this side of heaven

Broccoli, again

A new study reveals that compounds found in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables (such as cauliflower and cabbage) helps boost the immune system, which naturally weakens as we age. I already knew crucifers were an important component in detoxing the body. Just last week I learned that broccoli can help clear the body of too much estrogen that probably contributes to excess upper arm and lower body fat.

Let's start a list of must- include nutritional powerhouse foods. After all, the best way to get cured of degenerative and debilitating diseases is to not ever get sick in the first place.

1. Coconut or coconut oil, for the omega- 3 fatty acids!
2. Broccoli and other crucifers!

What else shall we add?

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The sugar link to cancer

I was reading on Dr. Mercola's website recently:

"Reducing (or preferably eliminating) sugar, and limiting grain carbohydrates from your diet is usually number one on my list of cancer reducing strategies, and for good reason.

"Conventional medical science has a tendency to put the cart before the horse, and that certainly seems to be the case here. It puzzles me why the simple concept that "sugar feeds cancer" can be so dramatically overlooked as part of a comprehensive cancer prevention- or cancer treatment plan.

"Very few cancer patients undergoing conventional cancer care in America are offered any scientifically guided nutrition therapy beyond being told to "just eat good foods." I believe many cancer patients would have a major improvement in their outcome if they controlled the supply of cancer's preferred fuel, glucose.

How Does Sugar Feed Cancer?

"Controlling your blood-glucose levels through diet, exercise and emotional stress relief can be one of the most crucial components to a cancer recovery program.

"The 1931 Nobel laureate in medicine, German Otto Warburg, Ph.D., first discovered that cancer cells have a fundamentally different energy metabolism compared to healthy cells.

"Malignant tumors tend to use a process where glucose is used as a fuel by the cancer cells, creating lactic acid as a byproduct. The large amount of lactic acid produced by this fermentation of glucose from cancer cells is then transported to your liver. This conversion of glucose to lactic acid generates a lower, more acidic pH in cancerous tissues as well as overall physical fatigue from lactic acid buildup.

"This is a very inefficient pathway for energy metabolism, which extracts only about 5 percent of the available energy in your food supply. In simplistic terms, the cancer is "wasting" energy, which leads you to become both tired and undernourished, and as the vicious cycle continues, will lead to body wasting.

"This is one of the reasons why about 40 percent of cancer patients die from malnutrition, or cachexia.

"Additionally, carbohydrates from glucose and sucrose significantly decreases the capacity of neutrophils to do their job. Neutrophils are a type of white blood cell that help cells to envelop and destroy invaders, such as cancer.

"By severely reducing your intake of sugars and carbohydrates in your diet, you help stave off any potential cancer growth, and “starve” any tumors you currently have. It also bolsters your overall immune function, because sugar decreases the function of your immune system almost immediately."

You can read more about the sugar - cancer connection at:

The Cancer - Sugar Connection

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Clean Eating magazine

My husband and I were at Barnes and Noble last night, having coffee and reading books. He was having coffee, I have cinnamon tea. But I found a new magazine that caught my eye called "Clean Eating." I found so much helpful and useful information in it that I bought the issue I was reading to take home.

One of the columns (Ask the Doc, page 111) had this very interesting question:

"I've heard that excess estrogen levels in the body can lead to increased thigh and triceps fat. Is this true? And if so, what can I do to drop the fat?"

Right away I got excited, because I carry excess fat in my thighs and triceps, and even though I am losing weight everywhere, that stubborn fat hasn't seemed to budge. So I was asking the Lord just last week to help me! And voila! Here's the answer:

"Indeed, some scientists and fat- loss experts believe that certain body fat stores are linked with specific hormonal characteristics. For example, there's evidence to suggest that excess belly fat is linked with high levels of stress, excess fat in the upper back is linked with insulin resistance, and excess thigh and triceps fat is linked with higher- than- normal amounts of estrogen.

"So, if you're struggling with excess lower- body fat and triceps fat, it is likely that your estrogen levels are a bit higher than your lean- armed and lean- legged friends. Here's what you can do about it:

"1. Eat more cruciferous veggies. Cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli and cauliflower, may help eliminate excess estrogen from the body, making it easier to lean out the lower body."

And cruciferous veggies are one of the daily essentials for the detox diet, too. Imagine that!

"2. Exercise regularly. Regular exercise can help increase the rate of estrogen clearance from the body. Just make sure you're focusing your energies on strength exercise and interval training for the lower body. Cardio alone doesn't help that much.

"3. Supplement with DIM. The supplement DIM (diindolylmethane) may help in the same way that cruciferous veggies do -- by eliminating excess estrogen from the body."

I am so happy with this magazine that I might have to subscribe to it, LOL.

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Family trees

I discovered the coolest site ever recently: Ancestry.com. You can start a family tree to record your family heritage. The neat thing about using this site for that, is that it is the largest family tree / family heritage site on the net. That means other families who have been working on their family trees might be on there too. When you type in an ancestor's name and birth date, the site searches its thousands of family trees online to see if someone else has that name and birth date in their family tree. You can look at their information (if they allow their tree to be public) and if it is a match, you can include info they have that you don't, and it is a great help in tracing the family.

Also, the complete US Census records, military records, marriage, birth, and death records, immigration records - anything that was a public, government document - are all online and indexed by this site; and you can search for your ancestors that way too. You can upload those old family photos of your great grandparents and preserve them for future generations. You can attach stories you remember from your childhood to the people they are about.

My sister and I have been having the most fun finding out who all our ancestors are. Since we starting working on our family tree online, we have been able to print out pages from Census Records to add to our grandmothers documents she had saved, and even found a request for exemption from military service in the 1917 draft for World War I from our grandfather's brother! (He had a wife and four young children to support at the time).

I have met cousins from other branches of the family that I never even knew existed. It has been great fun and a rewarding experience. After my sister and I finish collecting all our family information and have it verified, we want to make family tree scrapbooks for each of our parents' children, with the photos and documents and personal remembrances all included. So it will take most of the year, working on it one afternoon a week, but I think it will be so appreciated.

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Nursing blessings

My daughter sent me this link: Breast milk contains stem cells. She is a natural health, organic, nursing mother to our 8 month old granddaughter, and so many people give her grief for "still" nursing at 8 months! So she is constantly on the look out for articles that point out the benefits of breast- feeding your baby. The interesting highlights from this article, besides the fact that breast milk contains stem cells which can be utilized by the baby if needed, are:

But what Dr Mark Cregan is excited about right now is the promise that his discovery could be the start of many more exciting revelations about the potency of breast milk.

He believes that it not only meets all the nutritional needs of a growing infant but contains key markers that guide his or her development into adulthood.

“We already know how breast milk provides for the baby’s nutritional needs, but we are only just beginning to understand that it probably performs many other functions,” says Dr Cregan, a molecular biologist at The University of Western Australia.

He says that, in essence, a new mother’s mammary glands take over from the placenta to provide the development guidance to ensure a baby’s genetic destiny is fulfilled.

“It is setting the baby up for the perfect development,” he says. “We already know that babies who are breast fed have an IQ advantage and that there’s a raft of other health benefits. Researchers also believe that the protective effects of being breast fed continue well into adult life.

“The point is that many mothers see milks as identical – formula milk and breast milk look the same so they must be the same. But we know now that they are quite different and a lot of the effects of breast milk versus formula don’t become apparent for decades. Formula companies have focussed on matching breast milk’s nutritional qualities but formula can never provide the developmental guidance.”

This is our happy and healthy granddaughter, Grace, at 7 months old. Why people feel the need to criticize our daughter's mothering when the baby is so obviously thriving is beyond me. So don't let anyone make you feel bad that you are providing for your baby the food which God designed for his or her optimal health!

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What's in your lipstick?

I recently found a website I had to share: Skin Deep - Cosmetic Safety Database. The concept is simple, really. This non- profit takes the ingredient list found on personal, bath, baby, and beauty products, and compares them to 50 regulatory databases on toxicity, and based on those results, ranks the products on a scale of zero, low hazard, through 10, high hazard. You can search the database to find out how the products in your bathroom compare, and to find lower hazard brands if the ratings on your current brands scare you. I did not know until I found this website, that the FDA does not require any maker of personal, baby, or beauty products to test their products for safety. Since there is no regulation, many groups have banded together to establish the Compact for Safe Cosmetics -- if a cosmetics company is a signer to the Compact, that means they promise not to use ingredients in their products that are known or suspected health hazards. The Skin Deep Database also lists whether a certain company is a signer to the Compact or not.

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On Alzheimer's and omega- 3s

Yesterday I ran across another article on Alzheimer's: researchers have discovered that increased intake of one of the omega- 3 fatty acids boosts your body's production of a protein that destroys the plaque buildup in the brain that leads to Alzheimer's. Is there any disease that omega - 3 fats don't guard us against? I am beginning to think not.

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On Alzheimer's and obesity

My dad's mom developed Alzheimer's before she passed away. The last time he saw her, she had no idea who he was. I don't know if the tendency to develop Alzheimer's is genetic or not, but we might be seeing our first clues that Alzheimer's, like so many other diseases plaguing our country, is a nutritional deficiency and body toxicity disease.

In a recent study, researchers fed one group of mice a normal diet, but gave them a 10% sugar solution to drink instead of plain water. The other group of mice had the same diet, with plain water. The sugar- water mice first developed obesity, then insulin resistance. Finally, they developed progressively worsening cognitive function and memory retention. Their brains likewise showed numerous plaque deposits, which are a hallmark of Alzheimer's among humans.

We all know Americans consume way too much sugary soda, especially children, but since the researchers just used sugar water, that indicts fruit juice drinks too. The control mice who had plain water with their food developed none of the conditions the sugar- water mice did.

This also teaches me something else about obesity. We have been taught that it is fat that makes us fat. But are we sure that it is not sugar, instead? I think I am a good case example. I started gaining a little here, a little there, after my children were born. My youngest was born 21 years ago, so if you put on 5 pounds every year, it definitely adds up over time. I then lost 45 pounds in 2005 detoxing following Dr. Gittleman's fantastic plan. The next year my mom passed away, and I put the weight back on again. January of 2007 I was determined to take it off again. Now I am 47 years old, so supposedly you are not supposed to be able to lose weight very easily at that age. But last year I drastically reduced my sugar intake, and lost 39 pounds by Christmas. This January, I cut out sugar altogether, and have lost another 8 pounds in 5 weeks, for a grand total of 47 pounds so far! What I have not reduced is my fat consumption: while it is not large, it is not the level most diets have you cut down to. And most of it is vegetable fats (avocados and olives - yum!) and coconut oil, not a lot of animal fat or milk fat.

My conclusion: sugar makes you fat, not fat, especially if you consume the right kind of fat.

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Kozy Kanga pouch slings

As most of you know, my oldest daughter had her second baby last summer. This is our beautiful daughter and our granddaughter, Grace. (This picture was taken on Christmas Day.) Gracie is 8 months old today! She hasn't started crawling yet and is thinking about just skipping the hands and knees stuff and going straight for walking. She can do 3 or 4 steps on her own with you holding her hands, and she is so proud of herself (as is Grandma!)

When my daughter had Gracie, I sewed a baby sling for her, and she has carried Gracie in that sling for 8 months (see pic). Gracie loves loves loves it. And so does my daughter; she can grocery shop and houseclean and lots of other things hands free while Gracie still feels secure next to Mom. This is especially important now, as Gracie started her separation anxiety a few weeks ago!

My daughter has gotten soooo many compliments and Where can I get one? comments every time she is out with Grace in the sling, that she has decided to  make these stylish baby slings to sell. She is an excellent seamstress and the Lord has already given her inspiration that improves my design. She has had quite a few requests for baby shower gifts, and the new moms love them! She also has some high end baby boutiques in Florida waiting to place orders.

The advantages of Kozy Kanga baby slings are 1) first of all, all sales help a Christian mom stay home to raise her children while still being a helpmeet to her husband!  2) they are made out of quilt shop quality 100% cotton, which means, quality cotton fibers, high thread count, permanent colorfast dyes, and those oh so beautiful designer prints that quilt shop cottons are known for! 3) quality construction - the seams are triple- reinforced! When my daughter was little in homeschool, we had posted on the wall in our kitchen this verse: "Be ... a worker who is not ashamed of his work." 2 Tim 2:15; and the character quality of excellence of workmanship was ingrained in her from an early age. and 4) they are the least expensive of the baby slings currently on the market! The other baby sling companies charge much more for their pouch slings, but she decided to keep her prices low because she knows what it is like being a young mom trying to make ends meet on a budget.

So if you have a baby shower coming up, and need a wonderful gift for an inexpensive price, or need a sling for yourself, try a Kozy Kanga baby sling, I do not think you will regret it! If you have any questions at all, my daughter would be thrilled to help you, just drop her an e-mail!

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It's a bird, it's a plane, it's ... omega- 3 fatty acids!

I don't have a trace of cold left anymore. Yay!

So today I was reading the latest Nutrition & Healing by Dr. Jonathan Wright that had come. One of the articles was about preventing diabetes in your children, even before they're born! It turns out omega- 3 fatty acids are again at work, keeping us healthy! Why am I not surprised? Here is an excerpt from the article:

"In one very recent publication, researchers reported studying 1,770 children at increased risk for developing type 1 diabetes. These children each had a brother, sister, or parent with type 1 diabetes, or "HLA" (genetic) testing that showed them to be at extra risk. Each of them underwent special testing for "islet cell autoimmunity" which "proves" type 1 diabetes.

"Fifty- eight children developed diabetes as proven, by antibodies to pancreatic islet cells. However the researchers found that the children with the highest omega-3 fatty acid intake and the highest levels of omega-3 fatty acids in their red blood cell membranes had the lowest risk of type 1 diabetes -- and vice versa. The researchers concluded: "Dietary intake of omega- 3 fatty acids is associated with reduced risk of [type 1 diabetes] in children at increased genetic rish for type 1 diabetes.""

-The two simple nutrients that can keep your grandkids diabetes- free before they're even born, Dr. Jonathan V. Wright, Nutrition & Healing, Vol. 14, Issue 12, Feb 2008.

I wonder if all those decades of telling us that we had to have a no- fat diet to be thin and healthy has really caused much more harm than good in those women, and their children. So moms, keep feeding your family a high omega- 3 fatty acid diet, this is something else omega- 3s protect against!

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Antibiotics do not promote wellness

Today I am not near- pneumonia anymore, back to just icky cold, which I much prefer. I am soo much better. And yes, I did start taking enzymes yesterday. I have been rereading all of Dr. Prystupa's articles that I had bookmarked, and this one I highly recommend: Dirty Aquariums and Sick Fish. It presents a different wellness and disease process than I can remember being taught or led to believe, but it makes so much sense. I used the information in his articles to combat the pneumonia I was facing, because I did not want to go to the hospital and go on antibiotics. I was so tempted to, especially when I was at the worst stage: "Just take the antibiotics! You will feel better in 12 hours! Why are you doing this to yourself and suffering?" the little voice in my head kept saying. I am so glad I didn't listen. Read Dr. Prystupa's article linked above to see why antibiotics do not promote wellness, just more disease.

What I did do: Drank half my body weight in ounces of water per day. Something has to flush the gunk out of the system. Took an anti-microbial tincture every three hours, along with oregano oil. Drank hot lemonade. Drank Cold Care tea from Traditional Medicinals. Ate chicken noodle soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Really! Went through three giant boxes of kleenex blowing my nose every five minutes for three days, because I understood that making that gunk is my body's way of trying to get the disease out of my system. I did take Dayquil one day and I was much worse that day. Never again! Used coconut oil on my nose when it got sore from blowing. The worst was getting the gunk out of my lungs. I coughed so hard for three days that I didn't sleep at all (last night I got four hours, which felt like heaven). I did take Robitussin cough syrup a few times during the worst of the gunkiness in my lungs, because it is an expectorant, and it helped the coughing accomplish its purpose, of cleaning out the lungs.

The yummy desserts at Disney are NOT worth the price I ended up paying for them. I thought it just might show up as a few pounds to lose. Boy do I know better now!

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Vacation can be hazardous to your health

Well, I am not back to daily blogging yet, but am shooting for weekly to semi- weekly blogging for now. My dh took me to Walt Disney World for a week for our 25th wedding anniversary; we had a WONDERFUL time, and spent time with his family who live in Florida as well. Now here is the bad news ... we were on the Disney dining plan while we were at the resort, and with that, desserts are included with your meal. So, I have a confession to make. Here I am, working on going no sugar for several years, faced with these luscious desserts at these 5- star restaurants Disney is famous for. Did I mention they catered to my every whim, and made special gluten- free desserts for me, too? Well, they did. So was I a good girl and pass them up? No way! I was on vacation, and I indulged in sugar every single day I was in Florida.

The day I got back to Colorado, I got a nasty cold, which in the space of 10 days has morphed into near- pneumonia. I have not been this sick in years and years. But something I had read kept nagging at me in the back of my head, until I found it. Food is Your Best Medicine by Dr. Jeff Prystupa talks about the link between sugar consumption toxifying your body and trashing your immune system, so that you become so weak, the bugs you normally keep under control take over, and voila! You get sick.

Needless to say, I am back to my normal no- sugar diet, and if I ever go to Walt Disney World again, I am just going to have to say NO! to those luscious desserts, because I never ever want to be this sick again. Oh, there is another article by the same doctor, Enzymes in Health and Illness, in which he recommends enzymes as virus- killers. I am going to ask my sweet dh to pick some up for me today, and I will let you know if it helps. As soon as I am over this, I am doing a full detox, too. I want to get my health back on track!

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Unexpected snoring cure

My sweet husband is a snorer. I sometimes have to go sleep on the couch in the wee hours because he keeps me awake. He has tried nose drops, nose strips, lots of different things. Well, we bought our first humidifier yesterday. We had just spent three weeks in Florida, and when we returned home to dry dry dry Colorado, he had nose bleeds from the dryness that he couldn't stop. Plus I had picked up a scratchy throat upon our return as well.

We thought the humidifier would help. Boy, did it! It ran all night next to our bed, and my husband slept all night without snoring. This is the first time I can remember no snoring in years and years! So if your spouse is a snorer, try a humidifier by the bed; you might find it helps. Oh, so far so good on the nose bleeds, too.

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Health and disease: the truth

I found a new blog today that I bookmarked. Stop Autism For Ever (SAFE). It is by a local doctor, and if his past posts are any indication, and if he keeps blogging, the quality of info available on it will be invaluable. Check it out.

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