TV Does More Damage to Your Children Than You Ever Imagined

All that time children spend in front of a TV may be doing far more harm to them than you ever thought possible. In addition to being a trigger for obesity, the "glow box" may raise their risks of bad eyesight, premature puberty and autism, according to a new report. And that's not all...

A British psychologist identified 15 different side effects related to children spending long hours in front of a television. Among them:

* Cancer
* Alzheimer's
* Heart trouble
* Healing
* Diabetes

The trigger for some of these conditions: Watching TV disrupts the production of the hormone melatonin which explains why young girls may be reaching puberty sooner or kids are developing cancer at a younger age than ever before.

Because severely limiting your child's TV time is indeed a life-saver, I urge you to review this important list of 20 fun activities you can do with them that have absolutely nothing at all to do with sitting indoors in front of a box for hours.
Physorg.com February 19, 2007

Drinking, Bathing or Swimming in Chlorinated Water May Increase Your Risk of Bladder Cancer

Chlorinated water may increase your risk of bladder cancer, whether you drink it, bathe in it or swim in it, according to a study of over 1,000 people. The study is the first to support what I have been saying for some time: that chemicals in water are not only harmful when ingested, but also when they are absorbed through the skin or inhaled.

In fact, this new study found that swimming and showering in chlorinated water may be even worse than drinking it. While study participants who drank chlorinated water had a 35 percent greater risk of bladder cancer than those who didn’t, those who swam in chlorinated pools had a 57 percent greater risk. Meanwhile, those who took longer showers or baths in areas with higher trihalomethanes (THM, a chlorine by-product) levels also had an increased cancer risk.

THM, while potentially dangerous when ingested, may be even more detrimental when it is absorbed through the skin or lungs because it does not undergo detoxification via the liver.

While installing a reverse-osmosis filter to purify your drinking water is a good step, you could still be exposed to contaminated water when you:

* Shower or bathe
* Wash your hands
* Wash laundry
* Rinse fruits and vegetables
* Wash dishes, glasses, and other utensils

To protect your family's good health, you should have your water professionally analyzed to find out what's in it. If it's currently safe, then having a small point-of-use filter is a nice added level of protection. But if you find contamination, you should seek expert advice as to what treatment system can remove it.

American Journal of Epidemiology January 2007, Volume 165, Number 2, Pp. 148-156

ScientificAmerican.com January 18, 2007

The History of Spinal Surgery

The first treatise on the treatment of spinal injuries dates back to around 1550 B.C., in the Egyptian writings known as the Edwin Smith papyrus. Hippocrates (460-370 BC), considered the Father of Medicine, is also considered to be the father of spinal surgery, having stated: "Look well to the spine for the cause of disease." His recommended method of treatment consisted primarily of traction and immobilization; similar treatments appear in ancient Arabic and Chinese literature as well. Early physicians avoided direct surgical intervention, which resulted in complications such as blood clotting, destruction of the muscle tissue, and paralysis. While medical knowledge continued to expand under physicians such as Galen of Pergamon (129-200 AD), who also coined the word, 'scoliosis,' Paulus of Aegineta (625-690 AD), Avicenna (980-1037 AD), Serefeddin Sabuncuoglu (15 c.), and Sir Percival Pott (17 c.), surgery on the spine did not become common practice until the early 1900's.

In 1953, Dr. Paul Harrington of Houston, Texas, began to develop what is now known as the Harrington instrumentation system. While initial results were promising, long-term follow up demonstrated poor results, and hardware failure was basically inevitable. The Harrington rods are essentially straight & rigid, which disrupts the normal curves in the spine. This led to dislodging of the hooks used to secure the rod.

A similar rod system was developed in 1976 by Dr. Eduardo Luque of Mexico City. These contoured rods attempted to avoid the high incidence of hardware failure through multiple points of fixation; however, this led to a higher rate of neurological complications. Dysesthesia - loss of the sense of touch - was seen in 1 out of every 10 patients.

Pedicle screw fixation, originally developed in 1949, has become a popular alternative to hooks and wires. Unfortunately, there is a very high risk of damage to the nerves and blood vessels, especially if the placement of the screws is inaccurate or unstable. Conventional placement of pedicle screws results in an accuracy rate of 45 to 85%.

New methods of surgical scoliosis correction are in high demand as research continues to document the poor long-term effects of rod instrumentation. Approaches such as spinal stapling, endoscopic instrumentation, and wedge osteotomies attempt to maintain spinal mobility while being as minimially-invasive as possible, but these procedures may not be ideal for every scoliosis patient.

No surgical procedure has ever demonstrated a 100% correction in every patient. Despite the best efforts of the medical community, surgery remains a last resort for people living with scoliosis. What is the reason for this? One might consider the lack of consideration for the position of the head & neck, both important functional components of the spine. Another reason could be the disregard for and damage done to the associated soft tissues - muscles, tendons, & ligaments - that are important in maintaining spinal integrity.

Although medicine continues to search for a "quick-fix" and an easy answer, the truth is scoliosis cannot be permanently corrected through external forces. Only through a thorough understanding of the biology & physics responsible for the deformation can the process be arrested and reversed. True scoliosis correction requires a comprehensive & holistic rehabilitation of the spine and all associated soft tissue components... and this requires a lot of hard work!

If prescription drugs are so good, where are all the healthy drug takers?

When observing the state of modern medicine and the unprecedented influence of pharmaceuticals, an interesting paradox arises. The drug companies claim that pharmaceuticals can do wonders for people: lower their cholesterol, end clinical depression, reverse osteoporosis, eliminate allergies, calm your children and many other similar promises. But if prescription drugs are so good for people, where are all the healthy medicated customers?

There aren't any to speak of. There's nobody taking twelve prescriptions who has a clean bill of health. In fact, the more prescriptions a person takes, the worse their overall health. And if you approach the healthiest people you can find in a local fitness center and ask what prescription drugs they're taking in order to be so healthy, they'll give you a rather confused look: they don't take prescription drugs!.

So how is it that the pharmaceutical industry can be claiming to make people healthier in the first place? And what happened to common sense here? A rigorous scientific view of the whole situation can only conclude that prescription drugs are, in fact, making people sicker. It's like a massive clinical trial, and the results of the trial are rather obvious: we're swallowing more drugs than ever, and we're getting sicker. In fact, the more drugs a person takes, and the longer they take them, the more rapidly their overall health deteriorates.

So why are drugs approved in the first place?
During development, prescription drugs are designed to target a single measurable marker, such as cholesterol levels or bone density. There are thousands of such markers to target in the world of modern medicine, and if a specific drug can alter any measurable marker in a positive direction -- without killing too many people during the clinical trials -- the FDA eventually declares it to be "safe and effective" and the drug is unleashed for public consumption.

Indeed, the drug may effectively impact that one marker. But here's where the problem starts: every drug has a systemic effect, and these systemic effects are not accurately measured (or admitted) in clinical trials. For example, statin drugs do, in fact, lower bad cholesterol levels. But they do this by compromising the ability of the liver to create all types of cholesterol, including the "good" cholesterol and important hormones that the body manufactures from cholesterol. Statins may have one measurable, positive effect according to the medical charts, but they simultaneously throw off the body's healthy physiology in a hundred other ways such as blocking your sex drive.

Clinical trials don't pay much attention to these other effects; they're just looking to prove one particular thing and get FDA approval to market the drug as a miracle cholesterol fighter. What other effects the drug has on the human body are largely ignored. And when clinical trial participants start showing these severe effects, they are typically "dismissed" from the trial in order to ensure that trial results look positive. In this way, extremely toxic drugs are actually approved by the FDA as "safe."

Prescription drugs represent a war on the American people
This situation means that, right now, prescription drugs are killing 100,000 Americans each year and injuring more than two million. Those are the statistics from the Journal of the American Medical Association, and that figure doesn't include the 40,000 or so who are killed each year by over-the-counter pain medications. These are staggering figures: it's like having twenty-five 9/11 attacks each year, but instead of terrorists flying the airplanes, it's pharmaceutical company CEOs. There are more deaths and injuries caused each year by pharmaceuticals than in any U.S. war or conflict since World War II.

And yet pharmaceuticals continue to be marketed as miracle drugs that can help people be healthy. But as I've mentioned, there are no extremely healthy people taking lots of prescription drugs!

The counter argument
The obvious counter to this argument is that people only start taking prescription drugs after they're already sick. But that's not true: statins are now being pushed onto perfectly healthy people who have cholesterol levels of 115, for example. They're supposed to start taking statins as a preventative measure, even though there's nothing wrong with them. With a similar lack of wisdom, the American Diabetes Association has recommended that all diabetics start taking statin drugs even though there is no scientifically proven benefit to doing so just in case some benefits are someday discovered!

And statin drugs are already known to cause an alarming number of dangerous side effects. After being consumed for just a few days, statin drugs start interfering with normal liver function. Within a matter of weeks or months, the patient often shows new symptoms or disorders. Upon visiting a western medical doctor, they are diagnosed with another disease or condition and -- guess what? -- given another prescription drug to take in combination with the statins. In the business world, this is called "upselling the customer" -- getting the same customers to buy more stuff, thereby greatly increasing your profit margin.

And so it goes: one prescription after another, like boxcars on a train, until the patient is: 1) financially depleted, and 2) suffering the ravages of extreme chemical toxicity from prescription drugs. By the time a typical patient finally dies from complications caused by the prescription drugs, they may have spent $100,00 or more on drugs alone. And that number can be multiplied even further if "heroic drugs" are prescribed during the patient's last surviving days.

Dangerous drug interactions are rarely tested
There's another factor to consider here, too: prescription drugs are rarely tested for dangerous interactions with other drugs. In other words, even though the FDA might have approved drug A for one thing, and drug B for another, nobody ever tested what happens in human beings when both drug A and drug B are taken together. Far too often, the combination is toxic, and many prescription drug combinations are fatal. Those that are not fatal may cause other injuries, meaning they will destroy the patient's liver or pancreas, which will of course create demand for even more prescription drugs to deal with those issues.

In this way, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you visit a western medical doctor and take even a single prescription, you're caught in the spiral of pharmaceutical dependence. The only way to escape this trap and actually restore your health is to give up all prescription drugs and, instead, make radical changes to your diet and lifestyle -- and seek our naturopathic or holistic treatments -- to restore your health. This is the only way to create lasting health.

Where are all the healthy, happy, athletic prescription drug takers?
Getting back to the main point here, doesn't it make sense that if prescription drugs made people healthy, there would be all sorts of healthy, happy, athletic people walking around touting the benefits of all the drugs they're taking? If drugs were good for you, there should be hundreds of thousands of such people right now. They should be mentally sharp, have low body fat, high bone density, healthy digestive tracts, healthy blood chemistry, vibrant skin, high energy, excellent moods, and so on. And yet this is not at all the case.

Typically, when you meet a person who is taking multiple prescription drugs, they are overweight or obese, chronically fatigued, mentally depressed, sickly in appearance, mentally clouded, suffering from several blood chemistry problems, burdened with weak immune systems, suffering from low bone density, and emotionally unstable. Sadly, this is not only the typical prescription drug patient I'm describing here, this also describes many doctors and health care workers who dole out the drugs in the first place.

Given this reality, it takes a great leap of imagination to believe that prescription drugs are somehow good for you. It's almost like walking into a Michael Jackson video, seeing a roomful of half-dead zombies drooling on each other, and shouting like Jim Carrey, "I want whatever they're taking!"

The promise of drugs is seductive
It's seductive, of course, to imagine that perhaps your state of mental anguish is simply a "brain chemistry imbalance" that can be corrected with antidepressant drugs. It's tempting to treat your osteoporosis with a doctor-recommend pill rather than getting into the habit of daily walking. It's convenient to live on heartburn medications instead of having to make healthy food choices for a change. Popping pills is always easier than changing your life, but popping pills is like making a deal with the Devil: you always end up losing.

When you take prescription drugs on a long-term basis, you're sure to come out worse than when you started. Prescription drugs are only appropriate for short-term interventions that save a patient's life while they make radical changes to their diet, nutrition and lifestyle that correct the underlying imbalances. For example, an obese middle-aged man suffering from extremely high cholesterol is obviously at risk of a sudden heart attack. Statin drugs might be legitimately used for a few weeks or months just to keep the guy alive while he makes radical lifestyle changes that will ultimately bring his cholesterol (and his body weight) down to reasonable levels.

The legitimate uses for prescription drugs
That's a reasonable, legitimate use of prescription drugs. But that's not the way they're being promoted today. Thanks to the culture of greed and widespread lack of ethics at pharmaceutical companies, statins and other drugs are being pushed as lifetime medications while any mention of diet, nutrition or exercise is either completely avoided or, at best, glossed over. The result is that patients are told drugs are the only answer.

Doctors are culpable in this as well: most don't even understand nutrition 101, and few bother to take the time to work with patients on lifestyle changes in the first place. Of course, most doctors would say that it's the patients who aren't interested in making changes, and they're right about that, but there's also something rather negligent about the fact that the vast majority of doctor visits result in a 90-second conversation and a prescription for the latest brand-name drug. (If you're a doctor and don't fit this description, good for you! But make no mistake: your colleagues are miserable healers...)

So why are prescription drugs so popular?
The only reason prescription drugs are so popular today is not because they work, but because they are extremely profitable. It's profitable for the drug companies who mark them up as much as 500,000% over the cost of the raw ingredients, it's profitable for retailers like Walgreens who mark them up even further (and whose business relies primarily on drug profits), it's profitable for newspapers and magazines who gladly cash checks for millions of dollars in drug advertising, and it's even profitable for doctors who receive all sorts of free vacations, "consulting fees," and other not-so-subtle bribes in exchange for writing prescriptions for brand-name drugs.

The system is extremely profitable to everyone... everyone except you, that is. You suffer devastating health consequences when you participate. You get stuck with the medical debt. Your insurance rates go sky-high. And to add insult to injury, you're sicker now than before you started taking the drugs!

Our system of modern medicine is a sham, folks. It's primarily a drug racket that's dominated by Big Pharma. The science is largely distorted (and often outright fraudulent), the ethics have all but disappeared, and the long-term price of all this is going to be enormous. We have an unprecedented problem on our hands that's sickening an entire generation and creating stratospheric long-term health care costs for the next round of working taxpayers unlucky enough to stumble onto all this.

But don't worry: when everybody's sicker than ever, the drug companies will promise they have the next big cure. All you have to do is pop daily pills at $200 each, and all your health problems will be solved!

Sugary Sweet Drinks Bring on Chronic Disease Later in Life

Heart disease and diabetes symptoms such as insulin resistance, abdominal obesity, hypertension, and high triglyceride levels (a cluster of traits known as metabolic syndrome), previously seen almost entirely in adults, are being found in adolescents in increasing numbers.

A study of this problem suggests that reducing intake of sugar-sweetened beverages during childhood could lessen the risk of chronic disease later on.

The study looked at traits such as blood pressure, waist circumference, and levels of HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and glucose in more than 150 13-year-old girls, as well as their parents. The study looked at dietary, activity and lifestyle patterns starting from when the girls were 5.
Those at higher risk for metabolic syndrome also consumed the most sugary beverages between the ages of 5 and 9. That group of girls also had significantly greater increases in weight and fat mass between the ages of 5 and 13. All of those are risk factors for chronic diseases in later life.

Pediatrics December 2006; 188(6): 2434-2442

The Spine as Profit Center - Surgical Fusion Anyone?

By REED ABELSON
Published: December 30, 2006

Spinal-fusion surgery is one of the most lucrative areas of medicine. An estimated half-million Americans had the operation this year, generating billions of dollars for hospitals and doctors.

But there have been serious questions about how much the surgery actually helps patients with back pain and whether surgeons’ generous fees might motivate them to overuse the procedure. Those concerns are now heightened by a growing trend among some surgeons to profit in yet another way — by investing in companies that make screws and other hardware they install.

The parts can be highly profitable. A single screw that goes into the spine, for example, sells for about $1,000 — at least 10 times the cost of making it.

Within the medical device industry, it has been well chronicled how companies use consulting ties and other financial relationships to try to gain favor with the surgeons using their devices. But critics are especially troubled by the emerging trend in spinal devices, which so far has occurred largely under the radar.

Doctors’ taking significant ownership stakes in spinal parts makers, critics say, provides an extra financial incentive for a doctor to recommend a surgery. It may be one of the most distinct examples yet of the way monetary considerations can play a role in the way doctors practice medicine.

Such doctors face “an awfully pernicious conflict of interest,” said Dr. Richard A. Deyo, a physician and health services professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.

About 30 start-up companies have begun selling spinal devices, including screws, in the last couple of years. And industry experts say about a dozen companies have doctors among their investors. Because most of the companies are private and the relationships are not publicly disclosed, there is no way to know how many spine surgeons around the country are partial owners of device makers.

Typically, patients are not aware of the doctor’s financial interests. One patient who is suing her surgeon for malpractice learned only during the legal discovery process that her surgeon had a financial interest in the maker of the artificial disk he installed in her spine.

Federal regulators have voiced concerns about the growing popularity of the investment arrangements, which would potentially violate antikickback laws if doctors receive stock or are otherwise compensated to use or recommend certain devices.

“This is an area that is new and growing,” Vicki L. Robinson, a senior attorney in the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an interview. In a recent letter to a device industry trade group, Ms. Robinson wrote that the “ventures should be closely scrutinized under the fraud and abuse laws.”

Some spine surgeons are also concerned about whether they and their colleagues should enter into such arrangements. “These are, I believe, unethical and bias the doctors’ choice for what is best for the patient,” said Dr. Charles D. Rosen, a spine surgeon at the University of California at Irvine, who is the president of the newly formed Association of Ethical Spine Surgeons. The group has about 75 members so far, who have agreed not to invest in companies whose devices they use.

But doctors who do sometimes use the products of companies in which they invest say they do not let financial interests influence their medical judgment. Some surgeons and companies say that patients can even benefit because the collaboration means the devices have been better designed to meet their needs.

But industry experts say that that doctors’ financial needs may be also be a big motive.

As surgeon fees have fallen over the years, doctors have been increasingly attracted to other sources of revenue, said Dr. John Cherf, an orthopedic surgeon in Chicago who also advises hospitals about health care trends. That is why many surgeons have invested in specialty hospitals, he said.

And now, devices “are the low-hanging fruit,” he said. “There’s a lot of money in devices.”

One of the fastest growing companies is Allez Spine, of Irvine, Calif. It was founded on a business model that called for the 120 doctors who invested in Allez to serve as “its customer base,” according to a lawsuit filed by a former chief executive last April. Those doctors, who pay $50,000 or more to become investors, own two-thirds of the company, according to legal filings.

Selling the company’s screws to its “investor-doctors” was a way to “generate more profits for the company” according to a related lawsuit involving the former executive.

At one midsize Nevada hospital, a surgeon who performs many spinal fusions is an Allez investor who uses the company’s screws, said an administrator. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the hospital fears alienating its surgeons. While some doctors at the hospital who invested in Allez choose not to use its screws, others seem “financially driven” to select them, he said.

The identities of most of the surgeons who invest in Allez are not publicly disclosed. And the doctors who could be identified and were called for comment did not return repeated telephone calls.

Dr. Edward Geehr, president of Allez Spine, said that many of his surgeon-investors did not use the company’s products, although he declined to say how much of the company’s sales came from surgeons who were not also investors.

The company offers hospitals products at lower prices than the competition, Dr. Geehr said, although he declined to discuss specific pricing.

The spinal device market, which has doubled in the last three years, is particularly attractive to newcomers, said Stan Mendenhall, the editor of Orthopedic Network News, an industry newsletter. Spinal screws are relatively simple to develop and cost only $65 to $100 to make, he said, often by a supplier that handles the production of screws for a variety of companies.

There are about 100 companies in the spinal devices field, and some of the newest and fastest growing have some level of doctor ownership, Mr. Mendenhall said.

Patients who find out about these ties can be upset, as was Patricia Kennedy, whose disk-replacement operation in September 2002 was performed by Dr. Richard A. Balderston, a spine surgeon in Philadelphia.

Ms. Kennedy says the surgery was unsuccessful and made her condition even worse. She is now suing Dr. Balderston for malpractice, and the maker of the artificial disk, Spine Solutions, for product liability.

Ms. Kennedy says she did not fully understand that the disk was experimental. She discovered only later that Dr. Balderston was an investor in a venture capital fund that owned Spine Solutions at the time of the surgery. A lawyer for the company declined to comment.

The company and the doctor “failed to disclose that Dr. Balderston had a significant financial interest in the outcome of the experiment,” according to the lawsuit.

“I’ve really been guinea pigged and betrayed,” Ms. Kennedy said in an interview.

A lawyer from the firm representing Dr. Balderston said the firm had a policy of not commenting on pending litigation. The case is expected to go to trial in March, according to Ms. Kennedy.

Even hospitals where spinal-fusion surgeries are performed may not know when doctors own a piece of a device maker. A few hospitals, though, require the device makers and doctors to tell them about the arrangements.

At Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, Calif., several doctors are investors in Allez, including Dr. William Dobkin, a surgeon at the hospital. He did not return repeated calls for comment.

“We use heavy disclosure practices with our vendors and our physicians to understand these relationships,” said Jennifer Mitzner, the chief financial officer for Hoag.

At the Tenet Healthcare hospital chain, the California hospitals it owns have signed a contract with Allez that calls, among other things, for the doctors to agree to disclose any ownership interests to their patients.

Allez says physicians who invest in the company and use its products in California disclose those ties to patients. “All our relationships are disclosed,” Dr. Geehr said.

Some of the new companies aim to recruit surgeons who perform a high volume of back operations, according to doctors who have been approached. The exact nature of the investment opportunity is left vague in the discussions, the doctors say, with details made available only to those who agree to become investors.

One surgeon described being contacted by Globus Medical, a start-up company in Audubon, Pa. The surgeon said he was not persuaded to use Globus screws and other hardware, despite the sales representative’s mention of the “good opportunities” available if he were to become a large user.

The policies of Globus forbid its representatives from offering stock to reward surgeons who use their products, said Dave Demski, chief financial officer of Globus.

The doctors who do invest, Mr. Demski said, are doing so because they are interested in owning stock in businesses they understand, like Globus. “It’s really based on their enthusiasm for what we’re doing,” he said.

At Alphatec Holdings, a company in Carlsbad, Calif., doctors are shareholders because they have either invested directly or are paid in stock for consulting, according to filings by Alphatec, which is one of the few publicly held companies among the small start-ups.

The chairman of Alphatec’s scientific advisory board is Dr. Stephen J. Hochschuler, a prominent surgeon who helped start the Texas Back Institute, one of the largest spine clinics in the country.

For his work as an adviser, Dr. Hochschuler received a restricted stock grant that was worth about $640,000 when Alphatec went public in June, according to the company’s public filings. Because the share price has fallen, the grant — which vests over five years — is currently now worth only about $270,000.

Dr. Hochschuler, in a written response to an interview request, said doctors should work closely with device companies like Alphatec. “Surgeon involvement in the development of surgical devices is paramount in the creation of these devices and techniques that allow our patients to return to their lives in a more timely fashion, with less pain,” he wrote.

Dr. Hochschuler’s ties to the company do not influence his choice of devices, he said in a follow-up e-mail message. He said he had used the Alphatec implants “probably less than 5 times so that I thoroughly know and understand the pros and cons.”

An Alphatec spokesman also said physicians played an important role in developing new products. “There is a critical relationship between physicians and engineers at Alphatec,” said the spokesman, David Schull.

Some surgeons who have bought Alphatec stock argue that their holdings are no different than their investments in any other company.

Dr. E. Claiborne Irby Jr., a surgeon in Richmond, Va., who invested in Alphatec before it went public, says he uses its devices, but not exclusively. “I don’t change anything I do because of any kind of investment,” he said.

But federal regulators and law-enforcement officials are on the lookout for surgeons who step over the line.

Doctors “are supposed to make the decision based on the best interest of the patient,” said Peter Winn, a lawyer in the United States attorney’s office in Seattle, who has aired his concerns in a speech to spine surgeons.

To do otherwise, he said in an interview, “is a violation of the ethical rules, and it has been since the time of Hippocrates.”

How The Bacteria In Your Gut Can Make You Fat

Giving more credence to infectobesity, the study of microbes and viruses in your gut that may be responsible for some cases of obesity, a new study confirms the presence of different microbes swimming in the intestines of overweight patients versus their slimmer peers.

Scientists discovered the imbalance after comparing the microbes extracted from the guts of lean and obese mice and 12 humans (seven of whom were obese). The bacteria found in humans centered largely on two groups: Firmicutes that were more plentiful (a 20 percent increase) in obese patients and bacteroidetes (almost 90 percent less) that weren't.

Even more compelling, obese patients lowered the number of firmicules in their guts after following either a low-fat and low-carb diet for 12 months and boosted the amount of bacteroidetes (although these levels never reached the amount of similar microbes found in slimmer patients).

Influencing the bacteria growing in your body for the positive is easy by making better food choices, starting with reducing, with the plan of eliminating, sugars and most grains from your daily diet.

Even more impressive evidence that proves the nutritional cause of many diseases is related to an imbalance of bacteria in your gut, a problem easily rectified by taking a high quality probiotic, Kefir and Saukraut.

New Research on Scoliosis Surgery

Out of the scientific Journal of Pediatric Rehabilitation comes perhaps the most truthful and comprehensive study ever published on the surgical treatment of scoliosis:

"Pediatric scoliosis is associated with signs and symptoms including reduced pulmonary function, increased pain and impaired quality of life, all of which worsen during adulthood, even when the curvature remains stable. In 1941, the American Orthopedic Association reported that for 70% of patients treated surgically, the outcome was fair or poor.... [S]uccessful surgery still does not eliminate spinal curvature and it introduces irreversible complications whose long-term impact is poorly understood. For most patients there is little or no improvement in pulmonary function.... The rib deformity is eliminated only by rib resection which can dramatically on reduce respiratory function even in healthy adolescents. Outcome for pulmonary function and deformity is worse in patients treated surgically before the age of 10 years, despite earlier intervention. Research to develop effective non-surgical methods to prevent progression of mild, reversible spinal curvatures into complex, irreversible spinal deformities is long overdue." [emphasis added]

Impact of spine surgery on signs and symptoms of spinal deformity.
Pediatric Rehabilitation, 2006 Oct-Dec;9(4):318-36
Hawes, M.

Are Your Vitamins Killing You?

Vitamins are organic micronutrients that are required (compared to other nutrients) in small amounts in order to sustain human life. Vitamins (with few exceptions) cannot be manufactured endogenously and must therefore be obtained from supplements or from Foods via the diet.

Are Your Vitamins Killing You?

People in the U. S. are taking billions of dollars worth of isolated or synthetic vitamins with the thought in mind that these are going to keep them healthy when just the exact opposite is probably true.

Broccoli is Broccoli is Broccoli - But is a Vitamin, a Vitamin, a Vitamin?

In today's world you can buy vitamins everywhere. Health food stores, grocery stores, drug stores, convenience stores, truck stops, etc. Millions of people take one or more vitamins daily, and yet over half of the people in the United States are chronically ill. Something must be wrong.

Don't believe the advertisements from all the different companies saying their products are vitamin enriched. These almost always are chemicals and not real vitamins.

How can you tell if a vitamin is organic as opposed to an isolated or synthetic chemical vitamin? If you will look on the label and it tells you how many I.U.'s or how many milligrams of different vitamins there are, you can bet that the vitamins are isolated or chemical.

When you buy organic vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, etc. or plants and herbs such as Green Barley, Bee Pollen, The Thalophyte, etc., it doesn't say how many I.U's or milligrams of this, that, or the other thing these plants contain because they are in their natural whole organic form, in just the right amounts in the way God made your body to use them. Please, if you remember from this information, remember this! We are to get all of our nutrients from organic plant source in its whole natural form, not from some isolated or man-made chemical source.

I firmly believe and have documented evidence to prove that we live longer or die sooner depending on whether we take natural whole organic nutrients OR isolated and synthetic vitamins.

One word of caution -- a natural isolated vitamin may not be any better than a synthetic or man-made chemical vitamin. We are emphasizing whole natural organic complexes, such as a product called DOCTORS TOTAL NUTRITION that is whole natural food and herbs that the body knows exactly what to do with.

Both the recent Finnish studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine and the experiments at the University of California, Berkley, California proved that taking synthetic vitamins is worse than starvation. The synthetic vitamins will kill you quicker.

In the Finnish study, there was a statistically significant loss of protection from lung cancer, stroke, and all other forms of death. So beware of so-called "enriched" bread with synthetic chemical vitamins. In reality, these chemicals should not be called vitamins at all. They are not vitamins and they are not food. This is a part of the deception. The majority of vitamins sold are synthetic, causing sickness and death to unsuspecting people who believe that they are health conscious and doing the right thing.

The synthetic vitamin producers and sellers all claim that synthetic vitamins have the same molecular structure as the Natural whole plant, and are therefore the same or at lease have the same effect. They never tell you that the polarity of the synthetic is opposite to the Natural and has the opposite effect. Synthetic vitamins always refract light, the opposite of the Natural Organic vitamin complexes. This suggests that you do not get protection from synthetic vitamins. In fact, the studies above show an actual loss of protection.

Though synthetic vitamins have the same molecular structure, they are a mirror image of the Natural. A MIRROR IMAGE? This suggests that they are identical in every detail. But a mirror image is the exact opposite of the real thing, in this case Natural organic vitamins.

Try to shake hands with yourself in the mirror. You can't do it. Everything is opposite. Bet you thought a mirror image is an exact duplication. To give you some examples of the synthetic as opposed to the real thing: Ascorbic acid, which most people think is Vitamin C, which it is not, is being called into question. In the past synthetic vitamins C, E, and beta-carotene have failed to reduce cancer rates and have even made some cancers worse. Now the latest study of synthetic vitamin C reports that synthetic vitamin C's ability to protect against cancer and heart disease appears to diminish at high doses and the vitamins might even become harmful.

Similar to published reported in Health Alert, the Study found evidence that vitamin C (ascorbic acid) at doses greater than 500 mg both suppresses and promotes oxidation, the very culprit that anti-oxidants are supposed to be fighting. This study showed that the anti-oxidant function and the pro-oxidant function of ascorbic acid, which is synthetic C, cancel themselves out, thus providing no benefit.

The facts are, synthetic anti-oxidants, including so-called vitamin C, in the form of ascorbic acid, are not Vitamins. Let me repeat! They are not Vitamins. In fact, vitamins are living enzyme complexes that naturally produce biochemical reactions in the human body. Synthetic Vitamins are chemicals that produce drug reactions in the body.

If you doubt what we have been saying, try spending a little time with an endocardiograph. This is a highly sensitive machine that records, amplifies and makes a graph of heart sound. As the heart becomes diseased, the sounds become abnormal. The abnormal sounds clearly depict what areas of the heart are malfunctioning and what nutrients are needed to allow the heart to normalize. The heart is the one organ in your body most responsive to nutritional therapy.

For example,
There is a characteristic sound and graph made by a heart that is in fibrillation. This heart needs the "G" portion of the organic Vitamin B complex. Tachycardia has its own characteristic graph and requires organic Vitamin C. Regurgitation of one or more valves has its graph and requires real Vitamin E. Angina has its graph and requires real selenium-rich Vitamin E. And so on.

When the correct organic nutrients are given to the patient while he or she is on the endocardiograph, the heart sound and graph start to normalize within 15 minutes. One thing is certain - take all the synthetic vitamins A, B, C, E, etc., in the world; take them over and over again. They can be the very nutrients your doctor tells you are "just exactly the same as organic, natural, real vitamins". But they are simply mirror-image chemicals and not nutritional complexes. They never reverse the abnormal heart graph whereas real nutrition does it on a regular basis. What more proof is needed that these chemicals are "just exactly not the same as real vitamins".

The latest studies show the failure of high dose synthetic vitamins and anti-oxidants. The ones that work are those made from herbs and food that are truly nutritional complexes based around enzyme actions.

God created a perfect body that can only be sustained by perfect foods that God also created. Anyone who desires good health must have proper nutrition every day or good health is not going to happen.

Low - Carb Diet Doesn't Raise Heart Risk

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 9, 2006
Eating a low-carb, high-fat diet for years doesn't raise the risk of heart disease, a long-term study suggests, easing fears that the popular Atkins diet and similar regimens might set people up for eventual heart attacks.

The study of thousands of women over two decades found that those who got lots of their carbohydrates from refined sugars and highly processed foods nearly doubled their risk of heart disease.

At the same time, those who ate a low-carb diet but got more of their protein and fat from vegetables rather than animal sources cut their heart disease risk by 30 percent on average, compared with those who ate more animal fats.

The findings came from researchers at Harvard University's schools of medicine and public health who reviewed records of 82,802 women in the ongoing Nurses' Health Study over 20 years. The women were not dieting to lose weight. In fact, on average they were slightly overweight and increased their body-mass index roughly 10 percent during the study.

Conventional wisdom says risk of heart disease should increase for those eating the lowest-carb, highest-fat diet, said lead author Thomas Halton.

''It didn't, which was a little eye-opening,'' he said.

Halton said that may be because the women eating the fewest carbs were compared directly to the group eating the highest-carb, lowest-fat diet.

''Neither diet is ideal,'' he said. ''You need to take the best of both.''

The findings, reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, came from an analysis of food questionnaires the nurses filled out every two to four years starting in 1980. The nurses also reported their use of aspirin, vitamins and hormones for menopause symptoms, and on any history of smoking and heart problems.

The researchers calculated the percentage of calories coming from carbohydrates and animal and vegetable fats and proteins, then divided the nurses into 10 groups, from the lowest to the highest calorie percentage from carbs.

The lowest-carb group ate carbohydrate amounts similar to the maintenance program of the Atkins diet, less extreme than the early phase of the diet, said dietitian Geri Brewster, former nutrition director at the Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine in Manhattan.

Still, she said most women in this study ate fewer carbohydrates than traditional diets recommend. While she thinks the Atkins diet allows too much animal fat, Brewster said reducing carbohydrates works because it forces the body to convert stored fat into an energy source and can curb appetite.

American Dietetic Association spokeswoman Susan Moores, a dietitian in St. Paul, Minn., said that because the study only included women, many going through menopause and taking hormones, it is unclear how it applies to men.

For Moores, the key finding was that women reduced heart disease risk by eating more protein and fat from vegetable sources.

''That was the biggest, ''Aha!''' she said.

Dr. Robert Eckel, immediate past president of the American Heart Association, said the study was well done, but noted that the nurses' recall of what they ate likely isn't perfect.

Eckel, an endocrinologist at University of Colorado School of Medicine, said many studies have shown heart disease risk is cut by eating less fat and more whole grains, fresh fruit and vegetables -- the approach of the government's food pyramid. He said medical guidelines won't be changed by the new study, although it raises questions about the role of refined sugar.