Category: Immune System

10 Incredible Health Benefits of Nigella Seeds (Kalonji)

10 Incredible Health Benefits of Nigella Seeds (Kalonji)

Highlights

  • The kalonji, or Nigella seeds, is an interesting spice
  • The tiny black seed comes with a whole lot of health benefits
  • Its known to have anti-carcinogenic properties and keeps heart healthy

The kalonji, or Nigella seeds, is an interesting spice – when used for tempering, it adds a beautiful aroma to the dishes, and a hint of flavor that you can’t quite nail. In India, dry roasted kalonji is used for flavoring curries, dal, stir-fried vegetables, and even savories such as samosa, papdis and kachori among others.

Flavour and aroma aside, the tiny black seed comes with a whole lot of health benefits. It’s loaded with trace elements, vitamins, crystalline nigellone, amino acids, saponin, crude fiber, proteins and fatty acids like linolenic and oleic acids, volatile oils, alkaloids, iron, sodium, potassium and calcium. It keeps your heart healthy, addresses breathing problem, lubricates your joints, and is known to have anti-carcinogenic properties. That’s quite a lot for a seed that size, isn’t it? In fact, if you keep a bottle of kalonji oil at home, you can use them for plenty of things to boost your health and take care of niggling problems. Let’s take a look at some of them:

 

1. Fights Acne

Sweet lime juice and kalonji oil together can fix many skin problems. For every cup of sweet lime juice, you’ll need about half a teaspoon of kalonji oil. Apply the oil twice a day on your face and watch your blemishes and acne disappear. If you keep pure kalonji oil handy, you can use it to treat cracked heels as well.

skin tone

 

2. Keeps a Check on Diabetes

This is probably one of the most known benefits of kalonji. If you already have diabetes, kalonji oil can also help to manage it. Take half a teaspoon of the oil in a cup of black tea every morning, and see the difference in a few weeks.
diabetes

3. Increases Memory and Alleviates Asthma

Ground kalonji seeds with a little bit of honey is known to boost memory. And if you mix this in warm water and drink, it also helps in alleviating breathing trouble (asthma included) in children and adults alike. But you need to do this is for at least 45 days, and avoid cold beverages and food during the period. 

memory

4. Gets Rid of Headaches

One of the most common urban problems in today’s time is headaches. Instead of popping a pill, rub kalonji oil on your forehead, relax, and wait for your headache to disappear. Nothing like natural home remedies!
headache

5. Aids Weight Loss

The warm water, honey, and lemon combination is often recommended for those who are on a diet. Now add a pinch of powdered kalonji seeds to this mix and see how it works. Many health enthusiasts have claimed that kalonji seeds is a miracle ingredient which helps in shedding those extra kilos.weight loss

6. Eases Joint Pain

It’s an old-school treatment; take a handful of kalonji seeds, and heat it well with mustard oil. Once the oil is smoking, take it off the flame and cool it down for a bit. The oil is ready when you can dip the tip of a finger into the oil without feeling uncomfortable. Now use this oil to massage the inflamed joint.
joint pain

7. Controls Blood Pressure

For those who suffer from or have the tendency of high blood pressure can drink half a teaspoon of kalonji oil with warm water to keep hypertension under control. It is of course advised to follow a proper diet along with it.
blood pressure
8. Protects the Kidney
Kidney stones are a common urban problem. It is said that half a teaspoon of kalonji oil had with two teaspoons of honey and warm water can aid in getting rid of kidney pain, stones and infections. But you also need to consult a doctor to get a proper diet.
kidney

9. Makes Teeth Stronger

Did you know that kalonji has been used traditionally to take care of dental trouble such as swelling or bleeding of gums, and weak teeth? Of course you need to see a dentist, but you can also massage your teeth with curd and some kalonji oil twice a day to strengthen your gums.
teeth
 10. Strengthens Immunity
Kalonji oil, honey and warm water have more than one benefit. Apart from the ones already mentioned, it can also help to strengthen your immunity if consumed daily. If you add kalonji oil in boiling water and inhale the fumes, it can also reduce nasal congestion, and help those who suffer from sinusitis problems.
healthy woman

Quick Facts

  • When you’re buying nigella seeds, remember to check the pack carefully; the seeds are jet black and shouldn’t look stale.
  • Storing nigella is important. Always store it in a dry place and make sure it doesn’t come in contact with moisture.
  • Don’t buy large quantities of kalonji. 100 grams can take you a long way, so buy in smaller portions. This will prevent the seed from losing its aroma and benefits by sitting on the shelf for too long.

Disclaimer:

The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. Cymantra  is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this article. All information is provided on an as-is basis. The information, facts or opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Cymantra and Cymantra does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

This Author has found another health benefit of Kalonji Seeds. Suffering from intense heartburn for many years and trying all the standard remedies to no avail, I find that Kalonji seeds boiled and drank as a strong black tea almost alleviates my heartburn. Who’d have thought that this little black seed could provide so much pain relief from a otherwise daily occurrence.

Cymantra Admin

 

Original Article

Priya Chakraborty September 09, 2016

The Oil that Can Cure Migraines, Anxiety, Depressions, and Even Cancer

Frankincense oil is the King of Oils

Frankincense oil is known as the King of Oils – and it truly deserves this title. I use it daily to promote my health and if I ever had to choose just one oil to have, it would be frankincense. Frankincense has a long history of being used as a prized and precious essential oil. Historically it was used by the Babylonians, Assyrians and Egyptians in religious ceremonies, and as a resin for balms and salves. And of course, the three wise men brought frankincense to the baby Jesus as an offering.

Frankincense is taken from Boswellias when it is extracted from the bark of the tree. The milky-white sap will quickly harden to a resin and then be scraped off the tree in the form of pear-shaped droplets. The color and quality of this resin varies greatly, from the highest quality (clear and silvery in color) to the lowest (of a brown-yellow hue).

Today, the essential oil, acquired by steam distillation of the resin, is widely used and holds great therapeutic value.

The following uses of Frankincense are based upon my own personal experience.

1. Help with wounds from cuts, scrapes, and burns.  For even greater benefit, apply Lavender essential oil first then layer Frankincense on top.  The combination of these two oils together is amazing when it comes to helping with wounds. (where to find) 

2. Neurological support.

Frankincense is probably the best oil I know of for neurological support. It helps with the function of the central nervous system in particular. Whether it’s helping with clarity of thinking, or balancing the emotions, frankincense has a lot of benefits to offer.

3. Reduce and fade scars.  Just combine 2-3 drops of frankincense oil with coconut oil, and directly apply it on your skin.

4. Foster strong immune system.  Massage a few drops into the balls of your feet daily to boost your immune system. You can also diffuse it throughout your home or in your bedroom at night.

5. Reduce stress and anxious feelings.

Frankincense oil promotes relaxation and feeling of calm. You can simply rub a few drops mixed in a carrier oil on the back of the neck when you feel stressed.

6. Hormones and Memory

Frankincense can help balance hormones and improve memory.

7. Aging skin.   Mix a few drops of the Frankincense with unscented oil (like coconut) and apply to your skin. You can also add a drop of Frank to your daily moisturizer.

8. Head tension.  Frankincense can be used to relieve conditions where pain and tension are present.

9. Congestion.  Put up to six drops in a sink or bowl filled with very hot water then bend over the sink with a towel draped over your head to contain the steam. Breathe in the vapors for at least five minutes, adding more hot water as needed.  Be careful not to scald yourself; the water should be hot, not boiling.

10. Relieve itching.  A single drop applied to the affected area will bring immediate relief.

11. Relieve joint pain and swelling.  Mix with a carrier and rub into aching joints at night before bed and throughout the day,

12. Clear up problem skin.  Dab one drop on stubborn spots morning and night.

13. Relaxation.  Add 5 or 6 drops to a diffuser and breath in the oil to open the senses and create a calming atmosphere. To elevate your mood a few drops – as a perfume – works well.

14. Remove moles, skin tags, and warts.  Apply a single drop 3 or 4 times a day until gone.

15. Enhance vision.  Put 1-2 drops of Frankincense in your hand and then  rub your index finger in the oil and rub it onto each of your temple.  It can provide greater clarity to your vision and bring everything into greater focus.

16. Remove musty odors.  Place a couple of drops in a small dish of water and the room will take on a much fresher smell.

17. Oral Health: Useful as preventative measure against oral health problems such as bad breath, toothaches, cavities, canker sores, and other infections. Try mixing with baking soda and coconut oil to make your own toothpaste.

18. Promote sleep  Diffuse frankincense at bedtime to help you slow down your breathing and relieve nervous tension and anxiety.  You will sleep like a baby!

19. Enhance the efficacy of other essential oils.   Layer Frankincense over other essential oil to enhance that oil’s properties and drive the oils deeper into the cells.

July 14, 2016 by

Garlic – Protecting you Against Brain Cancer

Making and Using Genuine Colloidal Silver

colloidal-silver

 

Two thousand, three hundred years ago, Alexander The Great was surveying his battlefield and drinking water from silver urns. He knew nothing about bacteria, but he knew that silver containers have a seemingly miraculous way of keeping water fresh. Silver has been used for thousands of years in different forms for its health benefits. Throughout the middle ages, the wealthy gave their children silver spoons to suck upon to stave off illnesses. People have known about the benefits of silver for so long that it is incorporated into legends. Silver is the recommended agent for killing vampires, werewolves, and various forms of the so-called undead. According to ancient legend, a silver dagger was all that a knight needed to vanquish evil.

The new history of silver is a falsified history. Silver was once used extensively by all health care practitioners as an antibiotic, anti-viral, and as an anti-microbial. Nothing worked better then, and nothing does now. The F.D.A. began its crusade against silver products in the 1930’s, because silver (as a natural substance) cannot be patented; but the organization’s antibiotic and vaccine industry partners were able to patent their wares. Under the Food and Drug Administration’s original name, the Bureau of Chemistry, its real mission was to legally protect the chemical industry by declaring toxic chemicals to be “generally recognized as safe”, and to eliminate the chemical industry’s competition through regulations. This history has likewise been obscured greatly in most modern historical texts, but the truth can be found in materials from its early period.

Silver medicine has been erased from the textbooks, and it is seldom given mention in medical literature. The official Pharmacopeia (physician’s desk reference book) listed dozens of medicinal silver compounds prior to the mid-1930’s; but thereafter, all mention of silver disappeared. Newer books report that it never really happened. Before the history was rewritten, silver was like the nuclear weapon of medicine. No human pathogen of any kind survived it. This was the gospel of medicine. Pure colloidal silver is still the most comprehensive and potent antibiotic and anti-viral known, which is actually safe for human consumption, and it is absolutely safe for everyone in every condition. It is natural, has no side effects, and it was killing the worst viral diseases in the 1930’s, long before it became impossible to kill viruses with medicine.

Over the past two centuries, silver has been used by both allopathic and alternative medicine. In addition to being used for routine ailments, silver has been used effectively against some of the most notoriously hard to kill illnesses, including tuberculosis and syphilis. It has been used as an anti-bacterial agent that was added to bandages and disinfectant sprays. It has been embedded into clothing to prevent bacteria from producing foul odors from sweat, and it has been merged into cloth that is used in burn centers. Attempts are still being made to lace hospital counter tops with silver, to prevent the growth of bacteria. Silver-lined containers are actively being used to disinfect water in third world countries.

Silver is remarkable because it is an extremely powerful natural anti-bacterial and anti-viral agent, yet it does not impair overall health like antibiotics do. It kills viruses, fungi, and parasites in cases where the parasites live in a symbiotic relationship with a bacterial agent. This is surprisingly common, especially in the case of blood-borne parasites, such as those of U.S. bio-weapons like Lyme disease. Because of the way that silver kills with an electrical charge, no pathogen can be found or engineered to be immune to it. No life can develop an immunity to electricity.

Since the late nineteenth century, colloidal silver has been the safest and most effective way to medicate with silver. Colloidal silver is manufactured by electrically combining silver with pure water. The colloidal manufacturing process uses no chemicals. While silver is now labeled as an alternative medicine, it was once used widely in hospitals as the premiere antiseptic and antibiotic. It is still used in hospital burn centers for its incredible ability to heal burns more rapidly than steroids. We were astounded when witnessing it eliminate a sunburn in the span of just an hour, and a burnt tongue within minutes.

Removing silver from the market was one of the first actions of the Food and Drug Administration when it changed its name in the 1930’s. It has gradually changed its name from the Bureau of Chemistry, to the more publicly palatable, Food and Drug Administration. In 1999, after a re-emergence of silver, the F.D.A. completely banned it in any form from being sold in over-the-counter health products, despite the fact that silver has safely been used as a medicine for millennia.

The devastation of the polio epidemic was largely caused by how the Food and Drug Administration suppressed silver to promote its new antibiotics and vaccine industries. By removing silver from the lists of approved medicines, it effectively removed the only treatment that reliably kills polio, which in-turn unleashed the full epidemic of polio. The F.D.A. later claimed a victory over polio in boasting that the new generation of vaccines had saved us. The agency cunningly waited until the epidemic was in its natural decline to release the vaccine, in order to ensure that people saw a connection between the vaccine’s release date and the disappearance of the disease. The public, and quite a few doctors, were distracted away from the fact that silver medications were a safe treatment, which effectively kills polio quickly, as well as virtually every other virus known. Prior to this entire smoke-and-mirrors routine, silver was recognized for doing what the establishment now claims is impossible. Had silver medicine not been stripped from the market, the polio epidemic would have never occurred. Today’s huge vaccine and antibiotics markets would have never come into being. Silver had to go. Just to stack the dishonest vaccine marketing even more, the F.D.A. and the American Medical Association began promoting tonsillectomies for all children at the same time, while knowing that the tonsils are the only organ in the human body that produces polio antibodies.

The Food and Drug Administration now admits that antibiotic drugs are useless for most of the conditions that they have been prescribed during the last seven decades. The common cold, flu, and the most common type of pneumonia are all now believed to be caused by viruses for which antibiotics are useless against. However, silver is effective against viruses, so untold people have died as a result of silver being replaced with antibiotics.

Another suppression campaign against silver began around the time of the Second World War, when germ warfare agents were being increasingly studied as the new generation of warfare. Silver has the ability to neutralize every bio-weapon that has ever been created, because of how it attacks pathogens electrically. This is one of the primary reasons why it has been suppressed and maligned so aggressively. There are groups within the U.S. Government who do not want anyone to be resistant to U.S. Military bio-weapons, so silver medications have been repressed throughout the world for the sake of a covert military weapons program that is forbidden by international laws. If silver medicine was still being distributed officially as the top tier of medicine, then the bio-weapons program would be rendered impotent, because victims could simply use colloidal silver to recover from any germ warfare agent.

How Silver Medicine is Believed to Work

There are theories about how silver works. The leading one is that silver kills bacteria and viruses electrically, which would make it impossible for pathogens to become resistant to it. Indeed, it is true that there is no evidence of pathogens developing any resistance to colloidal silver. This hypothesis is impossible to prove (or disprove), because we cannot examine a single colloidal particle and its relation to a bacterium, or view the mechanism through which silver kills the latter. We can merely put colloidal silver and bacteria together, and see that all of the bacteria dies rapidly.

It is believed that each particle retains an electrical (ionic) charge, and that each particle of the same metal stores a charge of the same polarity. The charges ensure equal distribution of the particles throughout the solution. The theory is similar to that of magnetism, wherein the same poles of magnets are repelled by each other, and attracted only to their opposites.

There is evidence that silver interferes with copper and iron in the body, by binding with both electrically to chemically form new metallic compounds. People who are using a large amount of colloidal silver regularly may begin to crave foods that are rich in iron, such as beef. It is wise to satisfy these cravings, since they are caused by a deficiency of an important nutrient. Copper can be safely supplemented through the use of chlorophyll, but virtually every other oral source of copper supplementation is dangerous, because it is so trivially easy to overdose with it and cause liver damage. Due to colloidal silver’s ability to neutralize iron, men over the age of 30 will benefit from occasional colloidal silver supplementation. Iron accumulation in the bodies of men is believed to be one of the key reasons why women live longer than men do, and excessive iron is a major contributor to heart disease in men.

The Different Silver Products

There are many different types of silver solutions, including silver nitrates, ionic silvers, colloidal silvers, silver chlorides, and silver proteins. The only completely safe medicinal silver product, and the kind that we officially recommend, is colloidal silver.

Silver nitrate is produced by the pharmaceutical industry by combining silver with nitric acid. It can damage the liver and kidneys like most pharmaceutical drugs. It is the terrible side effects of silver nitrate that the establishment often uses to justify its attacks upon colloidal silver, in more slight-of-hand tactics. Pharmaceutical silver nitrate has a long history of turning patients’ skin a bluish-gray color. Nitrates are the poisonous compounds that are added to meat products which cause cancers. In other words, the F.D.A. pushed the poisonous and carcinogenic nitrate compounds on the public, and blamed the consequences on silver.

Ionic and colloidal silver are almost identically produced. The main difference between them is the size of the silver particles. In ionic silver, the particles are atomically small, to such a degree that even testing for their existence is difficult. It is possible that the particles in ionic silver are so small that the water itself becomes a different substance, because the silver particles are no longer completely autonomous. In colloidal silver, the particles are still microscopically small, but not as small as they are in ionic silver. Ionic silver can be made using very small voltages, over extended periods of time with silver plates. Higher voltages, or decreased resistance in the water produces colloidal silver. For true colloidal or ionic silver, the water must remain pure, so the only way to reduce the resistance of the water is to heat it, which most commercial manufacturers unwisely do.

Colloidal silver is much more likely to have a color, whereas ionic silver is always clear. This is because the larger particles in the colloidal silver provide a greater surface area. Ionic silver particles are so small that they are actually smaller than the wavelengths of visible light, making the silver invisible and colorless in even high concentrations. All colloidal silver solutions are mixtures of ionic and colloidal silver, but ionic solutions can be completely ionic. It is not possible to produce colloidal silver without also producing ionic silver. This is analogous to a construction worker who extracts materials from a brick wall. He might use a grinding tool that yielded only a fine powder, or he could bash the brick wall with a sledge hammer, which would yield a mixture of large chunks and fine powder. The use of higher voltages for colloidal extraction is like hammering the silver. The larger particles that are found in colloidal silver solutions are especially beneficial for external use, including the treatment of burns. Ionic silver is useless externally, and its internal effects have never been studied by independent third parties. Only colloidal silver and silver nitrate have been scientifically scrutinized for effectiveness, and only the colloidal variant is truly safe. Incredibly, colloidal silver is the only type which the pharmaceutical industry has never sold.

Another silver product is silver chloride. It is essentially made in the same manner as colloidal silver, but with the addition of table salt (sodium chloride). It is a cloudy liquid (often whitish) that is extremely photosensitive. Upon illumination or heating, the silver chloride solution separates into silver and chlorine. This instability makes it unsafe for human consumption. When ingested, silver chloride has a tendency to migrate to the outer tissues. Then, when the skin is exposed to sunlight, the silver chloride will break down into silver and chlorine. This causes the bluish-gray skin discoloration that has been heavily publicized as damning evidence against silver medicine. Victims of this phenomenon often claim that they drank colloidal silver, but the addition of salt transformed it into a very different substance that was chemically unstable. Conversely, true colloidal silver compounds are extremely non-reactive. Silver chloride has no benefits over colloidal silver, and it comes with risks. The salt is usually added to speed production time, but the same effect can be achieved with sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) in a much safer manner. The addition of sodium bicarbonate will yield especially large particles, which is unwise for internal use, but the resultant solution would nevertheless be ideal for external use. It would be excellent for burn treatments and infectious wound treatments.

Silver proteins contain much larger particles than either colloidal or ionic silver, and they should never be used internally. These were formerly approved of by the F.D.A., and they were preferred by the pharmaceutical industry. The silver particles in silver protein solutions are so large that they simply sink in the water, and the particles never stay evenly distributed without the aid of an added gelling agent. Due to the large size of the silver particles, and the silver’s binding with proteins, there is a dramatically increased likelihood that silver will become trapped in the fatty tissues. Therefore, these thick solutions are likely to produce the infamous bluish discoloration of the skin too.

Dishonest Silver Companies

Misinformation is being spread by most sellers of colloidal silver. Most sellers boast about colloidal silver by showcasing its long history of safe usage, but they simultaneously claim to use a proprietary process that makes their silver superior to all other silver products. Their admitted usage of non-standard manufacturing processes means that they cannot sincerely use the safety history of colloidal silver as an example of their own product’s safety, or honestly declare that their untested proprietary product is as effective. If a different manufacturing process is used, then the result cannot actually be colloidal silver. There is only one way to make colloidal silver, and any other manufacturing process will yield an entirely different product. Hence, the marketing for most colloidal silver is patently dishonest from start to end. This is not an indictment against colloidal silver itself, but its sellers tend to be morally bankrupt, and the product that they sell is a potentially dangerous fraud. Every manufacturing short-cut seems to have consequences.

We are aware from patent applications that some companies are producing silver solutions using fermenting bacteria combined with silver nitrates, instead of using electricity; but we do not know exactly which silver products are manufactured using this deplorable process. Whenever silver products are produced this way, they are inherently tainted with the dangerous nitrate compounds that the pharmaceutical silvers became infamous for. The effects of these toxic impurities can be much more severe than mere skin discolorations. Organ damage is a known consequence of using nitrate compounds, and cancers.

Most sellers of modern colloidal silver advertise that their product contains between 10 and 20 parts per million. They probably seek this concentration due to the research of Alfred Searle. He authored the book, The Use of Colloids in Health and Disease, in 1920. He also ran Searle Pharmaceuticals. His company was respectable in its early history, and Searle was long dead before his company dishonored his memory by selling itself to Monsanto. In his book, Mr. Searle reported that a concentration of just 20 parts per million of silver was proven to be deadly to all known pathogenic life forms, including every known virus. However, these results do not equate to the 10-20 parts per million ratings that can be found on most silver products of today. The reason is that the methods of testing have changed dramatically.

Alfred Searle used a Tyndall meter to measure how many particles of silver were present in a solution. It is a device that uses light to test for hue and reflection, which are used to determine the particle count and their size. These devices use light wavelengths as the means of measurement. Most modern sellers of silver products instead purchase an electronic device that measures the conductivity of the finished product. The conductivity of different solutions will always vary greatly, so these meters cannot possibly do what they are advertised to do. For example, if salt were added to the water, then it would have a different effect on the conductivity than if copper were added, because of their differing electrical properties. Yet the sellers of these meters claim that they are able to get accurate results measuring particle counts regardless of a solution’s ingredients. If salt or another electrolyte exists in the water, the conductivity of the water will increase dramatically, even whilst the number of particles will stay roughly the same. Particle size and the temperature of the solution also effect the conductivity, which the meter has no way of determining. Even a gust of wind will give a different reading, due to the electrostatic effect upon the surface of the solution. In the case of colloidal metals, electrically gauging the concentration is even more futile than it is for other types of solutions, because the metallic liquid is an electrolytic capacitor with a constantly changing capacitance. Electricity cannot be used to measure the amount of metal in a solution when the surface area of the metal cannot be verified, and when the capacitance of the solution is ever-changing. It is like trying to get a consistent light measurement from a fireworks display. The capacitive solution itself will produce its own tiny currents, and it will block currents from the meter, which makes electronic testing an exercise in absurdity. The only way to accurately measure concentration in a metallic colloidal fluid is using light. Thus, the parts per million rating given by most colloidal and ionic silver sellers is meaningless. Since colloidal silver changes the color of the water, clear colloidal solutions are frequently just expensive water, regardless of any measurement that sellers purportedly get. In the case of ionic silvers, it is impossible to measure the particle count, since the particles are too small to reflect light.

TDS Meter, the de facto manufacturer of the new testing equipment, even acknowledges the uselessness of its own meters on its website, in an amusing attempt at damage control:

” …temperature changes by a tenth of a degree may increase or decrease the conductivity. Additionally, the temperature coefficient (what the reading is multiplied by to adjust for temperature differences) changes slightly depending upon the range of ppm… Even a tiny air bubble that has adhered to one of the probes could potentially affect the conductivity, and thus the reading… Electrical charges off fingers, static electricity off clothes, etc. on the meter and lingering electrical charges in the water will affect the conductivity of the water… Plastic cups retain lingering electrical charges more than glass. If the meter touches the side of the glass or plastic, it could pick up a slight charge. If the plastic is retaining a charge, it could also affect the water… The amount of water in the sample may affect the conductivity. Different volumes of the same water may have different levels of conductivity. Displacement may affect the conductivity as well… The depth and position of the probe in the water sample may also affect the conductivity. For example, if a meter is dipped into the water, removed and then dipped into the water again, but in a different spot, the reading may change… “

The expensive methods of testing colloidal solutions that are utilized by modern laboratories are likewise grossly flawed. Flame atomic absorption spectroscopy is one of the leading laboratory methods for analyzing colloidal solutions. It uses extreme temperatures to destroy a colloidal solution, and then observers rate the colors of the flames, in an attempt to visually gauge the metal concentration. Fire is impossible to control with the precision that is needed for a valid analysis; and of course, the test results are in the eyes of the beholder. These machines cost about $50,000 (U.S), so it is unlikely that anyone outside of the chemical industry actually owns one. There are similar devices that utilize a beam of light that is projected through the flames during the analysis. These devices have the same inaccuracy issues, and they are even more expensive.

True Colloidal Silver

We have been unable to find any sellers of silver solutions whom we could fully trust, so this is intended to assist people in producing their own colloidal silver. The silver solutions sold at retailers are essentially the homeopathic versions of colloidal and ionic silver products, which means that they are merely high-priced water. Some of the retail products that we examined had plenty of impurities (like iron that biologically neutralizes silver), but we found very little silver. Testing was impossible in the case of ionic silvers, which may be convenient for manufacturers. At many locations, the municipal water supply will contain more silver than the fraudulent retail products. The majority of retail products are fake, and these bogus products are the primary reason why so many people who are new to alternative medicine believe that silver is ineffective. The products that retail shoppers typically buy are usually no more effective than water, because they are water. People can either take their best guess in choosing the commercially-available products, or they can produce their own to ensure that it is real and of the best quality.

Manufacturing Colloidal Silver & Video

The most important step in the production of colloidal silver is obtaining the right materials. Using distilled water is vital. Never use tap or spring water, because even minerals that would normally be beneficial can cause health problems once they are electro-chemically transformed through electrolysis. Ensure that the water has been distilled using steam distillation, which should be written on the container. Some “distilled” water containers have, “distilled through reverse osmosis” on the label, and these labels are entirely dishonest. True distillation uses steam to separate the water from its minerals and contaminants, whereas reverse osmosis is simply a type of pressurized filtration that does not render pure water. It is a much cheaper process, so some of the companies lie about their “distillation”. Beware of Food Lion brand distilled water in particular, because our testing during the production of colloidal copper indicated that it is impure, even though it is labeled to have been distilled. Also be forewarned that the formation of black chunks and other strangely-colored precipitates during the electrolysis process is an indication of water impurities. Black is the most common color for these, because they are usually the charred carbon remnants of organic matter and bicarbonates. Grayish chucks may form in the water. These particulates are actually safe and produced by the silver. They are especially beneficial for burns and skin infections, but they should be filtered out of the solution for internal use. A coffee filter works exceptionally well for this, and the solution may be drained by gravity through a coffee maker. Silver particles which have not clumped remain in either a colloidal or an ionic state, and these will pass through any filter. In fact, the particles are so small that wooden spoons and plastic utensils will begin to develop a silvery appearance after several batches. Never use metal utensils. The only metals in the process should be the silver itself and the electrical connection wires.

Using chlorinated tap water is especially dangerous, because when chlorine combines with other materials, it has a tendency to form dioxin compounds. It will also produce chlorine gas during electrolysis, which was used as a chemical warfare agent during World War I. Sodium chloride (salt) in the water will also release chlorine gas, so salt should never be added. As an important side note, tap water should never be used inside vaporizers for the same reason, because chlorine gas will be released into the air to actually worsen lung issues.

We strongly recommend that instead of obtaining silver wire, which is used for most colloidal silver manufacture, people instead use silver bullion bars (pictured). Most of the silver wire that is available comes from China, and it is simply not feasible to check every wire for impurities. Chinese wire should be assumed to be contaminated, since this is normal with Chinese products. When referencing the purity of their metals, companies use an obscure way of gauging it. Whenever a seller of a precious metal refers to it as having a purity of 925, it equates to 92.5 percent, so the given metal would be almost 10 percent impure. Most people will assume that a purity rating of 925 means that the metal contains only 0.925% impurities, and therefore that it would be over 99% pure. Be watchful of this gotcha. A large portion of the silver buyers seem to be ignorant of it. We recommend getting only 99.9% (written by sellers as 999) silver bullion bars.

However, modern buyers should beware even when buying “pure” silver bullion bars. It has come to our attention that the bullion market of the United States has been flooded with counterfeit bullion bars in recent years. Other countries are likely to be experiencing the same Chinese contamination problems. To minimize the risk of buying fakes, bullion bars should never be purchased from Craig’s List, E-bay, or any other source that is not absolutely trustworthy, because the purity of the bullion is absolutely essential for health and safety reasons. We therefore recommend that our readers only purchase bullion bars from banks and other reputable institutions that service the financial market. In the not-so-distant past, bullion bars were an absolutely pure source of silver that were guaranteed to be safe, because they are regulated as an official currency. This once meant that any attempt to sell fake bullion bars would have risked a swift law-enforcement response for counterfeiting, and a plethora of additional charges that would have gotten a man imprisoned for the rest of his life; but alas that safety net has disappeared, for the Chinese have no fear of the law.

Coins contain a variety of metals that should not be consumed, so never use silver coins for colloidal silver manufacture. High purity is vital, because most metals are extremely detrimental to the health. Silver of such extreme purity typically only contains the impurities of copper and selenium, in trace amounts. Both of which are beneficial to health in these small quantities. In fact, both are vital nutrients. The selenium is actually used by the human body to chelate harmful metals.

To avoid any soap or chemical residues, the bullion bars should be soaked in a solution of white vinegar that is nearly saturated with salt for cleaning. They can also safely be cleaned with vodka. It is not absolutely necessary to clean the silver between uses, but we do. Be advised that the silver will never look new again, regardless of the cleaning method.

People may either use three 9V batteries that are interconnected in series, or a 30V DC power supply that has a rated output of at least 3 amps (3,000 mA), to power the electrolysis. A power supply does not have to be exactly 30 volts, but it is the ideal voltage. The range should be kept between 26 and 30 volts, which is also ideal for creating colloidal copper. Those who have no experience with electronics should opt for battery power, instead of using a DC power supply. Serious injury and fire can result from the improper use of a power supply. The electrical danger is elevated because water is being used. For liability reasons, we must officially recommend against using a power supply, and anyone using a power supply does so at his own risk. Batteries must be interconnected, so that the positive terminal of one battery is connected to the negative terminal of another battery. When properly connected, one battery should have an unused positive pole, and the opposite battery should have an unused negative pole. These two remaining terminals should be connected to the two pieces of silver. Most 9V batteries in the U.S. have terminals that can be used to interconnect with other 9V batteries, whereby connection wire is unnecessary for the battery to battery connections. Never use aluminum wire for any of the connections, and we strongly recommend the use of only copper wiring, for the sake of preventing unhealthy contaminants.

To make colloidal silver, fill a completely clean glass or plastic container with distilled water. We suggest cleaning the container with vodka immediately beforehand, to remove soap residues. Connect the batteries to the pieces of silver. Most people do this with alligator clips. We usually make our connections by inserting copper wires through tiny holes in the top of the silver bullion, and then we twist-tie the wires for maximum hold. Never solder the connection to the silver, and it is wise to even avoid soldering the wires to the alligator clips, for solder can leach lead or cadmium into the solution if the metal components become moist. Nobody should be supplementing with lead and cadmium.

The silver bars should be partially submerged in the water, and be about an inch apart. They should never touch, and the wire connections should never enter the water. If the connectors or silver are allowed to touch, the batteries or the power supply will have a dead short. This could cause overheating and an explosion. It could easily mean a quick death for the power supply. The electrical connections to the silver should be clearly above the water, else other metals will become infused into the solution. Nothing except for pure silver should be in contact with the water. We recommend that all other connectors and wires be maintained at least a quarter inch above the water’s surface. We should offer one last reminder of the risks of using solder, which include the introduction of tin, lead and cadmium into the product.

The time needed to produce colloidal silver will vary greatly depending on the purity of water that is used, and no commercially-available water is absolutely pure. One of the first indicators that silver is combining with the water can be seen with a flashlight in a dark room. Shining light through the water at certain angles will show what appears to be smoke coming from one of the silver plates. As time progresses, one of the silver plates will turn a flat gray color, and the other plate will blacken. Tiny bubbles may also form around the silver plates. Those producing a large batch over an extended period should gently stir the solution periodically, using a wooden or plastic spoon. Some people can produce a quart in twenty minutes, but our own experimentation in making 2 quarts required a duration of 4 hours to reach the acceptable strength and color. Due to the fact that silver is extremely non-reactive, a slower process indicates higher purity in both the silver and the water. Pure water and pure silver will both be very resistant to the electrolysis process. Readers may notice that many of the online manufacturing videos show colloidal silver being produced very rapidly, using silver wires that were obtained from China. The short manufacture time indicates the presence of other, more reactive metals, and perhaps impure water too. When producing our own colloidal silver, we add about 3 fluid ounces of existing colloidal silver to speed the production time, without effecting the quality of the resultant product.

 

To make the silver bars last as long as possible, the polarity should be reversed each time. This means that the silver bar that is connected to the positive (red) wire in one batch should be switched so that it is connected to negative in the next batch. Otherwise, one of the bars will rapidly erode.

If a colloidal silver solution is black, brown, or purple, then it indicates that the silver particles are abnormally large. It may also reflect the presence of impurities. The huge particle size of these products makes it debatable if these solutions can truly be called colloidal. It is how most colloidal silvers from online sellers look. The ugly discolorations can also be caused by heating during production, or from the use of high voltages, which are common shortcuts taken by the commercial manufacturers. We recommend that such solutions be avoided, except as a last resort. These products are significantly less effective internally than properly-produced colloidal silver, and the abnormally-large silver particles are more likely to get forever trapped in the tissues. Most commercial sellers have proprietary processes for production, which cannot be trusted, and there is no way to know what is really in their products. We do know from the color of their products that they are not selling true colloidal silver.

Properly Medicating with Colloidal Silver

High quality colloidal silver, at an appropriate medicinal strength, usually looks slightly yellowish in a brilliant white container, under a fluorescent light. Some batches of colloidal silver will instead have a slight silvery tint. The two colors are an indication of a particle size difference, but there should essentially be no difference in effectiveness. Some batches turn yellow about a day after production. The strength of a colloidal silver solution can be judged by shining a laser pointer through the solution, whilst the silver is being infused. A red laser pointer is best, because it is least visible under normal conditions. As the silver solution gets stronger, it will become possible to see the red beam clearly through the water. As the solution becomes more concentrated, the laser beam will become more solid.

We recommend against making stronger concentrations for most uses, because silver appears to create iron deficiencies with extreme dosages. We do not truly know if the colloidal silver causes the increased excretion of iron, or if it simply neutralizes usable iron by bonding with it, or both. We believe that it is both. Either way, there are no real human toxicity issues, but the proper iron level should be nevertheless maintained for optimal health.

During times of sickness, we recommend using 3 fluid ounces of colloidal silver, twice a day. Best results can be achieved by holding the colloidal silver in the mouth for a minute before swallowing it. This technique allows some silver to penetrate through the walls of the mouth, and directly into the blood stream. Expect for it to have a metallic aftertaste. Due to the wide variety of people who will read this article, we have made the recommended silver dosage very conservative. However, some patients measure their dosages in cups.

Storage of Colloidal Silver

Colloidal silver may be stored in either plastic or glass. The ideal plastic is the type that is used to store milk. It is high-density polyethylene (HDPE), and it can be identified in the U.S. by a number “2” embossed into the bottom of the container. It is a very non-reactive plastic, but the microscopic silver particles may stain it.

Colloidal silver should be stored at room temperature, and never allowed to freeze. The silver will coagulate into visible chunks at the bottom when frozen, which will make the solution much less effective and create the possibility that it will cause argyria. Therefore, an interesting experiment to verify the presence of silver in the solution is to freeze a small amount of it, and then examine the clumped silver in the bottom of the container after thawing. If a choice must be made between storage in a hot or cold environment, the warmer environment should always be chosen.

Pure colloidal silver should not experience any of the serious breakdown problems that silver chloride solutions do whenever there is light exposure; but we nevertheless store our colloidal silver in a dark location, because darkness might somewhat help to keep it better preserved.

A good batch of colloidal silver should last for years, because the silver itself is a powerful preservative. In fact, we use it as a substitute for water in risky foods that use uncooked ingredients, such as raw eggs (for mayonnaise production). It is used to ensure that all of the bacteria is dead. A minute of blending with colloidal silver is enough to ensure that no bacteria survives.

Patients Experiencing the Blues

The medical establishment and the big media organizations have demonized colloidal silver by parading people who have developed a condition known as argyria. It is a bluish-gray discoloration of the skin that is reported to be permanent. However, every case that we investigated involved products that were not actually colloidal silver, and most cases were the result of pharmaceutical-industry silver products. Our exhaustive research could not find a single instance of argyria that was caused by pure colloidal silver. The pharmaceutical silver solutions are the most likely to cause it.

Regulators proclaim that the people who turned blue provide evidence of silver’s toxicity, but the opposite is actually true. It proves that even after a person is so incredibly saturated with silver from 20+ years of misuse that he turns blue, he still does not suffer from any health problems. The blue patients are actually healthier than normal. Take for comparison: a patient who consumes enough aspirin to turn white. Actually, we cannot use this example, because within 20 minutes of such extreme aspirin consumption, the patient would be dead from internal bleeding — long before he ever began changing color.

The National Institutes of Health documented one case of argyria that occurred when a man started producing his own silver solution and consumed 16 fluid ounces of it, three times each day, for a period of years. He measured his silver to contain a whopping 450 parts per million, which is 22 times stronger than is normal. This regimen gave his body the same concentration of silver as if he had consumed 1,056 fluid ounces of standard colloidal silver (8.25 gallons per day). The extreme concentration means that the silver had to be discolored and impure, and it almost certainly had salt added. Otherwise, it would have taken him days to manufacture each day’s batch at such concentrations, so we can be certain that he was using silver chloride instead of colloidal silver. It is a reflection of the stupidity of turning to pharmaceutical manufacturing processes for the practice of alternative medicine, and then using the terrible results to prove that alternative medicine is bad. It is what we see most often in the politics of silver.

The most popularized case of argyria is that of Paul Karason, the so-called Smurf Man. He internally consumed large doses of a homemade silver solution for years, and then began also using silver externally on his face. He too made his silver solution using salt, which resulted in silver chloride. Despite it being a completely different substance, he refers to his solution as “colloidal silver”, as well as the media. We believe that after he noticed some slight skin discoloration, he actually increased his dosage, because he had found a way to become famous and profit from being a freak. He admits publicly to using excessive amounts of his silver chloride both internally and transdermally, daily for 14 years. He still continues to use it, despite his obvious saturation. He further admits that his face turned blue before the rest of his body; and yet he continued to use both silver products, despite the color change. Due to Karason’s self-inflicted and intentional cosmetic alteration, the F.D.A. has used him in a public relations campaign that is intended to convince the public that colloidal silver is dangerous. We can only speculate about how much the media networks and the F.D.A. have paid him for his appearances.

Not one death or serious side effect has ever been recorded for pure colloidal silver, during the century of its existence. There are, however, plenty of horror stories from people who used the chemically-altered silvers, made with various proteins, salts, or fermented bacteria.

Video: How to Make Genuine Colloidal Silver at Home

 

Purchasing Silver and Colloidal Silver

Some of our readers have had great difficulty in finding a financial institution that sells silver bullion bars, as we recommended in our manufacturing video. Thus, purchasing silver bullion bars online may be the only feasible method of acquisition for some people. In light of the significant problem, and the need to ensure extreme purity, we shall forgo our standard policy of avoiding making recommendations about specific brands and companies. The most trustworthy source for online purchases of silver bullion bars is the JM Bullion company, in our opinion. The company has a spotless reputation. It became prestigious throughout the precious metals industry for producing the Engelhard brand of silver bullion, which became the industry’s standard of purity. We have no reason to believe that the company’s standards have declined.

We have finally found a trustworthy seller of ready-made colloidal silver. His name is Brian Humphreys, and he is currently selling his Purevon Colloidal Silver online under the product name Silver in a Bottle. We spent a year comparing notes with Brian about how to best produce colloidal silver. Brian’s tenacity, his unrelenting research, and his obsession with perfection left us relieved that we had finally found a producer in which we could trust the health of our people. We can now wholeheartedly recommend Brian’s Silver in a Bottle with the cleanest of consciences. He is a newcomer to the market, but he knows colloidal silver backwards and forwards like very few people do. If you must buy colloidal silver, then get it from Purevon. Brian is not only supremely qualified to make the highest quality product; he is refreshingly honest too. We know how difficult it is to find this combination. He does not feed anyone baloney about his silver having special atoms that do not exist elsewhere, or that he has a secret manufacturing process that makes his silver better than silver. Instead, he makes his colloidal silver the old-fashioned way, and he tells the truth about it. An added benefit to choosing Purevon’s colloidal silver is that its prices are lower than what we have seen from any other manufacturer. At the time that this was written, a 16 ounce bottle is being sold for less than 20 dollars. That is unheard of.

 

Free Books Which Survived the Book Burnings

Use of Colloids in Health and Disease by Alfred Searle (1920)

Practical Colloid Chemistry by Wolfgang Ostwald (1926)

Inorganic Colloidal Chemistry by Harry Weiser (1933)

 

by Thomas Corriher  August 15, 2013

Magnesium deficiency, the signs and the remedy

magnesium-deficiency-effects

 

Signs of magnesium deficiency are everywhere in the United States and Canada, if you know what to look for. Unfortunately, the symptoms are so incredibly common that they constantly slip under the radar! Hardly anyone, especially doctors, notice that the ailments we suffer from on a daily basis are actually magnesium deficiency symptoms… and we’re all paying for it.
Just about every single person you come into contact with – especially those with a health problem, but even those with only minor complaints – are suffering in some way from this nationwide deficiency. Including you!

What Exactly Is Magnesium?

Magnesium is life. It is the 4th most abundant mineral in the body, right next to sulfur (which is JUST as important).

Along with being a mineral, magnesium is also an electrolyte. “Sports drinks” (aka sugar-filled scams) claim to contain electrolytes such as magnesium, potassium, and sodium because we sweat away these important nutrients during exercise, and their deficiency is what leads to the common problems athletes face, such as muscle cramping! But believe me – electrolytes (especially magnesium) do so much more than treat and prevent muscle cramps.

First off, electrolytes are what allow us to be living, electrical beings. They are responsible for all electrical activity (and thus brain conductivity) in the body. Without electrolytes like magnesium, muscles can’t fire, your heart cannot beat, and your brain doesn’t receive any signals. We need magnesium to stay alive, point blank. As soon as we don’t have enough of it, we start to lose the energy and conductivity that keeps us going. Technically, as soon as we become deficient, we slowly begin to die, getting more aches and pains day by day, feeling worse year after year. I can’t stress it enough… signs of magnesium deficiency are everywhere, if you just look.

Magnesium is a cofactor in over three hundred reactions in the body, necessary for transmission of nerve impulses, temperature regulations, detoxification in the liver, and formation of bones and teeth. However, magnesium shows its true power in cardiovascular health. The Weston A. Price foundation writes, “Magnesium alone can fulfill the role of many common cardiac medications: magnesium inhibits blood clots (like aspirin), thins the blood (like Coumadin), blocks calcium uptake (like calcium channel-blocking durgs such as Procardia) and relaxes blood vessels (like ACE inhibitors such as Vasotec) (Pelton, 2001).”

Nearly EVERYONE has signs of magnesium deficiency but we don’t realize it…

Symptoms include:

  • Constipation
  • High blood pressure (Hypertension)
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Insomnia
  • Behavioral disturbances
  • Lethargy
  • Impaired memory/thinking
  • Seizures
  • Fatigue
  • Sleep disturbances
  • Pain
  • Muscle cramps
  • Chronic back pain
  • Headaches
  • Migraines
  • Muscular pain
  • Tendonitis
  • Anger
  • Aggression
  • ADHD
  • Brain fog
  • Tension
  • Anxiety disorders such as OCD

“Similarly, patients with diagnoses of depression, epilepsy, diabetes mellitus, tremor, Parkinsonism, arrhythmias, circulatory disturbances (stroke, cardiac infarction, arteriosclerosis), hypertension, migraine, cluster headache, cramps, neuro-vegetative disorders, abdominal pain, osteoporosis, asthma, stress dependent disorders, tinnitus, ataxia, confusion, preeclampsia, weakness, might also be consequences of the magnesium deficiency syndrome.”

Amazingly, the article referenced above even mentions neuro-vegetative disorders as a possible result of magnesium deficiency. This would include comas. Stress hormone production requires high levels of magnesium and stressful experiences can immediately lead to complete depletion of magnesium stores; could this be a contributing factor to why we see comas after traumatic accidents/injuries? As I mentioned above, magnesium is an electrolyte responsible for brain signals and conductivity. Without magnesium, people in comas may not be able to come to and resume conductivity. Many people with diabetes also fall into diabetic comas. Diabetes is listed as another possible consequence of magnesium deficiency. Could this be a factor in diabetic comas as well? Something to think about and research further!

symptoms-of-magnesium-deficiency

Cravings

Do you crave chocolate? Why, when people are stressed out, do they go for chocolate? Chocolate is one of the highest food sources of magnesium.

Magnesium is associated with so many disorders that Dr. Carolyn Dean of the Nutritional Magnesium Association has devoted an entire book to discussing how she has treated thousands of patients for a wide array of diseases, with magnesium as the primary component. Her book, The Magnesium Miracle, is a must-read if you have any of the magnesium deficiency symptoms above, or any health problems in general – as there is likely a magnesium component to everything. Check out 50 Studies Suggest That Magnesium Deficiency Is Killing Us.

 

Why Don’t Doctors Find Magnesium Deficiencies In Tests?

Unfortunately, conventional medicine has not woken up to the amount of research that has been done on magnesium deficiency.

One of the reasons Western Medicine is so off base with magnesium is how they test it: with blood tests.

Blood tests do not yield ANY information about magnesium… why? Because the body controls the levels of blood magnesium very tightly. If the magnesium in the blood drops just a little bit, you’re going to have a heart attack. It’s that sample. So to prevent this, the body will rob all of its cells, tissues, and bones of magnesium in order to keep the blood levels constant. If you do a blood test for magnesium, the cells could be completely empty while your blood levels remain constant.

What’s worse is that magnesium is not even in your blood. 99% of the magnesium in the body is stored in the cells that get robbed, while a mere 1% of your body’s total magnesium is in the blood. These tests are a complete waste of time, and they’re not educating doctors to this reality.

“A serum test for magnesium is actually worse than ineffective, because a test result that is within normal limits lends a false sense of security about the status of the mineral in the body. It also explains why doctors don’t recognize magnesium deficiency; they assume serum magnesium levels are an accurate measure of all the magnesium in the body.” – Dr. Carolyn Dean, The Magnesium Miracle.

 

Why Are We So Deficient?

Here’s the short(ish) version: Number one, we’re being poisoned by our food. Number two, we’re increasingly stressed out. We’re running our engines on high to keep up with life and it’s draining us. Stress hormone production requires high levels of magnesium and stressful experiences lead to depletion of magnesium stores. Number three, we’re eating more sugar than ever. For every molecule of sugar we consume, our bodies use 54 molecules of magnesium to process it. Fourth, low levels in the soil and modern farming techniques deplete stores of magnesium. And lastly, magnesium is depleted by many pharmaceutical drugs and estrogen compounds such as oral contraceptives, antibiotics, cortisone, prednisone, and blood pressure medications (“Drug-induced nutrient depletion handbook,” Pelton, 2001). Diuretics in coffee and tea (caffeine) also raise excretion levels. Oh and by the way – flouride competes for absorption with magnesium!

Nowadays, nearly everyone is magnesium deficient – no test needed. Refined/processed foods are stripped of their mineral, vitamin, and fiber content. These are anti-nutrient foods because they actually steal magnesium in order to be metabolized. When consumed, they demand that we supplement with magnesium or we are destined to break down eventually due to severe deficiency. Like I said, sugar is the worst offender. Every single molecule of sugar you consume drags over 50 times the amount of magnesium out of your body.

Well, what if you eat a healthy diet? Processed products are not the only foods that are devoid of magnesium. In general, magnesium has been depleted from topsoil, diminishing dietary intake across the board while our need for magnesium has increased, due to the high levels of toxic exposure we come across in our daily lives (air, water, plastics, chemicals, the list goes on!). The soil is depleted of magnesium because of the pesticides that are sprayed on all conventionally grown plants and worldwide pollution that affects even the cleanest fields. Pesticides also kill those beneficial bacteria/fungi that are necessary in order for plants to convert soil nutrients into plant nutrients usable by humans.

 

Are You A Cannabis User?

Cannabis has so many positive effects in terms of treating diseases such as epilepsy, cancer, and more (read 1, 2, 3 and cureyourowncancer.org). Trust me, I’ll be the first to tell you I’m all for it – it’s a safe and effective herb with countless therapeutic benefits that the government has been hiding for years. The only way they want you using it is if they’ve patented one of its’ chemical compounds and can sell it to you for a profit.

However, we should also look at what happens to our body on a cellular level if we use cannabis on a daily basis. Would you take parasite cleansing herbs every day for the rest of your life, or even every few days? Probably not. You’d take them when you’re sick or during a monthly cleanse, or else you’d develop some side effects from overuse. We need to remember that cannabis is a powerful herbal medicine and should be treated in such a way.

It turns out that using marijuana tends to deplete the body’s stores of magnesium, with the result that the person feels more on-edge after coming down from the high.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t safe in moderation. It means that over time, if used consistently without proper balance via magnesium replenishment, it can and will cause magnesium deficiency.

 

The Best Ways To Get Magnesium

1. Eat magnesium rich foods grown on organic soil.mag-2Bcollage

2. Take ionic magnesium drops. This is my new favorite method, which I’ve learned from The Magnesium Miracle.

3. Apply magnesium oil to your skin! This is the second best way to raise your levels.

4. Soak in Epsom salt baths. This will provide not only magnesium, but sulfur for your liver as well.

Additional References (not linked in the article)

Oxford Journals – Magnesium Basics: http://ckj.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/Suppl_1/i3.full

Dr. Carolyn Dean, MD: http://drcarolyndean.com/magnesium_miracle/

Source: http://collective-evolution.com

 

by ORGANIC OLIVIA

 

What Fasting Does For Your Brain

fasting
I chose to include ‘Big Pharma’ in the title because that’s exactly what it is. There have been countless examples of the manipulation of published research at the hands of pharmaceutical companies in recent years. This is why Harvard Professor of Medicine Arnold Symour Relman told the world that the medical profession has been bought by the pharmaceutical industry. It’s why Dr. Richard Horton, Editor in Chief of The Lancet, recently stated that much of the scientific literature published today is simply untrue. It’s why Dr. Marcia Angell, former Editor in Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, said that the “pharmaceutical industry likes to depict itself as a research-based industry, as the source of innovative drugs. Nothing could be further from the truth.” And it’s why John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, published an article titled “Why Most Published Research Findings Are Falsewhich subsequently became the most widely accessed article in the history of the Public Library of Science (PLoS).I also chose to mention ‘Big Pharma’ because of Dr. Mattson’s comments towards the end of the video.

“Why is it that the normal diet is three meals a day plus snacks? It isn’t that it’s the healthiest eating pattern, now that’s my opinion but I think there is a lot of evidence to support that. There are a lot of pressures to have that eating pattern, there’s a lot of money involved. The food industry — are they going to make money from skipping breakfast like I did today? No, they’re going to lose money. If people fast, the food industry loses money. What about the pharmaceutical industries? What if people do some intermittent fasting, exercise periodically and are very healthy, is the pharmaceutical industry going to make any money on healthy people?” 

Main Points Of The Lecture Above & The Science To Go With It

Mark and his team have published several papers that discuss how fasting twice a week could significantly lower the risk of developing both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

“Dietary changes have long been known to have an effect on the brain. Children who suffer from epileptic seizures have fewer of them when placed on caloric restriction or fasts. It is believed that fasting helps kick-start protective measures that help counteract the overexcited signals that epileptic brains often exhibit. (Some children with epilepsy have also benefited from a specific high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet.) Normal brains, when overfed, can experience another kind of uncontrolled excitation, impairing the brain’s function, Mattson and another researcher reported in January in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience.”(source)

Basically, when you take a look at caloric restriction studies, many of them show a prolonged lifespan as well as an increased ability to fight chronic disease.

“Calorie restriction (CR) extends life span and retards age-related chronic diseases in a variety of species, including rats, mice, fish, flies, worms, and yeast. The mechanism or mechanisms through which this occurs are unclear.”

The quote above is from a review of the literature that is more than 10 years old. The work presented here is now showing some of these mechanisms that were previously unclear.

Fasting does good things for the brain, and this is evident by all of the beneficial neurochemical changes that happen in the brain when we fast. It also improves cognitive function, increases neurotrophic factors, increases stress resistance, and reduces inflammation.

Fasting is a challenge to your brain, and your brain responds to that challenge by adapting stress response pathways which help your brain cope with stress and risk for disease. The same changes that occur in the brain during fasting mimic the changes that occur with regular exercise. They both increase the production of protein in the brain (neurotrophic factors), which in turn promotes the growth of neurons, the connection between neurons, and the strength of synapses.

“Challenges to your brain, whether it’s intermittent fasting [or] vigorous exercise . . . is cognitive challenges. When this happens neuro-circuits are activated, levels of neurotrophic factors increase, that promotes the growth of neurons [and] the formation and strengthening of synapses. . . .” 

Fasting can also stimulate the production of new nerve cells from stem cells in the hippocampus. He also mentions ketones (an energy source for neurons), and how fasting stimulates the production of ketones and that it may also increase the number of mitochondria in neurons. Fasting also increases the number of mitochondria in nerve cells; this comes as a result of the neurons adapting to the stress of fasting (by producing more mitochondria).

By increasing the number of mitochondria in the neurons, the ability for nerons to form and maintain the connections between each other also increases, thereby improving learning and memory ability.

“Intermittent fasting enhances the ability of nerve cells to repair DNA.” 

He also goes into the evolutionary aspect of this theory – how our ancestors adapted and were built for going long periods of time without food.

A study published in the June 5 issue of Cell Stem Cell by researchers from the University of Southern California showed that cycles of prolonged fasting protect against immune system damage and, moreover, induce immune system regeneration. They concluded that fasting shifts stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal. It triggers stem cell based regeneration of an organ or system. (source)

Human clinical trials were conducted using patients who were receiving chemotherapy. For long periods of time, patients did not eat, which significantly lowered their white blood cell counts. In mice, fasting cycles “flipped a regenerative switch, changing the signaling pathways for hematopoietic stem cells, which are responsible for the generation of blood and immune systems.”

This means that fasting kills off old and damaged immune cells, and when the body rebounds it uses stem cells to create brand new, completely healthy cells.

“We could not predict that prolonged fasting would have such a remarkable effect in promoting stem cell-based regeneration of the hematopoietic system. . . . When you starve, the system tries to save energy, and one of the things it can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that are not needed, especially those that may be damaged.  What we started noticing in both our human work and animal work is that the white blood cell count goes down with prolonged fasting. Then when you re-feed, the blood cells come back. ” – Valter Longo, corresponding author (source)

A scientific review of multiple scientific studies regarding fasting was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2007. It examined a multitude of both human and animal studies and determined that fasting is an effective way to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. It also showed significant potential in treating diabetes. (source)

Before You Fast

Before you fast, make sure you do your research. Personally, I’ve been fasting for years, so it is something that comes easy for me.

One recommended way of doing it — which was tested by the BBC’s Michael Mosley in order to reverse his diabetes, high cholesterol, and other problems that were associated with his obesity — is what is known as the “5:2 Diet.” On the 5:2 plan, you cut your food down to one-fourth of your normal daily calories on fasting days (about 600 calories for men and about 500 for women), while consuming plenty of water and tea. On the other five days of the week, you can eat normally.

image

Another way to do it, as mentioned above, is to restrict your food intake between the hours of 11am and 7pm daily, while not eating during the hours outside of that time.

Bottom line, how you think about you’re diet is, in my opinion, one of the most, if not the most important part of staying healthy. How you think about what you are putting in your body is important, and I believe this will eventually be firmly established in the untainted, unbiased, uninfluenced medical literature of the future.

Below is a video of Dr. Joseph Mercola explaining the benefits of intermittent fasting. Here is a great article by him that explains how he believes intermittent fasting can help you live a healthier life.

 

Related : The Benefits of Fasting for 16 Hours

 

Arjun Walia

The Benefits of Fasting for 16 Hours

Fasting-Infographic-Hi-Res
For example, recent research has shown that cycles of prolonged fasting protect against immune system damage and induce immune system regeneration. Researchers concluded that fasting shifts stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal.  (source)Fasting also has shown to have remarkable effects 0n the brain. Here is a TEDx talk given by Mark Mattson about it, the current Chief of the Laboratory of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging.  Mark and his team have published several papers that discuss how fasting twice a week could significantly lower the risk of developing both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. You can find some of those papers sourced within this article.Another great place to start if you are looking for an introduction to the science behind fasting is the BBC documentary Eat Fast and Live Longer. It also features more of the world’s top researchers in the field.

Related: What Fasting Does for the Brain

 

Arjun Walia

Powerful Toxin Cleanse

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We need to take care of our diet and the foods we consume because they affect every part of our body, but the digestive system is affected the most.

The toxins which come with the consumed food accumulate in the system after a while and they can cause various health issues including constipation, diarrhea, bowel movements, weak immune system, and low energy levels.

You can solve these health issues with a simple colon detoxification. It will improve your overall health, and will help lose weight due to the fact that detoxification is the first step in the losing weight process. It is recommended to do this cleaning before you start any weight loss program.

These are the 2 ingredients for colon detoxification which will improve your overall health:

 

Kefir

Kefir is a beverage which includes milk and specific grains. It is a excellent source of protein and is full of minerals, amino acids, and B vitamins, which makes it extremely beneficial for the gut.

It will clean the intestines, eliminate pathogens like E. Coli and return the balance of the intestinal flora thanks to the probiotic structures it contains as a few strains of useful bacteria and healthy yeasts.

It is also great for strengthening the immune system and optimizing the digestive system.

Flaxseed

It is a great ingredient which can help you with the cleansing. In order to increase their size these seeds need to be soaked in water. They will remove the waste toxins because they have alpha-linoleic acid which is a type of omega-3 fatty acids.

It is very important to grind these seeds with coffee grinder because it is difficult for our digestive system to digest them whole.

Combination of kefir and flaxseed

This combination is very powerful when it comes to cleansing. It is very important to use it in smaller quantities at first and then, gradually increase the intake because fermented food is often problematic for digestion for people who don’t use it so often. Take this remedy 2-3 times weekly, for 15 days. The optimal capacity of the immune system will be restored after this period.

Preparation and usage:

Add one tablespoon of grounded flax seed in 1/3 or ¼ glass of kefir. It is very important to consume 1 glass of this mixture in the morning, on an empty stomach, and another glass before going to bed. This remedy requires consuming 8 or more glasses of water a day. This procedure need to be performed for 1 week then take a break for 2-3 days. After the break, you can use the natural cleanser again and do the procedure as many times as you want.

Cymantra Admin – July 03 2016

Cannabis Oil, gathering an unstoppable momentum as a world class healer

Cannabis Oil_3

Cannabis oil is used in cancer treatment. There are already numerous cases around the world which confirm the healing aspect of cannabis oil.

Cannabis oil has healed some very serious diseases, including anxiety disorders, epilepsy, MS (Multiple Sclerosis), cerebral palsy and cancer.

What’s the difference between cannabis, hemp and marijuana?

First of all, let’s clear up some definitions. Cannabis sativa is the plant and species; hemp and marijuana are both varieties or subspecies of it. Marijuana is actually a Spanish slang term meaning “Mary-Jane”.

Marijuana is simply considered to have a higher THC content than hemp. THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) is one of the unique phytonutrients or plant chemicals of cannabis. However, both hemp and marijuana contain various cannabinoids, a class of chemicals that activate cell membrane receptors.

A brief history of the suppression of cannabis

To those unfamiliar with the beginning of the United States, it may come as a shock to learn that hemp was a big part of the inception.

Not only was hemp (in all of its forms) completely legal, but also it was actually required to be planted by the early colonists! The Founding Fathers made references to it in their writings and grew it themselves.

It was widely known that hemp was an incredible plant with a wide variety of uses: textiles, rope, clothing, paper, fuel, nutrition, medicine and recreation. So how did hemp fall from such exalted status to become an illegal “controlled substance”, for which you could be imprisoned due to mere possession of it?

The answer, as with many of aspects of the global conspiracy, comes back to the mega rich and powerful ruling elite families, in this case the Rockefellers. I have written other articles exposing how the Rockefellers invented modern (Western) medicine and created the Big Pharma cartel as a way to sell their petroleum-based drugs.

John D. Rockefeller had the reputation as a ruthless businessman who once said, “Competition is sin.” The prohibition movement of the 1920s to ban alcohol was not really about making America more pure or morally upright. It was about the bottom line; Rockefeller wanted to eliminate competition to oil for fuel for motor-based vehicles. Similarly, the movement to ban hemp was also an attempt to destroy competition to oil-based products. Hemp is a powerful competitor to crude oil in many ways. Thus, the propaganda campaign was launched to demonized hemp and marijuana by inventing the fake phenomenon of “reefer madness”. The brainwashing worked and Congress outlawed the plant in various stages, eventually declaring it a controlled substance in 1970.

What is Cannabis Oil?

Cannabis oil is not to be confused with hempseed oil, which is the nutritional oil made from pressing hemp seeds, and is used as a food not a medicine. Medicinal cannabis oil is made by gathering large quantities of cannabis leaves from female plants, using a solvent to strip off some or all of the THC, and boiling off the excess water to produce a rich, gold or brown-colored concentrate. Depending on who is making it, the final product may have little or no THC, the chemical responsible for getting people “high”. For more information on one way to prepare cannabis oil, see Rick Simpson’s Run From The Cure.

Science has not yet discovered all of the hundreds or thousands of cannabis phytonutrients which are responsible for the healing effects of cannabis oil, but one of the main ones is CBD (Cannabidiol). Excitingly, CBD is being studied all over the world as people are beginning to realize its phenomenal healing benefits. Many clinical studies have shown that CBD is a very effective painkiller – especially for peripheral neuropathy associated with diabetes, arthritis, MS, cancer and other neurodegenerative conditions. CBD is especially brilliant because it prevents and suppresses inflammation. This means it is both a preventative and curative natural medicine. Chronic low level inflammation, as you may know, is the hidden cause of much pain and many diseases, so the potential for cannabis oil to help a lot of people is huge.

How does Cannabis Oil beat cancer?

All of the cells in our body have cannabinoid receptor sites, including cells which have gone rogue and become cancerous. The brilliant thing about cannabis oil is that its THC and CBD connect to these cannabinoid receptor sites, causing the cell to increase ceramide, which then causes apoptosis or cell death. However, normal cells are unaffected by this, so cannabis oil is a targeted killer of cancer cells, leaving healthy cells intact. It reminds my very much of laetrile (or amygdalin or Vitamin B17) which functions in exactly the same way with cyanide as a targeted killer of cancer. As Dennis Hill writes, “Nature has designed the perfect medicine that fits exactly with our own immune system of receptors and signaling metabolites to provide rapid and complete immune response for systemic integrity and metabolic homeostasis.”

The unstoppable momentum of Cannabis Oil in the US

Due to recent changes in State legislation in 2014, marijuana is now legal in 20 of the 50 states in the USA. In 2 of these states (Colorado and Washington), it is fully legalized for recreational use, with Oregon and Alaska to come, while the other states or territories require a medical marijuana license (you can see the state-by-state details here). So it has already come a long way, and will continue to go much further. I predict at one point it will be legal in all 50 states in the US, and eventually throughout the world. There is already legislation pending in other American states, and the US Federal Government just decided in its 2015 spending measure that it would no longer allocate funds to the DOJ (Department of Justice) to enforce marijuana laws. That’s the beginning of the end of Federal cannabis prohibition!

The unstoppable momentum of Cannabis Oil throughout the world

Many countries around the world are leaning towards legalization, including the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Jamaica, Mexico, Canada, Spain, Argentina and India, according to this article. Uruguay became the first country in 2013 to fully legalize cannabis. It is also legal in North Korea, believe it or not!

The case of Cannabis Oil shows the people have the power

Cannabis can have healing effects not just as cannabis oil; check out this video showing the power of raw cannabis leaves too. Truth be told, the healing power of cannabis has just barely been tapped. And, for those who don’t need to use cannabis medicinally, why not add it to your diet? The nutritional profile of hemp is unparalleled. Its protein profile is similar to that of human blood. It contains all 8 essential amino acids, as well as 2 key globulins, albumin and edestin (the latter of which is found only in hemp seeds). Edestin is so similar to protein found in the human body that it can actually repair your DNA! Additionally, hemp seeds contain the essential fatty acids linoleic acid (omega-6) and alpha-linoleic acid (omega-3) – in the ideal ratio for optimal health (3:1). These healthy fats reduce inflammation, boost the immune system and are responsible for strong and shiny skin, hair and nails. Hemp seeds have high quantities of iron, magnesium and zinc, and so combat many ailments resulting from a deficiency in these minerals. Other benefits of hemp seeds include reducing craving for junk foods and boosting memory.

The case of cannabis is a further positive indication to me that the NWO elite, the global conspirators, are not as powerful as they would like to think. We the people ultimately have the power, and the truth will ultimately triumph over lies, just as the powerful medicinal value of cannabis has outrun and outstripped the propaganda of “reefer madness”. Sometimes, though, it does take a long time for truth to prevail.

May 5, 2016

The 9 Foods You Should Never Eat


 

9 Foods Not to Eat

By Dr. Mercola

Many foods have been heavily promoted as being healthy when they are nothing more than pernicious junk foods. In the featured article, Clean Plates1 founder Jared Koch shared his list of nine staple foods that are far less “good for you” than you’ve been led to believe.

Here, I expand on the selections that are mentioned in the featured article.

1. Canned Tomatoes

Many leading brands of canned foods contain BPA — a toxic chemical linked to reproductive abnormalities, neurological effects, heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, heart disease and other serious health problems. According to Consumer Reports‘ testing, just a couple of servings of canned food can exceed the safety limits for daily BPA exposure for children.

High acidity — a prominent characteristic of tomatoes – causes BPA to leach into your food. To avoid this hazardous chemical, avoid canned foods entirely and stick to fresh fruits and vegetables, or switch over to brands that use glass containers instead—especially for acidic foods like tomatoes.

2. Processed Meats

As Koch warns, processed deli meats like salami, ham, and roast beef are typically made with meats from animals raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

This means they’re given growth hormones, antibiotics and other veterinary drugs, and raised in deplorable conditions that promote disease, these meats are also filled with sodium nitrite (a commonly used preservative and antimicrobial agent that also adds color and flavor) and other chemical flavorings and dyes.

Nitrites can be converted into nitrosamines in your body, which are potent cancer-causing chemicals. Research has linked nitrites to higher rates of colorectal, stomach and pancreatic cancer. But that’s not all. Most processed deli meats also contain other cancer-promoting chemicals that are created during cooking. These include:

  • Heterocyclic Amines (HCAs) which are hazardous compounds created in meats and other foods that have been cooked at high temperatures. According to research, processed meats are clearly associated with an increased risk of stomach, colon and breast cancers.
  • Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs): Many processed meats are smoked as part of the curing process, which causes PAHs to form. PAHs can also form when grilling. When fat drips onto the heat source, causing excess smoke, and the smoke surrounds your food, it can transfer cancer-causing PAHs to the meat.
  • Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs): When food is cooked at high temperatures—including when it is pasteurized or sterilized—it increases the formation of AGEs in your food. AGEs build up in your body over time leading to oxidative stress, inflammation and an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease.

The truth is, processed meats are not a healthful choice for anyone and should be avoided entirely, according to a 2011 review of more than 7,000 clinical studies examining the connection between diet and cancer. The report was commissioned by The World Cancer Research Fund2 (WCRF) using money raised from the general public. Therefore the findings were not influenced by any vested interests, which makes it all the more reliable.

It’s the biggest review of the evidence ever undertaken, and it confirms previous findings: Processed meats increase your risk of cancer, especially bowel cancer, and NO amount of processed meat is “safe.” You’re far better off ditching the deli meats and opting instead for fresh organically-raised grass-fed meats, or wild caught salmon.

3. Margarine

The unfortunate result of the low-fat diet craze has been the shunning of healthful fats such as butter, and public health has declined as a result of this folly. There are a myriad of unhealthy components to margarine and other butter impostors, including:

  • Trans fats: These unnatural fats in margarine, shortenings and spreads are formed during the process of hydrogenation, which turns liquid vegetable oils into a solid fat. Trans fats contribute to heart disease, cancer, bone problems, hormonal imbalance and skin disease; infertility, difficulties in pregnancy and problems with lactation; and low birth weight, growth problems and learning disabilities in children. A US government panel of scientists determined that man-made trans fats are unsafe at any level.
  • Free radicals: Free radicals and other toxic breakdown products are the result of high temperature industrial processing of vegetable oils. They contribute to numerous health problems, including cancer and heart disease.
  • Emulsifiers and preservatives: Numerous additives of questionable safety are added to margarines and spreads. Most vegetable shortening is stabilized with preservatives like BHT.
  • Hexane and other solvents: Used in the extraction process, these industrial chemicals can have toxic effects.

Good-old-fashioned butter, when made from grass-fed cows, is rich in a substance called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). Much of the reason why butter is vilified is because it contains saturated fat. If you’re still in the mindset that saturated fat is harmful for your health, then please read the Healthy Fats section of my Optimized Nutrition Plan to learn why saturated fat is actually good for you.

4. Vegetable Oils

Of all the destructive foods available to us, those made with heated vegetable oils are some of the worst. Make no mistake about it–vegetable oils are not the health food that you were lead to believe they were. This is largely due to the fact that they are highly processed, and when consumed in massive amounts, as they are by most Americans, they seriously distort the important omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. Ideally, this ratio is 1:1.

Anytime you cook a food, you run the risk of creating heat-induced damage. The oils you choose to cook with must be stable enough to resist chemical changes when heated to high temperatures, or you run the risk of damaging your health. One of the ways vegetable oils can inflict damage is by converting your good cholesterol into bad cholesterol—by oxidizing it. When you cook with polyunsaturated vegetable oils (such as canola, corn, and soy oils), oxidized cholesterol is introduced into your system.

As the oil is heated and mixed with oxygen, it goes rancid. Rancid oil is oxidized oil and should NOT be consumed—it leads directly to vascular disease. Trans-fats are introduced when these oils are hydrogenated, which increases your risk of chronic diseases like breast cancer and heart disease.

So what’s the best oil to cook with?

Of all the available oils, coconut oil is the oil of choice for cooking because it is nearly a completely saturated fat, which means it is much less susceptible to heat damage. And coconut oil is one of the most unique and beneficial fats for your body. For more in-depth information about the many benefits of coconut oil, please see this special report. Olive oil, while certainly a healthful oil, is easily damaged by heat and is best reserved for drizzling cold over salad.

5. Microwave Popcorn

Perfluoroalkyls, which include perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), are chemicals used to keep grease from leaking through fast food wrappers, are being ingested by people through their food and showing up as contaminants in blood. Microwave popcorn bags are lined with PFOA, and when they are heated the compound leaches onto the popcorn.

These chemicals are part of an expanding group of chemicals commonly referred to as “gender-bending” chemicals, because they can disrupt your endocrine system and affect your sex hormones. The EPA has ruled PFCs as “likely carcinogens,” and has stated that PFOA “poses developmental and reproductive risks to humans.” Researchers have also linked various PFCs to a range of other health dangers, such as:

  • Infertility — A study published in the journal Human Reproduction3 found that both PFOA and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate), dramatically increased the odds of infertility. PFOA was linked to a 60 to 154 percent increase in the chance of infertility.
  • Thyroid disease — A 2010 study4 found that PFOA can damage your thyroid function. Individuals with the highest PFOA concentrations were more than twice as likely to report current thyroid disease, compared to those with the lowest PFOA concentrations. Your thyroid contains thyroglobulin protein, which binds to iodine to form hormones, which in turn influence essentially every organ, tissue and cell in your body. Thyroid hormones are also required for growth and development in children. Thyroid disease, if left untreated, can lead to heart disease, infertility, muscle weakness, and osteoporosis.
  • CancerPFOA has been associated with tumors in at least four different organs in animal tests (liver, pancreas, testicles and mammary glands in rats), and has been associated with increases in prostate cancer in PFOA plant workers.
  • Immune system problems — Several studies by scientists in Sweden indicate that PFCs have an adverse effect on your immune system. As described in a report on PFCs by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), PFOA was found to decrease all immune cell subpopulations studied, in the thymus and spleen, and caused immunosupression.
  • Increased LDL cholesterol levels – A 2010 study in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine5 found that children and teens with higher PFOA levels had higher levels of total cholesterol and LDL or “bad” cholesterol, while PFOS was associated with increased total cholesterol, including both LDL cholesterol and HDL or “good” cholesterol.

I strongly recommend avoiding any product you know containing these toxic compounds, particularly non-stick cookware, but also foods sold in grease-proof food packaging, such as fast food and microwave popcorn. Clearly, if you’re eating fast food or junk food, PFCs from the wrapper may be the least of your problems, but I think it’s still important to realize that not only are you not getting proper nutrition from the food itself, the wrappers may also add to your toxic burden.

6. Non-Organic Potatoes and Other Fresh Produce Known for High Pesticide Contamination

Your best bet is to buy only organic fruits and vegetables, as synthetic agricultural chemicals are not permissible under the USDA organic rules. That said, not all conventionally grown fruits and vegetables are subjected to the same amount of pesticide load. While Koch focuses on potatoes, as they tend to take up a lot of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals present in the soil, I would recommend reviewing the “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce”6 by the Environmental Working Group.

Of the 48 different fruit and vegetable categories tested by the EWG for the 2013 guide, the following 15 fruits and vegetables had the highest pesticide load, making them the most important to buy or grow organically:

Apples Celery Cherry tomatoes
Cucumbers Grapes Hot peppers
Nectarines (imported) Peaches Potatoes
Spinach Strawberries Sweet bell peppers
Kale Collard greens Summer squash

 

In contrast, the following foods were found to have the lowest residual pesticide load, making them the safest bet among conventionally grown vegetables. Note that a small amount of sweet corn and most Hawaiian papaya, although low in pesticides, are genetically engineered (GE). If you’re unsure of whether the sweet corn or papaya is GE, I’d recommend opting for organic varieties:

Asparagus Avocado Cabbage
Cantaloupe Sweet corn (non-GMO) Eggplant
Grapefruit Kiwi Mango
Mushrooms Onions Papayas (non-GMO. Most Hawaiian papaya is GMO)
Pineapple Sweet peas (frozen) Sweet potatoes

7. Table Salt

Salt is essential for life—you cannot live without it. However, regular ‘table salt’ and the salt found in processed foods are NOT identical to the salt your body really needs. In fact, table salt has practically nothing in common with natural salt. One is health damaging, and the other is healing.

  • Processed salt is 98 percent sodium chloride, and the remaining two percent comprises man-made chemicals, such as moisture absorbents, and a little added iodine. These are dangerous chemicals like ferrocyanide and aluminosilicate. Some European countries, where water fluoridation is not practiced, also add fluoride to table salt
  • Natural salt is about 84 percent sodium chloride. The remaining 16 percent of natural salt consists of other naturally occurring minerals, including trace minerals like silicon, phosphorous and vanadium

Given that salt is absolutely essential to good health, I recommend switching to a pure, unrefined salt. My favorite is an ancient, all-natural sea salt from the Himalayas. Himalayan salt is completely pure, having spent many thousands of years maturing under extreme tectonic pressure, far away from impurities, so it isn’t polluted with the heavy metals and industrial toxins of today. And it’s hand-mined, hand-washed, and minimally processed. Himalayan salt is only 85 percent sodium chloride, the remaining 15 percent contains 84 trace minerals from our prehistoric seas. Unrefined natural salt is important to many biological processes, including:

  • Being a major component of your blood plasma, lymphatic fluid, extracellular fluid, and even amniotic fluid
  • Carrying nutrients into and out of your cells
  • Maintain and regulate blood pressure
  • Increasing the glial cells in your brain, which are responsible for creative thinking and long-term planning
  • Helping your brain communicate with your muscles, so that you can move on demand via sodium-potassium ion exchange

While natural unprocessed salt has many health benefits, that does not mean you should use it with impunity. Another important factor is the potassium to sodium ratio of your diet. Imbalance in this ratio can not only lead to hypertension (high blood pressure) and other health problems, including heart disease, memory decline, erectile dysfunction and more. The easiest way to avoid this imbalance is by avoiding processed foods, which are notoriously low in potassium while high in sodium. Instead, eat a diet of whole, ideally organically-grown foods to ensure optimal nutrient content. This type of diet will naturally provide much larger amounts of potassium in relation to sodium.

8. Soy Protein Isolate and Other Unfermented Soy Products

Sadly, most of what you have been led to believe by the media about soy is simply untrue. One of the worst problems with soy comes from the fact that 90 to 95 percent of soybeans grown in the US are genetically engineered (GE), and these are used to create soy protein isolate. Genetically engineered soybeans are designed to be “Roundup ready,” which means they’re engineered to withstand otherwise lethal doses of herbicide.

The active ingredient in Roundup herbicide is called glyphosate, which is responsible for the disruption of the delicate hormonal balance of the female reproductive cycle. What’s more, glyphosate is toxic to the placenta, which is responsible for delivering vital nutrients from mother to child, and eliminating waste products. Once the placenta has been damaged or destroyed, the result can be miscarriage. In those children born to mothers who have been exposed to even a small amount of glyphosate, serious birth defects can result.

Glyphosate’s mechanism of harm was only recently identified, and demonstrates how this chemical disrupts cellular function and induce many of our modern diseases, including autism. Soy protein isolate can be found in protein bars, meal replacement shakes, bottled fruit drinks, soups and sauces, meat analogs, baked goods, breakfast cereals and some dietary supplements.

Even if you are not a vegetarian and do not use soymilk or tofu, it is important to be a serious label reader. There are so many different names for soy additives, you could be bringing home a genetically modified soy-based product without even realizing it. Soy expert Dr. Kaayla Daniel offers a free Special Report7, “Where the Soys Are,” on her Web site. It lists the many “aliases” that soy might be hiding under in ingredient lists — words like “bouillon,” “natural flavor” and “textured plant protein.”

Besides soy protein isolate, ALL unfermented soy products are best avoided if you value your health. Thousands of studies have linked unfermented soy to malnutrition, digestive distress, immune-system breakdown, thyroid dysfunction, cognitive decline, reproductive disorders and infertility—even cancer and heart disease.

The only soy with health benefits is organic soy that has been properly fermented, and these are the only soy products I ever recommend consuming. After a long fermentation process, the phytate and “anti-nutrient” levels of soybeans are reduced, and their beneficial properties become available to your digestive system. To learn more, please see this previous article detailing the dangers of unfermented soy.

9. Artificial Sweeteners

Contrary to popular belief, studies have found that artificial sweeteners such as aspartame can stimulate your appetite, increase carbohydrate cravings, and stimulate fat storage and weight gain. In one of the most recent of such studies8, saccharin and aspartame were found to cause greater weight gain than sugar.

Aspartame is perhaps one of the most problematic. It is primarily made up of aspartic acid and phenylalanine. The phenylalanine has been synthetically modified to carry a methyl group, which provides the majority of the sweetness. That phenylalanine methyl bond, called a methyl ester, is very weak, which allows the methyl group on the phenylalanine to easily break off and form methanol.

You may have heard the claim that aspartame is harmless because methanol is also found in fruits and vegetables. However, in fruits and vegetables, the methanol is firmly bonded to pectin, allowing it to be safely passed through your digestive tract. Not so with the methanol created by aspartame; there it’s not bonded to anything that can help eliminate it from your body.

Methanol acts as a Trojan horse; it’s carried into susceptible tissues in your body, like your brain and bone marrow, where the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzyme converts it into formaldehyde, which wreaks havoc with sensitive proteins and DNA. All animals EXCEPT HUMANS have a protective mechanism that allows methanol to be broken down into harmless formic acid. This is why toxicology testing on animals is a flawed model. It doesn’t fully apply to people.