For Those With Cancer

Claim to Cancer Cure.

List and decide for yourself if this is for you.

Click Here!

Relieving Constipation Naturally

Relieving Constipation Naturally




by Richlion

If staying regular is a struggle for you, here what I recommend...


1. Get checked for hypothyroidism, especially if you’re a woman over 40. Constipation is one of the hidden symptoms of hyopothyroidism. (But of course, it's not taking care of the cause – just giving you a name for what you have.)

2. Try squatting. This is the best, natural position to help expel stool from your colon and reduce your risk of hemorrhoids, and it’s still the way many people around the world go to the bathroom.

Place a small stool next to your toilet. This will elevate your knees. This will stimulate your intestinal contraction. Throughout history this is how man used to have a bowel movement.


3. Eat plenty of fiber-rich foods. Vegetables are sources of fiber. For added fiber to help normalize your stool, try whole organic flaxseeds. Grind the seeds in a coffee grinder, then add a tablespoon or two to your food.

You can also try organic psyllium. Psyllium is unique because it will help soften your stool if you’re constipated, or reduce frequency of your bowel movements if you have loose stools.

4. Exercise regularly. This helps stimulate circulation and intestinal function, causing your bowels to move properly. Do 'toe touches' and 'sit-ups'.

5. Take a high-quality probiotic. This helps to balance the good and bad bacteria in your gut, which is essential for proper digestive function. Probiotics are also useful in fighting IBS, which can contribute to constipation. To find out more about probiotics, click here.

6. Aloe vera and magnesium supplements can also be useful tools to speed up your bowel movements.

7. Head 'Nature's call'.

You can incorporate and you won't even know that your lifestyle had changed – that's the beautty of it.

For more about a natural remedy, you can read more here...

All the best,

Richlion

Constipation: Its Causes and Cures

Constipation: It's causes and cures



by Richlion

Constipation is a common problem but one that can be easily remedied with a simple lifestyle change.

The irony is that most people don't realize they are constipated. The reason is because of doctors. They say that a normal bowel movement should be two or three a week! If you do have this, you think your normal. In reality you are constipated.

You should have at least two a day. The ideal is one after every meal. So if you eat three times a day, as most people do, you should have three bowel movements a day.

Without regular bowel movements, toxins build up, and this can lead to all kinds of diseases. Constipation can also increase your risk of hemorrhoids (fecal impaction).

Though millions of people have constipation is easy to relieve.

To take care of any condition, you have to go to the cause. So, what causes constipation?

Constipation is do mainly to a poor diet – one that lacks processed foods, sugar and fresh vegetables. You must have food high in fiber. Fiber helps move the bulk through your intestines and promotes regular bowel movements.

Other common causes

believe it or not laxative can cause constipation – when used to excess. Most laxitaves are chemical in nature. When taken regularly, you intestines rely on it. Eventually, your intestines can fail to work properly.

An under-active thyroid glad is a common cause, too. This is known as hypothyroidism.

IBS, otherwise known as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, is when your colon works slow and the contents cannot move through your digestive tract fast enough.

Do you ignore the 'urge to go'? This is another cause of a sluggish bowel movement.

Why Laxatives are NOT a Good Option

$750,000,000 a year is spent on laxatives – money don't the toilet, you can say!

This is true even of senna or cassia laxatives, which are frequently marketed as natural, but they are not. If taken for a couple of months, it may decrease your colon's natural ability to contract. These over the counter laxatives can damage nerves, muscles and other tissues in your large intestines.

So if you absolutely must use a laxative, make sure it is only for a very short-term period. And remember that laxatives do absolutely nothing to address the underlying causes of your constipation.

For a safe, effective and natural way to treat IBS or constipation, you can read more here.

For your health,

Richlion

Most Diseases Start in the Bowels

Most Diseases Start in the Bowels

by Richlion

Most people don't realize that most diseases start in the bowels. Our
bowels get clogged over time. What remains is old petrified faeces.
This is according to famous natural pathetic Dr. Norman Walker.
I now, it's not a very pleasant subject but it's one that has to be
addressed.

Cause of irritable bowel syndrome

As discussed previously, irritable bowel syndrome is believed to be due
to the abnormal function (dysfunction) of the muscles of the organs of
the gastrointestinal tract or the nerves controlling the organs. The
nervous control of the gastrointestinal tract, however, is complex. A
system of nerves runs the entire length of the gastrointestinal tract
from the esophagus to the anus in the muscular walls of the organs.
These nerves communicate with other nerves that travel to and from the
spinal cord. Nerves within the spinal cord, in turn, travel to and
from the brain. (The gastrointestinal tract is exceeded in the numbers
of nerves it contains only by the spinal cord and brain.) Thus, the
abnormal function of the nervous system in IBS may occur in a
gastrointestinal muscular organ, the spinal cord, or the brain.

The nervous system that controls the gastrointestinal organs, as with
most other organs, contains both sensory and motor nerves. The sensory
nerves continuously sense what is happening within the organ and relay
this information to nerves in the organ's wall. From there,
information can be relayed to the spinal cord and brain. The
information is received and processed in the organ's wall, the spinal
cord, or the brain. Then, based on this sensory input and the way the
input is processed, commands (responses) are sent to the organ over
the motor nerves. Two of the most common motor responses in the
intestine are contraction or relaxation of the muscle of the organ and
secretion of fluid and/or mucus into the organ.

As already mentioned, abnormal function of the nerves of the
gastrointestinal organs, at least theoretically, might occur in the
organ, spinal cord, or brain. Moreover, the abnormalities might occur
in the sensory nerves, the motor nerves, or at processing centers in
the intestine, spinal cord, or brain. Some researchers argue that the
cause of functional diseases is abnormalities in the function of the
sensory nerves. For example, normal activities, such as stretching of
the small intestine by food, may give rise to abnormal sensory signals
that are sent to the spinal cord and brain, where they are perceived
as pain.

Other researchers argue that the cause of functional diseases is
abnormalities in the function of the motor nerves. For example,
abnormal commands through the motor nerves might produce a painful
spasm (contraction) of the muscles. Still others argue that abnormally
functioning processing centers are responsible for functional diseases
because they misinterpret normal sensations or send abnormal commands
to the organ. In fact, some functional diseases may be due to sensory
dysfunction, motor dysfunction, or both sensory and motor dysfunction.

Still others may be due to abnormalities within the processing centers
One area that is receiving a great deal of scientific attention is the
potential role of gas produced by intestinal bacteria in patients with
IBS. Studies have demonstrated that patients with IBS produce larger
amounts of gas than individuals without IBS, and the gas may be
retained longer in the small intestine. Among patients with IBS,
abdominal size increases over the day, reaching a maximum in the
evening and returning to baseline by the following morning. In
individuals without IBS, there is no increase in abdominal size during
the day.

There has been a great deal of controversy over the role that poor
digestion and/or absorption of dietary sugars may play in aggravating
the symptoms of IBS. Poor digestion of lactose, the sugar in milk, is
very common as is poor absorption of fructose, a sweetener found in
many processed foods. Poor digestion or absorption of these sugars
could aggravate the symptoms of IBS since unabsorbed sugars often cause
increased formation of gas.

Although these abnormalities in production and transport of gas could
give rise to some of the symptoms of IBS, much more work will need to
be done before the role of intestinal gas in IBS is clear.

Dietary fat in healthy individuals causes food as well as gas to move
more slowly through the stomach and small intestine. Some patients with
IBS may even respond to dietary fat in an exaggerated fashion with
greater slowing. Thus, dietary fat could--and probably does--aggravate
the symptoms of IBS.

For more information visit: http://www.bowtrol.com/?aid=916125

Reasons for Vegetarianism

15 Reasons to Stop Hiding From Vegetarianism

Vegetarian Times

10-26-7

Live longer, lower your weight, slash pollution and twelve other good reasons to start cutting meat out of your diet.

People are drawn to vegetarianism by all sorts of motives. Some of us want to live longer, healthier lives or do our part to reduce pollution. Others have made the switch because we want to preserve Earth's natural resources or because we've always loved animals and are ethically opposed to eating them.

Thanks to an abundance of scientific research that demonstrates the health and environmental benefits of a plant-based diet, even the federal government recommends that we consume most of our calories from grain products, vegetables and fruits. And no wonder: An estimated 70 percent of all diseases, including one-third of all cancers, are related to diet. A vegetarian diet reduces the risk for chronic degenerative diseases such as obesity, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and certain types of cancer including colon, breast, prostate, stomach, lung and esophageal cancer.

Why go veg? Chew on these reasons:

1. You'll ward off disease. Vegetarian diets are more healthful than the average American diet, particularly in preventing, treating or reversing heart disease and reducing the risk of cancer. A low-fat vegetarian diet is the single most effective way to stop the progression of coronary artery disease or prevent it entirely. Cardiovascular disease kills 1 million Americans annually and is the leading cause of death in the United States. But the mortality rate for cardiovascular disease is lower in vegetarians than in nonvegetarians, says Joel Fuhrman, MD, author of Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss. A vegetarian diet is inherently healthful because vegetarians consume no animal fat and less cholesterol and instead consume more fiber and more antioxidant-rich produce -- another great reason to listen to Mom and eat your veggies!

2. You'll keep your weight down. The standard American diet -- high in saturated fats and processed foods and low in plant-based foods and complex carbohydrates -- is making us fat and killing us slowly. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a division of the CDC, the National Center for Health Statistics, 64 percent of adults and 15 percent of children aged 6 to 19 are overweight and are at risk of weight-related ailments including heart disease, stroke and diabetes. A study conducted from 1986 to 1992 by Dean Ornish, MD, president and director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, found that overweight people who followed a low-fat, vegetarian diet lost an average of 24 pounds in the first year and kept off that weight 5 years later. They lost the weight without counting calories or carbs and without measuring portions or feeling hungry.

3. You'll live longer. If you switch from the standard American diet to a vegetarian diet, you can add about 13 healthy years to your life, says Michael F. Roizen, MD, author of The RealAge Diet: Make Yourself Younger with What You Eat. "People who consume saturated, four-legged fat have a shorter life span and more disability at the end of their lives. Animal products clog your arteries, zap your energy and slow down your immune system. Meat eaters also experience accelerated cognitive and sexual dysfunction at a younger age."

Want more proof of longevity? Residents of Okinawa, Japan, have the longest life expectancy of any Japanese and likely the longest life expectancy of anyone in the world, according to a 30-year study of more than 600 Okinawan centenarians. Their secret: a low-calorie diet of unrefined complex carbohydrates, fiber-rich fruits and vegetables, and soy.

4. You'll build strong bones. When there isn't enough calcium in the bloodstream, our bodies will leach it from existing bone. The metabolic result is that our skeletons will become porous and lose strength over time. Most health care practitioners recommend that we increase our intake of calcium the way nature intended -- through foods. Foods also supply other nutrients such as phosphorus, magnesium and vitamin D that are necessary for the body to absorb and use calcium.

People who are mildly lactose-intolerant can often enjoy small amounts of dairy products such as yogurt, cheese and lactose-free milk. But if you avoid dairy altogether, you can still get a healthful dose of calcium from dry beans, tofu, soymilk and dark green vegetables such as broccoli, kale, collards and turnip greens.

5. You'll reduce your risk of food-borne illnesses. The CDC reports that food-borne illnesses of all kinds account for 76 million illnesses a year, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths in the United States. According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), foods rich in protein such as meat, poultry, fish and seafood are frequently involved in food-borne illness outbreaks.

6. You'll ease the symptoms of menopause. Many foods contain nutrients beneficial to perimenopausal and menopausal women. Certain foods are rich in phytoestrogens, the plant-based chemical compounds that mimic the behavior of estrogen. Since phytoestrogens can increase and decrease estrogen and progesterone levels, maintaining a balance of them in your diet helps ensure a more comfortable passage through menopause. Soy is by far the most abundant natural source of phytoestrogens, but these compounds also can be found in hundreds of other foods such as apples, beets, cherries, dates, garlic, olives, plums, raspberries, squash and yams. Because menopause is also associated with weight gain and a slowed metabolism, a low-fat, high-fiber vegetarian diet can help ward off extra pounds.

7. You'll have more energy. Good nutrition generates more usable energy -- energy to keep pace with the kids, tackle that home improvement project or have better sex more often, Michael F. Roizen, MD, says in The RealAge Diet. Too much fat in your bloodstream means that arteries won't open properly and that your muscles won't get enough oxygen. The result? You feel zapped. Balanced vegetarian diets are naturally free of cholesterol-laden, artery-clogging animal products that physically slow us down and keep us hitting the snooze button morning after morning. And because whole grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables are so high in complex carbohydrates, they supply the body with plenty of energizing fuel.

8. You'll be more "regular." Eating a lot of vegetables necessarily means consuming more fiber, which pushes waste out of the body. Meat contains no fiber. People who eat lower on the food chain tend to have fewer instances of constipation, hemorrhoids and diverticulitis.

9. You'll help reduce pollution. Some people become vegetarians after realizing the devastation that the meat industry is having on the environment. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), chemical and animal waste runoff from factory farms is responsible for more than 173,000 miles of polluted rivers and streams. Runoff from farmlands is one of the greatest threats to water quality today. Agricultural activities that cause pollution include confined animal facilities, plowing, pesticide spraying, irrigation, fertilizing and harvesting.

10. You'll avoid toxic chemicals. The EPA estimates that nearly 95 percent of the pesticide residue in the typical American diet comes from meat, fish and dairy products. Fish, in particular, contain carcinogens (PCBs, DDT) and heavy metals (mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium) that can't be removed through cooking or freezing. Meat and dairy products can also be laced with steroids and hormones, so be sure to read the labels on the dairy products you purchase.

11. You'll help reduce famine. About 70 percent of all grain produced in the United States is fed to animals raised for slaughter. The 7 billion livestock animals in the United States consume five times as much grain as is consumed directly by the American population. "If all the grain currently fed to livestock were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million," says David Pimentel, professor of ecology at Cornell University. If the grain were exported, it would boost the US trade balance by $80 billion a year.

12. You'll spare animals. Many vegetarians give up meat because of their concern for animals. Ten billion animals are slaughtered for human consumption each year. And, unlike the farms of yesteryear where animals roamed freely, today most animals are factory farmed -- crammed into cages where they can barely move and fed a diet tainted with pesticides and antibiotics. These animals spend their entire lives in crates or stalls so small that they can't even turn around. Farmed animals are not protected from cruelty under the law -- in fact, the majority of state anticruelty laws specifically exempt farm animals from basic humane protection.

13. You'll save money. Meat accounts for 10 percent of Americans' food spending. Eating vegetables, grains and fruits in place of the 200 pounds of beef, chicken and fish each nonvegetarian eats annually would cut individual food bills by an average of $4,000 a year.

14. Your dinner plate will be full of color. Disease-fighting phytochemicals give fruits and vegetables their rich, varied hues. They come in two main classes: carotenoids and anthocyanins. All rich yellow and orange fruits and vegetables -- carrots, oranges, sweet potatoes, mangoes, pumpkins, corn -- °©owe their color to carotenoids. Leafy green vegetables also are rich in carotenoids but get their green color from chlorophyll. Red, blue and purple fruits and vegetables -- plums, cherries, red bell peppers -- contain anthocyanins. Cooking by color is a good way to ensure you're eating a variety of naturally occurring substances that boost immunity and prevent a range of illnesses.

15. It's a breeze. It's almost effortless these days to find great-tasting and good-for-you vegetarian foods, whether you're strolling the aisles of your local supermarket or walking down the street at lunchtime. If you need inspiration in the kitchen, look no further than the Internet, your favorite bookseller or your local vegetarian society's newsletter for culinary tips and great recipes. And if you're eating out, almost any ethnic restaurant will offer vegetarian selections. In a hurry? Most fast food and fast casual restaurants now include healthful and inventive salads, sandwiches and entrées on their menus.
http://www.vegetariantimes.com

The Water Cure

Water Cure Recipe and Nutrition

Update 11/12/07

NOTE: If your lower ankles, legs, fingers and eyelids swell or you gain three or more pounds (which means you are salt sensitive), don't do the salt for two days. Just drink the water. Then, on the third day gradually begin taking the salt again. By the way, a swim in the ocean or a salt bath is fine.

NOTE: If your kidneys are not working well then don't follow the program other to drink the amount of water your doctor suggests. The only fluid that is healthy for a person in this state is water. If you still want to try it on your own, just drink one 8 oz. glass of water and wait until you go to the bathroom. Then drink another glass. When your kidneys come up to speed (input matches output), then start the salt slowly to make sure your kidneys are working ok.

The information and recommendations on water intake presented on this site are based on training, personal experience, very extensive research, and publications of F. Batmanghelidj, M.D. on the topic of water metabolism of the body.

This site does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use or the discontinuance of any medication as a form of treatment without the advice of an attending physician, either directly or indirectly.

The intent of Dr. B., based on the most recent knowledge of microanatomy and molecular physiology, is to offer information on the importance of water to well being and to inform the public and medical professionals of the damaging effects of chronic, unintentional dehydration to the body from childhood to old age.

This information is not intended as a replacement for sound medical advice from a physician. On the contrary, sharing of the information on this site and in his books with the attending physician is highly desirable. An individual undertakes the application and recommendations described herein at one’s own risk. Adoption of the information should be in strict compliance with the instructions on the website and in Dr. B.’s material.

Very sick people with a past history of major diseases who are under professional supervision, particularly those with severe renal disease, should not make use of the information contained herein without the supervision of their attending physician.

All the recommendations and procedures herein contained are made without the guarantee of Dr. B or anyone associated with this website and disclaim all liability in connection with the use of the information presented herein.

All information on this page was edited from Dr. Batmanghbooks, for the internet by Mr. Jim Bolen, a dear associate of Dr. Batmanghelidj. Please e-mail Robert Butts with any questions concerning the WaterCure Recipe or the Nutrition Table below.


SUGGESTED PROGRAM FOR WATER & SALT INTAKE

This information comes from the books Dr. Batmanghelidj wrote.

The formula for water intake is half your weight in ounces of water divided by 5 or 6 for the number of times you can drink the water throughout the day and the size of the container or amount of water you drink each time. IMPORTANT: When you drink your water, get it down in 5-6 minutes, “Don’t nurse it”.

EXAMPLE: For a 300 lb. person – half is 150 ounces divided by 5 equals a 30 oz. bottle

Use a 32 oz. bottle 5 times a day or a 24 oz. bottle 6 times a day

SALT: Sea salt is best: highest mineral content. When you add salt to water, use a measuring teaspoon. The rule of thumb is 1/8 teaspoon for every 16 oz.; 1/4 teaspoon for every 32 oz (1 quart); 1/2 teaspoon for 64 oz., or 1 full teaspoon for 1 gallon. (Some people will need less salt, others more). This is a starting point, not a set rule. You can just add the salt to your food or add the salt to the water and shake or stir it. The best way is to just throw the salt into your mouth and chase it with water.

NOTE: If your ankles, fingers, or eyelids swell, don’t do the salt for two days, just drink the water. Then on the 3rd day begin taking the salt again. NOTE: If your kidneys are not working well, then don’t follow this program. If you still want to try it on your own, just drink one eight-ounce glass of water and wait until you go to the bathroom. Then drink another glass. When your kidneys come up to speed (input matches output), then start the salt slowly to make sure your kidneys are working ok.

Check back for more helpful health tips. After all, your life depends on it.

Yours for Health and Happiness,

Richard

Energy Drinks part 4

Earlier this month, a new study found a surprising number of caffeine overdose reports to a Chicago poison control center. These involved young people taking alertness pills such as NoDoz or energy drinks, sometimes mixed with alcohol or other drugs. During three years of reports to the center, the researchers found 265 cases of caffeine abuse. Twelve percent of those required a trip to the hospital. The average age of the caffeine user was 21.

"Young people are taking caffeine to stay awake, or perhaps to get high, and many of them are ending up in the emergency department," said Dr. Danielle McCarthy of Northwestern University, who conducted the study. "Caffeine is a drug and should be treated with caution, as any drug is."

How much caffeine do energy drinks contain? A University of Florida study found that some products, although served in cans two-thirds the size of a standard can of Coke, contain two to four times the amount of caffeine as that Coke. Energy drinks are unregulated in the United States, but the authors of the University of Florida paper suggest warning labels for them.

And now energy drinks are moving toward bigger cans with some products raising the caffeine content to gain a competitive edge, said John Sicher of Beverage Digest. The biggest, so far, is 24 ounces.

Parents should think twice before sending their children out the door with an energy drink, said Molly Morgan, a dietitian in upstate New York who consults with schools and talks to students, parents and coaches about energy drinks.

"My message to parents is moderation," Morgan said. "That means one can a day or less, and view it as a treat, not part of a daily routine."

Full of sugar and caffeine, energy drinks share the same health problems as soft drinks, she said. But some parents and coaches have bought the message that the drinks can enhance kids' performance in sports and increase concentration in school.

The evidence is weak, involving tiny studies. British research by a scientist who has since received funding from Red Bull found that among 36 volunteers, those who drank the product improved aerobic endurance and recalled numbers better. A British study of 42 people found Red Bull had no effect on memory, but did improve attention and verbal reasoning.

A University of Wisconsin study of 14 students found that two energy drink ingredients, caffeine and taurine, didn't improve short-term memory but led to slower heart rates and higher blood pressure. Since some energy drink ingredients generally speed up heart rates, the researchers could only speculate on the cause.

Carol Ann Rinzler, author of "Nutrition for Dummies," examined the labels of the top three energy drinks.

"The labels simply don't deliver all the facts," she said. "For example, while all list caffeine as an ingredient, and most tell you exactly how much caffeine is in the drink, they also list guarana, a caffeine source, as a separate ingredient but don't tell how much caffeine one gets from the guarana."

Rinzler said energy drinks also deliver a huge hit of sugar.

"Drink more than one and you get lots of sugar В— 14 teaspoons in two cans, 21 teaspoons in three," she said. Add in megadoses of some vitamins; unnecessary nutrients (taurine) and more caffeine than plain sodas and you get "a fast up-and-down sugar high and a really rough caffeine buzz," she said. "And drinking two or three cans a day for a period of weeks or months might trigger some side effects from the vitamin megadoses."

New brands are appearing at the rate of almost one per day, making it difficult for Denver blogger Dan Mayer to keep up. As a hobby, Mayer reviews each new energy drink he can find. His is not the only energy drink review site, but it's one of the most popular.

"I've reviewed a little over 200 now. For most of these, the companies contact me. I'll find something new at 7-Eleven once in a while, but that's kind of rare," he said.

When Mayer meets an energy drink he doesn't like, his words can sting: "This is the kind of drink that was created by a bunch of rich fat people that have never had an energy drink in their life and really don't understand why this fad is around, they just know they want to be a part of the profit from it."

A Los Angeles company has asked him to design a new drink, but Mayer hasn't quit his day job yet. Pressed to explain the appeal of energy drinks, the 24-year-old spokesman for the buzzed generation said: "It's Starbucks for kids. With the tons of caffeine they put into these things, it gives you a little legal form of speed essentially."

Energy Drinks part 3

"Cocaine looks so freaking tight. I NEED THIS STUFF. Next weekend, me and 3 friends are going to take a 6 hour roadtrip to NYC just to get our hands on this stuff." В— From a comment on the MySpace page of Cocaine Energy Drink.

___

Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz based his product on tonics sold in Asia. He started selling Red Bull in 1987 in Austria, his native country, and today 2.5 billion cans are sold a year in more than 130 nations. The industry leader grabbed more than 37 percent of the U.S. market last year, according to Beverage Digest.

Rumors have swirled around Red Bull for years. Contrary to hearsay, the ingredient taurine (an amino acid important in making bile to aid digestion) is not made from bull urine, and Mateschitz did not learn about Red Bull from rickshaw drivers in Thailand. The urban legends-debunking Web site http://www.snopes.com has a page devoted to exposing the false claim that Red Bull contains a banned substance linked to brain tumors.

No evidence was ever found that sudden deaths in Ireland and Sweden were caused by people drinking Red Bull. But it's true that the Swedish government studied energy drinks and recommended they not be used to quench thirst or replenish liquid when exercising. And they should not be mixed with alcohol.

Too late. Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing now produce several "energy beers" В— beer containing caffeine. And Red Bull and vodka В— mixed up by bartenders who call it a Friday Flattener or a Dirty Pompadour В— has been popular for a decade. On Red Bull's MySpace page, the product's 11,000 "friends" include alcohol products, which also have their own MySpace pages.

A Brazilian study found college students didn't feel as drunk as they actually were after drinking vodka and Red Bull. Their perception of their coordination and reaction time didn't match objective tests.

The potential for accidents and alcohol poisoning worries Dr. Sandra Braganza, a pediatrician and nutrition expert at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York. As she prepared to write an article about energy drinks for a pediatrics journal, she was surprised how little published research she could find on them.

"The truth is, we don't know what kind of effects these ingredients can have," Braganza said of taurine, glucuronolactone and guarana. "We have to start doing more studies on this."

___

"How much of your favorite energy drink or soda would it take to kill you? Take this quick test and find out." В— From a "Death by Caffeine" calculator on the Web site, http://www.energyfiend.com. Fill in your weight and click the button marked "Kill Me."

Energy Drinks part 2

(Monster is produced by Corona, Calif.-based Hansen Natural Corp., and Rockstar, distributed by Coca-Cola Co., is made by Las Vegas-based Rockstar Inc.)

Greenberg said the fierce competition among hundreds of new drinks, with Austria-based Red Bull guarding the biggest market share, leads to a "ratcheting up" of taboo names as companies try to break out from the crowd.

Cocaine Energy Drink, which launched in September and now sells in convenience stores and nightclubs in six states, is the latest example, following a twisted logic set by drinks named Pimpjuice and Bawls.

Hannah Kirby of the Las Vegas company behind Cocaine Energy Drink said Greenberg has it right. Kirby and her husband, Redux Beverage founder James Kirby, wanted to call their drink by the ho-hum name Reboot. That name was taken, so they decided to get provocative.

They're getting the attention they craved, along with some canceled orders. Following complaints from parents, convenience store operator 7-Eleven Inc. recently told franchises to pull the drink from its shelves.

"We knew we would get noticed against a thousand other energy drinks," she said. "We knew kids would find it cool, but we also wanted to stress the idea that it's an energy drink, you don't need drugs." Their slogan is "The Legal Alternative."

The Kirbys are parents of an 18-year-old son, Kirby said. The boy grew up hearing he shouldn't drink energy drinks on a school night.

___

"Cocaine looks so freaking tight. I NEED THIS STUFF. Next weekend, me and 3 friends are going to take a 6 hour roadtrip to NYC just to get our hands on this stuff." В— From a comment on the MySpace page of Cocaine Energy Drink.

Energy Drinks part 1

Caffeine-stoked energy drinks worry Docs

part 1 (0f 4)

October 29, 2006 10:45:34 AM PST

More than 500 new energy drinks launched worldwide this year, and coffee fans are probably too old to understand why.

Energy drinks aren't merely popular with young people. They attract fan mail on their own MySpace pages. They spawn urban legends. They get reviewed by bloggers. And they taste like carbonated cough syrup.

Vying for the dollars of teenagers with promises of weight loss, increased endurance and legal highs, the new products join top-sellers Red Bull, Monster and Rockstar to make up a $3.4 billion-a-year industry that grew by 80 percent last year.

Thirty-one percent of U.S. teenagers say they drink energy drinks, according to Simmons Research. That represents 7.6 million teens, a jump of almost 3 million in three years.

Nutritionists warn that the drinks, laden with caffeine and sugar, can hook kids on an unhealthy jolt-and-crash cycle. The caffeine comes from multiple sources, making it hard to tell how much the drinks contain. Some have B vitamins, which when taken in megadoses can cause rapid heartbeat, and numbness and tingling in the hands and feet.

But the biggest worry is how some teens use the drinks. Some report downing several cans in a row to get a buzz, and a new study found a surprising number of poison-center calls from young people getting sick from too much caffeine.

___

"Wow, this drink is some serious stuff. I mean about half the bottle is the warning label, and it is serious, this drink is INSANE. It says that you should not drink it unless you are over 18, which I would say is a good warning." В— From a review of an energy drink by Dan Mayer on his Web site, http://www.bandddesigns.com/energy.

___

Danger only adds to the appeal, said Bryan Greenberg, a marketing consultant and an assistant professor of marketing at Elizabethtown College.

"Young people need to break away from the bonds of adults and what society thinks is right," he said. They've grown up watching their parents drink Starbucks coffee, and want their own version. Heart palpitations aren't likely to scare them off.

Most brands target male teens and 20-somethings. Industry leader Red Bull, the first energy drink on the market, is now the "big arena band" of the bunch "teetering on the edge of becoming too big and too corporate," Greenberg said.

"Monster is more of a hard rocker, maybe with a little punk thrown in, much more hardcore," he said. "Rockstar is the more mainstream, glam rock band that's more about partying then playing."

Drugged from birth

By Michael Hampton

Share this story: del.icio.us reddit.com Newsvine
The federal government wants to perform mental health screening on infants and get them started on drugs which they will take for their entire lives, if the drugs don’t kill them first. And you’re going to pay for it, whether you want to or not.

Already, children as young as 3, who wind up in the foster care system, are receiving psychiatric drugs for such disorders as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or depression, with over 60% of foster children in Texas, nearly two-thirds in Massachusetts, and 55% of foster children in Florida on as many as 16 different psychiatric drugs.

Where did the drive to medicate every child in the United States begin?

It began in Texas, with the Texas Medication Algorithm Project, an effort to create “one size fits all” treatment for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons says that the “TMAP algorithm guidelines for psychotropic drugs are not backed by scientific evidence, but rather on self-interested opinion. Indeed the scientific evidence contradicts all claims made about the superiority of the drugs recommended by TMAP as first line treatment — these drugs have not been shown to be either more effective or safer than non-drug interventions or existing, cheaper, old drugs. TMAP guidelines were formulated by a consensus panel whose opinions were solicited by pharmaceutical companies that sponsored TMAP. The TMAP formularies recommend the drugs manufactured by those companies that are all on patent, very expensive, and have no better safety or effectiveness profiles than older, cheaper drugs that themselves are not very safe or effective.”

Yet under programs being pushed by a little-known federal government agency, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the discredited TMAP algorithms, originally designed for adults, would be used on children.

In SAMHSA’s Action Agenda, based on current Bush administration policy, the government wants to “fundamentally alter the form and function of the mental health service delivery system in this country” by implementing the recommendations of the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.

One of these programs, which is already in operation, is Foundations for Learning, which was added into the No Child Left Behind Act at the last minute by the conference committee. According to Dr. Karen R. Effrem, of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, it “provides federal funds in the form of grants to states and other agencies to provide preschool screening, parent education, social services, home visits, transportation and curriculum to support ’social and emotional development’” for children from birth to age 7. A child can receive these services if the child has been removed from child care, Head Start or similar programs for behavioral problems, or is at risk of being removed from such programs, or if one of the child’s parents has depression or another mental illness.

“The criteria for diagnosing mental disorders are very vague in general, but are extremely vague and inaccurate for children,” Effrem wrote. “These grants will further subsidize the labeling and drugging of an alarmingly large population of young children with potent medications that have not been studied in that age group.”

Oh, and there’s one other little point. “The federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in mental health and early childhood issues and the record of success of these types of programs is abysmal.”

The NFC recommendations include a wide variety of mental health programs targeted at children as young as age 3, and early intervention for some children from birth.

Michael Ostrolenk, a licensed psychotherapist and public policy consultant who founded the Medical Privacy Coalition, wrote, “Their influence [of the mental health establishment over government] causes our children to be labeled in infancy, and it creates a never-ending market for psychiatric drugs. The long term effects of these drugs on the brains of our children are unknown. They also create a market for other drugs used to treat the chronic side effects like obesity and diabetes, and they will be needed throughout the lives of those affected, enhancing drug company profits while bankrupting taxpayer funded programs. As these programs multiply, the use of politically motivated labeling and drugging for children who do not comply with the indoctrination of the federal curriculum will increase. Brave New World will appear less and less like fiction unless these programs are stopped.”

It appears that dumbing down the schools wasn’t enough to get everyone in America to be conforming, subservient little sheep. Now they want to drug all of our children into submission. Baa.

Government Programs Push Antidepressant
Use on Small Children

Children in the foster care system, some as young as 3 years old, are being screen for mental illnesses and started on psychiatric drugs for disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression. Among children in foster care:

60 percent in Texas take psychiatric drugs
Two-thirds in Massachusetts take them
55 percent in Florida take the drugs

Yet, according to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, drugs recommended to treat schizophrenia, biopolar disorder and depression, which were designated as first-line treatments by the Texas Medication Algorithm Project, have not been shown to be more effective or safer than non-drug treatments or older, less expensive drugs.

Further, the drugs were designed to treat adults and now, under the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Action Agenda, may be used on children. One of the agenda's programs, called Foundations for Learning, calls for more federal funds and grants to states and agencies to, among other things, provide preschool screening and other services to support social and emotional development in children.

Although the federal government does not have constitutional authority to regulate mental health and early childhood issues, recommendations for mental health programs aimed at children as young as 3, and intervening with some children from birth, exist.

This has the potential to label infants with psychiatric disorders while creating an endless market for psychiatric drugs.

Doctors Cause...

Doctors Cause Diabetics to D.I.E.

By Ron Rosedale, MD

A new study, which follows a similar one two months ago, reveals the inadequacy and ineptitude of current traditional treatment for diabetes. The article indicates the recognition finally that so-called type 1 diabetics are frequently also acquiring type 2 diabetes and that type 2 diabetics are much more frequently acquiring type 1 diabetes.

As is so frequently the case, rather than indicating a cause and trying to get to the root of this, it is much easier to give this constellation of symptoms a new name: type 3 diabetes or double diabetes. Since obesity and diabetes are often found together this is now being called "diabesity."

Names are meaningless unless they pertain to cause. Much more appropriate names for type 1 and type 2 diabetes would be insulin-deficient or insulin-resistant diabetes respectively, stressing the importance of insulin signaling in this disease. And in this case, the progression and deterioration of so-called type 1 and type 2 diabetes into one another should more appropriately be called Doctor Induced Exacerbation or DIE, stressing the significance of current medical treatment as the cause of type 3 or double diabetes.

I have been incensed about the traditional medical treatment of diabetes for decades. Diabetics have been told that they can eat meals multiple times daily that turn into sugar and even sugar itself, as long as they take enough insulin to lower their blood sugar. The importance of limiting the intake of sugar and foods that turn into sugar has been almost totally ignored. There has been virtually no recognition that high levels of insulin are at least as much of an insult to a person's health as high levels of sugar (see Insulin and its Metabolic Effects).

With blinders on, drugs have been and are still being given to lower blood sugar, even though they essentially whip the islet cells of the pancreas to produce more insulin. These unfortunate, overstressed islet cells have been producing excess insulin for years and often decades to try to compensate for the insensitivity, the resistance of the body's cells to insulin's signal.

This is much like whipping a horse to run faster at the end of a race; it runs faster for a little while, but if you keep doing it, it collapses and dies. So too do the islet cells that manufacture insulin in the pancreas die when drugs, nay doctors, whip them to keep producing more insulin when they are tired and sick.

At this point, a diabetic, who originally had plenty of insulin being produced, and whose problem was merely one of insulin resistance that is easily remedied via proper treatment and diet, now starts losing the ability to produce insulin and becomes, in addition to insulin resistant, insulin deficient; a much more serious and problematic disorder caused by DIE.

Likewise, so-called type 1 diabetics, by being told to take as much insulin as necessary to compensate for their immensely inadequate diet extremely high in foods that convert into sugar, ultimately acquire insulin resistance, and turn also into type 2 diabetics. This is because the cause of insulin resistance is overexposure to insulin in the first place.

Your body's cells become desensitized to insulin (and importantly to leptin and other hormones) by being overexposed to these hormones by eating food that causes excessive secretion. This is much like being overexposed to an odor in a room; soon you can't smell it. If you eat a diet high in sugar-forming foods, the excess insulin that is being produced each time causes your cells to eventually become unable to properly "smell" the insulin.

Thus, type 1 diabetics taking two, three, and even 10 times the insulin that they ought to and that is necessitated by following current medical dietary recommendations, ultimately become desensitized, resistant, to the insulin that they are taking. They become both insulin deficient, and insulin resistant caused by DIE.

It is especially a disgrace that insulin-resistant diabetics (the vast majority of diabetics) become worse by following current medical recommendations and treatment. This is a disease that is reversible, and in many cases curable by paying attention to decades of metabolic science (as revealed in books such as "The Rosedale Diet" and the "Total Health Program").

In this respect, everyone can be helped. Insulin resistance, and, importantly, leptin resistance, are an inevitable result of aging. However, the rate at which this is acquired, and indeed then the rate of aging itself, can be significantly reduced by learning and applying the knowledge revealed in my book The Rosedale Diet and in Dr. Mercola's Total Health Program. Though we all ultimately will die, nobody should ever succumb to DIE.

Medicare a Disaster

Government's Medicare drug benefit program
is an unmitigated disaster

June 15 2006

Do you want to know what happens when a government that cares nothing about the people gets put in charge of administering a drug benefit program? You get an unmitigated disaster, and that's what we're seeing today with the Medicare prescription drug benefit program. This program, which is just legalized theft from one group of American taxpayers to another group of American consumers (mostly the elderly), originally promised to give people discounts on prescription drugs.

The program was supposed to cost "only" a couple hundred billion dollars. It turns out that, as usual, the politicians were lying. The drugs being offered through this program are not offered at much of a discount at all, and the program is going to cost $750 billion over the next 10 years. That's three quarters of $1 trillion. Scratch that. As of this writing, the figure has now escalated to a whopping $1.2 trillion according to new figures from the White House, as reported in the Washington Post.

For those who don't immediately grasp the difference between million, billion and trillion (they all just run together when the federal government is talking about spending, don't they?), here' what it looks like: $1,200,000,000,000.00. That's over $4,200 per person living in the United States, and it's all a windfall handout to Big Pharma.

The best part -- that is to say the most entertaining part -- is that the program is so confusing, most people who try to participate in it can't figure out which plan to choose. It's administered through a partnership between private industry and government, and participants in this program must choose which plan they want to be on.

Each plan covers a certain number of prescription drugs and offers certain rip-off prices. All the prices, of course, are sky-high profiteering markups that would be considered criminal in any other industry. These are the highest prices in the world for these drugs, and yet somehow, consumers think they're getting a discount because it's a little bit less than what they might have been paying retail.

However, six out of 10 participants in this program are saying they're not saving any money at all. It sort of makes you wonder what the point of this whole thing is. The big news is that this program is so darn confusing that the federal government had to expand its toll-free help hotline from a couple hundred staff members to 4,000 staff members just to answer questions from senior citizens who can't figure out which plan to join. The administration of the plan is falling flat on its face as well, because when senior citizens go to pharmacies and try to buy prescription drugs, it turns out that their name isn't in the computer where it's supposed to be.

The plan isn't working out how it was supposed to, people can't get their drugs, and they are panicking. All of this demonstrates what happens when you put the federal government in charge of "negotiating" drug prices with the very same for-profit corporations that contribute enormous sums of money to the political party currently in the White House.


The real purpose behind the Medicare benefit program
Think about the administrative overhead, the paperwork, the fraud and corruption that will inevitably crop up in this program. Think about the time wasted by all the people involved in this system. What's the purpose of it? Is it really just to help senior citizens?

This plan really has two purposes: First, it makes President Bush popular by making sure he has lots of handouts for senior citizens, a demographic that happens to have a high number of active voters. Secondly, it's a big Bush handout to campaign supporters, notably Big Pharma. You see, drug companies have supported the Bush administration for years, and this is a great way to thank them, by actually having the government steal money from taxpayers and send that money to pharmaceutical companies. It's legalized inter-generational theft.

Want to get elected? Offer big handouts and entitlements to voters
I'm always amused when one generation of taxpayers or voters steals money from another group. It's usually the older generation stealing money from the younger, because it's a lot easier to pass on the cost to your children or grandchildren than to actually pay it yourself. Politicians are getting very good these days at making people believe they can actually get something for nothing. In fact, getting elected has really become a competition of who can offer the biggest handouts of all.

Even Arnold Schwarzenegger got swept up into this recently. After the defeat of four different propositions that were going to introduce some fiscal sanity to the State of California, he returned to the podium and announced, "Message received," and then proceeded to detail all kinds of new spending programs that would put the State of California even deeper into debt, and the voters loved it!

That's what the voters want you see -- more spending and less accountability. And why not? The government has been spending more money than it has for decades, so why can't the voters do it too? While we're at it, let's vote ourselves some free prescription drugs. Isn't democracy a wonderful thing?

I call it the tyranny of the masses, because whatever the majority wants to do -- no matter how unethical, irrational or illegal it may have been before -- it's suddenly justified under law. I don't know about you, but if my grandpa broke into my house, stole my wallet and used it to go out and buy Viagra at the local pharmacy, I'd be upset about that, but somehow when the whole nation does it, it's okay.

Welcome to America, and remember, now that this program is in place, there's going to be competition among presidential candidates to see who can offer the biggest health care handouts. I predict the next such debate will be about something even bigger than just a drug handout. It will be a national health care plan that offers mandatory screenings for all sorts of diseases so that every person in America -- newborn, child, adult -- can be diagnosed with something and "treated" with pharmaceuticals that will make the drug companies even more filthy rich than they are already.

Think about it: Do you want the federal government in charge of mandating what kinds of treatments your child might get for depression, a mental disorder or a learning disability? The government has no interest in prevention. We invest almost nothing in prevention in this country. The money will all go to prescription drugs. The government has no interest in teaching people how to actually prevent or reverse chronic diseases. It only has an interest in treating people who are managing their symptoms in a way that keeps the pharmaceutical industry profitable.

The best option for free-thinking people is to avoid this whole system altogether. Live outside conventional medicine like I do and like many Americans have chosen to do. We're healthier, happier and guess what? We have more money because we didn't spend it all on overpriced prescription drugs that you can buy anywhere else in the world for pennies-on-the-dollar.

Do you know why drugs are so expensive in this country? It's because we don't have a free-market system when it comes to drugs. Everything else is free-market. You can buy a car from Japan, you can buy T-shirts made in Mexico, you can buy computer memory chips from Korea, or you can buy plastic spatulas from Hong Kong, but how dare you try to buy prescription drugs from anywhere except the monopoly-controlled U.S. market? How dare you? That's why I call it a drug racket. It's a monopoly racket defended by the FDA, Big Pharma and corrupt legislators who get reelected thanks to campaign contributions from drug companies.

It's a simple system, but hardly anybody is willing to tell the truth about it, and this big Bush handout -- this Medicare drug benefit program -- only really benefits the drug companies. It doesn't benefit the senior citizens, and it doesn't benefit the taxpayers who are footing the bill. It certainly doesn't benefit any honest, hardworking American whose income continues to dwindle under the assault of do-gooder government programs like this one. It really only benefits Big Pharma, and, of course, that was its purpose.

The Medicare drug benefit program is really just another clever way to extract productivity from U.S. taxpayers, and it's working extremely well. Practically no one in the mainstream press has noticed any of what's really going on here. We see all sorts of articles about how terrible the system is, but I haven't seen any articles on real solutions.

You know what the real solutions are? They don't start with drugs; they start with food. If you want to get people healthy, it's very easy: Change what they eat. You can cure diabetes in three weeks by changing what you eat. You can cure virtually every type of cancer with changes in diet and nutritional supplementation. You can reverse Alzheimer's disease. You can reverse osteoporosis. You can reverse depression. You can reverse and eliminate all of these chronic degenerative diseases by changing what you eat, how you exercise, your exposure to environmental toxins, your stress levels and by availing yourself of natural sunlight and fresh water and air.

You'll never hear that from the federal government, and you won't hear that as a benefit program, because no one profits from it. No one profits when the U.S. population is healthy. Pharmaceutical corporations only make money when you're sick and when you stay sick.

I'm curious as to what program they'll come up with the next. How can they top this one? I can't wait for the next presidential election to see who's going to come up even more grandiose lies and try to convince even more voters that they can get something for nothing because "the gub'ment will pay for it."

Disease Mongering

Psychiatry and disease mongering: Road Rage Disorder is latest

spontaneously "discovered" disease

June 13 2006

Disease mongering has reached a new level of ridiculousness with the widely-reported announcement that millions of American now have undiagnosed Road Rage Disorder, also sometimes called Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). Desperate to scrounge up new diseases that can be treated with high-profit prescription drugs, Big Pharma and its disease-pushing sidekick, psychiatry, is now pulling diseases out of thin air, making them up as it goes along, and hoping enough impressionable consumers (and journalists) can be hoodwinked into thinking every fictitious disease is actually real.

Road Rage Disorder is merely the latest disease quackery drummed up by the pharmaceutical industry. Many people don't know this, but Big Pharma actually hires psychiatrists to invent, then publicize new "diseases." They actually sit around in rooms, brainstorming new disease ideas and figuring out how to convince the public that those diseases exist. That's where they come up with junk science statements like, "This is the most common disease you've never heard of!"


Inventing disease for profit
The psychiatric community has now become the disease invention branch of Big Pharma. Psychiatrists dream up disorders, and drug companies market the "treatment" that just happens to have been recently FDA approved. Notice how new diseases or disorders only get publicized and advertised after the FDA approves a Big Pharma drug to treat them? These diseases apparently spontaneously afflict huge numbers of Americans only in the days following the FDA approval of any drug that might treat such diseases. Imagine the odds.

To think, all these years, we've all been running around with Intermittent Explosive Disorder and we didn't even know it! The horrors!

The crooks running this medical scam are, of course, the drug company executives and psych doctors who have apparently decided they will now do absolutely anything to sell more drugs, including labeling perfectly healthy people as sick. As the number of truly ill people in society is limited, Big Pharma evil geniuses have figured out that the only way to increase their customer base is to start selling drugs to people who aren't sick. And the quickest way to do that is through disease mongering -- inventing, then marketing non-existent diseases to a gullible population that has grown far too comfortable with the idea that every human behavior is now a disease.

This is how we get Road Rage Disorder, Restless Legs Syndrome (an extremely rare condition that drug companies are now trying to push onto half the population) and even the idea that menstruation is now a "disorder" that can be treated with drugs to stop a woman's natural cycles from being expressed. Merely being a woman, apparently, is a state of ongoing disease and biological dysfunction according to Big Pharma's disease pushers.

It's so outrageous, and based on such obvious non-scientific psychobabble, that only a complete fool would actually buy into it. Yet the public, the FDA and the mainstream media are currently exhibiting zero skepticism about these wholly fictitious diseases. Newspapers, magazines and broadcast news programs continue parroting headlines and press release handed to them by the public relations firms bankrolled by Big Pharma. There is no science here; no scrutiny, no genuine journalism and nothing resembling "evidence-based medicine." It's just plain old hucksterism dressed up to look like a mental health discovery.


Got angry? You have a mental disorder.
The whole thing makes me so mad that I could slam my head into the wall. And that, of course, qualifies me as having Intermittent Explosive Disorder, a disease based on such flimsy definitions that you can be qualified as "ill" by simply having three major anger outbursts in your entire life! You read that right: Three bouts of anger, over your entire life, can get you labeled as having this so-called "disease" and put on powerful psychotropic drugs for life.

Is there anyone who hasn't experienced at least three episodes of anger in their life? Let's see... there's the snotty girl who stuffed a slushy snowball down my pants in the third grade, that's one. There was the idiot who slammed into my car at a stoplight because he was on prescription sleeping pills, that's two. And then there was the embarrassing incident involving a circus bear, a unicycle and three flaming juggling sticks that I'd rather not talk about. That's three. Gee, I guess I really am suffering from IED.

You might recognize the three letters, by the way: IED also refers to Improvised Explosive Devices that are killing soldiers in Iraq. So IED is both a road-side bomb and an anger disorder. Sort of fitting, it seems, because when IEDs actually explode and kill American troops in Iraq, the surviving soldiers understandably get more than a bit ticked off and have been known to go door to door shooting civilians in a vengeful rampage. That behavior may actually qualify as some sort of disorder. That's real violence. Going door to door killing women and children with military rifles probably qualifies you as a whacko under any system of medicine. But saying you have Road Rage Disorder because some psychiatrist force-fed a false diagnosis into your impressionable, defenseless brain only qualifies you as gullible.


Pseudoscientific psych surveys
How, exactly, did psychiatrists actually come up with this stunning "discovery" that 16 million Americans suffer from this new disease, IED? Get this: They conducted a survey.

The survey asked American adults if they had ever experienced three anger outbursts in their entire life. Not surprisingly, a whole lot of people said they had. From this flimsy evidence -- and this alone! -- the Archives of General Psychiatry (a medical journal that takes loads of money from drug companies) printed the survey results that hype this fictitious disease.

Apparently, surveys now provide all the evidence needed by conventional medicine to scare half the population into believing they suffer from some new, mysterious disease. Promoters of drugs and surgery are proud to proclaim Western medicine is "evidence-based medicine," but they never admit what that so-called evidence is really based on. In this case, it's based on a flimsy survey that was obvious designed from the get-go to "discover" some new disease that could be hyped up in the media.

It's downright sinister, I say. It's a recipe of instilling fear in the public in order to sell more drugs to people who simply don't need them.

So I have a new idea here. Stay with me on this. We're all going to get rich. I'm going to send a survey to thousands of American adults and ask if they've ever experienced hesitations in their breathing, like holding their breath, shallow breathing or rapid breathing (such as during exercise).

When I get the survey results, I'm going to tabulate them and declare that 25 million Americans now suffer from Intermittent Breathing Disoder (IBD), a disease that's "very common even though you've never heard of it!"

Then I'm going to get fast-track FDA approval on drugs to treat IBD. I'll buy full-page ads in medical journals, bribe a few psychiatrists with "consulting fees," and whip out some press releases that will be faxed to all the national newspapers and magazines. Drug sales will skyrocket in no time! Invest in my IBD company now, and we'll all get rich!

Sounds like a con, right? Yet it's exactly what's happening right now with Restless Legs Syndrome, Road Rage Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder and even Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Every one of these is utterly bogus. Completely fictitious. Designed for one sinister purpose: To sell drugs to people who don't need them.

As reported in one news story, "Experts claim IED is caused by inadequate production of serotonin in the brain, which regulates our moods. It is felt that treatment with antidepressants can help the condition."

Ah. Antidepressants. No such disorder is ever publicized, you see, unless there's a "treatment" already available and approved by the FDA. Modern mental health has nothing to do with actually helping people and everything to do with marketing more drugs. No mental disorders exist except those for which medications are readily available.


No pathological basis for disease
Have you ever heard of doctors using a survey to come up with disease definitions? Of course not. A real disease has some observable pathology: A microbe, a physical deformity, a change in chemistry, a measurable malfunction... something that can be used by doctors to actually diagnose the condition.

But none of these psychiatric disorders express any observable pathology. Take IED, for instance:


Can you weigh IED? Touch it? See it? Smell it?
No.

Can you see IED or its effects under a microscope?
No.

Can you measure IED with a blood test?
No.

Is there a carrier for IED such as a virus, bacterium, fungus, prion or spore?
No.

Can you find IED in the genetic code? A CAT scan? An MRI?
No. No. No.




Behavior is a choice
You see, there is no such thing as IED, or bi-polar disorder, or ADHD. These fictitious diseases are diagnosed through interview questions by a psychiatrist and are based purely on behavior, not pathology. And behavior is a choice, friends, not a disease.

That's a big statement, so take it in slowly: Behavior is a choice, not a disease. I fully realize that believing this requires taking responsibility for your own actions... and that's not something many people really want to do. It's easier to accept a label and blame everything on some fictitious disorder.

Kids get away with it all the time. At school, they proclaim, "I'm ADHD!" So they get to take tests with an open book. But at home, they play Halo on the Xbox for six hours without even taking a restroom break. How's that for mental focus? If they have an attention disorder, how can they play Halo for six hours?

Many people, you see, don't want to admit that behavior is a choice simply because that would require acting like an adult. Harsh, but true.


The catch-22 on mental disorders
Psychiatrists don't believe behavior is a choice, either. They believe behavior is a disease, especially behavior that doesn't fit in with the crowd or that questions authority. They even have a name for that one, too: Oppositional Defiance Disorder, described on page 100 of the DSM-IV-TR manual. I'm looking at it right now, and it says this "disease" is characterized by, "...persistent stubbornness, resistance to directions, and unwillingness to compromise, give in, or negotiate with adults or peers."

So if you don't compromise and give in to your peers, you have Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Well count me in on this one, too, because I'm not about to join the uninformed masses and do what doctors and psychiatrists insist people should do.

It's a clever Catch-22 medical con, isn't it? If you give in and submit to their disease mongering, they trap you with such sweeping definitions of disease that practically everyone will eventually be put on drugs. But if you resist and claim that modern psychiatry is nonsense, and you don't buy into their pseudoscientific psychobabble, they can label you with a defiance disorder.

Either way, according to modern psychiatry, virtually everyone is "sick" and needs treatment. This astonishing claim is the cornerstone of the psychiatric mantra you often find repeated in news stories: The plea for treatment. It goes something like this: "Millions of people have this disorder, but are going without treatment. We must find a way to treat them!" The implication, of course, is that all patients should be "treated" because we don't want people to go without treatment, do we?

But it isn't treatment. It's the exploitation of a human being to generate corporate profits.


Consensus hallucinations
The idea that all these psychiatric disorders exist at all isn't based on good science, or genuine pathology, or anything with scientific merit. Rather, these diseases only "exist" in modern society because of consensus hallucination.

What is consensus hallucination? It's when a large group of people all agree to hallucinate something that isn't there. IED doesn't exist in the real world, of course. You can't find it in nature, nor in the body or brain tissues of a human being. It only exists as a false concept, an idea that is being hyped as real even though it isn't.

With enough media coverage and advertising, the public can be convinced to hallucinate practically anything: Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Housing prices will keep going up forever. The U.S. economy is strong. Imperialism is freedom. And most of the population suffers from a variety of mental disorders that must be treated with psychotropic drugs. These are all consensus hallucinations. There are many more, in case you're curious.

During the dot-com boom, the consensus hallucination was that PE ratios meant nothing, that the laws of economics had changed, and that everybody was going to get rich selling each other little scraps of paper with increasingly large numbers written on them. In the cheap-money housing boom right now, the consensus hallucination is that buying a home, no matter how high the price, is always a good investment because home prices will rise forever. They won't, of course. This boom will bust much like the dot-com boom. But that reality doesn't keep people from investing in the consensus hallucination.

Modern psychiatric medicine is based almost entirely on the invention and marketing of consensus hallucinations. And as long as they can get away with it, there's no stopping the disease mongers from exploring even greater degrees of scientific fraud in their efforts to market drugs to people who don't need them.

Every bodily function and behavior may be declared a disorder
How far will the drug companies go before lawmakers, journalists and citizens come to their senses and finally ban direct-to-consumer drug advertising? You can expect them to try anything to sell more drugs. No bodily function, emotion or behavior is safe from Big Pharma's disease mongering racket.

It won't be long before we hear about IFD. That's Intermittent Farting Disorder, in case you were wondering. It's the early expression of CFD, Continuous Farting Disorder, which is far more dangerous. Farting, you see, is a disease. You can tell by the way it makes you dizzy and socially unacceptable. Farting, the studies show, actually leads to Social Anxiety Disorder and, in extreme cases, paranoia. Fortunately, there are drugs available to help you.


Buying in to the hallucination
Since when did virtually the entire medical community, the public, the FDA and the press all buy into the Big Pharma hype that says every human action must be chemically assisted? We all need drugs, we're told, to pee, defecate, fall asleep, wake up or get an erection. We need drugs to feel happy, confident, sexy or sane. Only through drugs, we're told, can we stop pain, socialize with peers, control blood pressure, gain mental concentration, lower cholesterol or prevent cancer.
This is the con that drug companies want us to believe. They want us to think that we're born diseased, powerless to take control over our own health, and that we must rely on doctors, drugs and radical surgical procedures to "manage" all our metabolic processes.

I tell you, there is no greater con in the history of the world than this con being perpetrated by Big Pharma and all the major players in conventional medicine: The FDA, medical journals, psychiatry, med schools and even the mainstream media (which, remember, accepts hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising from drug companies, thanks to the fact that direct-to-consumer drug advertising is still absurdly legal in this country).

You want the blunt truth on all this? Here it is: Healthy people take no drugs, period. Taken for anything other than short-term acute conditions, drugs make you sick, not healthy. And drugs that mess with your head make you mentally sick. The more drugs you take, the more side effects you're going to start experiencing, and you'll be trapped in the racket of conventional medicine and its toxic medications.

If you aren't as healthy as you want to be, look to your diet and exercise. That's where the root cause of virtually every major degenerative disease is really found. You do not have a "deficiency" of brain chemicals or anything else conventional medicine is trying to push on you. Don't fall for the false authority, the pseudoscience, the psychobabble, the drug pushing and the disease mongering that now defines modern medicine in the West.


Mental health is a genuine problem for psychiatrists
Although IED, ADHD and many other so-called diseases are consensus hallucinations, the obvious question is: Are there genuine mental health disorders?

Sure there are. And the behavior of modern psychiatrists probably demonstrates several such genuine disorders. What kind of doctor would exploit patients for his own financial gain, cursing them with the label of some fictitious disease and using the power of placebo against them? Psych doctors, that's who.

I've seen homeless people wandering the streets talking to themselves about things that don't exist. But at least they're not hurting anyone. Psychiatrists, on the other hand, talk to each other about things that don't exist (like IED) and then go out and push that consensus hallucination onto the world, drugging up untold numbers of Americans on medicines that can only harm them.

So who's crazier, the homeless guy who harms no one, or the psychiatrist who puts perfectly normal patients on powerful psychotropic drugs that they don't need? By any reasonable standard, I'd say the inmates are running the asylum in modern medicine. The psychiatrists are crazier than the patients they're diagnosing with fictitious disease. We've let this dark branch of conventional medicine run amok, and now drug companies run psychiatry.

Don't believe me? Just consider the recent finding that one hundred percent of those psychiatrists who wrote the behavior disorders guidelines in the DSM-IV manual (the psychiatry "bible") have undisclosed financial ties to drug companies. Not ninety percent, not ninety-five percent, but one hundred percent.

And, unbelievably, they insist there's no conflict of interest even though they're taking money from the very companies who financially benefit from their disease mongering. How's that for classic self delusion?


What real brain medicine looks like
You want real brain medicine? It doesn't come in a pill, and it's not made by a drug company.
Real brain medicine includes sunshine (which actually enhances brain chemistry), exercise, fish oil supplements, omega-3 oils and nutritionally dense fruits like blueberries, goji berries and pomegranates. Real brain medicine comes from nature, not drug companies, and it includes things like bilberry, camu camu berries and astaxanthin.

Psychiatrists don't have a clue about real brain medicine. These nutritionally illiterate hucksters don't even believe that food has anything at all to do with mental health -- an idea so preposterous that only delusional health professional could possibly believe it. And yet it's widely believed throughout psychiatry today: Food and mental health are not related, they declare.

Astonishing.


Who's qualified to talk about mental health anyway?
Critics of my criticism of psychiatry will no doubt say I'm not qualified to talk about mental health. In fact, I am unique qualified to talk about this subject because I possess genuine objectivity (I take no money from drug companies, unlike virtually 100% of psychiatrists) and clear-headed thinking (because I take no drugs whatsoever).

How many psychiatrists are there who can say they have never taken money or gifts from any drug company, and that they take absolutely no drugs themselves? (No prescription drugs, no caffeine, no sugar, no alcohol, nicotine, etc.) The answer is, well, just about zero, except for the whistleblowers in the Critical Psychiatric Network and other reform-oriented medical groups. And so the majority of psychiatrists themselves can't even attain clear-headed thinking because they're influenced by drug company money and distorted by their own substance abuse habits.

The few who have managed clear thinking on this issue are now increasingly speaking out against their own industry! I've been in touch with several psychiatrists who are so outraged at the lies and corruption they see in their industry that they're looking for ways to blow the whistle on this scam. To anyone who can think with even a little clarity, the con is obvious: Drug companies bankroll psychiatry, and in return, psychiatrists invent new diseases to enrich drug companies.

It's a classic conspiracy, right here in front of us. And for the moment, they're actually getting away with it!

You can help stop the insanity and save yourself (and your children, perhaps) from being diagnosed with yet another fictitious mental disorder. Take this article and post it on your website (with author credit and a link back, please), or forward to friends. Also, visit www.StopDrugAds.org, a grassroots campaign to end direct-to-consumer drug advertising.


Having a bad day is perfectly normal
By the way, if you had a bad day, got angry at a crazy driver on the highway, couldn't fall asleep one night, forgot where you put your keys or felt nervous at a social gathering, there's nothing wrong with you.

It's called "life." Sometimes stuff happens. Every day isn't perfect, and if you think that chemicals will make your life better, you're kidding yourself. That old slogan, "Better living through chemistry" was a cruel joke.

Don't fall for the con of psychiatric medicine and its incessant disease mongering. There's nothing wrong with your head. You just need what we all need: Less stress, more exercise, better nutrition (especially the minerals), more time with nature and loving, supporting relationships. It isn't complicated.

But if reality sounds too challenging, I'm sure there's a psychiatrist willing to medicate you instead. You can always choose to let the chemicals run your thoughts and emotions, sleep-walking through life like the rest of the zombies who have surrendered their free will to psychiatric medicine.

Psychiatrists are promising mental paradise, but delivering mental prison. Don't become enslaved by chemicals (or government and big business for that matter).

The Lies The Medical Profession Says About Cancer

"The idea that people can help find a cure for cancer by paying money to run in circles is preposterous," said natural health author and cancer industry critic Mike Adams. "These 'race for the cure' activities are grandiose circus acts based on two cruel lies promoted by the for-profit cancer industry. The first lie is that there isn't already a cure for cancer, because there are dozens of genuine cancer cures from the world of natural medicine. The second lie is that cancer can only be cured through patented synthetic chemicals created by corporations that don't even know what causes cancer in the first place."

More than 15,000 runners and walkers dressed in creative pink and white outfits -- many of them cancer survivors or friends and relatives of people battling cancer -- turned up for the Calgary race, which the race promoters believe set a fundraising record for the event. However, Adams -- author of critical political cartoons on Race for the Cure and the cancer industry -- says pharmaceutical firms with deep pockets have convinced the public to foot the bill for researching new drugs.

"What these cancer run participants are never told is the truth -- that their money is being used to subsidize research efforts of the wealthiest corporations in the world who will turn around and charge patients hyper-inflated prices for patented chemicals that don't even cure cancer," Adams said.

Adams claims the media is partly to blame for the scam, since news outlets frequently cover the financial success of such races, but never report on how the money is spent researching cancer cures. In the three decades since the "war on cancer" began, billions of dollars have been spent in search of a cancer cure, Adams says, with no viable cure in sight from pharmaceuticals.

However, a number of safe and inexpensive natural remedies have proven effective at curing and preventing cancer, including vitamin D therapy (reduces breast cancer risk by 50 percent), curcumin -- the pigment that gives the spice curry its yellow color, green tea, rainforest herbs like Una de Gato, Chinese medicine herbs, fish oils and various plant nutrients such as lycopene. Patients can also reduce their risk of cancer by shedding excess fat, exercising on a regular basis, and avoiding exposure to toxic chemicals in foods, drugs, personal care products and cleaning products, Adams says.

Government Programs Push Antidepressant

Use on Small Children

Children in the foster care system, some as young as 3 years old, are being screen for mental illnesses and started on psychiatric drugs for disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression. Among children in foster care:

60 percent in Texas take psychiatric drugs
Two-thirds in Massachusetts take them
55 percent in Florida take the drugs
Yet, according to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, drugs recommended to treat schizophrenia, biopolar disorder and depression, which were designated as first-line treatments by the Texas Medication Algorithm Project, have not been shown to be more effective or safer than non-drug treatments or older, less expensive drugs.

Further, the drugs were designed to treat adults and now, under the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Action Agenda, may be used on children. One of the agenda's programs, called Foundations for Learning, calls for more federal funds and grants to states and agencies to, among other things, provide preschool screening and other services to support social and emotional development in children.

Although the federal government does not have constitutional authority to regulate mental health and early childhood issues, recommendations for mental health programs aimed at children as young as 3, and intervening with some children from birth, exist.
This has the potential to label infants with psychiatric disorders while creating an endless market for psychiatric drugs.