Friday, February 04, 2011 by: Dr. David Jockers

(NaturalNews) The nervous system and immune system are hardwired and work together to create optimal responses for the body to adapt and heal appropriately. Neural dysfunctions due to spinal misalignments are stressful to the body and cause abnormal changes that lead to a poorly coordinated immune response. Chiropractic adjustments have been shown to boost the coordinated responses of the nervous system and immune system.

The autonomic nervous system is hardwired into the lymphoid organs such as the spleen, thymus, lymph nodes, and bone marrow that produce the body’s immune response. Growing evidence is showing that immune function is regulated in part by the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system.

Subluxation is the term for misalignments of the spine that cause compression and irritation of nerve pathways affecting organ systems of the body. Subluxations are an example of physical nerve stress that affects neuronal control. According to researchers, such stressful conditions lead to altered measures of immune function & increased susceptibility to a variety of diseases.

Inflammatory based disease is influenced by both the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. Nerve stimulation directly affects the growth and function of inflammatory cells. Researchers found that dysfunction in this pathway results in the development of various inflammatory syndromes such as rheumatoid arthritis and behavioral syndromes such as depression. Additionally, this dysfunctional neuro-endo-immune response plays a significant role in immune-compromised conditions such as chronic infections and cancer.

Wellness based chiropractors analyze the spine for subluxations and give corrective adjustments to reduce the stress on the nervous system. A 1992 research group found that when a thoracic adjustment was applied to a subluxated area the white blood cell (neutrophil) count collected rose significantly.

In 1975, Ronald Pero, Ph.D., chief of cancer prevention research at New York’s Preventive Medicine Institute and professor in Environmental Health at New York University, began researching the most scientifically valid ways to estimate individual susceptibility to various chronic diseases. He has conducted a tremendous amount of research in this area that includes over 160 published reports in peer reviewed journals.

Pero and his colleagues discovered that various DNA-repairing enzymes could be significantly altered following exposure to carcinogenic chemicals. He found strong evidence that an individual’s susceptibility to cancer could be determined by these enzymes. Lack of those enzymes, Pero said, ‘definitely limits not only your lifespan, but also your ability to resist serious disease consequences.’

Pero was fascinated by the relationship cancer-inducing agents had on the endocrine system. Since the nervous system regulates hormone balance, he hypothesized that the nervous system had to also have a strong influence on one’s susceptibility to cancer.

To support this argument he found a substantial amount of literature linking various kinds of spinal cord injuries and cancer. Pero found that these injuries led to a very high rate of lymphomas and lymphatic leukemias. This understanding led Pero to consider Chiropractic care as a means of reducing the risk of immune breakdown and disease.

Pero’s team measured 107 individuals who had received long-term Chiropractic care. The chiropractic patients were shown to have a 200% greater immune competence than people who had not received chiropractic care, and a 400% greater immune competence than people with cancer or serious diseases. Interestingly, Pero found no decline with the various age groups in the study demonstrating that the DNA repairing enzymes were just as present in long-term chiropractic senior groups as they were in the younger groups.

Pero concluded, ‘Chiropractic may optimize whatever genetic abilities you have so that you can fully resist serious disease…I have never seen a group other than this show a 200% increase over normal patients.’

http://www.discoverchiropracticnow.com/index.php?id=487

Kent, Christopher. Models of Vertebral Subluxation: A Review. Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research. August 1996, Vol 1:1. Pg 4-5

Sternberg EM, Chrousos GP, Wilder RL, Gold PW. The stress response and the regulation of inflammatory disease. Ann Intern Med 1992; 117 (10):854

Brennan PC, Triano JJ, McGregor M, et al. Enhanced neutrophil respiratory burst as a biological marker for manipulation forces: duration of the effect and association with substance P and tumor necrosis factor. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 1992; 15(2):83

http://www.naturalnews.com/031206_chiropractic_immunity.html#ixzz2PUsLb2Px

This concerted effort by the industry is further enhanced by stimulating your metabolism to burn carbs as its primary fuel. As long as you are in primary carb-burning mode you will strongly crave these types of foods. But once you start decreasing your carbs and protein and replace them with high quality fats, and start to engage in intermittent fasting, your cravings for these junk foods, no matter how cleverly enhanced, will dramatically diminish, if not vanish altogether.

In order to protect your health, I believe you should spend 90 percent of your food budget on whole foods, and only 10 percent on processed foods (unfortunately most Americans currently do the opposite). This requires three strategies, especially if you’re working with a tight budget:
• Become resourceful: This is an area where your grandmother can be a wealth of information, as how to use up every morsel of food and stretch out a good meal was common knowledge to generations past. What I mean is getting back to the basics of cooking — using the bones from a roast chicken to make stock for a pot of soup, extending a Sunday roast to use for weekday dinners, learning how to make hearty stews from inexpensive cuts of meat, using up leftovers and so on.
• Plan your meals: This is essential, as you will need to be prepared for mealtimes in advance to be successful for if you fail to plan, by default you are planning to fail. Ideally this will involve scouting out your local farmer’s markets for in-season produce that is priced to sell, and planning your meals accordingly, but you can also use this same premise with supermarket sales. You can generally plan a week of meals at a time, make sure you have all ingredients necessary on hand, and then do any prep work you can ahead of time so that dinner is easy to prepare if you’re short on time in the evenings.
• Avoid food waste: According to a study published in the journal PloS One,11 Americans waste an estimated 1,400 calories of food per person, each and every day. The two steps above will help you to mitigate food waste in your home, You may also have seen my article from earlier this year titled 14 Ways to Save Money on Groceries. Among those tips are suggestions for keeping your groceries fresher, longer, and I suggest reviewing those tips now.
When choosing real foods to feed your family, remember that some of the healthiest foods are incredibly affordable, even under $1 a serving, such as:
• Raw organic milk
• Raw nuts and seeds
• Two cage-free organic eggs
• Avocado, berries and broccoli
Fermented foods you make at home

This posting is an excerpt from an article by: Dr. Mercola, Mar. 21, 2013

Here are three of the biggest ones that can save you money not only this year, but year after year:

#1) Invest in nutrition to reduce health care costs
It’s hard for us to notice expenses that are prevented through nutrition and healthy supplements. After all, if you’re taking vitamin D that prevents cancer, you never see the cancer so you don’t really notice is was prevented.

And yet, if you really think about it, nutrition buys you health and disease prevention for pennies on the dollar compared to the cost of prescription drugs, doctor visits and expensive health insurance.

Astoundingly powerful nutrients like zinc, magnesium and vitamin D cost mere pennies a day, yet they deliver a small fortune in health care value in terms of the savings in long-term health care costs. Much the same is true with medicinal herbs, physical fitness and even holistic therapies like chiropractic and acupuncture.

It’s amazing to me that many people are ready and willing to spend $1,000 or more each month on health insurance, but they scoff at spending $200 a month on organic foods, nutritional supplements or a gym membership.

Trust me: I’ve done the math on this, and the returns are huge on investing in quality nutrition, superfoods, physical fitness and preventive holistic treatments (including therapeutic massage).

#2) Shop for organic, non-GMO foods at Green PolkaDot Box
In business for over a year now, Green PolkaDot Box now ships frozen organic, non-GMO foods (as well as non-frozen foods and even fresh produce) all over the USA. Just as importantly, their prices are way lower than Whole Foods, where everything seems to be disturbingly expensive.

Over the last year, GPDB has quietly become a powerhouse online discount retailer of organic, non-GMO foods, supplements, personal care, pet care, home care and even baby foods. They’ve got fast shipping, outstanding customer service, and an ever-increasing selection of truly outstanding brands including Nutiva, Amy’s, Late July and hundreds of others. I call GPDB “the Amazon.com of organic, non-GMO products.”

Click here to check them out now, and remember that shipping is FREE on orders of $75 or more (in the 48 states only). There is a small surcharge for shipping frozen items, but it’s still amazing because the boxes arrive with the foods still frozen inside!

I’ve been using GPDB to buy Ezekiel sprouted grain breads, organic nut butters, premium olive oil, organic pet food, truly natural shampoo, manuka honey and all sorts of other things. GPDB has actually become my #1 source of groceries. It has vastly reduce my need to go to the local grocery store where everything smells like laundry detergent (know what I mean?).

Green PolkaDot Box.

#3) Grow some of your own
You’d be amazed how much money you can save by growing some of your own food. With sky-high food prices these days, the payoff for home gardening is more enticing than ever.

Think about it: Organic red bell peppers sometimes cost as much as $5 each at the store. You can grow them for practically nothing!

It’s also easy to grow organic tomatoes, okra, green bell peppers (those are all summer crops) or in the cooler times of the year grow your own broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower.

Sweet potatoes are also ridiculously easy to grow, and they produce like crazy. Lots of culinary herbs are also super easy to grow, including rosemary, parsley, cilantro and savory.

Believe it or not, in warmer climates it’s also super easy to grow your own tobacco! I used to grow huge tobacco plants in South America, and we also grew neem and cayenne peppers to make our own organic insecticide liquids. (We also threw in some castor bean oil that we grew ourselves, too.)

Growing some of your own food also gives you contact with the soil, healthy sunshine and enjoyment of nature. You’ll learn some self-reliance and you’ll reduce your food bill. Think about it: Gardening is the process of turning seeds that cost mere pennies into wholesome, organic foods that are worth big dollars. Make this the year that you grow a garden!

Summary
There are lots of other strategies for saving money while staying healthy with organics. You can buy in bulk instead of smaller packaged sizes. You can buy unprocessed ingredients instead of manufactured organic foods. You can also grow and sell some of your own chem-free produce at the local farmer’s market so that organic gardening actually pays you back.

Living an organic lifestyle doesn’t have to cost you a fortune, and if you’re spending a lot of money on organic products right now, you may be paying more for them than you need to. Find creative ways to cut costs without compromising on your health. Keep buying organic, in other words, but find opportunities to save money along the way.

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/039082_organic_products_saving_money_non-GMO.html#ixzz2KszZBqM2

Still, in the singular study identified by the Cochrane group, those who took garlic daily for three months had fewer colds than those who took a placebo, and, when they did come down with a cold, the duration of illness was shorter – an average of 4.5 days compared to 5.5 days for the placebo group.
While this may not seem overly impressive, it’s still better than the results achieved by the much-advertised flu drug Tamiflu. If taken within 48 hours of onset of illness, Tamiflu might reduce the duration of flu symptoms by about a day to a day and a half. That’s the extent of what this $100-plus treatment will get you. It’s virtually identical to just taking garlic on a regular basis…
However, some patients with influenza are at increased risk for secondary bacterial infections when on Tamiflu, which of course would defeat the plan of being able to jump out of bed a day sooner. Furthermore, adverse events reported include pediatric deaths, serious skin reactions, and neuropsychiatric events, including suicide committed while delirious – side effects you won’t experience if you’re taking garlic.
Furthermore, there are plenty of reasons to doubt the veracity of Tamiflu’s claims. In 2009, conflicts of interest within WHO were unearthed, showing links between Roche, the manufacturer of Tamiflu, and those responsible for creating pandemic flu planning guidelines. Tamiflu is currently on the organization’s list of “essential medicines.” But the Cochrane team could find “no evidence” to suggest that Tamiflu actually reduces complications in cases of influenza. In fact, eight out of 10 clinical trials on Tamiflu are still “missing in action,” as Roche has doggedly refused to release them.
Kind of makes you wonder why, doesn’t it?
If you love garlic, the featured article includes a hearty garlic soup recipe, consisting of unpeeled garlic cloves, olive oil, organic grass-fed butter, cayenne, ginger, onions, thyme, coconut milk, organic veggie broth, and lemon wedges. For the recipe, please refer to the original article.6 If you don’t enjoy garlic, you could opt for a high-quality supplement.
Understanding What Causes Colds and Influenzas Can Help You Prevent Them
Both colds and various influenzas are caused by a wide variety of viruses (not bacteria). While the two ailments typically affect your respiratory tract, there are some differences between them. Common symptoms of a ‘regular cold’ include runny nose, congestion, cough, and sore throat. The symptoms of the flu tend to be far more severe, as the influenza viruses are capable of causing severe lung infection, pneumonia and even respiratory failure. They also tend to affect your joints – hence that allover achy feeling.
The following video offers an excellent, rapid-fire cliff-notes-type education on flu viruses, where the “H” and “N” flu classifications come from and their transmission, along with common flu symptoms. (Bear in mind that I obviously do NOT recommend or advise getting a flu vaccine, which is listed as one of the prevention methods at the end of this video.)
The most common way these viruses are spread is via hand-to-hand contact. For instance, someone with a cold blows their nose then shakes your hand or touches surfaces that you also touch. However, the key to remember is that just being exposed to a cold virus does not mean that you’re destined to catch a cold. If your immune system is operating at its peak, it should actually be quite easy for you to fend off the virus without ever getting sick. If your immune system is impaired, on the other hand, they can easily take hold in your body.
So, it’s important to understand that the reason you catch a cold or flu is because your immune system is impaired. It’s not an inevitable event based on exposure alone. Lifestyle factors that can depress your immune system, alone or in combination, include:
• Eating too much sugar and grains. The average person consumes about 75 grams of fructose per day (primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup found in virtually all processed foods), and when fructose is consumed at that level it can devastate your immune system.
One of the ways it does this is by unbalancing your gut flora. Sugar is ‘fertilizer’ for pathogenic bacteria, yeast, and fungi that can set your immune system up for an assault by a respiratory virus. Most people don’t realize that 80 percent of your immune system actually lies in your gastrointestinal tract. That’s why controlling your sugar intake is CRUCIAL for optimizing your immune system.
It would be wise to reduce your total sugar intake, and limit your fructose consumption to below 25 grams a day if you’re in good health, or below 15 grams a day if you have high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, or are insulin resistant or are seeking to recover from an acute illness like the flu.
• Vitamin D deficiency. In the largest and most nationally representative study7 of its kind to date, involving about 19,000 Americans, people with the lowest vitamin D levels reported having significantly more recent colds or cases of the flu — and the risk was even greater for those with chronic respiratory disorders like asthma. At least five additional studies also show an inverse association between lower respiratory tract infections and vitamin D levels.
• Insufficient sleep. If you aren’t getting enough restorative sleep, you’ll be at increased risk for a hostile viral takeover. Your immune system is also the most effective when you’re not sleep-deprived, so the more rested you are the quicker you’ll recover. You can find 33 secrets for a good night’s sleep here.
• Insufficient exercise. Regular exercise is a crucial strategy for increasing your resistance to illness. There is evidence that regular, moderate exercise can reduce your risk for respiratory illness by boosting your immune system. In fact, one study8 found that people who exercised regularly (five or more days a week) cut their risk of having a cold by close to 50 percent. And, in the event they did catch a cold, their symptoms were much less severe than among those who did not exercise.
Exercise likely cuts your risk of colds so significantly because it triggers a rise in immune system cells that can attack any potential invaders. Each time you exercise you can benefit from this boost to your immune system. Ideally, establish a regular fitness program, such as Peak Fitness, now, to help you ward off colds and other illness. Exercise can also help boost your immune system acutely, by increasing your body temperature. This helps kill off invading pathogens, similarly to the fever your body produces when sick.
• Using ineffective strategies to address emotional stressors. Emotional stressors can also predispose you to an infection while making cold symptoms worse. Finding ways to manage daily stress as well as your reactions to circumstances beyond your control will contribute to a strong and resilient immune system. Effective strategies include a variety of energy psychology tools, such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).
Zinc – Another Trusted Cold-Fighter
A Cochrane Database Review of the medical research on zinc found that when taken within one day of the first symptoms, zinc can cut down the time you have a cold by about 24 hours. The review included 15 randomized control trials, consisting of 1,360 participants of all age groups. Zinc was also found to greatly reduce the severity of symptoms.
The review stopped short of recommending any specific dose of zinc, citing the need for further studies to establish optimal formulations and durations of treatment. However, some of the studies showed the beneficial qualities of zinc in fighting the common cold used between 50 and 65 mg a day. The people taking lozenges were more likely to experience adverse effects than those taking syrup, including a bad taste in their mouth and nausea.
Zinc was not recommended for anyone with an underlying health condition, like lowered immune function, asthma or chronic illness.
Also keep in mind that any time you isolate one mineral and ingest it independently of the others, the potential exists for imbalance, or in the worst case, overdose. Therefore, I wouldn’t currently recommend taking more than 50 mg a day, and I do not recommend taking large doses of zinc on a daily basis for preventive purposes as you could easily develop a copper imbalance that way. You can also activate the “Reverse Effect” in which too much of a good nutrient can actually cause the opposite of what it’s supposed to do. So leave zinc for acute, short-term use only. Foods like garlic, on the other hand, can safely be consumed regularly to maintain a robust immune system.
“Let Food Be Thy Medicine”
As mentioned earlier, the first thing you want to do when you feel yourself coming down with a cold or flu is to avoid ALL sugars and processed foods. (I also recommend avoiding all artificial sweeteners, as they can have a detrimental effect on immune function as well.) Sugar is particularly damaging to your immune system — which needs to be ramped up, not suppressed, in order to combat an emerging infection. This includes fructose from fruit juice, and all types of grains (as they rapidly break down to sugar in your body).
Make sure to drink plenty of pure water. Water is essential for the optimal function of every system in your body and will help with nose stuffiness and loosening secretions. You should drink enough water so that your urine is a light, pale yellow. Ideally, you’ll want to address nutrition, sleep, exercise and stress issues the moment you first feel yourself coming down with something. This is when immune-enhancing strategies will be most effective. Foods that will help strengthen your immune response include:
Raw, grass-fed organic milk, and/or high-quality whey protein Fermented foods such as raw kefir, kimchee, miso, pickles, sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables Raw, organic eggs from pastured chickens Grass-fed beef in small quantities of a few ounces Coconuts and coconut oil
Organic vegetables Garlic. Ideally consumed raw and crushed just before eating Turmeric, oregano, cinnamon, cloves Mushrooms, especially Reishi, Shiitake, and Maitake
Does Chicken Soup Really Work?
Short answer, yes, chicken soup can be helpful against cold and flu symptoms. Chicken contains a natural amino acid called cysteine, which can thin the mucus in your lungs and make it less sticky so you can expel it more easily.
Processed, canned soups won’t work as well as the homemade version, however. For best results, make up a fresh batch yourself (or ask a friend or family member to do so) and make the soup hot and spicy with plenty of pepper. The spices will trigger a sudden release of watery fluids in your mouth, throat, and lungs, which will help thin down the respiratory mucus so it’s easier to cough up and expel. Making it from scratch is easy. Below, I demonstrate a simple recipe for making your own chicken soup and stock
• Put the chicken bones in a large stock pan (use bones from organically-raised chicken)
• Cover the bones with water
• Bring to a boil and lower the heat
• Simmer for about an hour or longer
Vitamin D – An Excellent Cold and Flu Prevention Strategy
Vitamin D is an amazingly effective antimicrobial agent, producing 200 to 300 different antimicrobial peptides in your body that kill bacteria, viruses and fungi. So optimizing your levels will not only help send a cold or flu virus packing, it can prevent them from invading your body in the first place. Contrary to flu vaccines, this recommendation has been steadily gaining scientific validation. In fact, there’s compelling evidence suggesting cold and flu may actually be symptoms of vitamin D deficiency.
Dr. John Cannell, founder of the Vitamin D Council, was one of the first to introduce the idea that vitamin D deficiency may actually be an underlying cause of influenza, which would help explain its apparent benefits as a flu-fighter. His hypothesis was published in the journal Epidemiology and Infection in 2006,9 which was followed up with another study published in the Virology Journal in 2008.10 His hypothesis received further support and confirmation when, in the following year, the largest and most nationally representative study of its kind to date discovered that people with the lowest blood vitamin D levels reported having significantly more recent colds or cases of the flu.11
In another study, published in 2010,12 researchers investigated the effect of vitamin D on the incidence of seasonal influenza A in schoolchildren. Over the course of a year, influenza A occurred in just 10.8 percent of the children in the vitamin D group, compared with 18.6 percent of the children in the placebo group. According to the authors:
“This study suggests that vitamin D3 supplementation during the winter may reduce the incidence of influenza A, especially in specific subgroups of schoolchildren.”
Revised and Updated Recommendations for Optimizing Your Vitamin D Levels
Research on vitamin D is moving swiftly, so you’d be well advised to stay on top of the latest developments as recommendations are refined and updated. I will cover the latest developments here, so you may want to share this article with your peers. First, it’s important to remember that sun exposure is the best way to optimize your vitamin D levels as your body has built-in “fail-safe” mechanisms that prevent detrimental side effects from occurring. Last year, I created a video to help you determine if you can get enough vitamin D from sun exposure in your area at different times of the year.
Based on additional information received, I now believe that my previous position was too strict… The good news is, you can likely get vitamin D under far less ideal conditions than previously suggested.
The radiation from the sun that reaches the earth’s surface (and hence your body) is partially filtered out by the atmosphere. I had previously stated that UVB rays will only penetrate the atmosphere when the sun is above an angle of about 50° from the horizon, and that when the sun is lower than 50°, the ozone layer will absorb vitamin D-producing UVB-rays while allowing the longer, and more harmful, UVA-rays to get through, which would defeat the purpose of spending time in the sun.
This recommendation is likely too strict. According to experts in the field, you can likely get sufficient amounts of UVB radiation when the sun is as low as 30 degrees above the horizon, or whenever the temperature is warm enough to expose large amounts of skin.
I thank John Hochman, MSME, for bringing this to my attention. According to Dr. Ola Engelsen with the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, the creator of a calculator13 that takes a number of factors into consideration give you an estimate of how many minutes of exposure you need to produce the equivalent of 1,000 IU’s of vitamin D, the sun must be more than 15 degrees above the horizon during cloudless conditions.
If You Take Vitamin D Supplements, Remember to Take Vitamin K2
Second, based on the latest investigations by Carole Baggerly, director of GrassrootsHealth, the average adult dose required to reach healthy vitamin D levels is around 8,000 IU’s of vitamin D per day if you’re taking an oral supplement. For children, many experts agree they need about 35 IU’s of vitamin D per pound of body weight. Here, it’s important to remember that if you’re taking high dose vitamin D supplements, you ALSO need to take vitamin K2.
The biological role of vitamin K2 is to help move calcium into the proper areas in your body, such as your bones and teeth. It also helps remove calcium from areas where it shouldn’t be, such as in your arteries and soft tissues. Vitamin K2 deficiency is actually what produces the symptoms of vitamin D toxicity, which includes inappropriate calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries. The reason for this is because when you take vitamin D, your body creates more vitamin K2-dependent proteins that move calcium around in your body. Without vitamin K2, those proteins remain inactivated, so the benefits of those proteins remain unrealized.
So remember, if you take supplemental vitamin D, you’re creating an increased demand for K2. Together, these two nutrients help strengthen your bones and improve your heart health.
While the ideal or optimal ratios between vitamin D and vitamin K2 have yet to be elucidated, Dr. Kate Rheaume-Bleue, author of Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox: How a Little Known Vitamin Could Save Your Life, suggests that for every 1,000 IU’s of vitamin D you take, you may benefit from about 100 micrograms of K2, and perhaps as much as 150-200 micrograms (mcg). So, if you take 8,000 IU’s of vitamin D3 per day, that means you’d need in the neighborhood of 800 to 1,000 micrograms (0.8 to 1 milligram/mg) of vitamin K2.
Lastly, remember that your vitamin D requirements are highly individual, as your vitamin D status is dependent on numerous factors, so while 8,000 IU’s of vitamin D3 per day may put you closer to the ballpark of what most people likely need, it is impossible to make a blanket recommendation that will cover everyone’s needs. The only way to determine your optimal dose is to get your blood tested. Ideally, you’ll want to maintain a vitamin D serum level of 50-70 ng/ml year-round. For an in-depth explanation of everything you need to know before you get tested, please read my latest updates in Test Values and Treatment for Vitamin D Deficiency.
Other Supplements that Send Pathogens Packin’
There are a number of supplements that can be beneficial for colds and influenza, but I believe they should be used only as an adjunct to other healthy dietary and lifestyle measures discussed in this article. Some of the more helpful options for cold and flu – above and beyond vitamin D, garlic, and zinc – include:
Vitamin C: A very potent antioxidant; use a natural form such as acerola, which contains associated micronutrients. A tea made from a combination of elderflower, yarrow, boneset, linden, peppermint and ginger: Drink it hot and often for combating a cold or flu. It causes you to sweat, which is helpful for eradicating a virus from your system
Oregano Oil: The higher the carvacrol concentration, the more effective it is. Carvacrol is the most active antimicrobial agent in oregano oil Medicinal mushrooms, such as shiitake, reishi, and turkey tail

Propolis: A bee resin and one of the most broad-spectrum antimicrobial compounds in the world; propolis is also the richest source of caffeic acid and apigenin, two very important compounds that aid in immune response Olive leaf extract: Ancient Egyptians and Mediterranean cultures used it for a variety of health-promoting uses and it is widely known as a natural, non-toxic immune system builder
So please, carefully review the evidence against flu vaccines, and consider using all-natural immune boosting lifestyle strategies as your first line of defense against colds and flu. As you can see, there are many alternatives available, from optimizing your vitamin D levels and taking zinc at the first sign of infection, to incorporating immune boosting foods like garlic into your daily diet.

How many sodas have you had today? How about your kids? The average American drinks an estimated 56 gallons of soft drinks each year, but before you grab that next can of soda, consider this: one can of soda has about 10 teaspoons of sugar, 150 calories, 30 to 55 mg of caffeine, and is loaded with artificial food colors and sulphites.

This is an alarming amount of sugar, calories and harmful additives in a product that has absolutely no nutritional value. Plus, studies have linked soda to osteoporosis, obesity, tooth decay and heart disease. Despite this, soda accounts for more than one-quarter of all drinks consumed in the United States.

Teenagers and children, who many soft drinks are marketed toward, are among the largest consumers. In the past 10 years, soft drink consumption among children has almost doubled in the United States. Teenage boys now drink, on average, three or more cans of soda per day, and 10 percent drink seven or more cans a day. The average for teenage girls is more than two cans a day, and 10 percent drink more than five cans a day.

While these numbers may sound high, they’re not surprising considering that most school hallways are lined with vending machines that sell, of course, soft drinks. It’s not uncommon for schools to make marketing deals with leading soft drink companies such as Coca-Cola from which they receive commissions–based on a percentage of sales at each school–and sometimes a lump-sum payment.

The revenues are used for various academic and after-school activities, but what activity could be worth devastating the students’ health, which is exactly what consuming all that soda is doing? Getting rid of vending machines in schools–or replacing their contents with pure water and healthy snacks–could make a big difference, as vending machines can increase the consumption of sweetened beverages by up to 50 or more cans of soda per student per year.

Let’s take a look at some of the major components of a can of soda:

• Phosphoric Acid: May interfere with the body’s ability to use calcium, which can lead to osteoporosis or softening of the teeth and bones. Phosphoric acid also neutralizes the hydrochloric acid in your stomach, which can interfere with digestion, making it difficult to utilize nutrients.
• Sugar: Soft drink manufacturers are the largest single user of refined sugar in the United States. It is a proven fact that sugar increases insulin levels, which can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, weight gain, premature aging and many more negative side effects. Most sodas include over 100 percent of the RDA of sugar.
• Aspartame: This chemical is used as a sugar substitute in diet soda. There are over 92 different health side effects associated with aspartame consumption including brain tumors, birth defects, diabetes, emotional disorders and epilispsy/seizures. Further, when aspartame is stored for long periods of time or kept in warm areas it changes to methanol, an alcohol that converts to formaldehyde and formic acid, which are known carcinogens.
• Caffeine: Caffeinated drinks cause jitters, insomnia, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, elevated blood cholesterol levels, vitamin and mineral depletion, breast lumps, birth defects, and perhaps some forms of cancer.
• Tap Water: I recommend that everyone avoid drinking tap water because it can carry any number of chemicals including chlorine, trihalomethanes, lead, cadmium, and various organic pollutants. Tap water is the main ingredient in bottled soft drinks.
• Soda is one of the main reasons, nutritionally speaking, why many people suffer health problems. Aside from the negative effects of the soda itself, drinking a lot of soda is likely to leave you with little appetite for vegetables, protein and other food that your body needs.

If you are still drinking soda, stopping the habit is an easy way to improve your health. Pure water is a much better choice. If you must drink a carbonated beverage, try sparkling mineral water.