Archived News of the Week

Water, Water Everywhere, and (Almost) Not a Healthy Drop to Drink, Plus Some Bad News on Certain Pharmaceuticals

It's too bad about Water I will pre-empt you and admit that yes, I am a dork before you have the chance to call me one, but I love the movie Dune and watch it every so often just to see the blue sclera, the giant fake-looking worms, the overly dramatic Bene Gesseret nuns and Kyle McLachlan when he was young and still able to ride, standing up, on the backs of giant worms. Well, in their world of Dune, water was nonexistent, and their whole lives were spent in the pursuit of water - both on their own arid planet, and other planets, starting numerous and exciting wars over their more plentiful water supplies. Plus they had the ongoing and arduous task of creating better filtering systems for their urine, because of course, they had to recycle all liquids.

Our Earth water is still plentiful, but the quality stinks. Some interesting factoids: Adults are about 60% water, babies are about 75% water. Brains and lungs are 70 and 90 percent water respectively. Have you ever felt brain fog? Of course you have. Next time, drink a big glass of water and watch the fog lift. Water quality, since we are basically just big sacs of jostley, gurgley water, greatly impacts your health. Yet despite "government regulations" which are a joke (Sorry, but I have become so very cynical about some things...), municipal water contains many dangerous contaminants. Since the Safe Drinking Water Act handles only 91 of the potential contaminants and in the US alone there are over 60,000 chemicals/contaminants that can find their way into the water supply, we are pretty much screwed as to the halcyon days of clear, fresh, uncontaminated spring water and having the luxury of being able to scoop lovely clean water out of the fresh water creeks like they did in Little House on the Prairie.

Just so you know, since knowledge is power, here are some contaminants that you can read about right before you run screaming to The Home Depot to purchase your reverse osmosis filtering system. I know that there are more expensive filtration systems, like whole house systems for 7K, but I think that my inexpensive one works just fine.

First and most awful is: 1) Fluoride. Then in no particular order: 2) Chlorine. 3) Radioactive Contaminants, worse now since the meltdown at Fukishima. We have not heard the last of that disaster. 4) Pharmaceutical drugs. Feeling relaxed lately? Probably drinking your neighbor's Prozac. 5) Hexavalent chromium. 6) Lead, aluminum and heavy metals. 7) Arsenic. Not to mention for those of us with wells, the parasites and bacteria.

Heads up on a few dangerous Pharmaceuticals: My friend and colleague, Craig Reese, mentioned an interesting fact about an antibiotic that I want to pass along: Apparently the Z-pak or the antibiotic, Zithromax, that everyone is prescribed for bronchitis, pneumonia and other infections can trigger lethal heart arrhythmias. Zithromax also increases your chances of dying from a cardiovascular event by 250% within the first five days of usage. Plus, those of you with pre-existing heart issues are at an even greater risk.

I saw that many of you were on the Z-pak for your various ills this past winter, so I am suggesting that you refuse the Z-pak and ask instead for amoxicillin which is an older and (so far) safer class of antibiotic and doesn't have this risk attached to it. Dr. Reese went on to say, and I agree, that if you MUST take antibiotics please be sure to take along with it a high dose, high quality probiotic since any antibiotic will decimate your gut flora which in turn will weaken your immune system. But, try us natural docs first. What do you have to lose? Remember, we are educated and skilled in knowing when to refer you out if natural supplements don't seem to be doing the job.

In 2011, pharmaceutical drugs were associated with 2 to 4 MILLION people experiencing "serious disability or fatal injuries". Just so you know, when the word "serious" is used, they don't just mean an upset stomach or dizziness or dry mouth, they mean probably serious enough to be hospitalized. And, within these 2 to 4 million people, there were 128,000 deaths.

What do you think would happen if even 2 people died from taking, say, CoQ10? Bottles of CoQ10 would be ripped off the shelves so fast, your head would spin. Compare with: Vioxx wasn't taken off the market until 60,000 people died.

The FDA - a laughable organization - is allowed to run roughshod over all of us. The FDA is Big Pharma's dominatrix who ruthlessly and with promises of lots of clandestine money left on park benches in paper bags for the members of Congress, whips Congress into rushing through patents with very little research, some of which is made up. Why? So Big Pharma - which has more than one persuasive, deep-pocketed lobbyist per congressperson - can make money. There are no checks and balances in the pharmaceutical industry. Why? Just follow the money and you will have your answer. NB. I am terrified of the Bird Flu conversations that I am hearing on the news and in the papers: Words like pandemic and trans-human vectors will be thrown around to scare you and vaccines will be pushed like heroin to junkies. Don't fall for it. And don't listen to Dr. Nancy Snyderman who said and I quote "Just get the damn [flu] vaccination!"

The top five leading pharmaceutical killers, taken from the FDA database - just so you know because knowledge is power - and may even be in your own medicine cabinet are: Two blood thinners - warfarin or Coumadin, dabigatran or Pradaxa. (Bleed to death) An antibiotic called levofloxacin or Levoquin. Not only can it kill you, but it can just rip tendons away from bones for no reason at all, necessitating big, complicated surgeries. It happened to a patient of mine. The fourth one is hopefully one you will never need: Carboplatin which is a chemo drug and the fifth surprised even me: Lisinopril which is perhaps the most prescribed high blood pressure med in the United States. (Strokes and kidney failure) I have a wonderful supplement for blood pressure, by the way, one that I can say works 100% of the time, so give it a try first.

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