Your Top 6 Health Destroyers
By Duke Maxwell, DC
Cell phones to your head
External stress comes in many different forms. Physical, Psychological and Financial stress are ones you may think of first, but another stressor, electropollution, is one that is causing great concern among medical experts today. Like cholesterol is damaging to the heart and cigarette smoke is to the lungs, electropollution is extremely harmful to your Biofield (the collective energy that emanates throughout every single cell, tissue and organ that makes up your body).
Some of the main polluters of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) are devices we use every day like microwave ovens, color TV, computers and computer monitors, and of course, cell phones. Cell phones use a microwave radiation and we press the phone right up to our heads and talk for a certain amount of time.
The world of yesterday, sock hops, drive-ins and ice cream socials has been replaced with an exciting world of video games, DVD players and text messaging. Today, we are exposed to 100 million times more EMR than our great grandparents were. This over exposure is weakening the efficiency of our Biofields so dramatically that it’s beginning to take a huge toll on our wellness.
Today, more than ever, people report feeling lethargic, tired, unfocused, and more susceptible to illness and other symptoms (1). There are companies whose sole purpose is to manufacture safety devices for overexposure to EMR and EMF (electromagnetic fields). This is a topic worthy of further education.
Diet Soda (and all products with aspartame)
Nutrasweet (aspartame) is a product from G.D. Searle Co. When this product was researched in the 1970’s, brain studies were not required for food additives. The relevant research they did at the time was so highly questionable that they were indicted by the U.S. congress. In spite of the controversy, this chemical was legalized anyway.
In 1983 Nutrasweet (aspartame), the artificial sweetener, was introduced to consumers. In 1984, Americans consumed 6,900,000 lbs of aspartame. This amount doubled to 14,400,000 lbs in 1985 and has continued to go up every year after that. In 1984 the occurrence of brain tumors jumped 10% in the U.S., diabetes jumped 30% (2). By 1988, 80% of the volunteered complaints to the FDA about food and food additives had to do specifically with aspartame.
Aspartame is an artificial product, not a natural one. Biochemically it can be broken down into Phenylalanime (50%), Aspartic acid (40%), and Methylester (10%). As soon as it is swallowed, the Methylester group turns into wood alcohol (methanol), a known poison. Methanol breaks down into formic acid (what ants sting you with) and formaldehyde, both of which are neurotoxins. The Aspartic acid is also a known excitotoxin (a substance that excites the brain so dramatically that it causes the cells to die).
Because phenylalanime is a building block for nor-epinephrine, it can change the ratios of seratonin and nor-epinephrine levels in the brain, causing an imbalance. Most artificial sweeteners convert to highly toxic acids that can harm the brain. All in all this is not a good product for your family to consume. In my opinion, it should have never been legalized. There are good alternatives that taste better than aspartame and that are much better for you, for example Stevia (made from a plant), or Chicory Root, both of which you can find at health food stores.
Margarine (and all partially hydrogenated oils)
Over the years, the processed food industry has managed to hoodwink the American public regarding the “healthy” aspects of margarine. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. What is margarine? Margarine is first a vegetable oil. Unfortunately this oil starts off already rancid. This oil will be subjected to extreme heat and smells so rotten it must be sent through a deodorizing process. It is bombarded with metal shavings (Nickel Oxide) and hydrogenated.
Hydrogenation is the spraying of hydrogen gas under immense pressure and extreme heat (over 400F) in the presence of a metal catalyst for up to 8 hours. The liquid oil changes into a semi-solid in this manner. Following hydrogenation, the original oil containing unsaturated molecules (polyunsaturated) becomes a saturated oil. When this partial hydrogenation takes place, strange “food substances” not normally found in nature are created.
Because it is extremely hard for the body to metabolize denatured oils, they tend to accumulate in the body (atherosclerosis & arteriosclerosis). This abnormality can actually cause an increase in cholesterol. The margarine type foods marketed as “anti-cholesterol” & “better for your heart” are actually foreign “foods” that cause cholesterol to rise. The oil is steam-cleaned and bleached. No taste or nutritional value is left, and strong flavorings are added. Finally, preservatives are added.
Sound delicious? What should you do? Skip margarine completely. Be a label reader and when you see the term “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil”, notice in which order it appears on the label. The first ingredients listed are the most in volume in the food. The more you can skip these unnatural oils the better off you are. When a little butter is called for, use REAL BUTTER. While this is a fat, at least it has fat-soluble vitamins, enzymes and the body knows what to do when digesting it. (3)
White processed Foods (Sugar, Flour, Salt, Rice, etc.)
These white processed foods, along with junk foods and fast foods, have a few things in common. They are very high in calories, fat and salt, but offer virtually no nutritional value to speak of. Most of the time these foods are combined and prepared as a protein and starch combination, i.e. hamburgers, pizza, pasta with meat etc.
Your digestive system metabolizes protein and complex carbohydrates (starch) at different rates and PH levels. No wonder so many people have gastrointestinal problems like acid reflux, irritable bowel and constipation.
Bottom line is that poor food choices cause our bodies to become acidic (PH lower than 7 or neutral). When your blood and bodily fluids are acidic, then dis-ease is opportunistic. You can easily check your bodies PH by purchasing PH strips at your local health food store. Check your urine in the morning after you have slept (fasted overnight). If your values are less than 7 PH, you most likely have been consuming an acidic diet which always leads to dis-ease.
For more information on how to transition to a more alkaline diet and regain your health naturally, I recommend a book by Dr. Robert Young entitled “The PH Miracle”; it is an easy read and has very good information about diet and PH balance in the body. It is also the book I recommend to my patients that have any kind of aggressive disease.
Chemical vitamins
Supplements come in two basic forms, chemical or fractionated forms and whole food concentrated forms. Almost all of the supplements that we buy from stores are the fractionated, chemical form.
The use of non-food, isolated or manufactured “high potency” supplements, whether vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, amino acids, sugars, or any other component, does not make biochemical sense. This is chemistry. The human body is concerned with biochemistry, (the chemistry of living things). Molecules from living things can be isolated and examined individually. Once separated from the living food, the molecules are dead.
Nature does not produce vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, or any other food components in concentrated or segregated forms. The idea that “if a little is good, more is better” leads to ingestion of megadoses of “high potency”, refined, separated “nutrients” dismantled, disassembled, or artificially manufactured chemical supplements.
A vitamin is an extremely complex organic substance needed in small amounts, yet essential for life and metabolic processes (growth, maintenance, repair, energy). Although often considered a single substance, each vitamin is a “group of chemically related compounds”. Separating (fractionation) the group of compounds into a single, incomplete portions converts it from a physiological, biochemical, active micronutrient into a disabled, debilitating chemical of little or no value to living cells.
The true potency of vitamins is delivered to the cells through the combined effect of the vitamin complex, rather than a single chemical, and is a functioning mechanism. The discovery of hundreds of phytochemicals since 1990 validates this concept. There is still a much about food complexes that has yet to be discovered. Whole foods “harbor a whole complex of compounds” that have never been segregated or manufactured by humans because, until recently, scientists did not even know that they existed and do not know how many more there are.
Whole natural foods and whole food supplements (if properly processed) are enzymatically alive. Human-made (synthetic) or separated (dissected) supplements are dead chemicals. Ingestion of lifeless chemicals which the body may treat as toxic, and which can cause deficiencies, imbalances, or other adverse reactions, will not really build health.
Human health requires live biochemicals that are readily accepted and used for maintenance, repair, energy, and function. There are several companies that sell whole food concentrated supplements that do not try to re-invent the wheel, they simply use whole foods and in some instances bovine glandulars for their ingredients. (1)
Drugs (both over the counter and prescription)
Although certain prescription drugs are necessary, we live in an over medicated society. All drugs (over the counter and prescription) have to be processed by the liver and kidneys to be taken out of the blood and body. When my patients ask me what pain reliever should they take I simply tell them that Aspirin is hard on the stomach, Ibuprofen is hard on the kidneys, and Tylenol is hard on the liver, which organ do you want to abuse?
I recently read an article called “Proposition 65” warning, these following chemicals are known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm: (this is only a partial list, request entire list if you are interested). Alprazolam (Xanax), Amphetamines, Anabolic steroids, Aspirin, Estradiol (Estrace), Estrogens (Premarin), Estrone, Flagyl, Halcion, Nebutal, Nicotine, Retinol (Vitamin A more than 10,000 IU/day), Streptomycin, Testosterone products, Tetracycline, Warfarin (Coumadin).
If you are taking pharmaceuticals, please refer to the PDR or ask your Doctor about side effects.
According to a 2004 newsletter by Dr. Mercola (great free newsletter at www.mercola.com.) he states that after examining several different sources, iatrogenic deaths (doctor induced, including adverse drug reactions, surgery, and unnecessary procedures) count for the number 1 killer at 738,000 annual deaths. This staggering number should serve as a warning sign for us that many of these deaths are preventable.
For information you can contact Dr. Duke or Dr. Denise Maxwell at (951) 296-5286 or go to www.maxwellchiropractic.net.
1. Judith A. DeCava C.C.N., L.N.C., Nutrition News and Views June 1999 Vol. 3 No. 3.
- Biopro Technology; Biopro product flash,
- Sweet Misery: a Poisoned World; Sound and Fury Productions, inc. Tucson AZ.
Dr. Mercola.com
- Natural Fitness Newsletter, 1988 , Dr. Bruce West, Carmal, CA 93922