Acid rain is an environmental poison spewed by coal-fired electricity plants. It erodes the exterior environment, destroying rocks, plants and animals. Relics from the early history of man, such as symbols scratched into the surface of cliffs (petroglyphs) are being lost faster than they can be preserved. Acid rain also kills and weakens plants, trees and animals. People develop breathing problems from exposure to these toxins as well as other illnesses.
Similar destruction occurs in the interior environment of plants and animals when acidity is introduced and accumulated. Complex, specifically constructed molecules that perform crucial functions are broken and not reproduced or repaired effectively. This introduces disorder, ineffectiveness and breakdown into the next generation – the lean, mean fighting machine isn’t quite so good as it was.
Each cell, structure in each cell, and biologically active molecule must be rebuilt many times over the lifetime of a plant or animal. The easier for the body to provide the ideal non-acidic environment for this reproduction, the more efficient the resulting cells communicate, perform, and utilize energy released from the breakdown of food. In short, aging is slowed.
Ways that acid by-products are introduced, accumulate and are removed from your internal environment are through:
Diet – main source of acid forming compounds
Water – dissolved elements may make this an acid contributor
Air – pollution and acid to you while you breathe
Exercise – stokes the fires of metabolism and hastens the removal
Transformation and Elimination – Only way acidic compounds are taken out. If the removal rate is less than the input rate, acidic compounds accumulate.
Diet – acidic foods are what’s for dinner, lunch, and breakfast in the United States. According to the Alkaline/Acidic Food Chart issued in Back to the House of Health by Shelley Redford Young, typical meals throughout a day are compromised of foods that result in acidic residue in the body. In this listing the positive numbers are alkaline pH and negative acidic pH:
French Fries: Potatoes (+2.2), Vegetable Oil (-6.5)
Cola (-30)
Dinner:
Roast Beef (-34.5)
Dinner Rolls (-6.5)
Salad (+6)
Beer (-26)
As you can see, the big majority of foods that are consumed leave acidic residue when they are used up in your body as energy and rebuilding blocks. The task of our body is two fold in dealing with the results of the ‘combustion’ of foods in the body:
Limit the acidity input.
Remove the inevitable acidic residue.
Why is this important? Limiting internal acidity allows cells to work, grow, and divide as well as possible. It’s proven that an acidic internal environment encourages fat production to sop up these poisons. The acidic residue is stored in fat cells until it can be removed through the liver and kidneys.
By flushing this acidic material from your body, you can lose the fat that was created to store these toxins. I know this from personal experience. I lost 30 pounds in about 45 days when I changed my diet and began drinking water at the rate of 1 fluid ounce for each 2 pounds of body weight each day. By limiting my acidic food intake to about 25% of my calories a day, this weight disappeared. In addition, my doctor reported that my blood chemistry became normal. The blood fats, which were creeping into prescription range, dropped to normal. I was able to cut my diabetes medication in half. Since I’ve stayed on this diet, these positive changes have stayed with me.
When I explained to my doctor what I was doing, he didn’t understand why it was working, but he said “Whatever it is you are doing, it works, don’t stop.”
Seeing these results, I realized I had to spread the word. There are literally tens of millions of people in the United States alone that have similar medical issues as me. All can benefit from this course of action.
How about you? Are you ready to do what works for me? Would you like to confound your doctor, in a good way? Find out more from the web page behind this link: http://bit.ly/dAkZ2M
It’s common knowledge that exercise will extend your life. Through exercise, your body will be a robust, energetic and a happy place to be. I’ve found a clinical study that backs up this bit of common wisdom, and this article tell about it.
It can be authoritatively said that spending most of the day sitting will shorten your life span. This statement is based on analysis of records kept between 1993 and 2006 on 120,000 people by researchers at Ochsner Health Systems in Louisiana.
After adjusting in the population followed for the 13 years for body mass index (BMI) and smoking, sitting for 6 hours a day was found to be a major health risk. The results found that women have a 37 percent higher risk of dying during the length of the study when compared with women that sat less than 3 hours a day. The same comparison for men resulted in a 17 percent higher risk of dying during the 13 years of the study.
Exercise did lower this risk of early death, but not as much as was anticipated. Speculative reasons for this discrepancy from the expected provided by the researchers center on the idea that as muscles are inactive for long periods of time, hormones are released affecting cholesterol and triglycerides levels in such a way that the likelihood of heart disease is increased.
According to oncologist and study author Jay Brooks in a USA Today story, it’s one more reason to ‘get up and walk’. He further says, “If you’re in a job that requires sitting, that’s fine, but any time you can expend energy is good. That’s the key”.
This study backs up the assertion that people are meant to move. Jobs more and more require people to sit still to complete them, be it sitting behind a wheel, a computer screen or at a reception desk. By not moving your body while at this task, you are killing yourself.
I have had type 2 diabetes since 1993. Through out this period, and before it, I’ve dealt with emotional depression. Perhaps for so long that I was not aware of another way of feeling about things. It has seemed bullet proof to therapy, medications, and anything else I tried to make it so I could feel like other people.
I may have run across an answer why I’ve been forced to live through this. As noted in the title to this article, I’m beginning to believe it has to do with the combination of depression, diabetes, and B Vitamins (which play a big part in nervous system development and maintenance). I’ve some medical research to back up what I’m saying as well.
First, here is a possible depression connection with B vitamins. In a report published in Psychosomatics in the late 1980’s, A. Missagh Gharirian of McGill University in Montreal, it was stated that low levels of the B vitamin folic acid was linked to depression. Dr. Ghadirian found that folic acid supplements relieved depression in people that had both depression and low folic acid levels. The study found that symptoms of depression can occur within 100 days of low folic acid intake.
Folic acid is recommended to be taken at levels of 400 milligrams a day for adults, 500 mg / day for nursing mothers and 800 mg / day by soon-to-be mothers to prevent birth defects. Because it is water-soluble, unneeded amounts are flushed out within 24 hours.
Raw vegetables are a good source of folic acid as it dissolves in cooking water.
What surprised and concerned me however was the prescriptions and over the counter drugs that interfere with the absorption of folic acid (and other B vitamins). This list includes aspirin (which is commonly prescribed in ‘baby’ strength to diabetics to combat heart/blood vessel damage, I was told that a diabetic is seen in a doctor’s eyes of already having a heart attack – I’ve been taking one a day for at least 3 years), acetaminophen (Tylenol), several chemotherapy drugs, and high levels of vitamin C.
The drug that interferes with B12 vitamin absorption (for a lot of diabetics) is metaformin, a very common glucose controlling and insulin sensitizing drug (I’ve been taking it for years, and I’ve been able to cut my dose in half in the last year). Another study notes that 10 to 30% of the people that take metaformin have evidence of decreased B12 absorption (from the Diabetes Self Management blog). At that website there are comments that note that supplementing B12 has increased energy dramatically for some people.
A lack of energy will certainly encourage (is that the right word?) depression, and a nervous system that produces numbness and tingling in the feet certainly isn’t up to snuff as well. My point is that even if there isn’t a proven link specifically between diabetes, B12 vitamin deficiency, and depression, it certainly wouldn’t be much of a stretch.
Life is simple independent things, interacting intricately.
In your personal life: food, water, breathing, exercise, and what side of the bed you woke up on work together to influence the results of your actions. The equation works on all scales of life, right down to the smallest building block of life, the act of metabolism.
One of the simple building blocks of metabolism is the measurement of the acid/alkaline scale in your liquid (at least 60% water) body. Life takes apart and puts together molecules to build cells and release energy. This entire process is complicated, but as I said, it’s based on very simple things. One of the most important things is this acid/alkaline balance, or the pH value of the water that makes you up.
Our bodies are like a chemistry set and they have to be balanced to run properly. And one of the things that needs to be balanced is our body’s pH. So what’s pH?
Well, technically, it stands for ‘potential of hydrogen’. It is a measure of the degree of saturation of the hydrogen ion in a substance or solution.
“Potential of Hydrogen measures the degree of the acidity or the alkalinity of a solution as measured on a scale (pH scale) of 0 to 14. The midpoint of 7.0 on the pH scale represents neutrality, i.e., a “neutral” solution is neither acid nor alkaline. Numbers below 7.0 indicate acidity; numbers greater than 7.0 indicate alkalinity.” – source: Your local chemistry textbook.
I have no idea what the heck all that means. What I do know is that by measuring your pH level you can determine if your body is too alkaline or acidic. Healthy people are slightly alkaline (about 7.35 pH). Sick and unhealthy people are linked to acidic body environments. Your body’s pH affects almost everything about you. Your pH level influences every biochemical process in your body including weight loss, body fat and diabetes!
The pH of your blood must at all times be between 7.3 and 7.4. “In the human body a pH balancing act is continuously going on to maintain homeostasis.” – source: Your local biochemistry textbook.
So a body that has achieved homeostasis is a body that is functioning optimally. An optimally running body is one with a high functioning metabolism, good stamina and an overall feeling of wellbeing. Your pH factor can explain why you have not been able to lose body fat!
For your body to maintain pH balance it stores any excess acid in your fat cells. You see, in the acidic person the body cannot afford to burn fat because it would release acid that is stored in your body fat, thereby putting your blood pH out of balance.
Diabetes is a problem with metabolism, the way your body puts together and takes apart molecules to do the business of sustaining life. It can be looked as an indication of imbalance, of not being in a state of homeostasis.
If your body’s pH factor is out of balance it could also explain why you may lack energy, stamina, and just plain don’t feel good.
So what in the world does all this have to do with baking soda?
Glad you asked…One method of balancing your bodies pH is by combining citric acid with baking soda! By combining an acid (citric acid) and an alkaline (baking soda), an active solution that is near the 7.35 pH sweet spot is created.
Here is a simple recipe:
“The Lime Bicarbonate Formula
Take one whole lime and squeeze into a glass, make sure you remove any seeds. Add very small amounts of baking soda slowly bit by bit until the fizz stops. Then add water until the glass is half way filled. Take twice a day on an empty stomach, once in the morning and once before bedtime.”
If you are confused about amounts or if even if you should try it at all, I would suggest going to Earthclinic.com and reading as much information as you can before you try it.
You may want to consider following these suggestions to improve your body’s pH before pulling out the chemistry set:
1. The first thing to consider is the food you are eating.
In an acidic environment, fat flourishes. So, alkaline producing foods will help improve the pH balance of the body and take one more thing out of the way of fat release. Here is a list of a few alkaline foods that you should consider adding to your diet:
Other Alkaline foods- Okra, Squash, Green Beans, Beets, Celery, Lettuce, Zucchini, Sweet Potato, Carob, Dates, Figs, Melons, Grapes, Papaya, Kiwi, Berries, Apples, Pears, Raisins, Almonds, Flax Seed Oil, Green Tea, Maple Syrup, Rice Syrup
2. Let’s not forget Water!
Perfect, laboratory style water is 7.0 pH, or neutral. Because it’s near that 7.35 pH number, the more water you have, the better. If you can treat this water to be alkaline, all the better as it will influence the internal balance towards alkalinity.
The most important thing is making sure you drink enough water. Appropriate amounts are essential to body balance, weight loss and being healthy. A healthy diet and proper amounts of water will assist the body in gently removing acids. Make sure to especially drink water after each meal to allow your food to be properly pH neutralized.
3. And the ever dreaded Exercise.
Regular exercise helps the body eliminate toxins. And we all know that ongoing exercise is essential to your overall health, and wellbeing. Exercise raises your metabolism, making the acid/alkaline cycle work faster (and more alkaline as well). If you have fueled your body with alkaline foods and water, the resulting feeling of well being, fat loss, and blood sugar control will be all the better.
3 pm and the lunch sleeping pill has started to take effect.
Your eyelids are heavy….again.
Every afternoon it happens. Why? It’s because your blood sugar has dropped. For people without diabetes, that is from the top of the ‘normal’ spectrum to the lower end (below 100).
For someone with out of control blood sugar (pre or full-blown diabetes) that’s from dangerously high to normal, or to dangerously low.
What can you do about it that is safe? Here is 12 things from AskMen.com:
Drink some water. A glass of water will activate your body and wake up your head as well.
Eat lunch every day. Your body dips into ready blood sugar reserves to keep you going when you don’t eat regularly. When you get sleepy with no lunch in you, this means you have run out of reserves.
Take a short break. Stand up and stretch – don’t need to be over the top, with yawn etc., just get up on your feet, shake out your toes and fingers, roll your head. If you can, walk for a couple of minutes. Getting circulation moving wakes you up.
Move. Work out a gym at lunch. The increased metabolic rate will keep you awake for the afternoon. Failing that, instead of an email to a co-worker, walk over, walk up some stairs – get your blood flowing!
Work on a different task. Routine leads to boredom. Boredom leads to sleepy. Change it up – do something creative or engaging.
Interact with coworkers. Strike up a conversation at the copy machine – to someone’s desk rather than email. It will break up the routine (see 5.) and get you moving.
Take a siesta. 15 minutes of power nap will clear your decks for action.
Have a snack. As part of your diabetes reversal, this should be raw almonds or raw vegetables, about a palm full will do it, when accompanied by water.
Splash your face with cold water. Just like a morning shower, this change of sensory input will snap you out of your lethargy.
Turn down the heat. Warmth brings on naps. If you can’t because of cubical mate complaints, dress lighter.
Get more natural light. More light keeps you alert. Work where you look out a window. Can’t do that? Use a desk lamp – the closer light source will brighten up colors and keep you engaged in your surroundings.
Focus on your plans after work. First, make a list of what you have left to accomplish before the end of the work day. Then you can consider what you are going to be up to after work – movie with your honey? Going out with the buds? Giving yourself a time you need to get out of work as well as a list of things to be done before that time will get you out of the sleepy rut you are in.
Is it more than a slump? Get to bed earlier – more sleep at night will give you reserves for the day.
Another issue may be that you don’t want to be at the thing you are doing for work, or it may be an ongoing issue like depression or relationship stress. Assess the situation with an honest eye. Find what you think it may be and take action to change it.
In any case, if you find your energy is leaking away after lunch regularly, you need to get over the reason why it’s happening. It may be that you need to make a lifestyle change – more exercise, or modify your diet to cut out simple carbohydrates that spike you blood sugar and then crash it as your body reacts with excess insulin.
Make the positive changes and you will find that you work better and enjoy what you are doing. Afterwards, you will have more energy for evening social activities.
Nutrient Density is a critical concept in devising and recommending dietary and nutritional advice to patients and to the public. Not merely vitamins and minerals, but adequate consumption of phytochemicals is essential for proper functioning of the immune system and to enable our body’s detoxification and cellular repair mechanisms that protect us from chronic diseases.
Nutritional science in the last twenty years has demonstrated that colorful plant foods contain a huge assortment of protective compounds, mostly of which still remain unnamed. Only by eating an assortment of nutrient-rich natural foods can we access these protective compounds and prevent the common diseases that afflict Americans. Our modern, low-nutrient eating style has led to an overweight population, the majority of whom develop diseases of nutritional ignorance, causing our medical costs to spiral out of control.
To guide people toward the most nutrient dense foods, I developed a scoring system called ANDI (Aggregate Nutrient Density Index), which ranks foods based on their ratio of nutrients to calories.
Because phytochemicals are largely unnamed and unmeasured, these rankings underestimate the healthful properties of colorful natural plant foods compared to processed foods and animal products. One thing we do know is that the foods that contain the highest amount of known nutrients are the same foods that contain the most unknown nutrients too. So even though these rankings may not consider the phytochemical number sufficiently they are still a reasonable measurement of their content.
Keep in mind that nutrient density scoring is not the only factor that determines good health. For example, if we only ate foods with a high nutrient density score our diet would be too low in fat. So we have to pick some foods with lower nutrient density scores (but preferably the healthier ones) to include in our high nutrient diet. Additionally, if a slim or highly physically active individual ate only the highest nutrient foods they would become so full from all of the fiber and nutrients that would keep them from meeting their caloric needs and they would eventually become too thin. This of course gives you a hint at the secret to permanent weight control – to eat the greatest quantity of the foods with the highest ANDI scores, and lesser amounts of foods with lower ANDI scores. For further information, read chapter 3 of Eat for Health, in which I discuss nutrient density and the importance of phytochemicals in detail.
Dr. Fuhrman’s
ANDI Scoring System: Sample Scores1
Kale
1000
Cantaloupe
100
Skim Milk
36
Collards
1000
Kidney Beans
100
Walnuts
34
Bok Choy
824
Sweet Potato
83
Grapes
31
Spinach
739
Black Beans
83
White Potato
31
Broccoli Rabe
715
Sunflower Seeds
78
Banana
30
Chinese/Napa Cabbage
704
Apple
76
Cashews
27
Brussel Sprouts
672
Peach
73
Chicken Breast
27
Swiss Chard
670
Green Peas
70
Eggs
27
Arugula
559
Cherries
68
Peanut Butter
26
Cabbage
481
Flax Seeds
65
Whole Wheat Bread
25
Romaine Lettuce
389
Pineapple
64
Feta Cheese
21
Broccoli
376
Chick Peas
57
Whole Milk
20
Carrot Juice
344
Oatmeal
53
Ground Beef
20
Cauliflower
295
Pumpkin Seeds
52
White Pasta
18
Green Peppers
258
Mango
51
White Bread
18
Artichoke
244
Cucumber
50
Apple Juice
16
Carrots
240
Soybeans
48
Swiss Cheese
15
Asparagus
234
Pistachio Nuts
48
Low Fat Yogurt
14
Strawberries
212
Corn
44
Potato Chips
11
Pomegranate Juice
193
Brown Rice
41
American Cheese
10
Tomato
164
Salmon
39
Vanilla Ice Cream
9
Blueberries
130
Almonds
38
French Fries
7
Iceberg Lettuce
110
Shrimp
38
Olive Oil
2
Orange
109
Avocado
37
Cola
1
Lentils
100
Tofu
37
Joel Fuhrman, M.D.
To determine the scores above almost all vitamins and minerals were considered and added in. Nutrient Data from Nutritionist Pro software for an equal caloric amount of each food item was obtained. We included the following nutrients in the evaluation: Calcium, Carotenoids: Beta Carotene, Alpha Carotene, Lutein & Zeaxanthin, Lycopene, Fiber, Folate, Glucosinolates, Iron, Magnesium, Niacin, Selenium, Vitamin B1 (Thiamin) Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Zinc, plus ORAC score X 2 (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity is a method of measuring the antioxidant or radical scavenging capacity of foods).
Nutrient quantities, which are normally in many different measurements (mg, mcg, IU) were converted to a percentage of their RDI so that a common value could be considered for each nutrient. Since there is currently no RDI for Carotenoids, Glucosinolates, or ORAC score, goals were established based on available research and current understanding of the benefits of these factors. (limited references below). The % RDI or Goal for each nutrient which the USDA publishes a value for was added together to give a total. All nutrients were weighted equally with a factor of one except for the foods ORAC score. The ORAC score was given a factor 2 (as if it were two nutrients) due to the importance of antioxidant phytonutrients so that a contribution from unnamed and unscored anti-oxidant phytochemicals were represented in the scoring. The sum of the food’s total nutrient value was then multiplied by a fraction to make the highest number equal 1000 so that all foods could be considered on a numerical scale of 1 to 1000.
1 Dr. Fuhrman’s nutrient density food rankings, scoring system, and point determinations of foods and it dietary application to individual medical needs is patented. The patent is held by Dr. Fuhrman and Kevin Leville of Eat Right America.
Wu, Xianli; Beecher, Gary; Holden, Joanne; Haytowitz, David; Gebhardt, Susan; Prior Ronald. 2004; Lipophilic and Hydrophilic Antioxidant Capacities of Common Foods in the United States. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 52. 4026-4037.
Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Selenium, and Caroteinoids, 2000. Food and Nutrition Board. Institute of Medicine. National Academy Press. Washington D.C. pp. 343-344.
Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids. 2002. Food and Nutrition Board. Institute of Medicine. National Academy Press. Washington D.C. p. 423.
Mc Bride, Judy. 1999. Can Foods Forestall Aging? Agricultural Research. 47(2): 15-17.
Wu, Xianli; Beecher, Gary; Holden, Joanne; Haytowitz, David; Gebhardt, Susan; Prior, Ronald. 2004. Lipophilic and Hydrophilic Antioxidant Capacities of Common Foods in the United States.
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 52. 4026-4037.
Prior, Ronald. Hoang, Ha. Gu, Liwei. Bacchiocca, Mara. Howard, Luke. Hanpsch-Woodill, Maureen. Huang, Dejuan.Ou, Boxin, Jacob, Robert. 2003. Assays for Hydrophilic and Lipophilic Antioxidant Capacity of Plasma and Other Biological and Food Samples.
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 51. 3273-3279.
Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Selenium and Caroteinoids. 2000. Food and Nutrition Board. Institiute of Medicine. National Academy Press. Washington D.C. pp. 343-344. Prior, RL. 1999. Can Foods Forestall Aging?
Agricultural Research. 47(2): 15-17.
Research has found that fluctuating blood sugar levels can make it almost impossible for someone to lose weight and stay healthy. In order to control food cravings you first need to level out blood sugar spikes.
Diabetes is a disease of blood sugar spikes, thus increasing food cravings. This video describes why it is important to use ‘bulky’ vegetables, that is unrefined food stuffs to slow down the peaks and valleys of blood sugar. I’m not recommending the product described, I’m looking for a reason for my (and others) undeniable urge to binge on carbs.
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