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Health Website Rankings: Mercola.com is Now World's #1!
Below is a routinely updated ranking of the Web's most visited health websites provided by Alexa.com and grouped into both 1) natural health sites, and 2) all health sites in all categories.
Keep in mind that the lower the Alexa.com ranking number, the more popular the website. For example, a website with an Alexa.com rank of 10,000 means of all the over 300 million of websites that exist, that website is the 10,000th most visited on the entire Internet.
There are many tens of thousands of health websites, so why is Mercola.com the #1 most visited natural health website of them all - and one of the world's most visited of all health websites in any health category? Take a look at the latest rankings below, and then scroll down for the answer!
Most Visited Natural Health Content Sites
Name
URL
Rank
1.
Dr. Mercola
http://www.mercola.com/
1979
2.
LEF
http://www.lef.org/
8116
3.
Prevention
http://www.prevention.com/
9408
4.
Mothering
http://www.mothering.com/
10108
5.
News Target
http://www.newstarget.com/
10434
6.
Dr. Weil
http://www.drweil.com/
13229
7.
Whole Health MD
http://www.wholehealthmd.com/
15634
8.
EmoFree
http://www.emofree.com/
16973
9.
Health A to Z
http://www.healthatoz.com/
17730
10.
Atkins' Center
http://www.atkins.com/
19990
11.
True Star Health
http://www.truestarhealth.com/
20392
12.
Health World Online
http://www.healthy.net/
27384
13.
Chet Day
http://www.chetday.com/
33487
14.
La Leche League
http://www.lalecheleague.org/
36992
15.
Seek Wellness
http://www.seekwellness.com/
38875
16.
Environmental Working Group
http://www.ewg.org/
39775
17.
Shirley's Wellness Cafe
http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/
42554
18.
Remedy Find
http://www.remedyfind.com/
44079
19.
Dr. Chopra
http://www.chopra.com/
50928
20.
ChiroWeb
http://www.chiroweb.com/
55808
21.
Dr. Mirkin
http://www.drmirkin.com/
60997
22.
Dr. Whitaker
http://www.drwhitaker.com/
63189
23.
Dr. David Williams
http://www.drdavidwilliams.com/
64159
24.
Consumer Lab
http://www.consumerlab.com/
67550
25.
Weston A. Price Foundation
http://www.westonaprice.org/
70843
Most Visited Health Content Sites
Name
URL
Rank
1.
NIH
http://www.nih.gov/
266
2.
WebMd
http://www.webmd.com/
619
3.
CDC
http://www.cdc.gov/
1892
4.
Dr. Mercola
http://www.mercola.com/
1979
5.
MedicineNet
http://www.medicinenet.com/
2797
6.
Food and Drug Adminstration
http://www.fda.gov/
2857
7.
Drugs.com
http://www.drugs.com/
3433
8.
MedScape
http://www.medscape.com/
3610
9.
eMedicine
http://www.emedicine.com/
3690
10.
Mayo Clinic
http://www.mayoclinic.com/
3966
11.
RxList
http://www.rxlist.com/
4389
12.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
http://www.hhs.gov/
4726
13.
Kid's Health
http://www.kidshealth.org/
4848
14.
World Health Organization
www.who.int/en
5122
15.
Wrong Diagnosis
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/
5132
16.
Real Age
http://www.realage.com/
5736
17.
MedHelp
http://www.medhelp.org/
5963
18.
Men's Health Magazine
http://www.menshealth.com/
6494
19.
BMJ
bmj.bmjjournals.com
6564
20.
AMA
http://www.ama-assn.org/
6612
21.
Free Beauty Tips
http://www.free-beauty-tips.com/
6898
22.
The Child Health Site
http://www.thechildhealthsite.com/
7653
23.
LEF
http://www.lef.org/
8116
24.
American Baby
http://www.americanbaby.com/
8359
25.
NEJM
http://www.nejm.org/
9311
NOTE ON RANKING NUMBERS:
Websites such as CNN and MSNBC that offer health information among many other subject areas are not included in the rankings here, as traffic to these specific areas of their sites cannot be separated from traffic to their entire site. If you believe any medical or health Website has been overlooked, please check their name at http://www.alexa.com/ or contact us.
The 2 Main Reasons Mercola.com is #1
Over 375,000 subscribers -- including tens of thousands of health professionals -- read and trust the Mercola.com "eHealthy News You Can Use" e-newsletter -- and that number is growing by an average of 1000 subscribers per day! Why? Because:
You don't have time to sift through the 200 medical studies that come out each week, but if you want to live longer & healthier you deserve to know which studies matter to your personal health, and why and how. The Mercola.com e-newsletter does the work for you, providing the key insights you need to know!
You want all the insights on how medical and dietary research pertains to you personally -- in a straightforward manner that makes sense, without scientific jargon or fluff -- and with the Mercola.com "eHealthy News You Can Use" e-newsletter that's exactly what you get
You'll get important dietary advice in my newsletter long before you can find it anywhere else. I have been a physician for over two decades, with extensive education and experience in natural, conventional and alternative health, and in that time I've built a reputation as one of the leading diet and nutrition experts in the nation. You'll get this insight free!
You also get original health & wellness articles from a wide variety of other leading health professionals in all fields, such as women's health, chiropractic, exercise and beyond; these are the top experts in their fields providing highly useful information you won't see anywhere else
Even with all of the above, your Mercola.com "eHealthy News You Can Use" e-newsletter subscription is FREE
Millions of people daily visit Mercola.com to search from over 50,000 pages of information for proven and practical solutions to their health and wellness concerns. Why? Because:
Mercola.com contains over 50,000 pages of health & wellness information on every medical topic -- and using our powerful search engine the answers to your health questions are simple to find!
Mercola.com does NOT accept any third-party advertising or sponsorship, and I am in no way tied into any pharmaceutical company or any other corporate "interest" whatsoever. So you get the real inside scoop on health issues, with practical advice that matters to you untainted by outside influence!
The health and medical information is provided first-hand by experienced, credentialed professional experts. The articles are either created by me, Dr. Mercola, or by other physicians or health professionals and reviewed by me. I have been a physician for over twenty years with a long list of accomplishments that I invite you to read about in My Qualifications.
In a world overflowing with tens of thousands of "health" foods, supplements, gadgets, books and more, people are understandably confused as to which (very few) such products are truly worthwhile and deliver true health value. Only after careful review and with your health in mind (and again without any outside influence), you'll find reviews and insights for only the top-recommended health products that can truly help you. Those that may be difficult for some to find are offered in the "Most Popular Products" area.
Related Information:
See Mercola.com's Position in Previous Rankings
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Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
# 56 Expiration Date On Bottle Means What!
Drugs Frequently Potent Past Expiration
By Laurie P. Cohen
Do drugs really stop working after the date stamped on the bottle? Fifteen years ago, the U.S. military decided to find out. Sitting on a $1 billion stockpile of drugs and facing the daunting process of destroying and replacing its supply every two to three years, the military began a testing program to see if it could extend the life of its inventory. The testing, conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, ultimately covered more than 100 drugs, prescription and over-the-counter.
The results, never before reported, show that about 90% of them were safe and effective far past their original expiration date, at least one for 15 years past it.
In light of these results, a former director of the testing program, Francis Flaherty, says he has concluded that expiration dates put on by manufacturers typically have no bearing on whether a drug is usable for longer. Mr. Flaherty notes that a drug maker is required to prove only that a drug is still good on whatever expiration date the company chooses to set. The expiration date doesn't mean, or even suggest, that the drug will stop being effective after that, nor that it will become harmful.MARKETING ISSUE
"Manufacturers put expiration dates on for marketing, rather than scientific, reasons," says Mr. Flaherty, a pharmacist at the FDA until his retirement last year. "It's not profitable for them to have products on a shelf for 10 years. They want turnover."
The FDA cautions that there isn't enough evidence from the program, which is weighted toward drugs needed during combat and which tests only individual manufacturing batches, to conclude that most drugs in people's medicine cabinets are potent beyond the expiration date. Still, Joel Davis, a former FDA expiration-date compliance chief, says that with a handful of exceptions - notably nitroglycerin, insulin and some liquid antibiotics - most drugs are probably as durable as those the agency has tested for the military. "Most drugs degrade very slowly," he says. "In all likelihood, you can take a product you have at home and keep it for many years, especially if it's in the refrigerator."
MANUFACTURERS' VIEW
Drug-industry officials don't dispute the results of the FDA's testing, within what is called the Shelf Life Extension Program. And they acknowledge that expiration dates have a commercial dimension. But they say relatively short shelf lives make sense from a public-safety standpoint, as well.
New, more-beneficial drugs can be brought on the market more easily if the old ones are discarded within a couple of years, they say. Label redesigns work better when consumers don't have earlier versions on hand to create confusion. From the companies' perspective, any liability or safety risk is diminished by limiting the period during which a consumer might misuse or improperly store a drug. "Two to three years is a very comfortable point of commercial convenience," says Mark van Arandonk, senior director for pharmaceutical development at Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc. "It gives us enough time to put the inventory in warehouses, ship it and ensure it will stay on shelves long enough to get used." But companies uniformly deny any effort to spur sales through planned obsolescence.WHY NOT LONGER?
Now that the FDA has found that many drugs are still good long after they have supposedly expired, why doesn't it advocate later expiration dates for consumer drugs? One reason is that the consumer market lacks the military's logistical reasons to keep drugs around longer.
Frank Holcombe, associate director of the FDA's office of generic drugs, says that in many cases a manufacturer could extend expiration periods again and again, but to support those extensions, it would have to keep doing stability studies, and keep more in storage than it would like.
Mr. Davis adds: "It's not the job of the FDA to be concerned about a consumer's economic interest." It would be up to Congress to impose changes, he says. As things stand now, expiration dates get a lot of emphasis. For instance, there is a campaign, co-sponsored by some drug retailers, that urges people to discard pills when they reach the date on the label.
And that date often is even earlier than the one the maker set. That's because when pharmacists dispense a drug in any container other than what it came to them in, they routinely cut the expiration date to just one year after dispensing. Some states even require pharmacists to do this.
Meanwhile, poor countries - under urging from the World Health Organization - often reject drug-company donations of much-needed medicines if they are within a year of their expiration dates.
It isn't known how much of the $120 billion-plus spent annually in the U.S. on prescription and over-the-counter medicines goes to replace expired ones. But in a poll done for The Wall Street Journal by NPD Group Inc. of Port Washington, N.Y., 70% of 1,000 respondents said they probably wouldn't take a prescription drug after its expiration date; 72% said the same of an over-the-counter remedy.
"People think that, upon expiration, drugs suddenly turn toxic or lose all their potency," says Philip Alper, professor of medicine at University of California at San Francisco. In his own practice, Dr. Alper says, "I frequently hear - from patients who can't afford medicine - that they have thrown away expired drugs." He says companies should be required to test drugs for longer periods and set later expiration dates when results warrant.
Some manufacturers first began putting expiration dates on drugs in the 1960s, although they didn't have to. When the FDA began requiring such dating in 1979, the main effect was to set uniform testing and reporting guidelines. As now required by the FDA, so-called stability testing analyzes the capacity of a drug to maintain its identity, strength, quality and purity for whatever period the manufacturer picks. If the company picks a two-year expiration date, it needn't test beyond that.
Testing for a two-year expiration doesn't initially entail holding a drug for two years. Rather, the drug is tested by subjecting it to extreme heat and humidity for several months, then chemically analyzing each ingredient's identity and strength. (After the date is set and the drug is marketed, testing continues for the full two years.) The FDA also uses chemical analysis in testing for possible shelf-life extension; it doesn't test on human subjects. Testing conditions are such that any medicine that meets, say, the standards for a two-year expiration date probably lasts longer, the FDA and drug companies agree.
STILL GOOD
Consider aspirin. Bayer AG puts two-year or three-year dates on aspirin and says that it should be discarded after that. Chris Allen, a vice president at the Bayer unit that makes aspirin, says the dating is "pretty conservative"; when Bayer has tested four-year-old aspirin, it remained 100% effective, he says.
So why doesn't Bayer set a four-year expiration date? Because the company often changes packaging, and it undertakes "continuous improvement programs," Mr. Allen says. Each change triggers a need for more expiration-date testing, he says, and testing each time for a four-year life would be impractical.
Bayer has never tested aspirin beyond four years, Mr. Allen says. But Jens Carstensen has. Dr. Carstensen, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin's pharmacy school, who wrote what is considered the main text on drug stability, says, "I did a study of different aspirins, and after five years, Bayer was still excellent. Aspirin, if made correctly, is very stable."
Only one report known to the medical community linked an old drug to human toxicity. A 1963 Journal of the American Medical Association article said degraded tetracycline caused kidney damage. Even this study, though, has been challenged by other scientists. Mr. Flaherty says the Shelf Life program encountered no toxicity with tetracycline and typically found batches effective for more than two years beyond their expiration dates.
PLEA FROM THE AIR FORCE
The program dates to a U.S. effort begun in 1981 to increase military readiness by buying large quantities of drugs and medical devices for the armed forces. Four years later, more than $1 billion of supplies had been stockpiled. The General Accounting Office audited Air Force troop hospitals in Europe and found many supplies at or near expiration. It warned that by the 1990s, more than $100 million would have to be spent yearly on replacements.
The Air Force Surgeon General's office asked the FDA if it could possibly extend the shelf life of these drugs. The FDA had the equipment for stability testing. And because it had approved the drugs' sale in the first place, it also had manufacturers' data on the testing protocols. Testing for the Air Force began in late 1985. In the first year, 58 medicines from 137 different manufacturing lots were shipped to the FDA from overseas storage, among them penicillin, lidocaine and Lactated Ringers, an intravenous solution for dehydration. After testing, the FDA extended more than 80% of the expired lots, by an average of 33 months.
In 1992, according to the FDA, more than half of the expired drugs that had been retested in 1985 were still fine. Even now, at least one still is. Such results came as a revelation for Army Col. George Crawford when he took over military oversight of the program in 1997. He is a pharmacist, but "nobody tells you in pharmacy school that shelf life is about marketing, turnover and profits," he says. (The drug makers don't agree that it is, however.)
HOW IT WORKS
The military's base for the program is a dingy barracks room in Fort Detrick, Md. There, a group headed by Air Force Lt. Col. Greg Russie, who recently took over from Col. Crawford, tracks drugs that are near expiration at defense facilities all over the world, selecting many for retesting. They are shipped to the FDA, which sends them to its laboratories.
The FDA's lab in Philadelphia recently tested five automatic injectors containing an antidote to chemical poisoning, which were purposely held for three months in conditions even hotter and more humid than the FDA requires in consumer testing of drugs. The FDA tested the drug contained in the injectors, pralidoxime chloride, by separating its ingredients and measuring the strength and quality of each, then applying a computer model to determine whether a shelf-life extension was warranted.
The injectors' original expiration date was November 1985. The FDA had retested them periodically ever since, each time approving their continued use. The batch, made by Ayerst Laboratories, now part of American Home Products Corp.'s Wyeth-Ayerst unit, is 18 years old. It is 15 years beyond the expiration date applied by Ayerst. The FDA found it is still good.
A spokesman for Wyeth-Ayerst says it "uses scientific data to establish expiration dates" and "tries to have the longest possible dating on products that scientific data supports." The company is aware of the FDA retesting program. It says it can't comment specifically on the injectors tested by the FDA.
A FEW FAIL
Shelf-life extensions are "intentionally conservative," the FDA's Mr. Flaherty told military brass in a 1992 speech. He says that if the agency extended an expiration date by 36 months, it had concluded the lot would retain all of its safety and efficacy for at least 72 months. A very few drugs aren't retested. The military has found that water-purification tablets and mefloquine hydrochloride, for malaria, routinely fail stability testing beyond their expiration dates, so it has removed them from the program.
Also excluded are large-volume intravenous solutions, such as saline. "We don't like to test those," says Col. Crawford. "Not because we can't, but because it would be politically sensitive if G.I. Joe was lying in bed and saw it had originally expired three years ago."
Mr. Flaherty has said that while he tested a handful of drug batches that didn't even make it to their expiration dates, most drugs were "surprisingly durable." In one instance, he says, drugs labeled for room-temperature storage had been kept for two years in a warehouse in Oman that averaged 135 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime. Upon expiration, the drugs, which included the local anesthetic lidocaine and atropine, a nerve-gas antidote also used by eye doctors to dilate pupils, "were well within the standards for potency and other quality characteristics," he says.
STABLE MOLECULE
One medicine the FDA has endorsed for extensions is ciprofloxacin hydrochloride tablets, an antibiotic marketed by Bayer as Cipro. One batch had an expiration date of March 1989. More than 9 1/2 years later, the FDA found the tablets still good; it then extended some of them for 18 more months and others for 24 more months.
Albert Poirier, quality-assurance director for Bayer's pharmaceutical division, says he isn't surprised because Cipro "is a stable drug molecule" in tablet form. "We go for a shelf life that will be safest for patients," he says. "We want the drug to be used up within three years. We wouldn't want a patient to have it for 10 years because they'd have an old package insert" that might omit new information or contra-indications and because "we'd have no control over how they'd store the drug during this time."
Another extended drug is Thorazine, a tranquilizer chemically known as chlorpromazine tablets. Batches bearing December 1996 expiration dates - unused and unopened, as is the case with all drugs evaluated in the Shelf Life program - were tested in July 1998 and extended for two years. A spokesman for the maker, SmithKline Beecham PLC, says it applies an expiration date 24 months after manufacture. "We think that is the appropriate expiration date," he says. "We don't benefit from short expiration dates."
Some other drugs the FDA has extended at least two years beyond their expiration dates are diazepam, sold as Valium; cimetidine, sold as Tagamet; phenytoin, sold as Dilantin; and the antibiotics tetracycline and penicillin.BIG SAVINGS
On a cost-benefit basis, the program's returns have been huge. The first year, the Air Force paid the FDA $78,000 for testing and saved 59 times that sum by not needing to replace the drugs. After other services joined, the military from 1993 through 1998 spent about $3.9 million on testing and saved $263.4 million on drug expense, according to Lt. Col. Russie.
Says Mr. Flaherty: "We've cost the pharmaceutical companies hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of new stuff to the Department of Defense." More than 12 years ago, Messrs. Flaherty and Davis explained the program to drug-company chemists at a meeting of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists in Woodbridge, N.J., going into detail about how the FDA decided whether to extend a given expiration date. Mr. Davis concluded by noting how much the U.S. had saved by extending shelf lives instead of "destroying large quantities of still-useful medical products... ."
Mr. Flaherty says the FDA was keenly aware that if its methodology was flawed, or its results incorrect even once, its credibility would be attacked. Yet FDA officials say that during the program's 15 years, drug makers have never objected to any of its procedures or findings. "They may not have liked what we were doing, but they weren't able to challenge it," he says.
THE MESSAGE TO CIVILIANS
While the military is finding it can keep most drugs longer, civilians hear quite a different message. For instance, a campaign called the National Expired and Unused Medication Drive has collected and destroyed 36 tons of drugs since 1991, says its founder, Kathilee Champlin. Ms. Champlin, of Colorado Springs, Colo., says her interest derives from experience working with the elderly and seeing how hard it was for them to keep track of all their medications. She says she wasn't aware of any FDA program to extend drugs' shelf lives.
Her group has gained sponsorship from the some big drug retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. It sponsors the campaign to be "a good corporate citizen," says Frank Seagrave, vice president of pharmacy merchandising. "We believe that people should dispose of unused prescription medicines a year after they get them," he says, adding that Wal-Mart sometimes gives people a free bottle of vitamins if they bring in expired drugs.
Many pharmacists also play a role in shelf lives. The U.S. Pharmacopeia, a not-for-profit scientific group that develops standards for the drug industry, urged in 1985 that pharmacists set expiration dates at no more than one year if they were dispensing drugs in a bottle other than the manufacturer's original packaging. "New containers may let in more moisture and heat than the container the manufacturer used for the stability study," accelerating the drug's degradation, says the USP General Counsel Joseph Valentino.
The recommendation became a USP requirement in 1997. As a result, "the majority of pharmacists shorten the manufacturers' expiration dates" on prescription drugs to one year or less, says Susan Winckler, an official of the American Pharmaceutical Association. In fact, in 17 states, pharmacists now are legally required to do so. Ms. Winckler says shortening the dates makes sense because many people store drugs in moist bathrooms. She says the one-year rule is "motivated by product integrity and not by profit."
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL March 29, 2000
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
The key from the article is "shelf life is about marketing, turnover and profits. I find it absolutely incredible that the military spent from 1993 through 1998 about $3.9 million on testing and saved $263.4 million on drug expense.
We can clearly gain some valuable insights from this incredible piece in the Wall Street journal and sent in by ever diligent Michael Belkin.
Unless you have nitroglycerin, insulin and liquid antibiotics, you can pretty much be safely assured that your medication expires years beyond the date it says it does. I believe the major tragedy is that many Third World countries needlessly discard the drugs that are sent to them and could actually be saving lives due to lack of appreciation of this concept.
By Laurie P. Cohen
Do drugs really stop working after the date stamped on the bottle? Fifteen years ago, the U.S. military decided to find out. Sitting on a $1 billion stockpile of drugs and facing the daunting process of destroying and replacing its supply every two to three years, the military began a testing program to see if it could extend the life of its inventory. The testing, conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, ultimately covered more than 100 drugs, prescription and over-the-counter.
The results, never before reported, show that about 90% of them were safe and effective far past their original expiration date, at least one for 15 years past it.
In light of these results, a former director of the testing program, Francis Flaherty, says he has concluded that expiration dates put on by manufacturers typically have no bearing on whether a drug is usable for longer. Mr. Flaherty notes that a drug maker is required to prove only that a drug is still good on whatever expiration date the company chooses to set. The expiration date doesn't mean, or even suggest, that the drug will stop being effective after that, nor that it will become harmful.MARKETING ISSUE
"Manufacturers put expiration dates on for marketing, rather than scientific, reasons," says Mr. Flaherty, a pharmacist at the FDA until his retirement last year. "It's not profitable for them to have products on a shelf for 10 years. They want turnover."
The FDA cautions that there isn't enough evidence from the program, which is weighted toward drugs needed during combat and which tests only individual manufacturing batches, to conclude that most drugs in people's medicine cabinets are potent beyond the expiration date. Still, Joel Davis, a former FDA expiration-date compliance chief, says that with a handful of exceptions - notably nitroglycerin, insulin and some liquid antibiotics - most drugs are probably as durable as those the agency has tested for the military. "Most drugs degrade very slowly," he says. "In all likelihood, you can take a product you have at home and keep it for many years, especially if it's in the refrigerator."
MANUFACTURERS' VIEW
Drug-industry officials don't dispute the results of the FDA's testing, within what is called the Shelf Life Extension Program. And they acknowledge that expiration dates have a commercial dimension. But they say relatively short shelf lives make sense from a public-safety standpoint, as well.
New, more-beneficial drugs can be brought on the market more easily if the old ones are discarded within a couple of years, they say. Label redesigns work better when consumers don't have earlier versions on hand to create confusion. From the companies' perspective, any liability or safety risk is diminished by limiting the period during which a consumer might misuse or improperly store a drug. "Two to three years is a very comfortable point of commercial convenience," says Mark van Arandonk, senior director for pharmaceutical development at Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc. "It gives us enough time to put the inventory in warehouses, ship it and ensure it will stay on shelves long enough to get used." But companies uniformly deny any effort to spur sales through planned obsolescence.WHY NOT LONGER?
Now that the FDA has found that many drugs are still good long after they have supposedly expired, why doesn't it advocate later expiration dates for consumer drugs? One reason is that the consumer market lacks the military's logistical reasons to keep drugs around longer.
Frank Holcombe, associate director of the FDA's office of generic drugs, says that in many cases a manufacturer could extend expiration periods again and again, but to support those extensions, it would have to keep doing stability studies, and keep more in storage than it would like.
Mr. Davis adds: "It's not the job of the FDA to be concerned about a consumer's economic interest." It would be up to Congress to impose changes, he says. As things stand now, expiration dates get a lot of emphasis. For instance, there is a campaign, co-sponsored by some drug retailers, that urges people to discard pills when they reach the date on the label.
And that date often is even earlier than the one the maker set. That's because when pharmacists dispense a drug in any container other than what it came to them in, they routinely cut the expiration date to just one year after dispensing. Some states even require pharmacists to do this.
Meanwhile, poor countries - under urging from the World Health Organization - often reject drug-company donations of much-needed medicines if they are within a year of their expiration dates.
It isn't known how much of the $120 billion-plus spent annually in the U.S. on prescription and over-the-counter medicines goes to replace expired ones. But in a poll done for The Wall Street Journal by NPD Group Inc. of Port Washington, N.Y., 70% of 1,000 respondents said they probably wouldn't take a prescription drug after its expiration date; 72% said the same of an over-the-counter remedy.
"People think that, upon expiration, drugs suddenly turn toxic or lose all their potency," says Philip Alper, professor of medicine at University of California at San Francisco. In his own practice, Dr. Alper says, "I frequently hear - from patients who can't afford medicine - that they have thrown away expired drugs." He says companies should be required to test drugs for longer periods and set later expiration dates when results warrant.
Some manufacturers first began putting expiration dates on drugs in the 1960s, although they didn't have to. When the FDA began requiring such dating in 1979, the main effect was to set uniform testing and reporting guidelines. As now required by the FDA, so-called stability testing analyzes the capacity of a drug to maintain its identity, strength, quality and purity for whatever period the manufacturer picks. If the company picks a two-year expiration date, it needn't test beyond that.
Testing for a two-year expiration doesn't initially entail holding a drug for two years. Rather, the drug is tested by subjecting it to extreme heat and humidity for several months, then chemically analyzing each ingredient's identity and strength. (After the date is set and the drug is marketed, testing continues for the full two years.) The FDA also uses chemical analysis in testing for possible shelf-life extension; it doesn't test on human subjects. Testing conditions are such that any medicine that meets, say, the standards for a two-year expiration date probably lasts longer, the FDA and drug companies agree.
STILL GOOD
Consider aspirin. Bayer AG puts two-year or three-year dates on aspirin and says that it should be discarded after that. Chris Allen, a vice president at the Bayer unit that makes aspirin, says the dating is "pretty conservative"; when Bayer has tested four-year-old aspirin, it remained 100% effective, he says.
So why doesn't Bayer set a four-year expiration date? Because the company often changes packaging, and it undertakes "continuous improvement programs," Mr. Allen says. Each change triggers a need for more expiration-date testing, he says, and testing each time for a four-year life would be impractical.
Bayer has never tested aspirin beyond four years, Mr. Allen says. But Jens Carstensen has. Dr. Carstensen, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin's pharmacy school, who wrote what is considered the main text on drug stability, says, "I did a study of different aspirins, and after five years, Bayer was still excellent. Aspirin, if made correctly, is very stable."
Only one report known to the medical community linked an old drug to human toxicity. A 1963 Journal of the American Medical Association article said degraded tetracycline caused kidney damage. Even this study, though, has been challenged by other scientists. Mr. Flaherty says the Shelf Life program encountered no toxicity with tetracycline and typically found batches effective for more than two years beyond their expiration dates.
PLEA FROM THE AIR FORCE
The program dates to a U.S. effort begun in 1981 to increase military readiness by buying large quantities of drugs and medical devices for the armed forces. Four years later, more than $1 billion of supplies had been stockpiled. The General Accounting Office audited Air Force troop hospitals in Europe and found many supplies at or near expiration. It warned that by the 1990s, more than $100 million would have to be spent yearly on replacements.
The Air Force Surgeon General's office asked the FDA if it could possibly extend the shelf life of these drugs. The FDA had the equipment for stability testing. And because it had approved the drugs' sale in the first place, it also had manufacturers' data on the testing protocols. Testing for the Air Force began in late 1985. In the first year, 58 medicines from 137 different manufacturing lots were shipped to the FDA from overseas storage, among them penicillin, lidocaine and Lactated Ringers, an intravenous solution for dehydration. After testing, the FDA extended more than 80% of the expired lots, by an average of 33 months.
In 1992, according to the FDA, more than half of the expired drugs that had been retested in 1985 were still fine. Even now, at least one still is. Such results came as a revelation for Army Col. George Crawford when he took over military oversight of the program in 1997. He is a pharmacist, but "nobody tells you in pharmacy school that shelf life is about marketing, turnover and profits," he says. (The drug makers don't agree that it is, however.)
HOW IT WORKS
The military's base for the program is a dingy barracks room in Fort Detrick, Md. There, a group headed by Air Force Lt. Col. Greg Russie, who recently took over from Col. Crawford, tracks drugs that are near expiration at defense facilities all over the world, selecting many for retesting. They are shipped to the FDA, which sends them to its laboratories.
The FDA's lab in Philadelphia recently tested five automatic injectors containing an antidote to chemical poisoning, which were purposely held for three months in conditions even hotter and more humid than the FDA requires in consumer testing of drugs. The FDA tested the drug contained in the injectors, pralidoxime chloride, by separating its ingredients and measuring the strength and quality of each, then applying a computer model to determine whether a shelf-life extension was warranted.
The injectors' original expiration date was November 1985. The FDA had retested them periodically ever since, each time approving their continued use. The batch, made by Ayerst Laboratories, now part of American Home Products Corp.'s Wyeth-Ayerst unit, is 18 years old. It is 15 years beyond the expiration date applied by Ayerst. The FDA found it is still good.
A spokesman for Wyeth-Ayerst says it "uses scientific data to establish expiration dates" and "tries to have the longest possible dating on products that scientific data supports." The company is aware of the FDA retesting program. It says it can't comment specifically on the injectors tested by the FDA.
A FEW FAIL
Shelf-life extensions are "intentionally conservative," the FDA's Mr. Flaherty told military brass in a 1992 speech. He says that if the agency extended an expiration date by 36 months, it had concluded the lot would retain all of its safety and efficacy for at least 72 months. A very few drugs aren't retested. The military has found that water-purification tablets and mefloquine hydrochloride, for malaria, routinely fail stability testing beyond their expiration dates, so it has removed them from the program.
Also excluded are large-volume intravenous solutions, such as saline. "We don't like to test those," says Col. Crawford. "Not because we can't, but because it would be politically sensitive if G.I. Joe was lying in bed and saw it had originally expired three years ago."
Mr. Flaherty has said that while he tested a handful of drug batches that didn't even make it to their expiration dates, most drugs were "surprisingly durable." In one instance, he says, drugs labeled for room-temperature storage had been kept for two years in a warehouse in Oman that averaged 135 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime. Upon expiration, the drugs, which included the local anesthetic lidocaine and atropine, a nerve-gas antidote also used by eye doctors to dilate pupils, "were well within the standards for potency and other quality characteristics," he says.
STABLE MOLECULE
One medicine the FDA has endorsed for extensions is ciprofloxacin hydrochloride tablets, an antibiotic marketed by Bayer as Cipro. One batch had an expiration date of March 1989. More than 9 1/2 years later, the FDA found the tablets still good; it then extended some of them for 18 more months and others for 24 more months.
Albert Poirier, quality-assurance director for Bayer's pharmaceutical division, says he isn't surprised because Cipro "is a stable drug molecule" in tablet form. "We go for a shelf life that will be safest for patients," he says. "We want the drug to be used up within three years. We wouldn't want a patient to have it for 10 years because they'd have an old package insert" that might omit new information or contra-indications and because "we'd have no control over how they'd store the drug during this time."
Another extended drug is Thorazine, a tranquilizer chemically known as chlorpromazine tablets. Batches bearing December 1996 expiration dates - unused and unopened, as is the case with all drugs evaluated in the Shelf Life program - were tested in July 1998 and extended for two years. A spokesman for the maker, SmithKline Beecham PLC, says it applies an expiration date 24 months after manufacture. "We think that is the appropriate expiration date," he says. "We don't benefit from short expiration dates."
Some other drugs the FDA has extended at least two years beyond their expiration dates are diazepam, sold as Valium; cimetidine, sold as Tagamet; phenytoin, sold as Dilantin; and the antibiotics tetracycline and penicillin.BIG SAVINGS
On a cost-benefit basis, the program's returns have been huge. The first year, the Air Force paid the FDA $78,000 for testing and saved 59 times that sum by not needing to replace the drugs. After other services joined, the military from 1993 through 1998 spent about $3.9 million on testing and saved $263.4 million on drug expense, according to Lt. Col. Russie.
Says Mr. Flaherty: "We've cost the pharmaceutical companies hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of new stuff to the Department of Defense." More than 12 years ago, Messrs. Flaherty and Davis explained the program to drug-company chemists at a meeting of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists in Woodbridge, N.J., going into detail about how the FDA decided whether to extend a given expiration date. Mr. Davis concluded by noting how much the U.S. had saved by extending shelf lives instead of "destroying large quantities of still-useful medical products... ."
Mr. Flaherty says the FDA was keenly aware that if its methodology was flawed, or its results incorrect even once, its credibility would be attacked. Yet FDA officials say that during the program's 15 years, drug makers have never objected to any of its procedures or findings. "They may not have liked what we were doing, but they weren't able to challenge it," he says.
THE MESSAGE TO CIVILIANS
While the military is finding it can keep most drugs longer, civilians hear quite a different message. For instance, a campaign called the National Expired and Unused Medication Drive has collected and destroyed 36 tons of drugs since 1991, says its founder, Kathilee Champlin. Ms. Champlin, of Colorado Springs, Colo., says her interest derives from experience working with the elderly and seeing how hard it was for them to keep track of all their medications. She says she wasn't aware of any FDA program to extend drugs' shelf lives.
Her group has gained sponsorship from the some big drug retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. It sponsors the campaign to be "a good corporate citizen," says Frank Seagrave, vice president of pharmacy merchandising. "We believe that people should dispose of unused prescription medicines a year after they get them," he says, adding that Wal-Mart sometimes gives people a free bottle of vitamins if they bring in expired drugs.
Many pharmacists also play a role in shelf lives. The U.S. Pharmacopeia, a not-for-profit scientific group that develops standards for the drug industry, urged in 1985 that pharmacists set expiration dates at no more than one year if they were dispensing drugs in a bottle other than the manufacturer's original packaging. "New containers may let in more moisture and heat than the container the manufacturer used for the stability study," accelerating the drug's degradation, says the USP General Counsel Joseph Valentino.
The recommendation became a USP requirement in 1997. As a result, "the majority of pharmacists shorten the manufacturers' expiration dates" on prescription drugs to one year or less, says Susan Winckler, an official of the American Pharmaceutical Association. In fact, in 17 states, pharmacists now are legally required to do so. Ms. Winckler says shortening the dates makes sense because many people store drugs in moist bathrooms. She says the one-year rule is "motivated by product integrity and not by profit."
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL March 29, 2000
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
The key from the article is "shelf life is about marketing, turnover and profits. I find it absolutely incredible that the military spent from 1993 through 1998 about $3.9 million on testing and saved $263.4 million on drug expense.
We can clearly gain some valuable insights from this incredible piece in the Wall Street journal and sent in by ever diligent Michael Belkin.
Unless you have nitroglycerin, insulin and liquid antibiotics, you can pretty much be safely assured that your medication expires years beyond the date it says it does. I believe the major tragedy is that many Third World countries needlessly discard the drugs that are sent to them and could actually be saving lives due to lack of appreciation of this concept.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
# 55 Decisions and Decorum
Recognizing that my views on numerous subjects give only one perspective , that a more eclectic approach was needed , and be available to my readers.
My view points, products and items used, and books mentioned, are, of course "what worked for me". But might not work for you! Listing all the various avenues would create write-ups that would be "book" like in size. In considering what is available and practical posed many problems. No way , could one cover all the various areas related to a specific subject.
So, in keeping with my philosophy of using the "KISS"process ( meaning of course, Keep It Simple Stupid ) I looked for a practical means of doing so. Other than hiring a Public Relations company ( too costly ) and beyond what is needed here, I decided to "hire" Google, so to speak, and put on their program to search out what fits, subject wise.
So feel free to "click" on the ads that show.
They are supposed to relate to content with-in a given article.
So , that's where it stands for now.
My view points, products and items used, and books mentioned, are, of course "what worked for me". But might not work for you! Listing all the various avenues would create write-ups that would be "book" like in size. In considering what is available and practical posed many problems. No way , could one cover all the various areas related to a specific subject.
So, in keeping with my philosophy of using the "KISS"process ( meaning of course, Keep It Simple Stupid ) I looked for a practical means of doing so. Other than hiring a Public Relations company ( too costly ) and beyond what is needed here, I decided to "hire" Google, so to speak, and put on their program to search out what fits, subject wise.
So feel free to "click" on the ads that show.
They are supposed to relate to content with-in a given article.
So , that's where it stands for now.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
# 53 Free Will - Truth or Fiction
Where to start and arrange the words and subjects covered into a congruous read! Honestly, and unfortunately, there will be no solution, no real answers, regards topics covered. Everything presented here is abstract speculation. Metaphysics, religion, God, Higher Power, spirituality, and reality are mainly speculation.
One would think that at least reality could be understood. We experience it every day. Watch it though, seems that scientists have now found that quantum physics, indicates, that what we experience as our world, is not what we think it is. Still trying to sort this one out. Will at this time, leave out most of reality talk, for another post.
Part of ones reality seems to include "free will". That leads to choices and decisions. For instance, one can cheat, lie, harm another or purchase a purple and orange suit for dress up. Perhaps you helped care for a hurt animal or bird, maybe risked you life to help save a person in trouble. Even donated some cash to a charity while behind in paying the rent.
So you made a decision and a choice. What you did was free will in action , right, or was it! One classical complaint regards free will, is mentioned in the bible. If your interested go to Romans 7:15-24. So now one needs to ask, does one truly have "free will". This can be quite troublesome in ones life. Is there an explanation to this seeming paradox? Yes and no, are both in action here, at least it seems to be so.
Have over time really pondered this issue. Also seems that others have looked into this issue. I've listed one site, that has gone into the subject quite well. It makes sense, but how to prove it, still remains an issue with me. Is it even possible to verify in any way? While I do have beliefs on this subject, will need to pursue it further.
With the best of intentions, I include:
With permission, this is a quote from "Light Whispers, October 5, 2005" newsletter.
***DID YOU KNOW…FREE WILL***
Did you know…your life can be written in stone and that you may actually have little or no free will? The events that you must experience may be so defined that no matter what you choose to do, the Spirit Guides will manipulate the situations and circumstances so that you end up doing what was written (which is often not what you thought would happen). You cannot change what is written.
Did you know…you may have a lot of free will on your life path? It may not matter what you choose to experience in your life. If your spiritual goals and life blueprint do not have events that “must happen” for you to learn what you have chosen, you may be able to do what you want throughout your life.
Did you know…different areas or aspects of your life might allow for different amounts of free will? That means that you may have a lot of free will when it comes to your job or career and you may have little or no free will when it comes to your romantic relationships. Each aspect of life is unique and the amount of free will that you have within that aspect depends on what you are here to accomplish in life.
Did you know…you decide prior to being born what events will take place in your life and how much free will you will have during your lifetime? There is no one to blame for the experiences that you have or do not have in your life – you chose and agreed to have them.
Did you know…if you have a lot of free will, when you make a decision it will affect your life blueprint and you will sit down in Spirit with your Guides and Teachers and make the necessary adjustments to your life path as you go?
Did you know… One decision can affect other aspects of your life and that can affect predicted outcomes. That is why when you get a reading, your actions or decisions can change the outcomes of the reading. If you have no free will then what you have been told will come true when it is time.
That you can find out if you how much free will you have in certain aspects of your life by clicking here.
http://www.oralin.com/october5lightwhispers.htm
One would think that at least reality could be understood. We experience it every day. Watch it though, seems that scientists have now found that quantum physics, indicates, that what we experience as our world, is not what we think it is. Still trying to sort this one out. Will at this time, leave out most of reality talk, for another post.
Part of ones reality seems to include "free will". That leads to choices and decisions. For instance, one can cheat, lie, harm another or purchase a purple and orange suit for dress up. Perhaps you helped care for a hurt animal or bird, maybe risked you life to help save a person in trouble. Even donated some cash to a charity while behind in paying the rent.
So you made a decision and a choice. What you did was free will in action , right, or was it! One classical complaint regards free will, is mentioned in the bible. If your interested go to Romans 7:15-24. So now one needs to ask, does one truly have "free will". This can be quite troublesome in ones life. Is there an explanation to this seeming paradox? Yes and no, are both in action here, at least it seems to be so.
Have over time really pondered this issue. Also seems that others have looked into this issue. I've listed one site, that has gone into the subject quite well. It makes sense, but how to prove it, still remains an issue with me. Is it even possible to verify in any way? While I do have beliefs on this subject, will need to pursue it further.
With the best of intentions, I include:
With permission, this is a quote from "Light Whispers, October 5, 2005" newsletter.
***DID YOU KNOW…FREE WILL***
Did you know…your life can be written in stone and that you may actually have little or no free will? The events that you must experience may be so defined that no matter what you choose to do, the Spirit Guides will manipulate the situations and circumstances so that you end up doing what was written (which is often not what you thought would happen). You cannot change what is written.
Did you know…you may have a lot of free will on your life path? It may not matter what you choose to experience in your life. If your spiritual goals and life blueprint do not have events that “must happen” for you to learn what you have chosen, you may be able to do what you want throughout your life.
Did you know…different areas or aspects of your life might allow for different amounts of free will? That means that you may have a lot of free will when it comes to your job or career and you may have little or no free will when it comes to your romantic relationships. Each aspect of life is unique and the amount of free will that you have within that aspect depends on what you are here to accomplish in life.
Did you know…you decide prior to being born what events will take place in your life and how much free will you will have during your lifetime? There is no one to blame for the experiences that you have or do not have in your life – you chose and agreed to have them.
Did you know…if you have a lot of free will, when you make a decision it will affect your life blueprint and you will sit down in Spirit with your Guides and Teachers and make the necessary adjustments to your life path as you go?
Did you know… One decision can affect other aspects of your life and that can affect predicted outcomes. That is why when you get a reading, your actions or decisions can change the outcomes of the reading. If you have no free will then what you have been told will come true when it is time.
That you can find out if you how much free will you have in certain aspects of your life by clicking here.
http://www.oralin.com/october5lightwhispers.htm
Monday, October 03, 2005
# 54 How Do You Think
If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don't!
If you'd like to win, but you think you can't,
It's almost certain you won't.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you think you'll lose, you're lost;
For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellow's will;
It's all in the state of mind!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you think you're outclassed, you are;
You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself
Before you 'll ever win the prize.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the person who thinks he can!
-- Author Unknown
If you think you dare not, you don't!
If you'd like to win, but you think you can't,
It's almost certain you won't.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you think you'll lose, you're lost;
For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellow's will;
It's all in the state of mind!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you think you're outclassed, you are;
You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself
Before you 'll ever win the prize.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the person who thinks he can!
-- Author Unknown
Saturday, October 01, 2005
# 52 Recheck Posts For Added New Data
I do add to my postings as new information is found. So do a recheck in case some new data was put in. It is nice to see new comments to the posts. If you disagree with what is written, why not comment on it. Same with , if it helped, why not post a "yup, it was helpful because......".
If you get a burning desire ( LOL ) to carry on a discussion on some aspect of a post, do it through the comments segment. Please though, dont use any real names for every ones protection and safety. You can sign in with a User Name and Password, that way no one knows who you are, and my response is addressed to your private User Name.
In fact , I am going to create an open Post , just for that purpose, watch for it.
History
1st - 9/30/05
If you get a burning desire ( LOL ) to carry on a discussion on some aspect of a post, do it through the comments segment. Please though, dont use any real names for every ones protection and safety. You can sign in with a User Name and Password, that way no one knows who you are, and my response is addressed to your private User Name.
In fact , I am going to create an open Post , just for that purpose, watch for it.
History
1st - 9/30/05
# 51 Chit Chat1 Rearranged blog as of 9-29-2005
Did you notice the rearranged articles?
Well it was all about learning how to tame the mess that came about in posting the blurbs. Interesting as this all is, there is a learning curve to cope with.
In the process of correcting the mess I had made, Your truly managed to lose all the "comments" that had been posted. I don't pretend to understand the "how of it", yet, but come on back and say "hi" again. Apparently "Post and Comments" are processed separately, with no control over the "Comments" section.
Had to add in a new process to foil Blog Hackers, that would post undesired data . Now you just type in what is shown in a little window, that automatic site readers are unable to handle, as of 9-28-2005.
Not quite sure , yet, on what or how it will wind up look wise.
If you Post a Comment , you might want to use only your first name, and the first letter of your last name. Use a password also if you want, or do it all "anonymously", then put your first name and first letter of the last name in the text.
This has been and is a surprising situation, writing down thoughts and also finding how often I type in a cuss or crappy word, and need to cut it out.
( need to apply this to my speech process too) .
Those things talked on, are from a number of sources and experiences . Huge amounts of water has rushed under and over this "bridge called life", and "the good, and the not so good" has registered "pleasant and not so pleasant" episodes. Not complaining though, it has all culminated so far, in the making of "The Talker". Is that good or not so good?
For now
Well it was all about learning how to tame the mess that came about in posting the blurbs. Interesting as this all is, there is a learning curve to cope with.
In the process of correcting the mess I had made, Your truly managed to lose all the "comments" that had been posted. I don't pretend to understand the "how of it", yet, but come on back and say "hi" again. Apparently "Post and Comments" are processed separately, with no control over the "Comments" section.
Had to add in a new process to foil Blog Hackers, that would post undesired data . Now you just type in what is shown in a little window, that automatic site readers are unable to handle, as of 9-28-2005.
Not quite sure , yet, on what or how it will wind up look wise.
If you Post a Comment , you might want to use only your first name, and the first letter of your last name. Use a password also if you want, or do it all "anonymously", then put your first name and first letter of the last name in the text.
This has been and is a surprising situation, writing down thoughts and also finding how often I type in a cuss or crappy word, and need to cut it out.
( need to apply this to my speech process too) .
Those things talked on, are from a number of sources and experiences . Huge amounts of water has rushed under and over this "bridge called life", and "the good, and the not so good" has registered "pleasant and not so pleasant" episodes. Not complaining though, it has all culminated so far, in the making of "The Talker". Is that good or not so good?
For now
Rearrange history , !st was 7/10/04, 2nd was 9/29/05
Friday, September 30, 2005
# 50 Taboo, Nope, Lets Talk On It
Talker, I need some help with..... !
Talker, you were right on , but what about..... ?
Talker, you are completely off base about..... !
Talker,......... ! ?
So the door is open, try it out for size. Use the "Comments" segment.
Do read the Post " Recheck Posts For Added Data" before you start.
Talker, you were right on , but what about..... ?
Talker, you are completely off base about..... !
Talker,......... ! ?
So the door is open, try it out for size. Use the "Comments" segment.
Do read the Post " Recheck Posts For Added Data" before you start.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
# 49 Soul Food
Many times while speaking on religion with friends or proselytes, they erroneously conclude at times , that I am some what irreligious. Not so. The conundrum of existence posed a question. So, in pursuit of an answer, I unwillingly joined the ranks, of the perplexed. Many were the times , during these periods of searching, that I wished for that "blind faith" so many others expressed.
It just wasn't there for me.
See my post " Religious Quandary", for more detail.
http://anotherlookatit.blogspot.com/2004/07/8-religious-quandary.html
Is there a doubt in my mind regards a Higher Power, none what so ever.
Over the course of decades, numerous forays into the bible created more problems than answers. That being said, I found many of the words written, to be of great interest, for reasons I wont go into at this time. Now ,what is listed here , is actually how they are written in my original notes. Could have rewritten a word or two, of my original thoughts, but decided to leave them as is.
My note in Matthew 21:12 might disturb some. If so see
(1 Kings 16:11-12 ) and (2 Kings 9:8 ) but be sure to use an old version of the bible, that was not sanitized.
In checking the verses and numbers, one may have a bit of a problem. I use older versions of the bible, so what you might find is a sanitized version, that may differ in text. Even the meaning may have been man altered, to suit some subtle purpose.
So now I need to point out, should one be concerned about what is written in Revelations 22:18-19?
Check it out.
You can do some checking of verses at the site listed at the bottom. This is a pro & con type listing, of various religions with interesting comments. Was pleased to find this site, as it was here, that I found the many questions that I had also raised, listed. Only points out that there are other persons that were as "questioning", about things written, as I am. Right or wrong, is not the question , "how you perceive it all", is what really matters, not dogma forced upon you.
This is not the original sequence I followed, that is of no importance here.
Listed here are some that had raised many questions in my mind, in the nature of " who, why, what, how come, are you kidding" .
- Chapter / Verse - - How I marked my notes -
1 Chronicles 4:10 - Jabez- and God granted what he asked...
1 Thessolonians 5:23 - Spirit, Soul, and Body...
Acts of the Apostles 1:14 - and Jesus' brothers...
Galations 1:18-20 - James the Lords brother...
Genesis 4:13-16 - Cain kills Abel & now afraid...
Genesis 6:1,4 - sons of God & Nephilim...
Genesis 6:6 - God sorry he made man...
John 14:12,14 - The Works that I do, so shall you also do...
John 4:44 - Prophet has no honor in his own country...
Luke 12:54-56 - you see the future in.../ but cant see the present...
Luke 4:24 - no prophet is acceptable in his own country...
Luke 7:11,15 - raises a dead person to life...
Luke 8:43,44,46 - Who touched me...
Luke 8:49-55 - your not dead, raises dead person...
Luke 8:8 - hundred fold...
Luke 9:38-43 - apostles screwed up, Jesus ticked off...
Mark 10:30 - hundred fold...
Mark 4:10,11 - To you has been given the secret...
Mark 4:33,34 - he explained everything...
Mark 6:3 - Judas brother of Jesus...
Mark 8:22,25 - Jesus had to work harder on his miracle( blind man)...
Matthew 10:34,39 - Do not think I have come to bring peace on earth...
Matthew 13:10,13 - to you it has been given to know the secrets...
Matthew 13:55 - more, Judas brother of...
Matthew 13:8,23 - hundred fold...
Matthew 16:13,15 - Who do they say that the son of man is...
Matthew 17:20 - mustard seed...
Matthew 21:12 - Jesus pissed off...
Matthew 21:22 - What ever you ask in prayer...
Matthew 25:35,40 - for I was hungry... / do to the least...
Matthew 6:5,6,7 - Pray in secret, keep it simple, Our Father...
Matthew 8:13 - Jesus heals Centurions servant- be it done for you, as you have believed...
Romans 7:15,24 - Paul to the Romans: The things I do... / ought not do....
Shortcut to: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
It just wasn't there for me.
See my post " Religious Quandary", for more detail.
http://anotherlookatit.blogspot.com/2004/07/8-religious-quandary.html
Is there a doubt in my mind regards a Higher Power, none what so ever.
Over the course of decades, numerous forays into the bible created more problems than answers. That being said, I found many of the words written, to be of great interest, for reasons I wont go into at this time. Now ,what is listed here , is actually how they are written in my original notes. Could have rewritten a word or two, of my original thoughts, but decided to leave them as is.
My note in Matthew 21:12 might disturb some. If so see
(1 Kings 16:11-12 ) and (2 Kings 9:8 ) but be sure to use an old version of the bible, that was not sanitized.
In checking the verses and numbers, one may have a bit of a problem. I use older versions of the bible, so what you might find is a sanitized version, that may differ in text. Even the meaning may have been man altered, to suit some subtle purpose.
So now I need to point out, should one be concerned about what is written in Revelations 22:18-19?
Check it out.
You can do some checking of verses at the site listed at the bottom. This is a pro & con type listing, of various religions with interesting comments. Was pleased to find this site, as it was here, that I found the many questions that I had also raised, listed. Only points out that there are other persons that were as "questioning", about things written, as I am. Right or wrong, is not the question , "how you perceive it all", is what really matters, not dogma forced upon you.
This is not the original sequence I followed, that is of no importance here.
Listed here are some that had raised many questions in my mind, in the nature of " who, why, what, how come, are you kidding" .
- Chapter / Verse - - How I marked my notes -
1 Chronicles 4:10 - Jabez- and God granted what he asked...
1 Thessolonians 5:23 - Spirit, Soul, and Body...
Acts of the Apostles 1:14 - and Jesus' brothers...
Galations 1:18-20 - James the Lords brother...
Genesis 4:13-16 - Cain kills Abel & now afraid...
Genesis 6:1,4 - sons of God & Nephilim...
Genesis 6:6 - God sorry he made man...
John 14:12,14 - The Works that I do, so shall you also do...
John 4:44 - Prophet has no honor in his own country...
Luke 12:54-56 - you see the future in.../ but cant see the present...
Luke 4:24 - no prophet is acceptable in his own country...
Luke 7:11,15 - raises a dead person to life...
Luke 8:43,44,46 - Who touched me...
Luke 8:49-55 - your not dead, raises dead person...
Luke 8:8 - hundred fold...
Luke 9:38-43 - apostles screwed up, Jesus ticked off...
Mark 10:30 - hundred fold...
Mark 4:10,11 - To you has been given the secret...
Mark 4:33,34 - he explained everything...
Mark 6:3 - Judas brother of Jesus...
Mark 8:22,25 - Jesus had to work harder on his miracle( blind man)...
Matthew 10:34,39 - Do not think I have come to bring peace on earth...
Matthew 13:10,13 - to you it has been given to know the secrets...
Matthew 13:55 - more, Judas brother of...
Matthew 13:8,23 - hundred fold...
Matthew 16:13,15 - Who do they say that the son of man is...
Matthew 17:20 - mustard seed...
Matthew 21:12 - Jesus pissed off...
Matthew 21:22 - What ever you ask in prayer...
Matthew 25:35,40 - for I was hungry... / do to the least...
Matthew 6:5,6,7 - Pray in secret, keep it simple, Our Father...
Matthew 8:13 - Jesus heals Centurions servant- be it done for you, as you have believed...
Romans 7:15,24 - Paul to the Romans: The things I do... / ought not do....
Shortcut to: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
# 48 The Carpenter
An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer/contractor of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family.
He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by.
The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.
When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house,"he said, "my gift to you."
What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.
So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized, we would have done it differently.
Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you will ever build.
Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity.
The plaque on the wall says, "Life is a do-it-yourself project."
Who could say it more clearly?
Your life today is the result of your attitudes and choices in the past.
Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices
you make today.
He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by.
The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.
When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house,"he said, "my gift to you."
What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.
So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized, we would have done it differently.
Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you will ever build.
Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity.
The plaque on the wall says, "Life is a do-it-yourself project."
Who could say it more clearly?
Your life today is the result of your attitudes and choices in the past.
Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices
you make today.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
# 47 All Seeing Eye Guards Your PC
Came across this neat program that enhances your anti-virus programs. What it does when first installed, is "read" what you have in your unit. From that point on, ANY program that tries to access the internet or goes on-line, will trigger an "ALERT" or a"WARNING" window. This gives you a clear look at what is happening. As you start up a program for the first time, you are flashed a "notice", that the program is indeed , activating and doing some thing. If its a program you know you started, just click the "OK" button. So far it appears this happens only for the first time YOU invoke a program. If some "nasty" bug, worm, virus or Trojan tries to activate, an ALERT warning will pop up, telling you what it is. Here is where you CAN STOP the unknown program from doing its dirty work on your computer. Click the appropriate box to not allow it to run. Often, when I do a three finger ALT-CTRL-DEL, and the Task Manager opens and shows Processes that are running, I have NO IDEA what program is using that process. Mostly they ARE part of the Operating System, or a program you installed , that sets up a starting point and runs every time you start the computer. Now I have control of any thing that sneaks into my computer with-out my permission to do so. Will see how this all works out. For a clearer explanation go to the site shown here. Oh, by the way , its a free program.
Shortcut to:
http://www.fortego.com/en/ase.html
Shortcut to:
http://www.fortego.com/en/ase.html
Saturday, September 24, 2005
# 46 FIGHT SPYWARE TRICKS
Get angry!
Don't be a victim of spyware and adware.
Become armed and and you will be dangerous
to the spyware pushers.
Read tips for fighting back
( Parts 1 and 2 are also available at the site. )
Spyware tricks part III: fighting back
by
ZDNet's Suzi Turner --
Go here for free copy of Cookie Viewer.
You can view and / or erase specific offenders.
There are more neat free programs there.
Shortcut to:
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptcookie.asp
Go here for a free Spy remover.
Shortcut to:
http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html?tag=sb
Go here for a free multi-function program.
Its sort of a combination of all the above
Get the version that includes the installer
Do read the instructions included.
Shortcut to:
http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm
Don't be a victim of spyware and adware.
Become armed and and you will be dangerous
to the spyware pushers.
Read tips for fighting back
( Parts 1 and 2 are also available at the site. )
Spyware tricks part III: fighting back
by
ZDNet's Suzi Turner --
Go here for free copy of Cookie Viewer.
You can view and / or erase specific offenders.
There are more neat free programs there.
Shortcut to:
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptcookie.asp
Go here for a free Spy remover.
Shortcut to:
http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html?tag=sb
Go here for a free multi-function program.
Its sort of a combination of all the above
Get the version that includes the installer
Do read the instructions included.
Shortcut to:
http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
# 45 Junk Food Junkie
What's it like to be strung out on a street drug? It might go something like this: "I was feeling really, really sick and unhappy. Started eating. Feel great. I feel really good now. I feel so good it's crazy."
The word "eating" is the giveaway that this line isn't spoken by a junkie; it's spoken by a man who has eaten way too much fast food. The man is Morgan Spurlock, the documentary filmmaker who produced and directed "Super Size Me," which I finally saw this past weekend.
If you haven't seen or heard of this movie, here's the nutshell: A healthy young man eats nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days. Pretty simple. But it's not just footage of a guy indulging in a junk food binge. He also reveals some surprising facts about how American's eat, along with useful insights for a nation that needs to get back on track to better dietary choices.
Feeding the brain
One of the most striking aspects of Spurlock's adventure is illustrated by his quote above. He develops symptoms of addiction a little over two weeks into the diet. And it isn't just his imagination.
In an interview with Neal Barnard, M.D. of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Dr. Barnard notes that a typical serving in a fast-food restaurant is loaded with "addicting components." For instance, cheese proteins contain mild opiates. And when a cheeseburger is washed down with a soda, you'readding the addictive powers of sugar combined with caffeine.
If this has a profound effect on a full-grown man, imagine what it can do to a child.
As Dr. Barnard puts it, a 12-year-old brain is no match for these foods.
A 12-year-old liver doesn't fare very well either.
On day 18 of Spurlock's diet, one of the three doctors who regularly monitor his vital signs tells him that his liver has become "sick" and advises him to stop the diet. This neatly parallels another sobering moment in an interview with William Klish, M.D., head of the Department of Medicine at Texas Children's Hospital. Dr. Klish cites a study in which biopsies conducted on the livers of obese children show that about half have scarring of the liver; an indication of fibrosis.
Dr. Klish puts it bluntly: If their diets don't change, their livers will eventually fail.
Wishing and hoping
Spurlock says, "If current trends continue, one out of every three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime." And a trip to a junior high school lunchroom reveals why current trends ARE likely to continue.
This segment of the movie is chilling. Several students happily show the items they've chosen for lunch that day. By and large the choices are a train wreck. One young girl's tray contains two packs of potato chips, a pretzel, a candy bar, and a soft drink. After watching this scene, you'll have no further questions about why so many of our kids are diagnosed with ADHD, obesity and eating disorders.
Spurlock interviews a woman who represents the food service company that provides the lunch offered to the children at this school and hundreds of other schools nationwide. She says, "We're hoping that through nutrition education the students will learn to make the right food choices without restricting what they can purchase."
I love the "we're hoping." Meanwhile there's certainly no restricting going on. This company provides hot lunches that include French fries, pizza, snack cakes, candy bars, potato chips, soft drinks, etc. School administrators generally turn a blind eye to the actual choices the kids are making.
Putting the apple in Appleton
But it's an entirely different story at Appleton Alternative High School in Appleton, Wisconsin. Appleton is a school for students with truancy and behavioral problems. The cafeteria nutrition program - provided by Natural Ovens of Manitowoc, Wisconsin - features fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, a minimum of sugar, and all of it is prepared without any frying, chemical processing, dyes, preservatives or canned goods.
A social worker tells Spurlock that once they established this nutrition plan, started providing bottled water, and got rid of candy machines and soda machines, they saw a major change in the kids. And this dietary program costs about the same as any other school lunch program.
When Spurlock asks why all schools aren't doing this, Paul Sitt of Natural OvensBakery explains that snack food and soda companies are currently making huge profits from public schools. Just try telling reps from an international food giant that they can't sell their products at your school anymore. The resistanceis enormous.
A taste of McReality
With "Super Size Me" Morgan Spurlock found a clever way to deliver the message that U.S. citizens, as a whole, are in terrible physical shape. And part of the solution is simple: Eat well.
I should mention that as interesting as the movie is, it made me a little queasy to watch a man ruin his health with junk food. (Following the McDiet with a detox diet, it took Spurlock eight weeks to get his liver functions back to normal, and more than a year to lose the 24.5 pounds he gained.)
Also, the style of this documentary is somewhat casual, so if you find coarse language or frank talk about bodily functions offensive, it may not be your cup of tea.
If you're a school administrator, teacher or a concerned parent, you can find more information on how to provide good diets for kids at:
naturalovensbakery.comand rxfreekids.org.
The word "eating" is the giveaway that this line isn't spoken by a junkie; it's spoken by a man who has eaten way too much fast food. The man is Morgan Spurlock, the documentary filmmaker who produced and directed "Super Size Me," which I finally saw this past weekend.
If you haven't seen or heard of this movie, here's the nutshell: A healthy young man eats nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days. Pretty simple. But it's not just footage of a guy indulging in a junk food binge. He also reveals some surprising facts about how American's eat, along with useful insights for a nation that needs to get back on track to better dietary choices.
Feeding the brain
One of the most striking aspects of Spurlock's adventure is illustrated by his quote above. He develops symptoms of addiction a little over two weeks into the diet. And it isn't just his imagination.
In an interview with Neal Barnard, M.D. of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Dr. Barnard notes that a typical serving in a fast-food restaurant is loaded with "addicting components." For instance, cheese proteins contain mild opiates. And when a cheeseburger is washed down with a soda, you'readding the addictive powers of sugar combined with caffeine.
If this has a profound effect on a full-grown man, imagine what it can do to a child.
As Dr. Barnard puts it, a 12-year-old brain is no match for these foods.
A 12-year-old liver doesn't fare very well either.
On day 18 of Spurlock's diet, one of the three doctors who regularly monitor his vital signs tells him that his liver has become "sick" and advises him to stop the diet. This neatly parallels another sobering moment in an interview with William Klish, M.D., head of the Department of Medicine at Texas Children's Hospital. Dr. Klish cites a study in which biopsies conducted on the livers of obese children show that about half have scarring of the liver; an indication of fibrosis.
Dr. Klish puts it bluntly: If their diets don't change, their livers will eventually fail.
Wishing and hoping
Spurlock says, "If current trends continue, one out of every three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime." And a trip to a junior high school lunchroom reveals why current trends ARE likely to continue.
This segment of the movie is chilling. Several students happily show the items they've chosen for lunch that day. By and large the choices are a train wreck. One young girl's tray contains two packs of potato chips, a pretzel, a candy bar, and a soft drink. After watching this scene, you'll have no further questions about why so many of our kids are diagnosed with ADHD, obesity and eating disorders.
Spurlock interviews a woman who represents the food service company that provides the lunch offered to the children at this school and hundreds of other schools nationwide. She says, "We're hoping that through nutrition education the students will learn to make the right food choices without restricting what they can purchase."
I love the "we're hoping." Meanwhile there's certainly no restricting going on. This company provides hot lunches that include French fries, pizza, snack cakes, candy bars, potato chips, soft drinks, etc. School administrators generally turn a blind eye to the actual choices the kids are making.
Putting the apple in Appleton
But it's an entirely different story at Appleton Alternative High School in Appleton, Wisconsin. Appleton is a school for students with truancy and behavioral problems. The cafeteria nutrition program - provided by Natural Ovens of Manitowoc, Wisconsin - features fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, a minimum of sugar, and all of it is prepared without any frying, chemical processing, dyes, preservatives or canned goods.
A social worker tells Spurlock that once they established this nutrition plan, started providing bottled water, and got rid of candy machines and soda machines, they saw a major change in the kids. And this dietary program costs about the same as any other school lunch program.
When Spurlock asks why all schools aren't doing this, Paul Sitt of Natural OvensBakery explains that snack food and soda companies are currently making huge profits from public schools. Just try telling reps from an international food giant that they can't sell their products at your school anymore. The resistanceis enormous.
A taste of McReality
With "Super Size Me" Morgan Spurlock found a clever way to deliver the message that U.S. citizens, as a whole, are in terrible physical shape. And part of the solution is simple: Eat well.
I should mention that as interesting as the movie is, it made me a little queasy to watch a man ruin his health with junk food. (Following the McDiet with a detox diet, it took Spurlock eight weeks to get his liver functions back to normal, and more than a year to lose the 24.5 pounds he gained.)
Also, the style of this documentary is somewhat casual, so if you find coarse language or frank talk about bodily functions offensive, it may not be your cup of tea.
If you're a school administrator, teacher or a concerned parent, you can find more information on how to provide good diets for kids at:
naturalovensbakery.comand rxfreekids.org.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
# 44 EFT To Relieve High Blood Pressure
Simple Way to Relieve High Blood Pressure and Heart Palpitations
By Christine Wheeler, MA
Peggy Thiel downloaded the free EFT Manual and the next day lowered her blood pressure from 144/92 to 121/86. Minutes later she was writing this to the EFT Web site:
"Oh my God! I am a rank beginner, having never even heard of this process until last night, I've only done it now a total of 3 times, and it's stabilized my heart rhythm and lowered my blood pressure over 20 points ... I have never seen anything work like this!"
Similar results are common for people using Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). It is a fresh approach to dealing with illnesses of all kinds ... including those that are affected by stress. EFT works in subtle ways, targeting and neutralizing disruptions in the body's energy system and bringing the body into balance. As the body achieves balance it becomes less prone to having a physiological reaction to stress, and to negative emotions like anger, guilt, hostility and fear.
According to the Texas Heart Institute Web site:
"You are at an increased risk of high blood pressure if you face high levels of stress. In some studies, stress, anger, hostility, and other personality traits have been shown to lead to high blood pressure, but the findings have not always been consistent. Emotional factors most likely add to the risk of high blood pressure for people who also have other risk factors."
EFT delivers a form of emotional acupuncture ... without needles ... to resolve issues like anger and hostility and to calm the features of Type A personalities that can make them more susceptible to high blood pressure. The basics of EFT can be learned by anyone and can be self-applied (usually in minutes).
Read how Peggy Thiel, a "rank beginner," used EFT to dramatically reduce her blood pressure
Read Peggy's case in its entirety.
Peggy was away from work for two weeks due to a persistent and worsening irregular heartbeat combined with high blood pressure (160/105 measured two weeks ago). Having an aversion to taking medication, Peggy began researching alternatives on the Internet. She found the EFT Web site and downloaded the free manual, which teaches the basics of performing EFT.
After scanning the manual, Peggy performed EFT on her heart flutter and noticed some small improvement in the heart's rhythm. She left EFT for the night and, upon rising in the morning, noticed the heart palpitations were still present. She reread the manual and realized that last night, in her haste, she hadn't applied the entire EFT procedure. (Despite this, she still had noticed an improvement in her heart fluttering.)
Next, she diligently performed the entire EFT protocol focusing on the problem of her heart flutters. After about three minutes of doing EFT, Peggy's heartbeat "regularized." It stayed that way all day.
Peggy was encouraged by this significant result and "decided to attempt a more scientific verification of the technique." She took her own blood pressure, which read 144/92 ... a significant drop from two weeks ago. Peggy attributed this drop to the fact that she had been off work for two weeks. But, perhaps, EFT was already calming her heightened blood pressure.
She noted the BP reading ... performed ONE complete application of EFT ... and waited one minute. She took her blood pressure again ... it had dropped to 121/86! (120/80 is considered normal).
Within 10 minutes, Peggy moved her blood pressure out of the danger zone of Stage 1 Hypertension. Not everybody can expect to have the same stunning results as Peggy.
We estimate that, if performed correctly and with persistence, EFT's clinical results show that people improve their condition in about 80 percent of cases. While it might take several applications of EFT for Peggy to lower her blood pressure even more, these are very encouraging results for a woman who was averse to taking medications for her condition.
Please note that, in addition to improving blood pressure with EFT, we have found it to be a consistently effective healing tool for hundreds of other physical, mental and emotional ailments.
While a complete description of EFT is beyond the scope of this article, you can learn all the basics from the free EFT Get Started Package, including a free download of the 79-page EFT Manual. Those wishing to save time and dive right in can get the affordable five-star training DVDs.
Please consult qualified health professionals before putting EFT into practice for yourself or others.
By Christine Wheeler, MA
Peggy Thiel downloaded the free EFT Manual and the next day lowered her blood pressure from 144/92 to 121/86. Minutes later she was writing this to the EFT Web site:
"Oh my God! I am a rank beginner, having never even heard of this process until last night, I've only done it now a total of 3 times, and it's stabilized my heart rhythm and lowered my blood pressure over 20 points ... I have never seen anything work like this!"
Similar results are common for people using Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). It is a fresh approach to dealing with illnesses of all kinds ... including those that are affected by stress. EFT works in subtle ways, targeting and neutralizing disruptions in the body's energy system and bringing the body into balance. As the body achieves balance it becomes less prone to having a physiological reaction to stress, and to negative emotions like anger, guilt, hostility and fear.
According to the Texas Heart Institute Web site:
"You are at an increased risk of high blood pressure if you face high levels of stress. In some studies, stress, anger, hostility, and other personality traits have been shown to lead to high blood pressure, but the findings have not always been consistent. Emotional factors most likely add to the risk of high blood pressure for people who also have other risk factors."
EFT delivers a form of emotional acupuncture ... without needles ... to resolve issues like anger and hostility and to calm the features of Type A personalities that can make them more susceptible to high blood pressure. The basics of EFT can be learned by anyone and can be self-applied (usually in minutes).
Read how Peggy Thiel, a "rank beginner," used EFT to dramatically reduce her blood pressure
Read Peggy's case in its entirety.
Peggy was away from work for two weeks due to a persistent and worsening irregular heartbeat combined with high blood pressure (160/105 measured two weeks ago). Having an aversion to taking medication, Peggy began researching alternatives on the Internet. She found the EFT Web site and downloaded the free manual, which teaches the basics of performing EFT.
After scanning the manual, Peggy performed EFT on her heart flutter and noticed some small improvement in the heart's rhythm. She left EFT for the night and, upon rising in the morning, noticed the heart palpitations were still present. She reread the manual and realized that last night, in her haste, she hadn't applied the entire EFT procedure. (Despite this, she still had noticed an improvement in her heart fluttering.)
Next, she diligently performed the entire EFT protocol focusing on the problem of her heart flutters. After about three minutes of doing EFT, Peggy's heartbeat "regularized." It stayed that way all day.
Peggy was encouraged by this significant result and "decided to attempt a more scientific verification of the technique." She took her own blood pressure, which read 144/92 ... a significant drop from two weeks ago. Peggy attributed this drop to the fact that she had been off work for two weeks. But, perhaps, EFT was already calming her heightened blood pressure.
She noted the BP reading ... performed ONE complete application of EFT ... and waited one minute. She took her blood pressure again ... it had dropped to 121/86! (120/80 is considered normal).
Within 10 minutes, Peggy moved her blood pressure out of the danger zone of Stage 1 Hypertension. Not everybody can expect to have the same stunning results as Peggy.
We estimate that, if performed correctly and with persistence, EFT's clinical results show that people improve their condition in about 80 percent of cases. While it might take several applications of EFT for Peggy to lower her blood pressure even more, these are very encouraging results for a woman who was averse to taking medications for her condition.
Please note that, in addition to improving blood pressure with EFT, we have found it to be a consistently effective healing tool for hundreds of other physical, mental and emotional ailments.
While a complete description of EFT is beyond the scope of this article, you can learn all the basics from the free EFT Get Started Package, including a free download of the 79-page EFT Manual. Those wishing to save time and dive right in can get the affordable five-star training DVDs.
Please consult qualified health professionals before putting EFT into practice for yourself or others.
Monday, September 19, 2005
# 43 Free Course Offer ( Silva )
I've been a fan of Jose Silva for decades. Have attended his main seminars, and found them quite beneficial in my daily activities. So when I came across this offer, of a free mini course, I felt that perhaps readers of my Blog might be interested in trying it out. You have nothing to loose, its free, and most important, you could enhance your quality of life.
Will keep this short and just say " try it".
Visit their website and subscribe to it. You can get the program from this page:
www.SilvaUltraMindSystem.com/products/unlimited/
Visit the site today.
Will keep this short and just say " try it".
Visit their website and subscribe to it. You can get the program from this page:
www.SilvaUltraMindSystem.com/products/unlimited/
Visit the site today.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
# 42 EFT and a Pain in the A_ _
Dr. Joseph Mercola Author of theTotal Health Program
Simple Solutions to Subdue the Suffering of Hemorrhoids
By Christine Wheeler, MA
Fans of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) try it on everything as it regularly works when nothing else will. What's more, this new technique is gentle and non-invasive and it can be learned by anyone. Further, it can be self-applied (usually in minutes) ... AND ... it is without known side effects.
When you are in a crisis and nothing else has worked, EFT can frequently bring relief. Sometimes there is an added bonus with EFT in that people often use this innovative technique, intending to just "take the edge off" their symptoms ... only to find that the symptoms never return.
EFT is a new procedure that borrows from the much-heralded discoveries of Albert Einstein (everything, including your body, is composed of energy) ... AND ... from the ancient wisdom of Chinese acupuncture. In essence, EFT is an emotional version of acupuncture except that needles are not necessary. Instead, certain release points are stimulated by tapping them with the fingertips.
The following case illustrates EFT's use with hemorrhoid symptoms that are extreme and just won't budge.
Henry's Hemorrhoids
From an actual case on the EFT Web siteBy Gary Craig
Henry phoned me one night in profound pain. He was in tears. He was shaking. And all from what he believed to be hemorrhoids. He'd had them for about two weeks and they were just getting worse. Now there appeared to be a fissure and he was bleeding. The excruciating pain of a bowel movement made him fear he would faint.
He had tried all kinds of medications and nothing worked. So he called me. He had a doctor's appointment the next day but his pain was over the top ... he needed help ... NOW.
He feared the doctor's appointment and the pain of the medical exam, and he feared possible surgery. But right NOW, what he feared most was having a bowel movement with its accompanying agony. It was something that he couldn't put off. He was damned if he did (have a bowel movement) and dammed up if he didn't!
We started to do EFT together over the phone (many EFT practitioners easily guide clients through the process at long distance). Henry had some noticeable relief from the tears and the shaking but we just weren't getting at the hefty pain.
But we were persistent. Persistence is one of the biggest allies of EFT. Many people just give up after a few applications of EFT. This is usually a mistake because relief is frequently achievable with EFT even when logic tells you otherwise. The cause of Henry's distress appeared to be very physical. He had hemorrhoids. He had a fissure and he was bleeding. The pressure of an impending bowel movement was pressing on sensitive nerves and he was in excruciating pain.
Those were the facts, but Henry was not getting enough relief when we did EFT on these symptoms. So we took another approach, in keeping with EFT's persistence policy. I was curious about emotional causes and asked Henry if anything came to mind that was giving him an emotional charge.
As it turns out, Henry had spent the last several weeks taking care of his "Uncle Bugs," who was in failing health and both critical and ungrateful toward Henry. He felt trapped. It was as though he was in prison. There was no one else to do what had to be done. He'd had the thought that he wished Uncle Bugs would die. He didn't want to admit that, he felt horrible about it, but it was true. To say the least, Uncle Bugs was a pain in the behind.
Our next application of EFT focused on the emotional aspects of Henry's situation and as soon as we did so, the tears and shaking quickly subsided. Then the pain subsided and after about 20 minutes ... THERE WAS NO MORE PAIN ... NOTHING.
Pleased with that, Henry went to sleep and he called me in the morning after a completely painless bowel movement. But when he was not on the toilet, there was still substantial pain. Go figure. So he did some EFT on his own and that pain also diminished.
He went to his doctor's appointment and though the examination was painful, the pain never approached the heights of the previous night. The exam revealed not hemorrhoids, but an abscess. The doctor told Henry that the abscess needed to drain ... but that drainage was unlikely without surgery. In the meantime, he was taking antibiotics and waiting to see whether he would get drainage.
We talked on the phone again and did a little more EFT for the drainage problem. In the morning I awoke to a phone call from Henry telling me that the problem was gone. About an hour after we tapped for the drainage, he noticed a "mucus plug" in the toilet. More "mucus plugs" occurred during subsequent bowel movements and by this morning, the drainage was complete. At least to Henry, it felt complete. He felt back to normal.
This kind of result happens far too often with EFT for it to be a coincidence, and there is growing evidence that emotional disruption is a major contributing factor to illness. Most people just don't expect that an anal abscess would evacuate so readily. Emotional causes, however, are given increasing weight in medical circles. As Eric Robins, MD stated, "Someday the medical profession will wake up and realize that unresolved emotional issues are the main cause of 85% of all illnesses. When they do, EFT will be one of their primary healing tools ... as it is for me."
Please note that, in addition to improving anal abscesses with EFT, we have found it to be a consistently effective healing tool for hundreds of other physical, mental and emotional ailments. For more information, you can explore the EFT Web site and read through some of the thousands of success stories that we have collected from people who have effectively used EFT to eliminate their fears, phobias, emotional traumas and physical ailments.
While a complete description of EFT is beyond the scope of this article, you can learn all the basics from the free EFT Get Started Package, including a free download of the 79-page EFT Manual (it includes all the basics). Those wishing to save time and dive right in can get the very affordable training DVDs.
Please consult qualified health professionals before putting EFT into practice for yourself or others.
Related Articles:
Using EFT to Avoid Surgery
Tired of Not Being Able to Sleep? Here's a Real Solution
Turbo Tapping: How to Get Rid of Your Soda Addiction
This site is powered by the Northwoods Titan Content Management System
©Copyright 2005 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved. This content may be copied in full, with copyright, contact, creation and information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not-for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Dr. Mercola is required.
Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional.
Simple Solutions to Subdue the Suffering of Hemorrhoids
By Christine Wheeler, MA
Fans of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) try it on everything as it regularly works when nothing else will. What's more, this new technique is gentle and non-invasive and it can be learned by anyone. Further, it can be self-applied (usually in minutes) ... AND ... it is without known side effects.
When you are in a crisis and nothing else has worked, EFT can frequently bring relief. Sometimes there is an added bonus with EFT in that people often use this innovative technique, intending to just "take the edge off" their symptoms ... only to find that the symptoms never return.
EFT is a new procedure that borrows from the much-heralded discoveries of Albert Einstein (everything, including your body, is composed of energy) ... AND ... from the ancient wisdom of Chinese acupuncture. In essence, EFT is an emotional version of acupuncture except that needles are not necessary. Instead, certain release points are stimulated by tapping them with the fingertips.
The following case illustrates EFT's use with hemorrhoid symptoms that are extreme and just won't budge.
Henry's Hemorrhoids
From an actual case on the EFT Web siteBy Gary Craig
Henry phoned me one night in profound pain. He was in tears. He was shaking. And all from what he believed to be hemorrhoids. He'd had them for about two weeks and they were just getting worse. Now there appeared to be a fissure and he was bleeding. The excruciating pain of a bowel movement made him fear he would faint.
He had tried all kinds of medications and nothing worked. So he called me. He had a doctor's appointment the next day but his pain was over the top ... he needed help ... NOW.
He feared the doctor's appointment and the pain of the medical exam, and he feared possible surgery. But right NOW, what he feared most was having a bowel movement with its accompanying agony. It was something that he couldn't put off. He was damned if he did (have a bowel movement) and dammed up if he didn't!
We started to do EFT together over the phone (many EFT practitioners easily guide clients through the process at long distance). Henry had some noticeable relief from the tears and the shaking but we just weren't getting at the hefty pain.
But we were persistent. Persistence is one of the biggest allies of EFT. Many people just give up after a few applications of EFT. This is usually a mistake because relief is frequently achievable with EFT even when logic tells you otherwise. The cause of Henry's distress appeared to be very physical. He had hemorrhoids. He had a fissure and he was bleeding. The pressure of an impending bowel movement was pressing on sensitive nerves and he was in excruciating pain.
Those were the facts, but Henry was not getting enough relief when we did EFT on these symptoms. So we took another approach, in keeping with EFT's persistence policy. I was curious about emotional causes and asked Henry if anything came to mind that was giving him an emotional charge.
As it turns out, Henry had spent the last several weeks taking care of his "Uncle Bugs," who was in failing health and both critical and ungrateful toward Henry. He felt trapped. It was as though he was in prison. There was no one else to do what had to be done. He'd had the thought that he wished Uncle Bugs would die. He didn't want to admit that, he felt horrible about it, but it was true. To say the least, Uncle Bugs was a pain in the behind.
Our next application of EFT focused on the emotional aspects of Henry's situation and as soon as we did so, the tears and shaking quickly subsided. Then the pain subsided and after about 20 minutes ... THERE WAS NO MORE PAIN ... NOTHING.
Pleased with that, Henry went to sleep and he called me in the morning after a completely painless bowel movement. But when he was not on the toilet, there was still substantial pain. Go figure. So he did some EFT on his own and that pain also diminished.
He went to his doctor's appointment and though the examination was painful, the pain never approached the heights of the previous night. The exam revealed not hemorrhoids, but an abscess. The doctor told Henry that the abscess needed to drain ... but that drainage was unlikely without surgery. In the meantime, he was taking antibiotics and waiting to see whether he would get drainage.
We talked on the phone again and did a little more EFT for the drainage problem. In the morning I awoke to a phone call from Henry telling me that the problem was gone. About an hour after we tapped for the drainage, he noticed a "mucus plug" in the toilet. More "mucus plugs" occurred during subsequent bowel movements and by this morning, the drainage was complete. At least to Henry, it felt complete. He felt back to normal.
This kind of result happens far too often with EFT for it to be a coincidence, and there is growing evidence that emotional disruption is a major contributing factor to illness. Most people just don't expect that an anal abscess would evacuate so readily. Emotional causes, however, are given increasing weight in medical circles. As Eric Robins, MD stated, "Someday the medical profession will wake up and realize that unresolved emotional issues are the main cause of 85% of all illnesses. When they do, EFT will be one of their primary healing tools ... as it is for me."
Please note that, in addition to improving anal abscesses with EFT, we have found it to be a consistently effective healing tool for hundreds of other physical, mental and emotional ailments. For more information, you can explore the EFT Web site and read through some of the thousands of success stories that we have collected from people who have effectively used EFT to eliminate their fears, phobias, emotional traumas and physical ailments.
While a complete description of EFT is beyond the scope of this article, you can learn all the basics from the free EFT Get Started Package, including a free download of the 79-page EFT Manual (it includes all the basics). Those wishing to save time and dive right in can get the very affordable training DVDs.
Please consult qualified health professionals before putting EFT into practice for yourself or others.
Related Articles:
Using EFT to Avoid Surgery
Tired of Not Being Able to Sleep? Here's a Real Solution
Turbo Tapping: How to Get Rid of Your Soda Addiction
This site is powered by the Northwoods Titan Content Management System
©Copyright 2005 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved. This content may be copied in full, with copyright, contact, creation and information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not-for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Dr. Mercola is required.
Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional.
# 41 Health and Emotional Factors
Wont go into the lengthy details involved with this matter, but have been reading many articles that mention the tie-in, of ones emotions, being reflected in their quality of health. Some are good reads, while others are so complex that you just ignore them. The start of it all can be traced to what is often called "The Good Book", namely "The Bible". Now I do some issues as regards the bible, see my " Religious Quandary" on this site, but don't misconstrue what was said there. In reading the EMF ( Emotional Freedom Techniques ) material, I was very impressed with the utter simplicity of the process and what can be achieved, if one did use it. When I downloaded the free manual, it covered in great detail, how to perform the process. One need not buy any thing more to use it. There is an option of course, to buy some CD's, but are not necessary to actually use the process. I was impressed enough to buy three sections of the material, so I could actually see and hear what was taking place. One is encouraged to copy and pass along the copies to whom ever you want. Eventually will obtain the rest of the material offered. For now though, I'm good for a year or so ,with what I have.
Why not give it a try, with just the free manual?
The link is:
http://www.emofree.com/downloadeftmanual.htm
Why not give it a try, with just the free manual?
The link is:
http://www.emofree.com/downloadeftmanual.htm
Saturday, September 03, 2005
# 40 Follow-up On Diet Soda Effects
Aspartame... the BAD news!
Article courtesy of: Mark Gold mgold@tiac.net (researcher for twenty years on such subjects)
Equal, Nutrasweet, Equal Measure, Spoonful, Canderal (E951)
Aspartame was not approved until 1981, in dry foods. For over eight years the FDA refused to approve it because of the seizures and brain tumors this drug produced in lab animals. The FDA continued to refuse to approve it until President Reagan took office (a friend of Searle) and fired the FDA Commissioner who wouldn't approve it. Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes was appointed as commissioner. Even then there was so much opposition to approval that a Board of Inquiry was set up. The Board said: "Do not approve aspartame". Dr. Hayes OVERRULED his own board of Inquiry. Shortly after Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., approved the use of aspartame in carbonated beverages, he left for a position with G.D. Searle's Public Relations firm.
Long-Term Damage. It appears to cause slow, silent damage in those unfortunate enough to not have immediate reactions and a reason to avoid it. It may take one year, five years, 10 years, or 40 years, but it seems to cause some reversible and some irreversible changes in health over long-term use.
METHANOL (AKA WOOD ALCOHOL/POISON) (10% OF ASPARTAME) Methanol/wood
alcohol is a deadly poison. People may recall that methanol was the poison that has caused some "skid row" alcoholics to end up blind or dead. Methanol is gradually released in the small intestine when the methyl group of aspartame encounter the enzyme chymotrypsin.
The absorption of methanol into the body is sped up considerably when free methanol is ingested. Free methanol is created from aspartame when it is heated to above 86 Fahrenheit (30 Centigrade). This would occur when aspartame-containing product is improperly stored or when it is heated (e.g., as part of a "food" product such as Jello).
Methanol breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde in the body. Formaldehyde is a deadly neurotoxin. An EPA assessment of methanol states that methanol "is considered a cumulative poison due to the low rate of excretion once it is absorbed. In the body, methanol is oxidized to formaldehyde and formic acid; both of these metabolites are toxic." The recommend a limit of consumption of 7.8 mg/day. A one-liter (approx. 1 quart) aspartame-sweetened beverage contains about 56 mg of methanol. Heavy users of aspartame-containing products consume as much as 250 mg of methanol daily or 32 times the EPA limit. The most well known problems from methanol poisoning are vision problems. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen, causes retinal damage, interferes with DNA replication, and causes birth defects. Due to the lack of a couple of key enzymes, humans are many times more sensitive to the toxic effects of methanol than animals. Therefore, tests of aspartame or methanol on animals do not accurately reflect the danger for humans. As pointed out by Dr Woodrow C. Monte, Director of the Food Science and Nutrition Laboratory at Arizona State University, "There are no human or mammalian studies to evaluate the possible mutagenic, teratogenic, or carcinogenic effects of chronic administration of methyl alcohol."
It has been pointed out that fruit juices and alcoholic beverages contain small amounts of methanol. It is important to remember, that the methanol in natural products never appears alone. In every case, ethanol is present, usually in much higher amounts. Ethanol is an antidote for methanol toxicity in humans. The troops of Desert Storm were "treated" to large amounts of aspartame-sweetened beverages which had been heated to over 86 degrees F. in the Saudi Arabian sun. Many of them returned home with numerous disorders similar to what has been seen in persons who have been chemically poisoned by formaldehyde. The free methanol in the beverages may have been a contributing factor in these illnesses. Other breakdown products of aspartame such as DKP, may also have been a factor.
In a 1993 act that can only be described as "unconscionable", the FDA approved aspartame as an ingredient in numerous food items that wouldalways be heated to above 86°degrees F (30°Degrees C). Much worse, on 27 June 1996, without public notice, the FDA removed all restrictions from aspartame allowing it to be used in everything, including all heated and baked goods. The truth about aspartame's toxicity is far different than what the NutraSweet Company would have you readers believe. In February of 1994, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released the listing of adverse reactions reported to the FDA (DHHS 1994).
Aspartame accounted for more than 75% of all adverse reactions reported to the FDA's Adverse Reaction Monitoring System (ARMS). By the FDA's own admission fewer then ONE PERCENT of those who have problems with something they consume ever report it to the FDA. This balloons the almost 10,000 complaints they once had to around a million. However, the FDA has a record keeping problem (they never did respond to the certified letter from the WEBMASTER of this site... a major victim!) and they tend to discourage or even misdirect complaints, at least on aspartame. The fact remains, though, that MOST victims don't have a clue that aspartame may be the cause of their many problems! Many reactions to aspartame were very serious including seizures and death.
Those reactions included:
Abdominal Pain - Anxiety attacks - arthritis - asthma - Asthmatic Reactions - Bloating, Edema (Fluid Retention) - Blood Sugar Control Problems (Hypoglycemia or Hyperglycemia) - Brain Cancer (Pre-approval studies in animals) - Breathing difficulties - burning eyes or throat - Burning Urination - can't think straight - Chest Pains - chronic cough - Chronic Fatigue - Confusion - Death - Depression - Diarrhea - Dizziness - Excessive Thirst or Hunger - fatigue - feel unreal - flushing of face - Hair Loss (Baldness) or Thinning of Hair - Headaches/Migraines dizziness - Hearing Loss - Heart palpitations - Hives (Urticaria) - Hypertension (High Blood Pressure) - Impotency and Sexual Problems - inability to concentrate - Infection Susceptibility - Insomnia - Irritability - Itching - Joint Pains - laryngitis - "like thinking in a fog" - Marked Personality Changes - Memory loss - Menstrual Problems or Changes - Migraines and Severe Headaches (Trigger or Cause From Chronic Intake) - Muscle spasms - Nausea or Vomiting - Numbness or Tingling of Extremities - Other Allergic -Like Reactions - Panic Attacks - Phobias - poor memory - Rapid Heart Beat - Rashes - Seizures and convulsions Slurring of Speech - Swallowing Pain - Tachycardia - Tremors - Tinnitus - Vertigo - Vision Loss - Weight gain .
Aspartame Disease Mimics Symptoms or Worsens the Following Diseases
Fibromyalgia
Arthritis
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
Parkinson's Disease
Lupus
Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS)
Diabetes and Diabetic Complications
Epilepsy
Alzheimer's Disease
Birth Defects
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Lymphoma
Lyme Disease
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
Panic Disorder
Depression and other Psychological Disorders
How it happens:
Methanol, from aspartame, is released in the small intestine when the methyl group of aspartame encounters the enzyme chymotrypsin (Stegink 1984, page 143). Free methanol begins to form in liquid aspartame-containing products at temperatures above 86 degrees F.. also within the human body. The methanol is then converted to formaldehyde. The formaldehyde converts to formic acid, ant sting poison. Toxic formic acid is used as an activator to strip epoxy and urethane coatings. Imagine what it does to your tissues! Phenylalanine and aspartic acid, 90% of aspartame, are amino acids normally used in synthesis of protoplasm when supplied by the foods we eat. But when unaccompanied by other amino acids we use [there are 20], they are neurotoxic. That is why a warning for Phenylketonurics is found on EQUAL and other aspartame products. Phenylketenurics are 2% of the population with extreme sensitivity to this chemical unless it's present in food. It gets you too, causing brain disorders and birth defects! Finally, the phenyalanine breaks down into DKP, a brain tumor agent. In other words: Aspartame converts to dangerous byproducts that have no natural countermeasures. A dieter's empty stomach accelerates these conversions and amplifies the damage. Components of aspartame go straight to the brain, damage that causes headaches, mental confusion, seizures and faulty balance. Lab rats and other test animals died of brain tumors.
Despite the claims of Monsanto and bedfellows:
1. Methanol from alcohol and juices does not get converted to formaldehyde to any significant extent. There is very strong evidence to confirm this fact for alcoholic beverages and fairly strong evidence for juices.
2. Formaldehyde obtained from methanol is very toxic in *very small* doses as seen by recent research.
3. Aspartame causes chronic toxicity reactions/damage due to the methanol to formaldehyde and other break down products despite what is claimed otherwise by the very short, industry-funded experiments using a test substance that is chemically different and absorbed differently
than what is available to the general public. "Strangely enough", almost all independent studies show that aspartame can cause health problems.
4. A common ploy from Monsanto is to claim that aspartame is "safe" yet a few select people may have "allergic" reactions to it. This is typical Monsanto nonsense, of course. Their own research shows that it does not cause "allergic" reactions. It is there way of trying to minimize and hide the huge numbers of toxicity reactions and damage that people are experiencing from the long-term use of aspartame.
Summary
Given the following points, it is definitely premature for researchers to discount the role of methanol in aspartame side effects:
1. The amount of methanol ingested from aspartame is unprecedented in human history. Methanol from fruit juice ingestion does not even approach the quantity of methanol ingested from aspartame, especially in persons who ingest one to three liters (or more) of diet beverages
every day. Unlike methanol from aspartame, methanol from natural products is probably not absorbed or converted to its toxic metabolites in significant amounts as discussed earlier.
2. Lack of laboratory-detectable changes in plasma formic acid and formaldehyde levels do not preclude damage being caused by these toxic metabolites. Laboratory-detectable changes in formate levels are often not found in short exposures to methanol.
3. Aspartame-containing products often provide little or no nutrients which may protect against chronic methanol poisoning and are often consumed in between meals. Persons who ingest aspartame-containing products are often dieting and more likely to have nutritional
deficiencies than persons who take the time to make fresh juices.
4. Persons with certain health conditions or on certain drugs may be much more susceptible to chronic methanol poisoning.
5. Chronic diseases and side effects from slow poisons often build silently over a long period of time. Many chronic diseases which seem to appear suddenly have actually been building in the body over many years.
6. An increasing body of research is showing that many people are highly sensitive to low doses of formaldehyde in the environment. Environmental exposure to formaldehyde and ingestion of methanol (which converts to formaldehyde) from aspartame likely has a cumulative deleterious effect.
7. Formic acid has been shown to slowly accumulate in various parts of the body. Formic acid has been shown to inhibit oxygen metabolism.
8. The are a very large and growing number of persons are experiencing chronic health problems similar to the side effects of chronic methanol poisoning when ingesting aspartame-containing products for a significant length of time. This includes many cases of eye damage
similar to the type of eye damage seen in methanol poisoning cases. Toxicity Effects of Aspartame Use Selection of Health Effects from Short-term and/or Long-Term Use Note: It often takes at least sixty days without any aspartame NutraSweet to see a significant
improvement. Check all labels very carefully (including vitamins and pharmaceuticals). Look for the word "aspartame" on the label and avoid it. (Also, it is a good idea to avoid "acesulfame-k" or "sunette.")
Finally, avoid getting nutrition information from junk food industry PR organizations such as IFIC or organizations that accept large sums of money from the junk and chemical food industry such as the American Dietetic Association. If you are a user of any products with aspartame, and you have physical, visual, mental problems... take the 60-day no aspartame test. If, after two months with no aspartame your symptoms are either gone, or are much less severe, please get involved to get this neurotoxin off the market. Write a letter to the FDA, with a copy to
Betty Martini (for proof of how the FDA doesn't keep proper records).
Write your congressmen. Return products containing aspartame to the point of purchase... for a FULL refund. Make a big stink if they WON'T give you a full refund! Tell all your friends and family... and if they stop using aspartame and also "wake up well"... get them involved
in the same way.
Aspartame is an "approved sweetener" because of a few greedy and dishonest people who place profits above human life and well-being. With the FDA and our Congress culpable, only an INFORMED and ACTIVE public will affects its reclassification from "food additive" to TOXIC
DRUG, and removed from the human food chain.
Need to view some of the FDA original documentation? View it at
http://www.presidiotex.com/aspartame
Link to a printable report form:
http://www.dorway.com/reprtfrm
Addresses:
Commissioner
Food and Drug Administration
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, Maryland 20857
Mrs. Betty Martini
Mission Possible International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
Internet E-mail: bettym19@mindspring.com
Links for additional information:
http://www.dorway.com
http://www.dorway.com/possible.html
http://www.dorway.com/asprlink.html
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame
http://www.trufax.org/menu/chem.html#aspartame
Links for books:
http://www.dorway.com/amazon.html f
NOW... that you are aware of the 92 FDA recognized symptoms (that required a Freedom Of Information Act request to pry from their reluctant hands) and HOW aspartame does its dirty work, change to my Official Dogma page. On this page Mark Gold has taken the IFIC "Official" aspartame safety myth and shot it full of holes using all of the smoking guns that were used
by the FDA to approve this poison as a food additive, along with information they either ignored or discounted. This excellent debunking of the official Monsanto/Searle/Nutrasweet/ Nutrasweet Kelco/AMA/ADA/IFIC/??? chain of lies and half truths includes a long history of this "product's" sordid trail to the marketplace and the sweet tooth.
(this page
http://www.dorway.com
Article courtesy of: Mark Gold mgold@tiac.net (researcher for twenty years on such subjects)
Equal, Nutrasweet, Equal Measure, Spoonful, Canderal (E951)
Aspartame was not approved until 1981, in dry foods. For over eight years the FDA refused to approve it because of the seizures and brain tumors this drug produced in lab animals. The FDA continued to refuse to approve it until President Reagan took office (a friend of Searle) and fired the FDA Commissioner who wouldn't approve it. Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes was appointed as commissioner. Even then there was so much opposition to approval that a Board of Inquiry was set up. The Board said: "Do not approve aspartame". Dr. Hayes OVERRULED his own board of Inquiry. Shortly after Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., approved the use of aspartame in carbonated beverages, he left for a position with G.D. Searle's Public Relations firm.
Long-Term Damage. It appears to cause slow, silent damage in those unfortunate enough to not have immediate reactions and a reason to avoid it. It may take one year, five years, 10 years, or 40 years, but it seems to cause some reversible and some irreversible changes in health over long-term use.
METHANOL (AKA WOOD ALCOHOL/POISON) (10% OF ASPARTAME) Methanol/wood
alcohol is a deadly poison. People may recall that methanol was the poison that has caused some "skid row" alcoholics to end up blind or dead. Methanol is gradually released in the small intestine when the methyl group of aspartame encounter the enzyme chymotrypsin.
The absorption of methanol into the body is sped up considerably when free methanol is ingested. Free methanol is created from aspartame when it is heated to above 86 Fahrenheit (30 Centigrade). This would occur when aspartame-containing product is improperly stored or when it is heated (e.g., as part of a "food" product such as Jello).
Methanol breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde in the body. Formaldehyde is a deadly neurotoxin. An EPA assessment of methanol states that methanol "is considered a cumulative poison due to the low rate of excretion once it is absorbed. In the body, methanol is oxidized to formaldehyde and formic acid; both of these metabolites are toxic." The recommend a limit of consumption of 7.8 mg/day. A one-liter (approx. 1 quart) aspartame-sweetened beverage contains about 56 mg of methanol. Heavy users of aspartame-containing products consume as much as 250 mg of methanol daily or 32 times the EPA limit. The most well known problems from methanol poisoning are vision problems. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen, causes retinal damage, interferes with DNA replication, and causes birth defects. Due to the lack of a couple of key enzymes, humans are many times more sensitive to the toxic effects of methanol than animals. Therefore, tests of aspartame or methanol on animals do not accurately reflect the danger for humans. As pointed out by Dr Woodrow C. Monte, Director of the Food Science and Nutrition Laboratory at Arizona State University, "There are no human or mammalian studies to evaluate the possible mutagenic, teratogenic, or carcinogenic effects of chronic administration of methyl alcohol."
It has been pointed out that fruit juices and alcoholic beverages contain small amounts of methanol. It is important to remember, that the methanol in natural products never appears alone. In every case, ethanol is present, usually in much higher amounts. Ethanol is an antidote for methanol toxicity in humans. The troops of Desert Storm were "treated" to large amounts of aspartame-sweetened beverages which had been heated to over 86 degrees F. in the Saudi Arabian sun. Many of them returned home with numerous disorders similar to what has been seen in persons who have been chemically poisoned by formaldehyde. The free methanol in the beverages may have been a contributing factor in these illnesses. Other breakdown products of aspartame such as DKP, may also have been a factor.
In a 1993 act that can only be described as "unconscionable", the FDA approved aspartame as an ingredient in numerous food items that wouldalways be heated to above 86°degrees F (30°Degrees C). Much worse, on 27 June 1996, without public notice, the FDA removed all restrictions from aspartame allowing it to be used in everything, including all heated and baked goods. The truth about aspartame's toxicity is far different than what the NutraSweet Company would have you readers believe. In February of 1994, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released the listing of adverse reactions reported to the FDA (DHHS 1994).
Aspartame accounted for more than 75% of all adverse reactions reported to the FDA's Adverse Reaction Monitoring System (ARMS). By the FDA's own admission fewer then ONE PERCENT of those who have problems with something they consume ever report it to the FDA. This balloons the almost 10,000 complaints they once had to around a million. However, the FDA has a record keeping problem (they never did respond to the certified letter from the WEBMASTER of this site... a major victim!) and they tend to discourage or even misdirect complaints, at least on aspartame. The fact remains, though, that MOST victims don't have a clue that aspartame may be the cause of their many problems! Many reactions to aspartame were very serious including seizures and death.
Those reactions included:
Abdominal Pain - Anxiety attacks - arthritis - asthma - Asthmatic Reactions - Bloating, Edema (Fluid Retention) - Blood Sugar Control Problems (Hypoglycemia or Hyperglycemia) - Brain Cancer (Pre-approval studies in animals) - Breathing difficulties - burning eyes or throat - Burning Urination - can't think straight - Chest Pains - chronic cough - Chronic Fatigue - Confusion - Death - Depression - Diarrhea - Dizziness - Excessive Thirst or Hunger - fatigue - feel unreal - flushing of face - Hair Loss (Baldness) or Thinning of Hair - Headaches/Migraines dizziness - Hearing Loss - Heart palpitations - Hives (Urticaria) - Hypertension (High Blood Pressure) - Impotency and Sexual Problems - inability to concentrate - Infection Susceptibility - Insomnia - Irritability - Itching - Joint Pains - laryngitis - "like thinking in a fog" - Marked Personality Changes - Memory loss - Menstrual Problems or Changes - Migraines and Severe Headaches (Trigger or Cause From Chronic Intake) - Muscle spasms - Nausea or Vomiting - Numbness or Tingling of Extremities - Other Allergic -Like Reactions - Panic Attacks - Phobias - poor memory - Rapid Heart Beat - Rashes - Seizures and convulsions Slurring of Speech - Swallowing Pain - Tachycardia - Tremors - Tinnitus - Vertigo - Vision Loss - Weight gain .
Aspartame Disease Mimics Symptoms or Worsens the Following Diseases
Fibromyalgia
Arthritis
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
Parkinson's Disease
Lupus
Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS)
Diabetes and Diabetic Complications
Epilepsy
Alzheimer's Disease
Birth Defects
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Lymphoma
Lyme Disease
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
Panic Disorder
Depression and other Psychological Disorders
How it happens:
Methanol, from aspartame, is released in the small intestine when the methyl group of aspartame encounters the enzyme chymotrypsin (Stegink 1984, page 143). Free methanol begins to form in liquid aspartame-containing products at temperatures above 86 degrees F.. also within the human body. The methanol is then converted to formaldehyde. The formaldehyde converts to formic acid, ant sting poison. Toxic formic acid is used as an activator to strip epoxy and urethane coatings. Imagine what it does to your tissues! Phenylalanine and aspartic acid, 90% of aspartame, are amino acids normally used in synthesis of protoplasm when supplied by the foods we eat. But when unaccompanied by other amino acids we use [there are 20], they are neurotoxic. That is why a warning for Phenylketonurics is found on EQUAL and other aspartame products. Phenylketenurics are 2% of the population with extreme sensitivity to this chemical unless it's present in food. It gets you too, causing brain disorders and birth defects! Finally, the phenyalanine breaks down into DKP, a brain tumor agent. In other words: Aspartame converts to dangerous byproducts that have no natural countermeasures. A dieter's empty stomach accelerates these conversions and amplifies the damage. Components of aspartame go straight to the brain, damage that causes headaches, mental confusion, seizures and faulty balance. Lab rats and other test animals died of brain tumors.
Despite the claims of Monsanto and bedfellows:
1. Methanol from alcohol and juices does not get converted to formaldehyde to any significant extent. There is very strong evidence to confirm this fact for alcoholic beverages and fairly strong evidence for juices.
2. Formaldehyde obtained from methanol is very toxic in *very small* doses as seen by recent research.
3. Aspartame causes chronic toxicity reactions/damage due to the methanol to formaldehyde and other break down products despite what is claimed otherwise by the very short, industry-funded experiments using a test substance that is chemically different and absorbed differently
than what is available to the general public. "Strangely enough", almost all independent studies show that aspartame can cause health problems.
4. A common ploy from Monsanto is to claim that aspartame is "safe" yet a few select people may have "allergic" reactions to it. This is typical Monsanto nonsense, of course. Their own research shows that it does not cause "allergic" reactions. It is there way of trying to minimize and hide the huge numbers of toxicity reactions and damage that people are experiencing from the long-term use of aspartame.
Summary
Given the following points, it is definitely premature for researchers to discount the role of methanol in aspartame side effects:
1. The amount of methanol ingested from aspartame is unprecedented in human history. Methanol from fruit juice ingestion does not even approach the quantity of methanol ingested from aspartame, especially in persons who ingest one to three liters (or more) of diet beverages
every day. Unlike methanol from aspartame, methanol from natural products is probably not absorbed or converted to its toxic metabolites in significant amounts as discussed earlier.
2. Lack of laboratory-detectable changes in plasma formic acid and formaldehyde levels do not preclude damage being caused by these toxic metabolites. Laboratory-detectable changes in formate levels are often not found in short exposures to methanol.
3. Aspartame-containing products often provide little or no nutrients which may protect against chronic methanol poisoning and are often consumed in between meals. Persons who ingest aspartame-containing products are often dieting and more likely to have nutritional
deficiencies than persons who take the time to make fresh juices.
4. Persons with certain health conditions or on certain drugs may be much more susceptible to chronic methanol poisoning.
5. Chronic diseases and side effects from slow poisons often build silently over a long period of time. Many chronic diseases which seem to appear suddenly have actually been building in the body over many years.
6. An increasing body of research is showing that many people are highly sensitive to low doses of formaldehyde in the environment. Environmental exposure to formaldehyde and ingestion of methanol (which converts to formaldehyde) from aspartame likely has a cumulative deleterious effect.
7. Formic acid has been shown to slowly accumulate in various parts of the body. Formic acid has been shown to inhibit oxygen metabolism.
8. The are a very large and growing number of persons are experiencing chronic health problems similar to the side effects of chronic methanol poisoning when ingesting aspartame-containing products for a significant length of time. This includes many cases of eye damage
similar to the type of eye damage seen in methanol poisoning cases. Toxicity Effects of Aspartame Use Selection of Health Effects from Short-term and/or Long-Term Use Note: It often takes at least sixty days without any aspartame NutraSweet to see a significant
improvement. Check all labels very carefully (including vitamins and pharmaceuticals). Look for the word "aspartame" on the label and avoid it. (Also, it is a good idea to avoid "acesulfame-k" or "sunette.")
Finally, avoid getting nutrition information from junk food industry PR organizations such as IFIC or organizations that accept large sums of money from the junk and chemical food industry such as the American Dietetic Association. If you are a user of any products with aspartame, and you have physical, visual, mental problems... take the 60-day no aspartame test. If, after two months with no aspartame your symptoms are either gone, or are much less severe, please get involved to get this neurotoxin off the market. Write a letter to the FDA, with a copy to
Betty Martini (for proof of how the FDA doesn't keep proper records).
Write your congressmen. Return products containing aspartame to the point of purchase... for a FULL refund. Make a big stink if they WON'T give you a full refund! Tell all your friends and family... and if they stop using aspartame and also "wake up well"... get them involved
in the same way.
Aspartame is an "approved sweetener" because of a few greedy and dishonest people who place profits above human life and well-being. With the FDA and our Congress culpable, only an INFORMED and ACTIVE public will affects its reclassification from "food additive" to TOXIC
DRUG, and removed from the human food chain.
Need to view some of the FDA original documentation? View it at
http://www.presidiotex.com/aspartame
Link to a printable report form:
http://www.dorway.com/reprtfrm
Addresses:
Commissioner
Food and Drug Administration
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, Maryland 20857
Mrs. Betty Martini
Mission Possible International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
Internet E-mail: bettym19@mindspring.com
Links for additional information:
http://www.dorway.com
http://www.dorway.com/possible.html
http://www.dorway.com/asprlink.html
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame
http://www.trufax.org/menu/chem.html#aspartame
Links for books:
http://www.dorway.com/amazon.html f
NOW... that you are aware of the 92 FDA recognized symptoms (that required a Freedom Of Information Act request to pry from their reluctant hands) and HOW aspartame does its dirty work, change to my Official Dogma page. On this page Mark Gold has taken the IFIC "Official" aspartame safety myth and shot it full of holes using all of the smoking guns that were used
by the FDA to approve this poison as a food additive, along with information they either ignored or discounted. This excellent debunking of the official Monsanto/Searle/Nutrasweet/ Nutrasweet Kelco/AMA/ADA/IFIC/??? chain of lies and half truths includes a long history of this "product's" sordid trail to the marketplace and the sweet tooth.
(this page
http://www.dorway.com
Friday, September 02, 2005
# 39 Diet Soda Does What ?
While the information shown here, regards "Aspartame" , seems to be factual, I am trying to track down on where this article first actually showed up as a warning to "diet soda" users. Need to do further research to validate / invalidate the severe problems as shown in this article, that I was not aware of previously. Will keep you updated on any progress.
The Talker
( Here is the article )
In October of 2001, my sister started getting very sick. She had stomach spasms and she was having a hard time getting around.. Her feet hurt and walking was a major chore. It took everything she had just to get out of bed; she was in so much pain. By March 2002, she had undergone several tissue and muscle biopsies and was on 24 various prescription medications. The doctors could not determine what was wrong with her. She was in so much pain, and so sick, she just knew she was dying. She put her house, bank accounts, life insurance, etc., in her oldest daughter's name, and made sure that her younger children were to be taken care of. She also wanted her last hooray, so she planned a trip to FL (basically in a wheelchair) for March 22nd. On March 19th I called her to ask how her most recent tests went, and she said they didn't find anything on the test, but they believe she had MS. I recalled an article a friend of mine E-mailed to me and I asked my sister if she drank diet soda? She told me that she did; as a matter of fact, she was getting ready to crack one open that moment. I told her not to open it, and to stop drinking the diet soda !!! I E-mailed her the article my friend, a lawyer, had sent. My sister called me within 32 hours after our phone conversation and told me she had stopped drinking the diet soda AND she could walk!!!! The muscle spasms went away. She said she didn't feel 100% but she sure felt a lot better. She told me she was going to her doctor with this article and would call me when she got home. Well, she called me, and said her doctor was amazed! He was going to call all of his MS patients to find out if they consumed artificial sweeteners of any kind. In a nutshell, she was being poisoned by the Aspartame in the diet soda, and literally dying a slow and miserable death. When she got to FL March 22nd, all she had to take was one pill, and that was a pill for the Aspartame poisoning! She is well on her way to a complete recovery, and she is walking!!!
No wheelchair!!! This article saved her life.
If it says "SUGAR FREE" on the label, DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!! I have spent several days lecturing at the WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE on "ASPARTAME," marketed as 'NutraSweet,' 'Equal,' and 'Spoonful.' In the keynote address by the EPA, it was announced that in the United States in 2001 there is an epidemic of multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. It was difficult to determine exactly what toxin was causing this to be rampant. I stood up and said that I was there to lecture on exactly that subject. I will explain why Aspartame is so dangerous: When the temperature of this sweetener exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol in ASPARTAME converts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which in turn causes metabolic acidosis. Formic acid is the poison found in the sting of fire ants. The methanol toxicity mimics, among other conditions, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. Many people were being diagnosed in error. Although multiple sclerosis is not a death sentence.. methanol toxicity is! Systemic lupus has become almost as rampant as multiple sclerosis, especially with Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi drinkers. The victim usually does not know that the Aspartame is the culprit. He or she continues its use; irritating the lupus to such a degree that it may become a life-threatening condition. We have seen patients with systemic lupus become asymptotic, once taken off diet sodas. In cases of those diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, (when in reality, the disease is Methanol Toxicity), most of the symptoms disappear. We've seen many cases where vision loss returned and hearing loss improved markedly.This also applies to cases of tinnitus and fibromyalgia. During a lecture, I said, "If you are using ASPARTAME (NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc.) and you suffer from fibromyalgia symptoms, spasms, shooting pains, numbness in your legs, cramps, vertigo, dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, joint pain, unexplainable depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, or memory loss, you probably have ASPARTAME poisoning!"People were jumping up during the lecture saying, "I have some of these symptoms. "Is it reversible?" Yes! Yes! Yes! STOP drinking diet sodas and be alert for Aspartame on food labels! Many products are fortified with it!!! This is a serious problem. Dr. Espart (one of my speakers) remarked that so many people seem to be symptomatic for MS and during his recent visit to a hospice, a nurse stated that six of her friends, who were heavy Diet Coke addicts, had all been diagnosed with MS. This is beyond coincidence! Diet soda is NOT a diet product! It is a chemically altered, multiple SODIUM (salt) and ASPARTAME containing product that actually makes you crave carbohydrates. It is far more likely to make you GAIN weight! These products also contain formaldehyde, which stores in the fat cells, particularly in the hips and thighs. Formaldehyde is an absolute toxin and is used primarily to preserve "tissue specimens." Many products we use every day! contain this chemical but we SHOULD NOT store it IN our body!!! Dr. H. J. Roberts stated in his lectures that once free of the "diet products" and with no significant increase in exercise; his patients lost an average of 19 pounds over a trial period. Aspartame is especially dangerous for diabetics. We found that some physicians, who believed that they had a patient with retinopathy, in fact, had symptoms caused by Aspartame. The Aspartame drives the blood sugar out of control. Thus diabetics may suffer acute memory loss due to the fact that aspartic acid and phenylalanine are NEUROTOXIC when taken without the other amino acids necessary for a good balance. Treating diabetes is all about BALANCE. Especially with diabetics, the Aspartame passes the blood/brain barrier and it then deteriorates the neurons of the brain causing various levels of brain damage, seizures, depression, manic depression, panic attacks, uncontrollable anger and rage. Consumption of Aspartame causes these same symptoms in non-diabetics, as well. Documentation and observation also reveal that thousands of children diagnosed with ADD and AHD have had complete turn arounds in their behavior when these chemicals have been removed from their diet. So called "behavior modification prescription drugs" (Ritalin andothers) are no longer needed. Truth be told, they were never NEEDED in the first place! Most of these children were being "poisoned" on a daily basis with the very foods that were "better for them than sugar."It is also suspected that the Aspartame in thousands of pallets of Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi consumed by men and women fighting in the Gulf War, may be partially to blame for the well-known Gulf War Syndrome. Dr. Roberts warns that it can cause birth defects, i.e., mental retardation, if taken at the time of conception and during early pregnancy. Children are especially at risk for neurological disorders and should NEVER be given artificial sweeteners.There are many different case histories to relate of children suffering grand mal seizures and other neurological disturbances due to the use of NutraSweet. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to convince people that Aspartame is to blame for their child's illness. Stevia, which is a sweet herb, NOT A MANUF ACTURED ADDITIVE, helps in the metabolism of sugar, which would be ideal for diabetics. It has now been approved as a dietarysupplement by the FDA. It is known that for many years the FDA outlawed this true sweet food,"due to their loyalty to MONSANTO Chemical Company. "Books on this subject are available:EXCITOTOXINS: THE TASTE THAT KILLS written by Dr.Russell Blayblock (Health Press1-800-643-2665) AND DEFENSE AGAINST ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE written by Dr.H. J. Roberts, also a diabetic specialist.These two doctors will soon be posting a position paper with case histories on the deadly effects of Aspartame on the Internet. According to the Conference of the American College of Physicians, "We are talking about a plague of neurological diseases directly caused by the use ofthis deadly poison." Herein lies the problem: There were Congressional Hearings when Aspartame was includeded in 100 different products and strong objection was made concerning it's use. Since this initial hearing, there have been two subsequent hearings and still, nothing has been done. The drug and chemical lobbies have very deep pockets. Sadly, MONSANTO'S patent on Aspartame has EXPIRED!! There are now over 5,000 products on the market that contain this deadly chemical and there will be thousands more introduced. Everybody wants a "piece of the Aspartame pie." I assure you that MONSANTO, the creator of Aspartame, knows how deadly it is. And isn't it ironic that MONSANTO funds, among others, the American Diabetes Association, the American Dietetic Association and the Conference of the American College of Physicians? This has been recently exposed in the New York Times.These cannot criticize any additives or convey their link to MONSANTO because they take money from the food industry and are required to endorse their products. Senator Howard Metzenbaum wrote and presented a bill that would require label warnings on products containing Aspartame, especially regarding pregnant women, children and infants. The bill would also institute independent studies on the known dangers and the problems existing in the general population regarding seizures, changes in brain chemistry, neurological changes and behavioral symptoms. The bill was killed. It is known that the powerful drug and chemical lobbies are responsible for this, letting loose the hounds of disease and death on an unsuspecting and uninformed public. Well, you're informed now!!!! YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW!!!! Please print this out and/or e-mail to your family and friends.
They have a right to know too.
The Talker
( Here is the article )
In October of 2001, my sister started getting very sick. She had stomach spasms and she was having a hard time getting around.. Her feet hurt and walking was a major chore. It took everything she had just to get out of bed; she was in so much pain. By March 2002, she had undergone several tissue and muscle biopsies and was on 24 various prescription medications. The doctors could not determine what was wrong with her. She was in so much pain, and so sick, she just knew she was dying. She put her house, bank accounts, life insurance, etc., in her oldest daughter's name, and made sure that her younger children were to be taken care of. She also wanted her last hooray, so she planned a trip to FL (basically in a wheelchair) for March 22nd. On March 19th I called her to ask how her most recent tests went, and she said they didn't find anything on the test, but they believe she had MS. I recalled an article a friend of mine E-mailed to me and I asked my sister if she drank diet soda? She told me that she did; as a matter of fact, she was getting ready to crack one open that moment. I told her not to open it, and to stop drinking the diet soda !!! I E-mailed her the article my friend, a lawyer, had sent. My sister called me within 32 hours after our phone conversation and told me she had stopped drinking the diet soda AND she could walk!!!! The muscle spasms went away. She said she didn't feel 100% but she sure felt a lot better. She told me she was going to her doctor with this article and would call me when she got home. Well, she called me, and said her doctor was amazed! He was going to call all of his MS patients to find out if they consumed artificial sweeteners of any kind. In a nutshell, she was being poisoned by the Aspartame in the diet soda, and literally dying a slow and miserable death. When she got to FL March 22nd, all she had to take was one pill, and that was a pill for the Aspartame poisoning! She is well on her way to a complete recovery, and she is walking!!!
No wheelchair!!! This article saved her life.
If it says "SUGAR FREE" on the label, DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!! I have spent several days lecturing at the WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE on "ASPARTAME," marketed as 'NutraSweet,' 'Equal,' and 'Spoonful.' In the keynote address by the EPA, it was announced that in the United States in 2001 there is an epidemic of multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. It was difficult to determine exactly what toxin was causing this to be rampant. I stood up and said that I was there to lecture on exactly that subject. I will explain why Aspartame is so dangerous: When the temperature of this sweetener exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol in ASPARTAME converts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which in turn causes metabolic acidosis. Formic acid is the poison found in the sting of fire ants. The methanol toxicity mimics, among other conditions, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. Many people were being diagnosed in error. Although multiple sclerosis is not a death sentence.. methanol toxicity is! Systemic lupus has become almost as rampant as multiple sclerosis, especially with Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi drinkers. The victim usually does not know that the Aspartame is the culprit. He or she continues its use; irritating the lupus to such a degree that it may become a life-threatening condition. We have seen patients with systemic lupus become asymptotic, once taken off diet sodas. In cases of those diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, (when in reality, the disease is Methanol Toxicity), most of the symptoms disappear. We've seen many cases where vision loss returned and hearing loss improved markedly.This also applies to cases of tinnitus and fibromyalgia. During a lecture, I said, "If you are using ASPARTAME (NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc.) and you suffer from fibromyalgia symptoms, spasms, shooting pains, numbness in your legs, cramps, vertigo, dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, joint pain, unexplainable depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, or memory loss, you probably have ASPARTAME poisoning!"People were jumping up during the lecture saying, "I have some of these symptoms. "Is it reversible?" Yes! Yes! Yes! STOP drinking diet sodas and be alert for Aspartame on food labels! Many products are fortified with it!!! This is a serious problem. Dr. Espart (one of my speakers) remarked that so many people seem to be symptomatic for MS and during his recent visit to a hospice, a nurse stated that six of her friends, who were heavy Diet Coke addicts, had all been diagnosed with MS. This is beyond coincidence! Diet soda is NOT a diet product! It is a chemically altered, multiple SODIUM (salt) and ASPARTAME containing product that actually makes you crave carbohydrates. It is far more likely to make you GAIN weight! These products also contain formaldehyde, which stores in the fat cells, particularly in the hips and thighs. Formaldehyde is an absolute toxin and is used primarily to preserve "tissue specimens." Many products we use every day! contain this chemical but we SHOULD NOT store it IN our body!!! Dr. H. J. Roberts stated in his lectures that once free of the "diet products" and with no significant increase in exercise; his patients lost an average of 19 pounds over a trial period. Aspartame is especially dangerous for diabetics. We found that some physicians, who believed that they had a patient with retinopathy, in fact, had symptoms caused by Aspartame. The Aspartame drives the blood sugar out of control. Thus diabetics may suffer acute memory loss due to the fact that aspartic acid and phenylalanine are NEUROTOXIC when taken without the other amino acids necessary for a good balance. Treating diabetes is all about BALANCE. Especially with diabetics, the Aspartame passes the blood/brain barrier and it then deteriorates the neurons of the brain causing various levels of brain damage, seizures, depression, manic depression, panic attacks, uncontrollable anger and rage. Consumption of Aspartame causes these same symptoms in non-diabetics, as well. Documentation and observation also reveal that thousands of children diagnosed with ADD and AHD have had complete turn arounds in their behavior when these chemicals have been removed from their diet. So called "behavior modification prescription drugs" (Ritalin andothers) are no longer needed. Truth be told, they were never NEEDED in the first place! Most of these children were being "poisoned" on a daily basis with the very foods that were "better for them than sugar."It is also suspected that the Aspartame in thousands of pallets of Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi consumed by men and women fighting in the Gulf War, may be partially to blame for the well-known Gulf War Syndrome. Dr. Roberts warns that it can cause birth defects, i.e., mental retardation, if taken at the time of conception and during early pregnancy. Children are especially at risk for neurological disorders and should NEVER be given artificial sweeteners.There are many different case histories to relate of children suffering grand mal seizures and other neurological disturbances due to the use of NutraSweet. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to convince people that Aspartame is to blame for their child's illness. Stevia, which is a sweet herb, NOT A MANUF ACTURED ADDITIVE, helps in the metabolism of sugar, which would be ideal for diabetics. It has now been approved as a dietarysupplement by the FDA. It is known that for many years the FDA outlawed this true sweet food,"due to their loyalty to MONSANTO Chemical Company. "Books on this subject are available:EXCITOTOXINS: THE TASTE THAT KILLS written by Dr.Russell Blayblock (Health Press1-800-643-2665) AND DEFENSE AGAINST ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE written by Dr.H. J. Roberts, also a diabetic specialist.These two doctors will soon be posting a position paper with case histories on the deadly effects of Aspartame on the Internet. According to the Conference of the American College of Physicians, "We are talking about a plague of neurological diseases directly caused by the use ofthis deadly poison." Herein lies the problem: There were Congressional Hearings when Aspartame was includeded in 100 different products and strong objection was made concerning it's use. Since this initial hearing, there have been two subsequent hearings and still, nothing has been done. The drug and chemical lobbies have very deep pockets. Sadly, MONSANTO'S patent on Aspartame has EXPIRED!! There are now over 5,000 products on the market that contain this deadly chemical and there will be thousands more introduced. Everybody wants a "piece of the Aspartame pie." I assure you that MONSANTO, the creator of Aspartame, knows how deadly it is. And isn't it ironic that MONSANTO funds, among others, the American Diabetes Association, the American Dietetic Association and the Conference of the American College of Physicians? This has been recently exposed in the New York Times.These cannot criticize any additives or convey their link to MONSANTO because they take money from the food industry and are required to endorse their products. Senator Howard Metzenbaum wrote and presented a bill that would require label warnings on products containing Aspartame, especially regarding pregnant women, children and infants. The bill would also institute independent studies on the known dangers and the problems existing in the general population regarding seizures, changes in brain chemistry, neurological changes and behavioral symptoms. The bill was killed. It is known that the powerful drug and chemical lobbies are responsible for this, letting loose the hounds of disease and death on an unsuspecting and uninformed public. Well, you're informed now!!!! YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW!!!! Please print this out and/or e-mail to your family and friends.
They have a right to know too.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
# 38 Virgin Coconut Oil
When I first came across information on coconut oil, I questioned its value as a food and cooking oil. As I researched it out, one thing that stood out glaringly, was that even the so called experts were confused on coconut oil as a health product. The more I researched , the more impressed I became with its health value. So now all that remains, is, will it live up to expectations. Time will tell.
Product I am using is from www.tropicaltraditions.com
Health Benefits of Coconut Oil*
Research and clinical observation have shown that medium-chain fatty acids, like those found in coconut oil, may provide a wide range of health benefits.
Some of these are summarized below:
Kills viruses that cause mononucleosis, influenza, hepatitis C, measles, herpes, AIDS and other illnesses
Kills bacteria that cause pneumonia, earache, throat infections, dental cavities, food poisoning, urinary tract infections, meningitis, gonorrhea, and dozens of other diseases.
Kills fungi and yeast that cause candida, jock itch, ringworm, athletet’s foot, thrush, diaper rash and other infections
Expels or kills tapeworms, lice giardia, and other parasites
Provides a nutritional source of quick energy
Boosts energy and endurance enhancing physical and athletic performance
Improves digestion and absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and amino acids
Improves insulin secretion and utilization of blood glucose
Relies stress on pancreas and enzyme systems of the body
Reduces symptoms associated with pancreatitis
Helps relieve symptoms and reduce health risks associated with diabetes
Reduces problems associated with malabsorption syndrome and cystic fibrosis
Improves calcium and magnesium absorption and supports the development of strong bones and teeth.
Helps protect against osteoporosis
Helps relieve symptoms of gall bladder disease
Relieves symptoms associated with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and stomach ulcers
Reduces pain and irritation caused by hemorrhoids
Reduces chronic inflammation
Supports tissue healing and repair
Supports and aids immune system function
Helps protect the body from breast, colon, and other cancers
Is heart healthy; does not increase blood cholesterol or platelet stickiness
Helps prevent heart disease, atherosclerosis, and stroke
Helps prevent high blood pressure
Helps prevent periodontal disease and tooth decay
Functions as a protective antioxidant
Helps to protect the body from harmful free-radicals that promote premature aging and degenerative disease
Does not deplete the body’s antioxidant reserves like other oils do
Improves utilization of essential fatty acids and protects them from oxidation
Helps relieve symptoms associated with chronic fatigue syndrome
Relieves symptoms associated with benign prostatic hyperplasia (prostate enlargement)
Reduces epileptic seizures
Helps protect against kidney disease and bladder infections
Helps prevent liver disease
Is lower in calories than all other fats
Supports thyroid function
Promotes loss of excess weight by increasing metabolic rate
Is utilized by the body to produce energy in preference to being stored as body fat like other dietary fats
Helps prevent obesity and overweight problems
Applied topically helps to form a chemical barrier on the skin to ward off infection
Reduces symptoms associated with psoriasis, eczema, and dermatitis
Supports the natural chemical balance of the skin
Softens skin and helps relieve dryness and flaking
Prevents wrinkles, sagging skin, and age spots
Promotes healthy-looking hair and complexion
Provides protection from the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation from the sun
Controls dandruff
Helps you look and feel younger
Is resistant to oxidation, so has a long shelf life
Does not form harmful by-products when heated to normal cooking temperatures like other vegetables do
Has no harmful or discomforting side effects
Is completely non-toxic to humans
* Reprinted with permission from pages 168-69 of “The Healing Miracles of Coconut Oil,” by Bruce Fife, N.D.
Product I am using is from www.tropicaltraditions.com
Health Benefits of Coconut Oil*
Research and clinical observation have shown that medium-chain fatty acids, like those found in coconut oil, may provide a wide range of health benefits.
Some of these are summarized below:
Kills viruses that cause mononucleosis, influenza, hepatitis C, measles, herpes, AIDS and other illnesses
Kills bacteria that cause pneumonia, earache, throat infections, dental cavities, food poisoning, urinary tract infections, meningitis, gonorrhea, and dozens of other diseases.
Kills fungi and yeast that cause candida, jock itch, ringworm, athletet’s foot, thrush, diaper rash and other infections
Expels or kills tapeworms, lice giardia, and other parasites
Provides a nutritional source of quick energy
Boosts energy and endurance enhancing physical and athletic performance
Improves digestion and absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and amino acids
Improves insulin secretion and utilization of blood glucose
Relies stress on pancreas and enzyme systems of the body
Reduces symptoms associated with pancreatitis
Helps relieve symptoms and reduce health risks associated with diabetes
Reduces problems associated with malabsorption syndrome and cystic fibrosis
Improves calcium and magnesium absorption and supports the development of strong bones and teeth.
Helps protect against osteoporosis
Helps relieve symptoms of gall bladder disease
Relieves symptoms associated with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and stomach ulcers
Reduces pain and irritation caused by hemorrhoids
Reduces chronic inflammation
Supports tissue healing and repair
Supports and aids immune system function
Helps protect the body from breast, colon, and other cancers
Is heart healthy; does not increase blood cholesterol or platelet stickiness
Helps prevent heart disease, atherosclerosis, and stroke
Helps prevent high blood pressure
Helps prevent periodontal disease and tooth decay
Functions as a protective antioxidant
Helps to protect the body from harmful free-radicals that promote premature aging and degenerative disease
Does not deplete the body’s antioxidant reserves like other oils do
Improves utilization of essential fatty acids and protects them from oxidation
Helps relieve symptoms associated with chronic fatigue syndrome
Relieves symptoms associated with benign prostatic hyperplasia (prostate enlargement)
Reduces epileptic seizures
Helps protect against kidney disease and bladder infections
Helps prevent liver disease
Is lower in calories than all other fats
Supports thyroid function
Promotes loss of excess weight by increasing metabolic rate
Is utilized by the body to produce energy in preference to being stored as body fat like other dietary fats
Helps prevent obesity and overweight problems
Applied topically helps to form a chemical barrier on the skin to ward off infection
Reduces symptoms associated with psoriasis, eczema, and dermatitis
Supports the natural chemical balance of the skin
Softens skin and helps relieve dryness and flaking
Prevents wrinkles, sagging skin, and age spots
Promotes healthy-looking hair and complexion
Provides protection from the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation from the sun
Controls dandruff
Helps you look and feel younger
Is resistant to oxidation, so has a long shelf life
Does not form harmful by-products when heated to normal cooking temperatures like other vegetables do
Has no harmful or discomforting side effects
Is completely non-toxic to humans
* Reprinted with permission from pages 168-69 of “The Healing Miracles of Coconut Oil,” by Bruce Fife, N.D.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
# 37 Herxheimer Effect Is What!
So you feel worse than before, after starting on a new regime of products to improve or correct a health condition! Well, if you tested the product out for any allergic reactions and none showed, be glad. Often , a person will quit the product when they feel worse, instead of continuing. This can be a thing called "Herxheimer Effect or Healing Crisis".
How best to describe the Herxheimer / Healing crisis. Well. one is generally aware of how they are feeling, when they started using a product, that is the reference point for that individual. Not how some one else is reacting to the healing crises. Not arguing here, but stressing that when some thing unusual crops up when using any product to improve health, and a NEW kind of hurt, ache, or pattern shows up , that could be the bodies response of too much to fast. I've had to back off a bit with some things being tried. Have noticed that if the bowels are working well, that the so called healing crises is mostly non-existent. Since I started the Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO), nothing unusual came up, not so with a few others that are also using the VCO. Have heard " hurts my stomach, just don't feel well, stayed awake all night, slept like a log, feel hot all over my body, feel stiff in the joints, am extremely tired, broke out in pimples." None voiced a flu like feeling, although that can be one of many ways that can show up. Nothing common between the complaints, so was it a healing crisis, really don't know, but it WAS a change in THAT persons health awareness, so some thing IS happening. None of the unusual health awareness conditions lasted beyond three days according to my follow-ups, but some thing like this could last for a few weeks or even longer. The way I look at it is, "if some thing has changed in my health awareness pattern while trying out a product, some type of healing process is taking place." Did read some place that if a healing process, how ever long ago, was NOT a complete healing at that time, and if the taking of some product IS capable of healing that uncompleted process, the symptoms associated with that prior incomplete healing will now take place. So, a slew of new symptoms show. Stay with it, monitor the process, closely, normally it passes away, given a little time. If that is the Herxheimer effect, so be it. I feel that there is no one set of symptoms that can be called the "Herxheimer Effect" . Check it out.
Right or wrong , only time will tell.
How best to describe the Herxheimer / Healing crisis. Well. one is generally aware of how they are feeling, when they started using a product, that is the reference point for that individual. Not how some one else is reacting to the healing crises. Not arguing here, but stressing that when some thing unusual crops up when using any product to improve health, and a NEW kind of hurt, ache, or pattern shows up , that could be the bodies response of too much to fast. I've had to back off a bit with some things being tried. Have noticed that if the bowels are working well, that the so called healing crises is mostly non-existent. Since I started the Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO), nothing unusual came up, not so with a few others that are also using the VCO. Have heard " hurts my stomach, just don't feel well, stayed awake all night, slept like a log, feel hot all over my body, feel stiff in the joints, am extremely tired, broke out in pimples." None voiced a flu like feeling, although that can be one of many ways that can show up. Nothing common between the complaints, so was it a healing crisis, really don't know, but it WAS a change in THAT persons health awareness, so some thing IS happening. None of the unusual health awareness conditions lasted beyond three days according to my follow-ups, but some thing like this could last for a few weeks or even longer. The way I look at it is, "if some thing has changed in my health awareness pattern while trying out a product, some type of healing process is taking place." Did read some place that if a healing process, how ever long ago, was NOT a complete healing at that time, and if the taking of some product IS capable of healing that uncompleted process, the symptoms associated with that prior incomplete healing will now take place. So, a slew of new symptoms show. Stay with it, monitor the process, closely, normally it passes away, given a little time. If that is the Herxheimer effect, so be it. I feel that there is no one set of symptoms that can be called the "Herxheimer Effect" . Check it out.
Right or wrong , only time will tell.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
# 36 The Chessmaster 3000
Well, just used up about four weeks of cruising the net for solutions to installing my old chess game. The Chessmaster 3000 is a good ( for me ) chess game and teacher of all the basics of chess.Good old Win 3.1 on through Win98, were the OS programs used with Chessmaster. Now , enter Win XP home and installing this program. Oh, you knew what was coming here. It don't work with Win XP.
Message kept popping up " not a valid win32 program". I knew that, but had to try anyway. So keying in all combinations of key words, and hitting hundreds of listings, most of which were plea's for help from others in the same boat .Had visited game sites, chess sites, and "not win 32" sites. Not much help any where.So here comes the zinger, one site had a program that would allow a 16 bit program to co-exist with Win XP's 32 bit stuff,or some thing like that. Normally I write down the name of little programs I down load. Yup, you got it, this one I neglected to note it. Well , when I tried to install the game again, it still popped up the hated "not a valid win32 program" notice. So a few days later, with my aching body relaxed in my chair, and needing to do some thing constructive( LOL ) I popped in good old Chessmaster again to see if the God of jokes had taken pity on me or not.Bang the lil old sucker kicked right into the install aspect, fully setting up Chessmaster into Win XP. Wow, I thought, "that program" "whatcha call it", must have kicked in some how.Try as I would , I could not locate that program, going through directories of windows, system, and system32. So am at a loss on what kicked in, to make the program install and work. Happy days are here again, until another program I might want to install, refuses to run with Win XP. If any thing crops up, will post it,but not sure if I can find that tiny program without the right search key word.
Anyway, guess I'll play a game of chess now.
Message kept popping up " not a valid win32 program". I knew that, but had to try anyway. So keying in all combinations of key words, and hitting hundreds of listings, most of which were plea's for help from others in the same boat .Had visited game sites, chess sites, and "not win 32" sites. Not much help any where.So here comes the zinger, one site had a program that would allow a 16 bit program to co-exist with Win XP's 32 bit stuff,or some thing like that. Normally I write down the name of little programs I down load. Yup, you got it, this one I neglected to note it. Well , when I tried to install the game again, it still popped up the hated "not a valid win32 program" notice. So a few days later, with my aching body relaxed in my chair, and needing to do some thing constructive( LOL ) I popped in good old Chessmaster again to see if the God of jokes had taken pity on me or not.Bang the lil old sucker kicked right into the install aspect, fully setting up Chessmaster into Win XP. Wow, I thought, "that program" "whatcha call it", must have kicked in some how.Try as I would , I could not locate that program, going through directories of windows, system, and system32. So am at a loss on what kicked in, to make the program install and work. Happy days are here again, until another program I might want to install, refuses to run with Win XP. If any thing crops up, will post it,but not sure if I can find that tiny program without the right search key word.
Anyway, guess I'll play a game of chess now.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
# 35 Whats Hidden In your Computer
Note of interest:For reasons of security and privacy, these are some rarely found tips. In Google search , and, I also found , in Internet Explorer,one can selectively or totally remove the listing you want removed.When an auto-complete window pops open, high-light any item you want to remove. Then press and hold down the "windows key" on the keyboard and than press "delete". This worked well for me.Also in Internet Explorer, go to "tools\internet options\content\personal information. Click the "auto complete" icon, and see the things to clear.As a matter of interest, do a search on your machine, before you do the above. Search for SS#, passwords, accounts #'s, if you bank on-line, or any other item you THINK is private.I was surprised at the things I found.If I could find these things , so could a hacker, if they managed to gain access.
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