Featured Website of the Week

The Alliance for Natural Health website is a very good website providing up-to-date information on the goings-on in the natural health world. I just discovered this website this morning and thought I would share it with my readers.

And also, with this post I just wanted to post another video on the evils of Monsanto, the GMO (genetically modified organism) producing seed company that desires to control the world food supply. Hopefully, you have seen my other post about Monsanto and watched the video within. This is just a reminder that we need to fight for our right to be healthy, and fight for the safety of our food supply, and fight for knowledge about our where our food comes from and how it is produced. Get the word out to as many people as possible about the ills of this company. Thank you.

Alert! Big Pharma is moving to rid Vitamin B6 supplements! Action Needs to be Taken!

Here is an excerpt from the article:

On 30 November 2007, Medicure Pharma submitted a citizen’s petition to FDA that asserts that all dietary supplements containing pyridoxal 5’-phosphate (“P5P supplements”) are adulterated under FDC Act § 402(f). Despite the fact that P5P is the bioactive—and natural—form of vitamin B6, Medicure want to see the product banned from sale by the US dietary supplement industry because its marketing of P5P-containing supplements undermines the company’s incentive to continue developing its drug product (MC-1)...

Action must be taken. We must not sit in silence while the pharmaceutical industry railroads all natural health efforts. Another excerpt:

Medicure Pharma’s attempt to ban the natural, bioactive form of vitamin B6

On 30 November 2007, Medicure Pharma submitted a citizen’s petition to FDA that asserts that all dietary supplements containing pyridoxal 5’-phosphate (“P5P supplements”) are adulterated under FDC Act § 402(f). Despite the fact that P5P is the bioactive—and natural—form of vitamin B6, Medicure want to see the product banned from sale by the US dietary supplement industry because its marketing of P5P-containing supplements undermines the company’s incentive to continue developing its drug product (MC-1).

Dr Robert Verkerk, ANH’s executive & scientific director, says, “This is an astonishing development that shows just how easily pharma companies are willing to show their hand. Well I’m sorry, natural got there first! You can’t just decide to have a natural form of a product banned because it interferes with your drug patents. We’ve found two patents secured by Medicure for P5P to be used in cases of heart disease. It seems they’ve come to the same realization as millions around the world—vitamins and other natural products can be used to help protect you from chronic diseases, including heart disease.”

Medicure Pharma has in excess of $21 million to protect today, says Datamonitor, but sales for its label use, to reduce reperfusion injury from inflammation following heart bypass grafts, is set to hit nearly $89 million by 2012.

To read an abstract of a recently published clinical trial on MC-1, published in the Journal of the American Medical Assocation, click here. The trial shows that MC-1 had no benefit in reducing deaths or heart attacks in mid to high risk patients undergoing heart bypass surgery. Perhaps Medicure should have been looking at using the natural bioactive form of B6, along with food forms of folate and B12, to help reduce the risk of heart disease in the first place. A recent, large scale Japanese study, published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition (2008 Feb;27(1): 127-36), which included 468,472 years of follow-up, concluded "Dietary intake of vitamin B6 was associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease among middle-aged non-multivitamin supplement users. Dietary folate and vitamin B12 were also suggested to be protective factors for coronary heart disease."

To access the Medicure Pharma petition, click here.

Glaxosmithkline’s attempt to shut down competition from natural products industry in weight loss field

On 17 April 2008, the world’s second largest drug companies, GSK, along with the American Dietetic Association and the Obesity Society—both regarded by many as fronts for the pharma industry— petitioned the FDA to try to prevent any dietary supplement product making weight loss claims. The company wants weight loss claims to be re-classified as disease claims, therefore making them the sole domain of treatments with licensed pharmaceuticals. GSK’s Alli product is the only weight loss drug that in competition with the wide range of dietary supplements that help support weight loss—and Alli has become the third top-selling obesity drug less than a year after its launch.

Read Foodnavigator article dated 18 June 2008, showing how over 600 submissions have been made to the FDA. This is after Nutraingredients USA, Food navigator's sister publication, was led to believe—just 8 days earlier—that only 14 comments had been submitted.

Commenting on the GSK petition, Verkerk added, “It looks like GSK and their partners were trying to cover up the extent of public opposition to what they're trying to do with the FDA. Obesity is a big growth area, not just for the unwitting sufferers, but also for Big Food which contributes so greatly to the problem. The Pharma industry—which works in cahoots with Big Food—now wants a slice of the action and it wants to eliminate the main source of competition—the natural products industry. US citizens must engage with these petitions and have their say. The time for sitting on the side lines is over.”

Please, sign these petitions!!!

Far Infrared Heat Sauna

The last few weeks, I have been consumed with studying more about purchasing a far infra red heat sauna. From what I've been reading, this is the best type of sauna for health. It aides in weight loss(600 calories in half an hour! Not just water either, fat too!), cleansing the skin, relieving stress, relaxing muscles, and many more wonderful things.

Far infra red is a spectrum of light that emanates from the sun. These are not the UVA rays or UVB rays, but healthy rays that promote cleansing properties. This type of sauna is better because it deeply penetrates the skin and tissue, cleansing the tissue and healing.

Like many healthy products and tools, the sauna's tend to be on the expensive side. But not overly so. Some very between $1800-$6000, while I've seen some as low as $1300.

I like them and am hoping to raise enough funds to get one later this summer or later this year.

Top Soil Depletion

I was just reading this article on naturalnews.com and I found it quite interesting. The article speaks to soil depletion, and I think this is a very important topic. We need start taking better care of our soil buy recycling food back into it. Compost! Compost!Compost! Admittedly, I have been neglecting my own compost pile, but that will not always be the case. I plan on taking better care of my compost pile better in the future. Anyway, this article is very interesting, but I found it to be devoid of solutions to the top soil depletion problem. So, I did a little digging (no pun intended), and I found another article that gives more details into what can be done.

To sum up a lot of information, it lists four ways to slow the depletion of top soil:
- Compost leaves from fall
- Eat local from small farms
- Don't support corn products like ethanol (I know gas prices are through the roof, but this about something more important than that)
- Buy direct from farmers

Until next time!

Featured Website of the Week

I think it is important that everyone that reads my blog get a good amount of information, and good links to websites that are important. This one website I came across has given some information on the future of the internet as we know it. So this website, http://ipower.ning.com/netneutrality2, is the FWW. This website give disturbing news that by the year 2012(more likely sooner), the internet will be regulated and converted to a TV-package like system where you would have to pay for a certain amount of websites, and then pay an additional fee for other websites. This is worrisome because I think this would lead to the end of websites like the ones I have listed in my links, and this blog (I am a college student who cannot afford unnecessary fees). That, to me, means that information on natural health and news on governmental escapades, will be silenced. Spread the word, that is the only way to ensure

Featured Website of the Week

This weeks FWW is naturalnews.com for their honest reporting and in-depth articles. As I read the editor's, Mike Adam's, news piece exposing psychiatry, I thought, 'Wow, what a wonderful resource!'
Some other health website have an agenda and promote products regularly, but this website offers honest, non-incentive reporting, and I like that.

Just as a reminder to all why websites like naturalnews.com are important, here is a video detailing just some of the escapades of conventional medicine.

For your viewing pleasure:

Update

Just an update for the readers, I have added my email address, and labels so that my posts can be more readily accessible. Also, I am adding two new links to my Sites of Interest. These two sites are my favorite health sites because they provide very helpful information. One, is the Weston A. Price Foundation, and this site features a whole host of important health truths that everyone needs to know. From alerts about injustices in raw milk legislation, to information on the safety of GMO soy products, I think this site and the work of the late Weston A. Price is a must for everyone to review, and frankly, I cannot believe it took me this long to post the link!

The second website is Real Milk, and it will help you locate raw milk sellers in your area (it helped me find my raw milk vendor). This site will help you not only find raw milk, but it also offers a lot of information on raw milk and how safe it actually is.

Just to keep you guys updated!

The Growing Importance of Vitamin D

The " sun-shine" vitamin (my favorite name for it) or vitamin D is having new functions attached to it. For the longest time, it was thought that vitamin D only played a role in bone health, as nothing more than a "help-meet" if you will for calcium and phosphorus. Now-a-days, its role in various biological functions is becoming more apparent.

As a side note, you would think that we would regard this vitamin higher since our body has very many vitamin D receptors. But, we often find ourselves making the important things smaller than they really are.

Anyway, two articles on sciencedaily.com pointed two the importance of vitamin D. One article relays how vitamin D can help prevent type I diabetes.

This next article, however, really speaks to an important issue: how seemingly healthy children can really be vitamin D deficient. It is some common today for people to think if you look healthy, well, then you are healthy. That is not always the case.

All in all, we need to get over this fear of the environment. "The sun will Kill you! The sun will KILL YOU!" that is the mantra of modern medicine. They say you need sun block to protect you from the sun and skin cancer, but those sunscreens probably cause cancer. Just get appropriate amounts of sun exposure (about fifteen minutes per day for lighter toned people; people of darker complexions need more time) and take plenty of raw milk and vitamin D!

Featured Website of the Week

This week's FWW is Crev.info

To me, this site is really important because it gives scientific evidence to Creation. As a natural health advocate and avid creationist, I believe whole-heartedly that this website serves a great purpose, and that purpose is spreading the truth of Creation.

Unlike its counter part AIG, Crev.info provides more scientific evidence. Not to berate AIG, but it was more designed to sway laymen, so it serves its purpose. Crev.info however, satisfies the scientist in me, so, this website is one that I think everybody should view.