Cell Phones and Your Brain — An Update

My Chorale PicWell, the latest on cell phones and their negative impact on health, specifically the health of your brain, has been published recently. I’ll not burden you with a lot of reading but simply post this website address for Wake Up World and YouTube video. You will find the video on the website as well.

Brain Wave Warping Effect of Mobile Phones, Study Reveals

This is important information. I hope you are more informed now about the dangers of cell phone usage.

Here’s to your health,

Anthony Palombo, DC

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for inspiring articles.

Living Medicine Vs Pharmaceuticals, part 1: The Antibiotic Crisis

Stephen BuhnerPhysicians continue to utilize antibiotics without much thought. We focus on the misuse of painkillers, when the most dangerous thing we do is overuse antibiotics. Resistant bacteria are a more severe problem for the survival of this civilization than oil depletion, global warming, topsoil erosion, and water scarcity. —Stephen Buhner

“Stephen Harrod Buhner On Plant Intelligence, Natural Healing, And The Trouble With Pharmaceuticals”

My Chorale Pic

The December issue of SUN magazine carried an insightful, though sobering, interview with an herbalist that I thought would be an inspiring and deeply meaningful article to review and share in my Health Light Newsletter blog.  The interview is by Akshay Ahuja, writer for the SUN and production manager for Ploughshares, an organization that works with churches, governments and civil societies, in Canada and abroad, to advance policies and actions to prevent war and armed violence and build peace.

Stephen Buhner was born in 1952 in the Midwest where he was introduced to his healing ministry through his great-grandfather, a country physician in rural Indiana.  At the age of sixteen he left home to attend college in California. From there he traveled and settled in the high mountains of Colorado, where he built a “turn-of-the-century cabin that he lived in for four years.” His path to becoming an herbalist started out with a personal healing of severe abdominal cramps with the perennial herb osha root.  His encounter with this herb was more than remedial and had a spiritual and vital quality to is, as he recalls in the interview.  He currently lives in Silver City, New Mexico.

I just dug up the root and began eating it. It’s got a spicy, celery-like taster. Not only did I feel my body getting better, but I could feel, inside, some living entity that cared for me.  It’s difficult to explain, because it’s not something we generally talk about in the West. When you use a living medicine and get well, you feel that the world is alive and aware and wants to help you. People often talk about saving the Earth, but how many times have you experienced the Earth saving you?

I love this man’s insight into the natural botanical world of herbs and his thoughtful perspectives on both the natural healing and modern medical models. He covers a lot of territory, so it may take a couple of posts to do the interview justice. This is, I feel, a very timely and important mile-stone article.

Let’s start with the heart of his message: the overuse of antibiotics that has resulted in the evolution of bacteria into “superbugs.”  To gain a perspective on how this has come about, we need to consider the history and evolution of our medical system. Buhner, who has spent his entire life exploring herbal medicine and has published several books on this and related topics, gives some very thoughtful consideration to this in the interview, which can best be presented in his own words. In his 1999 book “Herbal Antibiotics” he speaks to the heart of the “flaws” of what he calls “technological medicine.”

“By declaring war on bacteria,” he writes, “ we declared war on the underlying living structure of the planet.” Buhner maintains that, through indiscriminate use of antibiotics, we have created “superbugs” with few effective pharmaceutical treatments, wreaking havoc in hospitals and making future pandemics likely.

Asked what is wrong with the medical system in the USA, Bunher gives a very interesting synopsis of its relatively brief history, starting at the close of the nineteenth century when homeopaths were plentiful and allopaths were fewer and the poorest of the various groups of physicians.  The discovery of penicillin changed all that.

Allopathic physicians argued that their training was based on science and was thus more legitimate than other medical traditions and would provide safer interventions. With a lot of lobbying, they managed to get control over medical practice and have the other approaches outlawed. After the discovery of penicillin in the 1920’s, antibiotics became a primary aspect of allopathic practice. The drugs were so effective against previously difficult-to-treat problems, such as infections in burn patients, that Western cultures completely embraced allopathic healing. In 1942 the entire worlds supply of penicillin was 8.5 gallons about seventy pounds. By 1999 the production of antibiotics in the U.S. alone reached 40 million pounds per year.

Unfortunately medical researchersbeliefs about bacteria were very wrong. Researchers said it would take roughly a million years for bacteria to develop widespread resistance to antibiotics through spontaneous mutations. They assumed bacteria were stupid, when in reality bacteria are highly sentient. They communicate by means of a sophisticated language – as sophisticated as ours. They recognize their kin. They protect their offspring. They create chemicals designed to produce specific outcomes in living systems, which certainly fits any definition of tool-making.

Weve tended to view bacteria as a collection of single-celled entities, but when many of them join together, its more proper to look at them as a swarm intelligence. And complex organisms such as plants, animals, and insects are, in essence, communities of bacteria.

Ahuja: How does bacterial resistance challenge the current medical model?

Buhner: Since the end of World War II, the medical establishment has been promising that we are heading for some sort of disease-free future in which we will live to be 120 and never get sick. They almost imply that they can cure death. Scientists’ inability to predict the bacterial response undermines the entire world view that the allopaths disseminated – and still disseminate – about disease and the nature of the world around them. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that, in 2011, 722,000 people picked up infections in hospitals. About 75,000 of those patients died during their hospitalizations. And some sources give a much higher figure for annual deaths from hospital-acquired infections.

The allopaths’ lock on medical practice, which they insisted would create safer outcomes for the public, has not done so. All it has done is give one orientation toward healing a virtual monopoly on practice.

Ahuja: How would you treat a resistant infection with herbs?

Buhner: One woman who had undergone multiple antibiotic regimens over several years for a resistant staph infection (MRSA) came to me for help. She was about to lose her foot to the disease. It took a month to turn her condition around using an African herb called Cryptolepis sanguinolenta. Commonly used to treat malaria, it is also a broad-spectrum, systemic antibacterial with no side effects – at least, after twelve years of use, I have seen none.

Vancomycin is the antibiotic often used for staph infections. Besides being frequently ineffective, it has a long list of side effects. In general, herbal medicines have fewer or no side effects. They are composed of hundreds of synergistic compounds, whereas pharmaceuticals have just one compound, or perhaps a few. We have been at this antibiotic business only a century or so. Bacteria have been around for 3.5 billion years:

This begs the question, will not bacteria eventually become resistant to plant medicines? I love Buhner’s answer.

Buhner: With a pharmaceutical, the bacteria analyze the single compound and generate solutions to it, which they then pass on to other bacteria. Plants, on the other hand, generate multiple compounds that deactivate resistance mechanisms in the bacteria and enhance the activity of the plant’s natural antibacterials. Bacteria cannot easily counteract that kind of complexity. Also, plants aren’t trying to kill all the bacteria on Earth. They merely want to create a balance in which the plants and bacteria set limits on each other’s behavior.

Ahuja: There seems to be a general view that herbal medicine is fine for coughs and colds, but when something gets serious, you go to a conventional doctor.

Buhner: The pharmaceutical companies’ advertising campaigns are very good. We have been trained to think of technological medicine as the only reliable type and other approaches as outdated remnants of a prescientific age. Yet the majority of people I have met don’t much like doctors or hospitals. The one thing modern medicine is good at is trauma. If I get hit by a car, I will go to a hospital. But other than antibiotics and some surgeries, hospitals have little they can offer to cure disease. They can only address the symptoms.

Pharmaceutical companies are in business to make as much money as they can. They try to develop drugs you have to take for years and years, such as medicines for high blood pressure or depression. You don’t get well; you just keep taking the drug.

Buhner then cites an example of herbal practice in Africa, where the people can’t afford Western drugs and the infrastructure there doesn’t support drug manufacturing.  Local healers in Nigeria, for example, were asked what herbs they were using. Researchers then took the seeds from the best and most effective herbs and gave them to the people so they could grow their own plant herbs. This had a very empowering impact upon the people, not to mention its ecological friendliness.

I will continue sharing Stephen Buhner’s perspectives in the next post. I will close this post with words of a colleague in the healing field. “Nothing is wrong. Everything matters.” Allopathic medicine has played an important role in healthcare and continues to play a crucial role in the emergency room of our hospitals. On the other hand, pharmaceutical medicine’s days are numbered. Already pharmaceutical companies are getting out of the antibiotic business for two reasons. One, they don’t make a lot of money with the drug’s short-term usage. Two, “they know antibiotics are going to fail, and they don’t want to be the one holding the bag when they do.” According to Buhner’s latest information, the U.S. Government is taking over antibiotic research and production and will take all the blame when it crashes, and crash it will. “As David Livermore, the top antibiotic resistance researcher in Britain, put it, “It is naive to think we can win.”◊

Until my next post, here’s to your health and prosperity throughout the coming New Year.

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

Visit my HealthTones.org blog for more exploratory articles in the field of healing and transformation.

Don’t Trade Perfect Love For Ebola Fear

My Chorale PicPardon me for turning to Sacred Scripture for inspiration during our current health crisis. But we definitely live under a fear-based governance promoted by the news media.  If it isn’t the “threat” of ISIS — which has taken second place to Ebola in the media’s more current entertainment agenda — then it’s the scare of an Ebola pandemic.  But don’t you let your guard — and your immune system — down.  Perfect love not only casts out fear but it keeps what you are being led to fear at bay. Remember what Job cried out in his troubles: “…that which I was afraid of is come unto me.” Actually, that entire scene of chapter three is a perfect meditation piece to dwell upon for the length of this post.

 Job was utterly depressed to the point of despair.  Have you ever been there and cried out like Job: “I wish I had never been born!”

(Vs 3-5)    Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

Wow! He was in a very, very low state of mind and spirit. Job goes on with a tirade of words condemning the day he was born. I wonder if those who have contracted the death-dealing plague of the day feel as Job did as they face certain death. Apparently, Job’s boils and great loss of family and wealth appeared  to him to be harder to bear than had he been born dead — “. . . as infants which never saw light….[where]…the wicked cease from troubling; and…the weary be at rest.”  Then he says something very interesting a few verses down at the end of this chapter:

(Vs 23-26) Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?  For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.  For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.  I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

Job was not an individual but was a representation of the body of Humanity on earth at that time. Job was a people, in other words; a collective body of humanity — like the Lemurians or the Atlantians —  “whom God hath hedged in.”  Hedged in, protected from harm, and immune to disease. But by what?  What would hedge us in so that we would be immune to the Ebola virus, or to any and all forms of pestilence and plagues?

Well, Job named the conditions that broke down his hedge of immunity: “I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet.”  Hmm. Not in safety — exposed, in other words. Had no rest — tired and worn out.  Was not quiet — busy doing to keep from being worried about the future and the consequences of living out of one’s integrity.  

Safety can be seen as doing the right things for our bodies, minds and hearts. Such as eating healthful foods and exercising regularly. Supplementing with wholefood nutrients where healthy foods are not readily available, and where one is eating on the run — which is not very safe healthwise — and dosing daily with immune system modulating herbs like Echinacea and antioxidants. It can also be seen as pertaining to living in the moment, the only place that is safe and real, and where life is.  That has to do with conscious living, doesn’t it. You’re not safe if you’re mind is not present while driving your car or carving the turkey, just to name a couple of activities that put us in harm’s way if we’re not mindful of what we are doing. It also pertains to our hearts and emotions, our spiritual life, in other words.

Rest speaks for itself. The body needs rest as much as activity. Balance needs to be maintained between work, play and rest.  Play can be a rest from work. Rest, of course, is essential to the revitalization, repair and growth of cells in the body. Six to eight hours of sleep are generally recommended for adults. Children need as much as nine hours simply because they are in a growth cycle and expend a lot of energy playing hard.  Rest also pertains to presence of mind and a heart that is at ease with what is, not judging things and wishing they were different. Accepting what is simply as what is.

Quiet, of course, is what most are not these days.  A “noisome pestilence” invades our space every moment of the day, and even into the night in some big cities.  The traffic, the television chatter, the daily newspaper and national and local news hours — the “daily crime report” is what I call our local evening news.  But the real noise is not out there. It’s inside the hearts and minds for most. That’s why they need noise around them: to balance and drown out the noise inside. The so-called “music” of our young generation is a sad example.  Even commercials have noisome background sound tracks to get the attention of potential buyers away from their inner troubled thoughts.  Sometimes the commercials are more “entertaining” than the program. 

A friend wrote a poem with this verse in it:

Busy thought and troubled feeling Trespass not in virtue’s wise serenity Where firm control and awful power eternally abide.  Here earth’s pains are healed And cruel chaos of mind’s spawning Is called again to order and to beauty.

Meditation is an essential spiritual practice for one who wishes to be in a place of safety, rest and quietness of mind and heart. Just five or ten minutes of quietness and solitude — like the revitalizing “catnap” we older folks take — can give one a recharge of energy and an opportunity to gather one’s substance together in one place: the eternal Now.  One’s substance can get spread out pretty thin at times, and that’s asking for trouble.  Your substance is your hedge, especially strong and impenetrable when charged with the energy of love and joy.  “Perfect love casts out fear.”  Fear dissipates your hedge and opens your body temple to defilement by the noisome pestilence, and to viruses like Ebola.

Just as a side note: it’s interesting that the flu kills over fifty-three-thousand people every year and yet doesn’t engender nearly as much fear as the Ebola virus has in just a few weeks. Notice the “Get Your Flu  Shot” signs in front of drug stores. Even while shopping at the super market the music coming over the speakers is interrupted by messages about shingles. “If you’ve had the chicken pocks, then you have the shingles virus in your body.” Fear drives our healthcare delivery system.  Little wonder we are so weak and susceptible to diseases.  Ebola has given the medical world a new reason to rev up the fear mode.

I will close this post with my favorite Psalm 91 as a meditative piece to secure our sense of safety, rest and quiet.

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.  

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adler:  the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.

With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

Who are “the wicked” that are receiving their reward in the wars and plagues of today?  I will answer with the The Teacher’s response to a similar situation: “Let he that is without sin cast the first stone.” We as a race of human-doings are the wicked, and we are reaping our reward in the Middle East with ISIS and in Africa with Ebola. The Earth is fighting back to rid Herself of the parasitic plague we have become.

And what is the “snare of the fowler” from which we need deliverance?  The bird-catcher.  Birds are like thoughts that fly in and out of the belfry towers up in our heads. The mind snares thoughts that fly through it every moment of the day and blows them up into issues we should all be afraid of and fight over. Does your mind snare unwanted thoughts, crows and vultures sometimes?

“Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him in trouble.” What have I set my love upon? My life, perhaps?  “He that loveth his life shall lose it.”  

What we fear about Ebola is the loss of our life. Death seems inevitable without proper medicine.  The only way through that fear is to love death itself as the perfect outworking for one’s life, given all the factors at play.   It’s the only way back Home these days.  By embracing the worst case scenario — death in this case — we take it within our hearts — in the “secret place of the Most High” that is within us, where the “shadow of the Almighty” prepares a place of safety where death has no sting. Death, even death, cannot come nigh me, for I cannot die. I am life and I am alive forever more.  

Don’t let fear of Ebola overshadow your love for the Lord, who is perfect — your love for that which is perfect in yourself: life and truth, peace and tranquility, thankfulness and appreciation, honesty and integrity.  Then get on with your life and LIVE! Be safe, and don’t let your heart be troubled by the troubles of the world. 

Here’s to your health and to Life!

Anthony Palombo, DC

Visit my Healing Tones blog for more inspiring reading. The current theme is “The Hero’s Journey.” Comments on my blogs are always welcome and I look forward to them every day. So, share your thoughts.

Here’s a great song about being brave and fearless. Enjoy!

Chiropractic Rationale: A Turn in the Right Direction

Anthony J. Palombo, DC August 15, 1963

Anthony J. Palombo, DC.”
August 15, 1963

THE PRECIOUS FEW

A colleague and very close friend up in New Jersey called me a few days ago in response to my last post, “Expression Allows Release,” in which I candidly allowed that my well had dried up; that what has needed saying has all been said, by me over two decades of publishing my HealthLight Newsletter and by so many other clarion voices with much larger audiences than I’ve ever had. He is Dr. Ken Harris, one of the “precious few” I referred to in that post who have maintained, lived and practiced the original truth that Chiropractic’s founder and developer, Daniel David Palmer and Bartlett Joshua Palmer respectively, brought to the healthcare arena. You can visit Dr. Harris’ Facebook page and read his posts on Chiropractic. He’s a man who walks his talk, and in so doing shines a bright and unwavering light on the path toward health and vibrant living. He and I shared a passionate mentor along the way in our careers in Dr. William H. Bahan, “Bill” as he was endearingly known and called by the hundreds of chiropractors who came to the light of his shining in deep heartfelt response to his clarion call.

“Keep writing,” my friend said, and with that encouragement I dip down once again into my reservoir of topics. The one topic I could never run out of words to write about is Chiropractic, particularly the philosophy and rationale for its science and art of adjusting the spine to correct misaligned vertebrae that encroach on nerve roots choking off the flow of vital nerve energy, life itself, from “Above, down, inside, out” to the body’s organs and tissue cells. There, that just about says it all in one sentence, and I want to say more. But first listen—and listen deeply—to these succinct words of wisdom from one of the precious few “principled chiropractors” who carried the torch for so many years, Dr. James Sigafoose, explaining in simple words the rationale of the Chiropractic Adjustment:

I just love his opening words because they articulate an eternal truth; a truth that awakened my heart and mind fifty years ago and turned me completely around in my thinking about health and healing and answered so many core questions. Questions like: “What is healing and how does it work in the body? What power and force drives it? How does the spirit of God touch and imbue the flesh of man with the Breath of Life? How can we stop dying if dying was indeed introduced to human experience as a result of ‘original sin’? What would the alternative reality be?”

“DEATH IS COMPLETELY UNNATURAL!”

I remember during one of Dr. Bahan’s symposiums hearing him drop this bombshell into our eager ears: “Death,” he said with deep conviction and absolute authority, “is completely unnatural! If it were natural, then why do we strive so hard to avoid it?” Why, indeed?  My God, we spend our entire lives struggling to stay alive. We’ve even developed an entire industry to this end: to fight disease and stave off the inevitable for as long as possible. That’s because deep down inside our subconscious minds we know that death is not natural. Death IS completely unnatural . . . and we remember a time when death was not a part of life. Life is what’s natural. We were not made to experience the death and decay of our bodies, the very temples of the Living God!  Oh, I’ve written passionately and poetically about that, too, in my first publication Sacred Anatomy. My second publication, Rediscovering the Soul of Chiropractic, was my meager contribution to the revival of the spirit of my beloved profession, which was undergoing an identity crises at the time.

Bill’s bombshell was surprisingly met with strong resistance from another clarion voice in our profession, Dr. Reggie Gold, a devout and almost fanatic “straight” chiropractor. Reggie Gold was one of Bill’s disciples up until Bill dropped this golden nugget of truth into our consciousness. He vehemently opposed this declaration to the point of leaving Bill to start his own following. So, there were points along the cutting edge of the sword of truth some of our leaders were wielding that caused division and separation. But that’s the nature of truth. It’s a fine and uncompromising light, and some of us simply could not handle the truth back then. Today we are more open to all possibilities, including the possibility that death is not eternal for us on Earth. Life is what’s eternal.   

In truth, death was not a part of life for human beings in the Beginning when the Creator walked among us in a garden state in Eden. We brought death upon ourselves, along with the disease process that is Life’s way of unwinding forms it creates in the three-dimensional world of material existence that no longer serve a purpose. Our forms age and fail to give us freedom of movement at some point; and life is movement in chiropractic’s way of thinking. Death, then, is natural at this level. We fell from a much higher level where life in Eden was an experience of birth, life and ascension. That’s the alternative reality.

RESTORATION . . . THE TRUTH OF HEALING

The truth of healing, then, includes at its essential core purpose the restoration of man to an Edenic state of consciousness, a state of radiant life and health, and that was Bill’s point in making that declaration. There is even a Biblical reference to this restoration in the Book of Revelation, which I love reading from time to time just to remind myself of my mission and purpose as a physician.

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God our of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athrist of the fountain of the water of life freely. (Rev. 21: 2-6) 

We were all thirsty for truth back then. I was very thirsty for some truth, coming away as I was then from seven years in Catholic Seminary utterly disillusioned in my father’s and his father’s religion, where I had once asked my “spiritual adviser” the burning question in my heart: “If eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brought death upon us, then why can’t we simply stop eating that fruit and live?” His answer was a real put-down: “Go study your Latin.”  Latin, of course, is a dead language, which was ironically appropriate for a fear-based and death-centered belief system. That was 1960. My answer came seven years later through Bill’s mouth: “We can stop eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and live!”  And he went on to describe how that was possible . . . and, more importantly, what eating of the fruit of that tree entails. Basically, judgement, which Bill called the only addiction there is. Think about it: how addicted we all have been to judgement of good and evil! “Alcohol is good. But alcoholism is bad. Sugar is good, but diabetes is bad. You won the lottery! That’s good. You spent all the money and are now broke. That’s bad.” Etc. But, then, that’s another subject matter. 

Bill’s most memorable declaration, however, is embodied in those words from John’s book: “Behold, I make all things new.” And that’s the promise Chiropractic re-focused for the healing field and for the world. That was Bill’s passionate mission in his life of service. “Behold, I make all things new.”  And he did just that, in his service and in his living. He brought his profession to the Fountain of Life and extended an irresistible invitation to drink from it by letting it pour out through each and every one of us who were willing to BE a fountain of living water ourselves for our patients and for our worlds.   

But first he had to wake people up so they could drink without drowning. He used to say shocking things so as to wake up his sleeping patients who would say to him that their suffering was, of course, God’s will. “Then get out of my office,” he would exclaim. “I wouldn’t want to change God’s will!” Bill wouldn’t let a single opportunity slip by to wake people up and turn them in the right direction. He once told me, when I felt my Catholic beliefs being challenged to the point where I had to let either them or him go, and I cried out “But, Bill, I am a Catholic!”—to which he replied without hesitation, “No you’re not! YOU are a Human Being made in the image and likeness of God!” How can one deny that truth? His words turned my world upside down . . . or rather me right side up. 

That’s what Chiropractic brought: a turn in the right direction. People don’t want to change. That’s what I’ve learned in my fifty years of service. The same passive state of consciousness prevails: “I broke it. You fix it. But don’t ask me to change the way I live my life.” And, if you wanted to stay in practice, you complied with this demand—and it is a demand, and we make this demand on every self-serving service we’ve put into place in our social, economic, religious, and governmental structures of governance by fear of consequences. As a people, we live our lives out of a consciousness of entitlement . . . and we get out of life exactly what we ask for and are entitled to: no more nor less than what we give into it. 

And—as the old Indian chief in the movie “Dances With Wolves” so eloquently ended his brief inputs into the tribe’s powwows—“That is all I have to say about that. We will talk again.” Until then, 

Here’s to your health and longevity,

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for inspired articles. This post is “The Body Electric, part 4: Ascension Harmonics. Enjoy!

 P.S. That picture of me is my” graduation picture from Chiropractic college. I was so serious about my new-found purpose and career in life.  

Welcome new visitor in Luxembourg. You are the 116th country to visit my blogs. I send blessings of love your way.

 

  

From GMO to Organic Farming

In Dr. Bruce Lipton’s wonderfully inspiring book The Honeymoon Effect there’s a dramatic story I would like to share with my readers. It’s a story about a farming community in India that started using GMO seeds to grow their food in hopes of fending off a predicted famine. I’ll let Bruce tell the story in his own words.

Bruce and his wife Margaret went to India to Meet Bharat Mitra and Bhavani Lev who had felt called to start an organic revolution in India. They founded a loving community and company called “ORGANIC INDIA, whose philosophy embraced Gaia: ‘Creation is one. The Earth is one. We are one.'”  Here’s the story.

Dr. Bruce Lipton

Dr. Bruce Lipton

The Story of Azamgarh — From GMO to Organic Farming

They started their revolution in 1997 in the town of Azamgarh. In the ’60s, many farmers in this community had embraced the high-tech “Green Revolution” farming methods that Western corporations had introduced to India. They mortgaged their farms and lives to buy the promise of costly genetically modified seeds; and then had to borrow more to pay for the synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and modern irrigation projects required to grow the genetically modified plants. The goal was to fend off the country’s famines that had once been considered inevitable, and at first it seemed to work. Yields increased and formerly poverty-stricken towns and the farmers who lived in them prospered.

But by the time ORGANIC INDIA started its work in Azamgarh, many farmers had become disillusioned and desperate. Their fields had indeed turned green but in the process had sucked up so much groundwater that they needed to dig deeper and deeper wells and borrow more and more money. The genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and petrochemical sprays produced an environmental disaster with devastating conse-
quences. Monsanto’s GMO “monster crops” accelerated depletion of soil nutrients, creating plant blight, which in turn led to an invasion of destructive insects. The
farmers had to borrow more money to buy more and more chemicals to grow their crops to fend off pests that had become resistant. In the last decade, nearly
200,000 Indian farmers, unable to continue to work their depleted land and unable to make loan payments, took their own lives-many by drinking the very pes-
ticides they had been told would ensure a good livelihood for them and their families.

Unsurprisingly, when ORGANIC INDIA arrived in Azamgarh, farmers were suspicious of more Westerners asking them to radically change the way they work. And just as a practical matter, they were leery of becoming organic farmers, because it takes at least three years to certify a field as organic.

Despite these suspicions, one farmer named Kailash Nath Singh decided to take a chance by going organic on his small, three-acre farm. That small step couldn’t have
been more symbolic; not only was Singh going back to the way his ancestors had farmed but he was doing it with the ancient crop tulsi (also called holy basil), a
wild medicinal herb that has been used for thousands of years in traditional Indian medicine (Ayurveda) to heal body and mind.

Now, thanks to ORGANIC INDIA’s subsidies during their transition, 15 years later there are 1,000 organic farmers in Azamgarh and 20,000 around the country. The stories these grateful farmers tell are incredibly moving and a testament to the sustainability of organic farming-constant enrichment of the soil, healthier livestock, fewer miscarriages, and thriving children. Says Kailash Nath Singh, “Organic farming has come as a real blessing for our family. Our succeeding generations will reap the benefits and realize how the land has not lost its fertility due to heavy use of chemicals.”

I can’t tell you how inspiring it was for Margaret and me to see women and men working in organic tulsi, psyllium, and intoxicatingly fragrant rose fields (used
in their fabulous Tulsi Sweet Rose Tea), cultivating their crops in a sustainable way. They are literally healing the Earth one field at a time. Says Bharat Mitra, “It’s not
only that they have sustainable income, not only that, the environment is healthy, not only that their livestock is doing well, not only their own health has improved so
significantly, but they have the dignity of being farmers again. How beautiful. How natural. How simple.”

The farmers’ crops are processed and shipped from Lucknow all over the world to consumers (like Margaret and me) clamoring for organic products, which means
that ORGANIC INDIA is now making a global impact as well. The company is committed to its vision of being a vehicle of consciousness; it is running its business in a way that benefits everyone who works at the company and the consumers who buy its high-quality products. Says Bhavani, “Unless we all experience that we are all of the same consciousness we’re going to treat each other as if you don’t matter.” 

Here is America, the GMO corporate farming industry lead by Monsanto cares about one thing and one thing only: profits. It treats us as though we don’t matter. Our GMO crops are being denied entrance into more and more foreign countries. Why is our government not only allowing but empowering Monsanto to produce and supply our grocery shelves with GMO foods?  

Here’s an updated video clip on the class action suit against Mondanto for those who want to know more about what’s happening with GMO in this country

 

Please share this blog around. Monsanto and its GMO farming practices need to be stopped.

If you haven’t read Bruce’s book The Honeymoon Effect, do yourself a big favor and order it today. ‘Till my next post,

Here’s to your health and healing.

Tony's picture 2 from PeggyAnthony Palombo, D.C.

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for more insightful reading. The current theme is “Our Electromagnetic Universe: The Body Electric.”

 

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.

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.

Diseased Pacific Salmon Alert — A Global Health Crisis

This video need to be seen by everyone to increase awareness of the criminal activity of governmental agencies who are refusing to protect us from disease-infested animal and fish farms. This is a global issue. To read about it on Dr. Mercola’s website rather than watch the hour-long documentary, click on the link below the clip.  If you don’t have time, at least read the “Story at-a-glance” below.  Pass this vital information on to friends and family. Spread the word. This has to be stopped now.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/04/13/salmon-confidential.aspx

Story at-a-glance

  • Salmon Confidential draws back the curtain to reveal how the Canadian government is covering up the cause behind British Columbia’s rapidly dwindling wild salmon populations: fish farms
  • In British Columbia, pacific salmon are an essential species for the ecosystem. They fill hundreds of streams and rivers, feeding hundreds of species, including humans. Since the early 1990’s, salmon numbers have rapidly dwindled, coinciding with the introduction of farmed salmon pens
  • Fish farms breed pathogens that can spread like wildfire and contaminate any wild fish swimming past. Wild salmon that died before spawning have tested positive for a number of salmon viruses, including the highly lethal “salmon influenza”
  • Farmed fish, purchased in stores around British Columbia have tested positive for at least three lethal fish viruses, including the dreaded ISA virus (aka salmon flu), salmon alpha viruses, and Piscine reovirus, which causes the salmon to have a heart attack, preventing them from swimming upriver
  • I recommend buying locally-grown foods, and wild fish only. Fish farms are a breeding ground for disease and toxic waste, and produce fish of inferior quality. Due to the dramatically increased disease risk—a natural side effect of crowding—these animals are further contaminated with drugs, and in the case of salmon, synthetic astaxanthin, which is made from petrochemicals that are not approved for human consumption

To your health,

Tony's picture 2 from Peggy

Dr. Anthony Palombo, DC

Seven Glands for Seven Spirits, part 4: The Blessings of the Pancreas

The Pancreas and Duodenum

THE PANCREAS—BOTH ORGAN AND GLAND

Returning to our consideration of the endocrine glands and the spiritual essences behind their purpose and function, let’s take a holistic view of the pancreas and its dual role as both gland and organ.  I’m going to touch on the blessings of the pancreas as well as the results of abuse of this precious member of our “sacred anatomy.” 

The pancreas, depicted here embracing and being embraced by the duodenum, the first twelve inches of the small intestines, offers an enormous blessing in the body temple.  That blessing is twofold: as an organ of the digestive system and as a hormone gland of the endocrine system.  Most of the body of the pancreas serves as an organ and is taken up in the production of enzymes and alkaline rich digestive juices that are used in the process of digesting the foods we consume.  Pancreatic enzymes help break down proteins into amino acids, the building blocks of tissues, and start the process of converting carbohydrates into simple sugar for energy. 

(You can click on the pictures to enlarge them for a closer look at details. Artwork was generously provided by my brother-in-law David Stefaniak) 

An Islet of Langerhans

Embedded in its spongy tissues are tiny glands that produce insulin, among other chemistry.  They are called islets of Langerhans after the young scientist who discovered them, Paul Langerhans.  Insulin is a hormone produced by Beta cells in the islets. It escorts sugar to the cells as fuel for energy.  It “parks” on a designated cell receptor site and delivers its sweet package. These tiny endocrine glands are located toward the tip of the tongue-shaped pancreas as it stretches out toward the spleen on the left side. They make up from one to two percent of the pancreas mass. They have five different cells: Alpha, Beta, Delta, PP, and Epsilon cells.  An interesting feature of the Beta cells is their electrical connection with each other but not with other cells.  It is the Beta cells that are destroyed in the case of diabetes mellitus (Type 1, or insulin dependent).  

Let’s talk about the abuse of this precious organ-gland first—and we’ll take up this entire post to have a thorough look at what we might be doing to cripple the pancreas and short-circuit our health.  Let’s look at dietary factors first.  

THE CURSE OF CORN SUGAR — aka “HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP”

The statistically rapid rise in diabetes mellitus and obesity in America is nothing short of alarming. Two thirds of Americans are overweight and one-third are obese. The unfortunate—and really criminal—aspect of this epidemic is in the fact that we could have easily prevented it.  The criminals are the manufacturers and processors of synthetic sugar, glucose (dextrose and corn sugar—also known as “high fructose corn syrup”). No other sugar, including honey, is capable of causing diabetes, even when fed in large amounts to animals.  According to research done at the University of Frankfurt in 1953, “the addition of 10 to 20 grams of honey to the usual diet of diabetics DID NOT disturb the sugar balance.

The culprit is alloxin which was found to quickly destroy the beta cells in the islets of Langerhans without disturbing any other body tissues.  When incurable diabetic test animals are needed for experimental use, they are given alloxin to destroy their islets of Langerhans. 

This begs the question “are we getting alloxan in our foods?”  The answer is yes, with definite certainty. Alloxan is formed by the action of oxidizing agents such as chlorine, chlorine oxides, etc. on xanthine, a normal constituent of tissues (muscle, liver, pancreas, thymus, spleen) and of urine, which carries zero to one percent, and of common foods like cereals, malt and yeast, and of meat foods.  The artificial sweetener Splenda has a chlorine molecule as a carrier for sucralose. 

Xanthine is a synergist of vitamin E.  It facilitates its function in protecting the genes of the chromosome of the cells from oxidation and enzyme damage.  It also seems to facilitate the elimination of excess cholesterol from the liver.  Vitamin E is the primary nutrient in wheat germ, and it is destroyed by commercial food-processing practices.

Dr. Royal Lee, who founded Standard Process Labs in Palmyra, Wisconsin, did extensive research on Vitamin E and the impact bleaching of wheat flour has had on human health.  Here’s just one of his findings dated as far back as 1948, indicating how long we’ve known about the harmful effects of refined carbohydrates, such as bleached white flour, on our health.

Since these poison chemicals destroy both the xanthine and the vitamin E of the cereal germ, it is of interest to learn that xanthine can reduce the need for vitamin E in animal feeding tests. (Reported in Nutrition Reviews, Jan. 1948, p. 118.)  In fact, we might legitimately consider xanthine as a member of the vitamin E complex. A xanthine compound — theophylline — is used in medicine to relieve heart symptoms of vitamin E and G deficiency. And xanthine is found associated with E and G vitamins in wheat germ.

CHLORINATED WATER AND WHITE BREAD, AMERICANS’ POISONS

The obvious next question would be “where might we find chlorine and chlorine oxides in our foods?”  Well, all municipal water is treated with chlorine to poison the bacteria—and unless you live in Milwaukee where the chlorinated water is filtered through activated carbon to eliminate the chlorine in a 15 million dollar treating plant (thanks to Milwaukee’s breweries, the city’s best water customers, who can’t make beer with chlorinated water as it poisons the yeast) you’re getting daily doses of chlorine if you’re drinking municipal water right out of the tap.  

Where else?  In all white flour products, white bread being the largest consumed white flour product in the American household.  How do you think they make whole grain wheat flour white? With bleach made from chlorine dioxide, a patented process non the less.  Chlorine dioxide succeeded nitrogen trichloride (AGENE) after its patents ran out and it was conveniently eliminated by the FDA when it was found to cause fatal epileptic reactions in dogs. It, too, functioned as a bleach and bug killer by releasing free chlorine, so it is quite probable that the action of flour bleaches in predisposing humans to diabetes and obesity has been adversely impacting the public health for the past sixty or seventy years since the 1940’s.   

Glucose (corn syrup) causes low blood sugar as well as diabetes, which leads to a predisposition to heart disease, lassitude, brain fatigue, high blood pressure, overweight, irritability, and mental depression, to list the findings of a 1950 report.  This tells us how long we’ve been enabling these “diseases” in America.  (They’re not actually “diseases” but simply the symptoms of malfunction in the body caused by abusive dietary practices.) This is criminal behavior on the part of everyone in the food industry from the processors of synthetic sugars on up to the Food and Drug Administration.  

Dr. Lee says this about that: 

In dealing with foods, the Food and Drug [FDA] long ago set up the principle that ANY added poison in ANY food was too much.  It is regrettable that principle cannot be the guiding force in government instead of commercial expediency — and political expediency.

THE EMOTIONAL ASPECT OF DIABETES

There are other ways of destroying the endocrine function of the pancreas.  There is the emotional component, for instance.  All of the endocrine glands are controlled and nourished by spirit. They have no direct connection to the controls centers in the brain. Spirit exerts a vibrational influence upon their hormonal secretions.  The pancreas is particularly influenced by our emotional climate and expression.  It is thought to be the vibrational gateway to and from our emotional realm.  What’s going on with us emotionally—the quality of energy flowing through our hearts, in other words—directly impacts the functions of the pancreas—as it does all seven glands— both as a digestive organ and as an endocrine gland.  Just as fear shuts down our immune system, negative emotions such as resentment, envy, grief and attitudes of complaint and criticism, held for long periods of time, gradually shut down the endocrine cells in the pancreas.  

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that these negative destructive emotions block out the flow of the positive creative spirit of love, which in the pancreas is differentiated as the “Spirit of Blessing.” We’ll spend more time with this aspect in my next post.  Suffice it to say that an attitude of blessing and a sweet spirit foster a healthy pancreas.  Contrarily, an attitude of cursing and a bitter and complaining spirit foster an unhealthy pancreas, simply by virtue of the fact that they exclude the presence and flow of loving energy.  Love nourishes the body.  Hate, resentment, envy and grief deprive the body of vibrational nourishment.  Without the cohesive vibration of love, the body cells start disintegrating and falling apart from one another. 

I vividly remember a neighbor years ago, when I was a young man, whose husband passed away.  She wasn’t that happy a person even before his death, but afterwards she fell into a slump of grief and depression for a very long time, probably fear as well in her loss of what was likely a more stable and secure life with him around. He ran a shop and she didn’t work, to my knowledge.  Within the year of his passing, she developed diabetes and very shortly thereafter passed away.  I always felt, even at that early age in my life, that her lengthy grieving led to her undoing.  Grief is a natural and essential phase of letting go of a loved one.  But one has to let go and stop grieving eventually, or else one’s life essence will be drained away, which I feel happened with this lady.

We’ll continue in a more uplifting consideration next post.  Until then, be a blessing and change your health . . . and the world. 

To your health and healing,

Tony's picture 2 from Peggy

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

Email: tpal70@gmail.com 

Follow my blog to get automatic email notices from WordPress of new posts. Also, visit my HealingTones.org blog and enjoy the current series of articles “4th Density Apocalypse 2012.”  I always enjoy reading comments on my articles and appreciate the time my readers take to send them along in the comment feature.

References: Dr. Royal Lee, Vitamin News, Part of the Royal Lee Library Series, Published by The International Foundation for Nutrition and Health.

Artwork by David Stefaniak

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Special Alert on Aspartame, a genetically engineered sweetener

Well, I got the book, “Genetic Roulette” by Jeffrey M. Smith, and started browsing through it. You do NOT want to read this thoroughly documented book if you do NOT want to know the facts about the health hazards of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in your food.  It’s scary.  Just what they (Liberty Link) are doing to engineered crops with enzymes that produce herbicide poisons in fruits and vegetables, enzymes whose genes with DNA modifications are NOT necessarily broken down and destroyed in the digestive system and can therefore produce the same herbicide poisons and gut-flora damaging antibiotics in your intestines, is nothing short of criminal.  Do NOT get the book from Amazon.com if you’d rather not know the scientific facts and details.  I’ll write about some of the most important facts in future blogs . . . which, again, you may not want to read.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG TO BRING YOU THIS ASPARTAME ALERT. . .

. . . and I’ll lift it straight from the book.

The Sweetener aspartame, (also known as Nutra Sweet, Equal, Spoonful, Canderel, Benevia, and E951) is genetically engineered. The amino acids are grown using GM E. coli bacteria.  Although numerous studies and thousands of consumer complaints have linked this controversial sweetener to serious illnesses, it is unclear if the genetic engineering contributes to the problem.

Aspartame is a molecule composed of three sub-units. The first is methyl ester, which, according to food science professor Woodrow Monte, immediately converts to methyl (wood) alcohol, a deadly poison that can bioaccumulate in the body.  A single ounce can be fatal.  Monte, who is the author of “Aspartame: Methanol and the Public Health” in the Journal of Applied Nutrition, says, “Methyl alcohol then converts to two other known toxins—formaldehyde and formic acid.”

The other two sub-units are amino acids (aspartic acid and pheylalanine). These may be harmless when part of protein, but according to physicain H.J. Roberts, author of the medical text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, in aspartame the amino acids are isolated and in a dangerous configuration (L. stereoisomer).  In addition, they interact with free methyl alcohol.  These factors make the amino acids particularly harmful. Roberts says the isolated phenylalanine lowers the seizure threshold and triggers psychiatric and behavioral problems, as well as other symptoms and diseases.  Neuroscientist John Olney, who founded the field of neuroscience called excitotoxicity, says that aspartic acid is an excitotoxin that stimulates neurons into hyperactivity until they exhaust and die.

Psychiatrist Ralph G. Walton, medical director of Safe Harbor Behavioral Health, had to abruptly stop his own human clinical trial on aspartame when some of the subjects had serious reactions. One participant, the hospital’s administrator, suffered a detached retina and went blind in one eye.  Another had bleeding of the eye and others reported being poisoned.  Walton says that “Aspartame is a multipotential toxin and carcinogen,” which also lowers seizure thresholds, produces “carbohydrate craving,” and in vulnerable individuals, can cause “panic, depressive, and cognitive symptoms.”

BRAIN TUMORS ON THE RISE WITH ASPARTAME

 There are up to 10 breakdown products of aspartame.  The largest (diketopiperazine) appears to be the cause of brain tumors in animal feeding studies.  Olney says when it is processed (nitrosated) by the gut it produces a compound closely resembling a powerful chemical (N-nitrosourea) that causes brain tumors.  Author and neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, suggests that a jump in brain tumors in the US population in the 1980’s is linked to the introduction of aspartame.  Blaylock refers to an Italian rat study in which “they fed animals aspartame throughout their lives and let them die a natural death. They found a dramatic and statistically significant increase in the related cancers of lymphoma and leukemia, along with several histological types of lymphomas.” He said, “What the Italian study found is that if you take these same animals and expose them to formaldehyde in the same doses, they developed the same leukemias and lymphomas.”  

OUR “GUARDIAN” FDA KNOWS ALL ABOUT IT BUT DOES NOTHING TO RECALL ASPARTAME

The FDA compiled a list of 92 symptoms from the more than 10,000 consumer complaints they received about aspartame.  These include four kinds of seizures, blindness, memory loss, fatigue, change in heart rate, difficulty breathing, joint, bone, and chest pain, speech impairment, tremors, change in body weight, lumps, blood and lymphatic problems, developmental retardation and problems with pregnancy, anemia, conjunctivitis, male sexual dysfunction, and death.  Roberts’ medical text also identifies neurodegenerative disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and sudden cardiac death, among others.

WHAT WE CAN DO TO RECALL ASPARTAME

To learn more about efforts around the world to recall aspartame—as well as the health issues, rigged research, and political maneuvering that got it approved—consult the following resources:

Organizations: 

Books and DVD’s:

  • Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic by H.J. Roberts,m M.D.
  • Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, by Russell Blaylock, M.D.
  • Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, DVD available at www.seedsofdeception.com

More on GMO foods in later posts.  Smith’s book is one for your library.

To your health and healing,

Dr. Anthony Palombo

Visit my Healing Tones blog for a series on Pyramid Power. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the current post subject.

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