Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The Original OZONATOR - keeps food + fridge fresh



I actually have an ozonator to ozonate water because it's healthful. You probably know about theozone layer, but ozone is actually the natural way our planet cleans itself. You've probably smelled ozone after a big thunderstorm--it's that clean smell.

The Original Ozonator is a gizmo that ozonates the air in your refrigerator. It basically gets rid of things like mold and bad bacteria, so it freshens and also--here's the kicker--it KEEPS FOOD FROM GOING BAD FASTER. Foods that are full of natural bacterias and yeast decompose faster--think of how quickly berries like strawberries go bad. Or the "bloom" you see on blueberries is a yeast that starts the berry fermenting. The Ozonator gets rid of stuff like that and you will save money because your food lasts longer naturally.

Of course, it's not suspended animation--your food will still go bad. However, as an inadvertent test, when we left for Christmas vacation for a week, an expensive package of opened organic turkey (already a few days old) had been left behind, and I was sad it was going to go to waste.

When we got back, I was surprised that it still looked fresh and indeed was not only edible, but still good.

The Ozonator is small and unobtrusive, and works much better than a bo of baking soda. One thing I will caution is that it can be irritating to breathe in ozone, so don't put your face in it while you have the fridge open, wondering what to eat for a snack...

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Is US polluting the water it will need to drink? NO FRACKING!

Fracking is ridiculous on so many levels--it uses carcinogenic chemicals, makes people and animals sick, etc. But shortsight profit seekers think it's ok to pollute local aquifers, and the government also exempts them from the Clean Water Act. Read this article and contemplate why this might be a bad bad idea:

http://www.propublica.org/article/message-from-mexico-u.s.-is-polluting-water-it-may-someday-need-to-drink

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Routine Health Checks have No Effect on Mortality

This is interesting because I am of the school "Why go looking for trouble?" My father was a physician and so my mother goes to the doctor at the drop of a hat. Here's what's happened to her recently:

1. a botched mammogram required her to come in for *2* more radiation-filled mamograms, they thought they saw "something," which I predicted was a calcification. My mother got very very stressed and had 3 more mammograms, all which pointed to a misreading of the 1st one. Also, as I pointed out, she's in her 80s and shouldn't be getting them at all, even though her doctor wants her to come in every 6 months for one because the one was "suspicious"--see what happens?

2. she also has a benign heart palpitation called SVT. I know about SVT because I've had one all my life, too, and because it's benign, I just try to reduce stress, because it's exacerbated by stress. She started seeing all sorts of doctors, once was sent to the ER for some kind of "shot" (she didn't ask what it was) that made her feel terrible and gave her MORE palpitations later and she almost had open heart surgery to install a pacemaker....don't ask. a cardiologist friend finally explained what bullsh*t this all was and that she should leave it alone. She did, and she's fine.

3. she was diagnosed with "pre hypertension" even though her blood pressure was raised b/c she was in the doctor's office (it's called "White coat syndrome"--they even have a name for it). They put her on a BP med that made her faint. So then she almost had her driver's license taken away. They blamed the palpitations and wanted to do a surgical ablation (where they zap and kill the valve--50% success rate). She was fine once she was off the meds.

4. she had a benign cyst that I argued should be left alone. She went ahead and had ONE done and it became more painful and more inflamed that the other one--which went away on its own.

There's more, but let me stop there. My mother is robustly healthy and I wish the doctors would quit trying to make her sick:

This article is from Medscape, a physician's website:

In a systematic review of 14 randomized controlled trials conducted between 1963 and 1999, researchers evaluated the effect of annual health checkups on morbidity and mortality. The authors defined a general health check as "a visit dedicated solely to preventive counseling and screening tests," excluding visits required for the management of chronic conditions or acute care visits.
The researchers evaluated data from more than 182,000 patients and assessed primary outcomes of all-cause mortality and disease-specific mortality. "Secondary outcomes assessed included morbidity, new diagnoses, hospitalizations, disability, worry, self-reported health, referrals to specialists, and additional visits to general practitioners," the authors write.
The researchers found that general health checks had no significant effect on total mortality (risk ratio [RR], 0.99; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.95 - 1.03), even when other factors such as inclusion of lifestyle counseling, duration of follow-up, and types of testing were examined. In terms of disease-specific mortality, no significant reduction in cancer mortality (RR, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.92 - 1.12) or cardiovascular mortality (RR, 1.03; 95% CI, 0.91 - 1.17) was found.
Not all trials included data on secondary outcomes; however, the researchers noted an increase in the number of new diagnoses of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes mellitus during the health checks.

read more here

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The flu is here

I'm not sure if the flu is really at an "epidemic" as the news media scaremongers seem to suggest, but an awful lot of people are getting the flu...and that includes people who are vaccinated. My friend who is a primary care physician says that the flu shot's efficacy is only around 60%, so it's up to you to decide your risk/reward ratio.

I used to get free flu shots at work (still do) but in the last few years have decided to go without and (knock wood) I've been fine. Ironically, I was still getting the flu shots so either (1) the flu shot doesn't work, at least for me or (2) it really does give you the flu!

Dr. Mercola suggests the following:
There are many other, far more effective ways to prevent the flu and other flu-like illness, such as dietary interventions, making sure your vitamin D and gut flora are optimized, being more meticulous about washing your hands, getting enough exercise and sleep, and eating foods that support your immune system like oil of oregano and garlic. read more here: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/01/22/flu-epidemic.aspx?

PLAIN SOAP AND WATER is as good or even better than those chemical hand sanitizers, many of which contain triclosan, and ingredient that is banned in Europe. I would add to that making sure you get enough sleep, and for myself, I drink a cup of green tea every day. That's seemed to help a lot of things. And laugh--laughing is good for the immune system!