Mayo Clinic on Aspirin

By Dr. Virend  Somers, is a Cardiologist from the Mayo Clinic.

He is the lead author of the report in the July  29, 2008 issue of
the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Most  heart attacks occur in the day, generally between 6  A.M. and noon.  Having one during the night, when the heart  should be most at rest, means that  something unusual happened. Somers and his  colleagues have been  working for a decade to show that sleep apnea is to blame. 

1. If  you take an aspirin or a baby aspirin once a day, take it at night.

The reason:  Aspirin has a 24-hour "half-life"; therefore, if most heart attacks happen in the wee hours of the morning, the Aspirin would be strongest in your system.

2. FYI…  Aspirin lasts a really long time in your medicine chest
for years, (when it gets old, it smells like vinegar).

Please read on. 

Something that we can do to help  ourselves - nice to know.

Bayer is making crystal aspirin to dissolve instantly on the tongue.

They work much faster than the  tablets.

Why  keep Aspirin by your bedside? It's about Heart  Attacks - There are other symptoms of a  heart attack, besides the pain on the left  arm. One must also be aware of an intense  pain on the chin, as well as nausea and lots  of sweating; however, these symptoms may  also occur less frequently.

Note: There may be NO pain in the chest during a heart  attack.
The majority of people (about 60%) who had a heart attack during their  sleep did not wake up.

However, if it occurs, the chest pain may wake you up from your deep sleep.

If that happens, immediately dissolve two aspirins in your mouth  
and swallow them with a bit of water.

Afterwards: 

- Call 911.
- Phone a neighbor or a  family member who lives very close by.
- Say  "heart attack!"
- Say that you have taken 2  Aspirins.
- Take a seat on a chair or sofa near the

Technorati Tags: aspirin,heart attacks,chest pain

front door, and wait for their arrival and ...DO NOT LIE DOWN!

A Cardiologist has stated that if each person  after receiving this e-mail, sends it to 10  people, probably one life could be saved! 

Margarine Verses Butter

For many years people have debated the merits of guns versus butter as symbols of spending on military might or domestic comfort.  Since 1869, another political debate has gone on, this one concerning the merits of margarine versus butter.  In that year, a French food chemist succeeded in making a cheap substitute for the real thing, which had become scarce and expensive in the wake of a European cattle plague.

The word margarine came from the Greek for "pearl," because the original version was hard, white, and glossy.  It also must have been less than appetizing, since it was made from beef fat, milk, and chopped sheep's stomachs and cows' udders, all treated with heat, lye, and pressure.

In its early years, margarine was a meat product which was dependent on the beef and dairy industries and whose main appeal was its low cost relative to butter.  In this period, it was exclusively a food of the poor.  In the early 1900s, food chemists discovered how to harden liquid oils by reacting them with hydrogen in the presence of metal catalysts and heat.  Vegetable and fish oils then became raw materials for margarine, weakening its ties to the meat industry.  Manufacturers bought up the cheapest oils they could find throughout the world, reduced them all to bland neutrality through chemical processing, and hardened them into margarine, which remained a food of the poor.

By the 1920s only vegetable oils went into the product, and over the next 30 years, busy food chemists using a host of chemical additives greatly improved the spreadability, appearance, and especially the flavor of margarine, always working toward the goal of greater resemblance to butter.

The improved margarine's appeal was still its lower cost, but now its sales increased enormously, seriously threatening the butter industry.  The butter people responded with a bitter and dirty political fight to hamper sales of margarine, but in the end, they were to lose out because of an unforeseen change in consumer perceptions.  In our lifetimes, people have come to see margarine not simply as a cheap substitute for butter, but as a healthy alternative to it, and this change has occurred particularly among the educated and affluent.  For example, when I look in the refrigerators of fellow physicians, I find margarine instead of butter more often than not.

This new view of margarine, which North Americans now consume four times as much of as butter, developed along with an awareness of the role of saturated fat and cholesterol in producing atherosclerosis, the degenerative condition of arteries that predisposes us to heart attacks, strokes, and other circulatory diseases.  Butterfat is the most saturated animal fat in the American diet, and butter contains a lot of cholesterol as well.  As doctors became convinced of the dangers of saturated fat and cholesterol, they began to recommend margarine to patients, and the margarine industry capitalized on this development by emphasizing new formulations made exclusively from polyunsaturated vegetable oils, like safflower, corn, and soy.  Producers also stressed that margarine contains no cholesterol.  So it is that doctors, like other health-conscious Americans, tended to switch from butter to margarine.  Many of these people will admit that they prefer the taste of butter but consider margarine better for them.

I do not share this view, and I predict that over the next decade, medical research will demonstrate clear health hazards of eating margarine.

In the first place, it is total fat in the diet that correlates with risk of premature death and disability from the major killing diseases in our society.  If there is one undisputed fact that emerges from the confusion of modern nutritional research, it is that typical high-fat diets are killing us.  Most people will live longer, feel better, and have less risk of early death from heart disease, stroke, and cancer if they keep their fat intake to well below 30 percent of calories in the diet, preferably in the range of 20 percent.  This is much less than most Americans eat.  One way to cut down on fat is to avoid both butter and margarine, especially as spreads for bread, and toppings for potatoes and other vegetables.  It is easy to learn to like good bread without anything on it and to enjoy fresh vegetables plain or with low-fat sauces.

Second, although the danger to our hearts and arteries from saturated fat in the diet is clear, many people do not understand that the process of hardening vegetable oils by artificial hydrogenation creates saturated fat.  In fact, the chemical term "saturation" refers to the percentage of carbon atoms in fats that are bonded fully with hydrogen atoms.  The more saturated a fat, the higher the temperature at which it will liquefy.

When stored in the refrigerator, polyunsaturated vegetable oils remain clear and still pour easily.  Saturated fats like beef suet, bacon grease, and butter become opaque and hard in the cold.  No matter how unsaturated the oils are that go into margarine, they are made more saturated by the very process that turns them into a harder spread.  Most brands of margarine do not disclose the percentage of saturated fat they contain, and even though they contain no cholesterol, they still stimulate your body to make cholesterol when you eat them.  So the "heart-friendly" advantage of margarine over butter is not so great as advertised.  Butter, unless it is certified as "organic," is likely to contain residues of drugs given to cows.

Butter may also contain residues of pesticides and other environmental toxins.  All of these compounds tend to concentrate in fat, making high-fat dairy products more dangerous than lowfat or, especially, nonfat ones.  Of course, butter is the ultimate high-fat dairy product.  Margarine should be free of drugs, but depending on where its oils come from, it may contain pesticide residues and other toxins.  It may also have dozens of chemical additives.  So on this score, butter and margarine probably rate about the same.

The most significant area of comparison is the different chemical structures of the component fatty acids of the two.  Butter is basically a natural product, and its fatty acids are structurally similar to the fatty acids in our bodies.  The heat and chemicals used to transform vegetable oils into margarine change fatty acids into unnatural forms that may be most unhealthy to eat.

Unsaturated fatty acids have points of molecular strain, where carbon atoms are connected to each other by double or triple bonds instead of being fully occupied by hydrogen atoms.  These strain points determine the three-dimensional configurations of molecules.

In nature, all of these molecules have a curved shape that allows them to fit neatly into the membranes that enclose all cells and many of the structures within them.  Chemists call this natural shape the cis-configuration.  Heat and harsh chemical treatment can cause unsaturated fatty acids to spring open into a different shape called the trans-configuration, which looks jointed instead of curved.

The body cannot incorporate trans-fatty acids into membranes, and if it tries to do so, deformed cellular structures may result.  Eating trans-fatty acids in margarine, vegetable shortening, and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils probably increases cancer risks, promotes inflammation, and accelerates aging and degenerative changes in tissues.  I am convinced enough of these possibilities to try to eliminate those fats from my diet.

Many people ask me whether I think it is better to eat butter or margarine.  They should be asking whether it is worse to eat butter or margarine, because both are concentrated fats that contribute to the unhealthy excess of fat calories that most of us consume.  I don't keep either of them in my house.  But if I were forced to make a choice, I'd take the real thing in modest amounts, and I recommend that choice to you as well.

By ANDREW WEIL who teaches at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, has a private medical practice, and is the author of Natural Health, Natural Medicine (Houghton Mifflin, 1990) .

Postsed at NaturoDoc and Cross-Posted at TrueHealthIsTrueWealth

NaturoDoc's Take:  Many researchers and physicians have a problem with the recent dietary fad of low-calorie, low-fat dietary advice.  Significant physical effects are created by different types of oil and fat.  This article correctly identifies major problems with commercial handling of fats and oils.  But most low-fat products are high in simple carbohydrates, and the quickly elevated blood sugar from eating these creates even more misery and disease than a high-fat diet.

More ...

Pass The Butter, Please!

--Author unknown, but good truthful information

Did you know that the hydrogenated fat they use in fast food restaurants in the deep-fat fryers was originally designed as candle wax?  When it didn't work as planned, they looked for a new use for
it, and found it worked great for frying foods and never going bad.
Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys.  When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback, so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.
It was a white substance with no food appeal, so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter.  More recently, they have come out with some clever new flavorings.

DO YOU KNOW... the difference between margarine and butter?

Both have the same amount of calories.  Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats, at 8 grams compared to 5 grams.  Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a Harvard Medical School study.
Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.  Butter has many nutritional benefits, where margarine has a only few, because they are added.  Butter tastes much better than margarine, and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.  Butter has been around for centuries, where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

And now, for margarine, which...

• Is very high in trans-fatty acids.
• Triples the risk of coronary heart disease.
• Increases total cholesterol and LDL (the bad cholesterol), and lowers HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol).
• Increases the risk of cancers up to fivefold.
• Lowers the quality of breast milk.
• Decreases the immune response.
• Decreases the insulin response.

And here's the most disturbing fact...

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC.  This fact alone is enough to make you want to avoid margarine for life, as well as anything else that is hydrogenated.  (This means that hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance.)

You can try this yourself:

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or a shaded area. Within a couple of days, you will note a couple of things:
No flies, not even those pesky fruit flies, will go near it.  (That should tell you something.)  It will not rot or smell differently, because it has NO nutritional value.  Nothing will grow on it.  Even tiny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow on.  Why?  Because margarine is nearly plastic.

Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

You'd butter believe it: Margarine consumption is linked to lower IQs in children

It became popular as a healthier alternative to butter.

But children who ate margarine every day had lower IQs than those who did not, a study has found.

At the age of three-and-a-half, they scored three points lower on intelligence tests than other youngsters.

Healthy alternative: But margarine has been linked to lower IQs in children

Importantly, the link held even when parental occupation and other factors affecting wealth and class were taken into account, the study of children born in the mid-1990s showed.

By the age of seven, scores were six points lower – but only in children that had been underweight when born, suggesting that diet is particularly important for brain development in the more vulnerable.

Writing in the journal Intelligence, the researchers from New Zealand’s Auckland University said it is unclear what lies behind the link.

However, trans fats may be to blame. The fats have been linked to memory problems in animal tests and may make it harder for the body to process healthier fats.

In the mid-1990s, trans fats formed up to 17 per cent of the mix of some margarines.

Today, however, levels are around 1 per cent – significantly lower than some butters.

The discovery in recent years that the fats clog up the arteries, raising the risk of heart disease, has led to concerted efforts to cut levels in food.

However, the high amounts in the past may have hampered the development of today’s adults.

The researchers, whose study showed that eating fish and cereal boosted intelligence, said: ‘We found a number of dietary factors to be significantly associated with intelligence measures.

The association between margarine consumption and IQ scores was the most consistent and novel finding.’

The researchers said that more work was needed to confirm if trans fats, which are formed when vegetable oil is solidified, were at fault, or if something else was to blame. They said: ‘Children who ate margarine daily had IQ scores that were up to six points lower compared to children who did not.

‘The impact of regular margarine consumption on intelligence now warrants further investigation in order to replicate these findings and to identify possible mechanisms that may underlie this association.’

Sian Porter, of the British Dietetic Association, said that margarine is generally healthier than butter but the high fat content means that both should be used sparingly.

A spokesman for the Food Standards Agency said that trans fat consumption in the UK is now below the recommended levels.

Source:  Mail Online

Drug Companies Shift Emphasis to Vaccines

The extent to which the recession has cut into high-value research and development jobs in the pharmaceutical industry will be apparent soon as job losses in the industry climb to an additional 12,000.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the British drugs group, will announce plans for further restructuring with the loss of 4,000 jobs, nearly half in the research and development departments.

The job attrition reflects widespread unease among drug companies about the loss of revenues from a small number of blockbuster medicines.

For example, this year GSK will lose patent protection for Seretide, an asthma treatment worth $4 billion.

GSK started reshaping its business in 2007 by focusing on three areas: vaccines, over-the-counter medicines and non-medical products, and emerging markets. GSK diverted investment away from pure research and toward products that enabled the company to catch a greater share of the consumer dollar.

However, GSK is not the first drug company to announce job cutbacks and realignment of their target markets, with a path toward vaccines. Novartis, Merck, Pfizer, Novartis, and Sanofi Pasteur are just a few of the Big Pharma members that have done this within the past two years.

And while the recession definitely played a part in this, the truth is, plans to switch to the vaccine market were already in place, long before the recession began.

Posted by: Dr. Mercola
Sources:

The Times Online February 1, 2010

The-infoshop.com

Nature.com April 1, 2009

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

If nothing else, this announcement proves what I’ve been saying all along – that, contrary to what they’d like you to believe, vaccine makers are not philanthropists just looking to do benevolent philanthropy for the world with their products.

They are businesses, first and foremost, whose primary goal is to earn profits for their stockholders.

It has become clear to me that there is a major shift occurring. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find new blockbuster drugs so the new emphasis will be on introducing more and more mandated vaccines which provide nearly unending annuities to continue to increase their revenues

You will see more and more vaccines introduced as time goes on.

The Big Picture

Please remember that collectively the drug cartels make over half a TRILLION dollars every year by selling their product. That amount of money yields enormous power and leverage and they are focused on earning even more.

And how do they do that?

By finding a product they can manufacture in massive quantities and sell to infinite numbers of people at whatever price they want to charge. For a long time, psychotropic drugs and therapeutic medicines were the yellow brick road to that Wall Street goal.

Just a few years ago drug giants like Merck, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, and Astra Zeneca were dancing in the land of Oz with blockbusters like Vioxx, Zyprexa, Paxil, and Seroquel. But when the Emerald cities they’d built with these drugs became blighted with a cyclone of lawsuits, their profits quickly began to melt.

Add in pending expirations of patents on key products, and accusations by the European Commission that they purposely delay generic medicines by offering payments to rival manufacturers, and these companies knew they had to change the road they were on, even before the recession hit.

It’s All about the Money

The line up of Big Pharma companies that have been announcing job cutbacks and realignment of their product lines over the past two or three years is impressive:

Novartis announced in December 2007 that it planned to cut 2,500 jobs worldwide by 2010 in an attempt to save $1.6 billion. Citing expiring patents, generic competition, and increased industry costs, Novartis said that poor US pharmaceutical sales had forced this reorganization.

Noting that it had experienced “strong growth” in its vaccines and diagnostics division, Novartis said it planned to expand its presence in emerging markets in Africa, Central Asia and Southeast Asia.

Merck announced job cuts in its US sales force a month ago, saying that the cutbacks were part of its merger with Schering-Plough. In all, the newly married company plans to reduce its global workforce by 15 percent, for a savings of nearly $3.5 billion.

But even before Merck and Schering-Plough became a couple, Merck had already begun making job cutbacks, as part of its 2005 restructuring plan.

A major focus of that plan, Merck told its stockholders in 2005, would be to enter, and become a leader in, emerging markets, which “provide enormous opportunity” for Merck’s medicines and vaccines.

Saying that the company planned to rely less on US markets and more on global initiatives, Merck told Nasdaq in December 2009 that 40 percent of its job cuts would be in the US, as the company moved its market focus to worldwide ventures.

But Merck and GSK aren’t the only ones totake this route: Johnson & Johnson announced in November 2009 that it was cutting 8,000 jobs.

Pfizer said it was cutting 20,000 jobs, or 20 percent of its workforce, as part of its merger with Wyeth; Eli Lilly said it was making a 13 percent reduction totaling 5,000 jobs; Astra Zeneca it was cutting 7,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its workforce.

But simultaneously with job cut announcements, they all have alluded to, or plainly said, emerging markets are where their new focus lies.

Of course, it’s all about the money and the bottom line – which isn’t a bad thing, since these companies are for-profit entities. But what is this thing, “emerging markets,” anyway, and how do drug companies’ desires to follow emerging markets affect the rest of the world?

Emerging Market ‘Inoculations’

The Wall Street Journal probably said it best when it called this new pharma marketing strategy emerging market inoculations.Referring to Novartis’ purchase of an 85 percent stake in a Chinese vaccine maker, and a similar investment by Sanofi Aventis, the WSJ used this term to describe the drug companies’ plans to expand production and sales in vaccines.

Emerging markets are areas of the world that are beginning to show promise as a profitable venture for many products, including vaccines. And emerging markets – primarily in developing countries in Southeast and Central Asia, and Africa – have been on vaccine makers’ radar for quite some time.

One reason that vaccine makers are interested in these parts of the world is that that’s where most of the world’s deaths from major infectious diseases occur.

World health leaders have long believed that most, if not all, of these diseases could be prevented by vaccines.

The only problem has been that, until recently, making vaccines for undeveloped countries with no money to pay for them, was not exactly a profitable goal for vaccine makers.

In 2001, an article in Tropical Medicine & International Health chastised the pharmaceutical industry for thinking too much about the bottom line, and not investing more in neglected diseases. Accusing them of being more interested on return in investment than in global health needs, the article’s author urged drug companies to re-evaluate their priorities.

It also urged national and international reorientation of public health policies:

“New and creative strategies involving both the public and the private sector are needed to ensure that affordable medicines for today's neglected diseases are developed,” the article said.

The article made several suggestions as to how these new policies could come about, from a legal and regulatory standpoint, as well as from research-and-development and distribution of needed drugs for mainly third-world countries.

And Then Something Changed

Fast-forward to February 10, 2010. Suddenly, third-world countries are exactly where the previously maligned drug companies want to be. In a market study released this month, these companies said that vaccines are the new bottom line.

“The developed world has been the initial focus of vaccine makers due to the better healthcare and higher price levels,” the report said. “However, facing increasingly saturated markets in the West, companies are looking to expand into new geographies, such as Asia's emerging markets.”

You have to purchase it to see the complete study on emerging markets. But GSK has its May 2009 emerging market planposted, free, on the Internet. Listing the top 10 countries that are “big and growing fast,” GSK said these countries represent 85 percent of emerging market potential.

Emerging markets will soon outgrow developed markets by hundreds of billions of dollars, the GSK report says. One way to make that happen will be to “build and capture” the vaccine market, the report explains.

And the way to do that, it goes on to say, is through growing government attention to the public health agenda, capitalizing on birth cohorts for pediatric vaccines, and by concentrating on new vaccine products.

Say ‘Hello’ to Advance Market Commitments

So what happened between 2001, when world health leaders were criticizing drug makers for not making exactly this kind of investment, and the past couple years, when vaccine makers suddenly started beating a path to third-world countries?

I can assure you it wasn’t because the 2001 chastisement shamed them in to it. Rather, I can just about bet next week’s paycheck that it had more to do with the promise of a new bottom line – sales of vaccines through something called Advance Market Commitments – than anything else.

Between 2001 and 2005, several vaccine researchers and market developers responded to the 2001 chastisement by writing numerous articles about why drug companies were getting out of the vaccine business. Declining markets, increased costs, and regulatory issues were the top three reasons.

Fix those problems, and everybody would be happy to concentrate on vaccines for developing countries, the responses all said.

Concerned that developed countries would have little or no resources for addressing serious infectious diseases if vaccine makers continued their pull-out, the World Health Organization and the G8 – the top developed countries in the world – responded with a plan for inducing vaccine companies to stay in the business.

That plan was called Advance Market Commitments. Under AMCs, developed countries make legal, binding agreements to purchase vaccines that are needed in low-income countries. The purchase guarantees a bottom line for the manufacturers. In return, the manufacturers promise to sell those vaccines at reduced prices in the countries where they are most needed.

Dozens of New Vaccines in the Pipeline

Do an Internet search on Advance Market Commitments and you will find a whole new vaccine world you most likely didn’t know existed. Start by going to the WHO website, and by reading its August 2007 draft global policy on AMCs. The document focuses on financing and funding health research and development of drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for neglected diseases.

The WHO acknowledges in this document that private, public and not-for-profit donations and investments have helped fight neglected diseases – infections that are prevalent in mostly low-income, third-world countries. But those investments are not enough, the WHO says. And that is why AMCs are necessary, the WHO says.

It sounds like a good plan: Establish a market that heretofore was considered not profitable and, therefore, not worthy of investing in. Promise incentives to lure vaccine makers in to the research and development of new vaccines. And then, stimulate market competition through increased sales and reduction of costs in vaccine programs.

To show how well it could work, a pilot Advance Market Commitment was launched in February 2007 for pnuemococcal vaccines. In June 2009, the WHO and the GAVI announced that that plan had finally come to fruition. Now, thanks to AMCs, a $70 pneumococcal vaccine can be distributed in desperately poor countries for just $3.50.

Sounds like a win-win situation – at least for vaccine makers and the countries where the vaccine’s going.

Serious Concerns about this Program

The reason I’m wary of this plan is that legally binding, advance market commitments to purchase vaccines that are mostly needed in third world countries could backfire on developed countries that don’t need – or want – certain vaccines.

Think about it: The top neglected diseases that world health leaders want to address with AMCs besides pneumonia are HIV-AIDS, malaria, human papilloma virus (HPV), rotavirus, and tuberculosis.

And what do you see?

Standing out big and clear are HPV and rotavirus – two diseases that are relatively rare in the US and other developed countries. (There are over 100 HPVs; the new vaccines address four HPVs that cause 70 percent of cervical cancer and genital warts. In developed countries, death from cervical cancer is very rare, while in third world countries, it is a leading cause of death in women.)

Yet, these are diseases with new vaccines that, for some reason or other in the past few years, have been recommended by the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for babies (rotavirus) and adolescents (HPV).

While the ACIP only recommends vaccines, states are free to do what they choose, and we all know where that leads: to mandates of vaccines that more and more people are beginning to question the need for.

And that’s why I am leery of vaccine makers who announce they’re on their way to third world countries in an effort to boost their bottom line. I don’t fault any profit-driven business for wanting to do things that will make share holders happy.

But I do question where these ventures are headed.

Many scientific journal reports have already revealed that a malaria vaccine is on the verge of being marketable. It only leaves me wondering if that will be the next one on the ACIP’s list.

So stay tuned.

Dozens of other vaccines are in the pipeline, from one for strep throat to another for simple ear infections. I promise this won’t be the last you hear of AMCs and mandated vaccines in the US – what better way is there to “guarantee” a vaccine market than through mandates to help pay for it?

If ObamaCare is forced through against the will of the American people, medical care and the dangers of uncertainty and profit first will come to the forefront for every patient and their family.

More vaccines that people don’t need or are even harmful; more questionable medications; centralized medical records that will me monitored and controlled by the government with unbelievable powers and loss of freedoms for Americans; and progressive John McCain just introduced an bill for more government regulation of natural remedies and supplements that will only help Big Pharma and reduce options for the average person.

McCain Proposes Natural Supplement Regulation Bill

Avandia Recall… Finally After Senate Report – Just Wait Until the Gov’t really controls healthcare and drugs. Avandia is suspected in the cause of 300,000 heart attacks

Related Links:

Anthrax and War: the Marketing of Disaster

Media Helps Generate Fear Among Public to Demand West Nile Virus Vaccine

Follow the Money on Vaccines

Posted: True Health Is True Wealth

How to Stop a Heart Attack in 30 Seconds

Can an ordinary cooking condiment used in cooking spicy, hot dishes really stop a heart attack or stroke? These doctors say it can.

Cayenne pepper (also called capsicum frutescens) is a red, hot chili pepper used primarily for flavoring dishes, but it has also been used for medical purposes for centuries. This stimulating herb has been widely used all over the world to treat a variety of health conditions, including heart disease, poor circulation, weak digestion, chronic pain, sore throat, headaches and toothache, among others.

Cayenne pepper derives its medicinal properties from a resin-like substance known as capsaicin. Capsaicin is an ingredient that has thermogenic properties, that is, it increases body temperature and is the greatest blood circulation stimulant known. It doesn’t cause palpitations, hyperactivity or an increase in blood pressure that most other stimulants cause. It also provides temporary relief of pain, which is why it is used in pain-reducing topical preparations such as Capsazin-P, Zostrix-HP, Dolorac, R-Gel and others.

Cayenne has steadily gained the reputation of being a wonder herb over the past few decades. Dr. Richard Schulze, a notable medical herbalist and naturopath, stated, “If you master only one herb in your life, master cayenne pepper. It is more powerful than any other.”

Perhaps the most important recognition that cayenne has gained in recent years has been its ability to stop a heart attack or stroke. Dr. Richard Anderson, author of “Cleanse & Purify Thyself,” reported that one of his fellow doctors rushed out into the parking lot to attend to a man who had died of a heart attack while parking his car. The doctor put cayenne tincture into the mouth of the man, and within a few minutes, the man’s heart started beating again.

According to Dr. John Christopher, pioneer of herbal medicine, “In 35 years of practice, and working with the people and teaching, I have never on house calls lost one heart attack patient and the reason is, whenever I go in--if they are still breathing--I pour down them a cup of cayenne tea (a teaspoon of cayenne in a cup of hot water), and within minutes they are up and around."

Cayenne has been shown to stop heart attacks in as little as 30 seconds. Perhaps the most well-known anecdotal evidence of this involved a 90-year-old man in Oregon who had a massive heart attack. When the medics arrived at his home, he was pronounced dead. His daughter was able to administer cayenne extract into his mouth, and within a few minutes, he regained consciousness. Thereafter, he was rushed to the hospital, and while he was in a semi-conscious state, his daughter continued giving him the cayenne extract. By the time they arrived at the hospital, he had fully recovered and insisted that he be taken home so that he could mow his lawn! When the doctor asked the daughter what she had given him, and she told him it was cayenne, the doctor declared it was the closest thing to a miracle he had ever seen.

The capsaicin in cayenne pepper is unrivalled in its ability to boost circulation and increase heart action. It has a mechanism of action that has the extraordinary ability to enhance cardiovascular performance while actually lowering blood pressure. Capsaicin has an energizing effect on the entire cardiovascular system.

Dr. Anderson believes that cayenne greatly strengthens the heart and could possibly even prevent heart attacks. He routinely carries capsules of cayenne with him in the car and whenever he goes hiking, mountain climbing or backpacking. “You never know when you may find someone having a heart attack,” he says.

Other doctors, however, insist that cayenne capsules are not as effective as cayenne tinctures or cayenne powder in emergency situations, such as in the event of a heart attack or stroke. If a heart attack or stroke should occur and the person is conscious, it is suggested that 5 to 10 droppers full of cayenne pepper tincture (or 1 teaspoon of cayenne powder in a glass of hot water) be administered into the mouth, and repeated every 15 minutes until the crisis has passed.

Disclaimer: The information in this report is based upon research conducted by the author, unless otherwise noted. This information is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of the author. The
author encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional.

by Madison Cavanaugh

Posted: True Health Is True Wealth

Are Eggs Diabetes-Friendly?

Do you eat an egg a day? If you have diabetes, your breakfast habit may double your risk of a heart attack. A recent study of more than 17,000 men and women concluded that eating up to one egg a day did not increase patients’ risk for a heart attack or stroke – unless they had diabetes, reports the American Diabetes Association. For diabetics, eating one egg a day doubled the risk for a heart attack in men and raised the risk of heart attack in women by 50%.

So does this mean you have to give up your favorite scrambled egg or omelet recipe forever? Certainly not. Use egg whites instead of the high-cholesterol yolks.

Egg Beaters and other egg substitutes give you the taste of eggs without the yolks. But if you don’t want to buy extra groceries you can separate the eggs yourself. The ADA says it’s OK to have one yolk every now and then, so you can mix one yolk with two or three egg whites from time to time to give you the taste and volume without all the high cholesterol. Add your favorite fresh herbs (cilantro, rosemary) and a few vegetables (mushrooms, tomatoes, asparagus), and you’ll have a gourmet breakfast that’s healthy for you too.

Source: LIfe Script

Oxidative Stress

Even though the average life expectancy in the United States has increased dramatically during this past century, our quality of life due to chronic degenerative disease has taken a major hit. We are essentially "living too short and dying too long". Most of us can simply look forward to suffering and dying from heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer’s dementia, Parkinson’s disease, arthritis, macular degeneration, and the list goes on and on, unless we literally attack the underlying cause of all of these diseases—oxidative stress.

How long do you expect to live? Now envision what your last twenty years will look like. I can assure you my patients today are not as concerned with the number of years in their lives as they are the quality of life in those years. Who wants to live to a ripe old age if he or she cannot even recognize close family members because of Alzheimer’s dementia? Who looks forward to a decade or two of suffering severe joint or back pain due to degenerative arthritis?

One of my close friends told me recently that he simply wants to live until he dies. Is this your desire? It certainly is mine. That is why I recommend preventative rather than post-problem medicine--empowering people to avoid getting major diseases in the first place. Over the past seven years, I have changed my approach. I now strongly encourage and support my patients in taking a three-fold approach to health: eating well, practicing a consistent exercise program, and daily consuming high-quality nutritional supplements. I now use medication as a last resort—not as my first choice.

Do you fear growing old? Have you accepted chronic disease or pain as a given in your future? Are you willing to make necessary life changes to ensure your health? I believe a full and abundant physical life does not need to start slipping away at age forty. Each year of your life can be your very best. But first you must understand the war that is waging within every one of our bodies.

Oxygen is essential for life itself. But did you know it is also inherently dangerous to our existence? I call this the "dark-side" of oxygen. And as a result, we are essentially rusting both inside and out. The same process that causes a cut apple to turn brown or iron to rust is the cause of all the chronic degenerative diseases we fear and even the aging process itself.

Consider the aging of our skin. Oxidative stress is the cause of wrinkles, sagging skin, and age spots. The next time you are with a large gathering of people of different ages, observe closely the change you see in people’s skin. Aging is a process we all take for granted, but when you look more closely, and compare a baby’s face, to that of a grandparent’s, the effects of our largest organ being exposed to all the pollutants in the air, sunlight, and cigarette smoke is baffling. This aging of the skin is an outward manifestation of "oxidative stress," which is occurring within every cell in your body.

Over the past 7 years, I have reviewed well over 2,000 medical and scientific studies in regards to nutritional supplements and their affect on your health. These studies appearing in medical journals like the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, British Lancet, and Annuals of Internal Medicine report that beyond any doubt the "root" cause of well over 70 chronic degenerative diseases is "oxidative stress." These are the "who’s who" of diseases we all fear and want to avoid; diseases like heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s dementia, macular degeneration, lupus, MS, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue. "So what," you may be wondering, "is ‘oxidative stress’?"

Within every cell of the body is a furnace called the mitochondria. As oxygen is utilized within the furnace of the cell to create energy and life itself, occasionally a charged oxygen molecule is created, called a "free radical." This free radical has at least one unpaired electron in its outer orbit essentially giving it an electrical charge. If this free radical is not readily neutralized by an antioxidant it can go on to create more volatile free radicals, damage the cell wall, vessel wall, proteins, fats, and even the DNA nucleus of our cells. Chemically this reaction has been shown to be so volatile that it actually causes bursts of light within our bodies!

Imagine yourself in front of a crackling fireplace and I’ll give you the best illustration I have to explain the process of oxidation. The fire burns safely and beautifully most of the time, but on occasion out pops a hot cinder that lands on your carpet and burns a little hole in it. One cinder by itself doesn’t pose much of a threat; but if this sparking and popping continues month after month, year after year, you will have a pretty "ratty" carpet in front of your fireplace.

The fireplace represents the furnace of the cell (the mitochondria), the cinder is the charged "free radical," and the carpet is your body. Whichever part of your body receives the most free radical damage will be the first to wear out and potentially cause one of these degenerative diseases. If it’s your arteries, you could develop a heart attack or stroke. If it is your brain, you could develop Alzheimer’s dementia or Parkinson’s disease. If it’s your joints, you could develop arthritis.

Through biochemical research we’re learning that we are not defenseless against this attack on our body by free radicals. Antioxidants are like the glass doors or fine-wire mesh we place in front of our fireplace. The sparks are still going to fly but our carpet will then be protected. As you begin to imagine the war that is taking place within every cell in your body, you can envision the two opposing forces: the enemy--free radicals; and your allies--antioxidants and their supporting nutrients.

Living a healthy life becomes a matter of balance. You must have enough antioxidants available to readily neutralize the number of free radicals your body produces. If you don’t, "oxidative stress" will occur. When this oxidative stress is allowed to persist over a prolonged period of time, you will most likely develop a serious chronic degenerative disease.

Each of us must ask, "Am I getting enough antioxidants from my diet to protect myself from this onslaught of free radicals or do I need to be taking nutritional supplements?" This is the question that I’ve had to ask myself as I have spent countless hours researching medical literature. You see I was taught in medical school that you don’t need supplements—that you can get everything you need from a good, healthy diet. And this is what I told my patients for years. I was wrong.

Since balance is the key, we need to look closely at the individual players that are at war within. The number of free radicals you produce each and every day is never the same. All the pollutants in our air, food, and water dramatically increase the number of free radicals we produce. Enormous stress, excessive exercise, cigarette smoke, sunlight, radiation, and every drug prescribed greatly increases the number of free radicals produced in the body. In fact, there has never been a generation on this planet subjected to more oxidative stress than this present one. We are literally under attack from our polluted environment, stressful lifestyles, and over-medicated society.

This ongoing attack is depriving us of our most precious gift—our health. But God did not leave us defenseless against this onslaught by free radicals. In fact, we actually have our own army of antioxidants, which are able to neutralize free radicals and render them harmless. In generations past, these defense systems were sufficient. Unfortunately this is no longer the case. Our bodies’ defense systems need additional allies.

Most antioxidants come from vegetables and fruit. This creates a gap in our protection, because our foods have become significantly depleted in their content of antioxidants and supporting minerals as a result of mineral depletion in our soils, green harvesting, cold storage, foods that are highly processed, our poor food choices and food preparation.

At a time when we are under the heaviest attack from the environment around us, our natural defense systems are becoming overwhelmed and depleted. We must do all we can to rebuild our antioxidant systems with a healthy diet, but too you need to learn how complete and balanced nutritional supplementation with high quality supplements (cellular nutrition) is our best hope in winning this war within and protecting our health.

Source: Dr. Ray Strand