Seals Rescue in Somalia

SEALS RESCUE TWO CAPTIVES IN SOMALIA

Nine kidnappers killed after Obama orders mission to save ill American

By Jeffrey Gettleman, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker THE NEW YORK TIMES

Aid workers Poul Hagen Thisted of Denmark and Jessica Buchanan, formerly of Ohio, had been held for ransom by Somali kidnappers since October.

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Under the cloak of darkness early yesterday, two dozen U.S. Navy SEALs answered the prayers of the many friends of Ohio-born Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Den-mark’s Poul Hagen Thisted, 60.

The SEALs parachuted into Somalia, stormed the hideout of the gunmen who had been holding the two aid workers hostage since October, killed nine of the gunmen and whisked the hostages out of the sweltering desert and into waiting helicopters, Pentagon officials said.

“Ever since Jessica was captured, we all as a community have been praying for her safety and for her safe release,” the Rev. Don Meyer, president of Valley Forge Christian College near Philadelphia, said of the graduate of his school yesterday.

The SEALs were from the same elite Navy commando unit — SEAL Team 6 — that secretly entered Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden in May, senior U.S. officials said, although the rescue mission in Somalia was carried out by a different assault team.

President Barack Obama was closely tracking the raid Tuesday night, which was yesterday morning in Somalia. As he stepped into the House chamber to deliver his State of the Union address, Obama looked at Defense Secretary Leon Panetta standing in the crowd and said: “Leon, good job tonight, good job.”

Minutes after giving his address to Congress, Obama was on the phone with Buchanan’s father to tell him his daughter was safe.

PETE SOUZA WHITE HOUSE    President Barack Obama, accompanied by his wife, Michelle, tells John Buchanan by phone from the Capitol that his daughter is safe. Obama had just completed his State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday night.

No SEALs were hurt during the operation, Pentagon officials said. The hostages were soon flown to a U.S. military base in neighboring Djibouti.

U.S. officials said they were moved to strike because they had received “actionable intelligence” that Buchanan’s health was rapidly deteriorating and could lead to kidney failure. The gunmen had just refused $1.5 million to let the two hostages go, Somali elders said.

A Danish Refugee Council official said Buchanan was “not that ill” but needed medicine. The family reported that her health is good, Meyer said, but there were no other details on her illness.

Before Buchanan’s family moved from Ohio years ago, she attended the now-closed Ridgeville Christian School in Springboro, north of Cincinnati. Buchanan was an elementary-education major at Valley Forge Christian, which has about 1,100 students, and had done a student-teaching stint at Rosslyn Academy in Nairobi, Kenya, as part of her course work, Meyer said. She had been in Africa about five years when she was abducted.

“She fell in love with Africa,” Meyer said. “She could hardly talk about Africa without tears in her eyes.”

The aid workers had been kidnapped by two truckloads of gunmen as they headed to the airport in Galkayo, a central Somalia town on the edge of pirate territory. The two were representing the Danish Refugee Council, one of the few Western organizations still operating in the area, and were working with a mine-removal unit. The two had finished a workshop on land mines just before they were kidnapped.

Somali elders said the gunmen were part of an established pirate gang. Pirates operate with impunity in much of Somalia, which has languished without a functioning government for more than 20 years. As naval efforts have intensified on the high seas, stymying hijackings, Somali pirates seem increasingly to be snatching foreigners on land. Just last week, pirates grabbed another U.S. hostage not far from where the SEAL raid took place.

Somali pirates have held hostages for months, often in punishing conditions with little food, water or shelter, and past ransoms have topped $10 million. One British couple sailing around the world on a small boat was kidnapped by pirates from this same patch of central Somalia and held in captivity for more than a year.

Obama authorized the operation on Monday.

“As commander in chief, I could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission,” he said in a statement yesterday. “The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people.”

Pentagon officials said the SEALs dropped into the area by parachute about 2 a.m. and hiked nearly 2 miles to where the hostages were being held, near a small village called Hiimo Gaabo, south of Galkayo.

According to Pentagon officials, within minutes of the SEALs reaching the encampment, shots rang out. The hostages were quickly located and freed. In the gunbattle, the nine Somali gunmen, described as heavily armed, were killed.

Accounts differed as to whether the SEALs captured any of the gunmen, with local officials saying several had been taken. The Pentagon said no prisoners were taken.

Several hostages are still being held in Somalia, including a British tourist, two Spanish doctors and an American journalist kidnapped on Saturday.

Information from the Associated Press and McClatchy Newspapers was included in this story.

Army to cut 80,000 soldiers

Army to cut 80,000 soldiers from its ranks

Besides usual separations such as retirements, the Army will allow fewer enlistments.

By Lolita C. Baldor ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — The Army plans to slash the number of combat brigades from 45 to as few as 32 in a broad restructuring of its fighting force. The action is aimed at cutting costs and reducing the service by about 80,000 soldiers, according to U.S. officials familiar with the plans.

Officials said the sweeping changes likely will increase the size of each combat brigade — generally by adding another battalion — in a long-term effort to ensure that those remaining brigades have the fighting capabilities they need when they go to war. A brigade usually is about 3,500 soldiers but can be as large as 5,000 for the heavily armored units. A battalion usually is between 600-800 soldiers.

The restructuring will unfold over several years and is intended to save money without eroding the military’s ability to protect the country and wage war when needed. Army officials say that while there eventually would be fewer brigades, building them bigger will give them more capabilities and depth, and will reduce stress on the units.

• They said specialty units, such as Army special operations forces, would not be affected by the cuts.

Reducing the overall number of brigades also will eliminate the need for the headquarters units that command and oversee them.

Officials acknowledged that merging battalions together into larger brigades could shift some soldiers to different bases across the country, although that effort could be stymied by members of Congress who don’t like to see the staffing decline at bases that feed local economies. Officials said the Army will try to limit such shifts.

The cuts come as the Pentagon puts the finishing touches on its 2013 fiscal-year budget, which must reflect about $260 billion in savings in its five-year plan. Congress has ordered the Defense Department to come up with a total of $487 billion over the next 10 years, and it could face cuts of double that amount if Congress can’t reach an agreement to avoid automatic across-the-board reductions mandated by lawmakers last year.

Most military leaders, from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on down, insist that they will come up with the budget cuts without hurting the force’s effectiveness.

According to officials, plans call for the active-duty Army to shrink from a high of about 570,000 soldiers during the peak of the Iraq war to roughly 490,000 over the next decade or so. Initial cuts have been ongoing, and there currently are about 558,000 active-duty soldiers.

Additionally, there are nearly 205,000 in the Army Reserve and close to 360,000 in the Army National Guard.

The Army plans to shed soldiers carefully, including through planned departures, separations for medical or behavioral problems and by scaling back the number of people promoted or allowed to enlist and re-enlist.

Bat loss in millions, white nose fungus

Bats dying by the millions because of recent fungus

by Dave Golowenski FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Metaphorically speaking, bats are falling like flies.

Between 5.7 million and 6.7 million bats have died in North America from white-nose syndrome, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated recently. First identified in 2006, white-nose syndrome is marked by a fungal growth around the muzzle of hibernating bats.   

Mortality rates have reached 100 percent at some hibernation sites.

The National Wildlife Service and its partners are conducting winter surveys to determine more precisely the extent of the kill and whether bats can survive once the syndrome infects a colony.    Entire species are thought to be at risk. The loss of bats, which feed mostly on flying insects and thus help control many airborne pests, could have devastating consequences on agriculture and human health.   

The Gerson Therapy, briefly

(Simply love the Christmas book I received, Charlotte Gerson’s “Healing the Gerson Way.” Think I mentioned before in another post that I have had Dr Max Gerson’s book on 50 case histories for several years  and feel blessed to own it.

My own diet is pretty clean, therefore, I’m not too worried for myself on the cancer front.  But the thing is, doing the Gerson Therapy tends to heal the body enabling it to heal and/or take care of anything which is needing correction.  Even tho I juice and have for years, am big on fermented foods and am pretty much plant-based and a lot RAW,  I still have a a couple of things that I wish I didn’t have some of which I have bored you with before.  So when I came across this piece, it seemed to me that it would be helpful for you to know about for anyone one you may wish to help down the road.  Meanwhile, I intend to concentrate a little more seriously on this therapy now.) 

The Gerson Therapy 

Healing Your Body with the Gerson Therapy

With its whole-body approach to healing, the Gerson Therapy naturally reactivates your body’s magnificent ability to heal itself – with no damaging side-effects. Over 200 articles in respected medical literature, and thousands of people cured of their “incurable” diseases document the Gerson Therapy’s effectiveness. The Gerson Therapy is one of the few treatments to have a 60 year history of success.

The Gerson Therapy is a powerful, natural treatment that boosts your body’s own immune system to heal cancer, arthritis, heart disease, allergies, and many other degenerative diseases. One aspect of the Gerson Therapy that sets it apart from most other treatment methods is its all-encompassing nature. An abundance of nutrients from thirteen fresh, organic juices are consumed every day, providing your body with a superdose of enzymes, minerals and nutrients. These substances then break down diseased tissue in the body, while enemas aid in eliminating the lifelong buildup of toxins from the liver.

Throughout our lives our bodies are being filled with a variety of disease and cancer causing pollutants. These toxins reach us through the air we breathe, the food we eat, the medicines we take and the water we drink. As more of these poisons are used every day and cancer rates continue to climb, being able to turn to a proven, natural, detoxifying treatment like the Gerson Therapy is not only reassuring, but necessary.

Although its philosophy of cleansing and reactivating the body is simple, the Gerson Therapy is a complex method of treatment requiring significant attention to detail. While many patients have made full recoveries practicing the Gerson Therapy on their own, for best results we encourage starting treatment at a licensed Gerson treatment center.

Download a free brochure

Please Note: The Gerson Institute does not own, operate, or control any treatment facilities. We maintain a licensing program with clinics to ensure that patients are receiving true, 100% Gerson care. Be sure your clinic is licensed by the Gerson Institute to provide the Gerson Therapy. 

Learn more about licensed Gerson treatment centers

The History and Development of the Gerson Therapy

The Gerson Therapy is a state of the art, contemporary, alternative and natural treatment which utilizes the body’s own healing mechanism in the treatment and cure of chronic debilitating illness. When it was introduced to the world by Max Gerson, M.D., the dietary therapy was so far ahead of its time that there were almost no rationales available in the scientific literature to explain how it could produce cures in chronic as well as infectious diseases. But, because it did cure many cases of advanced tuberculosis, heart disease, cancer and numerous lesser conditions, the Gerson Therapy was established as a major contribution to the medical field, through the publication of articles in peer reviewed medical literature http://cancer-research.net/GersonPubs.html. Gerson first published on the topic of cancer in 1945, almost forty years before the adoption of the current official U.S. National Cancer Institute program on diet, nutrition, and cancer.

Max Gerson treated many hundreds of patients and continued to develop and refine his therapy up until his death in 1959, at the age of 78. His most famous patient was Dr. Albert Schweitzer, whom Gerson cured of advanced diabetes when Schweitzer was 75. Schweitzer returned to his African hospital, won the Nobel prize, and worked past age 90. Schweitzer wrote “I see in Dr. Gerson one of the most eminent geniuses in the history of medicine.”

Most recently, Dr. Gerson was recognized as a pioneer in his field when he was inducted into the Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame in Ottawa, Canada on May 14, 2005. He joined seven other giants of medicine whose seminal work has been influential in the medical and scientific worlds, and are considered pioneers in their respective fields.

It is rare to find cancer, arthritis, or other degenerative diseases in cultures considered “primitive” by Western civilization. Is it because of diet? The fact that degenerative diseases appear in these cultures only when modern packaged foods and additives are introduced would certainly support that idea. Max Gerson said “Stay close to nature and its eternal laws will protect you.” He considered that degenerative diseases were brought on by toxic, degraded food, water and air.

How the Gerson Therapy Works

The Gerson Therapy seeks to regenerate the body to health, supporting each important metabolic requirement by flooding the body with nutrients from almost 20 pounds of organically grown fruits and vegetables daily. Most is used to make fresh raw juice, one glass every hour, 13 times per day. Raw and cooked solid foods are generously consumed. Oxygenation is usually more than doubled, as oxygen deficiency in the blood contributes to many degenerative diseases. The metabolism is also stimulated through the addition of thyroid, potassium and other supplements, and by avoiding heavy animal fats, excess protein, sodium and other toxins.

Degenerative diseases render the body increasingly unable to excrete waste materials adequately, commonly resulting in liver and kidney failure. To prevent this, the Gerson Therapy uses intensive detoxification to eliminate wastes, regenerate the liver, reactivate the immune system and restore the body’s essential defenses – enzyme, mineral and hormone systems. With generous, high-quality nutrition, increased oxygen availability, detoxification, and improved metabolism, the cells – and the body – can regenerate, become healthy and prevent future illness.

No treatment works for everyone, every time. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not giving you the facts. We know that when you have been diagnosed with a life-threatening ailment, choosing the best strategy for fighting your illness can be a bewildering task. Everyone claims to have either “the best treatment”, “the fastest cure”, or “the only therapy that works.” In most cases your trusted family physician only has knowledge of conventional treatments, and is either unaware of, or even hostile toward alternative options. No matter how many opinions you receive on how to treat your disease, you are going to make the final decision on what to do, and you must be comfortable with your decision. Choose a treatment that makes the most sense to you.

Most therapies, conventional or alternative treat only the individual symptoms while ignoring what is ultimately causing the disease. The reason the Gerson Therapy is effective with so many different ailments is because it restores the body’s incredible ability to heal itself. Rather than treating only the symptoms of a particular disease, the Gerson Therapy treats the cause of the disease itself. Although we feel the Gerson Therapy is the most comprehensive treatment for disease, we don’t claim it will cure everything or everyone.

Caution: Do not start the Gerson Therapy without referring to Charlotte Gerson’s Book, Healing the Gerson Way, or without the supervision of a Gerson Doctor if any of the following conditions apply:

• Chemotherapy
• Diabetes
• Brain metastases
• Severe kidney damage
• Foreign bodies such as pacemakers, breast implants, steel plates or screws.

Patients must be able to eat, drink and eliminate normally.

The Gerson Therapy cannot be administered to organ transplant recipients.

Juicers

Juicing is an essential component of the Gerson Therapy. To ensure reliable results, the Gerson patient will need to purchase an appropriate juicer. Dr. Gerson’s research indicates that cancer patients must have a two- stage juicer with a separate grinder and hydraulic press. One-step juicers generally do not produce the same quality of enzyme, mineral or micronutrient content, and some patients have failed to experience results simply by using the wrong juicer. We do not recommend the use of any centrifugal-type juicers for Gerson patients. Other non-centrifugal juicers may be used for health maintenance or non-cancer diagnoses.

Please read our Gerson Guide to Juicers to learn more about the kinds of juicers that can be used for the Gerson Therapy.

If you are interested in learning more about the two-step Norwalk juicer, please contact the Norwalk Juicer Representatives, Richard Boger or Gisela Summer at 1-800-405-8423/760-436-9684 outside the US.

The Gerson Diet

The Gerson diet is naturally high in vitamins, minerals, enzymes, micro-nutrients, extremely low in sodium and fats, and rich in fluids.

The following is a typical daily diet for a Gerson patient on the full therapy regimen:

• Thirteen glasses of fresh, raw carrot/apple and green-leaf juices prepared hourly from fresh, organic fruits and vegetables.
• Three full vegetarian meals, freshly prepared from organically grown fruits, vegetables and whole grains. A typical meal will include salad, cooked vegetables, baked potatoes, vegetable soup and juice.
• Fresh fruit and fresh fruit available at all hours for snacking, in addition to the regular diet.

Supplements

All medications used in connection with the Gerson Therapy are classed as biologicals, materials of organic origin that are supplied in therapeutic amounts.

• Potassium compound
• Lugol’s solution
• Vitamin B-12
• Thyroid hormone
• Pancreatic Enzymes
• Enemas of coffee and/or chamomile

Detoxification

A very important part of the Gerson Therapy is frequent detoxification of the tissues and blood. This is accomplished through a variety of means, first and foremost through the use of coffee enemas.

The scientific basis for the use of coffee enemas is well documented, and can be obtained from the Gerson Institute. Patients report that the enemas decrease pain and hasten healing. Biologically, enzyme systems of the gut wall and liver are stimulated, and bile flow is increased. This has been shown to enhance the body’s ability to eliminate toxic residues from environmental, chemotherapeutic, and other sources.

Tumor and other diseased tissue is also more rapidly eliminated as it is broken down.
Other means of detoxification include castor oil, used as an additional stimulant of bile flow and as another way to enhance the liver’s ability to filter blood. In addition, digestive enzymes serve to enhance absorption of nutrients as well as assist in the elimination of damaged tissue.

Patients must have a complete understanding of the Gerson Therapy so that they may effectively continue the regimen at home after leaving the treatment center. The following are examples of educational opportunities at a typical licensed Gerson facility:

• Gerson-trained physicians and/or educators present lectures and instruction on healing reactions and medication uses.
• Charlotte Gerson and/or other senior Gerson Institute staff members lecture on the theory and practice of the Gerson Therapy, scientific rationales and relevant research.
• Instruction and demonstration of two-piece, press-type juicers, such as the Norwalk Juicer.
• Videotapes of lectures by Charlotte Gerson, other Gerson Institute staff, and Gerson-trained physicians are available for viewing at any time.
• Regular, individualized consultation with your Gerson physician on the specifics of your condition and any necessary modifications to the treatment. During this time, any specific questions you have may be addressed.

Get Started on the Gerson Therapy!

Waterbeds for cows?

Want better milk? Give your cows waterbeds

By  Cindy Leise
THE (ELYRIA) CHRONICLE-TELEGRAM Tuesday January 24, 2012 6:53 AM

Enlarge Image

Chuck Hummel | (Elyria) Chronicle-Telegram

A milk cow rests on a sawdust-covered waterbed at Richard and David Conrad’s farm in Wellington, Ohio. The waterbeds take pressure off the cows’ bodies when they lie down.

WELLINGTON, Ohio — If you want great milk, you need happy and healthy cows.

At Conrad’s Dairy Farm, that means pampering their milk producers with waterbeds.  After 10 months of use, dairymen Richard and David Conrad gave the waterbeds a thumbs-up during a recent visit to the farm.  “You make them happy and they’ll make you happy” Richard Conrad said.

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• Waterbeds for Cows
  

The brothers paid about $55,000 for Dual Chamber Cow Waterbeds for their 240 cows and about $15,000 or so more for the concrete bases in which the the waterbeds rest.   On top of the waterbeds is a dusting of sawdust and lime for additional bedding comfort and cleanliness.

Using waterbeds for cows originated in Europe 15 or 20 years ago and was brought to this country by Dean Throndsen of Wisconsin-based Advanced Comfort Technology, Inc.  Throndsen and his wife Audrey have sold about 500,000 of the devices in 18 countries including New Zealand, India and China.

Throndsen said that getting up and down – - or lying for long periods – - can hurt the cow’s front knees or rear hocks, or ankles.    That’s where the waterbeds come in, because they provide a cushion.  Therefore, they help eliminate sores and promote better health.

Tiny baby homebound

(This is a follow-up post on one done December 15, 2011 named Iffy Odds on “Tiny Preemies.”   This is rare, to be sure – -  not at all a common occurance.  I am very happy with the progress so far.  This is a good thing.  Jan)

Tiny baby finally going home from hospital

LOS ANGELES (AP) — One of the world’s smallest surviving babies is headed home.

Melinda Star Guido weighed only 9 1/2 ounces at birth — less than a can of soda. After she spent her early months in the neonatal intensive-care unit, doctors and nurses were seeing her off yesterday.

Melinda has been growing steadily and gaining weight since she was born premature at 24 weeks in August at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. She is the world’s third-smallest baby and the second smallest in the U.S.

Now weighing 4 1/2 pounds, Melinda has made enough progress to be discharged, doctors said. It’s too early to know how she will fare developmentally and physically, but doctors will monitor her for six years.

Most babies this small don’t survive even with advanced medical care. About 7,500 babies are born weighing less than 1 pound each year in the United States, and about 10 percent survive.

A study published in the journal Pediatrics in 2010 found that many survivors have continuing health and learning concerns. Most also remain short and underweight for their age.

There are some rare success stories. The smallest surviving baby born, weighing 9.2 ounces, is now a healthy 7-year-old, and another who weighed 9.9 ounces at birth is an honors college student studying psychology, say doctors at Loyola University Medical Center in Illinois, where the girls were born.

Soon after birth, Melinda was treated for an eye disorder that’s common in premature babies and underwent surgery to close an artery. Her mother, Haydee Ibarra, 22, held her for the first time after the operation in November.

Despite the hurdles, doctors said Melinda was fortunate she did not suffer serious complications such as bleeding in the brain.

Give Blood, save own life

Do one simple thing – save own life and someone else’s too.

Read a brilliant article from the desk of Jonathan Wright in his current newsletter.  Love the idea and I want to tell you a little bit about it because it couldn’t be more relevant.

As an aside, it reminded me of something a wise man once told me many years ago;    as a repayment for the ‘blessing’  I had received, I was to perform ten good deeds to others.   I must have looked somewhat confused, for he said that I was to select the deeds and the others as I chose – - it was up to me.  No clues or restrictions applied.  But, that I must be aware that this is not as easy as it sounds, for as one puts the good out to others, it just keeps coming back to you;  that it was kind of the way the universe worked.  Sometimes it is rather a pistol to keep ahead of it because the desire is to put the deed or service out to others and these sweet little things just keep coming back at you and you can lose track and never get even. . .so to speak.   Anyway,  guess one learns to roll with these things.

So this action, I found out about is the act of giving blood.  Well, I can do that – - The act, noble as it sounds,  is especially self-serving as one ages.  This is because, as we grow older, our blood can thicken and become sticky – a term used to describe this is viscosity. Many of us have learned a little about this from our own doctors as they advise the blood thinners and/or the hypertension medication  to protect against the threat of  heart attack and stroke.  We don’t like it because of all the issues which attend it, but there we are.   Mostly, we find it hard to believe because there is no pain involved or any other symptoms usually.  Hard to want to screw up your life with meds when you feel okay.  Tricky to understand.  But this has to do with the “physics of blood flow”

Dr Wright said he was never taught anything about this  in medical school and it is not common knowledge.  However he studied 1,000′s of pages and research papers covering many studies of 1,000′s of individuals of many years periods, sorted by age groups.

Reduce Cardiac-Risk over 80 %

In one group of a research study of 2,862 men ages 42 – 60, observed over a period averaging  9 years.    Of 153 men who had donated blood prior to their first examination, only one man had a heart attack during the nine years as compared with 316 of 2,529 men who did not donate blood.  After the research adjustments for risk factors, it was found that the men who donated blood had 88% less risk of acute myocardial infarction as compared with the men who didn’t donate blood.  .  .  .  a really significant difference!

The researchers claimed  that the frequent blood loss through voluntary blood donations may be associated with a reduced risk of acute myocardial infarction in middle-aged men.

As for women, between menarche and menopause, women experience blood loss monthly.  In menstruating women not taking birth control pills,  it is rare for stroke or heart attack to happen.  But after this period of life closes, the woman’s risk factor equates those of men within about a  decade.  While the researchers opined that this may have something to do with iron, Dr Wright believes it to be more relevant to the level of blood viscosity resulting in an increase of blood flow throughout the body.

Atherosclerosis

He then goes on to discuss atherosclerosis  and how it starts years before cardiovascular disease is evident.  But after it is established, blood vessels can be completely or mostly blocked – - chest pain and heart attack can occur.  Dr Wright does not discount the threats of cholesterol, smoking, obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure and all that excellent documentation — however, he feels that there is an almost entirely overlooked cause of atherosclerosis:  which is the way that the blood itself flows within those arteries.    So he believes the most important issue is direct measurement of the blood’s ability to flow and is the most overlooked.

Studies have shown the strong relationship of blood viscosity to the development of atherosclerosis in which the men with extensive heart disease showed a much higher blood viscosity than those with little or no heart disease present.

Blood viscosity is a direct measure of the blood’s resistance to flow,  If affects not only how hard the heart has to work to circulate the blood, but also the level of stress and strain, injury and inflammation the blood causes to the arteries.  The thicker the blood, the more abrasion and damage it does to the lining cells (endothelium) of the arteries.  When they are injured, lipids and other inflammatory cells migrate into the tissue to repair damage.  As damage of lesions and plaque grows, the risk of plaque rupture grows too.

With viscosity increasing, the blood rubs against the blood vessel lining increasing “friction” which causes arteries to stiffen and narrow (which is called plaque), which then increases friction even more which then decreases  blood flow within arteries and veins.  (I have been selectively presenting what I perceive to be salient points.  I will not however reproduce the entire article for this is a subscription newsletter which anyone can access directly with a personal connection to the site.)    The article goes on quite a lot with details of how and why all this seems to happen.  The major thing I wanted to impart is  “If blood flow is impaired due to increased viscosity, less oxygen and fewer nutrients can be delivered to the tissues and organs of the body,  affecting critical areas such as the brain, eyes and kidneys.  Additionally, a potential area which can be threatened by increased blood viscosity is that of hearing loss.

Reduce your blood viscosity  — and reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke.

If your blood is too thick and sticky, you’re at unnecessary risk for heart attack and stroke  until your blood viscosity becomes normal again.   And your blood isn’t delivering nutrients to your tissues as well as it should.

There are a couple of things that we can do to help correct this condition.  One is to donate blood, which would help reduce our own risk while, obviously, helping someone else who will receive our blood.    The doctor also suggests the ongoing use of fish oil  together with mixed tocopherol Vitamin E.

Dr Wright then spends a page or so explaining a fairly new technology which I believe he calls  Blood viscosity test monitoring.  There are only a few laboratories in the country who do it apparently as the equipment needed for doing is costly.  This equipment is sophisticated and is able to measure the blood’s performance under each extreme  as well as measuring the content of the blood in order to make good judgements on treatment.  A single point measure is not sufficient, the blood needs to be measured on multiple points on a curve.

• Dr Wright is the Medical Director of Meridian Valley Laboratories where this testing IS being done.  They can be reached at 1-855-405-8378 for details or contact  www.meridianvalleylab.com.

Personally, I’m going to try to work out getting back to my local blood bank where I used to donate and start that up again.   As you may or may not know — I quit my blood thinner in the beginning of October 2011 when I had those two falls.  My doctor said the thinner was hurting me and I should stop immediately.  Within a few days or week, I was taking Nattokinase  which is so far superior to any prescription blood thinner which is very toxic.  Nattokinase is terrific to improve circulation, improve blood flow and if there be a clot problem, it can take care of it better than most hospital stays with treatment and a whole lot cheaper.

I keep myself kinda restricted financially because of all the supplements I take.  Medicare does not pay for these.  For example when the doctor had put me on Vitamin-D therapy at 50K IU weekly (one pill a week), I did okay, but when I found out that prescribed Vitamin D is only K-2 and what I wanted was K-3 (because that is the kind of D the body recognizes and best uses.  So I switched to buying what I needed – myself.  I now take 10K daily and my current reading is 69 which is, for me – excellent – so much better than 13 – where I started.   When I can get out into gardening and sunshine again, I’ll probably drop it down to 5K to 8K daily.  Anyway, my budget being what it is, it isn’t too likely I’ll be getting up to the northwest where Dr Wright is – - but I would if I could.  Because it would be good to “KNOW” for sure what the facts are.

Hope this information is as welcome to you guys as it was to me. . . .so I just had to share it with you.  Be well.    Jan

Pensacola lecture – Cordain

Origin – Evolution of the Western Diet

Loren Cordain

Well, Paleo fans, look what I found – - Dr Cordain giving a lecture down in Pensacola on some of his findings.  He is so good!  A little audience Q and A at end.   This was in todays mail from Dr Mercola.   So here you go. .  .  .

Incidentally, Have you ordered the new book yet?  Called “The Paleo Answer:  7 days to Lose Weight, Feel Great, Stay Young”      I am looking forward to seeing it.    Jan

Eating This Can “Tear Holes” in Your Gut   
Allowing various gut contents to flood into your bloodstream where they wreak havoc on your health, causing bloating, gas and abdominal cramps as well as fatigue, skin rashes, joint pain, allergies, psychological symptoms, autism and more. Stop eating it now…

FDA and Drug approval

Alliance for Natural Health USA

Big Pharma Routinely Suppresses Data from Clinical Trials—but FDA Approves These   Dangerous Drugs Anyway!

January 17, 2012

Help us persuade Congress to reform the agency with our Action Alert!

Drug research, even from clinical trials sponsored by the federal government, is routinely suppressed, according to a new study in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), an international peer-reviewed medical publication. The study found that less than half of all NIH-funded clinical drug trials were published in a medical journal within two and a half years of the trial’s completion—with fully one-third of trial results remaining unpublished even four years after the trial. Why? Because the drug manufacturers didn’t like the data.

One example cited in the study was the FDA-approved diabetes drug Avandia, which in 2007 was found to increase heart attacks and cardiovascular deaths—even though the drug’s maker, GlaxoSmithKline, had known about the risk before the drug was approved. The BMJ study found that 35 of the drug’s 42 clinical studies had never been published, and were obtained only because a court case required the pharmaceutical company to turn over the data.

Not only does this irresponsible practice harm patients, it also increases healthcare costs. Eugene Carragee, a Stanford University orthopedic surgeon and editor-in-chief of the Spine Journal, spearheaded an unprecedented independent analysis showing that the medical device manufacturer Medtronic—not to mention a circle of orthopedic surgeons who received millions of dollars in royalties from the company—systematically failed to report serious complications with Medtronic’s bone-growth stimulating back surgery device known as Infuse. The results of a crucial clinical trial of the product were not published until nearly five years after the trial had to be halted because unwanted bone was growing around the spines of the trial volunteers.

For two years, Schering-Plough, the maker of the popular cholesterol drug Vytorin, sat on the results of a clinical trial showing that the drug provided no benefit in improving artery health. During that time, the drug was heavily marketed to consumers in TV ads; the marketing was only halted in 2008 after a congressional investigation was launched.

In 2003, a clinical trial of Multaq, a drug that treated cardiac arrhythmias, was stopped because more patients who were getting the drug were dying than those who received a placebo—though the study results weren’t published until five years later. Even so, the drug was approved by the FDA in 2009 as a treatment for atrial fibrillation in certain patients—just not as a means to reduce deaths!

Why does FDA approve drugs whose data have been suppressed by the manufacturer? Is it because FDA depends on Big Pharma for its budget—and needs drug companies to hire former FDA employees. The Wall Street Journal reported that FDA advisers, in a recent vote, said the benefits of four popular Bayer AG birth control pills outweigh the blood clot risk. What the FDA didn’t disclose is that three of the advisers have had ties to Bayer, serving as consultants, speakers, or researchers!

Despite the FDA’s bias in favor of drugs and against supplements, there are tremendous shortages of some drugs (though no shortage of supplements—so far!). This drug shortage prompts some hospitals to engage in price gouging, so a drug that usually costs $26 is being offered for $1,200. Moreover, the FDA artificially inflates drug prices—especially generic drug prices, which should be far lower than they are—as we have reported previously.

The shortage in the US drug market also makes foreign counterfeit drugs more popular. Recently, some 65 million counterfeit pills were seized in China; no word yet on how many of them had already made their way to the US.

If this is the way FDA oversees dangerous drugs, what will happen if we give them the same authority over supplements? It’s not just that the agency doesn’t have the knowledge to properly oversee supplements—they also don’t have the capacity. If they can’t keep up with the hundreds of drugs already under their purview, how will they cope with the thousands of supplements on the market? One way, of course, is for them to drastically reduce the number of supplements that can be marketed—one inevitable result of the NDI draft guidelines that we have been campaigning against.

There must be sincere and honest people working for the US Food and Drug Administration, but it is currently being run in a corrupt and incompetent way. It desperately needs to be reformed. Please help us in our ongoing campaign to overhaul the agency by signing our petition to Congress. As we say in the petition, “Everything about the FDA must be taken apart, reviewed, redefined, and re-created so that it supports, not obstructs, the mission of advancing medical science and vibrant good health for all.” Please take action today!

(If people really understand that the safety issues are not being addressed;  that the FDA is not really “testing” all these drugs, but instead, the pharmaceutical corporations themselves are either doing it or hiring it done, and in addition – - after all the tests are assembled,  only those tests they wish to submit are used to reveal the story as it can reflect a more positive image – for the company.   What gets lost in the entire situation is that these tests are for the purpose of ensuring the safety of those sick and perhaps dying patients who trust these people to do the right thing and give them “medicine” which is helping them to get well.

One of the most egregious things to my mind about BIG PhRMA is the way they blatantly describe all the many things that can go wrong when taking the medicine in discussion (e.g. – on TV for example), as some person is telling of the advantages of the medicine, but also, cautioning about the many things that can happen.  This product X may cause your immune system to be adversely affected, so if you notice a severe infection,   (or the tumor grows larger),  or your chest starts to fill with fluid, discontinue use and call your doctor.   All these dire possibilities are handed out routinely as if that was okay.  It’s NOT!  None of this is Okay. It’s a crap-shoot.   Jan)

New MS drug brings death

From the COLUMBUS DISPATCH,
January 21,2012
NEWS BRIEFS

   LONDON

MS drug investigated after 11 patients die   

A multiple-sclerosis drug made by industry giant Novartis is under investigation after at least 11 patients taking the medicine died.    The drug, Gilenya, was licensed last year in the European Union to treat patients with a severe type of multiple sclerosis.    One of the deaths was in the U.S., where a patient died within 24 hours of taking the first dose.

(Could anything be more tragic?   One trusts the doctor,  the science of the medicine and the mega industry behind it as well as having the comfort knowing the FDA is in charge of safety and testing  in their regulations and protocol.

How foolish we can be . . . .or dumb . . . . . .or dead?

This is still one more reason to illustrate why I do not seek pharmaceuticals first as a way to help the body when it ails.  Allopathic medicine in it’s highest echelons seek first the proper medicine in the form of pharmaceuticals.  It is a given.  That is what is taught!  This is the way things are.

My interests go more to the many, many physicians and healers who have observed and found different ways outside the mainstream which are simple,  non-toxic, cheaper and generally speaking,  far more efficacious.  They work!  Each in their own way are saying similar things  (Dr. Max Gerson,   Dr Hulda Rugehr Clark,  Dr Ann Wigmore   (1-11-12) – all deceased, but left their trails and wisdom behind.   We still have the Gerson Clinic in Mexico run by Charlotte Gerson at the helm;    Dr. Michael Gonzalez in New York (4-29-11) and (5-6-11);  and Dr Burzinski in Texas (7-20-11) and (11-21-11) all doing well today.

These healers used quite similar methods in that they sought to heal the body as a primary focus or goal at which point the body is able to heal the disease and fully bring the body back to homeostasis.   General thinking is that nutritive malfunction or toxicity are at the core of the problem.   Many of them concentrated on the cleansing of the body through juicing and coffee enemas and certain other herbs  or natural  supplements. 

But this post is about the devastation of MS.  I have posted on this before, but here it is again;  Dr Terry Wahls, afflicted with MS and curing herself beautifully through diet.  She had done and tried everything – the best medicine had to offer and in seven years, she continued to go downhill finally wheelchair bound and worsening with each passing year.  Once she took charge of her personal search – investigation, she was able to determine what it was her body needed, then how to get it into her body.  In one month she could begin to walk and in three she was walking the hospital again.  Then riding her bike and then in 9 months she could ride 18 miles and at a year – - a trail ride through the Rockies.

She explains her discoveries and shares how she did it as she is anxious for everyone to know.  She’s talking hunter-gatherer which most of us here at smokinchoices know as Paleo. . .  and yes, a lot of us are into that.     So,  enjoy:            Jan)

Doctor Reverses MS in 9 Months by Eating These
Foods