5 easy steps to a more alkaline diet

Let's go over some pH basic background before getting into how to maintain a neutral (7.0) or slightly alkaline (7.4) pH blood reading for optimum health.

The term pH literally means power Hydrogen. It's a measurement of the concentration of hydrogen ions. Each number of the pH scale represents a ten-fold difference in that concentration. Your alkaline buffer system has to work hard to neutralize overall acidity.

Food pH measurements can be deceptive. Just because a citrus fruit or apple cider vinegar measures a low or acidic pH doesn't mean it is acid yielding.

The key word is yielding, and it points to the metabolic result after ingestion. Even squeezing lemon or lime into a glass of water creates an alkaline yielding liquid.

Testing your pH by saliva or urine will result in slightly lower (acid) readings than your blood pH. Urine, especially from your first urination, will tend to be even lower as your kidneys have worked on eliminating acidity.

Not to worry if you're getting readings in the high sixes from either test. Different organs may have different pH readings than your blood reading as well.

Acidosis occurs when the blood reading goes below seven and stays there. This is usually what kills cancer patients, especially those who are poisoned with chemo or radiation.

Five simple approaches for an alkaline yielding diet

Your alkaline buffer system is designed to take care of the inevitable alkaline/acid yielding food mix. But overworking your buffer will deplete it. Here's a list of acid and alkaline yielding foods to get an idea of what they are.

Read the "note" at the bottom of the list (http://www.naturalnews.com/Report_acid_alkaline_pH_5.html).

(1) Try to balance your diet with a 60/40 ratio of alkaline yielding foods to acid yielding, then up the ratio to 80/20. Typically, standard American diets (SAD) consist of mostly acid yielding foods. Fake fats, sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), bleached white breads and pastries and so on are extremely acid yielding.

Focus on organic green veggies, smoothies, and juicing as well as green super foods such as chlorella. Fruits of all types, even citrus fruits considered acid, are all alkaline yielding.

(2) Moderate exercise helps the lymph eliminate acid wastes. Over exercising can create lactic acid which is - well, acidic. It's all about balance.

(3) Hydrate. Spring water is alive and alkaline, but few have access to it. It's necessary to drink water treated by reverse osmosis to remove fluorides. The treated water tends to be acid yielding. That's remedied by a squeeze of lime or lemon or a few drops of liquid trace minerals available from your health food store.

(4) Speaking of minerals, key minerals involved with the buffering process are magnesium, potassium, calcium, and sodium. Ironically, dairy foods tend to be alkaline yielding. So other sources of calcium should be looked into.

It might be necessary to supplement magnesium, potassium, and calcium, at least until you've established an alkaline yielding diet. Look into magnesium oil (actually water applied topically) for the best magnesium solution.

(5) Oxygenate, sleep better, and stress less. Use deep breathing exercises or oxygen enhancing supplements. Increasing oxygen to cells increases their pH. Don't confuse that with cellular oxidation. Acidic cells cannot metabolize oxygen, so they ferment glucose to survive and become cancerous.

Stress and poor sleep contribute to lower pH or acidity. Cancer cells cannot exist in a high pH and oxygen-rich environment. High pH and strong cellular oxygenation are directly linked.

You can maintain your pH balance with these simple steps while ignoring those expensive magic-bullet pH boosting products.

Sources for this article include
http://crazysexylife.com/2011/5-easy-steps-to-an-alkaline-diet/

http://crazysexylife.com/2009/a-little-ph-refresher-course/

http://www.naturalnews.com/022815.html

http://envirohealthtech.com/ph.htm

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/mar99/921091755.Sh.r.html

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/036502_alkaline_diet_cancer_solutions.html#ixzz21CVIDtic

Seaweed toothpaste stops tooth decay

Brushing and flossing doesn't always keep you out of the dentist's chair, a chair we all need to avoid. Amalgams inserted into cavities are loaded with toxic mercury that leaks into our bodies. Root canals have been discovered to be the root of some chronic illnesses. (Natural News, source below).

Of course, fluoride doesn't help prevent tooth decay. Instead, it contributes to bad physical and mental health and lowers I.Q. while diminishing will power. It's toxic and actually causes dental fluorosis, decaying tooth enamel that will put you back into that dental chair.

So what to do to avoid the barbarism of modern dentistry? It appears that sea life may come to the rescue. A group of UK scientists are experimenting with enzymes extracted from seaweed microbes that may be able to remove the microbes in dental plaque.

The Newcastle University research team had originally pursued this line of research into seaweed's Bacillus lichenifromis for the ship industry to see if these microbes would help clean ships' hulls without going into expensive dry dock maintenance that also takes a ship's time away from the sea.

Actually, it's not the microbes themselves that deliver the cleansing. It's the enzymes they produce. This type of enzyme has to come from raw seaweed. Heat destroys enzymes.

From seawater to ship hulls to dental plaque

Dr. Nick Jakubovics of the Newcastle University School of Dental Sciences discovered how these same enzymes produced by seaweed microbes could eliminate plaque on, between, and behind the teeth if utilized in an oral mouthwash or toothpaste.

Dr. Jakubovics explained: "Plaque on your teeth is made up of bacteria which join together to colonize an area ... scrubbing off the plaque containing bacteria is not always effective ... We found this enzyme can remove some of these undesirable bacteria from plaque."

Plaque is made up from lots of decaying bacteria. When those cells die, their DNA leaks out to form a biofilm that sticks to teeth. The dental research into seaweed enzyme producing microbes focuses on eliminating the need to eliminate plaque entirely.

Instead, the idea is to simply remove the bacteria like Streptococcus mutans that actually cause tooth decay. Dr. Jakubovics and his team intend to present their findings to the UK's Society of Applied Microbiology.

Dr. Jakubovics comes across in a radio interview as very conservative with how long it may take to go from research to market with his findings. Perhaps because he's familiar with the UK's process that rivals the USA's FDA hoops for approval. The short radio interview is available in the BBC Report below.

Some of those hoops could be provided by dental profession groups' desire to not reduce office visits that require laborious plaque removal work. Worse yet, actually reducing cavities would eliminate a lot of dental business.

In the UK's system of socialized medicine, that would logically reduce the national economic burden of health care. But logic isn't always worshiped by governments and egoistic medical groups, as evidenced by recent manic attempts to remove vastly less expensive homeopathy health care from England's medical system (http://www.naturalnews.co/034164_medical_monopoly_homeopathy.html).

Here in the USA, that could result in even more opposition from the American Dental Association (AMA) bureaucrats who control the dental trade union to keep dentists in business. Even as the AMA publicly supports water fluoridation from industrial waste fluorides to prevent tooth decay, there is no evidence of less tooth decay from toxic public water fluoridation.

Why should dentists even really want less tooth decay? How could they pay their staff, lease all that expensive dental apparatus, and buy more BMWs to park in their McMansions?

Sources for this article include:

BBC Report (with short radio interview) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18686179

Natural News on root canals http://www.naturalnews.com/025412_root_canals_bacteria_infection.html

http://www.itv.com

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/036471_tooth_decay_seaweed_toothpaste.html#ixzz21CUcJSyc

Six Surprising Foods with More Sugar than a Twinkie

By Dr. Mercola

Of all the foods capable of inflicting damage in your body, sugar is one of the most damaging of all.Sugar, and the type of sugar known as fructose, in particular, is an extremely potent pro-inflammatory agent that creates advanced glycation end products (AGEs) and speeds up the aging process.

It also promotes the kind of dangerous growth of fat cells around your vital organs which is the hallmark of diabetes and heart disease.

Sugar also increases your insulin and leptin levels and decreases receptor sensitivity for both of these vital hormones, and this is another major factor of premature aging and age-related chronic degenerative diseases such as heart disease, as well as a leading cause of the climbing rates of overweight and obesity in developed countries.

That sugar is bad for your health is probably old news to you by now, but what may surprise you is just how much sugar is lurking in foods that are often passed off as "healthy."
Many supposedly "good for you" foods have more sugar than a Twinkie!

Are You Eating These Sugar-Laden "Health" Foods?

The Huffington Post recently outed several foods that are so high in sugar, you may as well be eating a candy bar. All of these also have more sugar than a Twinkie …

• Yogurt: Most commercial yogurt is loaded with sugar – as in, over 30 grams for 6 ounces! This, along with the fact that commercial yogurt is pasteurized (and some also contains artificial colors and flavors), is why you should walk right on by the yogurt section at your supermarket. Watch out, too, for "light" yogurt brands that boast less sugar due to toxic artificial sweeteners.
On the other hand, yogurt that is made from raw organic milk, and which you eat either plain or only minimally sweetened with some berries or liquid stevia, is a true health food. This is something you can easily do at home and use the healthiest raw ingredients, including organic grass-fed raw milk as the starter.

• Tomato Sauce: A cup of tomato sauce can add up to over 20 grams of sugar, and considering that most people eat that tomato sauce on top of pasta, another carb source, this could send you into sugar overload. Watch out, specifically, for brands that contain added sweeteners. Tomato sauce is a far better choice than a candy bar, but, ideally, make your own sauce at home, and serve it over shredded spaghetti squash instead of noodles.
• Granola Bars: Sugar is often one of the top ingredients in granola bars, and, in fact, most are not much different than a candy bar, nutritionally speaking. Even the granola is simply another form of "hidden sugar" that most people eat far too much of. Remember, sugar and dietary carbohydrates (including grains like granola, which break down into sugar) lead to excess body fat, obesity and related health issues. No amount of exercise can compensate for this damage because if you eat a lot of sugar, it could be "reprogramming" your body to become fat.
• Fat-Free Salad Dressing: When manufacturers take the fat out of a food, sugar is often added back in as a replacement. Fat-free French or Thousand Island dressings can contain over 40 grams of sugar as a result, turning a would-be healthy salad into something more resembling a dessert. Don't be fooled by the "fat-free" label -- it's the carbs that are the culprit in weight gain and chronic disease.
• Muffins: The high amount of carbs in most muffins will profoundly interfere with your leptin and insulin levels, and that is true even if it's a "healthy" muffin, like a bran muffin. Of course, in order to make a bran muffin palatable, it probably contains quite a bit of added sugar, on top of the grains it's made with. Many muffins are also jumbo-sized, easily packing over 30 grams of sugar, or more.
• Canned Fruit: Fruit in and of itself can be problematic if eaten in excess, as it's a source of naturally occurring fructose. But many canned fruits are also packed in sugary syrup, loaded with high fructose corn syrup. Just one cup of canned peaches or pears can contain over 30 grams of sugar. You're far better off with a fresh piece of fruit instead, but use moderation. I recommend restricting your consumption of fructose to no more than 25 grams per day, with a maximum of 15 grams a day from fresh fruit. If you're already overweight, or have cancer, heart disease or diabetes (or are at high risk of them), then you're probably better off cutting that down to 10-15 grams per day -- fruit included. 

Why a High-Sugar Diet Will Make You Fat

If you are seeking to lose weight and optimize your health, foods that contain added sugar, as well as grains like bread and pasta should be eliminated or else comprise very low percentages of your diet. Most people who bought into the "high-carb, low-fat" dietary recommendations has likely struggled with their weight and health, wondering what they're doing wrong.
The problem is that overeating carbohydrates can prevent a higher percentage of fats from being used for energy, and lead to an increase in fat production and storage. Your body has a limited capacity to store excess carbohydrates. This is one of the reasons why elevated blood sugar follows their overconsumption. If you are not able to immediately use the sugar as a result of intense physical activity then one of the ways your body avoids dangerously elevated blood sugar is through converting those excess carbohydrates into excess body fat primarily in your belly.

The way it works is that any carbohydrates not immediately burned by your body as fuel are stored in the form of glycogen (a long string of glucose molecules linked together). Your body has two storage sites for glycogen: your liver and your muscles. Once the glycogen levels are filled in both your liver and muscles, excess carbohydrates are converted into fat and stored in your adipose, that is, fatty tissue.

So, although carbohydrates are "fat-free," this is misleading because excess carbohydrates end up as excess fat. When you see refined grains on a food label, think of them as "hidden sugar," and when you see sugar, think of it as "hidden fat."
But that's not the worst of it.

Any meal or snack high in "complex" carbohydrates, i.e. starch is actually a complex of glucose molecules, will also generate a rapid rise in blood glucose. To adjust for this rapid rise, your pancreas secretes insulin, which then lowers your levels of blood glucose. The problem is that insulin is essentially a storage hormone, evolved to put aside excess carbohydrate calories in the form of fat in case of future famine. So the insulin that's stimulated by excess carbohydrates aggressively promotes the accumulation of body fat! This was enormously useful in ancient times when calories were frequently scarce, but today this setup is a disaster waiting to happen.
In other words, when you eat too much sugar, bread, pasta, and any other grain products, you're essentially sending a hormonal message, via insulin, to your body that says "store more fat."  This is actually a highly beneficial response in certain scenarios such as when calories are very scarce. This provides a major survival advantage -- but for nearly everyone reading this, having insufficient calories is not an issue, so this protective mechanism actually sabotages your health.

If you're having trouble getting your mind around this, a wonderful infographic created by Column Five for Massive Health, based on Why We Get Fat by science writer Gary Taubes, explains exactly why eating fat doesn't make you fat -- but eating carbs like sugar can kill you …

IMAGE COURTESY OF MASSIVE HEALTH. READ ABOUT THIS INFOGRAPHIC

Is It Possible to Cut Out Dietary Sugar and Still Feel Satisfied?

Based on USDA estimates the average American consumes 12 teaspoons of sugar a day, which equates to about TWO TONS of sugar during a lifetime. Why we eat this much sugar is not difficult to understand -- it tastes good, and it gives us pleasure by triggering an innate process in your brain via dopamine and opioid signals.

What it is doing to us on both a physical and emotional level is another story entirely, and most people stand to reap major improvements in their health by cutting back on, or eliminating, sugar altogether from their diets. Many do not realize this, but frequent hunger may be a major clue that you're not eating correctly. Your body needs fuel regularly and if you don't provide it with the proper amounts of fats and protein and overload on sugars, you will not fill your energy reserves properly. This sets up a vicious cycle of cravings for the sugar that will solve the problem in the short run but serve to radically shorten your life in the long term.

Just remember that your body is very intelligent and only seeking to keep you alive and healthy. The cravings are its short-term solution to keep you alive and functioning. But you need to exert some higher order cognitive skills to understand how to shift out of carb burning and into a fat-burning machine. Fat is far more satiating than carbs, so if you have cut down on sugar and feel ravenous, thinking you "can't do without the carbs," remember this is a sign that you haven't replaced them with sufficient amounts of fat. So go ahead and add a bit more healthy fats from the list below:

Olives and Olive oil	Coconuts and coconut oil	Butter made from raw grass-fed organic milk
Raw nuts, such as, almonds or pecans	Organic pastured egg yolks	Avocados
Grass-fed meats	Palm oil	Unheated organic nut oils

According to experts, carbs should ideally make up 20-30 percent of your diet, while 50-70 percent of your diet should be healthy fats. While many can appear to be healthy on vastly different ratios it is best to examine the long-term consequences of veering far from these ratios when deciding if they make sense to follow for you personally.

In order to achieve this and minimize your sugar intake, you need to avoid most processed foods, as even savory foods like salad dressing, soup, and bread often contain added sugar. For optimal health, eat natural whole foods primarily, and limit your fructose consumption to below 25 grams per day. If you still want to use a sweetener occasionally, the sweet herb stevia makes a good sugar substitute. (Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, which can damage your health even more quickly than sugar.)

How to Kick Your Sugar Addiction to the Curb

If you're struggling with sugar addiction and having trouble dealing with cravings, I highly recommend trying an energy psychology technique called Turbo Tapping, which has helped many "soda addicts" kick their sweet habit, and it should work for any type of sweet craving you may have. A couple of other tricks to try to kick your sugar cravings:

• Exercise: Anyone who exercises intensely on a regular basis will know that significant amounts of cardiovascular exercise is one of the best "cures" for food cravings. It always amazes me how my appetite, especially for sweets, dramatically decreases after a good workout. I believe the mechanism is related to the dramatic reduction in insulin levels that occurs after exercise.
• Organic, black coffee: Coffee is a potent opioid receptor antagonist, and contains compounds such as cafestrol -- found plentifully in both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee -- which can bind to your opioid receptors, occupy them and essentially block your addiction to other opioid-releasing foods.^{i ii} This may profoundly reduce the addictive power of other substances, such as sugar.

References:

---

• ⁱ Clin Exp Pharmacol Physiol. 2012 Feb 14.
• ⁱⁱ Nature. 1983 Jan 20;301(5897):246-8.

Sources:

• Huff Post Healthy Living April 10, 2012

Heal your thyroid by banishing inflammation, boosting immunity and improving digestive health

Thyroid hormones regulate other hormones, including the adrenal glands' adrenaline production. Thyroid gland hormones also influence cellular metabolism, digestion, libido, and overall energy.

There are three maladies involving the thyroid. Not everyone knows he or she has a thyroid issue even while exhibiting low energy or the inability to lose weight. One is an autoimmune disease and the other two are conditions.

The disease is known as Hashimoto's disease, which actually slowly destroys the thyroid while potentially creating both conditions. In addition to both conditions alternating with Hashimoto's disease, a swollen thyroid or goiter which becomes evident.

The two conditions are hypothyroidism, not enough hormone production or utlization, and the other is hyperthyroidism, or overactive thyroid that causes too much hormone production.

Hypothyroidism is the more common condition with its symptoms of low energy, fatigue, low libido, overweight problems and sensitivity to cold.

Hyperthyroidism can lead to nervousness, restlessness, manic behavior, and difficulty concentrating. Goiter and weight loss can also manifest. Pre-Nazi Germany used sodium fluoride to reduce the excessive hormone production of hyperthyroid patients.

Now, fluoride is in over 75 percent of USA's public water supplies, to keep American citizens dumb and docile with decreased thyroid hormone production.

It's a good idea to eliminate the possibility of Hashimoto's disease before pursuing hypothyroid solutions because the solutions for hypothyroidism are actually dangerous for those with Hashimoto's disease.

Hypothyroidism signs and remedies

Hypothyroidism may be the most common hormonal deficiency in the Western world. It can even occur when the thyroid does produce enough thyroid hormones that are not utilized properly. That's known as thyroid hormone resistance, which produces the same symptoms as hypothyroidism.

Many who think they have fibromyalgia may simply have one of these two manifestations of hypothyroidism. According to Dr. John Lowe, conventional testing can fall short of diagnosing hypothyroidism, especially for those with thyroid hormone resistance.

That's because the T3, T4, and TH hormone counts can appear normal with someone experiencing thyroid hormone resistance. Also, allopathic endocrinologists often have a low expectation of normal. When it comes to remedying thyroid hormone resistance, the high amounts of thyroid hormone Dr. Lowe recommends shock the average endocrinologist.

Dr. Lowe has discovered that treating fibromyalgia complaints the same as hypothyroidism works very well. He uses an additional TRH (thyroid releasing hormone) test with symptom observations.

A simple self-administered test would be to take your temperature immediately upon waking up from a regular night's sleep. A low temperature indicates probable thyroid hormone deficiency, according to Donna Gates of Body Ecology website.

Here is an abbreviated list of other symptoms, most of which resemble fibromyalgia.

* Fatigue mistaken as fibromyalgia
* Unable to lose or stop gaining weight
* Feeling cold easily and often
* Dry skin, eyes, or hair
* Excess muscle tension
* Low immunity
* Low basal body temperature
* Delayed tendon reflex, when the foot returns position slowly after tapping the Achilles heel

Dr. Lowe's complete list of symptoms can be found here: (http://www.drlowe.com/geninfo/hyposymptoms.htm)

It's common for holistic health practitioners to recommend a quality iodine supplement or seaweed consumption. Iodine is thyroid food. They also recommend various natural thyroid hormone supplements.

It makes sense that increased fibromyalgia incidents coincide with a rise in iodine deficiency since iodine was taken out of table salt. Increasing iodine or using thyroid hormone supplements will help a thyroid that's hormone deficient.

Additionally, a comprehensive metabolic approach is required that could also prove helpful for Hoshimoto's disease.

Avoid inflammation causing processed foods and pharmaceutical drugs. Eat organically produced whole vegetables, nuts, legumes, fruits and grains (some say eliminate grains). Hydrate with non-fluoridated water, exercise, and stress less. (http://www.naturalnews.com/032129_fluoridation_intelligence.html)

Sources for this article included:

http://bodyecology.com/articles/low_thyroid_symptoms.php

http://bodyecology.com

http://bodyecology.com

http://thyroid.about.com/cs/hypothyroidism/a/hashivshypo.htm

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/036522_thyroid_inflammation_immunity.html#ixzz21COM4eXm