Cure and Prevent Cancer, Here is how ...

People look on cancer as an intractable enemy -- and indeed it can be.  We spend millions on research and costly drugs fighting this enemy.  But all too often cancer is a disease we give to ourselves.  Here is why . . . . .

Right now, you -- indeed all of us -- have thousands of cancer cells in our bodies.  Your body produces hundreds of million new cells every minute, some are mutated, with damaged DNA, and can divide rapidly, potential cancer seeds.  Your body normally knows how to handle this and destroys these mutated cells (a process called apoptosis).  This is all perfectly natural, occurs in all of us all the time.

The problem arises when this natural elimination is disrupted and cancer cells are allowed to proliferate.  You want to do everything possible to avoid disrupting this natural cancer control process in your body.

How can we do this?  We need to stop poisoning ourselves with toxins and carcinogens such as pesticides and herbicides in food, radiation from x-rays, artificial flavors, colors, and other chemicals.  Avoid "industrial" food such as trans fats and high fructose corn syrup.

Look at the ingredients section of food which you buy, you will see all kinds of chemicals listed in the processed foods.  Do you really want to ingest all these chemicals.  The answer is a resounding NO!   This is not natural, these chemicals can disrupt our bodies natural defenses.

Eat a diet rich in organic (pesticide and herbicide free) vegetables. Colorful orange, blue, purple, green and red fruits and vegetables are best.  Think blueberries, blackberries, melons, squash, broccoli, brussels sprouts, romaine (not iceberg) lettuce etc. etc.  The natural compounds in these fruit, vegetables and nuts will help your body eradicate mutated cancer causing cells, possibly even reversing tumors.

Vitamin D is a potent cancer inhibitor.  Yet we are told to stay out of the sun (which manufactures Vitamin D in our bodies) and slather on sun block (which has proven carcinogens in it).  Go figure!  Better advice would be to get some sun exposure every day while avoiding sunburn AND sun block.  Use clothing, floppy hats etc, to avoid over exposure if you must be out in strong sunlight for over 1/2 hour.

If you eat meat, eat only grass fed beef, wild fish and naturally raised chicken.  You don't want the weird fats, growth hormones and antibiotics which can be in conventionally raised meats.

It does not pay the food, drug and medical industries to promote natural prevention -- indeed their business will decline with healthy people.  You will not hear this post's message from them as they profit from your being sick, think about it.

People often spray pesticides widely around and inside their homes to eradicate bugs.  This stuff is poison folks, it may kill the bugs AND you.

Prevention and natural cures will go along way to reducing our cancer and health care costs so take matters into your own hands starting today.  You will be much healthier for it.

Inflammation, An Overlooked Cause of Heart Disease

In the last decade more and more physicians are noting the causative effect inflammation has in causing heart disease.  Time magazine called inflammation "The Secret Killer".  This post shows how you can help avoid the chronic inflammatory response in your body and may possibly save your life.

Inflammation is a natural body response to injury, allergy or pathogen.  Your body produces fibrin in response to an injury and when the emergency is over your body produces plasmin to remove the fibrin.  This removal is important as fibrin can combine with cholesterol and produce artery clogging plaque.  Protease enzymes such as plasmin remove fibrin.  Unfortunately, protease enzyme production diminishes with age so a protease enzyme supplement may help prevent plaque which can cause heart attacks.

Chronic inflammation is when the inflammatory response does not get turned off after an injury or infection.  This is a sure sign of trouble, yet many people today are afflicted with chronic inflammation. 

Your diet (and digestion) are important in avoiding chronic inflammation.  Omega 6 fatty acids promote inflammation while omega 3 fatty acids work to reduce it.  Unfortunately, our modern diet gives us a low omega 6/omega 3 ratio.  If you eat a lot of sweets and refined sugars, as many of us do, you are at risk.

Here is how you can eat to avoid chronic inflammation:  Avoid trans-fats and hydrogenated oils, sugar (especially high fructose corn syrup), and refined carbohydrates.  Do eat lots of fruits and vegetables.  Grass fed lean beef is best if you like meat.  Eating wild fish, flax seed, cooking with grape-seed oil, putting olive oil on salads all help.  You may wish to consider an omega-3 supplement.

Here is a link where you can read more on how you can control inflammation.

Here is a link An excellent article that shows you why stress, drugs (the legal kind) and the typical American diet is so destructive

Itchy Scalp? Try This

All my life I have had a problem with an "itchy" oily scalp.  Fortunately, my wife likes to scratch and pick at things, like my head.  We are perfectly compatible in this area

Needless to say I have, over the years, tried many shampoos to find out which one worked best at alleviating the itch.  Here is what I found:

• Cheap, run-of-the-mill shampoos almost always aggravate the situation.
• Mainstream dandruff shampoos such as Head & Shoulders, Selsun Blue are only marginally better.
• Most specialty shampoos such aloe, jojoba, etc. don't work particularly well either.
• About 15 years ago I noticed that shampoos containing zinc pyrithione did seem to help.  Consequently I used these for many years.  The brand didn't seem to matter, as long as zinc pyrithione was an ingredient, it helped.  Lately they don't see to be quite as effective.
  
• Last summer a lady barber told me to try "Tea Tree Oil'.  On checking labels I noted that melaleuca was an ingredient in "Tea Tree Oil".  Somewhat to my surprise this has worked quite well.  I have tried two different brands, the one that has worked best came from the health food store.
  

So, if you have a problem with  an itchy scale try shampoos containing zinc pyrithione or "Tea Tree Oil" (melaleuca).  They have helped me.

You may wish to read what the Mayo Clinic says about melaleuca here.

Ritz Toasted Chips

Right now I am holding in my hand a bag of Ritz Toasted Chips, Sweet Home Sour Cream & Onion. This is a perfect example of what you should NOT eat. 

My mother-in-law gave us the bag of chips and it tastes great (Great job on the artificial flavor!).  We don't buy this stuff somehow it seems to creep into the house.

Looking at the ingredient list you can see it is quite long and full of chemicals I can’t pronounce. Who knows what effect they have on your body.

Sure they crunch nice and taste good, but this is an example of what too many people eat.  Later they pay for it in obesiity, higher blood pressure and increased cancer risk from the chemicals. Best, just don’t buy things like this in the first place — then they won’t be around to tempt you.

Blood Pressure, Some Interesting Observations

In the USA and other developed countries hypertension or high blood pressure is a contributing factor to a high incidence of stroke, heart attack and other vascular diseases.

It is in everyone’s interest in keeping your blood pressure within a desirable range (less than 120/80).

Unfortunately not a lot is know about the causes of high blood pressure. Genetics is the major determining factor. If your parents have high blood pressure (or low) you will usually follow suit.

Genetics aside, what can you do to keep your blood pressure in a desireable range? Unfortunately, not a lot is know on causative factors. However, it is thought that the following contributes to high blood pressure: 1) being overweight 2) high salt in your diet 3) lack of exercise. There is some indication that a diet high in fruit (especially berries) and vegetables also helps.

Psoriasis Relief

Psoriasis runs in my family. My grandmother suffered terribly with itchy painful red welts over most of her body. She tried all kinds of treatments, some costly, nothing really helped for long.

I too had psoriasis as a teenager, though never as bad as my grandmother. In my early twenties I started eating healthier. One of the things I stopped eating was red meat. Surprise, my psoriasis started fading and eventually went away.

I have been mostly psoriasis free ever since. One exception was about 7 years ago. I was working almost full time remodeling a house I was flipping. Close by was a Hardees fast food restaurant. They featured a sale on burgers at the time so I thought: Why not?

After about 10 days of mostly eating these burgers for lunch my psoriasis came back. I stopped eating the burgers and it went away in a couple weeks.

Now, I don’t mean to pick on Hardees. I suspect that any fast food hamburger may have precipitated my psoriasis. I have since found that red meat, especially cheap (read greasy) red meat precipitates the inflammation response. Since psoriasis is an auto-immune disease it is not surprising that susceptible people like myself can break out on a high red meat diet.

My point is, anyone who sufferes from psoriasas may wish to try this remedy. Just stop eating red meat for a month. See if you don’t improve. Eat fish, chicken and vegetarian protein sources instead. You may be doing yourself a big health favor and save money at the same time. I only wish someone had thought of suggesting this to my grandmother (She loved red meat).

Garlic and Weight

The American Journal of Hypertension recently found in a 5 week study that people on a high sugar diet who ate allicin (the active ingredient in garlic) kept weight off better than a control group who did not get the allicin.

A high sugar diet (fructose in the study) increases insulin levels, blood pressure, and triglycerides.

Best advice: Eat a low sugar diet and enjoy garlic (fresh, not cooked, is best).

Why We All Need Resistance Training

You’ve seen the photos and ads. Championship weight lifters, bulging muscles, g string outfits. I often wonder what these guys (and gals) are trying to prove. Maybe they are afraid that if they didn’t look like Captain Marvel someone might try to kick sand in their face.

Actually, these muscle bound people give the wrong view of weight training. Most of us do not want to look like a creature from a comic strip. We do want to be lean, trim and with a firm body.

Now, I’m going to reverse course here and tell you that we all should do some weight training (lets call it resistance training). Why? Resistance training will give you a firmer, leaner body. it also boosts your metabolism, helping you burn calories at a higher rate, even when resting. No one wants flab and fat. Twice a week resistance training help you go along ways toward getting rid of the unwanted flab.

This goes for both men and women and even senior citizens in their seventies or eighties. Dumbbells start as low as 2.5 lbs each. Buy and use a pair. Start at your level of comfort and work your way up. Do a brief set of exercises twice a week. I do it while watching TV. You will look and feel better. You will not look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. It takes hours of training, every day, to look like him. That is not your goal. If it is, you should be reading the muscle magazines, not this blog.

Regular resistance training, combined with a healthy diet will have you well on your way to a leaner trimmer body. No gym membership necessary. Start today. You can get the dumbbells at Wal*Mart.

The Dangers of Meat

No, this post is not a pitch to get you to be a vegetarian. Rather, it is a pitch to get you to be careful of what you do eat if you chose to eat meat.

Most beef, pork and chicken you purchase in the grocery store is loaded with hormones, antibiotics, undesirable fats such as omega-6 fats and other undesirable chemicals. I do urge you to avoid this grocery store meat as much as possible. If you do want to eat meat, minimize the amounts and eat organic meats such as free range chicken and grass fed beef.

Likewise, farm grown seafood such as salmon, shrimp, tilapia, catfish etc. do not have the favorable omega-3/omega-6 ratio that their wild caught brothers do.

I have a genetic tendency to psoriasis. I've noted that whenever I eat lots of meat, especially cheap hamburger, the psoriasis acts up. This is probably due to the inflamatory response stimulated by the meat. Fish and chicken do not cause the problem.

Two Foods to Avoid

Out of shape? Bad eating habits? Don't know what to do about it? Here is two simple things you can do to start making a major improvement today:

1. Stop or drastically cut down on drinking soda. The high fructose corn syrup used in regular soda is "empty calories" which only pack on fat but don't satisfy. The artificial sweeteners used in diet sodas can cause all kinds of maladies and may be an appetite stimulant. Stay away from them!
2. Stop eating french fries. You don't need the trans fats, inflammatory effects and the calories.

Just doing the above two things can make a major difference in your health. Yes, there is a lot more things you can do but start with the above

The Importance of Sunshine

Sunshine on your skin synthesizes Vitamin D in your body. In the winter, in northern latitudes -- or southern latitudes if you live in the southern hemisphere -- we tend to stay well clothed and inside a lot due to the cold. This means there is a good chance we are running a Vitamin D deficit.

Lack of Vitamin D can cause several bad things for our health. Diseases such as Ricketts can occur. This problem was "cured" by putting Vitamin D into milk. Unfortunately, we don't drink as much milk as we used to. Also, lack of Vitamin D can be correlated with increased cancer risk.

To help increase your Vitamin D in the winter try to get some sun each day. Also, make sure you are getting Vitamin D in fortified milk and/or supplements.

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