Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby's Total Health Newsletter #34. Week ending Jan 17th, 2010
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• This week's Quote

1. You Can Choose To Be Happy (Animals Can't)
2. Better Than Hoodia
3. Once Again, There Is NO Safe Level Of Lead
4. Way To Go With Cancer
5. Another GOOD Reason Not To Swallow Meds
6. What's In A Word?

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This Week's Quote:

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.

-- Denis Waitley, sailor, airman, motivational speaker

1. You Can Choose To Be Happy (animals can't)

You have a choice. You can CHOOSE to be happy or you can choose to be unhappy! If you are not happy with the choices you made, choose again.

Man is a conscious creature. This may distinguish us from the beasts. Clearly animals are consciously aware of events in their surroundings. But they may not be aware of being aware. We as humans are not only "here" --- but we know we are here. We not only think but we can think about thinking. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It is good because we can enjoy the experience of being conscious, of feeling alive. But we also get ourselves into difficulties, because we allow our process of reasoning to be subverted and even over-ridden by other conscious issues, notably emotions, ego, values and, at times, dishonesty.

Man's ability to reason is his greatest asset. It brought us down from the trees and we got computers, heavier-than-air flight and television! Our faculties must be good because they have put us at the top of Nature's list. As Shakespeare said:

"The paragon of animals! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty!.. In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world!".(Hamlet Act II scene ii).

Unlike animals, whose survival mechanisms run on automatic, we have volition. Man must choose to act in a certain way. This is where most of the trouble starts. There is always a right (good, sane, survival) way to do things. But there is an infinity of wrong ways to act in the same given situation.

This brings a new element of experience which is unhappiness. Pain is Nature's rather kind way of pointing out we are doing something wrong. Without pain, we would lack a great deal of feedback to guide us. We should be glad of pain. It teaches us something useful when our survival is threatened.

But unhappiness is another matter. That is a feeling, over and above pain and error. Something very unpleasant for us. It could be unique to Man.

That in turn poses another question which is: what is the nature of happiness? It is the opposite of what we recognise as unhappiness. But is that all? Is it just the absence of unhappiness? Well, probably it is. This is not to dismiss all positive feelings in this way. But the happiness-unhappiness combination is basically self-defining and both feelings mutually create each other.

[you can read more about the problems of dualistic thinking and learn the "Power Of Infinite Logic" with a free audio here on this page: http://www.renegadeguru.com/download1.htm ]

This dichotomy of mixed blessings is the price we pay for the opportunity to escape from Nature's automatic controls. Probably animals don't have this choice. They are bound to act in accordance with certain conditions and rules which may or may not be apparent to us but are somehow communicated to the animal in question. These conditions are inviolate. Animals cannot (apparently) conceive of being dishonest, irresponsible, incompetent, lazy or wicked. Most assuredly, they cannot be self-destructive by will; only by error.

We, on the other hand, can choose to act contrary to Nature, if we can reason it through as beneficial in some way. Usually this is a short-term gain; I doubt we can thwart nature long-term and get away with it. We may have been given temporary freedom, only to have it reined in later when we have run ourselves into disaster and failure. We may have been fooling ourselves about this free will thing! The escape is an illusion and the price we have been forced to pay is the possibility of self-destruction.

2. Better Than Hoodia

In the next couple of issues I'm going to look over a few slimming products. Christmas has come and gone and left behind quite a few thickened waistlines, I know. Then there were New Year resolutions and those have come and gone (failed!)

So let's see what's out there.

First of all, disabuse your mind of fake junk products, with their fake science, like Hoodia. It doesn't work, except by endangering your life (ephedra). Take careful note of who says "Oh yes it works great". I'll lay you a $50 bet right here on this page that that's a person who is selling the stuff!

But if you want an African herb that works and has good, moderate, science, try IG. It's a West African herb named Irvingia gabonensis (IG) – or “bush mango".

IG is an “adaptogen.” An adaptogen is a natural substance that helps your body adapt to stress and exerts a normalizing effect on body processes. This reduces cortisol and we know the connection between cortisol and belly fat, right?

In IG’s case, this adaptogen normalizes blood fats. It also increases the body’s ability to burn fat and may help promote normal cholesterol. But it's best action to to prevent lepton resistance by preventing a special inflammatory protein, c-reactive protein (CRP), from sticking to leptin and so blocking it. Leptin is the body's natural hormone that signals "full, satisfied, not hungry" (that just after Christmas turkey, couldn't-eat-another-thing feeling).

Now a useful study from the journal Lipids in Health and Disease has confirmed this. According to the study, patients taking an IG extract lost an average of 28 pounds and 6 inches in just 10 weeks. That's pretty good going. I'd like some!

The group on IG weighed on average 215 pounds at the start. After taking the herb for 10 weeks, their average weight fell to 187 pounds – a 13% reduction.

By comparison, the control group started at 212 pounds and went to 211 pounds. They lost only a pound, which means those taking IG lost 28X more weight than those who didn’t.

[Oben JE, et al. Irvingia gabonensis significantly reduces body weight and improves metabolic parameters in overweight humans. Lipids in Health and Disease. 2009, 8:7]

By the way...

Talking about weight loss. I saw a funny piece on MSNBC yesterday, about a story from Vaxjo, a city in south central Sweden. A Weight Watcher's group had gathered for their weekly meeting and the floor caved in. Not an earthquake: just the weight of people (coupled with faulty construction, obviously)!!

3. Once Again, There Is NO Safe Level Of Lead.

It bears repeating often. Authorities still talk about "safe" lead levels. Any objective, unbiased and uncorrupted scientist (not many of those left, polite cough, a-hem) looking at the medical evidence would conclude that lead is very dangerous and NO level is without potential severe neurological damage.

I know of a veteran's aging study in which researchers analyzed lead concentrations in the blood and bones of 868 mostly white men from the Boston area.

The men, whose average age was 67 at the start of the study, had lead concentrations in their blood and the bones of the patella (kneecap) and tibia (shin) measured over a nine-year period. Researchers found that men who had the highest concentrations of lead in their bones had a six times greater chance of dying from cardiovascular disease than men with the lowest concentrations.

The reason we use bone lead, by the way, is that it gives a better picture. Blood lead changes over hours and days and gives no real impression of how MUCH lead is in the body, a factor which varies over years and even decades.

We now have a brand new study (December 2009 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry) showing lead as a major risk factor for major depression and panic disorder in young adults.

Researchers analyzed information on 1,987 adults, aged 20 to 39, who took part in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1997 and 2004. Of those participants, 134 (6.7%) had major depression, 44 (2.2%) had panic disorder and 47 (2.4%) had generalized anxiety disorder.

The average level of lead in the blood among all participants was 1.61 micrograms per deciliter.
The 20% of participants with the highest lead levels (2.11 micrograms per deciliter or more) were more than twice as likely to have major depression and nearly five times more likely to have panic disorder than the 20% of participants with the lowest blood lead levels (0.7 micrograms per deciliter).

"These findings suggest that lead neurotoxicity may contribute to adverse mental health outcomes, even at levels generally considered to pose low or no risk," wrote Maryse F. Bouchard, of the University of Montreal and the Harvard School of Public Health.

She's not wrong. It's just a pity that the myth of safe lead levels (which pose "no risk") persists, even despite numerous such findings.

SOURCE: JAMA/Archives journals, news release, Dec. 7, 2009

4. Way To Go With Cancer

Chemo doesn't make sense. Poisoning a biological system to "fix" it just doesn't make sense. Working WITH nature is the way to go.

In fact more and more medical studies are looking at enhancement of natural ways to conquer diseases like cancer. Antibodies against cancer cells are a natural and highly effective tool, if only we can generate them. A new study published in Dec 2009 is a case in point.

Geng Zhang, from the University of Pennsylvania (USA), and colleagues identified an antibody, named F77, that bonds with cancerous prostate tissues and cells, and even promotes the death of cancerous tissue.  When injected into mice, F77 bonded in 97% of cases where prostate cancer tissue was present, and bonded in 85% of cases where the cancer had spread widely (metastasized). 

The fact that it seems helpful, even after the cancer has spread, is especially exciting.

Isn't this a better approach, using what the immune system naturally does not defeat cancer cells? For more great ways to beat cancer intelligently and working WITH Nature, get my "Cancer Confidential" report on cancer alternative healing.

[Geng Zhang, Hongtao Zhang, Qiang Wang, Priti Lal, Ann M. Carroll, Margarita de la Llera-Moya,  Xiaowei Xu, Mark I. Greene.  Suppression of human prostate tumor growth by a unique prostate-specific monoclonal antibody F77 targeting a glycolipid marker.”  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online before print December 18, 2009, doi:10.1073/pnas. 0911397107].

5. Another GOOD Reason Not To Swallow Meds

Yet another chapter in the annals of Big Pharma contempt for customers and human life. These guys just crack me up. They produce poisons that kill and don't care. They lie about results. Now they cannot even be bothered to package it better than dog food, hurt people and don't even THINK of hurting their lousy profits by recalling it.

Johnson & Johnson's McNeil Consumer Health Care knew their Tylenol and other products were making people very sick, causing severe and unpleasant symptoms. The products include Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl, St. Joseph Aspirin and Rolaids. A musty, moldy odor coming from the products has sickened at least 70 people with nausea, stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Because of a sickening smell in some containers, 54 million packages of 27 different over-the-counter remedies now are being recalled. But only because the FDA finally stepped in and forced them to clean up their garbage! The massive recall (Jan 2010) adds to the 6 million packages of Tylenol recalled late last year, bringing the total number of recalled products to 60 million.

The FDA says Johnson & Johnson's McNeil Consumer Health Care knew of the problem for more than a year. When the company did act in November and December 2008, it did too little too late, said Deborah M. Autor, director of the FDA's Office of Compliance.

Now here's the spin part: The symptoms go away by themselves and no one has been seriously injured, the statement says.

The odor comes from a chemical, 2,4,6-tribromoanisole or TBA. TBA is produced when fungi break down a commonly used fungicide called 2,4,6-tribromophenol. The full health effects of TBA are not known.

So who's kidding. How did nobody get seriously hurt if you don't evehn know and have never tested what this chemical filth does to humans?

Did you know your meds were spratyed with pesticides which contaminate the product? I didn't know that.

Before being filled with product, product containers were stored on wooden pallets apparently treated with the fungicide. TBA seems to have infiltrated the product containers before they were filled. The FDA says McNeil began receiving complaints in May 2008, but failed to investigate fully or to warn consumers in a timely manner.

The FDA has given McNeil 15 days to respond to its seven-point warning letter.

Of course if they were an alternative medicine or herbal mahnufacture facility, the FDA would have swooped in a rate, armed with guns and violated everyone's rights. That's what they do (but not to their Pharma buddies, of course).

Consumers who think they may have suffered ill effects from the products should contact the FDA at www.FDA.gov/medwatch.

6. What's In A Word?

Insouciant

Not a word you hear more than once a decade these days! It's a bit like nonchalent (another word that doesn't show often at all). Or blithe, a wonderful word used by Percy Bysse Shelley in his famous "skylark" poem. (you probably studied this poem at school)

Insouciance is the the cheerful feeling you have when nothing is troubling you. So insouciant means cheerful carefree, untroubled. Great! Other words that evoke this wonderful feeling are carefreeness, lightheartedness and lightsomeness.

a skylark

So, that's all for this week!

Be well; find the sacred in all you do, otherwise don't do it!

Prof.

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© 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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