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Culling from over 20 years of experience treating over 11000 patients, at least 50% for weight loss, I have concluded that food allergies, chemical toxicities, systemic candidiasis, dysbiosis and carbohydrate intolerance are among the main culprits for weight gain. This protocol is combined with the fundamentals of the blood type theory as researched and founded by Dr James D’Adamo, the writer of New York Best Seller Eat Right for Your Type for a weight loss and disease prevention programme for an overall healthier lifestyle.

1) Food Allergies – Foods that you react to. If you have a food sensitivity or intolerance than when you taken that offending item, it would often result in your metabolic activity slowing down as well as fluid being retained in an attempt to dilute the circulating toxic substances resulting in weight gain.

2) Chemical Toxicities – Chemical toxins that alter your body’s mechanisms. Toxic substances often impact the hormonal system (slowing it down), increase free radical production which uses up essential nutrients further affecting the rate of carbohydrate utilization. All of them result in weight gain.

3) Systemic Candidiasis – Intestinal overgrowth of candida. The candida overgrowth often generates toxins and increases free radical stress. These have been shown to slow down the metabolic rate resulting in weight gain.

3) Dysbiosis/Leaky Gut – Imbalance in the digestive system because of parasites, candida, insufficient enzymes. The diminished barrier functions of the small intestine with ageing may allow antigenic or mutagenic compounds to reach the systemic circulation. This may offer an explanation for the increased incidence of ageing-related disorders which can result from an increase in the intestinal absorption of environmental macromolecules. Endotoxin (internal production of toxins) production from gut dysbiosis reduces basal metabolic rate resulting in weight gain.

4) Carbohydrate Intolerance – Inability to metabolise carbohydrates. As a result of the insulin mechanism being overreactive , too much carbohydrate is stored away as fat rather than being utilized resulting in weight gain. This is how you can put on more weight with one inappropriate meal a day rather than 6 appropriate meals a day.

5) Lectins and agglutination (cells clumping together) -When cells clump together, they can interfere with proper absorption as well as assimilation. So if you take food that makes your cells clump together, you can put on weight

According to Dr D’Adamo, one effect of consuming specific polysaccharides is to agglutinate and thereby inactivate lectins that would otherwise bind the cells in the gut. Another way of avoiding this scenario is to minimise lectin intake through dietary avoidance of certain foods.

“A very good friend of mine, who was very fit, exercised regularly, had a massive paunch that he could not get rid off. When he was in his twenties, he used to run 15 km a day to lose 18kg of extra weight. Now in his early forties, he was still never able to get rid of it. When I told him that wheat, chicken and corn were his major issues (his blood type was (B+)) he was very surprised because his staple diet revolved around wheat and corn. Needles to say within days of changing his diet, he began to shed his weight effortlessly after a 20 year struggle.”

6) Indoles and indigestion – improper protein digestion resulting in toxicity issues.

7) Polyamines and their influence on health

Both the above factors (6,7) can increase tissue toxicity. Increased tissue toxicity results in weight gain and fluid retention.The principles behind the observations of James D’Adamo were researched by Peter D’Adamo, resulting in the basic theory determining the selection of foods according to blood group. This has been comprehensively illustrated in the series of books, starting with Eat Right 4 Your Type (ER4YT), which lists foods according to their status: beneficial; neutral or avoid.

8.) Hypothyroidism A condition affecting mostly women (especially in middle age) where the thyroid gland, found at the bottom of the neck, isn’t making enough thyroid hormone, which is key in balancing our body’s metabolism. “Hypothyroidism slows the metabolic rate. It can also cause fatigue, and sometimes when people are tired, they think if they have something to eat, they might feel better,” says Lorraine Watson, associate professor in the faculty of nursing at the University of Calgary and a weight management expert.

9) Polycystic ovary syndrome
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a hormonal imbalance that is associated with cysts, or sacs filled with fluid, in the ovaries, affecting women mostly during their childbearing years, it can seriously complicate ovulation; it is also associated with increases in weight and associated with insulin resistance and thus Type 2 diabetes.

10) Drink More Diet Soda, Gain More Weight? – The findings come from eight years of data collected by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio. Fowler reported the data at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego.”What didn’t surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity,” Fowler tells WebMD. “What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher.”In fact, when the researchers took a closer look at their data, they found that nearly all the obesity risk from soft drinks came from diet sodas.

We have been helping people lose weight for the last twenty years.
http://www.naturaltherapies.com/our services.htm

Be well
Dr Sundardas

Embryologically the tongue develops from the foregut. The primitive pharynx develops from the foregut. The pharyngeal apparatus consists of arches, grooves, membranes, and pouches. Each pharyngeal arch consists of a core of mesenchyme covered externally by ectoderm and containing an aortic arch artery, a bar of cartilage, a nerve, and muscle tissue.

The first pharyngeal arch produces two distal tongue buds (lateral lingual swellings) that form the anterior two-thirds of the tongue, and a median tongue bud (tuberculum impar) that has no identifiable adult derivatives.. The hypobranchial eminence overgrows the copula, forming the posterior third of the tongue. Some of the tongue muscles probably develop in situ from mesenchyme, but most develop from myoblasts that migrate from the occipital myotomes. The connective tissue, lymphatic vessels, and blood vessels of the tongue arise from pharyngeal arch mesenchyme.

The hypoglossal nerve innervates all intrinsic and extrinsic tongue muscles, except M. palatoglossus innervated by the vagus nerve. The general sensory innervation of the tongue depends upon pharyngeal arch contribution.

In a healthy individual, the tongue should have a solid, fleshy pink colour, with a thin whitish coating over the whole area. There should be an absence of other distinguishing features. As an acupuncturist and naturopathic physician I continue to remain fascinated by the diagnostics of the tongue.

The tongue can give valuable information on organ function. Many meridian lines run through the tongue and thus it is an important location of bodily function. During sickness the tongue will appear duller and even a different colour and texture than when it is healthy. Similarly the tongue may appear bloated when the body is experiencing edema or disorders that cause water retention. Marking on the tongue can relate to the lungs, gastro-intestinal, spleen, gall bladder and liver, kidney, urinary bladder and sex hormones.

Patients with pulmonary and or respiratory problem, the area just behind the tip of the tongue will be red or spotted like a strawberry. Tip of the tongue red refers to heart problems as well as worrying too much, nervousness. It also extends to hyperthyroid activity, acute appendicitis or the symptoms of PMS. (herbals like hawthorn will be useful)

Liver/ gall bladder problem – Sides of tongue reddest (Liver herbals like Milk Thistle or Dandelion, no alcohol).

If whole tongue is red and patient experiences dry mouth, then stomach problem.(Herbals like licorice, lotus root).May also be due to bacteria infecting the blood. (herbals like Echinacea)

Red spot on the tip of the tongue- person overworking, may experience insomnia and stress. Also deficiency of vitamins and nutrition.( Rest, relaxation , a spa holiday, multivitamins, valerian to help in sleep).If both sides of tongue are red, person may suffer from high blood pressure and a hyperactive thyroid.

Cracks in the tongue refer to B complex deficiency, chronic digestive problems, kidney, spleen and stomach problems (TCM style).

Cracking down the centre of the tongue towards the back is due to poor kidney function. Cracking closer to the centre is due to stomach or gastrointestinal problems and is also known as fissured tongue. If there are cracks running horizontally across the tongue in the middle area, it may also be a kidney problem and if there is a crack along the edges it’s a spleen problem. Any crack over 2 mm should be considered a serious condition and be given attention immediately. Asparagus extracts, Digestive enzymes and B Complex may be useful.

Tongue coating refers to the influential levels of heat and cold in the body. If you don’t feel well, obviously the sense of self esteem will take a beating. Generally the thicker the coating, the worse the problem. If the root of the tongue has a coating but no coating elsewhere, the condition is acute.

Respiratory – A thick coating all over the tongue. Thicker the coating and more mucosy, the worse the problem. Use herbal formulas for the lungs like mullein. Adopt a diet that is bland, warm food (cold hurts the lungs).

Stomach problems – yellowish white coating signals digestive problems. A diet like the above. Herbs like licorice or lotus root can be useful.

Be well
Dr Sundardas

http://www.naturaltherapies.com/detox.htm

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning a few years ago that pregnant women taking the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant paroxetine risk giving birth to infants with major birth defects, including heart abnormalities Now comes word that the same drug (sold as Paxil, Paxil CR, Seroxat, Pexeva, and generic paroxetine hydrochloride) carries another danger that could keep babies from being born in the first place. A new study just published in the online edition of the journal Fertility and Sterility concludes as many as fifty percent of all men taking the antidepressant could have damaged sperm and compromised fertility.

New York Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical Center researchers followed 35 healthy male volunteers who took paroxetine for five weeks. Then sperm samples from the men were studied using an assay called terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) to evaluate whether there were missing pieces of genetic code in the sperm DNA. This condition, know as DNA fragmentation, is associated with reproductive problems.

The results? The percentage of men with abnormal DNA fragmentation soared from less than 10 percent to 50 percent while taking the antidepressant. This is a crucial finding because DNA fragmentation has long been known to correlate with an increased risk of birth defects, poor fertility and unsuccessful pregnancy outcomes — even when high tech, extraordinarily expensive fertility enhancing techniques such as in vitro fertilization and intracytoplasmic sperm injection are used.

The study, one of the first scientific investigations into the effect of SSRIs on sperm quality, also confirmed that paroxetine impairs sexual function. More than a third of the research subjects reported significant changes in erectile function and about half had difficulty ejaculating.

“It’s fairly well known that SSRI antidepressants negatively impact erectile function and ejaculation. This study goes one step further, demonstrating that they can cause a major increase in genetic damage to sperm,” Dr. Peter Schlegel, the study’s senior author and chairman of the Department of Urology and professor of reproductive medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, explained in a statement to the media. “Although this study doesn’t look directly at fertility, we can infer that as many as half of men taking SSRIs have a reduced ability to conceive. These men should talk with their physician about their treatment options, including non-SSRI depression medications.”

The scientists could not identify the exact way the SSRI caused the DNA fragmentation, but the evidence strongly suggests the drug slows sperm as it moves through the male reproductive tract from the testis to the ejaculatory ducts. When this happens, the sluggish sperm grows old and its DNA becomes damaged. “This is a new concept for how drugs can affect fertility and sperm. In most cases, it was previously assumed that a drug damaged sperm production, so the concept that sperm transport could be affected is novel,” Dr. Schlegel stated.

The study contains some good news for men currently on Paxil and related drugs who may be concerned about their fertility. All the changes the researchers found appeared to be totally reversible. Specifically, normal levels of sexual function and DNA fragmentation both returned to normal one month after discontinuation of the drug.

A higher dietary intake of omega-3 fatty acids may protect men from prostate cancer even if they have a genetic predisposition to the disease, researchers have found.

“We detected strong protective associations between increasing intake of long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and more advanced prostate cancer,” said lead researcher John S. Witte. “These fatty acids are primarily from dark fish such as salmon.”

“And the decrease in risk may be even more pronounced if one has a high-risk genetic variant,” he said.

In a study published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, Witte and colleagues compared the diets and genetic profiles of 466 men suffering from aggressive prostate cancer with those of 478 healthy men of similar age and ethnic distribution. Average participant age was 65, and cancer patients were recruited an average of 4.7 months after diagnosis. Healthy controls were recruited from among men undergoing standard annual health checkups.

The researchers focused only on aggressive tumors because these represent the most dangerous form of the disease. Many men with non-aggressive, slow-growing tumors die of other causes before ever experiencing any cancer symptoms.

Researchers had all participants fill out food frequency questionnaires, classifying their intake of various kinds of fish as “never,” “one to three times per month,” or “one or more times per week.” All men were screened for nine different mutations of the cox-2 gene. These variables were then analyzed for their relationship with prostate cancer, adjusting for other known risk factors such as smoking, obesity, family cancer history and prior prostate screening results.

The study was conducted by researchers from the Institute for Human Genetics, University of California and University of Southern California, and funded by the National Institute of Health and a dean’s grant from Laval University McLaughlin.

The researchers found that men with cancer had a significantly higher intake of calories, fat and linoleic acid (an omega-6) than healthy men. They had a significantly lower intake of omega-3s, shellfish and dark fish.

Men who ate dark fish one to three times a month had a 36 percent lower chance of developing an aggressive prostate cancer than those who ate it rarely or never, while those who ate such fish once a week or more had a 63 percent lower risk.

“The strongest effect was seen from eating dark fish such as salmon one or more times per week,” Witte said.

The researchers found that men with a particular cox-2 gene variant, rs4647310, had 5.5-times the risk of aggressive prostate cancer as men without that variant. This elevated risk was not seen, however, among men with a high omega-3 intake.

“Men with low intake of dark fish and the high-risk variant had a substantially increased risk of more advanced prostate cancer,” Witte said.

Omega-3s are believed to decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and autoimmune disorders, and to improve cognitive health. The mechanisms for these benefits are not well understood, but are believed, in some cases, to be linked to reduced inflammation.

The cox-2 gene is known to play a role in prostate inflammation, a risk factor for prostate cancer.

For many years, we have been doing a Natural Fertility Program for couples who are delighted with the results.

Be well

Dr Sundardas

http://www.naturaltherapies.com/nfp.htm

To most people, vaccines sound medically harmless. “They’re good for you!” say the doctors and drug companies, but they never really talk about what’s in those vaccines. There’s a good reason for that: If people knew what was really in those vaccines, they would never allow themselves to be injected with them.

Vaccine production is a disgusting procedure. To begin, one must first acquire the disease germ — a toxic bacterium or a live virus. To make a “live” vaccine, the live virus must be attenuated, or weakened for human use. This is accomplished by serial passage — passing the virus through animal tissue several times to reduce its potency. For example, measles virus is passed through chick embryos, polio virus through monkey kidneys, and the rubella virus through human diploid cells — the dissected organs of an aborted fetus! “Killed” vaccines are “inactivated” through heat, radiation, or chemicals.

The weakened germ must then be strengthened with adjuvants (antibody boosters) and stabilizers. This is done by adding drugs, antibiotics, and toxic disinfectants to the concoction: neomycin, streptomycin, sodium chloride, sodium hydroxide, aluminum hydroxide, aluminum hydrochloride, sorbitol, hydrolyzed gelatin, formaldehyde, and thimerosal (a mercury derivative).

Aluminum, formaldehyde, and mercury are extremely toxic substances with a long history of documented hazardous effects. Studies confirm again and again that microscopic doses of these substances can lead to cancer, neurological damage, and death. Yet, each of them may be found in childhood vaccines.

In addition to the deliberately planned additives, unanticipated matter may contaminate the shots. For example, during serial passage of the virus through animal cells, animal RNA and DNA – foreign genetic material — is transferred from one host to another. Because this biological matter is injected directly into the body, researchers say it can change our genetic makeup.

Undetected animal viruses may jump the species barrier as well. This is exactly what happened during the 1950s and 1960s when millions of people were infected with polio vaccines that were contaminated with the SV-40 virus undetected in the monkey organs used to prepare the vaccines. SV-40 (Simian Virus #40 — the 40th such virus detected since researchers began looking), is considered a powerful immunosuppressor and trigger for HIV, the name given to the AIDS virus. It is said to cause a clinical condition similar to AIDS, and has been found in brain tumors, leukemia, and other human cancers as well. Researchers consider it to be a cancer-causing virus.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Modernization Act of 1997 called for the FDA to review and assess the risk of mercury containing food and drugs. In line with this review, U.S. vaccine manufacturers responded to a December 1998 and April 1999 FDA request to provide more detailed information about the thimerosal content of their preparations which include this compound as a preservative. Thimerosal has been used as an additive to biologics and vaccines since the 1930’s.Some but not all of the vaccines recommended routinely for children in the United States contain thimerosal. As a result.some children could be exposed to a cumulative level of mercury over the first six months of life that and there is the riskof neuro-developmental effects

The Public Health Service, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and vaccine manufacturers agree that thimerosal-containing vaccines should be removed as soon as possible. Similar conclusions were reached in 1998 in a meeting attended by European regulatory agencies, the European vaccine manufacturers, and the US FDA which examined the use of thimerosal-containing vaccines produced or sold in European countries.

A 1994 study found that children diagnosed with asthma (a respiratory ailment not unlike SIDS) were five times more likely than not to have received pertussis vaccine. Another study found that babies die at a rate eight times greater than normal within three days after getting a DPT shot. The three primary doses of DPT are given at two months, four months, and six months. About 85% of SIDS cases occur at one through six months, with the peak incidence at age two to four months.

In a recent scientific study of SIDS, episodes of apnea (cessation of breathing) and hypopnea (abnormally shallow breathing) were measured before and after DPT vaccinations. “Cotwatch” (a precise breathing monitor) was used, and the computer printouts it generated (in integrals of the weighted apnea-hypopnea density — WAHD) were analyzed. The data clearly shows that vaccination caused an extraordinary increase in episodes where breathing either nearly ceased or stopped completely. These episodes continued for months following vaccinations. Dr. Viera Scheibner, the author of the study, concluded that “vaccination is the single most prevalent and most preventable cause of infant deaths.”

In another study of 103 children who died of SIDS, Dr. William Torch, of the University of Nevada School of Medicine at Reno, found that more than two-thirds had been vaccinated with DPT prior to death. Of these, 6.5 percent died within 12 hours of vaccination; 13 percent within 24 hours; 26 percent within three days; and 37, 61, and 70 percent within one, two, and three weeks, respectively He also found that SIDS frequencies have a bimodal-peak occurrence at two and four months — the same ages when initial doses of DPT are administered to infants.
Aside from the dangerous ingredients many people already know about (like squalene or thimerosal), one of the key ingredients used in flu vaccines (including the vaccines being prepared for the swine flu pandemic) is the diseased flesh of African Green Monkeys. This is revealed in U.S. patent No. 5911998 – Method of producing a virus vaccine from an African green monkey kidney cell line. (http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5…)

As this patent readily explains, ingredients used in the vaccine are derived from the kidneys of African Green Monkeys who are first infected with the virus, then allowed to fester the disease, and then are killed so that their diseased organs can be used make vaccine ingredients. This is done in a cruel, inhumane “flesh factory” environment where the monkeys are subjected to a process that includes “incubating said inoculated cell line to permit proliferation of said virus.” Then: “harvesting the virus resulting from step (c); and… (ii) preparing a vaccine from the harvested virus.”
Vaccines anyone?

be well
Dr Sundardas

There are an increasing number of teenagers suffering from eating disorder, especially females. I continue to be increasingly concerned by this obsession with body shape and weight. Quite often I get these slim young women who come in and tell me, “Doctor, I need to lose weight”. More often than not I have stopped being polite and I tell these women to have a life.

However we could wonder about the factors that influence individuals to refuse to maintain a minimally normal body weight, harbor an intense fear of gaining weight, exhibit significant distortion in the perception of the ideal shape or size of their bodies, as well as feel dissatisfaction with their body shape and size

A brief look at the history of attractive/desirable body types reveals that these trends were always influenced by public perception. The lower classes always looked towards the higher classes for their model of the desirable body types.

Various strategies are sometimes employed to temporarily or permanently alter the shape of a body. The most common included dieting and exercise. At times artificial devices were used or surgery was employed. Breast size could be artificially increased or decreased. Falsies, breast prostheses or padded bras may have been used to increase the apparent size of a woman’s breasts, while minimiser bras may have been used to reduce the apparent size. Breasts could be surgically enlarged using breast implants or reduced by the systematic removal of parts of the breasts.

Historically, the greatest efforts have been made to reduce a woman’s waistline. Boned corsets were used for several centuries, but during the twentieth century these were mostly replaced with more flexible foundation garments. Where corsets are used for waist reduction, it may been for temporary reduction by occasional use or permanent reduction by people who were often referred to as tightlacers. Liposuction is the common current surgical method of reducing the waist size.

Each society develops a general perception of what an ideal female body shape would be like. These ideals are generally reflected in the art produced by or for a society. The ideal or preferred female body size and shape has varied over time and continues to vary between cultures; but a preference for a small waist has remained fairly constant throughout history. A low waist-hip ratio has often been seen as a sign of good health and reproductive potential.

A low waist-hip ratio has also often been regarded as an indicator of attractiveness of a woman, but recent research suggests that attractiveness is more correlated to body mass index than waist-hip ratio, contrary to previous belief. Historically, according to Devendra Singh, there was a trend for slightly larger women in the 17th and 18th centuries, as typified by the paintings of Rubens, but that in general there has been a preference for a slimmer waist in Western culture. She notes that “The finding that the writers describe a small waist as beautiful suggests instead that this body part – a known marker of health and fertility – is a core feature of feminine beauty that transcends ethnic differences and cultures.”

New research suggests that apple shape women have the highest risk of developing heart disease while hourglass shape women have the lowest. The waist-hip ratio (WHR) is a person’s waist measurement divided by the hip measurement. Notwithstanding wide cultural differences in preferences for female build, scientists have discovered that the waist-hip ratio of any build is very strongly correlated to attractiveness across all cultures. Women with a 0.7 WHR (waist circumference that is 70% of the hip circumference) are usually rated as more attractive by men from European cultures. Such diverse beauty icons as Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, and the Venus de Milo all have ratios around 0.7.

In other cultures, preferences vary, ranging from 0.6 in China, to 0.8 or 0.9 in parts of South America and Africa, and divergent preferences based on ethnicity, rather than nationality, have also been noted. WHR has been found to be a more efficient predictor of mortality in older people than waist circumference or body mass index (BMI). In the early days (18th Century) it was both class consciousness and the works of great artists like Botticelli and Michelangelo influenced public perception.

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the growth of the printed media ( ie newspapers, television and the media), the popular perception of what looked good became what was fashionable. So the media has always influenced public perception. However what is happening now is that the divisions that existed between the different cultures and societies is dissolving (ie East and West, Indian and Chinese etc). We are witnessing the melding of different models of desired shapes.

Advertising in teen magazines and on television typically glamorizes skinny models who do not resemble the average woman. In fact, today’s models generally weight 23% less then the average woman. Considering the average person in the United States sees approximately 3,000 ads in magazines, billboards, and television every day, your teenager is getting the wrong message about body image much too often. Media targeting teenage girls are emphasizing the ideal of thinness as beauty. When you stop and think about the fact that the average height and weight for a model is 5’10” and 110 lbs, and the height and weight for the average woman is 5’4″ and 145 lbs, it’s easy to see why this creates a tremendous health risk for young girls.

This leads to starving young skinny women who have difficulty getting pregnant because their BMI is too low for healthy hormonal balance. If they do become pregnant, they often give birth to children who have subtle deficiencies that impact their physical and emotional health. These young women eventually develop osteoporosis in their later years because of their early dieting (See Blog on “Osteoporosis). “Oh what a tangled web we weave”. The media has a lot to answer for.

Be well
Dr Sundardas

In an effort to censor any online text that might inform consumers of the ability of natural products to protect consumers from H1N1 influenza A, the FDA has been sending out a round of warning letters, threatening to “take enforcement action… such as seizure or injunction for violations of the FFDC Act without further notice.”

“Firms that fail to take correction action,” the FDA warns, “may also be referred to the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations for possible criminal prosecution for violations of the FFDC Act and other federal laws.”

The message is crystal clear: No product may be described as protecting against or preventing H1N1 infections unless it is approved by the FDA. And which products has the FDA approved? Tamiflu (the anti-viral drug that most people will never have access to), and soon the new H1N1 vaccine that’s being manufactured at a cost of one billion dollars (paid to Big Pharma by the taxpayers). This vaccine, of course, will be utterly useless because H1N1 will undoubtedly mutate between now and the time the vaccine is ready, rendering the vaccine useless.

In other words, according to the tyrants at the FDA, the only products that may be marketed alongside the term “H1N1” are those products that either don’t work or aren’t available to most people. Anything that really works to prevent influenza infections — such as natural anti-virals, medicinal herbs, etc. — is banned from even mentioning H1N1 without the threat of being criminally prosecuted.

! As the defender of Big Pharma, the FDA is also the destroyer of knowledge that seeks to remove educational statements from the internet. Truth has nothing to do with it — it is verifiably true that anti-viral herbs, probiotics and other natural products help protect consumers from influenza — but the FDA cannot allow such statements to remain online for the simple fact that people might become informed. And that, it seems, would be a dangerous precedent.

If people were informed about the healing and protective powers of herbs, they would no longer remain enslaved by the medical establishment. Profits would be lost. Power would evaporate. This is why people can never be allowed to attain any real knowledge about herbs, superfoods or nutritional supplements. And the FDA will threaten people with imprisonment just to make sure they don’t dare publish knowledge that the FDA does not want the people to see. The fact that nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults are clinically obese is worrisome for a whole new reason: Evidence emerging from a hospital in Michigan (and published by the CDC) appears to indicate that obese patients may be very easily killed by swine flu.

In the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s report on death and disease, researchers documented the case of ten swine flu patients at a Michigan hospital who became so ill they were put on ventilators. Three of the patients ultimately died from the infection. The kicker? Nine of the ten were obese, and two of the three who died were severely obese.

As reported by Reuters, CDC virologist Dr. Tim Uyeki said, “What this suggests is that there can be severe complications associated with this virus infection, especially in severely obese patients.”

Notably, five of the patients showed evidence of blood clots in their lungs, indicating severe cellular trauma in the lungs. Nine of the patients suffered from multiple organ failure, and six experienced kidney failure.
These findings are especially worrisome because nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults are now clinically obese. Combined with widespread vitamin D deficiency, nutritional deficiencies and pharmaceutically-induced immune suppression, the U.S. population is more vulnerable to a pandemic right now than any other population in the history of the world.

The people of the first world countries who have adopted a lifestyle similar to the Americans, in other words, are primed for a pandemic. Most of the deaths in Singapore from H1N1 are from people who have a history of health conditions that create free radicals and cytokines from inflammatory conditions ie diabetes, epilepsy, allergies or infections. Shockingly, most Asians may still be thinking that excess body fat is normal and that obese babies are just “chubby.” Should the circulating swine flu combine with seasonal flu this fall, it could devastate the immunologically vulnerable Asian population, potentially killing millions.
The number of patients reviewed in this study is quite small (only ten), but even so, this could be a warning sign of more deaths to come from infected, obese patients. Of course, there’s really no mystery why obesity may cause extreme vulnerability to swine flu infections: The virus kills through an inflammatory process, and obesity is, itself, a highly-inflammatory condition that only exacerbates the deadliness of the H1N1 virus.

Patients who have made themselves obese — for whatever reason — have also unleashed a storm of inflammatory cytokines in their blood, and these cytokines are precisely what get over-excited during the body’s response to a swine flu infection, leading to organ damage and death. This is precisely why people wishing to survive the coming pandemic must make a special effort to attain a high level of physical and nutritional health before such a pandemic arrives.

Being obese compromises your body’s immune system, liver, heart, lungs and kidneys. This puts a serious additional burden on your body, leaving few spare resources for fighting off infections. That’s probably why nine out of ten swine flu victims documented in the Michigan hospital were obese.

The bottom line in this study is quite clear: Don’t be obese during the next pandemic. If you are obese now, let this bit of knowledge provide whatever extra motivation you need to drop some excess body fat and reduce the inflammatory burden on your body’s organs. Obesity is, after all, readily reversed through simple changes in diet and exercise habits.

Be well

Dr Sundardas

Listed below are nutrients that will improve your immune system against viral infections.
Protecting Yourself against the Swine Flu. on June 15, 2009

Diabetes management is something that many must deal with on a day to day basis. About 16 million Americans suffer from diabetes mellitus, a chronic disease in which the pancreas produces too little or no insulin, impairing the body’s ability to turn sugar into usable energy.

In recent years, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a fast-acting form of human insulin and several new oral diabetes drugs, including the most recent, Rezulin (troglitazone), the first of a new class of drugs called insulin sensitizers. This drug is designed to help Type II diabetics make better use of the insulin produced by their bodies and could help as many as 1 million Type II diabetics reduce or eliminate their need for insulin injections.

While it is treatable, diabetes is still a killer. Thus, diabetes management is extremely important. The fourth leading cause of death in America, diabetes claims an estimated 178,000 lives each year. So the treatment is aimed at holding the disease in check, reversing it where possible, and preventing complications.

Philip Cryer, M.D., a professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and president of the American Diabetes Association, believes that most people simply don’t understand the magnitude of the diabetes problem. “Diabetes is an increasingly common, potentially devastating, treatable yet incurable, lifelong disease. It’s the leading cause of blindness in working-age adults, the most common cause of kidney failure leading to dialysis or transplants, and is a leading cause of amputation,” he says. “The most recent estimate we have of diabetes’ cost [in terms of] direct medical care is $90 billion dollars annually–more than heart disease, cancer, or AIDS.”

At the heart of diabetes control are dietary management and drug treatment. The increasing emphasis on the importance of a healthy diet, the availability of glucose monitoring devices that can help diabetics keep a close watch over blood sugar levels, and the wide range of drug treatments enable most diabetics to live a near-normal life.
Managing the diet is easier now because of food labeling regulations that went into effect in 1994 (see “The New Food Label: Coping with Diabetes” in the November 1994 FDA Consumer).According to the Corn Refiners Association, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is no worse for you than any other dietary carbohydrate. Many health experts, however, disagree, warning consumers that HFCS is strongly correlated with diabetes and obesity.

According to NaturalNews, these quotes tell you how bad the problems is:

Roughly $40 billion in federal subsidies are going to pay corn growers, so that corn syrup is able to replace cane sugar. corn syrup has been singled out by many health experts as one of the chief culprits of rising obesity, because corn syrup does not turn off appetite. Since the advent of corn syrup, consumption of all sweeteners has soared, as have people’s weights. According to a 2004 study reported in the American journal of Clinical Nutrition, the rise of Type-2 diabetes since 1980 has closely paralleled the increased use of sweeteners, particularly corn syrup.
There is a Cure for Diabetes: The Tree of Life 21-Day+ Program by Gabriel Cousens

Since the fructose in corn syrup does neither stimulate insulin secretion nor reduce the hunger hormone ghrelin, you will continue to feel hungry while the body converts the fructose into fat. The resulting obesity increases the risk of diabetes and other diseases. Since you obviously cannot expect to receive much help from those who only know how to treat the effects of illness and not its causes, you may need to take your health into you own hands.
Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You by Andreas Moritz

More than half of the carbohydrates being consumed are in the form of sugars (sucrose, corn syrup, etc.) being added to foods as sweetening agents. High consumption of refined sugars is linked to many chronic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Generally, the term “dietary fiber” refers to the components of plant cell wall and non-nutritive residues. Originally, the definition was restricted to substances that are not digestible by the endogenous secretions of the human digestive tract.
Textbook of Natural Medicine 2nd Edition Volume 1 by Michael T. Murray, ND

The following are tips to prevent or manage diabetes (Type 2);

1) If you have a history of diabetes in your family, recognize you will have a higher tendency to do so. Very often diabetes is a disease of denial.

2) Watch your weight. DO not let it exceed more than 5% of your optimum body weight when you wer at your healthiest. Studies have shown that every 5% increase to correlate to a 200% risk of mature onset diabetes. (Weight gain and the Risk of Developong Insulin Resistance Syndrome . Everson SA, et al. Diabetes Care 1998;21(10):1637-43)

3) Exercise regularly and lifelong. Studies have shown, it helps to protect against diabetes.(The Protective Effect of Good Physical Fitness when young on the Risk of Impaired Glucose Tolerance when Old)Takemura Y, et al. Prev Med 1999;28(1):14-9 )

4) Watch your carbohydrates really carefully if you are at high risk. Use complex carbohydrates.
(Heterogeneity in associations between macronutrient intake and lipoprotein profile in individuals with type 2 diabetes) Mayer-Davis EJ;Levin S;Marshall JA, Diabetes care Oct 1999 22(10) p1632-9)

5) Follow the blood type diet. The lectins in food which are antagonistic to your blood cells can lead to pancreatic damage.

Be well
Dr Sundardas

For more than 15 years, I’ve been warning patients about the downside of mammograms, PSA testing, and the overall concept of cancer screening. It hasn’t been a popular position. Today, however, there’s a small but growing band of researchers, clinicians, and expert panels who are speaking out against the unbridled use of these tests. One of them, H. Gilbert Welch, MD, a professor at Dartmouth Medical School, has laid out very persuasive arguments in an aptly titled book, Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here’s Why. In this straightforward and well-referenced book, Dr. Welch raises several concerns about cancer screening.

1. Few People Benefit From Screening
For starters, the majority of folks who are screened receive no benefit. That’s because, despite scary statistics, most people will not get cancer. Let’s look at breast cancer as an example.

According to government statistics, the absolute risk of a 60-year-old woman dying from breast cancer in the next 10 years is 9 in 1,000. If regular mammograms reduce this risk by one-third-a widely cited but by no means universally accepted claim-her odds fall to 6 in 1,000. Therefore, for every 1,000 women screened, three of them avoid death from breast cancer, six die regardless, and the rest? They can’t possibly benefit because they weren’t going to die from the disease in the first place.

If mammograms worked as touted, death from breast cancer would be rare, since three-quarters of American women 40 and older get regular screenings (a total of 33.5 million per year). The modest decline in the death rate from the mid-1970s, when mammography was introduced, through the present can be attributed to factors other than screening, such as changes in treatment and the dramatic decrease in the use of Premarin and other cancer-promoting hormone replacement drugs. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that mammograms do not substantially reduce risk of death from breast cancer.

2. The Most Deadly Cancers Are Missed
The flip side is that some people who are screened get cancer and die anyway. Test results aren’t always accurate. Sometimes cancer is there, but it’s missed (false negatives). In the case of mammograms, it could be a question of a poor-quality test or a radiologist who overlooked something. Even experienced radiologists don’t always interpret test results the same, and sometimes they just plain get it wrong.

The most likely reason that cancer is overlooked, however, is due to the nature of cancer itself. The deadliest cancers grow very rapidly. Screening can detect slow-growing cancers in their early stages, but you can see how aggressive cancers could be missed if you’re only looking for them once a year. Depending on the cancer’s growth cycle, it could crop up just months after screening and be far advanced by the time the next test rolls around.

3. The Pitfalls of False Positives
Far more common than false negatives are false positives-those cancer scares that occur when you’re told that your test is suspicious but, after further evaluation, turns out to be nothing. False positives lead to confirmatory testing such as ultrasound of the breast and prostate, CT scan of the lung, colonoscopy, and colposcopy of the cervix. These tests are at best inconvenient and at worst extremely unpleasant, as anyone who’s had a colonoscopy knows. They also often lead to biopsies, which are far more invasive and could possibly promote the spread of cancer.

Unfortunately, false positive rates are incredibly high. For mammography, it’s close to 10 percent. For every 100 women screened, 10 will require further workup. If you repeat this screening test every year for 10 years, your cumulative risk of having at least one false positive rises to 65 percent. This means that more than half of all women will get the terrifying news that their mammogram is abnormal-the first step on the slippery slope of intervention.

False positive rates are high for PSA as well, especially among older men. Some estimate that three-quarters of men who have a prostate biopsy based on an elevated PSA level do not have cancer. And lifetime false-positive risk for Pap smears is 75 percent.
Another consideration is the psychological trauma of cancer screening. Being told you might have cancer is a harrowing experience, and the lag time between retesting and getting a clean bill of health can be months.

4. Unnecessary Treatment
Even worse than the sound and fury created by false positives is unnecessary treatment. Yes, some lives are saved due to early detection and treatment. But not all cancers are the same. Some are deadly, treated or not; others are not fatal regardless of treatment. Dr. Welch calls the latter pseudodisease-small, slow-growing or nonprogressive cancers that you’d never know existed were it not for screening tests. Yet all too often, these innocuous tumors are attacked with a vengeance, often to the detriment of patients.

A prime example is prostate cancer. Since 1975, its incidence has more than doubled. But rather than having an epidemic of prostate cancer, what we have is an epidemic of detection. Although many more men are being diagnosed and treated, the death rate from prostate cancer has held steady at 3 percent.

It’s human nature, when given a diagnosis of cancer, to want to get rid of it. But prostate cancer treatment is not benign. Surgical complications include difficulty urinating (17 percent), urinary incontinence (28 percent), and inability to have an erection (more than 50 percent). Radiation damages the rectum and can cause diarrhea and bowel urgency. Side effects of androgen suppression range from sexual dysfunction to risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Be well
Dr Sundardas

http://www.naturaltherapies.com/cancer.htm

As the computer visual display (VDU) unit became more common in the workplace, the issue of radiation hazards associated with the prolonged use of VDU’s were tested by reputable laboratories and found to emit no detectable levels of X- rays. A similar study by Canadian Radiation Protection Bureau researchers arrived at the same conclusion. World Health Organisation (WHO) experts endorsed similar findings. Given such reassurances, the temptation has been to conclude that VDU’s are harmless. However, deeper more haunting statistics suggest that health problems from VDU’s could arise from electromagnetic radiation.

The early research did not consider all the relevant data. Since 1979 small clusters of miscarriage and birth defects among VDU users in a dozen or more office locations have been reported. Due to the low level of X-ray radiation around VDU’s, authorities often dismissed the increased incidence of these abnormalities as chance occurrences, while others argued alternately that the reported defects could be hereditary.

In 1982 Delagado and others reported powerful inhibitory effects on chicken embryos produced by weak 100 H2 {28} electromagnetic fields. The following year Ubeda and others also observed ‘teratogenic” changes or monstrous mutations to chicken embryos exposed to low intensity pulsed electromagnetic fields of 100Hz. The most deterious effects were observed with a weak magnetic field strengths of about 1 micro Tesla, with stronger and weaker fields less effective.

Since the original work of Delgado and co-workers, several more recent studies have confirmed that weak electromagnetic fields are capable of interacting with biological systems of specific frequencies and intensities. Since magnetic field strength pulses of up to 400,000 microtesla have been reported with VDU’s it follows that weak magnetic pulses will exist even at a considerable distance from the units.

With approximately half the workforce using VDU’s being women of childbearing age, the health implications are enormous. McDonald and co-workers who studied births in the Montreal area in 1984, reported, that the rate of spontaneous abortion in 2609 current pregnancies with no VDU use was 5.7% compared to 8.3% for 588 with weekly exposure of less than 15 hours and 9.4% for 710 pregnancies with VDU use greater than 15 hours per week.

In 1988 Goldhaber and co-workers found in a case control study of pregnancy outcome that there exists: “Significantly elevated risk of miscarriage for working women who using VDU’s for more than 20 hours per week during the first trimester of pregnancy compared to other working who reported not using VDUs”. The increased risk could not be explained by age, education, occupation, smoking, alcohol consumption on other maternal characteristics.

Reported cases of foetal damage from VDU’s.:

1. In 1979, four out of seven pregnant VDU operates who had worked on the classified advertising department of the Toronto Star gave birth to infants with defects. One had a club foot, another a deft palate, a third an underdeveloped eye and the fourth had multiple heart abnormalities. None of the mothers had smoked or taken drugs during the pregnancies.During that period, three other employees at the Star who didn’t work on VDU’s gave birth to normal babies.

2. Due to excessive fetal retardation and birth defects among the off-spring of women and animals exposed to radioactive fields in Eastern Europe, pregnant women in Czechoslovakia have been specifically prohibited from working in areas where the “safe” level of micro-waves was exceeded. The Czech standard is one-thousandth the recommended American guideline.

The following items also possess a significant electromagnetic field; television, electric razors, electric blankets, electric-power transmission and distribution networks, fluorescent lights, electric clocks, hair dryers and electric heaters, microwave ovens, personal radio transmitters. Research done by Dr. Robert O. Becker M.D. appears to indicate that all of the above appliances at times have radiation levels that sometimes exceed current safety levels of radiation.

The rise of phenomena such as electromagnetic – hypersensitivity syndrome has been verified by several scientists, like Robert Becker M.D. and Dr. William Rae. It refers to the phenomena whereby an individual develops an allergy due to electro-magnetic fields. Chronic-fatigue syndrome has also been linked to electro-magnetic fields.

While Dr. Becker says that it is too premature to conclude that brain lesions of the autistic children match those of the experimental animals, he points out that the apparent onset of autism as a clinical condition in the 1940’s coincided with the marked increase in the use of electro- magnetic energy.

A simple way of measuring if you are outside the direct influence of the electric field of an appliance is outlined below; To check the level of radiation from your TV set, simply turn on your small battery-operated AM radio. Tune it to a spot on the dial where you cannot hear a station and turn the volume up to maximum. Hold the radio about a foot away from the front of the TV and switch the TV on. If you then move the radio away from the TV you will reach a distance at which the noise disappears. This method can be used for devices that give off radio-frequency fields such as computers and stereos. It will not work for devices that give off 60-H3 only such as electric stoves and hair dryers. The distance at which the “white” noise disppears is the safe distance. To be absolutely safe, pregnant mothers should minimize exposure to VDU’s computers and micro-wave ovens.

be well
Dr Sundardas
http://www.naturaltherapies.com/ELECTRODERMAL%20SCREENING.htm

One important reason is the big delay — and advantage — women have over men in terms of cardiovascular disease, like heart attack and stroke. Women develop these problems usually in their 70s and 80s, about 10 years later than men, who develop them in their 50s and 60s. For a long time, doctors thought the difference was due to estrogen. But studies have shown that this may not be the case, and now we know that giving estrogen to women post-menopause can actually be bad for them. “http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1635370,00.html” \t “_blank”

One reason for that delay in onset of cardiovascular disease could be that women are relatively iron-deficient compared to men — especially younger women, those in their late teens and early 20s — because of menstruation. Iron plays a very important part in the reactions in our cells that produce damaging free radicals, which glom onto cell membranes and DNA, and may translate into aging the cell. In fact, in our diets, red meat is the main source of iron, and lack of iron is probably one major reason that being vegetarian is healthy for you. There was a very good study looking at the intake of red meat and heart disease in Leiden in the Netherlands: in regions where people didn’t eat red meat, those populations had half the rate of heart attack and stroke compared to the populations that did eat red meat.

Another more complicated possibility [for women’s longevity] is that women have two X chromosomes, while men have one. (Men have an X and a Y.) When cells go through aging and damage, they have a choice in terms of genes — either on one X chromosome or the other.

Consider it this way: you have a population of cells, all aging together. In some cells, the genes on one X chromosome are active; in other cells, by chance, the same set of genes, with different variations, are active on the other X chromosome. Don’t forget, we all have the same genes — the reason we differ is because we express different variations of those genes, like different colors of a car. Now, if one set of variations provides a survival advantage for the cells versus another, then the cells with the advantage will persist while the other ones will die off, leaving behind more cells with the genes on the more advantageous X chromosome. So, in women, cells can perhaps be protected by a slightly better variation of a gene on the second X chromosome. Men don’t have this luxury and don’t get this choice.

It’s very unclear [how big an effect that could have]. I’ve seen men who have done horrendous damage to themselves over time with smoking and drinking and who still get to 100 and older — though that’s very, very rare. They might have the right combination of some really special genetic variations that we call “longevity enabling genes” — which we’re on the mad hunt for.

Meanwhile other individuals may do everything right and only make it into their 80s. That may be because they have what we call “disease genes,” some genetic variations that are relatively bad for them. Now some of these [disease genes] may be on the X chromosome, [meaning that women who have the second X chromosome with which to compensate, would have an advantage]. But it’s really still a very complicated puzzle to tease out.

There are a few other reasons that men die earlier in life more often than women. Men in their late teens and 20s go through something called “testosterone storm.” The levels of the hormone can be quite high and changeable, and that can induce some pretty dangerous behavior among young men. They don’t wear their seatbelts; they drink too much alcohol; they can be aggressive with weapons and so on and so forth. These behaviors lead to a higher death rate.

Another area where we see higher death rates among men is among the depressed — especially older men. If they attempt suicide, they are more likely to succeed than women.

Overall, about 70% of the variation around average life expectancy — [just over 80 for women and just over 75 for men in the U.S.] — is probably attributable to environmental factors — your behaviors and your exposures. Probably only 30% is due to genetics. And that’s very, very good news. There’s so much we can do. Most of us should be able to get into our late 80s. What’s more, to get to older ages, like the centenarians, you are necessarily compressing the time you’re sick to the end of your life. It’s not a case where the older you get, the sicker you get. It’s very much the case that the older you get, the healthier you’ve been.

But, in general, there are maybe three things men do worse than women. They smoke a lot more. (That gender gap is fortunately shrinking, since men are smoking less and less.) They eat more food that leads to high cholesterol. And, perhaps related to that, men tend not to deal with their stress as well as women. They may be more prone to internalizing that stress rather than letting go — though that’s a fairly controversial point. Nonetheless, stress plays a very important role in cardiovascular disease.

Generally men unless they cannot work, are disabled by pain and cannot move or they are so sick and have a nervous breakdown, they maintain this veneer of stolidity and the attitude that says “I am fine”. Whereas women prefer to be proactive and prefer to preempt trouble generally.

My personal opinion is that women are more proactive, more sensitive to pain and seek earlier intervention. They are more interested in intervention before the quality of life is compromised. So serious issues are discovered earlier. Men wait until what happens to them creates an impasses in their ability to work or be effective. This may be one factor that accounts for increased life span.

Be well

Dr Sundardas