Downed World War II Plane | Found Father

I would like to share a powerful story that has finally come to closure.

A World War II plane crashed unknowingly around 50 years ago and the pilot was termed Missing In Action - leaving a wife and daughter behind.

I and a friend discovered this P-38 wreck years ago and now the pilot, Lt. Ambrose, is laid to rest properly in Washington DC.

One can help others in the most indirect ways...

Read Here:
Crash Discovery & Summary

Missing Flyer Comes out of Thin Air

Mother, daughter waiting a lifetime to say goodbye

In health,
Ben

Animal Testing on Cosmetics

I got an excellent letter from Ken Cook today. He is the man at the Environmental Working Group.

Letter began as this:

"Dear Benjamin,

Ever wonder which animal is the one most commonly used to test the safety of cosmetics and other heatlh and beauty products that are found on store shelves?

Here's a hint: Take a look in the mirror.

That's right. It's people."

Thanks for that Ken.

Visit and Support the EWG. They are protecting you.

Weight Gain Tied to Sleep

It seems like an excuse but it is not. One is still at fault for not sleeping enough - that would include me. Thanks to med school.

According to a study of nearly 70,000 women over a period of 16 years, researchers found that women who slept 5-6 hours or less had significant weight gain (33 pounds more) compared to women who slept 7 hours or more.

Besides the scientific hormonal leptin level influence, my take on this:

• If you are sleeping more, you are not eating as much.
  
• If you are awake more, you are more exhausted
• If you are more exhausted, you tend to sugary snacks to keep you going.
  
• People who sleep less may also tend to be very busy and less organized
• Busy and less organized means less nutritious meals and eating on the run - fast food

So - lose weight and get more sleep! Aim for 8 hours.

A side note:
Fibromyalgia sufferers are found to have poor sleep history prior to symptom onset. So sleep may prevent fibromyalgia.

Global Warming | Al Gore Brings it

Head to your movie theaters. Republican or Democrat. We all live on the same planet.

Al Gore provides a provocative scientific documentary which we all need to see.

Watch it.

Watch the trailer:
An Inconvenient Truth

Here is the official site for the movie:
Climate Crisis

Undiagnosed Diabetes Led to Car Wreck

I was walking into the local YMCA last evening and overhead a conversation that made my eyes bug:

"Hey, I heard you totalled your car last week!", said a girl of about 12

"Yep that's right. It's hell to fall asleep behind the wheel of your car and later find out you have diabetes.", said a very lucky to be alive girl of about 17.

That is downright spooky. Not only is that girl extremely lucky to be alive, but so are those around her while on the road.

Diabetes is one of the fastest growing diseases of adolescents now.

Fast food, computer and cell phone activities taking place of riding bikes, soft drinks, horrific school lunches provided by fast food conglomerates and high stress all make diabetes a fast growing issue.

I am happy that this girl is alive. I am not happy that she has a disease that is caused by a fast-paced, low exercise, high stress, crappy food society.

Careful.

If you find yourself stressed, eating high sugar meals, processed meals, not exercising and fast food frequently, you may find yourself waking in a hospital bed with a diagnoses of Diabetes.

Sulfite Sensitivity? Gas after sulfur foods?

You may want to consider molybdenum. Good old Moly-B.

It's interesting to see cleansing supplements loaded with cysteines, MSM, broccoli and other high sulfur compounds yet there is no molybdenum. One would think that if one needs to a supplement to help the liver detoxify, that the same person may be deficient in molybdenum.

It is cheap. It is widely available. Yet about 30% of Americans are "deficient".

If you find yourself gassy or sick after drinking wine, sulfite containing foods or sulfur containing foods, you may want to consider molybdenum.

There is no RDA for it but I have seen supplements providing about 100 to 500 mcg per pill.

Learn more about Molybdenum here - including why it is essential for our bodies.
Molybdenum Properties and Actions Now remember this site talks about a molybdenum deficiency - meaning a medically dangerous low level. I am referring to a level of molybdenum that may or may not be so medically dangerous - rather on the cusp of a major deficiency.

You know that famous Bastyr University graduate, Dr Michael Murray, ND?

Check out his recent answer to a person's question about sulfite sensitivities - and while you're at it, check out his website. It's quite good.

Dr Michael Murray's Website

New Car Smell: A Toxic Enclosure

New car is great. The new car smell ain't.

I gritted my teeth today and sunk $13,500 into a new 2005 Ford Focus Wagon. My 1994 Jeep Cherokee is great but the mileage stinks. The Ford Wagon is the highest MPG in it's class - 34 MPG HWY and 28 City.

But the bummer news - the new car smell.

According to this article, Volvo has the least number of toxic chemicals and Ford has the lowest toxins measured in a new car. So that makes me feel somewhat better.

I and my familiy are taking a solvent removing supplement to help deal with the extra toxic load. You should as well.

A great way to speed the process of removing the toxic gases:

• Turn the heat on full blast while car is idling and you're not in it
• Let run for 1 hr or so
• Turn off car
• Open all doors and hatches and air it out.
• Repeat as often as you can
• Beauty with summer - it will do this for you - just remember to air it out.

Drive with the windows open - even if you're cold. Get some fresh air in there.

Here is a good article:
'New Car Smell': Includes Toxins

Hypothyroidism: The true causes

I see it every clinic shift. It should not be unsuspected.

Hypothyroidism is rampant.

I thought colds, diarrhea, coughs were supposed to be quite common in a day's work at clinic.

Seems my perception of what a doc sees day in and day out is changing.

Being hypothyroid is not as simple as just taking Synthroid or Armour thyroid. There is a cause behind it.

As a naturopathic clinician, we are supposed to determine the cause yet I am finding that half of my supervisors simply fall into to prescribing pills for it without looking for a true cause.

Yes they look for antibodies against the thyroid and yes they discover hypothyroidism much better than many other physicians. Yet they are falling into the prescribe mode too quickly.

For example - today, I saw a young woman, 31 yo, about 11 months post-partum with Hashimoto's disease. This means that she is a fairly new mom with an 11 month old and has antibodies attacking her own thyroid - an autoimmune induced thyroid disease.

That means her own body has created an immune reaction to it's own thyroid - thereby attempting to destroy it. I find that odd. I find that there must be some major imbalance behind that.

So instead of finding that imbalance, we prescribed seleniomethionine and thyroid to try and shut it down for a bit. Suppression. Not good in my book.

Here is the body telling us that something is up and we simply begin by telling it to shut up and go to sleep?

My guess is that there is some environmental cause behind it - or a nutritional issue.

Am I nuts? Do I think there is an environmental or nutritional cause behind everything now?

Pretty much.

Am I right?

Perhaps.

Research says I may be right in this patient's case:
Thyroid Hormones in Pregnancy in Relation to Environmental Exposure to Organochlorine Compounds and Mercury

Calcium, magnesium, and zinc status in experimental hypothyroidism.

So then why do we tell her thyroid to shut up and go to sleep? Why do we suppress it? Yes it is making way too much Thyroid Stimulating Hormone. But why is it doing that?

It is being attacked by her immune system.

Ok - but why?

Because her immune system is hyperactive so we need to quiet it.

Ok - but why?

Because she possibly has elevated mecury or other toxins floating around her tissues. Or she may have an altered zinc status.

Ok - now we're getting somewhere.

Why though? Well perhaps she ate a ton of the most toxic fruits and veggies while younger. Perhaps her mom was riddled with toxic compounds while she was pregnant with her -thereby passing them onto her.

Ok - but why is she getting symptoms now and not before.

Because mercury and these other compounds are stored away nicely typically in fat, bone and at times muscle. Now she is breastfeeding. Now she is inducing lipolysis which means she is breaking down fat and muscle in order to provide enough fuel to create breastmilk. So this means while she her body is breaking down fat to create her breastmilk, she is also increasing her toxic load in her blood. Meaning that she is creating a hyperactive immune system due to increased levels of circulating mercury and other environmental toxins.

Savvy?

Simple mechanism but missed all the damn time.

What to do?

Test her for heavy metal and other environmental toxins - after she is done breastfeeding - or now. The sad part of all this is she is dumping a lot of her toxic load right into her baby via her breastmilk. So in the future, her own baby will likely have thyroid issues down the line.

The patient reported that her whole family is taking thyroid meds as they all have Hashimoto's disease. Ding Ding Ding.

Doesn't that tell you that likely there is something going on in this family line causing the issue?

Look deep folks. Don't simply settle for taking pills for a symptom. The body knows better and deals with things by creating symptoms in order to alert us.

It is up to us to listen to those symptoms - not make them go away by suppressing them.

You're asking then - why didn't you say something to the supervising physician if you think that the patient is toxic?

I will. Today I couldn't due to lack of time and also because I am what they call - a secondary clinician. Meaning that I am a peon who fetches papers, preps the room with equipment and takes blood pressure. It is not my place to take an active role in the case history. I can provide some feedback but I cannot run the patient visit.

It drives me nuts as I see this shit over and over and I do not have the uumph to get supervisors to listen.

That's ok. They can practice their medicine and I will practice my medicine down the road. Perhaps I may too fall into the trap of simply prescribing Armor thryoid or Synthroid for my own patients.

If I do - then I damn well have at least looked for the root cause of the disease.

Ask your doc questions. You are in charge. It is your health. It is up to you to tell your full story to the doctor.

Doctors are busy. Doctors can be lazy. Doctors are human. Give all your health history no matter how dumb it may seem. Put it all together before you visit the doc. Then hopefully you will get a successful visit and outcome.

Symptoms are warnings. Listen to them. Don't simply take a pill next time you have a headache.

Hell - it can be a simple sign telling you to drink a cup of water and cut down on coffee.

Will anyone read this blog post? Long as hell and not too exciting. But if you made it this far then I guess you found it relevant and useful.

Im glad. Because it is relevant and useful and there is absolutely no way to condense this information. It must be explained point by point.

I wish you well.

Not always easy

Working with patients can be very rewarding.

Yet at the same time it can be frightening.

Seeing your potential future sitting across from you can be a bit humbling.

Ive seen in the last couple weeks:

• 84 yo woman with severe Alzheimer's (didn't remember the doc after 15 minutes)
• 25 yo woman with stage 3 breast cancer spread to lungs, liver and bone
• 69 yo woman with osteoarthritis, super flat and painful feet
• 30 yo woman with painful ankles so bad not able to walk secondary to corticosteroid use
• 54 yo man with brain cancer
• 41 yo woman with severe depression, anxiety
• 36 yo man stated he was suicidal with a plan & we held him until authorities came - by law
• 60 yo man with diabetes type 2, celiac, 3 heart attacks, hypothyroidism and kidney disease
  

It is pretty scary realizing that we are prone to so many different health conditions.

Yet it is powerful knowing that if we take some minor lifestyle steps, we can avoid many of these horrific health conditions.

Here I am typing that sentence and it is 1:34 am and I have Neurology at 8am.

Many professors state that medical school is the unhealthiest years of your life. Now I know see that loud and clear.

Since I gave bad news - let me end on good news.

In the last couple weeks I have seen patients with:

• horrific hayfever improve completely by using a homepathic remedy
• incessant coughing for 3 weeks, missing medical school lectures improved after 2 days of my treatment protocol - see this blog post
  
• infertile woman becoming fertile after cleansing - she emailed me today with that news.
• irritable, farting woman much better after a simple herbal tea we prescribed - her son said - "wow Mom - you are much nicer!"

So that is medicine I guess. You try your damndest to improve people's health and sometimes you can guide them down the right road and sometimes nature has a different road map determined.

I love medicine and am extremely happy that I am pursuing it. It has been a very tough and difficult road for myself and my family. In the end, I foresee it being quite beneficial emotionally, spiritually and financially.

Pursue your dreams - no matter what others think of them. They are your dreams. Just make them tangible - not out there and impossible to obtain. It is not healthy teasing yourself.

Make a goal, write it down and obtain it. Then go for the next one.

Live life well. You never know how long you're here on lovely planet Earth.

Quick Strange Fact

Did you know:

We have 7 pounds of healthy bacteria in our digestive system! Tell that to your friends...

That is why when you don't eat much in a day you still manage to have a healthy bowel movement.

That is also why fiber is so important. Fiber provides the dwelling for many healthy bacteria.