Vitamin D Deficiency Becoming an Epidemic
March 15, 2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
There is an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency sweeping across our modern world, and it’s an epidemic of such depth and seriousness that it makes the H1N1 swine flu epidemic look like a case of the sniffles by comparison. Vitamin D deficiency is not only alarmingly widespread, it’s also a root cause of many other serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and heart disease.
A new study published in the March, 2010 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that a jaw-dropping 59 percent of the population is vitamin D deficient. In addition, nearly 25 percent of the study subjects were found to have extremely low levels of vitamin D.
Lead author of the study, Dr. Richard Kremer at the McGill University Health Center, said “Abnormal levels of vitamin D are associated with a whole spectrum of diseases, including cancer, osteoporosis, and diabetes, as well as cardiovascular and autoimmune disorders.”
This new study also documents a clear link between vitamin D deficiency and stored body fat. This supports a theory I’ve espoused here on NaturalNews for many years: That sunshine actually promote body fat loss. Vitamin D may be the hormonal mechanism by which this fat loss phenomenon operates.
The research findings on vitamin D, by the way, get even better…
Activator for the immune system
Recent research carried out at the University of Copenhagen has revealed that vitamin D activates the immune system by “arming” T cells to fight off infections.
This new research, led by Professor Carsten Geisler from the Department of International Health, Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Copenhagen, found that without vitamin D, the immune system’s T cells remain dormant, offering little or no protection against invading microorganisms and viruses. But with vitamin D in the bloodstream, T cells become “armed” and begin seeking out invaders that are then destroyed and carried out of the body.
Vitamin D, in other words, acts a bit like the ignition key to your car: The car won’t run unless you turn the key and ignite the engine. Likewise, your immune system won’t function unless it is biochemically activated with vitamin D. If you’re facing the winter flu season in a state of vitamin D deficiency, your immune system is essentially defenseless against seasonal flu. That’s why all the people who get sick are the ones who live indoors, work indoors and exist in a chronic state of vitamin D deficiency.
That’s also why virtually all the people who died from H1N1 were chronically deficient in vitamin D. They had virtually no immune system protection at all and were thus easy targets for the swine flu.
These findings about vitamin D “arming” the immune system were published in Nature Immunology. Commenting on the findings, the researchers said, “Scientists have known for a long time that vitamin D is important for calcium absorption and the vitamin has also been implicated in diseases such as cancer and multiple sclerosis, but what we didn’t realize is how crucial vitamin D is for actually activating the immune system — which we know now.” (UK Telegraph, source below).
It seems the CDC and WHO remain utterly ignorant about this research or they would have been recommending vitamin D to fight the recent H1N1 pandemic rather than vaccine shots. Vitamin D would have been a far more effective (and less costly) defense against the pandemic than vaccine shots, especially given that even vaccines don’t work unless there is an immune response, and that immune response requires the presence of vitamin D!
And while vaccine shots have undesirable side effects such as causing severe neurological damage in a small number of vaccine recipients, vitamin D’s only significant “side effect” is that it prevents 77% of all cancers, too.
The common denominator for disease
What’s becoming increasingly clear from all the new research is that vitamin D deficiency may be the common denominator behind our most devastating modern degenerative diseases. Kidney failure patients are almost universally deficient in vitamin D and diabetes patients are usually in the same category. People suffering from cancer almost always demonstrate severe vitamin D deficiency, as do people with osteoporosis and multiple sclerosis.
Click here for the full report
Weight Watchers Partnering With McDonald’s
March 15, 2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
Weight Watchers has now officially endorsed Chicken McNuggets as a “healthy meal” in New Zealand, where McDonald’s restaurants will begin carrying the Weight Watchers logo on several menu items. This bizarre and inexplicable decision has now made Weight Watchers the laughing stock of the health world where nutrition and weight loss experts normally don’t use “McDonald’s fast food” and “weight loss” in the same sentence.
As The Guardian reports, “As part of the deal, which the company says is the first of its kind in the world, McDonald’s will use the Weight Watchers logo on its menu boards and Weight Watchers will promote McDonald’s to dieters.”
Nutritionists, not surprisingly, were shocked at the announcement. The idea of eating at McDonald’s to lose weight seems a bit ridiculous, and anyone who believes that eating Chicken McNuggets will cause you to lose weight is arguably one nugget short of a Happy Meal. Sometimes you just have to point out the stupidity of these things, even at the risk of offending someone who has convinced themselves that eating more Chicken McNuggets is their ticket to a slim, fit and sexy body.
Watch your weight balloon!
Weight Watchers, by the way, never actually claims that eating the foods they endorse will cause you to lose weight. If you examine it carefully, even their name isn’t really about weight loss. It’s about weight watching… as in, watch your weight grow larger by the day…
A “weight watch” is sort of like a “tornado watch” or a “tsunami watch.” You keep your eyes peeled and wait for something disastrous to happen — such as ballooning to 300 pounds while engaging in unhealthy eating McHabits based on snarfing down meat parts from factory-farmed cows raised in bovine concentration camps that might more accurately be called “Cowschwitz.”
If Weight Watchers is going to endorse McNuggets, then why not just endorse the entire McDonald’s menu and throw the logo behind Big Macs and ice cream shakes, too? It’s not like Weight Watchers is trying to “protect its reputation” by not crossing a line, you know. Once you’ve endorsed McDonald’s as “healthy” food, that line is no longer anywhere in sight.
Of course, McDonald’s products merely join a long list of questionable foods marketed under the “Weight Watchers” brand name — a brand that in my opinion has discovered great commercial success in selling the false hope of weight loss to clueless consumers who are unwilling to read ingredients lists on food labels.
Not coincidentally, Weight Watchers has now become the “McDonald’s” of the weight loss industry — and industry filled with so many scams and shams that the idea of eating Chicken McNuggets to lose weight doesn’t even seem that strange to many people.
We live in a world where corporate promotional lies are disgusting at best, and criminal at worst. We’re told that psychiatric drugs will make you happy, that chemotherapy will make you healthy and that eating at McDonald’s will make you lose weight. We’re told that sugary junk drinks will give you “energy”, that toxic vaccines are necessary for your immune system to work correctly and that buying silly pink-ribbon products will somehow cure cancer.
At the same time, we’re told that vitamins are dangerous, that sunlight causes cancer and that there’s no such thing as a cure for type-2 diabetes. Everything that’s good for you is discredited as bad while everything that’s toxic is hyped up as “healthy.”
I suppose in light of the corporate-sponsored sick-care insanity that passes for medical advice these days, the idea that eating at McDonald’s will make you lose weight doesn’t seem as insane as it really should.
But that doesn’t make it any more true.
In a world gone mad with dietary misinformation touting fictional foods, insanity can now be marketed to the intoxicated mainstream as if it somehow made sense.
… and people swallow it.
Click here for the full report
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 3-10-10
Today, Kevin explains why the government is suppressing the free flow of information and why the medical community wants you to be deficient in vitamin D.
At Least 3 of 4 Americans Don’t Get Enough Vitamin D
1 in 6 Americans Infected with Herpes
FDA Approves Drug Banned In 160 Countries
Chemical Substances Found in All Commercial Meat
The Government Regulation of Supplements
Vitamin D Essential For Activating Immune System
Supreme Court Will Decide Whether Drug Makers Can Be Sued
Most Drug Studies Don’t Help Docs Pick Best Treatment
Tainted Ingredient Sold After Salmonella Found
Bone Strengthening Drug Linked to Fractures
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click below to hear The Kevin Trudeau Show RIGHT NOW!!!
Fight Disease With Sunshine
March 10, 2010
DailyMail.co.uk
By Fiona Macrae
A spot of sunshine doesn’t just lift your spirits, it also boosts your immune system.
Research shows that vitamin D, made when our skin is exposed to sunlight, plays a key role in activating white blood cells that protect the body from flu, food poisoning and even cancer.
Without the ’sunshine vitamin’, the cells do not join the fight against disease.
The discovery could help in the development of vaccines and ways to combat auto-immune diseases and cancer.
It is well known that vitamin D is vital for calcium absorption and bone health and some studies have suggested it has an anti-cancer effect.
But scientists had not realised what a crucial role it played in the immune system.
A series of laboratory tests showed that the vitamin triggers dormant white blood cells into turning into ‘killers’ that seek out and destroy infections. Other white blood cells turn into ‘helpers’ that enable the immune system to build a ‘memory’ of the infection, allowing it to mobilise more quickly on the next encounter.
Researcher Carsten Geisler, of the University of Copenhagen, said: ‘If the T-cells (white blood cells) cannot find enough vitamin D in the blood, they won’t even begin to mobilise.’
The discovery, documented in the journal Nature Immunology, could shed new light on conditions caused by immune system malfunctions, such as multiple sclerosis and organ transplant rejections.
Although vitamin D is found in foods such as oily fish and eggs, most of that found in the body comes from sunlight exposure, and many of us simply do not have enough.
In England, half the population is low in the vitamin when winter ends. In Scotland, it is two-thirds.
Click here for the full report.
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 3-9-10
Today, the ‘all-seeing’ Kevin Trudeau explains how the exercises in Washington affect your life directly and gives you the headlines he has been preaching for years:
Despite Costs, More Companies Replace High Fructose Corn Syrup
The Unbelievable Benefits of Omega-3’s
Vitamin D Crucial For Immune System
How to Create a Perpetual Moneymaking Machine
Get Your KT Fix 5 Days a Week!
Plus, Tim Cox, the founder of GOOOH, shakes up the status quo by telling you about a non-partisan plan to evict all 435 politicians from the U.S. House of Representatives. Find out what you can do to help take money out of politics, fire career politicians and break the stranglehold the two parties have on our system! Click here to begin your fight for freedom today!
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click below to hear The Kevin Trudeau Show RIGHT NOW!!!
Vitamin D Essential For Activating Immune System
March 8, 2010
TheMoneyTimes.com
By Neka Sehgal
Adding to the multiple health benefits of vitamin D is the latest research, which indicates the nutrient is an effective tool in building up the immune system to help ward off viruses and other infections.
Lead author of the research, Professor Carsten Geisler, from the Department of International Health, Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Copenhagen stated, “We knew vitamin D was important for calcium absorption and fighting diseases such as cancer and multiple sclerosis – but we didn’t realize how crucial it was for activating the immune system.”
Role of vitamin D in immune responses
According to researchers, Vitamin D is crucial for the activation of T cells that guard the body against serious infection.
Without an adequate amount of the nutrient, the T cells remain dormant and are unable to identify, directly attack or destroy infections allowing bacteria to invade.
Explaining the role of vitamin D in helping the immune system of the body, the researchers stated, “When a T cell is exposed to a foreign pathogen, it extends a signaling device or ‘antenna’ known as a vitamin D receptor, with which it searches for vitamin D. This means that the T cell must have vitamin D or activation of the cell will cease. If the T cells cannot find enough vitamin D in the blood, they won’t even begin to mobilize. ”
In the case of flu infection, the scientists stated that vitamin D helps produce antibacterial peptides that shields against flu.
That is why a lack of sunshine in winters leads to a deficiency of vitamin D and people get infected with flu viruses.
Important breakthrough
According to researchers, recognizing the role of Vitamin D for immunity is an important breakthrough which could be vital to fight anti-immune reactions of the body.
It would also help suppress the natural defense of the body to prevent organ rejection after transplants and lead to new ways to combat infectious diseases on a global scale.
Professor Geisler stated, “They will be of particular use when developing new vaccines, which work precisely on the basis of both training our immune systems to react and suppressing the body’s natural defences in situations where this is important – as is the case with organ transplants and autoimmune disease.”
The findings are published in the latest edition of Nature Immunology.
A little about vitamin D
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is naturally present in very few foods but is available as a dietary supplement.
It may be obtained in the recommended amount with a well-balanced diet, including some enriched or fortified foods. It can also be found in fish liver oil, eggs and fatty fish and supplements.
The body manufactures vitamin D when exposed to sunshine, but people are spending more time indoors and are deficient of the nutrient. Experts recommend 10 to 15 minutes of sunshine 3 times a week.
Click here for the full report.
Allergies May Be Meat-Related
March 1, 2010
Business Week
By Robert Priedt
A carbohydrate in meat called alpha-gal may be the unrecognized cause of recurring severe allergic reactions in some patients, a new study suggests.
The study included 60 people in Australia and the United States who experienced the recurrent severe allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis with no known cause. Allergy tests revealed that 25 of the 60 patients had positive responses to alpha-gal. A positive response was considered a level of greater than 1.0 international units per milliliter of immunoglobulin E (IgE).
The tests did not identify any other allergens that would explain the cause of anaphylaxis in the 25 patients who were positive for alpha-gal or in the other 35 patients, the study authors noted.
The findings were scheduled to be presented Sunday at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology annual meeting, in New Orleans.
“These studies continue to suggest not only that IgE to a carbohydrate has important clinical implications in food allergy and anaphylaxis, but that the presence of this antibody may well have been under-appreciated in terms of the number of patients affected and the geographical scope,” study author Dr. Scott P. Commins, of the University of Virginia, said in an academy news release.
A person who suffers an anaphylactic reaction to something unknown is at increased risk for recurring anaphylaxis if the trigger isn’t identified.
Click here for the full report
Herbicide in Drinking Water May be Dangerous
March 1, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
Contamination of drinking water by a common herbicide poses a greater health threat than previously believed, according to a report issued by the nonprofit environmental organization Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitors average yearly levels of the popular herbicide atrazine in drinking water supplies, based on four tests per year. But the NRDC notes that levels of the toxin in drinking water regularly spike after heavy rains or during the spring when it is being widely applied, and that the four yearly testings may miss these events. The organization’s researchers found several such spikes in its own testing of water supplies in towns in agricultural regions of the South and Midwest.
“Our biggest concern is early-life-stage development,” said Jennifer Sass of the NRDC. “If there’s a disruption during that time, it becomes hard-wired into the system. These endocrine disrupters act in the body at extremely low levels. These spikes matter.”
Because atrazine is compatible with no-till farming, it is popular among farmers seeking to acquire a “green” label by reducing their carbon footprint. It is known to disrupt the hormonal system, and may cause cancers and menstrual problems in adults. It is considered especially dangerous to the developing reproductive systems of fetuses and children. The chemical has been shown to kill aquatic microorganisms and suppress the immune systems of larger animals, and it can cause limb or reproductive deformities in amphibians at levels as low as 0.1 parts per billion.
The EPA has set a threshold of 3 billion parts per billion for permissible atrazine levels, which the NRDC says would be too high even without periodic spikes. The NRDC analysis of 139 different municipal water systems found that 54 of them had a one-time spike higher than 3 parts per billion at some point in 2003 or 2004.
Home or municipal carbon filters can remove atrazine from water, but many municipal treatment plants do not use such procedures.
Click here for the full report
Cancer Can Regrow After Radiation/Chemotherapy
February 24, 2010
Natural News
By Ethan A. Huff
Researchers from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York have published findings in the journal Cell that explain how tumor cells can re-seed and spread throughout the body after they have been removed through conventional chemotherapy, surgery, or radiation treatments. Tiny tumor cells that circulate throughout the body often begin to send out seeds to the places where the tumor originated, essentially planting the cancer back into the body.
Joan Massague and her colleagues at the Center are finding that conventional treatments leave behind malignant cells that relocate to other areas of the body to avoid being destroyed. Eventually they return as stronger and more aggressive tumors, having gathered back the worst leftover cells from the previous cancer. The result is a second cancer that is worse than the first.
Chemicals present in the immune system also appear to signal tumor cells in circulation to return to their source. Following conventional treatment, the immune system actually works against the body by drawing the vagrant cancer cells back to where they originally seeded, kick starting a relapse.
Medical professionals typically attribute recurrences of cancer following conventional treatment to a few remaining cells that survived treatment and remained at the source. However this study illustrates definitively that lingering cells hide throughout the body and later return to self seed back where they originally started.
What these findings illustrate is that conventional cancer treatments are not effective at eradicating cancer from the body. The targeting of a specific area with surgery, radiation treatment, and chemotherapy cannot successfully remove the cancer from the body because its cells will find another place to live temporarily, only to return even stronger the next time.
Biopsies cause cancer to spread
A conventional biopsy is usually recommended as the best way to identify the presence of cancer, both before and after treatments. Needle biopsies involve taking tissue samples at various places in order to identify the presence of cancer cells. Official diagnosis of cancer cannot take place without a biopsy, resulting in the pressuring of patients to get one if they suspect a tumor.
Many doctors will insist that a person needs a biopsy, but the threat of spreading cancer far outweighs any perceived benefits. Those who receive biopsies will most likely experience unnecessary cancer spread and, following conventional treatment, will probably experience cancer reseeding. Cancer is known to develop at the puncture sites of biopsies.
Chemotherapy leads to reseeding
Chemotherapy treatments involve targeting cancer cells that are rapidly dividing and spreading with harsh chemicals designed to kill them. While treatment may kill the primary tumor, it fails to eradicate the cells that divide more slowly, resulting in a continued replication of cancer cells following treatment.
Many who believe they are in remission following their chemotherapy treatments later discover that their cancer has returned. Not only do they undergo the horrors of the treatment which leaves their body and health in shambles, but they often end up with a more severe version of their original cancer.
Conventional therapies are a failure
Conventional medicine is at a loss for how to deal with the problem of reseeding. Within their paradigm, chemotherapy, radiation, drugs, and surgery are the only options for treating someone with cancer. Now that these are proving to be largely ineffective, scientists are searching for yet another new drug to combat the tendency of cancers to re-seed in order to continue promoting these accepted forms of cancer treatment. They are even investigating the possibility of developing vaccines that will allegedly use the body’s immune system to stop vagrant cancer cells.
The problem with drugs, surgery, and radiation is that they will never be able to systematically rid the body of the problem because they are only capable of targeting a confined area. These methods are also wrought with negative side effects so severe that many people end up dying simply from the treatment.
Conventional treatment is also extremely expensive, heavily burdening an already overwhelmed health care system. It is simply assumed that there are no alternative methods by which cancer can be treated, let alone prevented.
Many recently published studies have found that pomegranates, mangoes, and other natural foods contain valuable phytonutrients that effectively prevent and stop malignant cancer cells while preserving good cells. These nutrients holistically rid the body of harmful cells, targeting them wherever they hide in the body and eliminating them.
Conventional medicine would do best to begin focusing heavily on the compounds found in nature that are designed to deter cancer without inflicting negative side effects as an alternative to the mainstream methods that are only making the problem worse. Whether in aloe vera, peach pits, raw almonds, or the many fruits and vegetables found around the world, anti-cancer nutrients are everywhere and modern medicine is only beginning to recognize them. They may not result in the next big blockbuster drug but they work and they are inexpensive. Perhaps this is the reason they are generally marginalized and looked down upon by the cancer industry.
Click here for the full report.
The Forced Vaccine Argument – Act of Violence?
February 22, 2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
This parody cartoon grew out of the idea that vaccines are “shots” that are being increasingly forced upon children and teens. At times, these vaccines are enforced at gunpoint or with the presence of vicious guard dogs — as happened in Maryland two years ago when a court judge ordered thousands of parents to bring their children to court for vaccination or face gunpoint arrest and possible jail time.
Most modern vaccinations are, of course, a form of chemical violence against children. If they were all formulated without chemical preservatives (like thimerosal) and dangerous adjuvants (which can harm the nervous system), that might be a different story. But far too many of today’s vaccines are chemical concoctions that are entirely unnatural to the human body. To force them into the bodies of innocent children is an act of medical violence.
The method of introducing the vaccines is unnatural and highly interventionist: These chemicals and DNA / RNA fragments are injected directly into the tissues and blood, bypassing the skin (a normal protective defense) and bypassing the digestive system, too. An injected mandatory vaccine dumps foreign material directly into the bloodstream of children without the consent of either the child or the parents — that’s what qualifies mandatory vaccines as “chemical violence” against children.
The Mad Doctor is in
The doctor in this parody cartoon was intentionally created to depict a “crazed” mad doctor because nothing turns an ordinary doctor into a mad man faster than an argument about vaccines. While he may seem to be a reasonable person on all other subjects, once you challenge him on the dangers of over-vaccination of children, all reason gets thrown out the window and he morphs into a raging lunatic of unscientific emotion.
The complete lack of scientific evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of vaccines makes no difference to him. “Vaccines need no science,” he’ll say, “Because everybody knows they work!”
My offer of $10,000 to anyone who can produce a scientific study proving the safety and effectiveness of H1N1 vaccines remains utterly unclaimed.
Vaccine failures are common
Meanwhile, in the real world vaccines are failing miserably. A recent outbreak of mumps in the New Jersey / New York area occurred almost entirely among children who had already been vaccinated against mumps.
Clearly if vaccines really worked, then an outbreak should have only occurred among those who were NOT vaccinated against mumps, right? But as I reported here on NaturalNews, 77 percent of the children who got infected had already been vaccinated!
A similar truth emerges when you look at H1N1 deaths: Thousands of those who were vaccinated against H1N1 swine flu had already received the vaccine shots (http://www.naturalnews.com/027956_H…). We still don’t know the exact number of how many vaccinated people died because the CDC is hiding that data from the public, making sure the mainstream media doesn’t learn the truth that even many of those who were vaccinated still died.
What the CDC and its Big Pharma cohorts want people to mistakenly believe is that vaccines always offer protection against infectious disease. (100% protection). But this is blatantly false. In fact, because vaccines introduce a weakened virus into the body, they may hamper the normal immune response, creating systemic weakness that makes people more vulnerable to future infectious disease. In essence, weakened viruses create weakened immune responses, “training” the immune system to be more passive against future threats. That’s why people who received vaccines in the past are far more likely to die of infectious disease in the future.
Click here for the full report
