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Important Press Release

About the Fucoidan Used in Xymetri Products

Zradical & FucoidZ

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AUSTRALIAN SCIENTISTS IN SWINE FLU BREAKTHROUGH

Seaweed Derivative Shown to Inhibit H1N1 Virus

In a breakthrough that offers new hope for the containment of influenza outbreaks, an Australian biotechnology company has isolated a natural extract from seaweed which has been shown to inhibit the H1N1 virus.

The extract – known as Maritech® 926 – is a fucoidan compound derived from the Undaria pinnatifida species of seaweed. In vitro tests performed under contract by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US, have shown that Maritech® 926 can inhibit the H1N1 influenza virus at extremely low concentrations.

Developed by biotechnology company Marinova Pty Ltd, Maritech® 926 is a natural polysaccharide which has immediate market potential in nutritional supplements, hand washes and nasal delivery products which target the spread and prevention of viral conditions. Scope also exists for the compound to be included in pharmaceutical and medical device applications. As a result of these findings, Marinova has filed for patent protection over the application of Maritech® 926 and other fucoidan extracts in a range of anti-viral applications.

In announcing the findings and patent filing, Marinova’s Senior Scientist, Dr Helen Fitton, said:

“Fucoidan extracts such as Maritech® 926 are known to have significant inhibitory effects on a range of coated viruses. We are particularly excited by the fact that these seaweed extracts have now been shown to have an inhibitory effect on H1N1 at extremely low concentrations. With H1N1 already becoming resistant to some other antiviral agents, we believe that Maritech® 926 offers a potent, natural alternative which supports the immune system against viral attacks”.

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WOW!!

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The Japanese seaweed Undaria arrived in Tasmania in ballast water more than 20 years ago.

A compound in the seaweed acts as a natural defense against marine viruses and toxins.

Scientists at a private laboratory near Hobart are convinced it is just as effective on humans.

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They have tested the compound against several viruses and say it profoundly inhibits the H1N1 virus.

Researcher Dr Helen Fitton says viruses use receptors to get into cells, but this process is stopped in the presence of the seaweed compound.

“The virus is unable to use its receptor to get into the cell,” she said.

Marinova Laboratories CEO Paul Garrott says he is anticipating immediate commercial interest and expects the compound will be used in nasal sprays, hand washes and tablets.

“This whole class of fucoidan compounds have been shown to have very profound antiviral activities against a range of influenza strains, against a range of other viruses and coated viruses – we mentioned HIV, we mentioned the herpes simplex virus.”

The FDA stated that giving animals antibiotics to increase food production should be stopped because is a threat to human health.  In the hope that the food industry will make voluntary changes the FDA has made the decision to stand on the sidelines for the time being even though they have the power to ban the practice.

Like humans, animals sometimes need antibiotics to fight or prevent specific infections.  Food producers however  give antibiotics to animals regularly because it makes them gain more weight from the foods that they eat faster than without the additives.

“We are seeing the emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogens,” FDA Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein, MD, said at a news conference.   The FDA believes that the overall weight of evidence supports the conclusion that using medically important antimicrobial drugs for production purposes is not appropriate.”  Sharfstein said it’s a public health issue when antibiotics important for human health are given to animals on a massive scale. Such use encourages the growth of drug-resistant bacteria that can cause hard-to-treat human disease.  Sharfstein  also said antibiotics should be used only to protect the health of an animal and not to help it grow or improve the way it digests its feed. “This is an urgent public health issue,” Sharfstein said during a conference call with reporters. “To preserve the effectiveness [of antibiotics], we simply must use them as judiciously as possible.”

It is rare indeed where I find myself in a position to defend the FDA however they have tried to limit the use of antibiotics in agriculture since 1977, but its efforts have repeatedly collapsed in the face of opposition from the drug industry and farm lobby.   But mounting evidence of a global crisis of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has propelled the government to act, said Brad Spellberg, an infectious-diseases specialist and the author of “Rising Plague,” a book about antibiotic resistance.

“The writing is on the wall,” said Spellberg, who teaches at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. “We’re in an era where antibiotic resistance is out of control, and we’re running out of drugs and new drugs are not being developed. We can’t continue along the path we’re on.”

The European Union banned the feeding of antibiotics and related drugs to livestock for growth promotion in 2006.

U.S. farmers routinely give antibiotics to food-producing animals to treat illnesses, prevent infection and encourage growth. The drugs are often added to drinking water and feed. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that 70 percent of antibiotics and related drugs used in the United States are given to animals.  Many of the same classes of drugs fed to animals are deemed “critically” important in human medicine by the FDA, including penicillin, tetracyclines and sulfonamides. In recent years, public health experts say there has been an alarming increase in the number of bacteria that have grown resistant to antibiotics, leading to severe, untreatable illnesses in humans.

Naturally the farming industry, food producers and the manufacturers of the drugs being used are stating that there is not enough evidence for the FDA to propose an alternative course of action and that they need more evidence before it dictates changes to long-standing practices of administering antibiotics to animals.
“Show us the science that use of antibiotics in animal production is causing this antibiotic resistance,” said Dave Warner of the pork council. “How do we know [the problem] is not on the human side? Where is the science for you to go forward on this?”

Conversely public health groups, however, said the agency’s actions were too tentative.

“The policy is good, but you can’t have a policy unless you have a mechanism to implement,” said Steve Roach of Keep Antibiotics Working, a coalition of health and environmental groups. “Their hope is the industry is voluntarily going to go along. We don’t believe people are going to act against their own economic interest because FDA asks them politely to do it.”

Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.), who has filed legislation to limit the use of antibiotics in agriculture, said FDA officials “have not gone far enough or moved fast enough.”   “Scientists and public health experts have known for many years that these drugs were being overused by farmers,” she said.
In the mean time the consumer once again finds themselves caught in the middle of this game of Russian Roulette.

Just another example why buying Organic is the best option for the health minded consumer.

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They say the health claims of Mead Johnson’s Enfagrow Premium — a “toddler formula” for children 12 to 36 months old — are unproven. The products contain more than 25 additives to boost growth, brain development and immunity for the kids, but some say the dollops of added sugar for flavoring may contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic.

The company responded to the firestorm of criticism by dropping its new chocolate-flavored product, which critics have considered the worst offender with 19 grams of sugar.

The chocolate version was discontinued after four months because of “the whole emotional evocative nature of chocolate,” said Mead Johnson spokesman Chris Perille. “It’s more associated with candy and sweets and things potentially not as beneficial. Flavor was more in conflict with a nutritious product.”

In a prepared statement Wednesday, Mead Johnson said there had been “some misunderstanding and mischaracterization regarding the intended consumer” of the product. “The resulting debate has distracted attention from the overall benefits of the brand.”

But the company still intends to sell its vanilla-flavored Enfagrow, which has 16 to 17 grams of sugar overall, and three other unflavored versions with 10 to 11 grams, targeting so-called “picky eaters” who could use a nutritional supplement.

The company introduced an unflavored product, “Next Step,” in 1994. Later it was rebranded as Enfagrow. Last July the company launched its vanilla flavor and chocolate was added in February, according to Perille.

Mead Johnson sells all these products as “science-based” and is marketing Enfagrow for children ages 1 to 3, who have been weaned off breast milk or infant formula and “still need nutritional support.”

Its main ingredients are, in this order: whole milk, nonfat milk and sugar. Product labeling indicates the formula is fortified with vitamins “for healthy growth;” Omega-3 DHA and iron, “building blocks of the brain;” and prebiotics and antioxidants to “support the immune system.”

It’s not cheap: $18.99 for 29 ounces. The can makes 22 servings (one-quarter cup of powder mixed with six ounces water) — about 86 cents for a glass of fortified milk, sugar and flavoring.

In its advertising, the company notes that “85 percent of brain growth” happens before age 3. The poster child for the advertising, a chunky toddler in red Converses, seems to echo that claim as he points to a nutritional list with a saw cutting a log over his head.

“It’s got three health claims and if somebody looks at it, they’ll think, ‘Oh if I feed my child this product he will be smart, immune and grow. My kid is a picky eater, he’ll love this,’” said Marion Nestle, professor of food studies and public health at New York University, who has launched a campaign to get the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to stop Mead Johnson’s health claims.

“This is a completely unnecessary product,” she said. “It’s expensive and the first two ingredients are milk and the third is sugar. They could just add a teaspoon of sugar to the milk and get the same thing.”

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Source: ABC News Health

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As you already know there has been and continues to be a great debate as to the safety and effectiveness of immunization through vaccination.  Despite the growing mountain of evidence which conclusively shows that the risks associated with vaccination far outweighs the benefits many people continue to subject themselves and their children to these dangerous concoctions.

The primary concern of most people is rooted in the presence of thimerosal, a mercury containing preservative found in the vaccines, and its apparent link to the ever increasing rate of Autism in this country and around the world.

In this series of articles we will attempt to illustrate why we believe that these vaccines are not only ineffective in the suppression of the diseases they are intended to remedy they are also a clear and present danger to our children.

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Now it has been claimed by many that although there is sufficient evidence that mercury does indeed effect the development of  brain function the amount of the heavy metal used in the immunization serums are safe for use on humans.

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What do the courts have to say about this issue?

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LA Times March 13, 2010|By Thomas H. Maugh II and Andrew Zajac

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles — The federal “vaccines court” ruled Friday in three separate cases that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal does not cause autism, a finding that supports the broad scientific consensus on the matter but that greatly disappointed parents who are convinced that their child’s illness was caused by vaccines.

The court had ruled 13 months ago that a combination of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, commonly known as the MMR vaccine, and thimerosal does not cause the disorder, so the new ruling may finally close the bulk of litigation on the matter. The earlier ruling has been appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, and this one most likely will be also, but most experts think the court will uphold the decision.

More Court Decisions Here

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The Special Masters in those three cases found that Petitioners failed to establish causation between MMR vaccines, the mercury-laced vaccine preservative thimerosal, and autism (the court decision, which is under appeal, deferred any finding on a thimerosal-only theory of causation).  The rulings could have a significant precedential impact on some 5,000 families who opted to bring their cases in the Omnibus Autism Proceedings (OAP) hoping that the vaccine court would officially hold that the MMR vaccine or thimerosal had caused autism in their children.

The New York Times joined the government Health Agency (HRSA) and its big pharma allies hailing the decisions as proof that the scientific doubts about vaccine safety had finally been “demolished.” The US Department of Health and Human services said the rulings should “help reassure parents that vaccines do not cause autism.” The Times, which has made itself a blind mouthpiece for HRSA and a leading defender of vaccine safety, joined crowing government and vaccine industry flacks applauding the decisions like giddy cheerleaders, rooting for the same court that many of these same voices viscously derided just one year ago, after Hannah Poling won compensation for her vaccine induced autism.

But last week, the parents of yet another child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were awarded a lump sum of more than $810,000 (plus an estimated $30-40,000 per year for autism services and care) in compensation by the Court, which ruled that the measels-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine had caused acute brain damage that led to his autism spectrum disorder.

The family of 10-year-old Bailey Banks won their case quietly and without fanfare in June of 2007, but the ruling has only now come to public attention. In the remarkably clear and eloquent decision, Special Master Richard Abell ruled that the Banks had successfully demonstrated that “the MMR vaccine at issue actually caused the conditions from which Bailey suffered and continues to suffer.”

Bailey’s diagnosis is Pervasive Developmental Disorder — Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) which has been recognized as an autism spectrum disorder by CDC, HRSA and the other federal health agencies since at least the 1990s.

In his conclusion, Special Master Abell ruled that Petitioners had proven that the MMR had directly caused a brain inflammation illness called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) which, in turn, had caused the autism spectrum disorder PDD-NOS in the child:

The Court found that Bailey’s ADEM was both caused-in-fact and proximately caused by his vaccination. It is well-understood that the vaccination at issue can cause ADEM, and the Court found, based upon a full reading and hearing of the pertinent facts in this case, that it did actually cause the ADEM. Furthermore, Bailey’s ADEM was severe enough to cause lasting, residual damage, and retarded his developmental progress, which fits under the generalized heading of Pervasive Developmental Delay, or PDD [an autism spectrum disorder]. The Court found that Bailey would not have suffered this delay but for the administration of the MMR vaccine, and that this chain of causation was… a proximate sequence of cause and effect leading inexorably from vaccination to Pervasive Developmental Delay.

The Bailey decision is not an isolated ruling. We now know of at least two other successful ADEM cases argued in Vaccine Court. More significantly, an explosive investigation by CBS News has found that since 1988, the vaccine court has awarded money judgments, often in the millions of dollars, to thirteen hundred and twenty two families whose children suffered brain damage from vaccines. In many of these cases, the government paid out awards following a judicial finding that vaccine injury lead to the child’s autism spectrum disorder. In each of these cases, the plaintiffs’ attorneys made the same tactical decision made by Bailey Bank’s lawyer, electing to opt out of the highly charged Omnibus Autism Proceedings and argue their autism cases in the regular vaccine court. In many other successful cases, attorneys elected to steer clear of the hot button autism issue altogether and seek recovery instead for the underlying brain damage that caused their client’s autism.

Medical records associated with these proceedings clearly tell the tale. In perhaps hundreds of these cases, the children have all the classic symptoms of regressive autism; following vaccination a perfectly healthy child experiences high fever, seizures, and other illnesses, then gradually, over about three months, loses language, the ability to make eye contact, becomes “over-focused” and engages in stereotypical head banging and screaming and then suffers developmental delays characteristic of autism. Many of these children had received the autism diagnosis. Yet the radioactive word “autism” appears nowhere in the decision.

Instead the vaccine court Special Masters rest their judgments on their finding that the vaccines caused some generalized brain injury, mainly Encephalopathy/encephalitis (brain inflammation) or “seizure disorders” — conditions known to cause autism-like symptoms. A large number of the children who have won these judgments have been separately diagnosed with autism. HRSA acknowledged this fact in a recent letter, but told us it does not keep data on how many of these children were autistic.

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Conclusion

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The Vaccine Court, in other words, seems quite willing to award millions of dollars in taxpayer funded compensation to vaccine-injured autistic children, so long as they don’t have to call the injury by the loaded term “autism. ” That hazard is particularly acute for vaccine victims who appear before the Omnibus Autism Proceedings (OAP). Since that body’s decisions are closely watched, published and accorded the weight of precedent, many lawyers consider the burden of proof for petitioners to be impossibly high before the OAP Panel.  It was for this reason that Bailey’s attorney, Mark McLaren, elected to opt out of the OAP and try his case separately, even though Bailey has been receiving autism-related services in his home state and was eligible to file a case in the Court’s Omnibus Autism Proceedings (OAP).

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As in most debates between naturalists and the scientific community the topic of natural foods verses those cultivated  from GMOs is hotter than ever.  In this series of articles we will broach the topic of GMOs to further your understanding of the issue at hand.

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Overview

Genetic modification of food is not new.
For centuries, food crops and animals have been altered through selective breeding. While genes can be transferred during selective breeding, the scope for exchanging genetic material is much wider using genetic engineering. In theory, genetic engineering allows genetic material to be transferred between any organism, including between plants and animals. For example, the gene from a fish that lives in very cold seas has been inserted into a strawberry, allowing the fruit to be frost-tolerant.

By far the most common genetically modified (GM) organisms are crop plants. But the technology has now been applied to almost all forms of life, from pets that glow under UV light to bacteria which form HIV blocking “living condoms” and from pigs bearing spinach genes to goats that produce spider silk.

When did genetically modified foods originate?
Between 1997 and 1999, gene-modified (GM) ingredients suddenly appeared in 2/3rds of all US processed foods. This food alteration was fueled by a single Supreme Court ruling. It allowed, for the first time, the patenting of life forms for commercialization. Since then thousands of applications for experimental GM organisms have been filed with the US Patent Office alone, and many more abroad.

The first commercially grown genetically modified whole food crop was the tomato (called Flavr Savr), which was made more resistant to rotting by Californian company Calgene. The tomatoes were released into the market in 1994 without any special labeling.
In February 1996, J. Sainsbury and Safeway Stores in the United Kingdom introduced Europe’s first genetically-modified food product. A variant of the Flavr Savr was used by Zeneca to produce tomato paste which was sold in Europe during the summer of 1996. Following GM crops included insect resistant cotton and herbicide-tolerant soybeans both of which were commercially available in 1996.

In 2003, countries that grew 99 % of the global transgenic crops were the United States (63 %), Argentina (21 %), Canada (6 %), Brazil (4 %), China (4 %), and South Africa (1 %) and today the Grocery Manufacturers of America estimate that 75 % of all processed foods in the U.S. contain a GM ingredient.

Between 1995 and 2005, the total surface area of land cultivated with GMOs had increased by a factor of 50, from 17,000 km² (4.2 million acres) to 900,000 km² (222 million acres), of which 55 percent were in Brazil.

In the US, by 2006 89 % of the planted area of soybeans, 83 % of cotton, and 61 % maize were genetically modified varieties.

Today many GM crops are grown in North America. India has also come aboard the bandwagon in 2002 with a rapid and continuing expansion of GM cotton varieties.
“Genetic engineering is inherently dangerous, because it greatly expands the scope for horizontal gene transfer and recombination, precisely the processes that create new viruses and bacteria that cause disease epidemics, and trigger cancer in cells.” – Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

The Problem

The way we see it the problem of GMOs being used on our food supply is three fold.  For most Americans it is a question of civil liberty.  For the time being American consumers have the right to eat the kinds of foods that they desire.  They have the right to chose weather they consume GMO foods or not.  Or do they?

There are no labeling requirements imposed on those who grow GMO crops or produce processed or natural foods for that matter,  As has been stated above GM ingredients can be found in 2/3rds of the processed foods consumed by Americans.  It is also known that these GMO crops find their way into our food chain and subsequently onto our family dinner table, through livestock which feeds on these GMO products.

The Bottom Line here is that weather we trust in the science behind these products or not, weather the products are believed to be safe or not or weather we want to consume these products or not WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW WHAT WE ARE PUTTING INTO OUR BODIES AND THAT CHOICE HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM US in terms of GMOs and our food supply.

Be on the look out for Part 2 of this series where we will discuss the controversy surrounding GMOs in terms of their relative safety.

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Much like antibiotics, heartburn drugs of all kinds are grossly over-prescribed. According to most health care professionals, perhaps one in a hundred people actually need these drugs, while 99 out of 100 really need to change their diets and/or use harmless alternatives.

There are probably as many natural remedies for hyper-acidity as there are prescription drugs, so one has many choices. If you are not sure what to do, a natural health care professional will be able to help.

Since stress, poor lifestyle choices such as cigarette smoking, and physical inactivity can cause hyper-acidity as well as just about any disorder, efforts should definitely be made to make major changes in these areas.

Too many people in the U.S. may be taking stomach-acid-suppressing drugs such as Nexium and Prevacid, new research suggests. The drugs, known as proton pump inhibitors, help those with serious stomach and digestive problems, but the risks may outweigh the benefits for people with less serious conditions, experts say.

Proton pump inhibitors can have rare but serious side effects, including an increased risk of bacterial infection and bone fracture, according to several new studies in the Archives of Internal Medicine.  Proton pump inhibitors are among the most commonly prescribed drugs in the U.S. In 2009, they were the third-largest class of drug in the country with $13.6 billion in sales, representing more than 110 million prescriptions, according to IMS Health, a health-care market research firm.

Nexium and Prevacid (which is also available as a generic drug, lansoprazole) are the two most popular proton pump inhibitors, according to the most recent government data. Other drugs in the class include Prilosec, Zegerid, Protonix, and Aciphex.

“These medications definitely have benefits for a vast number of patients, but they also carry some really meaningful risks of diseases that can be catastrophic,” says Dr. Michael Howell, the lead author of one of the studies and the director of critical-care quality at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “Every doctor should look at every patient and give them the lowest level of gastric acid suppression that they think is safe. For many patients, that would be none.”

According to Dr. Mitchell H. Katz of the San Francisco Department of Public Health in an editorial accompanying the reports, which were published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Katz noted that 113.4 million prescriptions for the drugs, known as proton pump inhibitors, are written each year, and large numbers are sold without prescriptions.

The widely used family of acid-reducing drugs that includes Prilosec, Nexium and Protonix increases the risk of bone fractures by about 25% and can more than double the risk of contracting the troublesome bacterium Clostridium difficile, new studies released Monday confirm.

The increased risk is not thought to be caused by the drugs themselves, but by the sharply reduced levels of acid in the stomach and intestinal tract, which make the organs a more hospitable environment for infectious agents like C. difficile and which can impair the uptake of the calcium required for strong bones.

The drugs have also been shown to increase the risk of pneumonia.

The family of drugs, which also includes Losec, Zegerid, Prevacid and omeprazole, is widely used to treat conditions in which excess stomach acid causes pain and bleeding, including ulcers, and gastroesophageal reflux disease, in which stomach acid is regurgitated into the esophagus. But the drugs are also widely used to treat simple heartburn, and that is the condition for which they are most widely overused, experts said.

“Harm will result if these commonly used medications are prescribed for conditions for which there is no benefit, such as non-ulcer dyspepsia [heartburn],” Dr. Deborah Grady and Dr. Rita F. Redberg of UC San Francisco said in another editorial.

Among the findings of the reports:

Pharmacologist Shelly L. Gray of the University of Washington and her colleagues studied 130,487 women in the Women’s Health Initiative. After an average of eight years of follow-up, they found a 47% increase in spinal fractures and a 26% increase in forearm and wrist fractures but no increase in hip fractures. Overall, the increased risk of fractures was 25%.

Dr. Michael D. Howell of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and his colleagues studied more than 100,000 patients discharged from hospitals over a five-year period. They found that incidence of infection with C. difficile increased with increasing doses of proton pump inhibitors. The hard-to-treat bacterium causes severe diarrhea and other medical problems and can be deadly if not properly treated. About 0.3% of those who received no proton pump inhibitors during their stay contracted C. difficile infections, whereas about 1.4% of those taking the most powerful drugs at least twice a day contracted the bacterium, a 366% increase.
Dr. Amy Linsky of Boston Medical Center and her colleagues studied 1,166 patients being treated for C. difficile infections. They found that 25.2% of those who were taking proton pump inhibitors suffered a recurrence of their infection, compared with 18.5% of those who were not taking the drugs, a 36% increase in risk.

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Try the natural alternatives:

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With respect to diet, the best thing to do is eat frequent small meals throughout the day instead of the usual 3 large meals. Drink more spring or purified water to help dilute acid excess. Therapeutic vegetable juices include carrot, spinach, beet, cucumber, parsley, celery, cabbage and potato.  These should be used liberally throughout the day (2 quarts daily).  Raw potato juice just before breakfast can help reduce acid regurgitation.  Avoid red meat, alcohol, hot sauces, spicy and fried foods, added salt, caffeine products, sugar and refined carbohydrate products.

If you use aspirin, replace it with white willow bark capsules.  At least this will not further aggravate the discomfort.

A large number of people suffer from hyperacidity because of an allergy to milk protein (casein) or gluten found in most grains.  Food allergy or sensitivity testing might be a good idea in the more stubborn cases failing to respond to other diet and supplement changes.

Supplements that have a healing effect against H. pylori include garlic, wild mountain oregano oil, berberine, lactobacillus acidophilus and other probiotics, bovine colostrum, essential fatty acids (flax seed oil, cod liver oil, salmon oil, evening primrose oil, borage oil), licorice root tincture or herbal tea, choline, lecithin, PABA, bismuth, bentonite, goldenseal, slippery elm, burdock, manuka honey, ginger root, mastic gum and aloe vera juice.

It should be noted here that the long-term use of licorice can elevate blood pressure in some sensitive individuals. The glycyrrhetinic acid component of licorice is what is responsible for this potential side effect. The best way of getting around this problem while still taking advantage of licorice’s ability to protect the gastrointestinal lining from acid irritation is to use deglycyrrhizinated licorice (DGL). Many herbal brands manufacture DGL, a supplement widely available at most health food stores and pharmacies specializing in natural remedies.

The four herb combination of burdock, slippery elm, Turkish rhubarb and sheep sorrel (a.k.a. Essiac) is effective for a wide range of gut problems including hiatus hernia, duodenal ulcers, gastritis, colitis, Crohn’s disease, non-specific indigestion, irritable bowel syndrome, hemorrhoids and bowel infections.  It can be used alone or in combination with DGL, aloe vera juice or prescription medications in more resistant cases. Check with your doctor or naturopath for a personalized treatment regime.

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There seems to be a growing segment of the scientific community that believes there is soon to be a paradigm shift in terms of the treatment of disease.  Simply Stated the new paradigm is that people need to take drugs before they get sick, as a preventive measure, rather than turning to drugs only after they have already become ill.

As we all know the concept of prevention in terms of health care is nothing new.  Many people within the alternative medical community have been touting the benefits of a more proactive approach to health care for decades.   The problem here is not so much in the objective of achieving and maintaining good health rather in the path that we take to reach that end.  While the conventional medical community tends to take the approach of treating disease with the use of pharmaceutical drugs the alternative medical community has ALWAYS been on the forefront of the concept of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure and that these cures can be found in nature rather than in a laboratory .

Today, in it’s infinite wisdom, conventional medicine has apparently discovered that prevention is the most logical approach to good health and is actively seeking a way to become more proactive in it‘s roll to provide preventive healthcare to the masses.  Although this philosophical shift is definitely welcome and long overdue in our society the problem, as usual, is found in the course of treatment rather than in the objective.   We believe that in the natural course of events western medicine will develop a whole new class of drugs (preventive pharmaceuticals) and eventually some form of mandatory inoculation program liken to the one currently imposed on our infants and children.

Setting aside the monetary and social tenets of this philosophy, for the time being anyway, I’d like to take a little time to explore the therapeutic value of vaccination.

According to medicine net.com:

Vaccination is the injection of a killed microbe in order to stimulate the immune system against the microbe, thereby preventing disease. Vaccinations, or immunizations, work by stimulating the immune system, the natural disease-fighting system of the body. The healthy immune system is able to recognize invading bacteria and viruses and produce substances (antibodies) to destroy or disable them. Immunizations prepare the immune system to ward off a disease. To immunize against viral diseases, the virus used in the vaccine has been weakened or killed. To only immunize against bacterial diseases, it is generally possible to use a small portion of the dead bacteria to stimulate the formation of antibodies against the whole bacteria. In addition to the initial immunization process, it has been found that the effectiveness of immunizations can be improved by periodic repeat injections or “boosters.” Also see Vaccines (in the plural) and Vaccine of a specific type (such Vaccine, Polio).

On the surface this seems to be a logical approach to the problem of combating disease.  As we dig a little deeper however we discover a few major flaws in the concept which raise a few obvious questions.

Do vaccines actually work?

Many proponents of vaccination point to the decline in the mortality rate since the turn of the 20th century as evidence that immunization by vaccination is effective in preventing disease.  We do not believe this to be true.  First and foremost we believe that this increase in our life span is attributed to better sanitary conditions as well as advancements in nutritional science.  Sickness and death historically were caused mostly by poor nutrition, inadequate housing, unsanitary living conditions, poverty, warfare and as population density and urbanization grew exposure to bacteria, parasites, and communicable diseases followed suit.  These conditions gave rise to acute illnesses such as influenza, scarlet fever, whooping cough, polio, pneumonia, and tuberculosis to name a few. In most cases, acute illnesses occur suddenly and are characterized by a sharp increase in discomfort and pain due to an inflammation, and are of short duration. Whether endemic or epidemic, these illnesses contributed heavily to the high mortality rates and short life spans among persons living in pre-industrial societies.

Read more: Chronic Illness – Sickness In Historical Context – poverty, theory, family, development http://family.jrank.org/pages/257/Chronic-Illness-Sickness-in-Historical-Context.html#ixzz0mOGFgbfF

Are vaccines safe?

The value of vaccination, as with many things in life, can be determined in terms of risk verses reward.  The primary health risk associated with immunization by vaccination has always been contamination of the serums by harmful bacteria.  As a solution to this problem antibacterial agents were introduced to the products.  One such agent called thermisol (thimerosal, thiomersal, thiomersalate), also known as Merthiolate, is a mercury containing agent used as a preservative in pharmaceutical preparations.  As you probably know there is an ongoing debate within the medical community as to the safety of this agent.  It is believed by many that the use of this agent is directly connected with the rise of the Autism rate in the US and world wide.

There are many who believe that antivaccinist leadership are simply countercultural types who view life through a prism of conspiracy theories (the government lies, the drug companies are evil, the medical profession is corrupt;).  Perhaps to some greater or lesser degree the vaccinists are right.  There are many who see conspiracy around every corner.  Be that as it may I do not believe this to be the case in this situation.  There is a mountain of evidence that shows there has been and continues to be a massive cover up regarding the connection between thimerosal and autism.  This evidence will be reveled in depth  in a future article “Our Children Under Attack”.

The final and perhaps the most important question is; should we have the personal choice as to weather we and or our loved ones opt out of any immunization program?  Obviously we believe that as Americans and as consumers, do indeed have that right.

In closing ladies and gentlemen I’d like to say that this article is meant to serve as a warning.  The idea of imposed adult vaccination is not as far fetched or futuristic as you might think.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation  in 2008 has allotted a $100,000 grant to an Japanese research team working on genetically engineered mosquitoes to deliver vaccines.  Edible vaccines, as GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) foods, are in the future as well. Meat and Poultry, a business journal for meat and poultry processors, reports in a May 5, 2009 article , by Bryan Salvage, that researchers at Iowa State University are working on creating a method to install vaccines into corn crops.

“We’re trying to figure out which genes from the swine influenza virus to incorporate into corn”, stated Hank Harris, a researcher on the project. “If a swine flu virus breaks out, the corn could be shipped to the location to try to vaccinate animals and humans in the area quickly. . . . there is no need for extensive vaccine purification, which can be an expensive process.”

This way even corn products, including corn chips and corn syrup, which is ubiquitous in processed foods, can serve as vaccination vehicles for humans while the corn itself is fed to hogs. Starting in 1996, bananas have been considered as a vaccination vehicle for developing countries. Keep in mind that this will be genetically engineered, or GMO so you won’t know where and when it will show up on the food shelves.

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Most vaccination serums are created by using fragments of dead micro-organisms to trigger an immune system response to the invading organism.

The H1N1 nasal mist however is a “live vaccine” (contains the live H1N1 micro-organism).

**If you plan on taking the H1N1 vaccine  please note that women who are pregnant or patients with specific conditions — like asthma or immuno suppression  should not use the nasal form of vaccine due to  added risks posed by the live-virus vaccine.**

As those of you who have been reading my articles may have noted I have been quite suspect about this entire H1N1 (swine flu virus) scare for quite some time.  The release of this “live vaccine”  simply adds more fuel to that fire.  We know that the H1N1 virus has, as predicted, began to spread again.  We also know that pregnant women and the elderly were supposed to be the first to receive the “inject able” vaccine because they are among the “high risk“ groups.   Don’t you find it suspicious that the first shipments of the vaccine are not to be used by the “high risk” groups?

For whom are the intranasal vaccines deemed “safe” for use?  Children!  Now I’d like you to think about this for a moment.  Stated on the insert that comes with the vaccine the product has the potential for transmission to others.  So if a child gets the Flumist in school they are contagious to the other children for at least two weeks.  Is this going to help to contain the virus or help to spread it?  Are you going to let some doctor give your child the live virus?  More importantly are you going to permit your child come in contact with another child who received the intranasal vaccine?

Ladies and Gentlemen the bottom line is that this vaccine, in either form, has been fast tracked with very few studies.  The studies done, however, have been completed without the added thimerosal (mercury) and squalene. The vaccines for the general public, when they are ready, will be formulated with squalene (a possible cause of Gulf War Syndrome) and thimerosal, a known neurotoxin. Very few vaccines without these additives will be available.

Also, 90 percent of the seasonal flu vaccines contain thimerosal.

I’m not trying to frighten anyone here I am simply offering information that might be of interest and or of benefit to my readers.  Much of the information I have seen indicates that the virus has not began to mutate and that the mortality rate is relatively low (especially if you are not in a high risk group).  The question you must ask yourselves is: do the benefits outweigh the risks involved with inoculation?  Don’t take my word for anything here however I strongly advise that you do your due diligence before you make your decision.

Again, in closing, I will state my position that the best offense is a strong defense.  Do all that you can to boost your immune system now and allow your body do what it has been designed to do.

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Ladies & Gentlemen I believe that there is something radically wrong here.  The more I investigate this health issue the more sinister it appears to be.  Let’s take a quick look at some of the facts.

• The World Health Organization raised the pandemic alert to five on April 29, one short of declaring a global pandemic.

• In May 2009 the WHO declared that 12,515 people had been effected by the H1N1 virus world wide resulting in 91 fatalities.

• Influenza kills 100 people every day and is not considered a “pandemic” by the WHO.

• While the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimated last week that as many as 1 million Americans may have contracted the H1N1 virus, it doesn’t seem to be any more dangerous than the seasonal flu, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters on a teleconference call, July 10.  “At least to date, it appears that while a lot of people may get the H1N1 virus, it doesn’t appear to be significantly more lethal than seasonal flu is,” Sebelius explained.

Almost every study or opinion that I have been able to find states that the H1N1 virus is no more lethal than the seasonal influenza virus.  Yet the WHO is calling this a “pandemic”.   Also noteworthy is that there is a mountain of evidence which shows that the H1N1 vaccine itself is going to prove to be a far greater health hazard than the virus it has been designed to battle.  There have also been claims that the virus has begun to mutate.  If this is true the vaccine will prove to be useless in that it has been created using only fragments of H1N1.

Now Ladies and Gentlemen I don’t know if this virus was created in a laboratory or not and I’m certainly not here to make that argument.  I am only here to present the facts as I know them.  Speaking of which, here is another interesting fact that I stumbled  upon the other day that I found quite interesting:  a patent application dealing specifically with H1N1 (Swine Flu) and it’s sub-types was filed by Baxter Pharmaceuticals almost two years before the first actual case of Swine Flu was reported.  See the Patent Application Here

Finding this application rather conspicuous I began going through my research and play a little game of connect the dots and here is what I found.

It is believed that Ground Zero for the H1N1 outbreak is Mexico City, Mexico.

Baxter Pharmaceutical’s manufacturing plant lies in Cuernavaca which just happens to be located 50 miles from Mexico City.

Baxter sent vaccines contaminated with deadly live H5N1 avian flu virus to 18 countries before someone caught the mistake and the vaccine got injected thousands of people.

Baxter just missed creating its own pandemic then by mixing  deadly H5N1 virus with a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses, or did they?

By possibly creating the pandemic, maybe Baxter already has the cure and that is why the World Health Organization (WHO) has deemed them the appropriate pharmaceutical company to lead the way for a swine flu vaccine.

Oh did I mention that Baxter’s Stock is doing quite well these days?  Have a Look For Yourselves

]]> http://www.healthproductsguru.com/293/swine-flu-vaccine-update-9262009/feed/ 0 http://www.healthproductsguru.com/322/is-eating-healthy-enough/ http://www.healthproductsguru.com/322/is-eating-healthy-enough/#comments Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:34:43 +0000 Bill Mullins http://www.healthproductsguru.com/?p=322

Do you eat all of the right foods in the right amounts?  Do you consume only organic produce?  Eat lots of fruits and veggies?  Plenty of protein and grains  in your diet?   That’s great!  You are way ahead of the pack.

More people than ever before have a raised consciousness with regard to their diet.  They eat right, get plenty of fresh air and exercise.  Gym memberships are up and home exercise equipment sales are through the roof.  Why then are we, as a nation, sicker than ever before in our history?

People are quite shocked to learn that even though they are doing “all of the right things” they are actually undernourished.  There are critical elements missing from their diets that prevent their bodies from getting the proper nutrition needed for good health.  Many people are aware of the fact that our food supply has been tainted with chemical and biological agents designed to increase volume at the expense nutritional value.  In response to this issue they have turned to the organic marketplace which, in my opinion, is a good thing.  It has been shown, in terms of organic produce, that these products deliver proximately 30% nutritional value than their non organic counterparts.  They are also free of chemical fertilizers, synthetic vitamins/minerals (used to replenish the nutrient depleted soil) and genetically engineered elements designed to produce more volume in less time.

When you weigh the benefits of  going organic as compared to non-organic foods, regarding nutritional value price point, you find that it is actually a wash.  You pay 30% more for the products to receive 30% more nutrition.  The fact of the matter is that even if you use organic products you are still getting proximately 50% LESS NUTRITION than you did consuming the non-organic produce grown 50 years ago.

The evidence of this fact can be seen in The Dietary Guidelines for Americans published jointly every 5 years since 1980 by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) which states:

Click Here to view Document

On page 62 of this Document you will find “The DASH eating plan” which will give you the number of servings and the serving size of each food group that you need to consume per day broken down by targeted caloric intake.  I believe upon review of this document that most people will be shocked to learn how far short they actually fall from this bench mark.  Those of us who are aware of these “standards” know how much the “necessary quantities” of these food’s have increased over the years to compensate for the decrease in their nutritional value.  Although the number of servings have remained the same over the years the serving sizes continue to grow every 5 years.

As can be seen in the growth of the vitamin /mineral supplement sector of the health & wellness industry over the years people realize the need to supplement their diets.  Although supplementation, in our opinion, is a wise decision you must beware that “All Supplements Are Not Created Equal!

Most of the top selling vitamin/mineral supplements, along with hundreds of others, are synthetic and contain potentially dangerous substances.  Click Here for More Information

You  probably already know Patrick Swayze succumb to cancer this week.  We can add his name to the list of notables, Farrah Fawcett. Tony Snow and Peter Jennings (to name a few) who have lost their battle with this disease over the last few years.  The sad truth is that there are some 1,500 deaths per day that are attributed  to this disease.  My question here is weather it is the cancer that is killing these people or the treatment?

While chemotherapy has prolonged lives, it is running up against limits. Lung, colon, breast and prostate cancers, the four main killers, essentially ”remain incurable by standard chemotherapy” once they have spread to other parts of the body, said Dr. Lawrence N. Shulman, chief medical officer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.  More target therapies are under development however they are in the infant stages in terms of research and development.  Even if these targeted therapies do happen to show promise in the future they are still years down the road from being considered as accepted effective therapies.

We all know that chemotherapy is a drug treatment that uses powerful chemicals to kill fast-growing cells in your body. Chemotherapy is most often used to treat cancer, since cancer cells grow and multiply much more quickly than most cells in the body.  The agents (drugs) that are used (mimic immune system response) identify and attack the cells in the body that grow rapidly.  This also includes fast growing non cancerous cells such as those found in hair, bone marrow and crypt cells of the lining of the small intestine and cells lining the reproductive tract to name a few.  The destruction of the bone marrow cells may very well be an important factor in the cure being equally as detrimental as the disease.   As we know leukocytes are produced in the bone marrow and are reasonably fast growing cells (especially in times when the body perceives that it is under attack).  Among these leukocyte cells are the lymphocyte type  (B cells, T cells {CD4 & CD8} & NK {natural killer cells}) which are critical in dealing with the mechanisms of disease.  These cells are the core members of the immune systems response to cancer.  Chemotherapy subsequently leaves the body totally unprotected against any cancer cells that remain in the body after the Chemo & Radiation treatments have been given.

The effects of the chemotherapy is not seen during the onset of treatment rather in the latter stages.  Many white blood cells grow and divide rapidly to deal with an illness and have a very short life span (hours to days).  In the case of Leukocytes however, although they do tend to grow rapidly and have a much longer life span (months to years) and they do not divide rapidly.  Basically this means that the extra cells needed to fight disease must come from the production of new cells and not from (cell division) the existing cells.  It is this slow cell division combined with the severely diminishes capacity of production that is the main problem with this type of therapy.

The fact is that both chemotherapy and radiation therapy are both carcinogenic, which means that they can cause cancer.  Many times, months or years after the treatments, patients develop secondary cancers.  Chemotherapy destroys cancer cells by disrupting cell division. However, normal cells are also affected, especially if the dose is too high or if certain drugs are used. For example, etoposide is associated with an increased risk of acute leukemia compared to other chemotherapy drugs. Furthermore, secondary cancers are more frequent in patients who receive radiation therapy and chemotherapy compared to either treatment alone.

How can secondary cancers be prevented?

Define the risk of recurrence and tailor the intensity of cancer therapy: Over the past decade there has been great progress in defining risk groups for various cancers.  The importance of defining risk groups is that less treatment can be given to those who have a low risk of recurrence of cancer with standard treatments and more treatment can be given to those at high risk. Lowering the dose of treatment for low risk groups is probably the most important way to prevent secondary cancers since these cancers occur more often in intensively treated patients.

Avoid radiation therapy: Another way to decrease the incidence of second cancers is to avoid radiation therapy.  This has been successful in childhood ALL where intrathecal (into the spinal fluid) chemotherapy has been substituted for radiation therapy.  Radiation therapy is also being used less in the treatment of Hodgkin’s disease and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma where certain groups of patients have been found to survive just as well with chemotherapy alone as with chemotherapy plus radiation therapy.

Avoid drugs with high carcinogenic potential: This is difficult to do since all chemotherapy drugs are carcinogenic.  However, etoposide is associated with a relatively high incidence of myelodysplasia and acute myeloid leukemia and in some instances other drugs could be used instead.

Again,  I can’t state this enough and will continue to pound it into you, the BEST way to prevent any illness is to unsure that your immune system if functioning at optimal levels at all times.  Your body is designed to deal with any invader on it’s own.  I agree that early detection is the key to fighting this disease.  However I also believe that if your immune system, as well as the rest of your body, is functioning properly at the cellular level the risk of getting cancer is greatly diminished.

Take quality nutritional supplements daily for optimal holistic health.

Find effective nutritional supplements that improve immune system function and take them daily!

I’d like to take another path in broaching these issues here if I may.  As I have previously stated I believe that these vaccines are dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.  Again, this is my personal opinion and I do not advise others to take the same path that I have chosen.  I am simply providing you with information that can help you to make the best decisions concerning your health and the health of your families and friends.

Having said that I’d like to take a little time here to offer you some food for thought about vaccinations in general.

“There is a great deal of evidence to prove that immunization of children does more harm than good.”
Dr J Anthony Morris, former Chief Vaccine Control Officer, US Food
and Drug Administration

“In our opinion, there is now sufficient evidence of immune malfunction following current vaccination programmes to anticipate growing public demands for research investigation into alternative methods of prevention of infectious disease.”
Dr’s H. Buttram and J. Hoffman (Vaccinations and Immune Malfunctions)

“Every vaccine carries certain hazards and can produce inward reactions in some people…in general, there are more vaccine complications than is generally appreciated.”
Professor George Dick, London University

“The only wholly safe vaccine is a vaccine that is never used”
Dr James A. Shannon, National Institute of Health, USA

“Live virus vaccines against influenza and paralytic polio, for example, may in each instance cause the disease it is intended to prevent…”
Dr Jonas Salk, developer of first polio vaccine (Science 4/4/77 Abstracts)

Are you beginning to get the picture here?  These people are recognized as leaders in their area of expertise who all agree that immunization is not only useless it has actually exacerbated many of the health issues confronting us today.

Greg Bettie, author of; Vaccination a Parents Dilemma, shows that the death rate due to infectious diseases in Australia ( Whooping Cough, Diphtheria, Measles and Polio to name a few) were already, dramatically, on the decline by the time vaccinations were given and that these serums had nothing to do with the reduction of the morbidity rate.

Dr Henry Bieler, author of ‘Food is Your Best Medicine’ writes, “The primary cause of disease is not germs. Disease is caused by a toxaemia which results in cellular impairment and breakdown, thus paving the way for the multiplication and onslaught of germs”.

The causes of toxaemia are numerous. In third world countries the causes are related primarily to malnourishment, impure water, poor sanitation, poverty and overcrowding. In the developed countries like USA, Australia, England etc the causes are more related to over consumption of animal, dairy and refined processed foods, particularly cereals and grains, chemical additives in food and water, drugs, vaccines, pesticide residues and industrial poisons. Other causes can include poor parental health, traumatic childbirth, impoverished or polluted breast milk, too early introduction of solid foods, spinal misalignment, muscular spasm, and nutritional deficiency.

This is why I believe so strongly that vaccines are at least totally ineffective and at best a clear and present danger to our health.  Studies have shown that this is especially true in the case of children. Vaccines contain not only poisonous chemicals, such as formaldehyde which is commonly used to embalm corpses and is a known carcinogen, thiomersal, a derivative of mercury which is a toxic heavy metal and aluminum phosphate which is a toxin used in deodorants (to name a few) but also foreign proteins such as chick embryo, calf serum, rabbit brain tissue and monkey kidney cells. These foreign proteins can trigger numerous allergic and inflammatory reactions and can produce anaphylactic shock in susceptible infants.

In many children, the retention of vaccine poisons within the body may not cause any acute or noticeable symptoms, but it will cause a lowering of the child’s vitality, which in turn, weakens and impairs it’s intellectual, creative and imaginative powers, it’s physical energy and strength, and all of its internal metabolic functions and immune activities. What this means is that the child will operate at a level well below its true potential.

The toxic build-up within the child’s body and the subsequent depletion of its vitality through vaccines, drugs, fluoridated water, food additives, pesticide residues, atmospheric pollutants, electromagnetic radiation and other adverse factors in the lifestyle makes the child more susceptible to chronic disease at an earlier age, and it’s worth noting that the dramatic rise in childhood cancer, autism, juvenile diabetes, asthma and neurological disorders over the past fifty years, has directly coincided with the era of drugs, vaccines and chemical poisons in our food, water and environment.

Why do vaccinations continue if they have no benefit or more importantly are dangerous?  We will be discussing this question in a later article.

In the mean time I’d like you to keep this in mind.  There is a beneficial nature to childhood infection.  Let’s take a look at some of the symptoms associated with illness and how they actually benefit the body.

Fever – speeds up bodily elimination of toxic waste.

No Appetite – when a fever is present, the digestive system shuts down thus removing the need and desire for food.

Vomiting/Diarrhea – the body’s way of eliminating undigested foodstuff from the digestive tract.

Tiredness/Lethargy – the body’s way of forcing a sick person to rest thus conserving its energy for the vital tasks of cleansing and repair.

Glandular Swelling - the lymph glands filter the blood for toxic substances. Swelling of these glands greatly increases their filtering capacity.

Skin Rash - represents an elimination of toxic waste, the skin being a major eliminative organ.

Mucus Elimination – also an elimination of toxic waste. Mucus is made up of the body’s white blood cells which are the body’s garbage cans containing toxic residue. A good example is the runny nose.

Inflammation – serves the same purpose as fever, to cleanse and repair damaged or poisoned tissue in the body.

Now I’m not saying that we want our children to become ill.  What I am suggesting however is that the presence of these symptoms are not necessarily a bad thing.  They show that the body is functioning properly and is trying to rid itself of the malady that is effecting it.

Again I say in closing that the best defense Is a strong offence.  Do not wait until you or a loved one become ill to take action.  Be proactive not reactive.  Eat properly, supplement your diet with natural vitamins and minerals and keep your immune system strong.

Studies have shown that Fucoidan helps to activate dendritic cells within the body.  These dendritic cells have been shown to be the most effective anitigen presenting cells for naïve T-cells and initiates the process of immune system recognition of a new pathogen.

In simple terms dendritic cells help the body to identify new invaders and pass the information on to helper T-cells, killer T-cells and B cells (which all fight pathogens such as bacteria and viruses).  Dendritic cells are derived from hemopoietic bone marrow progenitor cells.  These progenitor cells initially transform into immature dendritic cells.  These immature dendritic cells, through the use of pattern recognition receptors, are constantly sampling their surrounding areas for pathogens.  Once these specialized cells come into contact with a pathogen they, through a process called “nibbling” basically take samples of the pathogen, degrade their proteins into small pieces and present those fragments at their cell surface.

Simultaneously, they upregulate cell-surface receptors that act as co-receptors in T-cell activation such as CD80 (B7.1), CD86 (B7.2), and CD40 greatly enhancing their ability to activate T-cells. They also upregulate CCR7, a chemotactic receptor that induces the dendritic cell to travel through the blood stream to the spleen or through the lymphatic system to a lymph node. Here they act as antigen-presenting cells: they activate helper T-cells and killer T-cells as well as B-cells by presenting them with antigens derived from the pathogen, alongside non-antigen specific costimulatory signals.

This, simply stated sets the immune system into motion.  The “helper T-Cells (Th)” for all intents and purposes are the traffic cops of the immune system.  Th cells are involved in activating and directing other immune cells, and are particularly important in the immune system. They are essential in determining B cell antibody class switching, in the activation and growth of cytotoxic T cells, and in maximizing bactericidal activity of phagocytes such as macrophages. It is this diversity in function and their role in influencing other cells that gives T helper cells their name.

Killer T-Cells are a type of T cell that attacks cells having specific antigens on their surface, such as cancer cells or cells infected with a virus. Also called cytotoxic T cell or CD8+ T cell.

The principal functions of B cells are to make antibodies against antigens, perform the role of Antigen Presenting Cells (APCs) and eventually develop into memory B cells after activation by antigen interaction. B cells are an essential component of the adaptive immune system.

Understanding how the immune system works and how Fucoidan sets the wheels in motion gives us a clear picture as to the potential that this important sea-derived substance may be the natural answer to H1N1 that we have all been looking for.

For information about the pure Fucoidan functional beverage Zradical  Click Here.

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Although vitamin C & zinc have historically received most of the press regarding their ability to help resist cold and flu, Vitamin D is the big winner here.  In fact recent studies have shown that people with the lowest vitamin D levels are often the most susceptible to colds and flu.

“The findings of our study support an important role for vitamin D in prevention of common respiratory infections, such as colds and the flu,” says researcher Adit Ginde, MD, MPH, of the University of Colorado, Denver, Division of Emergency Medicine, in a news release. “Individuals with common lung diseases, such as asthma or emphysema, may be particularly susceptible to respiratory infections from vitamin D deficiency.”

“We are planning clinical trials to test the effectiveness of vitamin D to boost immunity and fight respiratory infection, with a focus on individuals with asthma and COPD, as well as children and older adults — groups that are at higher risk for more severe illness,” Ginde says. “While it’s too early to make any definitive recommendations, many Americans also need more vitamin D for its bone and general health benefits.”

A group of scientists from UCLA published a remarkable paper in the prestigious journal, Nature. The UCLA group confirmed two other recent studies, showing that a naturally occurring steroid hormone – a hormone most of us take for granted – was, in effect, a potent antibiotic. Instead of directly killing bacteria and viruses, the steroid hormone under question increases the body’s production of a remarkable class of proteins, called antimicrobial peptides. The 200 known antimicrobial peptides directly and rapidly destroy the cell walls of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, including the influenza virus, and play a key role in keeping the lungs free of infection. The steroid hormone that showed these remarkable antibiotic properties was plain old vitamin D.

A few years ago, I became convinced that vitamin D was unique in the vitamin world by virtue of three facts. First, it’s the only known precursor of a potent steroid hormone, calcitriol, or activated vitamin D. Most other vitamins are antioxidants or co-factors in enzyme reactions. Activated vitamin D – like all steroid hormones – damasks the genome, turning protein production on and off, as your body requires. That is, vitamin D regulates genetic expression in hundreds of tissues throughout your body. This means it has as many potential mechanisms of action as genes it damasks.

Second, vitamin D does not exist in appreciable quantities in normal human diets. True, you can get several thousand units in a day if you feast on sardines for breakfast, herring for lunch and salmon for dinner. The only people who ever regularly consumed that much fish are peoples, like the Inuit, who live at the extremes of latitude. The milk Americans depend on for their vitamin D contains no naturally occurring vitamin D; instead, the U.S. government requires fortified milk to be supplemented with vitamin D, but only with what we now know to be a paltry 100 units per eight-ounce glass.

The vitamin D steroid hormone system has always had its origins in the skin, not in the mouth. Until quite recently, when dermatologists and governments began warning us about the dangers of sunlight, humans made enormous quantities of vitamin D where humans have always made it, where naked skin meets the ultraviolet B radiation of sunlight. We just cannot get adequate amounts of vitamin D from our diet. If we don’t expose ourselves to ultraviolet light, we must get vitamin D from dietary supplements.

The third way vitamin D is different from other vitamins is the dramatic difference between natural vitamin D nutrition and the modern one. Today, most humans only make about a thousand units of vitamin D a day from sun exposure; many people, such as the elderly or African Americans, make much less than that. How much did humans normally make? A single, twenty-minute, full body exposure to summer sun will trigger the delivery of 20,000 units of vitamin D into the circulation of most people within 48 hours. Twenty thousand units, that’s the single most important fact about vitamin D. Compare that to the 100 units you get from a glass of milk, or the several hundred daily units the U.S. government recommend as “Adequate Intake.” It’s what we call an “order of magnitude” difference.

Our advice – get tested to check vitamin D levels in your body.  Take vitamin D supplements derived from natural sources.  Last and certainly not least, get 20/40 minuits of exposure to sunlight daily.  For more information Click Here about vitamin D supplementation.

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