WRITTEN BY MICHAEL TENNANT |
THURSDAY, 21 JULY 2011 10:10 |
![]() MEDICINE CABINET LATELY?
According to the Food and Drug Administration, that is precisely where you should find them. Because Diamond Foods made truthful claims about the health benefits of consuming walnuts that the FDA didn’t approve, it sent the company a letter declaring, “Your walnut products are drugs” — and “new drugs” at that — and, therefore, “they may not legally be marketed … in the United States without an approved new drug application.” The agency even threatened Diamond with “seizure” if it failed to comply.
Diamond’s transgression was to make “financial investments to educate the public and supply them with walnuts,” as William Faloon of Life Extension magazine put it. On its website and packaging, the company stated that the omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts have been shown to have certain health benefits, including reduced risk of heart disease and some types of cancer. These claims, Faloon notes, are well supported by scientific research: “Life Extension has published 57 articles that describe the health benefits of walnuts”; and “The US National Library of Medicine database contains no fewer than 35 peer-reviewed published papers supporting a claim that ingesting walnuts improves vascular health and may reduce heart attack risk.” This evidence was apparently not good enough for the FDA, which told Diamond that its walnuts were “misbranded” because the “product bears health claims that are not authorized by the FDA.” The FDA’s letter continues: “We have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease.” Furthermore, the products are also “misbranded” because they “are offered for conditions that are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals who are not medical practitioners; therefore, adequate directions for use cannot be written so that a layperson can use these drugs safely for their intended purposes.” Who knew you had to have directions to eat walnuts? “The FDA’s language,” Faloon writes, “resembles that of an out-of-control police state where tyranny [reigns] over rationality.” He adds: This kind of bureaucratic tyranny sends a strong signal to the food industry not to innovate in a way that informs the public about foods that protect against disease. While consumers increasingly reach for healthier dietary choices, the federal government wants to deny food companies the ability to convey findings from scientific studies about their products. Walnuts aren’t the only food whose health benefits the FDA has tried to suppress. Producers of pomegranate juice and green tea, among others, have felt the bureaucrats’ wrath whenever they have suggested that their products are good for people. Meanwhile, Faloon points out, foods that have little to no redeeming value are advertised endlessly, often with dubious health claims attached. For example, Frito-Lay is permitted to make all kinds of claims about its fat-laden, fried products, including that Lay’s potato chips are “heart healthy.” Faloon concludes that “the FDA obviously does not want the public to discover that they can reduce their risk of age-related disease by consuming healthy foods. They prefer consumers only learn about mass-marketed garbage foods that shorten life span by increasing degenerative disease risk.” Faloon thinks he knows why this is the case. First, by stifling competition from makers of more healthful alternatives, junk food manufacturers, who he says “heavily lobb[y]” the federal government for favorable treatment, will rake in ever greater profits. Second, by making it less likely that Americans will consume healthful foods, big pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers stand to gain by selling more “expensive cardiac drugs, stents, and coronary bypass procedures” to those made ill by their diets. But people are starting to fight back against the FDA’s tactics. “The makers of pomegranate juice, for example, have sued the FTC for censoring their First Amendment right to communicate scientific information to the public,” Faloon reports. Congress is also getting into the act with a bill, the Free Speech About Science Act (H.R. 1364), that, Faloon writes, “protects basic free speech rights, ends censorship of science, and enables the natural health products community to share peer-reviewed scientific findings with the public.” Of course, if the Constitution were being followed as intended, none of this would be necessary. The FDA would not exist; but if it did, as a creation of Congress it would have no power to censor any speech whatsoever. If companies are making false claims about their products, the market will quickly punish them for it, and genuine fraud can be handled through the courts. In the absence of a government agency supposedly guaranteeing the safety of their food and drugs and the truthfulness of producers’ claims, consumers would become more discerning, as indeed they already are becoming despite the FDA’s attempts to prevent the dissemination of scientific research. Besides, as Faloon observed, “If anyone still thinks that federal agencies like the FDA protect the public, this proclamation that healthy foods are illegal drugs exposes the government’s sordid charade.” Well, there you have it! Here’s to your health!
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Monthly Archives: July 2011
Cellular Vitality
Your body is only as healthy and energetic as its cells. Feed them well and feel your best ever.
This article is of paramount importance to your health. I encourage you to receive the product information included here with an open mind and with disengaged “spam filters.” I use the highest grade of wholefood supplements and herbs in my professional coaching service. What I offer here is primarily intended to benefit the health of my blog readers. I am most thankful for the honest income I receive from any sales, but not as much as for the grateful response I receive form clients who benefit from the supplements I recommend and they are compliant in taking as recommended. Their price merely reflects their benchmark quality and unwavering effectiveness.
That said . . . it is not very often that a nutritional product comes on board that simply supports the health and vitality of the basic unit of our physical anatomy — the cell. We’ve just finished a series of articles detailing the amazing micro-machinery and micro-chemistry of the human cell. (Click on picture to enlarge it). If you are just coming online with my blog, you’ll want to visit these articles in the archives and be entertained while learning about the intricate and incredible life of your body’s cells.
Must-see video clips: Click here for a 3-minute ABC special report on the inner life of the cell. For a full 8-minute show with music click here. And don’t miss viewing David Bolinsky’s 10-minute Fantastic Voyage Inside the Cell. It is very well done and quite entertaining.
Cellular Vitality is the name of a gluten-free wholefood supplement made by Standard Process Labs. It is a complex, synergistic blend of B vitamins, bromelain, mushroom, berry seeds, CoQ10, ginseng, and ribonucleic acid (RNA). These ingredients offer the opportunity to support the body as a whole, with emphasis on our cellular processes specifically. ($40/90 caps)
Cellular Vitality contains:
- American ginseng, which acts as a body tonic for the byproducts of stress
- B vitamins, to fuel cells and participate in numerous body processes that contribute to normal function
- Berry seeds, which contain phytochemicals, like anthocyanidins and tannins, that aid cells during the normal wear and tear of everyday function
- Bromelain, an enzyme complex from pineapple stems and juice that modulates the body’s natural inflammatory response when taken between meals
- Coenzyme Q10, an enzyme that is essential for creation of energy within the mitochondria of cells, and that helps protect cells from free radicals
- Cordyceps sinensis, a mushroom powder long prized in Traditional Chinese Medicine with a variety of bioactive compounds that contribute to fatigue management and blood sugar support
- Ribonucleic acid (RNA), compounds that can be broken apart as cells to create energy or manufacture protein†
- Proprietary Blend: 1,240 mg Multi-fruit Seed Powder [Ruby grape seed, blueberry seed, cranberry seed, red raspberry seed, black raspberry seed, and pomegranate seed], ribonucleic acid, mushroom powder (Cordyceps sinensis), bromelain, and American ginseng (root)
- Other Ingredients: Quinoa sprouts, cellulose, maltodextrin, and calcium stearate.
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a story unto itself. Let me tell you about the benefits of this vitally essential molecule. RNA is the memory chip in the brain . . . literally. It is generated in the brain when there is interest. It actually records the information, like the tape in a tape recorder or a silicon chip in a computer, and files it away for future recall. If there is no interest in what is being seen or heard, then no RNA is generated . . . and that’s why we don’t remember things we are not interested in; also why we can recall information that piqued our interest. I think that’s amazing. Any wonder why a elderly person who has lost interest in life itself experiences a decline in memory? If we don’t use it we lose it, and there’s a biological and biochemical reason for loss of memory that can be addressed . . . with lifestyle changes as well as nutritional supplementation.
RNA serves other purposes in the body, such as in the process of protein synthesis. It conveys the pattern for cellular replication from the DNA. Watch the video clip and be duly impressed by the miracle of life going on inside each of your 100 trillion cells. You’ll want to make sure you are doing all you can to help your cells do their job.
Parkinson’s disease is a sure sign of RNA deficiency. Supplementing with RNA is absolutely vital to address this neurotransmitter disorder, which is simply a symptom of inadequate brain-cell regeneration. We now know that brain cells do regenerate themselves. They just take longer to do so than other body cells.
In the video clip you saw a computer model of how protein is manufactured in every cell. Protein is the building block of every tissue in your body. Now you can appreciate how vital it is to keep your cells healthy and happy. Cellular Vitality will help you nourish your body cells so they can continue into your elder years to provide you with the protein building blocks to sustain tissue regeneration and the energy to get up each morning and engage life to the fullest.
A word about proteins. As you saw in the video clip, these building blocks of the cells and tissues of the body are assembled within the cells by their micro-machinery. Each protein molecule is composed of what are called “amino acids.” These are the pieces that make up proteins. Now, they are already assembled to make up animal proteins that we take into our bodies when we consume meat. Therefore, they have to be dis-assembled in the digestive tract before they can be taken up into the blood stream and used by the cells to re-assemble them into protein strands for our bodies. Hydrochloric acid is what the stomach parietal cells secrete to break down meat tissue.
That takes work and energy, which is part of the reason why we feel sleepy after eating a meal containing animal protein, especially beef. It takes a lot of energy, for instance, just to make 2.5 pH hydrochloric acid from near neutral to slightly alkaline body fluids. And you don’t want to dilute those stomach digestive acids by eating or drinking sweets with your meat meals. Simply drink water, preferably at room temperature and with a squeeze of lemon. Lighter proteins, such as fish, eggs, and dairy are more easily broken down.
Now, don’t over heat proteins, such as eggs, as heat toughens proteins. Soft-boiled, poached or scrambled lightly in a little olive oil and butter is a healthful way to prepare eggs. If you like fried eggs, try over-easy or over-medium in a little olive oil and butter. I mix a little butter in my olive oil to facilitate fat metabolism . . . and, of course, butter adds flavor!!! You haven’t had great scrambled eggs until you’ve scrambled them in a generous amount of real butter . . . not margarine. Stay away from margarine which is hydroginated vegetable oil and therefore rancid. Rancid oils, such as in stale nuts and oils exposed to light and air, destroy tissue cells upon contact. Not good! Better for your health to just toss them out and use fresh nuts and non-hydroginated oils.
We really should never cook meat in a microwave as it alters the molecular proteins in the meat. Microwaving is okay for warming but not for cooking foods, as it takes only a few seconds to heat up most foods in a microwave oven.
About olive oil: I read recently that Pure Olive Oil has a longer shelf life than Virgin or Extra-virgin. It’s best for cooking as it doesn’t have as much of the raw materials that can easily oxidize as are in less-processed oils. Virgin and extra virgin oils are more fragile and need to be kept in dark, air-tight containers. It’s best to purchase them in smaller bottles even though you’ll pay more. Think of your health first. You don’t want to slaughter those precious little cells that are hard at work keeping you healthfully in form.
Now, in vegetables and legumes, amino acids are not so tightly assembled and are therefore more readily available to protein manufacturing in our body’s cells. Supplementing amino acids in your diet is also a viable option. Protefood by Standard Process ($27/90 caps) would be a smart choice, as it contains all of the amino acids required to build protein. It’s my product of choice for clients with hypoglycemia as it checks sugar craving and supports the adrenal glands.
Fresh nuts, especially almonds, are a great source of amino acids. Soak the almonds overnight in water to soften them and to activate their natural enzymes for easier digestion and assimilation. Always chew nuts thoroughly to break down the meat and to mix in the digestive enzyme Pepsin, which activates hydrochloric acid in the stomach for protein digestion.
“Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink!”
Let us not leave this consideration of the health and vitality of the cell without mentioning water. Cells need water, both inside and outside. They need pure, clean water that is easily consumed. Acidity and toxins in tissue fluids around the cells cause them to close their intake pores and eventually die from thirst and starvation. Poor quality of water can lead to fluid retention as the body attempts to dilute the acid with more water.
AC Carbamide is a wonderful product which Dr. Royal Lee, founder of Standard Process Labs in Palmyra, Wisconsin, formulated. It actually neutralizes uric acid in the body fluids and joints and makes the cells more permeable to the flow of water in and out of the tissues. I highly recommend it, especially for problems with gouty arthritis and fluid retention. And with CoQ10 for kidney and heart energy, you have a couple of team players working for you. AC Carbamide is a great anti-inflammatory as it addresses a common cause of inflammation: acidity of body fluids. ($18/90 caps)
Add 2 ounces of ASEA to your daily regimen and you have a comprehensive program for cell health and vitality. Cells are happiest when they are able to communicate with the rest of the body. Redox signaling molecules, now available in supplement form with ASEA, assures inter-cellular communication.
Well, that will do it for this post. Plenty here to ingest and process (pun intended). I trust this article proves helpful to you in your health and wellness care. Until my next post, then . . .
My best to your health and healing,
Dr. Tony Palombo
For more detailed information on products mentioned in my blogs, Google Standard Process or click here.
To order products and for information about dosages, simply drop me an email at tpal70@gmail.com, or call me at 337-802-5510.
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