Category Archives: Lifestyle

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Food Our Medicine — Medicine Our Food

As to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least, to do no harm.

As to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least, to do no harm.

Greek Physician, Scientist and the Father of Medicine wrote these profound words of wisdom that really were meant to steer medicine in a more natural direction. 

Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick, is to feed your sickness.  — Hippocrates (460 BC – 377 BC)

I lifted the following article with picture from a post by Veganism on Face Book.  Lots of good information here. Enjoy!

Food as MedicineFood is medicine and organic fruits and vegetables take center stage in achieving ultimate health and longevity. Morally and ethically, what is on the end of your fork clearly defines your approach to compassion, your environment, your health and well being. The following foods are valuable in sustaining your health, embracing life and avoiding surgeries, prescription drugs and the inevitable .

BLUEBERRIES POWERFUL ANTIOXIDANTS

The dye that is released from the blueberries’ skin may well be the most valuable nutrient the fruit has to offer. The pigments in blueberries and also in red crops such as cherries, plums, and red cabbage are powerful antioxidants. They have been determined to be a much-heralded chemical warrior against heart disease and also cancer. Blueberries actually have the highest antioxidant capacity because of their large anthocyanin concentration.

Antioxidants in our food can save us from virtually everything. Most of our health misfortunes are due to the perversity of oxygen. Our cells are perpetually besieged by toxic forms of oxygen which have been proved to have fierce destructive powers. So far scientists have linked destructive oxygen reactions to at least sixty different chronic diseases, as well as to aging itself. Oxygen free radicals can attack DNA, the genetic material of cells, causing them to mutate, which is a step on the path to cancer.

RED CABBAGE A POWERFUL DETOX FOOD

Red cabbage is a good source of phytonutrients that help to detoxify pollutants and other carcinogens that most people are exposed to on a daily basis. Like other cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, it’s high in glucosinolates, compounds which are metabolized by the body to form powerful cancer fighting chemicals known as isothiocyanates. Isothiocyanates activate the liver enzymes that break down carcinogens, allowing them to be safely eliminated from the body. People who consume high quantities of cruciferous vegetables have been shown to have a lower risk of certain types of cancer. Red cabbage is also a good source of indoles, compounds that may reduce the risk of breast cancer by altering estrogen metabolism.

RED BEETS HAVE ANTI-CARCINOGENS

Red Beet is unique for its high levels of anti-carcinogens and its very high carotenoid content. Red beets are high in carbohydrates and low in fat and it is an excellent source of folic acid. It is loaded with antioxidant that helps the body against heart disease, certain cancer especially colon cancer and even birth defects. Betacyanin is the pigment that gives beets their red color; this pigment is absorbed into the blood corpuscles and can increase the oxygen-carrying ability of the blood by up to 400 per cent. Don’t throw away the green leafy tops as they can be cooked like spinach and are also rich in beta-carotene, folic acid, chlorophyll, potassium, vitamin C, and iron.

BEET ROOT FOR LEUKEMIA

Beet root is a traditional treatment used for leukemia. Beet root contain an amino acid betaine which has an anti cancer properties. Red beet therapy, consisting of consumption of approximately two pounds of raw, mashed beets daily, has been favorably reported for cases of leukemia and tumors (includes cancer). Research also shows that beet juice can help inhibit the development of colon and stomach cancer. It is believed that red beets when eaten regularly may help against certain oxidative stress-related disorders. The fiber in red beets helps reduce serum cholesterol by 30 to 40%.Beets can help in normalizing blood pressure.

BEETS FOR HEALTHY ARTERIES AND VEINS

Beets helps to keep the elasticity of arteries, when consumed regularly it can help prevent varicose veins. The iron content of red beets, though not high but is of the finest quality that makes it a powerful cleanser and builder of blood. This is the reason why beets is very effective in treating many ailments caused by toxic environment and surrounding.

BEETS HAVE FOLIC ACID NEEDED IN PREGNANCY

Beet root is recommended for pregnant women because it contains folic acid that can help lower the risk of spinabifida and other neural tube defects in newborn infants.Beet juice helps stimulate the function of liver cells and protect the liver and bile ducts. Beet juice is highly alkaline which makes it effective in the treatment of acidosis. Drinking beets regularly can help relieve constipation. Beet juice and carrot juice when combined is excellent in the healing gout, kidney and gall bladder problem. You can tell that I love beets, I eat and juice at least six beets and the tops everyday religiously. One of my nicknames at the health food store that I frequent is “beet-man.”

CRUCIFEROUS VEGETABLES DETOXIFY THE LIVER

Vegetables that are members of the cruciferous, or cabbage, family not only contain fiber and many vitamins and minerals (including antioxidants) that promote optimal health, they also contain sulforaphane and indole-3-carbinol. These phytonutrients have been shown to stimulate enzymes in the body that help the liver remove carcinogens (and other toxic chemicals) and deactivate a powerful estrogen metabolite that promotes tumor growth.

STOP TUMOR GROWTH IN THE BREAST — ANTI-CANCER FOOD

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, various components in cruciferous vegetables have been shown to stop tumor growth in the breast, uterine lining, cervix, colon, lung, and liver and according to studies monitoring diets, eating calciferous vegetables can lower ones risk of getting prostate cancer. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, mustard greens, radishes and mustard greens.

KALE FOR THE EYES

Kale is absolutely rich and abundant in calcium, lutein, iron, and Vitamins A, C, and K. Kale has seven times the beta-carotene of broccoli and ten times more lutein. Kale is rich in Vitamin C not to mention the much needed fiber so lacking in the daily diet of processed food eating Americans. The “Icing on the Kale” are the naturally occurring all important phytochemicals sulforaphane and indoles which research suggests may protect against cancer. Let’s not forget the all important antioxidant Vitamin E. Rest assured kale spares nothing in providing one with much needed nutrients and associated health benefits. The naturally rich sulfur content of kale deserves a bit more discussion.

Science has discovered that sulforaphane, helps boost the body’s detoxification enzymes, possibly by altering gene expression. This is turn is purported to help clear carcinogenic substances in a timely manner. Sulforaphane is formed when cruciferous vegetables like kale are chopped or chewed. This somehow triggers the liver to produce enzymes that detoxify cancer causing chemicals, of which we all are exposed on daily basis. A recently new study in the Journal of Nutrition (2004) demonstrates that sulforaphane helps stop breast cancer cell proliferation.

BEANS ARE COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES

Beans are an often-overlooked source of incredible health benefits. – They have a lot of carbs, leading people to believe they should be avoided and seen as a weight gain risk only. Nothing could be farther from the truth though, as research has shown that the carbohydrates found in most beans are of the complex variety.

Complex carbohydrates are not contributors to any sort of weight gain, instead providing the brain and muscles with a lot of good, stable energy supplies. Beans actually contain a wider variety of healthy nutrients than most foods. These include calcium, potassium, vitamin B6, magnesium, folate, and alpha-linolenic acid. These nutrients work together on several key areas of the body promoting total health.

SOURCE OF COMPLETE PROTEINS

Beans also happen to be good sources of complete proteins, which is rare in plants. Plants, while having many different nutrients, often lack complete proteins of any kind. This is unfortunate, as protein is a vital ingredient to the healthy and normal functioning of the human body, and the most readily available sources of protein have negative effects on the heart. Beans, however, are plentiful in protein. Most of the commotion that beans are generating in the scientific community has to do with the fact that they are showing to provide protection from many of the most feared and lethal diseases plaguing Americans today.

Studies done in universities have shown that eating beans on a regular basis reduces a person’s risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and obesity. Sometimes the reduction in risk is substantial. The risk for heart disease, for example, may be reduced by as much as 22%. Beans help to curb hunger, and offer the body valuable sources of ready energy that it can burn quickly and effectively. Because of this, beans boost energy levels, and as a result, promote weight loss.

POWERFUL LITTLE FOOD

Beans are powerful little foods that have been ignored for far too long. Associated with Carbohydrates and gas, current studies have done a wonderful job of increasing our understanding of this plentiful food and revealed it to be packed with important nutrition. The benefits that can be attained from eating beans are as varied as all of the nutrients they contain, but what is important is that many of these benefits help to protect people from some of the most feared illnesses of our times. i eat beans regularly, both sprouted and cooked. I only buy organic beans in bulk and the ones that I fine the most nutritional is adzuki, mung and garbanzo.

WHOLE GRAINS PROVIDE UNIQUE ANTIOXIDANTS

Whole grains offer vitamins and minerals, plus high levels of antioxidants and other healthy plant-based nutrients. Whole grains contain protective antioxidants in amounts near or exceeding those in fruits and vegetables. They also provide some unique antioxidants not found in other foods. Studies have shown that eating more whole grains may help reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes. New studies show that whole grains may lower triglycerides, improve insulin control, help in weight management, and slow the build-up of arterial plaque. Optimal whole grains are hulled barley, wheat berries, buckwheat, rye, spelt, quinoa, black rice and brown rice. Quinoa and buckwheat are actually fruit seeds but look like grains so I call them grains. They are powerfully nutritional loaded with protein and calcium among lots of fiber and many other nutrients.

Tony picVisit my HealingTones.org blog for more interesting and extraordinary articles. This issue features: “The Shaman’s Gift of Healing.”

Here’s to your health and healing,

Anthony Palombo, DC, ACN

Picture of Hyppocrates by Shakko.

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Alzheimer’s: Type 3 Diabetes?

Tony's picture 2 from PeggyYou may be watching your waistline, or perhaps thinking about your blood sugar level, while eating that piece of cake or pie. But it’s your brain you might best be thinking about.  

Here’s a very informative article by Chris D. Meletis, N.D. I’ve excerpted from the May 2013 issue of Whole Health Insider:

Alzheimer’s: Type 3 Diabetes?

. . . Researchers are establishing a strong link between blood sugar and brain health to the point where they’re calling Alzheimer’s disease “type 3 diabetes.” There’s also a link between diabetes and other forms of memory problems, including vascular dementia and mild cognitive impairment.

Studies consistently show a two to 3.4-fold increased risk of vascular dementia and a 1.8 to two-fold increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease in older people with diabetes.  Many studies also show that you’re 1.5 times more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment — a condition known as predementia – if you have diabetes.

Diabetes is thought to account for six to eight percent of all cases of dementia in older people. Additionally, people who have diabetes are 50 to 75 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease, and people with Alzheimer’s disease have a higher than normal tendency to develop type 2 diabetes or impaired fasting glucose.

Scientists looked at 15 studies that investigated the link between type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Fourteen of those studies found that the two conditions were related, and in nine of those studies, the link between the two conditions was statistically significant. Smoking and hypertension — when they existed along with diabetes — increased the risk of Alzheimer’s even more.

As fascinating as these statistics are, what’s really eye-opening is the many reasons why impaired blood sugar is so damaging to your brain.

This Is Your Brain on Sugar

When researchers first began to suspect there was a link between diabetes and Alzheimer’s, they wanted to know why this connection existed. Their search led them to two peptides — chains of amino acids that form proteins.

One type of peptide, known as amyloid beta, is found in Alzheimer plaques in neurons of the brain — and in the pancreas of diabetic patients. The other peptide, amylin, is found in both the pancreas and the brains.

In one study, researchers found that same hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease — amyloid beta — in both the brains and the retinas (which is considered an extension of the brain) of diabetic patients. Specifically, the researchers looked at brain-cell-damaging toxins — known as oligomer– produced by amyloid beta. Oligomers are responsible for causing Alzheimer’s-related memory loss.

Insulin plays an important role in the formation of memories. And when oligomers attach to neurons, they knock out the insulin receptors from the neuron’s surfaces, which causes insulin resistance in the brain.

Normally, after eating, an increase in sugar in the bloodstream signals the pancreas to boost levels of insulin, which in turn signals cells to remove sugar from the bloodstream so that the cells can use the sugar for energy. Insulin resistance occurs when cells fail to respond to insulin’s signal to allow glucose into the cells. This causes the pancreas to secrete even more insulin. Over time, the elevated insulin levels aren’t enough to compensate for the higher blood sugars, and the result is high blood sugar or diabetes since glucose can’t get into the cells.

Diabetes causes even more oligomers to build up in the brain and retina, which makes neurons even more insulin resistant. If glucose can’t get into the cells, the brain is starved of the fuel it needs to function. Without glucose, your brain would work about as effectively as your car when it runs out of gas. The brain composes only about two percent of the entire human body mass. Yet, 50 percent of glucose use in the body occurs in the brain. The majority of the brain glucose is converted to ATP energy so that your brain cells can work properly and your memory remains in top shape.

The brain needs a balanced amount of glucose to function effectively. The problem occurs when the body is subjected to too much glucose and other forms of sugar such as sucrose and fructose. Too much of these sugars and it overwhelms your body to the extent that your body keeps producing more and more insulin, which ultimately loses its effectiveness, and results in the insulin resistance mentioned above. This is why, when mice with Alzheimer’s disease are fed excessive quantities of glucose, amyloid beta levels increase.

Tangled Taus

Tau proteins are another culprit to blame for the connection between diabetes and Alzheimer’s. When tau proteins clump together, they form neurofibrillary tangles, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers don’t know for sure whether these tangles actually cause Alzheimer’s, but they definitely play an important role in the development of the disease.

Hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) modifies these tau proteins in the brain in such a way that they begin clumping together, causing them to form neurofibrillary tanqles.”

The Inflammation Link

Inflammation is another link between Alzheimer’s and diabetes. Inflammation triggers the production of amyloid beta and increases the risk of the vascular disease associated with dementia.

Inflammation in the blood vascular system is caused by insulin which erodes the inner wall of the vessels. Cholesterol is sent in from the liver to coat the scratches in the vessels so they don’t leak. This results in atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) that leads to poor circulation and coronary heart disease.

Low-grade, systemic inflammation also is linked to diabetes as well as the cognitive decline that occurs in diabetics. One study reported that higher levels of inflammation markers such as C-reactive protein were associated with lower cognitive performance.

Not the Brain You Were Born With 

Diabetes results in changes to the brain’s structure — including more frequent brain lesions, and wasting away of an important area of the brain — compared to people who don’t have diabetes.

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And it’s not only the structure of the brain that changes during diabetes. The blood-brain barrier becomes more permeable as well.  The blood-brain barrier separates circulating blood from the extracellular fluid of the central nervous system. This is because the brain is very choosy about what it allows inside of it. The blood-brain barrier keeps bacteria and other large molecules that don’t belong from entering the brain while allowing in glucose, hormones and other substances the brain needs to function.

When the blood-brain barrier isn’t working properly, it allows amyloid beta to slip through into the brain. The ability to allow amyloid beta proteins into your brain is controlled, in part, by a receptor for advanced glycation end products — better known as AGEs — which are produced in excess in diabetes and prediabetes.  AGEs form as a result of a protein or fat molecule combining with a sugar molecule.

AGEs are easiest to understand when you think of them in relation to the browning of food. When you toast a slice of bread, the browning of the bread is the result of AGE formation in the food. This same process occurs in your body during blood sugar spikes. The more diabetes or insulin resistance disrupts your blood sugar, the more AGEs that form in your body. And, therefore, the more amyloid beta that can get into your brain and damage your neurons.

Starving the Brain

Some research shows that during diabetes and insulin resistance, the brain is being starved of the insulin it needs to function. Yet, even while high levels of insulin are saturating the body during prediabetes, the brain becomes deficient in insulin because overproduction of this hormone weakens insulin receptors at the blood-brain barrier. This results in reduced amounts of insulin transported to the brain.

This spells disaster for brain function, since insulin enhances memory and learning. Insulin deficiency in the brain also is involved in cerebral vascular dysfunction, inflammation, oxidative stress and the inability of neurons in the brain to repair themselves.

Are Genetics to Blame?

Researchers have discovered a gene that may explain the link between Alzheimer’s and diabetes. They found that the gene, present in many Alzheimer’s disease cases, affects the insulin pathway.

Yet, of the two types of Alzheimer’s disease — type 1 and type 2 — only type 1, which accounts for five to 10 percent of Alzheimer’s cases, is genetic. This type of Alzheimer’s often develops at an earlier age. The rest of the cases, 90 to 95 percent, are type 2 and aren’t connected to genetics.

Interestingly, this sounds a lot like diabetes as well, doesn’t it? Of the two types of diabetes — type 1 and type 2 — type 1 accounts tor five percent of all diabetes cases, with 95 percent of diabetes falling under the type 2 classification.

30-DAY CURE OF TYPE 2 DIABETES

Type 2  “insulin resistance” diabetes can be cured in 30 days simply by abstaining completely from foods that spike insulin — starches and sugars.  These include Irish potatoes (french fries), white and brown rice, pasta, all flour products, such as white bread, biscuits and pastries, and what are now labeled “Gluten Free” products (made from rice flour).  These foods are high on the glycemic index, which mean they spike insulin.

The rationale for this cure is simple.  Since the receptor sites for insulin on the cells are all taken — or else damaged and even destroyed by insulin, leaving no sites for more insulin hormones to “park” and deliver their sugar-fuel to the cells — one needs to use up all the sugar in the loading zones of the cell receptors first before any more sugar can be delivered.  By putting a hold on more insulin production, triggered by starches and sugars, the amount of insulin hormones with their loads of sugar in the blood stream is gradually diminished, giving the cells a chance to repair and replace damaged receptor sites. This takes about 30 days.  After 30 days one can then return to a sensible and moderate consumption of complex (whole-food) starches and sugars.  But one must take care so as not to crowd the receptor sites again with more sugar-bearing insulin than the cells have receptor sites for.

It goes without saying —  but I’ll go ahead and say it — along with the 30-day fast from sugar and starch, daily exercise is essential to the burning of sugar by the cells. Just a 20 to 30 minute brisk walk will do the job.  You have to use up what sugar you already have in the cells and what’s waiting in the blood stream to be delivered before you take in more.  It just makes good sense.

Improve Your Diet, Boost Your Memory

The research linking Alzheimer’s and diabetes means that the key to having a good memory resides in your stomach. Commit to eating a healthy diet free of sugary foods and sodas. Choose whole wheat bread and pasta over white, refined products. Stick with healthy sweeteners such as xylitol and stevia that don’t raise your blood sugar levels.

Honey need not be discounted as it is a great food, especially locally gathered honey that has not been heated to a level that kills the enzymes. Maple syrup is also a good choice and is lower than honey on the glycemic index.

Chromium, cinnamon and Gymnema sylvestre are good choices for supplemental blood-sugar support. An analysis of the medical literature found that chromium reduced glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), which is a measure of blood sugar control, as well as fasting blood glucose levels.” Gymnema sylvestre also reduced HbA1c levels in two small trials, while other studies showed cinnamon improved fasting blood glucose.

In my practice, I often call chromium “will power in a bottle.”  That’s because by balancing blood sugar, it also helps reduce the cravings for sweets that occur when your blood sugar is low.

You’ll want to consider supplementing with 1-6 grams of cinnamon, 600 mcg of  chromium and 200-800 mg of Gymnema sylvestre per day.

Put the above strategies into practice and you’ll not only reap all the rewards of having balanced blood sugar-you’ll keep your memory sharp, too.

I use Medi-Herb’s Gymnema in my practice.  It’s from Australia and it’s pure and very powerful.  One a day is usually sufficient to balance blood sugar, whether it’s high or low, and reduce your sugar-craving. You can order it from me by email — ($19/40 tablets, $53/120 tablets.)  I would also recommend CATAPLEX GTF by Standard Process Labs for your Chromium supplementation ($13/90 tabs), along with DIAPLEX ($37/150 caps) to nourish the health of your pancreas and enhance your sugar metabolism.  My email address is tpal70@gmail.com.

Until my next post, here’s to your health and healing,

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for more of Walter Russell’s writings. Current theme is accessing knowledge directly from the Universe and God.

DR. MELETES’ REFERENCES:

1. Samaras K, et al. Ther Adv Endocrinal Metab. 2012
Dec;3(6):189-96.

2. Kfoppenborg R, et aI. Eur J Pharmacol. 2008;585:97-108.

3.Kim B, et at J Alzheimers Dis. 2012 Dec 19. [Epub ahead
of print.]

4. Vagelatos NT, et al. Epidemiol Rev. 2013 Jan 21. [Epub
ahead of print.!

5. http://www.newswise.com/articles/
type-ii-diabetes-and-the-alzheimer-s-connection.

6. Bitel CL, et aI. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. October
2012;32(2):291-305.

7. Fehm HL, et at Prog. Brain Res. 2006;153:129-40.

8. Liu F, et al. Brain. 2009;132:1820-32.

9.  Shah K, et al. Int J Mol Sci. 2012 Oct 3;13(10):12629-55.

10. Takeda S. Nihon Shinkei Seishin Yakurigaku Zasshi. 2012
Nov;32(5-6):239-44.

11. Acharya NK, et aI. J Alzheimers Dis. 2013 Feb 6. [Epub
aIlead 01 print.]

12. Kuwahara H. et al. Brain Nerve. 2013 Feb:65(2):145-51.

13. Ewald CY. et al. Genetics. June ” 2012;191(2):493-507.

14. Nahas R. Canadian Family Physician. June
2009:55(6):591-6.

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The Alternative to Drugs: Heal your Dis-ease

I turned 72 this weekend and don’t feel a day over 40.  Can’t do what I used to be able to do when I was 40.  But I can now do what I didn’t take time to do then, like read books and take long walks and afternoon naps . . . and write blogs.  I trust you will be moved to do something positive for your health reading this one.   

We’ve been focusing on changing consciousness as an alternative to drugs.  Drugs, of course, do not lead one on a path to health.  They simply mask the symptoms of disease until you remiss or else die.  The alternative to disease is health and vitality —  of body, mind, and spirit.  The word “health” means whole, and the word vitality means alive (vita is Latin for life).  To heal, then, means to make whole and vital —  or, as the English would say,  “hale and hardy.”  

The alternative to drugs is simply to heal the dis-ease that makes the medicine necessary. Make whole that part of yourself that is not at ease.  If it isn’t at ease, you can ask why?  That’s right, go ahead and ask your body why one of its parts is ill at ease. Then be quiet and listen for the answer.  It will come.  Your body knows everything about itself, and it cannot tell a lie.  But you need to be willing and prepared to hear the answer.  

My experience with most is they are not willing to accept an answer that requires them to make changes in their lifestyle, or take steps outside of their comfort zone.  People come to me for a fix — a more natural one than drugs, but nevertheless a fix.  They have been programmed by medicine to believe there is a magic pill for every ill, and they transfer that programming over to alternative health care only to discover that more than one nutrient or herbal pill is needed to reverse the dis-ease process. 

The problem with that kind of programming is that it’s a lie.  There’s not a pill for every ill, as one pill usually leads to another, and another.  There is a pill for every symptom, but not to cure every illness.  The only cure there is comes not from anything outside of ourselves but from within.  Heath begins within, as does dis-ease.  How healthy are YOU inside?  

Oh yes, I know there are external factors, such as air pollution and toxic chemicals in our water and food, that are constantly assaulting our immune system and polluting our blood stream.  And we don’t have organic produce in the grocery stores, and if we do it doesn’t look very fresh and is terribly overpriced.  Unless, of course, you live in a city with a Whole Foods market or have a backyard garden or farmer’s market in your town.  Then you have no excuse.

But health is not only about what you eat, drink and breathe.  Health is more about how your body handles what you eat, drink and breathe.  A healthy body handles it well, or at least okay, with a little support.  An unhealthy body doesn’t do so well and needs a lot of support — or more like propping up so it doesn’t fall over. 

You see, health is homeostasis.  Homeostasis is balance — balance between the chemicals in your body, and balance between you and your environment.  Have you ever walked a tight rope or a brick wall where you had to keep your balance by extending your arms?  It’s work, isn’t it?  It’s the same with health maintenance.  It’s work, especially if you’re starting from illness and working toward a cure and health.  You first have to establish balance right where you are, which is the only starting point. Health starts to kick in the moment you start balancing your lifestyle.  One has to get up out of sickbay, for example, take up one’s bed, and walk for a cure.  

That can be taken literally or metaphorically.  One’s “bed” can be one’s state of consciousness and/or one’s circumstance in life one is laying around in waiting for someone or somethings to come along and make things better, like in the Biblical story of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda who had been waiting some thirty-eight years for someone to lower him down into the pool as soon as the angel troubled the water.  The Master Jesus simply told him to change his consciousness and just get up and walk.  

A comic strip from Mad Magazine my son sent me some years back comes to mind.  It depicts a crowd of cripples waiting to cross a busy street in Lourdes on their way from a dip in the healing waters.  The pedestrian traffic light suddenly flashes “WALK” and everyone throws down their crutches and walks across the street shouting for joy.  But that’s about consciousness, isn’t it?   

So let’s talk about your state of consciousness first.  That’s about perspective and belief, how you view yourself, your world and life in general, along with what you believe to be true and false, good and bad, possible and impossible.  Do you believe more in disease and death than in health and life?  Is death more certain to you than life? They say there are only two things certain in life: death and taxes.  Do you believe that you and everyone else will one day die?  In your view, is disease and death inevitable?  If so, then that will be your experience.  But I tell you that death is not natural and was never intended to be part of life in the beginning when the perfect design for man and woman was made manifest in the flesh.  

What about yourself?  Do you believe you are mortal, imperfect, weak and “only human” and therefore prone to mistakes and failure?  Do you believe in the “germ theory,” or the “gene theory” that say tiny bacteria outside of you and microscopic molecules inside of you pre-determine your life on earth and stand between you and health and vitality?  Do you believe in your doctor and his medicine?  How do you know that your medicine is nothing more than a sugar pill.  

 (Now, don’t be suspicious of or mistrusting in your doctor, because sugar pills are proving to be as effective, if not more effective, than the drugs being tested, an unexpected – and unwelcome – outcome that has thrown a monkey wrench into pharmaceutical labs everywhere.  The moral in this story is: BELIEVE in your doctor and his medicine because it’s your belief that will heal your dis-ease and not the drug or the sugar pill . . . and when you wake up to that reality, you will know the truth, and you will no longer need your belief, because you will be free! Free of your limiting belief, for one thing, that a pill has the power to heal your body. You learn to believe in yourself and your body’s healing capacity.  To believe means to be willing.)

Good stuff, isn’t it? The human race is waking up to how things really work.  We are more powerful in determining our health than the most powerful “wonder drugs” when we see how easily they can be out-performed by a harmless sugar pill . . . or by something as elusive as one’s belief.  Does that not give you pause . . . and cause to change your consciousness?

Now, let’s take your circumstance.  Does your circumstance loom large and insurmountable?  Are you afraid of your environment?  By your perception, is the world a dangerous place to live?  Are you afraid your body will fail you in some way and that your health is a gamble?  Are you comfortable in your own skin or do you wish you were in some else’s skin and circumstance?  Do your finances dominate your life?  Does the economy determine your sense of security?  Do you fear that you, or we, will run out of money, or food, or water?  Are you afraid of losing your job or your home?  That’s a tough one to handle.  Fear of losing your health is another.   Fear, period, is a tough feeling to overcome, because it’s so self-defeating.  It can keep one from standing up for fear of falling back down.  Are you afraid of letting go of drugs?  Are you living in a survival mode all the time?  Does your life and well-being depend on your environment?

These are all questions that reveal us to ourselves, speak to our sense of self, make us look at how dependent we are on others and on our circumstances for our very survival. Only the fittest survive this world, and then only for a season.  Who does survive is the one who creates his or her world and takes full responsibility for it.  Are you a creator or a  creature?   Creatures come and go.  Creators are never born and never die.  We spend eternity creating worlds in which to live and enjoy caring for them.  Which are you?

You can see how much our perceptions and beliefs can determine our health and the quality of our lives.  That is, if we allow them to control.  We can change our consciousness and gain new perspectives that will allow us to see beyond our beliefs to possibilities of a life without fear and lack, without beliefs altogether, a life that is free of beliefs because we know the truth.  And the truth is, you are immortal.  No, not your human body and ego.  They are currently mortal . . . but they are not who you ARE.   YOU are an immortal being who will never die and cannot ever be sick.  YOU are rich with abundance.  YOU determine your life experience because YOU create it, moment by moment and day by day.  No, not your human ego, although it has played a manipulative role in fabricating a lifestyle of its own to make it feel secure, comfortable and important, but YOU, nameless and formless YOU, the only One who is capable of rising, taking up your bed, and walking.

How much impact do you think this level and quality of conscious thinking will have on your health and on your life?  Unless we start thinking in our hearts about living immortal lives here on earth we will never find out.  We do know how our past and present thinking impacts our health and our lives now.  Why not think the unthinkable, the “impossible,” and make it believable and possible, if not for ourselves then for our children and our children’s children.  The shift starts in consciousness . . . my consciousness. 

YOU are the cure of your’s body’s and mind’s dis-ease.  And when you heal the gap in your consciousness of separation between immortal YOU and your mortal capacity that allows you to live and function on the material plane of this planet, this universe, you heal your one and only dis-ease, the dis-ease of not knowing who you are and living a life of disconnection from Source, from God, or by whatever name you want to call the Giver of Life.  

That which separates also connects.  The moment you remember who you really and truly are, YOU are healed.  You heal the connection between your inner Self and your outer self. You are now whole.  From then on it’s just a matter of keeping your balance between the two worlds: the invisible world of spirit and the visible world of form.   In that state of balance you gain a new perspective that lets you see they are actually one.  Health is living in the place of oneness of heaven and earth.  From heaven, you see a world of abundance in the earth.  Nothing is impossible.  Or, to put it in a more positive light, all things you set your heart on are possible.  For, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. 

Want to lose weight?  Think it in your heart.  Want to heal your dis-ease?  Think it in your heart.  Want to change your lifestyle? Think it in your heart.  Want these things with all of your heart, so much so as to become them.  Otherwise you can’t have them.  They won’t come to you.  You have to love them to draw them to yourself.  And don’t be afraid of loosing your crutch and falling down.  It was said that perfect love casts out fear. You have to love being healthy in order to cure your dis-ease.  And you have to love doing what it takes to get there.  Otherwise, forget about it.  There’s no magic pill for passivity and lethargy.  You have to rise up in yourself, and as your Self, take up your bed, and walk.  Be still and know that you can do it.  

To your health and healing, 

Dr. Tony Palombo


  

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An Alternative to Drugs: A Change in Perception and Consciousness, Part 2

YOU ARE MORE THAN YOUR DISEASE 

Being a holistic physician, I notice how sick people often identify with their disease. They will say “I am an alcoholic” or “I am a diabetic” or “I am a drug addict” or “I am depressed.”  Some even say they are a chocoholic.  But they are none of these things.  They are human beings . . . with some limitations, yes, but they are human beings.  

I no longer wonder because I know first hand how a change in perception of oneself might turn a person around and lead him or her to a permanent “cure” of one’s disease.  One could simply say, for example, “I am a human being and I have a limitation of addiction to alcohol, or drugs, or chocolate.  Or “I have a limitation in processing sugar” in a case of diabetes.  I recall the day I quit smoking many years ago.  While choosing my seat on an airplane, I had to choose between “smoker” and “non-smoker” sections.  The way the question was put was “Are you a smoker or a non-smoker. I chose to be a “non-smoker” and it felt so good changing my “identity” at that level of my addiction to tobacco.  

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS

So, let’s look at how we perceive ourselves.  We can perceive ourselves as one acting or one being acted upon, depending on our state of consciousness and self-awareness.  Since consciousness is where everything first takes place in our lives, even before external events happen, what I perceive myself to be in consciousness, who I imagine myself to be, will determine how I behave in any given external event or circumstance. Some say that external events are not real but are creations of our consciousness.  I believe that external events are real in that they are reflections of our reality, created by us through our capacity of consciousness – one of its many aspects and levels of function being imagination.    

Imagination is at the heart of creation.  Our whole world arises out of our imagination.  We act upon our worlds from out of our imagination, literally where images of things and events we want to create are formed. First there is an image in consciousness, or what is sometimes called “the heaven,” and then a form appears in the earth from out of the mist of imagination. The heaven and the earth are one, and in consciousness is where these two come together and interact, the earth being shaped by the image in the heaven.  Imagination, and ultimately consciousness, can be conditioned by perception, and vice versa. Perception can be “jaded” by imagination.  

For example, I can imagine horrible things are going on, especially when there’s chronic pain in my body or a state of depression in my mind. The big bad “C” is feared by most and held suspect, as is “mental illness,” and if I hold that image of cancer or of mental illness in my consciousness, I am setting myself up for creating that condition in my body-mind out of fear.  Fear has been defined as faith in evil, belief that the worst is going to happen.  So, be careful what you fear as it may well come upon you. Some people have an “evil eye.” They are always looking for what’s wrong, and they’ll usually find it . . . or perhaps create it as “wrong” in their consciousness.

Or, I can imagine wonderful things are going on through a bright and cheerful outlook, and they seemingly appear from out of nowhere.  Some people have a natural knack for always seeing things “on the bright side,” as we say.  It all depends on one’s state of consciousness which conditions perception. In this sense, we do create our world out of our consciousness, and in this sense alone it isn’t real but just the way we’re looking at it. Perhaps accurate is the better word to use.  We rarely see things as they actually are.  Makes one ask, “What’s real anyway?”

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR IDENTITY

We live and function out of an identity, an ego, which is either true or false, authentic or fabricated. We are either a creator, our authentic Self, or a creature, our fabricated self.  We perceive ourselves as acting or as being acted upon, depending on whom we perceive ourselves to be, creators or creatures.  

I believe that all disease, physical, mental and emotional, is a symptom of an identity crisis disrupting the status quo so that a process of transformation can take place. I’ve heard prominent health authors express the same conviction.  (These words are mine.)  

In truth, we are creators, and we create our own reality out of our imagination and consciousness.  You could say that consciousness is where Reality meets and interacts with form in the factual world.  As said earlier, heaven and earth are one in our consciousness . . . or, they are separate, if we want to see them that way.  It depends, again, on our state of consciousness.  And, let’s be honest, all of us have been conditioned to see things as separate entities by the beliefs implanted in our subconscious minds during our so-called “education,” which was actually programming. In this sense, we live in an illusory world where things appear to be separate. In the real world, all things are connected and whole. 

Young children naturally see things as whole and connected.  They see an apple as a delicious fruit before they are taught to spell the word with separate letters, a-p-p-l-e, or dissect it into Vitamins A, B, C, and over a hundred other nutrients vital to our health. They don’t even have a concept of God, the devil, or good and evil. In their fluid state of freedom they are too busy knowing God. To them the world is one beautiful and wonderful place to be and in which to live and play. To them it is all good and whole.

THERE’S ONLY ONE ADDICTION

We are taught to separate things into isolated parts, as though such dissection would lead to understanding.   To use a Biblical reference, we are taught to “eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” to judge what is good and condemn what is “evil.”  Mental judgement is an addiction that is hard for anyone to break who is identified as a creature.  It is the only addiction.  All other outbreaks of addiction stem from this one addiction to judgement of good and evil.  The irony of this is that what we judge to be “good” often turns out to be “bad” for us.        

If we see ourselves as creatures, we are always being acted upon by external forces. If it’s not the economy, it’s the weather.  If not the Republicans then it’s the Democrats. If it’s not a virus or a flu bug, it’s an ulcer or cancer. Something’s always trying to “do us in.”  Our genes are wrongly blamed for many of our diseases and even our behavior, when all they do is determine the shape of our bodies and the color of our eyes and hair.  All else is learned behavior — our habits and lifestyles, what we eat and drink, whether we use tobacco and alcohol, how to medicate our bodies and minds when they feel sick and tired — all these things we inherit, not in our genes but through our perception that shapes our consciousness of who we are and how life is lived.  

And you know what? We are all disillusioned . . . if we are lucky. And if we’re not lucky, we believe the illusion and live out our lives in quiet desperation drugged by the opiates of mind-altering chemicals . . . and/or religion, in the hopes of having a better life in heaven. But we don’t enter the kingdom of heaven as creatures, only as creators.  Heaven is within us and all around us.  We destroy it or create it in our consciousness, and, depending on which we do, we either perceive it or we don’t.  The fact that we don’t perceive heaven “at hand” doesn’t mean that it isn’t present. The instruction was to “repent” — literally turn around and see it, change your perception in other words so that you can see that you are truly in heaven and that heaven is within you . . . a place where “firm control and awful power eternally abide” to call on a line from one of my favorite poems, Thus It Is by Martin Cecil.

LIVING OUT OF YOUR REAL IDENTITY 

On the other hand, when we see ourselves as creators, we are always leading forth with positive and creative force — and that need not be something loud and contrived or imposing. It can be as simply and easy as being thankful and appreciative.  These are positive forces.  If the economy is poor, rather than being stressed out we simply adjust our spending so we can continue being creative, being thankful for what means we have and creative in finding ways to live within them.   If a virus or flu bug has gotten past our immune system, rather than thinking the worst we simply appreciate our immune system, perhaps support it with Echinacea and Vitamins A and C, and/or take measures to cleanse the blood and lymphatic system with garlic, herbs and lots of fluids . . .and movement. Yes, movement helps circulate the lymph and blood that carry out the toxins.  Unless a dangerous fever comes on, it’s best to keep moving during a cold or flu.  If you feel you have to see a doctor, then go to one you can easily believe in.  Your belief alone will see you through the crisis.  

If our minds become confused trying to understand the complexities of life in this world, we turn to God within and pray for understanding, and we focus on what’s right at hand that we do understand.  If our hearts are broken and saddened by disappointment, we turn to love and find wisdom in releasing what’s hurtful through forgiveness rather than thrashing out in anger to hurt the one(s) who hurt us, or fall victim to self-pity.  If we fall, we get up and walk again, because we are creators acting and never victims being acted upon.   

ALL THINGS HAVE DESIGN AND SERVE ONE PURPOSE

I am trying my best to keep this as simple as possible, because the truth is really simple and easy. There is design and purpose to everything under the sun, and everything under the sun serves one purpose: the creation of life and beauty on earth. Outside this design and purpose things have no meaning and value, and life gets complicated, painful and hard.   

Take our most personal possessions, our human capacities.  They serve only two purposes (which are actually one), and that is our incarnation as spirit beings and our creative activities in the material world with others.  That’s it.  Any activities outside of this have no meaning or value to these capacities, and when these capacities of body-mind and heart are not serving their purpose, what they are designed to do, they become bored and confused, at best.  At worse, they become incoherent and eventually malfunction, get sick and start falling apart.  That’s what physical, mental and emotional illness is: a confused, incoherent falling apart of our capacities due to abuse, our failure to use them according to their design and for the purpose they were created to serve.  It’s that simple.  

The cure is just as simple as restoring them to their intended purpose and nourishing them with love and appreciation, wholesome food and fresh water, along with plenty of rest and exercise.  Health is not complicated.  It’s simple because it is the truth of life, and the truth makes us free.  That’s why we’re always looking for it.  We want to be free from disease and from the drugging of our capacities.  Well, here it is, right at hand!  Embrace it and relinquish any and all dependence on drugs of every kind, and that includes tobacco and alcohol. We can do it because we have the power as creators to re-create ourselves and our worlds in our consciousness. See yourself and your world as whole and it will be so for you.  

NOURISHING THE SPIRIT

In that remarkable movie “Awakenings,” Dr. Malcolm Sayer  (played by Robin Williams) — after his futile attempt to permanently awaken Leonard Lowe (played in a stunning performance by Robert Di Nero), and a number of other patients who were damaged in their childhood years by encephalitis, with an experimental mega-dosing of Dopamine — concludes his compassionate and hopeful project, turned failure by an onslaught of adverse reactions to the drug, with these insightful words:

The Human spirit is more powerful than any drug — and that’s what we need to nourish . . . with kindness, compassion, friendship — things as simple as that.

I felt his pain of frustration, limited as he was by orthodox medicine in finding a cure for his client’s mental illness, with the only thing between his determination to find a cure and his patient was a drug that offered only promise with adverse side-effects — not at all unlike modern medical doctors today. I felt his ache of heart as Leonard, speaking through his facial tic and spastic limbs, cried out to him “Don’t give up on me!”  That brought me to tears, because I know first hand what compassion mixed with frustration can do to a doctor’s heart.  

Thankfully, we have natural solutions to modern day ills today — not that modern medicine has embraced them.  The business of masking symptoms and managing diseases is too profitable.  Breaking the addiction to drugs is the largest hurdle patients have to face when their medical doctor won’t cooperate with them, at best, or expresses anger at them for not wanting to take their medicine, at worse, even threatening them with discharge for non-compliance.  Our healthcare system is broke at this level alone.  Forget the economical issues.  We doctors can turn this system around simply by putting the patient first . . . and patients can break the cycle by embracing Mother Nature’s cornucopia of natural solutions back to health.       _____________________________________________________________

In my next blog post we will take each of our capacities and see them in a new light, individually and as a functional whole.  Thank you for joining me in this vital consideration.  Until we’re together again, I pray good health and happiness for you.

Dr. Anthony Palombo

email: tpal70@gmail.com

Visit my other blog Healing Tonesfor a deeper understanding of your body temple as an energetic symphony of sound and light.   

  

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21-Day Purification Program Clip

View only if you want to cleanse your body temple, loose weight and clarify your thinking and your skin.

To your health and healing,

Dr. Tony Palombo

Email me for more information about the program, personal support during it, and to order the products  for the program:  tpal70@gmail.com.

P.S.  As promised, we will continue our consideration around calcium in my next post.

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“Vitamin E” and Prostate Cancer ~ The Whole Truth

Here’s what JAMA reports on the subject:

A recent Journal of the American Medical Association study found that vitamin E is not effective in preventing prostate cancer and in fact also raised the possibility that it’s tied to prostate cancer. That report is the latest ding to a dietary-supplement business that saw its industry revenues fall to $350 million in the U.S. last year from $650 million in 2004, according to Nutrition Business Journal estimates.

It may well be that the so-called “vitamin E” people are taking is not really Vitamin E and therefore is not functioning as Vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant.  But whole Vitamin E is a lot more than an antioxidant.  Read on. . . .

Let’s talk about Vitamin E . . . and Vitamin C while we’re at it.

 KNOW YOUR VITAMINS

—Patients are always telling me that they are taking “Vitamin C” and “Vitamin E,” and I’m always quick to correct them.  “No, you’re not taking Vitamin C nor Vitamin E because the so called ‘vitamin E’ you’re taking is NOT Vitamin E, and the so-called ‘vitamin C’ is NOT Vitamin C,” and here’s the reason why.” 

 The Food and Drug Administration has allowed “ascorbic acid” to be called Vitamin C and for “d alpha tocopherol” to be called Vitamin E.  As we can clearly see from the diagrams below, there is a lot more to Vitamin C than “ascorbic acid” and to Vitamin E than “d alpha  tocopherol.”  These fractions serve as part of the envelope surrounding the delicate essences and co-factors of the nutrient complexes – the very essential ingredients that make the vitamin complex work – protecting them from oxidation.  They are all that’s left after commercial food processors get through extracting them from foods with the use of heat and pressure that destroy the rest of the complexes. In the case of Vitamin E, only one of the four antioxidant tocopherols – alpha tocopherol – is left, and the “d” in front of it tell you it’s a synthetic product. 

They are called “Vitamin C” and “Vitamin E,” but they are no more the whole vitamin complex than an orange peal alone is the whole orange or an egg shell the whole egg.  


    The key word here is “Functional.”  Vitamin E functions as a whole component, as does Vitamin C.  If you take them apart  they don’t function.  An analogy would be to take a Swiss watch and smash it with a hammer.  You still have a watch, but it won’t function as a time piece.

     Those of you familiar with muscle testing will understand that when commercial vitamin E was given to a test subject, the arm test was weak.  But when a whole-food Vitamin E (Cataplex E  by Standard Process Labs.) was given to him, he tested strong.  That’s because Cataplex E functioned where the commercial vitamin E did not and could not because it isn’t Vitamin E.   

But that’s not the end of the story. It gets worse. Read on. 

    These fractioned components are incomplete and, therefore, seek to complete themselves as whole nutrients when turned loose inside your body, and they will rob from it what they need to complete themselves.

For example, ascorbic acid leaches out tyrosinase (cooper), a mineral that is vital to the health of arteries and veins, leaving your blood vascular system susceptible to aneurism and the hormone estrogen without an activating mechanism. Alpha tocopherol (or the synthetic “d alpha tocopherol”) leaches out selenium, another mineral vital to your blood vascular system, leaving your blood arteries unprotected against plaque formation.

    When you take these fractioned “vitamins” into your body, you are not giving it the vital essences of whole nutrients it needs. For example, the bioflavonoids and  the “P” factors that strengthen vessel walls and connective tissues throughout the body, not to mention the cooper you’re not getting and losing when it is leached out. 

Ascorbic acid has also been shown to scratch the inner lining of the blood vessels if taken in dosages of 500+ mg daily for more than eighteen weeks, contributing to atherosclerosis, plaque build up in the arteries.  With alpha tocopherol “Vitamin E” you do not get all the fatty acids essential to heart health nor the natural chelators for your arteries and anti-oxidants to prevent your oils from going rancid. 

Dr. John Courtney of Standard Process Labs explains it clearly.

The body is designed to utilize food in its whole form. If you eat incomplete foods, such as refined tocopherols, all the missing factors are borrowed from the tissue reserves in order to make the partial food usable. Sooner or later, depending on the patient’s past eating habits, there will be a deficiency of those nutrients, causing what’s referred to as a “reversal of symptoms.” This means there is a recurrence of the same symptoms, which were causing the problem in the first place, often to a more serious degree.

Bicknell and Prescott, in their book THE VITAMINS IN MEDICINE, talk about bone decalcification and other problems caused by the use of excessive alpha tocopherol.  So high potency vitamins are similar to drugs in their effect. They cause a masking of symptoms, which eventually creates additional problems. Dr. Lee [Royal Lee is the founder of SP] used to say that using high potency vitamins was like whipping a tired horse; he would be stimulated to run faster but sooner or later he collapses because you never fed him.

Sometimes doctors call us for help with patients with cramps. This could be cramps anywhere in the body-the legs, abdomen, heart, etc. They will say, “I’ve tried everything I could nutritionally, calcium, magnesium, etc., and the patient still has cramps.” Then we ask if the patient is taking high potency vitamin E. Many times they are, and the cramps developed after they started taking the high potency vitamin E. Then, of course, we suggest the doctor take the patient off the high potency vitamin E product. Our approach is to give the patient the specific food factors which he’s lacking, along with the associated factors, which make it work. 

It is clear that whole food nutrients alone will help you.  The others will only hurt your body.  Remember, if it isn’t a food it’s a toxin. If you want Vitamins C and E you have to eat whole foods that are grown organically. If you want them in organically whole food supplement form, drop me an email and I will gladly send some to you. 

Cataplex E (90T) $17, (360T) $58

Cataplex C (90T) $14, (360T) $47

Shipping and handling is $7 

Until my next post, take care of your house of being else it evict you.

To your health and healing,

Dr. Anthony Palombo

 

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Post-Purification Program

Fall colors at Lithia Park in Ashland, Oregon

     Harvest time has come as we gather seasonal vegetables from our Spring and Summer gardens and prepare for Fall planting of winter crops: cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale and kohlrabi; root crops such as carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips and radishes.  And don’t forget to plant some sweet pea snaps to pick and eat right off the vine . . . with an added bonus of lovely flowers.  Some of these are already available at farmers’ markets and grocery stores in your area as Fall gardens get planted in August here in the South.  (Click on picture to enlarge it)

If you followed my suggestions in the last post, “Fall Cleaning,” and went through the 21-day purification program, you may want to follow it with a post-purification program.  Standard Process offers some very excellent whole food supplements for this purpose.

SP’s Post Purification Kit ($157 + $13 drop-shipping) consists of the following whole food supplements:

Kit Includes (30-day supply):

Order today and receive a 10% subscriber’s discount.
    Prepare for the winter months by enhancing your immune system.  Remember, you immune system is not limited to a single organ or gland.  It’s more an “alliance” of many organs and glands, along with all the cells of your body. Liver, spleen, bone marrow, thymus gland with its lymph nodes, and, not the least important, your intestines which are lined with the lion’s share of your lymphatic glands.  The parotid glands of your mouth are your first line of defense.  Clean water, of course, is essential to toxin elimination and nutrient distribution – up to 8 glasses a day are recommended.  To insure strong first-line defense in the mouth, I recommend a maintenance dose of Parotid PMG byStandard Process Labs. 
 
I’ve had clients who hate water and drink diet sodas every day.  Diet sodas are sweetened with aspartame. Go to this website for a full report on this and other chemical sweeteners  http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-sweeteners.html.  Here is an excerpt about the side effects:
Aspartame has been linked to various neuropsychiatric disorders, including panic attacks, mood changes, visual hallucinations, manic episodes, and isolated dizziness. A small, double-blind crossover study of patients with major depression revealed a higher incidence of reactions in these patients compared with nondepressed volunteers after administration of 30 mg/kg for 7 days; symptoms included headache, nervousness, dizziness, memory impairment, nausea, temper outbursts, and depression. 
 I do not wonder about the relationship between the nerve and muscle pain associated with fibromyalgia and the consumption of diet sodas with aspartame, not to mention an aversion to drinking water.  Drink water instead of sodas.  Pure water is allowed to go where adulterated beverages are not allowed in the body tissues.   A word to the wise.
To your health and healing,
Dr. Tony Palombo
Visit my second blog Healing Tones for inspired reading.
 
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FALL CLEANING

Fall in Oregon - Click on picture to enlarge

We are all aware of the need for “Spring Cleaning” and we do it every year in our homes, many of us in the more immediate homes of our physical bodies.

But what about “Fall Cleaning” in the yard and gardens, even in our body temples?  We have to do that, too, just to clean up what’s left after harvest time and when the leaves and blossoms have fallen to the ground.  Likewise, our body temples can use a cleaning as the Fall and Winter months set in.

I recommend the “Purification Program” by Standard Process Labs for a thorough house cleaning – from the cellular level on out to the organs of elimination, including and especially the gastrointestinal tract that processes all the empty carbohydrate and fast-foods we tend to consume on the run, much of it still clinging to the lining of the gut in the form or mucous (protein) and undigested food (anywhere from 15 to 25 lbs. of it).  Wouldn’t you just love to be rid of those kind of toxic pounds?!

Here’s what the Purification Program by Standard Process Labs. looks like (click on the link for more details):

For 21 days you simply take a number of capsules containing cleansing and rebuilding nutrients and have a few healthy, meal-replacement SP Complete shakes during the day.  Add your favorite fruit or fruit juice to the shake mix and, voila!, you have a great and tasty meal in a glass.  For a little more cost, you can snack on protein richStandardBars during the day to help with extra protein and low blood sugar.  If needed, you can continue to eat your regular meals and have a SP Complete shake with them.  Just serve yourself smaller portions to make room for the body-purifying shake.  For a more healthy meal, click on Program Diet.  

Here’s a sampling of what two of the products alone afford you:

SP Green Food  provides a simple way for people of all ages to add vital phytonutrients to their diet.

  • Promotes healthy liver function
  • Provides antioxidants
  • Supports overall cellular health
  • Provides phytonutrients
  • Supports cholesterol metabolism, already within a normal range
  • Supports the normal elimination of toxins
  • Adds vital nutrients to any diet, and can be used as nutritional support in the Standard Process Purification Program†

Whole Food-Fiber provides soluble and insoluble fiber to support the digestive system.

  • Encourages a healthy intestinal environment to help maintain proper intestinal flora
  • Cleanses the lower gastrointestinal tract
  • Encourages a healthy gastrointestinal tract pH
  • Supports healthy elimination
  • Contains fennel, which helps relieve gas, abdominal cramps, and indigestion
  • Maintains healthy lipid and blood glucose levels already in normal ranges
  • Adds vital nutrients to any diet, and can be used as nutritional support in the Standard Process Purification and Post-Purification Programs†  Gluten Free & Vegetarian

The program comes with a user-friendly guide and recipe suggestions for the shake, so you’ll have all the information you will need to walk you through the program.  You always have me, of course, to answer any of your questions.

Now, you have to eliminate the refined carbohydrate foods all together.  Donuts and biscuits have to go, along with cakes, cookies and breads that are made with refined flour and sugar.  Eliminating sugar all together for the 3-week cleanse period alone will profit you in lbs lost and not added.

The cost?   $12 a day ($252 – postage included)!  Order through me and enjoy a purification-day-on-me blog-reader’s discount of $12!  [ For $40 more you can replace one of the SP Complete 28 oz. jars with 30 1-oz packets. That way you have the jar at home and packets in your purse or pocket to take with you to work or in your travels.  

Note: The StandardBars are not included in this price and cost $50/18 bars ($45 for blog-readers) with no extra shipping charge if included with your initial order.   

For details on the products and their function in the cleanse, simply visit Standard Process‘ website link provided here, then click on option Purification Program Products.  Visit other options as well to learn more about the program and the need for whole-body purification.

Let me hear from you with any questions you may have and for product orders.  I can have them drop-shipped to your doorstep by UPS in 3-5 business days.

To your health and healing,

Dr. Anthony Palombo

(Note: products cannot be ordered directly from the company but only from a licensed healthcare practitioner.) 

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Walnuts Declared a Drug by the FDA

WRITTEN BY MICHAEL TENNANT   
THURSDAY, 21 JULY 2011 10:10
 SEEN ANY WALNUTS IN YOUR
                                                       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!

   Dr. Anthony Palombo

 
by

Cellular Vitality

The Cell Picture

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.  

Visit my second blog:  Healing Tones