The over 10 million viewers who tune in to watch “The Biggest Loser” each week along with the 200,000 auditioning contestants are telling of America’s obsession with weight loss. A special upcoming reunion shows just how far contestants are willing to go to come out as the winner on the show.

According to a New York Times article, the winner from the show’s first season, Ryan C. Benson, won’t be making appearance on the show for two reasons: he’s put back on all of the weight he lost and the show has shunned him after he admitted to resorting to extreme weight loss measures while on the show, consisting of severe fasting and dehydrating his body to the point he was urinating blood.

Doctors and nutritionists outside of the show are concerned about the dangerous, quick weight-loss methods contestants use on the show such as severe calorie restriction, hours and hours of strenuous exercise a day and self-induced dehydration.

New contestants coming on the show are heavier and more out of shape than previous contestants, spurring concerns among the medical community regarding medical problems resulting from rapid weight loss. This can include a weakening of the heart muscle, irregular heartbeat and dangerous reductions in potassium and electrolytes.

Other former contestants on the show divulged the extreme measures they took to lose weight like drinking minimal amounts of water just before the 24 hours leading up to a weigh-in and working out in layers upon layers of clothing.

Several contestants gained back at least 20 percent of their weight after the show just by drinking water.

Trainers used on the show said that each new contestant is required to go through a medical checkup and has to sign a medical consent form certifying they believe themselves to be in excellent physical, emotional, psychological and mental health. They face disqualification if they are found engaging in unsafe practices like self-induced dehydration or the use of drugs or diuretics.

Three Dangerous Diet Techniques You Should NOT Try at Home

• Fasting/Detox Diets

The practice of fasting, abstaining from food and in many cases drinks, has been around for centuries as a religious practice used as an act of devotion. Recently, it has been “popularized” 1) by stars like Beyonce, who followed the Master Cleanse for quick, short-term weight loss., and  2) by shelves of do-it-yourself detox books in popular bookstore chains. The Master Cleanse consists of living off of nothing but a mixture of lemon juice mixed with maple syrup, water and cayenne pepper, salt water and a laxative tea for 10 days.

There are different forms of fasting which range from eating little to no food to detox diets that promise to cleanse and remove toxins from your body. Other plans restrict all solid foods and instruct followers to survive solely on low-calorie beverages for days at a time, including some kind of laxative concoction. The goal is at the end of the diet is for you to feel refreshed and energized. Research shows, however, that our bodies are constructed with built-in detoxification systems, specifically the kidneys, liver, lungs, colon and skin, that work on their own removing toxins from the body.

Fasting, when done safely and under the guidance of a holistic health care practitioner, may impart some benefits to your health. However, it should not be used solely as a weight loss technique, especially if you do not know how to fast safely.

Even advocates of fasting for medical conditions agree that fasting is an unhealthy weight-loss tool that if practiced over an extended period of time, three days to a month or a repeated number of times throughout the year, can result in unhealthy side effects from the minor:

• Dizziness
• Headaches
• Low blood sugar
• Muscle aches
• Weakness
• Fatigue

To the more serious:

• Vitamin deficiencies
• Muscle breakdown
• A weakened immune system
• Blood-sugar problems
• Frequent liquid bowel movements
• Anemia
• Impairment of liver function
• Kidney stones
• Mineral imbalances
• Diarrhea
• Laxative concoctions during a fast, lead to an increased risk of fluid imbalance and dehydration
• Deaths due to prolonged fasting have occurred

“Long-term fasts lead to muscle breakdown and a shortage of many needed nutrients,” says Lona Sandon, a Dallas dietitian and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association in an MSNBC article. Depriving the body of the vitamins and minerals we get from food can “actually weaken the body’s ability to fight infections and inflammation,” she says.

Experts warn that certain groups of people should not engage in any type of fasting. These groups include:

• Anyone with a chronic disease such as diabetes or heart or kidney disease
• Pregnant women
• Children
• Older people with digestive disorders

One of the biggest downsides to fasting for weight-loss is that the initial weight lost during the diet is considered “water weight” — not fat. Water weightusually returns once you go off the diet, sometimes along with a few extra pounds due to your metabolism slowing down, making it easier to put weight back on.

Overuse of Laxatives Can Turn into Laxative Abuse

Several detox diets include some sort of laxative mixture as part of the daily regime. The problem with laxatives happens when they are used excessively, causing serious medical conditions such as dehydration.

Some people resort to the use of laxatives alone as a weight-loss technique and in some cases take large amounts, which can lead to laxative abuse. The vicious cycle of taking laxatives and experiencing the effects of losing “water weight” early on and then continuing to take them for continued weight-loss ensues.

Laxative abuse takes a heavy toll on the body and results in the following serious health conditions:

• Severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalances
• Severe constipation or chronic diarrhea
• Edema (swelling)
• Blood in the stools which may cause anemia
• Laxative dependency
• Increased risk of colon cancer

Dehydration from laxative abuse goes far beyond the feelings of being thirsty, and long-term episodes of dehydration can start to attack your kidneys and, in serious cases when left untreated, can result in seizures, permanent brain damage or death.

When Exercise Becomes an Obsession

Some people get obsessive in their quest for a thinner body and with that go overboard with exercising. Recently there has been a rise in the number of people becoming addicted to extreme exercise and defining themselves through their taxing exercise routines and putting their health at risk, especially if they are drastically cutting back on their food intake at the same time. For example, female exercisers who engage in overexercise and severe diets can experience loss of menstruation cycles and ovulation and put themselves at risk for stress fractures and osteoporosis.

Once a person becomes a compulsive exerciser, nothing will stop them from completing their exercise regime, including sickness, injury, exhaustion or damage to their health.

While exercise disorders are most apparent in people with eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, it can manifest in individuals without these disorders and in those who are exercising just for the sake of exercising.

There’s no denying regular exercise can benefit your health and boost your immune system; it’s when you exercise daily to the point of collapse that you are actually hindering your immune system.

The consequences of over-exercising are both physical and emotional:

• Injury
• Sickness
• Fatigue
• Teens have difficulty sleeping
• Relationships and social life are impacted by taking a back seat to exercising
• Irritability
• Can trigger eating disorders like bulimia

Nurture Your Body With Healthy Foods

You can lose and maintain your weight loss without taking drastic measures and putting your health at risk by making a few simple and safe changes to your lifestyle. By making simple life changes and establishing a gentle, yet effective, exercise program for yourself, you’ll be on your way to feeling and looking better.

Start out now before the coming New Year with these three healthy eating habits:

1. Give Your Pantry and Fridge a Healthy, New Look
Since you are what you eat, why not do your body good by providing it with good, healthy foods. Go through your pantry and fridge and look at how many processed foods make up your daily diet. Then start incorporating fresh, whole, disease-fighting foods into your diet such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains and beans. The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) recommends getting five or more daily servings of fruit and vegetables and seven or more servings of whole grains and beans.

As you switch over to more fresh foods, prepare meals with locally grown ingredients from a source you trust, as these are among some of the safest meals you can eat. Because you’ll know what you’re eating is so good for your body and mind, it’ll likely help improve your mood too, making it less likely that you’ll feel like overeating later.

2. Know Healthy Portion Sizes
Once you’ve stocked your cabinets and fridge with healthy foods, the next step is educating yourself on appropriate portion sizes. Research has shown that Americans underestimate how many calories they consume each day by 25 percent. Living life on the go, constantly multi-tasking, quick meals at drive-thrus with inflated serving sizes and eating in front of the computer at work or in front of the television at home distracts us from paying attention to our portion sizes.

According to the AICR, vegetables, fruits, beans and whole grains can take up to two-thirds of your plate. For samples of appropriate portion sizes you can print out the USDA’s portion-size guidelines and post it on your refrigerator.

Here are 10 simple tips to get you back on track to good portion sizes in your home, at restaurants and at the grocery store:

At home:

Read the serving sizes on the food package labels in your house. Use smaller dishes for meals. Divide appropriate food portions among plates instead of serving dinner family style. Allow a full sensation to set in before getting up to get seconds. Divvy up your leftovers in small portion-sized containers right after mealtime. Never eat snacks like pretzels or chips out of the bag or ice-cream directly from the carton.

While eating out:

• Request half-portions and if that’s not possible, ask the wait staff for a doggie bag so you can pack half to go. Some of the super-sized portions served at restaurants can provide you with lunch for the next two days.
• Approach buffet tables mindfully — Carefully scope out the food selection on the buffet table and pick out only the foods that look appealing to you. With each food item that you select, keep the portion size guide in your head.
• If you order a dessert, share it.

When doing your grocery shopping:

• Use caution when buying “mini-snacks” — Many times people actually end up eating more calories due to the small size packages of tiny crackers, cookies and pretzels.
• Buy foods that are packaged as individual serving sizes or buy in bulk and package the food into an individual serving size yourself.
• For ice-cream treats, don’t buy a carton, chose individual ice-cream bars.

3. Follow an Exercise Program that Addresses Your Mind and Body
Because your body and mind are so closely linked, a weight loss program that only focuses on your physical being will miss out on the incredibly important mental and emotional aspects of health.

In fact, if you’re looking to achieve long-term health improvements, behavior changes and self-acceptance are more effective than dieting any day of the week, according to a two-year study published in the June 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

To start making positive behavioral changes, focus on making small changes in your lifestyle, not on losing weight. For instance, rather than thinking, “I have to lose 30 pounds,” think, “Today I’m going to take a pass on the bread and butter and go for a walk after dinner.”

By adding just one or two healthy behaviors to your routine each day, such as swapping your soda for a glass of mineral water, you’re subtly changing your old, weight-sabotaging habits into new healthier ones.

You will also want to include a form of physical activity that addresses your mind-body connection.

We encourage you to look for an find a program that matches your lifestyle and schedule.

Source: http://articles.healthrealizations.com/NutritionTreatmentCenter/2011/10/10/Is-The-Biggest-Loser-Risking-Contestants-Lives-1.aspx?SubscriberEmail=jsc4z@virginia.edu

Dangerous Weight Loss Techniques Lara Berch

Adults have 32 permanent teeth (including wisdom teeth), which are designed to help you bite and chew food, and even help form words when you speak, for your entire adult life. There is a slight problem, though, and that is the human lifespan has been expanding while poor diet and other issues are causing teeth to decay.

Now, experts say teeth are “evolved” to only last 45-50 years – which worked fine when life expectancy was not much older than that. Fortunately, humans can now expect to live much longer, even above and beyond 90 years … but our teeth have not caught up yet.

Adding to the problem is that teeth are not designed to self-repair, so once they become decayed or your gums are damaged, it’s difficult if not impossible to bring a tooth back to life, so to speak. The end result is that many of those in the over 40 crowd depend on crowns, bridges and implants to replace lost teeth. But for those who cannot afford such elaborate dental care, tooth loss can become a serious and painful health problem.

There are, however, ways to extend the life of your teeth and keep your choppers healthy well into old age. Among them, brand new research found a tasty beverage that may do wonders for your teeth …

A Cup of Green Tea a Day Keeps the Dentist Away …

Green tea contains antimicrobial molecules called catechins that appear very beneficial to your teeth. Researchers from Columbia University in New York found that men who drank at least one cup of green tea a day were 19 percent less likely to have fewer than 20 teeth than men who drank no tea. Women who drank tea daily also benefited with a 13 percent lower risk.

It’s thought that naturally occurring substances in green tea have bacteriocidal effects, helping to kill mouth bacteria and ward off tooth decay and gum disease. But there is one caveat — you mustn’t add sugar. Adding sugar to tea completely negated the healthful effect.

As an aside, if you’re toying with the idea of adding a cup of green tea to your day, research shows it’s good for fighting diseases like heart disease and cancer and helping with weight loss. Many people sip it religiously everyday in the hopes that it will make them healthier, even above and beyond their teeth. Here is just a short list of some of the conditions green tea is supposed to help:

• Cancer
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• High cholesterol levels
• Heart disease
• Infection
• Impaired immune function
• Obesity, overweight
• High blood sugar levels

Healthy Teeth May Help Ward off Heart Disease, Diabetes

Keeping your teeth free from decay and disease is important to avoid tooth loss, yes, but it’s also important to keep your heart healthy.

New research published in the BMJ also found that people who don’t brush their teeth regularly have an increased risk of heart disease. Among those who “rarely or never” brushed their teeth, the risk of a heart attack, stroke or other event was 70 percent higher than those who brushed twice daily.

The rare brushers also had higher levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation and a potent indicator of heart disease.

The American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) also points out that people with gum disease are nearly twice as likely to have heart disease. Gingivitis, cavities and missing teeth are also associated with heart disease, and can predict heart disease risk as well as cholesterol levels.

In fact, when your gums become diseased, they release toxic bacteria into your bloodstream, which promote inflammation and negatively impact your heart and other organs.

“We found the mouth can be a major source of chronic or permanent release of toxic bacterial components in the bloodstream during normal oral functions,” said Dr. E.H. Rompen, director of a study in the Journal of Periodontology in an American Academy of Periodontology press release. “This could be the missing link explaining the abnormally high blood levels of some inflammatory markers or endotoxemia observed in patients with periodontal disease.”

Further, gum disease is often considered the “sixth complication” of diabetes because people with diabetes are significantly more likely to have periodontal disease.

Not only does having diabetes increase the risk of gum disease, but gum disease in turn increases blood sugar, which can lead to diabetes complications, according to a study in the Journal of Periodontology. The finding underscores the importance of healthy teeth and gums for staying healthy and avoiding diabetes — and heart-related — complications.

Beyond Brushing and Flossing: What Can You do to Keep Your Teeth Healthy?

Brushing and flossing are the basics to keep your teeth healthy. The American Dental Association (ADA) recommends brushing your teeth twice a day and flossing daily for best results. You should also visit your dentist regularly — at least once every 6 months — to have your teeth professionally cleaned and get an oral health check-up.

Again, these are the basics. So what else can you do?

Eat a healthy diet. A healthy diet will support your oral hygiene routine, making your teeth and gums strong and healthy. If you eat an unbalanced, highly processed or fast-food diet, it will be impossible for your immune system to function at its best, and studies show that people with weakened immune systems have a higher risk of gum disease, according to the Academy of General Dentistry.

Likewise, poor diet also increases your risk for heart disease and diabetes, which both in turn are linked to gum disease and other oral health problems.

Use a tongue scraper. Using a tongue scraper twice a day is an easy way to reduce or eliminate bad breath, and some experts believe it may also help to reduce your risk of tooth decay and gum disease. Tongue scrapers are inexpensive, and it takes only about 10 or 15 seconds to do: just slide the scraper gently over your tongue (you don’t need to press hard!), repeat three or four times to reach the entire surface, and you’re done.

What has been found to work even better for a clean tongue is to use hospital-grade “microfiber hand wipes” to wipe your tongue — on the top and underneath, plus along both sides of your gum line — to remove bacteria in areas a tongue scraper can’t reach. Also, microfiber hand wipes are easy to carry with you and use before conversations with friends or business acquaintances when you want to assure you are not pushing people away due to bad breath you can’t smell.

Using a tongue scraper is a good idea, but using a microfiber cloth to wipe off your tongue takes getting a clean mouth to a whole new level!

Be careful with sugar and starches. Sugar and starches (bread, crackers, cereal) become a problem when they’re left on your teeth after a snack of meal. Sugar feeds bacteria in your mouth, while both starches and sugar produce acid in your mouth that can erode tooth enamel and lead to cavities. Anytime you eat a sugary, starchy food, you should brush your teeth afterward to remove the damaging substances from your mouth. Be especially diligent to not go to sleep after eating a sugar or starchy snack, as they will linger on your teeth, causing damage until your morning brushing.

Avoid sipping sweet drinks all day. When you sip a soda or fruit juice throughout the day, your teeth never get a break from the sugar and acid. If you do indulge in a soda, drink it and then brush your teeth afterward. Be sure to also avoid giving toddlers a bottle of juice or milk (which contains natural sugars) to sip on for long periods, or right before bed, without brushing their teeth afterward.

Choose these teeth-healthy foods… A balanced diet is best for your teeth, but there are certain foods that may give your dental health an added boost. These include:

• Cheese, lean protein (chicken, grass-fed beef, etc.), nuts, plain yogurt and other dairy products: These foods provide calcium and phosphorous to “remineralize” teeth, a process during which minerals are put back onto teeth enamel after acids remove them.

• Firm and crunchy fruits and veggies: Apples, celery and pears are all examples of fruits and veggies that have high water content, which helps stimulate the flow of saliva (useful for protecting against tooth decay and acid) and dilutes the effects of sugars.

• Avoid foods such as candy, cookies, dried fruits, potato chips, muffins, pretzels, cakes, pies, lollipops and French fries, which contain large amounts of sugar and/or starch, or may stick to your teeth. If you do eat these foods, be sure to brush your teeth promptly afterward.

Overall, by seeking regular dental care, brushing twice a day and flossing daily, and eating a healthy, well-balanced diet, you can expect your teeth to stay healthy and strong, just like you.
SixWise Ways!”Happiness is your dentist telling you it won’t hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill.”

By Johnny Carson

Cup of Green Tea a Day Keeps the Dentist Away Lara Berch

Most of us are all too well aware that overeating, eating junk food and not exercising are sure to expand our belt buckles another notch. But weight gain is not always so cut and dry. Oftentimes you may carefully watch what you eat, load your plate full of fruits and veggies, even exercise regularly … and still not win the battle of the bulge.

In this latter case, your weight gain may have nothing to do with the foods you eat or the exercise you do, but rather with your emotional health.

A new study published in BMJ analyzed data from four medical screenings of over 4,300 British civil servants aged 35 to 55, including screenings that assessed mental health and measurement of height and weight.

People with a common mental health disorder, such as anxiety or depression, at all three previous screenings were twice as likely to be obese at the final screening compared with those who had no mental health disorder symptoms. Further, the risk of weight gain and obesity was the greatest for those who had more incidences of a common mental health disorder.

The connection between mental health and weight gain is not a new one.

Said Dr. Mark Dedomenico, M.D. in an MSN Health & Fitness blog post:

Depression, like anxiety, causes some release of cortisone from the adrenal glands. Cortisone will cause insulin resistance at the cellular level, making the delivery into the cells difficult. This in turn causes hunger and weight gain.”

Stress, Job Layoffs and Anxiety May All Impact Your Weight

Research has shown that more than 50 percent of Americans increase their food intake when feeling stressed out. In the past people would lose weight when faced with stressful situations, but the stress of the economy and fear of the unknown are causing people to put on weight.

In fact, the more anxious people get, the more they tend to turn to sugar, fat and salt to boost their mood, albeit temporarily. This explains why boredom, lots of free time at home and financial woes are three big factors that drive people to overeat.

Overeating aside, just being stressed out can cause you to gain weight in and of itself, according to the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation.

“Under stress, people conserve more fat, and we think that may be what’s going on here,” said psychologist and study co-author Tené Lewis of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

The study involved more than 2,000 women from their 40s through menopause, and the researchers asked them about unhappy events in their life over the past year. The results? Even after taking into account other factors that could affect weight gain (exercise habits, diet, smoking, etc.) it was found that the more bad things the women reported, the more weight they gained.

In other words, the greater the stress, the greater the women’s weight.

So the link between stress and weight gain is not just the tendency to overeat when stressed, but the fact that your body produces a hormone called cortisol in response to stress, and increased cortisol causes your body to store fat. Therefore, even if you are watching your diet, stress can cause you to gain weight!

This is why getting into a positive state of mind and having proper relaxation are two of the most important keys to good health. They can help lower cortisol levels, effectively help you reduce stress and also contribute to weight loss at the same time.

Five Key Stress-Reduction Tips Based Upon Stress that is Proven to Cause Weight Gain in Women

Stress is as much a part of American culture as a cheeseburger and fries … and it can be just as risky to your health. Even if you aren’t facing any major troubles, just going about your daily routine — getting the kids ready for school, driving to the office, trying to hook up phone service, etc. – can expose you to loads of it.

At the least, stress is a nuisance and just plain doesn’t feel good. It can manifest in a number of different ways. You may:

Feel distracted or anxious
Worry excessively
Feel nervous
Be tired or irritable
Gain weight

That’s right — just being stressed out can cause you to gain weight, according to the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation. “Under stress, people conserve more fat, and we think that may be what’s going on here,” says psychologist and study co-author Tené Lewis of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

The study involved more than 2,000 women from their 40s through menopause, and the researchers asked them about unhappy events in their life over the past year. The results? Even after taking into account other factors that could affect weight gain (exercise habits, diet, smoking, etc.) it was found that the more bad things the women reported, the more weight they gained.

In other words, the greater the stress, the greater the women’s weight. As if that weren’t enough to contend with, stress — especially the chronic kind that lasts for weeks or months at a time – is a leading contributor to disease, presenting more serious symptoms like:

Depression
Increased risk of heart disease
Headaches
Nausea and vomiting
Diarrhea
Change in appetite
Digestive problems
Chest pain or pressure
Heart racing
Excessive fatigue
Restlessness
Dizziness
Hyperventilation
Five Keys to Manage Stress in Your Life

It’s impossible to eliminate all stress from your life, but what you can do is learn how to manage the stress that is there in a more effective manner. Here are five tips to do just that.

1. Exercise: “Exercise … is a great stress reliever,” Lewis says. Aside from strengthening your heart and lungs, two organs that can become physically affected from too much stress, it’s great for your mental health too. Exercising increases the levels of endorphins in your body, which stimulate your immune system, reduce stress and put you in a better mood.

2. Take Time to Relax: This may sound easy, but how many of you reading this actually schedule time into your day to relax and enjoy life? It’s imperative to do so, because without adequate down time, it will be near impossible to soothe your stress woes away. Relaxing can take on many forms, like:

Meditation
Yoga
Prayer
Gardening
Reading
Journaling
Soaking in a bath
Hiking, biking or swimming

The body and mind know how to relax — we just need to give them “permission” to do so.

3. Proper Sleep: Another essential tool for stress reduction is getting enough sleep. When we sleep, the stress hormone, cortisol, is lowered, but when we are sleep deprived, cortisol levels rise. Further, your energy levels will go down and you’ll be less able to cope with any setbacks during your day. If you have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep (insomnia can certainly be a cause for stress in itself!).

4. Proper Nutrition: Fortifying your body with the nutrients it needs is key to reducing stress (and staying healthy while you’re feeling it), as stress can actually rob your body of nutrients. This means eating plenty of fruits, vegetables and other antioxidant-rich foods while avoiding junk foods.

Although sugar and fats actually work to lower levels of stress hormones circulating in the body, according to a study in the Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which is why we likely crave these foods when we’re feeling stressed, in the long-term sugar and junk food will only further suppress the immune system and increase your chances of developing disease.

If you’re under chronic stress and want to protect your immune system, you may want to consider adding a stress reduction supplement.

5. Build Strong Friendships: Because stress can lead to feelings of depression and even isolation, keeping a network of social ties can help to reduce those negative feelings and boost your mood. Says Psychologist Elissa Epel of the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, “Building strong friendships and developing new goals and priorities often can help curb stress.”

Relieving stress is important, so try not to stress about it. As Hans Selye, the man who first developed the theory on the influences of stress, said, “Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one.”

More Tips to Ease Anxiety and Tension
Whenever you’re feeling anxious or depressed, you may be tempted to reach for food to help you cope. It’s also important to ease your stressful feelings so they don’t contribute to your weight on a hormonal level.

So it’s imperative that you set aside time each day to relax. This may sound easy, but how many of you reading this actually schedule time into your day to relax and enjoy life? It’s essential to do so, because without adequate down time, it will be near impossible to soothe your stress woes away. Relaxing can take on many forms, like:

Meditation

Yoga

Prayer

Gardening

Reading

Journaling

Soaking in a bath

Hiking, biking or swimming

The body and mind know how to relax — we just need to give them “permission” to do so.

If you’re already eating healthy and exercising regularly, taking the time to relax and soothe your nerves may be just what you need to shed extra pounds and improve your sense of well-being … all at the same time.

Source: Healthrealizations

Stress Adds Inches to Your Waistline Lara Berch

Marketers have been trying desperately for over a decade to increase the public’s consumption of milk, but they keep failing. Here’s why.

Selling milk looks easy and even fun when you see the celebrity milk-mustache ads. “Got Milk?” ads may be the most recognizable and spoofed of all ad campaigns, yet they are probably also one of the least successful: Milk sales have actually fallen every year since the ads began. The National Dairy Promotion and Research Program and the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Program admit “consumption has been declining for decades in the United States at about 1.0 percent per year,” in their yearly reports to Congress but plead that their marketing has “helped mitigate at least some of this decline.” Key words “help,” “at least” and “some.”

Why the milk-drinking slide? First, many U.S. groups simply do not drink much, or any, milk — including ethnic minorities, those who are lactose intolerant or allergic, dieters, the health conscious, and vegans. Kids themselves often dislike milk — probably why they invented chocolate and flavored milk — and it is often the last choice among teens and tweens, on whom much milk marketing is focused. Healthcare professionals, unless subsidized by the dairy industry, seldom recommend milk because of its cholesterol, fat, calories, allergens and impurities and its possible links to rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) since milk made with the cow milk enhancer has never been labeled. Benjamin Spock, the famous baby boom-era pediatrician, recommended no milk for children after age two to reduce their risks of heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and diet-related cancers.

Milk marketers admit that the public’s “preference” for milk may be changing, but also blame calcium-fortified juices and vitamin-enhanced beverages that “undermine” milk’s healthy image. They also point the finger at “limited availability” of milk in eating establishments and even milk’s price. You can’t find milk anywhere — and when you do, you can’t afford it, they claim. The agencies note that national milk sales are falling because the proportion of children under six has not grown much and as the “proportion of African Americans in the population increases” — a group not known to be big milk drinkers due to higher rates of lactose intolerance.

Milk marketers have tried everything to reverse falling sales. During the 1980s when the slogan was “Milk: It Does a Body Good,” they began marketing milk for strong bones and to prevent osteoporosis. “One in five victims of osteoporosis is male,” said milk ads featuring model Tyra Banks, as the mustache campaign debuted. “Don’t worry. Calcium can help prevent it.” Another early mustache ad with musician Marc Anthony read, “Shake it, don’t break it. Want strong bones? Drinking enough lowfat milk now can help prevent osteoporosis later.”

But the campaign had both marketing and scientific problems. Teens and tweens don’t worry much about old-people diseases like osteoporosis because who’s gonna get old? And African Americans, Latinos and men, groups targeted in the strong bone campaign, are the least at risk for osteoporosis say doctors. Oops.

Health professionals also disputed the bone claims. A 2001 USDA expert panel report said that calcium intake by itself, as milk offers, does not prevent osteoporosis because exercise and nutrients other than calcium are part of the bone health picture. Panelists also said whole milk could increase the risk of prostate cancer and heart disease and ads should include such warnings.

And other experts like T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study and heart expert Dean Ornish of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, agreed that osteoporosis and fractures are not caused by what marketers were presenting as “milk deficiencies.” In fact, the Western diet, which often has too much protein and acid, is blamed by some researchers and nutritionists for osteoporosis and fractures. The popular proton pump inhibitors like Nexium, Prevacid and Prilosec, which people take for acid reflux, are also blamed for fractures.

Undaunted, in 2002, milk marketers told Congress they were marketing the scientific benefits of milk for osteoporosis, breast cancer and hypertension and especially focusing on African Americans. “The Fluid Milk Board continues to spotlight the high incidence of high blood pressure among African Americans and to promote milk and milk products as a dietary solution as part of the DASH [Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension] diet,” says the report to Congress. “The program also addresses misconceptions about lactose intolerance and shows why it should not be a barrier to including milk in the diet. The Board launched a new lactose intolerance initiative that focuses on educating African Americans on the importance of incorporating milk into their diet. The programs provided educational material on osteoporosis and lactose intolerance.”

Milk marketers may also have taken a cue from the cartoon character Joe Camel, used by R.J. Reynolds to market Camel cigarettes. Milk containers were redesigned into new hand-friendly decanters, called the Chug and a spoof-y musical group was rolled out on YouTube and social-networking sites called White Gold and the Calcium Twins.

The “Got Milk?” site also ran an animated cartoon of a farm depicting happy cows, chickens, ducks, and pigs (and a horse working out on a treadmill), while milk cartons moved by on a conveyor belt. A helium balloon pops up continually, saying, “Tell Your Friends.”

“Do you think drinking calcium fortified beverages like soy drinks and orange juice will meet your bones’ ‘requirements?’” asks the site, which was live until 2008. “Not really, says research that concluded 75 percent of calcium added to popular beverages gets left at the bottom of the carton.” But then, a disclaimer pops up and confesses that milk’s actual benefits for “bones, PMS, sleep, teeth, hair, muscles [and] nails” have been “purposefully exaggerated so as not to bore you.” What?

And that’s the least of the student marketing. Posters of milk mustache-wearing actors, sports figures, musicians, and models are sent to 60,000 U.S. elementary schools and 45,000 middle and high schools. Ads also appear in Sports Illustrated for Kids, Spin, Electronic Gaming, CosmoGirl, Blender, Seventeen and elsewhere. Students have been told if they visit milk Web sites they can win an iPod, a Fender guitar, clothes from Adidas and Baby Phat and their schools could qualify for sports gear, classroom supplies and musical instruments. There was also peer-to-peer, in-class selling at three California schools where students got a chance to create their own “Got Milk?” campaigns and qualify for an all-expense-paid trip to San Francisco to present their ideas to milk officials for future milk marketing campaigns. The cost of an ad campaign guaranteed to sell milk to teens because it was created by teens? Priceless.

In 2005, milk marketers tried to widen the demographic by positioning milk as a cure for premenstrual syndrome, commonly called PMS. TV ads showed bumbling boyfriends and husbands rushing to the store for milk to detoxify their stricken women. But the study on which the campaign was based, credited calcium, not milk, with relieving PMS — a substance found in many sources besides milk (including the “calcium-fortified juices” that milk marketers battle against). And when milk marketers tried to revive the PMS campaign in 2011, the second time around it elicited a tsunami of sexism charges and had to be scrapped.

Then, milk marketers sought an even wider demographic by rolling out the idea of milk as a diet food. “Studies suggest that the nutrients in milk can play an important role in weight loss. So if you’re trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, try drinking 24 ounces of low-fat or fat-free milk every 24 hours as part of your reduced-calorie diet,” said the ads. The diet campaign was especially targeted to the Hispanic community, which is known both for its high obesity rates and its low milk consumption. There was even a related school program called “Healthiest Student Bodies,” which recognized 25 schools around the country for providing “an environment that encourages healthy choices for students.”

The milk-as-a-diet-food campaign had many catchy slogans — “Milk Your Diet,” “Body by Milk,” “Think About Your Drink,” “Why Milk?” “24oz/24hours, 3-a-Day” (and, of course, “Got Milk?”) — and had the help of hotties Elizabeth Hurley and Sheryl Crow modeling mustaches. But soon after it debuted, a study of 20,000 men who increased their intake of low-fat dairy foods found they did not lose weight. “The hypothesis that has been floating around is that increasing dairy can promote weight loss, and in this study, I did not find that,” said researcher Swapnil Rajpathak, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Worse, the research behind the weight-loss claims was largely conducted by Michael Zemel, director of the Nutrition Institute at the University of Tennessee, who had “patented” the claim that calcium or dairy products could help against obesity. The patent was owned by the university and licensed to Dairy Management Inc., reported USA Today.

The milk-as-a-diet-food suggestions also did not sound like they would produce weight loss. They included, “Make soups and chowders with milk,” “Add milk to risotto and rice dishes for a creamier texture,” and “Order a milk-based soup like corn chowder, potato leek or cream of broccoli as a first course at dinner.”

What is the next course — a stick of butter?

Soon the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection directed milk marketers to stop the weight-loss campaign “until further research provides stronger, more conclusive evidence of an association between dairy consumption and weight loss.” Milk marketing materials stopped claiming that milk makes drinkers lose weight, instead saying it doesn’t necessarily add weight — which is pretty different. They also retooled their claims to say that milk may have “certain nutrients that can help consumers meet dietary requirements” — pretty much the definition of “food.”

In February, milk marketers went for an even wider demographic — the set of all people who eat little or no breakfast, or at least a breakfast without milk. Using the bilingual actress Salma Hayek as pitchwoman, the new campaign, called the Breakfast Project, also targets Spanish-speaking communities with ads in People en Español and Ser Padres magazines and on the Univision morning show “Despierta América” as well as on English-speaking media. “It’s Not Breakfast Without Milk,” say the new slogans, “Because Every Good Day Starts With Milk,” and “Hello, Sunshine.”

Like other milk marketing campaigns, the Breakfast Project is upbeat, interactive, inclusive and fun, offering recipes, tips, a “morning survival guide” and even a chance to win free milk. And like the other campaigns, it has little chance of selling a product people don’t particular like which is not particularly good for them. We won’t even talk about the filth and cruelty of industrial dairy farms and what happens to veal calves (which are byproducts of the dairy industry’s need to keep cows lactating).

Still, milk marketers seem to have learned one lesson from the disproved osteoporosis, PMS and weight loss claims of past campaigns: the Breakfast Project makes no appeal to science or medicine to support the marketed milk benefits. Instead of “studies have shown,” or “research has revealed” the new campaign simply says, “We believe milk is part of getting a successful day started.” Of course they believe it — they’re the dairy industry. But will consumers finally be swayed by their marketing magic, or will the milk-drinking slump continue?

Source: Martha Rosenberg

Got Milk Industry’s Health Claims Have Been Proven Wrong Lara Berch

So just how dangerous are plastic water bottles for you health?

In 2008, Americans drank nearly 9 billion gallons of bottled water, which is second only to soft drinks as the largest beverage type in the U.S. market, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation.

In the first study of its kind, researchers determined just how much BPA you absorb when you drink bottled water.

Its popularity has been growing strong since 2000, with significant sales growth noted every year of the decade … that is until now. In 2008, the gallons of bottled water consumption went down by 1 percent, for the first time this decade. And whereas in 2007 Americans drank 29 gallons of bottled water each, in 2008 that went down to 28.5 gallons. It’s a small decrease, but perhaps a sign of larger changes to come.

Plastic water bottles have come under scrutiny in recent years for both their environmental and health effects, including those surrounding the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA).

That BPA can leach out of plastic during everyday use, causing health problems, is hardly news. It’s now widely known that BPA mimics the female hormone estrogen and may affect fertility and promote cancer. And just last year it came out that BPA may also lead to heart disease, diabetes and liver problems.

Studies have shown that detectable levels of BPA exist in more than 90 percent of the U.S. population, but exposure has been blamed on not only drinking water and food, but also on dental sealants, dermal exposure and inhalation of household dusts.

Which leads one to wonder, just how much BPA are we exposed to when drinking from a plastic bottle? And how great are the health risks, really?

Well, a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found out.

The researchers recruited Harvard College students for the study in April 2008, and all 77 participants then began a seven-day “washout” during which they drank all cold beverages from stainless steel bottles in order to minimize BPA exposure. For the next week, participants were given two polycarbonate bottles and asked to drink all cold beverages from them.

Urine samples were taken at the end of each week-long period, and the results that came back were shocking: levels of BPA rose 69 percent after just one week of drinking out of plastic bottles.

“We found that drinking cold liquids from polycarbonate bottles for just one week increased urinary BPA levels by more than two-thirds. If you heat those bottles, as is the case with baby bottles, we would expect the levels to be considerably higher. This would be of concern since infants may be particularly susceptible to BPA’s endocrine-disrupting potential,” said Karin B. Michels, associate professor of epidemiology at HSPH and Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study.

While previous studies have found that BPA could leach from polycarbonate bottles into their contents, this study is the first to show the corresponding increase in BPA levels in humans.

The end result is this: if you drink out of plastic water bottles, you can pretty much guarantee that you’re increasing your levels of BPA, which is very risky for your health.

Chronic exposure to very low levels of BPA, such as might occur when drinking bottled water, is potentially very harmful.

“An expert panel of scientists has concluded that exposure to extremely low doses of bisphenol A is strongly linked to diseases such as breast cancer, prostate cancer, and diabetes, and to reproductive and neurological development,” the Sierra Club reported.

And single-serve bottles are not the only ones to be concerned about. Consumer Reports found in 2000 that eight of 10 5-gallon water jugs they tested contained residues of BPA.

While the use of BPA in polycarbonate baby bottles was banned in Canada in 2008, and some manufacturers have voluntarily eliminated the chemical from their bottles, this is not yet widespread in the United States.

In fact, BPA is so widely used that it may be nearly impossible to avoid exposure entirely, however you can greatly reduce your exposure by avoiding BPA-containing products as much as possible, including one of the biggest BPA predators: plastic water bottles.

Plastic containing BPA may be called:

• Polycarbonate
• Lexan
• Polysulfone

Though it is generally clear, it can be tinted in various colors. Plastic that contains BPA carries the #7 recycling symbol, as well, so never use those bottles.

Source: SixWise

Plastic Water Bottles and Your Health Lara Berch

By Lara Berch

The number of people suffering from the side effects of pharmaceutical research is increasing all over the world. According to the article Deadly Medicine, more and more clinical trials are being outsourced overseas. It is cheaper to recruit patients, there are less stringent regulations in place (if any at all), no risk of litigation, and mainly the trials are barely monitored by the FDA. Apparently there is a loophole in the FDA regulations:

“if studies in the United States suggest that a drug has no benefit, trials from abroad can often be used in their stead to secure F.D.A. approval. There’s even a term for countries that have shown themselves to be especially amenable when drug companies need positive data fast: they’re called “rescue countries.”

FDA conducts no independent research and visits only a small number of locations where foreign trials are being conducted. That allows the companies conducting trials plenty of room to manipulate the results.

The hefty financial incentives are given to the doctors by the pharmaceutical companies for conducting research on humans regardless of the outcome – killing or curing.

Adriana Petryna, author of the book When Experiments Travel: “In Russia, a doctor makes two hundred dollars a month, and he is going to make five thousand dollars per Alzheimer’s patient” that he signs up.

In one of the poorest provinces of Argentina trials were conducted to test the new vaccine Synflorix (prevents pneumonia, ear infections, and other pneumococcal diseases) that was developed to compete with the old vaccine. As a result, 14 infants died. The parents of those infants are poor and illiterate and they did not know what they were being signed up for. The doctors that signed them up “reportedly received $350 per child”. The death of humans in pharmaceutical lingo is referred to as an “adverse event”. Similar “adverse events” have taken place in India where 49 babies died as well as in Poland where residents of a homeless shelter received $2 to participate in a flue vaccine experiment which was presented to them as a flue shot. 20 people died.

In those trials where the drug has proven to be ineffective, the results are often not disclosed to the public.

In the mid-90s, Glaxo conducted clinical trials on the antidepressant Paxil in the United States, Europe, and South America. Paxil is a member of a class of drugs called selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. The class includes Zoloft, Prozac, and Lexapro. In the United Kingdom, Paxil is sold as Seroxat. The clinical trials showed that the drug had no beneficial effect on adolescents; some of the trials indicated that the placebo was more effective than the drug itself. But Glaxo neglected to share this information with consumers; annual sales of the drug had reached $5 billion in 2003. In an internal document obtained by the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the company emphasized how important it was to “effectively manage the dissemination of these data in order to minimize any potential negative commercial impact.” The memo went on to warn that “it would be commercially unacceptable to include a statement that efficacy had not been demonstrated.” After the document was released a Glaxo spokesperson said that the “memo draws an inappropriate conclusion and is not consistent with the facts.”

According to Bloomberg News, Glaxo has spent about $390 million to settle Paxil suicide or attempted suicide lawsuits, $200 million to settle Paxil addiction and birth defect lawsuits and $400 million to resolve antitrust, fraud and design claims for a total of $1 billion.

From doing a quick search on Google, a common drug for the elderly, Miacalcin, has a price tag of $1128 for a yearly supply. According to the Pharmaceutical Industry’s statements, the reason for high cost of drugs arises form research and development that goes into producing it. From the data published in the PLOS, contrary to the industry’s claim, it appears that pharmaceutical companies spend almost twice as much on promotion and marketing as they do on research and development. For example in 2004, $57.5 billion was spent on promotional activities and 31.5 billion on research and development. Granted, the fact that the industry is driven by and for profit is not astonishing or surprising. What is astonishing is how this so called research and development is conducted and at what cost.

Sadly, the treatments and prescriptions that doctors recommend are rarely questioned by an average patient. After all the drugs are FDA approved. The death toll from FDA approved prescription drugs is around 300,000 per year, but this information never makes it to the news headlines. It is disturbing and uncomfortable information and until we start taking it personally, not much can be changed.

Until the headline news will continue to pacify us with America’s Next Top Model and Celebrity Gossip, we as a society will continue being human guinea pigs for the pharmaceutical industry.

The Guinea Pigs of Pharmaceutical Companies Lara Berch

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

I was able to find a place to watch it online. Watch it HERE

FOOD INC. – A MUST SEE Lara Berch

Recession pounds.

Believe it or not, bigger waistlines are not uncommon when the economy goes south. Downturns in personal finances lead to tighter food budgets, with people selecting fewer, higher cost items like fresh fruits, vegetables, fish and low fat meats in favor of less expensive choices rich in refined sugars and fat. Several studies link obesity with low income. For example studies conducted in California suggest that a 10% rise in poverty translates into about a 6% increase in obesity incidence in adults. Adam Drewnowski, PhD of the University of Washington reported a fivefold difference in obesity rates in Seattle depending on the zip code, with low-income zip codes have a much higher rate of obesity.

What does this all mean? America is already the fattest country in the world with levels of obesity related diseases such as diabetes skyrocketing among the economically disadvantaged. Temporary setbacks in personal income may have long term effects depending on how the person copes with sudden financial change and what choices they make. For example, financial difficulties may go hand in hand with depression leading to overeating of calorie-rich, cheaper foods. I had a consult just the other day with a man who lost his mortgage broker job about 10 months ago. He was recently diagnosed with hypertension, a condition he thinks developed as a result of gaining 40 pounds since his unemployment began. Complaining of depression and overeating at night, he said that he hasn’t the energy to exercise and often eats from the dollar menu at the fast food joint up the street. This guy is not alone. Several unemployed women have shown up with the same symptoms, often saddled with concerns about feeding their families nutritious foods while keeping a tight budget. Make no mistake, recession pounds are very real.

In times of chaos, people not only seek cheaper foods, but also comfort foods. Restaurants like Cracker Barrel have reported an increase in orders of mac and cheese and chicken and dumplings. Recession-resistant industries like Hershey’s chocolate and budget liquor outlets continue to see profits sweetened by the increasing demand for chocolate and booze. On the flip side, Whole Foods and other organic retailers have seen a downturn in revenue associated with the economy as consumers make more money-conscious food choices. Enabling shoppers to select nutritious foods while on a budget is key to warding off recession pounds.

Here are some practical tips quell recession pounds:
1. Don’t shop on an empty stomach. Impulse buying of more costly packaged foods increases when hungry.
2. By ‘in season’ fresh produce or go frozen. In season produce is less expensive and frozen is less perishable.
3. Add some spice. Spices can be pricy but a little goes a long way. Using different spices can turn every day dishes into culinary masterpieces.
4. Buy meat in bulk and freeze it. Bulk meats often sell for less so stock up and save.
5. Skip the ‘fortified foods’ like vitamin water, energy bars and women’s cereals. These extras add to the price tag
6. Adopt a ‘meatless Monday.’ Beans, whole grain pasta, and brown rice contain fiber and B vitamins and are less costly than meat, fish and poultry.
7. Want to continue to buy organic? Grocery store chain’s private labels have expanded to include organic products at a fraction of the cost of name brands.

Shopping smarter in a slumping economy doesn’t have to be difficult. Affordable nutrient rich food choices abound. Beans, eggs, milk, nuts, low fat cheese, and store brands are a good place to start. Frozen veggies and fruits are a more economical than fresh and often more nutrient rich, without the spoilage worry.
Of course, food choices are only part of the picture. Stress caused by financial woes can trigger persistent release of the stress hormone, cortisol, causing fat to be deposited around the waistline. During this economy, nutrition and counseling plans that promote health while being sensitive to income are warranted. Curbing stress through exercise, addressing depression with therapy/support groups and modifying food choices are low-cost strategies to winning the war on recession flab.

Source: Does This Economy Make My Butt Look Big?

Recession Pounds: Does This Economy Make My Butt Look Big? Lara Berch

Only 1 in 4 consumers in the United States are aware that they have been eating GM foods at one or another point in their lives. So what are GM foods and what’s the big deal?

A GMO (genetically modified organism) is the result of taking genes from one species and inserting them into another in an attempt to obtain a desired trait or characteristic. This process is different from traditional cross breeding breeding in that it breaks the inter spices barriers set up by nature. For example, inserting fish genes into tomatoes, human genes into corn, lettuce genes into tobacco and so on.

When applied to food, genetic engineering is rarely done for the health values. It is the economic gain that large food corporations like Monsanto are after. For example, the new ability of the plant to produce it’s own pesticide makes the plant poisonous thereby deterring and killing insects that normally would feed on the plant. This eliminates the need of pesticide sprays. Unfortunately the plants become not only toxic to insects but to other living organisms that are consuming the plant.

A good example would be of the farmers in India that let their sheep graze on the cotton plants. Shortly after, the sheep have died.

Research have never shown GM foods to be safe. There were no credible studies done on humans to show that GM foods are safe and the results from the studies done on animals are disturbing – precancerous cell growth, damaged immune systems, smaller brains, livers, and testicles, partial atrophy or increased density of the liver, odd shaped cell nuclei and other unexplained anomalies, false pregnancies and higher death rates.

One study stands out to me is when the rats had refused to eat GM tomatoes but were force fed and developed stomach lesions and several died within a few weeks. The tomato was still approved for the market but later was taken off.

You can view the 65 health risks from the book Genetic Roulette by Jeffrey Smith.

In the U.S., around 80 percent of all packaged foods contain GMOs. Around 85 percent of the corn, sugar beets, soybeans and canola in the country are grown from GMO seeds.

GM crops in the US for 2008: soy (91%), cotton (88%), canola (88%), corn (85%), Hawaiian papaya (more than 50%), zucchini and yellow squash (small amount), and tobacco (Quest® brand).

One might argue that we have been eating GM foods without side-effects for many years, but the fact is that no one is monitoring the health effects of GM foods and it could be many years because we identify the culprit.

One might also think that FDA keeps our interest at hand and would prevent something as controversial and dangerous as GMO’s from entering the food chain. In reality the FDA does not require safety studies and relies solely on information supplied by the biotech companies.

“At one point FDA’s scientists did warn that GM foods might create toxins, allergies, nutritional problems, and new diseases that might be difficult to identify. Internal FDA memos reveal that the scientists urged their superiors to require long-term safety testing to catch these hard-to-detect side effects. Not only nothing was done, but in the case of genetically modified bovine growth hormone, some FDA scientists who expressed concerns were harassed, stripped of responsibilities, or fired. “

As you have probably guessed, there are no laws that would require companies to label foods that contain GM ingredients.

So what can we do? We can do what people around the world have been doing all along and demand an end to GM crops.

“All over the world, regions and even nations are demanding an end to GM crop cultivation. Twenty-two countries in Europe have regions wanting to be GM-free. States in Australia, regions in New Zealand and Brazil, the countries of Venezuela, Zambia, Sudan, Angola, and others, all want to be GM-free. Thus, world markets are shrinking. In 2009, Germany joined France, Hungary, Italy, Greece, Austria, Poland and Romania in baning Monsanto’s Mon 810 GM corn because of its documented hazards to biodiversity and human health. In 2007 over three million Italians signed a petition, declaring their opposition to GM crops in their country. In Europe over 175 regions and over 4,500 municipalities have declared themselves GM-free zones. In Spain alone this includes over 50 municipalities and regions like Asturias, the Canary Islands and the Basque country.
Europe has greater rejection of GMOs due to a more balanced reporting by their press on the health and environmental dangers. In Europe, at least 174 regions, more than 4,500 councils and local governments have declared themselves GM free.”

For more information on what actions you can take to keep you and your family GMO – free, visit “The Most Comprehensive Source of GMO Health Risk”

Source: http://responsibletechnology.org/

Health Effects of GMO Lara Berch

How Might You Benefit or Lose Out?

As you likely are “well” aware by now, the House of Representatives passed the health care reform bill that had been approved by the Senate in December.

President Barack Obama called the move “a victory for the American people” and said it “answers the prayers of every American who has hoped deeply for something to be done about a health care system that works for insurance companies, but not for ordinary people.”

So what will change now that “health care reform” is finally here?

The Health Care Reform Bill in a Nutshell

Polls show the country is nearly evenly divided on their reactions to the health care bill. According to one USA Today/Gallup poll conducted at the end of March, 47 percent of Americans believe the new legislation is a good thing, while 50 percent feel it’s bad (3 percent had no opinion).

Still, a separate USA Today/Gallup poll found that many believe the plan falls short. According to a survey of over 1,000 adults, 48 percent said that although the new health care bill is a good first step, more changes are needed. Another 31 percent said the plan “makes the wrong type of changes.”

Before we delve into what may be missing from the plan, let’s first take a look at what it contains:

• Insurance companies cannot deny coverage to children with pre-existing medical conditions, nor will they be able to do so to adults come 2014.
• Young adults will be able to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until age 26.
• Lifetime caps on how much insurance benefit you can receive in your lifetime will be limited and banned altogether in 2014.
• Your insurance can no longer be revoked if you get sick.
• Indoor tanning services will be taxed 10 percent beginning July 1, 2010. Late Night Jimmy Kimmel stated “The weirdest…. a tax on tanning salons seems very convenient for a black President to me, I have to say.” Obviously said in jest.
• In 2014, you’ll be required to buy health insurance, or face an annual fine.

By Law You and Everyone Must Soon Buy Health Insurance

However, as written in the New York Times, this may or may not be strictly enforced:

“Although most Americans who do not obtain health insurance would face a federal penalty starting in 2014, many experts question how strict the enforcement of that penalty would actually be.

The first year, consumers who did not have insurance would owe $95, or 1 percent of income, whichever is greater. But the penalty would subsequently rise, reaching $695, or 2 percent of income.

Families who fall below the income-tax filing thresholds would not owe anything.”

So while you will likely be fined if you don’t have health insurance, the fine is likely to be thousands less than the cost of buying insurance — unless you’re seriously ill or have a pre-existing disease. The good news is that, come 2014, the insurance companies can’t turn you down if you apply for coverage during an illness or after learning you have an illness.

So for millions of people paying a fine, rather than paying for health insurance premiums, would amount to thousands of dollars in savings.

Basically all the benefits to this plan are loaded into the first few years and the big penalties begin after 2014.

What will happen if everyone takes advantage of these benefits now?

Those paying for health insurance are likely to see significant increases in costs while more people drop off until they absolutely must have “sick-care” health insurance to help cover their major costs.

Either way more and more people are paying cash direct for their doctors’ visits while being given information to file with their insurance companies directly.

No Pre-Existing Conditions Can be Denied Come 2014

Do you now really need to get insured? Unless you need sick-care?

No matter which side of the isle you were on before the health care bill was passed, the facts are becoming more and more clear that this is going to be a very lopsided set of benefits that you can take advantage of or be taken advantage of … whichever you prefer.

Here’s how!

First do the math. If you are willing to pay the fine come 2014 for not having insurance it appears that you will be able to pay many times less a year to simply pay for doctors and general health tests out of pocket. This will likely be much less than insurance premiums and deductibles … unless you are sick and need hospitalization, sick-care, drugs, expensive surgery, etc.

That’s the catch to your advantage if you’re currently not insured. WHY?

Come 2014, once you are sick no insurance company can turn you down according to federal law. No precondition refusals will be acceptable and incremental increases in fees for being sick will no longer be acceptable either.

If that is true and remains true the burden is spread across all insured while you were able to pay a fine that costs much less than what we at SixWise.com are coining the phrase “Sick-care Insurance.”

Do the Math!

Look at your annual doctor costs. If you could pay your doctor up front a flat fee of say a few hundred dollars for annual exams and tests, then if any concerns crop up you then go get insurance, what amount would you pay vs. paying insurance and the deductible each year?

Our guess is the costs will be much paying your doctor out-of-pocket for annual exams while not having insurance.

One Important Caveat!

This scenario does not account for accidents or emergency injuries or illnesses, which can require extensive medical care that can quickly add up to thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more).

So to protect yourself from the costs of unexpected injuries, sudden illness or other health emergencies, we recommend getting at least a basic insurance plan that will protect you from such expenses.

Government-Run Health Care … a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?

In the video above, William Kristol talks to Jon Stewart on health care….

These above are not SixWise Management Opinions or recommendations. In Fact SixWise Management believes that both sides of the isle are equally responsible for increasing costs that do little to improve the quality of life for the US population. Instead, they continue to dramatically add to the US debt and other costs that are out of control and certain to increase taxes and reduce the quality of life for all.

The below picture while “Cute” is a sad but true legacy for our children and grandchildren:

We believe the federal government’s purpose should be and revert back to our country’s Founding Fathers 1776 stated simple intentions of protecting the individual rights of each US citizen.

We seek to get behind future U.S. leaders who base their intentions and actions fully in mind of the Founding Fathers’ written and stated principles we all agree upon as citizens of the U.S.

If either party or a new political party would simplify their intentions down to a brief outline combining the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, eliminating all that does not stick thereby, it would simplify and stop the growing big government spending and loss of our rights.

For example, abortions (while a highly emotional topic for many being one of the biggest issues), reverting back to the basic construct of these US Federal Principles, would not be funded nor controlled on a federal level, reducing it to state and local governing levels. It does not stick on either side as a federal basis.

Reconstruction of Governing Principles would dramatically reduce and eventually eliminate all big government costs and all special interest ideology for everyone on both sides to the simple protection of our individual rights as was the original intentions of the Founding Fathers.

What is Missing in the Health Care “Reform” Bill?

None of the new legislation actually includes steps that will make you healthier! As Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, recently wrote:

“There’s only one problem with this health care reform bill: It doesn’t reform health care. It has almost nothing to do with health care at all, in fact: It’s really more of an effort to expand a broken sick-care system.

When faced with the problem that our sick-care system doesn’t work, Congress somehow decided that fixing the problem merely involved expanding the failures to include everyone!

And you don’t even get a choice in the matter, either. All Americans are now required to pay into a sick-care system of monopolized, pharmaceutical medicine even if they reject that failed system of medicine.

So the healthy people who actually take responsibility for their health are financially penalized and forced to subsidize profits for drug companies!”

STAYING WELL AND HEALTHY will remain IMPORTANT if not become more URGENT than ever before!

Source: SixWise.com

Why Will “Sick Care” Now Replace Health Care in the U.S.? Lara Berch