Nov. 19, 2009

If you’ve always followed the religion of annual mammograms and now you’re confused by recent government guidelines recommending fewer mammograms over a woman’s lifetime, you’ve come to the right place.

This is the second part of a three-part series that began with an article discussion the dangers of mammograms.

Thermogvrams are a safe and effective alternative to mammograms.

Here’s some information on thermograms from The Secret of Health: Breast Wisdom, a book I wrote two years ago with Dr. Ben Johnson:

Thermography is absolutely the best preventive tool because it can pick up a potential problem long before a mammogram might, yet, unlike a mammogram, it is noninvasive, painless and exposes you to no radiation.

Thermography has been FDA approved for more than 30 years and can be used for all types of body tissue, not breasts alone. A thermogram offers information about your breasts that no other technology can provide. Its best use is as a preventive tool to track a woman’s breast health over a period of years and to catch potential problems before they become big problems.

Thermography is an infrared heat digital imaging system. The machine does not even touch your skin. It shows color images of heat in the tissue and gray scale, which shows vascularity or circulation in the breast.

How thermography works

A thermogram is made by a specialized type of digital camera that captures an image of the circulation of blood in your tissues. Having a thermogram is as easy as having your picture taken.

Normal tissue has a blood supply that is under the control of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS can either increase or decrease blood flow to cells. Abnormal (cancerous and pre-cancerous) tissue, on the other hand, ensures its own survival by secreting chemicals that override this ANS regulation, thereby ensuring its own steady blood supply. Cancer can be thought of as being “off the power grid” of the body.

A thermogram monitors changes in circulation that can signal the presence of a tumor.

Thermogram benefits

Breast thermography does not diagnose breast cancer. Instead, it detects changes in breast tissue that indicate the presence of cancer or pre-cancerous states.

Breast thermography has several unique abilities that make it well worth your while:

• It can give tumor warning signals far in advance, up to ten years ahead of invasive tumor growth.
• Unlike after-the-fact warning when a tumor is already present like you’d get with a mammogram, ultrasound, MRI or CT scan, thermography can assess a woman’s risk of developing a tumor and can also assess her hormonal status.
• It can also distinguish between fibrocystic breasts and cancerous tumors.
• It can examine breasts with implants, which cannot be adequately screened with routine mammography because the compression could damage the implant and because the implant can actually block the view of deeper parts of the breast.
• It is effective for breasts of all sizes. Women with very small, very large breasts or very dense often do not receive adequate images from mammograms.
• The rate of false negatives and false positives is less than 10 percent, much better than for mammograms.

What an abnormal thermogram means

Women with a family history of breast cancer are at greater risk of developing the disease, but 75 percent of women who get breast cancer have no family history of the disease. Regardless of your family history, if your thermogram is abnormal, you run a future risk of breast cancer that is 10 times higher than someone with a first degree relative (mother, sister or daughter) with the disease.

Thermography is the only technology to provide women with a future risk assessment.

The luxury of time

If a thermogram shows a woman is at risk of developing breast cancer, this can be a warning she needs to work to improve her breast health.

Monitoring with regular check-ups and thermography will show improvements with time or possibly the earliest signs that a problem may exist. This information lets a woman and her doctor know when or if there is a risk of a problem developing and measures like those we discuss in this book can be taken to prevent a tumor from growing and spreading.

Since one of the greatest risk factors for the development of breast cancer is total lifetime exposure to estrogen, normalizing the balance of the hormones in the breast may be the first and most significant step in prevention. Breast thermography is the only known non-invasive procedure that can detect estrogen dominance in the breasts.

Correct hormone imbalances

If a woman’s thermographic images suggest a relative progesterone deficiency (estrogen dominance), treatment of this condition may play an important role in prevention.

With treatment from her doctor, a woman can use this information to balance the hormones in her breasts. Follow-up thermograms are compared to the baseline estrogen dominant images as part of the treatment monitoring process.

All women can benefit from thermography, but those between the ages of 30 and 50 have the best results because their breast tissues are more dense than those of older women and therefore other screening methods can be less exact.

Watch for more tomorrow on what to expect when you get a thermogram.

–Kathleen Barnes

The dangers of mammograms have been somewhat lightly addressed by the recent government recommendation that women need fewer of them over their lifetimes.

Despite the outcry that fewer mammograms will kill women, the truth is that mammograms endanger your health.

I’ve talked about the dangers of mammograms and the
benefits of thermograms in the first two articles in this series.

If you’ve decided to schedule a thermogram, congratulations!

If you’re not sure yet or you don’t know where to get one, read more here.

Here’s what to expect when you have a thermogram.

Preparing for a thermogram

1. Avoid natural or artificial tanning for one week prior to your thermogram.
2. Refrain from saunas, steam baths, and hot or cold packs for at least 24 hours prior to your thermogram. Do not bathe, shower, or exercise during the hour prior to your thermogram appointment. Wait for 36 hours after a high fever before having a thermogram.
3. Refrain from using any tobacco products and consuming any caffeine including caffeinated coffee, tea, or sodas for two hours prior to your thermogram.
4. Remove large jewelry prior to imaging; however, small necklaces actually enable the thermogram technician to sharpen the focus of your thermogram.
6. Avoid shaving your underarms or applying any underarm deodorants or antiperspirants in addition to all powders, creams, or lotions on your arms or chest on the day of your thermogram.
7. Do not exercise, or engage in any activities that will increase your blood pressure.
8. Do not smoke or drink alcohol for a minimum of 24 hours before your appointment.
9. Take only medications that you take regularly. Your physician can give you further information.
10. Wear comfortable clothing that covers your arms and legs to your appointment. A lose button-front shirt is great.
11. Avoid confrontation or emotional stress on the day of your thermogram. That can quite literally raise your skin temperature.

What happens during an exam

When you arrive at your appointment, you be asked to take off all clothing and jewelry above the waist.

You may be asked to wait in an environmentally controlled room for about 15 minutes to get your skin temperature to a definable level.

When you are brought into the imaging room, you’ll be standing in front of the camera with your fingers clasped behind your head, elbows pointing out to the sides. Between 7 and 9 views of your breast will be taken, depending on the size of your breasts.

A second set of images is sometimes taken after your hands have been submerged in cold water for one minute.

Results

Your thermogram will be read by a licensed thermologist and, usually, by your doctor as well. Breast thermograms receive one of five ratings that range from TH1 (no detectable thermal abnormalities) to TH5 (detection of thermal abnormalities correlating with very significant risk for breast cancer).

Any positive result signals a need for further evaluation. Early thermal abnormalities may result in a recommendation to repeat thermography for comparison in 60-120 days.

Depending on the thermology rating and other forms of evaluation, a referral may be made for targeted ultrasound or to a breast specialist.
Doctors trained in holistic medicine may also recommend nutritional, metabolic, environmental, or lifestyle interventions to address early thermal abnormalities.

Cost of a thermogram

The cost of the thermograms is reasonable, generally between $100 and $200, depending on where you live.

Many insurance companies will cover thermography, but since there seems to be an endless variety of insurance plans, be sure to check with your insurer and the provider of the thermogram.

If your insurance plan includes “out-of-network” and non standard-of-care benefits, you will probably receive some insurance reimbursement. Your insurance company may require a referral from your doctor or pre-approval or authorization.

For your doctor’s information, the billing code (known as a CPT code) is 93762. Knowing this number will help you get reimbursement.

If you’re at high risk…

If you are at high risk for breast cancer (biggest risk: breast cancer in your mother or sister and, if you know, the presence of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes) or if you underwent radiation therapy of the chest, your doctor and your insurance company agree that annual MRI screening is warranted. An estimated 1.4 million American women fall into this category, but that doesn’t mean their health insurance companies . will automatically cover the $1,500-$4,000 cost of an MRI. Prepare for at least a minor skirmish, if not a major battle, to get an MRI if you and your doctor think it is necessary.

Some ammo for your battle: Guidelines from the American Cancer Society recommend annual MRI scans in addition to mammograms for all women at high risk of developing breast cancer, starting at age 30.

–Kathleen Barnes
co-author, with Dr. Ben Johnson, of The Secret of Health: Breast Wisdom(Morgan James, 2007)

Nov. 17, 2009

The new government recommendation that women don’t need mammograms before age 50 and then only every two years is a smart one, but not for the reasons cited by the government panel.

The whole thing is explained in simple terms in a book I wrote with Dr. Ben Johnson two years ago.

Here’s an excerpt from The Secret of Health: Breast Wisdom (Morgan James 2007):

Doctors and the medical community have pounded this into our heads throughout our reproductive lives:

We think mammograms are highly detrimental to your body, mind and spirit. We recommend that you avoid them at all costs.

Fortunately there is a safe and effective alternative to mammograms that few of know about, let alone our doctors.

I’ll post in detail about thermograms tomorrow. Stay tuned.

–Kathleen Barnes

Nov. 11, 2009

Yes, everybody’s talking about the swine flu and whether or not we should get vaccinations or even if they’ll be available.

I’m not going to go elaborate on the politics of the vaccine and the profits Big Pharma is going to make on the vaccines without any liability, thanks to protection from liability given to pharmaceutical companies by the U.S. Congress.

We all want to stay healthy.

The best way to stay healthy is to embrace a healthy lifestyle and keep your immune system strong. It all sounds so very simple. It is!

Yet we are all exposed to viruses and sometimes they get the better of us. I remember that dreadful year my husband taught elementary school when we couldn’t seem to crawl out from under the increasing heap of fast mutating viruses until school was mercifully dismissed for the summer.

We all know now about handwashing and coughing into our sleeves to prevent the spread of viruses. It goes without saying that you’re eating a healthy diet and getting lots of exercise, right?

Here are four ways you may not have encountered that will help strengthen your immune system and help you fight off viruses when they come your way:

1. Salt water washes: Dissolve a teaspoon of unrefined sea salt into a cup of warm water. Gargle morning and night and wash out your nose. If you’re able to use a neti pot or “drink” the water through your nose from a glass, do so. If not, dip a Q-tip in the salt water (after your gargle, please!) and thoroughly swab out your nose twice a day.

2. Get some sunshine: Vitamin D is one of the most effective immune system enhancers known and sunshine is the best way for your body to manufacture the vitamin D that provides a plethora of health benefits, including immune system enhancement. True enough, it’s hard to get enough sunshine in the dead of winter, which is one of the reasons why we are more susceptible to viruses at this time of year. In that case, vitamin D supplementation is the way to go. Dr. Joe Mercola recommends at least 3,000 IU of Vitamin D3 a day at this time of year and more if you have chronic illnesses.

3. Get enough sleep: Studies has shown that people who get fewer than seven hours of sleep a night are three times more likely to catch a cold or flu. If you get sick, it will take longer for your to recover if you don’t adhere to the seven-plus hours of shuteye every night.

4. Try Thieves Oil: This powerful blend of essential oils is reputed to have protect grave robbers form catching the bubonic plague during the Middle Ages. True or not, this sweetly scented blend does really seem to help if you rub it on your temples, under your nose or even gargle with a few drops of the oil added to water a couple of time a day. I’ve found Thieves especially effective in confined places, like the airplanes I needed to ride, somewhat unwillingly, four times in the past three weeks. You can also buy Thieves blends in cleaning products, hand soap, toothpaste and more. Here’s here you can find Thieves.

–Kathleen Barnes

by Kathleen Barnes

We Americans are getting even more supersized than ever. More than one third of all adults and 16 percent of all children are obese, according to just-released government statistics.

This puts 26.1 percent of the overall population at accelerated risk of cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer because of their excess weight.

Obesity numbers inching upwards

Those numbers keep inching upwards, up .5% from 25.6% in 2007 to 26.1% in 2008.

Even more shocking, the CDC says more than two-thirds of American are overweight (defined as a body mass index of 25 or more).

African-Americans bear the greatest burden of the obesity epidemic, with 80 percent of African-American women either overweight or obese and a 51 percent obesity rate, followed by Mexican-American women with an overweight/obesity rate of 73%.

Obesity is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a body mass index of 30 or higher.
[Find a Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator based on height and weight.

Causes of obesity, according to conventional docs

Conventional medical doctors attribute this alarming increase to our transformation into a nation of fast-food chomping couch potatoes.

There is certainly some truth to that as recent statistics show that two-thirds of us eat less than two servings of fruit a day and 73% of us don’t get the minimum three servings of vegetables, the foundations of a healthy diet. Sadly, those statistics actually include French fries as a vegetable!

And 37 percent of us admit that we do not engage in any physical activity or exercise at all.

We know there is no “magic bullet,” or magic pill that will cause you to shed pounds overnight.

Underlying cause: systemic imbalances

However, a variety of biological imbalances can cause overeating and slow metabolism, according to Dr. Hyla Cass, who wrote 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health: A Take Charge Plan for Women (Take Charge Books 2008) with me.

“Conventional doctors are thinking in a linear manner; that is calories ingested minus calories burned = leftover calories that turn into fat,” says Dr. Cass. “There`s far more to weight gain than that, since we all burn calories differently based on our individual body`s metabolic efficiency.”

Dr. Cass urges her patients to look at their food intake and their exercise out put and ask themselves, “If you`re eating too much , why? If you’re not exercising enough, why not?”

The answer clearly lies in a systemic imbalance, she says.

Among the causes of overweight, says Dr. Cass, are hormonal fluctuations, thyroid malfunction chronic adrenal overload, unbalanced blood sugar food allergies, neurotransmitter imbalances that lead to uncontrolled food cravings and even bad genetics.

Finally, Dr. Cass says, explore the possibility you have one of these systemic imbalances and find a health care practitioner who will help.

“You are not to blame if you are overweight. But you`re responsible for taking the steps to solve the problem.”

Sources:

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

http://www.cdc.gov/NCCdphp/publications/AAG/obesity.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/defining.html

http://www.cdc.gov/mmWR/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5610a2.htm

http://famellist.info/?p=29404

Aug. 3, 2009

More and more studies are verifying the benefits of vitamin D for everyone at all stages of life and underscoring the premise that the majority of us are “D” deficient.

Recent contributions at both ends of life include a London School of Medicine study that adds to the evidence that higher vitamin D blood levels from supplements slow the aging process and the progress of age-related diseases.

There are several new studies on vitamin D and children. One of the most interesting shows that vitamin D deficiency appears to contribute to insulin resistance in obese African-American teenage girls. What’s more, increasing vitamin D levels can improve glucose tolerance, say researchers at the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

And according to a new Boston University study, vitamin D deficiency itself may be a contributor to the obesity epidemic among teenagers.

Mounting evidence for Vitamin D

There seems to be absolutely no question that most of us need more vitamin D and that getting sufficient amounts of the sunshine vitamin will provide protection against a host of deadly disease, perhaps even prolong your life.

I’ll be going into this information in greater detail in coming weeks as I prepare to publish a new book on the sunshine vitamin that is being kept in the dark. I promise you’ll learn everything about how vitamin D contributes to everything from healthy bones to a strong immune system to blood sugar balance and long life.

Get more sunshine

The message I want to convey today, here in the middle of summer, is how important sun exposure is to you vitamin D status.

The human body cannot manufacture vitamin D. It must get D from outside sources, and the sun is the best source. Best of all, it’s free!

You can get vitamin D from some foods and many foods, including dairy products, now have vitamin D added.

But why not get it from the sun when it’s so easy?

Ditch the sunscreen—for short exposures

The skin cancer scare has become a double-edged sward. While most light-skinned people need protection from long exposure to the sun, brief unprotected exposures will give you the vitamin D your body so desperately needs.

You don’t need a lot: Just go out for a 15-minute walk three times a week sans sunscreen. Be sure at least your face and arms are exposed and better yet, your legs, too.

Even if you’re very light-skinned, you won’t get burned in those brief exposures, but you will drink in that life-giving vitamin D.

Your body can store vitamin D or a certain period of time, so now in August you can store up your vitamin D against the winter when you’re not very enthusiastic about walking around coat-less and the sun’s rays are much weaker anyway.

Even if you’re really bulked up on your D levels, you’ll be running low by January or February. Low vitamin D levels have been shown to negatively affect mood, and that’s why many of us get the mid-winter blues. That’s nothing a week at the beach won’t cure, but if that’s not in your budget or work schedule, try some supplements.

Vitamin D supplements

All vitamin D supplements are not created equal. The natural form is vitamin D3 (cholecaliciferol), the type your body makes with sun exposure.

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition says that vitamin D3 is the most powerful and most effective form of he vitamin, but, sadly, admits that most doctors prescribe formulations of vitamin D2 (ergocaliciferol), which has fewer beneficial effects and a shorter shelf life.

You’ll need to have your blood levels of vitamin D tested to determine if and how much of a supplement you should take. If you do, insist on a D3 formulation.

Better yet, get out there in the sun whenever you can.

–Kathleen Barnes

July 17, 2009

This is perhaps the most difficult blog entry I’ve ever posted.

I haven’t written in a couple of weeks due to the illness and death of my father.

Ralph Barnes was a wonderful man and a loving father to me and my five siblings and a loving husband to his wife, Betsy. I miss him terribly.

I watched this vibrant and witty man become old, twisted in pain and slowly die a death that was the legacy of 50 years of cigarette smoking.

No matter that Dad quit smoking nearly 20 years ago. The damage had been done.

I write this not as a chronicle of Dad’s death, but as an impassioned plea to those of you who smoke to find a way, any way, to quit. Not only does smoking kill you it kills in a vastly unpleasant way that is immensely painful to you and to those who love you.

If the magic genie would grant me just one wish, it would be that smoking and its effects would be forever eradicated from this Earth.

Dad, I am going to honor you by detailing the pain you endured in those last years, to honor you for your courage. I also offer an earnest prayer that what I write here might persuade just one person to stop smoking and avoid this horror, if not for the sake of the individual, then for the sake of the family who must watch this slow and agonizing death.

COPD (commonly known as emphysema)

This disease directly caused by smoking slowly robbed Dad’s lungs of their elasticity until every breath was labored for the last years of his life. This led to repeated painful bouts of pneumonia that further diminished his lung function.

Congestive heart failure

A weakened heart muscle is the result of heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States and the leading cause of death related to smoking. Over those last years, Dad grew increasingly lethargic. A trip to the kitchen for a drink of water was a major journey. Over those decades of smoking, the his heart muscle lost its strength. His lungs would frequently fill with fluid, further damaging his already impaired breathing ability. The weakened heart caused Dad to lose his appetite. Eating became a chore rather than pleasure. He became a painfully thin, frail old man.

Osteoporosis

Many people don’t realize that smoking is a major risk factor for osteoporosis. It began with a broken hip on St. Patrick’s Day three years ago, several surgeries and infections and a 100-day stint in rehab. It’s a testimony to Dad’s resilience that he was able to rally and overcome the type of injury that frequently claims the lives of elderly people. After another injury and another rehab stay, the doctors finally diagnosed him with osteoporosis. Too late. Slowly, this handsome and dynamic man began to stoop. By the end of his life, his 6-foot 1-inch frame and shrunk to 5-feet 8 inches. In the last months of his life, the stoop made his breathing unbearably difficult.

Try this for yourself: Hunch your shoulders and round your back. Now try to take a deep breath. You can’t really fill up your lungs, can you? Now imagine how this feels for someone who already has severely impaired lung function and must struggle for every breath.

Please stop smoking!

If you smoke, please stop now! I can’t say it more clearly: You are killing yourself. You’re also causing pain, not only for yourself, but for your family and those who love you.

I know this is an extremely difficult addiction to break. Do whatever it takes.

If you’ve read my blog, my newsletter or my books, you’ll know how committed I am to natural living.

But when it comes to smoking, if it takes prescription drugs, take them! Ask all your friends and family for help. Get hypnotized. Join a support group. See a shrink to help you.

There are effective natural ways to address the smoking habit, which I’ve detailed in other posts. (Scroll down the page on the link to find the articles)

Do whatever you have to do.

Dad, nothing I could do would relieve your pain. All our tears cannot bring you back.

I can only offer these thoughts, pleas and prayers so that this modern day Trail of Tears will end. Forever.

–Kathleen Barnes

by Kathleen Barnes

I know our world is moving faster than most of us like, and now it’s time to be concerned about the way our children are growing up too quickly in the physical sense.

The average American girl now reaches menarche (the onset of menstrual periods, signaling puberty) a full 18 months earlier than girls of just 50 years ago.

A landmark 1997 study of 17,000 girls startled parents with its findings that nearly 7 percent of white girls and 27 percent of African-American girls start developing breasts by age 7. That’s during second grade!

Alarmingly early puberty

In fact, pediatricians are no longer alarmed about breast tissue growth among girls under the age of 2.

I was appalled when I discovered my then 21-month old granddaughter was developing a breast! Her pediatrician told my daughter this is “fairly common” among little girls. But in girls who were not yet even two years old? I was horrified. If it is common, it is even more alarming because it certainly is not normal.

Endocrine disruptors

Many experts theorize that this condition, which now has a medical name: precocious puberty, is caused by xenoestrogens. These are toxins that act like estrogen in the human body and unbalance the delicate dance of hormones. They’re also known as endocrine disruptors.

Many of these hormone disruptors are petrochemical-based and have been found in a multitude of common household plastics, including water bottles, toddlers’ toys and fid packaging. They’re also found in pesticides, dioxin, food dyes and preservatives even in common cosmetics.

Phthalates

Among the most dangerous xenoestrogens are called phthalates (pronounced THAL-aytz) that soften plastics.

We are all exposed to them all the time. They have also worked their way into the water supply by becoming airborne (as in industrial air pollutants) or through agricultural chemicals leeching through the ground.

Growth hormones injected into dairy cattle have brought hormone disruptors into our milkstream and, to a certain degree, into our meat supply.

These xenoestrogens became part of our environment about 70 years ago.

Reproductive disruption

Their effects have been profound. Xenoestrogens disrupt the process of reproduction, causing low sperm count in boys and early puberty in girls. Phthalates are also known to increase the risk of breast cancer.

Prevention is the best path. Here are a few suggestions:

Go organic with dairy: Organic dairy products are a must for all children who have been weaned from breast milk. The hormonal risks and those posed by the antibiotics used in non-organic dairy operations are daunting.

Go organic entirely, if you can: This is not just for kids, it’s for all ages. The harsh chemicals used in food production, processing and preservation are immensely harmful to everyone’s health. If your budget will tolerate it, buy as many organic products as possible,from your meats to your fruits, vegetables, grains, cleaning products and even cosmetics and personal care items like soap and shampoo.

Eliminate pesticides and herbicides from your lawn: The vast majority of these toxic chemicals consumed in America today are used by homeowners and they are often used incorrectly. If you must use them, follow all the precautions, wear gloves and masks and measure precisely the amounts you need. Store them safely and away from your house, garden and water supply.

Banish plastic from your house: I know. This is nearly impossible. But as much as possible, don’t buy food packaged in plastic because the phthalates leech into the food, especially in meat that is packaged on Styrofoam trays and wrapped in plastic wrap. Don’t drink out of plastic cups and don’t let your kids do so either. Never heat food in a microwave in plastic containers because that accelerates the phthalate leeching. While you’re at it, get rid of any Teflon-coated cookware. At high heats it offgasses harmful chemicals known to cause various types of cancer. Opt instead for cast iron, or better yet, porcelain-coated cast iron.

Banish plastic and Styrofoam from your life as much as you can. I’m specifically talking about drinking hot liquids out of Styrofoam cups like that lovely latte at your favorite java house. The fumes from hot liquid interacting with petrochemical-based Styrofoam are toxic—and you’re putting the cup to your mouth, so you inhale them with every sip!

Avoid bottled water for the same reasons: Not only is the waste a burden on the environment, the plastic bottle leeches phthalates into the water you’re drinking. The leeching is accelerated if the bottle is left in a warm place, like your car or your gym bag. Opt for a good water filter at home and carry your water with you in glass or stainless steel containers that won’t leech.

Protecting yourself from xenoestrogens as much as possible is important for every human being, but it is especially crucial for children and women of all ages.

By Kathleen Barnes

If I found myself stranded on a desert island, I’d have the assurance of an unlimited source of the healthiest food I could imagine: Omega-3 fatty acids and high quality protein from wild caught fish. Add a few tropical fruits and I could probably live a long and healthy life on my desert island.

Of course, if I am lucky enough to find myself far away from the “civilized world,” I improve my chances of finding fish free of toxins.

Fish may just be the stuff of life. Its healthy fats are essential to optimal cardiovascular function, joint health, brain function and blood sugar metabolism, just to mention a few of its multitude of benefits.

Sadly, most of the fish available on North American markets comes from fish farms which are little more than cesspools of toxic sludge that not only pollute our waterways, but pollute our bodies when we consume them.

They’re completely unsustainable as well Salmon are carnivorous, so it takes 2.2 pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of farmed salmon. Fish farming is rapidly depleting wild fish populations.

Fish farms produce about one-third of the world’s seafood, most notably nearly all the catfish and trout and half of the shrimp and salmon so important to human nutrition.

It’s cheap: Farmed salmon can be $4 to $5 a pound cheaper than wild-caught salmon, but the price is too high in terms of our health and to the health of our environment and wild fish populations.

Toxic mash

In a landmark 2002 study, Canadian researchers found that a single serving of farmed salmon contains three to six times the World Health Organization’s daily intake limit for dioxin and PCBs.
PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), chemicals once used in the manufacture of electrical and heating equipment, paints, plastics, rubbers, dyes and many other substances, were banned in 1977 after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called them “probable human carcinogens.”

However, PCBs are still present in water, soil, aid and food supplies.
In its Dec. 26, 2005 issue, U.S. News and World Report reported that farmed salmon are raised on fish pellets derived from local fish that often contaminated with PCBs.

The study in the November 2005 issue of the Journal of Nutrition reports that contaminant levels in farmed salmon from certain regions increase the risk of cancer enough to outweigh benefits.

The study showed that farmed salmon from South America, specifically Chile, had the lowest level of pollutants, followed by those form North America. Europe had the highest level, according to David Carpenter, co-author of the study and director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany’s School of Public Health. Pacific wild salmon also has some contaminants from the natural environment, specifically mercury, but these are at a low enough level that the benefits outweigh the risks.

Mercury can be a big problem with farmed fish. Purdue University nutritionists found that eating as little as one fish sandwich from farmed fish weekly could give a 60-kg. adult a 40% of the safe maximum mercury exposure.

Fish farms are most often composed of huge net enclosures in the open sea. Disease is rampant in these crowded pens.

Large quantities of chemicals are used in aquaculture, including antibiotics, pesticides, hormones, anesthetics, vitamins, minerals and anti-parasitical substances most often dumped directly into the ocean waters.

Not only are these potentially toxic substances incorporated into the tissues of the farmed fish, tides and even simple wave action sweep these chemicals out of the nets and into the open seas.

The use of antibiotics is particularly hazardous to the health of human beings and fish since it promotes the spread of antibiotic resistance.
Farmers dose their captive fish with a potent anti-parasitic drug called ivermectin, to rid them of sea lice and known to kill some species of shrimp.

Damage to the environment

Within a few years after large scale fish farming operations began in Canada, shrimp fishermen began pulling up traps full of a deadly mixture of feces, excess antibiotic –laden fish feed and decayed salmon carcasses that had drifted out of the pens.

It’s estimated that one single pen of 200,000 fish produces as much fecal waste as a city of 25,000 people.

In British Columbia, many inlets are caged off for huge Atlantic salmon farms. Although fish farmers assure that they have contained these genetically modified fish with voracious appetites to encourage fast growth, an estimated 40,000 to 1 million have escaped.

Biologists have found Atlantis salmon from the farms in 77 British Columbian streams. When these super-fish get into the wild, they compete unfairly for food resources, causing an increased rate of starvation among wild fish,” wrote Bruce Barcott in a December 2001 article in Mother Jones magazine.

Yet business is booming for fish farmers. Stricter environmental regulations in Norway have pushed fish farming operators to the Western hemisphere. In early 2002, the Canadian government lifted its seven-year moratorium on expanding fish farms in British Columbia. By 2003, there were 85 fish farms in operation in British Columbia and 90 applications pending. The government has stated its intention to quadruple the province’s salmon production by 2013.

Part of the allure of fish farming is to reduce the pressure on the world’s oceans, but that may be wishful thinking. Fish farming is an inefficient means of producing protein. A Feb. 6, 2003 article in The Christian Science Monitor notes that raising carnivorous fish like salmon and shrimp may actually reduce the numbers of wild fish since it takes 2.2 pounds of ground-up fish to make a pound of farmed salmon.

Answer: Avoid most fish

Yet there seems to be a Gordian knot around fish consumption – and the very experts on whom we rely for the best possible information are sending us mixed messages about the best way to get the healthy fats fish provides.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration sets much more lenient toxin levels than does its kissing cousin, the Environmental Protection Agency. Most experts recommend being even more conservative about toxin exposure and some advise avoiding fish altogether.

Despite nutritionists extolling the virtues of high fish consumption, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration strongly recommends limiting the amount of fish we eat. The health advisory issued in March 2004 does not distinguish between farm-raised and wild-caught fish.

Let’s face it: Nearly all fish contains some level of mercury.

The FDA recommends that all women who are pregnant, may become pregnant, nursing mothers and young children abstain completely from shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish because of the high levels of mercury contamination that may be particularly harmful to unborn babies and the developing nervous system of young children.
The FDA advisory recommends weekly consumption of no more than 12 ounces of fish and shellfish lower in mercury, including shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, pollock and catfish.

It also advises keeping up to date on local fish safety warnings and, if there is no advisory available, not to eat more than six ounces of local-caught fish weekly.

Yet many of us are still getting too much mercury—some of it due to the 40 tons of mercury released into the atmosphere annually by coal-fired power plants.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study in November 2005 that showed fully six percent of U.S. women of childbearing age had mercury levels above the levels that could put them at risk for nervous system defects.

Natural health advocate Joseph Mercola, D.O., says several more fish should be added to the list of fish to avoid, including tuna steaks, sea bass, oysters from the Gulf of Mexico, marlin, halibut, pike, walleye, white croaker and largemouth bass and urges the FDA to expand the list of fish to be avoided and those acceptable for limited consumption.

“I now warn my patients against consuming any fish, whether farm-raised or naturally-caught: fish of all varieties from any waters are now showing dangerously high levels of the tasteless, but highly toxic metal, mercury,” says Mercola.

May 11, 2009

by Kathleen Barnes

We all love our cotton T-shirts, shirts, pants, underwear, towels and sheets. They feel comfy and safe.

The cotton industry fosters that illusion with its “fabric of our lives” campaign, pushing the notion that this “natural “ fiber is healthy and creates happiness.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Cotton is the most intensive pesticide-use crop in the world, accounting for approximately 25% of all insecticides used worldwide, although cotton is grown on only 3% of the world’s farmland.

Five of the top nine pesticides used on cotton in the U.S (cyanide, dicofol, naled, propargite and triflurin) are known cancer-causing chemicals. All nine of the top pesticides used on cotton crops in the U.S. are classified by the EPA as Category I or II, the most dangerous categories of chemicals.

Cotton weevils are resistant to pesticides

The reason for the intensive pesticide use on cotton is that weevils and other cotton pests develop immunity to these chemicals very quickly, in about five or six years. It takes 8 to 10 years and approximately $100 million to develop new pesticides for use on cotton, so the new chemicals are ever more toxic and quickly become obsolete.

The cotton toxic waste is everywhere

In California, it has become illegal to feed the leaves, stems, and short fibers of cotton known as ‘gin trash’ to livestock, because of the concentrated levels of pesticide residue. Instead, this gin trash is used to make furniture, mattresses, tampons, swabs, and cotton balls. The average American woman will use 11,000 tampons or sanitary pads during her lifetime.

According to the Organic Consumers Association (http://www.organicconsumers.org/clothes/224subsidies.cfm), about 80% of all the cottonseed and almost all the gin trash go right into feed for dairy cows and into our milk. The other 20% of the cottonseed is made into oil, meal and cake and winds up in many different junk foods.

Toxic substances are absorbed by skin

Cotton clothing places some of these pesticides right on your skin, which is the largest and most absorbent organ of your body. Not only is your skin in contact with that T-shirt, underwear or pants for most of the day, if you’re sweating, the increased body heat can accelerate absorption of the pesticide residues in the fabric.

The problems with clothing production don’t stop in the field. During the conversion of conventional cotton into clothing, numerous toxic chemicals are added at each stage— silicone waxes, harsh petroleum scours, softeners, heavy metals, flame and soil retardants, ammonia, and formaldehyde— to name just a few.

Other toxic clothing

Other common types of clothing aren’t much better. Clothing made from synthetic fibers like acrylic, nylon and polyester is coated with formaldehyde finishes that continuously give off minute plastic vapors as the fabric is warmed against your skin, causing allergies and breathing problems from the airborne particles and unknown effects of formaldehyde in contact with large skin surfaces

It’s really no surprise that a recent study of the cord blood of 71% of newborn babies shows extensive exposure to toxic substances passed to the baby through the placenta, including some of those used in cotton production. Worse yet, the majority of these toxic substances are carcinogenic, 75% are toxic to the brain or nervous system and 72% cause birth defects or abnormal developments.

Healthy clothing

Clothing that is made from 100% organic cotton, silk, linen, hemp, or tencel (made from natural cellulose found in wood pulp) will be free of these toxic residues.

If al new clothing isn’t in your budget, you can also buy used clothing, which may outgas less and the continued washing may have removed some of the residues.

If none of these works for you, wash any new clothing several times before you wear it.

Resources:

http://www.ecochoices.com/1/cotton_statistics.html

http://www.organicconsumers.org/clothes/224subsidies.cfm

http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/execsumm.php