Sharing w/others – lessons learned

By Elijah Many people interested in staying healthy have switched to agave as a safer “natural” sweetener. They want to avoid well documented dangerous sweeteners like HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) but are unaware that most agave is actually WORSE than HFCS. Once I realized this, I wrote a special report on agave to inform the […]

New research shows that the ingredients in many sunscreens can damage your body.

The Environmental Working Group has released its annual Sunscreen Study, which reviewed efficacy and safety of over 500 sunscreens currently on the market.  They could only recommend 39.

The chemicals that caused most of a stir are oxybenzone and retinyl palmitate, or Vitamin A.  Oxybenzone is present in around sixty percent of sunscreens on the market; it penetrates skin in fairly large amounts, and is a potential hormone disruptor.

According to My Fox Orlando:

“Another ingredient … is Vitamin A … listed on many sunscreen labels as retinyl palmitate …  New data from the FDA suggests this ingredient, when you put it on the skin, accelerates the growth of skin tumors and lesions.” PostID=273223″

You might be surprised by the ingredients in a tube of toothpaste.  Toothpaste’s white color alone has 10 or more ingredients, plus enhancers and binders.  First, it uses a mineral powder such as calcium carbonate or aluminum oxide — which has been linked to Alzheimer’s. Then titanium oxide is added to make the paste whiter.

Gel toothpastes, on the other hand, get their abrasiveness from a compound called silica — you may be familiar with it; it often comes in little white packets in purses, luggage, or dried food, marked with an extreme warning label telling you not to ingest them.  Detergents are used to make toothpastes foam.

There’s more, according to Teeth Bleaching Planet:

“Then on to the mouthwash substances incorporated in there to make your breath smell good and keep your teeth strong. Plus you have glycerin to prevent the paste from drying out. And let us not forget the formalin, which is a disinfectant to kill bacteria.”

The most dangerous ingredient, however, is the toxic fluoride.  Once in your body, fluoride destroys human enzymes by changing their shape. PostID=272084″

It may be an unthinkable notion for those raised on the message that early cancer detection saves lives, but it is possible that tumors are actually being found too early.

Cancer screenings can unearth tumors that never would have threatened the person’s life.  But their aren’t good ways to tell in advance which tumors won’t be dangerous.

The Washington Post reports:

“Most men over 50 have had a PSA blood test to check for [prostate cancer] even though major medical groups don’t recommend routine PSAs, worried they may do more harm than good …  A study of 76,000 U.S. men, published last year, concluded annual PSAs didn’t save lives.”

Mammography is also increasing diagnoses of tumors deemed very low risk. A found that nearly one-quarter of breast tumors found by mammograms may be overdiagnosed. PostID=272081″

San Francisco has voted to require all retailers to display the amount of radiation cell phones emit.  The law is the first of its kind in the U.S.

The administration of mayor Gavin Newsom called the vote a major victory for cell phone shoppers’ right to know.

According to the New York Times:

“Under the law, retailers will be required to post materials — in at least 11-point type — next to phones, listing their specific absorption rate, which is the amount of radio waves absorbed into the cell phone user’s body tissue. These so-called SAR rates can vary from phone to phone, but all phones sold in the United States must have a SAR rate no greater than 1.6 watts per kilogram”. PostID=271974″

Real Food Has Curves, a new book written by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, offers a 7-step plan for weaning yourself off processed foods:

1. Seek true satisfaction. Enjoy genuine flavors, rather than fat, sugar, and salt added to mask the metallic taste of chemical additives.

2. Read labels wisely. You can find food with “real” ingredients in the supermarket if you read labels carefully.

3. Relish what’s on your plate. Devote time solely to enjoying the pleasures of eating.

4. Wean yourself off excess salt, fat, and sugar. You can also cook with smaller amounts of these ingredients by using natural substitutes like strong spices.

5. Give your palate time to change. You’ll gradually lose your taste for excessively sweet and salty foods.

6. Go for high-quality foods. Look for products that contain the least amount of processed ingredients.

7. Treat yourself well by not skipping meals. Try eating three meals a day at fairly regular times, plus a mid-afternoon snack.

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Scientists believe they now know exactly why polyphenols, such as those found in red wine and green tea, inhibit cancer growth. The antioxidants produce a combined effect to disrupt an important cell signaling pathway necessary for prostate cancer growth.

The SphK1/S1P signaling pathway plays a role both in prostate cancer and in other cancers such as colon cancer, breast cancer, and gastric cancers.

Eurekalert reports:

“Scientists conducted in vitro experiments which showed that the inhibition of the sphingosine kinase-1/sphingosine 1-phosphate (SphK1/S1P) pathway was essential for green tea and wine polyphenols to kill prostate cancer cells … Human prostate cancer cells were implanted in the mice and results showed a dramatic decrease in tumor size in the mice drinking the EGCG or polyphenon E mixtures.” PostID=271606″

Over thirty years of treating patients, Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum,  has identified what he says are four types of sugar addicts.

According to Teitelbaum, overdosing your body with sugar can, over the course of months or years, lead to many physical and mental maladies that many don’t realize stem from their diet — including obesity, a weakened immune system, chronic fatigue, hormonal problems and gastrointestinal issues.

ABC News reports:

“For all forms of sugar addiction, Teitelbaum suggests cutting back on sugar (and/or replacing it with sugar-free alternatives), cutting out excess caffeine intake, eating more whole, unprocessed foods, and getting enough sleep.” PostID=271610″

Cancer will kill more than 13.2 million people a year by 2030, almost double the number who died from the disease in 2008.  Only 7.6 million people died of cancer in 2008.

Around 56 percent of new cancer cases worldwide in 2008 were in developing countries and these regions also accounted for 63 percent of all cancer deaths.

According to Reuters:

“The projection for annual death rates of 13.2 million and annual diagnosis of 21.4 million were based on assumptions that underlying rates of cancer would remain the same over the next two decades”. PostID=269673″