Fruits and Veggies Can Strengthen Bones

December 24th, 2008

Well, what a coincidence! Just as I am starting on a rawfood diet there was a study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism saying that fruits and veggies can strengthen your bones.
The study, done by Tufts University, explored the connection between the acid diets that are common in the US and bone loss. Grains, meats and dairy, plus processed food in general, tend to make our systems more acid.
The study included 171 men and women aged 50 and older who were randomly assigned to receive a placebo or doses of either potassium bicarbonate, sodium bicarbonate, or potassium chloride for three months. The people who took bicarbonate showed significant reductions in calcium excretion and bone resorption. I have been telling women for many years to take a drink of sodium bicarb with lemon juice at night before bed to cut down on bone loss and to add to the alkalinity of the body. You’ll find that info on my pH balance page.
So the study didn’t actually test any veggies or fruits because it is already well known that they will also add to the alkalinity of the body in a more natural way. Your body will create sodium bicarb out of them itself.
I heard about Dr Douglas Graham and his “80-10-10 Diet” several weeks ago when I read an interview he had done on a raw food site.I have been using more raw foods lately because I am unhappy with the long-term results I was getting with my low-carb diet.
There are two doctors who I have been listening to, via books, to keep the diabetes under control, Dr Rosedale and Dr Bernstein. They both say we don’t need any carbs at all and should take as little as possible so our blood sugar numbers stay stable. Well, when you cut down on carbs then the only thing you are adding is fat and protein.Long term, that is a nightmare for the body. The liver and kidneys can’t deal with all that fat, even the good fats. And too much protein is just as toxic to the system.
So I have been longing for fruit for the two years I have been trying to stick to this diet. As with all new diets, in the beginning you always feel better, and I did. But for the last 6 months I have been feeling increasingly toxic and sluggish. I found out that my blood was in a rouleau pattern typical of people who eat too much fat. The blood cannot do it’s job of oxygenating the body from that pattern so I was increasingly tired and weak.
So when I read what Dr Graham said about fruit and diabetes and fruit and candida, I was very intrigued. He says that fruit has gotten a bad rap, that it is fat that causes diabetes and candida. The fat eaten along with the fruit coats the sugar in your intestines and prevents the insulin you take or make from being able to react with the sugar and push it into the cells. So I was convinced enough to give it a good try.
This diet is considered radical even in raw food circles because he says that 80% of our diet should come from carbohydrates, 10% from protein and 10% from fat. Interestingly these numbers are supported by the World Health Organization. Since leafy greens and fruit actually have about that much protein and fat in them, it means you rarely have to eat anything else at all, a few nuts a week maybe. Most rawfooders eat huge quantities of nuts.
People who do not like fruit would have a hard time on this lifestyle because you can’t get enough calories from greens. I love fruit but you have to eat an awful lot of it. I am actually eating 5 times a day because I can’t eat too much at once. Some athletes are eating a dozen bananas at one sitting, or a half gallon of fresh orange juice. Dr Graham has coached Olympic level athletes and is an amazing athlete himself so he has a lot of credentials for superior performance on this lifestyle.
My immediate reaction to the diet - one month -has been profound.

  • I’ve got my energy back to where it was before I got sick so many years ago.
  • I’m sleeping less, wide awake at 5 and ready to go.
  • I’ve cut down on the thyroid and adrenal meds.
  • I am calmer, my mental chatter seems to have gone away.

One last interesting thing - I have never been athletic in my life. Work has always been my exercise. Now that my work takes place on a computer a lot of the time that is not good for my body. So I am actually starting to look forward to my rebounding and walking and even considered running or jogging!
Have a wonderful Holiday Season and don’t worry about 2009. Depression starts in the mind, don’t let it take root in yours.
Live in Abundance and Joy, Pam

Posted in About Me, Bone Stories, Diet, Exercise, Osteo-News | No Comments »

Diabetes Drugs Weaken Bones

December 11th, 2008

A study released today and reported in Reuters reveals that diabetes drugs, Avandia and Actos, are bad for your bones. 

“This study shows that these agents double the risk of fractures in women with type 2 diabetes, who are already at higher risk before taking the therapy,” said Sonal Singh of North Carolina’s Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Singh and colleagues at Wake Forest , working with researchers at Britain’s University of East Anglia, based their findings on a pooled analysis of 10 previous clinical studies lasting at least a year involving 14,000 patients. These drugs are already linked to adverse heart effects including raising the risk of heart failure and carry warning labels for that.

I recently bought the dvd, Simply Raw, Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days and I was inspired and impresssed. The 6 participants, from all walks of life, got off as many as 17 medications and insulin in the thirty days in the clinic eating a raw food diet. As you may know, I have diabetes, type 1.5, (adult onset auto-immune diabetes) myself, and I was inspired to go onto a raw food diet. I will share more about that in a future post.

One person in the study quit because he couldn’t handle the raw food. After going off 17 medications in 2 weeks and losing a lot of weight, plus getting his libido back, he still gave up because he missed his old food. I think the factor of mental, psychological and emotional preparation and counseling was not explored enough, certainly not in the movie.

We are all addicted to certain foods and drinks, from coffee, to alcohol, to sugar, to carbs. There is no one immune to addictions in this society. We use all these things to dull our senses and tamp down our emotions. You have to be really ready to deal with what comes up emotionally when you deprive yourself of your addictive substances.

Maybe you will find out that there are things in your life that need changing, that you can’t live with any more. Ask yourself, diabetic or not, what would I have a hard time living without? What passes my lips every single day? That is your addiction. Most of our addictions are wreaking havoc on our bodies.

It is not normal to feel tired, foggy-brained, creaky or cranky. Our bodies deserve food that fully supports life, then they can heal themselves without drugs. Or, in the case of diabetes 1, with a much lower dose of insulin.

I’m getting ready for my New Year cleanse. I do it every year. But this year I am actually changing my lifestyle around food, a total night and day change. My son gives up alcohol and coffee for the month of January every year just to prove to himself that he can.

Think about what you are prepared to give up for the sake of your healthy future?

Take care, Pam

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Fear and Dexa Scans

December 5th, 2008

A customer called me today with a story about Dexa scans. She has worn the weightvest for about a year and used the rebounder as well so she went for her scan with high hopes of bone density improvement.

Although she had read that it was important to go to the same machine for the followup tests, she found one much cheaper and went there instead. Her results were very upsetting. Her bones were much worse and the doctor was very fear-inducing about her risks. She said she didn't believe the results and would get the scan done again at her old machine and the doctor gave her money back.

She then went to the old machine and had good improvement in her hips, far above the other test results BUT her spine was supposedly weaker than before. Not as bad as the other machine but not stronger as expected. So she called to see what I thought.

I had just read an article by Dr Shellenbarger, an alternative physician, who said that dexa scans will take different readings within 1/16" from the previous reading. He said, "The bottom line is that you should take your bone density measurements with a grain of salt. The test can't tell you how strong your bones are, and the results may not be all that accurate."

He recommends the urine test that I have recommended for ages, but he has a new name for it - the N-telopeptide test. It is inexpensive and easy to get and you can do it more often because it shows if you are losing bone right at this moment.

Now, it makes no sense to me that a person who is walking and rebounding with a vest on would get stronger bones in her hips and not her spine. Sorry, that is not logical. I would rather believe logic than a bone test machine designed by the same companies that are selling billions of dollars of bone drugs. Call me cynical!

That reminds me of an email that I got recently from a woman who wanted to buy a vest but she was totally incensed that I was giving out erroneous information about the bone drugs and said I was a bad person. I wondered why she needed a vest if the bone drugs were doing her so much good. I think that many women who have been on the drugs for five years have seen the limit of the changes they are going to get and now have to look at alternative solutions. There is only so much old junk that can fit inside the bones.

But here is the main point. If my customer had not been so feisty she would have thought the vest wasn't working and taken the prescription for Fosomax with a sigh and been on bad drugs for the rest of her life. This is fear-based marketing. And unfortunately, medicine is a marketing game now, not a healing modality. They have old trust on their side and we believe them without stopping to do a little research and thought. It has been pretty well proven that many of the things doctors told us we needed to do are not necessary, from Ceasarians to mammograms, to heart bypasses, to arthroscopic knee surgery, etc., etc. But many doctors are not up with the latest research. My old dinasaur told me last week that 'hormone doctors' were 'fringe' and vitamins were expensive pee. Heaven help us!

Don't let them scare you, negative thoughts are powerful. Take your own power back.

Pam

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Completed CERT Training

November 3rd, 2008

I'm going completely off-topic with this post, it's nothing to do with bones at all. But it is information that older women need and I'm thinking of putting up a site specially for it when I have time.

Besides working like ten men (just kidding guys) on the elections, I have been taking a Community Emergency Response Training course. It is an amazing process and I have learned so much from it that I really recommend that everyone should take it if they can. More information can be found here.

The one in my town was 9 weeks long, 2 hours per session and, next weekend, we get to practice our new skills on a disaster scenario. Previous learners and family members will be the 'victims' and we will get them sorted out. Here in California the most likely disaster scenario is an earthquake but in other parts of the country it could be floods, typhoons, hurricanes or tornadoes. We did have a local, very bad fire last year and a mudslide the year before that.

Now I have my supplies of food, water, medical supplies and equipment and a Bug-out Bag sitting in my bedroom ready to go at any time. I feel so empowered by the preparation and the information.

I am going to teach a short version of the course in a few weeks to the residents of the mobile home community that I live in. They don't need all the training in rescuing and helping others, they just need to be prepared to take care of themselves. Hopefully we will be able to set up a block captain in each block to take charge of those who are too old or sick to help themselves. What Katrina and Ike proved very obviously is that we will have to rely on each other in any wide-scale emergency. Our official helpers will be overwhelmed.

The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta is concerned that in any pandemic scenario America is woefully unprepared. A new flu virus may cause the quarantine of large populations for up to three months. So it would be smart to have food for that amount of time.

The fact is, that with the world wide food shortage right now and the financial problems that America faces, we may have seen the last of good quality, cheap food. So it would be wise to stockpile a bit just for that alone. There will be food riots in many countries before very long for many reasons, one being lack of fertilizer and another, the worldwide patenting of seed by Monsanto - don't get me started on that piece of corporate wickedness and greed!

So perhaps you could start thinking of the three P's - planning, preparation and practice, and get yourself into some emergency planning program so you will be ready for whatever life throws at you in the next few years.

Peace, Pam

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Worrying about Osteopenia and Bone Loss

September 24th, 2008

I seem to have had a lot of calls and emails this week from people who are very worried about bone density loss. Some have just been diagnosed with Osteopenia, some have been working on Osteoporosis for some time.

One customer had a new dexa test after a year of using the weight vest and found she had improved her numbers in the spine and right hip, while her left hip got weaker - according to the scan. This is not at all logical and my inclination is to disbelieve the test. She has been rebounding with the vest and you can't favor one leg when you rebound. There is a lot of evidence that the tests are different according to the machine used and according to the technician doing the test. They are variable - which is very anti-science. Science is supposed to be repeatable.

As you may know from previous posts, I don't bother with bone tests excepting for the urine test that shows if you are actually losing bone right now. That is all I need to know. If I am not losing bone then my bone program is working and I don't have to get upset about numbers. There is something about diagnoses and numbers that is very detrimental to our health. I'm a believer in the principle that what you focus on will appear in your reality, for example, start thinking of buying a Prius and then notice how many you see and how many people talk to you about them.

So our emotional life is very influential on our health; some people think it is the biggest influence, even more than what we eat, drink and breathe. I'm more and more convinced that this is so. The drug companies have parlayed what is normal bone thinning after menopause into a gazillion dollar industry selling drugs that actually cause bone loss and multiple other problems, by invoking a fearful response in relatively young women. Fear is the real killer!

It was the same with cholesterol. There is news recently that cholesterol is actually a protective measure against an acid diet and that there are as many people dying of heart attacks with no cholesterol problems as with them. I have never believed in the cholesterol myth but most Americans were certainly taken in by it. The article I read said that it would take a long while for doctors to admit to this drug company scam. 

So my theory is that the fear about cholesterol put into people's minds was more dangerous than the actual problem. The same with Osteopenia and Osteoporosis, it's the fear that causes the negative focus and negative emotions about it, that eventually effects your health. Your body will give you anything you focus on. If you think daily about your mum dying young of ——– and wonder when the axe will fall on you, then chances are it will, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My message here is to watch your negative thoughts. When you find yourself fearful or worried about any possible disease, switch your thoughts as fast as possible to something you appreciate about your body or your life. Appreciation beats fear hands down! Now I am recovering from the candida problem I see that I was very fearful about it and focussing on it way too much. There is a balance between doing the concrete things that you have to do to get well and being totally involved in being unwell.

I now take time every morning to really appreciate my body for the miracles it does in every second of my day - without any conscious direction on my part! I know my body is a self-healing magician that has my best interests at heart. I send it appreciation and love and give the constant criticism the boot!

I was slowly and surely getting better from all the concrete measures that I took involving diet, supplements and exercise, but now I am reminded of the power of my mind to create in my body, I have taken a huge leap forward in wellness. Here is an example - when I awoke a month ago I would check in to see what was happening in my body; is my mouth dry, is my tongue white, am I groggy, etc. etc. I was looking for indications to see how well I should feel! I was asking my body - am I better today and gathering evidence that said NO. That was really dumb.

Now, as soon as I am conscious, I smile and then thank Source for the day and for my life. No need to check for errors in the program because I trust the program again now. My body has always been on my side, always will be, it will always do it's best to give me what I focus on. I lost that trust when I was deep into the illness and it's like coming home to get it back.

Take care,

Pam

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Updates on Bone Necrosis and Fractures from Bone Drugs

September 18th, 2008

I am a little tardy in reporting this but there have been several studies out that give more information about the bone drugs and their side-effects.

A University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute study has found that a popular class of osteoporosis drugs nearly triples the risk of developing bone necrosis, a condition that can lead to disfigurement and incapacitating pain.

This research is the largest study of bone necrosis and bisphosphonates, a class of drugs used by 190 million women worldwide to help prevent bone fractures due to osteoporosis. It is also the first study to explore the link between bone necrosis and specific brands of bisphosphonates, such as Actonel, Didrocal and Fosamax. Researchers found that all three brands had similar outcomes.

There was also an FDA alert about the bisphosphonate drugs below. I think we all know by now that the FDA is a crooked organization run for and by the drug companies, so when they say that there is something wrong, then look out!

FDA ALERT: FDA is highlighting the possibility of severe and sometimes incapacitating bone, joint, and/or muscle (musculoskeletal) pain in patients taking bisphosphonates. Although severe musculoskeletal pain is included in the prescribing information for all bisphosphonates, the association between bisphosphonates and severe musculoskeletal pain may be overlooked by healthcare professionals, delaying diagnosis, prolonging pain and/or impairment, and necessitating the use of analgesics.

The severe musculoskeletal pain may occur within days, months, or years after starting a bisphosphonate. Some patients have reported complete relief of symptoms after discontinuing the bisphosphonate, whereas others have reported slow or incomplete resolution. The risk factors for and incidence of severe musculoskeletal pain associated with bisphosphonates are unknown.

This severe musculoskeletal pain is in contrast to the acute phase response characterized by fever, chills, bone pain, myalgias, and arthralgias that sometimes accompanies initial administration of intravenous bisphosphonates and may occur with initial exposure to once-weekly or once-monthly doses of oral bisphosphonates. The symptoms related to the acute phase response tend to resolve within several days with continued drug use.

Healthcare professionals should consider whether bisphosphonate use might be responsible for severe musculoskeletal pain in patients who present with these symptoms and consider temporary or permanent discontinuation of the drug.

Another report on bones concerns spontaneous fractures of thigh bone after longterm bisphosphonate use. From Gillian Sanson's excellent newsletter that I recommend you subscribe to.

"Snapping thigh bones caused by bisphosphonates?
Hard on the heels of the FDA’s January 2008 alert about serious joint bone and muscle pain associated with the bisphosphonates, comes a worrying series of reports of spontaneous fracturing of the femur (thigh bone) in women who have taken Fosamax for several years.
There have long been concerns that the bisphosphonate action of suppressing bone turnover may cause bone to deteriorate in strength and become more brittle over time. It would seem that those fears are being realized and although still small, the number of spontaneous fractures is prompting an FDA investigation of the phenomenon.  Reports from Singapore, Hong Kong and the US all have a similar story to tell: the thighbones of women patients on Fosamax for five years or more have simply snapped while they were walking or standing. Some individuals experienced hip and thigh pain leading up to the event, and others had no warning whatsoever. Biopsies after fracture have shown severely depressed bone formation."

What is worrisome is that the new monthly and yearly bone drugs are much stronger, could have much worse effects and we won't know what they are for years. Why women would take a drug that stays in the body for ten years and has so many deleterious effects is beyond my understanding. That is messing with your body chemistry on a grand scale. It seems that we always think something new is good, our innate caution seems to have been obliterated with all the new 'stuff' we have absorbed in our lives.

But, as the water in plastic bottles fetish has now shown, there is a price for everything. I hope all of you read that drinking water from a plastic bottle that has been left in a car is very heavily implicated in breast cancer. Pass that on to every woman you know.

So, I'm sorry to give you so much doom and gloom at once, especially in the light of the economic disaster happening right now. Just remember that only 2% of women actually get bone fractures and most of those are over 80. So take care of your diet and get your exercise, buy a weighvest if you don't have one already and don't worry too much. Worry is bad for your health :-)

Take care,
Pam

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Candida and Ghost Links

September 16th, 2008

I had no idea how long it has been since I posted. Time really does fly by. There have been many things going on in my life, the most important being another flare-up of Candida. I think my original problem was Candida seven years ago when I moved into this mold-filled house. It led to thyroid, adrenal and pancreatic problems which almost wrecked my health completely.

Now I have the hormonal issues under control so I was pretty upset to get the Candida back again. It was probably from the delicious summer fruit we had this year. I got a little careless with my diet and now I'm paying the price.

In the meantime my business seemed to take a nosedive. I suddenly wasn't getting any orders or any phone calls. That finally penetrated my candida brain-fog. I checked my adwords program and my Google ads had gone up from 35 cents a click to one dollar a click. Well, this is a very specialized item that I am selling so the clicks really don't pay at that price. I experimented for two weeks and I paid $220- for clicks that sold one vest. Bad news!

I checked the natural search results also and found that Google had dropped my site from the listings. I was really mad and upset because I thought they were being greedy. But I felt powerless to do anything about it. My livelihood was basically at Google's whim.

Soon after that I serendipitously tried a new search engine optimization program and found out that I had 995 links leading away from my home page. Well, I knew there weren't any. I thought the program was false. Then I found out about 'Ghost Links'. No-one but the search robots can see them.

My site had been hacked and they were all links to filthy porn videos. So Google thought I was a bad person and eliminated me from their search. What a disaster!

I moved to a new hosting company and put up new pages and now I am finally back in search and my adwords are back down to 35 cents. So business is starting to come back. It's amazing how complex this online business stuff is, how much you need to know, how many new things come along to throw you out of whack. I am self-taught in all of this and have no-one in my life who knows just a bit more than me to help me out. Thank goodness someone up there is watching over me.

So, things are getting back to normal. I'm getting the Candida back under control, my mind is clear again and I have a lot of work to catch up on.Tomorrow I will write a post that I thought I had written weeks ago about the new fractures that the bone drugs are causing.

For those women who read my blog regularly, I'm sorry to have been gone so long. I actually got a few emails to see what was going on, thank you for that.

Take care,

Pam

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Anti-depressant Drugs Weaken Bones

June 19th, 2008

According to Dr Robert Rowan's newsletter, SSRI anti-depressant drugs  inhibit the absorption of calcium into your bones. Researchers found that daily use of SSRIs can cause a 4% reduction in bone mineral density in your hips. The lower spine lost 2.4% of bone density.

There are a great many drugs in this class, Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft, are popular examples, and millions of women are given these drugs. The other thing they often do is lower blood pressure. If you have lower blood pressure you have more risk of falling. So your bones are weaker and you fall more - a sure prescription for disaster.

Besides that the drugs don't even work for your depression. " National Institute of Mental Health director, Dr. Thomas Insel, says SSRIs don't work for 70% of patients." So they don't do what you are taking them for and they increase the risk of bone fracture. A report from Natural News says that a new study has found that the drugs work no better than a placebo. It is a very good article here.

Unfortunately depression is common in post-menopausal women and a depressed person often does not make wise lifestyle choices. But there are other alternatives that are better for you and work better as well.

Dr Rowan says, "While chemicals force changes in your brain, nutrients encourage your body to correct the problem. St. John's wort, amino acids like tryptophan and tyrosine, omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, SAMe, and of course the Living Foods Diet are among just a few of the alternatives you should try."

If you have read a recent study that St John's Wort was proven to be worthless for depression, just take it with a grain of salt. The study was done by a drug company and the St John's Wort that they used was inactive. Don't believe a word of what the drug companies say and you'll be better off.

Low thyroid and other low hormones lead to depression as well so you should have those checked. There are many lifestyle changes that can move you out of depression. Moving around more is a good one. Get a rebounder and start jumping every hour for just a minute. You will be surprised how it gets you into a different frame of mind.

I have been depressed myself at times in my life (as we all have) and I know there were always two voices within me. One was really sunk in the despair, unwilling to give it up, and the other was telling me to get on with my life. If you can only promise yourself to walk or rebound or dance for one minute a day in the beginning, then you can start back on the path to wellness and clarity. 

May you be well and happy,
Pam

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New Information about Magnesium

June 8th, 2008

I recently tried out some new transdermal magnesium chloride after reading the information on this site. I also bought Dr Sircus' book, "Transdermal Magnesium Therapy". It's very good.

Magnesium is needed for almost every chemical reaction in our bodies and over 68% of Americans are deficient in it. Our levels are often so low that taking magnesium orally does not bring them up to normal. Oral magnesium is poorly absorbed and leads to diarrhea so many doctors give magnesium intravenously to bring patients back into balance.

Now there is a new way to absorb magnesium. The product is called Ancient Minerals and you spray it on your skin, diluted with water to the level that feels comfortable. People have different levels of sensitivity in their skin. Or you can put it in a bath or a footbath.

If you have heart problems, asthma, cancer, depression or migraines, you really need to read the whole site at the above link. But our focus here is on bone strength so, as I've said before, the balance of calcium and magnesium is one of the deciding factors for the health of your bones.

Dr Sircus says, "It is magnesium that controls the fate of potassium and calcium in the body. If magnesium is insufficient, potassium and calcium will be lost in the urine and calcium will be deposited in the soft tissues (kidneys, arteries, joints, brain, etc.)… Calcium causes muscles to contract and magnesium helps them to relax."

The ratio of calcium to magnesium among Americans is estimated to be 6:1 and many researchers think it should be less than 2:1. Now calcium is being tossed willy-nilly into almost every processed food so our numbers are going to get even higher as the younger generation grows up. This is a bad portent for osteoporosis.

Dr Kathryn Ryder said, "Higher magnesium intake through diet and supplements was positively associated with total-body bone mineral density in older white men and women. For every 100 mg per day increase in magnesium, there was an approximate 2% increase in whole-body BMD.

Dr Barnett compared the bones of healthy people and osteoporotic bone and found the calcium content to be similar but the magnesium content much lower in the weaker bone, 1.26% to .62%. That was in the 50's and doctors haven't got the message yet. They are pushing gobs of calcium onto every woman over 40 as if it was the magic bullet for bones, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.

Here is a good test - if you can bend over to pick something off the floor and squat to look for something you've dropped, without any creaking or effort, then you are probably not storing too much calcium in your body. If that is not the case for you then some more magnesium would be a good idea.
Or you could have a real test, of course. I'm taking an intense bunch of detox stuff and a stack of supplements right now and then I intend to have a red blood cell analysis done at the end of the month to see what nutrients and toxins I have within my cells. Then I will be clearer on what I need to take after that.

If you have been reading the blog regularly, then you know I have added a lot of new hormone supplements plus the extra D3 lately as well. That makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly which effect is attributable to each thing. But, I can say without a doubt, that spraying the magnesium for a couple of weeks has improved my patience level amazingly. Impatience is my main shortcoming, I think. Others may have different  suggestions, probably a long list of them. :-)  I admit to having felt impatience with my mother often in the past. Now I can walk along at a snail's pace in harmony, I can listen to the same remark I've heard a hundred times before and respond kindly. This week on our shopping outing I felt blessed instead of harassed. That's worth the slightly high price of the transdermal magnesium for sure.

May you be flexible and peaceful - That would be nice for the world in general, wouldn't it? Spray your partner with some magnesium as well.

Pam

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New Look at Vitamin D3

May 29th, 2008

You probably all know that calcium will not make bone in your body without the help of Vitamin D3. In my videos there is a clip of me glugging down Cod Liver Oil from a tablespoon. I was under the impression that I was exceeding my need for Vitamin D3 by a pretty large amount, since the RDA, which we all know is ridiculous, is only 400 IU. A tablespoon of Cod Liver Oil gives 1200 IU plus I have 800 IU in my multi-vitamin.

Imagine my surprise when a test showed my Vitamin D3 level to be 27 while the preferred range is 70 - 100. If I upped my intake of the oil then the amount of Vitamin A, which is also in the oil, might be excessive. There is almost no danger in excess Vitamin D supplementation but that is not the case with Vitamin A.

So I started researching and found an amazing new book, The Vitamin D Cure. It is really a necessary read if you want to get to the bottom of the bone-building mystery. Dr Dowd says the same as I have always said, that we take too much calcium and it's dangerous.

Since more than half the American population of any age is Vitamin D deficient this is not a minor problem. Age, brown skin, and obesity add to the likelihood of you lacking in this vitamin.

Our bodies make Vitamin D from the sun mostly, there are few foods that have it. So how much sun do you get on a daily basis, without sunscreen? Not much, I'll bet. I'm in California but a beautiful sunny day might go by entirely without my presence while my nose is buried in my computer. We don't store Vitamin D either so it's not something you can get on your vacation to last the year.

The other thing Dr Dowd goes into in depth in his book is the acidification of our diets, our lack of fresh vegetables and fruits and overconsumption of refined grains and dairy products. He is singing my song - green vegetables every day, as much raw as possible and regular exercise. I really recommend the book. If you take enough Vitamin D3 to get your numbers within the preferred range, you can expect your health to improve in amazing ways including pain erasure and more flexibility.

I am now taking a total of 5000 IU of Vitamin D. That's 3 1000 IU capsules added to the Cod Liver Oil and multi. I will have another test in 3 months and see if I have reached my goal. The number is based on my weight according to a table in the book.

Another interesting thing is that you can cut your extra calcium supplements out when you have your Vitamin D within range. He has a very interesting and somewhat complicated chapter on the interactions of calcium and D3 that explains a lot.  

Your children and grandchildren should be taking more Vitamin D also. The D they add to milk is probably D2, which is not as absorbable and not as easily recognized by the body. It will help them in every conceivable way and perhaps they will not grow up to have bone issues as we do. Dr Dowd makes the case that our bone patterns were laid down during pregnancy and childhood by the availability of Vitamin D. I know that we children were given Cod Liver Oil and Malt from a spoon when we were young but my mother was never given any during pregnancy, the most important time.

So, get the book, it will be something you can recommend to your whole family. Then get some supplements, 1000 IU Vitamin D3. I got Now Foods, 180 capsules for less than $5-. Can you imagine something that will be life-changing that is so cheap! Then get rid of the acidifying stuff in your diet and exercise regularly in moderation. That's a formula to send your biological age going backwards.

Pam

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