A 4-year-old in Ohio is one of hundreds of children worldwide who have developed unexplained liver problems in recent months.
It was three days before Christmas, and Elizabeth Widders was perched in her upstairs bathroom, fastening red and green bows in the hair of her 4-year-old daughter, Liviah. But as Liviah stood in the morning light, her mother noticed that the whites of her eyes had turned yellow.
She hustled Liviah downstairs to ask her husband, Jack, for a second opinion. He saw the yellow tint, too.
Liviah and her two siblings all had jaundice as babies, and their parents, from Mason, Ohio, were familiar with the telltale signs. “I knew: This is liver stuff,” Mrs. Widders recalled.
They took Liviah to the emergency room, where she was diagnosed with acute hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver. Less than two weeks later, doctors removed her failing liver and replaced it with a new one.
Over the past eight months, hundreds of other families have been caught in similar whirlwinds, as their otherwise healthy children developed hepatitis, seemingly out of the blue. Six hundred and fifty probable cases have been reported in 33 countries, according the World Health Organization. At least 38 children have required liver transplants, and nine have died.
The cases have stumped experts, who are investigating a variety of potential causes. One leading hypothesis is that an adenovirus, a family of common viruses that typically cause flu- or cold-like symptoms, may be responsible, but many questions remain.
The revelation that Liviah’s case might be part of a larger phenomenon has galvanized her parents, who have started sharing their story in hopes of educating others about the key warning signs.
The cases are exceedingly rare, experts emphasize, and even then, most do not require transplants. “The odds of something like this happening are extremely small,” said Jack Widders, Liviah’s father.
But without a solid explanation, it feels like lightning that could strike any family.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/01/heal ... 778d3e6de3
Health and Healing
Blood Tests That Detect Cancers Create Risks for Those Who Use Them
The tests screen for cancers that often go undetected, but they are expensive and some experts worry they could lead to unnecessary treatments without saving patients’ lives.
By Gina Kolata
June 10, 2022
Jim Ford considers himself a lucky man: An experimental blood test found his pancreatic cancer when it was at an early stage. It is among the deadliest of all common cancers and is too often found too late.
After scans, a biopsy and surgery, then chemotherapy and radiation, Mr. Ford, 77, who lives in Sacramento, has no detectable cancer.
“As my doctor said, I hit the lottery,” he said.
Tests like the one that diagnosed him have won praise from President Biden, who made them a priority of his Cancer Moonshot program. A bill in Congress with 254 cosponsors would authorize Medicare to pay for the tests as soon as the Food and Drug Administration approved them.
But companies are not waiting for a nod from regulators. One, GRAIL, is selling its annual test, with a list price of $949, in advance of approval, and another company, Exact Sciences, expects to follow suit, using a provision known as laboratory developed tests.
The tests, which look for minuscule shards of cancer DNA or proteins, are a new frontier in screening. Companies developing them say they can find dozens of cancers. While standard screening tests are commonly used to detect cancer of the breast, colon, cervix and prostate, 73 percent of people who die of cancer had cancers that are not detected by standard tests.
Supporters say the tests can slash cancer death rates by finding tumors when they are still small and curable. But a definitive study to determine whether the tests prevent cancer deaths would have to involve more than a million healthy adults randomly assigned to have an annual blood test for cancer or not. Results would take a decade or longer.
“We’re at a point now where the blood tests are in their early days,” said Dr. Tomasz Beer, a cancer researcher at Oregon Health & Science University, who is directing a GRAIL-sponsored study of the test that found Mr. Ford’s cancer. “Some people in an informed manner can choose to be early adapters.”
The companies would like to get the tests approved with studies less rigorous than the F.D.A. typically requires, and they stand to make huge profits if that happens.
“GRAIL proposes to test every Medicare beneficiary every year, making it the screening test that could bankrupt Medicare,” said Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, a senior investigator in the Center for Surgery and Public Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
With 44 million Medicare beneficiaries and an annual test costing about $1,000 a year plus expensive scans and biopsies for those whose tests are positive, the price tag could be substantial.
He and other critics warn that the risks of unleashing the tests are substantial. Paradoxical as it may sound, finding cancers earlier could mean just as many deaths, with the same timing as without early diagnosis. That is because — at least with current treatments — cancers destined to kill are not necessarily cured if found early.
And there are other risks. For example, some will have a positive test, but doctors will be unable to locate the cancer. Others will be treated aggressively with surgery or chemotherapy for cancers that, if left alone, would not have grown and spread and may even have gone away.
Dr. Beer acknowledges that a cancer blood test “doesn’t come without risks or costs, and it is not going to detect every cancer.”
But, he said, “I think there’s promise for a real impact.”
Other experts are worried.
Dr. Barnett Kramer, a member of the Lisa Schwartz Foundation for Truth in Medicine and former director of the Division of Cancer Prevention at the National Cancer Institute, fears that the tests will come into widespread use without ever showing they are beneficial. Once that happens, he said, “it is difficult to unring the bell.”
“I hope we are not halfway through a nightmare,” Dr. Kramer said.
The Damocles Syndrome
When Susan Iorio Bell, 73, a nurse who lives in Forty Fort, Pa., saw an ad on Facebook recruiting women her age for a study of a cancer blood test, she immediately signed up. It fit with her advocacy for preventive medicine and her belief in clinical trials.
The study was of a test, now owned by Exact Sciences, that involved women who are patients with Geisinger, a large health care network. The test looks for proteins and DNA shed by tumors.
Ms. Bell’s result was troubling: Alpha-fetoprotein turned up in her blood, which can signal liver or ovarian cancer.
She was worried — her father had had colon cancer and her mother had breast cancer.
Ms. Bell had seen what happened when patients get a dire prognosis. “All of a sudden, your life can be changed overnight,” she said.
But a PET scan and abdominal M.R.I. failed to find a tumor. Is the test result a false positive, or does she have a tumor too small to be seen? For now, it is impossible to know. All Ms. Bell can do is have regular cancer screenings and monitoring of her liver function.
“I just go day by day,” she said. “I am a faith-based person and believe God has a plan for me. Good or bad, it’s his will.”
Some cancer experts say Ms. Bell’s experience exemplifies a concern with the blood tests. The situation may involve only a small percentage of people because most who are tested will be told their test did not find cancer. Among those whose tests detect cancer, scans or biopsies can often locate it.
But Dr. Susan Domchek, a breast cancer researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, warned that when large numbers of people get tested, false positives become “a real problem,” adding, “we need to know what to do with those results and what they mean.”
Dr. Daniel Hayes, a breast cancer researcher at the University of Michigan, refers to the situation as a Damocles syndrome: “You’ve got this thing hanging over your head, but you don’t know what to do about it.”
How Good Are the Tests?
So far, the Geisinger study is the only published one asking whether the blood tests find early, undetected cancers.
In addition to Ms. Bell, the study involved 10,000 women aged 65 to 75 who had the blood test and were encouraged to also have routine cancer screening.
The blood test found 26 patients who had cancers: two lymphomas, one thyroid cancer, one breast cancer, nine lung cancers, one kidney cancer, two colorectal cancers, one cancer of the appendix, two cancers of the uterus, six ovarian cancers and one unknown case in which there were cancer cells in the woman’s body but it was not clear where the cancer started.
Seventeen of these women, or 65 percent, had early stage disease.
Conventional screening found an additional 24 cancers that the blood tests missed.
Dr. Bert Vogelstein, a cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins Medicine who helped to develop the test, said the study was not designed to show risks and benefits. That will require much larger and more detailed studies.
GRAIL’s study, led by Dr. Beer, involved 6,629 participants. Its interim data, presented at a professional meeting last year, showed the test found cancer signals in 92 participants. After these subjects had additional tests like CT and PET scans and biopsies, the researchers concluded that 29 had cancer. Among those cancers, 23 were new cancers and nine were early stage. The rest were recurrences in people who had already had cancer.
A 12-month follow-up is forthcoming, Dr. Beer said.
“We are particularly interested in the false positive question,” he said. “We will find out what happens when folks get a test result that is suggestive of cancer but no cancer was found. Is there a cancer that comes up clinically in the next six months?”
“The goal here is to reduce the morbidity and mortality from cancer,” Dr. Beer said. “That is a noble and important effort.”
Testing Into Overtreatment?
When GRAIL was first formed, its leaders invited Donald Berry, a statistician at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, to be on its scientific advisory board.
“They said they needed a skeptic,” Dr. Berry said. “I told them I was a skeptic and I was quite negative. I told them there was this real hurdle — they will have to run very large clinical trials and the endpoint must be survival. They have to show that detecting cancer early is more than just detecting cancer early. It has to mean something.”
A few years later, the company restructured its scientific advisory board to include many new experts, and Dr. Berry is no longer a member. He is not sure why.
“Being generous, I’d say they no longer needed my expertise,” Dr. Berry said. “Being realistic, they got tired of hearing my complaints that finding cancer early was not enough.”
Yet difficult questions from him and other critics remain.
One is overdiagnosis: finding small tumors that would never have been noticed and may not have caused any harm. Some cancers simply fail to grow or are destroyed by the body’s immune system. But without knowing if the cancer is dangerous, it will be treated as though it is, subjecting people to therapies that are often difficult or debilitating and may be unnecessary.
Dr. Kramer said this also happens with standard screening tests, which can result in the removal of thyroid glands, breasts or prostates for small tumors that are actually harmless.
There are a few sobering examples, like a screening test for babies once widely used in Japan for neuroblastoma, a cancer of the adrenal glands, that found harmless tumors but missed the deadly ones.
But, Dr. Kramer added, with blood tests looking for dozens of cancers, “it’s going to be even worse.”
“We will dip more and more deeply into the iceberg of disease,” Dr. Kramer said, finding “lesions that look like a cancer to the pathologist but may not have the same natural history at all.”
It may not even be possible to find the most aggressive cancers early enough for a cure, Dr. Kramer added. The tumors that shed the most DNA and proteins into the blood are the largest tumors.
“There is a real cost to adopting things before we know if they work,” said Dr. David Ransohoff, a cancer researcher at the University of North Carolina.
What Evidence Will Suffice?
Dr. Vogelstein agrees that what is really needed is a randomized clinical trial. But, he says, it does not have to take 20 years. It would have to be large but, he said, “you don’t have to wait to show it reduces mortality.” Intermediate endpoints could suffice, he says, and Exact Sciences, the company that owns the test he worked on, is discussing proper test design with the F.D.A.
Dr. Joshua Ofman, president and chief medical officer at GRAIL, said the company has begun a study working with institutions in Britain that should have results within a few years. It will enroll 140,000 people there who will be randomized to have the GRAIL test along with standard cancer screening tests or to have the standard tests alone. The goal is to see a reduction in metastatic cancers in those who take the GRAIL test.
“We are absolutely expecting to find it,” he said of the reduction.
Dr. Berry, though, is not assuaged and fears that the public’s faith in early detection which, he says, “is like a religion,” will rule the day, even without good evidence.
“Everybody loves early detection, but it comes with harms,” Dr. Berry said.
“The harms, we know,” he added. “The benefits are very uncertain.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/heal ... 778d3e6de3
By Gina Kolata
June 10, 2022
Jim Ford considers himself a lucky man: An experimental blood test found his pancreatic cancer when it was at an early stage. It is among the deadliest of all common cancers and is too often found too late.
After scans, a biopsy and surgery, then chemotherapy and radiation, Mr. Ford, 77, who lives in Sacramento, has no detectable cancer.
“As my doctor said, I hit the lottery,” he said.
Tests like the one that diagnosed him have won praise from President Biden, who made them a priority of his Cancer Moonshot program. A bill in Congress with 254 cosponsors would authorize Medicare to pay for the tests as soon as the Food and Drug Administration approved them.
But companies are not waiting for a nod from regulators. One, GRAIL, is selling its annual test, with a list price of $949, in advance of approval, and another company, Exact Sciences, expects to follow suit, using a provision known as laboratory developed tests.
The tests, which look for minuscule shards of cancer DNA or proteins, are a new frontier in screening. Companies developing them say they can find dozens of cancers. While standard screening tests are commonly used to detect cancer of the breast, colon, cervix and prostate, 73 percent of people who die of cancer had cancers that are not detected by standard tests.
Supporters say the tests can slash cancer death rates by finding tumors when they are still small and curable. But a definitive study to determine whether the tests prevent cancer deaths would have to involve more than a million healthy adults randomly assigned to have an annual blood test for cancer or not. Results would take a decade or longer.
“We’re at a point now where the blood tests are in their early days,” said Dr. Tomasz Beer, a cancer researcher at Oregon Health & Science University, who is directing a GRAIL-sponsored study of the test that found Mr. Ford’s cancer. “Some people in an informed manner can choose to be early adapters.”
The companies would like to get the tests approved with studies less rigorous than the F.D.A. typically requires, and they stand to make huge profits if that happens.
“GRAIL proposes to test every Medicare beneficiary every year, making it the screening test that could bankrupt Medicare,” said Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, a senior investigator in the Center for Surgery and Public Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
With 44 million Medicare beneficiaries and an annual test costing about $1,000 a year plus expensive scans and biopsies for those whose tests are positive, the price tag could be substantial.
He and other critics warn that the risks of unleashing the tests are substantial. Paradoxical as it may sound, finding cancers earlier could mean just as many deaths, with the same timing as without early diagnosis. That is because — at least with current treatments — cancers destined to kill are not necessarily cured if found early.
And there are other risks. For example, some will have a positive test, but doctors will be unable to locate the cancer. Others will be treated aggressively with surgery or chemotherapy for cancers that, if left alone, would not have grown and spread and may even have gone away.
Dr. Beer acknowledges that a cancer blood test “doesn’t come without risks or costs, and it is not going to detect every cancer.”
But, he said, “I think there’s promise for a real impact.”
Other experts are worried.
Dr. Barnett Kramer, a member of the Lisa Schwartz Foundation for Truth in Medicine and former director of the Division of Cancer Prevention at the National Cancer Institute, fears that the tests will come into widespread use without ever showing they are beneficial. Once that happens, he said, “it is difficult to unring the bell.”
“I hope we are not halfway through a nightmare,” Dr. Kramer said.
The Damocles Syndrome
When Susan Iorio Bell, 73, a nurse who lives in Forty Fort, Pa., saw an ad on Facebook recruiting women her age for a study of a cancer blood test, she immediately signed up. It fit with her advocacy for preventive medicine and her belief in clinical trials.
The study was of a test, now owned by Exact Sciences, that involved women who are patients with Geisinger, a large health care network. The test looks for proteins and DNA shed by tumors.
Ms. Bell’s result was troubling: Alpha-fetoprotein turned up in her blood, which can signal liver or ovarian cancer.
She was worried — her father had had colon cancer and her mother had breast cancer.
Ms. Bell had seen what happened when patients get a dire prognosis. “All of a sudden, your life can be changed overnight,” she said.
But a PET scan and abdominal M.R.I. failed to find a tumor. Is the test result a false positive, or does she have a tumor too small to be seen? For now, it is impossible to know. All Ms. Bell can do is have regular cancer screenings and monitoring of her liver function.
“I just go day by day,” she said. “I am a faith-based person and believe God has a plan for me. Good or bad, it’s his will.”
Some cancer experts say Ms. Bell’s experience exemplifies a concern with the blood tests. The situation may involve only a small percentage of people because most who are tested will be told their test did not find cancer. Among those whose tests detect cancer, scans or biopsies can often locate it.
But Dr. Susan Domchek, a breast cancer researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, warned that when large numbers of people get tested, false positives become “a real problem,” adding, “we need to know what to do with those results and what they mean.”
Dr. Daniel Hayes, a breast cancer researcher at the University of Michigan, refers to the situation as a Damocles syndrome: “You’ve got this thing hanging over your head, but you don’t know what to do about it.”
How Good Are the Tests?
So far, the Geisinger study is the only published one asking whether the blood tests find early, undetected cancers.
In addition to Ms. Bell, the study involved 10,000 women aged 65 to 75 who had the blood test and were encouraged to also have routine cancer screening.
The blood test found 26 patients who had cancers: two lymphomas, one thyroid cancer, one breast cancer, nine lung cancers, one kidney cancer, two colorectal cancers, one cancer of the appendix, two cancers of the uterus, six ovarian cancers and one unknown case in which there were cancer cells in the woman’s body but it was not clear where the cancer started.
Seventeen of these women, or 65 percent, had early stage disease.
Conventional screening found an additional 24 cancers that the blood tests missed.
Dr. Bert Vogelstein, a cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins Medicine who helped to develop the test, said the study was not designed to show risks and benefits. That will require much larger and more detailed studies.
GRAIL’s study, led by Dr. Beer, involved 6,629 participants. Its interim data, presented at a professional meeting last year, showed the test found cancer signals in 92 participants. After these subjects had additional tests like CT and PET scans and biopsies, the researchers concluded that 29 had cancer. Among those cancers, 23 were new cancers and nine were early stage. The rest were recurrences in people who had already had cancer.
A 12-month follow-up is forthcoming, Dr. Beer said.
“We are particularly interested in the false positive question,” he said. “We will find out what happens when folks get a test result that is suggestive of cancer but no cancer was found. Is there a cancer that comes up clinically in the next six months?”
“The goal here is to reduce the morbidity and mortality from cancer,” Dr. Beer said. “That is a noble and important effort.”
Testing Into Overtreatment?
When GRAIL was first formed, its leaders invited Donald Berry, a statistician at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, to be on its scientific advisory board.
“They said they needed a skeptic,” Dr. Berry said. “I told them I was a skeptic and I was quite negative. I told them there was this real hurdle — they will have to run very large clinical trials and the endpoint must be survival. They have to show that detecting cancer early is more than just detecting cancer early. It has to mean something.”
A few years later, the company restructured its scientific advisory board to include many new experts, and Dr. Berry is no longer a member. He is not sure why.
“Being generous, I’d say they no longer needed my expertise,” Dr. Berry said. “Being realistic, they got tired of hearing my complaints that finding cancer early was not enough.”
Yet difficult questions from him and other critics remain.
One is overdiagnosis: finding small tumors that would never have been noticed and may not have caused any harm. Some cancers simply fail to grow or are destroyed by the body’s immune system. But without knowing if the cancer is dangerous, it will be treated as though it is, subjecting people to therapies that are often difficult or debilitating and may be unnecessary.
Dr. Kramer said this also happens with standard screening tests, which can result in the removal of thyroid glands, breasts or prostates for small tumors that are actually harmless.
There are a few sobering examples, like a screening test for babies once widely used in Japan for neuroblastoma, a cancer of the adrenal glands, that found harmless tumors but missed the deadly ones.
But, Dr. Kramer added, with blood tests looking for dozens of cancers, “it’s going to be even worse.”
“We will dip more and more deeply into the iceberg of disease,” Dr. Kramer said, finding “lesions that look like a cancer to the pathologist but may not have the same natural history at all.”
It may not even be possible to find the most aggressive cancers early enough for a cure, Dr. Kramer added. The tumors that shed the most DNA and proteins into the blood are the largest tumors.
“There is a real cost to adopting things before we know if they work,” said Dr. David Ransohoff, a cancer researcher at the University of North Carolina.
What Evidence Will Suffice?
Dr. Vogelstein agrees that what is really needed is a randomized clinical trial. But, he says, it does not have to take 20 years. It would have to be large but, he said, “you don’t have to wait to show it reduces mortality.” Intermediate endpoints could suffice, he says, and Exact Sciences, the company that owns the test he worked on, is discussing proper test design with the F.D.A.
Dr. Joshua Ofman, president and chief medical officer at GRAIL, said the company has begun a study working with institutions in Britain that should have results within a few years. It will enroll 140,000 people there who will be randomized to have the GRAIL test along with standard cancer screening tests or to have the standard tests alone. The goal is to see a reduction in metastatic cancers in those who take the GRAIL test.
“We are absolutely expecting to find it,” he said of the reduction.
Dr. Berry, though, is not assuaged and fears that the public’s faith in early detection which, he says, “is like a religion,” will rule the day, even without good evidence.
“Everybody loves early detection, but it comes with harms,” Dr. Berry said.
“The harms, we know,” he added. “The benefits are very uncertain.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/heal ... 778d3e6de3
Distress of the soul: 5 ways to fight anxiety and depression
The series starts on June 28th, but the healing starts TODAY because you can download a free ebook that outlines 5 fast ways to start improving your anxiety and depression.
https://www.anxietyanddepressionseries. ... 34&afid=70
The crippling pain of anxiety and depression has GOT to STOP. No more waiting!
The daily torment you’re feeling can be put to rest.
There’s just no sense letting it hold you back any longer. You know exactly what I’m talking about.
>> Click this link to download your ebook by Dr. Vincent Pedre. https://www.anxietyanddepressionseries. ... 34&afid=70
And, while you’re there, you can sign up to watch the series… which is full of hope, help, and new ways to fight the “silent epidemic” that’s affecting us all.
https://www.anxietyanddepressionseries. ... 34&afid=70
The crippling pain of anxiety and depression has GOT to STOP. No more waiting!
The daily torment you’re feeling can be put to rest.
There’s just no sense letting it hold you back any longer. You know exactly what I’m talking about.
>> Click this link to download your ebook by Dr. Vincent Pedre. https://www.anxietyanddepressionseries. ... 34&afid=70
And, while you’re there, you can sign up to watch the series… which is full of hope, help, and new ways to fight the “silent epidemic” that’s affecting us all.
How this 98-year-old has been disease-free for decades
But if a 98-year-old man from a poor Eastern-European country doesn’t remember the last time he was sick...
Don’t you think that you, in the West, can have the SAME destiny?
That’s what you’ll discover in this new docuseries.
Bu, ut unless you register NOW for the series that premieres to the world this Tuesday…
https://zonia.com/immune-for-life?a=CHM ... CC20220702
Complimentary access to "Immune for Life" will be closed FOREVER.
The only way you’ll be able to watch it after that is if you pay $297.
(Which is still a steal compared to taking medical drugs, honestly.)
But RIGHT NOW you can register to watch it at no cost and discover the latest breakthroughs from the world’s top 35 health experts...
Like Dr. David Perlmutter, Ocean Robbins, Brian Vaszily and Dr. Joel Fuhrman...
Whom you might’ve seen on Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, and the Today Show.
In "Immune for Life", you’ll witness the dispelling of many commonly-accepted myths...
And the docuseries will uncover prevention protocols, innovative treatments, and natural methods for healing modern-day diseases such as autoimmune conditions, cancer, neurocognitive decline, obesity and diabetes and MANY others.
You’ll also discover the secret of the 98-year-old man from Eastern Europe...
Who has been disease-free for decades!
So don’t wait any longer.
Register now to watch the entire series while you still can! https://zonia.com/immune-for-life?a=CHM ... CC20220702
See you there,
The Cancer Answers team
Don’t you think that you, in the West, can have the SAME destiny?
That’s what you’ll discover in this new docuseries.
Bu, ut unless you register NOW for the series that premieres to the world this Tuesday…
https://zonia.com/immune-for-life?a=CHM ... CC20220702
Complimentary access to "Immune for Life" will be closed FOREVER.
The only way you’ll be able to watch it after that is if you pay $297.
(Which is still a steal compared to taking medical drugs, honestly.)
But RIGHT NOW you can register to watch it at no cost and discover the latest breakthroughs from the world’s top 35 health experts...
Like Dr. David Perlmutter, Ocean Robbins, Brian Vaszily and Dr. Joel Fuhrman...
Whom you might’ve seen on Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, and the Today Show.
In "Immune for Life", you’ll witness the dispelling of many commonly-accepted myths...
And the docuseries will uncover prevention protocols, innovative treatments, and natural methods for healing modern-day diseases such as autoimmune conditions, cancer, neurocognitive decline, obesity and diabetes and MANY others.
You’ll also discover the secret of the 98-year-old man from Eastern Europe...
Who has been disease-free for decades!
So don’t wait any longer.
Register now to watch the entire series while you still can! https://zonia.com/immune-for-life?a=CHM ... CC20220702
See you there,
The Cancer Answers team
From Neuron to Neighborhood - The Brain and Mind Institute
Description
Ismaili Health Care Providers from Canada and the USA are invited to join Dr. Zul Merali, founder of the Brain and Mind Institute at the Aga Khan University, on Wednesday, July 13 as he discusses the the role the institute plays in the areas of mental health and neuroscience. Dr. Merali will discuss the research, education, innovation/implementation, and partnership goals of the institute along with ways Ismaili Health Care providers can get involved.
For more information, please visit Neuron to Neighbourhood https://iicanada.org/sites/default/file ... %20vUS.pdf .
https://iicanada.org/events/health-well ... -institute
Your Brain Will Love This
Hi Karim,
Have you ever wondered what it would feel like if your brain stopped working? If you started forgetting names, places, people - everything that you hold dear?
When it comes to your brain, there is an A-word that strikes fear into many of our hearts - Alzheimer's.
Over 6 million people - in the United States alone - suffer from Alzheimer's disease... And for decades we've been told that there is very little we can do about it.
But there is now concrete evidence that Alzheimer's disease IS preventable. And regardless of your genetics, you can protect your brain.
Meet my friend Dr. David Perlmutter, a neurologist (and NY Times bestselling author) who knows the best preventative practices against Alzheimer's and wants to share them with the world...
He gives us the entire scoop in a FREE 12-part documentary series called Alzheimer's - The Science of Prevention.
It airs in a few days and I highly recommend checking it out!
Click here to watch the trailer https://scienceofprevention.com/trailer ... 55b0fddb67
Dr. Perlmutter teamed up with 20 other leading brain health experts for this powerful online event. In it, they will reveal:
- What Alzheimer's is, and what is happening in the brain
- The one thing that is at the root of Alzheimer's disease and all chronic degenerative diseases
- The early signs and symptoms of Alzheimer's disease
- How to dramatically reduce your risk of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's
- Exercises that promote brain strength
- The best and worst foods for your brain
- Supplements that can optimize brain health
And much more!
All Dr. Perlmutter's recommendations are simple dietary and lifestyle practices - no prescriptions necessary. And all of it is backed by science.
Plus, this pioneering documentary series is not just about the prevention of brain disease. It's about enhancing your brain so it's sharper than it has ever been before.
You can do this. You can prevent dementia, Alzheimer's and brain decline.
Click here to sign up for this free groundbreaking event now https://scienceofprevention.com/trailer ... 55b0fddb67
Stay curious,
Nick Polizzi
Host of Proven: Healing Breakthroughs Backed By Science
& Founder of The Sacred Science
Have you ever wondered what it would feel like if your brain stopped working? If you started forgetting names, places, people - everything that you hold dear?
When it comes to your brain, there is an A-word that strikes fear into many of our hearts - Alzheimer's.
Over 6 million people - in the United States alone - suffer from Alzheimer's disease... And for decades we've been told that there is very little we can do about it.
But there is now concrete evidence that Alzheimer's disease IS preventable. And regardless of your genetics, you can protect your brain.
Meet my friend Dr. David Perlmutter, a neurologist (and NY Times bestselling author) who knows the best preventative practices against Alzheimer's and wants to share them with the world...
He gives us the entire scoop in a FREE 12-part documentary series called Alzheimer's - The Science of Prevention.
It airs in a few days and I highly recommend checking it out!
Click here to watch the trailer https://scienceofprevention.com/trailer ... 55b0fddb67
Dr. Perlmutter teamed up with 20 other leading brain health experts for this powerful online event. In it, they will reveal:
- What Alzheimer's is, and what is happening in the brain
- The one thing that is at the root of Alzheimer's disease and all chronic degenerative diseases
- The early signs and symptoms of Alzheimer's disease
- How to dramatically reduce your risk of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's
- Exercises that promote brain strength
- The best and worst foods for your brain
- Supplements that can optimize brain health
And much more!
All Dr. Perlmutter's recommendations are simple dietary and lifestyle practices - no prescriptions necessary. And all of it is backed by science.
Plus, this pioneering documentary series is not just about the prevention of brain disease. It's about enhancing your brain so it's sharper than it has ever been before.
You can do this. You can prevent dementia, Alzheimer's and brain decline.
Click here to sign up for this free groundbreaking event now https://scienceofprevention.com/trailer ... 55b0fddb67
Stay curious,
Nick Polizzi
Host of Proven: Healing Breakthroughs Backed By Science
& Founder of The Sacred Science
The 8 TOP SECRETS of the World's Longest-Lived People
Hi Karim, hope you are doing well.
Today you're getting EIGHT excellent health reports free from veteran health researcher and founder of The Human Longevity Project, Jason Prall, in support of his fortcoming Ultimate Holistic Health Summit.
This includes the clear, concise, and fascinating report, The Top 8 Secrets of the World's Healthiest, Longest-Lived Populations...
Head here right now to get this report and 7 others completely FREE https://summit.awakenedcollective.com/? ... n=07252022
(NOTE Karim: When you scroll down the page above about halfway, you'll see what each of the 8 reports you're getting today are about.
In addition, take a look at the "World-Renowned Authorities" in the free Ultimate Holistic Health Summit and what they'll each be sharing with you!)
Now, regarding "The Top 8 Secrets of the World's Healthiest, Longest-Lived Populations," Jason traveled and researched cultures worldwide where people lived the longest...
And in the report, he concisely reveals the 8 lifestyle habits they share that are the prime contributors to living long and well.
Obviously this is "golden knowledge" worth knowing!
Another of the 8 reports you're getting free that is well worth your while is Liver Detoxification Remedies by Dr. Ameet Aggaral.
In this Liver Detoxification report you'll discover 8 top herbal detox teas... 4 homeopathic remedies for a health liver... important insights on how to properly breathe for healthy liver and more.
Click here now to see all 8 reports Jason is giving you free today https://summit.awakenedcollective.com/? ... n=07252022
Next, as for Jason's new event called the "Ultimate Holistic Health Summit" that you're also getting free access to, well...
If you’re ready to tap into your full healing potential, you’re going to want to pay very close attention to this online event!
Because in it, 35 world-renowned doctors, experts, and healers are coming together to teach YOU the latest and most effective holistic health secrets to boost your energy, eliminate pain, and live long and well.
(Again, when you scroll down the page, take a look at the "World-Renowned Authorities" to see what they'll each be presenting on... worthwhile knowledge you don't often see elsewhere!)
https://summit.awakenedcollective.com/? ... n=07252022
Learn more about the Ultimate Holistic Health Summit and get your 8 FREE reports here (including "Liver Detoxification Remedies" and "Top 8 Secrets of the World's Healthiest, Longest-Lived Populations.")
FINALLY, because smiles and laughter are always good medicine...
I simply must share a delifghtful "dad joke" my little boy actually shared with me the other day:
What is the scariest tree?
BamBOO!
Enjoy the important learning in the 8 free health reports you're getting right here and in the Ultimate Holistic Health Summit, and enjoy your Monday.
To Living Long and Living Well,
Brian Vaszily
Today you're getting EIGHT excellent health reports free from veteran health researcher and founder of The Human Longevity Project, Jason Prall, in support of his fortcoming Ultimate Holistic Health Summit.
This includes the clear, concise, and fascinating report, The Top 8 Secrets of the World's Healthiest, Longest-Lived Populations...
Head here right now to get this report and 7 others completely FREE https://summit.awakenedcollective.com/? ... n=07252022
(NOTE Karim: When you scroll down the page above about halfway, you'll see what each of the 8 reports you're getting today are about.
In addition, take a look at the "World-Renowned Authorities" in the free Ultimate Holistic Health Summit and what they'll each be sharing with you!)
Now, regarding "The Top 8 Secrets of the World's Healthiest, Longest-Lived Populations," Jason traveled and researched cultures worldwide where people lived the longest...
And in the report, he concisely reveals the 8 lifestyle habits they share that are the prime contributors to living long and well.
Obviously this is "golden knowledge" worth knowing!
Another of the 8 reports you're getting free that is well worth your while is Liver Detoxification Remedies by Dr. Ameet Aggaral.
In this Liver Detoxification report you'll discover 8 top herbal detox teas... 4 homeopathic remedies for a health liver... important insights on how to properly breathe for healthy liver and more.
Click here now to see all 8 reports Jason is giving you free today https://summit.awakenedcollective.com/? ... n=07252022
Next, as for Jason's new event called the "Ultimate Holistic Health Summit" that you're also getting free access to, well...
If you’re ready to tap into your full healing potential, you’re going to want to pay very close attention to this online event!
Because in it, 35 world-renowned doctors, experts, and healers are coming together to teach YOU the latest and most effective holistic health secrets to boost your energy, eliminate pain, and live long and well.
(Again, when you scroll down the page, take a look at the "World-Renowned Authorities" to see what they'll each be presenting on... worthwhile knowledge you don't often see elsewhere!)
https://summit.awakenedcollective.com/? ... n=07252022
Learn more about the Ultimate Holistic Health Summit and get your 8 FREE reports here (including "Liver Detoxification Remedies" and "Top 8 Secrets of the World's Healthiest, Longest-Lived Populations.")
FINALLY, because smiles and laughter are always good medicine...
I simply must share a delifghtful "dad joke" my little boy actually shared with me the other day:
What is the scariest tree?
BamBOO!
Enjoy the important learning in the 8 free health reports you're getting right here and in the Ultimate Holistic Health Summit, and enjoy your Monday.
To Living Long and Living Well,
Brian Vaszily
Re: Health and Healing
BBC
Afra Rafeeq: India teen who died but raised millions to save her brother
Meryl Sebastian - BBC News, Cochin
Thu, August 4, 2022 at 7:05 AM
An Indian teenager who died this week was a social media star whose video appeal had helped raise millions of rupees for her baby brother's treatment.
Afra Rafeeq, 16, had spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a rare genetic condition that causes muscle weakness and affects movement and breathing.
She died on Monday at a hospital in the southern state of Kerala after developing complications related to the disease.
"She got every possible joy out of life," her father, PK Rafeeq, says.
Afra's family and neighbours remember her as a bright and talented young girl who loved to sing and study even as she battled excruciating pain.
But it was a viral video in 2021 that won her fans across the country.
Before that, her father says, Afra didn't step out much from her house in Kerala's Kannur district. She had been diagnosed with SMA when she was four, and only left home to go to school or the hospital.
"We were quite private and concentrated our efforts on getting her the necessary treatment," he says.
But then, her younger brother Muhammed was also diagnosed with SMA.
The family was "devastated", Mr Rafeeq says, "because we knew the pain our daughter had already gone through".
SMA is a potentially fatal condition that is likely to occur in one in 6,000-10,000 children. The condition affects the motor neurons - cells in the spinal cord - and gets progressively worse as a child ages.
Children with SMA struggle to achieve key developmental milestones such as holding up their neck, sitting, standing and walking.
Afra, her father says, was desperate to ensure that Muhammed would get the right medical treatment.
This included accessing Zolgensma, a fairly new drug for gene therapy that was approved by the US FDA in 2019. The drug - one of the world's most expensive medicines - contains a replica of the gene missing in children with SMA and is given as a one-time dose to those younger than two years.
Muhammed was already one-and-a-half years old, so his family had very little time left. But "the medicine's cost was unthinkable", Mr Rafeeq says.
One dose of Zolgensma cost 180m rupees ($2.2m, £1.8m) and had to be imported from the US.
'Gene therapy is a game changer for our son'
NHS approves 'most expensive' drug for genetic disease
Since Zolgensma's approval, several Indians have turned to crowdfunding to access the drug, with some succeeding after their appeals went viral. India's health ministry has allowed voluntary crowdfunding for some rare diseases such as SMA.
Afra's family tapped many sources, including online crowdfunding. Their local village council also formed a treatment committee to collect money. But they could only raise a few hundred thousand rupees.
That is when Afra shot a video with her cousin's help.
"I don't want my brother to suffer the pain I have," she said in the video, which was uploaded online.
It quickly went viral on social media and started getting media coverage.
"Suddenly, money was flowing in from everywhere," says YL Ibrahim, a member of the village council.
In three days, the fund for Muhammed's treatment received 467.8m rupees. Afra had to make another public appeal, asking people to stop sending money.
"We tried so many things but it was her video and what she said that struck a chord with people," Mr Ibrahim says.
After Muhammad received his dose, the committee used the extra funds to help two other children with SMA and gave the rest of the money to the Kerala government.
Afra, Mr Rafeeq says, "saved" the family.
An "overjoyed" Afra started a YouTube channel to update people on her brother's progress. In less than a year, she had 259,000 subscribers. The videos there showed her visiting the hospital, spending time with her brother and sister at home and celebrating birthdays and festivals.
She would also keenly discuss Muhammed's medical treatment and physiotherapy in her videos.
Muhammed, now two-years-old, is able to crawl by himself and stand with support.
"He can't stand or walk on his own just yet. But there is some strength in his legs now," Mr Rafeeq says.
Afra's condition, however, kept worsening. In the last few days of her life, she would grit her teeth in pain and could barely lift her hands, her parents say.
Her last video showed the family visiting a hospital in state capital Thiruvananthapuram. After the news of her death, thousands of people have left condolence messages under the video.
Mr Rafeeq believes Afra's videos raised awareness about SMA in India.
"I think that was her life's purpose," he says. "So many people understood what SMA is and what it does because of her."
Afra was due to write school exams later this month and had been preparing hard. She was determined to get top marks in every subject, her father says.
A day after her death, he says, he teared up when he saw a Post-it note stuck on the wall behind her study table with an encouraging message to herself - "You can do!".
"It reminded me just how much of her is in every part of this house."
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ke ... 51449.html
Afra Rafeeq: India teen who died but raised millions to save her brother
Meryl Sebastian - BBC News, Cochin
Thu, August 4, 2022 at 7:05 AM
An Indian teenager who died this week was a social media star whose video appeal had helped raise millions of rupees for her baby brother's treatment.
Afra Rafeeq, 16, had spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a rare genetic condition that causes muscle weakness and affects movement and breathing.
She died on Monday at a hospital in the southern state of Kerala after developing complications related to the disease.
"She got every possible joy out of life," her father, PK Rafeeq, says.
Afra's family and neighbours remember her as a bright and talented young girl who loved to sing and study even as she battled excruciating pain.
But it was a viral video in 2021 that won her fans across the country.
Before that, her father says, Afra didn't step out much from her house in Kerala's Kannur district. She had been diagnosed with SMA when she was four, and only left home to go to school or the hospital.
"We were quite private and concentrated our efforts on getting her the necessary treatment," he says.
But then, her younger brother Muhammed was also diagnosed with SMA.
The family was "devastated", Mr Rafeeq says, "because we knew the pain our daughter had already gone through".
SMA is a potentially fatal condition that is likely to occur in one in 6,000-10,000 children. The condition affects the motor neurons - cells in the spinal cord - and gets progressively worse as a child ages.
Children with SMA struggle to achieve key developmental milestones such as holding up their neck, sitting, standing and walking.
Afra, her father says, was desperate to ensure that Muhammed would get the right medical treatment.
This included accessing Zolgensma, a fairly new drug for gene therapy that was approved by the US FDA in 2019. The drug - one of the world's most expensive medicines - contains a replica of the gene missing in children with SMA and is given as a one-time dose to those younger than two years.
Muhammed was already one-and-a-half years old, so his family had very little time left. But "the medicine's cost was unthinkable", Mr Rafeeq says.
One dose of Zolgensma cost 180m rupees ($2.2m, £1.8m) and had to be imported from the US.
'Gene therapy is a game changer for our son'
NHS approves 'most expensive' drug for genetic disease
Since Zolgensma's approval, several Indians have turned to crowdfunding to access the drug, with some succeeding after their appeals went viral. India's health ministry has allowed voluntary crowdfunding for some rare diseases such as SMA.
Afra's family tapped many sources, including online crowdfunding. Their local village council also formed a treatment committee to collect money. But they could only raise a few hundred thousand rupees.
That is when Afra shot a video with her cousin's help.
"I don't want my brother to suffer the pain I have," she said in the video, which was uploaded online.
It quickly went viral on social media and started getting media coverage.
"Suddenly, money was flowing in from everywhere," says YL Ibrahim, a member of the village council.
In three days, the fund for Muhammed's treatment received 467.8m rupees. Afra had to make another public appeal, asking people to stop sending money.
"We tried so many things but it was her video and what she said that struck a chord with people," Mr Ibrahim says.
After Muhammad received his dose, the committee used the extra funds to help two other children with SMA and gave the rest of the money to the Kerala government.
Afra, Mr Rafeeq says, "saved" the family.
An "overjoyed" Afra started a YouTube channel to update people on her brother's progress. In less than a year, she had 259,000 subscribers. The videos there showed her visiting the hospital, spending time with her brother and sister at home and celebrating birthdays and festivals.
She would also keenly discuss Muhammed's medical treatment and physiotherapy in her videos.
Muhammed, now two-years-old, is able to crawl by himself and stand with support.
"He can't stand or walk on his own just yet. But there is some strength in his legs now," Mr Rafeeq says.
Afra's condition, however, kept worsening. In the last few days of her life, she would grit her teeth in pain and could barely lift her hands, her parents say.
Her last video showed the family visiting a hospital in state capital Thiruvananthapuram. After the news of her death, thousands of people have left condolence messages under the video.
Mr Rafeeq believes Afra's videos raised awareness about SMA in India.
"I think that was her life's purpose," he says. "So many people understood what SMA is and what it does because of her."
Afra was due to write school exams later this month and had been preparing hard. She was determined to get top marks in every subject, her father says.
A day after her death, he says, he teared up when he saw a Post-it note stuck on the wall behind her study table with an encouraging message to herself - "You can do!".
"It reminded me just how much of her is in every part of this house."
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ke ... 51449.html
Some brains work differently to others
Mental disabilities refer to the conditions that affect a person’s behaviour or emotional state. Examples include mood disorders, autism, ADHD, dyslexia, depression, anxiety and more
The number one priority of all parents is to protect and care for their children. So being faced with the possibility that their child may struggle more than others, most parents may refuse to accept it. However, this is doing them a disservice. We might instead accept that some young people are different, and offer them the support they need to succeed.
When I was 18 I volunteered in a small town in Kenya, working with the local community to support differently abled individuals. We advocated for the right to education for everyone and at some points, this was not received too well. Many people did not have the time or patience to hear the stories of these people and that’s when I realised that a negative attitude still exists in many places around the world.
Since then, I’ve been passionate about supporting disadvantaged individuals with their learning, including in our own community.
A friend of mine, Hussein,* is a university student like me. He studies Literature and hopes to become a writer. However, he was diagnosed with clinical depression, a condition that is more than feeling down or unhappy for a few days. The feeling is persistent and if severe, can affect day-to-day life.
“Before I started getting help, I’d feel dreadful every day,” Hussein said. “I didn’t get out of bed, missed school a lot. My parents thought I was just lazy.”
When his teachers mentioned the idea of something being wrong with him, his parents were quick to refuse.
“They didn’t want to believe something might be wrong. I’d heard of depression but didn’t see the point in doing anything about it until I came to university.”
Hussein’s university, like some other institutions in the western world, provides a wellbeing service for students who need help alongside their studies.
“It was easy to miss things in school but university is very different,” He reflected. “I knew I had to talk to someone otherwise I’d end up failing.”
Hussein used the wellbeing service and started seeing a counsellor who supported him during his initial mental health assessment and further diagnosis. The counsellor told Hussein about the educational support the university provided throughout his course.
“They set up a study needs agreement which gave me extra time for assignments and access to other resources I’d need if I missed class. I’m grateful because not many people get that.”
He was right. The support Hussein received at his university is not readily available in most places. Some colleges and workplaces struggle to recognise the signs of mental health issues, to begin with. I wonder if Hussein’s struggles in secondary school could have been eased with an open mind to know it’s okay to ask for help if needed.
The earlier that such needs are identified, the sooner a child can get the help they need in order to make the most of their learning. In general, a parent’s attitude and passion have a great influence on their child’s present and future.
Don’t take it from me but take it from a parent who has been through a long journey in this realm. I had the privilege to speak with Shairose Arnould, a mother whose son was diagnosed early with autism. Today, Shairose helps run a monthly autism support group in the UK for parents with neurodivergent children.
“He’s 16 now but was diagnosed at the age of two,” Shairose said about her son. “[The paediatrician] said that he had global development delay, and I didn’t really know what that meant. They will talk to us as parents about what’s happening with our children but we don’t really understand so you don’t really know where to get more help. It's a bit tricky.”
Shairose was in a “phase of denial” when her son was diagnosed.
“I thought, ‘he's only two, how can you say that?’ I think parents will go through a roller coaster of emotions, when they suspect that something's not quite as it should be. They’ll hope that as they get older, they will just catch up. In South Asian communities, especially, you get a lot of people saying, ‘oh, they're just going to catch up’. I think one of my key learnings was that intervention when they're very young is key. And the longer you leave it, the harder it is for the child.”
According to Mind Therapies, waiting times for an autism assessment take one to three years in the UK through the National Health Service. Shairose emphasises the importance of ‘getting that support in place in order for your child to thrive at school’.
“If you don't accept and ask for help, then you won't get help either. I always think that it's our older generation of parents and grandparents who probably have no idea about things like autism, and maybe they were autistic, but they just never knew because it wasn't talked about. And it was just so they never got the right support. Now you're looking at tiny things, actually, when you have that awareness, you kind of see the signs.”
“I would say to any parents potentially reading this to get the intervention in place early on, because that will benefit the child. It's one of those things where you're in denial, but acceptance is the key, because if you don't accept it, how can you help your child?”
I asked Shairose about the monthly support group she helps to run in our community, a place for parents, young adults and anyone that would like some support with autism.
“We have our parents with children, young children, and some are just getting diagnosed. Some have gotten through primary school and are moving on to secondary school. And then there are others who are out of school, young adults.”
The foundation of pluralistic, dynamic and powerful change in society is education. We are often reminded of this, yet stigmas around different needs and accommodations continue to exist.
“I think it's something that within our community we need to raise awareness,” said Shairose. “When you're socialising with others, we should be able to identify the traits of somebody who's on the spectrum, and not being judgemental, accepting their brains just work differently than everyone else.”
Mental disabilities refer to the disorders that affect a person’s behaviour or emotional state. Examples include mood disorders, autism, ADHD, dyslexia, depression, anxiety and more.
From Shairose and many other members of the Jamat, we can learn the importance of acknowledging and accepting the differences we each have. The recognition of one’s physical impairments, mental health conditions, abilities or neurodiversity can be validating. As members of a community, we have an obligation to educate ourselves for the support of our children, and other members of the Jamat.
https://the.ismaili/global/news/feature ... -173435533
The most powerful ancient healing secret (it’s not what you think)
Hey Karim,
Beliefs determine thoughts. Thoughts determine actions. And actions create our world.
So when we see things that are wrong, disturbing, or sad, it’s helpful to look at the numbers and then beyond to the circumstances and beliefs that created them.
Now, consider this:
1 in 6 Americans is on a psychiatric drug. Nearly half the population suffers from at least one chronic disease. 1 in 2 men will get cancer. 1 in 3 women.
The statistics are tragic, but we can look through them to something more profound.
They are symptoms of a deeper problem: the belief system we have around our health… and more importantly - WHO is in charge of it.
Big Pharma Belief says you can just pop a miracle pill and all your problems will magically go away.
It says brute biochemical force is the only path to health.
It says that you don’t know what is good for you as well as your doctor does. And that covering up your symptoms with drugs will make everything better…. (as long as your insurance covers the cost).
But if we look at it objectively, these are just beliefs.
And remember, beliefs determine thoughts. Thoughts determine actions. Actions create physical circumstances.
What we are looking at isn’t just a health crisis… It's a Belief System crisis.
Big Pharma’s Belief System has existed for less than a century, and its shortsightedness lies at the core of our health crisis.
If you are ready for another way of healing, a more holistic and innately balanced approach to understanding your body and who you are, I have a FREE documentary that you have to watch.
It’s called Remedy: Ancient Medicines For Modern Illness https://remedy.thesacredscience.com/reg ... df9f24bed9
It’s created by my good friend, Nick Polizzi. He spent the last two decades diving deep into the ancient medicine traditions of the world in order to find the most powerful healing herbs on the planet.
Herbs that may hold the key to the most serious illnesses that humanity now faces… cancer, heart disease, autoimmune disorders, diabetes, Alzheimer’s... even Lyme Disease.
These remedies have also been proven to reverse the common health challenges that we face as we get older like - chronic pain, stress and anxiety disorders, insomnia and chronic fatigue - to name a few...
The series airs September 6th and is only available for 2 short weeks. But you won’t find it in theaters or on netflix.
The only way to see it is to Register Here https://remedy.thesacredscience.com/reg ... 9f24bed9.
At the root of Ancient Medicine traditions, we discover a fundamentally different belief system about health and healing.
One based in symbiosis and cooperation with the plants we co-evolved with. Right down to the biochemical level.
One that says our bodies are self-healing––when we learn to work with them.
A belief system that existed long before bottom lines and profit margins.
This is a revolution in medical perspective can save years of frustration for you and your loved ones.
It can guide you to new ways of thinking, to taking new actions, and ultimately to creating thriving health and vitality.
Nick scoured the world to find the most knowledgeable people on the planet––42 of the world’s leading experts on herbs (including leading scientists and enlightened doctors) ––and distilled all their wisdom into this groundbreaking documentary series.
Simply put, it is incredible.
The amount of information and practical tools you can apply in your own life is nothing short of jaw-dropping.
Register Now for your FREE access to “Remedy: Ancient Medicines for Modern Illness.” https://remedy.thesacredscience.com/reg ... df9f24bed9
This may be the most powerful documentary you see this year.
Beliefs determine thoughts. Thoughts determine actions. And actions create our world.
So when we see things that are wrong, disturbing, or sad, it’s helpful to look at the numbers and then beyond to the circumstances and beliefs that created them.
Now, consider this:
1 in 6 Americans is on a psychiatric drug. Nearly half the population suffers from at least one chronic disease. 1 in 2 men will get cancer. 1 in 3 women.
The statistics are tragic, but we can look through them to something more profound.
They are symptoms of a deeper problem: the belief system we have around our health… and more importantly - WHO is in charge of it.
Big Pharma Belief says you can just pop a miracle pill and all your problems will magically go away.
It says brute biochemical force is the only path to health.
It says that you don’t know what is good for you as well as your doctor does. And that covering up your symptoms with drugs will make everything better…. (as long as your insurance covers the cost).
But if we look at it objectively, these are just beliefs.
And remember, beliefs determine thoughts. Thoughts determine actions. Actions create physical circumstances.
What we are looking at isn’t just a health crisis… It's a Belief System crisis.
Big Pharma’s Belief System has existed for less than a century, and its shortsightedness lies at the core of our health crisis.
If you are ready for another way of healing, a more holistic and innately balanced approach to understanding your body and who you are, I have a FREE documentary that you have to watch.
It’s called Remedy: Ancient Medicines For Modern Illness https://remedy.thesacredscience.com/reg ... df9f24bed9
It’s created by my good friend, Nick Polizzi. He spent the last two decades diving deep into the ancient medicine traditions of the world in order to find the most powerful healing herbs on the planet.
Herbs that may hold the key to the most serious illnesses that humanity now faces… cancer, heart disease, autoimmune disorders, diabetes, Alzheimer’s... even Lyme Disease.
These remedies have also been proven to reverse the common health challenges that we face as we get older like - chronic pain, stress and anxiety disorders, insomnia and chronic fatigue - to name a few...
The series airs September 6th and is only available for 2 short weeks. But you won’t find it in theaters or on netflix.
The only way to see it is to Register Here https://remedy.thesacredscience.com/reg ... 9f24bed9.
At the root of Ancient Medicine traditions, we discover a fundamentally different belief system about health and healing.
One based in symbiosis and cooperation with the plants we co-evolved with. Right down to the biochemical level.
One that says our bodies are self-healing––when we learn to work with them.
A belief system that existed long before bottom lines and profit margins.
This is a revolution in medical perspective can save years of frustration for you and your loved ones.
It can guide you to new ways of thinking, to taking new actions, and ultimately to creating thriving health and vitality.
Nick scoured the world to find the most knowledgeable people on the planet––42 of the world’s leading experts on herbs (including leading scientists and enlightened doctors) ––and distilled all their wisdom into this groundbreaking documentary series.
Simply put, it is incredible.
The amount of information and practical tools you can apply in your own life is nothing short of jaw-dropping.
Register Now for your FREE access to “Remedy: Ancient Medicines for Modern Illness.” https://remedy.thesacredscience.com/reg ... df9f24bed9
This may be the most powerful documentary you see this year.
VITAMIN B12 - 10 Top Health Benefits, Top Plant-Based Sources
Hello Karim, hope you are doing well today!
Vitamin B-12 is a mission-critical for your health in many ways...
And yet many people today are deficient in it (and sometimes confused about it!)
That's why I created this clear, research-based article for YOU...
The Crucial Benefits of Vitamin B-12 and Best Plant-Based Sources of It https://theartofantiaging.com/benefits- ... d-sources/
This is one of our most popular articles, and if you appreciate it, too...
Please SHARE a comment about it at the bottom of the page!
Because in it, you're about to discover:
The 10 top health benefits of B-12 for your body
The 11 signs you may be low in B-12
The top-recommended foods for B-12, including plant-based sources
The top-recommend B-12 supplement
And much more!
Head here for the vitamin B-12 article
Now, you'll see that certain seaweeds are one of those great foods for vitamin B-12...
And, YES, believe it or not, I have a terribly good "dad joke" about seaweed to conclude this email...
(Because smiles and laughter are ALWAYS "good medicine.")
What should you do if you become addicted to seaweed?
Sea-kelp!
Enjoy the important learning in this vitamin B-12 article and enjoy your day! https://theartofantiaging.com/benefits- ... d-sources/
To Living Long and Living Well,
Brian Vaszily
Vitamin B-12 is a mission-critical for your health in many ways...
And yet many people today are deficient in it (and sometimes confused about it!)
That's why I created this clear, research-based article for YOU...
The Crucial Benefits of Vitamin B-12 and Best Plant-Based Sources of It https://theartofantiaging.com/benefits- ... d-sources/
This is one of our most popular articles, and if you appreciate it, too...
Please SHARE a comment about it at the bottom of the page!
Because in it, you're about to discover:
The 10 top health benefits of B-12 for your body
The 11 signs you may be low in B-12
The top-recommended foods for B-12, including plant-based sources
The top-recommend B-12 supplement
And much more!
Head here for the vitamin B-12 article
Now, you'll see that certain seaweeds are one of those great foods for vitamin B-12...
And, YES, believe it or not, I have a terribly good "dad joke" about seaweed to conclude this email...
(Because smiles and laughter are ALWAYS "good medicine.")
What should you do if you become addicted to seaweed?
Sea-kelp!
Enjoy the important learning in this vitamin B-12 article and enjoy your day! https://theartofantiaging.com/benefits- ... d-sources/
To Living Long and Living Well,
Brian Vaszily
It’s never too early to think about bone health
By Melinda Wenner Moyer
Despite growing up with the message that “milk does a body good,” I’ve never been a fan of drinking my calcium. So when I recently stumbled across research findings suggesting that hip fractures are on the rise, I got a little panicky.
Earlier this month, researchers in Hong Kong reported, based on data from people 50 and older who had fractured their hips between 2005 and 2018, that hip fractures will nearly double worldwide by 2050. This is likely because the population is increasing and getting older.
A key cause of hip fractures is poor bone health: One study estimated that half of breaks are the result of osteoporosis, a disease characterized by a loss of bone mass. Osteoporosis afflicts some 10 million Americans, many of whom are not properly diagnosed and treated.
The study’s findings are not welcome news, given that hip fractures are extremely debilitating. “Twenty-five to 30 percent of people die within one year of a hip fracture,” said Nicole Wright, an epidemiologist at the University of Alabama School of Public Health.
Based on these dire predictions, I wondered what we should collectively be doing to strengthen our bones and minimize our osteoporosis risks at every age. I interviewed three researchers to find out.
Get enough calcium.
Calcium is a crucial nutrient for bone health throughout our lives. Kids, teens and young adults need calcium to help build strong bones, Dr. Wright explained. The strength of our bones during youth directly affects their strength as we get older, too. We reach our peak bone density around the age of 25 or 30. Then after the age of 60 (as well as during menopause), bone density starts to drop.
You want your peak bone density in early adulthood to be as high as possible so you don’t drop too low later on, said Dr. Mara Horwitz, an endocrinologist at the University of Pittsburgh. But you need calcium beyond the age of 30, too. The body uses calcium in a number of ways, and if we don’t get enough of the mineral from our diet, our body starts taking it out of our bones, leaving them weaker, Dr. Wright said.
The best sources of calcium are dairy products — milk, yogurt, cheese — but you can also get calcium from nondairy options like almonds, fortified cereal, fortified almond or soy milk, Dr. Horwitz said, and even fortified orange or apple juice. Ultimately, you’ll want to get three to four servings of calcium-rich foods per day, she said. When I tracked my calcium intake this week, I discovered that I get only about half of my recommended intake. (This government website explains how much you should be getting based on your age and sex.)
If you don’t get enough calcium from your diet, you can take supplements, Dr. Horwitz said. Calcium carbonate is the most cost-effective option, but it can cause nausea and constipation, and it needs to be taken with food to be properly absorbed, she said. Calcium citrate is better tolerated, but more expensive.
Don’t over-supplement, though: Some research suggests that getting too much calcium increases the risk for heart disease in people over 45, and it can increase the risk for kidney stones, too. Jeri Nieves, a clinical epidemiologist and nutrition researcher at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, recommended not consuming more than 2,000 milligrams of calcium a day, either through diet or supplements.
Don’t forget vitamin D.
Vitamin D is another key nutrient for bones, in part because it helps the body absorb calcium. According to the National Academy of Medicine, an independent nonprofit organization that provides guidelines on a number of issues, individuals between the ages of 1 and 70 should consume at least 600 international units (IU) per day, while those over 70 should get 800 IU. Foods rich in vitamin D include salmon, sardines, dairy products and fortified juices.
It can be hard to meet our vitamin D needs through dietary sources, so Dr. Horwitz often recommends vitamin D supplements — typically between 800 and 2,000 IU a day — but check with your doctor first. You can get adequate vitamin D from spending about 30 minutes a day in the sun four to five times a week, too, she said, but doing so may be harder if you wear sunscreen.
If you’re not sure whether you’re getting enough vitamin D, ask your doctor for a vitamin D blood test, she recommended. Beware that levels often drop in the winter and spring because we spend less time outdoors — so you may want to supplement in the winter months no matter what.
Get on your feet.
To maintain strong bones, experts recommended engaging in regular weight-bearing activity such as walking or running. “Walking is a weight-bearing exercise that builds and maintains strong bones and it also increases your muscle strength, coordination and balance, which can help prevent falls and fractures,” Dr. Nieves said.
Many people misinterpret the phrase “weight-bearing exercise” to mean that they should do heavy weight lifting, but that’s not the case, Dr. Horwitz said. To keep your leg, foot and hip bones healthy, all you need is to bear your own body weight as you move around, she explained. That said, to keep the bones in your upper body healthy, strengthening exercises can be helpful, but light weights will suffice, she added.
As for how much activity to aim for, Dr. Nieves cited the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, which recommend that adults get 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity and engage in muscle-strengthening exercises at least two days per week.
Reduce your risk factors.
In addition to getting enough calcium, vitamin D and physical activity, consider avoiding lifestyle choices that are known to weaken bones. These include drinking more than two servings of alcohol or caffeine a day, Dr. Horwitz said. Cigarette smoking reduces bone density, too, Dr. Nieves added.
Other common-sense choices can reduce your risk of fractures as well, Dr. Horwitz said. For instance, it’s rarely a good idea to walk around in socks — it’s better to go barefoot or wear rubber-soled shoes or slippers to prevent falling. Dr. Horwitz also recommended using night lights in the dark so you don’t trip. She added that assistive devices such as canes and walkers are very helpful for preventing falls and fractures when recommended by a doctor.
Also, keep in mind that although osteoporosis is most common among older women — the drop in estrogen after menopause reduces bone density — the disease also affects men, who are often underdiagnosed, as are women of color, Dr. Wright said.
If you’re high-risk, talk to a doctor.
Bone density scans, which are X-ray tests that measure calcium and other minerals in your bones, are recommended for women who are at least 65 and men who are at least 70. But individuals who are at higher risk for osteoporosis may be eligible for them sooner, Dr. Nieves said.
If you’ve fractured a bone in the past that wasn’t the result of a serious trauma such as a car crash or a fall from a ladder, or a parent had a hip fracture or osteoporosis, you may be at increased risk. One symptom of low bone density is a loss of height of at least two inches over the course of a year, Dr. Wright said — that’s a sign that your spine is, essentially, collapsing.
People at high risk for osteoporosis also include those with diabetes (Type 1 and Type 2) as well as people with conditions that affect nutrient absorption, such as Celiac disease or inflammatory bowel disease. People who take steroids long-term, such as for arthritis or other immune-related conditions, are also higher risk, as are people with a low body mass index, or BMI. If you fit into one of these categories, talk to your primary care physician or gynecologist about getting an early bone density scan.
Depending on the result of your scan, you may be eligible for one of a number of drugs that can be used to improve bone density and treat osteoporosis, Dr. Horwitz said.
I’m not yet eligible for a bone density scan, but I am going to starting being more proactive about my bone health. I don’t like milk, but I do like yogurt — so now I’m eating yogurt for breakfast. I’m taking a vitamin D supplement and going on daily walks. But I won’t just think about myself: I’ll encourage my husband and kids to be kinder to their bones, too. “Everyone has a skeleton,” Dr. Wright said. “Therefore, everyone should be thinking about their bone health.”
Despite growing up with the message that “milk does a body good,” I’ve never been a fan of drinking my calcium. So when I recently stumbled across research findings suggesting that hip fractures are on the rise, I got a little panicky.
Earlier this month, researchers in Hong Kong reported, based on data from people 50 and older who had fractured their hips between 2005 and 2018, that hip fractures will nearly double worldwide by 2050. This is likely because the population is increasing and getting older.
A key cause of hip fractures is poor bone health: One study estimated that half of breaks are the result of osteoporosis, a disease characterized by a loss of bone mass. Osteoporosis afflicts some 10 million Americans, many of whom are not properly diagnosed and treated.
The study’s findings are not welcome news, given that hip fractures are extremely debilitating. “Twenty-five to 30 percent of people die within one year of a hip fracture,” said Nicole Wright, an epidemiologist at the University of Alabama School of Public Health.
Based on these dire predictions, I wondered what we should collectively be doing to strengthen our bones and minimize our osteoporosis risks at every age. I interviewed three researchers to find out.
Get enough calcium.
Calcium is a crucial nutrient for bone health throughout our lives. Kids, teens and young adults need calcium to help build strong bones, Dr. Wright explained. The strength of our bones during youth directly affects their strength as we get older, too. We reach our peak bone density around the age of 25 or 30. Then after the age of 60 (as well as during menopause), bone density starts to drop.
You want your peak bone density in early adulthood to be as high as possible so you don’t drop too low later on, said Dr. Mara Horwitz, an endocrinologist at the University of Pittsburgh. But you need calcium beyond the age of 30, too. The body uses calcium in a number of ways, and if we don’t get enough of the mineral from our diet, our body starts taking it out of our bones, leaving them weaker, Dr. Wright said.
The best sources of calcium are dairy products — milk, yogurt, cheese — but you can also get calcium from nondairy options like almonds, fortified cereal, fortified almond or soy milk, Dr. Horwitz said, and even fortified orange or apple juice. Ultimately, you’ll want to get three to four servings of calcium-rich foods per day, she said. When I tracked my calcium intake this week, I discovered that I get only about half of my recommended intake. (This government website explains how much you should be getting based on your age and sex.)
If you don’t get enough calcium from your diet, you can take supplements, Dr. Horwitz said. Calcium carbonate is the most cost-effective option, but it can cause nausea and constipation, and it needs to be taken with food to be properly absorbed, she said. Calcium citrate is better tolerated, but more expensive.
Don’t over-supplement, though: Some research suggests that getting too much calcium increases the risk for heart disease in people over 45, and it can increase the risk for kidney stones, too. Jeri Nieves, a clinical epidemiologist and nutrition researcher at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, recommended not consuming more than 2,000 milligrams of calcium a day, either through diet or supplements.
Don’t forget vitamin D.
Vitamin D is another key nutrient for bones, in part because it helps the body absorb calcium. According to the National Academy of Medicine, an independent nonprofit organization that provides guidelines on a number of issues, individuals between the ages of 1 and 70 should consume at least 600 international units (IU) per day, while those over 70 should get 800 IU. Foods rich in vitamin D include salmon, sardines, dairy products and fortified juices.
It can be hard to meet our vitamin D needs through dietary sources, so Dr. Horwitz often recommends vitamin D supplements — typically between 800 and 2,000 IU a day — but check with your doctor first. You can get adequate vitamin D from spending about 30 minutes a day in the sun four to five times a week, too, she said, but doing so may be harder if you wear sunscreen.
If you’re not sure whether you’re getting enough vitamin D, ask your doctor for a vitamin D blood test, she recommended. Beware that levels often drop in the winter and spring because we spend less time outdoors — so you may want to supplement in the winter months no matter what.
Get on your feet.
To maintain strong bones, experts recommended engaging in regular weight-bearing activity such as walking or running. “Walking is a weight-bearing exercise that builds and maintains strong bones and it also increases your muscle strength, coordination and balance, which can help prevent falls and fractures,” Dr. Nieves said.
Many people misinterpret the phrase “weight-bearing exercise” to mean that they should do heavy weight lifting, but that’s not the case, Dr. Horwitz said. To keep your leg, foot and hip bones healthy, all you need is to bear your own body weight as you move around, she explained. That said, to keep the bones in your upper body healthy, strengthening exercises can be helpful, but light weights will suffice, she added.
As for how much activity to aim for, Dr. Nieves cited the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, which recommend that adults get 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity and engage in muscle-strengthening exercises at least two days per week.
Reduce your risk factors.
In addition to getting enough calcium, vitamin D and physical activity, consider avoiding lifestyle choices that are known to weaken bones. These include drinking more than two servings of alcohol or caffeine a day, Dr. Horwitz said. Cigarette smoking reduces bone density, too, Dr. Nieves added.
Other common-sense choices can reduce your risk of fractures as well, Dr. Horwitz said. For instance, it’s rarely a good idea to walk around in socks — it’s better to go barefoot or wear rubber-soled shoes or slippers to prevent falling. Dr. Horwitz also recommended using night lights in the dark so you don’t trip. She added that assistive devices such as canes and walkers are very helpful for preventing falls and fractures when recommended by a doctor.
Also, keep in mind that although osteoporosis is most common among older women — the drop in estrogen after menopause reduces bone density — the disease also affects men, who are often underdiagnosed, as are women of color, Dr. Wright said.
If you’re high-risk, talk to a doctor.
Bone density scans, which are X-ray tests that measure calcium and other minerals in your bones, are recommended for women who are at least 65 and men who are at least 70. But individuals who are at higher risk for osteoporosis may be eligible for them sooner, Dr. Nieves said.
If you’ve fractured a bone in the past that wasn’t the result of a serious trauma such as a car crash or a fall from a ladder, or a parent had a hip fracture or osteoporosis, you may be at increased risk. One symptom of low bone density is a loss of height of at least two inches over the course of a year, Dr. Wright said — that’s a sign that your spine is, essentially, collapsing.
People at high risk for osteoporosis also include those with diabetes (Type 1 and Type 2) as well as people with conditions that affect nutrient absorption, such as Celiac disease or inflammatory bowel disease. People who take steroids long-term, such as for arthritis or other immune-related conditions, are also higher risk, as are people with a low body mass index, or BMI. If you fit into one of these categories, talk to your primary care physician or gynecologist about getting an early bone density scan.
Depending on the result of your scan, you may be eligible for one of a number of drugs that can be used to improve bone density and treat osteoporosis, Dr. Horwitz said.
I’m not yet eligible for a bone density scan, but I am going to starting being more proactive about my bone health. I don’t like milk, but I do like yogurt — so now I’m eating yogurt for breakfast. I’m taking a vitamin D supplement and going on daily walks. But I won’t just think about myself: I’ll encourage my husband and kids to be kinder to their bones, too. “Everyone has a skeleton,” Dr. Wright said. “Therefore, everyone should be thinking about their bone health.”
What Everyone Should Know About the Brain’s Ability to Heal
Dr. Taylor is a neuroscientist who has experienced a severe stroke.
Our brains are made up of billions of cells that work together to create our every ability. I can make sounds and speak words because those cells in my brain are wired up and functional. You can understand me when I speak because those cells in your brain are online and working. You are using specific groups of cells right now to translate the letters on the screen or the page into words with meaning.
Wipe out those cells, through a stroke or other brain trauma, and you may no longer be able to read, but you might still be able to speak, sing or write. It’s all about where the brain is damaged — which systems of cells are traumatized and which are not.
Take the much-discussed case of the Senate hopeful John Fetterman, who after a stroke has retained the ability to read, think and respond to questions but has not yet completely recovered. He has stumbled over words and has experienced difficulty in auditory processing — an issue that many people will be watching closely at his debate against his challenger, Mehmet Oz, on Tuesday. To bypass the wounded cellular circuits, Mr. Fetterman is choosing to use tools like closed captioning in some interviews to read questions as they are asked.
I can share from personal experience what having a problem with auditory processing feels like. It’s like there’s a small delay between what you hear and your ability to understand the meaning of what was said. Twenty-five years ago, when I was 37 years old (your brain might be both reading and calculating my age right now), I experienced a major hemorrhagic stroke in the left half of my brain. Within a few hours I could not walk, talk, read, write or recall any memories of my life. I had instantaneously become an infant in a woman’s body.
Stroke is a major cause of disability in the United States, where more than 795,000 people will experience one each year. It would behoove our society to better understand strokes, including how someone can be slow to recover certain abilities and yet remain cognitively intact. We also do a poor job of understanding how the brain can heal itself and why stroke survivors may recover more completely when those around them are supportive and compassionate.
At the time of my stroke, I was a neuroscientist, specifically a brain anatomist, teaching and performing brain research at Harvard Medical School. It was my job and my passion to study brain cells under a microscope, which was inspired in part by my brother’s diagnosis of schizophrenia. As a sister and as a scientist, I wanted to understand why my brain could connect my dreams to reality in a way that I could act on them and yet my brothers’ dreams became lost in psychotic delusions. The work became all the more personal in my stroke recovery.
There are two basic types of strokes. An ischemic stroke, which Mr. Fetterman had, occurs when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel from carrying oxygen and other nutrients to the brain cells, rendering them unable to perform their function. The rarer hemorrhagic stroke, which I had, occurs when a blood vessel ruptures and blood seeps out into the brain tissue where it does not belong, disrupting the ability of brain cells to communicate with one another.
The deficits we experience and display as symptoms depend largely on where in the brain a stroke occurs and what the normal function was of the cells that were traumatized. The cells that are not disturbed can continue to function just fine. That’s what can make the experience of a stroke different from person to person and also what underscores misconceptions about the person affected. A pregnant pause between a question and someone’s response is sure to make some people uncomfortable, but it doesn’t necessarily say anything profound about a person’s ability to think and reason intelligently.
Even severe damage from a stroke, like I experienced, is not always permanent. Our brains have a two-pronged defense mechanism that kicks in when brain trauma occurs. Not only are we able to grow some new neurons — a process called neurogenesis — especially in the sites where physical trauma has occurred, our brain cells are capable of neuroplasticity, which means they can rearrange which other neurons they are in communication with.
Scientists used to believe that our neural networks were completely developed and established in our first few years of life, and that those circuits would remain throughout our life spans. However, it’s now understood that neuroplasticity is an ongoing phenomenon that underlies our brain cells’ ability not only to recover from trauma but also to build new networks that are even stronger than they were before. Neuroplasticity is an ongoing condition that underlies the brain’s ability to learn throughout our lives. The complete recovery of my own brain following major trauma is a testament to the power of neuroplasticity and our ability to recover lost function.
The three-pound mass of neurological tissue that we call the brain has the power not only to create every ability we have but also to manifest our perception of reality. Neurons are beautiful and fragile creatures that work together throughout our lives. That’s why, whenever I meet someone who has experienced a brain trauma of any sort, I don’t focus on what abilities that person has lost, but rather I marvel at what insights that person might have gained because of the experience.
It has been important to the media and to the public that Mr. Fetterman be completely transparent about his illness and recovery as a candidate for public office. His doctors have signed off on his health, and his campaign says he is testing normal on cognitive exams. But rather than marvel at the recovery — the fact that after a severe stroke his motor skills are fine, he can respond to questions rapidly and appropriately, he can use cognitive skills to cull information from his past experience as a lieutenant governor during interviews — much focus seems to be on whether he’s really well or fit for office.
Those of us who study the brain immediately recognize that Mr. Fetterman’s cognitive competence appears to be just fine. It may take a few months before Mr. Fetterman feels up to the scrutiny of the public and forgoes closed captioning, but the neuroplasticity of the brain is an ongoing process and will continue to repair and help him heal.
Few things have greater impact on how people choose to live their lives than neurological trauma or near-death experiences. And when we find ourselves to be neurologically impaired, we become vulnerable and need others to support us rather than criticize or judge us. I became a much more compassionate and empathetic person following my stroke and recovery. Perhaps I am not the only one.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/25/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Our brains are made up of billions of cells that work together to create our every ability. I can make sounds and speak words because those cells in my brain are wired up and functional. You can understand me when I speak because those cells in your brain are online and working. You are using specific groups of cells right now to translate the letters on the screen or the page into words with meaning.
Wipe out those cells, through a stroke or other brain trauma, and you may no longer be able to read, but you might still be able to speak, sing or write. It’s all about where the brain is damaged — which systems of cells are traumatized and which are not.
Take the much-discussed case of the Senate hopeful John Fetterman, who after a stroke has retained the ability to read, think and respond to questions but has not yet completely recovered. He has stumbled over words and has experienced difficulty in auditory processing — an issue that many people will be watching closely at his debate against his challenger, Mehmet Oz, on Tuesday. To bypass the wounded cellular circuits, Mr. Fetterman is choosing to use tools like closed captioning in some interviews to read questions as they are asked.
I can share from personal experience what having a problem with auditory processing feels like. It’s like there’s a small delay between what you hear and your ability to understand the meaning of what was said. Twenty-five years ago, when I was 37 years old (your brain might be both reading and calculating my age right now), I experienced a major hemorrhagic stroke in the left half of my brain. Within a few hours I could not walk, talk, read, write or recall any memories of my life. I had instantaneously become an infant in a woman’s body.
Stroke is a major cause of disability in the United States, where more than 795,000 people will experience one each year. It would behoove our society to better understand strokes, including how someone can be slow to recover certain abilities and yet remain cognitively intact. We also do a poor job of understanding how the brain can heal itself and why stroke survivors may recover more completely when those around them are supportive and compassionate.
At the time of my stroke, I was a neuroscientist, specifically a brain anatomist, teaching and performing brain research at Harvard Medical School. It was my job and my passion to study brain cells under a microscope, which was inspired in part by my brother’s diagnosis of schizophrenia. As a sister and as a scientist, I wanted to understand why my brain could connect my dreams to reality in a way that I could act on them and yet my brothers’ dreams became lost in psychotic delusions. The work became all the more personal in my stroke recovery.
There are two basic types of strokes. An ischemic stroke, which Mr. Fetterman had, occurs when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel from carrying oxygen and other nutrients to the brain cells, rendering them unable to perform their function. The rarer hemorrhagic stroke, which I had, occurs when a blood vessel ruptures and blood seeps out into the brain tissue where it does not belong, disrupting the ability of brain cells to communicate with one another.
The deficits we experience and display as symptoms depend largely on where in the brain a stroke occurs and what the normal function was of the cells that were traumatized. The cells that are not disturbed can continue to function just fine. That’s what can make the experience of a stroke different from person to person and also what underscores misconceptions about the person affected. A pregnant pause between a question and someone’s response is sure to make some people uncomfortable, but it doesn’t necessarily say anything profound about a person’s ability to think and reason intelligently.
Even severe damage from a stroke, like I experienced, is not always permanent. Our brains have a two-pronged defense mechanism that kicks in when brain trauma occurs. Not only are we able to grow some new neurons — a process called neurogenesis — especially in the sites where physical trauma has occurred, our brain cells are capable of neuroplasticity, which means they can rearrange which other neurons they are in communication with.
Scientists used to believe that our neural networks were completely developed and established in our first few years of life, and that those circuits would remain throughout our life spans. However, it’s now understood that neuroplasticity is an ongoing phenomenon that underlies our brain cells’ ability not only to recover from trauma but also to build new networks that are even stronger than they were before. Neuroplasticity is an ongoing condition that underlies the brain’s ability to learn throughout our lives. The complete recovery of my own brain following major trauma is a testament to the power of neuroplasticity and our ability to recover lost function.
The three-pound mass of neurological tissue that we call the brain has the power not only to create every ability we have but also to manifest our perception of reality. Neurons are beautiful and fragile creatures that work together throughout our lives. That’s why, whenever I meet someone who has experienced a brain trauma of any sort, I don’t focus on what abilities that person has lost, but rather I marvel at what insights that person might have gained because of the experience.
It has been important to the media and to the public that Mr. Fetterman be completely transparent about his illness and recovery as a candidate for public office. His doctors have signed off on his health, and his campaign says he is testing normal on cognitive exams. But rather than marvel at the recovery — the fact that after a severe stroke his motor skills are fine, he can respond to questions rapidly and appropriately, he can use cognitive skills to cull information from his past experience as a lieutenant governor during interviews — much focus seems to be on whether he’s really well or fit for office.
Those of us who study the brain immediately recognize that Mr. Fetterman’s cognitive competence appears to be just fine. It may take a few months before Mr. Fetterman feels up to the scrutiny of the public and forgoes closed captioning, but the neuroplasticity of the brain is an ongoing process and will continue to repair and help him heal.
Few things have greater impact on how people choose to live their lives than neurological trauma or near-death experiences. And when we find ourselves to be neurologically impaired, we become vulnerable and need others to support us rather than criticize or judge us. I became a much more compassionate and empathetic person following my stroke and recovery. Perhaps I am not the only one.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/25/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Cholera Outbreaks Surge Worldwide as Vaccine Supply Drains
A record number of outbreaks have been reported after droughts, floods and wars have forced large numbers of people to live in unsanitary conditions.
Patients being treated for cholera at the Gheskio Center Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, this month.Credit...Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters
Global health reporter Stephanie Nolen has reported on cholera outbreaks in the Middle East, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Published Oct. 31, 2022
Updated Nov. 1, 2022
A record number of cholera outbreaks around the globe, driven by droughts, floods and armed conflicts, has sickened hundreds of thousands of people and so severely strained the supply of cholera vaccines that global health agencies are rationing doses.
Outbreaks have been reported in the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, putting the health of millions at risk and overwhelming fragile health systems. Untreated, the disease, which is commonly spread through contaminated water, can cause death by dehydration in as little as one day, as the body tries to expel virulent bacteria in gushes of vomit and watery diarrhea.
Cholera is typically fatal in about 3 percent of cases, but the World Health Organization says it is killing at an accelerated rate in recent outbreaks, even though it is relatively cheap and easy to treat. It is most often fatal in children, who progress swiftly to severe illness and organ failure.
Cholera outbreaks tend to follow displacement: When droughts, floods, famines or the threat of violence force large groups of people to move, and they lose access to clean water and adequate sanitation facilities, cholera bacteria can race through a population. This year has seen cholera both in places where it is a familiar threat, and in countries that have not confronted it for decades.
“The situation is very concerning, very worrying,” Dr. Philippe Barboza, who leads the World Health Organization’s cholera response, said. “We have had to worry about war and poverty and population movements, and that has not changed. But now we have climate change on top of that.” He called the profusion of cholera outbreaks “a fire that is just going to keep getting bigger.”
In Nigeria, a million people have been displaced by floods in recent weeks, and there are at least 6,000 cases of cholera. The authorities in Kenya are reporting suspected cholera in people fleeing violence in Somalia and arriving at the mammoth Dadaab refugee camp, where tens of thousands of children are at risk.
A recently opened medical center for cholera in the Syrian town of Darkush, on the outskirts of the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib.Credit...Aaref Watad/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In Haiti, cholera has broken out as whole neighborhoods of people displaced by violence are packed into small open patches in Port-au-Prince, sharing a single cracked pipe of water that runs through untreated waste. Cholera is also festering in the country’s severely overcrowded prisons.
In Syria, millions of people displaced by the civil war lack access to clean water, while the years of fighting have destroyed sanitation infrastructure. Raw sewage is being pumped into the Euphrates River, which hundreds of thousands of people depend on for water. The United Nations reports more than 20,000 suspected cholera cases and 75 deaths there.
In Pakistan, where a third of the country is fully under water after massive monsoon flooding, and close to 10 million people have been displaced, there are reports of cholera cases in a dozen locations. These are not yet full-blown outbreaks, and vaccination could help stave off disaster.
But demand for vaccination is so high that the World Health Organization has suspended the recommended two-dose vaccination regimen and switched to a single dose, in an effort to stretch supply so enough is available to be able to respond to more outbreaks that could occur in the coming months.
“We have never had to make a decision like this about vaccination before, that’s the severity of this crisis,” Dr. Barboza said.
If enough single doses are given in a region, it should be enough to quell an outbreak, he said. But the length of the protection is significantly shorter. A single dose of the cholera vaccine gives between six months and two years of immunity, while the full regimen of two doses delivered a month apart gives adults four years of protection, he said. If a second dose can be delivered within six months, it should give three years of protection. But the evidence on the exact duration of protection is limited; it is known to be much shorter in children.
A hospital worker at a disinfecting station at the cholera treatment unit of the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Cite Soleil, a densely populated neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.Credit...Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters
Some 36 million doses of the oral cholera vaccine were expected to be produced in 2022, and of those, 24 million have been shipped for vaccination campaigns. The remaining eight million doses have already been designated for a second round of emergency vaccination in four countries — Cameroon, Malawi, Pakistan and Kenya — the W.H.O. said.
That prompted the coordinating body that allocates cholera vaccines to decide to switch the vaccination regimen to a single dose until new supply is available, most likely by the end of the year. (That body is made up of the W.H.O., UNICEF and the aid organizations Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which staff cholera emergency centers around the globe.)
Dr. Seth Berkley, the chief executive officer of GAVI, a nongovernmental organization that manages the global stockpile of vaccines for cholera among other pathogens, said that he believed as many as five million doses would be produced through the end of 2022 and that some existing requests would be canceled, so that 12 million doses could still be available this year.
Dr. Daniela Garone, M.S.F.’s international medical coordinator, said the vaccine demand had left the agencies to make grim choices. “It leaves you sitting at a table literally having to have conversations like, well, do we send it to Haiti or do we send it to Syria?” she said. “Do we send it to Zimbabwe?”
Ideally there would be regional vaccination in southern Africa right now, Dr. Garone said. For example: An outbreak in Malawi threatens neighboring countries because there is a lot of movement of people across borders with Zambia and Mozambique. But there are insufficient supplies to do that kind of preventive campaign in the region, or in India, Pakistan, Nigeria or the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“There is just not enough vaccine,” she said. “And it’s the chicken or the egg: Do you prevent or you react? At the moment we are only on the reacting, trying to prevent mortality, and we cannot prevent.”
A cholera vaccination campaign does not aim to cover the entire population of a country, but rather the area around a hot spot of transmission. The primary goal is to buy a country time to put sanitation measures in place, such as setting up latrines and trucking in sources of clean water, that are key to stopping transmission.
A boy stands at a flooded stream following torrential rains in Sana’a, Yemen, in July 2022, that created a high-risk environment for cholera.Credit...Yahya Arhab/EPA, via Shutterstock
The bulk of the world’s cholera vaccine is made by a South Korean company called EuBiologics. Some 15 percent of the global stockpile was produced by Shantha Biotechnics, a wholly owned Indian subsidiary of the French drugmaker Sanofi, but the company decided two years ago to stop production of its cholera vaccine by the end of this year and end supply by the end of 2023. That planned exit from the market coincides with the spike in demand.
Dr. Barboza said that EuBiologics was producing at capacity and working to expand its production, and that another drugmaker would soon begin to produce the vaccine.
“But even a sharp increase in production will be low compared to the need,” he said.
Drugmakers in high-income countries have little interest in making the vaccine, which typically sells for about $1.50 adose, Dr. Barboza said. “It’s a marker of vulnerability and poverty and will never affect a rich country not at war.”
A second problem is that the funds to buy more cholera vaccines often come out of the same limited envelope allotted for the drinking water and sanitation work that is necessary in an outbreak, said Gian Gandhi, the chief of health emergencies strategy for UNICEF’s supply division.
While the global cholera case count is high, death numbers, at the moment, remain relatively low, which reflects the fact that cholera treatment is relatively cheap and simple. “Even countries that have not been exposed to cholera before, they can learn quickly,” Dr. Garone said.
The International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh hospital, where the cholera treatment was pioneered and which played a key role in the development of the vaccine, saw a record number of cholera patients in March and April this year. Instead of a typical 400 patients a day, the hospital treated 1,500, most of them in giant tents erected outside the facility to absorb the crowds, said Dr. Tahmeed Ahmed, the center’s executive director. There, the driver was not flood but heat: Extreme temperatures led to large-scale population movement, leaving people without clean water.
But only a few people died, he said, because simple oral rehydration salts and antibiotics will cure most cases. Then, to help end that outbreak, more than two million people were vaccinated using contact tracing to hot spots. Bangladesh has been working toward preventive vaccination in known cholera flashpoints in an effort to keep outbreaks from starting.
Dr. Berkley said that currently 85 percent of the supply was being used in emergencies. “If you could go in and do preventive vaccination in these hot spots, you could blot out these different places that are where the disease is transmitted from,” he said.
Dr. Barboza said that while cholera outbreaks were difficult to predict, the W.H.O. anticipates that there will be more, because of climate change. While flooding disasters such as those in Nigeria and Pakistan right now immediately evoke fears of cholera, the risk from drought can be even greater, he said.
“When water is scarce you can have people packed even more closely, perhaps all using a single spring that is not protected, and more people means more risk of contamination,” he said. “They don’t have water to wash, or to wash their vegetables, and it’s a spiraling effect.”
If some of the outbreaks underway now continue past six months, the immunity of the people vaccinated with just one dose will have waned, and they will need to be revaccinated, he said. Ideally that would be with the full two-dose regimen, if supplies have been built back up. But, he added, the same factors driving outbreaks — insecurity and floods — make it hard to vaccinate.
Stephanie Nolen covers global health. She has reported on public health, economic development and humanitarian crises from more than 80 countries around the world.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/heal ... 778d3e6de3
Patients being treated for cholera at the Gheskio Center Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, this month.Credit...Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters
Global health reporter Stephanie Nolen has reported on cholera outbreaks in the Middle East, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Published Oct. 31, 2022
Updated Nov. 1, 2022
A record number of cholera outbreaks around the globe, driven by droughts, floods and armed conflicts, has sickened hundreds of thousands of people and so severely strained the supply of cholera vaccines that global health agencies are rationing doses.
Outbreaks have been reported in the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, putting the health of millions at risk and overwhelming fragile health systems. Untreated, the disease, which is commonly spread through contaminated water, can cause death by dehydration in as little as one day, as the body tries to expel virulent bacteria in gushes of vomit and watery diarrhea.
Cholera is typically fatal in about 3 percent of cases, but the World Health Organization says it is killing at an accelerated rate in recent outbreaks, even though it is relatively cheap and easy to treat. It is most often fatal in children, who progress swiftly to severe illness and organ failure.
Cholera outbreaks tend to follow displacement: When droughts, floods, famines or the threat of violence force large groups of people to move, and they lose access to clean water and adequate sanitation facilities, cholera bacteria can race through a population. This year has seen cholera both in places where it is a familiar threat, and in countries that have not confronted it for decades.
“The situation is very concerning, very worrying,” Dr. Philippe Barboza, who leads the World Health Organization’s cholera response, said. “We have had to worry about war and poverty and population movements, and that has not changed. But now we have climate change on top of that.” He called the profusion of cholera outbreaks “a fire that is just going to keep getting bigger.”
In Nigeria, a million people have been displaced by floods in recent weeks, and there are at least 6,000 cases of cholera. The authorities in Kenya are reporting suspected cholera in people fleeing violence in Somalia and arriving at the mammoth Dadaab refugee camp, where tens of thousands of children are at risk.
A recently opened medical center for cholera in the Syrian town of Darkush, on the outskirts of the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib.Credit...Aaref Watad/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In Haiti, cholera has broken out as whole neighborhoods of people displaced by violence are packed into small open patches in Port-au-Prince, sharing a single cracked pipe of water that runs through untreated waste. Cholera is also festering in the country’s severely overcrowded prisons.
In Syria, millions of people displaced by the civil war lack access to clean water, while the years of fighting have destroyed sanitation infrastructure. Raw sewage is being pumped into the Euphrates River, which hundreds of thousands of people depend on for water. The United Nations reports more than 20,000 suspected cholera cases and 75 deaths there.
In Pakistan, where a third of the country is fully under water after massive monsoon flooding, and close to 10 million people have been displaced, there are reports of cholera cases in a dozen locations. These are not yet full-blown outbreaks, and vaccination could help stave off disaster.
But demand for vaccination is so high that the World Health Organization has suspended the recommended two-dose vaccination regimen and switched to a single dose, in an effort to stretch supply so enough is available to be able to respond to more outbreaks that could occur in the coming months.
“We have never had to make a decision like this about vaccination before, that’s the severity of this crisis,” Dr. Barboza said.
If enough single doses are given in a region, it should be enough to quell an outbreak, he said. But the length of the protection is significantly shorter. A single dose of the cholera vaccine gives between six months and two years of immunity, while the full regimen of two doses delivered a month apart gives adults four years of protection, he said. If a second dose can be delivered within six months, it should give three years of protection. But the evidence on the exact duration of protection is limited; it is known to be much shorter in children.
A hospital worker at a disinfecting station at the cholera treatment unit of the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Cite Soleil, a densely populated neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.Credit...Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters
Some 36 million doses of the oral cholera vaccine were expected to be produced in 2022, and of those, 24 million have been shipped for vaccination campaigns. The remaining eight million doses have already been designated for a second round of emergency vaccination in four countries — Cameroon, Malawi, Pakistan and Kenya — the W.H.O. said.
That prompted the coordinating body that allocates cholera vaccines to decide to switch the vaccination regimen to a single dose until new supply is available, most likely by the end of the year. (That body is made up of the W.H.O., UNICEF and the aid organizations Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which staff cholera emergency centers around the globe.)
Dr. Seth Berkley, the chief executive officer of GAVI, a nongovernmental organization that manages the global stockpile of vaccines for cholera among other pathogens, said that he believed as many as five million doses would be produced through the end of 2022 and that some existing requests would be canceled, so that 12 million doses could still be available this year.
Dr. Daniela Garone, M.S.F.’s international medical coordinator, said the vaccine demand had left the agencies to make grim choices. “It leaves you sitting at a table literally having to have conversations like, well, do we send it to Haiti or do we send it to Syria?” she said. “Do we send it to Zimbabwe?”
Ideally there would be regional vaccination in southern Africa right now, Dr. Garone said. For example: An outbreak in Malawi threatens neighboring countries because there is a lot of movement of people across borders with Zambia and Mozambique. But there are insufficient supplies to do that kind of preventive campaign in the region, or in India, Pakistan, Nigeria or the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“There is just not enough vaccine,” she said. “And it’s the chicken or the egg: Do you prevent or you react? At the moment we are only on the reacting, trying to prevent mortality, and we cannot prevent.”
A cholera vaccination campaign does not aim to cover the entire population of a country, but rather the area around a hot spot of transmission. The primary goal is to buy a country time to put sanitation measures in place, such as setting up latrines and trucking in sources of clean water, that are key to stopping transmission.
A boy stands at a flooded stream following torrential rains in Sana’a, Yemen, in July 2022, that created a high-risk environment for cholera.Credit...Yahya Arhab/EPA, via Shutterstock
The bulk of the world’s cholera vaccine is made by a South Korean company called EuBiologics. Some 15 percent of the global stockpile was produced by Shantha Biotechnics, a wholly owned Indian subsidiary of the French drugmaker Sanofi, but the company decided two years ago to stop production of its cholera vaccine by the end of this year and end supply by the end of 2023. That planned exit from the market coincides with the spike in demand.
Dr. Barboza said that EuBiologics was producing at capacity and working to expand its production, and that another drugmaker would soon begin to produce the vaccine.
“But even a sharp increase in production will be low compared to the need,” he said.
Drugmakers in high-income countries have little interest in making the vaccine, which typically sells for about $1.50 adose, Dr. Barboza said. “It’s a marker of vulnerability and poverty and will never affect a rich country not at war.”
A second problem is that the funds to buy more cholera vaccines often come out of the same limited envelope allotted for the drinking water and sanitation work that is necessary in an outbreak, said Gian Gandhi, the chief of health emergencies strategy for UNICEF’s supply division.
While the global cholera case count is high, death numbers, at the moment, remain relatively low, which reflects the fact that cholera treatment is relatively cheap and simple. “Even countries that have not been exposed to cholera before, they can learn quickly,” Dr. Garone said.
The International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh hospital, where the cholera treatment was pioneered and which played a key role in the development of the vaccine, saw a record number of cholera patients in March and April this year. Instead of a typical 400 patients a day, the hospital treated 1,500, most of them in giant tents erected outside the facility to absorb the crowds, said Dr. Tahmeed Ahmed, the center’s executive director. There, the driver was not flood but heat: Extreme temperatures led to large-scale population movement, leaving people without clean water.
But only a few people died, he said, because simple oral rehydration salts and antibiotics will cure most cases. Then, to help end that outbreak, more than two million people were vaccinated using contact tracing to hot spots. Bangladesh has been working toward preventive vaccination in known cholera flashpoints in an effort to keep outbreaks from starting.
Dr. Berkley said that currently 85 percent of the supply was being used in emergencies. “If you could go in and do preventive vaccination in these hot spots, you could blot out these different places that are where the disease is transmitted from,” he said.
Dr. Barboza said that while cholera outbreaks were difficult to predict, the W.H.O. anticipates that there will be more, because of climate change. While flooding disasters such as those in Nigeria and Pakistan right now immediately evoke fears of cholera, the risk from drought can be even greater, he said.
“When water is scarce you can have people packed even more closely, perhaps all using a single spring that is not protected, and more people means more risk of contamination,” he said. “They don’t have water to wash, or to wash their vegetables, and it’s a spiraling effect.”
If some of the outbreaks underway now continue past six months, the immunity of the people vaccinated with just one dose will have waned, and they will need to be revaccinated, he said. Ideally that would be with the full two-dose regimen, if supplies have been built back up. But, he added, the same factors driving outbreaks — insecurity and floods — make it hard to vaccinate.
Stephanie Nolen covers global health. She has reported on public health, economic development and humanitarian crises from more than 80 countries around the world.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/heal ... 778d3e6de3
Re: Health and Healing
CNN
A trash heap 62 meters high shows the scale of India's climate challenge
Vedika Sud
Sat, December 10, 2022 at 7:02 PM
At the Bhalswa landfill in northwest Delhi, a steady flow of jeeps zigzag up the trash heap to dump more garbage on a pile now over 62 meters (203 feet) high.
Fires caused by heat and methane gas sporadically break out – the Delhi Fire Service Department has responded to 14 fires so far this year – and some deep beneath the pile can smolder for weeks or months, while men, women and children work nearby, sifting through the rubbish to find items to sell.
Some of the 200,000 residents who live in Bhalswa say the area is uninhabitable, but they can’t afford to move and have no choice but to breathe the toxic air and bathe in its contaminated water.
Bhalswa is not Delhi’s largest landfill. It’s about three meters lower than the biggest, Ghazipur, and both contribute to the country’s total output of methane gas.
Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, but a more potent contributor to the climate crisis because methane traps more heat. India creates more methane from landfill sites than any other country, according to GHGSat, which monitors methane via satellites.
And India comes second only to China for total methane emissions, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Global Methane Tracker.
Ragpickers at the Bhalswa landfill site on April 28, 2022, in New Delhi, India. - Sanchit Khanna/Hindustan Times/Getty Images
As part of his “Clean India” initiative, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said efforts are being made to remove these mountains of garbage and convert them into green zones. That goal, if achieved, could relieve some of the suffering of those residents living in the shadows of these dump sites – and help the world lower its greenhouse gas emissions.
India wants to lower its methane output, but it hasn’t joined the 130 countries who have signed up to the Global Methane Pledge, a pact to collectively cut global methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. Scientists estimate the reduction could cut global temperature rise by 0.2% – and help the world reach its target of keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius.
India says it won’t join because most of its methane emissions come from farming – some 74% from farm animals and paddy fields versus less than 15% from landfill.
In a statement last year, Minister of State for Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change Ashwini Choubey said pledging to reduce India’s total methane output could threaten the livelihood of farmers and affect India’s trade and economic prospects.
But it’s also facing challenges in reducing methane from its steaming mounds of trash.
A young boy in the narrow lanes of slums in Bhalswa Dairy Village. - Rishabh Pratap/CNN
‘Here we are, with no relief’
When Narayan Choudhary, 72, moved to Bhalswa in 1982, he said it was a “beautiful place,” but that all changed 12 years later when the first rubbish began arriving at the local landfill.
In the years since, the Bhalswa dump has grown nearly as tall as the historic Taj Mahal, becoming a landmark in its own right and an eyesore that towers over surrounding homes, affecting the health of people who live there.
Choudhary suffers from chronic asthma. He said he nearly died when a large fire broke out at Bhalswa in April that burned for days. “I was in terrible shape. My face and nose were swollen. I was on my death bed,” he said.
“Two years ago we protested … a lot of residents from this area protested (to get rid of the waste),” Choudhary said. “But the municipality didn’t cooperate with us. They assured us that things will get better in two years but here we are, with no relief.”
The dump site exhausted its capacity in 2002, according to a 2020 report on India’s landfills from the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), a nonprofit research agency in New Delhi, but without government standardization in recycling systems and greater industry efforts to reduce plastic consumption and production, tonnes of garbage continue to arrive at the site daily.
Bhalswa isn’t the only dump causing distress to residents nearby – it is one of three landfills in Delhi, overflowing with decaying waste and emitting toxic gases into the air.
Across the country, there are more than 3,100 landfills. Ghazipur is the biggest in Delhi, standing at 65 meters (213 feet), and like Bhalswa, it surpassed its waste capacity in 2002 and currently produces huge amounts of methane.
According to GHGSat, on a single day in March, more than two metric tons of methane gas leaked from the site every hour.
“If sustained for a year, the methane leak from this landfill would have the same climate impact as annual emissions from 350,000 US cars,” said GHGSat CEO Stephane Germain.
Dangerous toxins in groundwater
Methane emissions aren’t the only hazard that stem from landfills like Bhalswa and Ghazipur. Over decades, dangerous toxins have seeped into the ground, polluting the water supply for thousands of residents living nearby.
In May, CNN commissioned two accredited labs to test the ground water around the Bhalswa landfill. And according to the results, ground water within at least a 500-meter (1,600-foot) radius around the waste site is contaminated.
A ground water sample from the Bhalswa landfill in northwest Delhi. - Vedika Sud/CNN
In the first lab report, levels of ammonia and sulphate were significantly higher than acceptable limits mandated by the Indian government.
Results from the second lab report showed levels of total dissolved solids (TDS) – the amount of inorganic salts and organic matter dissolved in the water – detected in one of the samples was almost 19 times the acceptable limit, making it unsafe for human drinking.
The Bureau of Indian Standards sets the acceptable limit of TDS at 500 milligrams/liter, a figure roughly seen as “good” by the World Health Organization (WHO). Anything over 900 mg/l is considered “poor” by the WHO, and over 1,200 mg/l is “unacceptable.”
According to Richa Singh from the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), the TDS of water taken near the Bhalswa site was between 3,000 and 4,000 mg/l. “This water is not only unfit for drinking but also unfit for skin contact,” she said. “So it can’t be used for purposes like bathing or cleaning of the utensils or cleaning of the clothes.”
Dr. Nitesh Rohatgi, the senior director of medical oncology at Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram, urged the government to study the health of the local population and compare it to other areas of the city, “so that in 15 to 20 years’ time, we are not looking back and regretting that we had a higher cancer incidence, higher health hazards, higher health issues and we didn’t look back and correct them in time.”
Most people in Bhalswa rely on bottled water for drinking, but they use local water for other purposes – many say they have no choice.
“The water we get is contaminated, but we have to helplessly store it and use it for washing utensils, bathing and at times drinking too,” said resident Sonia Bibi, whose legs are covered in a thick, red rash.
Jwala Prashad, 87, who lives in a small hut in an alleyway near the landfill, said the pile of putrid trash had made his life “a living hell.”
“The water we use is pale red in color. My skin burns after bathing,” he said, as he tried to soothe red gashes on his face and neck.
“But I can’t afford to ever leave this place,” he added.
Jwala Prashad, 87, at the handpump in front of his house in Bhalswa Dairy Village. - Rishabh Pratap/CNN
Waste target in doubt
More than 2,300 tonnes of Municipal Solid Waste arrive at Delhi’s largest dump in Ghazipur every day, according to a report released in July by a joint committee formed to find a way to reduce the number of fires at the site.
That’s the bulk of the waste from the surrounding area – only 300 tonnes is processed and disposed of by other means, the report said. And less than 7% of legacy waste had been bio-mined, which involves excavating, treating and potentially reusing old rubbish.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi deploys drones every three months to monitor the size of the trash heap and is experimenting with ways to extract methane from the trash mountain, the report said.
But too much rubbish is arriving every day to keep up. The committee said bio-mining had been “slow and tardy” and it was “highly unlikely” the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (which has now merged with North and South Delhi Municipal Corporations) would achieve its target of “flattening the garbage mountain” by 2024.
“No effective plans to reduce the height of the garbage mountain have been made,” the report said. Furthermore, “it should have proposed a long time ago that future dumping of garbage in them would pollute the groundwater systems,” the report added.
CNN sent a series of questions along with the data from the water testing questionnaire to India’s Environment and Health Ministries. There has been no response from the ministries.
In a 2019 report, the Indian government recommended ways to improve the country’s solid waste management, including formalizing the recycling sector and installing more compost plants in the country.
While some improvements have been made, such as better door-to-door garbage collection and processing of waste, Delhi’s landfills continue to accumulate waste.
In October, the National Green Tribunal fined the state government more than $100 million for failing to dispose of more than 30 million metric tonnes of waste across its three landfill sites.
“The problem is Delhi doesn’t have a concrete solid waste action plan in place,” said Singh from the CSE. “So we are talking here about dump site remediation and the treatment of legacy waste, but imagine the fresh waste which is generated on a regular basis. All of that is getting dumped everyday into these landfills.”
“(So) let’s say you are treating 1,000 tons of legacy (waste) and then you are dumping 2,000 tons of fresh waste every day it will become a vicious cycle. It will be a never ending process,” Singh said.
“Management of legacy waste, of course, is mandated by the government and is very, very important. But you just can’t start the process without having an alternative facility of fresh waste. So that’s the biggest challenge.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/tra ... 43049.html
A trash heap 62 meters high shows the scale of India's climate challenge
Vedika Sud
Sat, December 10, 2022 at 7:02 PM
At the Bhalswa landfill in northwest Delhi, a steady flow of jeeps zigzag up the trash heap to dump more garbage on a pile now over 62 meters (203 feet) high.
Fires caused by heat and methane gas sporadically break out – the Delhi Fire Service Department has responded to 14 fires so far this year – and some deep beneath the pile can smolder for weeks or months, while men, women and children work nearby, sifting through the rubbish to find items to sell.
Some of the 200,000 residents who live in Bhalswa say the area is uninhabitable, but they can’t afford to move and have no choice but to breathe the toxic air and bathe in its contaminated water.
Bhalswa is not Delhi’s largest landfill. It’s about three meters lower than the biggest, Ghazipur, and both contribute to the country’s total output of methane gas.
Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, but a more potent contributor to the climate crisis because methane traps more heat. India creates more methane from landfill sites than any other country, according to GHGSat, which monitors methane via satellites.
And India comes second only to China for total methane emissions, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Global Methane Tracker.
Ragpickers at the Bhalswa landfill site on April 28, 2022, in New Delhi, India. - Sanchit Khanna/Hindustan Times/Getty Images
As part of his “Clean India” initiative, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said efforts are being made to remove these mountains of garbage and convert them into green zones. That goal, if achieved, could relieve some of the suffering of those residents living in the shadows of these dump sites – and help the world lower its greenhouse gas emissions.
India wants to lower its methane output, but it hasn’t joined the 130 countries who have signed up to the Global Methane Pledge, a pact to collectively cut global methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. Scientists estimate the reduction could cut global temperature rise by 0.2% – and help the world reach its target of keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius.
India says it won’t join because most of its methane emissions come from farming – some 74% from farm animals and paddy fields versus less than 15% from landfill.
In a statement last year, Minister of State for Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change Ashwini Choubey said pledging to reduce India’s total methane output could threaten the livelihood of farmers and affect India’s trade and economic prospects.
But it’s also facing challenges in reducing methane from its steaming mounds of trash.
A young boy in the narrow lanes of slums in Bhalswa Dairy Village. - Rishabh Pratap/CNN
‘Here we are, with no relief’
When Narayan Choudhary, 72, moved to Bhalswa in 1982, he said it was a “beautiful place,” but that all changed 12 years later when the first rubbish began arriving at the local landfill.
In the years since, the Bhalswa dump has grown nearly as tall as the historic Taj Mahal, becoming a landmark in its own right and an eyesore that towers over surrounding homes, affecting the health of people who live there.
Choudhary suffers from chronic asthma. He said he nearly died when a large fire broke out at Bhalswa in April that burned for days. “I was in terrible shape. My face and nose were swollen. I was on my death bed,” he said.
“Two years ago we protested … a lot of residents from this area protested (to get rid of the waste),” Choudhary said. “But the municipality didn’t cooperate with us. They assured us that things will get better in two years but here we are, with no relief.”
The dump site exhausted its capacity in 2002, according to a 2020 report on India’s landfills from the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), a nonprofit research agency in New Delhi, but without government standardization in recycling systems and greater industry efforts to reduce plastic consumption and production, tonnes of garbage continue to arrive at the site daily.
Bhalswa isn’t the only dump causing distress to residents nearby – it is one of three landfills in Delhi, overflowing with decaying waste and emitting toxic gases into the air.
Across the country, there are more than 3,100 landfills. Ghazipur is the biggest in Delhi, standing at 65 meters (213 feet), and like Bhalswa, it surpassed its waste capacity in 2002 and currently produces huge amounts of methane.
According to GHGSat, on a single day in March, more than two metric tons of methane gas leaked from the site every hour.
“If sustained for a year, the methane leak from this landfill would have the same climate impact as annual emissions from 350,000 US cars,” said GHGSat CEO Stephane Germain.
Dangerous toxins in groundwater
Methane emissions aren’t the only hazard that stem from landfills like Bhalswa and Ghazipur. Over decades, dangerous toxins have seeped into the ground, polluting the water supply for thousands of residents living nearby.
In May, CNN commissioned two accredited labs to test the ground water around the Bhalswa landfill. And according to the results, ground water within at least a 500-meter (1,600-foot) radius around the waste site is contaminated.
A ground water sample from the Bhalswa landfill in northwest Delhi. - Vedika Sud/CNN
In the first lab report, levels of ammonia and sulphate were significantly higher than acceptable limits mandated by the Indian government.
Results from the second lab report showed levels of total dissolved solids (TDS) – the amount of inorganic salts and organic matter dissolved in the water – detected in one of the samples was almost 19 times the acceptable limit, making it unsafe for human drinking.
The Bureau of Indian Standards sets the acceptable limit of TDS at 500 milligrams/liter, a figure roughly seen as “good” by the World Health Organization (WHO). Anything over 900 mg/l is considered “poor” by the WHO, and over 1,200 mg/l is “unacceptable.”
According to Richa Singh from the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), the TDS of water taken near the Bhalswa site was between 3,000 and 4,000 mg/l. “This water is not only unfit for drinking but also unfit for skin contact,” she said. “So it can’t be used for purposes like bathing or cleaning of the utensils or cleaning of the clothes.”
Dr. Nitesh Rohatgi, the senior director of medical oncology at Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram, urged the government to study the health of the local population and compare it to other areas of the city, “so that in 15 to 20 years’ time, we are not looking back and regretting that we had a higher cancer incidence, higher health hazards, higher health issues and we didn’t look back and correct them in time.”
Most people in Bhalswa rely on bottled water for drinking, but they use local water for other purposes – many say they have no choice.
“The water we get is contaminated, but we have to helplessly store it and use it for washing utensils, bathing and at times drinking too,” said resident Sonia Bibi, whose legs are covered in a thick, red rash.
Jwala Prashad, 87, who lives in a small hut in an alleyway near the landfill, said the pile of putrid trash had made his life “a living hell.”
“The water we use is pale red in color. My skin burns after bathing,” he said, as he tried to soothe red gashes on his face and neck.
“But I can’t afford to ever leave this place,” he added.
Jwala Prashad, 87, at the handpump in front of his house in Bhalswa Dairy Village. - Rishabh Pratap/CNN
Waste target in doubt
More than 2,300 tonnes of Municipal Solid Waste arrive at Delhi’s largest dump in Ghazipur every day, according to a report released in July by a joint committee formed to find a way to reduce the number of fires at the site.
That’s the bulk of the waste from the surrounding area – only 300 tonnes is processed and disposed of by other means, the report said. And less than 7% of legacy waste had been bio-mined, which involves excavating, treating and potentially reusing old rubbish.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi deploys drones every three months to monitor the size of the trash heap and is experimenting with ways to extract methane from the trash mountain, the report said.
But too much rubbish is arriving every day to keep up. The committee said bio-mining had been “slow and tardy” and it was “highly unlikely” the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (which has now merged with North and South Delhi Municipal Corporations) would achieve its target of “flattening the garbage mountain” by 2024.
“No effective plans to reduce the height of the garbage mountain have been made,” the report said. Furthermore, “it should have proposed a long time ago that future dumping of garbage in them would pollute the groundwater systems,” the report added.
CNN sent a series of questions along with the data from the water testing questionnaire to India’s Environment and Health Ministries. There has been no response from the ministries.
In a 2019 report, the Indian government recommended ways to improve the country’s solid waste management, including formalizing the recycling sector and installing more compost plants in the country.
While some improvements have been made, such as better door-to-door garbage collection and processing of waste, Delhi’s landfills continue to accumulate waste.
In October, the National Green Tribunal fined the state government more than $100 million for failing to dispose of more than 30 million metric tonnes of waste across its three landfill sites.
“The problem is Delhi doesn’t have a concrete solid waste action plan in place,” said Singh from the CSE. “So we are talking here about dump site remediation and the treatment of legacy waste, but imagine the fresh waste which is generated on a regular basis. All of that is getting dumped everyday into these landfills.”
“(So) let’s say you are treating 1,000 tons of legacy (waste) and then you are dumping 2,000 tons of fresh waste every day it will become a vicious cycle. It will be a never ending process,” Singh said.
“Management of legacy waste, of course, is mandated by the government and is very, very important. But you just can’t start the process without having an alternative facility of fresh waste. So that’s the biggest challenge.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/tra ... 43049.html
Re: Health and Healing
Drinking cow urine is known to be harmful – so why do people consume it every day in India?
Joe Wallen
Tue, April 25, 2023 at 1:00 AM CDT
It was a surprise how many Indians were shocked by the study’s findings – drinking cow urine was found to be significantly harmful to human health.
The research carried out by the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) discovered urine samples from healthy cows contained 14 types of harmful bacteria. Escherichia coli, which causes stomach infections, was most commonly detected.
Cow urine has long been purported as having a host of health-giving benefits by those who practise ‘Ayurveda’, an alternative, holistic medicine system that derives its teachings from Hindu scriptures and can trace back its roots in India more than 2,000 years.
Involving a mixture of herbal medicines, medical oils and mineral substances, as well as adherence to a strict diet and often the practice of yoga and meditation, Ayurveda is considered a pseudoscience by many in the West.
But at least 77 percent of Indians use Ayurvedic products, according to a 2017 report, with this figure expected to have grown further since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The industry is worth £7.8 billion, and a quick Google search displays a host of major Ayurveda firms advertising products.
Patanjali, India’s largest Ayurvedic firm, sells a medicine containing bottled cow urine for 50p which promises to “cure eczema, control diabetes and cancer”. Easy Ayurveda, another brand, provides customers detailed instructions on how to distil urine, claiming it is useful against a host of conditions from leprosy to asthma.
Infamously, during India’s devastating Covid-19 second wave, several parliamentarians from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) even advised their constituents to drink cow urine to avoid infection from the virus.
The findings from the IVRI might not come as a shock to many scientists and doctors around the world, but they have again raised questions of India’s poorly-regulated Ayurveda industry and the belief it might be doing more harm than good.
Ayurveda’s critics do agree that there are compounds and medicines used in the ancient practice which can play a pivotal part in modern medicine today.
As early as 300 BC, there are records of Indian Ayurvedic physicians using the seeds of the velvet bean plant to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
The seeds contain high levels of levodopa, an amino acid that was found to be an effective dopamine replacement agent and is now considered the gold standard treatment for Parkinson’s patients.
“There are many medications within Ayurveda that are effective that have been adopted into western medicines,” explains Dr Ramanan Laxminarayan, the Founder and Director of the One Health Trust, a leading public health research organisation headquartered in Washington DC and Delhi.
“Ayurveda has phenomenal potential but it can’t be evaluated adequately by a western, reductionist approach. It is a systemic approach, the ultimate level of personalised medicine and relies on a physician who can treat your needs, specifically.”
Dr Laxminarayan advocates for a science-based approach to public healthcare but says this can be twinned with the benefits of Ayurveda.
He consumes Arjuna powder on a daily basis, for example, a powdered bark from the Arjuna tree which scientific studies have shown can lower cortisol and blood pressure.
Even this correspondent, a resident of India for over four years now, consumes Ashwagandha supplements, which derive from a flowering shrub found in India and the Middle East, which studies suggest can bolster the immune system and reduce stress.
Regulation across the Indian health sector remains the major issue. This doesn’t just apply to Ayurveda but also its pharmaceutical industry – at least 70 children in the Gambia and 20 children in Uzbekistan died last year after consuming cough syrups allegedly manufactured in India.
India’s pharmaceutical and Ayurveda industries are one of the country’s few manufacturing successes and, therefore, there is little political will to enforce quality control checks or publish studies critical of the industry.
But, in 2017, a right to information request found nearly 40 percent of Ayurveda products tested by the Indian government were found to be of substandard quality, including several items sold by Patanjali.
Items were found to contain toxic levels of heavy metals, including lead, as well as insecticides, pesticides, industrial solvents, antibiotics and steroids.
‘Business, masquerading as healthcare’
Most European countries have now banned Ayurveda products due to concerns over manufacturing practices.
In the United Kingdom, Ayurveda products are available but hundreds of items have been banned over the last decade after they were found to be unsafe.
“A lot of products on the market now do not follow classic Ayurvedic instruction but instead are manufactured by private companies,” explains Dr Abby Philips, a hepatologist based in the southern Indian state of Kerala, who investigates adverse effects of Ayurveda.
“They are marketed as food supplements so there is no need for the companies to run clinical trials. They are then given a good ‘seal of manufacturing’ and their products are sold all over the country.”
Dr Philips says he consults between 10 to 12 patients a month at his clinic in the city of Kochi. He says liver and kidney failure are the most common ailments and symptoms can almost always be directly linked to when a patient began taking Ayurveda products.
“People should understand that Ayurvedic herbal medicines are usually not natural and safe and a lot of people are suffering from side effects,” adds Dr Philips.
“It is my strong opinion that I don’t think Ayurveda should play any role in public health. It is purely a business, masquerading as healthcare and people should not opt for it.”
In addition to the financial benefits, the BJP’s promotion of Ayurveda fits their broader Hindu nationalist narrative and the owners of major Ayurveda companies can enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship with the party.
Take Patanjali, which aims to turn over £15 billion in annual sales by 2025. The company is headed by Baba Ramdev, a 57-year-old self-styled Hindu yoga guru who has 11 million followers on Facebook and regularly fills stadiums with his sermons.
Mr Ramdev has regularly appeared on stage with India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and has vocally spoken out in support of the party, which has in turn publicly promoted Patanjali products.
“There is so much promotion of Ayurveda in India from politicians and other key stakeholders and it is because of this the practice has become so popular in India in recent years – not because of clinical evidence,” argues Dr Philips.
“There is a huge political role and nationalistic appeal. It’s nationalism, tradition and cultural values all wrapped together and sold to the Indian population.”
Shortly after Mr Modi was first elected in 2014, he created an entire new government ministry to promote yoga and Ayurveda and the practice seems here to stay.
Notably, during the Covid-19 pandemic, senior BJP officials appeared in public with Mr Ramdev to promote Coronil, a pill containing 53 plant-based chemicals that the latter alleged would cure a patient of coronavirus in seven days.
There was no scientific evidence for this and the product was heavily criticised by India’s doctors. Despite a criminal case being filed against Mr Ramdev, the government in the BJP-ruled state of Haryana still announced they would still distribute Coronil to the public.
The scandal around Coronil and more recently on the consumption of cow urine have both defamed Ayurveda as a practice in India and could detract from the discovery of important, new public healthcare tools, experts worry.
“In terms of Ayurveda, the challenge is subjecting practices and modalities to much more stringent testing and approvals, but many of these protocols remain to be developed” argues Dr Laxminarayan.
“Certainly, there are many hidden gems in Ayurveda but also a lot that are poorly validated and not supported by evidence. Separating what is effective and safe from what is not is the task that lies ahead.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/dr ... 00286.html
Joe Wallen
Tue, April 25, 2023 at 1:00 AM CDT
It was a surprise how many Indians were shocked by the study’s findings – drinking cow urine was found to be significantly harmful to human health.
The research carried out by the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) discovered urine samples from healthy cows contained 14 types of harmful bacteria. Escherichia coli, which causes stomach infections, was most commonly detected.
Cow urine has long been purported as having a host of health-giving benefits by those who practise ‘Ayurveda’, an alternative, holistic medicine system that derives its teachings from Hindu scriptures and can trace back its roots in India more than 2,000 years.
Involving a mixture of herbal medicines, medical oils and mineral substances, as well as adherence to a strict diet and often the practice of yoga and meditation, Ayurveda is considered a pseudoscience by many in the West.
But at least 77 percent of Indians use Ayurvedic products, according to a 2017 report, with this figure expected to have grown further since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The industry is worth £7.8 billion, and a quick Google search displays a host of major Ayurveda firms advertising products.
Patanjali, India’s largest Ayurvedic firm, sells a medicine containing bottled cow urine for 50p which promises to “cure eczema, control diabetes and cancer”. Easy Ayurveda, another brand, provides customers detailed instructions on how to distil urine, claiming it is useful against a host of conditions from leprosy to asthma.
Infamously, during India’s devastating Covid-19 second wave, several parliamentarians from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) even advised their constituents to drink cow urine to avoid infection from the virus.
The findings from the IVRI might not come as a shock to many scientists and doctors around the world, but they have again raised questions of India’s poorly-regulated Ayurveda industry and the belief it might be doing more harm than good.
Ayurveda’s critics do agree that there are compounds and medicines used in the ancient practice which can play a pivotal part in modern medicine today.
As early as 300 BC, there are records of Indian Ayurvedic physicians using the seeds of the velvet bean plant to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
The seeds contain high levels of levodopa, an amino acid that was found to be an effective dopamine replacement agent and is now considered the gold standard treatment for Parkinson’s patients.
“There are many medications within Ayurveda that are effective that have been adopted into western medicines,” explains Dr Ramanan Laxminarayan, the Founder and Director of the One Health Trust, a leading public health research organisation headquartered in Washington DC and Delhi.
“Ayurveda has phenomenal potential but it can’t be evaluated adequately by a western, reductionist approach. It is a systemic approach, the ultimate level of personalised medicine and relies on a physician who can treat your needs, specifically.”
Dr Laxminarayan advocates for a science-based approach to public healthcare but says this can be twinned with the benefits of Ayurveda.
He consumes Arjuna powder on a daily basis, for example, a powdered bark from the Arjuna tree which scientific studies have shown can lower cortisol and blood pressure.
Even this correspondent, a resident of India for over four years now, consumes Ashwagandha supplements, which derive from a flowering shrub found in India and the Middle East, which studies suggest can bolster the immune system and reduce stress.
Regulation across the Indian health sector remains the major issue. This doesn’t just apply to Ayurveda but also its pharmaceutical industry – at least 70 children in the Gambia and 20 children in Uzbekistan died last year after consuming cough syrups allegedly manufactured in India.
India’s pharmaceutical and Ayurveda industries are one of the country’s few manufacturing successes and, therefore, there is little political will to enforce quality control checks or publish studies critical of the industry.
But, in 2017, a right to information request found nearly 40 percent of Ayurveda products tested by the Indian government were found to be of substandard quality, including several items sold by Patanjali.
Items were found to contain toxic levels of heavy metals, including lead, as well as insecticides, pesticides, industrial solvents, antibiotics and steroids.
‘Business, masquerading as healthcare’
Most European countries have now banned Ayurveda products due to concerns over manufacturing practices.
In the United Kingdom, Ayurveda products are available but hundreds of items have been banned over the last decade after they were found to be unsafe.
“A lot of products on the market now do not follow classic Ayurvedic instruction but instead are manufactured by private companies,” explains Dr Abby Philips, a hepatologist based in the southern Indian state of Kerala, who investigates adverse effects of Ayurveda.
“They are marketed as food supplements so there is no need for the companies to run clinical trials. They are then given a good ‘seal of manufacturing’ and their products are sold all over the country.”
Dr Philips says he consults between 10 to 12 patients a month at his clinic in the city of Kochi. He says liver and kidney failure are the most common ailments and symptoms can almost always be directly linked to when a patient began taking Ayurveda products.
“People should understand that Ayurvedic herbal medicines are usually not natural and safe and a lot of people are suffering from side effects,” adds Dr Philips.
“It is my strong opinion that I don’t think Ayurveda should play any role in public health. It is purely a business, masquerading as healthcare and people should not opt for it.”
In addition to the financial benefits, the BJP’s promotion of Ayurveda fits their broader Hindu nationalist narrative and the owners of major Ayurveda companies can enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship with the party.
Take Patanjali, which aims to turn over £15 billion in annual sales by 2025. The company is headed by Baba Ramdev, a 57-year-old self-styled Hindu yoga guru who has 11 million followers on Facebook and regularly fills stadiums with his sermons.
Mr Ramdev has regularly appeared on stage with India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and has vocally spoken out in support of the party, which has in turn publicly promoted Patanjali products.
“There is so much promotion of Ayurveda in India from politicians and other key stakeholders and it is because of this the practice has become so popular in India in recent years – not because of clinical evidence,” argues Dr Philips.
“There is a huge political role and nationalistic appeal. It’s nationalism, tradition and cultural values all wrapped together and sold to the Indian population.”
Shortly after Mr Modi was first elected in 2014, he created an entire new government ministry to promote yoga and Ayurveda and the practice seems here to stay.
Notably, during the Covid-19 pandemic, senior BJP officials appeared in public with Mr Ramdev to promote Coronil, a pill containing 53 plant-based chemicals that the latter alleged would cure a patient of coronavirus in seven days.
There was no scientific evidence for this and the product was heavily criticised by India’s doctors. Despite a criminal case being filed against Mr Ramdev, the government in the BJP-ruled state of Haryana still announced they would still distribute Coronil to the public.
The scandal around Coronil and more recently on the consumption of cow urine have both defamed Ayurveda as a practice in India and could detract from the discovery of important, new public healthcare tools, experts worry.
“In terms of Ayurveda, the challenge is subjecting practices and modalities to much more stringent testing and approvals, but many of these protocols remain to be developed” argues Dr Laxminarayan.
“Certainly, there are many hidden gems in Ayurveda but also a lot that are poorly validated and not supported by evidence. Separating what is effective and safe from what is not is the task that lies ahead.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/dr ... 00286.html
Can Walking Barefoot Heal Your Heart?
Why do so many people equate relaxation and pleasure with walking barefoot along the beach as the waves roll in? How come my son River’s first instinct is to take his shoes off when he sees a field of green grass?
Is it kooky human behavior that is simply hard-wired into our genetic makeup, or is there something more to this urge to remove footwear?
The Unshod, or Shoe-Less, Revolution
Historically speaking, it seems like we’re right in step with our forebearers. Long before we had cushiony sneakers, our distant ancestors tended to walk barefoot over rock, rubble, dirt, stick, and stream. Their feet were strong and nimble, able to sense and react to any surface they encountered. More recent native cultures often walk through nature on their naked soles, instead of wearing moccasins or similar footwear.
Commonalities like “barefootedness”, that we see repeated among ancient groups, beg for further investigation as to “why?” Especially in cultures where simple foot gear was already an option.
Thankfully, there is good science behind shoelessness and the findings are fascinating.
Current Research on Grounding
It turns out that the sensation we feel when our feet make contact with moist sand is more than just a feeling. This therapeutic touch of mother earth is laden with remarkable health benefits,
reducing inflammation,
boosting antioxidants in our body,
improving sleep,
and, promoting healthy blood flow.
The primordial practice of walking barefoot, sometimes referred to as “grounding,” is only just beginning to be studied by modern science. One of the most groundbreaking findings is the powerful heart health effect of direct skin contact with the earth.
A study published by the Journal of Alternative And Complementary Medicine from 2013 states that walking barefoot “reduces blood viscosity, which is a major factor in cardiovascular disease”.
Blood viscosity is a term used to describe the “thickness and stickiness of your blood.” The lower the viscosity, the easier your blood flows through your blood vessels and circulates throughout your body. The higher your blood’s viscosity, or thickness, the slower it moves.
To test the effects of grounding on blood viscosity, subjects had their red blood cells (RBCs) examined under a microscope to determine the number of clumped groups of RBCs in each sample. High instances of aggregation (or clumping) in human blood increases your blood viscosity and can result in cardiovascular disease. This experiment was intended to measure whether grounding to the earth’s innate electrical charge would have a positive effect on this blood condition. Can grounding help to prevent the deadly disease that is linked to it?
Long story short, walking barefoot substantially lowered the instance of unwanted blood cell clumping in every one of the subjects and promoted healthier circulation.
*A later study in the same journal found that “grounding” or “earthing” may help regulate both the endocrine and nervous systems as well.
We present-day humans live in a sea of electromagnetic waves radiated by mobile phone signals, Wi-Fi, automatic doors etc. This is referred to as “dirty electricity” or “electromagnetic pollution.” Luckily for us, the earth’s surface is rich with electrons that can neutralize this dirty electricity. Vibrating and charging the currents within us back into healthy balance.
This can boost our energy, balance our mood, clarify our thinking, and perhaps even save our lives.
A Sacred Science barefoot challenge for you:
Next time you’re in front of an appealing patch of earth,
Remove your shoes and socks and do the unthinkable…
Step forth onto said terra firma and feel the sensation that runs through your body…
Envision the cells in your bloodstream recalibrating as you do so, because well, they are.
That’s it.
I’d recommend you do this at least a few times a week for better heart health and overall happiness. We’re earth dwellers, why separate ourselves from her with rubber soles? And if you’re wondering if winter gets in the way of this little exercise, my family walks barefoot in the snow as well
*I find it’s fun to go foot-naked in odd places in the midst of shoe-wearers who scratch their heads in confusion as they watch… BUT it’s also nice to do in the comfort of your own backyard or the middle of the forest.
Stay shoeless,
Nick Polizzi
Host of Remedy: Ancient Medicine for Modern Illness
& Founder of The Sacred Science
https://www.thesacredscience.com/can-wa ... our-heart/
Holistic and Functional Approaches for Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s is a frightening disease. Its dreaded consequences are felt by not only those who suffer from it but also their loved ones. Over the years, Alzheimer’s has claimed many lives worldwide and continues to do so even today in the age of advanced science.
Latest data from the CDC shows that the US´s neurodegenerative disease rates are at the highest level since World War II. Many specialists from around the globe including scientists, biochemists, medical doctors, and holistic doctors are working together to bring new approaches that are showing promising results for thousands around the world. By approaching these epidemic health concerns with an approach that looks to find the root causes instead of simply just trying to address the symptom, people are actually seeing learning how to prevent and even recover from neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer’s is a progressive disorder that hampers memory and is a leading cause of dementia among individuals. People who have Alzheimer’s often show the following signs and symptoms;
signs and symptoms_ of alzheimers disease
Memory loss disrupting daily life.
Challenges in planning and solving problems
Difficulty in performing mundane tasks
Confusion with time or place.
Trouble in understanding images and spatial relationship
Problem with speaking or writing
Misplacing things
Poor Judgement
Withdrawal from work and society
Mood changes
However, by adopting data driven and genetically driven holistic approaches many are seeing a reversal in their symptoms and practitioners are seeing promising results with tackling these neurodegenerative issues associated with Alzheimer’s. The entire idea behind a functional or holistic approach is not merely to treat the disease of the symptoms, but to find and address the root causes of the dysfunction. Functional practitioners understand that the way you treat your body can affect your brain. Holistic and functional medicine practitioners focus on identifying the cause and removing those interferences so the body can restore normal function.
Using Data-driven approaches to understand how the body is functioning on a genetic level, for example, shows the practitioner and the client how to modify their lifestyle so their body can clear toxins and allow the body to heal itself.
Adopting a holistic approach first means understanding what is causing the symptoms. The causes can be high stress, lack of nutrition in the diet, an excess of dairy, sugar, or toxic chemicals in the food, underlying infections, or exposure to environmental toxins and heavy metals.
Factors Influencing Alzheimer’s:
High Stress
It is essential to manage stress in your life. Doctors have found stress to be one factor that is related to dementia, depression, anxiety, and chronic illness in people. According to a research study conducted by a research publication affiliated with the University of Toronto, Chronic stress is associated with the degeneration and impaired functioning of the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex which increases the risk of depression.
Including stress management, exercises like Yoga and meditation can help in relieving stress and the adverse effects it can have on your body.
Environmental Toxins In Our Foods
Herbicides are usually used as weed killers to protect the quality of organically grown food. Herbicides like Glyphosate are typically found in commodity foods such as oats, wheat, corn, almonds, quinoa, produce like fruits and vegetables, etc. The consumption of Glyphosate through such food can trigger symptoms that can severely alter brain chemistry.
Glyphosate can also wreak havoc on our guts. Our Gut is responsible for producing around 75% of the brain’s neurotransmitters and regulating about 70% of our immune system. When our gut is under attack from foreign bodies such as Glyphosate it naturally disrupts the body’s innate immune system, thus leading to interference with normal neurological and immune function which can then lead to neurological disorders and chronic auto immune disease.
Unhealthy Diet
The standard American diet is full of delicacies rich in gluten, dairy, and sugar. Gluten and dairy can cause severe neural inflammation in your brain that results alterations in brain chemistry and even atrophy of the cerebellum region. Avoiding gluten foods is a step in the right direction if you are looking for implementing preventative measures against Alzheimer’s. (N Engl J Med, 1982; 307 (14): 895)
Dairy
A substantial amount of studies have been conducted over the years associating dairy with schizophrenia, ADD/ADHD, depression, and other brain chemistry imbalances. Dairy is also known to cause complete psychosis among some individuals.
Avoiding dairy products like cheese, yogurt, and butter can do wonders in tackling the early signs and symptoms of neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s.
Underlying Infections
Infections like candida, clostridium, or different kinds of molds can severely affect the body’s dopamine levels. Infections can release neurotoxins that block can block normal neurotransmitter production and conversion. Clostridia is an example of one type of infetions that can alter production and conversion of dopamine and norepinephrine. This result in excessively high levels of dopamine that trigger fight or flight responses in the brain that cause Alzheimer’s. In addition, high levels of dopamine cause damage to neurons in the brain. (Nutritional Neuroscience 2010 Vol 13 No 3: 1-10).
Alzheimer’s continues to be an elusive disease in the medical world. However, by transforming our lives with the help of functional medicine and holistic approaches, many are seeing positive results in reversing and preventing neuro degenerative disease and brain chemistry imbalances.
https://www.modernholistichealth.com/ho ... lzheimers/
Latest data from the CDC shows that the US´s neurodegenerative disease rates are at the highest level since World War II. Many specialists from around the globe including scientists, biochemists, medical doctors, and holistic doctors are working together to bring new approaches that are showing promising results for thousands around the world. By approaching these epidemic health concerns with an approach that looks to find the root causes instead of simply just trying to address the symptom, people are actually seeing learning how to prevent and even recover from neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer’s is a progressive disorder that hampers memory and is a leading cause of dementia among individuals. People who have Alzheimer’s often show the following signs and symptoms;
signs and symptoms_ of alzheimers disease
Memory loss disrupting daily life.
Challenges in planning and solving problems
Difficulty in performing mundane tasks
Confusion with time or place.
Trouble in understanding images and spatial relationship
Problem with speaking or writing
Misplacing things
Poor Judgement
Withdrawal from work and society
Mood changes
However, by adopting data driven and genetically driven holistic approaches many are seeing a reversal in their symptoms and practitioners are seeing promising results with tackling these neurodegenerative issues associated with Alzheimer’s. The entire idea behind a functional or holistic approach is not merely to treat the disease of the symptoms, but to find and address the root causes of the dysfunction. Functional practitioners understand that the way you treat your body can affect your brain. Holistic and functional medicine practitioners focus on identifying the cause and removing those interferences so the body can restore normal function.
Using Data-driven approaches to understand how the body is functioning on a genetic level, for example, shows the practitioner and the client how to modify their lifestyle so their body can clear toxins and allow the body to heal itself.
Adopting a holistic approach first means understanding what is causing the symptoms. The causes can be high stress, lack of nutrition in the diet, an excess of dairy, sugar, or toxic chemicals in the food, underlying infections, or exposure to environmental toxins and heavy metals.
Factors Influencing Alzheimer’s:
High Stress
It is essential to manage stress in your life. Doctors have found stress to be one factor that is related to dementia, depression, anxiety, and chronic illness in people. According to a research study conducted by a research publication affiliated with the University of Toronto, Chronic stress is associated with the degeneration and impaired functioning of the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex which increases the risk of depression.
Including stress management, exercises like Yoga and meditation can help in relieving stress and the adverse effects it can have on your body.
Environmental Toxins In Our Foods
Herbicides are usually used as weed killers to protect the quality of organically grown food. Herbicides like Glyphosate are typically found in commodity foods such as oats, wheat, corn, almonds, quinoa, produce like fruits and vegetables, etc. The consumption of Glyphosate through such food can trigger symptoms that can severely alter brain chemistry.
Glyphosate can also wreak havoc on our guts. Our Gut is responsible for producing around 75% of the brain’s neurotransmitters and regulating about 70% of our immune system. When our gut is under attack from foreign bodies such as Glyphosate it naturally disrupts the body’s innate immune system, thus leading to interference with normal neurological and immune function which can then lead to neurological disorders and chronic auto immune disease.
Unhealthy Diet
The standard American diet is full of delicacies rich in gluten, dairy, and sugar. Gluten and dairy can cause severe neural inflammation in your brain that results alterations in brain chemistry and even atrophy of the cerebellum region. Avoiding gluten foods is a step in the right direction if you are looking for implementing preventative measures against Alzheimer’s. (N Engl J Med, 1982; 307 (14): 895)
Dairy
A substantial amount of studies have been conducted over the years associating dairy with schizophrenia, ADD/ADHD, depression, and other brain chemistry imbalances. Dairy is also known to cause complete psychosis among some individuals.
Avoiding dairy products like cheese, yogurt, and butter can do wonders in tackling the early signs and symptoms of neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s.
Underlying Infections
Infections like candida, clostridium, or different kinds of molds can severely affect the body’s dopamine levels. Infections can release neurotoxins that block can block normal neurotransmitter production and conversion. Clostridia is an example of one type of infetions that can alter production and conversion of dopamine and norepinephrine. This result in excessively high levels of dopamine that trigger fight or flight responses in the brain that cause Alzheimer’s. In addition, high levels of dopamine cause damage to neurons in the brain. (Nutritional Neuroscience 2010 Vol 13 No 3: 1-10).
Alzheimer’s continues to be an elusive disease in the medical world. However, by transforming our lives with the help of functional medicine and holistic approaches, many are seeing positive results in reversing and preventing neuro degenerative disease and brain chemistry imbalances.
https://www.modernholistichealth.com/ho ... lzheimers/
Re: Health and Healing
Fox News
Georgia resident dies from rare brain-eating amoeba found in freshwater lakes
Bradford Betz
Mon, July 31, 2023 at 2:26 PM CDT
A Georgia resident has died from a rare "brain-eating amoeba," the state’s health department confirmed last Wednesday.
The resident likely became infected while swimming in a freshwater lake or pond in Georgia, the health department said.
"Naegleria fowleri" is a rare infection that destroys brain tissue, causing brain swelling and usually death. The amoeba lives in soil and warm, freshwater lakes, rivers, ponds and hot springs. It is not found in salt water and is not found in properly treated drinking water and swimming pools.
Officials did not say where the victim was infected. Nor did officials release any additional information about the victim. This is the sixth case of the infection in Georgia since 1962.
Naegleria fowleri
Under a magnification of 125X, this photomicrograph of a brain tissue specimen depicts the cytoarchitectural changes associated with a free-living, Naegleria fowleri, amebic infection.
People can become infected when water containing the amoeba goes up a person's nose. It cannot infect people if swallowed and is not spread from person to person.
"The amoeba is naturally occurring, and there is no routine environmental test for Naegleria fowleri in bodies of water; and because it is very common in the environment, levels of the amoebas that naturally occur cannot be controlled," health officials said. "The location and number of amoebas in the water can vary over time within the same body of water."
Symptoms of an infection include severe headache, fever, nausea and vomiting and progress to a stiff neck, seizures and coma that can lead to death. Symptoms start about five days after infection but can start anywhere from 1 to 12 days after infection. Symptoms progress rapidly and can cause death within five days.
People who choose to swim can reduce their risk of infection by limiting the amount of water that goes up their nose. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends not jumping or diving into bodies of fresh water, as well as holding your nose shut and keeping your head above water.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ge ... 06337.html
Georgia resident dies from rare brain-eating amoeba found in freshwater lakes
Bradford Betz
Mon, July 31, 2023 at 2:26 PM CDT
A Georgia resident has died from a rare "brain-eating amoeba," the state’s health department confirmed last Wednesday.
The resident likely became infected while swimming in a freshwater lake or pond in Georgia, the health department said.
"Naegleria fowleri" is a rare infection that destroys brain tissue, causing brain swelling and usually death. The amoeba lives in soil and warm, freshwater lakes, rivers, ponds and hot springs. It is not found in salt water and is not found in properly treated drinking water and swimming pools.
Officials did not say where the victim was infected. Nor did officials release any additional information about the victim. This is the sixth case of the infection in Georgia since 1962.
Naegleria fowleri
Under a magnification of 125X, this photomicrograph of a brain tissue specimen depicts the cytoarchitectural changes associated with a free-living, Naegleria fowleri, amebic infection.
People can become infected when water containing the amoeba goes up a person's nose. It cannot infect people if swallowed and is not spread from person to person.
"The amoeba is naturally occurring, and there is no routine environmental test for Naegleria fowleri in bodies of water; and because it is very common in the environment, levels of the amoebas that naturally occur cannot be controlled," health officials said. "The location and number of amoebas in the water can vary over time within the same body of water."
Symptoms of an infection include severe headache, fever, nausea and vomiting and progress to a stiff neck, seizures and coma that can lead to death. Symptoms start about five days after infection but can start anywhere from 1 to 12 days after infection. Symptoms progress rapidly and can cause death within five days.
People who choose to swim can reduce their risk of infection by limiting the amount of water that goes up their nose. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends not jumping or diving into bodies of fresh water, as well as holding your nose shut and keeping your head above water.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ge ... 06337.html
Equal Access to Safe Medicines Is a Global Human Right
In April, a pregnant woman died at a hospital in Kandy, Sri Lanka, of complications blamed on an anaesthetic manufactured in India. A few months earlier, Indian-made cough syrups were linked to the deaths of children in Gambia and Uzbekistan. Substandard medicines also were found this year in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia before they could do any harm.
These incidents in far-flung corners of the world reveal the contours of a global crisis of unsafe drugs that inordinately affects poor countries. Over the past two decades, India emerged as the “pharmacy of the developing world,” the leading manufacturer of generic drugs and medicines, producing more than 20 percent of the world’s supply. This has helped to make a range of medicines available to poor patients around the world who previously had to do without.
Today, however, India stands accused of distributing death, as its regulators fail to prevent the manufacture and export of substandard medicines. But this isn’t entirely a made-in-India problem. There is a dirty secret in global health: Rich countries get quality medicines, the poor sometimes get poison.
The problem lies mainly in regulatory inequities between rich and poor nations. Developed countries have well-funded regulators keeping an eye on the safety and quality of drugs. India’s output, however, is overseen by its Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, an opaque agency that has long faced allegations of mismanagement and corruption. Many developing nations don’t have the resources to properly vet imported medicines.
The World Health Organization estimated in 2017 that one in 10 medicines sold in low- and middle-income countries were thought to be substandard or falsified. Independent modeling studies based on those numbers indicate that this could result in as many as 285,000 children dying every year from malaria and pneumonia. The W.H.O. has not released more recent numbers, and there is limited data on exactly how much of this comes from India.
The global drug supply system is a vast and complex network. As of 2021, India manufactured 62 percent of the raw materials for drugs, known as active pharmaceutical ingredients. China manufactures 23 percent, and the United States and Europe make most of the remainder. These ingredients get shipped all over the world and are turned into drugs that have to be vetted by national regulators with varying levels of oversight and quality standards. The resulting medicines and vaccines enter intricate supply chains and end up being administered to pregnant women in Sri Lanka and coughing children in Gambia.
The recent deaths bring with them a strong sense of déjà vu. As H.I.V. spread in the 1990s, new antiretroviral treatments first developed in the United States were locked in patent monopolies, which kept prices high and delayed the introduction of affordable generics. The monopolies prevented these lifesaving treatments from getting to patients in Africa — where the H.I.V. crisis was snowballing — for nearly a decade. In 2003 alone, an estimated 3 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were newly infected, and 2.2 million died of AIDS. By 2004, the region — then home to around 10 percent of the world’s population — had close to two-thirds of all people living with H.I.V., some 25 million.
This tragedy led, however, to one of the greatest and least celebrated successes in global health.
By 2001, the Indian drug maker Cipla had begun making an antiretroviral treatment that cost less than $1 a day. Patents on pharmaceutical products were not recognized under Indian law at the time, allowing India’s generic pharmaceutical industry to reverse-engineer H.I.V. drugs. It was a watershed moment. By 2002, the average annual cost of antiretrovirals plummeted from as much as $15,000 per patient in the 1990s to as little as $300 — and India was on its way to becoming the pharmacy of the world.
As Indian-made drugs began flowing across the globe, the W.H.O. in 2001 set up a groundbreaking program to monitor safety and quality, called the Prequalification of Medicines Program or P.Q.P., which set global standards for H.I.V. medicines made by different nations. A year later, it was expanded to include medicines used to treat tuberculosis and malaria. With that, there was new hope in the fight against three of the biggest plagues of our time. The program is one of those unsung policies that keep the global health structure ticking.
The P.Q.P. effectively became a de facto drug approval authority for developing countries, and today it assures the safety of over 1,700 medical products — including medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and a wide range of other medical and disease-control equipment. Yet it does not cover all “essential medicines,” a regularly updated W.H.O. list of hundreds of drugs ranging from antibiotics to opioids and anesthetics that are considered vital for any basic health care system.
The program should be expanded to cover all of these medicines. However, it relies largely on voluntary and potentially unsteady philanthropic funding from organizations like the Gates Foundation. Expanding it will surely require more funding, which should be borne by W.H.O. member states.
American and European regulators can and do conduct their own on-site inspections of foreign facilities churning out essential medicines. India has the largest number of Food and Drug Administration-approved plants outside the United States. But many developing nations remain vulnerable.
The recent deaths have drawn new attention to drug safety. The African Union is setting up its own drug regulatory agency. Last month, a Gambian government task force recommended suing the Indian government over deadly cough syrup. Yet the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India last month pushed a bill through Parliament that features lighter punishments for manufacturing substandard medicines, highlighting why individual nations cannot be relied on to address the problem.
India needs to clean up its act for its own good — its growth into a powerhouse of generic drug production has polluted its rivers with antibiotic waste, spawned dangerous superbugs and made it a global hot spot for drug-resistant tuberculosis. For the rest of the world, the main benefit of India becoming the pharmacy of the poor was to break Big Pharma’s control of lifesaving medicines. More cases involving deadly Indian-made medicines could undo that positive achievement by causing irreparable harm to the global reputation of cheap generics.
Our response to the Covid pandemic was far from perfect, but it showed that the world can come together during an emergency, scaling up vaccine production and vaccination rates. W.H.O. member-states are now discussing a new pandemic treaty, which would have been unprecedented a few years ago.
For much of the pandemic the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and other developed nations presented a unified stand to protect the patent monopolies of their Covid vaccine manufacturers. Similar urgency and solidarity must be shown toward the scourge of substandard medicines.
Equal access to quality health care, regardless of wealth, nationality or race, is a global civil rights issue. Until that right is assured, millions will remain vulnerable to the next pandemic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/opin ... afety.html
Even 4,000 Steps a Day Can Have Big Health Benefits
But the more you walk, the better off you’ll be.
Exercise scientists long ago debunked the notion that you need to hit 10,000 steps each day to stay healthy and live longer. Even a little movement is good, they argue, though more is better. Now, a new study underscores that people can reap significant benefits from a comparatively small number of daily steps.
Researchers analyzed 17 studies that looked at how many steps people took, typically in a weeklong period, and followed up on their health outcomes after around seven years. They concluded that a habit of walking just under 4,000 steps per day reduced the risk of dying from any cause, including from cardiovascular disease.
That translates into a 30- to 45-minute walk, or roughly two miles, although it varies from person to person, said Dr. Seth Shay Martin, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine and an author of the study. But the more steps you take, the better off you are: Mortality risk decreased by 15 percent with every additional 1,000 steps participants took.
“It’s the best medicine we can recommend: Just going out for a walk,” said Dr. Randal Thomas, a preventive cardiology specialist at the Mayo Clinic who was not involved with the study.
The study could not definitively prove whether the steps themselves decreased the risk of developing diseases and dying, or if people who tend to be healthier anyway also get more steps in throughout the day. And because the researchers combined data across studies to determine that 4,000-step target, it may not confer the same benefit for every person, said Jennifer Heisz, an associate professor at McMaster University and the author of “Move the Body, Heal the Mind,” who was not involved in the study.
“I wouldn’t want people to look at that as a magical number, that you must be above that exact step count,” Dr. Martin said. “It’s more so that more is better.”
That principle is already well established in exercise research, said Dr. I-Min Lee, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an expert on step counts and health, who was also not involved with the study. But the new research emphasizes that fitness is not “all or nothing,” she said: Every little bit of exercise helps. The small snippets of movement built into our day — trailing from the bedroom to the bathroom, darting out to get coffee — add up and make a difference, she said.
But people who don’t consider themselves to be active, or who may struggle to exercise because of chronic conditions, may underestimate the value of the movement they get, Dr. Heisz said. Taking an extra loop around the block, or stepping out for a 10-minute walk break, can have a big impact.
People who are at the high end of the step counts in these studies are likely already exercising, whether they’re running or playing sports, Dr. Lee said; it is those who currently get few steps who could benefit most from moving more.
To incorporate that extra exercise, people can start by evaluating their baseline steps, either with a fitness tracker or a step counter built into a smartphone, and think about how to add just one walk into their day, Dr. Martin said. That can mean taking a meeting on the phone while walking instead of doing a video call, parking your car farther away or bringing your kids to the park and chasing them around, he suggested.
“People think, ‘Oh, well, this isn’t going to get me to those 10,000 steps, I’m not even close, so why bother?’” Dr. Heisz said. “It’s a discouraging thing. But saying and keeping this mantra that some is better than none, I think you really can get mental health and physical benefits from just short, brief movement breaks.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/well ... 778d3e6de3
Exercise scientists long ago debunked the notion that you need to hit 10,000 steps each day to stay healthy and live longer. Even a little movement is good, they argue, though more is better. Now, a new study underscores that people can reap significant benefits from a comparatively small number of daily steps.
Researchers analyzed 17 studies that looked at how many steps people took, typically in a weeklong period, and followed up on their health outcomes after around seven years. They concluded that a habit of walking just under 4,000 steps per day reduced the risk of dying from any cause, including from cardiovascular disease.
That translates into a 30- to 45-minute walk, or roughly two miles, although it varies from person to person, said Dr. Seth Shay Martin, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine and an author of the study. But the more steps you take, the better off you are: Mortality risk decreased by 15 percent with every additional 1,000 steps participants took.
“It’s the best medicine we can recommend: Just going out for a walk,” said Dr. Randal Thomas, a preventive cardiology specialist at the Mayo Clinic who was not involved with the study.
The study could not definitively prove whether the steps themselves decreased the risk of developing diseases and dying, or if people who tend to be healthier anyway also get more steps in throughout the day. And because the researchers combined data across studies to determine that 4,000-step target, it may not confer the same benefit for every person, said Jennifer Heisz, an associate professor at McMaster University and the author of “Move the Body, Heal the Mind,” who was not involved in the study.
“I wouldn’t want people to look at that as a magical number, that you must be above that exact step count,” Dr. Martin said. “It’s more so that more is better.”
That principle is already well established in exercise research, said Dr. I-Min Lee, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an expert on step counts and health, who was also not involved with the study. But the new research emphasizes that fitness is not “all or nothing,” she said: Every little bit of exercise helps. The small snippets of movement built into our day — trailing from the bedroom to the bathroom, darting out to get coffee — add up and make a difference, she said.
But people who don’t consider themselves to be active, or who may struggle to exercise because of chronic conditions, may underestimate the value of the movement they get, Dr. Heisz said. Taking an extra loop around the block, or stepping out for a 10-minute walk break, can have a big impact.
People who are at the high end of the step counts in these studies are likely already exercising, whether they’re running or playing sports, Dr. Lee said; it is those who currently get few steps who could benefit most from moving more.
To incorporate that extra exercise, people can start by evaluating their baseline steps, either with a fitness tracker or a step counter built into a smartphone, and think about how to add just one walk into their day, Dr. Martin said. That can mean taking a meeting on the phone while walking instead of doing a video call, parking your car farther away or bringing your kids to the park and chasing them around, he suggested.
“People think, ‘Oh, well, this isn’t going to get me to those 10,000 steps, I’m not even close, so why bother?’” Dr. Heisz said. “It’s a discouraging thing. But saying and keeping this mantra that some is better than none, I think you really can get mental health and physical benefits from just short, brief movement breaks.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/well ... 778d3e6de3
Should I Be Taking Supplements?
There are thousands on the market, but relatively few situations where they’re proven to be beneficial.
Q: Are any supplements proven to be helpful for health?
The U.S. dietary supplement industry has exploded in the last 30 years, growing from about 4,000 products in 1994 to more than 95,000 on the market today, according to the Food and Drug Administration. These capsules, powders, gummies and tinctures are often labeled with big — if vague — claims like “supports immune health” or “improves brain performance.”
But most supplements have not been rigorously tested for safety or effectiveness, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
And when researchers have tested them, she added, they haven’t typically found the health benefits they’d hoped for, and sometimes have even found some risks.
But, she said, there are some instances where taking a supplement may improve your health. Here are some of the main ones.
To Treat or Prevent a Nutrient Deficiency
If a blood test reveals that your body is low in a particular vitamin or mineral, such as vitamin D or iron, supplements can be “essential” in correcting that deficiency, said Dr. Pieter Cohen, an internist at Cambridge Health Alliance in Somerville, Mass.
The Facts Behind 5 Supplements
Card 1 of 5
Collagen. Collagen, is one of the most abundant proteins in the body and helps form our skin, bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments. As we age, we naturally start reducing its production. Some studies show that taking collagen supplements can reduce signs of aging, increase bone density and improve joint, back and knee pain. But many of these studies are small and funded by the companies behind such products, increasing the opportunity for bias. Certain products also have flaws that reduce the likelihood of their efficacy: Topical creams, for example, are unlikely to make it into the deeper level of the skin where collagen is produced.
Magnesium. Though low levels of magnesium have been associated with various sleep disorders, the evidence for the benefits of taking it for better sleep in supplemental form is thin. In fact, most people already have sufficient levels of the mineral, which helps support immune health, blood sugar regulation, and nerve and muscle function. Magnesium is easy to get in foods including nuts, greens, seeds, beans, yogurt and fish.
Vitamin B6. This essential nutrient is involved in a number of chemical reactions that are important for the proper functioning of the immune and nervous systems. As with the other essential vitamins, the body cannot produce B6 on its own, so you can only get it from foods (such as tuna, salmon, chickpeas, poultry, dark leafy greens, bananas, oranges, cantaloupe and nuts) or supplements. Most healthy adults get more than enough vitamin B6 from their diets alone, so B6 supplements are generally not needed.
Melatonin. The hormone is released by our brains as it starts to get dark outside, making us sleepy. Taking it in supplement form tricks your body into feeling like it’s nighttime. Experts urge people to consult their doctor before taking melatonin, as the supplement does not address underlying health problems, like anxiety and sleep apnea, that may disrupt sleep and require treatment. Lifestyle changes that experts say help us sleep better, from limiting alcohol consumption to exercising regularly, should also be considered first.
Vitamin D. Our bodies need this vitamin for the gut to absorb calcium, which bones need to grow and stay healthy. But a large study in the United States reported that vitamin D pills taken with or without calcium have no effect on bone fracture rates and a host of other ailments like cancer and cardiovascular disease. Even so, some people, including those with conditions like celiac and those who are deprived of sunshine, however, may find the supplements useful.
People who follow a vegan diet or have a condition called pernicious anemia are at greater risk of a vitamin B12 deficiency and may benefit from taking a supplement. And breastfed infants should receive vitamin D and iron supplements, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
If you have difficulties absorbing nutrients from food, which can happen after you’ve had bariatric surgery or if you have a medical condition like celiac disease, Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, a supplement may be recommended, Dr. Cohen said.
If You Are or May Become Pregnant
It’s important to take 400 to 800 micrograms of folic acid per day if you could become pregnant and during the early months of pregnancy to prevent major birth defects, said Dr. John Wong, a professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.
Most prenatal multivitamins, which should be taken throughout pregnancy, contain this amount, and also supply other key nutrients such as iron, calcium and vitamin D.
If You’re in Middle or Old Age
Most older adults usually get enough nutrition from their food. But as you age, your requirements for some nutrients increase while your ability to absorb them and your appetite can diminish, so your doctor may recommend a supplement. Older adults may have trouble absorbing vitamin B12, for example. And you may need a calcium and vitamin D supplement if you’re at risk for bone loss, Dr. Manson said.
There are hints from research that a few other supplements may help prevent certain health conditions. In one 2019 study of adults 50 or older, Dr. Manson and her colleagues found that for participants who rarely or never ate fatty fish, those who took an omega-3 fatty acid supplement had fewer cardiovascular events like heart attacks or strokes than those who took a placebo. Those who took vitamin D were also less likely to develop autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis.
Several recent trials have also found that multivitamins may improve memory and slow cognitive decline in older adults, though more research is needed, Dr. Manson said.
And there’s some evidence that taking a supplement that contains vitamins C and E, zinc, copper, lutein and zeaxanthin (called an AREDS supplement) can slow vision loss for those with age-related macular degeneration, Dr. Manson said.
In All Other Cases, Use Caution
Just because a supplement contains a nutrient or other natural compound doesn’t make it safe, especially if it has amounts far greater than what you would find in food, Dr. Manson said. And in some cases, they can even be harmful.
In the 1990s, for example, researchers hoped that antioxidant supplements like beta-carotene and vitamin E would prevent cancer or heart disease. But when tested in large trials, they found that beta-carotene increased the risk of lung cancer in some people, Dr. Wong said, and vitamin E increased hemorrhagic strokes in men, Dr. Manson added.
Little is known about the risks, benefits or correct dosing of many supplements, said Dr. Mahtab Jafari, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of California, Irvine.
And what’s listed on the package can also be different from what’s inside the product, Dr. Cohen said. For instance, many weight loss and sports supplements have been found to be tainted with unlisted drugs or chemicals.
If you do purchase supplements, look for a certification seal from a trusted third party organization such as the U.S. Pharmacopeia or NSF, which confirm that the products contain the ingredients listed on the label.
Always check with your doctor before taking a supplement, Dr. Jafari said, because they can interact with certain medications. Vitamin K can interact with a blood thinning medication, for example, and St. John’s wort can interfere with antidepressants and birth control pills.
Finally, Dr. Manson said, don’t expect supplements to be a substitute for eating well and being physically active.
“There’s no magic pill that is going to provide good health,” she said.
Do you have a health question? Ask Well
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/well ... 778d3e6de3
Q: Are any supplements proven to be helpful for health?
The U.S. dietary supplement industry has exploded in the last 30 years, growing from about 4,000 products in 1994 to more than 95,000 on the market today, according to the Food and Drug Administration. These capsules, powders, gummies and tinctures are often labeled with big — if vague — claims like “supports immune health” or “improves brain performance.”
But most supplements have not been rigorously tested for safety or effectiveness, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
And when researchers have tested them, she added, they haven’t typically found the health benefits they’d hoped for, and sometimes have even found some risks.
But, she said, there are some instances where taking a supplement may improve your health. Here are some of the main ones.
To Treat or Prevent a Nutrient Deficiency
If a blood test reveals that your body is low in a particular vitamin or mineral, such as vitamin D or iron, supplements can be “essential” in correcting that deficiency, said Dr. Pieter Cohen, an internist at Cambridge Health Alliance in Somerville, Mass.
The Facts Behind 5 Supplements
Card 1 of 5
Collagen. Collagen, is one of the most abundant proteins in the body and helps form our skin, bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments. As we age, we naturally start reducing its production. Some studies show that taking collagen supplements can reduce signs of aging, increase bone density and improve joint, back and knee pain. But many of these studies are small and funded by the companies behind such products, increasing the opportunity for bias. Certain products also have flaws that reduce the likelihood of their efficacy: Topical creams, for example, are unlikely to make it into the deeper level of the skin where collagen is produced.
Magnesium. Though low levels of magnesium have been associated with various sleep disorders, the evidence for the benefits of taking it for better sleep in supplemental form is thin. In fact, most people already have sufficient levels of the mineral, which helps support immune health, blood sugar regulation, and nerve and muscle function. Magnesium is easy to get in foods including nuts, greens, seeds, beans, yogurt and fish.
Vitamin B6. This essential nutrient is involved in a number of chemical reactions that are important for the proper functioning of the immune and nervous systems. As with the other essential vitamins, the body cannot produce B6 on its own, so you can only get it from foods (such as tuna, salmon, chickpeas, poultry, dark leafy greens, bananas, oranges, cantaloupe and nuts) or supplements. Most healthy adults get more than enough vitamin B6 from their diets alone, so B6 supplements are generally not needed.
Melatonin. The hormone is released by our brains as it starts to get dark outside, making us sleepy. Taking it in supplement form tricks your body into feeling like it’s nighttime. Experts urge people to consult their doctor before taking melatonin, as the supplement does not address underlying health problems, like anxiety and sleep apnea, that may disrupt sleep and require treatment. Lifestyle changes that experts say help us sleep better, from limiting alcohol consumption to exercising regularly, should also be considered first.
Vitamin D. Our bodies need this vitamin for the gut to absorb calcium, which bones need to grow and stay healthy. But a large study in the United States reported that vitamin D pills taken with or without calcium have no effect on bone fracture rates and a host of other ailments like cancer and cardiovascular disease. Even so, some people, including those with conditions like celiac and those who are deprived of sunshine, however, may find the supplements useful.
People who follow a vegan diet or have a condition called pernicious anemia are at greater risk of a vitamin B12 deficiency and may benefit from taking a supplement. And breastfed infants should receive vitamin D and iron supplements, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
If you have difficulties absorbing nutrients from food, which can happen after you’ve had bariatric surgery or if you have a medical condition like celiac disease, Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, a supplement may be recommended, Dr. Cohen said.
If You Are or May Become Pregnant
It’s important to take 400 to 800 micrograms of folic acid per day if you could become pregnant and during the early months of pregnancy to prevent major birth defects, said Dr. John Wong, a professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.
Most prenatal multivitamins, which should be taken throughout pregnancy, contain this amount, and also supply other key nutrients such as iron, calcium and vitamin D.
If You’re in Middle or Old Age
Most older adults usually get enough nutrition from their food. But as you age, your requirements for some nutrients increase while your ability to absorb them and your appetite can diminish, so your doctor may recommend a supplement. Older adults may have trouble absorbing vitamin B12, for example. And you may need a calcium and vitamin D supplement if you’re at risk for bone loss, Dr. Manson said.
There are hints from research that a few other supplements may help prevent certain health conditions. In one 2019 study of adults 50 or older, Dr. Manson and her colleagues found that for participants who rarely or never ate fatty fish, those who took an omega-3 fatty acid supplement had fewer cardiovascular events like heart attacks or strokes than those who took a placebo. Those who took vitamin D were also less likely to develop autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis.
Several recent trials have also found that multivitamins may improve memory and slow cognitive decline in older adults, though more research is needed, Dr. Manson said.
And there’s some evidence that taking a supplement that contains vitamins C and E, zinc, copper, lutein and zeaxanthin (called an AREDS supplement) can slow vision loss for those with age-related macular degeneration, Dr. Manson said.
In All Other Cases, Use Caution
Just because a supplement contains a nutrient or other natural compound doesn’t make it safe, especially if it has amounts far greater than what you would find in food, Dr. Manson said. And in some cases, they can even be harmful.
In the 1990s, for example, researchers hoped that antioxidant supplements like beta-carotene and vitamin E would prevent cancer or heart disease. But when tested in large trials, they found that beta-carotene increased the risk of lung cancer in some people, Dr. Wong said, and vitamin E increased hemorrhagic strokes in men, Dr. Manson added.
Little is known about the risks, benefits or correct dosing of many supplements, said Dr. Mahtab Jafari, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of California, Irvine.
And what’s listed on the package can also be different from what’s inside the product, Dr. Cohen said. For instance, many weight loss and sports supplements have been found to be tainted with unlisted drugs or chemicals.
If you do purchase supplements, look for a certification seal from a trusted third party organization such as the U.S. Pharmacopeia or NSF, which confirm that the products contain the ingredients listed on the label.
Always check with your doctor before taking a supplement, Dr. Jafari said, because they can interact with certain medications. Vitamin K can interact with a blood thinning medication, for example, and St. John’s wort can interfere with antidepressants and birth control pills.
Finally, Dr. Manson said, don’t expect supplements to be a substitute for eating well and being physically active.
“There’s no magic pill that is going to provide good health,” she said.
Do you have a health question? Ask Well
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/well ... 778d3e6de3
Re: Health and Healing
A Little Love For Your Digestion AND Your Brain
Did you know that over 80% of your immune system lives inside your stomach and intestines? It has been proven without a doubt that we all have a unique gut microbiome that largely controls both our immune health AND our mental health.
These trillions of bacteria and other tiny organisms not only protect your body against illness... they also communicate directly with your brain via your vagus nerve, affecting your mood and overall state of mind.
Long story short, the health of your digestion has a HUGE impact on your mental and emotional wellbeing.
Common issues like fatigue, anxiety, depression, poor memory, trouble focusing, and a number of other brain challenges often stem from an unresolved gut health issue.
That said, if you want some simple ways to heal your gut, nourish your microbiome and live a happier, healthier life... there is a FREE 9-part series airing soon called The Natural Solution https://thenaturalsolution.tv/?a=5cf7ec ... b=e11d21e6 and I highly recommend checking it out.
This powerful masterclass will show you effective strategies to love your microbiome and overcome the physical and mental health challenges that are caused by imbalances in this complex system.
Click here to sign up for free! https://thenaturalsolution.tv/?a=5cf7ec ... b=e11d21e6
They say "knowledge is power" and when it comes to the health of your gut microbiome, those words couldn't be more true.
Stay curious,
Nick Polizzi
Host of Healing Kitchen: Let Food Be Thy Medicine
& Founder of The Sacred Science
Did you know that over 80% of your immune system lives inside your stomach and intestines? It has been proven without a doubt that we all have a unique gut microbiome that largely controls both our immune health AND our mental health.
These trillions of bacteria and other tiny organisms not only protect your body against illness... they also communicate directly with your brain via your vagus nerve, affecting your mood and overall state of mind.
Long story short, the health of your digestion has a HUGE impact on your mental and emotional wellbeing.
Common issues like fatigue, anxiety, depression, poor memory, trouble focusing, and a number of other brain challenges often stem from an unresolved gut health issue.
That said, if you want some simple ways to heal your gut, nourish your microbiome and live a happier, healthier life... there is a FREE 9-part series airing soon called The Natural Solution https://thenaturalsolution.tv/?a=5cf7ec ... b=e11d21e6 and I highly recommend checking it out.
This powerful masterclass will show you effective strategies to love your microbiome and overcome the physical and mental health challenges that are caused by imbalances in this complex system.
Click here to sign up for free! https://thenaturalsolution.tv/?a=5cf7ec ... b=e11d21e6
They say "knowledge is power" and when it comes to the health of your gut microbiome, those words couldn't be more true.
Stay curious,
Nick Polizzi
Host of Healing Kitchen: Let Food Be Thy Medicine
& Founder of The Sacred Science
A Natural Way To Boost Your Immunity
Hi Karim,
A few years ago, I was in a ceremony with a Maya medicine woman. When someone asked her to share the most powerful remedy she knew, the wisdom keeper answered simply, "Not getting sick in the first place."
That profound statement made me stop and think. Not getting sick all comes down to the health of your immune system, and the bulk of your immune system lives in your gut.
So the best way to boost your immunity and never get sick is -- EATING THE RIGHT FOOD.
It's really that simple...
If we fuel our bodies with the proper vitamins and nutrients, we're able to take the power back when it comes to our health. Most illnesses -- from cold and flu to bigger ones like MS and diabetes -- can be helped tremendously with the right diet.
To help guide you in making the best formulas and foods to awaken your immunity and reduce your risk of getting sick, our friends at Health Secret have created a free e-book called 25 Immune-boosting Natural Medicines. It's chock-full of science-based advice and guidance on which foods, herbs, and supplements you should be including in your diet -- to help develop the strongest immune system possible.
Click here for your FREE copy https://naturalmedicinesecrets.com/immu ... &affid=760
Now more than ever, we need to take the proper precautions and make the best choices when it comes to our lifestyle and eating the right foods.
Stay curious,
Nick Polizzi
Host of Healing Kitchen: Let Food Be Thy Medicine
& Founder of The Sacred Science
PS: This e-book is offered as part of the Natural Medicine Secrets docu-series https://naturalmedicinesecrets.com/?oid=2&affid=760, a FREE online event that provides insights on how to use natural medicines and nutrition to reduce your risk of life-threatening diseases -- as well as how to treat existing health conditions you may already have.
The Natural Medicine Secrets series is a powerful resource that will show you how to start rejuvenating your body, fueling your immune system, and protecting your health.
A few years ago, I was in a ceremony with a Maya medicine woman. When someone asked her to share the most powerful remedy she knew, the wisdom keeper answered simply, "Not getting sick in the first place."
That profound statement made me stop and think. Not getting sick all comes down to the health of your immune system, and the bulk of your immune system lives in your gut.
So the best way to boost your immunity and never get sick is -- EATING THE RIGHT FOOD.
It's really that simple...
If we fuel our bodies with the proper vitamins and nutrients, we're able to take the power back when it comes to our health. Most illnesses -- from cold and flu to bigger ones like MS and diabetes -- can be helped tremendously with the right diet.
To help guide you in making the best formulas and foods to awaken your immunity and reduce your risk of getting sick, our friends at Health Secret have created a free e-book called 25 Immune-boosting Natural Medicines. It's chock-full of science-based advice and guidance on which foods, herbs, and supplements you should be including in your diet -- to help develop the strongest immune system possible.
Click here for your FREE copy https://naturalmedicinesecrets.com/immu ... &affid=760
Now more than ever, we need to take the proper precautions and make the best choices when it comes to our lifestyle and eating the right foods.
Stay curious,
Nick Polizzi
Host of Healing Kitchen: Let Food Be Thy Medicine
& Founder of The Sacred Science
PS: This e-book is offered as part of the Natural Medicine Secrets docu-series https://naturalmedicinesecrets.com/?oid=2&affid=760, a FREE online event that provides insights on how to use natural medicines and nutrition to reduce your risk of life-threatening diseases -- as well as how to treat existing health conditions you may already have.
The Natural Medicine Secrets series is a powerful resource that will show you how to start rejuvenating your body, fueling your immune system, and protecting your health.
Urine Color Meaning: What it Reveals About Your Health
Urine isn’t normally a topic discussed in casual conversation, but it can be an important indicator of your overall health. In some cases, urine color even serves as one of the first warning signs that something is wrong.
Changes to the color of your urine aren’t necessarily reason to panic— especially if they are short-lived— but most people aren’t sure which urine colors are normal and which are not (or who to ask).
With that in mind, here’s everything you didn’t know you needed to know about urine, including urine color meaning and a few warning signs to watch out for when you pee.
Urine 101: What Really Happens When You Pee
Urine is made up of about 95% water, but the rest of it is a mixture of toxins, waste products, and excess nutrients, including urea, salt, electrolytes, and potassium.
Essentially, urine is “created” by your kidneys. They filter waste products and excess water from your blood to make the liquid mixture we call urine or pee. Urine then travels from your kidneys to your bladder via small tubes known as ureters.
When your bladder gets full enough, it sends you a signal to get rid of the stored urine by way of another tube called the urethra.
As you can tell from this simplified explanation, the everyday act of peeing is actually a very important one because it gets wastes and toxins out of your body. One specific waste product known as urobilin, which forms from old red blood cells being broken down, is responsible for the normally yellowish color of your pee.
Urine color is most likely to change based on water intake, the food you eat, and certain medications. However, some color changes can indicate an underlying disease or dysfunction somewhere within your body.
So what’s normal and what’s not? Read on to find out.
Urine Color Meaning: What’s Healthy & When to Be Concerned
Clear to Pale Yellow
Urine that is clear or pale yellow in color is considered normal and means you are well hydrated. In fact, it’s the high amount of water present in your pee that makes it look pale rather than a darker yellow color.
The only “caution” with completely colorless urine is that it could be a sign you are over hydrating. Clear urine is fine from time to time, but it should have at least a tint of yellow if you are taking in the right amount of water.
Colorless pee may also happen if you are taking a diuretic (aka a water pill), which forces a higher volume of water out of your body.
Yellow
Yellow is the color most people associate with urine and is, unsurprisingly, a completely normal hue for your pee to be.
However, it’s important to realize that urine can fall in a wide spectrum of yellow shades (possibly all in the same day) and all are completely healthy. If yours is anywhere from light yellow to a darker almost-amber shade, there’s nothing to worry about.
Basically, urine will turn a lighter or darker shade based not only on how much water you drink, but also on how much urobilin (sometimes called urochrome) is present.
More urobilin and/or less water means a darker shade of yellow and vice versa.
Neon Urine
Have you ever glanced in the toilet and seen an almost fluorescent shade of yellow? It happens to most people from time to time.
The good news is that the urine color meaning of fluorescent yellow is typically harmless. Most often, the fluorescent coloring comes from the presence of vitamins— usually B vitamins— that are being excreted from your body via your pee.
This is not unusual if you take a multivitamin or some other kind of supplement. Your body frequently can’t absorb all of the nutrients in a supplement, so the excess simply passes out of your body.
There’s really only cause for concern if you have fluorescent urine and are not taking any supplemental vitamins.
Amber or Brown
Light amber as a urine color is on the border of normal, but it likely indicates that you are a bit dehydrated.
Darker shades of brown are an indication that you could be even more seriously dehydrated. This causes waste products to become more concentrated in your urine, giving it a darker color. If this is the case, upping your water intake should result in a lighter color the next time you pee.
Certain medications, including specific antibiotics, can also turn urine dark brown. This is a “normal” side effect of these medications, and the color should go back to normal when you stop taking them.
More rarely, brown urine could be a sign of a liver disorder like hepatitis or cirrhosis. A condition called porphyria, which involves certain chemicals building up within your body, can also cause urine to turn brown or rusty-colored.
Orange
Orange as a urine color is not usually healthy, but it could be simply a side effect of some medications, including certain laxatives, anti-inflammatories, and chemotherapy drugs.
If you aren’t taking medication, orange urine is typically a sign of dehydration or a more serious issue. The most likely health culprit is a bile duct or liver problem, although it could also be an indication of adult-onset jaundice— a condition that colors your skin and mucous membranes yellow.
Orange-colored urine combined with light-colored stools is a more serious warning sign of a bile or liver issue. Be sure to see your doctor if you notice both of these symptoms together.
Pink to Red
The color meaning of pink or red urine is usually either completely benign or a serious cause for concern.
Deeply pigmented fruits and vegetables— think beets, blueberries, or rhubarb— can give your urine a pinkish or reddish tinge if you consume enough of them in one sitting. A few drugs, like phenazopyridine or senna-containing laxatives, can also make urine look red or reddish orange.
However, if you haven’t eaten any red-pigmented foods lately or started a new medication, pink or red pee is likely a sign of blood in your urine.
Blood in urine (technically known as hematuria) can have many possible causes, but it’s never normal. It could be a sign of a urinary tract infection, prostate problem, or even cancer. The bottom line is that you should see your doctor immediately to determine the underlying issue.
Blue or Green
urine color meaning
Blue or green urine is highly unusual, so you may be surprised to learn it’s often not cause for alarm. That’s because the blue or green color frequently comes from food dyes or the dyes used for kidney and bladder function tests and will go away on its own.
A few medications can also produce green- or blue-colored pee (it should be listed as a side effect).
In very rare cases, blue/green urine is a sign of a genetic disorder called hypercalcemia, which involves high blood calcium levels. It can also be the result of a Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterial infection but, again, this is very rare.
Cloudy Urine
Normally, urine should be transparent no matter what color it is. Cloudiness is often a sign of a urinary tract infection, although it can also be related to other issues like diabetes, a bacterial infection, kidney problems, or prostate problems.
During pregnancy, cloudy urine is a potential warning sign for preeclampsia, which is a serious condition.
If your urine remains cloudy consistently, go get a checkup with your physician.
Other Warning Signs to Watch for in Urine
Urine color has a lot of meaning when it comes to your health, but it isn’t the only characteristic you should be paying attention to. Here are a few other ways your body might be telling you something is wrong.
Strong/Unpleasant Smell
You’ve probably noticed that there are certain foods that give your pee a strange smell. (Asparagus, anyone?)
But if you have not eaten any of these foods recently and notice that your urine smells strong and unpleasant, something is probably going on. Most likely, the cause is some type of an infection— like a urinary tract infection— that will need treatment.
On the other hand, if your urine smells sweet or fruity, this may be an indicator of high blood sugar or diabetes. It happens because your body gets rid of some of the excess sugar through urine, making it smell sweeter.
Foam
A few bubbles are normal after peeing, but very foamy or frothy urine is cause for concern.
Foam is most often an indicator of high protein levels in your urine, which could be an early warning sign of a serious condition like kidney disease. It may also be related to a digestive disorder like diverticulitis or Crohn’s disease.
Frequent or Infrequent Urges
urine color meaning
It may not be at the top of your mind, but you probably have a subconscious sense of how often you typically have to pee throughout the day. This is important because if you notice yourself feeling “the urge” more or less frequently, this is another potential warning sign that something is going on.
Suddenly feeling a frequent urge to urinate (not accompanied by drinking a lot of liquids) can be a symptom of many issues: a urinary tract infection, prostate issues, kidney issues, bladder conditions, etc.
Infrequent urination could simply mean that you haven’t been drinking enough water and are dehydrated. Or it could stem from a kidney issue, including a blockage or damage caused by medication.
Either way, if your urge to go changes noticeably, go see your doctor about it.
Inability to Empty Bladder
If you can’t empty your bladder, this is a condition known as urinary retention. It can take one of two forms— either you can’t pee at all, or you can’t fully empty urine from your bladder.
Either type of urinary retention could be the result of a partial or full blockage somewhere in your urinary tract or a problem with the muscles in your bladder. For men, a blockage can stem from an enlarged prostate, which makes it difficult to both start urination and completely empty the bladder.
If you ever feel like you need to pee but find you can’t, seek treatment immediately to avoid more serious problems.
Common Urinary Disorders to Be Aware Of
Being aware of the meaning of urine color and other urine-related warning signs can help you get on top of a potential disorder. To boost your awareness even more, here’s a quick overview of a few of the most common urinary disorders and symptoms to watch out for.
Urinary Tract Infections
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are one of the most common urological issues. They can happen to anyone, but adult women are 30 times more likely to develop a UTI than men. Though at a lower risk, men are most likely to develop an infection once they get over age 50.
Some of the most common symptoms of UTIs include:
- A frequent urge to urinate
- Strong or foul smelling urine
- Cloudy urine
- Blood in urine
- Pain or a burning sensation when peeing
Prostate Enlargement
Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a condition in which the prostate is enlarged but not cancerous. It’s the most common prostate problem for men and usually occurs after age 50.
Though not technically a urinary disorder, an enlarged prostate can cause a host of urological symptoms, including:
- Urinary retention
- A frequent urge to urinate
- Urinary urgency (you can’t delay urination)
- Trouble starting to urinate
- A weak or interrupted urine stream
- Pain during urination
- Unusual smell to urine
Kidney Stones or Kidney Disease
Kidney stones are hard deposits that form when certain minerals and acid salts are concentrated in your urine. Smaller stones can pass through your urinary tract without a problem, but if they get too large, you may notice symptoms like:
- Blood in urine
- Pain in your back, abdomen, or groin
- Pain or burning sensation while urinating
- Cloudy urine
- Urine with an unpleasant smell
- Frequent urination or urinating in small amounts
Kidney disease is more serious and involves the gradual loss of kidney function. Because your kidneys basically create urine, signs that something is wrong can show up there first, including:
- Cloudy or foamy urine
- Difficulty urinating
- Frequent or infrequent urination
- Urine with an unpleasant smell
-Painful urination
Cystitis
Cystitis is a general term for irritation and inflammation of the bladder and urethra. It can accompany a UTI and may turn into a more serious complication, like kidney infection, if not addressed. Common symptoms are similar to other urinary disorders and include:
- Cloudy urine
- Dark-colored urine
- Blood in urine
- Frequent or urgent urination
- Urine with an unpleasant smell
- Pain or burning sensation while urinating
- Lower abdominal pain
Stay On Top of Urinary Health
Urine may not be your favorite discussion topic, but being aware of urine color meaning and other signs to watch out for can help you stay on top of your health. Recognizing when something is “off” with your urine may raise awareness of a serious issue before it gets out of control.
The good news is that most urine color changes are normal and related to something benign like food or supplements. However, if changes persist or fall in the “warning sign” category, be sure to reach out to your doctor— if for no other reason than your own peace of mind!
CategoriesUncategorized
https://theartofantiaging.com/urine-col ... ur-health/
Is Coffee Good for You or Bad for You? Find Out the Truth!
SUMMARY
Coffee is one of the most popular beverages worldwide, but whether or not it’s a healthy choice has often been the subject of debate for a very long time. In this article, we’ll look at some surprising coffee health benefits, potential downsides, and how to enjoy coffee in ways that are healthy, ethical, and sustainable.
Until recently, you wouldn’t have expected to see coffee listed as a health food. For decades, we’ve been advised to drink less of it. In fact, in 1991, coffee was labeled a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization (WHO) due to studies showing coffee drinkers had a higher incidence of bladder cancer than nondrinkers.
But as of 2016, the WHO reversed its stance on coffee due to a lack of evidence. And many studies have since shown how coffee actually has myriad benefits for your health.
To be clear, there’s no question that coffee isn’t for everyone. Personally, I drink it rarely because, while I enjoy the taste as well as the “buzz” it brings, I find that a few hours later, I feel jittery, anxious, and even a bit cranky.
But I’ve been enormously impressed with the research, which tells us that for many people, coffee can bring significant benefits.
In this article, you’ll discover some of the research-backed health benefits of coffee, a couple of potential downsides to drinking it, why sourcing and the “company it keeps” matter, and some healthy ways to enjoy your java.
The Health Benefits of Coffee
organic coffee capsules,healthy foods to improve health, benefits and side effects antioxidants
iStock.com/Jorge Martinez
Coffee and Heart Health
Coffee is a vasodilator. This means that it causes blood vessels to expand, which is good for your circulation and cardiovascular system. In fact, it may even reduce your risk of heart failure and death.
In one enormous meta-analysis of 31 studies and 1,610,543 individuals, researchers found that all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality risk decreased with the consumption of up to four cups of coffee per day. That’s not to say that you need to drink four cups per day, since drinking more coffee didn’t necessarily yield better results, but rather that even heavy coffee drinkers saw a benefit over nondrinkers.
A 2021 analysis of cardiovascular disease risk factors also found that coffee consumption was associated with a reduced long-term risk of heart failure. Interestingly, the study also looked at other dietary risk factors and found that whole milk consumption puts you at increased risk for heart failure. Leaving dairy out of your coffee can help ensure you’re not negating the health benefits of coffee.
Coffee, Dementia, and Stroke
Coffee also seems to have a particular effect on the blood vessels that feed your brain — making it an ally in the fight against all forms of dementia and stroke.
The Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and Dementia (CAIDE) study tracked more than 1,400 individuals over the course of 21 years to look at a broad range of diet and lifestyle choices and health outcomes. In the study, people who drank 3–5 cups of coffee per day at midlife had a 65% decreased risk of dementia in later life.
In another more recent study, both coffee and tea were also found to decrease the risk of dementia and stroke. The researchers analyzed 365,682 participants from the UK. And they found that when the study participants drank 2–3 cups of coffee or tea (or a combination of coffee and tea) per day, they had a 32% lower risk of stroke and a 28% lower risk of dementia.
Coffee and Cancer
Does coffee fight cancer? Or does it, as some media reports and older research studies have implied, actually cause it?
In March of 2018, a judge in the state of California ruled that Starbucks and other coffee chains needed to post warnings because their brews may contain a chemical linked to cancer.
The target of the ruling was acrylamide, a potential carcinogen that’s formed when foods containing both starches and the amino acid asparagine cook at high temperatures.
Acrylamide is a by-product of the coffee roasting process. It’s also in bread and crackers, french fries and potato chips, canned black olives, prune juice, and even breakfast cereals.
So is the acrylamide in coffee a serious concern? Unlikely. If we look at the real world, outside of courtrooms and lab theories, I’ve never heard of a single study that found an elevated risk of cancer in people who drank more coffee.
On the contrary, according to one systematic review and meta-analysis, people who consume coffee are 1.45 times less likely to develop mouth and throat cancer.
Other studies have found that coffee reduces the risk of many types of cancer — including endometrial, prostate, brain, colon, breast, liver, lung, and skin cancers.
We don’t know for certain if acrylamide in coffee poses health risks. But we do know that coffee is associated with broad health benefits in large numbers of people.
Avoiding coffee altogether on account of acrylamide strikes me as a bit like avoiding the outdoors because sunshine can cause skin cancer. It’s true that some danger may exist. But your health would likely suffer if you spent your whole life indoors as a result.
Coffee and Type 2 Diabetes
Drinking coffee may also lead to a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes. An increase of at least one cup per day decreased the risk by 11% compared to people who made no dietary changes.
And for those who already have type 2 diabetes, coffee can possibly even prolong life expectancy. One study of nearly 4,000 people with type 2 diabetes found that those who drank coffee were 30% more likely to still be alive after being tracked for 20 years.
Coffee and Antioxidants
Coffee is an abundant source of polyphenols, a class of mostly antioxidant plant compounds known for their health-protective effects. Among the most potent types of polyphenols in coffee are chlorogenic acids, which fight free radicals and prevent oxidative stress damage that can lead to degenerative disease.
In addition, it turns out that coffee is a major source of other kinds of antioxidants, too. (Antioxidants help to prevent the damaging effects of oxidation on cells throughout your body.) In fact, coffee is the #1 source of antioxidants in the American diet — by a wide margin. We know that the average American’s diet is woefully deficient in antioxidants. And in that context, the antioxidants in coffee are clearly beneficial. But one thing we don’t know is how helpful coffee might be for people who are already eating an abundant amount of antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables. If your body isn’t antioxidant-starved, it’s possible that the net benefits of coffee will be less dramatic because your diet’s already healthier than the norm.
Potential Coffee Downsides to Drinking Coffee
Caffeine in Coffee
The effects of caffeine on the brain image from coffee beans, cardboard and white paper
iStock.com/Aleksandr Bondar
Of course, we can’t talk about coffee without talking about caffeine.
Caffeine affects some people very differently than others, and this is at least in part due to the different ways in which it’s metabolized. Studies have shown that genetics may play a part in how sensitive someone is to caffeine, and whether they get jittery from it or not. However, for most of us, caffeine is a stimulant, meaning that it increases nervous system activity and communication to the brain.
For many people, coffee can become addictive because of the caffeine that it contains. And as with many habit-forming or addiction-fueling compounds, the more you consume, the more your body develops a tolerance to it — and the less effect it has on you. As people come to rely on caffeine for mental alertness and focus, they sometimes use it to mask fatigue that might really be a result, not of caffeine deficiency, but rather of a lack of sleep, poor nutrition, or other lifestyle factors. The unfortunate side effect is that coffee drinkers tend to need more and more to get comparable benefits and experience headaches and other withdrawal symptoms if they skip a day.
Because caffeine stimulates the nervous system, drinking coffee can also make it harder to sleep, especially if you drink it later in the day. And it can further exacerbate anxiety and related disorders, even contributing to panic attacks in some individuals.
Also, pregnant women are advised to avoid coffee because caffeine can not only cross the blood-brain barrier but the placental barrier as well.
Overall, whether you should drink coffee or not is highly individualized depending on factors such as your metabolism, mental health, and pregnancy status, among other things. Always listen to your body first.
How Much Coffee Is Too Much?
Thristy business nerd drinking coffee
iStock.com/benstevens
As with many things, moderation is key when it comes to coffee. And there is such a thing as having too much coffee. According to the US FDA, 400 milligrams is considered the recommended upper limit of caffeine consumption per day.
How much caffeine is in a cup of coffee? Most coffee averages between 80–100 mg of caffeine per cup, but it depends on factors such as how the beans were processed and the brewing method used. A grande (16-ounce) medium roast from Starbucks, on the other hand, contains 310 mg of caffeine.
What About Decaffeinated Coffee?
Contrary to its name, decaffeinated coffee still contains a bit of caffeine — but in much smaller amounts. A cup of decaf may have around 2–15 mg of caffeine, which is still much less than even a cup of black or green tea.
Unfortunately, few studies exist on the health effects of decaffeinated coffee.
But we do have studies telling us that decaffeinated coffee has about 75% of the antioxidants of the caffeinated version. Which is less — but still potentially quite beneficial.
And while many decaffeination methods involve the use of solvents like methylene chloride or ethyl acetate, the Swiss Water Process is a more environmentally friendly and chemical-free method.
What You Put in Your Coffee Matters
The girl is on a healthy diet and refuses to add sugar to her coffee. The concept of diseases from an excess of fast carbohydrates and diabetes
iStock.com/frantic00
Although coffee on its own has a number of health benefits, coffee that comes packed with sugar, artificial flavorings, factory-farmed milk, and high fructose corn syrup probably doesn’t contribute a net benefit to anyone’s health. And the majority of people who drink coffee don’t drink it unsweetened and black.
The fact of the matter is, what you put or don’t put in your coffee matters. For example, adding dairy milk or creamers to your coffee will negate some of coffee’s potent antioxidant effects. When tested in both human and test tube studies, significantly fewer chlorogenic acids were found when milk was added to coffee. In fact, one human study showed it decreased the chlorogenic acid content by more than half. The same effect was not seen in nondairy milk, such as soy.
There are also the negative health and environmental effects of dairy to consider. And seeing as so many plant-based milks are available now, there are plenty of options that won’t harm people, animals, or the planet.
So, just because coffee may have a broad range of health benefits doesn’t mean everyone should drink it by the gallon, or guzzle a daily Salted Caramel Mocha at Starbucks (which, by the way, contains 59 grams of added sugars per 16-ounce serving).
But the data is pretty clear that a freshly brewed cup of unadulterated coffee offers a great many health benefits.
Enjoy More Conscious and Ethical Coffee
Because coffee is one of the largest exports from tropical countries, coffee production has a massive impact on the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of families and farmers. Regrettably, many of them are living in countries with relatively low incomes and widespread poverty. Gender inequality and child labor are also issues found throughout the coffee supply chain, even for major coffee brands like Starbucks and Nespresso.
Additionally, coffee plantations often use a monoculture system, which is a leading cause of deforestation in many tropical regions — such as the Amazon — where coffee is grown. Monocropping harms biodiversity, increases the use of pesticides, and leads to soil degradation as well as water runoff and pollution. Coffee is also a pretty thirsty crop with a large water footprint, taking 140 liters of water to produce around 125 milliliters of coffee.
Therefore, the kinds of coffee you choose have a real impact on the kind of world we will leave for future generations. When purchasing coffee, you can make a difference by choosing brands invested in more ethical and sustainable growing practices. Although they’re far from perfect on their own, fair-trade, shade-grown, Rainforest Alliance-certified, or organic coffees are better choices for a fairer and healthier world. Organic coffee may even have higher antioxidant content than nonorganic coffee. (Read our article on food labels for more on how to decipher food packaging.)
Some of our favorite organic and sustainable coffee brands are:
- Lifeboost — our top pick for traditional beans;
- Four Sigmatic’s Think Coffee with Lion’s Mane & Chaga Mushrooms — our top pick for a caffeinated mushroom/coffee blend; and,
- Four Sigmatic’s Calm Decaf Coffee with Reishi & Chaga Mushrooms — our favorite decaf option.
Ways to Enjoy and Brew Coffee
iStock.com/georgeclerk
There are many ways to brew coffee, and how you brew it can affect the strength of its beneficial compounds, flavor, and acidity.
Popular hot coffee brewing methods include pour-over, French press, and percolation. One study comparing hot coffee methods found that percolated coffee retained the highest amount of phenolic compounds (or antioxidants).
You might enjoy your coffee black, or with milk or sugar added. But as discussed in the downsides section of this article, dairy and refined sugar may counteract the health benefits of coffee. If you want to put something in your coffee for added flavor, try a plant-based milk like almond, soy, or oat milk (bonus points for your health if you go with an unsweetened variety). And if you want to add some extra flavor, try mixing in cocoa, powdered cinnamon, or vanilla. For sweetness, try a pinch of stevia or a dash of maple syrup. (Check out this article for more on the best and worst sweeteners.)
And, if you’re concerned about the acidity in coffee, try cold-brewing it. Cold-brewing drops the acidity level of coffee by approximately two-thirds. Cold-brewed coffee is also often described as having a smoother and even sweeter flavor profile than hot-brewed coffee.
You can make cold brew at home by putting ⅔ cup of ground coffee in a mason jar with three cups of filtered water and letting it sit in the fridge for at least 12 hours. Filter it as you would any coffee, and voilà — you have cold-brewed coffee. Unlike hot-brewed coffee, cold brew stores well in the fridge for up to two weeks, and if you like, you can also heat it up. It can get really concentrated, however. Which is lovely if you want to mix it with a generous helping of plant milk for a simple latte.
Enjoy Coffee for Your Health!
The debate over whether coffee is good for you continues to rage on. Like anything you eat or drink, it all depends on your individual biochemistry (as some people are more sensitive to caffeine and acidity) as well as what you put in it. But on its own (or with the addition of more healthful inputs), coffee has a number of health benefits and may even decrease your overall risk of death. Now that’s a-latte to be grateful for!
https://foodrevolution.org/blog/coffee- ... 241&jb=389
Coffee is one of the most popular beverages worldwide, but whether or not it’s a healthy choice has often been the subject of debate for a very long time. In this article, we’ll look at some surprising coffee health benefits, potential downsides, and how to enjoy coffee in ways that are healthy, ethical, and sustainable.
Until recently, you wouldn’t have expected to see coffee listed as a health food. For decades, we’ve been advised to drink less of it. In fact, in 1991, coffee was labeled a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization (WHO) due to studies showing coffee drinkers had a higher incidence of bladder cancer than nondrinkers.
But as of 2016, the WHO reversed its stance on coffee due to a lack of evidence. And many studies have since shown how coffee actually has myriad benefits for your health.
To be clear, there’s no question that coffee isn’t for everyone. Personally, I drink it rarely because, while I enjoy the taste as well as the “buzz” it brings, I find that a few hours later, I feel jittery, anxious, and even a bit cranky.
But I’ve been enormously impressed with the research, which tells us that for many people, coffee can bring significant benefits.
In this article, you’ll discover some of the research-backed health benefits of coffee, a couple of potential downsides to drinking it, why sourcing and the “company it keeps” matter, and some healthy ways to enjoy your java.
The Health Benefits of Coffee
organic coffee capsules,healthy foods to improve health, benefits and side effects antioxidants
iStock.com/Jorge Martinez
Coffee and Heart Health
Coffee is a vasodilator. This means that it causes blood vessels to expand, which is good for your circulation and cardiovascular system. In fact, it may even reduce your risk of heart failure and death.
In one enormous meta-analysis of 31 studies and 1,610,543 individuals, researchers found that all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality risk decreased with the consumption of up to four cups of coffee per day. That’s not to say that you need to drink four cups per day, since drinking more coffee didn’t necessarily yield better results, but rather that even heavy coffee drinkers saw a benefit over nondrinkers.
A 2021 analysis of cardiovascular disease risk factors also found that coffee consumption was associated with a reduced long-term risk of heart failure. Interestingly, the study also looked at other dietary risk factors and found that whole milk consumption puts you at increased risk for heart failure. Leaving dairy out of your coffee can help ensure you’re not negating the health benefits of coffee.
Coffee, Dementia, and Stroke
Coffee also seems to have a particular effect on the blood vessels that feed your brain — making it an ally in the fight against all forms of dementia and stroke.
The Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and Dementia (CAIDE) study tracked more than 1,400 individuals over the course of 21 years to look at a broad range of diet and lifestyle choices and health outcomes. In the study, people who drank 3–5 cups of coffee per day at midlife had a 65% decreased risk of dementia in later life.
In another more recent study, both coffee and tea were also found to decrease the risk of dementia and stroke. The researchers analyzed 365,682 participants from the UK. And they found that when the study participants drank 2–3 cups of coffee or tea (or a combination of coffee and tea) per day, they had a 32% lower risk of stroke and a 28% lower risk of dementia.
Coffee and Cancer
Does coffee fight cancer? Or does it, as some media reports and older research studies have implied, actually cause it?
In March of 2018, a judge in the state of California ruled that Starbucks and other coffee chains needed to post warnings because their brews may contain a chemical linked to cancer.
The target of the ruling was acrylamide, a potential carcinogen that’s formed when foods containing both starches and the amino acid asparagine cook at high temperatures.
Acrylamide is a by-product of the coffee roasting process. It’s also in bread and crackers, french fries and potato chips, canned black olives, prune juice, and even breakfast cereals.
So is the acrylamide in coffee a serious concern? Unlikely. If we look at the real world, outside of courtrooms and lab theories, I’ve never heard of a single study that found an elevated risk of cancer in people who drank more coffee.
On the contrary, according to one systematic review and meta-analysis, people who consume coffee are 1.45 times less likely to develop mouth and throat cancer.
Other studies have found that coffee reduces the risk of many types of cancer — including endometrial, prostate, brain, colon, breast, liver, lung, and skin cancers.
We don’t know for certain if acrylamide in coffee poses health risks. But we do know that coffee is associated with broad health benefits in large numbers of people.
Avoiding coffee altogether on account of acrylamide strikes me as a bit like avoiding the outdoors because sunshine can cause skin cancer. It’s true that some danger may exist. But your health would likely suffer if you spent your whole life indoors as a result.
Coffee and Type 2 Diabetes
Drinking coffee may also lead to a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes. An increase of at least one cup per day decreased the risk by 11% compared to people who made no dietary changes.
And for those who already have type 2 diabetes, coffee can possibly even prolong life expectancy. One study of nearly 4,000 people with type 2 diabetes found that those who drank coffee were 30% more likely to still be alive after being tracked for 20 years.
Coffee and Antioxidants
Coffee is an abundant source of polyphenols, a class of mostly antioxidant plant compounds known for their health-protective effects. Among the most potent types of polyphenols in coffee are chlorogenic acids, which fight free radicals and prevent oxidative stress damage that can lead to degenerative disease.
In addition, it turns out that coffee is a major source of other kinds of antioxidants, too. (Antioxidants help to prevent the damaging effects of oxidation on cells throughout your body.) In fact, coffee is the #1 source of antioxidants in the American diet — by a wide margin. We know that the average American’s diet is woefully deficient in antioxidants. And in that context, the antioxidants in coffee are clearly beneficial. But one thing we don’t know is how helpful coffee might be for people who are already eating an abundant amount of antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables. If your body isn’t antioxidant-starved, it’s possible that the net benefits of coffee will be less dramatic because your diet’s already healthier than the norm.
Potential Coffee Downsides to Drinking Coffee
Caffeine in Coffee
The effects of caffeine on the brain image from coffee beans, cardboard and white paper
iStock.com/Aleksandr Bondar
Of course, we can’t talk about coffee without talking about caffeine.
Caffeine affects some people very differently than others, and this is at least in part due to the different ways in which it’s metabolized. Studies have shown that genetics may play a part in how sensitive someone is to caffeine, and whether they get jittery from it or not. However, for most of us, caffeine is a stimulant, meaning that it increases nervous system activity and communication to the brain.
For many people, coffee can become addictive because of the caffeine that it contains. And as with many habit-forming or addiction-fueling compounds, the more you consume, the more your body develops a tolerance to it — and the less effect it has on you. As people come to rely on caffeine for mental alertness and focus, they sometimes use it to mask fatigue that might really be a result, not of caffeine deficiency, but rather of a lack of sleep, poor nutrition, or other lifestyle factors. The unfortunate side effect is that coffee drinkers tend to need more and more to get comparable benefits and experience headaches and other withdrawal symptoms if they skip a day.
Because caffeine stimulates the nervous system, drinking coffee can also make it harder to sleep, especially if you drink it later in the day. And it can further exacerbate anxiety and related disorders, even contributing to panic attacks in some individuals.
Also, pregnant women are advised to avoid coffee because caffeine can not only cross the blood-brain barrier but the placental barrier as well.
Overall, whether you should drink coffee or not is highly individualized depending on factors such as your metabolism, mental health, and pregnancy status, among other things. Always listen to your body first.
How Much Coffee Is Too Much?
Thristy business nerd drinking coffee
iStock.com/benstevens
As with many things, moderation is key when it comes to coffee. And there is such a thing as having too much coffee. According to the US FDA, 400 milligrams is considered the recommended upper limit of caffeine consumption per day.
How much caffeine is in a cup of coffee? Most coffee averages between 80–100 mg of caffeine per cup, but it depends on factors such as how the beans were processed and the brewing method used. A grande (16-ounce) medium roast from Starbucks, on the other hand, contains 310 mg of caffeine.
What About Decaffeinated Coffee?
Contrary to its name, decaffeinated coffee still contains a bit of caffeine — but in much smaller amounts. A cup of decaf may have around 2–15 mg of caffeine, which is still much less than even a cup of black or green tea.
Unfortunately, few studies exist on the health effects of decaffeinated coffee.
But we do have studies telling us that decaffeinated coffee has about 75% of the antioxidants of the caffeinated version. Which is less — but still potentially quite beneficial.
And while many decaffeination methods involve the use of solvents like methylene chloride or ethyl acetate, the Swiss Water Process is a more environmentally friendly and chemical-free method.
What You Put in Your Coffee Matters
The girl is on a healthy diet and refuses to add sugar to her coffee. The concept of diseases from an excess of fast carbohydrates and diabetes
iStock.com/frantic00
Although coffee on its own has a number of health benefits, coffee that comes packed with sugar, artificial flavorings, factory-farmed milk, and high fructose corn syrup probably doesn’t contribute a net benefit to anyone’s health. And the majority of people who drink coffee don’t drink it unsweetened and black.
The fact of the matter is, what you put or don’t put in your coffee matters. For example, adding dairy milk or creamers to your coffee will negate some of coffee’s potent antioxidant effects. When tested in both human and test tube studies, significantly fewer chlorogenic acids were found when milk was added to coffee. In fact, one human study showed it decreased the chlorogenic acid content by more than half. The same effect was not seen in nondairy milk, such as soy.
There are also the negative health and environmental effects of dairy to consider. And seeing as so many plant-based milks are available now, there are plenty of options that won’t harm people, animals, or the planet.
So, just because coffee may have a broad range of health benefits doesn’t mean everyone should drink it by the gallon, or guzzle a daily Salted Caramel Mocha at Starbucks (which, by the way, contains 59 grams of added sugars per 16-ounce serving).
But the data is pretty clear that a freshly brewed cup of unadulterated coffee offers a great many health benefits.
Enjoy More Conscious and Ethical Coffee
Because coffee is one of the largest exports from tropical countries, coffee production has a massive impact on the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of families and farmers. Regrettably, many of them are living in countries with relatively low incomes and widespread poverty. Gender inequality and child labor are also issues found throughout the coffee supply chain, even for major coffee brands like Starbucks and Nespresso.
Additionally, coffee plantations often use a monoculture system, which is a leading cause of deforestation in many tropical regions — such as the Amazon — where coffee is grown. Monocropping harms biodiversity, increases the use of pesticides, and leads to soil degradation as well as water runoff and pollution. Coffee is also a pretty thirsty crop with a large water footprint, taking 140 liters of water to produce around 125 milliliters of coffee.
Therefore, the kinds of coffee you choose have a real impact on the kind of world we will leave for future generations. When purchasing coffee, you can make a difference by choosing brands invested in more ethical and sustainable growing practices. Although they’re far from perfect on their own, fair-trade, shade-grown, Rainforest Alliance-certified, or organic coffees are better choices for a fairer and healthier world. Organic coffee may even have higher antioxidant content than nonorganic coffee. (Read our article on food labels for more on how to decipher food packaging.)
Some of our favorite organic and sustainable coffee brands are:
- Lifeboost — our top pick for traditional beans;
- Four Sigmatic’s Think Coffee with Lion’s Mane & Chaga Mushrooms — our top pick for a caffeinated mushroom/coffee blend; and,
- Four Sigmatic’s Calm Decaf Coffee with Reishi & Chaga Mushrooms — our favorite decaf option.
Ways to Enjoy and Brew Coffee
iStock.com/georgeclerk
There are many ways to brew coffee, and how you brew it can affect the strength of its beneficial compounds, flavor, and acidity.
Popular hot coffee brewing methods include pour-over, French press, and percolation. One study comparing hot coffee methods found that percolated coffee retained the highest amount of phenolic compounds (or antioxidants).
You might enjoy your coffee black, or with milk or sugar added. But as discussed in the downsides section of this article, dairy and refined sugar may counteract the health benefits of coffee. If you want to put something in your coffee for added flavor, try a plant-based milk like almond, soy, or oat milk (bonus points for your health if you go with an unsweetened variety). And if you want to add some extra flavor, try mixing in cocoa, powdered cinnamon, or vanilla. For sweetness, try a pinch of stevia or a dash of maple syrup. (Check out this article for more on the best and worst sweeteners.)
And, if you’re concerned about the acidity in coffee, try cold-brewing it. Cold-brewing drops the acidity level of coffee by approximately two-thirds. Cold-brewed coffee is also often described as having a smoother and even sweeter flavor profile than hot-brewed coffee.
You can make cold brew at home by putting ⅔ cup of ground coffee in a mason jar with three cups of filtered water and letting it sit in the fridge for at least 12 hours. Filter it as you would any coffee, and voilà — you have cold-brewed coffee. Unlike hot-brewed coffee, cold brew stores well in the fridge for up to two weeks, and if you like, you can also heat it up. It can get really concentrated, however. Which is lovely if you want to mix it with a generous helping of plant milk for a simple latte.
Enjoy Coffee for Your Health!
The debate over whether coffee is good for you continues to rage on. Like anything you eat or drink, it all depends on your individual biochemistry (as some people are more sensitive to caffeine and acidity) as well as what you put in it. But on its own (or with the addition of more healthful inputs), coffee has a number of health benefits and may even decrease your overall risk of death. Now that’s a-latte to be grateful for!
https://foodrevolution.org/blog/coffee- ... 241&jb=389
Re: Health and Healing
The exercises and habits necessary for overcoming osteoporosis
Hey Karim
Can you imagine living your later years always in pain, extremely frail and constantly feeling weak?
If that’s something you want to avoid, you have to make sure your bones stay strong and healthy.
Unfortunately, with age comes bone deterioration and, in many cases, osteoporosis, which may lead to fractures and loss of independence.
The good news is that there are steps you can take immediately to address the root cause of unhealthy bones and give them the nourishment they need to become stronger.
You can learn all of these and more in Margie Bissinger’s upcoming FREE online event, More Natural Approaches to Osteoporosis and Bone Health 2.0.
Reserve your spot now for F.REE. https://morebonehealth.byhealthmeans.com/?idev_id=32255
Margie has over 25 years of experience helping people with osteoporosis and osteopenia improve their bone health and improve their quality of life.
And in this online event, she will be joined by 50+ experts who will share their best practices, exercises and habits for healthier, happier bones!
This online event will tackle:
The root causes of bone loss
Safe exercises (with demonstrations) to strengthen and protect bones
Nutrition and supplements for strong, healthy bones
The impact of stress on bone health + stress reduction strategies
How increased happiness can help protect your bones and your health
And so much more!
This online event runs from January 15-21, 2024, so save the date and be sure you don’t miss out!
It could be your breakthrough in overcoming osteoporosis, building stronger bones, and unlocking your best years yet!
Register now for F.REE! https://morebonehealth.byhealthmeans.com/?idev_id=32255
To conquering osteoporosis,
The Conquering Cancer team
Hey Karim
Can you imagine living your later years always in pain, extremely frail and constantly feeling weak?
If that’s something you want to avoid, you have to make sure your bones stay strong and healthy.
Unfortunately, with age comes bone deterioration and, in many cases, osteoporosis, which may lead to fractures and loss of independence.
The good news is that there are steps you can take immediately to address the root cause of unhealthy bones and give them the nourishment they need to become stronger.
You can learn all of these and more in Margie Bissinger’s upcoming FREE online event, More Natural Approaches to Osteoporosis and Bone Health 2.0.
Reserve your spot now for F.REE. https://morebonehealth.byhealthmeans.com/?idev_id=32255
Margie has over 25 years of experience helping people with osteoporosis and osteopenia improve their bone health and improve their quality of life.
And in this online event, she will be joined by 50+ experts who will share their best practices, exercises and habits for healthier, happier bones!
This online event will tackle:
The root causes of bone loss Safe exercises (with demonstrations) to strengthen and protect bones Nutrition and supplements for strong, healthy bones The impact of stress on bone health + stress reduction strategies How increased happiness can help protect your bones and your healthAnd so much more!
This online event runs from January 15-21, 2024, so save the date and be sure you don’t miss out!
It could be your breakthrough in overcoming osteoporosis, building stronger bones, and unlocking your best years yet!
Register now for F.REE! https://morebonehealth.byhealthmeans.com/?idev_id=32255
To conquering osteoporosis,
The Conquering Cancer team
Re: Health and Healing
Is It Bad to Eat Late at Night?
It’s linked to heartburn, disrupted sleep, metabolic issues and more.
Q: I’ve heard that eating too late in the evening is bad for your health. Is this true?
Many of us reach for comfort foods like ice cream and leftover takeout after a long day. But if you make late night snacking a regular habit, it could have unintended consequences on your health, experts say.
According to a recent study of the eating habits of more than 34,000 U.S. adults, nearly 60 percent said it was normal for them to eat after 9 p.m.
Our bodies have evolved to process nutrients during the day — and to conserve and store energy at night, said Marie-Pierre St-Onge, a nutrition and sleep scientist at Columbia University. And disrupting that natural rhythm could cause problems, she said.
Several studies have found, for instance, that eating dinner within three hours of bedtime may worsen heartburn or acid reflux symptoms.
And limited research has suggested that eating one to three hours before bedtime is associated with more disrupted sleep.
The most intriguing research on late-night eating, however, has focused on its relationship with body weight and metabolic health, said Frank Scheer, a neuroscientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
In one 2019 study of nearly 900 middle-aged and older U.S. adults, for instance, Dr. Scheer and his colleagues found that those who consumed roughly 100 calories or more within two hours of bedtime were about 80 percent more likely to be overweight or to have obesity than those who did not eat during that window. Researchers have found similar results in adults in Sweden and Japan.
And in a 2023 study of more than 850 adults in Britain, those who regularly snacked after 9 p.m. had higher levels of HbA1c, a marker for diabetes risk, and greater spikes in blood sugars and fats after daytime meals than those who did not typically consume late-night snacks.
Such studies can’t prove that late-night eating directly causes weight gain or other health problems, because other factors, such as our genetics, exercise and sleep are also involved, he said. But recent research that controls for these factors has started to reveal direct effects of meal timing on health.
Why late eating might be harder on your body
In a 2022 trial, Dr. Scheer and his colleagues asked 16 overweight or obese adults to live in a laboratory where their meals, exercise and sleep were carefully regimented. All of the subjects followed two different eating schedules, each for six days: One schedule allowed for breakfast soon after waking, lunch at midday and dinner in the early evening; and the other shifted meals four hours later, with supper around 9 p.m.
The participants consumed the same amonts of nutrients and calories on both routines. Yet, on the later meal schedule, they felt hungrier than they did on the earlier one. At the same time, their levels of the hormone leptin (which signals fullness) were lower throughout the day, and their levels of ghrelin (which signals hunger) were higher.
They also burned fewer calories. And several other small studies have found that people burn less fat on a late eating schedule.
Together, these findings suggest that late-night eating could cause weight gain, Dr. Scheer said, though longer term studies are needed.
Research has also found that carbohydrates consumed in the evening result in greater blood sugar spikes than those consumed earlier in the day, said Erin Hanlon, a behavioral neuroscientist at the University of Chicago. That is in part because melatonin, a sleep-promoting hormone that increases in the evening, dampens the secretion of insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels, she added.
Elevated blood sugars could eventually damage blood vessels and increase the risk of developing high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes, Dr. St-Onge said.
How to time your nighttime eating
Research suggests that, if possible, it’s best to avoid eating for three to four hours before your usual bedtime, Dr. St-Onge said.
That timing is likely better for your long-term health, and may also reduce symptoms of acid reflux, which can interfere with sleep, Dr. Hanlon added.
If you are a shift worker, eating late at night may be unavoidable. But, if you can, Dr. Scheer said, try to eat your largest meals between about 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
Timing your eating and sleeping can be “a little bit of a juggling act,” Dr. St-Onge said. You don’t want to eat a large meal too close to bedtime, but you don’t want to go to bed hungry either.
Dr. Scheer also cautioned that some people, such as those who struggle with low blood sugar or with getting enough nutrition, may need to eat at night.
If you do eat later in the evening, Dr. St-Onge suggested opting for smaller, more nutritious meals or snacks that aren’t very high in fat or added sugars, such as plain yogurt with fruit, vegetables with hummus or almond butter on whole grain toast.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/well ... 778d3e6de3
It’s linked to heartburn, disrupted sleep, metabolic issues and more.
Q: I’ve heard that eating too late in the evening is bad for your health. Is this true?
Many of us reach for comfort foods like ice cream and leftover takeout after a long day. But if you make late night snacking a regular habit, it could have unintended consequences on your health, experts say.
According to a recent study of the eating habits of more than 34,000 U.S. adults, nearly 60 percent said it was normal for them to eat after 9 p.m.
Our bodies have evolved to process nutrients during the day — and to conserve and store energy at night, said Marie-Pierre St-Onge, a nutrition and sleep scientist at Columbia University. And disrupting that natural rhythm could cause problems, she said.
Several studies have found, for instance, that eating dinner within three hours of bedtime may worsen heartburn or acid reflux symptoms.
And limited research has suggested that eating one to three hours before bedtime is associated with more disrupted sleep.
The most intriguing research on late-night eating, however, has focused on its relationship with body weight and metabolic health, said Frank Scheer, a neuroscientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
In one 2019 study of nearly 900 middle-aged and older U.S. adults, for instance, Dr. Scheer and his colleagues found that those who consumed roughly 100 calories or more within two hours of bedtime were about 80 percent more likely to be overweight or to have obesity than those who did not eat during that window. Researchers have found similar results in adults in Sweden and Japan.
And in a 2023 study of more than 850 adults in Britain, those who regularly snacked after 9 p.m. had higher levels of HbA1c, a marker for diabetes risk, and greater spikes in blood sugars and fats after daytime meals than those who did not typically consume late-night snacks.
Such studies can’t prove that late-night eating directly causes weight gain or other health problems, because other factors, such as our genetics, exercise and sleep are also involved, he said. But recent research that controls for these factors has started to reveal direct effects of meal timing on health.
Why late eating might be harder on your body
In a 2022 trial, Dr. Scheer and his colleagues asked 16 overweight or obese adults to live in a laboratory where their meals, exercise and sleep were carefully regimented. All of the subjects followed two different eating schedules, each for six days: One schedule allowed for breakfast soon after waking, lunch at midday and dinner in the early evening; and the other shifted meals four hours later, with supper around 9 p.m.
The participants consumed the same amonts of nutrients and calories on both routines. Yet, on the later meal schedule, they felt hungrier than they did on the earlier one. At the same time, their levels of the hormone leptin (which signals fullness) were lower throughout the day, and their levels of ghrelin (which signals hunger) were higher.
They also burned fewer calories. And several other small studies have found that people burn less fat on a late eating schedule.
Together, these findings suggest that late-night eating could cause weight gain, Dr. Scheer said, though longer term studies are needed.
Research has also found that carbohydrates consumed in the evening result in greater blood sugar spikes than those consumed earlier in the day, said Erin Hanlon, a behavioral neuroscientist at the University of Chicago. That is in part because melatonin, a sleep-promoting hormone that increases in the evening, dampens the secretion of insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels, she added.
Elevated blood sugars could eventually damage blood vessels and increase the risk of developing high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes, Dr. St-Onge said.
How to time your nighttime eating
Research suggests that, if possible, it’s best to avoid eating for three to four hours before your usual bedtime, Dr. St-Onge said.
That timing is likely better for your long-term health, and may also reduce symptoms of acid reflux, which can interfere with sleep, Dr. Hanlon added.
If you are a shift worker, eating late at night may be unavoidable. But, if you can, Dr. Scheer said, try to eat your largest meals between about 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
Timing your eating and sleeping can be “a little bit of a juggling act,” Dr. St-Onge said. You don’t want to eat a large meal too close to bedtime, but you don’t want to go to bed hungry either.
Dr. Scheer also cautioned that some people, such as those who struggle with low blood sugar or with getting enough nutrition, may need to eat at night.
If you do eat later in the evening, Dr. St-Onge suggested opting for smaller, more nutritious meals or snacks that aren’t very high in fat or added sugars, such as plain yogurt with fruit, vegetables with hummus or almond butter on whole grain toast.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/well ... 778d3e6de3
Re: Health and Healing
Hi Karim,
This quote stopped me in my tracks the other day:
"Your body can heal itself. It can do so because it has a healing system. If you are in good health, you will want to know about this system, because it is what keeps you in good health and because you can enhance that condition. If you or people you love are sick, you will want to know about this system, because it is the best hope for recovery." - Dr. Andrew Weil
Like Dr. Weil says, your body is well equipped to keep itself in tip top shape, but it's ESSENTIAL that you give it the right nourishment.
Remember, food is medicine.
The Holistic Health Bundle is Back!
A few years ago, my good friend (and former student!) Rob Herring decided to do something crazy. He scoured the world of natural health, wellness and spirituality and found the top experts on every major need that a modern day seeker has...
Rob then asked these experts if they would be willing to contribute a book, a course, a video series, or the like to a larger cause.
He was stunned at the number of experts who wanted to give their knowledge to what became known as the Holistic Health Bundle...https://holistichealthbundle.com/?_kx=K ... %3D.WzyybV
I ask you to do one thing - go to the link below and check out ALL of the amazing classes that are squeezed into this mind-bogglingly inexpensive collection.
It's nuts!
Seriously, I think you're going to be blown away.
Click here to take a gander at the Holistic Health Bundle https://holistichealthbundle.com/?_kx=K ... %3D.WzyybV
Stay curious,
Nick Polizzi
Host of Healing Kitchen: Let Food Be Thy Medicine
& Founder of The Sacred Science
This quote stopped me in my tracks the other day:
"Your body can heal itself. It can do so because it has a healing system. If you are in good health, you will want to know about this system, because it is what keeps you in good health and because you can enhance that condition. If you or people you love are sick, you will want to know about this system, because it is the best hope for recovery." - Dr. Andrew Weil
Like Dr. Weil says, your body is well equipped to keep itself in tip top shape, but it's ESSENTIAL that you give it the right nourishment.
Remember, food is medicine.
The Holistic Health Bundle is Back!
A few years ago, my good friend (and former student!) Rob Herring decided to do something crazy. He scoured the world of natural health, wellness and spirituality and found the top experts on every major need that a modern day seeker has...
Rob then asked these experts if they would be willing to contribute a book, a course, a video series, or the like to a larger cause.
He was stunned at the number of experts who wanted to give their knowledge to what became known as the Holistic Health Bundle...https://holistichealthbundle.com/?_kx=K ... %3D.WzyybV
I ask you to do one thing - go to the link below and check out ALL of the amazing classes that are squeezed into this mind-bogglingly inexpensive collection.
It's nuts!
Seriously, I think you're going to be blown away.
Click here to take a gander at the Holistic Health Bundle https://holistichealthbundle.com/?_kx=K ... %3D.WzyybV
Stay curious,
Nick Polizzi
Host of Healing Kitchen: Let Food Be Thy Medicine
& Founder of The Sacred Science
Breathing Their Way to an Altered State
As psychedelics move from the underground to mainstream medicine, clinicians aspiring to work in the field are inducing altered states with deep breathing.
The instructions were simple: Lying on cots while wearing eyeshades, participants were directed to take deep belly breaths without pause to the beat of fast-paced music booming from loudspeakers.
The exercise, they were told, had the potential to induce an altered state of consciousness so profound that breathers sometimes describe it as reliving the terrifying moment of their birth. Past participants claim to have caught glimpses of past lives.
A few minutes into the session, which lasted nearly three hours, several participants began to weep. Some shook their limbs wildly, looking possessed. An outsider walking in would have been startled by the scene.
But the dozens of attendees at the recent breathwork workshop in San Francisco were far from hippies or cult initiates. They were health care professionals completing the final step of a certificate program in psychedelic therapy.
The vigorous modality, known as holotropic breathwork, is offered at the end of an eight-month training to provide a lawful taste of the therapeutic potential and pitfalls of altered states of consciousness.
Dr. JJ Pursell, a naturopathic doctor from Oregon, was among the trainees who walked into the early October session skeptical that a couple of hours of intense breathing could induce anything close to a psychedelic trip. But she was stunned.
“The depth of what I experienced was so similar to psilocybin,” Dr. Pursell marveled, referring to the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms. “It was trippy.”
ImageA woman wearing a blindfold lies on her back with her hands outstretched in front of her, fingers splayed at odd angles.
Students in a San Francisco breathwork seminar wept and shook their limbs. “The depth of what I experienced was so similar to psilocybin,” Dr. JJ Pursell recalled.Credit...Damien Maloney for The New York Times
A Promising Field of Study, Long Fallow
The demand for psychedelics as tools for healing has exploded in recent years, fueled by promising clinical studies, loosening drug laws and a growing number of celebrities who have come out as psychonauts. The N.F.L. star Aaron Rodgers described ayahuasca ceremonies as a catalyst for “deeper self love.” In her new autobiography, the actor Jada Pinkett Smith credited ayahuasca sessions with putting an end to her suicidal ideation. And ketamine, an anesthetic that induces a dissociative, psychedelic-like state, has become an increasingly popular treatment for depression among people who get it at clinics or self-medicate.
This cultural shift was turbocharged by the author Michael Pollan’s 2018 book, “How to Change Your Mind,” which was adapted into a Netflix series. Psychedelics have also been at the center of popular recent novels and streaming dramas, including the Hulu series “Nine Perfect Strangers,” in which Nicole Kidman plays an underhanded healer at a retreat center called Tranquillum House.
As the stigma of psychedelic use recedes, hundreds of clinicians are seeking formal training to help resurrect a field of medicine that was eagerly pursued in the 1950s and ’60s, but was hastily abandoned after President Richard M. Nixon announced the war on drugs.
Mental health experts say that traditional interventions to treat depression, trauma and addiction are failing many patients in the United States, which is grappling with a high suicide rate and an opioid addiction epidemic that killed approximately 75,000 people in 2022.
“In psychiatry and psychology, we’ve hit a brick wall,” said Janis Phelps, the director of the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies, the first program of its kind at a university.
Since Dr. Phelps, a psychologist, started the training program in 2015, the quest to resurrect psychedelic medicine has made major leaps.
Several universities have opened psychedelic-research centers. The federal government has begun to fund psychedelics studies. Voters in Oregon and Colorado have approved measures to legalize the therapeutic use of psychedelics. And researchers are optimistic that the Food and Drug Administration could approve the clinical use of MDMA, the drug known as ecstasy, as early as this year.
This nascent era comes with formidable challenges. Decades of prohibition have made it difficult to rigorously study the limitations and perils of these compounds, which for some people can be more destabilizing than healing. Psychedelic therapy often straddles medicine and spirituality, raising thorny questions of who should get to guide these experiences and what sort of credentials ought to be required. And the vulnerable state they induce has enabled predatory behavior from guides and even licensed psychotherapists.
The training program at the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research, which has enrolled more than 1,200 students since 2016, was created with the aim of establishing best practices and ethical guidelines as psychedelics move from the underground to mainstream medicine. Since its founding, several other similar training programs have emerged.
They have all wrestled a basic quandary: How do you teach a form of therapy that remains largely illegal?
Image
A woman in a dark-colored T-shirt and blond hair pulled back in a chignon crouches at the side of a man lying on a shallow mat on the floor. He is wearing a red T-shirt, loose shorts and a black eye mask, and has his arms slightly raised at his side.
Participants took turns practicing the breathing exercise and tending to a peer.Credit...Damien Maloney for The New York Times
Powering Down the ‘Thinking Brain’
Dr. Caroline J. Hurd, a palliative care doctor from Seattle, enrolled in the certificate program because she had grown frustrated by the limitations and side effects of medications commonly used to alleviate the pain and anguish of terminally ill patients.
“Most of the tools that we have to treat symptoms lead to disconnection,” she said, describing patients who spend their final days groggy and emotionally withdrawn. She was intrigued by clinical studies that showed that psychedelics eased the fear and dread of people facing grim prognoses, allowing them to be more present and emotionally resilient in their final days.
Her own mortality was not top of mind when she slipped on her eyeshades and began taking heaving breaths at the October workshop, her first time trying holotropic breathwork. During the early stages of the session, which included fast-paced songs, Dr. Hurd said her “thinking brain really turned off.” As the music slowed toward the end, a mesmerizing image crystallized in her mind: Dr. Hurd saw herself lying on a nest of sticks, surrounded by her children, at the moment of her death.
Far from being alarming, the vision filled her with wonder and made her feel as if she had grasped something ineffable about death. “I don’t need to worry about what’s on the other side,” she said, describing the insight. “It could be as simple as, I’m just returning to the dirt and becoming soil, and that’s OK.”
Dr. Bayla Travis, a psychologist in Oakland, Calif., was drawn to the training because she has come to conclude that chronic pain — her specialty — is often a physical manifestation of repressed emotional trauma. In the future, she hopes to help patients confront difficult memories and emotions with the aid of psychedelics.
Dr. Travis said she had embarked on the breathwork session with low expectations because a previous workshop she had participated in had been unremarkable. She was in a cheerful mood when the recent training began, she recalled. But within minutes, Dr. Travis was overcome by a wave of heavy emotions that made her cry and shake as she tapped into what she described as a “deep, deep sorrow that wasn’t particularly about anything.”
After cycling through periods of sadness and bliss, Dr. Travis had a powerful vision as the session was winding down. She saw herself being carried by an adult. The image was deeply soothing. “I think it means I get to be comforted,” Dr. Travis said. The many tears she shed felt a bit mysterious, she added.
“It was like, Oh, this is under the surface and maybe I’ve been walking around with this not having had an opportunity to give it expression.”
At 92, an Early Booster Sees Hope
Shortly after scientists in Europe and the United States began sampling and studying psychoactive drugs like LSD in the 1940s, some psychiatrists saw potential for therapeutic applications. In combination with psychotherapy, the compounds appeared to help some patients reframe traumatic memories, overcome addiction and overhaul their mind-set.
A leading advocate of their therapeutic promise was the Czech-born psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, who wrote several books documenting what he saw over years of using psychedelics and administering them to patients in Prague and Baltimore.
“Psychedelics, used responsibly and with proper caution, would be for psychiatry what the microscope is for biology and medicine or what the telescope is for astronomy,” he wrote in “LSD Psychotherapy,” a book published in 1980.
By then, the war on drugs had stifled the field, prompting Dr. Grof to develop a new breath-based modality that borrowed from ancient Indian and shamanic practices. Holotropic breathwork — a term that blends Greek words that mean moving toward wholeness — became a means to induce altered states of consciousness without drugs.
The effects of holotropic breathwork on the brain and mood have not been widely studied. But in a study published last year, European researchers found that the modality affected brain activity and mood in ways “that are associated with a better mental condition.”
In an interview, Dr. Grof, 92, said that he had discovered, much to his surprise, that breathwork sessions could be as powerful as psychedelic trips. Altered states, whether breath- or drug-induced, he said, often allow people to unravel the root causes of their suffering quickly, making them more effective than conventional treatments like antidepressants.
According to Dr. Grof, current therapies seek to suppress patients’ symptoms and make sense of problems rationally through psychotherapy. But, he added, “some of the most important problems cannot be resolved verbally.”
In the twilight of his career, Dr. Grof speaks ebulliently about the resurgence of psychedelic-assisted therapy. But seizing their potential will require administering them with strong safeguards, he said.
“Right now, so many people want to take psychedelics,” he said. “And few people have the training” to guide these experiences, he added. Experts say holotropic breathwork should be done under the supervision of trained facilitators.
Image
A close-up photo of intertwined hands.
Dr. Stanislav Grof, an early advocate of psychedelic therapies, has emphasized the importance of proper training and supervision for psychedelic experiences.Credit...Damien Maloney for The New York Times
‘Bouncing Between Hell and Heaven’
Laura Berg, a psychiatric nurse from New Mexico, said she had learned the hard way about the perils of self-medicating with psychedelics.
Ms. Berg, who spent most of her career working for the Department of Veterans Affairs, turned to psychedelics after losing faith in the cocktail of antidepressants and mood stabilizers she was prescribed as she struggled with burnout and feelings of helplessness caring for Iraq war veterans.
Taking the drugs in ceremonies and festivals left her feeling dazed and withdrawn for years, Ms. Berg said. She struggled to reconcile the mind-bending and heart-opening experiences she had on psychedelics with the grim reality of her clinical work.
“It was kind of like bouncing between hell and heaven,” said Ms. Berg, a recent graduate of the California Institute of Integral Studies training.
In 2016, Ms. Berg attended a holotropic breathwork workshop, which she said made her realize that she had the capacity to heal herself relying less on medication. That set in motion a personal and professional transformation for Ms. Berg, who became trained to facilitate holotropic breathwork sessions and helped in the October session.
Since then, Ms. Berg has watched with guarded optimism as psychedelics have become increasingly accessible and coveted. As things stand, there are far more people seeking out these treatments than practitioners who are skilled and experienced in guiding them.
“It’s not a panacea,” she said. “It’s not going to turn you, necessarily, into an enlightened person.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/09/styl ... elics.html
The instructions were simple: Lying on cots while wearing eyeshades, participants were directed to take deep belly breaths without pause to the beat of fast-paced music booming from loudspeakers.
The exercise, they were told, had the potential to induce an altered state of consciousness so profound that breathers sometimes describe it as reliving the terrifying moment of their birth. Past participants claim to have caught glimpses of past lives.
A few minutes into the session, which lasted nearly three hours, several participants began to weep. Some shook their limbs wildly, looking possessed. An outsider walking in would have been startled by the scene.
But the dozens of attendees at the recent breathwork workshop in San Francisco were far from hippies or cult initiates. They were health care professionals completing the final step of a certificate program in psychedelic therapy.
The vigorous modality, known as holotropic breathwork, is offered at the end of an eight-month training to provide a lawful taste of the therapeutic potential and pitfalls of altered states of consciousness.
Dr. JJ Pursell, a naturopathic doctor from Oregon, was among the trainees who walked into the early October session skeptical that a couple of hours of intense breathing could induce anything close to a psychedelic trip. But she was stunned.
“The depth of what I experienced was so similar to psilocybin,” Dr. Pursell marveled, referring to the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms. “It was trippy.”
ImageA woman wearing a blindfold lies on her back with her hands outstretched in front of her, fingers splayed at odd angles.
Students in a San Francisco breathwork seminar wept and shook their limbs. “The depth of what I experienced was so similar to psilocybin,” Dr. JJ Pursell recalled.Credit...Damien Maloney for The New York Times
A Promising Field of Study, Long Fallow
The demand for psychedelics as tools for healing has exploded in recent years, fueled by promising clinical studies, loosening drug laws and a growing number of celebrities who have come out as psychonauts. The N.F.L. star Aaron Rodgers described ayahuasca ceremonies as a catalyst for “deeper self love.” In her new autobiography, the actor Jada Pinkett Smith credited ayahuasca sessions with putting an end to her suicidal ideation. And ketamine, an anesthetic that induces a dissociative, psychedelic-like state, has become an increasingly popular treatment for depression among people who get it at clinics or self-medicate.
This cultural shift was turbocharged by the author Michael Pollan’s 2018 book, “How to Change Your Mind,” which was adapted into a Netflix series. Psychedelics have also been at the center of popular recent novels and streaming dramas, including the Hulu series “Nine Perfect Strangers,” in which Nicole Kidman plays an underhanded healer at a retreat center called Tranquillum House.
As the stigma of psychedelic use recedes, hundreds of clinicians are seeking formal training to help resurrect a field of medicine that was eagerly pursued in the 1950s and ’60s, but was hastily abandoned after President Richard M. Nixon announced the war on drugs.
Mental health experts say that traditional interventions to treat depression, trauma and addiction are failing many patients in the United States, which is grappling with a high suicide rate and an opioid addiction epidemic that killed approximately 75,000 people in 2022.
“In psychiatry and psychology, we’ve hit a brick wall,” said Janis Phelps, the director of the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies, the first program of its kind at a university.
Since Dr. Phelps, a psychologist, started the training program in 2015, the quest to resurrect psychedelic medicine has made major leaps.
Several universities have opened psychedelic-research centers. The federal government has begun to fund psychedelics studies. Voters in Oregon and Colorado have approved measures to legalize the therapeutic use of psychedelics. And researchers are optimistic that the Food and Drug Administration could approve the clinical use of MDMA, the drug known as ecstasy, as early as this year.
This nascent era comes with formidable challenges. Decades of prohibition have made it difficult to rigorously study the limitations and perils of these compounds, which for some people can be more destabilizing than healing. Psychedelic therapy often straddles medicine and spirituality, raising thorny questions of who should get to guide these experiences and what sort of credentials ought to be required. And the vulnerable state they induce has enabled predatory behavior from guides and even licensed psychotherapists.
The training program at the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research, which has enrolled more than 1,200 students since 2016, was created with the aim of establishing best practices and ethical guidelines as psychedelics move from the underground to mainstream medicine. Since its founding, several other similar training programs have emerged.
They have all wrestled a basic quandary: How do you teach a form of therapy that remains largely illegal?
Image
A woman in a dark-colored T-shirt and blond hair pulled back in a chignon crouches at the side of a man lying on a shallow mat on the floor. He is wearing a red T-shirt, loose shorts and a black eye mask, and has his arms slightly raised at his side.
Participants took turns practicing the breathing exercise and tending to a peer.Credit...Damien Maloney for The New York Times
Powering Down the ‘Thinking Brain’
Dr. Caroline J. Hurd, a palliative care doctor from Seattle, enrolled in the certificate program because she had grown frustrated by the limitations and side effects of medications commonly used to alleviate the pain and anguish of terminally ill patients.
“Most of the tools that we have to treat symptoms lead to disconnection,” she said, describing patients who spend their final days groggy and emotionally withdrawn. She was intrigued by clinical studies that showed that psychedelics eased the fear and dread of people facing grim prognoses, allowing them to be more present and emotionally resilient in their final days.
Her own mortality was not top of mind when she slipped on her eyeshades and began taking heaving breaths at the October workshop, her first time trying holotropic breathwork. During the early stages of the session, which included fast-paced songs, Dr. Hurd said her “thinking brain really turned off.” As the music slowed toward the end, a mesmerizing image crystallized in her mind: Dr. Hurd saw herself lying on a nest of sticks, surrounded by her children, at the moment of her death.
Far from being alarming, the vision filled her with wonder and made her feel as if she had grasped something ineffable about death. “I don’t need to worry about what’s on the other side,” she said, describing the insight. “It could be as simple as, I’m just returning to the dirt and becoming soil, and that’s OK.”
Dr. Bayla Travis, a psychologist in Oakland, Calif., was drawn to the training because she has come to conclude that chronic pain — her specialty — is often a physical manifestation of repressed emotional trauma. In the future, she hopes to help patients confront difficult memories and emotions with the aid of psychedelics.
Dr. Travis said she had embarked on the breathwork session with low expectations because a previous workshop she had participated in had been unremarkable. She was in a cheerful mood when the recent training began, she recalled. But within minutes, Dr. Travis was overcome by a wave of heavy emotions that made her cry and shake as she tapped into what she described as a “deep, deep sorrow that wasn’t particularly about anything.”
After cycling through periods of sadness and bliss, Dr. Travis had a powerful vision as the session was winding down. She saw herself being carried by an adult. The image was deeply soothing. “I think it means I get to be comforted,” Dr. Travis said. The many tears she shed felt a bit mysterious, she added.
“It was like, Oh, this is under the surface and maybe I’ve been walking around with this not having had an opportunity to give it expression.”
At 92, an Early Booster Sees Hope
Shortly after scientists in Europe and the United States began sampling and studying psychoactive drugs like LSD in the 1940s, some psychiatrists saw potential for therapeutic applications. In combination with psychotherapy, the compounds appeared to help some patients reframe traumatic memories, overcome addiction and overhaul their mind-set.
A leading advocate of their therapeutic promise was the Czech-born psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, who wrote several books documenting what he saw over years of using psychedelics and administering them to patients in Prague and Baltimore.
“Psychedelics, used responsibly and with proper caution, would be for psychiatry what the microscope is for biology and medicine or what the telescope is for astronomy,” he wrote in “LSD Psychotherapy,” a book published in 1980.
By then, the war on drugs had stifled the field, prompting Dr. Grof to develop a new breath-based modality that borrowed from ancient Indian and shamanic practices. Holotropic breathwork — a term that blends Greek words that mean moving toward wholeness — became a means to induce altered states of consciousness without drugs.
The effects of holotropic breathwork on the brain and mood have not been widely studied. But in a study published last year, European researchers found that the modality affected brain activity and mood in ways “that are associated with a better mental condition.”
In an interview, Dr. Grof, 92, said that he had discovered, much to his surprise, that breathwork sessions could be as powerful as psychedelic trips. Altered states, whether breath- or drug-induced, he said, often allow people to unravel the root causes of their suffering quickly, making them more effective than conventional treatments like antidepressants.
According to Dr. Grof, current therapies seek to suppress patients’ symptoms and make sense of problems rationally through psychotherapy. But, he added, “some of the most important problems cannot be resolved verbally.”
In the twilight of his career, Dr. Grof speaks ebulliently about the resurgence of psychedelic-assisted therapy. But seizing their potential will require administering them with strong safeguards, he said.
“Right now, so many people want to take psychedelics,” he said. “And few people have the training” to guide these experiences, he added. Experts say holotropic breathwork should be done under the supervision of trained facilitators.
Image
A close-up photo of intertwined hands.
Dr. Stanislav Grof, an early advocate of psychedelic therapies, has emphasized the importance of proper training and supervision for psychedelic experiences.Credit...Damien Maloney for The New York Times
‘Bouncing Between Hell and Heaven’
Laura Berg, a psychiatric nurse from New Mexico, said she had learned the hard way about the perils of self-medicating with psychedelics.
Ms. Berg, who spent most of her career working for the Department of Veterans Affairs, turned to psychedelics after losing faith in the cocktail of antidepressants and mood stabilizers she was prescribed as she struggled with burnout and feelings of helplessness caring for Iraq war veterans.
Taking the drugs in ceremonies and festivals left her feeling dazed and withdrawn for years, Ms. Berg said. She struggled to reconcile the mind-bending and heart-opening experiences she had on psychedelics with the grim reality of her clinical work.
“It was kind of like bouncing between hell and heaven,” said Ms. Berg, a recent graduate of the California Institute of Integral Studies training.
In 2016, Ms. Berg attended a holotropic breathwork workshop, which she said made her realize that she had the capacity to heal herself relying less on medication. That set in motion a personal and professional transformation for Ms. Berg, who became trained to facilitate holotropic breathwork sessions and helped in the October session.
Since then, Ms. Berg has watched with guarded optimism as psychedelics have become increasingly accessible and coveted. As things stand, there are far more people seeking out these treatments than practitioners who are skilled and experienced in guiding them.
“It’s not a panacea,” she said. “It’s not going to turn you, necessarily, into an enlightened person.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/09/styl ... elics.html