of healthiness, each layer is based on the layer below. Each layer raises our complexity and our healthiness to new heights. It’s important to stop at this point, and take a closer look at one important aspect. Cells. Many of the cells in your body are non-human cells. In fact, most of the cells in your body are not human cells, although most of those are in your digestive system.  It is also believed, but not yet proven, that a valuable component of a healthy human body is our healthy viruses. We have found health giving viruses in other organism – and some people believe the only reason we haven’t yet found healthy viruses in humans is simply that we are not looking.

Our Bodies are walking, talking sacks of living, breathing soil. Our healthiness depends on the health of our entire biota, not just the human cells. Our genetic healthiness depends on the genetic healthiness of our entire biota including healthy, and unhealthy non-human cells and viruses. Our nutritional healthiness includes the nutritional healthiness of our entire biota – not just our human nutrition. Our cellular healthiness includes the cellular healthiness of our entire biota. And so on, throughout the hierarchy. Our entire healthiness is dependent not just on our human healthiness, but also on the non-human components of our bodies. Both the live non-human components, and the non-living, non-human components.

Our genetics, nutrients, cells, tissues, and organs work together to create health enhancing Systems like our respiratory system, our circulatory system, our lymphatic systems. Bodily systems provide the ability for our bodies to rise, breath, walk, listen and talk. To perceive and to communicate.

Our body consists of the components from lower layers. Healthy genetics, nutrients, cells, tissues, organs and systems combine and harmonize to create healthy bodies. Our mind, like the body, is dependent on all prior layers – and contributes to their healthiness. Our spirits rises beyond our conscious mind.

We live in communities of peoples. Families, friends, religious groups, governments, cities, and nations. The health of our communities is dependent on the health of individuals, which is dependent on their genetics, cells, and so on…

The hierarchy of healthiness rises from our genetics, using nutrients, creating cells, tissues, organs to our body, which contains our mind, which is freed by our spirit and enhanced by our communities. Each layer is dependent on the prior layers – and every layer and every component can affect the health of other layers, positively or negatively.

Where does illness fit into this picture? We need to look more closely at healthiness before we ask that. We barely know anything about healthiness. We can see from the hierarchy that healthiness of the body depends on many prior layers, and many higher layers.

Can we measure our healthiness?

Measuring healthiness might appear to be as difficult as measuring a seashore, constantly moving, fractal ragged. The smaller the measuring stick – the longer the shore. But it’s not so difficult.  Place two markers and measure the distance between them.

A measure of healthiness might contain thousands of measurements, dozens or hundreds for each layer in the hierarchy, possibly hundreds for a single organ or cell.  How can we possibly create a summary?  In the same way that a final exam can consist of dozens or hundreds of questions. Over time, we will learn the most effective measurements, and appropriate weights for an effective measurement of healthiness.

When we measure healthiness, we find we are also measuring unhealthiness. Unhealthiness, not illness, is the opposite of healthiness. If your healthiness score is 72, your unhealthiness score is 28. If your liver’s healthiness score is 43, then you have an unhealthy liver- with an unhealthiness score of 57.  If your nutrient score is 82, you probably have a healthy diet.

What about illness? If you are unhealthy, are you sick? At what point does unhealthiness become an illness? It would be an interesting question – if medical profession had not co-opted the answers. The medical profession defines when you are sick, by clearly defining diagnosis and by clearly defining who can practice the techniques of diagnosis. You are only truly sick when a medical doctor diagnoses an illness.

And what about treatment? Once a doctor creates a diagnosis – you will most likely receive a prescription for a patented drug.  Patented drugs are not allowed for simple ‘unhealthiness’. They are too dangerous for that. And they are not allowed if you diagnose yourself.

GreenMedInfo provides information about many non-drug treatments, effective for unhealthiness as well as illness.

Medical doctors don’t measure unhealthiness. To do so would create a measure of healthiness. They don’t measure healthiness – there is no need. The medical profession diagnoses illness – and then prescribes treatment. A doctor might think you are unhealthy, or might say you are healthy, but both statements are scientifically meaningless without an effective measurement technique.

Illness is important. Very important. Our entire medical profession works to prevent, treat and cure illness and the effects of illness. However, illness is distinct from healthiness, and distinct from unhealthiness.

Once we understand the concepts of the hierarchy of healthiness, we can clearly define the primary disciplines of healthicine: genetics, nutrition, cytology, histology, human anatomy, system anatomy, anatomy and physiology, cognitive physiology, spirituality studies, and community studies.

The secondary disciplines of healthicine are created by a simple combination of the primary disciplines, as in this diagram.

There are some interesting insights here. All of the primary disciplines of healthiness are recognized and studied by the medical profession – although from a medical, not a health perspective.  Many of the secondary disciplines are also clearly recognized and studied by medical professions.  But some are clearly not well understood as disciplines of healthiness.  Spirit Genetics, for example. The study of the way genetics and spirit interact, contribute to, and affect our overall healthiness.

When we wake up to the study of healthiness – we will learn that the study of healthiness is more important than the study of illness. We are healthy more often than we are sick.  Illness is a small subset of healthiness.

When we wake up to healthiness, we will recognize the need for health freedom. We all have the right to information about our health, and the right to make decisions about our health.

Have a blessed day!

Morning!

Iron is an essential mineral and handles the task of transporting oxygen to the muscles and organs. Iron also plays a role in the nervous system, as iron levels impact dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin levels. If the iron content of our blood falls, we may feel tired or have reduced energy, and our immune system becomes impaired. A deficiency may be caused by iron deficiency anemia or anemia associated with chronic disease.

There are two forms of dietary iron: heme and non-heme. Heme iron sources come from animal foods (meat, fish and poultry) and non-heme iron is found in non-meat foods such as beans, lentils, yeast leavened whole grain breads, dried fruits, broccoli, spinach and other leafy greens, strawberries, nuts, and enriched pastas, rice and cereals. While our diets contain far more non-heme iron, this non-meat-based iron is not as readily absorbed by our body. Individuals who follow a diet completely free from any animal product (including eggs and dairy) are most likely to have an iron deficiency, but lacto-vegetarians (who include eggs and diary in their diet) also have an increased risk being iron deficient.

Healthy adults typically absorb about 10 to 15 percent of the dietary iron consumed each day. Current storage levels of iron have the greatest influence on our absorption – when our levels are low, iron absorption increases; when the levels are high, absorption decreases.

The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for women 19 to 50 years of age is 18 milligrams (mg) per day, while men ages 19 and older, and women 51 years and older have a requirement of eight mg per day. The higher RDA for women in their childbearing years is due to blood loss that occurs through the monthly menstrual cycle. The World Health Organizationconsiders iron deficiency to be the largest international nutritional disorder, and worldwide, as much as 80 percent of the population may be iron deficient.

In the U.S. about five percent of women and two percent of men have anemia, caused by a prolonged and severe iron deficiency. If we consume less than our body needs, or absorption and storage are negatively impacted, a gradual deficiency will develop. For those who have a deficiency, supplemental iron can be tremendously helpful in restoring appropriate iron levels.  

It’s counterintuitive, but the amount of iron our body absorbs decreases with increasing doses, so when taking supplements it’s helpful to take the daily dose in two or three equally spaced doses.

We recommend that women in their childbearing years who have a monthly cycle take a multivitamin and mineral supplement with iron. Iron plays an important role in recovery for athletes who exercise at extreme levels (at least five hours of exercise at 80 percent or higher heart rate per week). Individuals who have been told by their physician to take iron will also want to select one of our Metagenics formulations.

Because iron is so important in our overall bodily function, the instinct might be to add iron to the routine. However, excessive iron intake can lead to toxicity and cause a host of serious medical problems, including congestive heart failure, coronary heart disease and cirrhosis. When taking iron supplements, it’s important to have regular follow-ups with a physician so that blood testing can be completed to evaluate levels.

Have a blessed day!