The Health Plus Letter
April 20, 2006, Vol. 4, No. 7
By Larry Trivieri, Jr. – founder & publisher,
http://www.1healthyworld.com
If you prefer to read this issue online, you can read it, along with all other back issues, at http://www.1healthyworld.com/ezine.
Table Of Contents
New This Issue
Quote of the Day
Fast Fact
Medical F/r/e/edom Alert
Healthy School Lunches, Healthy Kids by Steve Richard
Self-Care Remedies for Fibroids
Recommendations
Unabashed Plug
Amazon.com continues to offer my newest book, Health on the Edge: Visionary Views of Healing in the New Millennium at a healthy discount. To order it, visit http://www.amazon.com.
New This Issue
Welcome to another issue of The Health Plus Letter. This week I’m sharing self-care tips for dealing with fibroids, and sharing an article by Steve Richard, who has played an active role in seeing that his local school lunch program provides healthy meals. In his article, Steve shares tips about how you can achieve similar results in our own local school system using the ideas he and others in his school district implemented. I’d like to thank Steve’s uncle, Elwood Richard, for making Steve’s article available to me. Finally, I continue to call your attention to new steps you can take to protect your health freedoms in the Health Freedom Alert section. Please do take action.
As always, please continue to send me your comments and suggestions. And please spread the word about The Health Plus Letter by passing it along to your friends and inviting them to subscribe.
Quote Of The Day
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
-- Abba Eban, Israeli foreign minister (1915-2002)
Fast Fact
The average child born in the United States receives as many as 21 vaccination and immunization shots before reaching the age of 15 months.
Medical F/r/e/edom Alert: The Latest Big Pharma Attempt To Curtail Natural Therapies
Once again (they nev.er stop) Big Pharma is attempting to extend its monopoly on health care. This time they (specifically Wyeth) are petitioning the FDA to compounding pharmacies, which supply bioidentical (natural) hormones to physicians. In recent years, sa/les of synthetic hormones, which Wyeth manufactures, have declined, in large part due to findings that they increase the risk of cancer and other side-effects. In the same time period, increasing numbers of health consumers and their doctors are choosing to use natural, bioidentical hormones instead, because, overall, they are safer, and are better accepted by the body, compared to synthetic hormones.
What follows is an Action Alert from Citizens For Health that explains the situation. Please make your voice heard on this matter by following the recommended step below.
Action Alert from Citizens For Health
Please Email The FDA Today To Stop Wyeth From Shutting Down The Compounding Industry. Your comments due to the FDA within the next few weeks.
Wyeth is attempting to severely undermine natural health through an FDA Citizen’s Petition to eliminate natural health options for women, specifically bioidentical hormones. The duplicity has been noted by physicians and women’s groups around the nation who are actively organizing to derail this attempt to limit competition at the expense of women’s health.
Learn more n/o/w on this subject from 13 leaders in the natural health movement—including doctors, advocacy organizations, patient advocates, a compounding scientist, a former Congressman, the leader of a major compounding industry association, a leading D.C. regulatory lawyer and a retired Major General of the U.S. Army, who talks about the importance of freedom. Hear all points of view from experts who are close to the ground working selflessly in the interest of patients’ health and for democracy in health care in this country.
Please take action n.o.w! He.re are two steps you can take that together— cumulatively among all of us—can make a big difference in preserving our rights to choose our care, doctor’s rights to prescribe what in their judgment is the best care and that will spare women from having to buy their compounded hormones from other countries.
1. Read The 13 Leaders Uprising Re. Natural Hormones (available at http://www.citizens.org/node/445 )—email to everyone you know so the facts are understood on this issue.
2. Contact FDA at http://www.citizens.org/preserve-access-to-bhrt and tell them to stop Wyeth n/o/w.
(While visiting the sites below, you can also learn about how the FDA allowed the artificial sweetener Splenda (sucralose) to come to market without properly investigating it, leading to numerous negative side-effects for people who consumed it. – LT)
Our health freedoms remain under assault by special interests that seek a monopoly on health care in this country and around the world. Please support the following organizations, which are at the forefront of those working to protect our rights:
Citizens for Health - http://www.citizens.org
Alliance for Natural Health – http://www.alliance-natural-health.org (The leading organization fighting to preserve health f/r/e/edom in England and the EU.)
Institute for Health F/r/e/edom – http://www.ForHealthF/r/e/edom.org
International Advocates for Health F/r/e/edom (IAHF) – http://www.iahf.com
To see to what depraved lengths people will go to persecute practitioners of alternative medicine in the U.S., please read the following report by noted medical f/r/e/edom advocate Tim Bolen at http://www.quackpotwatch.org/opinionpieces/Suster2.htm
And to learn how corrupt and extensive Big Pharma’s monopoly is, visit http://www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr/online/research/index.html the website for the Campaign Against Fraudulent Medical Research. In particular, read their in-depth report The Pharmaceutical Drug Racket that you will find th/e/re.
Unabashed Plug
Learn the Truth about Heart Disease, Stroke and Hypertension. Most of what conventional medicine has to offer for treating these conditions is based on faulty and potentially dangerous assumptions. Discover the real causes behind these diseases and learn what you can do today to prevent and reverse them using safe and natural alternatives that have been scientifically proven to be effective. Read the critically-acclaimed eBook Burton Goldberg’s Definitive Guide to Heart Disease, featuring the contributions of Dr. Garry Gordon, Dr. Stephen Sinatra, and many other leading heart specialists. To order or to find out more about this potentially lifesaving guide, visit http://www.1healthyworld.com/ebooks/Heart-Book-Info.cfm.
HealthySchoolLunches, Healthy Kids by Steve Richard
Improving school lunches is often not as easy as it sounds, but worth the effort. In our school district, the lunch program is run by the Parent Teachers Association (PTA), an organization with amazingly dedicated volunteers, but who typically have no food service training or experience. Last year a group of concerned parents, including myself, formed a nutrition committee to pursue a healthier school environment, including lunch. Two key members of the committee had already volunteered to run the current school year's hot lunch program.
In preparation for the school year, they first studied feedback from a parent survey, met with some "healthy" schools in the area to learn and get menu ideas, and also consulted with a few nutrition experts in the community. Then they met with the vendor who supplies the food for our lunch program to share their goals and explore options. Based on what they learned, they made a number of healthy changes to the school lunch menu prior to the 2005-2006 school year.
Much to our dismay, when the kids returned to start the new school year, they greeted the healthier lunch choices with comments like,Where's the Domino's pizza? I don't like the whole wheat buns, and I don't like the brown rice.
The wider variety of fresh fruits and vegetables that were added to the salad bar often went to waste, because the kids didn't pick them. Some parents complained when they learned their kids were not eating the food being offered. The PTA was concerned because lunch sa.les were down 30 percent from the previous year (60% of it from cheese pizza).
After a couple months, however, things settled down. But while the lunch is much healthier than it was before, we still have a long way to go. Change is not easy and kids' attitudes about food are largely formed at home and by our general food culture. If they are used to eating buttered noodles, cheese pizza, fast food, sugary drinks, and chocolate milk at home, then they are conditioned to want these same things at school.
What We Learned from Our Experience
1. Finding the right person(s) to run the school district's food service is crucial to success.
A committed, energized food service manager will experiment, get feedback, and generally work towards making the lunch items healthier. They can also make sure that the right resources are involved, e.g. a nutritionist who can review the food and beverage items that are being offered.
2. Investigate innovative new lunch vendors that specialize in healthy, organic lunches for kids.
Working with large food vendors is challenging. They say the right things, but somehow the kids still end up eating largely re-heated bland food that is very inexpensive and efficient to prepare and serve. The challenge is getting out of your current contract, finding a reliable, innovative vendor, and figuring out how to handle the somewhat higher costs of healthier food items.
3. Get hands-on help from parents.
Sometimes the only way to have more fresh fruits and vegetables is to prepare them yourself. This involves having the capability to cut things up on-site and signing up parent volunteers to do this "hands-on" work prior to the lunch being served. We do some of this with fruit for our school's salad bar. There are other schools in nearby towns that cut up everything on-site with a large army of determined parent volunteers.
4. Involve the kids in menu decisions.
It is very effective to involve the kids in selecting new lunch items. We scheduled special days when a group of kids get to taste all kinds of healthy lunch ideas that we are considering. We find out what they like and get their support. We've used the student council since they are influential with the rest of the kids.
5. Develop a wellness policy for your school district.
The overall school culture/environment largely determines what is acceptable for
everyone, including kids, parents, and teachers. One of the best ways to do this is by developing a district wellness policy. These policies, mandated for all school districts that receive federal funding, cover lunch, fund-raising, curriculum, vending machines, class rewards and celebrations and most other food-related activities on campus. Federal and state guidelines and state laws define what is considered an acceptable healthy lunch. Our district is currently working on a district-wide wellness policy.
6. Create school gardens.
According to experts we have consulted, involving kids in planting, growing, and harvesting food is the single-most effective way to increase their interest and acceptance of fruits and vegetables. So, we have put a ton of energy into building a half-acre school gardenthat is n/o/w being launched. We worked hard to educate our district about the value of school gardens and how they can be linked with the lunch program.
7. Partner with local farms and farmer's markets.
The other way to help teach kids where food comes from is to partner with a local farmers market and/or a nearby farm. Farm-to-School programs are catching on, but we haven't made much progress in this area yet. A non-profit organization called Farm to School, (www.farmtoschool.org)matches schools with local farms. Some states are also helping to make these connections. The other benefit is that local/organic/seasonal produce is healthier and tastes better than produce that is shipped from a long distance.
8. Create a "lunch and learn" environment.
We've also looked into how to educate kids during lunch. A non-profit organization in Berkeley, CA has published a set of papers titled "Re-inventing School Lunch" that is considered by many nutritionists to be the "bible" on how to transform lunch into a learning experience. You may view this information atwww.ecoliteracy.org/programs/rsl.html.
The challenge is that you need a food service team with the time and energy to read all this material and decide how to make use of it. As an alternative, we have been looking into doing something simple like having a featured fruit/vegetable of the month for the kids to learn about. A program called Harvest of the Month,www.harvestofthemonth.com,has many resources, including featured produce of the month.
School Nutrition Web Sites
If you are interested in working on making the school lunch program in your district healthier, visit the following web sites for resources and ideas:
School Nutrition Association:www.schoolnutrition.org
School Gardens:www.kidsgardening.com
Consumers for Healthy Options in Children's Education (CHOICE):www.choiceusa.net
Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM):www.healthyschoollunches.org/index.html
(Copyright 2006 by Steve Richard. All rights reserved.)
Self-Care Tips for Fibroids
Fibroids are tumors that occur in connective tissues and the muscles of the uterus. Approximately 20 percent of all women in the United States have some degree of fibroids, with the highest incidence levels occurring in women between the ages of 30 and 50 and in black women in general. They can occur on or near the surface of the uterus, making them easily detectable during a pelvic examination, or they can grow in and around the inner lining of the uterus and require diagnostic techniques such as ultrasound in order to be detected.
In appearance, fibroids tend to be firm and round and they typically occur in groups. Their size and shape can vary significantly.
Note: Overall, the vast majority of fibroids are benign (non-cancerous), but in some cases they can be malignant. For safety’s sake, seek prompt medical attention if you suspect you have fibroids in order to rule out cancer.
Symptoms of Fibroids
Many cases of fibroids present no symptoms. When symptoms are present, they include pain, pressure, and/or a sense of fullness in the lower abdomen, a need to frequently urinate, heavier than usual menstrual flow, menstrual cramps, and bleeding between periods.
In some cases, fibroid growth can be rapid. When this happens, fibroids can divert the supply of nutrients and oxygen delivered in the bloodstream, causing the healthy tissues that surround them to become malnourished and oxygen-deprived. This can lead to tissue degeneration that can lead to excruciating pain in and around the lower abdominal area and within the uterus.
Causes of Fibroids
Fibroids are associated with hormonal shifts in women, especially high levels of estrogen production. Therefore, the primary causes of fibroids are events in a woman’s life that cause estrogen levels to rise, such as the onset of menstruation and pregnancy. They can also be caused by birth control pills that are high in estrogen.
Other factors that can contribute to fibroids are poor diet and nutrition and chronic emotional stress.
Self-Care
Increasingly, conventional physicians recommend surgery to treat fibroids, and often advise full hysterectomies (removal of the uterus itself) for women with fibroids that are chronically painful. By contrast, practitioners of natural medicine take a much more conservative approach, seeking to shrink fibroids using safe and effective, noninvasive methods. Among the most common natural approaches are the following:
Diet: Avoid all sugars, refined carbohydrates, sodas, processed foods, preservatives, artificial sweeteners (especially aspartame), corn syrup, alcohol, white bread and white flour products, pastries, and hydrogenated and trans-fatty oils. Red meats and dairy products should also be avoided, as should all fried foods, salt, and caffeine.
Drink plenty of pure, filtered water throughout the day, and emphasize organic, fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as organic whole grains, nuts and seeds, free-range poultry and wild-caught fish. Also eliminate all foods that may cause you to suffer allergies. Limit your intake of oils to unrefined flaxseed, olive oil, sunflower, and walnut.
Herbs: The following her.bal combination remedies are both effective for preventing and helping to shrink fibroids because of their ability to help regulate estrogen levels in the body. Combine tinctures of blue cohosh, chasteberry, cranebill and wild yam in equal amounts and take one-half teaspoon three times a day. Alternatively, you can combine tinctures of black currant leaf, gromwell, lady’s mantle, and wild pansy flower in equally amounts and take one teaspoon per day upon arising each morning.
If cramping pains accompany fibroids, tincture of cramp bark can be taken with either of the above combination remedies at a dose of one half teaspoon.
Bleeding caused by fibroids can be lessened or stopped altogether by taking a dropper of cotton root bark every five to ten minutes until improvement is noticed.
Lifestyle: Various aerobic and stretching exercises performed regularly can help to relieve fibroid pain. Excellent exercise choices for fibroids include bouncing on a mini-trampoline (rebounder) for 10 to 20 minutes each day, and yoga exercises that stretch and relax the pelvic muscles and enhance circulation. This will aid your body’s ability to deliver oxygen and nutrients to the uterine area via the bloodstream.
It is also important that women with fibroids learn how to properly manage stress. Deep breathing exercises, mediation, and, if appropriate, counseling can be very helpful in this regard.
Magnet Therapy: Placing magnets over the lower abdomen and pubic area, with the negative pole of the magnets facing the body, can help to shrink fibroids over time. Magnets can be applied in place with a warp cloth during sleep as well. To enhance results, try sleeping on a magnet pad as well.
Nutritional Supplements: Useful nutrients for fibroids include vitamin A, beta carotene, vitamin B complex, vitamin C, vitamin E, calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Women can also benefit from iron supplements but should first be checked to determine if they are deficient in iron using a blood test.
(The above information is adapted from Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide, 2nd edition, edited and co-authored by Larry Trivieri, Jr.)
Unabashed Plug
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Recommendations
Book:
Absolute Friends by John Le Carre. Written in 2003, before much of what we today know about the lies that were foisted upon us by the Bush administration in order to whip up public sentiment for the invasion of Iraq, this latest novel by one of the most insightful and intelligent novelists of the past 40 years is a tour de force expose of the lengths that craven, misguided individuals will go to engineer public acceptance of their agendas. Sad, angry, and brilliant, and I highly recommend it.
Websites:
http://www.harpers.org/OutOfControl.html - Last issue, I recommended Celia Farber’s article The AIDS Machine that appeared in the March 2006 issue of Harper’s magazine, challenging the HIV=AIDS myth. For readers who were unable to find it on newsstands, you can read it in its entirety by using the link above.
http://www.naturalhealthvillage.com - When you visit this site, which features health commentary by Peter Barry Chowka, who has been diligently writing about health issues since the 1970s, be sure to read his article Bad Medicine Or Bad Reporting? Which does a brilliant job of explaining why so much of what you read, watch, and hear in the media that attacks holistic healing approaches is, at best, inaccurate, and at worst, intentionally slanted to portray holistic medicine in a negative light. I recommend all Peter’s other articles that you’ll find there, too.
That’s all for this week.
Health and Blessings!
Larry Trivieri, Jr. (larry@1healthyworld.com)
Disclaimer: The Health Plus Letter is a weekly eZine published by Larry Trivieri, Jr. and Library of Health, LLC (dba www.1healthyworld.com) 1514 Genesee Street, Suite 52, Utica, NY 13502. It is made available without charge for info/rmation purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical care. If you are experiencing a health problem, seek prompt medical attention.
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