Ask about oxalates to most doctors and they will respond that oxalates are an organic acid (oxalic acid) that is found in certain foods, is synthesized in our bodies and it binds to minerals that can cause stones - mostly in our kidneys. Is that all there is to know?
According to experts we should be paying closer attention to the number of oxalates we are consuming in our foods even if we have not had in the past or are now experiencing kidney stones. It may be that oxalate exposure could influence health problems such as mast cell activation syndrome, skin disorders, painful and stiff joints such as rheumatoid arthritis, peripheral neuropathies, myofascial and muscular pain syndromes, fatigue, dizziness, cramps, painful urination conditions such as vulvodynia, and interstitial cystitis and abnormal bowel movements such as IBS, digestive problems such gall bladder problems, lipomas, headaches, mood changes and osteoporosis. Also oxalates can form in the heart and cause problems there.
Humans have been using lead for over 5000 years. However, since the time of Hippocrates, which was about 2600 years ago and maybe earlier, an awareness of the toxicity from lead was known. More recently in the mid 1800’s Charles Dickens wrote about lead poisoning in his book The Unconventional Traveler, and in the late 1800’s the U.S. medical authorities were talking about lead poisoning in children. In 1910
Dr. Alice Hamilton wrote about lead poisoning in Illinois factories. Hamilton’s work essentially gave birth to the field of Industrial Toxicology. Despite this work by Hamilton and others about the dangers of lead, and despite the League of Nations declaring a ban on interior lead paint in the early 1920’s, the use of lead (tetraethyl lead) as an additive to gasoline to prevent engine knocking was accelerating. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that the U.S. banned the use of lead in paint and gasoline. Much of the credit at that time is due to Dr. Philip Landrigan, an epidemiologist and pediatrician who had studied lead poisoning from lead refineries and gasoline. Landrigan is known as one of the leading scientists advocating for children’s health. He has written several books about raising children toxin free (from lead, asbestos, and pesticides) and authored over 500 scientific papers.
If you are interested in reading a more detailed historical timeline ... KEEP READING
Do we have a butter deficiency in our diets?Can it help with longevity and with chronic pain? According to Sally Fallon the founding President of the Weston Price Foundation and author of the Nourishing Traditions Cookbook, we very well might. According to Fallon at the turn of the 20th century the average American ate about eighteen pounds of butter per year. Today, a little over a hundred years’ later Americans eat about 5.5 pounds per year. The main reason for this reduction has been the demonization of saturated fat in the past 70 years and its implied association with heart disease, which is the number one reason for death in the U.S. Is this association justified? Butter is 70% saturated fat, 25% is monounsaturated fat, and 2.3% is polyunsaturated fat. KEEP READING...
There is a growing movement in the use of vibration plates in gyms, physical therapy offices, wellness centers and at home as a means of simulating exercise, to provide neurological and orthopedic rehabilitation and to prevent bone loss in osteopenia and osteoporosis patients. Additional benefits being advertised are increased blood flow, decreased muscle soreness, and increased fat burning and flexibility. After researching this topic, I came to some surprising conclusions that I did not expect, so if you have thought about buying a device like this or use one in the gym that you go to you might want to read this.
Vibration plates are a platform device that when standing on it delivers a mechanical oscillating vibration to all the cells in your body. As the machine vibrates it transmits energy which causes your tendons and muscles to contract and relax dozens of times per second. There are two types of vibration platforms. One is Whole Body Vibration (WBV), and another called Low Intensity Vibration (LiV). With WBV, there are settings on the platform for increasing vibration, so much so that most include a handrail so that you do not lose your balance while on it. This vibration can be intense and therefore is not recommended for someone who is pregnant, has any current or recent blood clots, has a pacemaker, has a risk for retinal detachment or suffers from advanced osteoporosis, dizziness, or any other inner ear problem. On the other hand, LiV, emits a vibration that is much less intense than a WBV while you stand on a platform, so no handrail is necessary. Additionally, there are no medical restrictions to use a LiV. With two such opposing “platforms” for how to effectively build bone and muscle for aging adults, how do you “shake out the truth” between the two? keep reading
In December of 2021, I wrote a newsletter named Questioning Science, which was about the ineffectiveness and potential dangers of the Covid 19 mRNA vaccines primarily in younger people. With a year passing, did I get it wrong and is it time for an apology on my part? Not at all. In October, the CDC added the Covid vaccine to the children’s vaccination schedule, so it is time to Question Science once again.
Edward Dowd
Is a former executive at Black Rock who tracks health statistics as it relates to insurance companies. These statistics drives his positions in his investment portfolio. In 2022 he was reading a federal government report about labor statistics in 2021 which includes a question “are you or is someone in your home disabled”. Prior to 2021 this number hovered around five million with each report. When he looked at the data for 2021 in early 2022, he was shocked to see the number was up to thirty-one million! Furthermore, when Dowd looked at insurance company data on deaths from all-cause mortality in the second half of 2021 there also a spike in deaths among working aged people that was not there in the first half of 2021. These spikes correlate well from when the Covid vaccines became more available and mandated. In January of 2022, the CEO of One America Insurance said there was a 40% rise in death beneficiary payouts among working aged adults. This is an alarming increase and cannot be solely attributed to a lack of cancer screenings or suicide from the stress of lockdowns or even from Covid infections themselves. Not in this age group. Dowd and his partner did a deeper analysis. They went over the CDC’s VAERS (vaccine adverse reporting system) and insurance industry data and broke down the mortalities by age group. What they found was that in 2020 all-cause mortality was higher in the elderly population, but in 2021 in what Dowd calls a “mixed shift” in all-cause mortality, it was higher in a younger population of people. In millennials, those aged 25-44, Dowd found an 84% increased mortality over the baseline of the previous five years. Specifically, he found 61,000 excess deaths in one year…more deaths than the 58,000 deaths that occurred during the Vietnam war over a ten-year period. In what Dowd describes as “the smoking gun” .... (click the headline to keep reading)
