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.

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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

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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.

Introducing Video Content

Though this is a Health Blog, I’m introducing video content. I don’t want to make another Blog, so I’m using this as a means of introducing life here in Cyprus (and anywhere else I might visit).

There will also be Blog entries (like a diary) of things happening that might be of interest to others, especially if they have been to the places I’ve been or has an interest in such places (and events I might add).

One such event is partying here in Cyprus.

Hope you enjoy this different format of, shall I say, “Health in Cyprus”!

Here is the first video—enjoy!

Big Pharma Scare Tatics

How the pharmaceutical industry influences American consumers
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, especially in this case. Lloyd Grove, a columnist for the New York Daily News, says that the pharmaceutical lobby in the United States, a group called PhRMA, actually commissioned the writing of a fiction novel designed to scare Americans into avoiding prescription drugs from Canada. The book was supposed to tell a story of terrorists who altered prescription drugs from Canada in order to kill Americans who were buying them over the internet or crossing the border to buy them at lower prices. Bizarre, huh? What an interesting tactic to try to convince people to pay sky-high prices -- monopoly prices, in fact -- for prescription drugs in the United States. But that's only part of this story.

When the book project fizzled, the authors were offered $100,000 to keep quiet about the deal, says Grove. The book was also supposed to be "dumbed down" for women, because apparently women make up a large part of the prescription drug buyers in the United States, and the people in charge of this project wanted to make sure women could "understand it."

How disrespectful can this pharmaceutical industry be? To what lengths will it go to try to convince us that drugs from outside the United States are unsafe? I wouldn't be surprised if the industry actually commissioned a terrorist attack on drugs from Canada. Then it could say, "Look how unsafe drugs are from Canada! Now you have to buy them here in the United States."

Sham of FDA Approved Drug Safety

It’s been since March that I published something on this blog, but I’ll try to post much more often. If I don’t, kindly send an email and say, “Hey Richard, what about your blog?”
So here goes…

Off-label drug use and the sham of FDA-approved drug safety

Did you know that many drugs are used legally in the United States today for diseases and conditions they were never approved for? It's called off-label drug use, and it's a common practice that promotes the sale of prescription drugs and circumvents the so-called "gold standard" drug safety procedures the FDA claims to enforce.

Here's how it works: once a drug gets approved for any condition, whether it's a skin disorder, a mental disorder, or a cardiovascular problem, it can then be legally prescribed by doctors for everything. In other words, a drug approved for heart disease can be prescribed for diabetes, even though there's absolutely no testing done whatsoever with the drug on diabetes patients. It sounds surprising or even downright astonishing to those who don't know how the medical industry really operates, but it's absolutely true, and it demonstrates why the so-called "scientific evidence" behind conventional medicine is nonsense.

It isn't science; it's just marketing. What science is there that would allow a drug tested on one condition to be used for everything? That doesn't require any real science at all, it just requires clever marketing by the drug companies who routinely and cleverly promote the off-label use of drugs for conditions they were never tested against. Thus, when you hear drug companies and the FDA talk about their rigorous safety testing, think again. All a drug company has to do is rig a clinical trial in a way that gets the drug approved for one simple condition, and then the drug can be prescribed to treat any health condition or complaint under the sun.

We see this with statin drugs, which were initially approved for treating high cholesterol but are now being promoted as miracle cures for things like cancer. The drug's use for cancer is based on nothing but utter scientific nonsense, of course, but it doesn't stop the industry from promoting it and certainly doesn't stop the mainstream media from printing articles heralding this distorted logic.

Overall, the FDA’s off-label use rules make a complete mockery of the drug safety approval process in the United States, and they demonstrate how safety approval is really just a rubber-stamping exercise that allows the most profitable and influential corporations in America to push their products onto people who not only don't need them, but who are very likely to be harmed by them.

It also makes a mockery of conventional medicine's criticism of natural therapy. Such critics claim natural therapies aren't safe because they've never been proven to treat certain conditions, and yet their own favorite drugs are routinely used to treat untested, unapproved health conditions. It's classic doublespeak from drug promoters, and it's indicative of the kind of double standard routinely practiced in organized medicine today.

Think about it: A synthetic prescription drug with harmful side effects is perfectly legal to be prescribed as a treatment for anything -- and I do mean anything. Yet it is illegal for a nutritional supplement manufacturer to tell the truth about how its products might benefit your health. Cherry extract manufacturers, for example, cannot state that cherries reduce arthritis pain and joint inflammation (unless they wish to have their entire product inventory confiscated and their business shut down).

If that's not medical madness, I don't know what is. Drugs are legal to prescribe for everything, but foods, herbs and nutritional supplements are approved for absolutely nothing. That's how twisted the Food and Drug Administration has really become. It all comes down to a simple three-step formula: 1) Push the drugs. 2) Discredit (or outlaw) the herbs. 3) Repeat.

Doctors Are the Third Leading Cause of Death

Studies show that doctors account for 250,000 deaths per year. They don't do it intentionally, but due to a lack of knowledge, errors and over-influence from drug companies that is the end result.

Don't be a victim. Learn how to take control of your health by subscribing to the FREE Mercola e-newsletter, the world's most popular and trusted preventive health e-newsletter, that will show you how you can change your health for the better without expensive doctor visits, drugs and unnecessary surgeries.


Dr. Joseph Mercola
Author of the
Total Health Program

The Water Cure

Other things to improve your health aside from EFT


As promised in the previous post, there are other things you must do if you want to improve your health. With this post I decided to take something that a person can see results quickly and without changing their whole life around. With this, hopefully, you will be encouraged to take your health more seriously and continue to do what is necessary to improve it.

Drink 6-8 glasses of water a day
Water should be filtered—not tap water
Stop all drinks that have caffeine in it, such as coffee, tea (with the exception of caffeine-free tea), and all colas

Caffeine is a diuretic, which means that it takes more water out of the body than it puts in.

This alone will get rid of minor aliments, including headaches, artificial hunger and ulcers

Do this for a week, notice the difference each day and enter it in the journal. Then look back over the previous week and see how you feel.

There is a lot of information you can read on this of medical experiments and how people have improved on this one simple thing alone.


Testimonials

Enjoying Wonderfully Painless Days!
"For many years I suffered with headaches. I consulted doctors, neurologists, chiropractors, and spent hundreds of dollars for head-scans and X-rays, all to no avail. At times only my faith in God kept me from wanting to die, as I lie prone on my bed for days on end in pain… Can anyone, without experiencing it for themselves, really understand what it is like to have usually pain-filled days changed to wonderfully painless days when you can do the things you want to do, instead of being 'down with a headache?'…I thank you doctor for your great work and perseverance in bringing this truth to the people."

- Mavis Butler, North Queensland, Australia

Fewer Wrinkles and Improved Memory!

"Within the three months that I have been drinking the right amount of water the right way, my chronic mucous began to leave, my hair became soft, and my skin is becoming softer. I have fewer wrinkles (I am almost 70 years old). My stomach aches stopped. My toenails are not brittle. Two black spots I have had on my leg for several years as an aftermath of deep cuts have disappeared. My eyebrows grew back. There are dark streaks showing in my gray hair. My hair is coming in thicker and my memory is improving."

- Beth Whitney, Portland, Oregon

Everything Seems Easier to Do!

"At 82 years of age I am still in fair shape and only regret I did not have the superb advice of Dr. Batmanghelidj sooner… I have used his advice for the painful arthritis I have in my hands and back and, within two weeks, I have experienced considerable reduction of pain. I sleep better, I have more strength, with greater coordination and relaxation. I see life from a different point of view, where everything seems easier for me to do."

- Laurence Malone, Chagrin Falls, OH

Blood Pressure Plummets Without Drugs!

"Leaving years of diuretics and calcium-blockers behind, for three months I drank your recommended amount of tap water, occasionally more. My blood pressure, heretofore contained by drugs, gradually dropped from an average of 150-160 systolic/over 95-98 diastolic to an amazing, drug-free 130-135 systolic/over 75-80 diastolic average… This drug-free approach, based essentially on tap water and a pinch of salt, has relaxed my system and justifies the confidence that you hold the handles of a truly revolutionary and marvelous medical concept."

- Walter Burmeister, Lt. Col., El Paso, Texas

No More Heartburn!

"No more heartburn, back feels great, fantastic. No more drugs." - Harry Finn, North Carolina Asthma Cured and Energy Revived! "After five days of drinking eight glasses of water per day, my 72-year-old husband, Robert, whose healthy 170-pound body had shrunk to about 149 pounds, and whose energy level was almost non-existent, was revived. In six weeks, he returned the nebulizer which had kept him going for five months."

- Annette Culler-Penney, Upperville, Virginia

Blood Sugar Returns to Normal!

"Within 12 hours my skin was soft and silky and I looked very different as I became rehydrated. My blood sugar, checked a few times a day over several weeks, remained in the normal range…I wish I had realized the importance of adequate water intake daily at the start of my illness…"

- Margaret Longstaff, M.D., United Kingdom

Lost 35 Pounds and Keeping It Off!

"Within the last 9 months to a year, I have successfully been able to keep 35 pounds of excess baggage off. I am able to wear clothes that I thought would never touch my body again. My success has been attributed to faithfully drinking your recommended amount of water every day. I am looking forward to my wedding day when I can walk down the aisle looking better than I have in 15 years…"

- Donna Gutkowski, East Bethel, Minnesota


Pain-Free in One Hour!

"We read your book, did exercises you suggested, and started drinking water. Within one hour my back was pain-free, and has remained so ever since. God bless you." - Dorman Bryce, Salem, Oregon Angina Pain Vanishes! "The angina pain I endured for five years has disappeared and my distress from a hiatal hernia has greatly lessened. I feel like a new person!"

- Samuel M. Liguori, Pittston, Pennsylvania

Cholesterol Drops 76 Points!

"Last year I was shocked to discover that my blood cholesterol level had shot up to 279. When you 'prescribed' ample water be taken before meals instead of medication that I was just about to submit myself to, I was very skeptical. In two months, and with very little observance of all the old 'rules' which were making my life miserable, my cholesterol went down to 203 for the first time in more than nine years! My weight too was surprisingly down by about eight pounds and has since been under control...I believe I owe you a big THANK YOU."

- Mohammed Whaby, Washington, DC


For more info

Go to www.watercure.com

I highly recommend the book 'Your Body's Many Cries For Water' by Dr Batmanghelidj

Life-long Additictions Testimonial

As found on Emotional Freedom Technology web page…

EFT on Life-long Addictions

(Note: many people that that EFT works only on mild cases of illness, and think that because some problem is of long standing it will not work. Well, time is not the issue.

In the next postings of this blog—fantastichealth100.blogspot.com—we will take a look at other things that must be done to prevent illness and increase your current energy levels)



By Joan Hitlin

Dear Gary,

Since meeting you at the Holiday Inn in Emeryville just before Xmas I have been using EFT on myself for everything with impressive results.

I seem to have gotten over a lifelong addiction (not just the craving) by dealing with every thought that came up while tapping (aspects and sub-aspects).

GC COMMENT: When she talks of a "lifelong addiction" she means the jumping from addiction to addiction in much the same way as an alcoholic quits alcohol but then overdoes cigarettes, coffee or both. You will see evidence of that in her next paragraph (below). She indicates that she got over various addictions but what she really means is that she shifted from one addictive behavior to another...to another...to another...

JOAN CONTINUES: Here's my story: I was bulimic in my late teens. Got over it. I was a pack and a half smoker from 16 to 28. Got over it. I was a binge eater. Got over it. I was a carbohydrate junky. Got over it. I was an overeater at meals. Got over it.

GC COMMENT: As we see with some regularity, an underlying cause of addictive behaviors is the need to tranquilize a form of anxiety or unrest that comes about from unresolved emotional issues. Until we get down to the underlying emotional drivers, the addictive behaviors merely shift from one form to another.

JOAN CONTINUES: What remained was grazing or nibbling, mainly at night; chewing sugarless gum (a pack a day habit); and, most annoying, intense lip biting.

GC COMMENT: While chewing gum and lip biting are certainly milder than bulimia, it is still a "nervous habit," a form of tranquilizer like fingernail biting, skin picking and the like. I always assume such addictive behaviors are symptoms of underlying emotional causes.

JOAN CONTINUES: The lip biting was hardest to work with because I never became aware of it until I'd already been at it for a while.

Solution: I tapped on: night time eating, gum chewing, lip biting, the feeling of chewing in general, anxiety, boredom, fear, sadness, and whatever else came up while I was tapping (I don't remember it all).

GC COMMENT: While this appears to have worked nicely for Joan, I would suggest including, as tapping targets, some specific emotional events from her past that may be contributing to her ongoing unrest (anxiety). She may have done this in her tapping for "whatever else came up" but, as she says, she doesn't remember this specifically. I wish to emphasize, though, her method of tapping in daisy chain style on whatever issues come up. It shows promise. I think others (you?) may find success with it. It's certainly worth a try.

JOAN CONTINUES: It's been 2 weeks and without trying I've stopped chewing or buying gum (or wanting to); I've stopped nibbling, except when hungry; I've stopped lip biting!!!

Once in a while (rarely) I feel an urge to bite my lip and I tap, but mostly I'm not doing anything except noticing that I've stopped doing those behaviors. (If nothing else I'll save the $365. a year that I was spending on chewing gum. Hopefully it will keep me from getting lip cancer!)

GC COMMENT: Is she done with her addictive behaviors? Hopefully so--but we'll have to let time go by to know for sure. If they re-appear, I would take that as evidence of more issues to address.

JOAN CONTINUES: I have -- ta-da -- located one side effect of doing a self-directed EFT intensive. (I did have the week off). For a few days I felt over stimulated, jumpy and had a few nights of insomnia (not a usual problem). My solution was to do more EFT (I think aspects were coming up fast and furious) as well as to journal, and to be nice to myself in general, and it subsided.

Blessings and gratitude,

Joan

PS. I'm also using EFT successfully with my clients, but I won't write any more today.

Found at: emofree.com

30+ years of depression gone in 2 minutes!

(For more testimonials like these please visit:
www.emofree.com )

Hi Everyone,

Acupuncturist Lee Beymer provides us with an example of a "now you see it, now you don't" cessation of depression. Even though we don't always get these rapid results, EFT'ers who deal with depression see this happen with some frequency. It's a real heart warmer every time it happens.


Gary,

.......This particular case was interesting because it was both extreme in its affects and yet core to the integrity of being human.

M. is 50ish, single mom with two teenage daughters - one of whom was terribly scarred in an auto accident a year ago. At about that same time she had broken up from a negative relationship and was feeling depressed. She had gone in for help and was put on Paxil - which did indeed give her the support she needed to cope. About two months ago M. came to see me in my practice wanting to get off the drug because she said that she could feel it hurting her liver and knew it wasn't good for her in the long run. As an acupuncturist I am not allowed to speak at all about prescription drugs but I agreed to help her deal with the "underlying" factors.

In talking with M. it became quickly clear that the underlying factor to her depression was a deep sense of worthlessness.

GC RESPONSE: Small point here. Some might argue that a sense of worthlessness is so close to depression as to be the same thing.

LEE CONTINUES: At the time, she stated that she had felt this for at least some 30+ years and gave it an intensity rating of 10 out of 10. We applied the modified EFT [including a form of BSFF] and cleared it to 0 in two minutes! Much to her amazement, she felt it leave her energy field during the process. Afterwards upon asking how she felt, she reported that she felt "empty and bereft from the source". It seemed that she had lost an old friend, one who had accompanied her and consoled her for so many years, leaving such a big hole in her energy field that she felt loss.

So we then tapped again (I always tap along with my patients) for these issues. During which we both felt a shedding of a veil, followed with a warmth that filled us with Light and a deep sense of peace. It was truly profound with the shift occurring virtually instantly and stayed with us for the remainder of the session (and the rest of the day for me).

GC RESPONSE: Thank you for mentioning this "old friend" feature. Some people have lived with depression and other emotional negativity for so long that they have adjusted to it. They are so used to it being there that they have embraced it as an integral part of their self image. When it is gone, they aren't quite sure how to cope.

This need not be a problem, however, because this hole or empty feeling is usually just another tappable issue. You picked up on this beautifully. I don't know precisely how you handled it but I might suggest these examples for EFT'ers to use.....

"Even though I have this empty thing within me...."
"Even though I can no longer rely on my former depression..."
"Even though I don't know how to be happy yet..."

LEE CONTINUES: Since then she has, of her own accord, quit the drugs cold-turkey without any side-affects nor any sign of the depression returning. This experience was truly remarkable and life transforming for both of us! Much more than I had bargained for.

Lee Beymer

The grieving widow with many weighty issues

As is often the case with overweight problems, there are many contributing "heavy" or "weighty" emotional issues. Such is the case with Therese Baumgart's client ("Sue"). In this article, Therese gives us many details and creative approaches that establish a great start to "lighten the load" for Sue. This is not, however, a one session wonder wherein the pounds immediately fall off. It doesn't usually work that way for weight issues as the process often needs to be more methodical. You will find the language Therese uses in her various EFT Setup phrases most useful. It can be adapted to a wide variety of problems.

50 year agoraphobia goes "Poof"

Agoraphobia, in my experience, is often complicated and its many aspects usually require several sessions before tangible progress is achieved. That's not always the case, however, as clearly detailed in this article by Patti Spencer. This case appeared so easy that I wrote Patti back asking her for any stumbling blocks, etc. that may have been present. She responded, "I wish I could make it more complicated, but it was pretty much a slam dunk, 2 or 3 rounds, 15 minute wonder! No stumbling blocks to speak of. It seemed incredible to me that after nearly 50 years of agony in his life, it just kind of went "poof!" and disappeared."


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By Patti Spencer



Gary,

I want to share with you the story of my friend Bob. When Bob was 17 years old, he had an emergency appendectomy. When he awoke from the surgery, he was in a severe panic and only his mother could comfort him. From this experience, he developed agoraphobia lasting for years.

His chosen profession was real estate, and years before cell phones were available, he would always need to know the location of every phone booth so that he could call for help and find a "safe" person. He had an unhealthy dependence on his mother, and a fear of dying. He saw scores of psychiatrists, and took psychotropic drugs for years. These medications caused a myriad of health problems and altered his wittiness, his great sense of humor, his level of confidence and his basic personality.

He became a self-centered and needy person, and most of his family shunned him. Eventually, he was unable to work. Leaving his home took a great deal of effort. His marriage fell apart. He moved across the country, and I didn't see him for some years.

When I learned about EFT, I was eager to do a session with Bob, who is now 65 years old. He had made some progress in the last several years as a result of a promise to God following successful cancer and heart surgery. When he visited me several months ago, however, he was still crippled by his phobia. He was on his way to travel to New Zealand and Australia, fulfilling a lifelong dream, and brought his ex-wife, Ella, with him because being without a "safe" person was terrifying to him. He couldn't drive anywhere by himself, and basically was extremely uncomfortable being anywhere by himself, especially an open place, such as a park.

I asked Bob what would raise his intensity level the most, and he indicated that going to a park or a large open space by himself, away from his car and his cell phone would send him through the roof. He might be able to force himself to do this, but he would be extremely uncomfortable.

We tapped for no longer than 15 minutes on this issue (this fear of being alone--this anxiety), and his intensity level went down to about a 1. I asked him if he wanted to put it to the test, and he eagerly agreed to do so. He left in the car by himself, drove to an unfamiliar park by himself, and took a walk. Ella and I were beginning to be concerned because he was gone for a full hour (we were giving him about 20 minutes to return). He was perfectly fine when he did return, and had enjoyed the walk and the time to himself.

A couple of days later, Bob and I visited again. He was experiencing a high level of anxiety because he had to drop a relative off at a doctors' office, and then drive back to where he was staying by himself and be alone all afternoon. Another 15 minutes of tapping and I sent him off on his errand. When we met later that evening for dinner, I learned that not only was he relaxed driving by himself, but he decided to drive a significant distance further and go to the beach for a walk. He then drove to another area to visit a friend he hadn't seen in a long time. As it turned out, he was nearly late for dinner because he was enjoying himself so much. Ella was concerned because normally, he would have been calling her all afternoon if he was alone somewhere.

Bob was able to enjoy his vacation without any elevated anxiety, and when I followed up with him several months later, I found that he had been able to nearly completely leave off his medication. He was down to only one prescription, which was a low dosage and he was only taking it every third day. Before he came to visit me, he had to force himself to leave the house to go to his substitute teaching job, even though he enjoyed it immensely. Last week he informed me that he is starting his own company, a real estate brokerage firm.

I have been amazed and grateful at the transformation that can sometimes occur with just a short session of EFT, and it makes me sad to think of all the years Bob spent trying unsuccessfully to solve his problem through conventional methods. Here's the letter Bob sent me recently:


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