.Welcome to the Main Event

Mega- FLU – Mania.

Since the only topic in the office is…

#1 The weather or

#2 The Flu

We can’t change the weather, so let’s go with talking about the flu and what it means to be healthy. Whether you get the flu shot or not is really up to you. But, every year for as long as I have been writing about the flu shot it has been a dismal failure. Meaning it doesn’t prevent any more flu than any other year.

Need more info?

If you still want more info on vaccines, just go to www.mercola.com. There is a new article that may shock you. Talking about people who get the seasonal flu shot are TWICE as likely to get the swine flu. If you get my emails, you had the chance to see Dr. OZ on national T.V. saying that he WON’T vaccinate his kids or wife for H1N1. The risks of being in a GIANT social experiment are too great.

Sick people will die of the flu, no matter what you do. Why?

The flu is not the danger, it is your immune system that determines whether you get sick or not. Every day you get exposed to millions of germs. Sure, taking precautions will help, but the ultimate decision lies within you. How strong are you? If you are sick for weeks on end, you aren’t very strong.

Here is an outline of what I consider strength.

against the flu and other nasties in life:

#1 Stress... unmanaged, it will beat you down like nothing else. We all have stress, but how you handle it makes all the difference. When you are feeling like life is bigger than you, it is time to step back and read something inspirational. Start a simple morning mediation to let your brain relax and work on problems. Find a quiet place for 5 minutes and listen to NOTHING but the sound of your breathing and let your mind wander.

And for heavens sake…the more you worry about getting the flu…the more likely you are to get it.

#2 Adrenal health…these little dynamos are heavily responsible for your front line immune system that keeps those little viruses at bay. Problems is they are also responsible for your energy and response to stress.

If you are tired a lot and especially if you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, take heed, your adrenals are in trouble.

• Immediately start prioritizing life and only do the 3 most important things for that day.

• Take a vacation-doesn’t have to be exotic.

• Stop working so hard. No one wishes on their deathbed that they would have worked harder.

• Eat less sugar, more protein, and Celtic Sea Salt.

• Astragalus Complex from Mediherb helps with stress and the adrenals.

Side note…a hyperactive nervous system often contributes to a person’s ability to handle stress. I am a living example. When I started getting adjusted, I could handle amazing amounts of stress, where prior to that I no ability. Ask me in the office for the full story. The health of the nervous system is king, and a chiropractic adjustment helps the nervous system better than anything else.

#3 Sleep...The holy grail of health. Your body heals while it sleeps. Do everything you can to get a good night’s sleep.

• Get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night.  Why?  They have done longevity studies, and those were the ideal amounts of sleep.  So sleeping too much can be detrimental as well.

   

• Sleeping recharges the immune system.  I can speak personally on this.  Some of you may remember emails from last year on my sore throat.  I almost never ever get sick.   When I feel any type of illness, it is almost always because of having too many irons in the fire (stress) and not sleeping multiple nights in a row.

   

• “Warm hands and feet induce sleep quickly”-Mayo sleep clinic

   

• Get up at the same time everyday.  This is probably the most important aspect of regular sleep.  If you are not sleeping well, this would be a great place to start.  You should not need an alarm clock.  If you need an alarm clock and you are not working shifts, you have sleep problems, lifestyle problems, or adrenal gland problems.  Once again, I’ve been on that path, and I know when I don’t wake up easily I need to slow life down.

   

• Go to bed at the same time

   

• The room should be quiet and dark, the  darker the better.

   

• No caffeine within 6 hours of going to bed

  No alcohol before bed

  No exercise before bed

  No naps over 20 minutes

   

• Don’t face the alarm clock out if you tend to wake in the middle of the night.  You will stress about the time and fret about not sleeping.  Don’t watch the clock at all.  Just lay back down and start counting backwards from 100-1.

#4 Sugar…this has so many implication for bad health, I could fill the whole newsletter just on sugar. Just remember that sugar wrecks the immune system.

#5 Exercise…get some at least 3 times per week. The benefits for your body are infinite. A simple fact: exercise helps burn and use sugar, so exercise will help your immune system.

Which is more disgusting? A stagnant backwater bug-filled pond or a swiftly flowing river? Exercise keeps the fluids of your body moving.

#6 Negativity Kills

This topic is very important. I see patients struggling with, living with, or spending time with, someone who has nothing positive to say.  I call them “energy suckers”  You feel drained and lifeless after spending time with them.  They are the opposite of the energy givers.   An energy giver will give you energy and make you feel better after spending time with them.  One of the most positive experiences I have ever had was sitting in a room of 10,000 high-energy, positive chiropractors.  For your long term health, start eliminating energy draining people. 

Our friends should be companions who inspire us, who help us rise to our best.

-Joseph B. Wirthlin

#7 Lack of vitamins…All food is not created equally. For more than 100 years, food has been stripped of vital nutrients.

This is from the foreword of “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration”-by Dr. Weston Price, and I think it sums up today’s problems.  “Food–fresh from fertile soil or the sea–has been replaced, for the most part, by refined, processed and preserved produce of far different nutritional qualities….Against his better judgment, the modern farmer has been forced to use monoculture, artificial fertilization, pesticides, herbicides…production for ‘quantity’ rather than ‘quality’.“  -Granville Knight M.D. (1970)

Our food supply is much worse for quality today.  With processing and preserving foods for shipment all over the world, it is no wonder that people are literally starving for vitamins. 

My Winter Program

The hype about the flu this year is very impressive.  Last year I never got sick, and I don’t plan to again this year.  This is how I do it with 5 simple steps.

1. Chiropractic Adjustment - the most influential thing on your immune system isn’t a shot, it’s your nervous system.  If your nerves are not functioning at 100%, your immune system can’t function at 100%.  If the spine is misaligned,  it only takes a little pressure (~approx. the weight of a quarter) to shut a nerve down 60%.  Just think if you did your job only 60% of the time, or only ate 60% of the time, or only filled your car 60% full.   I used adjustments exclusively for years with great success.

    

2. Immuplex - Standard Process’s long-term supplement that feeds the immune system with the vitamins and minerals it needs.

    

3. Probiotics - Those good bacteria that make your intestines hum along.  Second to the nervous system, your intestines are the next biggest contributor to the immune system.  Good bacteria = good health.  The probiotics we use have been tested through our office to be the most effective ones we’ve used in 11 years.  The good bacteria take a beating with antibiotics and processed food.  Most people need some. My whole family takes these, even our 5 year old.

    

4. Cod Liver Oil - Besides an adjustment this is one of the most important things I take all winter long.  The Vitamin A is critical for a powerful immune system. 

    

5. Astragalus Complex - This is a powerful combination of Astragalus root, Echinacea, and Eleuthro.  It is made by Mediherb, so the potency is stronger than anything else you can buy.  This trio helps the general immune system, promotes feelings of well being, and helps the body cope with stress.  Stress will crash your immune system faster than anything.

There are 5 very potent immune-enhancing ideas. A strong immune system is key to ignoring the crazy hype over the flu.  You WILL be exposed to the flu, no matter how careful you are not to shake peoples’ hands.  The only thing that determines if you get sick or not is the power of your immune system.

I have the next edition of Bruce West’s Newsletter  out for download.  It has been a while since I put one out and I’m a little back logged, but since so many of you asked about them, here is more great health info.

If you are chronically tense or anxious then there is a nervous system imbalance.   If you have lots of spasms or muscle cramps that’s a good indication that your parasympathetic nervous system is not running well enough to slow your body or mind down.  The primary alkaline minerals that help are potassium and magnesium mostly found in vegetables.

The flip side are the stimulators, grains, cakes, pies, cookies, crackers, pasta contain acidic minerals that stimulate the sympathetic nervous system and keep you going, and going.  The common American diet often contains too much of these and not enough veggies.

Organically bound minerals from Standard Process is our best alkaline mineral supplement.  Most supplement makers get potassium from salt.  Standard Process gets it from Spanish Moss, and Alfalfa.   Also, a chronic dry mouth may be a call for more minerals.

Have you had your rocks today?
Most calcium on the market is Calcium Carbonate (limestone) or oyster shell.  This is very difficult for your body to use, as a result it soaks up lots  of stomach acid leaving you with indigestion.  If you are having reflux issues, check your calcium.

Medical magazine contradictions are too numerous to list here just download and read page 3.  They say one thing to help then give the opposite advice for medical treatment in the same magazine.  The truth about cholesterol and heart disease and diabetes on page 4.

Cancer Fighters

More good news for sulforaphane from things like our old friends kale and broccoli, etc.  They  found good research using these for breast cancer prevention.  If sulforaphane is isolated from it’s food source it loses 95% of its activity.  They may claim anti-cancer activity but forget to tell you that it doesn’t work because it is not in its whole-food form.  This is why  we recommend Standard Process for supplements.

Cruciferous Complete from Standard Process has been proven to detoxify excess estrogen.
as a nice bonus it also may help age-related macular degeneration

Crop Nutrition Declining over 50 years

43 common crops showed declines.  They compared standard soil to organic soil with organic mulch.  The organic soil and mulch plants had 300-500% more calcium, magnesium, potassium.  That was 50 years ago.  Since then there has been even more depletion.

After having dogs most of my life, there is some wonderful info on pets and having healthy pets.

Download Bruce West’s newsletter May 2009

People often think that chiropractors must love a good ice storm, with all those people slipping and falling.  Well, that’s not the case.  It is actually very rare that people come in from falling on the ice, maybe 2x a year.

What does bring more people to the office than anything else is… rain.  Lately we have been getting more than our fair share of it.   One of my best weather predictors is a patient.  His joints are so bad that he can tell if the rain is coming 2 days early.

So what’s going on with those joints?

When rain comes to town we get a low pressure system.  There have been many theories tested about humidity, temperature, etc, and it boils down to pressure.  When there is less air pressure, the arthritis joint (meaning: joint inflammation) swells to add more pain to the surrounding tissues.

The most common form is Degenerative:

This is why 18 year old don’t complain about the weather.  Through out life your body takes it’s shares of trauma.  I’ve seen them as severe as snowmobile accidents, and serious car accidents to slipping on the ice or getting hit by your dog.

Injuries can even come from carrying kids, talking on the phone or writing long blog posts for patients at a computer.  These are called microtraumas.  Little stressors over time can build up and cause problems later.

As a chiropractor, I see degenerative joints every day.  Heck, mine started to degenerate when I was about 10.   Yes, you heard that right.  I had massive back pain at 20 years old and even at 20 years old I had bone spurs developing.  They were big enough to date back about 10 years.  Did I have pain back then, NO.    The injuries can start early (I played lots of sports) and pain only comes when there is enough damage.

As people get older those joints keep deteriorating and eventually there is so little space left that a simple change in air pressure causes them to hurt more.  So what do you do?

If you are younger than 50…get to the chiropractor regularly or move to Yuma, Arizona (sunniest place on earth)

Try and stop the progression before the damage is permanent.  The 2 major things that cause a joint to deteriorate are:

• Lack of water
• Lack of motion

Water is needed to keep the joint spaces slippery and quiet.   But the ringer is you need enough water coming in to satisfy you heart, lungs, brain, nervous system,  muscles, bones, etc.  Your joints are last on the list.  Good clean water is needed, and soda doesn’t count.

You could drink all that good water and it may not be doing your joints any good.  Huh?

The second half of the equation is MOTION.  The joints have to move to pump the water inside.  There are no blood vessels going inside, they would get crushed by the weight.  This is less evident in the extremities but very easily seen in the spine.   If one joint is injured the ones next door will pick up the extra work and you’ll never know.  A chiropractic adjustment is the only way to get individual damaged joints moving again.  People often ask how often they have to come.  Really, that depends on the individual and their needs and desires.

If you drive from New York to California,  when should you change the oil?  I’m active and tough on my body and I have a history of many injuries.  I like to feel great every day, and I personally feel the best getting adjusted every week.  That allows me to do what I want and still feel great.  Some people feel the best at 2 weeks, others feel the best at 4 weeks.  I even have a guy who only comes 2x a year.  But, he feels great.  It really depends on age, damage, time, and desires.

Between 50 and 65 there seems to be a grey zone.

Some people are really doing fantastic, others seem ready for the bone pile.  Once again, it all depends on how well you take care of yourself.  Aches and pains really start to ramp up in this age range.  It isn’t too late.  One of our patients with severe low back pain had almost no space between his last 2 vertebra.  I worked on him regularly for 3 months and he was pain-free and the best part was you could now see daylight between the bones on x-ray.  So his spine was repairing itself.

Over 65… and not using a chiropractor, you need to be thinking about trying to stop it from getting worse.

Many times there is 20-50 years of damage layered in here.  Plus, the body has compensated into new forms and muscle patterns.  You can see this when people are hunched over or bent to the side.

Often we can stop the progression with lots of regular work, but it becomes a matter of just helping people live a pain-free life.   This kind of deterioration feels the rain coming.   One other problem that this age range faces is a significant slowing down of healing.

My point is this, if you are feeling aches and pains, those are signs that there is trouble.  Even if it is only when the rain comes.  That is a good indicator that your joints need help.  So often the joints need to get adjusted and moving again.  Here is one of the secrets to growing old gracefully.   Joints that move properly don’t hurt.  When joints deteriorate and become stiffer they actually send pain signals to your brain.  How great would that be to get older and NOT take any pain pills!  Pain pills just hide the problems and let them get worse.  I’ve seen amazing things happen, so it is worth a shot to try.

Just in case you thought about waiting to take care of yourself, you can’t wait until you are 75 and aching all over to start preventing problems.  Too late… start when you are young.

• Get adjusted regularly… not just when you hurt.  That’s like exercising when you are 60 lbs. over weight.  It helps but not nearly as well.
• Drink water…not tap water, yuck!
• Exercise…anything helps.  I like H.I.T.
• Eat more raw foods…  Arthritis is often said to be a cooked food disease.  Comment on our site if you want it and I’ll send you his diet.  It isn’t on our website, yet.

Speaking of food:

Arthritis does have a strong nutritional component.  If you want the arthritis fix diet from Bruce West just leave a comment on our site.  If you are looking for supplements you can check out Bruce West’s End Your Joint Pain.

So here it is:  docaltman’s Chai Tea (version 1)

1. Brew a cup of Tazo Organic Chai Tea (one tea bag)
2. Squeeze the tea bag out so there is lots of flavor
3. 5 drops of liquid Stevia
4. 1/8 tsp. Organic Molasses
5. Top it off with some raw milk

I know it may seem like an unusual  combo, but it was good.  I didn’t add much molasses because it has a strong flavor but it gives it a little sweetness along with the stevia.

Here is a health run down:

• Black Tea- used forever as a drink.

• Stevia- herbal sweetener, that doesn’t trigger insulin, and actually helps the body use sugar.

• Organic Molasses: A little sweetness with high amounts of Potassium, Calcium, Iron and other minerals.  This is the “waste product” from refined sugar.
• Raw milk - OK this will be difficult for some to get.  Use your best judgment on this.  Differences in milk Why raw milk is better

Just don’t use SOY milk-This I pulled from a recent press release from the Weston A Price Foundation.

“Soy foods and soy milk contain plant estrogens that cause endocrine disruption as well as components that block the uptake of protein and the utilization important vitamins and minerals,” says nutritionist Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food. “Consumed in large amounts, soy foods can lead to serious reproductive and thyroid problems as well as malnutrition. Soy is totally unacceptable as a major food source, especially for growing children. The Israeli Health Ministry in 2005 warned its citizens that children should not eat soy foods or drink soy milk more than once per day or more than 3 times per week. It also advised adult men to exercise caution because of adverse effects on fertility.”

“Soy contains plant estrogens and other factors that may contribute to infertility problems for these school children later in life” says Fallon. “To regularly feed food products full of anti-fertility agents to young children and young men is unconscionable.”

Not a bad little beverage, with some health benefits to boot.

1. Start using Thermography as a screening tool and for early detection.  The use of mammography is very controversial.  If you watch T.V. you’d never know that.  Here’s Why.

2. Tamoxifen is the drug of choice for hormone dependent breast cancers because it blocks estrogen receptors.  Basically, it keeps estrogen from growing the cancer.  Interesting how a drug gets such attention, but lifestyle to eliminate excess estrogen and a diet that helps clear estrogen has no interest to treatment.  The American Cancer Society lists tamoxifen as a known carcinogen, stating that it increases the risk of some types of uterine cancer while lowering the risk of breast cancer recurrence.^[38]  The risks may be worth the trade off, but many women don’t know they may be trading one cancer for another.

In 1993 Imperial Chemical Industries demerged their pharmaceuticals business (AstraZeneca, the makers of Tamoxifen), as well as its agrochemicals and specialties businesses, to form Zeneca Group plc.^[4]

So the makers of Tamoxifen were part of a large chemical company potentially causing the very problems their drugs are meant to help, interesting.

3.  Breast Cancer is the leading cause of death for middle aged women, and only 5% of the National Cancer Institutes budget is allocated to research on prevention, as of 2002.

4.  High levels of estrogen are the primary cause of Breast cancer.  See John Lee’s Book  often from pesticides used around the home, or farming, and hormone treated meat.  So eat organic when possible.

5. Oral Contraceptives given to teenagers increases the lifetime risk by 600%.  The younger they start the more they are affected.  If they are being used for cycle regulation instead of birth control, Chaste Tree often works very well.

6. Eating sugar increases risk.  Yes, I know sugar increases risks for everything.  Too much sugar leads to insulin resistance.  If you get your cholesterol checked and your triglycerides are high you are likely at risk.  Insulin resistance leads to Luteinizing hormone (LH) and Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) imbalances.  This leads directly to PCOS and a shift to male hormone dominance and no ovulation.  Combine insulin resistance and PCOS and no ovulation and you get a higher level of estrogen, acne, fat around the waist, and increase in facial / body hair.  Plus, the more fat, the more estrogen produced.

7.  The use of “soy” is very controversial.  Some research suggests it protects and other research suggests it promotes breast cancer.  Unless soybeans are fermented they are filled with toxins that can easily mess up your digestion and more commonly your thyroid.  Soybean fields are also heavily sprayed or genetically modified plants.  Above all, they do have estrogenic effects that mimic natural estrogens.

8. March 1999, JAMA study tracked 88,795 women between ages 30 and 55 from 1980 to 1994.  Women who kept their fat intake less than 20% of total calories were no more likely to develop breast cancer than those with a high-fat diet.  There was a group of 1000 women who kept their fat intake less than 20% that actually had 15% more breast cancer.  Any and all fat consumed whether as olive oil or a steak should be organic, thus hormone-free.

9. University of Illinois toxicologist Samual Epstein, M.D. “all women from conception to death will now be exposed to and additional breast cancer risk due to milk from cows treated with RBGH”

Bad estrogen (RBGH and other synthetic estrogens) comes in to your body  –> gets converted to really bad estrogen in your liver  –>   Make sure your milk is hormone-free or it says RBGH free.

10.  Positive things to do besides wearing pink.

1. Avoid estrogen hormones
2. Exercising can decrease your risk by 35%.  I use High Intensity Training.
3. Stop eating hydrogenated oils (trans-fats)
4. Eat good hormone producers -raw butter, extra virgin olive oil, cod liver oil, coconut oil
5. Wearing a bra less than 12 hours per day can decrease risk by half.
6. Lots of raw fruits and veggies
7. Save your liver- less alcohol, medications, toxins in general.
8. Eat as many anticancer foods as possible: kale, beets, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, garlic, onions, and leeks
9. Get you vitamin D naturally. Sunlight is best then cod liver oil
10. Eat organic as much as possible. More nutrition, no pesticides, herbicides, artificial fertilizers, or injected hormones.

When I look at this list I see a lot of work to do.  Too many women are dying needlessly and the standard treatments aren’t good enough.  We need to back up and look at prevention and promote it better, stop using so many chemicals and promote better diets.  Companies are so focused on making money that health has been sacrificed.  The sad reality is that there will never be a cure for cancer because cancer is the cure.  I know it sounds like double talk, but it is isn’t.  This is the most profound thing I ever learned about cancer and it came from a chiropractor.

You can burn, cut, and poison cancer all you want but it never addresses the cause, the toxicity or our world and the altered metabolism of our bodies as a result.  That is why most people have a reoccurance of cancer.  If you look at cancer as the cure you’ll understand that prevention is the only way to effectively help women live longer.

You owe it to your mother, sister, aunt or significant other to care about breast cancer and its prevention.

The quickest things you can do today.

#1 Start buying only hormone-free meat and milk.
#2 Stop using chemicals (ie…lawns, cleaning, perfumes, etc.) natural alternatives exist for everything you want.

#3 ALL women should read Dr. John Lee’s book

“What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer.”  It is the single best resource out there for information.  Don’t worry there is no kind of affiliate link, just information you should have.  Reading it will change your life forever.