Beyond Medicine Blog

The Essence of Digestion

rutrow — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:30:59 +0000

Nowhere is this need for supplementation more critically evident than in the enzyme pools which provide the basis for all repair and development in the body. The enzymes transform the nutrients we ingest into vital functions allowing for the regeneration of blood, nerves, organs, and tissues. _________________________________________________THREE MAJOR GROUPS Of the three major groups of enzymes, two are digestive and one is considered metabolic. Metabolic enzymes structure the basic elements of nutrition to be used by the body for its most vital functions. While metabolic enzymes are responsible for hormone production and development, they are also the single greatest entity in assisting the body to maintain a state of health and well being. They also provide the basis for a functional cure of diseases, which emerge in the body. It is widely believed that enzyme activity actually governs the process of aging and determines the vitality expressed at any age. The other two groups of enzymes are digestive in nature. Food enzymes initiate the process of digestion while pure digestive enzymes continue the process of breaking nutrients down into particles small enough to be used by all of the tissues and organs of the body. At this point the metabolic enzymes become active in the process of structuring these nutrients into nerves, organs, tissues, and blood. Optimally, our enzyme stores will be replenished from our food sources, however, in our modern, technologically advanced society, this is, unfortunately, no longer true. ___________________________________________________FOOD FOR THOUGHT Think about it. Any food heat above 118 degrees destroys all enzyme activity. The common practice of cooking, processing, pasteurizing, blanching, irradiating and preservation leaves us little more live enzyme activity than exists on our raw salads.More unfortunately, the general rule is that anything low in protein is usually low in enzymes and salads are low in protein. The bottom line is that actual usable enzymes exist in only about ten per cent of the foods we now eat. But we need enzymes in every bite of food we ingest. Add to this dilemma the common practice of drinking carbonated beverages and taking antacids (too grossly overused patterns of behavior which also destroy enzyme activity) and it’s a wonder we live as long as we do, quality of life aside. Why then, do we continue to live if we can’t digest foods without enzymes and we can’t live without digestion? Here’s the rub! While eating raw foods, our teeth crush food cells, which release enzymes to assist in the process of digestion. Eating cooked foods triggers mechanisms in the body which attempt to produce enzymes from within the body’s own resources. The pancreas is a major source of this activity. The raw materials for this process must now come from another source, as they are unavailable in the food itself. Therefore, the body must rob from the building blocks designated for the production of metabolic enzymes. The supply of enzyme materials is limited and the body must now decide how to distribute what is available to accomplish the tasks of highest priority. At this moment, it is the digestion of the last meal we ingested. So, you can easily see what happens next. As this process continues throughout your life, the body continues to rob from these finite stores of materials to assist in a process, which has been compensated by the technology of modern science. _____________________________________________NO ENZYMES IN OUR FOOD We need enzymes. The body reallocates resources assigned to life sustaining functions to permit the immediate process of digestion to continue. So, with the enzymes vacant from our food sources the body begins to compensate and adapt. No problem? No way! While the process of adaptation may not be evident in our earlier years, the faster we deplete the resources earmarked for the production of metabolic enzymes, the faster we age, and the more compensated other vital functions become.The pancreas swells, the brains shrinks and the life sustaining processes are compromised until the body can no longer compensate in an attempt to maintain balance. We begin to exhibit the early warning signs of diseases in the process of developing, which left unchecked and unnoticed ultimately result in diagnosable disease. ___________________________________________DIET IS PART OF THE ANSWERTheoretically, eating an entire diet of raw, organic foods will sufficiently address this potential depletion of enzymes and provide the raw materials needed to maintain optimal biological function. Practically, it is difficult for the average person in this society to avoid cooked or processed food sources, let alone the stress, fear, anger, drugs, toxins, and pathogens which also inhibit the effectiveness of the enzyme systems. Realistically, our best insurance policy is to supplement and replenish our enzyme pools with a full complex of enzymes to assist in breaking our foods down to simple usable components. ______________________________________________THE ENZYME CHALLENGE

A simple self-evaluation can be performed to determine your immediate or potential need for enzyme supplementation.

First, look at the obvious – what you are eating and drinking. Does your diet consist of primarily cooked or processed foods? This includes foods that are heated to temperatures of 118 degrees or above. Consider the current methods of cooking and preserving foods, such as, blanching, boiling, microwaving, baking, and homogenizing when making this assessment.

Next, consider the effects of fluids on digestion. The evidence suggests that for optimal digestion to occur, one or two glasses of room temperature water with a meal is essential for stimulating gastric, pancreatic, and intestinal responses. Carbonated beverages or beverages which are excessively cooled will inhibit these processes, as will, excessive ingestion of coffee or alcohol. Then, consider the less obvious in the form of the daily environment in which you function. Evaluate your daily levels of exposure to air, food types (relative to types and quantities of protein, carbohydrates, and fats), as well as, the acid producing potential of the foods you ingest, such as, meats, citrus fruits, or acid vegetables. You must also examine the ancillary additions and exposures to excessive stress, accelerated aging, emotional upset, medications, antacids, acid blockers, antibiotics, laxatives, birth control pills, fasting and herbs. Finally, consider the early warning signs of enzyme deficiency such as, frequent boating, flatulence, and burping. Other symptoms may be as simple as fatigue and lethargy after eating, constipation, gas, stomach cramps, various food allergies, and susceptibility to frequent infections. Other more advanced symptoms may include mood swings, delayed wound healing, muscle wasting, skin problems, and diminished immunity. _______________________________DIGESTION AND ENZYMES IN A NUTSHELL We are not what we eat, but what we digest and absorb. Optimal well being is dependent upon eating high quality foods, proper digestion, absorption, distribution of nutrients, and elimination of waste. The process of digestion begins in the mouth and continues down through the stomach, pancreas, small intestine, liver, and gall bladder. Specialized processes occur at each step along this digestive pathway. With an optimal diet in place the process of breaking down these food materials into smaller particles and absorbing them becomes the responsibility of a class of proteins secreted in the digestive tract called enzymes. Without enzymes, nothing happens. No energy can be produced, no food can be digested, and no nutrients can be absorbed. Vitamins, minerals, and hormones can do nothing in the absence of enzymes. Each enzyme has a specific function and is specific to a particular food category. For instance, proteins are broken down by enzymes called proteases, carbohydrates by amylases, and fats by lipases. Deficiencies in each of these specialized enzymes produce specific imbalances leading to predictable disease processes. By example, a protease deficiency will compromise the immune system leaving the individual susceptible to frequent and recurrent infections. Fluid retention and toxic bowel syndrome are two other results of an inability to digest protein. Various intestinal problems such as constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, appendicitis, and even colon cancer have been associated with chronic protease deficiencies. Meanwhile, incomplete protein digestion frequently results in low blood sugar and the associated symptoms of depression, irritability, and mood swings as the sugar from protein metabolism is made unavailable. Just so, each enzyme when deficient is capable of producing a wide assortment of common disease entities from muscle soreness and asthma to altered insulin metabolism, elevated cholesterol, elevated triglycerides, and high blood pressure. When an enzyme lack or deficiency exists, the food category dependent upon that enzyme does not get digested or absorbed properly. The result is intolerance to that food group and the seedbed for specific disease processes associated with that particular deficiency. Intolerance to a particular food simply means that a particular food is not being digested properly and an enzyme imbalance or deficiency is usually associated. Left unidentified and/or untreated, this enzyme imbalance will demonstrate specific symptoms leading to inevitable health problems. In light of these simple facts, it is easy to understand why 8 out of the top 10 causes of death are directly related to diet, and why over 70 million Americans suffer from some digestive problems leading to nearly 200,000 deaths each year. _____________________________________IMBALANCES CAN BE CORRECTED The immediate goal of any approach employed to address an enzyme imbalance or deficiency is to assist the body in accessing its own enzyme pools. Secondary goals are to restore normal function and prevent the imbalance from reoccurring.

While there are a couple of steps in this process and a couple of obstacles to achieving a productive response, the end result is highly achievable.

_______________________________________________________THE OBSTACLES One of the potential obstacles in normalizing enzyme function in a chronically distorted biochemical environment is the loss of function that occurs in conditions that have progressively deteriorated over a long period of time. In these cases it is usually more realistic to aspire to management of the current state while seeking to prevent further deterioration. The other major obstacle is compliance. All too frequently an imbalance has progressed to a point where one of the following has occurred:1) The condition has been present for so long and the individual has tried so many things for so long that they easily become frustrated and do not follow through.2) The identification of the probable cause is in stark contrast to the wisdom of conventional assessments that brought the individual to seek alternative evaluations in the first place. Because of the seemingly far-fetched, yet simplistic, potential solution to the problem, a half-hearted attempt fails to yield productive results.3) The major focus is on symptoms and while alteration of the biological terrain is consistent, but slow, the symptoms are not ameliorated fast enough to maintain participation of the individual with the imbalance.4) The individual in whom the imbalance has been identified lacks the discipline to follow through with all of the recommendations.5) The individual in whom the imbalance has been identified is discouraged by well meaning friends and conventional practitioners lacking sufficient knowledge to support the endeavor.6) The program is time consuming and costly. Based upon your individual M.A.P. results we will be able to develop a personal wellness program specifically for you! This includes pertinent lifestyle changes and specific products that will enhance your overall state of wellness.

Are Antidepressants Necessary?

rutrow — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:48:39 +0000

Chances are either you or someone you know has a prescription for an antidepressant. They have become conventional medicine’s default drug of choice: when in doubt, you’re probably depressed.

There are three different families of antidepressants, each with a different chemical mechanism. All of these drugs work with your neurotransmitters — the brain chemicals that regulate mood, sleep, and appetite, among other things. They also have very strong side effects. As a result, physicians have come to prescribe them with care just to people who really need them.

In the 1980’s a new family of antidepressants — SSRI’s, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors — was developed, and appeared to deliver results in regulating mood without the more serious side effects of its predecessors.

Due to the seemingly attractive risk/benefit ratio of SSRI’s, physicians expanded antidepressant use exponentially: in the 1990’s, spending on antidepressants grew by 600%! Today the various classes of antidepressants under such trade names as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Cymbalta, and Sarafem are among the most widely prescribed drugs in the world. And while we know now that diminished serotonin reuptake does factor heavily into the mood regulation equation, SSRI’s and their pharmaceutical cousins are not the magic bullet pharmaceutical companies would have us believe.

The depressing truth about antidepressants

Can so many of us have the major form of depression that warrants such rampant drug use? I doubt it! This doesn’t mean that a lot of you don’t feel depressed or have symptoms that could be related to depression, but many such symptoms can be related to stress. This stress can be emotional and/or physical — that can be resolved without pharmaceutical drugs. This is especially true when it comes to subclinical forms of mood disorders such as SAD, PMS, or post partum depression.

Some studies have shown that antidepressants are no more effective in treating this kind of mild to moderate depression than a placebo. Furthermore, depending on how one defines depression, as many as one-third to a half of depressed patients do not show significant improvement with prescription medication, while as many as half of those who receive no such treatment improve anyway.

Numerous recent studies also tell us that regular exercise — 20–30 minutes, three to six times a week — can be a powerful antidote to mild or moderate depression. Even small amounts of exercise can make all the difference in the world (though we will generally benefit more from a higher amount). These studies show that sticking to a regular workout provides long-term mood stabilization, especially when combined with other antidepression measures, such as talk therapy.

In fact, antidepressants are contraindicated for short-term treatment of minor depression — something the drug companies don’t want publicized. Clinical practice guidelines indicate that SSRI’s need to be prescribed for at least six months for minimal treatment of major depression — longer than most episodes of minor depression last.

So with such doubt about their efficacy, why are so many doctors handing out prescriptions for an ever-growing list of symptoms including headaches, insomnia, PMS, menopausal symptoms and others that are not exclusively linked with severe depression?

Remember that these products are very powerful chemicals that alter your hormonal balance and perhaps permanently change your brain’s biochemistry. No one knows what the long-term effects of antidepressants are because most clinical trials to date study 3–5-year outcomes of a single drug at a time — never a combination.

There is evidence now that SSRI’s actually decrease levels of serotonin over time. Some kind of disruption of the neurotransmitter pathways occurs, because SSRI’s don’t create a new equilibrium: at some point in time the patient must be moved to a new drug to maintain the same effect.

The side effects of SSRI’s include weight gain or loss, intense restlessness, insomnia, fatigue, sexual dysfunction, panic attacks, and anxiety. And these are not rare side effects: for example, studies indicate that 18–50% of patients experience sexual dysfunction.

Other studies show an increased risk of bleeding disorders, such as GI bleeding, bruising and nosebleeds, with use of SSRI’s. Despite years of analysis, this link remains highly complex and not well understood. SSRI’s also carry strong potential for drug interactions.

A new view of ordinary depression

What makes this all so frustrating is that many forms of depression are natural, normal and temporary — rather like menopause. Indeed, the philosophically minded might simply attribute many of these feelings to the human condition. Likewise, they can be relieved through safe, gradual methods using your body’s natural mechanisms.

As with other symptoms of imbalance, depression is your body’s way of sending you a signal that something is awry. Antidepressants don’t address the underlying problem; they drown it out with a booming Don’t worry-be happy! But for how long and at what cost?

Think for a moment about how SSRI’s work. The idea is that you don’t have enough serotonin, so the drug conserves the limited amount in your body, blocking it from being changed into the next substance on its metabolic pathway. If you have major depression, you need to stay on your antidepressants. However, everyone who is on or thinking about taking an antidepressant should know what their choices are.

Depression includes a range of normal negative emotions. Clinical depression differs significantly from minor or situational depression or mood disorders, even though the symptoms can be the same. The differences is that in mild depression the symptoms ebb and flow and eventually lift, while in major depression they spiral down into a full-blown, entrenched mental health crisis.

Harm Caused by Acid pH

rutrow — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:00:50 +0000

As the primary response of the body to all stimuli is to produce an acid, we must effectively neutralize and eliminate these metabolic waste products to maintain the efficiency and integrity of the biological machines that we inhabit.

Unfortunately, in this modern age of technological wizardry this is becoming increasingly more difficult, if not impossible.

In a nutshell, stress produces acid and everything is stress. Since the body does not differentiate stress or its response to stress, the net result is always the same, an acid must be produced.

On any given day we are exposed to enough opportunities to overwhelm the biological buffering systems by producing excess acids.

While acids are produced by the body as a normal function of cellular metabolism and are increased during times of stress (which are circumstances that stimulate the sympathetic nervous system) we are constantly challenged to neutralize and eliminate the waste product.

On a 24 hour cycle any acid not neutralized and excreted must be stored. The storage systems of the body are as unique as the complex buffering systems. Ultimately, the goal of storage is to eventually metabolize the excess out of the system.

The more acid that is produced, multiplied by the length of time that it is produced, will determine the level of storage and the nature and extent of damage produced by the stored waste product.

The first storage system utilized by the body is that of the interstitial fluids (the fluids which permeate all the tissues of the body). This is the fluid in which all of the cells of the body float while conducting the business of the day.

When this storage facility is full the body begins to store the acid wastes in the tissues, organs, and glands.

Finally, as the more superficial storage systems become overwhelmed, the last place the body begins to store waste is the last place that we would want it stored – inside the cell.

While symptoms and isolated dysfunction vary from individual to individual to every level of storage, by far, the most dangerous and devastating damage occurs with the storage of water products inside the cell.

In other words, when the pH deviates to far to the acid side inside the cell, cellular metabolism will stop, and as the cells become poisoned in their own toxic waste, they die.

The nature and extent of the symptoms manifested and functional disability expressed will inevitably correspond to the cellular environments affected, exhibiting dysfunction to the degree that they are affected.

As we have learned, the kidneys are one of the organs responsible for removing acid. Actually, they remove more acid than any other buffering system of the body. However, the only way to transport excess acid to the kidneys is through the bloodstream.

When we combine the sensitivity of the blood to alterations in pH with the buffering capacity of the kidneys, we can easily see how a potential bottleneck might occur as the body frantically attempts to dispose of these corrosive waste products.

Since for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, we can also see how, eventually, every system of the body might be affected by the accumulation of excess acids and the inability of the body to continue to compensate. As more and more acid is accumulated, storage capacity is diminished and the body’s ability to manage the accumulations falters. The body slowly begins to suffocate in its own acid waste. Cancer and other diseases thrive in an acidic, oxygen deficient environment. Coral calcium in water flushes out the acid restoring the pH level in the body fluids to the healthy alkaline state. The body will now absorb twenty times the amount of oxygen. You can change your water in your body immediately with this knowledge and reclaim your inner terrain.

The immediate goal of any approach employed while addressing an acid/alkaline imbalance is to assist the body in eliminating the excess acid stored. Secondary goals are to restore normal function and prevent the imbalance from reoccurring.

For more information about how to accomplish this please visit www.matrixtransformation.com

10 Things Your Doctor Doesn’t Want You To Know?

rutrow — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:07:53 +0000

#1) Taking medications, prescription or otherwise, actually shorten your lifespan. • The FDA has warned that psychiatric drugs cause heart attack, stroke, suicidal and homicidal behavior, diabetes, psychosis and sudden death.• In 2006 the FDA announced that they received 51 reports of sudden death from ADHD drugs such as Adderall. • According to a USA Today study of FDA data collected between 2000 and 2004, there were at least 45 child deaths with antipsychotics listed as the “primary suspect.” During this time period, there were also 1,328 reports of bad side effects, some of them life-threatening. Today, however, we’re living in the Dark Ages of medicine. We’re still living in the chemical-based medical society where everybody says that chemicals are the solutions to health problems. “Does your head hurt? You need a chemical. Blood pressure too high? We have a chemical for that, too. Do you feel nervous speaking in front of groups? We have a chemical for that one. Having trouble with your relationships? Chemical. Got a little bit of joint pain? Yup, there’s a chemical for that.” Then they’ll tell you, just in case, “We have chemicals for stuff that you haven’t even experienced yet. We have chemicals that you can take to make sure that you never have pain or heart disease. You should take all these chemicals right now, just in case, and keep taking them for as long as you live.” How’s that for a con? The con of pharmaceutical-based medicine is the biggest con ever perpetrated on the American people. That con has effects in our schools, and unfortunately, some of those side effects are fatal. Also, more than 16,500 deaths a year are caused by over-the-counter pain medications. Non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) kill more than 16,500 people a year by gastrointestinal bleeding. Then the COX-2 inhibitors, which were supposed to be safer than the NSAIDs, came along, and according to studies by chief drug researcher Dr. David Graham at the FDA, they’ve caused more than 144,000 heart attacks, more than 40 percent of which have been fatal. So what are we talking about here? We’re talking about drugs killing more Americans than the entire Vietnam War. We’re talking about it happening every year — twice a year, in fact. You want to talk about a war; this is war on the people, and it’s being waged by the pharmaceutical industry. They’re willing to trade your life for their profits, in my view. They can get away with it because, again, there’s no big event. People are dying separately and quietly, and many of the people who are dying were in their old age anyway, right? They figure no one will blame the drug. #2) There are “all natural” solutions to nearly every medical condition that are safer alternatives, actually improve your health, and are void of ALL of the side effects of traditional medication. Natural Cures And Gentle Medicines are available everywhere, if you know where to look! But, why choose to treat with natural medicine? Because, natural medicine has an 80% cure rate while traditional allopathic medicine has a 25% to 40% cure rate, that’s why.Consider the following facts: The Modern Traditional Westernized Medical World chooses to treat with both prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications that either suppress or shut down a part of the body while trying to induce over stimulation of another part of the body to clear the symptoms presented by a patient. Or they simply mask the problem all together by shutting off electrical impulses in the brain to suppress the symptom never healing the problem! These set the body up for more serious problems such as cancer or autoimmune diseases. In treating a health problem the traditional/pharmaceutical world choose to kill the immune system. This done with the hope that the body can withstand that tactic and you not come in contact with a germ/virus/fungus that will kill while this treatment is taking place. 50% to 60% never survive the immune system killing treatments prescribed in treating cancer and some autoimmune diseases! If the patient is lucky enough to survive that onslaught some or all of the organs never function again as they are suppose to creating more illnessesBut, there are some legitimate, effective, and inexpensive alternatives. Natural Medicine (aka Alternative Medicine) chooses to work the opposite. It works to help the body heal the problem and balance out the whole body to work as it was intended to work. Healing and correcting problems… This can be done with herbs, minerals, vitamins and food!For Instance: A new study published in the June 17 edition of the journal of European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry shows a significant reduction of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms in children after supplementing with Pycnogenol® (pic-noj-en-all), an antioxidant plant extract from the bark of the French maritime pine tree, everyday for one month. “The results of this study show Pycnogenol may serve as a safe, effective treatment for children diagnosed with ADHD. French maritime pine bark extract reduced hyperactivity among study participants, while improving attention and visual-motor coordination and concentration of these children.Most types of medications used to treat ADHD can be addictive and may have major side effects. Stimulant medications such as Ritalin, Dexedrine and Adderall are the most common treatments for ADHD and side effects often include depression, anxiety and irritability. Pycnogenol was chosen for the study because it continues to scientifically demonstrate health benefits without serious side effects or addictive properties. Published findings have demonstrated Pycnogenol’s beneficial effects in heart, circulatory, skin and cognitive function, among others. Or how about this: The same walnuts that you can find in the baking aisle of just about any grocery store, may be able to boost your mood in a way similar to the famous antidepressant drug Prozac. As is the case with Prozac, walnuts’ potential antidepressant effect pertains to serotonin, the important brain chemical that controls both your moods and your appetite. Like Prozac and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor drugs (SSRIs), walnuts may influence the human brain’s serotonin levels.That means that you may be able to relieve the disorders commonly treated with antidepressant drugs — insomnia, depression, overeating and other compulsive behavior — without the dangerous side effects. But wait – there’s more: How about “Healing With Whole Foods “? Evidence is emerging that omega-3 fatty acids, such as those present in fatty fish, flaxseed, and walnuts, play a key role in optimal mental activity, which may influence mood and insomnia. Some findings suggest depression may be related to inadequate intake of these healthful fats.

It’s a truth that Big Pharma hates to hear: omega-3 fatty acids prevent mental depression, and they do it without the dangerous side effects of antidepressant drugs. That’s why healthy people avoid ALL prescription drugs and, instead, turn to nature by consuming whole foods, super foods, healthy fish oils, good fats, nutritional supplements and other health-enhancing substances. “Omega-3 fatty acids prevent mental depression without dangerous side effects of antidepressant drugs” And finally a few quick facts: · Walnuts strengthen the blood, overcome debility and tonify the kidneys, liver and brain. They are good for relieving coughs, aiding intestinal smoothness, seminal emission in men, dry and withering skin, white hair, weight loss, forgetfulness, insomnia and neurasthenia.Another study showed that people free of Parkinson’s said as young adults they ate more seeds, nuts and salad oils, rich in vitamin E. Thus, researchers speculate that too little vitamin E foods earlier in life might somehow leave the brain vulnerable to the onset of Parkinson’s years later. There’s even preliminary evidence that massive doses of vitamin E (800 to 3,000 units daily) may slow progression of the disease. More extensive tests of vitamin E therapy for Parkinson’s are ongoing.· Eating lots of fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and grains helps open the door to your storehouse of memories. These foods contain powerful antioxidants, like vitamin C, vitamin E, beta carotene, and selenium. Research shows as the level of antioxidant nutrients in your blood rises, so does your mental function.· Feeling blue? Whether from PMS or menopausal hormonal fluctuations, certain snacks can boost your mood. Bananas, tomatoes, walnuts and carbohydrates, such as bread with jam, help the body raise levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain that regulates mood. Depending on the severity of your depression, changes in diet may offer some relief and can also work well in conjunction with other remedies, such as antidepressants or therapy #3) You Can Live Healthy and Never Have to be Sick or Unwell! Thanks to the discovery of some new Anti-Aging Prescriptions, you can eliminate most of the common symptoms that would have others running to their Doctors. I’m not just talking about things like a cold, the flu, or headaches. I’m talking about things like insomnia, depression, menopause, and chronic pain.To ease the feelings of insomnia and mild depression that frequently accompany menopause, consume foods high in tryptophan, such as milk, poultry, and nuts. This amino acid is converted into the brain chemical serotonin, which promotes relaxation and rest. Tryptophan may also help reduce feelings of mild depression. Complex carbohydrates, such as beans, potatoes, and grains, may be helpful as well because they are believed to enhance the bioavailability of tryptophan in the brain.

To boost mood, eat some of these tryptophan-specific foods while avoiding other sources of protein. Tryptophan can cause relaxation and even drowsiness in many people when used at night.Try to eat foods high in magnesium content, such as spinach and other dark green leafy vegetables, whole grains, cashews and soybeans. Magnesium relaxes muscles in the walls of blood vessels, including those running to the brain, which may help prevent migrainesPhenylalanine is found in common protein foods, including poultry, meats, soybeans, fish, dairy products, nuts, and seeds, as well as the synthetic sweetener aspartame. Such sources supply the average person with an estimated 500 to 2,000 mg of phenylalanine from diet alone. In the body it is able to cross the blood-brain barrier. It stimulates production in the brain of the natural pain-killing and mood-boosting neurotransmitters dopamine, adrenaline, and noradrenaline. Some studies show a beneficial effect on people with Parkinson’s disease.#4) Cholesterol can be treated with Two Very Simple additions to your diet!You heard right! Before the popularity of routine testing for elevated cholesterol and treating it with statin drugs, there was a very simple solution for this concern. In fact, it is so powerful and inexpensive that anyone can afford it while watching their cholesterol numbers drop.You see, aside from the risks and side-effects of the statins, they are ineffective in dealing with the three faces of cholesterol. Most statins are effective in temporarily lowering one or two of the three damaging lipids, but none addresses all three.Total cholesterol, depressed HDL’s and elevated LDL’s can all be effectively managed if you begin to include two things everyday in your diet.Cholesterol lowering with niacin: Niacin or nicotinic acid, one of the water-soluble B vitamins, improves all lipoproteins when given in doses well above the vitamin requirement. Nicotinic acid lowers the total cholesterol, “bad” LDL-cholesterol, and triglyceride levels, while raising the “good” HDL-cholesterol level. There are two types of nicotinic acid: immediate release and timed release. Most experts recommend starting with the immediate-release form; discuss with your doctor which type is best for you. Nicotinic acid is inexpensive and widely accessible to patients without a prescription but must not be used for cholesterol lowering without the monitoring of a physician because of the potential side effects. (Nicotinamide, another form of the vitamin niacin, does not lower cholesterol levels and should not be used in the place of nicotinic acid.) All patients taking nicotinic acid to lower serum cholesterol should be closely monitored by their doctor to avoid complications from this medication. Self-medication with nicotinic acid should definitely be avoided because of the possibility of missing a serious side effect if not under a doctor’s care. Patients on nicotinic acid are usually started on low daily doses and gradually increased to an average daily dose of 1.5 to 3 grams per day. Nicotinic acid reduces LDL-cholesterol levels by 10 to 20 percent, reduces triglycerides by 20 to 50 percent, and raises HDL-cholesterol by 15 to 35 percent. Nature’s Cholesterol Secret
Over the last 30 years, a change has taken place across North America. In contrast to the fiber-rich fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains once prevalent in our diet, we now consume an overwhelming number (and amount) of processed foods that are low in fiber and filled with refined sugars and harmful trans fats. As a result, we have almost completely stripped our diet of what is quite possibly the most beneficial nutrient on the planet.When regularly eaten as part of a diet low in saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol, soluble fiber has been shown to help lower blood cholesterol. Foods high in soluble fiber include oat bran, oatmeal, beans, peas, rice bran, barley, citrus fruits, strawberries and apple pulp.Insoluble fiber doesn’t seem to help lower blood cholesterol. But it’s an important aid in normal bowel function which helps in the elimination of metabolic waste products, reduces the body’s toxic burden, and minimizes the need for excessive cholesterol production by the liver. Foods high in insoluble fiber include whole-wheat breads, wheat cereals, wheat bran, and cabbage, beets, carrots, Brussels sprouts, turnips, and cauliflower and apple skin.A Major Side-Effect of increasing your fiber intake?Fiber helps you lose weight in many ways:• 35+ grams of fiber per day controls hunger by acting as a natural appetite suppressant as it takes up a large volume in the stomach and has no calories.
• 35+ grams of fiber per day promotes and prolongs the effect of the hormone CCK (cholecystokinin) to make you feel full longer.
• 35+ grams of fiber per day slows the conversion of carbohydrates to sugar (this allows glucose to be used efficiently by the body).
• 35+ grams of fiber per day eliminates calories we have already eaten (for every gram of fiber you eat you can eliminate 7 calories).
• High fiber foods are energy-rich, antioxidant rich, and disease preventing foods. They increase energy and reduce immune system stress. #5) Top 5 Ways to Reduce Your Cancer Risk without drugs.Doing just one of the anticancer steps is better than nothing. But do all of them and you’re cancer risk could drop by as much as 30 percent.
1. Don’t smoke (a no-brainer).
2. Limit red meat, alcohol, fat, and salt.
3. Eat fruit, veggies, and whole grains — lots of them!
4. Exercise regularly.
5. Watch your weightAlthough there is no surefire way to prevent cancer, making healthy choices in your daily life may reduce your risk. If you don’t feel capable of following all the anticancer guidelines, at least choose to do the ones you know you have a good shot of sticking to. You can add a few more later, once you’ve made some progress. Baby steps are fine. And they’re far better than doing nothing.And another thing: Starting an olive oil habit could be as healthful as kicking a smoking habit. And the proof is in your urine. Microscopic substances in your urine reveal how well your body is defending against everyday cancer-causing cell damage. Think of the substances as shrapnel — too much means your body is taking some serious hits. Enter olive oil. In a study, men who upped their intake had less of the damage-signaling shrapnel in their urine samples. How much less? The drop was similar to what smokers experience when they quit. Olive oil is full of good-for-you substances. So which one is responsible for the cancer-fighting effects? Until this recent study, researchers suspected it was the phenolic compounds in the oil; phenols have antioxidant (read anticancer) properties. But the phenolic content of the oils seemed to have little impact in this study. Three different types of oil with varying amounts of phenolic compounds were tested, and the type made little difference in the amount of cell-damage markers found in urine samples. Researchers suspect there is something anticarcinogenic about monounsaturated fat, in and of itself.Which would mean that olive oil, rich in monounsaturated fat, is not only a heart helper but may also deter cancer. That helps explain why, compared to Northern Europeans, Southern Europeans, whose diets tend to overflow with the oil, have lower rates of both heart disease and cancer.

#6) Osteoporosis is preventable and reversible without drugs!Because our skeletons seem like fixed, solid structures, it’s easy to forget that bones are growing, living tissue. In fact, they continually remodel themselves thanks to the efforts of two types of cells–osteoclasts and osteoblasts.These similar-sounding cells each have specific roles:- Osteoblasts: bone building cells that bring minerals into bone tissue–they help build the structure.
- Osteoclasts: cells that release calcium and help break down unwanted bone tissue. In an ideal world, replaced bone–that is, bone tissue that is broken down–would equal absorbed bone. However, there are a few things that influence this process:- Hormones and other body chemicals
- Mechanical stress–weight bearing exercise (walking, jogging, toning weight training) or lack of it. Exercise helps build new bone tissue.
- Calcium, vitamin D, and other vitamin and mineral intake.- Toxic waste accumulated in the body.An imbalance in any of these three can set up your skeleton to start losing bone tissue.In fact, this imbalance is the primary cause of osteoporosis–a continual loss of bone from the matrix that creates our skeletons. Osteoporosis doesn’t announce itself and doesn’t usually get a diagnosis until someone suffers from a fracture.Why Women Seem More Susceptible to Osteoporosis- Women typically have smaller bones
- Women have more direct hormonal influences on bone structure (menopause is a big factor here, with diminishing estrogen levels, etc.)Estrogen promotes healthy, dense bones–in women and men. However, women have a more defined “schedule” concerning estrogen production. Estrogen receptors on bone surfaces, depots in a sense for the hormone, help promote bone maintenance and growth.#7) Menopausal symptoms are not inevitable and do not need to be treated with Hormone Replacement Therapy!Synthetic hormones don’t work as predicted and, worse, they pose a health threat to women. Research has proven this to be true! Now millions of women concerned about aging are looking for alternatives to HRT, and finding them in natural hormones.For many women, regaining hormone balance is a fairly straightforward matter of using some natural progesterone cream. But for others, whatever created the imbalance in the first place needs to be addressed, and still others have such complicating factors as a hysterectomy, endometriosis, or PMS. The three basic questions you need answered before you are on your way to hormone balance are:1. Are my symptoms caused by a hormone imbalance?2. Which hormones do I need to regain hormone balance?3. How do I use the hormones for optimal health and balance?Hormones 101To even talk about hormone balance, there are a few simple concepts that are important to understand.Estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone are the three hormones that are most often out of balance in women. They are made by your ovaries and, in much smaller amounts, by your adrenal glands. These three are also called steroid hormones or sex hormones.Progesterone helps the female body regulate its menstrual cycles; it’s essential for creating and maintaining a pregnancy, it balances the effects of estrogen, and most of your other hormones are made from it.Estrogen is the hormone that makes you female, endowing you with breasts, hips, menstrual periods, soft skin, and a higher-pitched voice.Testosterone is the male hormone, but women also make it in small amounts. In women, testosterone primarily contributes to sex drive and helps build bone.DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) is a precursor to testosterone and the estrogens, meaning that those hormones are made from it. DHEA is made primarily in the adrenal glands and is essential for protein building and repair. DHEA levels decline dramatically as we age, making it a primary biomarker of aging.Androgens are male hormones, including testosterone and androstenedione. DHEA is often considered an androgen but converts readily to estrogen in many women.Natural or Bioidentical HormonesHormones are called natural or bioidentical if they are exact duplicates of what your body makes. In other words, the molecular structure of a natural hormone is identical to that of the hormones made by your body. This is an important distinction because the hormones typically handed out by your doctor are not natural; some of them are completely man-made and are found nowhere in nature, and others, notably Premarin, are made from the urine of pregnant mares. Hormones do very complex and specific jobs in the body by fitting into the part of your cells called receptors, much the same way that a key fits into a lock. Once the hormone is in the receptor, it gives the cell instructions. If the molecular structure is different, even by one atom, the instructions given to the cell are different. Hormones that aren’t natural to your body give instructions that can be harmful. Synthetic HormonesSynthetic hormones are not natural to your body. Drug companies purposely make them different from natural hormones so they can be patented. Patented drugs are important to drug company profits because the company that invents them can sell them exclusively for many years, and thus they can charge more for them because there’s no competition. Natural substances cannot be patented and therefore tend to be less expensive. Synthetic hormones are not necessarily made, sold, and prescribed because they work better than natural hormones, but because natural hormones can’t be patented.Progestins are synthetic progesterones, used in birth control pills and conventional HRT. Some examples are Provera (medroxyprogesterone acetate), Aygestin (norethindrone acetate), and Megace (megestrol acetate). Provera is the most commonly used progestin in HRT.Premarin is an estrogen extracted from pregnant-horse urine. While it is made of natural estrogens, most of them are natural to horses, not humans, which means they have different effects on your body than human estrogens. PremPro is the most common form of conventional HRT. It is a combination of Premarin and Provera.Many women write because they want to use natural hormones with the guidance of their doctor, but the doctor doesn’t have the necessary information. How did this experience of menopause come to be? I believe it’s a combination of poor diet, unhealthy lifestyle, environmental pollutants, cultural attitudes, the incorrect use of synthetic hormones, and advertising. So, before you agree to the treatment – make sure you’re informed – because your Doctor may not be! #8) You may not be depressed! You may just be unhappy!Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says that you ‘synthesize’ your happiness. That you have a ‘psychological immune system’ that helps you change your views about your world, in order to feel better about the world in which you find yourself.Not only that, he also maintains that when we imagine what could make us happy, such as new clothes or winning the lottery our brains are invariably wrong in advising us that those things will make us happy. In fact, statistics show that paraplegics are just as happy as lottery winners one year after the event of either becoming injured, or winning the lottery!We tend to think that getting things such as a job, a new car, or a trip around the world is what will make us happy. However, studies have shown that we make ourselves happy by simply imagining that we are happy. So getting what we want doesn’t actually have anything to do with being happy. Why is this? Your prefrontal cortex works as an experience simulator, which means you can imagine an experience in your head before you try it out in real life. This ability is essentially what brought humankind out of the trees and into shopping malls – it allows you to desire things and events, imagining they will make you feel a certain way. The problem is that your simulator works rather poorly. In reality, gaining or losing something turns out to have far less impact and duration than you expect them to have. After about three months, the event (or item) has virtually no impact on your happiness…So, your ability to create “synthetic” happiness is in fact your key to sustained happiness. This, by the way, is very real, even though it is not “natural.” Synthetic happiness is a choice you make when you don’t get what you want; whereas natural happiness is what you feel when you do get what you want. However, you often don’t get exactly what you want.Additionally, your belief that being able to change your mind will increase your happiness turns out to be completely false. Your ‘psychological immune system’ actually works best when you’re totally stuck, when there’s no turning back and making other choices, because that is when your mind can find a way to be happy with your reality. This is vitally important, beyond the obvious fact that being happy feels better than being unhappy. In fact, there is little doubt about the powerful effects positive emotions can have on your physical health and well-being. At the same time, there is equally little doubt about the effects that negative emotions can have on you.Happiness will not only protect your body from stressors that can lead to coronary heart disease, but it can even boost your immune system’s ability to fight off the common cold.Unfortunately, “happiness” can be a rather nebulous term. For most people, it is virtually impossible to define what truly makes you happy. So I want to reiterate a definition that nearly everyone can grasp and apply with greater ease.Happiness can more accurately be identified by your brain as “whatever gets you excited.” Happiness is that which makes you jump out of bed in the morning with eager anticipation to start your day. Once you identify that activity, whatever it is, you can start focusing your mind around that so you can structure you life to do more of it.Personally, my happiness is tied to my mission to catalyze the change of the entire fatally flawed health paradigm. This is what makes me somersault out of bed each morning, and it is the driving force that allows me to truly enjoy the many, many hours of my “work” weeks.Being able to manifest positive emotions and happiness is perhaps one of the greatest gifts you have been given as a human being. Sometimes, limiting choices can increase your happiness, because most of us live with the false belief that more choices mean greater chances of finding contentment and happiness. It also resonates with the fundamental rules of optimal health… You don’t need ten pills a day to get healthy. It’s a false belief, manufactured by the pharmaceutical industry through the mass media. In reality, you only need to focus on a few very basic things to optimize your health:· Address emotional traumas · Get optimal sun exposure · Drink pure water · Avoid toxins · Eat the right fats · Eat right for your Nutritional Type · Eat raw foods · Control your insulin and leptin · Exercise · Sleep properlyHealth, like happiness, can be optimized by limiting your options to that which is natural, and realizing there’s no “magic pill.”#9) THE DEADLIEST THREAT TO YOUR HEART is not what you’ve been told!Risk factors for the development of cardiovascular disease may be categorized either by relative significance or modifiability. Current guidelines jointly accepted by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology are divided into the groups listed immediately below.

This is what your Doctor has been told about heart disease!The Major Independent Risk Factors are: Cigarette smoking
Elevated blood pressure
Elevated serum total (and LDL) cholesterol
Low serum HDL cholesterol
Diabetes mellitus
Advancing ageOther Risk Factors include: Predisposing risk factors
Obesity
Abdominal obesity
Physical inactivity
Family history of premature coronary heart disease
Ethnic characteristics
Psychosocial factors
Conditional risk factors
Elevated serum triglycerides
Small LDL particles
Elevated serum homocysteine
Elevated serum lipoprotein(a)
Prothrombotic factors (e.g., fibrinogen)
Inflammatory markers (e.g., C-reactive protein)BUT WAIT! Are these really causes or effects.The Framingham Heart Study:
Fifty years of data collected from residents of Framingham have produced over 1,000 scientific papers, identified major risk factors associated with heart disease, stroke and other diseases, paved the way for researchers to undertake singular clinical trials based on Framingham findings, created a revolution in preventive medicine, and forever changed the way the medical community and general public view the genesis of disease. But when we pull back the curtain on these results we find TWO THINGS that persist as the underlying cause of all of these perceived risk factors.· Job Satisfaction and· Self-SatisfactionIt appears as though all of the other risk factors arise from these two issues in that they lead to behaviors that produce effects that put us at risk in an attempt to resolve our satisfaction with our jobs and ourselves.Obviously, if these behaviors have progressed to the point of active symptoms, you must seek help and take action. But choose wisely how you proceed to manage the risk factors and the outcome. Relying exclusively on behavior modification without addressing the cause of the behavior may result in less than desirable outcomes.#10) What Doctors won’t tell you about diet and supplements!In the West we’ve cured the old diseases like diphtheria, smallpox and polio and replaced them by modern diseases of cancer, heart failure and diabetes.Most of us are chronically deficient of some nutrient or other. Why? Because our modern diet is far from ideal, and intensive farming has depleted many essential trace elements from the soil, so even the most healthy diet is still lacking in some essential nutrient or other.This chronic shortage takes a long time to show because your body uses up the last of these nutrients before deficiencies start to reveal themselves.In the Western world, medicine is mainly curative, not preventive. This means that we are treated with drugs/chemicals when we become ill. The average doctor takes six years to qualify and usually receives only half a day of teaching in nutrition. But there is a growing awareness that our future lies not in drugs, but in nutrition and dietary supplements. Some foods and drugs are not the answer
Many prescribed drugs–including over-the-counter medications– can create more disease than they cure. How? By increasing depletion of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that have essential roles to play in maintaining or restoring health.And modern diets are no better. Hydrogenated oils that are in just about everything can’t be digested; they are excreted in your stools. But they are the ideal solvent for vitamins, flushing them out of your body rather than allowing you to absorb them. Palm oils, hydrogenated oils, milk proteins, lupin flour, and many other ingredients are used to bulk out manufactured products that are an unnatural diet.Many doctors are unaware of such nutrient depletion because food and pharmaceutical companies don’t tell them.

If you notice any of these symptoms early on, you’re lucky. Until Body Language came along, symptoms often remained hidden–or their causes went undiscovered — until life-threatening consequences appeared. Depleted levels of vital body nutrients also lead to lowered immune system function, in turn causing a host of other maladies. Now you can target your deficiency with the right food.Common Drugs, Common Problems
Aspirin, acid-blockers, and cholesterol-lowering drugs can put you at risk for anemia by depleting the body of iron, the signs of which include weakness and hair loss. If your doctor detects anemia, they may offer iron supplementation yet still not identify your medication as the source of the problem.A lot of drugs also interfere with nutrient absorption or with their metabolism, storage, transport, or use by cells. Because the initial signs of nutritional deficiency are subtle, cells and organs may become prone to disease conditions before the need for supplements (or for changing medications) is recognized. Medications that interfere with calcium absorption, for instance, can lead to osteoporosis.

Antibiotics are a good example because they kill helpful bacteria. Women taking antibiotics consequently develop an overgrowth of Candida, including vaginal yeast infections, and doctors prescribe even more medications to combat the yeast. This cycle can lead to immune system disturbance if overused. Antibiotics also deplete B vitamins that are necessary for hundreds of biological processes, including proper nervous system functioning–suggesting, yes, another array of pharmaceutical interventions.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is another category of nutrient-depleting drugs. Vitamin C, zinc, and magnesium can be depleted, causing lowered resistance to colds and stress; magnesium depletion also interferes with absorption of calcium. Low levels of vitamin B-6, B-12, and folic acid associated with HRT or oral contraceptives also have a high correlation with elevated homocysteine levels, which result in arterial plaque build-up. When the heart has to work harder to adapt to plaque-narrowed arteries, blood pressure rises.

Medications that lower blood pressure cause escalating problems of their own. Some reduce the levels of coenzyme Q10, a powerful antioxidant that is essential for cell energy and repairing free-radical damage to the heart muscle. Deficiencies can put you at risk for heart disease. Pretty ironic for a cardiovascular medicine!

Blood pressure medications further deplete vitamin B6 (already depleted by estrogen replacement), thereby interfering with neurotransmitters that regulate mood, sleep, and appetite–all disturbances that can cause depression. To treat depression, doctors often prescribe antidepressants that would be unnecessary if the causes of depression were recognized. Some antidepressant drugs also deplete Vitamin B2, and can trigger suicide attempts.

Many medications can contribute to making the body too acidic, a condition in which opportunistic diseases can take hold and in which cancer cells can thrive. The typical Western diet, rich in meat, dairy products, sugar, alcohol, and processed foods, already tends to make the body acidic; medications may compound the problem.

Correcting the Problem
In Europe, one third of cancer sufferers also take alternative medication. Many health problems can be alleviated through methods other than prescription drugs. If you choose to try alternatives, be certain to consult with a health professional before stopping any current prescription medication, and continue to take nutritional supplements to counteract the existing deficiencies.

IGNITE YOUR TRAINING WITH PROPER NUTRITION

rutrow — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Browsing the ads in the numerous magazines targeting the fitness community I find it curious to note the vast array of similar symptoms which such a diversified conglomerate of nutritional formulas are designed to address. Whether you want to build mass, increase strength, reduce fat, increase energy levels, strengthen your immune system, renew sexual drive, improve performance, stop the aging process, enhance mental alertness, eliminate soreness, or (my favorite), improve your over-all well-being, you can find at least a half-dozen formulations which can help you accomplish your desired goal. Interestingly enough, very few of them have anything in common, fewer yet are based upon actual science, and none of them contain the one ingredient that your body requires to accomplish all of these tasks. That ingredient is H- (negatively charged hydrogen). _______________________________________________________________THE HYDROGEN STORY This little known nutrient is, in fact, the smallest element known to exist at this time. In spite of its size, it is indispensable in virtually every chemical reaction in the body. For the athlete this translates into two important functions, which will determine their ultimate ability to excel in a chosen sport; PERFORMANCE and RECOVERY.

Nowhere is this more important than inside the cells of our body where tiny organisms, called mitochondria, translate the free electron negative charge associated with the H- molecule into the ATP which provides the energy necessary to produce growth, repair, and regeneration of the body.

IN THE ABSENCE OF AN ABUNDANT FREE ELECTRON POOL YOUR ABILITY TO PERFORM AND RECOVER WILL BE SUBSTANTIALLY LIMITED, REGARDLESS OF WHAT OTHER NUTRIENTS ARE PRESENT!!!!!!!!!!!

The bottom line here is that the free electron associated with the H- complex is necessary as a raw material for the mitochondria to produce energy. The hydrogen to which it is attached is utilized to combust available oxygen to allow us to express the energy, which is produced. Therefore, regardless of the amount of cardio you perform, or the amount of protein, fats, carbohydrates, or any other nutrient you take to enhance your performance you will never experience your full potential in the absence of a rich free electron pool of H- in the body.

____________________________________________________________________HOW DO I KNOW?

If you are fortunate enough to have access to a Matrix Assessment Profile performed, in which the nutrient profile and bioavailability of raw materials is evaluated in samples of blood, urine, and saliva, you will have a comprehensive analysis of the biochemical environment in which the cells of your body conduct their daily business. In the absence of this evaluation you may obtain information about the effectiveness of any given nutritional program by simply monitoring the pH of your urine. An extremely acid urine will often reflect an electron deficient environment.

___________________________________________________________WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

As any athlete knows, one of the greatest dangers and side effects of heavy training is the production of excessive free radicals which damage the ability of our cells to perform the functions which are required to repair and regenerate. Biochemically, free radicals are simply substances which steal electrons.Therefore, if you are training heavy, you are, more than likely, creating excessive free radicals which are depriving your body of the one substance required to achieve the purpose for which your training was designed.

__________________________________________________________BUT I TAKE ANTIOXIDANTS

Medical science has well documented the need for antioxidants to neutralize the unstable free radical activity produced by exercise. If you are a seasoned athlete, you are probably consuming antioxidant complexes as part of your nutritional support program. This most likely consists of antioxidant compounds such as Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Betacarotene, Selenium, grape seed or pine bark extracts, etc. The problem with all antioxidants is twofold:·         No matter how large the antioxidant molecule, it gives up only one electron for the purposes of neutralizing free radical activity.·         When an antioxidant donates an electron to neutralize free radicals, it becomes a free radical. Of course it is weaker and less harmful than that which it neutralized, but, nonetheless, it becomes a free radical.This process is known as the electron cascade and is the reason for including a broad spectrum of antioxidants in any supplemental nutritional program.

__________________________________________________________________SO WHAT CAN I DO?

   Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, in his original research for which he won the Nobel Prize for his work on Vitamin C, discussed electron flow in the body. Electrons move, but never by themselves. There needs to be a carrier. That carrier is the hydrogen atom, with the extra electron in the outer shell.

Free electrons effect the body in a very positive way as the free radicals are neutralized. Since free radicals normally steal electrons from cell walls and DNA structure the inevitable result is abnormal cell function and eventually disease. Science is very clear that free radicals are the basis for many of the major disease processes in the body today. The hydrogen also feeds into the energy cycle of the body providing healthy energy, creating less fatigue.

Stop Sickness Before It Starts- Improve Your Biological Terrain

Getting sick requires that your natural resistance break down. All cells live in the biological fluid. It is the environment in which they function day to day. A balanced terrain means balanced fluid which in turn means healthy, vibrant cells. When cells are healthy, sickness can’t get a foothold. This is letting the body and your natural defense system do the job it is designed to do … stay healthy!

How to Increase Your Resistance and Stay Healthy

Using the full potential of the Matrix Assessment Profile designed for athletes, you will then be able to provide your body with microclustered hydrogen, water, enzymes, probiotics, vitamins and minerals which will balance your entire Biological Terrain. From the time food and nutrients enter your mouth, you will be ensured of proper processing, digestion, assimilation and absorption into the cells. It will restore your body’s most productive pH (acid/alkaline balance) and provide an electron rich atmosphere for optimal health while neutralizing the attacks from free radicals throughout your body. It’s simple balanced nutrition in the most powerful program available. So, if you are an athlete who has hit a wall in your training, suffers from DOMS, truly wants to experience more Energy, less Fatigue, or improved Mental Clarity,

See how can this simple hydrogen atom can improve your performance while…
- fighting free radical damage throughout the body
- balancing the body’s chemistry through the Biological Terrain
- helping to resist sickness
- and even reversing the disease process and slow down aging

  For more information please visit www.matrixtransformation.com

Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. No part of this manuscript may be reproduced in any form or by any means (including electronic storage and retrieval or translation into a foreign language) without prior agreement and written consent from Matrix Transformation Publications.

This article has been written and submitted as an educational tool. It is based upon a consensus of current facts contained in the peer-reviewed literature and the experience of the author. It is not intended to be used for the purposes of diagnosing or treating diseases. The information provided herein should not replace the advice of your caregiver. Always consult your chosen health care practitioner for concerns of any symptoms or active disorders.

For more information like this please visit www.matrixtransformation

Joel Osteen translates the Biblical science of success

rutrow — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:53:22 +0000

Joel Osteen, a native Houstonian, has committed his life to serving and helping every person, regardless of background and economic status, to achieve their fullest potential. Under Pastor Joel and his wife Victoria’s leadership, Lakewood Church has grown in every area of ministry and has become the largest, fastest growing and most diverse congregations in America today with over 38,000 attending weekly services.In a recent message to his congregation, Osteen interpreted several popularized techniques for experiencing your best life in traditional biblical terms. Osteen espoused a well known formula for creating a rich fulfilling life by outlining his version of spiritual creativity.In a very succinct dialogue he made short order of the evolutionary process of biological creativity by summarizing the key steps in manifesting dreams from desires. He re-iterated that the word desire comes from the word da-sire, which literally translates as, from the father.He went on to stress the importance of identifying your passion and gifts, while utilizing short and long-term goals to propel you from your current situation into a proactive resonant state of achievement.I’ve often admired the scriptures as premier literary precursor to the concepts of quantum physics. In essence, it’s the only place where science and religion share a common philosophy and goal. There’s certainly much to be said for re-reading biblical scripture in light of the practical wisdom secreted in the science of the parables.Osteen is right on the money when he describes the tools at our disposal for effecting remedies and productive changes in our personal realities. His wide-spread popularity is evidence of the laws being purposely engaged in his own life.

Regardless of your denominational beliefs, Osteen is well worth listening to for insightful encouragement based upon true Spirituality and solid Science.

For mor information about this topic please visit www.matrixtransformation.com

DR PHIL DESCRIBES BRITNEY SPEARS VICIOUS CYCLE DISORDER

rutrow — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:55:48 +0000

A Vicious Cycle Disorder (VCD) is a symptom with no apparent cause. In fact, chronic symptoms represent undiagnosed causes. Ongoing symptoms associated with a lack of objective findings and negative test results simply suggest that a cause has yet to be identified. In order to successfully resolve any symptom you must be able to accurately identify the cause.

For the cause of vague and persistent symptoms to be detected in the absence of a diagnosable disease, the challenge is to determine which symptoms are associated with which cause. The goal is to restore balance to the whole person. Too often the emerging symptoms of an imbalance are simply masked with medications to create the illusion of balance.

Imbalances associated with VCD will present themselves as symptoms of commonly diagnosed ailments. All too frequently, the symptoms are diagnosed and treated as a disease. In reality, most of the conditions treated with conventional solutions are only symptoms of imbalances or deficiencies. They are usually given names that, in no way represent, the actual cause of the symptoms. In fact, they are simply names for the symptoms being experienced.

By definition, VCD is a chronic imbalance or deficiency that eventually results in symptoms that are difficult to accurately diagnose and rarely respond to conventional treatment. The underlying imbalance or deficiency that produces the symptoms of VCD is a process, rooted in a behavior that becomes a habit resulting from repeatedly making choices associated with your experience. The cause of the resulting symptoms typically either goes undiagnosed or is diagnosed as something other than what it really is – a vicious cycle disorder.

So, how can you know if you’re suffering from VCD? If you’re one of the growing numbers of people being told that nothing is wrong but you know that something’s not right

And you’ve been told that………………….· All your tests are negative
· Your symptoms are normal for your age,
· They will go away in time,
· You’ll have to learn to live with them,
· We can’t find anything wrong, or
· They’re all in your head
…a Vicious Cycle Disorder (VCD) may be at the root of all your problems!

Herein lays the challenge! Now what? Shall we wait and see? Should we suppress the symptoms? Should we go to a psychiatrist? Or perhaps looking at other possibilities might be a reasonable alternative.

Whatever you might be experiencing as chronic symptoms inevitably has a cause. Therefore, this “problem” cannot possibly exist without the presence of a solution.

Since our external reality is merely a reflection of internal processes we have an opportunity to evaluate undiagnosed symptoms in light of imbalances and deficiencies, long before they become identifiable as diagnosable disease entities.

Herein lay the power and the beauty of a Matrix Assessment Profile. Since nothing exists until you observe it, the M.A.P. presents us with the opportunity to shift our focus and seek out a cause in places of observation that few consider worth evaluating.

Perhaps Britney would best be served by having someone look at things nobody else is looking at and looking at them in ways nobody else is looking at them?

For more information about VCD and the M.A.P. please visit matrixtransformation.com.

OPRAH REVEALS THE SECRET BEHIND THE SECRET

rutrow — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:51:21 +0000

Just in time for the release of the “Science of Successful Change Program” offered through Matrix Transformation, Oprah dedicated a full hour to exploring the secret behind the secret!Just over a year ago, a new book and hit movie was drawing cheers and jeers. This phenomenon has become known as the “Secret”. The cheers were for the emphasis on positive thinking and living your best life through the idea of the law of attraction. Of course, critics objected because some believed people would use The Secret to focus more on obtaining material possessions.

Despite the controversy over The Secret, Oprah says she still believes it’s valuable. “I’m grateful that for so many millions of people the door was at least opened to the idea that we are each responsible for the quality of our lives,” she says. “The Secret was really just the beginning.”

Acclaimed author Louise Hay, “Grand Dame” of the self-help movement, is now 81 years old. She is considered the mother of the concept of using positive thinking and the law of attraction and was a guest on this recent episode of Oprah. Louise agrees that The Secret is a good first step to improve the quality of our lives.Louise says that whatever you put into the universe—be it good or bad—will come back to you. “It’s almost as though the universe is listening to everything you say and everything you think and saying. Of course, in the new program, “The Science of Successful Change”, this concept is explored in depth and the science behind this dialogue is exposed.Another Oprah guest said,” trying to mistakenly use the law of attraction to get material things is really just the first step of a personal evolution”. Eventually, she says, we should be able to get beyond that. The transition eventually comes as we evolve on our personal spiritual journey.As we do that, we start to move from the [material] things being so important, to whom we’re becoming as human beings and as spiritual beings being more important. From there, we start to care about the people around us and how we’re influencing them.”But make no mistake. The science behind the secret is not about sitting on your couch and waiting for stuff to magically manifest in your life. It’s about developing a vision, identifying your passion and proactively achieving your goals. You have to keep your goals clear and keep them in front of you. That’s what tools like affirmation, visualization and vision boards are all about. It’s about setting an intention, seeing it in your life and making that connection.For more information about the Science behind the secret and related programs please visit www.matrixtransformation.

Common Sense Medicine

rutrow — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:43:42 +0000

The Science of Harmonic Health

Health as a concept has consumed our culture for the last half-century. It has probably been studied and pursued more than any other concept in modern history. Unfortunately, the majority of individuals rarely achieve this goal. Fewer yet ever achieve a level of health that expresses their full capabilities.In our seemingly never-ending quest for the holy grail of optimal health and well-being it seems as though some basic realities have been lost in translation.

Achieving “Harmonic Health” is not about understanding the practice of good health, but about practicing the understanding.

By example, if we consider just two well established and well known facts we must question the operating premise of conventional medicine. First, somewhere between 70% and 80% of all chronic degenerative disease is diet related. And secondly, approximately 90% of all Doctors visits are stress related.

If just these two facts were used as a platform for evaluating the myriad of symptoms we seek help for, how much more efficient could we become at identifying productive solutions for all of the related maladies that currently ail our society at large? So, why isn’t this happening?

Perhaps it has to do with denial, deception and conspiracy. Maybe it’s too simple to be a real solution. Maybe it’s too time consuming and requires too much effort. Or maybe we just don’t know any better? Perhaps it ultimately falls back on us individually assuming responsibility for our own lifestyle choices, information gathering, and choices.

Ask and answer these three questions for yourself, right now! Do I know what I really want? Do I know what I should be doing to achieve it? If I know what I should be doing – why am I not doing it! In other words, either you know what you should be doing and are not doing it or you just don’t know what to do.

But, would things be any different if we just knew more? There was a time we believed that knowledge and information was power…but this is simply not true. Our world is full of knowledge, which is nothing more than unorganized information. It is not about acquiring more information! Wisdom is information that is organized and aligned with natural laws.

The only approach that aligns and acts in accordance with these principles is to impress the right information, in the right order, on the right area of the brain. Part of successfully achieving this outcome is knowing what we want to experience.

The reality is that you all are already successful at creating and experiencing what you want. This is achieved through thinking and acting in a “Particular Way”. If you review all the things in your life that you think, do, say, and believe on a regular basis, you will quickly realize that you are experiencing these as results and that you have succeeded in achieving them. Up until now your process has always been the same.

You have learned to do certain things in a certain way to produce what you’re experiencing right now! This is true regardless of the context…whether in the area of finances, relationships, health or business. You must realize that this true whether you were consciously aware of it or not. None of this is random. Any time you have experienced a result in your life, you have done so by employing some very specific scientific principles – albeit, for the most part unconsciously.

But by continuing to act in this Particular Way…there can ever only be one result; the same one you have experienced time and again to this point in your life. Any time you have not experienced what you thought you should, you have simply been out of alignment with these principles of “Harmonic Health”.This is called the “law of accumulation”.

You have done Specific Things in a Specific Way to produce the results you’re currently experiencing. The “science of successful change” is about understanding the laws that govern the production of results and employing them “on purpose” to experience what you really want to experience.

Understand that all of your present results are the direct outcomes of your past thoughts, decisions, and actions. These all occurred as a direct result of interpretations of your perceptions. In other words, as information came in through your five senses, you learned how to interpret it in a particular way. The interpretation of perception leads to thoughts about those interpretations, which produce beliefs that create actions, which lead to behaviors, habits, and automatic ways of responding to the stimuli coming in through the senses.

You see, since anything can cause anything – our life experiences are a contextual representation of the interaction and stability within and among the three realm of human experience. So, it’s just as possible that a biochemical imbalance or deficiency is causing or contributing to chronic headaches, as it is that unexpressed emotions and frustrated desires may be the primary culprit.

Unfortunately, this is where it gets difficult conceptually for a lot of people because of the conventional model of modern medicine that prods us to “Ask Your Doctor” and accept without question, the opinions and recommendations we receive without considering anything beyond the possibility of physical ailments being purely physical.

And it may well be that these unidentified thoughts, beliefs, habits, fears, worries, and distorted self-images, cause us to act in certain ways that actually maintain the status quo. Feelings of not being good enough, not feeling worthy, or not being loved may have been ingrained in us to the extent that we actually believe this is who we are and who we will always be. They may also drive us to acquire destructive habits and behaviors that temporarily make us feel better about ourselves.

At the same time it is important to recognize that only 20% of our efforts produce 80% of our results. So, often time it’s simply a matter of re-prioritizing our activities to achieve a productive change.The results you experience in your life are founded on habits, work practices, attitudes, values, beliefs and expectations otherwise known as paradigms. It is with these paradigms that you experience the world around you.

These paradigms are the filters through which you interpret what you perceive through the five senses. A paradigm is the operating system with which you interact with the rest of the world. When you have a “paradigm shift” everything changes, including how you interpret data, interact with the world, and experience your life. In fact, your whole world can appear to be changing.

During the first several years of your life you are exposed to attitudes, opinions, prejudices, beliefs, behaviors and experiences, which inevitably contribute to the formation of your paradigm operating system. You are being exposed to approximately 400 billion bits of information every second, but are consciously only aware of 2,000.The five senses are responsible for conveying information to your brain. Your brain is actually responsible for filtering and integrating that information into your operating system based upon your paradigm.

Once your resonant frequency is established by your paradigm your brain actually seeks out information that is consistent with your paradigm to support it and maintain your status quo. All of your experiences have either originated in your conscious mind or have been uncritically accepted from an outside source.

Everyone attempts to make changes but they rarely last. Why? Because the brain is designed to keep you safe by maintaining the status quo of your paradigm, paradigms drive all behavior, and behavior drives results. Unless paradigms shift, any change or improvement will be short-term at best. This is why motivation is a poor tool for permanent and lasting change.

The status quo in our culture is simply a larger paradigm adopted by agreement within our society at large that dictates the nature and limits of our interpretation of perception. If we are too ever to successfully overcome being the victims of societal thinking and the associated hypnosis of social conditioning we must learn to deliberately employ our ability to choose thoughts and engage our free will as part of this process.

The body, in and of itself, is a true paradox. It is durable, solid and stable. Yet, it remains changeable and fluid, new in every moment and extremely responsive to your input. By design it is fully capable of repairing, regenerating and healing itself. In the final analysis it is a reflection of a greater dynamic that occurs which allows for you to participate in the process of creation.To learn more about how to effectively interface with your innate capabilities please visit www.matrixtransformation.com

Meredith Vieria & Richard Cohen on Larry King Expose the Agony of Chronic Illness

rutrow — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:29:14 +0000

Richard M. Cohen has finally finished his long awaited (by me for sure) book about living with chronic illness in America. More money will be spent for the Iraq “war” in two days than will be spent in a year by the National Health Institute (NIH) for chronic illnesses. Many citizens suffer in silence, wearing their diseases like heavy bricks of shame around their necks. “Multiple Sclerosis won’t kill you but you will just wish you were dead.” How many of you with a chronic illness feel exactly like that?Finding our way to some semblance of normalcy and happiness should be our never ending goal. Many conditions like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia are without visible symptoms; and without a known cause until now!

Ongoing symptoms associated with a lack of objective findings and negative test results simply suggest that a cause has yet to be identified. In order to successfully resolve any symptom you must be able to accurately identify the cause. The cause of any symptom can be rooted in one of three places. It can be rooted in the physical structure of the body or it can be entrenched in the biochemistry. But it can also be ingrained in the virtual realm. This realm is comprised of the psychological, emotional, and spiritual aspects of our being.

Since chronic illness often presents no known cause and even those already diagnosed provide no solution, it is often helps to gain perspective by looking at things nobody else is looking at in ways that nobody else is looking at them.

A Vicious Cycle Disorder (VCD) is a symptom with no apparent cause. In fact, chronic symptoms represent undiagnosed causes. Imbalances associated with VCD will present themselves as symptoms of commonly diagnosed ailments. All too frequently, the symptoms are diagnosed and treated as a disease. In reality, most of the conditions treated with conventional solutions are only symptoms of imbalances or deficiencies. They are usually given names that, in no way represent, the actual cause of the symptoms. In fact, they are simply names for the symptoms being experienced but offer no solution.The human body is perfectly designed to alter its response in the most productive way to any stimulus. The same innate intelligence that monitors the six trillion functions per second activities of 60 trillion cells is fully capable of affecting a cure. In fact, the process is identifiable, predictable and reproducible. But, there are a couple of self-imposed obstacles. First, we tend to interfere with the mechanisms of dis-ease (treat symptoms), while relying on research, outcome studies, and statistics to arrive at tentative solutions based upon the majority of responses to a symptom-based treatment. Secondly, we fail to recognize, support, and encourage the innate biological creativity of the body. In outcome-based research studies this is usually represented by a statistical summary that suggests something like 90% of the people with this (symptom-based condition) will thrive for 3-6 months if given this symptom based solution. What about the other 10%? They have experienced spontaneous remission denoted as anomalous due to the process of biological creativity, which we assume to be out of our conscious control as it produces results that are inconsistent with our previous experiences, belief systems, and typical responses. Biological expression is an interpretation of our perceptions. But where do our perceptions come from? Perceptions originate with our thoughts but are filtered through the limits of our ability to experience them with our senses. The thoughts that catapult the preliminary data into our awareness appear randomly based upon our exposure, environment, and social conditioning.One of the reasons that this occurs is because we falsely assume that the physical experience is material in nature, when in fact, the physical universe is comprised of atoms, comprised of sub-atomic particles, comprised of photons (light), comprised of information and energy, comprised of probability amplitudes, comprised of possibilities (the essence of quantum physics). Quantum Physics goes on to suggest that nothing exists until it is observed. Therefore, unless you have a well-formed pathology in place, the cause of your symptoms is likely to go unresolved until it matures.

Quantum Insights

While highly technical at first glance, no discussion of the virtual would be complete without at least a passing mention of the interpretations offered by a bizarre world of organized chaos known as quantum physics. Aside from the disciplined structures used to communicate the essence of this seemingly unintelligible branch of science, quantum physics offers insight into the dynamics of Vicious Cycle Disorders. It does this through the eyes of a concept called wave-particle duality that forms the basis of modernthought relative to our existence and potential as human beings. These subatomic particles are the raw materials which comprise the virtual realm. To give you some perspective on this short course of quantum phenomenon and its relationship to the subject matter of this article, simply understandthat physics is essentially concerned with the way matter interacts with other matter. Quantum physics is just the physics of the incrediblysmall. It attempts to explain the behavior of these very, very small particles. The reason that quantum physics needs complex math to explain these behaviors and properties is because the world of subatomic particles isfilled with probabilities and organized chaos. While you don’t have to understand these concepts to consciously change your life experience, itcan be helpful to understand that there are some distinct principles that govern activities, and which influence the results of the choices you maketo create your life experiences. You can consciously employ these principles to achieve any desired result, including the resolve of chronic, undiagnosed symptoms.But one does not need to understand quantum physics to initiate this process. In fact this is the natural order of things. The ultimate expression of a possibility can be determined by the intention to experience a given outcome and the attention given to its expression (what you focus on expands). In nature (and biological evolution), these precise steps are enacted to achieve a desired result. On a practical level this amounts to identifying the problem, acquiring information about the problem and possible solutions, determining an intended outcome, incubating the information until we are inspired to act, implement a potential solution, integrate this solution into our attempts to restore balance, modify the details as we monitor the changes and ultimately arrive at the 10% solution (remission or incarnation).

Whatever you might be experiencing as chronic symptoms inevitably has a cause. Therefore, this “problem” cannot possibly exist without the presence of a solution. Since our external reality is merely a reflection of internal processes we have an opportunity to evaluate undiagnosed symptoms in light of imbalances and deficiencies, long before they become identifiable as diagnosable disease entities. Herein lie the power and the beauty of a Matrix Assessment Profile. Since nothing exists until you observe it, the M.A.P. presents us with the opportunity to shift our focus and seek out a cause in places of observation that few consider worth evaluating.

Larry King asked Meredith what it was like to live with someone who has a chronic illness. (Her husband, Richard M. Cohen has had MS for thirty years and is legally blind; he also fought through colon cancer, all chronicled in his previous book, “Blindsided.”)

“When you live with chronic illness it just becomes a part of the fabric of your life. There are days that are good and there are days that are bad for each of us…Richard said, “A lot of dealing with chronic illness is psychological; it’s really how you want to see yourself.” He added that a mind game is a big part of surviving and having a good life. Chronic illness is not a death sentence. You really must rise above and lead the life you want. He said the downside of what was for him a very positive experience, was knowing that some of the lives of the people he met will probably end too soon. For more articles and information just like this, visit: www.matrixtransformation.com