Thursday, December 2, 2010

S.510 Food Safety Bill Has Run Aground

Senate bill 510 labeled the "food safety and modernization act" tried to add some new taxes in the bill to "raise revenue". However, only the House of Reps is able to initiate legislation that includes new taxes. This constitutional bungle by the Senate will result in what's called a "blue slip" by the House and the bill will need to be redone and then revoted on. It's unlikely the Senate will have time to do this and all the other things in it's lame duck agenda.



YEAH! OK, it's not dead ... just taking a nap. But when it wakes up, hopefully the new cast of characters in the house/senate will decide that there are better things to spend their time on.

Amplify’d from www.rollcall.com

House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate’s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

The blue slip could lead to one of two likely outcomes. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could simply drop the issue and let the next session of Congress start from scratch, a strategy that would allow him time in the lame-duck session to tackle other last-minute priorities, such as the expiring 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, a long-term continuing resolution, an immigration bill and a repeal of the military’s ban on openly gay service members.

Read more at www.rollcall.com
 

Monday, November 29, 2010

More Sweets... More Diabetes

We've been linking the massive increase in diabetes with increased obesity in the US. Now it's likely that we should focus more on our choices. As you can tell by this article, the researchers are trying to come up with an explanation as to why sugary drinks seem to increase diabetes with or without the presence of obesity since they've "known" that obesity is what causes type II diabetes.



I believe the truth is that sweets/sugars are chemicals to our bodies. We were never designed to be exposed to these purified sugar compounds (and refined flours for that matter) and this exposure repeatedly day after day, year after year has created diabetes AND obesity.



In 1895, the average American consumed about 3-4 lbs of refined carbs in a year and diabetes was number 100 on the disease list. Today, we consume approximately 170 lbs of sugar (and high fructose corn syrup) per year and diabetes has crept into the top 10 killers in the US. Diabetes steals people's quality of life as much as it kills. Diabetes causes blindness, permanent nerve damage, the need for amputations, and kidney damage causing people to go on dialysis.



What this study is saying is that you can no longer use your weight as a determination as to whether or not you are handling sugars/carbs well. If you are interested in living a long time, sweets and refined carbohydrates should be the first thing you get rid of.

Amplify’d from www.medpagetoday.com

Soda Ups Diabetes Risk With or Without Weight Gain

People who drank one or two sugar-sweetened beverages a day, like soda or vitamin water, had a 26% increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, compared with those who barely drank any
Part of sugar-sweetened beverages' contribution to diabetes is via obesity, but there are other pathways as well
sweetened beverages have been linked to increases in serum glucose as well as rapid and dramatic fluctuations in insulin, a cascade linked to glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, beta-cell dysfunction, and inflammation.

A recent study has also suggested that fructose, the main sweetener in these drinks, may be linked to high blood pressure as well as increases in LDL and triglycerides.

Read more at www.medpagetoday.com
 

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Heartburn Drugs Cause Osteoporosis

Functional medicine doctors and nutritionists have been telling patients this for years. Why? We knew that the body needs stomach acid in order to properly absorb minerals and break down proteins. It's why TUMS is a very bad form of calcium, because it neutralizes stomach acid thereby reducing the likelihood of being absorbed. For this same reason, anemia is quite common because iron is one of those minerals that needs stomach acid to be absorbed. The terrible part of this news story is that they reveal that patients should not be on an acid reducing medication for longer than three 14 day bouts per year. That amounts to 42 days of these drugs for a 365 day year (about 15%). We all know people that "HAVE" to take these medications every day. It's a dilemma. My approach is always very simple, figure out what is causing the stomach's sensitivity to acid and then take care of that. There's that old doctor joke that says "doctor doctor it hurts when i raise my arm" and the doctor responds with "stop raising your arm." Prilosec, Nexium, Prevacid, and Aciphex all function the same way. Doctor, doctor... it hurts when I secrete stomach acid. Only to have the doctor reply, "here take this and you won't secrete stomach acid any more." Inherently, the mind goes to that place: wasn't I secreting that stomach acid for a reason? Hmmm. http://amplify.com/u/6fbh

Posted via web from drberglund's posterous

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Soft Drink Usage = Elevated Blood Pressure

I hope we can finally shake the "salt is the primary reason for elevated blood pressure" season. The truth, I believe we will find, is that refined carbohydrates are responsible for a great deal of the elevated blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes that we see in the US. I have posted this before, but I strongly believe that if we cut out sugar, corn syrup and bleached & unbleached white flour out of diets, 10's to 100's of billions of dollars will be saved that are normally spent on health care in this country. Course, I assume that means a great number of hospitals will close and medicine related jobs will be lost, but we will be a healthier country. http://amplify.com/u/6e3p

Posted via web from drberglund's posterous

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Raw Milk letter to Wisconsin State Senator

It's important that we understand just how ridiculous a raw milk ban is. I encourage everyone to fight their state legislature and the FDA in their compulsive need to shut down raw milk commerce ... I know, I know... "to protect us." Yikes. http://amplify.com/u/5zkr

Posted via web from drberglund's posterous

To Know or Not To Know... That is the Question.

Should we be made aware of what's in our food? What it's made of? Or are we too stupid? Will our ignorance get in the way of REAL progress? The US government has taken the stance that what we don't know won't hurt us. I disagree. I believe we should know everything that is in our food. I think we could go farther. If not on the label, at least on the manufacturer's website. Tell us if the seed has been genetically modified, what strain, what pesticides and fertilizers were sprayed on the crops, what chemicals in trace amounts are used to clean the machines at the processing plant... etc I don't think it's asking too much that I know what specifically I am putting in my system. Our wonderful government (of the people and by the people) believes that it is asking too much for them to be honest with us. I'm sure they're thinking we'll make mountains out of mole hills. Hmmm. http://amplify.com/u/5zfy

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"Valuable" Research that Proves Mary Poppins was Right!

Seriously? You needed to spend money on a research project that looked at different concentrations of a sugar solution to see if it helped kids not care as much if they were being stuck with a sharp needle? So what's the take home message here. If we give kids a lollipop to suck on they will cry less when I hurt them? I could have told you that. Here's a better research project: Give the kids different kinds of sugar and measure their immune response. There are practitioners that are under the impression that sugar suppresses the body's immune system. Thus, the lollipop would be COUNTER PRODUCTIVE to getting the vaccine to do what we want it to do which is improve immunity. Vaccines are oftentimes a bad idea... giving sugar during the process would seemingly be making a bad situation worse. http://amplify.com/u/5ze8

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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

FCC's recommendations for Wireless

The clipping I have here are from the fcc's own website.. Now I love technology and the latest and greatest wireless breakthrough's as much as anyone. However, we need to wander into this realm with our eyes wide open. How much wireless can we do before the cancer rates start climbing? We are entering into an era where massive cellular/data plans will be the norm. That means that as we walk around, the number of wireless waves flying around and through us will be dramatically increased. How will this affect us? We honestly don't know. I have patients currently that don't handle basic home internet routers very well. They get headaches or heart palpitations or just feel terrible/tired. There are ways of making it affect them less significantly, but as we increase the number of wireless devices out there, more of us will be affected and there will be less places to go without being affected by it. I'm just saying: Keep our eyes open and don't discount something just because we can't see it. http://amplify.com/u/5e9i

Posted via web from drberglund's posterous

Monday, March 15, 2010

Fosamax & Boniva - After 4 Years, Makes Bones Strong & ABNORMAL

Medscape reported at the 2010 American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons that a study was done on the long term implication of bisphosphonates (popular type drugs: Fosamax and Boniva). They found that after 4 years, (I quote lead researcher Dr. Lane) "that the bone was very, very old" when they performed autopsies on patients who were on these drugs and had suffered fractures. They also reported "peculiar" fractures. Here's the rationale. All tissue in the body gets replenished. We get new lung cells, new kidney cells, and new bone cells. The body replaces lung cells very frequently and bone cells get replaced very infrequently. Cells called osteoclasts go through the bone and tear down the old bone and osteoblasts follow them and make new bone. These medications inhibit osteoclasts from doing their job. Therefore, bone is not torn down. And if old bone is not dissolved, then the body is unable to make new bone. In our fabulous scientific jury rigging that we call medicine, we've "cured" one problem and now created a new one. Instead of spending all our research money to figure out what is happening to the bones of the elderly and how we can teach them how to eat and exercise to maintain bone mass, we've decided that it makes more sense to stop one the important body processes and keep the body from regenerating it's bone. So surprise!! We now are starting to figure out that taking this "short cut" was not a blessing after all but now we have a dilemma. Short term gains with long term implications. It reminds me of someone who tries to pay for his rent for a few months with his credit card. At some point, he's going to have to deal with the real issue and then he's going to realize that he's created an even bigger mess. So despite what the flying nun is telling you about Boniva, don't take the short cut. http://amplify.com/u/390i

Posted via web from drberglund's posterous

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Raw Milk MUST Be Worse than Cigarettes or even Alcohol!?!

In the state of Wisconsin, it has been illegal to buy/sell raw milk and raw milk products (butter, cheese, etc) for quite some time. The state has been "protecting" us from this evil However, in the mean time, a study just came out that estimates that drinking soda has caused 143,000 cases of diabetes every year, cigarettes are strongly linked with emphysema, lung cancer, and asthma, and excessive alcohol consumption (Wisconsin leads the whole country with 31% of residents having binge drank in the past 30 days) has terrible repercussions. All of the above are legal. In fact, you can do as much as you want (as long as you don't drive after drinking). We have these freedoms. However, something like raw milk that has been around since the goat and cow were domesticated, that is of grave concern to all of us and needs to remain illegal. I think it's about time that they legalized it. I think it's fine that they put the disclaimer on the side saying it's not as beneficial as pasteurized. If you live in Wisconsin, I received this email: The raw milk bill is still alive. There are some groups who have taken a stand against it. But we are a large group of consumers and farmers – an unofficial group of voters in a loose organization – who have become a great influence in the legislative arena. If your representative is not favorable to this bill, you must continue to talk to him or her. Hearings are tentatively scheduled on March 10th for the senate and March 16th for the Assembly. Exact time and location yet to be announced. Thank you for all your calls, which provided the nudge needed to get these tentative dates set. We continue the press to loosen the noose which has been placed upon the availability of raw milk. The bill can progress slowly at times and many people need raw milk right now for health reasons. Your calls to Steve Ingham (Professor, Food Safety Extension Specialist Room 211 Babcock Hall scingham@wisc.edu (608) 265-4801 FAX (608) 262-6872) have gotten the agricultural board’s attention but they remain determined to fight your wishes. We simply desire some flexibility from their end to allow the availability of raw milk during this legislature process. There is word of a lawsuit on behalf of consumers through the farm to consumer legal defense fund. If you know any of the individuals involved, please ask them to drop the idea. Our battle is legislative, not judicial. This is the kind of action which draws increased resistance to the raw milk bill. We need names of doctors, nurses, chiropractors, N.D.s, etc, who are favorable toward raw milk. Please have them contact us or send us their contact information as soon as possible. We need some written testimony from them related to milk. There are many things in the works. I thank you for your time spent making the calls which help everything along. This does not go unnoticed. http://amplify.com/u/2zct

Posted via web from drberglund's posterous

Saturday, March 6, 2010

59% Low Vitamin D - linked to increased body fat, decreased muscle strength

The question with this study - which I believe to be accurate - is this correlation or causation. Does the vitamin D cause low body fat and poor muscle tone? Or do people who stay inside and get very little sunshine, also get very little exercise resulting in an unhealthy fat-muscle balance. We're finding out that low vitamin D is linked to a huge number of diseases... I'll be interested to see if we supplement people (the studies are recommending 1,000-5,000 IU/day), will these diseases go away? I believe that some conditions will improve, and I believe others we'll find it's about being outdoors or being active outdoors. Either way, I'm glad we're looking at natural solutions to solve our problems and not looking to synthetic chemicals with a huge number of adverse reactions. http://amplify.com/u/2afa

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Wow! Watch This and Break the Cycle.

We spent countless millions of dollars SCARING people of SWINE FLU. But death rates of flu in general don't even come close to the what we pay our each year because of our bad eating habits and bad food choices. For every dollar we spend to health care, (according to this video) 15 cents of that is related to obesity which includes about 2/3 of America. Personally, I think that we could make 50% of our health care expenses go away if we changed what we ate and how much we ate. If we decided to get rid of pasteurized dairy products, refined sugar and corn syrup, and eliminated all foods that contain ANY white flour, we'd save 100's of billions of dollars every year and reduce our dependence on prescription and OTC medications. The full benefit of this change would probably take 1-3 generations, but it would be huge. The mainstream "extreme" people would tend to point to elimination of red meat and eggs. Truthfully, we need to eat foods in the way God created. We need to make sure we enjoy food, but we need to redefine what is "food". At one point in this video, he asks some school room kids and they can't identify food like potatoes, beets and eggplants. He takes a wheelbarrow and dumps out sugar that the kids are eating in their chocolate milk that the schools are giving the kids over 5 years (JUST FROM THE CHOC MILK). This video will take time, but maybe it will stimulate you to realize how lobbyists have had a deleterious effect on our food supply. Our kids, our health care, all of us.... we are taking the hit for it (financially and health wise). Pass this link on... our country will die otherwise. http://amplify.com/u/2a2b

Posted via web from drberglund's posterous

Babies in the Womb Can Become Allergic to Foods Based on What Mom Eats During her Pregnancy

This is a good article. We are finally looking into some of the reasons why people become allergenic. If a mom has any hints of allergies to foods (tonsillitis, sinus issues, constipation, dark circles under the eyes (allergic shiners), chronic pain, chronic ear infections, eczema, asthma, etc), she should be careful what she eats during pregnancy. I realize this article brings up avoiding peanuts, dairy and eggs, but I would also throw wheat and soy into this equation also. The next step is to also avoid wheat, dairy, soy and eggs in this child throughout the first 2 years. At that point, you can gradually try and reintroduce these foods once at a time. This of course means that during breastfeeding mom is still avoiding these things. It also rules out most formulas because 99% of formulas are soy/milk based. I know these are really hard recommendations, but allergies will last a lifetime. It's a small sacrifice for the mom. And truthfully, a lot of moms feel the best they've ever felt on this type of program. If the sinus congestion is due to dairy products, all of a sudden they find themselves without the chronic "pressure" and pain they always have. If you'd like to hear more testimonials on what food elimination can do, please go to our web site http://www.berglundcenter.com/test.htm. http://amplify.com/u/2a0f

Posted via web from drberglund's posterous

We Need More Anti-Vaccine Voices Crying Out!

I love that concerned parents like this just want to add to the voices that are crying out against this vaccination machine. We need discussion. We need to get people THINKING. People need to know that vaccines are not prevention, they are a shortcut that carries with it RISKS. I have a page on my website about the flu shot (see http://www.berglundcenter.com/flushot.htm) that may provide some additional information. Also, www.nvic.org is always a great resource for additional materials. Be informed. People perish from a lack of knowledge. http://amplify.com/u/2a06

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Thursday, March 4, 2010

Another to Avoid Taking Estrogens

Alright! We've known for a while that taking prescription estrogens increases women's risk of breast and endometrial cancer in addition to causing blood clotting disorders like strokes. Now we can add cataracts to the list. If you're going through menopause, there are other ways to offset the menopause symptoms. If you're trying to protect yourself against osteoporosis, take a GOOD supplement that is geared at building bone. (Don't go the Fosamax route. It has lots of other side effects too.) http://amplify.com/u/28aq

Posted via web from drberglund's posterous

Tylenol, Ibuprofen and Aspirin are Responsible for Hearing Loss

This study looked at men. Tylenol usage at twice a week caused TWICE the risk of hearing loss as people that took no medications. Ibuprofen (motrin, advil, etc) was the next highest at almost 2/3 greater risk and aspirin increased the risk by a third. I bring this up because we have this notion in our country that taking OTC pain killers and anti-inflammatories is entirely safe. We feel we can give our kids Tylenol without any side effects. The truth is: all these products are chemicals and, if used over and over, will generate some adverse reactions. http://amplify.com/u/288r

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Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Physicians Do No Harm!

These drugs are CAUSING heart attacks. The diabetes drug, Avandia, last year was deemed to cause 300-500 cases PER MONTH of heart attacks and heart failure in the treatment of diabetes. In other words, to protect people, they were harming them. Can you imagine in any facet of our society where 3600-6000 people a year die under the "protection" from something different. Isn't that crazy? What's even more crazy is that the FDA back in 2007 was fighting to KEEP Avandia on the market (http://www.injuryblawg.com/372/FDA-Study-Recommends-Pulling-Avandia-from-the-Mark.htm) despite knowing these risks. However (http://www.injuryblawg.com/372/FDA-Study-Recommends-Pulling-Avandia-from-the-Mark.htm) now they are recommending that it be removed. I'm sick of this kind of protection. It's very possible that the FDA's stupidity in this matter caused nearly 20,000 people to die unnecessarily. http://amplify.com/u/26xu

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Funny... and sad. Satirical parody.

Snake Oil? The scientific evidence for health supplements | Information Is Beautiful

The Medical profession says that they would utilize natural herbs and vitamins if there was actual evidence to their validity. This web page does a pretty fair job of letting the reader know what natural treatments have strong evidence/research that they work, while others have shown little to no benefit. May I suggest clicking the PLAY button on that page or clicking here: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-supplements. You can click on the circles and they will tell you what they are strong or weak for. Like I said, I think it's very interesting and very revealing to those who have held to the "nutrition is quackery" band wagon. http://amplify.com/u/26p7

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Being Bad at Math is a Disorder?!?

This website has a list of DSM IV (there is currently a new book with even more) diagnoses. The goal of this book appears to be to categorize every stubborn personality, every non-compliant personal trait, issues with people, parents, siblings as a DISORDER. The more diagnoses they can come up with, the more likely they (psychiatrists, school systems, prisons, etc) are to justify treatment and to get insurance reimbursement or government funding (based on the fact that they have a higher percentage of "diseased" kids compared to "normal" kids. It's a runaway train. It happens in the medical system too, but there at least appear to be some checks and balances there. The people with the most to gain appear to be the ones rewriting the reimbursement manuals. Course this may benefit me. I am not a big fan of talking on the phone. So maybe in DSM VI I will get to finally have my PHONE AVERSION disorder recognized. Maybe I can even get a disability sticker for my phone. http://amplify.com/u/26nc

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The Answer to a Bad Reputation? Change Your Name. NutraSweet is Now AminoSweet

It shouldn't be our job to be ingredient label readers. But unfortunately, we have to today. The artificial sweetener that used to boldly brag on the label: Made with Nutrasweet has had to change it's name to avoid consumer detection. Splenda (sucralose) has been using this method for a while. While shopping, I was looking at hot chocolate ingredients. Typically, you can tell is something is artificially sweetened because it boldly professes on the label that it's low sugar or no sugar or low calorie. Nestle's had it's low sugar brand of hot chocolate and regular. I assumed the regular to be sweetened with sugar, which it was. However, what I didn't suspect was that they went and ALSO added Splenda to the mix. HEADS UP: They now try to sneak the artificial sweetener in the list. Splenda is the proprietary name but the ingredient's name is sucralose, which sounds an awful lot like sucrose. Course they prefer that name to actually listing the chemical structure: 1,6-Dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-β-D-fructofuranosyl-4-chloro-4-deoxy-α-D-galactopyranoside (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose). The advertisers say sucralose is natural. It comes from sugar. That's the equivalent of saying that since plastic jugs come from petroleum and petroleum at one time (a long long time ago) came from plants, then plastic is made from plants and therefore is natural and biodegradable. Sucralose or Splenda is 22 organic chemistry steps away from sugar. It has 3 chlorine molecules attached to it. It's appearance (chemically speaking) is a lot closer to a pesticide like DDT than a food. Supposedly it can't be absorbed. However, most studies have a 25% loss from ingesting it to eliminating it causing us to wonder... where did it go? If it's unabsorbable like they say, then ??? Nutrasweet (aspartame) has it's own slew of issues. It's considered a neurotoxin and has the notorious distinction of being the number one complained about additive in the history of the FDA. The following is a good accumulation of articles that differ from the FDA's opinion that aspartame or NutraSweet or AminoSweet is safe. http://www.321recipes.com/aspartame.html. Do some research. Food should not be made in a chemistry lab. We should be eating food as close to it's original form as possible. The less processing, the better. http://amplify.com/u/26lm

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Thursday, February 25, 2010

High Blood Pressure... What Are We Treating?

Simply put. If you were concerned about your pump or tubing, how would you fix it? There are 2 general categories of blood pressure drugs: water pills (diuretics) that lower the amount of fluid in the system and and ACE inhibitors/beta blockers that limit the max ability of the heart to pump blood. I agree that we need to bring down the blood pressure. Too much pressure in the CV system is too hard on the heart and puts wear and tear on the vessels (making them more prone to aneurysms). But do we jury rig the system? If we have an older outdoor hose, that means we have 2 options... don't turn up the spigot too high or put some holes throughout the hose to eliminate some of the water. However, if I'm washing my care or sprinkling my lawn, it may mean I can't do things as efficiently as I used to. I think we should truly consider figuring out WHY the patient's CV system is having a hard time controlling the increased pressure like it used to. FIX THE PROBLEM, rather than just jury rig. And it's almost always more complicated than too much salt. http://amplify.com/u/23pq

Posted via web from drberglund's posterous

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

And it's gonna get worse...

Ever since the 50's, researchers have been warning about using antibiotics too much. The concern? Formation of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Mutant strains that are no longer susceptible to certain forms of antibiotics. Many have heard of MRSA (methicillin resistant staph aureus). This organism is untreatable with any antibiotics we currently have. And this is just the beginning. We need to start using more natural compounds like goldenseal, olive leaf extract, grapefruit seed extract and oil of oregano to push these bacteria our of our systems. They function differently than antibiotics and therefore the risk of resistance is not an issue. I personally like goldenseal. It goes after bacteria, parasites and yeast. This is helpful because one of the side effects of antibiotics is yeast infections. http://amplify.com/u/2283

Posted via web from drberglund's posterous

People need to be aware.

Not Another Vaccine...

The HPV vaccine has hurt a lot of people. (see http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=68454) I'm not sure how we accept deaths for a condition like HPV that can be treated. Now we are treating meningitis that can be treated too. I really fear more deaths and more problems with this Meningitis vaccine. It'll probably play out the same way as with all the vaccines. People will watch some captivating commercial or some passionate plea by the media that causes people to be afraid. Concerned/scared parents will insist that their college students get vaccinated. Most will be fine and an "insignificant" percentage will be killed or damaged by the vaccine (but there will be "no proven connection"). We'll excuse those people who get meningitis and had the vaccine. In fact, we'll probably blame their misfortune on those that chose not to get the vaccine. If only 100% of the people would get vaccinated, we'd be able to irradicate this disease from the face of the earth. The wonderful world of vaccinations. Very sad. http://amplify.com/u/21zr

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Optimists Have Lower Heart Disease

This is a good article. It shows that having a cheerful disposition and not worrying is good for longevity. We always knew that being a worrier was unhealthy. The gist of this article? Don't worry. Be Happy. :) http://amplify.com/u/21z4

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Monday, February 22, 2010

How Much Soda Do People Drink in Your State?

I was shocked at this website's stats. There are regions in this country where the average consumption of soda is more than 81 gallons per year. Some might say that's only 14 oz/day of soda, but averages include babies and kids and people who never touch the stuff. I suppose this is to be expected since the average person in the US consumes between 150-170 lbs of sugars (simple sugars like sucrose, fructose, glucose, etc) every year (according to the USDA). If we are ever to truly decrease our diabetes and obesity in this country, we need to deal with this stat. People in the late 1800's ate 5 lbs of sugar per year. Yikes, huh? http://amplify.com/u/21jf

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Monday, January 11, 2010

Open and Honest Debate on Health Care?

"Pharmaceutical politicians" is the name orthomolecular.org gave to these senators and reps (of BOTH parties) that are pandering to those people that are getting them elected. Seemingly, the goal of these congressmen is not to give us what we are asking, but to stick a bunch of pork and loopholes in the bills to make the lobbyists happy. I am so fed up. Can we make up a rule that ALL members of congress and ALL committee meetings are constantly miked and recorded. We need to make it illegal to speak to anyone about anything to prevent these crooks from making deals under the table and selling us out. I realize that sounds harsh. Maybe it would be easier to just dis-ban congress and just do the voting ourselves online. At least that would be a bit easier to be by the people and for the people than the system we have now. Why can't free enterprise determine what type of health care people choose? If people want to buy special brownies that are being touted to cure cancer, then let them. We let people buy junkie products and don't stop them. We shouldn't be stopping people from buying ineffective treatments because whose to say what will or won't work. However, we should be "warning" people of the risk of dying from a treatment protocol. At one time, an option for the treatment of syphilis was mercury. Now, it was effective because it is considered a poison to the syphilis organism, but it is also a poison to us. It must've worked for some people. People should be made aware of that. There's no reason we shouldn't be privy to all the committee meetings where these senators and reps are creating this Health Care plan we are going to be stuck with for the next millennium. This isn't a Democrats vs Republican thing. This is just another example of "our" congressmen not really wanting to represent us and give us what we need. They will be deciding what is best for us. Stephen Wright once said, "If PRO is the opposite of CON, what's the opposite of PROGRESS?" http://amplify.com/u/1dgw

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Thursday, January 7, 2010

More Conflicts of Interest - This Time with WHO (World Health Org'n)

This is just so frustrating. Can't they find anyone who cares about public health that doesn't have a vested interest in the public policy they are recommending. It's not ADVICE when they make money off of what they are suggesting. Most people call that MARKETING. Grrrr. http://amplify.com/u/1cdw

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