By TARA PARKER-POPE
Published: April 13, 2009
I suffered with C. diff several years ago and can attest to the virulence of the bug. It seemed to affect every bodily system, finally resulting in colitis. I was on a 50 day round of Flagyl in order to kill off the spores and that in result damaged my liver resulting in hospitalization for liver failure. It is not a nice bug to catch, but as this article states it is becoming more prevalent, it is becoming more virulent and doctors are not diagnosing it until too late. The fatality rate is rising and the treatment takes longer. Please be aware and get treatment (and ask your doctor if it could be clostridium difficile) as soon as symptoms arrive. Dr. Mike
Earlier this year, Harold and Freda Mitchell of Como, Miss., both came down with a serious stomach bug. At first, doctors did not know what was wrong, but the gastrointestinal symptoms became so severe that Mrs. Mitchell, 66, was hospitalized for two weeks. Her husband, a manufacturing supervisor, missed 20 days of work.
A local doctor who had worked in a Veterans Affairs hospital recognized the signs of Clostridium difficile, a contagious and potentially deadly bacterium. Although the illness is difficult to track, health officials estimate that in the United States the bacteria cause 350,000 infections each year in hospitals alone, with tens of thousands more occurring in nursing homes. While the majority of cases are found in health care settings, 20 percent or more may occur in the community. The illness kills an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people annually.
“It’s been the worst thing I’ve ever tried to get through in my life,” said Mrs. Mitchell, who remains weakened by the ordeal. “I really did think I was going to die.”
What is so frightening about C. difficile is that it is often spurred by antibiotics. The drugs wipe out the targeted illness, like a urinary tract or upper respiratory infection, but they also kill off large portions of the healthy bacteria that normally live in the digestive tract. If a person comes into contact with C. difficile, or already has it, the disruption to the beneficial bacteria creates an opportunity for the harmful bacteria to flourish.
The public health community has been sounding the alarm for years about the overuse of antibiotics and the emergence of “superbugs” — bacteria that have developed immunity to a wide number of antibiotics. But the C. difficile problem shows that the threat is not generalized or hypothetical, but immediate and personal.
“One of the things that we counsel consumers about is to make sure that an antibiotic is really necessary,” said Dr. Dale N. Gerding, an infectious disease specialist at the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University in Chicago. “There are many good reasons for taking an antibiotic, but an illness like sinusitis or bronchitis winds up being treated with antibiotics even though it will go away by itself anyway.”
Even appropriate use of antibiotics can put a person at risk. Dr. Gerding said his own adult son came down with a C. difficile infection after taking antibiotics for tonsillitis.
The typical treatment for C. difficile is another course of antibiotics, typically the drug vancomycin. But the situation can quickly turn tragic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported on several cases of pregnant and postpartum women who developed life-threatening C. difficile infections after being treated for minor infections. In some instances, a C. difficile infection can be treated only by emergency surgery to remove the patient’s colon. Doctors say many patients report that they continue to suffer from regular bouts of diarrhea even after the infection is gone. About 20 percent of patients with the infection suffer a relapse, and C. difficile support groups have emerged on the Internet.
In the case of the Mitchell family, Mr. Mitchell had been taking antibiotics for another health problem, and the treatment apparently led to his C. difficile infection. Mrs. Mitchell probably contracted the illness from her husband. The spores from C. difficile are hardy, and contaminated surfaces must be scrubbed down with bleach to eradicate the germ. Doctors say Mrs. Mitchell’s illness is unusual because most people are protected by their own bacterial flora and wouldn’t be vulnerable to C. difficile if they had not been taking antibiotics, even after close exposure. The risk of contracting C. difficile outside the health care setting remains low, at about 7 cases per 100,000 people, studies show.
C. difficile is not a new illness, but it appears to be spreading at an alarming rate. The rate of C. difficile infection among hospital patients doubled from 2001 to 2005, according to an April 2008 report from the C.D.C. The rise in C. difficile cases around the world is linked with the growing use of all antibiotics, particularly a class of drugs called fluoroquinolones, which came into widespread use around 2001. The use of acid-suppressing drugs, including proton pump inhibitors like Prilosec, also may be a risk factor, although studies have been contradictory.
In addition to becoming more common, C. difficile is also becoming more deadly. Several years ago, the mortality rate from a C. difficile infection was around 1 to 2 percent. But today, various studies estimate that the death rate is 6 percent. The reason is that a hypervirulent strain has emerged that emits higher levels of toxins than earlier strains.
Many patients are far more familiar with another superbug, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which can cause a severe and potentially deadly skin infection. MRSA started off primarily as a hospital-based infection but has become increasingly common in the community.
Hospitals may become more motivated to control C. difficile if the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decides to withhold reimbursement for cases of hospital-acquired C. difficile infections. The system already withholds reimbursement for certain other preventable hospital infections.
In addition to careful use of antibiotics, patients and hospital visitors should always be vigilant about hand washing, and visitors should not sit on a patient’s hospital bed or use a patient’s restroom if it can be avoided. Patients should always report severe diarrhea symptoms to a doctor, particularly if they have taken antibiotics recently.
“Up until about 2002, this was a very mild disorder and very few people ever died from it,” said Dr. Perry Hookman, a gastroenterologist and associate professor of medicine at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami. “But in the past few years the bugs have become hypervirulent, more severe and now it’s a global threat.”
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Grape-seed extract kills laboratory leukemia cells
PHILADELPHIA – An extract from grape seeds forces laboratory leukemia cells to commit cell suicide, according to researchers from the University of Kentucky. They found that within 24 hours, 76 percent of leukemia cells had died after being exposed to the extract.
The investigators, who report their findings in the January 1, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, also teased apart the cell signaling pathway associated with use of grape seed extract that led to cell death, or apoptosis. They found that the extract activates JNK, a protein that regulates the apoptotic pathway.
While grape seed extract has shown activity in a number of laboratory cancer cell lines, including skin, breast, colon, lung, stomach and prostate cancers, no one had tested the extract in hematological cancers nor had the precise mechanism for activity been revealed.
"These results could have implications for the incorporation of agents such as grape seed extract into prevention or treatment of hematological malignancies and possibly other cancers," said the study's lead author, Xianglin Shi, Ph.D., professor in the Graduate Center for Toxicology at the University of Kentucky.
"What everyone seeks is an agent that has an effect on cancer cells but leaves normal cells alone, and this shows that grape seed extract fits into this category," he said.
Shi adds, however, that the research is not far enough along to suggest that people should eat grapes, grape seeds, or grape skin in excess to stave off cancer. "This is very promising research, but it is too early to say this is chemo-protective."
Hematological cancers – leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma – accounted for an estimated 118,310 new cancer cases and almost 54,000 deaths in 2006, ranking these cancers as the fourth leading cause of cancer incidence and death in the U.S.
Given that epidemiological evidence shows that eating vegetables and fruits helps prevent cancer development, Shi and his colleagues have been studying chemicals known as proanthocyanidins in fruits that contribute to this effect. Shi has found that apple peel extract contains these flavonoids, which have antioxidant activity, and which cause apoptosis in several cancer cell lines but not in normal cells. Based on those studies, and findings from other researchers that grape seed extract reduces breast tumors in rats and skin tumors in mice, they looked at the effect of the compound in leukemia cells.
Using a commercially available grape seed extract, Shi exposed leukemia cells to the extract in different doses and found the marked effect in causing apoptosis in these cells at one of the higher doses.
Thet also found that grapeseed extract did not affect normal cell, though they do not know the reason.
The researchers then used pharmacologic and genetic approaches to determine how the extract induced apoptosis. They found that the extract strongly activated the JNK pathway, which then led to up-regulation of Cip/p21, which controls the cell cycle.
They checked this finding by using an agent that inhibited JNK, and found that the extract was ineffective. Using a genetic approach – silencing the JNK gene – also disarmed grape seed extract's lethal attack in leukemia cells.
"This is a natural compound that appears to have relatively important properties," Shi said.
Source: American Association for Cancer Research
The investigators, who report their findings in the January 1, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, also teased apart the cell signaling pathway associated with use of grape seed extract that led to cell death, or apoptosis. They found that the extract activates JNK, a protein that regulates the apoptotic pathway.
While grape seed extract has shown activity in a number of laboratory cancer cell lines, including skin, breast, colon, lung, stomach and prostate cancers, no one had tested the extract in hematological cancers nor had the precise mechanism for activity been revealed.
"These results could have implications for the incorporation of agents such as grape seed extract into prevention or treatment of hematological malignancies and possibly other cancers," said the study's lead author, Xianglin Shi, Ph.D., professor in the Graduate Center for Toxicology at the University of Kentucky.
"What everyone seeks is an agent that has an effect on cancer cells but leaves normal cells alone, and this shows that grape seed extract fits into this category," he said.
Shi adds, however, that the research is not far enough along to suggest that people should eat grapes, grape seeds, or grape skin in excess to stave off cancer. "This is very promising research, but it is too early to say this is chemo-protective."
Hematological cancers – leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma – accounted for an estimated 118,310 new cancer cases and almost 54,000 deaths in 2006, ranking these cancers as the fourth leading cause of cancer incidence and death in the U.S.
Given that epidemiological evidence shows that eating vegetables and fruits helps prevent cancer development, Shi and his colleagues have been studying chemicals known as proanthocyanidins in fruits that contribute to this effect. Shi has found that apple peel extract contains these flavonoids, which have antioxidant activity, and which cause apoptosis in several cancer cell lines but not in normal cells. Based on those studies, and findings from other researchers that grape seed extract reduces breast tumors in rats and skin tumors in mice, they looked at the effect of the compound in leukemia cells.
Using a commercially available grape seed extract, Shi exposed leukemia cells to the extract in different doses and found the marked effect in causing apoptosis in these cells at one of the higher doses.
Thet also found that grapeseed extract did not affect normal cell, though they do not know the reason.
The researchers then used pharmacologic and genetic approaches to determine how the extract induced apoptosis. They found that the extract strongly activated the JNK pathway, which then led to up-regulation of Cip/p21, which controls the cell cycle.
They checked this finding by using an agent that inhibited JNK, and found that the extract was ineffective. Using a genetic approach – silencing the JNK gene – also disarmed grape seed extract's lethal attack in leukemia cells.
"This is a natural compound that appears to have relatively important properties," Shi said.
Source: American Association for Cancer Research
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Rainbow upon the Lake
Christmas, 2008.
Merry Christmas to all.
This morning after our puppies had opened their gifts and eaten their doggie treats from the stocking, which had been hung by the fireplace with care, I went up to our second floor patio to look at our world. At this time of the year we usually have heavy fog which is burned off by the sun between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. It is a beautiful experience watching the sun burn off the fog. Slowly the sun becomes brighter and brighter, the sky bluer, the fir and spruce trees across the meadow in front of our house begin taking form. Large birds begin assembling in their respective places in the trees to begin catching the morning sun rays as they throw off the chill of the night.
Slowly, as the fog lifts you can see the top of the mountains which lie across the lake to our north. As the mountains come into view the lake is still hidden. The sun rises higher and the view of the shore near our house comes into view. Then quicker and quicker the shape and contours of the lake come into view. Within minutes the lake shimmers in the morning sun, the herons can be seen far out in the center of the lake slowly circling as they search for their morning meal. The sky becomes a deep Mayan blue and the world is once again awakened for the new day.
This Christmas morning the magic of the unveiling new day occurred around 10:00 a.m. As I stood on the patio I looked toward the lake and there, before my eyes, a rainbow appeared in the lake. Then a second rainbow appeared simultaneously a couple of hundred yards beyond the first rainbow. As I watched, the colors became more intense. In the water, from the left were colors as follows: purple, blue, green, yellow and finally a reddish/orange brown. As I write this the rainbow is still upon the lake and it's colors still intensifying.
The second rainbow lost it's colors after about 30 minutes and then ghostly images appeared in the water. It looked as if ten or fifteen human like figures stood shoulder to shoulder looking in our direction or perhaps looking at the rainbow, still intensely colorful. I saw nothing that could have been reflecting in the water.
These entities looked like the "watchers" as they silently stood in place gazing. At times they seemed to be moving or dancing upon the water. Who were they?Were they water spirits come to view the spectacular lake rainbow? Their dancing continued for 30 minutes or so seemingly enjoying this Christmas morning, a dance of joy. Perhaps they were Christmas angels providing a special gift for my wife and I to enjoy.
How did this occur? Was there a rainbow from the sun over our house and the end of it in the lake. Are we in the middle of the rainbow, which we can't see above or around us, but can only see where it ends? Is the rainbow on the lake where the pot of gold is located? Is the rainbow and entities in the lake a sign to us? Who or what were these figures who appeared to be watching? A sign of peace and goodwill for us to understand that the madness of the world may be about to meet its match?
I have lived 57 years and have never seen such a phenomenon. Perhaps it is a once in a lifetime opportunity. If so, I am thankful on this Christmas day, this day of peace and goodwill to others, that my wife and I were able to experience such a joyful phenomenon.
May peace, forever more, be in all our lives.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Actual Costs of Manufacturing Pharmaceutical Drugs
From JUDICIAL REFORM INVESTIGATIONS / justice@court.to
Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the Active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United States contain active ingredients made in other countries.
In our independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America. The chart below speaks for itself.
| BRAND NAME | CONSUMER PRICE 100 | COST OF GENERAL ACTIVE INGREDIENTS | PERCENT MARKUP |
| Celebrex 100 mg | $130.27 | $0.60 | 21,712% |
Saturday, November 29, 2008
More Corporate Lies and Chicanery!
Tyson Foods, the world's largest meat processor and the second largest chicken producer in the U.S., has admitted that it injects its chickens with antibiotics before they hatch and then labels them as raised without antibiotics.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has told Tyson to stop using the antibiotic-free label, but the company has sued for the right to keep using it.
Poultry farmers regularly treat chickens and other birds with antibiotics. But scientists have become increasingly concerned that the routine use of antibiotics in animal agriculture may accelerate the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
After Tyson began labeling its chicken antibiotic-free, the USDA warned the company that such labels were not truthful, because Tyson regularly treats its birds' feed with bacteria-killing ionophores. Tyson argued that ionophores are antimicrobials rather than antibiotics, and are not used on human patients.
Tyson suggested a compromise which was eventually accepted by the USDA -- they would use a label reading "raised without antibiotics that impact antibiotic resistance in humans."
Tyson's competitors: Perdue Farms Inc., Sanderson Farms Inc. and Foster Farms sued, and in May 2008, a federal judge ruled in their favor and told Tyson to stop using the label. Not long after, USDA inspectors discovered that in addition to using ionophores, Tyson was regularly injecting its chicken eggs with gentamicin, an antibiotic that has been used for more than 30 years.
The agency told Tyson that based on the new discovery, it would no longer consider the antibiotic-free label "truthful and accurate." Tyson objected again, claiming that because the antibiotics are injected before the chickens hatched, the birds can truthfully be said to be "raised without antibiotics."
Tyson has filed a lawsuit against the USDA, claiming that the agency had improperly changed the definition of "raised without antibiotics" to include the treatment of eggs.
Authors note, "another of the sick-assed crap pulled on the American people by big corporations! Boycott Tyson's Chickens!"
Sources:
Natural News November 9, 2008
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has told Tyson to stop using the antibiotic-free label, but the company has sued for the right to keep using it.
Poultry farmers regularly treat chickens and other birds with antibiotics. But scientists have become increasingly concerned that the routine use of antibiotics in animal agriculture may accelerate the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
After Tyson began labeling its chicken antibiotic-free, the USDA warned the company that such labels were not truthful, because Tyson regularly treats its birds' feed with bacteria-killing ionophores. Tyson argued that ionophores are antimicrobials rather than antibiotics, and are not used on human patients.
Tyson suggested a compromise which was eventually accepted by the USDA -- they would use a label reading "raised without antibiotics that impact antibiotic resistance in humans."
Tyson's competitors: Perdue Farms Inc., Sanderson Farms Inc. and Foster Farms sued, and in May 2008, a federal judge ruled in their favor and told Tyson to stop using the label. Not long after, USDA inspectors discovered that in addition to using ionophores, Tyson was regularly injecting its chicken eggs with gentamicin, an antibiotic that has been used for more than 30 years.
The agency told Tyson that based on the new discovery, it would no longer consider the antibiotic-free label "truthful and accurate." Tyson objected again, claiming that because the antibiotics are injected before the chickens hatched, the birds can truthfully be said to be "raised without antibiotics."
Tyson has filed a lawsuit against the USDA, claiming that the agency had improperly changed the definition of "raised without antibiotics" to include the treatment of eggs.
Authors note, "another of the sick-assed crap pulled on the American people by big corporations! Boycott Tyson's Chickens!"
Sources:
Natural News November 9, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Today, I watched a honeybee
Today is the day before Thanksgiving. In Mexico Thanksgiving Day is not celebrated; perhaps the Mexican people have their own Day Of Thanksgiving. Perhaps, many of the people in Mexico do not feel such a holiday is worthy as there is much need here.
Today, the day before the United States Day of Thanksgiving, I was sitting on our second floor patio, overlooking the lake and enjoying the warm tropical sun, even though the air temperature was 53 degrees. I currently have bronchitis and laryngitis so I felt the sun would be healing therapy.
Directly below our patio is a large lemon tree. It reaches the second floor so it must be 10 or 12 feet tall and 20 feet or so in circumference. It is a "mature" tree, just as I am a "mature" human. The tree has a hundred or so lemons on it. Some are as small as apple seeds, some the size of pennies, some the size of fully mature fruit. The tree is life in miniature. The fruit is of all sizes, shapes, quality and color. Just as in our life. It is home to birds, spiders, caterpillars, various bugs, butterflies, moths and honeybees. In the summer we hang our canary cage on one of its limbs and it becomes a singing lemon tree.
Our tree blooms all year; even now during the cool months of late fall the tree is blooming. It bloomed and produced all summer during the tropical wet season. Now it has decided to try and produce during the cool, dry season. Such hope! Such optimism! Such life! I picked one of our lemons, peeled and ate the fruit and juice, while enjoying the sun. The juice was very tart, thus I knew it had a high quantity of vitamin C. It was slightly bitter, so I knew it possessed healing levels of limonene. Therefore, it should be helpful for my bronchitis and laryngitis.
While I munched on my fresh lemon, I leaned over the iron railing a saw a solitary honeybee working over the blossoms. A single bee, out on his own, working at a task nature had placed upon him. He was working in spite of the cool temperatures, infrequent blossoms and other obstacles. He worked patiently and deliberately. He went from blossom to blossom and stayed as long as it took for him to gather the nectar. At this time of year, the winter spiders have set their traps between twigs and leaves to gather their food to tide them through the winter months. I watched as the honeybee, deftly dipped under a web and escaping it's entrapment continued to the next blossom. To continue his work.
Since he was the only honeybee I saw, all the nectar gathering, all the rewards of his work would be for he and his hive. Bringing home the bacon, so to speak.
It reminded me of people who work at jobs that they have been directed to and they go do their jobs day after day, in spite of obstacles. Sometimes they work by themselves, sometimes when the "conditions" are not conducive, sometimes when they don't feel well, sometimes when all others have quit for the season. They do it because just as the honeybee does, there is work to do. So they do it. They do it for themselves and their families.
Honeybees are the unsung heroes of the natural world, they contribute so much to other species and gather so little respect. They are dying out (a massive die-off) as a species now, due to bacterial/viral infections, pesticides and the maniacal Genetically Modified Foods (GMO's) foods. When the honeybees are all gone, then we'll know how important they were for us. Just as the Navajo wise man asked, "When all the prairie dogs are gone, who'll sing for the rain?"
Our unsung heroes of our society; the traveling salesperson, the factory worker who produces widgets for sale, others who produce tangible items for our use, teachers-who used to be able to actually teach, instead now act as baby sitters, the small farmer who provided most of our food, the waterworks persons who have one of the most important jobs in the country which is providing clean and safe drinking water supply from an ever decreasing source, the herb collectors who could help keep people healthy, instead of just treating symptoms as doctors now do; these unsung heroes have fallen by the wayside. They no longer count in our new hero-worship. They have been cast in the waste bin of life. Producers are now an antiquated bunch. Useless, as the honeybee, in this new world which has come into being.
The new heroes in the US are now the military and Blackwater mercenaries proudly fighting in unprovoked and unnecessary wars wherever they feel the need, killing men, women and children who have done nothing wrong but are then named "insurgents" after their deaths, military types using drone aircraft to fire missles at Afghan wedding parties-killing all- and then tout statistics of killing "enemy combatants", police who use their tasers on anything that moves, laughing as if it is a game, instead of "talking" with someone, torturers on our government payroll who kidnap innocent people and torture them for years in the name of the United States people, the bankers who steal as much a they can while producing absolutely nothing out of nothing but they keep the goods, the stock traders who sell and make money from selling bundles of nothing to each other so all the vermin can make lots of money while those who are retired and trusted these rats watch their retirement disappear into overseas banks, the Congresscritters and Senators who receive most of their pay from lobbyists and then vote for laws to help only the lobbyists, while ignoring the poor and disappearing middle-class. The Treasury Secretary, who came from the same den of vipers on Wall Street, demands (and receives) unlimited amounts of money to spend as he sees fit to help his buddies in the treasury banks continue to make their billions from the taxpayers, sports "stars" who are paid multi-millions of dollars while contributing absolutely nothing to society and while these "stars" arrogantly ignore laws and common sense (some who see nothing wrong with raising pit-bulls to tear each other apart while these "stars" bet money on the winner! The media, especially Fox and CNN who are nothing more than paid government shills who will not or cannot tell the truth-what is really happening-to anyone. These are today's heroes. None of these creatures produce anything of value to anyone but themselves. They never have. They never will. They simply take. And if their lips are moving you can be sure they are lying!
My little honeybee that I watched this morning, goes about his life doing what he loves and helps many other species survive. Even when conditions are not good for him, he goes out each day and provides his way in the world as nature intended. He does not do harm to others, he does not steal, he does not lie. He shares what he produces for the good of the tribe. I respect him. I love him. I am thankful for him and what he contributes to the world.
I cannot say the same for the for the latter day "heroes" I mentioned above. They are the vermin of the earth. For them, I will not be celebrating Thanksgiving this year. I do not cheer their success. I will continue to be thankful each day as it unfolds and I will continue to watch as nature works its magic in small sequences and which never fails to amaze me. For this I am thankful.
Today, the day before the United States Day of Thanksgiving, I was sitting on our second floor patio, overlooking the lake and enjoying the warm tropical sun, even though the air temperature was 53 degrees. I currently have bronchitis and laryngitis so I felt the sun would be healing therapy.
Directly below our patio is a large lemon tree. It reaches the second floor so it must be 10 or 12 feet tall and 20 feet or so in circumference. It is a "mature" tree, just as I am a "mature" human. The tree has a hundred or so lemons on it. Some are as small as apple seeds, some the size of pennies, some the size of fully mature fruit. The tree is life in miniature. The fruit is of all sizes, shapes, quality and color. Just as in our life. It is home to birds, spiders, caterpillars, various bugs, butterflies, moths and honeybees. In the summer we hang our canary cage on one of its limbs and it becomes a singing lemon tree.
Our tree blooms all year; even now during the cool months of late fall the tree is blooming. It bloomed and produced all summer during the tropical wet season. Now it has decided to try and produce during the cool, dry season. Such hope! Such optimism! Such life! I picked one of our lemons, peeled and ate the fruit and juice, while enjoying the sun. The juice was very tart, thus I knew it had a high quantity of vitamin C. It was slightly bitter, so I knew it possessed healing levels of limonene. Therefore, it should be helpful for my bronchitis and laryngitis.
While I munched on my fresh lemon, I leaned over the iron railing a saw a solitary honeybee working over the blossoms. A single bee, out on his own, working at a task nature had placed upon him. He was working in spite of the cool temperatures, infrequent blossoms and other obstacles. He worked patiently and deliberately. He went from blossom to blossom and stayed as long as it took for him to gather the nectar. At this time of year, the winter spiders have set their traps between twigs and leaves to gather their food to tide them through the winter months. I watched as the honeybee, deftly dipped under a web and escaping it's entrapment continued to the next blossom. To continue his work.
Since he was the only honeybee I saw, all the nectar gathering, all the rewards of his work would be for he and his hive. Bringing home the bacon, so to speak.
It reminded me of people who work at jobs that they have been directed to and they go do their jobs day after day, in spite of obstacles. Sometimes they work by themselves, sometimes when the "conditions" are not conducive, sometimes when they don't feel well, sometimes when all others have quit for the season. They do it because just as the honeybee does, there is work to do. So they do it. They do it for themselves and their families.
Honeybees are the unsung heroes of the natural world, they contribute so much to other species and gather so little respect. They are dying out (a massive die-off) as a species now, due to bacterial/viral infections, pesticides and the maniacal Genetically Modified Foods (GMO's) foods. When the honeybees are all gone, then we'll know how important they were for us. Just as the Navajo wise man asked, "When all the prairie dogs are gone, who'll sing for the rain?"
Our unsung heroes of our society; the traveling salesperson, the factory worker who produces widgets for sale, others who produce tangible items for our use, teachers-who used to be able to actually teach, instead now act as baby sitters, the small farmer who provided most of our food, the waterworks persons who have one of the most important jobs in the country which is providing clean and safe drinking water supply from an ever decreasing source, the herb collectors who could help keep people healthy, instead of just treating symptoms as doctors now do; these unsung heroes have fallen by the wayside. They no longer count in our new hero-worship. They have been cast in the waste bin of life. Producers are now an antiquated bunch. Useless, as the honeybee, in this new world which has come into being.
The new heroes in the US are now the military and Blackwater mercenaries proudly fighting in unprovoked and unnecessary wars wherever they feel the need, killing men, women and children who have done nothing wrong but are then named "insurgents" after their deaths, military types using drone aircraft to fire missles at Afghan wedding parties-killing all- and then tout statistics of killing "enemy combatants", police who use their tasers on anything that moves, laughing as if it is a game, instead of "talking" with someone, torturers on our government payroll who kidnap innocent people and torture them for years in the name of the United States people, the bankers who steal as much a they can while producing absolutely nothing out of nothing but they keep the goods, the stock traders who sell and make money from selling bundles of nothing to each other so all the vermin can make lots of money while those who are retired and trusted these rats watch their retirement disappear into overseas banks, the Congresscritters and Senators who receive most of their pay from lobbyists and then vote for laws to help only the lobbyists, while ignoring the poor and disappearing middle-class. The Treasury Secretary, who came from the same den of vipers on Wall Street, demands (and receives) unlimited amounts of money to spend as he sees fit to help his buddies in the treasury banks continue to make their billions from the taxpayers, sports "stars" who are paid multi-millions of dollars while contributing absolutely nothing to society and while these "stars" arrogantly ignore laws and common sense (some who see nothing wrong with raising pit-bulls to tear each other apart while these "stars" bet money on the winner! The media, especially Fox and CNN who are nothing more than paid government shills who will not or cannot tell the truth-what is really happening-to anyone. These are today's heroes. None of these creatures produce anything of value to anyone but themselves. They never have. They never will. They simply take. And if their lips are moving you can be sure they are lying!
My little honeybee that I watched this morning, goes about his life doing what he loves and helps many other species survive. Even when conditions are not good for him, he goes out each day and provides his way in the world as nature intended. He does not do harm to others, he does not steal, he does not lie. He shares what he produces for the good of the tribe. I respect him. I love him. I am thankful for him and what he contributes to the world.
I cannot say the same for the for the latter day "heroes" I mentioned above. They are the vermin of the earth. For them, I will not be celebrating Thanksgiving this year. I do not cheer their success. I will continue to be thankful each day as it unfolds and I will continue to watch as nature works its magic in small sequences and which never fails to amaze me. For this I am thankful.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Alzheimer's Disease Natural Treatment
From Life Extension Foundation
www.lef.org
Neurofibrillary tangles, which are made of a protein called tau, are bundles of twisted filaments found within neurons. Tau is normally responsible for helping cells to function correctly; it delivers various substances throughout the cell. In people who have Alzheimer’s disease, tau becomes abnormally shaped and twists into pairs of helical filaments that gather in tangles. Because of the tangles, the neurons lose their ability to function, and the neurons eventually die. No one knows why this happens but there are probably several overlapping causes of Alzheimer’s disease.
There are many choices of both drugs and nutritional supplements available for patients with Alzheimer's disease. In light of new evidence that oxidative stress and inflammation are central to Alzheimer’s disease, people at risk of Alzheimer’s (or those who have early dementia) are advised to take supplements that reduce inflammation and oxidative damage. These include:
Curcumin—900 to 1800 milligrams (mg) daily
EPA/DHA—1400 mg daily of EPA and 1000 mg daily of DHA
Vitamin E—400 international units (IU) daily (with 200 mg of gamma-tocopherol)
Vitamin C—1 to 3 grams daily
Ginkgo biloba—120 mg daily
Acetyl-L-carnitine arginate—750 to 2000 mg daily
CoQ10—100 to 600 mg daily
N-acetylcysteine—600 mg daily
Aged garlic—1200 mg daily
Vinpocetine—15 to 20 mg daily
Green tea extract (93 percent polyphenols)—725 mg daily
B vitamins—A full complement of B vitamins (including folate, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12) to lower homocysteine. Specific suggested doses include 1000 micrograms (mcg) of vitamin B12, 250 mg of vitamin B6, and 800 mcg of folic acid.
Niacin—Up to 800 mg daily. Start slowly and take with food to avoid flushing.
Melatonin—1 to 3 mg each night
DHEA—15 to 75 mg daily. Have blood tested in 3 to 6 weeks to determine optimal dose.
Huperzine—50 mcg up to four times per week
Blueberry extract—500 to 2000 mg daily. If you eat blueberries, you don’t need to take this much blueberry extract.
Grape seed extract—100 mg daily
www.lef.org
Neurofibrillary tangles, which are made of a protein called tau, are bundles of twisted filaments found within neurons. Tau is normally responsible for helping cells to function correctly; it delivers various substances throughout the cell. In people who have Alzheimer’s disease, tau becomes abnormally shaped and twists into pairs of helical filaments that gather in tangles. Because of the tangles, the neurons lose their ability to function, and the neurons eventually die. No one knows why this happens but there are probably several overlapping causes of Alzheimer’s disease.
There are many choices of both drugs and nutritional supplements available for patients with Alzheimer's disease. In light of new evidence that oxidative stress and inflammation are central to Alzheimer’s disease, people at risk of Alzheimer’s (or those who have early dementia) are advised to take supplements that reduce inflammation and oxidative damage. These include:
Curcumin—900 to 1800 milligrams (mg) daily
EPA/DHA—1400 mg daily of EPA and 1000 mg daily of DHA
Vitamin E—400 international units (IU) daily (with 200 mg of gamma-tocopherol)
Vitamin C—1 to 3 grams daily
Ginkgo biloba—120 mg daily
Acetyl-L-carnitine arginate—750 to 2000 mg daily
CoQ10—100 to 600 mg daily
N-acetylcysteine—600 mg daily
Aged garlic—1200 mg daily
Vinpocetine—15 to 20 mg daily
Green tea extract (93 percent polyphenols)—725 mg daily
B vitamins—A full complement of B vitamins (including folate, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12) to lower homocysteine. Specific suggested doses include 1000 micrograms (mcg) of vitamin B12, 250 mg of vitamin B6, and 800 mcg of folic acid.
Niacin—Up to 800 mg daily. Start slowly and take with food to avoid flushing.
Melatonin—1 to 3 mg each night
DHEA—15 to 75 mg daily. Have blood tested in 3 to 6 weeks to determine optimal dose.
Huperzine—50 mcg up to four times per week
Blueberry extract—500 to 2000 mg daily. If you eat blueberries, you don’t need to take this much blueberry extract.
Grape seed extract—100 mg daily
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