Beck Anderson Yoga & Wellness Hammock

I’m at Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center with my mother-in-law and the rest of the family. On Sunday night mama was admitted because of speech and memory loss. After an MRI that confirmed the existence of tumors (later confirmed malignant) she went through two surgeries: one to remove the operable mass (there still are inoperable masses) on Monday and a second yesterday to insert a shunt to drain fluids from her brain to her abdomen.

Of course, we are all in shock.

The diagnosis.

Brain cancer, to be specific: glioblastoma multiforme.

Glioblastoma multiforme is the most aggresive of all gliomas, a collection of tumors arising from glia or their precursors within the central nervous system. It’s the type of cancer with “fingers” or “tentacles” (which just gives me the heebie-jeebies to imagine).

The prognosis.

According to the hospital’s cancer staff, not “good.” But I have an enormous amount of hope.

The treatment.

1. The hospital staff has been very helpful through the week, according to my sisters-in-law. They suggest going the conventional route: radiation and chemotherapy and then using the CyberKnife System near the end, aimed at the center of larger masses. My mama’s type of cancer isn’t the ideal type of cancer for the CyberKnife System, which is why it would only be used near the end.

   If, after three or four times, the cancer continues to come back after changing the dose of chemo, then the hospital staff said alternative therapies could be considered. But they sounded reluctant to suggest trying anything out of the ordinary, even then.

   Going the full radiation/chemo route means mama’s life will be extended, but there is no guarantee of recovery. In fact the opposite is true: they seem to guarantee the cancer will outrun their methods. It’s just a matter of when.

2. Since the hospital isn’t accurately in the know about alternative therapies, I determined to be the A.T. representative. So I’ve been researching the Burzynski Clinic in Huston, TX. Dr. Burzynski is known for his research with Antineoplastons, which act as “molecular switches to turn off cancer cells without destroying normal cells.”  Dr. Burzynski works on inoperable brainstem glioma, the most challenging of all brain tumors, to prove there is a chance for survival. Watch the movie “Burzynski” on YouTube video and let me know what you think. (Unfortunately my iPod can’t play the movie on the weak hospital WiFi and this computer doesn’t have sound. I’ve watched the first fifteen minutes at the hotel this morning, though, and it looks promising.)With anything considered “alternative thereapy,” there are always nay-sayers. Dr. Burzynski’s work is criticized and rejected on QuackWatch.com as well as ScienceBlogs.com.

   But, from one FDA-approved study of Ananplastic Astrocytoma patients (another glioma brain cancer): of those treated with radiation and chemotherapy 5 of 54 patients (9%) remained cancer free versus those treated only with Antineoplastons, 5 of 20 patients (25%) remained cancer free. (This is in the Burzynski movie.)

3. My friend also sent me information about the Gerson Therapy via RenegadeHealth.com (which, oddly, is blocked as a “Malicious Web Site” on this hospital computer). “The Gerson Therapy is a natural treatment that activates the body’s extraordinary ability to heal itself through an organic, vegetarian diet, raw juices, coffee enemas and natural supplements.”

   Just from my preliminary research, this probably isn’t an option because their treatment centers are in Mexico and Hungary. But the diet might be something my sister-in-law can incorporate as Cook. (So thankful mama will have someone to be with her full time.)

What do you think? Do you have experience with brain cancer? What type? Do you have other suggestions of where to look?

Photo credit: http://www.choosehope.com/product/hope-for-a-cure-ribbon-pin

In the health food section at my local grocery store, there is a healthy amount of space dedicated to soy products. If an unsuspecting person decided “I want to eat healthy,” and went to the Health Food Section uninformed, he or she would assume all items in the section were healthy. But is soy healthy?

Soy was first used in Asia as a cover crop to enrich soil. Much later Asians used it to season and enrich their meals, only after the Chinese learned to ferment soy beans to make foods like tempeh, natto and tamari. In the West, soy was first used to make paper coatings, glues and even in fire-fighting foam. In the 1950s food companies began producing soy isolate and soy lecithin. Now soy is everywhere: soups, imitation meats, non-dairy creamers, infant formulas, cereals, protein powders, etc.

MYTHS and TRUTHS:

Myth: Soy foods provide a complete protein.
Truth: Like all legumes, soy beans are deficient in sulfur-containing amino acids methionine and cystine. In addition, modern processing denatures fragile lysine.

Myth: Soy formula is a good alternative to infants who are not being breastfed.
Truth: Soy food contain trypsin inhibitors that inhibit protein digestion and affect pancreatic function. In test animals, diets high in trypsin inhibitors led to stunted growth and pancreatic disorders. Soy food increases the body’s requirement for vitamin D, needed for strong bones and normal growth. Phytic acid in soy foods results in reduced bioavailability of iron and zinc which are required for health and development of the brain and nervous system. Soy lacks cholesterol, essential for the development of the brain and nervous system. Megadoses of phytoestrogens in soy formula have been implicated in the current trend toward increasingly premature sexual development in girls and delayed or retarded sexual development in boys.

Myth: Soy food can prevent osteoporosis.
Truth: Soy foods can cause deficiencies in calcium and vitamin D, both needed for healthy bones. Calcium from bone broths and vitamin D from seafood, lard and organ meats prevent osteoporosis in Asian countries–not soy foods.

Myth: Soy is good for your sex life.
Truth: Numerous animal studies show that soy foods cause infertility in animals. Soy consumption enhances hair growth in middle-aged men, indicating lowered testosterone levels. Japanese housewives feed tofu to their husbands frequently when they want to reduce his virility.

Myth: Eating soy is good for the environment.
Truth: In one soy crop in Cordoba, the monoculture has been detrimental for the forests and pasture lands. Because of the expanding soy crops, cattle raising farmers have bene displaced, increasing land conflicts and evictions, as well as deforestation. The deforestation rate in Argentina is 0.8 percent per year, twice as high as the Amazon area (0.38 percent). But in Cordoba the deforestation rate is 2.93 percent – almost four times the national average and thirteen times the global average (0.23 percent). Researches at at Cordoba’s National University stress the direct relationship with the advance of the agricultural frontier, especially the cultivation of annual crops, primarily soy.

HEALTH CONCERNS

Soy is difficult to digest, which can cause gas, bloating and general discomfort. Fermented forms, like the tempeh, natto and tamari are more easily digested.

93% of U.S. soy has been genetically modified (GM): meaning the crop has been altered by a virus or bacteria with a certain trait, most commonly the resistance to a weed killer. We have been using GM foods for the past decade so we do not know the long term effects of these foods on our health. But the studies that have been completed thus far, begin to paint a bleak picture. Article: 15 years of GM Soybeans in Argentina

Soy can interfere with thyroid function, negatively affecting your metabolism.

SUMMARY

Soy can interfere with thyroid, its difficult to digest and does not allow us to fully absorb minerals. Soy is deficient in essential amino acids, contain trypsin inhibitors leading to stunted growth and pancreatic disorders, increases our need of vitamin D, has no cholesterol content, is deficient in calcium, lowers testosterone in men and increases infertility. It may cause early puberty in girls and late puberty in boys. It is not a complete protein that our bodies can use.

Crops like soy are increasing the deforestation rate in certain countries. The more soy consumed, the more soy planted, the higher the deforestation rate.

Traditionally soy was used as a condiment in fermented form and Asian cultures always used soy sparingly and traditionally processed (fermented). Soy milk, soy powders or protein bars did not exist in that culture of healthy soy foods. Research shows that soy’s benefits are inconclusive and may prove harmful for your body and the environment. If you enjoy soy, use sparingly and find traditional ways to ferment the product.

References:

Weston A Price
Kaayla Daniels PhD, CCN
Weight and Wellness

Every half minute a person dies of a heart attack in the U.S., making heart attack the number one cause of death for adults in the U.S. (National Hear, Lung and Blood Institute Fact Book: Fiscal Year 1995). But our common conception of the cause of heart attack – that it is caused by high cholesterol – cannot be further from the truth! To lessen your risk of heart attack, we need to understand ”The Low-Down on Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs,” from Sherry A. Rogers, M.D:

• Statin drugs work by poisoning a liver enzyme that makes cholesterol. That enzyme is HMC  COA reductase (3-hydroxyl-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase). The problem? The fact that cholesterol is needed to keep the brain from aging. Aging brain = Alzheimer’s, senility, amnesia, depression, and nerve, heart and muscle damage.
• Turning off cholesterol production fuels the Viagra epidemic, because you need cholesterol to make your sex hormones like testosterone, estrogen and progesterone. Impotency and low libido are common side affects, including fatigue or exhaustion, irritability, road rage, hostile aggression.
• We need cholesterol in the cell membranes so that they can properly release cytokines. Only healthy cell membranes with sufficient cholesterol can release chemicals that we need to make inside of our cells to kills cancer cell.
• Statin drugs create a coenzyme Q10 deficiency. Statin drugs inhibit or poison the same enzyme, HMG COA reductase, that the body uses to make the fat-soluble vitamin, CoQ10. A deficiency often caused fatal cardiomyopathy, heart attack , congestive heart failure, exhaustion, cancer, myopathy (muscle diseases), fibromyalgia, depression resistant to anti-depressants, high blood pressure, gum disease and tooth loss, hair loss, liver disease, sudden complete memory loss or amnesia, cataracts, anigina, folic acid deficiency, damaged cell membranes, fatigue, accelerated aging and much more. Without sufficient CoQ10 levels, you are likely to die within 6 months (pg. 6).
• Cholesterol drugs deplete nutrients and invite cancer, which is why statin drug users have a higher rate of cancer. As well as lowering CoQ10, statins deplete vitamin E and vitamin A precursor, beta-corotene, as much as 22%.
• Statins damage the good effects of vitamin E, instead making it easier for cholesterol to stick in blood vessel walls causing coronary artery disease, heart attack, and death.
• Statin cholesterol-lowering drugs decrease the ability of insulin to metabolize sugars. Which means the body makes more insulin, which promotes arteriosclerosis, which promotes diabetes, which accelerates aging.
• Taking statin drugs increases the risk of developing polyneuropath (neurological disorder) 14-fold. Symptoms include numbness and tingling to impotency or paralysis.
• Statins can cause amnesia, within minutes. (Hopefully your taxi driver or airplane pilot isn’t on a statin!)
• Cholesterol drugs cause miserable people. “One out of three people have low energy, does not feel content, is no longer happy, and has other subtle and affective changes” (pg. 10). The brain receptors for the hormones to plug in in the brain to make us feel good are malformed when there isn’t enough cholesterol and other nutrients. So regardless of how much Prozac you take, you won’t feel better because there is no dock for the “happy hormones”.
• Cholesterol drugs guarantee an avalanche of new symptoms, especially cancer and more serious heart disease.

That is a fairly simple list for the layman to understand, but then the question always follows: WHY?!

All my conspiracy theorists will love this one! As you probably have heard, the pharmaceutical industry has its hands all up in the FDA pockets, or should I say vice versa? One of all the cholesterol-lowering drugs brings in more than five times the entire annual budget for the FDA! So of course they want to put them on the market despite scientific studies proving the drug causes side affects. Frequently drugs are taken off the market only after lawsuits emerge. If the FDA keeps adding drugs and then taking them off, why do we still trust them?

There are many examples of drugs that I could write about where the dangerous side affects of the drug were known and yet were allowed on the market. But I will spare you the gory details. Just know that the most important person to your health is not your doctor, but you.

If you continue to take statin drugs despite the dire warnings contained in this article (and this article does not contain all the trials and tribulations of cholesterol-lowering drugs), at least take the following to begin to repair your deficits and damage:

• E Gems Elite, 1-2/day
• Gamma E Gems, 1-2/day
• Cod Liver Oil, 1-3 tsp/day
• Super 2 Daily, 2/day
• Phos Chol, 1-3 tsp/day
• Liquid Multiple Minerals, 1-2/day
• Q-ODT (80 mg of CoQ10), 1-3 under the tongue, 1-3 times/day

References:

The Cholesterol Hoax, Sherry A. Rogers, M.D.

Comments about RealSalt: “Tastes delicious and I love it,” Clara Douglas.

There are a couple generic types of salt: unrefined and refined.  Unrefined salt is “an excellent, traditional source of nearly 80 trace minerals.  …This natural bacteria-inhibiting preservative can be considered a mineral ‘supplement’ that is essential to life” (Weston A Price, Nutrient-Dense Eating).  Compared to refined iodized salt which, in some cases, is heated to temperatures up to 1200 degrees F, stripped of all nutrients and combined with poisonous substances including aluminum, sugar and anti-caking agents.  Which salt should you avoid?  Pure white salt, of course!  Sea salt, containing all those beneficial minerals, shows up as gray or pink, depending on the type (see photo).  Salt is important for digestion and assimilation and also crucial for the development and functioning of the nervous system.

Prescribing a low-sodium diet doesn’t always fix the problem of high blood pressure.  Lacto-fermented foods like Sauerkraut and Kimchi contain salt but also the vitamin C, MSM, and phytochemicals necessary to promote elasticity in the arteries.  In fact, to further confirm the statement, a recent article I read states that some people with high blood pressure are unaffected by sea salt and only about 3% of high blood pressure cases are related to salt intake.

Avoid foods containing extra sugar, processed carbohydrates, chemicals and oxidized fats and cholesterol.  Do consume lacto-fermented foods, healthy saturated fats, grass-fed animal meat, sea salt, organic vegetables and fruits.  The best kinds of unrefined salt includes Celtic, Himalayan, RealSalt, and Lima.  You may find these salts at your local healthy food store, in the health food section of your grocery store or other online sites such as iherb.com or swansonvitamins.com.

Resources:
About High Blood Pressure
Kelly the Kitchen Kop
Weston A Price

“Good broth can resurrect the dead.”

Broth Benefits:

Gelatin is the traditional way of assuring plenty of proline and glycine in the diet.  Gelatin is especially rich in proline and hydroxyproline, containing 15.5 and 13.3 grams per 100 grams of pure protein respectively.  A diet deficient in proline and glycine may lead to suffering from stiff joints, skin diseases and other collagen, connective tissue and cartilage disorders.  One suggestion for heart patients with elevated lipoprotein (a) levels (the only “bad”cholesterol) is that they should take a formula consisting of proline, lysine and vitamin C to help reverse the artery-blocking effects of lipoprotein (a).

Gelatin promotes digestion, heals allergies, improves rheumatoid arthritis as well as other degenerative joint conditions and inflammatory bowel diseases, detoxification in the liver, heals wounds, and promotes bone building.  Also helps people with celiac disease.

During fasting or rapid weight loss (such as an illness), the body tends to eat its own protein store from the muscles.  If a person wants to avoid that (and who doesn’t?) bone broth can help.  Gelatin helps the body to stay in a “nitrogen balance,” meaning gelatin is already decomposed and it prevents the breakdown of protein in the body.  The same researcher, Carl Voit, found that gelatin alone is not able to build up protein supplies in the body.  To me it means don’t stay on a bone broth fast for an extended period of time.

“Remember also that the amino acids in gelatin, like all amino acids, can only be properly utilized when the diet contains sufficient fat-soluble activators–vitamins A and D–found exclusively in animal fats. So don’t hesitate to put cream in your broth-based soups and sauces, and include other sources of vitamins A and D in your diet, such as butter, egg yolks and cod liver oil.” “Broth is Beautiful,” Kaayla Daniels, PhD

General Bone Broth Recipe

Ingredients

2 – 3 pounds chicken, ducks, turkeys, geese, beef, fish* (see simmer hours table below)
Gizzards and chicken feet (option, but nutritious)
4 quarts of water
2 Tb Apple Cider Vinegar
2 large Onions (yellow or white)
2 – 4 Carrots, cut into large pieces
3 stalks Celery, cut into large pieces
1 bunch of Parsley

*make sure you are using the best bones: Chickens should be free-range, organic allowed to peck insects and bugs outside.  If chickens are feed fed, make sure it’s not soy based.  But if it is, make sure it’s not Genetically Modified.  (Rules rules!  Don’t you wish all food was real food?)  Beef should also be free-range, organic and grass-fed.  Fish should be wild-caught (not feedlot raised!)

Equipment

Large stainless steel or enamel stock pot OR crock pot
Large glass jars or containers to store broth in freezer
Slotted Spoon

Directions

1. Add all ingredients (except parsley) into pot and bring to a boil.  Skim off the scum (less scum with higher quality bones).  Then continue to simmer for…
   1. Simmer Hours Chart
      1. Chicken Bones             12 – 24 hours
      2. Beef                               36 – 48 hours
      3. Fish                                 4 – 12 hours
2. Half an hour before simmering is finished, add the bunch of parsley for extra minerals.  With your slotted spoon, remove vegetables and bones and pour liquid into jars and/or containers to cool before transferring to long-term storage (freezer).

The container on the right is frozen already.

Vaccines are a touchy subject, but one part of the subject everyone agrees on is the mercury content:  it should be zero.  But is it?  Thimerosal (THIM) is a mercury-based compound used as a preservative in inactivated flu vaccines.  Back in 1999 there was a huge push for mercury to be removed from vaccines “as soon as possible” but most vaccines today still contain THIM, nullifying the sense of accomplishment the general public feels in regards to “mercury-free” vaccines.  Because they’re not.

Mercury causes neurological damage and is a “known neurotoxin, carcinogen, mutagen, teratogen, and immune-system disruptor.”  Another study points out that mercury poisoning and autism have nearly the same symptoms.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Do flu vaccines work?  Read a set of headlines and one would be very curious as to why people continue to get flu shots!  Is the possibility of avoiding a few days of the flu so important that millions of people are willing to take the chance with mercury poisoning?  Does it bug anyone else when Walgreens answers the phone with, “GoodmorningWalgreens,wherewegivetheflushoteveryday,howmayIhelpyou?”

Until vaccines are clearly mercury-free, I cannot with a clear conscious advise anyone to use vaccines.

SOURCE

the info:

Advanced Glycolytic End Products (AGEs) are the result of excess auto-oxidized glucose in the bloodstream.  The glucose produces potent free-radical activity which damages the arterial walls and forms cross-links with proteins called AGEs.  Diabetics sometimes have neurological and cardiovascular complications, and this is the reason.

what are the symptoms?

AGEs accelerate aging in cells and tissues and cause mutations in DNA.  Which is why they AGE you, get it?  AGEs bind with certain receptors in the bloodstream, RAGEs, and cause inflammation which leads to more advanced cardiovascular disease.  Fasting blood sugar is NOT an accurate marker for this, but a test called Hemoglobin-ArC can more accurately monitor glycation tendencies over time.

the take home message:

Glucose literally ages, or AGEs, us.  And glycation occurs in a cumulative process: you can’t detox or cleanse the damaging effects of years of glucose in your body.  The very thing scientists and, most likely, your own M.D. think we need so much of for our brain to function is slowly killing us!  We do need some glucose for our red blood cells to function, but not so much for our brain.  Remember, our brains run primarily on fat, not glucose.


references:
Primal Body-Primal Mind, Nora T. Gedgaudas, CNS, CNT