Don't laugh, Organic Really is Better

Studies Show Organic Plant-Based Foods More Nutritious

A new report published by The Organic Center, "New Evidence Confirms the Nutritional Superiority of Plant-Based Organic Foods," is a comprehensive review of 97 published studies comparing the nutritional quality of organic and conventional foods. The report shows that organic plant-based foods (fruits, vegetables, grains) contain higher levels of eight of 11 nutrients studied, including significantly greater concentrations of health-promoting polyphenols and antioxidants.

In this first comprehensive review of the scientific literature comparing nutrient levels in organic and conventional food completed since 2003, a team of scientists concluded that organically grown plant-based foods are 25 percent more nutrient dense, on average, and deliver more essential nutrients per serving or calorie consumed. The full report and its executive summary are free at the Center's website, Organic-Center.org.

Tea, you see

I am really glad to see the following information from a popular exercise newsletter.

When I first saw these ads on the net I knew it sounded fishy, so I too did a little more digging.

Low and behold, yes, just good old fashioned Oolong tea.

I recall those coffee house days of my teens when I sipped well brewed high quality Oolong tea from time to time. I have to admit I enjoy it, but I limit my intake because I know the dark side of green tea.

One is fluoride and another is a tendency to cause pancreatic cancer.

Remember that the traditional place for green tea is in climates with high heat and humidity. It is the cooling benefit of this tea that people seek. Cooling your body slows your metabolism.

So when you want some of our choice, high quality, organic Oolong tea, order up some from us or take the ferry to Vancouver Island and shop the tea house in Victoria.

I'm sure you've seen tons of really clever ads all over the internet for all of these "Wu-tea" products claiming to be the miracle cure to fat loss.

I must admit, there's some savvy marketing behind these sites... they even claim
things like "as seen on oprah" and try to claim all sorts of celebrity endorsements.

Here's the deal...Most of these new tea products on the internet claiming to be a miracle cure for fat loss are nothing but plain old oolong tea. Some brands may have other teas mixed in too, but most I've seen are just oolong tea.

The "Wu" in their names is just their clever way of making you think this is some
new secret tea discovery.

Basically they just sell you oolong tea for outrageous prices, when you can go to
your local grocery store or health food store and get a whole box of oolong tea
for about $2 bucks.

But beyond the outrageously marked up price, does oolong tea actually help with fat
loss?

Well, the answer is... slightly.

Sometimes a mixture of green tea, white tea, oolong tea, and black tea in your daily
schedule to possibly help a slight bit with fat loss.

The fact of it is that drinking tea is not going to miraculously transform your body
or "melt off bodyfat". It CAN have a slight thermogenic effect and possibly help you burn a few extra calories. Plus, there are tons of other benefits too, many of which are due to the high antioxidant content of teas.

However, let's get real... whether you drink tea or not isn't one of those major
factors in how fast you're going to burn off body fat... it's just a very minor
detail. The real factors are your lifestyle as a whole, your type of exercise
program and intensity, the quality of your diet, and your mindset... all of which we
focus on regularly.

So what I'd recommend is...Don't waste your money on the overpriced, over-hyped
Wu-teas that claim to be a miracle fat loss cure. I do recommend including white,
green, black, and oolong teas in your diet for their numerous health benefits.

On artificial sweeteners

I often write about this topic, and speak about it in programs and classes I offer. This past week I had the unfortunate experience of eating something that cause me itching, water retention, and ringing in the ears (tinnitus). I really could not imagine what it could have been until I picked up the outer wrapper of a package of bread and read the fine print.

Acesulfame K (potassium) was hidden amidst a groups of sweeteners that to me did not need to be in raisin bread.

Acesulfame K is known from the research to be a cause of leukemia and other cancer. You'll see this ingredient in the post about the so-called cavity fighting lollipops. Sure can't figure where these UCLA dentists thought this invention would take them, or to which bank...

Now, if you can't understand why you don't want aspartame in your food, or sucarlose or any other the names by which these poisons are called, start here -

ASPARTAME IS NEUROTOXIC-GENOTOXIC MOLECULAR FOOD & VACCINE PHARMACO-GENOCIDE

Relaxation Tops Didactic Lifestyle Advice for Blood Pressure Control

While we have been promoting relaxation and related relaxation therapies for multiple decades, now it may be coming back in vogue amidst MSM (mainstream medicine); remember those old books from the 60s and 70s about reversing heart disease with biofeedback?

* Medical News: Hypertension

By Charles Bankhead, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: March 31, 2008

Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

BOSTON, March 31 -- Recalcitrant systolic hypertension may respond better to a form of relaxation training than to lectures on lifestyle interventions, investigators here found.

The two types of nondrug interventions reduced blood pressure to a similar degree, Randall Zusman, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard, and colleagues, reported in April issue of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

However, patients who engaged in relaxation training were more than twice as likely to discontinue antihypertensive therapy and maintain blood pressure control.

"If a practice that takes only 15 to 20 minutes a day can help decrease patients' dependence on antihypertensive medications -- reducing often-unpleasant side effects and the considerable costs of these drugs -- we could not only improve their quality of life by lower direct and indirect health costs by billions of dollars," said Dr. Zusman.

Systolic hypertension is the most prevalent form of high blood pressure in older adults, accounting for 65% to 75% of hypertension among those 60 and older. Moreover, systolic hypertension poses a greater risk of cardiovascular disease in older individuals than does diastolic hypertension or hyperlipidemia, the authors noted.

Antihypertensive drugs, though effective, often cause side effects in older patients that affect compliance, making nonpharmacologic interventions attractive, the authors continued. Stress management techniques that elicit a relaxation response have demonstrated efficacy in essential hypertension but had not been examined in patients with systolic hypertension.

Dr. Zusman and colleagues evaluated relaxation response training in a randomized comparison with lifestyle intervention in 122 patients with systolic hypertension. All patients were 55 or older, had systolic blood pressure of 140 to 159 mm Hg, diastolic blood pressure less than 90 mm Hg, and were being treated with at least two antihypertensive drugs.

The patients' mean age was 67, and baseline blood pressure averaged 146.3/77.3 mm Hg in the relaxation training arm and 145.3/77.6 in the control arm. Half of the patients in the investigational group were taking three or more antihypertensive drugs versus 30% in the control group.

The primary outcome was systolic blood pressure at eight weeks. Patients who reduced their systolic blood pressure to lower than 140 mm Hg and had at least a 5-mm Hg reduction in systolic blood pressure could enter a second eight-week phase of intervention with supervised elimination of antihypertensive medication.

Patients assigned to relaxation training attended weekly hour-long sessions that included instruction, practice, and education related to relaxation response. Additionally, they listened to a 20-minute relaxation response audiotape daily.

The lifestyle modification group attended weekly sessions that consisted of education and discussion related to nondrug interventions to manage stress and hypertension. They were asked to listen to a series of 20-minute audiotapes about various aspects of lifestyle modification.

After the end of the first eight-week phase of the study, systolic blood pressure had decreased by an average of 9.4 mm Hg in the relaxation training group and 8.8 mm Hg in the lifestyle modification group. Blood pressure changes in both groups were statistically significant compared with baseline (P<0.0001) but there was no difference between groups (P=0.75). Diastolic blood pressure decreased 1.5 and 2.4 mm Hg (P= 0.05 and 0.01, respectively) without group difference (P=0.48).

The authors reported that 44 patients in the relaxation response group and 36 in the control group qualified for supervised medication elimination. By intention-to-treat analysis, 14 (32%) patients in the relaxation training group maintained blood pressure control after discontinuing one or more antihypertensive drugs compared with 5 (14%) in the control group.

After controlling for baseline differences between the two groups, those in the relaxation training group were four times more likely to eliminate one or more medications versus the control group (OR 4.3, 95% CI 1.2 to 15.9, P=0.03).

Reviewing limitations of the study, the authors cited differences in antihypertensive drug regimens, variation in dose-response to medications, brief period of follow-up, lack of monitoring of lifestyle interventions, and absence of a placebo control.

Despite the limitations, the authors concluded that the study demonstrated the feasibility and efficacy of relaxation response training to manage systolic hypertension. They suggested that the approach also is feasible for prehypertensive patients and might prevent the patients' progression to overt hypertension.

The study was supported by the CDC and NIH. The authors reported no disclosures.

Primary source: Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine
Source reference:
Dusek JA, et al "Stress management versus lifestyle modification on systolic hypertension and medication elimination: A randomized trial" J Altern Complement Med 2008; 14: 129-138.

Add Your Knowledge™ From Moss Posner, md - Apr 01, 2008
The significance of this study cannot be overestimated: Systolic hypertension of the elderly is, as mentioned, more dangerous, and also harder to control by conventional medication, which is effective in treatment of diastolic hypertension. In the elderly, this effect is not only dangerous, but usually accompanied by no substantial lowering of systolic pressure. As a result, and particularly in those elderly with substantial systolic elevation and normal or depressed diastolic pressures, we have been unable to offer safe treatment--or any treatment for that matter. The very fact that relaxation can have a substantial effect selectively on systolic hypertension, and that it is even superior to life-style modification (proven effective in diastolic hypertension) in the ultimate success in reducing or eliminating medication opens up a whole new realm of possible causes and insights into the pathophysiology. Are specific neuroreceptor sites affected, and if so, which, and by what mechanism? Is this endorphin-mediated? Proposed use of fMRI in investigation is tantalizing. As in the title of the old song...

New drug for blood pressure assumes better tolerance

Assume is the operative word in this article because there remain no long twerm studies.

This issue of approving a drug, especially under the new FDA 'faster track' options funded (at tax-payer expense) recently by your congressional pimps for Big Pharma is proving to be a serious OOPS! moment as side effects and deaths continue to accumulate for newly marketed drugs.

To be sure, this might be an option, especially reducing side effects, but there are many better ones.

I am personally taken by the old and proven orthomolecular medicine approach in treating hypertension in women with high dose B12 injections.

More information abuot BP care using natural therapy can be found in my book, "Blood Pressure Care Naturally".

New Blood Pressure Medication Has Fewer Side Effects, Global Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2008) — A major Canadian-led global study has found that a new blood pressure medication is effective in reducing cardiovascular death, with fewer side effects than the current standard of care.

The study found a new drug telmisartan is as effective as the popular drug ramipril in reducing cardiovascular death in high risk patients and it has fewer side effects.

Dr. Salim Yusuf, director of the Population Health Research Institute at McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences and principal investigator of the study, presented the results of ONTARGET March 31 at the American College of Cardiology conference. The paper has also been published on-line by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Previous studies such as the Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation Trial (HOPE) demonstrated that angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors such as ramipril reduce cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, strokes and heart failure in high risk individuals, however, a significant proportion (about 20 percent) of patients are unable to tolerate an ACE-inhibitor due side effects such as coughing, hypotension or swelling.

An alternate therapy, telmisartan, which is an angiotensin II receptor blocker, proved to be at least as effective and better tolerated, offering clinicians and patients an important alternative.

"This study is of clinical importance because it demonstrates that telmisartan is an effective and safe alternative to ramipril. This means both patients and physicians have choices and can use telmisartan where appropriate with a high degree of confidence," said Yusuf, a professor of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster. Dr. Yusuf is also vice-president of research and chief scientific officer at Hamilton Health Sciences.

Investigators from 733 centers in 40 countries collaborated in conducting the ONTARGET study, which enrolled 25,620 patients with coronary heart disease or diabetes plus additional risk factors and were over the age of 55 years of age, but did not have evidence of heart failure. Patients were randomized to receive ramipril 10-mg a day, telmisartan 18-mg a day or the combination of the two. The mean duration of follow-up of the study was 55 months.

Telmisartan and ramipril were found to be equally effective but telmisartan was better tolerated than ramipril with the chief differences being lower rates of coughing and lower rates of angioneurotic edema (a life-threatening swelling of the throat and airways). There was a small excess of minor symptoms related to hypotension such as dizziness with telmisartan.

"All people who have cardiovascular disease or diabetes with organ target damage and physicians managing these diseases should be interested in the results of this important trial," said Dr. Gilles Dagenais, cardiologist at the Laval University Heart and Lung Institute, Quebec City, and one of the Canadian national co-ordinators of the ONTARGET trial. "If it's possible to have access to a medication that can prevent serious cardiovascular events but with fewer side effects and better compliance than what's currently available, it will also have a great impact on their quality of life."

Dr. Koon Teo, professor of medicine at McMaster University and head of clinical trials in the Population Health Research Institute at Hamilton Health Sciences, said: "The ONTARGET trial is very important because it addresses the question of how we can best prevent heart attack, stroke, heart failure, cardiovascular death and other outcomes such as diabetes. These conditions affect millions of people around the world and if we can find a better treatment that improves these outcomes we're doing a lot of good."

Surprisingly, combination therapy did not offer any additional benefit but was associated with a higher rate of hypotension related side effects including fainting. There was also an increase in discontinuations for hyperkalemia (high potassium levels).

Adapted from materials provided by McMaster University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

McMaster University (2008, April 1). New Blood Pressure Medication Has Fewer Side Effects, Global Study Suggests. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 1, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/03/080331111039.htm

What about feeding your dog in a more healthy way

I think I am lucky. I think this because I have two loving animal companions that are dogs. I also have a cat and he is very loving too.

My dogs, Belle(11)and Buddy(5), are both rescued. Belle is a Golden Retriever and Buddy is an Aussie-Corgi. They get very wholesome and sometimes raw food. I add herbs and nutritional supplements and use super premium baked kibble. I make much of their food and actually find it quite easy to do.

Purchase super premium pet food or order recipes for my basic mix and a healthy 'cookie' are available for a donation to CHI, the tax exempt, non-profit organization that brings you Natural Health News.

I advise people to avoid feeding only dry food.

From the VRP Pet Corner comes a similar concern -

What’s In Our Dogs’ Food? (Part I) By Gary L. Ailes, DVM

There seem to be many conflicting thoughts about dog food even today. It is an important topic and one that warrants a longer discussion. Therefore, I will devote the next four Pet Corners to this topic.

Consider dry dog food, which tends to be what most people feed to their larger dogs. Some people think that the baked form of dry food is the best. However, baking can take place with temperatures as high as 425 degrees. Extruded dog food, on the other hand, may be processed at temperatures closer to 115 degrees or as high as 212 degrees using a steam method. When trying to preserve the foods’ natural benefits such as vitamins and antioxidants, the lower temperature may actually be better. Is one way of cooking dry food better than another? I honestly do not know and have yet to see either way proven in a scientific method. If either one has black or burned areas, I would put that particular food in an unfavorable light as eating burned anything has a carcinogenic effect.

The ingredients of dog food should be evaluated in a thoughtful manner. Trying to understand exactly what the manufacturer is putting in the food is done by the way the ingredients are listed on the bag, box or can. The first listed ingredient will make up more of the final product than any of the others. The ingredients are listed in order from the first one, which has the largest percentage, to the last one, which makes up the smallest percentage.

What are the ingredients? I prefer to have meat then meat by-products listed first, which should be the primary source of protein. By meat, I mean beef, fish, chicken or lamb. A dog that is consistently fed a diet of lamb and rice may be deficient in taurine. Therefore, I suggest supplementing with 250 mg daily of taurine. The meats should be followed by the carbohydrate source, which will usually be corn, barley, oats, rice or wheat.

The third ingredient we need to know about is fat. Adequate amounts of fat are very important and it adds to the metabolic water in the body. However, it has twice the calories per gram and the total calorie intake must be kept to an amount that does not produce excess weight gain. Usually, the listing doesn’t specify the amount of omega-3 and omega-6 fats in the food. Most animal fats are higher in omega-6 fatty acids and need to have some supplementation of omega-3 fatty acids. The nutritionists I have consulted feel the optimum ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids is between 5 to 1 and 10 to 1. Omega-3 fatty acids are very important to help decrease inflammation. This action is helpful in decreasing allergies, osteoarthritis and skin inflammation. These may be times when more omega-3 fatty acids are indicated. Neptune Krill Oil® can be added to the dog food as a way to increase the omega-3 content.

The next article will discuss the protein fraction of dog foods and what that really means.

© 2008 VRP

Too Many Women Still Dying From Breast Cancer

According to a report in Science Daily thousands of women die from breast cancer each year because current treatments are not always effective and in some cases fail to stem the disease.

I have been hearing this now for too many years and I sincerely wonder why women are so adverse to realize that this "race" for a cure is just a way to keep people on a payroll, under the guise of 'research'.

Facts are that much of the screening propagandized by MSM only promotes more breast cancer. And if you haven't read all my articles written on this topic over more than a decade, or attended one of my classes, you won't know just how high the risks are from radiation. This even includes your pink cell phone and pink-lid (fake food) 'yogurt'.

While chemo brings about limited cure, many of the drugs promote other types of cancer. Radiation treatment brings about problems with thyroid function and can lead to congestive heart failure. If it were me I would do anything to avoid these consequences.

I'd be taking all that non-soy vitamin e to prevent my hair from falling out from the treatment, and I's refuce the candy and chips offered at some cancer centers to help stave off your hunger while your flooding your body with that chemo cocktail in the IV.

I'd be taking supplements. Yes, you know those supplements they tell you not to take because it would interfere with your radiation or chemo. I'd look at all those herbal treatment that do give you an edge or even investigate IV vitamin C therapy.

Most of all, I'd look to what I can do to nurture myself. It is commonly known in natural healing circles that women who do not nurture themselves are the ones more likely to get breast cancer.

And then ther is the cancer promoting HPV vaccine, Gardasil, the want you to inject in your daughters.

Yes, let's keep the race for the dis-ease in high gear!

Too Many Women Still Dying From Breast Cancer, Says UK Charity
ScienceDaily (Mar. 30, 2008) — Thousands of women die from breast cancer each year because current treatments are not always effective and in some cases fail to stem the disease, warns the United Kingdom-based charity Breast Cancer Campaign.

In a comprehensive review of breast cancer research published today, 56 of the UK's most influential breast cancer experts have identified the key research gaps and priorities for the greatest potential impact on patients.

Breast cancer treatment has improved over the past few decades and led to increased survival rates and better quality of life, the report highlights. However over 44,000 women in the UK are diagnosed with breast cancer each year and around 12,500 will die.

Unfortunately, not enough is known about why treatments don't work for some patients or why breast cancer can return, sometimes many years later, says Breast Cancer Campaign.

The new study, one of the largest ever carried out in the UK and published by the open access journal Breast Cancer Research, is a unique insight into the current state of breast cancer research and its future challenges.

Gaps in key areas of breast cancer research have been identified in the report, says the charity: prevention, detection, spread or recurrence of the disease, treatment, pathology, physiology, genetics and psychosocial aspects of breast cancer.

Among the recommendations for future research priorities pinpointed by Breast Cancer Campaign:

Identify new ways to predict and prevent breast cancer
Predict who will develop advanced or secondary disease
Determine how and why breast cancer spreads to other parts of the body
Devise a suitable method to determine the effectiveness of a treatment at an early stage
Understand more about the psychosocial and psychological impacts of breast cancer
Pamela Goldberg, Chief Executive Breast Cancer Campaign said, "Breast cancer research has made considerable progress over the past two decades and vital work is still underway. But there are still significant knowledge gaps.

"Greater attention must be paid to all stages of breast cancer. The experiences of older women and those from minority ethnic groups must be considered, particularly in light of recent research showing breast cancer develops earlier in black women and their survival rates are poorer."

Breast Cancer Campaign is already playing a leading role in filling some of the research gaps identified in the report. The charity is currently spending £11.3 million on over 90 research projects around the UK, looking at all areas from screening and prevention to genetics and treatment.

The development of a computer programme that will quickly tell clinicians which is the best treatment for an individual is just one of the many research projects funded by the charity.

Accurately identifying who will respond, or not respond, to breast cancer treatments is very difficult. The computer programme will be able to predict which patients will benefit most, not only from current treatments, but also any new therapies that may come onto the market, paving the way for treatment tailored to the individual and ultimately saving lives.

"We have set out a blueprint for future breast cancer research by this analysis and we are already filling some of the gaps," says Pamela Goldberg.

"While we are working in an exciting age of discovery, our resources are limited. The Government, funding bodies and scientists should focus on these gaps to drive advances in knowledge into improvements in patient care. If we co-ordinate our resources and target the priorities in breast cancer research, we can ensure an environment of scientific excellence and plug these gaps."

Journal reference: Gaps in breast cancer treatment. Breast Cancer Research 2008, 10:R26 http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/10/2/R26

Adapted from materials provided by BioMed Central, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

BioMed Central (2008, March 30). Too Many Women Still Dying From Breast Cancer, Says UK Charity. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 1, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/03/080327172227.htm