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Jan 25, 2010
In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto’s GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats
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Jan 25,2010
More about Monsanto:
Monsanto, the multinational agriculture giant most known for its propagation of genetically-modified (GM) crops, has decided to resurrect its pursuit of GM wheat. Abandoned in 2004 due to opposition from American growers, merchants, and consumers, Monsanto’s GM wheat program is making a comeback. See more at (NaturalNews)
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Jan 11, 2010
What’s really making people fat!
From article at Mercola.com:
Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, has been a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism. His work has highlighted some major differences in how different sugars are broken down and used:
- After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. But with glucose, your liver has to break down only 20 percent.
- Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is “burned up” immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.
- The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.
- Fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate. In other words, fructose converts to activated glycerol (g-3-p), which is directly used to turn FFAs into triglycerides. The more g-3-p you have, the more fat you store. Glucose does not do this.
- When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat. Consuming fructose is essentially consuming fat!
- The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which drives up blood pressure and causes gout.
- Glucose suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin, which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and interferes with your brain’s communication with leptin, resulting in overeating.
So please do not get caught up in the common mainstream thinking that eating fat is what causes you to get fat. Much more so, it is eating an excess of simple carbs, including fructose, that will lead to a cascade of disastrous metabolic effects in your body.
The bottom line is: fructose leads to increased belly fat, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome — not to mention the long list of chronic diseases that directly result.
If you want further confirmation, check out this study published in the Journal of Nutrition last year. Researchers found that fructose turned into body fat much more quickly than glucose, and that having it for breakfast changed how the body handled fats at lunch.
Said Dr. Elizabeth Parks, associate professor of clinical nutrition at UT Southwestern Medical Center and lead author of the study in Science Daily:
“Our study shows for the first time the surprising speed with which humans make body fat from fructose … Once you start the process of fat synthesis from fructose, it’s hard to slow it down … It’s basically sneaking into the rock concert through the fence. It’s a less-controlled movement of fructose through these pathways that causes it to contribute to greater triglyceride [i.e. fat] synthesis.”
Ironically, the very products that most people rely on to lose weight — low-fat diet foods — are often those that contain the most fructose! Even “natural” diet foods often contain fructose as a sweetener.
Sugar Can Also Interfere With Your Fat Cells’ Messages
Contrary to the popular belief that fat cells should be banished, they are an active and intelligent part of your body, producing hormones that impact your brain, liver, immune system and even your ability to reproduce.
What’s more, the hormones your fat cells produce impact how much you eat and how much fat you burn.
One of these hormones is leptin, which sends signals that reduce hunger, increase fat burning and reduce fat storage.
That is, if your cells are communicating properly and can “hear” this message.
If you eat a diet that is high in sugar and grains, the sugar gets metabolized to fat (and is stored as fat in your fat cells), which in turn releases surges in leptin. Over time, if your body is exposed to too much leptin, it will become resistant to it (just as your body can become resistant to insulin).
And when you become leptin-resistant, your body can no longer hear the messages telling it to stop eating and burn fat — so it remains hungry and stores more fat.
Leptin-resistance also causes an increase in visceral fat, sending you on a vicious cycle of hunger, fat storage and an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and more.
It’s Time to Cut Out the Fructose
Ideally I recommend that you avoid sugar, in all forms. This is especially important for people who are overweight or have diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure.
But if you are just starting out and looking to cut out fructose first, the largest contributor is easily soda, for which HFCS is the primary sweetener. But fructose is not only in sugary drinks. It’s in the vast majority of processed foods, even those you wouldn’t think of as sweet, such as ketchup, soup, salad dressing, bread and crackers.
So even if you don’t drink soda, if you eat processed foods you’re likely consuming fructose — and a lot of it.
Even natural sweeteners like agave syrup should be avoided, as it is a highly processed sap that is almost all fructose!
If you’re looking for the occasional sweet treat, I recommend, in this order:
- The herb stevia
- Raw, organic honey
- Organic cane sugar
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Jan 3, 2010
The rise of obesity is a serious health problem in our society. It is usually seen as a character flaw, as lack of self control and laziness. It is most often blamed on too much eating and not enough exercising, but Robert Lustig, MD, a UCSF pediatric neuroendocrinologist, brings us more research and insight to this pervasive problem.
Behaviors that some might refer to as gluttony and sloth are merely consequences of the true cause of the obesity and metabolic epidemic, Lustig says. Food was abundant 30 years ago, before obesity’s rapid rise in the population. The true problem is the increase in sugar consumption, more specifically, fructose consumption. Sugar both drives fat storage and hyperinsulemia which chronically elevated, makes the brain think it is hungry by interfering with the leptin feedback loop , setting up a “vicious cycle,” according to Lustig.
The problematic Fructose is a component of the two most popular sugars. One is table sugar — sucrose. The other is high-fructose corn syrup. High-fructose corn syrup has become ubiquitous! It is found in soda pop, soft drinks, and juice drinks as well as most other processed foods, including children’s foods. Spend a day checking out food labels on the grocery shelves and also in your kitchen pantry.
Watch this series and realize the truth about sugars in our diet.
Part one of nine
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Nov 23, 2009
SUPPORTING THE IMMUNE SYSTEM REDUCING STRESS OVERLOAD
Getting sick, whether a cold, flu or any illness is caused by your immune system being challenged. It is most often related to stress. Even the stress of vacationing or the stress of a big event can be challenging to our system, even though we may see it as a fun or joyful event.
Clearly, then, school or work deadlines (even the name is stressful), pressures of your job; family or health crisis; or money, safety and security issues; all contribute to a stress overload on your immune system. It is the same for our children or even our pets.
When feeling overwhelmed and nervous; experiencing alarming sights or sounds, feeling sensory overload, fearing unknown faces; not understanding, or not quite knowing what is happening; or having no control over the outcome of events; all contribute to excess stress and immune system challenges.
Most of the time, the stress causes a reaction in the body which we may feel as a clutching in the stomach, or restricted breathing, or an increased heart rate, or a tightening of our muscles, and other symptoms. This is the result of a natural “fight or flight” reaction that instinctively takes over and sends out chemical messengers to the system to prepare the body to survive threats.
The body, when alerted in this way, prepares for the worst. And, most often, the outcome in these cases is quick and physically active. We club the attacking animal, the bear or the hungry lion. We violently defend against our attacker. Or we run as fast as we can to safety.
However, most stress that we deal with is not of this immediate, life threatening kind. It is not the kind of threat that you can run from or beat with a club. Most of the daily stress that we deal with is in our thoughts and in our minds. We worry and ruminate on a problem over and over, or about what negative thing is going to happen a moment from now or tomorrow.
Another big stress in our life is remembering, with much emotion, the past negative events in our life. We replay these over and over to ourselves like a re-looping tape. All this takes a toll on the body. All these worries, and problem thoughts, are still perceived by the body as dangers and threats. And the body reacts by pouring into the system all the chemicals that prepare the body to survive threats.
And again, the stress-chemical response causes a reaction in the body: of a hyper alert state, of anxiety, or fear which we may feel as a clutching in the stomach, or restricted breathing, or an increased heart rate, or a tightening of our muscles, or exhaustion, or poor concentration, or insomnia, or a number of other possible symptoms that have now become automatic reaction programs.
But the body is a miracle of healing and it does its healing job for us every minute of our lives. We can still be well and healthy if we allow that to happen, and if we support the body in healing by getting enough balance in our life. For example: by getting enough rest at the proper times, by balanced nutrition, healthy exercise; quality sensory and mental stimulation; good companionship, joy and gratitude; and by changing our negative thinking.
This we can do by identifying the negative thoughts, and releasing them, and releasing the emotions that go with the negative thoughts. And by replacing those thoughts with healthy ones. Meditation is a superb way to support your body in it’s healing and to support your mind in it’s creativity and in achieving your goals.
In addition, Guided Meditations are also an excellent way to find solutions for your mind and body and to quiet anxieties. Guided Meditations can also be great fun exercises. You can go “Quantum Leaping” through time and space using your own guided imagery. This is like entering your own private movie where you find creative solutions, to solve any problems, and overcome any anxieties, that you want! Plus, the process can be intriguing…kind of like entering a great book, and taking whatever turn that you would like, to get to whatever outcome that you would like.
This can allow you to step into your solution, to actually get there in reality. This can help you, to lead yourself to solutions to your own real time problem, the problem that you have been struggling with in the here and now.
There is another technique that is very supportive to the mind and body. A technique that is balancing to the body’s energy system, and that is acupressure. One very elegant type of acupressure is called EFT ( Emotional Freedom Techniques). EFT balances the acupuncture meridian system by combining gentle fingertip tapping (acupressure) on key points while focusing on physical or emotional issues or on affirmations. It is like acupuncture without the needles.
We can also tap on the chakra centers. These are concentrated energy centers in the body. The chakras also coincide with the crossing points of many meridian-system points. In addition, we can also tap on, or rub, the neuro-lymphatic points on the body to support lymphatic drainage. These methods and others are all supportive of the body’s immune, energy and vibrational system.
It’s not necessary to know all the chakra centers, or meridian points, or neuro-lymphatic points, or other anatomical map points. I have found that just the tapping or rubbing of a few select points and some scripts and techniques for certain conditions, can be very very effective in getting quick and amazing results, results that can change your thinking, change your emotions, change your habitual stress response, change your suffering, and change your life.
The Getting Started quick guide explains the basics so that you can get used to how to do the tapping and begin applying EFT right away. You may also want some information that will help guide you in understanding other healing modalities. Sign up for our newsletter. Contact us for more information. We’d love to hear from you. Join our newsletter and blog.
Mag.
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September 19, 2009
Plenty of talk in the news and the media about the flu and whether or not to get immunized. I won’t tell you what to do. But suffice it to say that fear mongering is an old device for manipulating the public. So really do your homework on this one and don’t let others do your thinking for you. Meanwhile get yourself and the kids and the pets outside in the sun and take plenty of Vitamin D3. A dose of 5000iu a day is a moderate dose. The majority of the public is shockingly low on this vitamin which is vital to the body and to the immune system. Also get your daily dose of laughter, play and joy everyday too. That’s the best of all!
Mag
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Tuesday August 8th, 2008
EXPERIMENTS ON THE POWER OF INTENTION: LYNNE McTAGGART
There was a discussion with Lynne McTaggart on the Coast to Coast radio show where she discusses results of an experiment in intention and the power of unified intention. The experiment was with a groups of volunteers and the intended target was leaves. Results showed a significant difference between the target leaf and a control leaf and have now been successfully replicated six times.
McTaggart also reported on her first Peace Intention Experiment, which sought to demonstrate that thoughts can be used to change the world by having thousands of people send their intention for peace, at the same time for 10 minutes on eight successive days. Sri Lanka was chosen as a target. Curiously, violence in Sri Lanka quadrupled during the week of the experiment, but in the weeks afterward, violence decreased by 75%, and the whole course of the civil war there was changed for the better.
More on the experiment here. (http://www.theintentionexperiment.com/the-peace-intention-experiment). McTaggart is planning a Clean Water Experiment, on September 19, 2009 to help clean up polluted water, and people from around the world are welcome to participate (http://www.thecleanwaterexperiment.com/).I look forward to hearing the results.
What are your thoughts on the power of intention and the group use of intention? How about the use of the power of intention with negative subjects or broadcasts? Does viewing war scenes or crash scenes contribute to more negativity in the world. If these articles or broadcasts are written with a slant to propagandize and increase fear and hate, will more negative events occur? Especially when these reports are repeated regularly across the world to people in front of a TV who are mostly hypnotized while sitting in front of the tube. There are many facets to consider with the power of intention.
Meanwhile, think kind thoughts.
Mag.
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August 5, 2009
TO NEW BEGINNINGS
Today Mag and I (Michelle) have been working on this website- in-between clients and planning upcoming workshops, we are grateful for your support and encouragement and we welcome your suggestions and inquiries! Namaste! Michelle and Mag.
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