Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Notes from The China Study, Part 1

A new standard of nutrition is surfacing from recently published research, spanning more than 30 years, documented in the book The China Study. The evidence is overwhelming. A few of the findings:

Many of the diseases Americans are facing are actually rooted in three things: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Our food has become the worse enemy of our health and wellbeing. Certain people and companies are making a lot of money selling foods, which are actually, killing us. In fact they want us to continue eating these foods, even though they make us fat, depletes our vitality and shortens and degrades our lives. Their goal is to keep us docile, compliant and ignorant. They are afraid of informed, active and passionately alive consumers. They are willing to spend billions of dollars doing so.

Good diet is the most powerful weapon we have against disease and sickness. Misinformation dominates our society. As a result Americas health is failing. Our country’s strength depends on the strength and vitality of its citizens. If our society continues on its present track, our nation’s enemy’s ability to defeat us increases simply due to the fact we are already dying, from the inside out.

America spends more on health care, per capita, than any other society on the planet. Yet two thirds of Americans are overweight, and 15 million Americans have diabetes. 50% of Americans have a health problem that requires taking a prescription drug, every week for the rest of their lives. Over 100 million Americans have high cholesterol.

American children are in the worse condition than they have ever been. One third are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight. They are developing diabetes at an ever-increasing younger age. And now, American children are taking more prescription drugs than ever before. Children who eat the highest protein diet are the ones most likely to get liver cancer – typically children of the wealthiest families.

Nutrition trumps chemical carcinogens in controlling cancer. After cancer initiation, low protein diets block subsequent cancer growth. Dietary protein proved to be so powerful in its effect that cancer growth can be turned on and off by simply changing the level of protein consumed. (more to come…)

Meridian Harmonics

The Cost of Neck & Back Pain

Back and neck problems are the most common pain in the United States. In 2002 26 percent of respondents reported low back pain and 14 percent reported neck pain in the previous three months. The proportion of people with impaired function due to back and neck problems increased drastically from 1997 to 2005, even after considering the aging factor.

The medical cost for treating back and neck problems have jumped faster than general medical expenditures during the past decade, but the increase apparently has not resulted in a health status that matches the magnitude of the increased cost. The cost for treatments of back and neck problems in the United States reached $86 billion in 2005, a 65 percent increase from 1997 after adjusting for inflation. When inflation was counted, medical expenditures for Americans with back and or neck problems rose about 65% from 1997 to 2005.

In 2005 the average medical expenditure among those with spine or back and neck problems was $6,096! The data suggests that spine problems are expensive, due both to large numbers of affected persons and to high costs per person. Unfortunately, improvements in health outcomes from drug or surgical therapies were not correspondent with the costs.

As a result, more patients are turning to alternative treatments for both acute and chronic neck, back and spinal pain. Many patients find tremendous pain relief using acupuncture and Chinese herbal therapies. They, often, return to normal daily life, without drugs and surgery, much quicker than they would have with traditional therapies.

Meridian Harmonics