Please know, I am not trying to freak people out by posting this stuff. Only make you aware of what you are putting on your skin. This is a good article that will help people not be so afraid of the sun, but maybe more afraid of what you are putting on your skin. But there are sunscreens out there that are safe for you!!
Read this article.
In my last post I talked about free radicals and how they damage your body. Today I'll tell you how antioxidants can help. :)
Antioxidants are substances or nutrients in our foods which can prevent or slow the oxidative damage to our body. When our body cells use oxygen, they naturally produce free radicals (by-products) which can cause damage. Antioxidants act as "free radical scavengers" and hence prevent and repair damage done by these free radicals. Antioxidants may also enhance immune defense and therefore lower the risk of cancer and infection.
Antioxidants are nutrients (vitamins and minerals) as well as enzymes (proteins in your body that assist in chemical reactions). They are believed to play a role in preventing the development of chronic diseases.
We can get antioxidants from our food, some good examples would be ~
Carrots, squash, broccoli, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, kale, collards, cantaloupe, peaches and apricots (bright-colored fruits and vegetables!)
Citrus fruits like oranges and lime etc, green peppers, broccoli, green leafy vegetables, strawberries and tomatoes
Nuts & seeds, whole grains, green leafy vegetables, vegetable oil and liver oil
Flavonoids / polyphenols
red wine
purple grape
pomegranate
cranberries
Tomato and tomato products
pink grapefruit
watermelon
dark green vegetables such as kale, broccoli, kiwi, brussels sprout and spinach.
The problem is, most of us don't eat enough of these to fight the frree radicals. Even if we do eat a ton of fruit and veggies, the quality is just not the same as it used to be with our food.
When I was at training, our trainer gave a great example of this.
In 1950 there was 150mg of Vit C in 100gm of Spinach.
In 1963 it went down to 100mg of Vit C
In 1982 down even farther to 63mg of Vit C
and in 1994 down to 13mg of Vit C in 100 gm of spinach.
If you needed 5 fruits and veggies in 1950, you would need 27 to 43 servings a DAY now!
Another interesting fact is that when you cook your veggies, they lose some of their nutrients,and if you microwave them, you may as well forget about getting vitamins from them.
Here's another article on that subject~
Don't microwave your vegetables: new research shows that microwaving destroys up to 97% of important nutrients like antioxidants. It is, in fact, the healing phytochemicals that are the most important reason to be easing vegetables like broccoli in the first place. These phytochemicals are powerful anti-cancer nutrients, but blasting them with a microwave defeats the whole purpose.
If you microwave your food, you're killing it. You might as well be eating canned soup or other forms of "dead food." To be healthy,you've got to eat food that still has its nutritional value intact. So what should you do instead? Steam your vegetables. Or eat them raw.
Remember: the less you cook them, and the less they're processed, the healthier all foods really are. Ideally, you want to go straight from the garden to your mouth.
The bottom line is, we need antioxidants to fight free radicals, and your not getting the antioxidants you need from your food. So you need supplementation!
These are a few that I currently take, OPC-3, Vitamin C, Vitamin D3. If you'd like more info on these follow the link.
According to new statistics released this month, more than half of U.S. adults are using supplements. The statistics show that 53 percent of American adults are using some form of supplementation.
Lead researcher Jaime Gahche and her counterparts called the use of supplements “widespread” in their assessment, and that supplements are “contributing substantially to total nutrient intake” in the United States.
The report looked at supplement use among adults from 2003 to 2006, and compared it to use in 1988 to 1994. Among the findings:
Nearly 40 percent of all Americans use at least one multivitamin/multimineral product, with use more common among women than men. That is up from 30 percent in the previous findings.
The newest statistics show that more than 60 percent of all women over the age of 60 use a calcium supplement, compared to less than 30 percent in previous reports.
Supplemental vitamin D use has increased dramatically in both men and women since the first study, especially in adults over the age of 40.
The study’s authors point out that supplement usage information should be collected to have an accurate picture of total health. In an interview with WebMD, Gahche said:
Dietary supplement use has increased in adults over age 20 since 1994, and we have over one-half of Americans taking one or more supplements a day. This information is important because such a high prevalence of people take dietary supplements. So we need to make sure we capture this information when assessing nutritional status. If we only include food and beverages, we are missing out on a big proportion.
While supplements can help offset nutritional deficiencies, many experts agree that taking supplements is not a way to make up for a poor diet. This thinking, according to Dr. Orly Avitzur, medical adviser for Consumer Reports, has led to an explosion in the supplement market, which accounted for approximately $27 billion in spending in 2009.
“There’s no substitute for a healthy lifestyle,” Dr. Avitzur told CNN.
That’s why it’s important to talk with your Health Professional about the types of supplements available on the market, and how each can help you achieve your own optimal health. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be happening as often as it should.
According to a recent survey conducted by the American Association of Retired People and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, just 58% of people who take supplements discussed products with a health professional.
One of the most important reasons to discuss supplement use with your Health Professional is because not all supplements are created equal. There are great differences between products on the market today.
Some supplements work faster and more effectively than others, providing rapid absorption and higher nutrition value than others. This can be for a number of reasons: the method which the product is delivered through the body, the elimination of fillers and binders that provide little nutritional value to the products, and the quality of ingredients used to create the product.
When choosing a supplement – as a majority of Americans are doing based on the latest research – it’s important to note these differences. That way, you can be sure that the supplement you are using is best for you and your specific needs.
Wow, I have a plethora of information that I can't wait to share but I don't want to over load any one's brain with too much at once. lol.
I went to a training and learned SO much I just have to share, but I'll try to do it in bite size pieces.
Today I'll share what I learned about free radicals.
Every day, our bodies are exposed to toxins that are detrimental to our health. Some of these toxins are free radicals.
Free radicals are unpaired oxygen molecules that can cause damage to the membranes of the cells in our bodies, and this may lead to the development of different types of diseases.
The activity of free radicals in our bodies can cause our cell membranes to deteriorate to the extent that they will fail to function effectively.
Free radicals can cause a lot of problems to our health. When there is an abundance of free radicals in our bodies, the genetic code material of cells can be changed, and this will result in mutations that can lead to serious conditions such as leukemia and other forms of cancer, as well as many other diseases.
In fact, free radicals are said to be linked to most of the chronic degenerative diseases that are known in the world today.
Free radicals in your body is just the same as the oxidation of an apple, if you leave it sit out, it turns brown.
If you have too many free radicals in your body, it deteriorates your body.
Some examples of what causes free radicals are smoking, drinking, eating sugar, eating food with toxins in it, the air we breathe outside that is polluted, water we drink that is dirty.
Our bodies are always having to fight off free radicals. If your body can't handle it, it deteriorates.
Some of the disease from free radical damage are as follows-
Asthma
Chronic bronchitis
Arthritis
Rheumatism
Alzheimer's
Parkinson's
memory loss
Depression
Anxiety
Stroke
Chronic renal fatigue
Cancer
Aging
Diabetes
Inflammation
Infection
Cataract
Hypertension
Heart failure
preeclampsia
That is not an exhaustive list!
Free radicals are bad.
What can we do about it?
We can help by quitting smoking, stay away from smokers, drink less alcohol, try to eat food that is not processed and from a box, don't put toxins on your skin, because your skin absorbs whatever you put on it just like you are eating it! Would you eat your lotion? Or Shampoo? Or make up? :)
and to counter act all the damage, we need to take antioxidants. That can be my next blog.
What are Antioxidants and what do they do for you.
The Root Cause of Cancer Almost Universally Ignored by Doctors
By Dr Mercola
In 1971 President Nixon and Congress declared war on cancer. So what's happened in the 40 years since? After weeding out the hype and filling in the actual statistics, it turns out, not much.
One would think that applying all that modern science has to offer over the last 40 years would have brought us far closer to eradicating cancer. Just compare it to other technology areas. Our cell phones now are more powerful computers than the largest supercomputers of the time.
But instead, cancer rates have increased during that span of time, and now surpass heart disease as the number one killer of Americans between the ages of 45 to 74. The odds are now very high that you or someone you know has cancer, is dying or has already died from it.
Why has "the War on Cancer" Failed so Miserably?
Writing for the Skeptical Inquirer, Reynold Spector lists the following six reasons for the failure:
We don't understand the cause/pathogenesis in most cases of cancer
Most treatments (except surgery) are nonspecific cell killers and not "smart"
Clinical trials and the grant system don't foster innovation
Screening for useful drugs against cancer cells has not worked
Animal models of cancer are often inadequate
Unproductive "fads" in research come and go
However, while these may factor into the equation of failure, I believe this list is yet another example of exactly what's wrong with the entire system, which is: ignoring the fact that cancer is likely a man-made disease caused primarily by toxic overload.
Just a few months ago, I wrote about a fascinating study into ancient mummies that determined cancer is not a "natural" disease at all, and genetics are not a primary factor. Tumors were extremely rare until recent times, when pollution and poor diet became issues. So why are the medical and science communities, by and large, ignoring these basics?
Getting to the Root of the Problem
I strongly believe the cancer rates are escalating because they are in no way shape or form addressing the underlying cause of most cancers. Instead, most of the research is directed towards expensive drugs that target late stages of the disease and greatly enrich the drug companies but simply do not prevent cancer.
If ever there was an area in which an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure it is cancer. I strongly believe that if you are able to work your way up to the advanced health plan, that you will virtually eliminate the risk of most cancers.
Environmental- and lifestyle factors are increasingly being pinpointed as the primary culprits fueling our cancer epidemic. This includes:
Pesticide- and other chemical exposures
Processed and artificial foods (plus the chemicals in the packaging)
Wireless technologies, dirty electricity, and medical diagnostic radiation exposure
Pharmaceutical drugs
Obesity, stress, and poor sleeping habits
Lack of sunshine exposure and use of sunscreens
This is clearly not an exhaustive list as such a list would be exceedingly long. For more specifics on consumer products implicated as contributors to cancer, please review the Cancer Prevention Coalition's "Dirty Dozen" list.
The pharmaceutical researchers would like you to believe they're doing everything they can to come up with a solution. Yet all we see is research into newer drug therapies. Clearly they're not digging close enough to the root of the problem, because if they did, they'd touch on some of these lifestyle issues just mentioned.
From my perspective, you ignore lifestyle factors at your own peril when it comes to cancer... Because, clearly, drug-based "advances" are not making a dent in this progressively prevalent disease.
On the contrary, cancer drugs are notoriously toxic and come with devastating, including lethal, side effects. Conventional medicine is so desperate to give the illusion of fighting the good fight that many of these drugs are used despite the fact that they're not really doing much to prolong or improve the quality of life of those diagnosed with cancer.
The best-selling (and extremely expensive) cancer drug Avastin, for example, was recently phased out as a treatment for metastatic breast cancer after studies concluded its benefits were outweighed by its dangerous side effects. Treating a disease in large part caused by toxins with toxins seems ignorant at best.
We can do better than that.
REAL Cancer Advancements that Need to Become Mainstream Knowledge
In the last 30 years the global cancer burden has doubled, and it will likely double again between 2000 and 2020, and nearly triple by 2030—unless people begin to take cancer prevention seriously. We CAN turn this trend around, but to do so the medical community must stop overlooking the methods that can actually have a significant impact.
Three cancer advancements in particular merit special mention. These advancements have not yet been accepted by conventional medicine, and they must be.
Number 1: Vitamin D—There's overwhelming evidence pointing to the fact that vitamin D deficiency plays a crucial role in cancer development. Researchers within this field have estimated that about 30 percent of cancer deaths -- which amounts to 2 million worldwide and 200,000 in the United States -- could be prevented each year simply by optimizing the vitamin D levels in the general population.
On a personal level, you can decrease your risk of cancer by MORE THAN HALF simply by optimizing your vitamin D levels with sun exposure. And if you are being treated for cancer it is likely that higher blood levels—probably around 80-90 ng/ml—would be beneficial.
Meanwhile, countless people around the world have an increased risk of cancer because their vitamin D levels are too low due to utter lack of sun exposure.
In terms of protecting against cancer, vitamin D has been found to offer protection in a number of ways, including:
Regulating genetic expression
Increasing the self-destruction of mutated cells (which, if allowed to replicate, could lead to cancer)
Reducing the spread and reproduction of cancer cells
Causing cells to become differentiated (cancer cells often lack differentiation)
Reducing the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones, which is a step in the transition of dormant tumors turning cancerous
Number 2: Optimizing Your Insulin Levels—Normalizing your insulin levels is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to lower your risk of cancer. Otto Warburg actually received a Nobel Prize for his research on cancer cell physiology in 1934, which clearly demonstrated cancer cells require more sugar to thrive. Unfortunately, very few oncologists appreciate or apply this knowledge today.
The Cancer Centers of America is one of the few exceptions, where strict dietary measures are included in their cancer treatment program.
High levels of insulin can cause major damage to your body. The most recognized of these is diabetes, but that is far from the only one. As Ron Rosedale, M.D. said in one of my most popular articles, Insulin and Its Metabolic Effects:
"It doesn't matter what disease you are talking about, whether you are talking about a common cold or cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis or cancer, the root is always going to be at the molecular and cellular level, and I will tell you that insulin is going to have its hand in it, if not totally control it."
The good news is that controlling your insulin levels is relatively straightforward. First, limit your intake of processed foods, grains and sugars/fructose as much as possible to prevent your insulin levels from becoming elevated in the first place.
Number 3: Exercise—If you are like most people, when you think of reducing your risk of cancer, exercise doesn't immediately come to mind. However, there is some fairly compelling evidence that exercise can slash your risk of cancer.
One of the primary ways exercise lowers your risk for cancer is by reducing elevated insulin levels, which creates a low sugar environment that discourages the growth and spread of cancer cells. Controlling your insulin levels and optimizing your vitamin D level are two of the most powerful steps you can take to reduce your cancer risk. For example, physically active adults experience about half the incidence of colon cancer as their sedentary counterparts, and women who exercise regularly can reduce their breast cancer risk by 20 to 30 percent compared to those who are inactive.
Additionally, exercise improves the circulation of immune cells in your blood. Your immune system is your first line of defense against everything from minor illnesses like a cold right up to devastating, life-threatening diseases like cancer.
The trick about exercise, though, is understanding how to use it as a precise tool. This ensures you are getting enough to achieve the benefit, not too much to cause injury, and the right variety to balance your entire physical structure and maintain strength and flexibility, and aerobic and anaerobic fitness levels. This is why it is helpful to view exercise like a drug that needs to be carefully prescribed to achieve its maximum benefit.
Winning the War Against Cancer Begins with Your Personal Choices
You can do a lot, right now, to significantly decrease your cancer risk. Even the conservative American Cancer Society states that one-third of cancer deaths are linked to poor diet, physical inactivity, and carrying excess weight. So making the following healthy lifestyle changes can go a very long way toward ending the failure-streak and becoming one less statistic in this war against cancer:
Normalize your vitamin D levels with safe amounts of sun exposure. This works primarily by optimizing your vitamin D level. Ideally, monitor your vitamin D levels throughout the year.
Control your insulin levels by limiting your intake of processed foods and sugars/fructose as much as possible.
Get appropriate amounts of omega-3 fats.
Get appropriate exercise. One of the primary reasons exercise works is that it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.
Have a tool to permanently erase the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. My particular favorite tool for this purpose, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique.
Only 25 percent of people eat enough vegetables, so by all means eat as many vegetables as you are comfortable with. Ideally, they should be fresh and organic. Cruciferous vegetables in particular have been identified as having potent anti-cancer properties. Remember that carb nutritional types may need up to 300 percent more vegetables than protein nutritional types.
Maintain an ideal body weight.
Get enough high-quality sleep.
Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.
Reduce your use of cell phones and other wireless technologies, and implement as many safety strategies as possible if/when you cannot avoid their use.
This is word for word from the link i'll post under it. Good stuff though.
Bath and shower products, as part of the $50-billion personal care products industry, have become big business in the United States.
Indeed, from the looks of ads, enticing aromatic soaps and gels have clearly become part of that invigorating daily shower or relaxing hot bath experience.
But have you ever glimpsed at the label of that fragrantly silky gel you're splashing over your hands and body or that bar of soap that promises to keep you smelling great all day long?
Do you really know what's in those products you're slathering over your body?
Do you know if those ingredients are safe?
If I were to tell you that your shower and bath products could be putting you at risk for less-than-optimal skin and eye health, immune and endocrine function, and possibly even cancer, would you pay a little more attention to your products' ingredients?
When you or a family member bathe or shower with questionably safe products, you risk…
Exposing highly sensitive mucous membranes
Inhaling ingredient fumes and irritating your lungs
Soaps and Shower Gels: What You Don't Know CAN Harm You
Did you know that applying a substance to your skin isn't much different from eating it? In fact, I believe it may be even worse.
And let's not forget… a hot steaming shower…
Opens your skin pores
Drives a high absorption rate of chemicals directly into your system
Vaporizes 70 to 90% of the chemicals present so you inhale them into your lungs
When you consider that products such as shower gels and soaps may be used daily, you can imagine the chemical residue that may build up over the years.
What's In Your Bottle of Shower Gel and Liquid Hand Soap?
Take a second and grab a bottle of your liquid hand soap or shower gel.
Most have the same basic six groups of ingredients to provide effective cleansing, lathering and moisturizing. These six groups of ingredients include:
Water Typically the main ingredient listed in bath and shower gels. Functions as the liquid solvent for the other ingredients.
Emulsifiers Act to increase foam and provide thickening for bath gels, giving them their gel-like consistency.
Detergents Used to clean the skin.
Surfactants Create a lather or foam when the bath gel or liquid soap is applied to the skin.
Preservatives Extend the shelf life of bath gels and liquid soaps and prevent microbial contamination.
Fragrance Most shower gels contain fragrance to cover up the chemical smell of other ingredients and to help make using the shower gel a pleasing experience. Most fragrances used in shower gels are synthetic. Some may be derived from essential oils and natural plant extracts.
7 Questionable Ingredients to Avoid
Certain chemical ingredients can potentially cause problems for your skin when applied as a liquid or bar soap and are best avoided.
The 7 ingredients topping the "To Avoid" list include…
Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulfate (SLS/SLES) Sodium lauryl sulfate is a surfactant, detergent and emulsifier used in thousands of cosmetic products, as well as in industrial cleaners. Present in nearly all shampoos, toothpastes, body washes and cleansers, liquid hand soaps, laundry detergents and bath oils and bath salts.
Although SLS originates from coconuts, the manufacturing process results in SLES/SLS being contaminated with 1,4 dioxane, a carcinogenic byproduct.
SLS is the sodium salt of lauryl sulfate, and is rated by the Environmental Working Group's (EWG) Skin Deep Cosmetics Database as a "moderate hazard."
SLS breaks down the skin's moisture barrier, easily penetrates the skin, and allows other chemicals to penetrate by increasing skin permeability by approximately 100-fold.
Combined with other chemicals, SLS becomes a "nitrosamine", a potent class of carcinogen.
Research studies have linked SLS to skin and eye irritation, organ toxicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, endocrine disruption, neurotoxicity, cellular changes, possible mutations and cancer.
Dioxane Common in a wide range of products as part of PEG, Polysorbates, Laureth, and ethoxylated alcohols. These compounds are usually contaminated with high concentrations of highly volatile 1,4-dioxane which is easily absorbed through the skin.
This "probably carcinogen to humans" substance has received a "high hazard" rating from EWG's Skin Deep and is especially toxic to the brain, central nervous system, kidneys and liver.
A synthetic derivative of coconut, watch for misleading language on labels, stating "comes from coconut".
Avoid any product with indications of ethoxylation, which include: "myreth," "oleth," "laureth," "ceteareth," any other "eth," "PEG," "polyethylene," "polyethylene glycol," "polyoxyethylene," or "oxynol," in ingredient names.
Parabens Widely used as preservatives in an estimated 13,200 cosmetic and skin care products, parabens have been connected with breast cancer in studies.
They have hormone-disrupting qualities, mimicking estrogen, and interfere with the body's endocrine system. Studies have shown that parabens can affect your body much like estrogens, which can lead to diminished muscle mass, extra fat storage, and male breast growth.
The EPA has linked methyl parabens in particular to metabolic, developmental, hormonal, and neurological disorders, as well as various cancers.
Propylene glycol A common ingredient in personal care products, it's been shown to cause dermatitis, kidney or liver abnormalities, and may inhibit skin cell growth or cause skin irritation.
Also found in engine coolants, antifreeze, rubber cleaners, adhesives, and paints and varnishes.
Diethanolamine or DEA DEA readily reacts with nitrite preservatives and contaminants to create nitrosodiethanolamine (NDEA), a known and potent carcinogen.
DEA also appears to block absorption of the nutrient choline, vital to brain development.
Fragrance Toluene, made from petroleum or coal tar, is found in most synthetic fragrances. Chronic exposure is linked to anemia, lowered blood cell count, liver or kidney damage, and may affect a developing fetus.
Synthetic fragrances can also be drying and irritating to your skin.
Triclosan The antibacterial agent added to many liquid hand soaps to help kill germs. Triclosan is suspected of contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.
Triclosan Can Transform Into Something Even More Dangerous
Here's something else you may not know about that innocent-looking bottle of liquid hand soap sitting next to your sink.
When triclosan mixes with the chlorine in your tap water, chloroform is formed, which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has classified as a probable human carcinogen.
And when combined with other disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in your tap water, this chloroform can raise the concentration of dangerous trihalomethanes (THMs) above the EPA's maximum allowable amount.
Trihalomethanes (THMs) are Cancer Group B carcinogens, meaning they've been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. Disinfection byproducts (DPBs) have also been linked to reproductive problems in both animals and humans.
Not only do you absorb them into your skin, these antimicrobial chemicals flow down your drain, contaminating the environment and food chain. So, let me ask you… do you really want to put triclosan, SLS, parabens, dioxane, DEA, toluene, synthetic fragrances and propylene glycol (along with other chemicals we haven't even talked about here) on your skin?
In my opinion, you're better off switching to skin care products made of natural plant names you recognize, can pronounce, and could even eat (if you had to).
It was pretty interesting to see my blood under a microscope. Through that test, I found out that my blood is full of yeast, (candida). Many of us have an over abundance of yeast and dont' even know it! You can get it from taking many antibiotics in the past, or too much sugar, carbs, or yeast in your diet.
Here's a list of symptoms from having too much yeast. If you have many of these, you might want to consider a sugar/yeast free diet for awhile.
From what my doc tells me is that this blood is a good breeding ground for cancer. Not good.
See if you have any of these symptoms.........
problems with short-term memory and concentration
brown colored mucus in the back of the throat
fatigue that prevents you from functioning
painful joints
muscle aches
extreme tightness in the neck and shoulders
acid reflux
chronic sinus problems and headaches including migraines
chronic dental problems
white or blood blisters in the mouth/tongue/throat
I am a wife,mom of four, sister, friend, teacher and a cancer survivor. I have decided to start another blog to share how my life has changed since cancer and what I am learning about health and nutrition after a cancer diagnosis at 39. Basically, starting a new life! I feel this information is too important to keep to myself so I wanted a way to share it with others. :)
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