60 Day Turnaround

Monster? I don’t actually mean monster sized salmon, I am actually referring to “Monster-like” salmon, because the ones I am referring to are genetically modified. Not too much unlike Frankenstein if you ask me, which is what the Daily Mail Reporter called it.

The FDA reported on this new species of Salmon which was created by Massachusetts based company, AquaBounty who states their mission as:

Our mission is to play a significant part in “The Blue Revolution” – bringing together biological sciences and molecular technology to enable an aquaculture industry capable of large-scale, efficient, and environmentally sustainable production of high quality seafood. Increased growth rates, enhanced resistance to disease, better food-conversion rates, manageable breeding cycles, and more efficient use of aquatic production systems are all important components of a sustainable aquaculture industry of the future.

Sounds all fine and dandy when you read it that way, but I have to say, something does not sit well with me regarding the safety of a fish, with a DNA structure that was manipulated by man, that grows at two times the rate as the same fish that was manufactured by God.  And if you are an evolutionist, would you not agree that it would take many years for your gut to adapt to the digestion of an animal that undergoes growth changes over many, many years.  So if we radically enhance the growth rate of a fish without stepped alterations, how would we adapt to that animals different DNA?

This is a difficult area, and to fully grasp how we might be responding to eating GMO (genetically modified organisms) foods, requires more discussion and background work than I can accomplish in a single sprout.  But one important area to look at, is the risk of increased allergies due to consuming GMO’s.  First off, nobody can argue that we have not had an exponential increase in food allergies in the last decade.  With nut allergies becoming an emergency in many situations, gluten and dairy allergies are also ramping up at an unprecedented rate… it is obvious that something is going wrong with our culture.  I would offer up that our toxic load is the first culprit, and that the second is the consumption of GMO foods.

Could GMO Foods Be Causing Your Allergies? #690 by kevingianni

As you listen to the interview with Jeff Smith in this link (if you are sitting in my office, be sure to go online and look at this), you will hear the key to this problem.  GMO foods have a genetic sequence that is designed to produce insecticide which then makes the plant itself immune to the damaging potential of an insecticide.  The problem is that these genes transfer into the intestinal flora in your gut, and takes up residence in their genetic sequence.  Thus creating the potential for your gut to become an insecticide production plant.  Their is much more to the process than this, but their has been plenty of research showing how this happens.  Take a look at the Mercola GMO Video Library and you will be amazed (just type in GMO in the search box at this link).

Given the significance of what we have seen with GMO crops in our gut.  I believe it is safe to say that we should not trust a GMO animal product at this time.  So back to the story.  The FDA finds that there is nothing to worry about, that they salmon are safe.  However, Congress, under the guidance of Alaskan Republican Don Young, has chosen to ban the FDA from passing this fish as being safe for human consumption.

The fish has a growth hormone gene that was added, as well as a gene to turn that growth hormone “on” throughout the year.  Making it one growth hormone rich fish!

First off, I have been using earbuds for years as a step towards reducing cell phone radiation to my head.  I have been setting my phone on the passenger seat when I drive to avoid radiation to my hand, leg or anywhere else I might think to set a phone while driving!  I reduce the amount of usage of my phone vs my laptop (wireless inside a home is minimal compared to the amount in a phone to cell tower burst), when I can.  Airplane mode is also one my favorite inventions.

So Mercola has a nice short video on this (8 mins), as well as a pretty lengthy article giving some great details.

From his website:

Here’s some news about cell phones and cancer which even the mainstream media has found impossible to ignore. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), has declared after a review of the research that cell phones are possible cancer-causing agents. The expert panel ruled that there was some evidence that cell phone use was linked to two types of tumors—brain tumors (gliomas) and acoustic neuromas.

Some scientists say the IARC classification is still not strong enough, and that cell phone radiation should have been classified as a “Probable Human Carcinogen” based on the existing science, but evidently there were not enough studies to classify it more strongly at this time.

Alasdair Philips of Powerwatch in the U.K. says,

“The existing science is very clear there is risk of cancer from cell phone use. The warning might have been 2A if there were a larger number of animal studies showing this, or if there were a larger number of up-to-date human studies. It’s important to recognize the Interphone study on which the classification to a large extent relied was completed in 2004, and current studies reflecting usage patterns today would be far more damning, possibly earning a Class 1 “Human Carcinogen.”

The article goes on to provide some great details, however I want to stop on this point.  Currently we use our cell phones for 10 times as many functions as we did 7 years ago, and for longer periods when we do use it.  I would suggest that holding a phone in your hands increases damage to the cells of your body, though more resilient cells exist in your hands than in your head, it is still a risk.

So the risk is really unknown when you consider the studies were done on old data, and today we use phones that emit higher levels of radiation, and our usage has increased significantly since these studies were done… my only definitive advice here is to do everything in your power to reduce the proximity of your cell phone to your body, and to minimize usage!

Cancer free is the way to be! Be Well, Dr. E

Check it out!

http://www.lifeasaplate.com/2011/03/10/homemade-thick-and-creamy-raw-milk-yogurt-tutorial/

For decades it has been touted that the best way to insure strong teeth, is to add fluoride to the water.  And the majority of clinical data has shown that statement to be true.  There is really no argument against the effectiveness of fluoride in building strong teeth.  The question at hand is and has been safety.

The EPA sets a maximum standard of 4 milligrams per liter, or 4 parts per million for the amount of fluoride that can be present in your water.  As you read the EPA’s standard, you will notice they refer to it as contamination because fluoride is a highly toxic chemical.

Likewise, the report that was assembled by the Fairbanks Fluoride task force refers to the amount of fluoride being much less than that listed as acceptable by the EPA.  Yet they still chose to remove fluoride from the water!  This is due largely to their further research on the significance of toxicity that can be present in nursing mothers or infants beyond nursing.  However, cumulative effect of fluoride is very difficult to determine in all populations, as they might receive multiple daily exposures.

Products like toothpaste and mouthwash, or chewing gum routinely have fluoride added to them.  In addition, because it is a ground element, it is found in foods as well, at varying levels.  The issue is that if you are having it unnaturally (municipal water, and dental products) as well as naturally (eating foods that are rich in fluoride), then it is likely that you will have a fluoride toxicity.  Symptoms can mirror many other symptoms, unless they become severe from a massive one time ingestion (poison control needs to be called).

Other sources of fluoride include fluoride treatments at the dentist… which might have their place, however I would highly caution treating a child with a developing immune system, and with poor control over what is swallowed and what is spit, from having a fluoride treatment.  I would further question treating a child with baby teeth with fluoride (this pro-fluoride site suggests treatment after primary teeth are all in).

“But Dr. Eric, my kid has a mouth full of cavities”.  Again, as I say with everything else.  It is your choice.  My kid tends to be the only one out of 50, who walks out of her Church class every Sunday without taking the candy.  Guess what, you just chose the path to cavity.  If you want to give them a treat, give them something that has less potential of embedding sugar deep in the gums.  Even ice cream will do better for tooth health than candy.  If your child eats as they should, and it is your choice if they do or don’t until they are able to source their own food; they will not have a mouthful of cavities.

That being said… is their genetic pre-disposition?  Yes.  According to several published articles and this summary article, there is pre-disposition in genetics.  However, also according to some genetic dental research, their just might be future generations at  risk for more tooth decay, because of what your kids are eating now.  It ramps that responsibility up a notch when you realize your grand-kids or perhaps great grand-kids will have a mouthful of cavities based upon the amount of sugar going into your children’s systems right now!

So the long and short of the whole article, is that Fairbanks Alaska found that their naturally occurring levels of fluoride were significant on their own (as is the case in most parts of the country) so that there was no need to be adding fluoride to the water.  The risk of toxicity was greater than the benefit to teeth health according to their task force, and for that, I am grateful.  It is an opportunity for more people to question fluoride, and move forward cautiously… and perhaps to never by Nestle fluoride enriched water again!

Be blessed, be well – Dr. E

Time for another challenge for all of you health pursuing crazies!  Actually, this will be great for all of you, crazy or not.  Our focus in all of the workouts that I provide here, are to achieve some level of metabolic conditioning, which means the workouts need to be short enough that you can really push yourself hard, yet enough work that you tax the systems in your body that produce energy.  These are metabolic pathways, therefore: metabolic conditioning!

So because of this, I like running, but I also like testing your other physical capacity.  So today we will give you a combination of activities that involve moving your body weight over distance.  First will be running, and as before, if you cannot run, then walk fast.  If you cannot walk fast, then walk slow.  Just push as hard as you can.

The next movement is going to be a bear crawl.  This is hard to do if you don’t have much shoulder strength, so let me describe it as well as the alternatives.  The bear crawl is basically a crawl with both feet and both hands on the ground.  Keeping knees off the ground, and leaning in a way that puts your body weight through your shoulders.  If you can crawl this way, for only an instant before dropping to your knees, then still attempt to do the crawl as it is prescribed.

After Bear crawls, we will add one more movement to “rest” your legs and arms, sit-ups.  If you cannot do a sit-up, then a crunch will suffice, but just know, I think a crunch is a wasted movement in a workout, unless it is used as a stepping stone to sit-ups.

So here is the work, you should use a grassy area for the bear crawls and the sit-ups, but run on the road/sidewalk.  You will do 4 rounds of 400M run, Bear Crawl 40M, 20 sit-ups.  I will plan on doing this over the weekend, and posting my time to get it done to the comments of this post.  To measure your 40 Meters, step off 40 long steps, or 10 and just go back and forth.

400 Meters is a quarter of a mile, you could use a treadmill, or if you drive 1/10 of a mile add just a little bit, and that would be your turn around point to be close to a quarter mile.

Remember to do this as fast as you can (but please don’t kill yourself), while maintaining good technique in the bear crawl and sit-ups.  Feel free to post your time to the comments, then you can come back, do it again, and post your new time to comments, and use this post on our web-site as your journal of sorts!  Be well, BE FIT!

I have been telling you to avoid non-organic chicken for a long time.  The primary reason has always been the arsenic that is found in the chicken feed. It acts as a preservative to the feed, while boosting growth of the chicken.  So when you buy your “All Natural – no antibiotics and hormones ever” chicken, you have been buying arsenic laden chicken, which in reality is worse than an antibiotic or hormone treated chicken.

It was a number of years ago when the studies showing arsenic in fast food chicken products flooded onto the market, here is a sample of one limited study in MN and CA.  At that time I started advising everyone to avoid non-organic chicken from all sources, including Chik-fil-A (the link will take you to their web page where it is obvious that they just follow USDA allowed standards, meaning they use antibiotics as needed, and are happy to use approved arsenic laden feed, no better standard than that; in addition you can tell that all of their non-sandwich chicken is the processed stuff, see this SHOCKING LINK).

So the news, is that though I have known for years that there was arsenic in the chicken feed, I never knew that it was prepared as such with a “drug” manufactured by a Pfizer owned company called Alpharma.  I guess it is now very obvious to me, that if the FDA is going to approve arsenic being added to our food supply, they would want it to be regulated, so making it a drug is the best way to do that, but it puts another blemish on the pharmaceutical industry.  They have their hands in so many cookie jars, sadly, all harmful to humanity in some way.

The reason why this has caught media attention, is because the drug is being pulled from use.  A study showed that though the drug uses organic arsenic, the levels of inorganic arsenic found in the livers of chickens given this drug, was higher compared to chickens who were not.  Here is the FDA’s Q&A position on Arsenic differences:

“The inorganic form is more harmful than the organic form, and has been found to be a human carcinogen. Organic arsenic is not known to be carcinogenic. Organic arsenic is the form of arsenic that is the active ingredient in approved arsenic-based animal drugs, including 3-Nitro.”

Just to clarify, organic arsenic is not known to be carcinogenic at low levels, but at higher levels has been found to be carcinogenic.  If you heard my detox talk Monday night, you would realize that competition for detoxifying enzymes can create situations where low carcinogenic compounds are quickly highly carcinogenic in the body.  However, the real question is how does organic arsenic, convert to inorganic arsenic in the livers of these chickens?  And if it does it there, could we be converting organic to inorganic in our livers?  Of course it seems pretty likely.

The article in the Los Angeles Times has also reported that the only other arsenic drug marketed as a feed additive is Nitarsone, which, funny enough, is also manufactured by Alpharma.  I guess 100% market share is pretty cool for Pfizer, but not so good for us, when our hope is that this stuff is banned completely (not too likely with the size of the lobby that Pharma runs in DC).  In the meantime, eat organic chicken whenever possible.  Trader Joes drumsticks are incredibly reasonable, and perfect for the summertime barbecue!

It will be impossible for you to avoid all sources of arsenic, however if you try hard, it is likely that you will live a longer, healthier life because of it!

Be blessed, be well – Dr. E

I am just back from the beach. The beach is one of my absolute favorite vacations, as I love it, my wife loves it, and so do both of my daughters.  We simply have a great time there!  And though, I do a pretty good job of keeping it all under control when it comes to my lifestyle, I surely do not keep it as tight as I do here!

So after ice cream, fudge, dinners out at restaurants that do not swear by their clean ingredients, and slipping into some caffeine… it is time to clean it up!  Tonight I will be providing a free workshop as part of our Toxic Body education.  It is open to everyone, though the ultimate value will be for those of you who did a hair analysis, I guarantee it will have life implication for everyone of you who chooses to come to this workshop.  So I recommend it, across the board (7PM tonight at our office).

When I discuss toxicity, I realize that we often feel like there is no point in discussing it… “of course I am toxic, aren’t we all toxic… yeah, so what, what does toxicity have to do with anything” or “I can’t do anything about it anyways”, these are all common responses.  The problem is, that if you don’t do something, you are on a fast track to cancer.

I have many cancer patients, and have had that many more over the years.  The simple answer is that 80% of them can trace a history of a toxic lifestyle.  And when we push, we can usually find some very specific “extra” toxic load concerns that might have been work related, home related, hobby related, or some other environmental factor.

Currently, we have seen recent medical literature that suggests that 95% of cancer causing agents are environmental, with only 5% internal/genetic.  That means that you have almost a certainty of control potential with regards to cancer, IF you are pursuing the appropriate lifestyle.

A couple key things to think about, and a reason why I offer a workshop like this and call it necessary.

• radiation from batteries (especially ones with cadmium) is deadly to the body over time
• arsenic is in most commercial chicken and beef, anything eating (non-organic) grain based feed
• aluminum has been associated with both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease
• even stainless steel cookware has the potential to release toxins into your system
• plastics with BPA, can be detected in a hair sample, and these plastics are often found in toy production, as well as lead is still used in the paint applied to plastic toys coming from China (test kits are advisable, especially with infants)
• there are an endless number of toxins coming out in new products all the time, you need to stay active in pursuing your education

So if I don’t see you tonight, please sign up now for our next workshop, and we will remind you when the time comes, otherwise, continue to self educate beyond this Sprout!  God Bless!

If you’ve ever tuned into the A&E television program Hoarders, it doesn’t take a genius to quickly realize it’s going to take more than a bottle of Windex to clean up all the garbage, moldy food and rotting animal poop that’s been accumulating in those houses for years and years and years…

But some people accumulate health problems the same way, and unrealistically believe it will take just a visit or two at the Chiropractor’s to fix all their issues.  From years of neglect, bad advice and denial, their chronic illnesses pile up until they can no longer recognize the healthy state their body used to be in.  By the time they decide to see a Chiropractor, they’ve got a real ‘dis-ease hoarding’ problem and unfortunately one adjustment isn’t enough to clean up the squalor.

The goal of Chiropractic isn’t to temporarily sweep your symptoms under a rug to make things look good on the surface, but to actually roll our sleeves up and get rid of the underlying clutter once and for all.  Sure it might take a little more time and a bit more elbow grease to transform your health our natural way, but in the end your human house will be clean, pristine and habitable again.

Life is power, power is life. All healing happens within the nervous system which is the intelligent source of power and life. When the power within the nervous system is interrupted, so is life. These interruptions or “subluxations” are the beginnings to ill health or ‘dis-ease’. The intensity of healing power the body receives from a single adjustment allows the body to release its own healing energy for its own path to optimum life. It is never too late to be on the road to have the power completely turned on and life to flow effortlessly within.

– Vicki White, Chiropractic Intern

Dr. Eric – This is such a great principle to remember, “Time in the lifestyle, is what makes change”.  It is not the “one big adjustment”, or for those who pursue naturopathic treatment “we got the right herb”.  It is simply time in the pursuit.  You keep working towards the goal of health, not symptom relief, and you will be given health.  A full measure will be returned back on you for your efforts.

I have been following this path for nearly 15 years, and the changes were amazing to me 15 years ago when I started getting adjusted, but the changes were amazing 6 years ago when I started CrossFit, and the changes were amazing 2 years ago when I tried the healing diet for the first time, and actually the changes were amazing to me when I detoxed for the first time 9 years ago… but in the end, the thing that has changed me, is all of it.  The simple pursuit of all of it!

Stay tuned in for health!  And be Blessed along the way!!

Dr. Levi

Take an aspirin a day to prevent a heart attack is an often presented wisdom that few actually think about. So what are the numbers behind this sage advice? Who lives?  Who dies? Who thinks it works but doesn’t? Who get’s the stroke or ulcer? Who benefits from every person over 45 being on an aspirin?

In an article titled   “Does aspirin cut deaths? New study clouds picture” the authors review some aspirin statistics that every user should know. 1,111 people would have to take an aspirin a day for 4 -10 years to prevent 1 death. It’s called the Number Needed to Treat, or NNT.

Do you get that?  1,110 people who take an aspirin a day, in order to save their life, are not benefiting. But they are exposed to risks. It’s a numbers game, except most people don’t win. Here’s the catch though, every living person who is on the medical regimen thinks they are “the one” who’s benefiting. Why not? They are alive. They were told they would be dead. It must be the drugs.

If all of them say “thank God for this aspirin, or I’d be dead by now”, only one of the 1,111 would be potentially correct.

Out of that 1,111 , nine of those individuals would suffer bleeding ulcers due to the drug, and nearly four would have other major bleeds, like hemorrhagic stroke.

Ironically, “for women age 55 to 79, aspirin is recommended to prevent strokes, with the same caveat.”

The article also states, “The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a federally supported expert panel, advises that men age 45 to 79 take aspirin to stave off heart attacks, as long as the benefit outweighs the risk of bleeding.”

I wonder how your medical doctor  or the American Heart Association can determine who will be whom?

While healthy people taking aspirin for prevention is hotly debated in the medical community, the benefits for people who have already had a heart attack is not debated. It’s unanimous. They benefit. But how much?

The likelihood of someone who has had a heart attack and surviving for 5 more years is 95%. If they take a baby aspirin a day then that statistical likelihood moves to 97.5%. Doesn’t sound very impressive if you put it that way. But if you reframe it, that is a 2.5 % reduction off of a 5% absolute chance of of dying for that subset of conditions. Now you can say that taking an aspirin a day can cut your risk of dying by 50%. That sounds much more impressive.

The question for me is not “how do I medically manage miniscule risk reductions of dying” but “How do I live, for what, for who, and why”.  None of those answers involve aspirin.