Friday, September 25, 2009

Vaccines - Learn about them before, not after

It is our responsibility that we know what we are getting.

Learn about you and your family's vaccines before you approve of them.

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is a national, non-profit educational organization founded in 1982. The oldest and largest consumer organization advocating the institution of vaccine safety and informed consent protections in the mass vaccination system, NVIC is responsible for launching the vaccine safety and informed consent movement in America in the early 1980's.




To download this booklet click here

My Ultimate Dream

I have wanted, for a long time, to do some studies on diets, health and other symptoms. I always wanted to do a trial of LCHF. But I am constant facing one issue. For it to be real research you would need some kind of control group.

How can I possibly ask people to stay on their high carbohydrate and low fat diets when I know it is harmful for them? How can I tell them to eat like that for 3, 6, 9, or 12 moths when that can slowly kill them? It shouldn’t even be allowed!

First do no harm is a well known fraise in medical literature but overseen by many. To have significant proof a control group is required… but where is the ethic in that when we know it is wrong? I don’t understand. Sure, if you have no clue of what is right and wrong and truly are testing one method over another without having a set goal already with it, like me, it would be ok I guess.

Off course we can now also argue that someone that is trying to prove a point, like me, can do so no matter the hypothesis… you can just simply deny to include studies that prove your point to be false. That is off course illegal – but yet we see it everywhere.

To me it is proof enough to see the groups I would love to work with (Diabetes, Weight Loss, Heart Health, and Skin Irritations) improve their own health. The health of others is my goal – not to really prove a point. The proving point part is just there to show when someone asks for it.

See, my dream is to become a certified nutritionist – open my own office – help people reach optimal health – and eventually I would go out of business because there would be no more people to help! That is my ultimate dream!

Anyone ready to sign up for any of my LCHF groups?

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Influenza Vaccine - Don't do it!

Dr Mercola posted this on his blog last week and as I am a big NO to vaccine of this kind I wanted to send it out to reach some more people.

Why You Should NOT Vaccinate Your Children Against the Flu This Season
By Dr. Mercola
September 18 2009


This year it is more important that you protect your children and loved ones from the flu vaccines than influenza itself. Here are the reasons:

1. This flu is simply another flu. It is not unusually deadly.

2. This is the first time both season and pandemic flu vaccines will be administered. Both seasonal flu and swine flu vaccines will require two inoculations. This is because single inoculations have failed to produce sufficient antibodies. This is an admission that prior flu vaccines were virtually useless. Can you trust them this time?

3. Adjuvants are added to vaccines to boost production of antibodies but may trigger autoimmune reactions. Some adjuvants are mercury (thimerosal), aluminum and squalene. Why would you sign a consent form for your children to be injected with mercury, which is even more brain-toxic than lead?

4. This is the first year mock vaccines have been used to gain FDA approval. The vaccines that have been tested are not the same vaccines your children will be given.

5. Over-vaccination is a common practice now in America. American children are subjected to 29 vaccines by the age of two. Meanwhile, veterinarians have backed off of repeat vaccination in dogs because of observed side effects.

6. Modern medicine has no explanation for autism, despite its continued rise in prevalence. Yet autism is not reported among Amish children who go unvaccinated.

7. Researchers are warning that over-use of the flu vaccine and anti-flu drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza can apply genetic pressure on flu viruses and then they are more likely to mutate into a more deadly strain.

8. Most seasonal influenza A (H1N1) virus strains tested from the United States and other countries are now resistant to Tamiflu (oseltamivir). Tamiflu has become a nearly worthless drug against seasonal flu.

9. Public health officials are irresponsible in their omission of any ways to strengthen immunity against the flu. No options outside of problematic vaccines and anti-flu drugs are offered, despite the fact there is strong evidence that vitamins C and D activate the immune system and the trace mineral selenium prevents the worst form of the disease.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

In Whom Can We Trust?


Do you know who Jim Mann is?

If you have diabetes, you might have heard of him. If you don’t know him by name you probably know him by the way you are “supposed” to eat to control your diabetes.

Jim Mann is one of many published researchers within the field of diabetes and food advices. He also represents the Department of Human Nutrition and Medicine and the Edgar National Centre for Diabetes Research, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.

In the book: Type 2 Diabetes: Principles and Practice by Barry J. Goldstein and Dirk Müller-Wieland; Jim Mann and Monika Toeller wrote chapter 5 – Nutrition in the Etiology and Management of Type 2 Diabetes.
In this chapter it is clearly stated what a person with type 2 diabetes should eat:
Page 68; Table 4
Advise
• Carbohydrate intake should be higher and fat intake lower than presently consumed in most countries – reducing saturated fats and/or trans fats (e.g. in cream, chocolates, fast foods, high-fat cheese, sausage, meat, spreads, and fatty bakery)
• The use of fresh fruit and vegetables (5 servings per day)
• Consuming preferably whole grain breads and cereals, parboiled rice, pasta, legumes
• The use of vegetable oils (e.g., olive oil, rapeseed oil, soya been oil) nuts, seeds, and oily fish
• Sugar does not need to be excluded but should be limited
• Alcoholic beverages, if desired, should be consumed as part of the total caloric intake (no more than 1-2 small drinks/day)
• Meals, snacks, and food choices should match individual therapeutic needs, preferences and culture.

In other words he also says that the recommendations for people with type 2 diabetes are the same as for people in general.

In another study: Free sugars and human health: Sufficient evidence for action? (Also written by Jim Mann). Where he states that there is insufficient evidence to recommend that sugar intake to be restricted. He uses a 1998 FOA/WHO report as a reference saying that there may not be a direct casual association between consumption of sugars and coronary heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic diseases.

However he is bold to say that drinks rich in free sugars may be particularly important in promoting weight gain and saying that children that consume a lot of sugary drinks are more likely to be overweight.

In the end of the report he calls for corrections of governments and health professionals. That the interest is shifted from focus on the economic gains of some food industries to the general public and health.

Great – right?!?!

Well after further investigation this incredible man – Jim Mann is also one of SRAS advisors. SRAS stands for Sugar Research Advisory Board. But after looking through their material SRAS is clearly a marketing device for SUGAR! SRAS is trying with many colorful Fact sheets to make sugar look healthy, good, and something every human need for survival…

So who is calling for what here??! Sugar is OK to eat is coming from a man with tight bonds to the sugar industry but published under Diabetes Research…

Can we trust the diabetic recommendations made by a man that is paid to lobby sugar?

Please note: Do not follow the recommendations mentioned above if you have Type 2 Diabetes. You are better off trying the LCHF diet.

Friday, September 11, 2009

What is LCHF?

LCHF stands for Low Carbohydrates and High Fat diet or as many would refer to it – a better lifestyle.

This is how it works:
By eating minimal amounts of carbohydrates your blood sugar will not spike and your insulin production will stay low. The insulin works by lowering the high blood sugar as fast as possible. This means that if you eat carbohydrates your insulin production will raise to lower your blood sugar, leaving you feeling hungry soon after you just ate.

The insulin also stores your fat and blocks the fat burning process, while it at the same time transforms unused carbohydrates into fat. Eating carbohydrates results in higher amounts of insulin – resulting in higher amounts of stored body fat and your body will have a harder time burning the fat it already carries.

The body is able to produce the blood sugar it needs from protein and fat from the food we eat. And by doing so the blood sugar levels will stay stable and you will never feel the sugar spikes of high’s and low’s that the carbohydrates give you.

Burning fat gives your muscles energy and your brain can also use the fat burning products as energy. If you eat normal amounts of fat, protein and vegetables the total amount of calories will stay low and you can start loosing weight without feeling hungry. Research also shows that it is not dangerous to increase the amount of fats and protein in your daily diet.

A low carbohydrate diet is perfect for people with Type II diabetes because the blood sugar will stay at a normal level even right after eating. If taking medicine for your diabetes you should gradually work your way down to a low carbohydrate diet while watching your blood sugar levels closely, so that you can lower your medication as well without reaching too low levels of blood sugar. A recommendation is to work out a plan with your doctor regarding this.

Most over weight people have tried to diet many times with the previous recommended low fat diets without succeeding. Their time is now; they will succeed with the low carbohydrate and high fat diet.

Cholesterol is always in focus when people start to talk about fat and what types of fat to eat and so on. To make it clear the amount of cholesterol in food has almost no effect on the cholesterol in your blood, because your body makes its own cholesterol when it needs to. So if you choose to eat no cholesterol your body will produce more, if you choose to eat more cholesterol high foods your body will make less.

So how do we get cholesterol and plaque blockage in our blood stream then if it is not from the fat and cholesterol we eat?

The answer goes ones again back to the insulin and the effect of eating carbohydrates and sugars. The insulin also spikes something called the HMGR activity, this is the activity that tells the body to make more cholesterol. With low amounts of insulin the HMGR activity will stay low too; telling the body to produce less cholesterol. So once again the fat in our diet is not the culprit, the carbohydrates are!

Klick on the picture to see a larger image:


Thursday, September 10, 2009

Vitamin D, LCHF and Swine Flu

Today at work everyone received an email about the swine flue; stating different things to think about when trying to prevent getting infected by it, but what they also said was "Do not self-medicate" and I wrote a response to their contact email. I am not expecting to see an answer, or an action based on what I wrote, but I was unable to keep quiet. So after sending it to them I thought I could send it to all of you, so I can educate more people than only those reading that email:

Hello,

First of all I would like to thank you for constantly updating us on the Swine flu issue; and as we are reaching fall and winter season soon information like this should increase, helping people to remember some easy avoiding techniques.

However, I think it is horribly wrong to tell people “Do not self-medicate” as there are numerous of findings out there telling us to what benefits we can receive from adding Vitamin D3 to our daily diet.

Vitamin D has been known for many years as the bone health vitamin only. Luckily we know much better today – as there are Vitamin D receptors on almost every cell in the body (Dr. E. Owings). Vitamin D is also referred to as the sunshine-vitamin as we receive most of our Vitamin D levels from skin exposure to the UVB light from the sun. As a matter of fact the skin can make up to 50,000 IU of Vitamin D in one day, even though 20,000 IU is more common (Dr. E. Owings).

Vitamin D is technically not a vitamin, but a hormone. And at enough vitamin D levels in the blood, vitamin D is known to prevent from: 17 different cancers, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, muscle wasting, birth defects, periodontal disease (Dr. J. Cannell). And as well as improving many diseases Vitamin D gives us substantial protection from viral infections, including influenza and the swine flue (Dr. W. Davis).

As the US government recommendation stays at a low 200 IU per day – experts are calling for much higher dosages: Children are recommended to take 1000 IU per every 25 pounds of body weight and the recommendation for adults is 5000 IU or more if over weight. A recommended blood level of vitamin D should stay in between 50-80 ng/mL (125-200 nM/L) (Dr. J. Cannell) and this can be tested through a test called: 25-hydroxyvitamin D test at your doctor’s office.

So how do we obtain an efficient level of Vitamin D? Either we can spend most of our days outside in the sun with as little clothes as possible, right?! Well wrong – it is impossible, in the winter, for those who live above the 37th parallel to get enough vitamin D from sunlight. The 37th parallel would represent a line starting in Santa Cruz (south of San Francisco) California continuing on the northern border of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina… And still the people on the southern side of this border people are not getting enough Vitamin D by sun exposure (Dr. E. Owings). Why? Well air pollutant, sun block, fear of skin cancer, skin color – the lighter skin the better we can absorb the vitamin D from the sun, and age – the older we are the less effective is the vitamin D metabolism in the skin.

So what else contains vitamin D3? Milk – an adult would have to drink 50 glasses in a day to obtain these levels, and this is off course not something anyone should do. But the proper way of supplementing vitamin D3 is by food supplementation that can be found in many local stores such as CVS or GNC.

Why Vitamin D3 and not just Vitamin D. Well if you go to your doctor and ask for vitamin D he will simply give you D2. D2 is called Ergocalciferol and is made from irradiated mushrooms and is not a human form of vitamin D as vitamin D3 (Cholecalciferol) is. D3 is extracted from wool in an animal friendly way. The reason why most doctors gives you D2 is based on pharmaceutical industry marketing and not concern for what is healthiest or most natural (Dr. E. Owings). D2 is not only unnatural to us humans, but not even nearly as efficient as D3. To reach the same levels as 5,000 IU of D3 you need to supplement with 15,000 IU of D2 (Dr. W. Davis). Also, Vitamin D3 does not come with all the side effects that D2 has.

So what does Vitamin D3 do to prevent the swine flue? Well it boosts the immune system better than anything out there. It boosts both the innate and the immediate immune system (Dr. J. Cannell) giving you the best protection ever recorded (Dr. E. Owings).

Off course there are other things we can do to boost our immune system but most people will think I am crazy when saying this: Stop eating, or at least decrease your intake of highly inflammatory carbohydrates (bread, pasta, potatoes, chips, rice, cake, breakfast cereals…) and start eating more natural cheeses, butter, animal fat, avocados, cream and so on. Never look at a “low fat” or “non fat” product ever again! If you are still dead set on that carbohydrates being healthy for you, please start supplementing with some Omega 3 as you are getting too many unhealthy omega 6 from your daily carbohydrates…

A low carbohydrate diet contains of 10 gr per day and a mediate intake contains of 50 gr per day. Levels over this should be avoided for a better health, along with eating high levels of natural fat.

I would be very happy if you could distribute at least a little note to our employees about the benefits of supplementing with Vitamin D3 over the fall-winter-spring season as it is known to fight many unwelcomed diseases and illnesses. I would be more than happy to be a contact person for people with questions regarding this, but I understand if this is a legal matter too.

To read some of the references please click on the links below:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/
http://www.ehealthdiscoveries.com/vitamind.html
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/search/label/vitamin%20D

With my warmest regards,

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Vitamin D3 is not the same as D2

Not many weeks ago a colleague of mine (let’s call him Eric) asked me if I knew the difference between D2 and D3 and I told Eric that D2 comes from irradiated mushrooms and D3 comes from the sheep wool. In other words D3 is the same kind of vitamin as humans get from the sun. Humans just don’t get enough and we can’t produce it on our own (Owings E. 2009), like the sheep can. (D3 is natural for humans, D2 is not)

After telling Eric this, he asked me how he would know what he is taking and I gave him the medical definitions of them both (D2 = Ergocalciferol; D3 = Cholecaliciferol). Since I was aware of that he had gotten his Vitamin D by prescription I told him “I am 99.9% sure that you are taking D2, but I would be thrilled to find out I am wrong”.

Eric called his pharmacy right away and got the answer I was expecting: Ergocalciferol. When confronting the person Eric was talking to the answer he got back was that Ergocalciferol is the only Vitamin D they are giving out.

A week later, Eric had a new appointment with his doctor and decided to ask him about the D2/D3 issue. The doctor said he knew that there was a difference in them both, but could not say what, not even the basic facts I mentioned above. But the doctor stamped a post-it with what he had sent to the pharmacy just to show Eric… “Vitamin D3; 50,000IU tab” is what the stamp said.

Eric, off course, got confused and was starting to believe that the Pharmacy had made a mistake by giving him Ergocalciferol (D2) since the doctor had given him D3, or at least that is what was stamped on the little note he had.

Today, after getting a refill of his Vitamin D he also got and kept all his paperwork that came along with it. Still in believe about that stamp the doctor had given Eric earlier he asked me to double and triple check that my definition of D2 and D3 was correct. I did, just for my own sanity, and I was still right.

One of the sheets Eric brought me today was the “Patient Education Monograph” sheet stating the drugs and how to use it and so on… The thing the jumped out the most to me was this:

Generic Name: Vitamin D – Oral
Common Brand name(s): Drisdol, Maximum D3
Identification: PA140 Green Oval Capsule



This is the Drug Eric was given:



My researching mind went into high concentration mood and I started to dig. And this is what I found:

The brand name Drisdol is Ergocalciferol (D2), not D3. The Brand name Maximum D3 seems to be hard to find out there in cyber space as a brand name. But the ones I found that was called Maximum D3 seems to be the real stuff, however none of them required a prescription.

When trying to find out through the identification number on the pills (PA140) I now know for sure that Eric is taking Vitamin D2 and not the preferably Vitamin D3. The Brand Name Drisdol had the identification W on one side and D92 on the other, but it is still Ergocalciferol.

The only conclusion I can draw from all this is that the medical industry does not know or care about the difference in D2 and D3 – it is all same to them. And as long as the pharmacies only give out D2 it does not matter what the doctor prescribe anyway.

I knew that people are most likely to be prescribed a D2 pill than to be told to buy over the counter D3. But it was almost heart breaking to see the letter D and number 3 right next to the drug Drisdol as we know is a D2 vitamin. It just didn’t make sense to me that they can be labeled as the same type of medication, when we know it is not!

We need to take action our selves in this matter. So instead of going in to the pharmacy and giving the prescription away for some D2 in return go to the supplement isle and pick up some REAL Vitamin D3 supplement over the counter!!! You don’t have to look for long to find a Vitamin D3 supplement: GNC has it, CVS has it, RiteAide has it… and your local grocery store probably has it too. Don’t get your Vitamin D from a prescription – it requires roughly twice to 250% of D2 to match the effect of D3 (Trang H. et al 1998; Armas LA et al 2004; Harris SS et al 2002).

Most Vitamin D3 recommend a daily dose of 1000 IU, I would increase it to 5000 IU a day for an adult. More if you are overweight, have Type II Diabetes, have high blood pressure, and are in general deficient in Vitamin D levels.