Health Benefits of Acai

Acai berries from 20 Top Health Benefits of Acai Berry

This describes the many health benefits of this unique fruit and berry. The acai berry or fruit grows on palm trees in the Amazon rain forest. A 1999 study of three Amazonian populations found that acai made up as much as 42% (by weight) of the people's diet. The health benefits of the acai berry include increased energy levels, improved sexual performance, improved digestion, high fiber content, improved skin appearance, detoxification, improved heart health, improved sleep, and reduction of cholesterol levels. These are opinions about acai.

Here are the facts about health benefits of acai. Protein is made up of a combination of amino acid in different ratios. The most ideal amino acid profile is in eggs. They used to have ads that say "the incredible edible egg." But each egg contains 250 mg of cholesterol. By dry weight (fruit contains a lot of water) the acai fruit has the same amount of protein as eggs. Also the amino acid profile of acai berries is almost identical to eggs. Plant foods contain no cholesterol.

You have probably heard about how healthy olive oil is. The olive oil is made up of different essential fatty acids. It is mostly omega-9, with a good amount of omega-6 essential fatty acids. It only has trace amounts of omega-3 so you still need to get omega-3 fatty acids from great sources like chia seeds, flaxseed or blue-green algae. The oil in acai has an almost identical essential fatty acid profile to the oil in olives so it has the same health benefits.

Oleic acid, a monounsaturated omega-9 fatty acid, and linoleic acid, a polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acid, help lower LDL, and maintain healthy HDL levels. They also increase the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins like vitamins A, E, D, and K, which are essential to good health. Research has even suggested that oleic acid may prevent cancer and hypertension.

The 20 Health Benefits listed in other article include increase in immune function, anti-cancer, heart health, better digestion, lowers cholesterol levels, more energy, lowers excess body weight, helps detoxification, builds muscle mass, good for skin and bones and prevents infection.

The acai fruit contains polyphenols (that are phytochemicals) such as procyanidin oligomers and vanillic acid, syringic acid, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, protocatechuic acid, and ferulic acid.

Mayoclinic.com says "Acai berries are a good source of antioxidants, fiber and heart-healthy fats." Webmd.com says "Anthocyanins are responsible for the red, purple, and blue hues [colors] in many fruits, vegetables, and flowers." Acai berries are a dark purple color from the anthocyanins in them. They also say "Some studies show that acai fruit pulp has a very high antioxidant capacity with even more antioxidant content than cranberry, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, or blueberry."

Also web.MD says Anthocyanins and flavonoids are powerful antioxidants that help defend the body against life's stressors. They also play a role in the body's cell protection system. Free radicals are harmful byproducts produced by the body. Eating a diet rich in antioxidants may interfere with aging and the disease process by neutralizing free radicals. By lessening the destructive power of free radicals, antioxidants may help reduce the risk of some diseases, such as heart disease and cancer." 

I was a distributor in a company that has an all organic blend of juices from foods from the Amazon rainforest like acai, camu camu fruit, cacao and dragons blood (sangre de drago). The dragons blood is the sap of a tree that looks just like blood. It is 95% OPCs that they also get from pine bark and grape seeds. OPCs (oligomeric proanthocyanidins) are phytochemicals that strengthen the walls of blood vessels like cappilaries and also make the walls of the blood vessels more flexible. So this makes it great for cardiovascular health.

Plant foods contain thousands of phytochemicals that have different health benefits. Some famous examples of them are lycopene in tomatoes, resveratrol in grapes, curcumin in turmeric and sulfurophane in broccoli sprouts. Over 900 different phytochemicals have been identified. John Hopkins Medical School has broccoli sprouts that are sold in supermarkets. They have a patent for being bred to be very high in sulfurophane.

See my other blog called Latest Natural Health News

Menstruation is Strongly Affected by Diet

Eating For a Perfect Period

Diet and Menstruation

If you do read the study below, remember that dysmenorrhea is pain associated with menstruation. According to Obstetrics & Gynecology 2000;95:245-250  (© 2000) from The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, eating a vegetarian diet may ease premenstrual and menstrual symptoms. A study found that when women changed to a low-fat, meatless diet they felt less pain than when on their usual diets. This diet also helped to improve mood changes and water retention. At the end of this page it shows the association of endometriosis (inflammation of uterus) and PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) with menstruation.

It appears that the main problem with meat is that it has too much protein. This makes your body too acidic. Studies show that fruits and vegetables prevent cancer. Meat causes cancer according to a study done with 500,000 people. A study shows that the blood from a vegan has 8 times the cancer stopping power of regular blood. See this 2012 article Latest Science on Health Benefits of a Plant-Based or Vegan Diet.

See the article on protein, carbs and fats, to see what is wrong with too much protein, on this page with health articles. Actually it is lifestyle that makes the difference in menstruation. Diet is the biggest part of lifestyle but it also includes mental health (keeping stress low), exercise (which helps reduce stress), getting plenty of sleep, fresh air and sunshine.

First, for relief of the pain of cramping right now use a heating pad on your belly or as other women suggest, produce an orgasm. Taking drugs like Tylenol will destroy your liver. I first learned of this from an article called Menstruation and Diet by Diane Olive in the January/February 1995 issue of New Frontier magazine. When I read about the women wanting advice about this I did an internet search for Diane Olive and this subject. All I could find was info on Diane's book, Think Before You Eat. So maybe this info is in that book which is about eating living (raw)  food. But nowadays people want to be able to find this information on the internet so here it is.

After reading the article I sent copies to my female friends. The article starts like this: "This information is the most exciting breakthrough for women: A healthy diet and menstruation are related. The number of days you bleed, how much you cramp, and your mood swings correlate to how healthy you eat. A diet consisting of fruits and vegetables can change your menstruation to a lighter blood flow of a few days or even less."

This was just added on March 7, 2013. This woman's period came and went with only a discharge so she was asking about a bloodless period or bloodless menstruation. Also I mentioned it on the blog of a woman going to naturopathic college (in 2013) and she said that a teacher talked about this same thing. A woman commented and even quoted a book telling about this. Here is a July 2012 video about how it is normal to have menstruation on a raw food diet by raw food experts who have been doing it many years. ADDRESSING FEMININE ISSUES ON A RAW FOOD DIET.

Here is a 24 year old teacher who wrote an article on this in 2008 and tells how she had bloodless menstruation while eating a raw food diet. Also she has a link to this webpage to learn more about this phenomenon that most people still do not know about. I wonder how long it will take for people to learn that autism and type 1 diabetes are preventable. It is up to the pregnant mother getting ENOUGH vitamin D (lifeguard levels). For information on how vitamin D affects fertility, PCOS and endometriosis according to PubMed (U.S. National Library of Medicine) see How To Cure PCOS

First medications or medical problems can cause the above so you can go to a doctor first to get checked out and make sure that serious problems are not causing this. At age 29, Diane had problems with depression, arthritis, Candida, stomach aches, an irritable bowel, painful liver, TMJ, indigestion and food allergies. She changed to a healthy vegetarian diet with many raw foods and in 4 months her "health problems were vanishing." Also her menstrual periods vanished-- no cramping, no blood flow, no pain and no mood swings. Occasionally she would eat junk foods and they would come back and last a day. When she would go back to no junk food she would have 0 days of menstruation. Later she became pregnant without a blood flow but unlike her previous pregnancy, this one resulted in a very easy birth.

She explains the medical reason for menstruation and tells how people eating more junk food have more days of bleeding and says that changing to a vegetarian diet almost always lessens the days of bleeding. Difference in diet may be why American girls and Chinese girls, with an American diet, start bleeding at age 12. While Chinese girls with a Chinese diet (mostly vegetarian) start menstruating at ages 15 to 19. Some women with a pure diet just have 1 day of white creamy discharge every 28 days.

There are cases when menstruation stops due to a highly toxic diet. The body could be weakened to the point where it cannot cleanse itself. Eating while upset impairs digestion making the food you eat more toxic and fattening. According to the book (not part of this article), Formula For Long Life by Morris Krok (Copyright 1967) "In the study of primitive people and also of those persons who changed to a purer diet and a more rational way of living [Morris practiced yoga], menstruation was non-existent or ceased after a time." He also explains that it can stop due to bad health and how cravings during pregnancy could be caused by the body cleaning out those substances to make a purer environment for the fetus.

In a book Natural Way to Sexual Health (1972), Dr Beilar writes "When toxic blood seeks an outlet through the womb via the menstrual function, the resulting inflammation and irritation to the delicate mucous membrane throw the organ into spasms which are registered as pain or cramps. If the toxin is milder or more dilute, the patient simply feels heavy or congested in her pelvis. Once the flow has started, nature pours out as much toxic material from the blood as possible." Menstruation is the body cleansing itself of toxins before possible childbirth.

Since women still have children, the menses have not stopped, just the bleeding and other negative things. Also without the bleeding there is not the tiredness or depression that goes along with blood menstruation. Many female athletes who do not have the best diets do not have bloody menstruation since they get rid of toxins with increased sweating and breathing.


Mrs. P.B. had many health problems. She improved her diet and felt much better and her "once-a-month blood flow disappeared." She read that when the body works properly it is more like a light cream discharge. Her doctor told her that she can never get pregnant without the monthly blood flow. But 2 months later she did and had a healthy boy. Her grandmother would tell her stories of native American women who had monthly light cream colored discharge and also would become pregnant.

The book Is Menstruation Necessary? by Wendy Harris and  Forrest McDonald said that blood menstruation went away when women switched to a raw foods diet. The book (from around 1900) Mucusless Diet Healing System by Arnold Ehret says "If the female body is perfectly clean through diet, the menstruation disappears. Everyone of my female patients reported their menses as becoming less and less, followed then by a two, and four months intermission, and then finally entirely disappearing." Forty percent of women by age 40 have myomas ( common benign fibroid tumors of the uterine muscle). Since they never develop before the onset of menstruation or after its cessation (menopause), they are probably due to blood flow which thickens and inflames the uterine muscle lining. The above is from Diane's 1995 article.

In her Talks to My Patients, 1870, Mrs. R. B. Gleason, M.D. who with her husband, Dr. R. B. Gleason, conducted the Elmira Water Cure for many years, says: "Marked improvement in the general health may arrest the (menstrual) flow.“ This was not a theory with Mrs. Gleason. She was speaking from experience extending over a period of more than thirty years.

A website says "During the days before a woman ovulates, the lining of the womb - the endometrium - thickens in preparation for a possible conception. If the egg released at ovulation passes through the womb unfertilized, the thickened endometrial tissues are not needed - and in a truly healthy woman, as in animals in their wild state, those tissues are mostly reabsorbed. What remains is expelled over a short period of time as a slight mucus discharge.

It has also been long observed that not only do some apparently healthy women, even in our culture, never menstruate, but that non-menstruating women can be fertile and have healthy children. That is, ovulation does not require menstruation."

Endometriosis Cured

Around 2003 I was friends with a woman, Laurie, who had just got divorced. Due to this, she had very little appetite. I told her to not listen to what people say about forcing herself to eat. I told her to listen to what her body is telling her. Eating while upset, hurts digestion and makes the food toxic. She had endometriosis (inflammation of uterus) which caused painful menstruation and she could not get pregnant after many years. She was concerned about this since she was almost 40 and now not involved with anyone. Laurie had had an operation for this which helps for awhile but now needed another one. There is no cure for endometriosis. She smoked cigarettes, ate meat and was overweight.

On the home page of this site, one fat loss tip is to stay away from negative people. The mistake that Laurie made was becoming friends with me and asking for my help. She would fast for 3 days before her menstruation which was the main cure of her endometriosis. She also (all within a couple of months) lost her excess weight, quit smoking and after looking at a vegan website became a vegetarian. Her endometriosis was totally cured. I mailed her that article by Diane and warned that it may happen to her.

She was concerned when it happened and asked me about it. Please note that she had become a vegetarian, stopped smoking and lost her excess weight and looked great! I told her that I warned her about it and sent her the article about it. She said that if I had not, she would have been freaked out when she no longer had menstruation but since I had warned her she was just concerned. Still with no menstruation she met someone, got involved (and married) and got pregnant. She gave birth to twins-- a boy and a girl!

Here are some foods that you can take to help with endometriosis. You will need to go to the health food store (unless you get them on the internet) instead of the fat and sick food store. One food that can help is natto (fermented soybeans-- see what Wikipedia says about it). You can also buy a supplement of the enzyme that is beneficial called nattokinase. One newsletter says that this helps a lot with endometriosis. This contains vitamin K-2 that helps the calcium to go out of the plaque in arteries and go into the bones to prevent osteoporsis. Another thing that is good for it is kombuchu that is fermented tea. Kombuchu is great for many different things including fighting cancer, digestion, joint pain and the list goes on and on. Like drugs (medications), healthy foods have side effects. But unlike drugs, the side effects are good or beneficial for you. Another side effect of natto is cancer prevention. It is better to prevent cancer than to have to cure cancer.

Here is information from a letter from Laurie before she got pregnant: "Today would normally be day 5 of my period, except my period lasted less than a day.... Almost no blood, no weight gain, no bloating, no irritability, no tender breasts, no sign that I was even menstruating.... It's important that other women know about this. There must be tens of thousands of women in the U.S. alone who are in agony every month, because their doctors don't know squat [squat-- slang for nothing]."

Now if you have a healthy lifestyle and have been to the doctor and he says that he could not find out that anything is wrong with you and you don't have bleeding you still may wonder if the above theory is true. Well wonder no more. You can test it for yourself and see. If this theory is correct then spend the next month getting very little exercise and eat a lot of meat and junk food. If this theory is correct then you should be bleeding. If not, the theory is not correct. This is what Diane Olive did. If it does happen, it still could be pure coincidence. So a couple of months later test it again. If it works again it could just be a big coincidence. So keep testing it until you are sure of it. That is the only way you will know. And knowing is a whole lot better than believing.

I looked on the internet for women on raw diet and this subject. One woman had been on a raw diet for 18 months and her blood flow became lighter and no longer had pain during menstruation. One woman had PCOS--  polycystic ovarian syndrome. She had PMS, and during menstruation severe cramps and headaches that were almost debilitating. After switching to raw food her PMS was mild and her blood flow was lighter and the color was brighter. Her PCOS was totally eliminated. Another woman said that she had lighter cycles but gets heavier when she eats unhealthy foods.

On the home page under fat loss tip # 11, it has articles by 2 female MDs telling about why you should avoid birth control pills unless you are looking to get yeast infections, obesity, depression, infertility, strokes and breast cancer. They also tell about safe alternatives.

Cancer Treatment and Cancer Prevention

Cell Division

The Family History of Cancer

Mini Med School

Latest News: Breast Cancer Virtually Cured/Other Cancers Reduced by 77% With Vitamin D

Please read the following for valuable information on all types of cancer. Then let everyone know about this great news so they will not have to suffer needlessly by sending them to this webpage.

Also the cure is free. For those that do not want the inconvience of it, they can spend pennies a day for the cure. It is vitamin D! You can get it from bright enough sunlight or take it as a supplement (like they did in the studies done). For the breast cancer to be eradicated, the body needs many times more vitamin D than just for bone density. You need 'lifeguard levels' of vitamin D to prevent and treat cancer! Below are other things to prevent cancer to lower your chances of getting cancer even more like green tea and tumeric.

Keep reading to see the webmd.com article about breast cancer and vitamin D and also see what Dr. Oz, Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins, Andrew Weil MD, Christiane Northrup MD and others say about the above. Also see why the U.S. National Institute of Medicine just recently tripled the RDA of vitamin D (November 2010).

The first thing that it says in books on vitamin D is that vitamins cannot be made by the body. Hormones are made by one part of the body and used by other parts. So they say that vitamin D is actually a hormone.

Very Latest News: The word is getting around. Webmd.com gets a million visitors a day-- many of which are doctors. Yesterday December 14, 2010 they posted this on their website: Breast Cancer Health Center

Low Vitamin D Levels Common in Breast Cancer.
Researchers Suggest Women With Breast Cancer Be Tested, Given Vitamin D Supplements if Needed.

"Women with breast cancer should be tested for vitamin D levels and offered supplements, if necessary," says researcher Sonia Li, MD, of the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre in Middlesex, England. The findings were presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Links to websites will be in blue and underlined. CNW Group (newswire.ca) is Canada's leading newswire provider. It says:

TORONTO, Nov. 4 /CNW/ - Breast cancer is a disease so directly related to vitamin D deficiency that a woman's risk of contracting the disease can be 'virtually eradicated' by elevating her vitamin D status to what vitamin D scientists consider to be natural blood levels. 

That's the message vitamin D pioneer Dr. Cedric Garland [D.P.H.] delivered in Toronto Tuesday as part of the University of Toronto School of Medicine's 'Diagnosis and Treatment of Vitamin D Deficiency' conference - the largest gathering of vitamin D researchers in North America this year. More than 170 researchers, public health officials and health practitioners gathered at the UT Faculty club for the landmark event.

Garland's presentation headlined a conference that reviewed many aspects of the emerging vitamin D research field - a booming discipline that has seen more than 3,000 academic papers this calendar year alone, conference organizers said. That makes vitamin D by far the most prolific topic in medicine this year, with work connecting it with risk reduction in two dozen forms of cancer, heart disease, multiple scleroses [MS] and many other disorders.

Cedric Garland, DPH, is a doctor of public health. The job of a DPH is to find ways for society to overcome diseases and become healthier.  He is a researcher and a professor at the UCSD (University of California, San Diego) Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, and member of the Moores Cancer Center. Dr. Garland is a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology. He has a Doctor of Public Health degree from UCSD and studied epidemiology at Johns Hopkins. His goal is to eradicate cancer.

Wikipedia says "Epidemiology is the study of patterns of health and illness and associated factors at the population level. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform evidence-based medicine for identifying risk factors for disease and determining optimal treatment approaches to clinical practice and for preventative medicine."

The cure has to travel one hundred million miles to get to you! It takes about 8 minutes, traveling at the speed of light. Sunlight travels from the sun to your skin and your skin produces vitamin D from the UV-B light. It's no wonder that vitamin D made Time magazine's list of the top ten medical breakthroughs of 2007. NaturalNews (as shown on The Kevin Trudeau Show) says:

Vitamin D is 'the cure' for breast cancer that the cancer industry ridiculously claims to be searching for. The cure already exists! But the breast cancer industry simply refuses to acknowledge any cure that doesn't involve mammography, chemotherapy or high-profit pharmaceuticals.

Vitamin D is finally gaining some of the recognition it deserves as a miraculous anti-cancer nutrient. It is the solution for cancer prevention. It could save hundreds of thousands of lives each year in the U.S. alone. Even Dr. Andrew Weil recently raised his recommendation of vitamin D to 2,000 IU per day.

This is the vitamin that could destroy the cancer industry and save millions of women from the degrading, harmful cancer treatments pushed by conventional medicine. No wonder they don't want to talk about it! The cancer industry would prefer to keep women ignorant about this vitamin that could save their breasts and their lives.

The RDA (recommended daily allowance changed to recommended dietary allowance) was 200 IU for adults. On  November 30, 2010 (11/30/10) the U.S. National Institute of Medicine tripled it to 600 IU per day. Joseph Mercola D.O. is an osteopathic physician. They can prescribe drugs just like MDs. He says on this website:

Your vitamin D levels -- We now know that if you can get your vitamin D levels up to about 60-80 ng/ml, it will virtually eliminate your risk of breast cancer. Breast cancer is particularly sensitive to vitamin D, so it's very important you regularly monitor your vitamin D status with a 25(OH)D test (also called 25-hydroxyvitamin D). There are many variables that may prevent your body from optimizing vitamin D from sun exposure, and there's no other way to determine your levels other than through lab testing, using a reputable lab (I recommend LabCorp in the U.S.)

The video below (Vitamin D Section) explains more about how the amount needed to be taken varies by how much sunlight you are getting. It also explains why lifeguard levels of vitamin D are needed for optimum protection. The above is not saying that lack of vitamin D is causing breast cancer, but that enough of it can compensate for the things causing it. Here is a 6 minute video called, The Power of Vitamin D, from 12/15/10 by Dr. Oz that tells about the incredible news that vitamin D fights breast, colon and ovarian cancer. See on the video below how this can cure type 1 diabetes.

Harvard Medical School article Time for More Vitamin D (health.harvard.edu) (This article was first printed in the September 2008 issue of the Harvard Women Health Watch) says:

September brings the end of summer in the northern hemisphere and, for many of us, that means less time in the sun. The sun's rays provide ultraviolet B (UVB) energy, and the skin uses it to start making vitamin D.

Hardly a month goes by without news about the risks of vitamin D deficiency or about a potential role for the vitamin in warding off diseases, including breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, and even schizophrenia.

However, in one of the few randomized trials testing the effect of vitamin D supplements on cancer outcomes, postmenopausal women who took 1,100 international units (IU) of vitamin D plus 1,400 to 1,500 milligrams of calcium per day reduced their risk of developing non-skin cancers by 77% after four years, compared with a placebo and the same dose of calcium.

In fact, a large-scale randomized trial that would include 20,000 U.S. women and men has been proposed by Harvard researchers and will be considered for funding by the National Institutes of Health.

Mark Hyman M.D. says:

What vitamin may we need in amounts up to 25 times higher than the government recommends for us to be healthy...?

What vitamin deficiency affects 70-80 percent of the population, is almost never diagnosed and has been linked to many cancers, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, depression,(i) fibromyalgia, chronic muscle pain, bone loss and autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis?(ii)
What vitamin is almost totally absent from our food supply? What vitamin is the hidden cause of much suffering that is easy to treat? The answer to all of these questions is vitamin D.

Vitamin D has a dramatic impact on the health and function of your cells. It reduces cellular growth (which promotes cancer) and improves cell differentiation (which puts cells into an anti-cancer state). That makes vitamin D one of the most potent cancer inhibitors--and explains why vitamin D deficiency has been linked to colon, prostate, breast and ovarian cancer.

But what's even more fascinating is how vitamin D regulates and controls genes.

It acts on a cellular docking station called a receptor that then sends messages to our genes. That's how vitamin D controls so many different functions--like preventing cancer, reducing inflammation, boosting mood, easing muscle aches and fibromyalgia and building bones.

Joel Fuhrman, M.D. is like a living legend. He has been curing people of diseases with fasting and a change of diet for decades. Here is a 90 second video of Dr Oz introducing him as an expert on weight loss. Dr Oz is Oprah's doctor and he has his own TV show. Dr Fuhrman created the nutritarian diet (eating nutrient dense foods) that hundreds of MDs follow and also created the ANDI scale that is used by Whole Foods. Here is what he says about the above:

For example, last year an interesting study was published that gave about 1000 women 1100 IUs of Vitamin D [not nearly enough] and tracked them for four years.  It showed a significant reduction in all types of cancer incidences as the study progressed (including breast cancer)....

The results were remarkable, the Vitamin D supplements had a very strong effect at preventing cancer development even in just a few years and the corrected blood value for Vitamin D correlated with the protective effects against cancer.6  This study was so impressive because cancer-causation is a process that takes decades, yet in this short time frame, the Vitamin D supplements decreased cancer occurrences by over 50 percent.

If the study went longer it may have even shown a greater reduction in cancer outcomes.  This illustrated that if Vitamin D supplements were a drug, and if a drug was ever shown to produce such an outcome, it would be worth zillions of dollars as the most impressive drug ever invented in medical history.

The Johns Hopkins Hospital has been ranked #1 again in the Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals by U.S. News and World Report for the 20th consecutive year.

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine:

In addition, vitamin D is believed to help maintain a strong immune system and to regulate cell growth, differentiation (the process whereby new cells develop into distinct types of cells), and apoptosis (the programmed cell death that keeps cell proliferation in check). Out-of-control cell proliferation is the hallmark of cancer.

Studies over the years have pointed to an association between geographic location and the risk of dying of certain diseases. For example, people who live in more southerly latitudes (and who receive year-round sunshine) appear to have a lower risk of dying of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some cancers, such as colon and breast, than do those who live in northern latitudes. Researchers suspect that the higher sun exposure, which creates more vitamin D in the skin, may be responsible. [Note their article above is all about vitamin D and prostate cancer.]

Michael F. Holick, Ph.D., M.D. was fired from Boston University dermatology department in 2004 for promoting sensible sun exposure in his book The UV Advantage. Currently he is a Professor of Medicine, Physiology and Biophysics at Boston University School of Medicine and in charge of doing vitamin D research there. 

He is a recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the American Skin Associations Psoriasis Research Achievement Award, the American College of Nutrition Award, the Robert H Herman Memorial Award in Clinical Nutrition from the American Society for Clinical Nutrition, the Annual General Clinical Research Centers Program Award for Excellence in Clinical Research and the Linus Pauling Functional Medicine Award from the Institute for Functional Medicine.

He wrote the 2010 book, The Vitamin D Solution (see bottom of this page). This book says:

When I was in medical school [decades ago], my roomate and I made the active form of vitamin D chemically in a test tube and gave it to patients who were wheelchair bound because they had kidney disease and associated bone disease. Those patients began walking again. That was my introduction to the practical application of vitamin D research, and I have worked on it ever since.

I've helped increase awareness in the pediatric and general medical communities regarding the vitamin D deficiency pandemic and its role not only in causing metabolic bone disease and osteoporosis in adults but in increasing children's and adults' risk of developing common deadly cancers, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and autoimmune diseases, including type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

Rickets [softening of bones in children potentially leading to fractures and deformity-- cured decades ago when it was discovered to be caused by lack of vitamin D] is again on the rise in our society-- a shocking development given the medical advances during the past century.

But vitamin D deficiency goes much, much further than staving off bone-related diseases in children and adults. Recently, scientists have become interested in the fact that people living in sunny climates have a lower incidence of organ- and cell-related conditions, such as heart disease, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and cancers of the breast, colon, ovaries and prostate.

Scientists at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of CA at San Diego have raised the possibility that low vitamin D may be the root cause of cancer.

[In an interview with Dr Holick, he said:] In Finland, back in the 1960s, children that received 2,000 IU of vitamin D each day reduced their risk of getting Type 1 diabetes by 80%.

 Christiane Northrup M.D., a board-certified ob-gyn, is a visionary pioneer, beloved authority in women's health and wellness and the author of the great New York Times best-sellers Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause.

Dr. Christiane Northrup (in article on the Oprah Winfrey website, Prevent Breast Cancer with Vitamin D) says:

There's a paradigm shift going on in medicine as new research reveals a far greater role for vitamin D.

In addition to protecting the bones and boosting the immune system, studies show that Vitamin D helps prevent certain cancers, including breast, ovarian, prostate and colorectal. [footnote 2, 3, 4, 5] Exciting new research shows that, in the United States alone, thousands of new cases of breast cancer could be prevented every year if more women had optimal levels of vitamin D. [footnote 6]

Andrew Weil M.D. attended both college and medical school at Harvard University. He says in the foreward of the 2010 book, The Vitamin D Solution (see bottom of this page):

Increasing the amount of vitamin D in the body can prevent or help treat a remarkable number of ailments, from obesity to arthritis, from high blood pressure to back pain, from diabetes to muscle cramps, from upper respiratory tract infections to infectious disease, and from fibromyalgia to cancers of the breast, colon, pancreas, prostate and ovaries.

The rest of this is about other things that can reduce your chances of getting cancer in general. But I saw a webpage of Jeffrey Dach M.D., where he was talking about breast cancer and vitamin D. He also mentioned iodine and breast cancer. Now iodine is a mineral that everyone needs. It is always best to get a nutrient from a natural source like food.

In the book below by Dr Holick (not Hollick) he says that it is best to get vitamin D from sunlight (if possible). He says that sunlight also creates other things in the body that help the vitamin D to work better. It even creates in the body the chemicals that make you feel better as far as mood goes.

So instead of taking a supplement of iodine that is a chemical, eat seaweed. Seaweed has plenty of iodine and lots of trace minerals since the sea is loaded with these. You can buy granulated kelp (sold in health food stores) and sprinkle it on food. "From Japan, Dr Funahashi reported a common seaweed food [wakame] containing high iodine content is more beneficial than chemotherapy on breast cancer."

See Iodine Treats Cancer, Overwhelming Evidence by Jeffrey Dach MD:

Iodine deficiency is associated with a higher rate of goiter and breast cancer.  Similarly, higher dietary Iodine intake is associated with less goiter and breast cancer.  For example, Japan has the highest dietary intake of iodine (13 mg per day), and the lowest rates for goiter and breast cancer.  However, when Japanese women immigrate and change dietary intake of Iodine to the lower 150 mcg/day in America, breast cancer rates increase. [Note that the Japanese eat a lot of seaweed (sea vegetables) like the seaweed dishes at Sushi restaurants.]

Introduction to Cancer Treatment and Prevention

This is the most important section. Even if someone is treating you for cancer, the most important part is up to you. If you are leaving this up to someone else to cure you, then it may or may not work. But if you are doing what you can do, then there is little chance that you will not get rid of your cancer if you follow what is here. The links are in blue and underlined.

Now first you will need to do some reading and learning to find out what you can do for cancer treatment and prevention. If enough people use the information here, they can eradicate almost all of the cancer in the U.S. Some of the information here comes from Anticancer (2008) by David Servan-Schreibner, MD, PhD. This doctor grew up where a cancer causing pesticide was used a lot and he got cancer at age 31. He wrote this book 15 years later.

He saw that when he was being treated, doctors were doing their job that they get paid to do. They get paid the same whether their treatment cures the cancer or not. Whereas for him it was not a job but a matter of life or death. So he decided to find all the latest and safest ways to treat and prevent cancer.  Note that integrative medicine is a combination of alternative and conventional medicine.

Dr. David Servan-Schreibner says in the book Anticancer:

I have cancer. I was diagnosed for the first time 15 years ago. I received conventional treatment and the cancer went into remission, but I relapsed after that. Then I decided to learn everything that I could to help my body to defend itself against the illness. As a physician, established researcher, and a former director of the  Center of Integrative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, I had access to invaluable information about natural approaches to prevent or help treat cancer.

He asked his doctor about things that he could do for cancer treatment and his doctor said nothing in a lot of words. Dr. David says "In reality, what my doctor meant was that onology [study of cancer] is an extraordinarily complex field that is changing at breakneck speed. He was already hard pressed to keep up with the most recent diagnostic and therapeutic procedures." Also cancer is big business. The U.S. has spent $79 billion researching cancer for decades and cancer is now the number one cause of death among people under 80 years old.

Vitamin D: Cancer Treatment and Prevention 

A lot of new reserach has been done on this sunshine vitamin or hormone. Besides cancer it is very effective against type 1 diabetes, colds and flus and many other health problems that are addressed on the video. The RDA of this was good for bone density but not nearly enough to get rid of 70% of cancer especially breast cancer. One scientist says that enough vitamin D will eradicate breast cancer (above). 

The above book has a lot of great information but it is way off when it says that 30 minutes a day of sunlight provides enough vitamin D. If you are at the latitiude of Boston, MA then there are 3 months of the year where you cannot get any vitamin D from sunlight even if  you were in the sunlight nude all day. At the latitude of Montreal, this number is 5 months.

Take 29 minutes to watch this video about vitamin D and cancer. It sums up a 2 day conference with over 100 scientists that was sponsored by the NCI (National Cancer Institute). It is very easy to take a vitamin D supplement compared to changing your diet or getting more exercise. You need the optimim amount of vitamin D or what they call lifeguard levels of vitamin D. This is explained in the video, but you can also get it from supplements. 

 The vitamin D that you get from sunlight is non-toxic pre-vitamin D so you cannot get too much. The scientists have determined that it is safe for anyone to take 2,000 IU of vitamin D a day. They have capsules that contain 1,000 IU. If you take over 70,000 IU a day then that would be too much. That would be 70 of the above capsules a day.

The latest  RDA says that 4,000 IU a day is fine for any adult and that even 10,000 IU of vitamin D a day should be fine. The Merck Manual says "Vitamin D (40,000 IU)/day produces toxicity within 1 to 4 mo in infants. In adults, taking (50,000 IU)/day for several months can produce toxicity." So that says that you should not take 50,000 IU a day of vitamin D.

The Vitamin D Solution tells about a guy who took 1,000,000 (one million) IU a day of vitamin D due to a manufacturing error. He had vitamin D toxicity (hypervitaminosa D) but stopped taking it and fully recovered.

You may have heard that sunlight causes skin cancer. But if you check different studies, you find that in England the highest rates of skin cancer are with people who are in the office all day and spend no time in the sunlight. The lowest rates of skin cancer are with lifeguards in Australia. What you have heard were the marketing efforts of companies trying to sell you billions of dollars of sun block while increasing cancer levels.

Just check your history and you will find that before this, decades ago, these same companies sold billions of dollars of sun tan lotions that were marketed as something that would cause you to get a sun tan instead of a sun burn. The main ingredient in these sun tan lotions was butter or oil! "Tan don't burn, get a Coppertone tan." They had big billboards advertising this with a girl with a dark tan with a dog pulling down her bathing suit bottom and you see that she is very pale there. See picture here. See story behind it.

Look at this great information from the Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine about the myth of sunlight being bad for you:

Centuries ago, when Vikings and other European seafarers took to the high seas for years at a time, they pioneered new trade routes and they mostly died of skin cancer. Native American Indians, living mostly outdoors, also mostly died of skin cancer.

What?

You never heard that? Right. Because it didn't happen.

Here are a few things that really did happen:
In the 1980s, dermatologists began warning about the dangers of sunlight. Their advertisements were heavily funded by the cosmetics and sun screen industry.

In the 1980s the current triple childhood epidemics of asthma, diabetes, and autism quietly began. Rates of cancer and other chronic illnesses began to escalate.

In 1989, the American Medical Association's Council on Scientific Affairs warned about the dangers of sun-exposure, advising mothers and children to "stay out of the sun as much as possible."

In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics warned mothers to always keep infants out of direct sunlight, use sun-protective clothes, sun block, and make sure children's activities in general minimize sunlight exposure.

In 2000, it was documented that rickets (vitamin D deficiency) is making a comeback in American children who drink less milk and more juice and sodas.[1]

Today, we have escalating rates of cancer and chronic disease. Many say hiding from the sun's rays, and living with the subsequent low levels of vitamin D, was one of the tickets to that train wreck.

Let There Be Light
Mankind was designed to bask in the rays of the sun.

There are 6 books below on vitamin D. Two of them are 2009 books. Four of them are 2010 books and all are written by MDs. Of the 2010 books there is The Vitamin D Solution by Michael Holick M.D., Know Your D: Optimizing Your Health With Vitamin D by Craig A Keebler MD, Power of Vitamin D: A Vitamin D Book That Contains the Most Comprehensive and Useful Information on Vitamin D Deficiency, Vitamin D Level by Sarfraz Zaidi MD, and The Vitamin D Revolution: How the Power of This Amazing Vitamin Can Change Your Life by Dr. Soram Khalsa MD

The video above covers the amount of vitamin D to use but here is more information on this. There is a study going on now with vitamin D and prostate cancer under the National Cancer Institiute (NCI). They are not sure of the optimum amount to take (you can tell your doctor about this) so they are testing 4,000, 6,000, 8,000 and 10,000 IU of vitamin D per day.

Vitamin D supplements are available in 2 forms, vitamin D-2 and vitamin D-3. The vitamin D-3 is from animal sources so it is not vegetarian but you can get is anywhere. Vitamin D-2 is from plant sources so it is vegetarian but is harder to find. So below is a link to get some from amazon.com. They sell virtually everything.

There are some articles that say that vitamin D-2 is not as effective as vitamin D-3. But Dr Holick treats people and zoo animals with vitamin D so he needs to know if this is true in real life, not theories. So he did 4 different studies to test out these theories. In this video he explains that he found there was no difference between D-2 and D-3 at all despite the theories.

Lifestyle and Cancer

There is a big connection between obesity and cancer. See this link. On the left you can see a link to another page on this website about losing weight. Angiogenesis is the creation of new blood vessels. Anticancer says "New blood vessels grow when there is a need to repair wounds and after menstruation. This mechanism of 'normal' angiogenesis is self-limiting and firmly controlled.... In order to grow, cancer cells hijack the body's capacity to create new vessels for their own use."

Green Tea

Green tea blocks tissue invasion and angiogenesis. See the link on the left to another page on this website about green tea and how it fights cancer (many studies mentioned) and obesity and why you do not need to worry about the caffeine in it. It contains catechins like EGCG (also fights obesity) that is "one of the most powerful nutritional molecules against the formation of new blood vessels by cancerous cells." After 2 or 3 cups of green tea, EGCG is plentiful in the blood.

On the left is a link to the best food group for cardiovascular health. It has many studies showing that berries are the best foods for cardiovascular health. But the studies also show that it is great for prevention and treatment of cancer. More on that from the Anticancer book on the next page is coming soon.

The Harvard Universtiy website (harvard.edu) says:

Green tea is the best food source of a group called catechins. In test tubes, catechins are more powerful than vitamins C and E in halting oxidative damage to cells and appear to have other disease-fighting properties. Studies have found an association between consuming green tea and a reduced risk for several cancers, including, skin, breast, lung, colon, esophageal, and bladder.

Webmd.com says:

Studies in China have shown that the more green tea that participants drank, the less the risk of developing stomach cancer, esophageal cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, and colorectal cancer.

The University of Maryland Medical Center website (umm.edu) says:

Clinical studies in animals and test tubes suggest that polyphenols in green tea inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells. In one study of 472 women with various stages of breast cancer, researchers found that women who consumed the most green tea experienced the least spread of cancer (particularly premenopausal women in the early stages of breast cancer).

Exercise

Exercise has been shown to be good for cancer treatment and cancer prevention. Here is the Dana Farber Cancer Institute saying: "Studies have shown that exercising as little as 30 minutes a day can decrease your risk for certain types of cancer, as well as heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and glaucoma. Exercise is also a mood booster, reducing stress, anxiety and feelings of depression."

It can also help with losing weight preventing obesity that is mentioned above.  Here is the National Cancer Institute saying that exercise protects you from breast cancer.  The book Anticancer says: "Activity: Spend 20 to 30 minutes of physical activity per day." "Meditation: Practice a method of relaxation and self-centering (such as yoga, cardiac coherence, qigong, tai chi etc.)." Cardiac coherence is the coupling and synchronization of the rhythm of breathing to the rhythm of the heart.

Here is Dr. Oz's 7 minute modified yoga workout that he does every morning.

Omega- 3

To avoid getting cancer and other serious health problems people need a balance of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids. Most people do not get enough omega-3 and get too much omega-6 from using vegetable oils. You can take an omega-3 supplement. Foods that are very high in it are certain fish like sardines, chia seeds and flax seed oil. My page on superior nutrition tells more about this

Olive oil is mostly omega-9 fatty acids and studies show great things about it. So use that also. The best is cold pressed extra virgin olive oil. Trader Joe's has a couple of varieties of the above. But the Whole Foods supermarkets are just showing off. They have the above in Spanish olive oil that only comes from Spain and also Greek, Italian and Australian olive oil.

Diet

The 2008 book, The Forbidden 50: Bottom Line's Greatest Reports of all Time has a report called CANCER-FREE FOR LIFE (page 123) by Melanie Polk, RD (registered dietition), director of nutrition education at American Institute for Cancer Research (www.aicr.org). She says "If you make just one change... Eating a plant-based diet is the single most important thing you can do to help lower your cancer risk. Foods should be minimally processed and eaten as close to their natural state as possible."

The report by her also says "Maintain a healthful weight, drink alcohol in moderation, select foods that are low in fat and salt, prepare and store foods safely and avoid tobacco in any form." The author (an M.D.) of the Anticancer book became a vegetarian to fight his cancer. He said that in America, compared to many other countries, they eat a big piece of meat with a little bit of vegetables instead of a lot of vegetables with a little piece of meat.

Here is a study with 500,000 people that shows that eating meat increases your chance of getting cancer. U.S. News & World Report-- High Meat Consumption Linked to Heightened Cancer Risk.

Very Latest News (9/30/10): Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is now a vegan. That means that he eats a plant based diet with no animal foods. He did this to help his cardiovascular health. But a side effect of doing this is that he lost 24 pounds of excess weight. Will Bill Clinton's Health Kick Inspire a Veggie Revolution. It has a video of him and two doctors talking about his diet.

The book Anticancer (page 14) tells about a study done with Dean Ornish, M.D. He is on the above video also. Ninety-three (93) men had early stage prostate cancer, confirmed by a biopsy. There were 49 men that had no change in lifestyle. But 41 of them (three were removed) were on Dr. Ornish's program of a vegetarian diet, physical exercise (30 minutes of walking 6 days a week), stress management (like yoga) and one hour a week of group support.

Twelve months later, 6 of the 49 had their cancer get worse and needed ablation (surgical removal of prostate) followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Of the 41 none had to get treatment and tests showed the condition improved by an average of 4%.  Anticancer (page 78) says:

In a long-range study of 91,000 nurses over twelve years, the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard showed that the risk of breast cancer in premenopausal women is twice as high in those who eat red meat more than once a day as in those who consume it less than three times a week. The risk of breast cancer could therefore be halved simply by reducing consumption of red meat.

The Anticancer book tells about Bill Fair. A specialist in prostate and kidney cancer, he was head of the prestigious Department of Urology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York when he found at that he found out that he had colon cancer at a very advanced stage. After 2 operations and a year of chemotherapy, his tumor returned, growing more aggressively.  They told him that it was incurable and he had a few months to live.

His wife, a former nurse in the Armed Forces told him he needed to take care of his "terrain" meaning the body where the cancer is growing. He started doing yoga, meditation and became a vegetarian. Three years later he was asked about the benefits of this approach on improving the "terrain."

He said " I've already lived 3 years beyond my colleagues' prognoses. As a scientist, I know that doesn't prove anything; it may just be luck. But there is one thing that I'm sure about: I don't know if I extended my life, but I certainly expanded it." He did not believe in alternative medicine before that. The book also has a story that happend with him 10 years after this change in lifestyle.

San Diego mayor and city council declare October 2nd as the beginning of Veg Week to prevent animal cruelty, protect the environment, and improve their health. See full story.

The University of California, San Diego Medical Center Moores Cancer Center suggests a vegetarian diet. They say:

Scientific data has shown that vegetarian diets reduce the risk of obesity, constipation, coronary artery disease, hypertension, type II diabetes, gallstones and several types of cancer including cancer of the breast and colon. As research progresses, scientists are continuing to find components called "phytochemicals" in plant products that protect good health and help prevent cancer. Some include:

      Sulforaphane - found in broccoli; neutralizes enzymes that may trigger cancer

 Glucobrassicin - found in cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, swiss chard, bok choy and kale); helps the body form indoles, compounds that may help prevent breast and other cancers

       Beta-carotene - found in orange and dark green vegetables; an antioxidant that reduces the risk of cancer and hardening of the arteries

       Phytate and protease inhibitors - found in beans; play a role in cancer prevention

       Allicin - found in garlic and onions; may help prevent cancer

Dr. Susan Silberstein (PhD) founded the Center for Advancement in Cancer Education, a national not-for-profit information, counseling and referral agency, where she and her team have coached nearly 30,000 clients. She has 4 suggestions for a diet to prevent cancer. EAT PRIMITIVE! And what is that diet? Roots and fruits, greens and beans, seeds and weeds plus some fish or wild game. This has also been called back to nature or eating unprocessed foods. Dr Oz says to eat foods that do not have an ingredient list.

The second fundamental principle of healthy eating is EAT COLORFUL. Different phytochemicals have different colors. Like the lycopene in tomatoes and watermelon make those foods red. Phytochemicals are chemical compounds that occur naturally in plants, such as beta-carotene. The term is generally used to refer to those chemicals that may affect health, but are not yet established as essential nutrients.

A third healthy-eating fundamental is EAT ALKALINE. Acid-alkaline balance is a key principle often ignored even by who habitually eat health foods. Many researchers recommend a dietary ratio of about 80% plant based foods to 20% animal foods, approximating an 80% alkaline to 20% acid diet.

The fourth principle is EAT ORGANIC. To most of us, organic produce is that which is grown without chemical pesticides or other chemical additives. Also if it is not organic, it may be genetically modified foods.

To reiterate, the best diets all have in common these four basic principles: EAT PRIMITIVE, EAT COLORFUL, EAT ALKALINE, EAT ORGANIC.

See the link on the left to Natural Cures and look at Cancer (General) and specific cancers. It lists plant foods that the USDA has found to help treat and prevent those cancers.Disclaimer:  I am not a doctor so I cannot give medical advice. The FDA has not reviewed this page or site. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure a disease. I believe in educating instead of medicating. 

Neck Pain

Neck and Back Pain

Latest Information: June 2, 2010: Read below for more about the chiropractor that I go to now (Dr Brad). Here is a recent story about him. A lady goes to this dentist for TMJ (TMJ is the short version of Temporomandibular Joint or jaw joint and the surrounding muscles. TMJ disorders can be quite painful and include migraines, neck and shoulder pain, and a host of other symptoms. In addition, TMJ problems can make it difficult to eat, swallow, and yawn).

She wore this device for it around her neck. She went to Dr Brad for the first time ever and he adjusted her. She went back to the dentist and the device no longer fitted her. She did not need it anymore. When the dentist found out that Dr Brad fixed her, he called and made an appointment to get adjusted himself. He told Dr Brad that he needed this badly and so do most of his patients.

Dr Brad warns people that just because the following works with one person does not mean that it will work with the next person with this same health problem. He had a teen girl (with her mother) come to him with Tourette's syndrome (neurological disorder characterized by facial grimaces and tics and movements of the upper body and grunts and shouts). After adjusting her all the symptoms of the Tourettes went away. Her doctor explained that it was just a fluke (a result, esp. a successful one, brought about by accident; stroke of luck).  End of latest addition.

One book says that you can get rid of neck and back pain just by being more relaxed. Another book says most of this pain can be gotten rid of with exercise to strengthen the areas around the torso. So you can try them first. But if you have pain from an injury that cannot be helped in those ways, you need professional help. You can try some stretching exercises that I do everyday. See the August 23, 2007 article blog on the blog below.

I had a very severe injury to my spine which included the nerve being pinched in my lower back. When I was 17 years old,  I was learning martial arts and I was practicing double flying front kicks against a heavy bag that boxers use. I was trying to kick as high as possible. My heel came down on the top of the bag and it flipped me back and I landed on the tile floor on my back. I was knocked unconscious but was able to get up and walk away. The next couple of days I walked around like I was 90 years old.

Many years later I found that I had broke a lower vertebrae into 2 pieces. That vertebrae is still in 2 separate pieces so I broke my back and still have a broken back. Although the spinal cord was not severed which causes someone to be crippled. Because of my compromised health due to this injury, it has caused me to learn everything I could about health.

This is similar to what happened with many health experts. That is why some health experts do not live that long. So my advice is to not do things like bicycle and skate board tricks that risk serious injury to your body. Otherwise you may have to endure pain for a lifetime. In fact you could say that I broke my back to bring you the information on this website so I hope that you benefit from it.

I went to 6 different chiropractors with only a tiny bit of relief. Almost all chiropractors use the same method regardless of how the person was injured. The basic treatment is to crack the neck left and right. Then crack the middle back. Then to crack the hips left and right.

Then I went to another (7th) chiropractor 7 years after the accident. But this one said that I had to get an X-ray first and get it analyzed before getting adjusted. I did not like that. Then he said that he would only gently adjust my 1st vertebrae. So I said "Then my whole spine including the pinched  nerve in my lower back (which I could feel all the time) will just magically line up." He said "Yes." He adjusted me and it just worked that way!

Plus they measure how much you are out. The normal C curve in my neck was gone and it was totally straight. Plus I had a 6 and a half degree rotation in my neck. I had him X-ray me again 6 months later. I felt better than I had in years since it was 7 years since the accident where I broke one of my vertebrae into 2 pieces. My C curve was totally back. My neck rotation was reduced to 1 and a half degrees. So this guy saved me of a life of constant pain.

Many years later my car was hit in the rear very hard by a drunk driver driving a van. My neck had a 7 degree rotation in the opposite direction. So now for the first time I am getting adjusted on the other side of my neck. But the chiropractor took care of it quickly since this time it was not years after the accident.

Two decades later I was in a car accident with a guy who was tired and ran a red light. I was curious about what a regular chiropractor could do for me since there was one right around the corner from me whereas my old one was around 10 miles away. I got worse going to the regular chiropractor who used the Gonstead method-- a powerful neck twist. I went to the guy replacing my old one (he retired) and I had a 4 and a half degree rotation. In a few months he was able to get it down to 2 and a half degrees.

The old guy and replacement use the NUCCA method. It stands for National Upper Cervical Chiropractic Association. There are fewer of them around than other chiropractors since it is much more difficult to learn. The founder of NUCCA got an award from President Ronald Reagan for his chiropractic research. Regular chiropractic does work sometimes on people. My NUCCA chiropractor works with an animal clinic and they have not researched NUCCA on animals. So he uses regular adjustments on these animals (mostly dogs) and they appear to benefit from them.

The CA governor, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, said at the Arnold Classic, "I am very fortunate to have, so-to-speak, my in-house chiropractor, Dr Franco Columbu, as my own personal chiropractor.

He adjusts my wife, my kids, me, everybody gets an adjustment. And we feel always great when Franco leaves." Lance Armstrong won 7 straight Tour De France events. After one of those events, he said that he could not have done it without chiropractic. Barry Bonds said "I go to my chiropractor on a regular basis, because I want to prolong my career as long as possible. I see him about once a week, in between my training."

Note that you are not just dealing with pain but this type of problem can cause high blood pressure leading to strokes, heart attacks and kidney failure. So get your blood pressure checked. Here is a study about this type of chiropractic care treatment helping to lower high blood pressure.

The one I go to is just outside of Philadelphia area. Contact him at Dr. Brad Hirschhorn 215-663-8555 website (www.nuccadrbrad.com) To find closest one to you and more info on NUCCA go to (www.nucca.com).

For decades my NUCCA chiropractor was Dr. Jay Berke. He was the only NUCCA guy in the whole area. He is a brilliant man. He graduated an Ivy League college (Cornell U). He had a Bridge game that was published in the New York Times. He graduated first in his class at chiropractic college. The guy who graduated 2nd in his class became the dean of that college.

I just came across a book called, What Time, Tuesday. This guy, James Tomasi, had such great results with NUCCA, he wrote a book about it and created a group to let people know about it. After root canal he got TN (trigeminal neuralgia). It is a incurable nerve condition of the face. I had never heard of trigeminal neuralgia (TN). It is the most painful condition there is. It is also called "suicide disease." The only relief he got from it was when he would get a shot of Novacine. This is what dentists give people for drilling cavities and pulling teeth.

He saw chiropractors, acupuncturists and herbalists and got no help. After 12 years of this pain he was going to kill himself (in 1997). Then his wife heard about NUCCA helping a guy with fibromyalgia. He went and after the first adjustment most of the pain was gone. Nine days later he had his third adjustment and was pain free. Here is more on that story and on the group he created to let people know about NUCCA and other upper cervical groups that are similar to NUCCA.

Things that worked against me is the accident was at 17 and I did not learn about the NUCCA chiropractor until I was 24. Also all these years I have not had the money to go as often as I should. I have always been thin so I cannot be healthier by losing weight.

Dr Brad told me about a patient he has. He came in the first time and said "You would not know it by looking at me, but the entire left side of my body has no feeling at all. It had been like that since he had a stroke, 10 years ago. He could not sit still and he could not sleep. He would keep waking up and have trouble getting back to sleep. Dr Brad took X-rays, figured out the vectors and adjusted him. He was able to sit still. That night, he slept through the night. A few days later he started getting feeling back in the left side of his body.

Another patient of his was a construction worker. He was on disability for 6 months. After his first visit with Dr. Brad, he went back to work a few days later. Above I mention the chiropractor that I went to because he lived near me (Dr Tony). Even though I got worse going to him, he was a very nice doctor and was really trying to help me. He just did not know how. After going to Dr Tony for a year, this lady came to Dr Brad for the first time. I was getting ready to leave and she was in his office and I could hear her crying while talking to him.

She had been in terrible pain for 2 years and her life was a mess because of it. I had told Dr Tony that Dr. Brad was able to help me after he could not. He said to this lady that he could not help her and told her to go to Dr Brad. Dr. Brad adjusted her and she was out of pain for the first time in 2 years.

For better neck and back care keep in mind that sitting is the worst position for neck and back health. In some societies, they never sit. So what do they do when eating or talking? They squat for hours in comfort. This way their buttocks are never in the dirt or mud. Walking, standing and lying down are better for the back. I sit too much and it has taken its toll on me. Yoga was originally created to keep people healthy while they sit for hours in meditation. Shaolin temple monks would sit in meditation for hours but also spent hours practicing martial arts. Yoga is very good for the back and neck. See our privacy policy.

The ideal human proportions. I traced my body in 2 positions. (Vitruvian Man)

The human body is based on 5 and phi-- the golden ratio.  The torso has 5 appendages. Each limb has 5 appendages. The face has 5 holes in it. Raise 5 to the 0.5 power (the square root of 5). Multiply it by 0.5 and add 0.5 and you get phi. All animals are based on phi. It is the ratio where when you divide something into 2 parts, the larger part is to the smaller part as the whole is to the larger part. Divide the smaller part into the larger part and you get a number larger than 1 (1.6180339...). Divide the larger number into the smaller number and you get the same number without the 1 (0.6180339...). In other words the inverse of phi is the same number but without the 1. The length of your head compared to the width of your head, the length of your upper body (above navel) compared to the length of your lower body and the length of your lower arm compared to the length of your upper arm are just some of the places on your body that have the golden ratio.

All trees and plants are based on the Fibonacci sequence where the next number is the sum of the two previous numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...). As this gets higher, the ratio of 2 numbers in sequence approaches phi-- the golden ratio. There is the very famous drawing of Leonardo Da Vinci of man (see drawing on the left). He drew this to go in his friend's book, The Divine Proportion, to illustrate phi-- the golden ratio. If you like this website, then tell everyone you know about it and check back for more of the latest news about health and well being.