10 toxic hotspots in the home

Kitchen: Oven Cleaner

For consumers without a self-cleaning oven, periodic scrub downs are mandatory. Unfortunately, commercially available oven cleaners can be just as onerous as the cleaning task at hand. “Oven cleaners are full of dangerous ingredients, including lye – also known as ‘caustic soda’ – ethers, ethylene glycol, methylene chloride and petroleum distillates,” says Walter Crinnion, a naturopathic physician and chair of the environmental medicine department at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Tempe, Arizona.
Because oven cleaners with these ingredients can burn the skin, it’s important to wear gloves while handling the item. Even spraying the aerosol contents involves releasing the neurotoxic solvent butane.
Fortunately, a simple paste of baking soda and water, applied to the mess, may be all you need to keep your oven clean. And to cut down on grease deposits, lay pans or foiled-lined receptacles at the bottom of the oven to help catch pan drippings.

Bathroom: Toothpaste

Having a favorite toothpaste may help ensure good dental hygiene. But the anti-bacterial and toxic ingredient triclosan, found in many dentifrices, may harm the rest of your body.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted that triclosan has been found in everyone they’ve done toxicity testing on,” says Crinnion, the author of Clean, Green & Lean: Get Rid of the Toxins that Make You Fat. “Think of triclosan as a chlorinated pesticide, which means that it causes allergies and imbalances the immune system, just like other chlorinated pesticides.” In children the substance has been associated with high rates of hay fever. Because, says Crinnion, the substance has become part of our toxic burden, he advises against buying toothpaste and other products containing this ingredient.

Dining Room: Candles

Burning candles can add more than atmosphere to an event. Candlelight usually means the room is filling up with toxins. “To enhance slow burning, many candles on the market, mainly those that are scented, have metal wires that contain lead inside their wicks,” says Crinnion. “These wicks are responsible for a hazardous level of lead release, which has been associated with learning disabilities and Parkinson’s Disease. And the candles’ artificial fragrances contain plasticizers and other solvent-type mixtures.”
Crinnion underscores the toxic risk that occurs with all types of combustion, even when you’re burning natural beeswax candles. “Combustion involves the release of hydrocarbons which leads to oxidative damage and respiratory problems,” he says. His advice: “Burn candles only on special occasions and not for long periods of time.”

Source: 10 toxic hotspots in the home

During One of the Worst Flu Seasons, is the Flu Vaccine the Answer?

• The US is currently in the middle of at least three widespread outbreaks of influenza and flu-like illness, including an unusually aggressive influenza virus, a novel norovirus, whooping cough (pertussis), as well as an uptick in laryngitis, and strep with cough

• Apparently many flu shot recipients are coming down with influenza and flu-like illness despite having been vaccinated—a strong indication that flu vaccines are ineffective in keeping people well despite the fact that the vaccines available this year are a good match to the actual flu strains in circulation

• According to recent reviews of hundreds of studies on the effectiveness of flu vaccines in children and adults, flu shots were found to be quite ineffective. At best, the vaccines might be effective against influenza A and B viruses about half the time and the CDC admits that influenza viruses only represent about 20-30 percent of all circulating viruses in this and other “flu seasons.”

• The combined results of vaccine trials show that under ideal conditions (influenza vaccine completely matching circulating viral configuration) 33 healthy adults need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms. In average conditions (partially matching vaccine) 100 people need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms.

• Vaccine studies show influenza vaccine use does not affect the number of people hospitalized or working days lost, but were found to cause one case of Guillian-Barré syndrome for every one million vaccinations

For more information: During One of the Worst Flu Seasons, is the Flu Vaccine the Answer?

The Unsavory Truth of the McRib

• Sneaky “tricks of the trade” employed by the meat industry include “pink slime” made of otherwise unusable scraps, meat glue, and reconstituted meat—all of which fool you into thinking you’re buying something of higher quality than you are

• McDonald’s seasonally-available McRib sandwich contains more than 70 ingredients, including a chemical used in gym shoes and other items requiring a rubbery substance. And the pork is actually a restructured meat product made from the less expensive innards and scraps from the pig

• Russia has recently banned U.S. meat supplies after discovering it contains ractopamine—a beta agonist drug that increases protein synthesis, thereby making the animal more muscular. This reduces the fat content of the meat. Ractopamine is known to affect the human cardiovascular system, may cause food poisoning, and is thought to be responsible for hyperactivity, muscle breakdown, and increased death and disability in livestock

• As much as 20 percent of ractopamine remains in the meat you buy from the supermarket. Despite potential health risks, the drug is used in 45 percent of U.S. pigs, 30 percent of ration-fed cattle, and an unknown percentage of turkeys

For more information:  The Unsavory Truth of the McRib and Other Fake Foods, and Why Russia Banned US-Raised Meat

Do You Suffer From Headaches?

If you are having headaches all of the time, it’s probably from drinking diet drinks. The artificial ingredients in them are extremely dangerous and terrible for your body. If you are having extremely bad headaches that hit every few months it’s most likely from birth control pills. Loading your body up with synthetic hormones is a horrible idea and and can even lead to cancer later on.  If you are suffering from either type of headache, stop using those products and your headaches will be gone in no time.

What most people don’t realize is that headaches aren’t the problem, headaches are merely a symptom that something is wrong. It’s your body telling you there is a problem. That’s why when people just take another pill to help with their headaches, they aren’t curing what caused it, they are merely masking the symptom. It would be like if your oil was low in your car and instead of fixing the problem, you just turn off the low oil light.

Extreme Endurance Cardio Does More Harm than Good

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• Extreme endurance cardio, such as marathon running, actually damages your heart, and can negate the health benefits you’d otherwise reap from a regular fitness program. Research has shown that once you reach 40-50 minutes of vigorous exercise per day, the benefits from your efforts plateau, and further efforts do not convey further improvements in life expectancy.

• Extended extreme cardio sets in motion inflammatory mechanisms that damage your heart. So while your heart is indeed designed to work very hard, and will be strengthened from doing so, it’s only designed to do so intermittently, and for short periods—not for an hour or more at a time.

• Veteran endurance athletes have a five-fold increased risk of atrial fibrillation, a dangerous irregular heart rhythm. Worse yet, some endurance athletes also present ventricular tachycardia, which can lead to ventricular fibrillation—a leading cause of sudden cardiac death.

• To optimize the health benefits from running, you’ll want to run 5-20 miles per week—the ideal amount being 10-15 miles per week. Once you reach 25 miles or more per week, the benefits actually disappear. Running too fast (faster than 8 miles per hour) or more than five times per week also negates the health benefits of running.

• The best survival rates among runners are in those who run at a slow to average pace for a total of 1 to 2.5 hours per week, divided between two to three runs per week.

For more information, check out: Extreme Endurance Cardio May Do More Harm than Good

Newest Diabetes Drug Can Increase Your Risk of Cancer

Diabetes has increased more than 700 percent in the last 50 years. More than one in four Americans are either pre-diabetic or have full-blown diabetes.

Dr. Mercola Discusses Super Slow Workout

Also read my article on slow weightlifting: Slow Weight Lifting for Fast Results

Hospital Errors Kill Well Over 180,000 Americans Annually

“Infections, surgical mistakes, and other medical harm contributes to the deaths of 180,000 hospital patients a year, according to projections based on a 2010 report from the Department of Health and Human Services. Another 1.4 million are seriously hurt by their hospital care. And those figures apply only to Medicare patients. What happens to other people is less clear because most hospital errors go unreported and hospitals report on only a fraction of things that can go wrong.

‘There is an epidemic of health-care harm,’ says Rosemary Gibson, a patient-safety advocate and author. More than 2.25 million Americans will probably die from medical harm in this decade, she says. ‘That’s like wiping out the entire populations of North Dakota, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It’s a man-made disaster.’

… ‘Hospitals haven’t given safety the attention it deserves,’ says Peter Pronovost, M.D., senior vice president for patient safety and quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. Nor has the government, he says. ‘Medical harm is probably one of the three leading causes of death in the U.S., but the government doesn’t adequately track it as it does deaths from automobiles, plane crashes, and cancer. It’s appalling.’”-Consumer Reports

I do find it interesting that the same Doctors who will tell you that one can overdose on vitamins are the same ones who will tell you take all kinds of medications loaded with very harmful side effects. Of course they take money/gifts from the pharmaceutical companies, not companies making vitamins. The U.S. spends more money on health care than any other, yet we are barely in the top 50 when it comes to being healthy.

People need to start thinking for themselves and not just do whatever some person they hardly know tells them. The facts speak for themselves, so does history. The medical community has historically been wrong about many, many issues and they tend to mock those who disagree with them (even though it’s the medical community who is wrong over and over again). Just do your research and look into the side effects of all of these medications Doctors are trying to put you on.