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AMERICA’S HIDDEN DRUG PROBLEM:
The phrase “drug problem” conjures up visions of furtive
transactions on dark street corners in the dead of night.
But the country’s biggest drug problem is the rampant use of
“legal” (though many shouldn’t be!) drugs dispensed by your friendly
neighborhood pharmacist at the direction of your doctor.
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According to a study in September 2000 issue of the prestigious Prescription
Drug Trends, 12 new prescriptions are written every year for every person
in the U.S. Now, this is an average – not everyone takes 12 different
medications. Many people take fewer . . . but many take more!
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Almost a quarter million people (243,000) are hospitalized each
year because of prescription drug reactions.
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Drug use has extended to our children. Three Billion prescriptions
were filled last year - an average of one prescription, every single month,
for each man, woman and child in the U.S.
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The sad tragedy is that we are spending all of this money on
disease management focused on drugs and our return on this investment is
profoundly poor.
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Prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death in the
U.S. According to a study reported in U.S. News & World Report, there
are four hundred deaths each day from the side effects of prescription
medicines.
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Each year approximately 61,000 Americans over age 50 contract Parkinson’s
Syndrome as a side effect of prescription anti-psychotics like Stelazine or Haldol.
Another 32,000 suffer hip fractures because of drug-induced falls. And 163,000
more suffer drug-induced memory loss or impaired thinking. Add in younger
patients and the numbers become even more disturbing!
·
A surprising percentage of memory problems, including Alzheimer’s
and Dementia are caused by three unlikely culprits. The first is a water
deficiency, the second is a low cholesterol level, and the third is
little-understood interactions between prescription drugs. This third cause is
of concern to anyone who takes two of more prescriptions. If you take three or
more, your chance of an interaction skyrockets.
·
Many, if not most Congestive Heart Failure sufferers make their
condition worse by taking prescription drugs. That’s because blood pressure
and other cardiac drugs are designed to suppress the heart’s muscular action –
exactly what the already weakened heart muscle doesn’t need!
Hopefully, you now understand why I consider Prescription
drugs a last resort rather than the starting point for treatment. Sometimes pharmaceuticals
are necessary, but phyto-nutrient complexes – can often do the job and without
the risk of dangerous side effects. And phyto-nutrient complexes can be safely
used in conjunction with drug therapy until the need for drugs is reduced or
eliminated.
I told you where phyto-nutrient complexes come from, how
they work, and why you cannot get them at your local health food store or
vitamin shop.
Now . . . what may well be the most pernicious
health-destroying misunderstanding in America - -
Everyday Drugs – Everyday Dangers:
Most people reason, “if they weren’t safe, the government
wouldn’t allow them to be sold.”
Even though they don’t require a prescription, these
drugs are still just that – drugs. And they have side effects (many
just being discovered) that pose real dangers to your health. For example:
·
TV ads would have you believe that an aspirin a day can save your
life by reducing your chances of a heart attack or stroke. Although aspirin
may (make you feel a little better and) slightly reduce the chances of one type
of stroke, it increases the likelihood of another!
·
Antacids can cause or exacerbate osteoporosis by
neutralizing the stomach acid your body needs to digest the calcium and other
minerals that protect your bones (- - as well as cause more stomach problems).
·
New research shows that Tylenol (acetaminophen) taken with
just three alcoholic drinks can lead to liver disease – or even liver failure –
necessitating a liver transplant!
·
Give certain over the counter pain killers to children with
chickenpox and it takes longer for the sores to heal.
·
Researchers at Harvard say that the trans-fatty acids in
margarine cause more than 30,000 Americans to die of heart disease every
year.
·
Women who eliminate caffeine from their diet dramatically
lower their risk of fibrocystic breast disease.
·
The low-fat, zero-cholesterol concoctions that are an
integral part of these diets are loaded with trans-fats which oxidize in the
body. And research shows that oxidation of fats can cause cancer.
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Low-fat diets are extremely low in fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E,
F, and K – the very nutrients you need to maintain a healthy heart and
circulatory system.
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. . . As weight increases, good cholesterol levels drop, triglyceride
levels rise and insulin levels increase. This process, if left unchecked, is
the exact prescription for thickening blood vessels, which choke off blood flow
and eventually result in permanent heart damage.
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In its January 3, 2002 issue, The New England Journal of Medicine
confirms that the human heart has the power to heal itself. We’ve
known for years that of all the organs in the human body, the heart is the most
responsive to nutritional changes. Deny it the proper nutrients and it
deteriorates, often in ways that medical tests can’t detect.
. . . if you supply the heart with the nutrients it
needs it can repair damage caused by years of neglect and abuse.
. . . The vitamin that causes the heart to return to
normal is vitamin B4. But you won’t find it in your local supermarket,
drugstore, vitamin shop, or health food store – not even in a B vitamin
“complex” that claims to be “complete.”
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(7) The Truth about
Vitamins and Supplements:
Phytonutrient complexes are completely unlike the vitamins
and supplements sold in stores, even those that claim to be made from whole
foods. That's because although these products may start out as real food, by
the time they make their way to market, they're anything but.
Manufacturers use an industrial process called fractionating
to split a food into its separate nutritional components. These isolated
nutrients are then re-combined in pill form and sold as "natural."
But by their very nature, these products are totally unnatural. Once you
fraction out an isolated nutrient, you've created a chemical. More importantly,
these products are inherently incomplete. The human body utilizes nutrients in
conjunction with one another.
Phytonutrient complexes contain a combination of
all the ingredients found in nature, rather than just, the so Balled
"active ingredients" the manufacturers decide to put in their
pills.
For example, most people think that beta-carotene is a
critical antioxidant that needs to be in their vitamin pill. Yet beta-carotene
is really only one of hundreds of carotenes found naturally in foods. When one
is fractionated away from the others, the resulting compound fails to work as
intended. In fact, new research shows that high doses of synthetic
beta-carotene make certain types of cancer worse.
Taking high dosages of the synthetic or fractionated beta-carotene
and other antioxidants commonly sold in stores can result in impaired immunity,
the exact opposite of what you're trying to achieve! Compounding the problem
is that store-bought nutritional products lack the coenzymes and trace minerals
that are necessary for the body to absorb the nutrients. In past issues of
Health Alert, I warned readers that almost all store-bought vitamins are
concocted in a laboratory, like:
• vitamin B-1 2 made from activated sewage sludge
• vitamin D concocted from irradiated oil
* vitamin E straight from the labs at Eastman Kodak
Store-bought supplements are relatively easy and inexpensive
to make. Phytonutrient complexes, on the other hand, utilize a patented
time-consuming process that ensures the finished product retains the live
nutritional value of the raw materials.
(5) Alzheimers’s,
Memory, Mental and Emotional Problems:
A disturbing percentage of mental and emotional problems are
bio-chemically induced by an inadequate supply of the phytonutrient vitamin B
complex and Omega-3 fats, both of which are nearly non-existent in the typical
low-fat diet.
I have seen people who had been institutionalized for
schizophrenia discharged after 90 days- of phytonutrient vitamin B complex and
Omegas supplementation.
Although both vitamin B and Omega-3 fats are crucial for
mental health, the Omega-3 problem in this country has become particularly
alarming. Omega-3 fats are found primarily in fish and flax oil, neither of
which Americans consume in sufficient quantities. Instead; we load up on
Omega-6 fats, which are found in vegetable oils. And since processed foods are
made with vegetable oil, we get tons of Omega-6 oil on a daily basis. And
there's the rub. Omega-6 oil is as bad for your health (both physical and
mental) as Omega-3 oil is good. The ratio in your diet should be no more than
six parts Omega-6 to one part Omega-3. Unfortunately, in the typical American
diet, the ratio is more like 20, 30, or even 100 to 1 ! And things don't get
any better in a low-fat diet.
So if you or someone you know is having mental or emotional
problems, check your diet before you embark on a lifetime of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxal,
lithium, or any of the other mind-altering drugs. None of them is designed the
address the underlying problem.
(8) Doctors’ Little
Secret:
“If phytonutrient complexes are so good, why doesn't my
doctor prescribe them?"
It's an open secret in the medical community that doctors
routinely prescribe drugs for their patients that they themselves don't take.
In fact, most doctors absolutely hate taking prescription drugs because they
know all too well the dangerous side effects of these powerful chemicals.
Instead, doctors are taking more and more phytonutrient
complexes for all the reasons explained in these pages. But they aren't
prescribing them for you! No, it's not some sinister conspiracy. Most doctors
sincerely want to do what's best for their patients. Their reluctance to
pre-scribe phytonutrient complexes for you is based on several factors.
For starters, HMOs and insurance companies won't pay for
them, even in cases where there's ample evidence that they’re far superior
to their pharmaceutical counterparts.
And doctors only know what they have been taught in medical
school. That is “drugs and surgery for everything, and nothing but drugs and
surgery for anything.”
(9) Diabetes:
Diabetes is the fastest-growing disease in America,
affecting an estimated 17 million people and costing $98 billion. And many
sufferers don't even know they have it. Even worse, most people (and their
doctors) don't have a clue why they have it. And if you don't know what's
causing a medical problem, you can't even begin to solve it. Instead, you
usually end up trying to deal with the symptoms a futile task that frequently
makes matters worse.
Although diabetes has been around for centuries, it didn't
really affect a significant segment of the population until the early 1900s.
That was when a certain kind of sugar found its way into America’s food chain.
Amazingly, this happened over the objections of the Food and Drug
Administration, whose scientists knew that in lab tests on animals, this sugar
routinely causes diabetes!
(10) Cancer:
Tiny Specks of Life may hold the Secret to A Cure for
People with Cancer:
You can't see them with an ordinary microscope, but they're
there, affecting your health in ways we're only just beginning to understand.
They're called protomorphogens (PMGs for shorts and they're perhaps best
thought of as the mineral skeletons on which chromosomes are developed.
Although we don't yet know exactly how PMGs work, we do know
two important things about them. First, we're certain that they're tissue
specific. In other words, each tissue produces its own protomorphogens. There's
one type of PMG found in the liver, another in the lungs, etc.
More importantly, new research suggests that PMGs may hold
the key to beating cancer. To understand why, we have to begin by recognizing
one simple truth...
Conventional Treatments Can't Cure Cancer!
If you or a loved one has cancer, your doctor will
undoubtedly recommend chemotherapy, radiation or surgery, either individually
or in combination. While these treatments may buy time, none of them actually
cures the disease. Only the body itself can vanquish this deadly disease. And
that's where PMGs come into play.
When a gland or organ is affected by disease, the body's
production of PMAGs changes-: These tiny specks of life kick into high gear and
control the healing process by regulating the production of antibodies. With
cancer, the PMG blueprint is altered and cell reproduction goes on
uncontrolled, resulting in ever-expanding cancerous growth.
But when you supplement the body's natural PMGs with
additional protomorphogens of the same organ as the cancerous organ, the
runaway cell growth slows and even stops. The affected organ can begin to
recover, heal and function normally.
This is obviously a simplified explanation of an extremely
complex healing process. You'll find a more detailed explanation in Natures
Miracle Cancer Cure, part of your free Quick-Reference Natural Healing Library.
That report also explains where you can get a reliable
supply of PMGs (As you've probably already guessed, looking for something as
sophisticated as protomorphogens at a health food store is about as futile as
trying to buy an electron microscope at a toy store.)
Cancer’s Achilles Heel:
PMGs, like all things in the body, don’t work alone. Their
potency depends on fat. . . . fat, the substance that an alarming number of
health “experts” are urging you to eliminate from your daily diet.
Fat makes up the phospholipid wrapper that protects the PMG
as well as all of your body's chromosomes. Eliminate the fat and the PMG can't
do its job correctly. In fact, the fastest way to get cancer is to stop eating
fat! If you have cancer, the fastest way to lose the battle is to go on a
low-fat diet.
If you or a loved one has cancer, the right diet is
crucially important. A variation of the Mediterranean Diet would well
serve many people.
What you won't find in the Mediterranean Diet is an
abundance of sugar (glucose).
Cancer cells are incredible sugar junkies, often
self-destructing when deprived of glucose. New studies prove that glucose
elimination is the Achilles' heel of cancer cells. [Source: Shim, H. &
Dang, C. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 95, pp.
1511-16.]
So, if you or a loved one has cancer (or would like to
ensure you don't get it) radically reduce the amount of sugar in your diet
and start taking PMGs.
By the way, in all of North America there's only one
reliable supplier of PMGs in pill form.
(18) About Indigestion:
The term "indigestion" is frequently used to mean
a wide range of conditions involving the digestive system. These include
heartburn, reflux, diarrhea, constipation, diverticulitis, irritable bowel
syndrome, colitis, Crohn's disease, and leaky gut syndrome.
Virtually all of the conventional medical treatments for
these conditions focus on controlling, the symptoms, rather than correcting the
underlying cause. Antacids are perhaps the most common self-help treatment
people resort to. More than 50 million pills are ingested daily. Yet research
shows that too little stomach acid is usually the culprit, not too much. Reducing
stomach acid even further with antacids just makes the problem worse. And as
the stomach produces less acid, the pancreas produces less digestive enzymes.
The end result is that food remains undigested in your digestive tract,
starting a vicious cycle of pain and deteriorating health.
The undigested food begins to rot or ferment. This process
attracts water from the body into the intestines, like a sponge, producing gas
and a variety of caustic acids that at first irritate then damage and
eventually destroy delicate intestinal linings.
This process can cause alternating bouts of diarrhea and
constipation as your body desperately tries to reach a state of equilibrium.
While these might be uncomfortable or inconvenient; they're nowhere near as
dangerous as autointoxication, the process whereby your body absorbs the toxins
produced in your gut as undigested food ferments.
These toxins can_ trigger a wide range of seemingly
unrelated illnesses, from kidney
stones and gallbladder disease to chronic fatigue, memory
loss and even cancer. Studies
show that roughly half of the American population suffers,
in varying degrees, from intestinal malabsorption. Further, studies reveal
that lowered stomach acid elevates your risk
for osteoporosis. Without proper stomach acid, the body
simply cannot absorb the calcium it
needs to keep bones healthy.
The key to a cure isn't taking antacids or prescription
drugs by the bucketful. The way to get well is to treat the underlying cause of
the poor digestion. This inevitably results in the reversal of other
conditions caused by poor digestion. Most doctors fail to make this
connection.
(19) Arthritis:
I find it interesting that arthritis is a modern disease.
The Maori people about 250 years ago were arthritis free – until they were
introduced to a modern diet.
A CLASH OF CULTURES,
AN AMAZING DISCOVERY
In short order the Maori’s health started to decline. Their
strong, muscular bodies became softer, life spans shortened, tooth decay and
arthritis became rampant.
Research by Francis Marion Pottenger, MD and Weston Price,
DDS proved the change of diet was the culprit. They came to the conclusion
that there was an inextricable link between modern diet and arthritis.
This is just one of many studies that dispel the notion that
arthritis is a “wear and tear” disease. It’s not. Arthritis is a food
disease. That’s because modern foods don’t contain the enzymes and
nutrients your body needs to repair joint damage and prevent deterioration.
What You Donut Know About Cholesterol Could Kill You:
Much of what we
"know" about cholesterol is just plain wrong! For example, a
story in a recent issue one of the weekly news magazines begins by telling
readers that "cholesterol level is a key determinant of risk for heart and
blood vessel disease." It then goes on to suggest that
"powerful cholesterol-reducing drugs (statins)
can dramatically cut this risk."
Directly across from this
story (which appeared in a special advertising section) is an ad for, you
guessed it, one of those "powerful cholesterol-reducing drugs."
The drug industry has been engaged in a relentless marketing campaign to
convince more and more people they need to take statins.
These drugs are now routinely
prescribed for people with no history of coronary artery disease – about 65
million potential candidates. Yet, only about 3 million Americans really
need these toxic drugs. The rest of us should do just fine with exercise,
a Mediterranean diet and a daily tablespoon of raw flax oil.
Despite what the drug
companies would have l you believe, high cholesterol is not a reliable heart
attack indicator. In fact, more than 50% of all heart attack patients
have normal or low cholesterol levels.
And as I pointed out in a
recent issue of Health Alert, if you’re over 70, altering your cholesterol level can be dangerous.
Ironically, so much attention
has been focused on cholesterol that the medical community has overlooked a
genuinely reliable heart attack predictor. It's called C-Reactive
Protein (CRP for short) and it's produced in the liver. A high CRP
level is a dangerous cardiac sign all by itself. But when it's present in
conjunction with three other indicators, it-means you're 4 to 8 times more
likely to have a heart attack!
- Dr. Bruce West
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Other Valuable Information:
EAT CHICKEN, GET CANCER:
A new
study published in the journal "Environmental Health Perspectives"
has found that the poultry industry's
excessive
use of drugs in raising chickens has increased arsenic levels in chicken meat
and farm runoff to dangerous levels. http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/arsenic050704.cfm
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HOW MAGIC Genetically Engineered BEANS MAKE LOTS OF MONEY:
(BROUGHT TO YOU BY YOUR “FRIENDS” AT MONSANTO)
Once upon a time (okay,
to be specific, it was 1999), a Mississippi soybean farmer named Holan McFarling
purchased genetically engineered soybean seeds from the Monsanto Corporation to
grow his crops. When making the purchase, the farmer signed a complex agreement
with the corporation (as all GE farmers are forced to do), stating that he
would not save seed from that year's harvest, but instead would pay the corporation
again the next year for more seed. Due to the lack of foreign interest in GE
soybeans, prices fell dramatically that year, and farmers lost money.
Financially broke, McFarling secretly saved seed from his harvest so that he
could afford growing crops again. The corporation discovered what the farmer
had done and brought him to court.
Here comes the shocker: The small print in the agreement between the
farmer and the corporation stated that if the farmer breaches the contract, he
owes 120 times the actual cost of the seeds to the Monsanto Corporation. As a
result, in 2002 the multi billion dollar Monsanto Corporation successfully sued
small family farmer McFarling for $780,000.
Happy Ending: Last week, a Federal appeals court ruled that Monsanto's
demands for financial reparations from McFarling are far too excessive. A
revised fine has not yet been set.
Not So Happy Ending: In a similar case in Tennessee, Monsanto put cotton farmer
(Kem Ralph) in prison for eight months for saving seeds (farmers have done this
for thousands of years all over the world). In addition to the prison
sentence, the small family farmer is being forced to pay $1.7 million in
damages to Monsanto, despite the fact that the seeds in question actually cost
a tiny fraction of that.
Moral of the Story: Join OCA's "Millions Against Monsanto"
campaign - http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.html
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