Back from the future!

Remember the movie “Back to the Future”. It gave interesting insights into the mechanics of time and what must happen, in order for the future to manifest the way it is supposed to be. If you want to alter the future, alter the past!

We are living in the past (so far as the future is concerned), so here and now is a golden chance to affect the future (Duh!)

Putting the future you want out there and then working backwards, to figure out what should happen next year, this year, next month, next week, this week, tomorrow and—most important of all—today, in order to get that desired future is a very empowering exercise. Yet few people use this tool. In fact many people can’t think logically in a forward direction, never mind thinking backwards.

Nevertheless, this is what successful people do. To get what you want, you have to focus on what you need to do to get it. Mere busyness and even hard work don’t cut it, if they are putting effort into the wrong things (Duh!).

Must-see video link for this month: it's awesome!! go here

STOP PRESS!! Added comment:

Personally, I think life changed more between 1900 and 1950 than it did between 1950 and today.
In 1900, there was no airplane, radio or television, no refrigerators, almost no cars, almost no paved roads, very little electricity, very little indoor plumbing. No nuclear power, no world war. No antibiotics, no aspirin. So, a person who jumped from 1950 to 2000 would have a much easier time adapting than a person who jumped from 1900 to 1950.

Sobering facts about food prices

Here's part of a report by Gwynne Dyer's. His new book, The Mess They Made: The Middle East After Iraq, is just published in Canada last week by McClelland and Stewart.

The era of cheap food is over. The price of corn has doubled in a year and wheat futures are at their highest in a decade. The food price index in India has risen 11 per cent in one year and in Mexico in January there were riots after the price of corn flour went up fourfold. Even in the developed countries, food prices are going up and they are not going to come down again.

Cheap food lasted for only 50 years. Before the Second World War most families in the developed countries spent a third or more of their income on food (as the poor majority in developing countries still do). But after the war a series of radical changes, from mechanization to the Green Revolution, raised agricultural productivity hugely and caused a long, steep fall in the real price of food. For the global middle class, it was the good old days, with food taking only a tenth of their income.

It will probably be back up to a quarter within a decade, and it may go much higher, because we are entering a period when three separate factors are converging to drive food prices up. The first is simply demand. Not only is the global population continuing to grow (about an extra Turkey or Vietnam every year), but as Asian economies race ahead more and more people in those populous countries are starting to eat significant amounts of meat.

The animals will need a great deal of grain and meeting that demand will require shifting huge amounts of grain-growing land from human to animal consumption — so the price of grain and of meat will both go up. The global poor don't care about the price of meat, because they can't afford it even now — but if the price of grain goes up, some of them will starve.

And maybe they won't have to wait until 2016, because the mania for bio-fuels is shifting huge amounts of land out of food production. One-sixth of all the grain grown in the United States this year will be industrial corn destined to be converted into ethanol and burned in cars. Europe, Brazil and China are all heading in the same direction.

The amount of U.S. farmland devoted to bio-fuels grew by 48 per cent in the last year alone and hardly any new land was brought under the plough to replace the lost food production. In other big bio-fuel producers like China and Brazil it's the same straight switch from food to fuel.

As oil prices rise (and the rapid economic growth in Asia guarantees that they will), they pull up the price of bio-fuels as well, and it gets even more attractive for farmers to switch from food to fuel. Nor will politics save the day. As economist Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute told the U.S. Congress last month: "The stage is now set for direct competition for grain between the 800 million people who own automobiles, and the world's two billion poorest people." Guess who wins.

Linus Pauling was only off by one letter!

Professionals have started talking about the "antibiotic vitamin", meaning D3. It's a bit misleading, because vitamin A was the first recognized vitamin to have antibacterial effects. I told the story in one of my recent Thursday Thoughts. In fact one of the first ever decent scientific trials was the study of vitamin A against puerperal sepsis ("childbed fever") and the vitamin was hugely successful. It saved lives: up until that time the fatality for puerperal sepsis was a horrifying 90%.

Unfortunately, sulfa drugs and other antibiotics were just around the corner and in less than a decade the awesome benefits of vitamin A to fight infections were forgotten.

Not by me though! For 30 years I've been recommending an "instant" cold or flu remedy as follows:

• 25,000 IUs vitamin A
• 20- 30 grams of vitamin C

By mouth that can be pretty rough and cause diarrhea. But only take it for a few days (not more than 4). It's brilliant at blowing away a virus!

Vitamin C, as everyone knows, is also great for fighting colds and flu. Linus Pauling recommended a dose of 2 grams a day and that does seem to be remarkably effective at keeping free of infections.

Now vitamin D3 is also emerging as a player. It's vital for the immune system and that helps against cancer and pathogens. The truly effective dose comes in about 1500 units daily; a far cry from the officially recommended 200 units maximum!

Now a recent prospective double blind placebo study has been published, measuring the efficacy of vitamin D in 200 post-menopausal women in NY (black women are significant because of a tendency to low D3, which is reduced by melanin in the skin).  Those taking 2000 IU/day of vitamin D3 had very few colds, those on 800 IU/day a few, while those on placebo - about 30 colds or influenza attacks in the 3 year period. [Aloia JF, Li-Ng M. Epidemiol Infect. 2007 Mar 12;:1-4].

Someone has joked that Linus Pauling was only off by one letter!

Could good nutrition help chemo, they have begun to ask?!

July 18, 2007 — Could interactions between cancer drugs and food represent a novel approach to improving available treatment options? New studies exploring how certain foods alter absorption or delay the breakdown of drugs may have an interesting flip side — they may eventually cut medication costs and increase benefits, explain researchers in an article published online July 16, 2007 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

"As we enter an era of targeted anticancer agents with a monthly cost measured in thousands of dollars," University of Chicago oncologists Mark Ratain, MD, and Ezra Cohen, MD, write, "we should view drug-drug or drug-food interactions as opportunities to lower costs."

The new commentary was inspired by a study presented in March at the 2007 annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics. In the small phase 1 study, lead author Nandi Reddy, MD, from Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, in Lebanon, New Hampshire, showed that taking lapatinib with food, instead of on an empty stomach as suggested by the product label, increases the relative bioavailability of the drug.

Lapatinib is usually prescribed in conjunction with capecitabine for advanced breast cancer. The latter needs to be taken on an empty stomach.

"Simply by changing the timing — taking this medication with a meal instead of on an empty stomach — we could potentially use 40% or even less of the drug," Dr. Ratain said in a news release. "Since lapatinib costs about $2900 a month, this could save each patient $1740 or more a month."

Adding a glass of grapefruit juice to a meal could increase the savings to 80%, the authors suggest. "We expect that a 250-mg lapatinib pill accompanied by food and washed down with a glass of grapefruit juice may yield plasma concentrations comparable to 5 pills on an empty stomach," Dr. Ratain said.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of drugs should be studied in this way, the authors suggest. "If we understood the relationship between, say, grapefruit juice and common drugs, such as the statins, which are taken daily by millions of people to prevent heart disease, we could save a fortune in drug costs," Dr. Cohen said in a news release. "And patients would get a little vitamin C to boot."

Don't worry if you have shares in GlaxoSmithKiline though! Even though the patient will be being overdosed by 800%, only prescribing a full 5 tablets is permitted, because that's the "official" dose, based on the pivotal phase 3 trial during development (which paid no attention to nutritional factors).

It's easy to see that nutritional interactions will not be popular with drug manufacturers. If taking grapefruit juice threatens their sales, you know what's coming! Watch out for the ads that grapefruit is bad and could harm your health!!!!!!

[J Clin Oncol. 2007. Published online July 16, 2007].

A bit of gentle verbal humor!

I love puns and wordplay. Here are a few that are so awful, they are great. Thanks to my correspondent Illania Hoffler!

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.
Police were called to a daycare where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.
Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.
The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.
The butcher backed up into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
To write with a broken pencil is pointless.
When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.
The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.
A thief fell and broke his leg in wet cement. He became a hardened criminal.
Thieves who steal corn from a garden could be charged with stalking.
We'll never run out of math teachers because they always multiply.
When the smog lifts in Los Angeles , U C L A.
The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground.
The dead batteries were given out free of charge.
If you take a laptop computer for a run you could jog your memory.
A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail.
What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead giveaway)
Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.
When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.
A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France , resulting in Linoleum Blownapart.
You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
A calendar's days are numbered.
A plateau is a high form of flattery.
Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.
When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.
Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
Acupuncture: a jab well done.

Power Underwear? or The Inner Game of Slutting?

Here's a great piece by my good friend film producer Adryenn Ashley, who is very sexy! I'm trying to get her to show me the pole dancing psychology, without getting shot by her husband! Actually, Adryenn's original title was "Every Girls’ Guide to Confidence and Self Esteem" and it was first published on DivineCaroline.com - http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22081/27238
My suggested titles merely reflected a twisted sense of humor!

Adryenn Ashley

Remember Teri Hatcher doing those impossible splits right on the studio floor on Oprah? Or Carmen Electra positively gushing about what exotic dance has done for her body and bedroom tactics? A large number of celebrities have recently taken to a sexy alternative to working out. From pole vaulting they have leapt straight to pole dancing at the S Factor. And they aren’t stopping at pole-dancing, our celebrity pin-up girls have been everywhere and done everything, from Strip-Aerobics to Exotic Dance Work Outs, the motto this season is ‘Everything sexy goes’!

If this sudden gush for sex is making you blush, you go ahead and click your tongue and hang your head in shame—no one will begrudge you. “SEX SELLS!” And it’s available morning, noon and night through every possible channel. It screams at you from gigantic billboards featuring gorgeous demi-love-gods, pierces into your fantasy’s through the television and fondles your imagination with semi-naked bodies scattered all over the net. Living in the USA is like one giant, prolonged orgasm. And, as a woman, you are expected to idolize those models and endeavor to look like one.

Sure! You wanna be Carrie from ‘Sex and the City’ and moan and groan and roll around on your bed with a different guy every night, seven nights a week—turning your life into a series of fantastic sexual escapades. Eventually, you’ll snap out of it. After all, life is not a TV show, and learning how to embrace your sexuality takes time and effort.

In America—amongst the glamor of the TV shows and the supposed sexual abandonment, the skin and the G-Strings—we women have to deal with mixed messages, guilt trips, religious dogma, body image, and misinformation. Sure, getting your hymen snapped by 16 is a must, but so is regretting doing it by 25. Beneath all our external frills, getting laid is an issue we women deal with badly....

Read the rest of this electric piece on the website at:

http://www.alternative-doctor.com/love_and_sex/adryenn.htm

Then you can all fall in love with Adryenn at: http://www.adryenn.net/

Subscriber's tip

Here's a letter I got from Karen Bagley.

I am feeding my dogs a diet of cooked white rice, cooked boned chicken and ground greenbeans & carrots because of the recall of commercial dog food and because Purina, et al, make way too much money for my comfort. What do you think about the effect of cooked rice on my dogs' teeth?

Also, I have always felt that dentists work hand in hand with commercial toothpaste companies which put sorbitol, a type of sugar, in most toothpastes. I had a gum abscess for over 2 years, went through 3 rounds of antibiotics that did not touch the abscess. I switched from toothpaste to baking soda with salt and used a gum irrigator with peroxide. In no time, the abscess was completely gone. You might want to pass this on. I also don't believe in getting deep teeth cleaning anymore, either. I believe this lets off bacteria into the body. Peroxide and baking soda is the best for cleaning.

[Sorbitol it technically a sugar-alcohol. It was once considered diabetic-safe. But there are some calories and it needs to be limited. Sorbitol can cause diarrhea and bowel upsets and may damage the eyes.]

[I do not think dogs or any carnivorous pets (like cats) should be fed grains. They are the deadliest foods we humans eat, releasing torrents of carbs. Carnivorous animals have even less use for it than we do. Most pet foods contain rice as padding. Any connection between that and the soaring incidence of diabetes in pets and pooches? You'd better believe it]

The CFL bulbs

Here's a comment from correspondent Jonathan Campbell, about the Thursday Thought I did on CFL bulbs. [www.thenakeddoctor.com/thursday/

"Could you please put this wonderful voice statement in writing. I've been telling half of your story (the mercury part) to all of my friends and list members, the second part I hadn't even thought about or realized (of course! - a damned unshielded electrical ballast/transformer). There's more, of course:

1. Fluorescent light flickers at a frequency that is very close to biological rhythms, causing intense migraine-like headaches for some, promoting hyperactivity in some children, and is generally unhealthy for all.

2. The ballast is potted (filled) with a hardened toxic paste. It used to contain PCBs. Heaven knows what they are using now, but it needs to be inert, semi-solid, non-conductive, and not break down over time despite being exposed to electrical current and heat, a recipe for something very toxic."

Thanks so much
Jonathan

More chocolate: you read it here first!

You probably saw the media circus in full swing recently, blaring the fact that chocolate lowers blood pressure. That's one of the reasons it's included in my wonder product "The Doctor's Chocolate" (learn more). The commotion followed the publication of a study by the Department of Pharmacology, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany, in the Journal of the American Medical Association. True to form it followed a pattern I have noticed since living here, which is that nothing has happened until the Americans realize it has happened. The mere fact the rest of the world is years ahead doesn't seem to influence this state of mind at all! Once they realize something, then it's circus all the way!

There were 44 lucky participants in the trial who all had hypertension. Each had either rich dark chocolate or plain white chocolate (no polyphenols). The dark chocolate group had a significant reduction in mean blood pressure. Chocolate polyphenols release nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels (Viagra works by blocking the removal of nitric oxide, hence more blood pumps to the penis).

And no, I don't have the answer but I admit I have speculated, whether chocolate increases sexual performance. [JAMA. 2007 Jul 4;298(1):49-60.]

Caution: all this science is about good natural dark chocolate. It has nothing to do with the properties of schlocolate, as I call it - the typical Hershey's, Mars and supermarket bars. Schlock bars are unhealthy, just as you were always told, due a process called "Dutching".

Are you battling cancer? Or someone you know and care about?

Consider my new cancer info CD set.

There are also a number of new pages, new treatments and fascinating new facts in the cancer section. Click here to go to cancer articles.

Video Link

What does it all mean? That's a line from this mini-movie. It could be just as well the title. Instead they chose "Shift Happens" as the title. Some awesome facts for your discerning palette, dear reader!

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/video/shifthappens

THE GUESS WHO? QUOTE: