Good News for Labeling GMOs in 2013

According to the Organic Consumers Association:  "We may have narrowly lost the GMO labeling fight in California this past November, but there’s good reason to believe we’ll win in at least two or three states in 2013.

Today, activists in Washington State will deliver approximately 350,000 signatures to the state legislature, guaranteeing that when voters show up at the polls in November, they’ll get the chance to pass I-522, a statewide GMO labeling initiative.

On the other side of the country, Vermont is picking up where it left off last year after the governor caved in to Monsanto’s threats to sue the state if it passed a GMO labeling law. Undaunted, and buoyed by stronger-than-ever support from consumers and lawmakers, Vermont legislators will reintroduce GMO labeling legislation in early January. Connecticut is moving forward, too, with plans to introduce a similarly popular GMO labeling bill early this year.

All signs point to an uphill battle for Monsanto and friends to defeat I-522 in Washington State. I-522 proponents have a full nine months to raise awareness and money, compared with the YES on 37 (California Right to Know Genetically GMO Labeling) Campaign which had only six months to reach voters and raise money. Plus we had to raise a lot more money in California, which has five times as many voters as Washington."

A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), Alix

Melatonin and Adrenal Fatigue

Recently Dr. Oz did a show on women who overdose on melatonin.  Melatonin is a hormone, a natural sleep aid (it regulates sleep bio rhythms), and is sold over the counter.  Most women were taking up to 9 mg a night, when the recommended dose is 1mg a night for two weeks only.  Melatonin in the small dose is good for shift workers and for jet lag.  The symptoms of overdose do not harm the body but result in sleeplessness and a hangover type of feeling.

I've written about adrenal fatigue causing an imbalance in DHEA, estrogen, progesterone, and pregnenolone, but I have never mentioned the low levels of melatonin (associated with the adrenal fatigue) when I received my test results from my saliva testing.  There are other kinds of tests than saliva testing, but these tests are all given by naturopaths, as there is still controversy in western medicine over the existence of adrenal fatigue.  I take only 1mg of melatonin occasionally.

My western medicine doctor told me to go to a naturopath because western medicine isn't good with chronic fatigue.  I was also diagnosed by my naturopath with sub clinical low levels of thyroid hormone, which is caused by low blood sugar.  Most people don't know that low blood sugar puts stress on the body and can cause adrenal fatigue and low thyroid hormone levels.

It is always encouraging for me to hear western medicine doctors like Dr. Oz introduce the concept of adrenal fatigue to the general public.  Here is a link to a western medicine doctor's post that talks about adrenal fatigue.  Her name is  Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP, so she is both a western doctor and naturopath.  http://www.womentowomen.com/adrenalhealth/adrenalglandfunction-nutrition.aspx

The things she recommends parallel the recommendations made to me by my functional nutritionist (naturopath.)  Eat every 2-3 hours to avoid spikes in low blood sugar.  Stay away from caffeine and too much sugar.  Take an array of vitamin supplements, and reduce stress in general.

I wouldn't wish adrenal fatigue on anyone ever.  It is absolutely exhausting, and mine has been chronic over a number of years.  Unfortunately, still, due to ignorance, a lot of people have no clue what I'm talking about when I mention it. 

Here is a description taken from that website: 

“Adrenal fatigue” is another name for sub clinical adrenal dysfunction, also called adrenal imbalance. While adrenal fatigue is well recognized in other parts of the world, there has been some skepticism about it within conventional medical circles here in the US.

Perhaps part of the mystery lies in the conventional approach to testing for adrenal function. The current tests that doctors are likely to recommend are very good at detecting the furthest extremes of adrenal imbalance: Cushing’s syndrome at one end of the spectrum and Addison’s disease at the other... Conventional practitioners could use a deeper understanding of these serious, full-blown adrenal disorders by recognizing that such conditions do not arise overnight. Less dramatic, “subclinical” manifestations of adrenal dysfunction can be terribly incapacitating for patients, too — and these warrant treatment as well. But in the minds of many if not most conventional practitioners, any degree of adrenal imbalance that isn’t Cushing’s or Addison’s falls “within normal limits.”

This is so unfortunate, because millions of people today suffer debilitating symptoms of adrenal imbalance, to the point that their quality of life may be significantly compromised. We know that overwhelming fatigue, inability to cope with stress, sleep disturbances, lightheadedness, recurrent infections, fuzzy thinking, low libido, marked irritability, and many other symptoms can and do arise even when the numbers on conventional tests look “normal.” You may feel unwell and know something is not right, yet have one provider after another tell you he or she cannot seem to find anything medically wrong with you.

When conventional lab results appear normal, many [conventional] practitioners move on to other possible diagnoses, missing the opportunity to heal the underlying causes of adrenal imbalance."

 I think western medicine is great at a lot of things, but I wish conventional practitioners would get on board with adrenal fatigue because I read that up to 2/3 of people are struggling with some degree of this condition.


A Votre Sante (Here's To Your Health,)  Alix

Yikes, more bad news about GMO foods

Dr. Mercola has been on a roll lately, so I included another synopsis from his site.  I really appreciate all the money he gave to the California campaign to label GMO foods.  This proposition lost due to the large amount funding going into commericals that Monsanto was pumping out before the vote-- including commercials that intentionally tried to discredit Mercola.  Here is the blurb from www.Mercola.com that reviews a documentary :

The documentary film "David versus Monsanto” details the groundbreaking victory of a lone farmer against one of the most powerful companies on the planet

The world’s first lifetime feeding study discovered that rats fed a diet containing 11 percent GE corn developed massive breast tumors, kidney and liver damage and other serious health problems in the 13th month of life.

To put this into human perspective, if the average lifespan of a person is 80 years, these health problems would start rearing their ugly head somewhere during the 43rd year of life, provided your diet contained just over 10 percent GE foods and you began eating them in early childhood

According to a report released by the Environmental Working Group, Americans are eating their weight and more in genetically engineered food every year—an average of 193 pounds of GE foods annually

No thanks for me, I'll avoid GMO foods...especially the hidden ingredient of Canola oil (there is no such thing as a canola plant) and soy lecithin, as most soy is GM.

A Votre Sante, (Here's To Your Health) Alix

More dangers of GMO foods

This is an excerpt from Dr. Joseph Mercola's newsletter (www.Mercola.com.) I thought it apropos because of the vote in California on November 6th to label GMOs statewide.  If this vote to label GM foods passes in California, many other states will eventually follow suit, and people tend not to buy GM foods when they are labeled---so this is a huge vote for the health of this country.  Mercola gave a lot of money to the campaign to label GMOs in California, and I have also given some money as well.  If this vote passes, the general public will finally be privy to the real dangers of these genetically modified foods. 

"Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, which is sprayed in large quantities on genetically engineered, so-called "Roundup Ready," crops. Such crops are genetically engineered to withstand otherwise lethal applications of the herbicide.

According to the German journal Ithaka,¹ every single urine sample collected from city dwellers around Berlin tested positive for glyphosate, with values ranging from 0.5 to 2 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) – that's between five and 20 times the permissible upper limit for glyphosate in German drinking water, which is set at 0.1 ng/ml. According to the featured article:²

'Glyphosate probably entered human populations over the past 10 years through its increasing presence in daily foods such as meat and dairy products, vegetable and fruit produce and grains products. Glyphosate-laced genetically modified Roundup soya which enters the animal food chain, is only one of the risk factors.
Even more dangerous now is the increasing use of herbicides in the EU over the past several years for the desiccation of entire stocks of harvestable crop.
'Spraying crops to death,' as desiccation should be more aptly called, means that herbicides are being sprayed directly on the crops shortly before they are to be harvested to facilitate the harvest by uniformly killing off all living plants (including the crops) on the field.
If crops cannot fully mature due to excessive rain, as was the case in the summer of 2011, herbicides are used to bring the crops to maturity by means of a 'death-spray.' The method facilitates the drying of the crops as well as removing all weeds for the next sowing period, and has become common for the harvest of potatoes, cereals, canola and pulses.
For potatoes, spraying herbicides on the field immediately before harvest (2.5 l / ha), hardens the skin and reduces its susceptibility to late blight and germination, which improved the potatoes shelf life. Active compounds of the herbicide directly enter the potato through the leaves; however, decomposition of the poison takes place in the body of the consumer.'"
 

A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), Alix

Adrenal Fatigue Update with great links

The ongoing protocol for adrenal fatigue/estrogen dominance has me frustrated.  After 2 years of bio identical hormones, supplements, eating basically a paleo diet (actually the metabolic typing protein type diet) of all organic foods, I am still sleeping 10+ hours a night.  Some nights 11-12 hours.  I am totally exhausted.  This is definitely not something I would wish on anyone, as Western Medicine all but denies the existence of  these conditions--however, Dr. Oz and Christine Northrup did a show on estrogen dominance, so this condition (which often occurs in tandem with adrenal fatigue) is becoming more widely known.  

I really try to hold back on telling very many people about the exhaustion because past responses from non-professionals have not been very helpful.  Common remarks are, "well you probably sleep too much so you're tired,"  "yeah, I'm really tired too, but I tough it out," "it's all in your head," "you're lazy," and "all you do is sleep on weekends."  I discovered a lot of ignorance basically because our culture is based on the "plow-through-it" sleep-deprivation model.  Americans used to make fun of the Japanese for working so hard, but now we are the most workaholic country.  Elaine Aaron in her books about high sensitivity explains that many people are not in touch with/sensitive to their bodies, so this results in a culture of "burning the candle at both ends."

I had a series of acupuncture treatments and was supposed to be sleeping around 9 hours now.  However, I am still exhausted.  I intend to talk to another acupuncturist, and explore more options--possibly more supplements or seeing a naturopath.  I am currently on the Kalish method doing natural hormone replacement--many women, especially those over 35, are estrogen dominant and don't know it.  Each holistic specialist has a slightly different take on how to treat the body, but what I like is that, in the holistic field, all these natural treatments tend to mesh well together.  So looking for more solutions is always an option to add onto my current protocol, which I have discussed in prior posts.

Dr. Bob Marshall specializes in supplements and recommends healthy digestion.  There are free recordings of his health radio show at www.healthline.cc

The wonderful Norm Shealy has free protocols for different diseases on his website, including acupuncture points regimens that one can do on their own.  www.normshealy.com

A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), Alix

Dr. Mercola warns against GMOs and vaccines

Here are some direct quotes from Dr. Joseph Mercola's latest articles (www.Mercola.com)  I think he does a great job at speaking out about GMOs and vaccines:



[GMOs]  A two-year long French feeding study designed to evaluate the long-term health effects of a genetically engineered corn found that rats fed Monsanto’s maize developed massive breast tumors, kidney and liver damage, and other serious health problems.

According to results from a 10-year long feeding study on rats, mice, pigs and salmon, genetically engineered feed causes obesity, along with significant changes in the digestive system and major organs, including the liver, kidneys, pancreas, genitals and more.

The EPA admits there’s “mounting evidence” that Monsanto’s insecticide-fighting YieldGard corn is losing its effectiveness in the Midwest. Last year, rootworms resistant to the toxin in the genetically designed corn infested fields in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska

[Vaccines] Data collected from Canada and Hong Kong during 2009-2010 showed that people who received the seasonal flu vaccine in 2008 had twice the risk of getting the H1N1 “swine flu,” compared to those who hadn't received a flu shot
 

Remember? H1N1 Vaccine was Not Only Ineffective, But Unusually Dangerous...

As you may recall, the fast-tracked pandemic 2009-2010 H1N1 swine flu vaccine turned out to be particularly reactive – far more reactive than previous seasonal flu vaccines. Will this season's trivalent flu vaccine – containing two swine origin influenza A viruses – pandemic H1N1 and H3N2 – usher in a repeat performance?

One of the most disturbing side effects of some of the marketed pandemic H1N1 vaccines was narcolepsy; a very rare and disabling neurological disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness. About 70 percent of narcolepsy cases also involve cataplexy – the sudden loss of voluntary muscle control – along with vivid hallucinations and total paralysis at the beginning or end of the narcoleptic attack.

In the case of the H1N1 pandemic vaccine, the adverse events were so serious, and so widespread that the tragic reality could not be ignored. There's no discussion about whether or not narcolepsy was caused by the vaccine; it's been proven to be a vaccine injury by experts in multiple countries.

For example, according to Swedish findings, children and adolescents vaccinated with Pandemrix during the 2009-10 season had a close to 660 percent increase in risk for narcolepsy! Finland also noticed a dramatic increase in the condition following vaccination with Pandemrix. There, an interim report issued in January of last year found that the H1N1 vaccine increased the risk of narcolepsy by a staggering 900 percent in children and adolescents below the age of 19.⁷ France, Germany and Norway also reported cases of the rare sleeping disorder, causing the EU to launch an investigation as well.
 

Well, I won't be getting the flu vaccine this year...and as always, I will be avoiding genetically modified foods.

A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), Alix



 

60 Minutes recently did a segment called "Is Sugar Toxic?"  It's great that this information is spreading beyond the holistic health niche and becoming mainstream.  This segment talks about how a "calorie is not just a calorie," meaning that eating sugar prompts the production of small dense LDL by the liver (contributing to heart disease,) and it also feeds certain kinds of cancer cells. 

Obviously, over consumption can lead to diabetes as well.  High fructose corn syrup became an additive in foods as the low-fat trend eliminated flavor.  This clip shows that sugar is addictive, triggering dopamine in the same brain center as drugs or alcohol.  People then build up a tolerance and want to eat even more sugar to get a kick of dopamine. 

It is recommended in this segment that men limit their sugar caloric intake to 150 calories a day and that women limit theirs to 100.

Check out the following link:  www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403942n