In order to find our way in the world, we classify it into concepts, such as 'telephone'. Until now, it was unclear how the brain retrieves these when we only encounter the word and don't perceive the objects directly. Scientists have now developed a model of how the brain processes abstract knowledge. They found that depending on which features one concentrates on, the corresponding brain regions go into action.
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Thin and brittle bones are strongly linked to women's heart disease risk, with thinning of the lower (lumbar) spine, top of the thigh bone (femoral neck), and hip especially predictive of a heightened heart attack and stroke risk.
from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3vIVqJQ
A team of environmental engineers, alerted by the unusual wealth of data published regularly by county health agencies throughout the pandemic, began researching new methods to describe what was happening on the ground in a way that does not require obtaining information on individuals' movements or contacts. A new model predicts where a disease will spread from an outbreak, in what patterns and how quickly.
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Researchers have uncovered molecular clues that help explain what makes some neurons more susceptible than others in Alzheimer's disease. The scientists present evidence that neurons with high levels of the protein apolipoprotein E (apoE) are more sensitive to degeneration, and that this susceptibility is linked to apoE's regulation of immune-response molecules within neurons.
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People who feel younger have a greater sense of well-being, better cognitive functioning, less inflammation, lower risk of hospitalization and even live longer than their older-feeling peers. A study suggests one potential reason for the link between subjective age and health: Feeling younger could help buffer middle-aged and older adults against the damaging effects of stress.
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Researchers made a surprising finding while examining areas where sand flies rear their young: a new species of bacteria that is highly attractive to pregnant sand flies. The findings could advance the production of ecologically safe baits or traps to reduce sand fly populations.
from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3nXguJQ
As the human body's largest organ, the skin is responsible for protecting against a wide range of possible infections on all fleshy surfaces, from head to toe. So how exactly does the skin organize its defenses against such an array of threats?
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By Dana Ullman, MPH, CCH and Lionel Milgrom, Ph.D., RHom, MARH
If the common physician, scientist and educated consumer were to believe Wikipedia, they would assume that there is absolutely no research that shows the efficacy of homeopathic medicines in the treatment of any ailment. Furthermore, they would conclude homeopathic medicines are so small in dose, there is literally "nothing" in a homeopathic medicine.
And, if you are this gullible and vulnerable to Big Pharma propaganda, then we've got an island to sell you for $24! According to The Washington Post, Wikipedia's article on homeopathy and Jesus Christ are the two most controversial on that website in four leading languages (English, French, German and Spanish).
Research Shows Efficacy of Homeopathic Medicine
The fact of the matter is that research showing the efficacy of homeopathic medicines has been published in some of the world's most respected medical journals. Here's a roll call of just a few of them:
The Lancet;1 BMJ2,3(British Medical Journal); Chest (the publication of the American College of Chest Physicians);4 Pediatrics (publication of the American Academy of Pediatrics);5 Cancer(journal of the American Cancer Society);6 Journal of Clinical Oncology;7 Pediatrics Infectious Disease Journal (publication of the European Society of Pediatric Infectious Diseases);8 European Journal of Pediatrics (publication of the Swiss Society of Pediatrics and the Belgium Society of Pediatrics).9
Would you be shocked to learn that Wikipedia doesn't mention eight of the nine references here? Not only have individual studies found efficacy in homeopathic medicines, but various systematic reviews or meta-analyses have likewise concluded the effects of homeopathic medicines are different to those of a placebo. The newest review of homeopathic research published in Systematic Reviews10 confirmed a difference between the effects of homeopathic treatment and of placebo.
In reviewing the "highest quality studies," the researchers found that patients given homeopathic treatment were almost twice as likely to experience a therapeutic benefit as those given a placebo.
Further, in reviewing a total of 22 clinical trials, patients given homeopathic remedies experienced greater than 50 percent likelihood to have benefited from the treatment than those given a placebo. Once again, Wikipedia doesn't even mention this new review of clinical research in homeopathy.
This important review of clinical research also acknowledged that four of the five leading previous systematic reviews of homeopathic research found a benefit from homeopathic treatment over that of placebo:
"Five systematic reviews have examined the RCT research literature on homeopathy as a whole, including the broad spectrum of medical conditions that have been researched and by all forms of homeopathy: four of these 'global' systematic reviews reached the conclusion that, with important caveats, the homeopathic intervention probably differs from placebo."
And if that wasn't enough, the largest and most comprehensive review of basic science research (fundamental physiochemical research, botanical studies, animal studies and in vitro studies using human cells) and clinical research into homeopathy ever sponsored by a governmental agency was undertaken recently in Switzerland.11
This Swiss report affirmed that homeopathic high-potencies seem to induce regulatory effects and specific changes to cells and living organisms. It also reported that 20 of the 22 systematic reviews of clinical research testing homeopathic medicines detected at least a trend in favor of homeopathy. Would it puzzle you that this important review of homeopathic research is not even mentioned or referenced by Wikipedia?
Homeopathic Conference at the Royal Society of Medicine
July 14, 2018, we attended a groundbreaking conference in London entitled "New Horizons in Water Science — 'The Evidence for Homeopathy?'" in the hallowed halls of the U.K.'s Royal Society of Medicine.
Held at the behest of (Lord) Aaron Kenneth Ward-Atherton, who organized and chaired the event, Ward-Atherton not only is a practicing homeopath and integrated medical physician, but also has been a formal adviser on integrated medicine to a member of the U.K. government's Department of Health and Social Care, and had ongoing support from various peers in the British House of Lords.
This conference will no doubt have sent shockwaves around the world, as delegates from over 20 countries listened in awe to two Nobel Laureates (Cambridge physicist Professor Emeritus Brian Josephson and AIDS virus discoverer, Dr. Luc Montagnier) and several world-class scientists of equal academic stature from the U.S., U.K., Israel and Russia.
And what they were saying was pure heresy to conventional medicine! As it turns out, research in water science seems to support the notion there is a significant difference between the biological and physical actions of homeopathic medicines and plain ordinary water.
We should point out that this special conference did not try to review the body of clinical research (above) that verifies the efficacy of homeopathic medicines, nor did it seek to describe all the basic science studies that show that homeopathic medicines have biological or physical effects.
Instead, this conference chose to focus on more fundamental questions: Does the process of remedy production in homeopathy (i.e., dilution and succession — vigorous shaking — of a medicinal substance in water/alcohol) have an effect on the water's long-range structure that is different from simple pure water? And, second, are their sound and plausible explanations for how homeopathic medicines persist in water solutions despite multiple dilutions?
Because most physicians and scientists are completely unfamiliar with the fascinating and amazing qualities and abilities of water, their assertions on what is and isn't possible with homeopathic medicines represent an embarrassingly uninformed viewpoint.
Such assertions are at best unscientific; at worst, they simply represent sheer ignorance. The best scientists are humble in their assertions due to the fact that they know their knowledge is always limited. The average physician or scientist, however, may tend to arrogance, particularly on those subjects which they actually know nothing about.
Biomolecules Communicate Over Distance
Brian Josephson Ph.D., of University of Cambridge, U.K., was the first speaker. He echoed remarks he had made in the magazine New Scientist, saying:
"Simple-minded analysis might suggest that water, being a fluid, it cannot have a structure of the kind that such a picture would demand. But cases such as that of liquid crystals, which while flowing like an ordinary fluid can maintain an ordered structure over macroscopic distances, show the limitations of such ways of thinking.
There have not, to the best of my knowledge, been any refutations of homeopathy that remain valid after this particular point is taken into account."
Josephson powerfully critiqued generally accepted theories of how biomolecules react with their substrates. Conventionally, these are thought to "match" like a lock and a key, but only when they are in direct physical contact. Not so, says Josephson.
Like his famous predecessor, Jacques Benveniste (who Josephson hosted at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory back in March 1999), he argues that they can "communicate" over some distance long before they come together, and that such interactions are best described by quantum theory and electromagnetic signaling.
Josephson also lambasted those scientists who demand that homeopathic medicines need to get "chemically analyzed." He asserted that applying chemical analysis to homeopathic remedies will tell you no more about their properties than applying chemical analysis to a CD will tell you what music is on it. Chemical analysis is too limited a tool for either.
Further, Josephson went on to show some remarkably beautiful photos and videos that provide powerful evidence of how hypersensitive water is to sound. Using an impressive new technology called cymascopy (developed by acoustics engineer John Stuart Reid),12 Josephson was able to demonstrate the incredible influence sound has on water using this technology, producing stunning dynamic wave patterns in water that follow changes in a sound's pitch.13
This video shows dramatically how the dynamic structure of water changes as music is played. And for this to occur, there has to be an ordering of molecules within the water to give it that dynamic structure, what is commonly referred to as a "memory."
"Such is life," Josephson concluded. "Order arises spontaneously. Creation of order (ordering) is a part of nature. Order includes disorder (fluctuations), so order requires order to be present. With crystals, the order is static; with life it is dynamic. There we have ordering within activity. Up until now, our present understanding of all this is qualitative and limited, but this must be the next step for science."
Finally, Josephson wryly responded to the chronic ignorance of homeopathy by its skeptics saying, "The idea that water can have a memory can be readily refuted by any one of a number of easily understood, invalid arguments."
Physical Properties of Aqueous Systems
Next to speak was Vladimir Voeikov from the Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia. A world expert on the chemical and physical properties of aqueous systems and their key role in the vital processes of living systems, Voeikov also took aim at critics who scoff at homeopathy's plausibility.
He then launched into a description of the extensive and highly detailed work on the biological effects of ultrahigh dilutions (or UHDs) that has been ongoing in Russia since the 1980s.
One of the unfortunate side effects of the perennial distrust existing between Russia and the West has been access to research like this, mainly because it has appeared only in Russian (i.e., Cyrillic) journals. Consequently, Voeikov had a lot of ground to make up — which he did in no uncertain terms!
And, much to the audience's surprise, it turns out that Benveniste (who in 1988 was so pilloried by scientists, skeptics and the journal Nature, his reputation was trashed and he lost his laboratories and his funding) was by no means the first to suggest that solutions diluted and strongly agitated to the point where there couldn't possibly be any molecules of the original substance left could still exert biological effects.
Delving back into the literature, it had been announced around a century before Benveniste. In 1955, a review had already been published into the action of UHDs.
Drawing on his and his Russian colleagues' work, Voeikov concluded that conventional ideas of how water dissolves substances is actually incorrect. Until now, when something dissolves in water, its particles were thought to be randomly distributed throughout the solvent. As the solution is continually diluted, these particles simply reduce in number until at a certain dilution (known as the Avogadro limit) they disappear completely.
Consequently, if a solution is diluted beyond this limit, as there are apparently no particles left, such UHDs cannot possibly exert any effects, let alone on biological systems. Therefore, homeopathy (which sometimes uses dilutions of substances way beyond the Avogadro limit) must be complete bunkum. So much for conventional thinking.
What Voeikov and his colleagues have shown time and again is that the process of homeopathic dilution and agitation, even down past the Avogadro limit (so that no particles are supposed to still be present), does NOT get rid of all the dissolved substance.
Instead, microscopically tiny "clumps" of the dissolved substance — known as nanoassociates — remain behind and these are biologically active. What's more, various analytical techniques can be used to track these nanoassociates, and they affect water in many ways that make it different from pure water, e.g., electrical conductivity and surface tension. So, a solution diluted and agitated beyond the Avogadro limit is anything but pure water.
Nanoassociates Violate Conventional Laws of Behavior
If that wasn't enough, Voeikov and his colleagues have shown that so-called ordinary solutions — the kind that we make up every day and that have not been sequentially diluted and agitated as homeopaths do — also contain nanoassociates, violating what has for years been understood as "laws of behavior" prescribed in standard textbooks on aqueous solutions.
So, not only are all those skeptics and naysayers going to have to get used to homeopathic dilutions and their effects being real, they will have to completely reassess their understanding of what happens when ANY substance is dissolved in water. Those whose solemn duty it is to rewrite textbooks are going to have a field day!
Barely able to catch our breath, we were then treated to one of the most inspirational talks of the whole conference, delivered by Jerry Pollack, Ph.D., professor of bioengineering at Seattle's University of Washington. Pollack is probably best known for his 2014 book, "The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid, and Vapor," in which he outlines in highly readable terms some of his and his team's amazing discoveries about water.
Exclusion Zone Water May Have Significant Implications for Homeopathy
Chiefly, these concern what happens to water when it is in contact with a surface, e.g., a membrane. And for any doubting Thomas out there we should point out that Pollack's amazing discoveries about water have been independently verified many times.
It turns out that the water molecules closest to the membrane surface form an almost crystalline alignment that has the effect of excluding any dissolved particles in the water. And these exclusion zones — or EZs, as they are called — have properties that are totally different from the bulk water, and whose consequences will have profound effects not only on our understanding of water, but how we use it.
For example, depending on the nature of the membrane surface, charge separation occurs between the EZ layer and the bulk water phase. Pollack showed us how this phenomenon could be used, not only to produce an incredibly simple battery powered only by radiant energy, but how it could be the basis of a water desalination system. At the moment, this last application would need to be scaled up before it could be of any practical use, but if it could, there must surely be a Nobel Prize in the offing.
In addition, bearing in mind that blood is mainly water being pumped through tubes of biological membranes, Pollack suggested that the same charge-separating mechanism that powered his radiant energy battery might also assist in pushing our blood through narrow vessels far removed from the pumping action of the heart. If so, such a discovery will have huge ramifications for our understanding of physiology.
It turns out that Pollack's semi-crystalline EZs cannot only be separated, they are able to electromagnetically store information in their molecular structure. And, as the preparation of homeopathic remedies also involves water solutions in contact with surfaces, it is quite feasible his new EZ discoveries will have a huge impact on our understanding of water memory and homeopathy.
In fact, Pollack asserts that water has a HUGE capacity to store information. Further, he notes that homeopathic process of succussion (vigorous shaking of water in glass) creates increased avenues for EZ water that then creates increased water storage.
Classic Homeopathic Methods Optimize Storage of Information in Water
The founder of homeopathy, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), was both a physician and the author of a leading textbook for pharmacists of his day. His many experiments attempting to reduce the harmful side effects of medicinal substances, led him to a method of dilution and agitation which homeopaths use till this day.
Intriguingly, what the new science presented at this conference is telling us is that Hahnemann's method seems to optimize storage of medicinal information within the very structure of water itself! Even after more than 200 years, Hahnemann's discovery of homeopathy and his contributions to medicine and pharmacology are still being uncovered.
Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier was introduced to homeopathy and homeopathic research by Benveniste. In a remarkable interview published in Science magazine of December 24, 2010,14 Montagnier expressed support for the often maligned and misunderstood medical specialty of homeopathic medicine.
"What I can say now is that the high dilutions (used in homeopathy) are right. High dilutions of something are not nothing. They are water structures which mimic the original molecules."
Montagnier concluded the interview when asked if he is concerned that he is drifting into pseudoscience. He replied adamantly: "No, because it's not pseudoscience. It's not quackery. These are real phenomena which deserve further study."
'Teleportation' Effects
Montagnier's study found that under the right conditions electromagnetic signals can be transmitted from test tubes containing a highly diluted DNA sample to a different test tube containing only water, and that when enzymes which copy DNA molecules are then added to this water, they behave as if DNA molecules are present, producing new DNA molecules.15
This "teleportation" effect of the DNA, from one test tube to another was found to occur only when the homeopathic procedure of sequential dilution, with vigorous shaking of the test tube, was utilized. Also, Montagnier cowrote with several highly-respected scientists another article that was published in a leading scientific journal.16 This article posits quantum effects beyond simple chemistry.
Montagnier's studies found that highly diluted DNA from pathogenic bacterial and viral species is able to emit specific radio waves and that "these radio waves [are] associated with 'nanostructures' in the solution that might be able to recreate the pathogen."
A writer for New Scientist magazine has asserted that, if its conclusions are true, "these would be the most significant experiments performed in the past 90 years, demanding reevaluation of the whole conceptual framework of modern chemistry."17
While Montagnier's work shows the influence of electromagnetic fields having a biological effect, other researchers at the conference found that nanodoses of the original homeopathic medicine persists in water solutions. Jayesh Bellare of the prestigious India Institute of Technology described his seminal research that was published in Langmuir, a highly-respected journal published by the American Chemistry Society.18
Bellare and his colleagues found that six different homeopathic medicines, all made from minerals (gold, silver, copper, tin, zinc and platinum), that were diluted 1-to-100, six times, 30 times and 200 times, were each found in nanodoses from one of three different types of spectroscopy.
Bellare and his team explained that homeopathic medicines are usually made in glass bottles, and the vigorous shaking of the water in these bottles releases nanosized fragments of silica from the glass walls, and the substance being made into a medicine is literally pushed into these floating silica "chips."
Then, when 99 percent of the water is poured out, the silica chips cling to the glass walls. The scientists found each of the six minerals persisting in the water no matter how many times they diluted the medicine. When one considers that many of the most important hormones and cell-signaling agents of the body operate at nanodose levels, the nanodoses found in homeopathic medicines may explain how these medicines work.
Still further, the fact that nanodoses are much more able to cross the blood-brain-barrier as well as most cell membranes provides additional insight into how and why homeopathic nanodoses can elicit significant and powerful immune responses from the body.
Afterword: Stop Press!
The day after Ullman's interview with Dr. Joseph Mercola, a very important study on homeopathy was published on the website of one of the world's leading scientific journals, Nature.
Nature.com just published a collection of studies that tested different homeopathic potencies of Rhus toxicodendron (also known as Rhus tox and Toxicodendron pubescens, commonly known as poison ivy), including 2X, 4X, 6X, 8X, 12X, 24X and 30X in the treatment of neuropathy in rats.19
Previous research had found that Rhus toxicodendron has significant anti-inflammatory, anti-arthritic and immunomodulatory activities. This new research evaluated antinociceptive (pain-reducing) efficacy of Rhus tox in the neuropathic pain and delineated its underlying mechanism. More specifically, this research found that this homeopathic medicine showed significant antioxidative and anti-inflammatory properties.
This study found that homeopathic doses of Rhus tox 24X and 30X had dramatic effects that equaled the results from a known conventional drug, Gabapentin, and did so in much safer doses. Conventional scientists have consistently asserted that these extremely small doses of homeopathic medicines could not have ANY effects, but this study, like an increasing number of other such studies, has proven conventional scientists are wrong.
The above described study didn't investigate the influence of water in its study, but it did confirm that homeopathic nanodoses can have powerful biological and clinical effects.
Dedication
This article is dedicated to Dr. Peter Fisher, the now-late physician to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. A graduate of University of Cambridge and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Faculty of Homeopathy, he was a widely published expert in rheumatology and forms of complementary and alternative medicine.
Fisher chaired the World Health Organization's working group on homeopathy and was a member of WHO's Expert Advisory Panel on Traditional and Complementary Medicine. He served as clinical director for 18 years and director of research at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine (formerly the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital) for 22 years.
He was also president of the Faculty of Homeopathy and editor-in-chief of the journal Homeopathy (the leading research journal in the field). Fisher was awarded the Polish Academy of Medicine's Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal in 2007. Fisher also served as moderator for the second half of the homeopathic research conference discussed in this article.
Besides all of his academic achievements, Fisher had a wicked, dry, even very dry, British sense of humor. He was known to provide scathing critiques of the many uninformed and ill-informed skeptics of homeopathy whose criticisms of homeopathy simply proved their sheer ignorance of the subject. Sadly, August 15, 2018, Fisher was riding his bicycle in London on "drive your bike to work day," and was hit by a truck and killed.
Dana Ullman, MPH, CCH, is a certified homeopath who has written 10 books on homeopathy and four chapters in medical textbooks, and who has published 40 books on homeopathy by his colleagues (co-published with North Atlantic Books). He directs Homeopathic Educational Services, a leading homeopathic resource center to help people access homeopathic books, medicines, software and e-courses (www.homeopathic.com).
He has also created a special e-course on "Learning to Use a Homeopathic Medicine Kit" (details at https://homeopathicfamilymedicine.com/). He also maintains a homeopathic practice where he "sees" most of his patients via Skype, various video apps, or the simple telephone.
Lionel R Milgrom, Ph.D. FRSC FRSA MARH RHom is a registered homeopath who has been a research chemist for 40 years (cofounder of a university anticancer biotech spin-out company) with many publications and a text book to his credit. He has been a practicing homeopath for 20 years.
His main research interest these days is in the understanding of homeopathy within both scientific and philosophical contexts, and has published extensively in these areas. He has also published the first volume of an e-book trilogy, "Homeopathy and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed."
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Birth control pills are the most popular form of contraception among U.S. women. They're taken by 16 percent of this population, while just over 7 percent use long-acting reversible forms of contraception, such as a hormonal intrauterine device or implant.
What these pills, devices and implants have in common is that they're forms of hormonal birth control — that is, they contain or release synthetic forms of hormones, such as estrogen and progestin (a form of progesterone), which work to prevent pregnancy in various ways.
The problem is that these sex hormones also affect mood and other biological processes and artificially manipulating them can lead to many unintended consequences in your body, some of them uncomfortable and some quite serious, including altering your mental health.
Birth Control Pills Linked to Depression
Researchers from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark analyzed data from more than 1 million women over a period of 14 years. None of the women, who were between 15 and 34 years of age, had been diagnosed with depression at the start of the study.1
However, the analysis showed that women who used hormonal birth control had a 40 percent increased risk of developing depression after six months compared to women who did not. The risk was greatest among adolescents.
The use of hormonal birth control was also associated with subsequent use of antidepressant drugs. Certain types of hormonal contraception had varying risks. Specifically, the use of:
Progestin-only pills led to a 1.3-fold higher rate of antidepressant use
Combined birth control pills led to a 1.2 higher rate
Transdermal patch led to a 2-fold increased risk
Vaginal ring led to a 1.5-fold increased risk
Anecdotal Reports Suggest Hormonal Contraceptives Lead to Mood Changes
Lead study supervisor, Dr. Øjvind Lidegaard, a professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, told CNN:2
"We have known for decades that women's sex hormones estrogen and progesterone have an influence on many women's mood.
Therefore, it is not very surprising that also external artificial hormones acting in the same way and on the same centers as the natural hormones might also influence women's mood or even be responsible for depression development."
Despite this knowledge, many health care professionals are reluctant to suggest that the risks of hormonal birth control may be too steep for some women, especially those with a history of depression.
While scientific validation has yielded some conflicting results, one report in the Oxford Medical Case Reports journal detailed two cases of women with a history of depression who developed depressive symptoms after treatment with hormonal contraceptives (the combined oral contraceptive pill, progestin-only pill and combined contraceptive vaginal ring).3
Case Reports Detail Onset of Depressive Symptoms After Use of Hormonal Contraceptives
In one case, a 31-year-old woman experienced gradual improvement of her depressive symptoms after she stopped using the vaginal ring. However, "a sudden and acute worsening occurred" shortly after she started using a combined birth control pill.
About a month later, she again experienced a worsening of symptoms "almost simultaneously with the initiation of treatment with combined contraceptive vaginal ring." The researchers noted:4
"HC [Hormonal contraception] was again interrupted, with a subsequent clear improvement in depressive symptoms. The patient remained stable without depression for the following [six] months."
In the second case, a 33-year-old woman developed depressive symptoms shortly after starting a progestin-only birth control pill. Her symptoms disappeared completely within one week of stopping the pill. The researchers concluded:5
"Caution should be used when starting up treatment with HC in women diagnosed with depression, since it might in some cases lead to worsening of the depressive symptoms.
Likewise, attention should be paid to the pre-existing use of HC in women who develop depression, as discontinuation of HC might in some cases be sufficient to treat the depression."
Hormonal Contraceptives Are Linked to Glaucoma and Other Health Risks
Women who used oral contraceptives for longer than three years were more than twice as likely to have been diagnosed with glaucoma, a leading cause of vision loss and blindness, according to one study.6
The results were so striking that the researchers recommended women taking the pill for three or more years be screened for glaucoma and followed closely by an ophthalmologist.
It might seem unusual that contraceptives could affect your vision, but it's important to understand that there are body-wide repercussions of artificially manipulating your hormones.
Most birth control pills, patches, vaginal rings and implants contain a combination of the derivatives of the hormones estrogen and progestin. They work by mimicking these hormones in your body to fool your reproductive system into producing the following effects:
Preventing your ovaries from releasing eggs
Thickening your cervical mucus to help block sperm from fertilizing an egg
Thinning the lining of your uterus, which makes it difficult for an egg to implant, should it become fertilized
However, your reproductive system does not exist in a bubble. It is connected to all of your other bodily systems, and therefore hormonal contraception is capable of altering much more than your reproductive status.
According to one report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 30 percent of women who have used the pill and nearly half of women using other hormonal contraception methods stopped their use due to "dissatisfaction," which was most often caused by side effects.7 Potential health risks include:
✓Thinner bones: Women who take birth control pills have lower bone mineral density (BMD) than women who have never used oral contraceptives.
✓Heart disease:Long-term use of birth control pills may increase plaque artery buildups in your body that may raise your risk of heart disease.
✓Fatal blood clots: Birth control pills increase your risk of blood clots and subsequent stroke.
✓Impaired muscle gains: Oral contraceptive use may impair muscle gains from resistance exercise training in women.
✓Long-term sexual dysfunction: The pill may interfere with a protein that keeps testosterone unavailable, leading to long-term sexual dysfunction including decreased desire and arousal.
✓Migraines
✓Weight gain and mood changes
✓Yeast overgrowth and infection
The Pill May Be a Libido Killer
About 15 percent of women taking oral contraceptives report a decrease in libido, likely because they lower levels of sex hormones, including testosterone.8 One study also found seven times the amount of the libido-killing sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) was present in women who took oral contraceptives compared to women who never used the pill.
Even though SHBG levels declined in women who had stopped taking the pill, they still remained three to four times higher than they were in women with no history of using oral contraceptives, which suggests oral contraceptives may kill a woman's libido for the long-term. Researchers concluded:9
"Long-term sexual, metabolic, and mental health consequences might result as a consequence of chronic SHBG elevation [in women who take, or have taken, oral contraceptives]."
Synthetic Hormones in Drinking Water May Be Increasing Cancer Rates in Men
It's not only women who are at risk from synthetic hormones contained in hormonal contraceptives. An analysis of data from 100 countries found oral contraceptive use is associated with prostate cancer, which may be due to exposure to synthetic estrogens excreted by women that end up in the drinking water supply.10
While it's been argued that only a small amount of additional estrogen is excreted by a woman using this form of contraception, this "small amount" is compounded by millions of women, many of whom use the pill for long periods of time. Also, synthetic estrogen and progestin does not biodegrade rapidly and is far harder to remove through conventional water purification systems, resulting in greater accumulation in the environment.
While this study did not prove cause and effect — that is, it did not prove that environmental estrogen from women's oral contraceptive use causes prostate cancer in men — it did find a significant association between the two that deserves further investigation, especially in light of estrogen's well-established role in a wide range of cancers and the prevalence of hormonal contraceptive use.
Non-Hormonal Methods of Contraception
Women and men looking for reversible non-hormonal options of contraception may be surprised to learn that there are many options. Conventional health care providers typically steer patients toward the popular hormonal options, but they are far from the only ones.
Barrier methods, which work by preventing the man's sperm from reaching the woman's egg, include the diaphragm, cervical cap, sponge and male and female condoms. None of these are foolproof, which is why many couples use them in combination with fertility awareness-based methods.
Fertility awareness involves knowing when a woman's fertile period occurs each month, and then avoiding sexual intercourse during (and just prior to) this time (or using a barrier method if you do).
When used consistently and correctly, fertility awareness is highly effective at preventing pregnancy; fewer than 1 to 5 women out of 100 will become pregnant using fertility awareness in this manner.11 In order to track fertility, a number of methods can be used by women, including tracking basal body temperature, mucus production, saliva indicators and cervical position.
Many women use a combination of methods, and there are also commercially available ovulation monitors that can be used in conjunction with the other methods. Ninety-nine percent of U.S. women of reproductive age have used at least one contraceptive method at some point in their lifetime, with 88 percent choosing hormonal options.12
However, you may be relieved to learn that you don't have to subject yourself to the risks of hormonal contraception, or learn to live with the side effects, in order to take control of your reproductive health. An experienced holistic health care provider can help you choose the best non-hormonal contraception options for you.
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If you think your birth control pill is the best pregnancy prevention tool there is, you may be surprised by new research looking into its failure rates.
Compared to other forms of protection, the Pill failed miserably, which only adds to the myriad of reasons why you should heavily question its use.
The Pill Fails 20 Times More Often
About 99 percent of sexually active women use at least one method of birth control, the most common of which is the birth control pill (oral contraceptives). The Pill was used by nearly 11 million U.S. women from 2006-2008.i
Meanwhile, nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended.ii Certainly not all of these are due to a birth control failure, but some of them -- estimates suggest about half -- undoubtedly are. Which brings me to a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.iii Out of the 7,500 women in the study, who used various forms of birth control including an intrauterine device (IUD), implant, birth control pills, patch, ring and contraceptive injection, 334 became pregnant, 156 of which were due to birth control failure.
The contraceptive failure rate among pills, patch or ring was 4.55 percent, compared to 0.27 percent among participants using reversible contraception such as intrauterine devices. The effectiveness—or non-effectiveness—was no different in adolescents or young women. The implications—that birth control pills are 20 times more likely to fail than IUDs—should give some women a pause to think about the method of contraception they want to use.
As for the varying degrees of effectiveness, the Pill must be taken daily, preferably around the same time for it to work its best. Study author Dr. Jeffrey Peipert, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, noted:iv
"This study is the best evidence we have that long-acting reversible methods are far superior to the birth control pill, patch and ring. IUDs and implants are more effective because women can forget about them after clinicians put the devices in place ... If there were a drug for cancer, heart disease or diabetes that was 20 times more effective, we would recommend it first."
Hormone-Based Contraceptives Have Steep Risks
Unintended pregnancy is clearly a big one, but artificially manipulating your hormones using oral contraceptives, the patch or ring, or an injection like Depo-Provera is also a very risky proposition. Most birth control pills are a combination of the derivatives of the hormones estrogen and a synthetic progesterone(progestin). They work by disrupting the hormones in your body, essentially fooling your intricate hormonal reproductive system into producing the following effects:
Preventing your ovaries from releasing eggs
Thickening your cervical mucus to help block sperm from fertilizing an egg
Thinning the lining of your uterus, which would make it difficult for an egg to implant, should it become fertilized
However, it is naive to believe that these are the only impacts the synthetic hormones are having. Your reproductive system does not exist in a bubble ... it is connected to all of your other bodily systems as well. The Pill, too, does not only influence your reproductive status; it's capable of altering much more.
Ten years ago, in 2002, one of the largest and best-designed federal studies of hormone replacement therapy was halted because women taking these synthetic hormones had a such a higher risk of breast cancer, heart attack, stroke and blood clots that continuing forward with the study would have been unethical. The news made headlines because millions of women were already taking these synthetic hormones, but fortunately it prompted many of them to quit. And what do you think happened a year after millions of women quit taking hormone replacement therapy? Incidents of breast cancer fell dramatically -- by 7 percent!
What does this have to do with the Pill? Birth control pills contain the SAME type of synthetic hormones -- estrogen and progestin -- that were used in the ill-fated study!
That's just one risk. Oral contraceptives have been linked to more than two dozen conditions, including heart disease, liver cancer, deep vein thrombosis and inflammatory bowel disease.v Research suggests they are not only carcinogenic (cancer-causing) but also cardiotoxic (toxic to your heart) and endocrine disrupting.
Why I Advise Most Women to Stop Hormonal Contraceptives
Birth control pills are rarely, if ever, necessary or beneficial. In exchange for the convenience of preventing pregnancy (which you can do naturally perhaps even more effectively, and I'll explain how below), you are putting yourself at risk of a myriad of health issues.
A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that several types of hormone-based birth control methods increased women's risk of heart attack and stroke.vi The link was found between oral contraceptives as well as contraceptive patches and the vaginal ring. Women using the ring were found to have a 2.5 times greater risk of stroke compared to those not using hormonal contraceptives, whereas the other methods increased the risk to varying degrees.
Other known health risks of hormone-based birth control include:
Fatal blood clots: All birth control pills increase your risk of blood clots and subsequent stroke.
Thinner bones: Women who take birth control pills have lower bone mineral density (BMD) than women who have never used oral contraceptives.
Impaired muscle gains: A study found that oral contraceptive use impairs muscle gains from resistance exercise training in women.vii
Long-term sexual dysfunction: The Pill may limit the availability and/or action of testosterone, leading to long-term sexual dysfunction, including decreased desire and arousal.
Heart disease: Long-term use of birth control pills may increase the buildup of arterial plaque, which may raise your risk of heart disease and cardiac mortality.viii
Migraines and nausea
Weight gain and mood changes
Irregular bleeding or spotting
Breast tenderness
Yeast overgrowth
Yeast infection
The other hormonal-based options are not much better. Birth control patches (Ortho Evra) have resulted in an avalanche of lawsuits over the past several years due to the overwhelming health problems women have experienced from using them. One of the reasons the patch is so risky is that you absorb up to 60 percent more synthetic estrogen than if you were taking an oral contraceptive. Side effects of the patch include:
Raised risk of heart attack and stroke
Irregular bleeding
Problems wearing contact lenses
Fluid retention or raised blood pressure
Nausea
Headache
Breast tenderness
Mood changes
Menstrual cramps
Abdominal pain
Skin irritation or rashes at site of patch
As far as injections like Depo-Provera, or depo medroxyprogesterone (DMPA), go, this synthetic analogue of natural progesterone known as a progestin interferes with hormone signaling to prevent your ovaries from releasing eggs. Progestins carry with them a vast array of negative side effects, including:
Side Effects of Depo-Provera
Weight gain
Headaches
Breast swelling and tenderness
Decreased sexual desire
Depression
Bloating
Swelling of the hands and feet
Nervousness
Abdominal cramps
Dizziness
Weakness of fatigue
Leg cramps
Nausea
Vaginal discharge or irritation
Backache
Insomnia
Acne
Pelvic pain
Lack of hair growth or excessive hair loss
Rashes
Hot flashes
Joint pain
Convulsions
Jaundice
Urinary tract infections
Allergic reactions
Fainting
Paralysis
Osteoporosis
Lack of return to fertility
Deep vein thrombosis
Pulmonary embolus
Breast and cervical cancers
Abnormal menstrual bleeding
Increased risk for STDs
Unexpected breast milk production
Changes in speech, coordination, or vision
Swelling of face, ankles or feet
Mood changes
Unusual fatigue
Is an IUD a Better Option?
Intrauterine devices are small, plastic, T-shaped sticks with a string attached to the end. The IUD is placed inside the uterus and prevents pregnancy by rendering the sperm unable to fertilize an egg, and by changing the lining of the uterus so that it is less supportive for an embryo. It also works by releasing hormones into your body, specifically a progestin hormone called levonorgestrel, which is often used in birth control pills.
One of its major advantages, and what contributes to its increased effectiveness rate, is that it essentially eliminates the compliance failure issue as all you do is insert it once. There is no daily task to remember to do. However, it, too, carries significant risks, including some that are unique to a foreign body being placed inside your uterus. Among them:
Pelvic infection: IUDs may lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, a serious infection
The device may attach to or go through the wall of the uterus
Pregnancy while using an IUD can be life threatening, and may result in loss of the pregnancy or fertility
Take Charge of Your Body Using Natural Birth Control Methods
You may not be aware that there are many effective and safe methods for preventing pregnancy. Some of the more common, barrier methods are:
Male condoms: Condoms have a 98 percent effectiveness rate when used correctly. A water-based lubricant will increase the effectiveness; do not use an oil-based lubricant, however, as they break the latex and usually are petrochemical in origin.
Female condoms: These thin, soft polyurethane pouches fitted inside the vagina before sex are 95 percent effective. Female condoms are less likely to tear than male condoms.
Diaphragm: Diaphragms, which must be fitted by a doctor, act as a barrier to sperm. When used correctly with spermicidal jellies, they are 92 to 98 percent effective.
Cervical cap: This heavy rubber cap fits tightly against the cervix and can be left in place for 48 hours. Like the diaphragm, a doctor must fit the cap. Proper fitting enhances the effectiveness above 91 percent.
Cervical sponges: The sponge, made of polyurethane foam, is moistened with water and inserted into the vagina prior to sex. It works as a barrier between sperm and the cervix, both trapping and absorbing sperm and releasing a spermicide to kill them. It can be left in for up to 24 hours at a time. When used correctly, the sponge is about 89-91 percent effective.
Many people are familiar with these barrier methods, and less familiar with natural family planning (NFP) tools, which a woman uses to track when she is ovulating, and then avoid sex during that time (or does so only using a back-up barrier method). Many women feel empowered by NFP because it allows them to get in touch with their fertility cycle.
Some of the most popular methods include:
Calendar Method: Abstention from sex during the week the woman is ovulating. This technique works best when a woman's menstrual cycle is very regular. The calendar method doesn't work very well for couples who use it by itself (about a 75 percent success rate), but it can be effective when combined with the temperature and mucus methods described below.
The Temperature Method: This is a way to pinpoint the day of ovulation so that sex can be avoided for a few days before and after. It involves taking your basal body temperature (your temperature upon first waking) each morning with an accurate "basal" thermometer, and noting the rise in temperature that occurs after ovulation.
Illness or lack of sleep can change your body temperature and make this method unreliable by itself, but when it is combined with the mucus method, it can be an accurate way of assessing fertility. The two methods combined can have a success rate as high as 98 percent.
The Mucus Method: This involves tracking changes in the amount and texture of vaginal discharge, which reflect rising levels of estrogen in your body. For the first few days after your period, there is often no discharge, but there will be a cloudy, tacky mucus as estrogen starts to rise. When the discharge starts to increase in volume and becomes clear and stringy, ovulation is near. A return to the tacky, cloudy mucus or no discharge means that ovulation has passed.
I encourage you to become actively involved in fertility awareness, and embrace natural family planning or barrier methods that will not interfere with your hormones and health. Some excellent reading to get you started on this path include:
The Ovulation Method: Natural Family Planning, by John J. Billings
Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health, by Toni Weschler
Honoring Our Cycles: A Natural Family Planning Workbook, by Katie Singer
New research examining parabens found in cancerous human breast tissue points the finger at antiperspirants and other cosmetics for increasing your risk of breast canceri.
The research, which is also reviewed in an editorial published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology, looked at where breast tumors were appearing, and determined that higher concentrations of parabens were found in the upper quadrants of the breast and axillary area, where antiperspirants are usually appliedii.
Parabens are chemicals that serve as preservatives in antiperspirants and many cosmetics, as well as sun lotions. Previous studies have shown that all parabens have estrogenic activity in human breast cancer cells.
Another component of antiperspirants, aluminum chloride, has been found to act similarly to the way oncogenes work to provide molecular transformations in cancer cells. According to the authors of the editorial review, the research shows "signals of concern that such compounds are not as safe as previously generally considered, and further research is warranted." Furthermore:
"The data from this latest study, the most extensive examination of parabens in human breast so far published, confirms previous work and raises a number of questions on the entire parabens, personal care product and human health debate, particularly relating to the source and toxicological significance of the paraben esters."
Ninety-nine Percent of Breast Cancer Tissue Samples Contain Parabens
The featured study by Barr et.al. discovered one or more paraben esters in 99 percent of the 160 tissue samples collected from 40 mastectomiesiii. In 60 percent of the samples, all five paraben esters were present. There were no correlations between paraben concentrations and age, length of breast feeding, tumor location, or tumor estrogen receptor content. The median values in nanograms per tissue for the five chemicals were:
n-propylparaben 16.8
methylparaben 16.6
n-butylparaben 5.8
ethylparaben 3.4
isobutylparaben 2.1
While antiperspirants are a common source of parabens, the authors note that the source of the parabens cannot be established, and that 7 of the 40 patients reportedly never used deodorants or antiperspirants in their lifetime. What this tells us is that parabens, regardless of the source, can bioaccumulate in breast tissue.
And the sources are many. Parabens can be found in a wide variety of personal care products, cosmetics, as well as drugs. That said, it appears the dermal route is the most significant form of exposure. In the featured editorial, Philip Harvey and David Everett explain why:
"... [T]he dermal route of exposure is considered more plausible when intact esters are detected, and other authors reporting human exposures and body fluid concentrations of paraben esters consider cosmetics of some form or another as the likely sources... This is because the metabolic esterase activity of the gut and liver (relevant to oral exposure) is considered to greatly exceed that of the skin, and oral exposures would result in rapid liver metabolism of the esters to produce the common metabolite p-hydroxybenzoic acid... Paraben esters typically used in cosmetics pass through human skin in vitro/ex vivo, and Ishiwatrai et.al. (2007) has shown persistence of unmetabolized methylparaben in the skin"
Safety of Parabens has NEVER Been Established...
As incredible as it sounds, despite the fact that parabens are used in such a wide variety of products, the toxicology of these chemicals has barely been investigated. There is a complete lack of modern toxicology studies on these ingredients, and according to the featured review, not a single study on the chemicals' carcinogenity follows acceptable regulatory standard carcinogenity study protocols.
The authors point out that one rat study from 1956 is still used as "the pivotal evaluation upon which human safety is judged!"
"This may be acceptable for certain chemicals for which there is limited human exposure but not for chemicals such as parabens for which such a large population is exposed, and which show significant tissue concentrations," they write.
Furthermore, virtually all toxicology studies are based on the oral route of exposure, which means that risk assessment, according to Harvey and Everett, is "largely based on assumption, opinion and the technical regulatory instrument of GRAS (Generally Regarded as Safe)."
The Estrogenic Activity of Parabens
Estrogens, whether synthetic or natural are a primary risk factor for breast cancer. Approximately 20 different studies have established that parabens have estrogenic activity, which makes them relevant when it comes to estrogen-sensitive cancers. A common excuse used to defend the absence of toxicological studies is that parabens are weak in terms of potency. For example, propylparaben and butylparaben are approximately 30,000 and 10,000 less potent than estradiol, respectively.
"However, estradiol occurs in breast tissue in the pictogram per gram of tissue range... but the results reported by Barr et.al. [the featured study] show tissue concentrations of parabens, in the worst cases, in the microgram per gram of breast tissue range, which is one million-fold higher than that of estradiol. Clearly, the magnitude of exposure would seem to more than compensate for the reduction in potency," Harvey and Everett write.
But that's not all. A 2011 study reported that methylparaben promotes cell cycling and makes human breast cells more resistant to apoptosis, which, according to the authors can provide the molecular basis for malignant tumor proliferation. Harvey and Everett also cite another study from 2007, which found that propylparaben and butylparaben cause detectable DNA damage.
Rise in Breast Cancer Likely Linked to Chemical Exposures
Harvey and Everett point out that the hypothesis that chemicals in personal care products might be harmful to your health and contribute to breast cancer has a basis in two key observations:
Breast cancer rates have increased in recent decades, which correlates with many lifestyle factors that have undergone significant change during that same time, such as diet, obesity, and use of personal care products containing untested chemicals
Tumors are disproportionately located in the upper, outer quadrant of the breast, and more tumors are found in the left breast than the right, suggesting it may be related to products applied topically to those areas (most people are right-handed, which could make you a bit more heavy-handed when applying products under your left arm than your right)
In my view, one of the key observations by Harvey and Everett is that:
"The tenet that there "is no evidence that personal care products (antiperspirants or deodorants) are related to breast cancer" is technically correct, but only because studies have not been conducted to investigate any relationships. Such arguments provide false assurance by masking the inadequacies of empirical evidence and knowledge."
Aluminum—Another Cancer-Promoting Ingredient in Antiperspirants
Antiperspirants work by clogging, closing, or blocking the pores that release sweat under your arms—with the active ingredient being aluminum. (If you are using a deodorant-only product it is unlikely to contain aluminum but might contain other chemicals that could be a concern, such as parabens.) Not only does this block one of your body's routes for detoxification (releasing toxins via your underarm sweat), but it raises concerns about where these metals are going once you roll them (or spray them) on.
Like parabens, aluminum salts can also mimic estrogen, and, just like the featured study, previous research has shown that aluminum is also absorbed and deposited into breast tissueiv. The researchers suggested raised levels of aluminum could even be used as a biomarker for identification of women at increased risk of developing breast cancer.
Aluminum salts can account for 25 percent of the volume of some antiperspirants, and a review of the common sources of aluminum exposure for humans found that antiperspirant use can significantly increase the amount of aluminum absorbed by your body. According to the review, after a single underarm application of antiperspirant, about .012 percent of the aluminum may be absorbedv. This may not sound like much until you multiply it by one or more times a day for a lifetime, which adds up to massive exposure to aluminum—a poison that is not supposed to be in your body, and may be more toxic than mercury. Aside from vaccinations, your antiperspirant may be your largest source of exposure to this poisonous metal!
Be Cautious with Natural Deodorants, Too
There are many brands of aluminum-free deodorants on the market, and many of these are safe alternatives. "Crystal" deodorant stones, which are a popular natural deodorant alternative often used by health-conscious shoppers looking to avoid aluminum, often claim to be aluminum-free, but some actually contain a different type of compound known as an alum, the most common form being potassium alum, also known as potassium aluminum sulfate.
Potassium Alum or Ammonium Alum are natural mineral salts made up of molecules that are too large to be absorbed by your skin. They form a protective layer on your skin that inhibits the growth of odor-causing bacteria. These deodorants are recommended by many cancer treatment centers, but while this may be a better alternative to most antiperspirants and deodorants on the market, it is not completely aluminum-free. Also remember to check the remaining ingredients, keeping a watchful eye out for parabens.
For the last few decades I have not used antiperspirants or deodorants--even natural ones. I noticed that they would cause a yellow stain in the armpit of my shirts. At first I thought the stain was due to my sweat but I quickly realized it was the chemicals in the antiperspirants. I routinely substitute soap and water in my armpits and that seems to work. Although last year I noticed that if I sunbathe my axilla regularly, the UV light actually sterilized my armpits in addition to raising my levels of vitamin D. There is no odor even without using soap and water. Essentially you tan your armpits. The effect is not long lasting and the bacteria repopulate in a day or so unless you expose your armpits to sunlight.
What Can You Do to Prevent Breast Cancer?
Aside from skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer among U.S. women. Unfortunately, while the American Cancer Society widely encourages women to get mammograms, they do not do nearly enough to spread the word about the many ways women can help prevent breast cancer in the first place. The following lifestyle strategies will help to lower your risk of breast cancer:
Radically reduce your sugar/fructose intake. Normalizing your insulin levels by avoiding sugar and fructose is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to lower your risk of cancer. Unfortunately, very few oncologists appreciate or apply this knowledge today. The Cancer Centers of America is one of the few exceptions, where strict dietary measures are included in their cancer treatment program. Fructose is especially dangerous, as research shows it actually speeds up cancer growth.
Optimize yourvitamin Dlevel. Ideally it should be over 50 ng/ml, but levels from 70-100 ng/ml will radically reduce your cancer risk. Safe sun exposure is the most effective way to increase your levels, followed by safe tanning beds and then oral vitamin D3 supplementation as a last resort if no other option is available.
Maintain a healthy body weight. This will come naturally when you begin eating right for your nutritional type and exercising using high-intensity burst-type activities, which are part of my Peak Fitness program. It's important to lose excess weight because estrogen is produced in fat tissue.
Get plenty of high quality animal-based omega-3 fats, such as those from krill oil. Omega-3 deficiency is a common underlying factor for cancer.
Avoid drinking alcohol, or limit your drinks to one a day for women.
Breastfeed exclusively for up to six months. Research shows this will reduce your breast cancer risk.
Watch out for excessiveiron levels. This is actually very common once women stop menstruating. The extra iron actually works as a powerful oxidant, increasing free radicals and raising your risk of cancer. So if you are a post-menopausal woman or have breast cancer you will certainly want to have your Ferritin level drawn. Ferritin is the iron transport protein and should not be above 80. If it is elevated you can simply donate your blood to reduce it.
You may be aware, and possibly have experienced firsthand, that antibiotics can cause diarrhea.
This is because antibiotics, by design, disrupt the balance of good and bad bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract, often killing off both beneficial and harmful microorganisms without distinction.
It is through this same mechanism that antibiotics may also be causing you to pack on extra pounds.
In fact, Dr. Martin Blaser, a professor of microbiology at New York University Langone Medical Center, suggests that antibiotics may permanently alter your gut bacteria and interfere with important hunger hormones secreted by your stomach, leading to increased appetite and body mass index (BMI).
Antibiotics Lead to Increases in Body Fat and Hunger Hormones
Research by Dr. Blaser has shown that 18 months after antibiotics are used to eradicate H. pylori bacteria, there is a:
6-fold increase in the release of ghrelin (the "hunger hormone") after a meal
20 percent increase in leptin levels (leptin is a hormone produced by fat tissue)
5 percent increase in BMI
Levels of ghrelin should ordinarily fall after a meal to signal your brain that you're full and ready to stop eating; an increase would therefore essentially tell your brain to continue eating, leading to weight gain. Further, the increase in leptin levels is concerning because overexposure to high levels of the hormone can lead to leptin resistance, which means your body is unable to properly hear leptin's signals.
The way your body stores fat is a highly regulated process that is controlled, primarily, by leptin. If you gain excess weight, the additional fat produces extra leptin that should alert your brain that your body is storing too much fat and needs to burn off the excess.
To do this, signals are sent to your brain to stop being hungry and to stop eating. When you become leptin-resistant, your body can no longer hear these messages -- so it remains hungry and stores more fat.
Interestingly, you can easily become leptin resistant by eating the typical American diet full of sugar (particularly fructose), refined grains and processed foods … which, like antibiotics, will upset the balance of bacteria in your gut.
Farmers Use Antibiotics to Fatten Up Livestock Quickly
"Continuous, low-dose administration of an antibiotic can increase the rate and efficiency of weight gain in healthy livestock. The presence of antibiotics likely changes the composition of the gut flora to favor growth. Debate is ongoing as to how gut flora are changed; change may simply be a reduction in numbers, a change in species composition or a combination of the two.
… Some antibiotics may also enhance feed consumption and growth by stimulating metabolic processes within the animal."
Unfortunately, this practice is also contributing to the alarming spread of antibiotic-resistant disease. As it pertains to your weight, there's ample reason to believe that this same phenomenon occurs in humans as well, figuratively turning Americans into fatted calves.
Your Gut Bacteria and Your Waistline Go Hand-in-Hand
Research by Dr. Blaser, for instance, found that mice fed antibiotics (in dosages similar to those given to children for throat or ear infections) had significant increases in body fat despite their diets remaining unchanged.
Multiple studies have actually shown that obese people have different intestinal bacteria than slim people, and that altering the microbial balance in your gut can influence your weight. Here are six such studies:
When rats were given lactic acid bacteria while in utero through adulthood, they put on significantly less weight than other rats eating the same high-calorie diet. They also had lower levels of minor inflammation, which has been associated with obesity.
Babies with high numbers of Bifidobacteria and low numbers of Staphylococcus aureus -- which may cause low-grade inflammation in your body, contributing to obesity -- appeared to be protected from excess weight gain. This may be one reason why breast-fed babies have a lower risk of obesity, as Bifidobacteria flourish in the guts of breast-fed babies.
Two studies found that obese individuals had about 20 percent more of a family of bacteria known as Firmicutes, and almost 90 percent less of a bacteria called Bacteroidetes than lean people. Firmicutes help your body to extract calories from complex sugars and deposit those calories in fat. When these microbes were transplanted into normal-weight mice, those mice started to gain twice as much fat.
Obese people were able to reduce their abdominal fat by nearly 5 percent, and their subcutaneous fat by over 3 percent, just be drinking a probiotic-rich fermented milk beverage for 12 weeks.
Probiotics (good bacteria) have been found to benefit metabolic syndrome, which often goes hand-in-hand with obesity.
Probiotics may also be beneficial in helping women lose weight after childbirth when taken from the first trimester through breastfeeding.
Healthy Gut Bacteria Cannot Coexist With Antibiotics
Antibiotics can save your life if you develop a serious bacterial infection, but it's important that you resist the urge to ask your physician for a prescription for every ear, nose, or throat infection you come down with. Likewise for a cold or the flu. Antibiotics are useless against viral infections like these, and when used for this purpose will only harm your health by wiping out the good bacteria in your gut.
Antibiotic use has become so routine in the United States that one round of the drugs may seem like no big deal, but remember that using them drastically alters the makeup of bacteria in your gut, which will need to be rebuilt in order for you to stay in good health. Whenever you use an antibiotic, you're also increasing your susceptibility to developing infections with resistance to that antibiotic -- and you can become the carrier of this resistant bug and even spread it to others.
Ultimately the problem of antibiotic-overuse needs to be stemmed through public policy on a nationwide level, especially in the agricultural community, but I urge you to also take personal responsibility and evaluate your own use of antibiotics, and avoid taking them -- or giving them to your children -- unless absolutely necessary.
Remember that the foods you eat are also a major source of exposure to antibiotics, so to protect your gut bacteria you should buy primarily antibiotic-free, organically raised meat and produce. Keep in mind that conventionally farmed food is often grown in fertilizer derived from factory-farmed animal waste and human sewage, which may be a source of contamination with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
The Recipe for Healthy Gut Bacteria
Your gut bacteria are vulnerable to your lifestyle. If you eat a lot of processed foods, for instance, your gut bacteria are going to be compromised because processed foods in general will destroy healthy microflora and feed bad bacteria and yeast.
In addition to antibiotics, your gut bacteria are also very sensitive to:
Chlorinated water
Antibacterial soap
Agricultural chemicals
Pollution
Because virtually all of us are exposed to these at least occasionally, ensuring your gut bacteria remain balanced should be considered an ongoing process, and consuming fermented foods is one of the best ways to do this.
One of the reasons why fermented foods are so beneficial is because they contain lactic acid bacteria -- a type of beneficial gut bacteria that research shows can help you stay slim.
I have long stated that it's generally a wise choice to "reseed" your body with good bacteria from time to time by taking a high-quality probiotic supplement or eating non-pasteurized, traditionally fermented foods such as:
Lassi (an Indian yoghurt drink, traditionally enjoyed before dinner)
Fermented organic grass-fed raw milk, such as kefir
Various pickled fermentations of cabbage, turnips, eggplant, cucumbers, onions, squash and carrots
If you do not eat fermented foods on a regular basis, a high-quality probiotic supplement can be incredibly useful to help maintain healthy gut bacteria when you stray from your healthy diet and consume excess grains or sugar, or if you have to take antibiotics.
Also please remember that it is vital to eliminate ALL sugars. They will sabotage any beneficial effects of the fermented foods, as they will act as nutrients for the pathogenic yeast, fungi and bacteria that are in your gut.
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Bioidentical hormone therapy has become widely adopted as a useful method of normalizing hormone levels. While it is far safer than synthetic or animal based hormones like Premarin, there are clearly some dangers associated with its use and the purpose of this article is to highlight some of the major ones.
This article is in no way meant to be a comprehensive review of the topic, but merely to point out some of the major concerns and approaches as I see them from having practiced medicine for nearly three decades.
If you have any interest. I would strongly recommend purchasing Dr. Wright's new book Stay Young and Sexy. It is under $10 and simply the best book I have reviewed on the topic. If the book were $100 it would be worth the price. This book is a classic and should be in everyone's natural medicine library. The publisher has also created a web site with a free hormone self assessment and sample chapters at www.stayyoungandsexy.com.
Natural Progesterone
I will focus much of this article on natural progesterone cream as it is one of the most popular and useful ones for women.Typically, women find rapid improvement in two of the most common premenopausal challenges which are PMS and painful cramps. It can be also extraordinarily useful to prevent miscarriages but dosing would be continuous after conception.
Dr. John Lee was my original mentor in this area but he passed away a number of years ago and did not fully appreciate the challenges that are associated with using the creams on your skin.
Dr. Jonathon Wright, along with Dr. Lee, are considered the pioneers in introducing bioidentical hormone therapy in the United States. Dr. Wright is still alive and I believe has successfully resolved the challenge associated with using the creams. Before I discuss that though, let's first do a brief review of why progesterone is important.
Natural progesterone is the identical hormone that is produced by a woman's ovary. It is made from naturally occurring plant steroids found in the wild yam. It is NOT the synthetic version that is commonly purchased as tablets with a prescription such as Provera.
Synthetic progesterones, like Provera or medroxyprogesterone, can produce severe side effects including increased risk of cancer, abnormal menstrual flow, fluid retention, nausea, depression and can even increase risk of heart disease and stroke.
Side effects are extremely rare with natural progesterone. The only one of concern is that it can potentially alter the timing of your menstrual cycle.
Reasons Why Natural Progesterone Made by Your Body Is Good
Progesterone is a steroid hormone made by a woman's ovaries when she ovulates and in smaller amounts by the adrenal gland. A menstruating woman will typically produce about 20 to 30 mg of progesterone a day during the luteal or last phase of her menstrual cycle.
While menopause doesn't typically occur until age 50 or later, many women can start going out of balance in their 30s or even earlier. This decline in progesterone is not trivial for as women age into their fourth, fifth, and sixth decade, their progesterone levels continue to fall. By the time they reach perimenopause as much as 75% or more of their youthful progesterone secretion may already be missing.
Natural progesterone is very useful to balance excess estrogen which can be a major risk for breast cancer. Natural progesterone is also different from estrogen in that your body can use it as a precursor or starting material to make other hormones such as adrenal hormones. It can even convert it into estrogen or testosterone if your body needs it.
Natural progesterone is made from a substance called diosgenin which is commonly extracted from wild yams or soybeans. Even though it may be extracted from soy it is a highly purified hormone and there are absolutely no remnants of soy substances that would lead to any problem.
Estrogen Dominance
Many if not most women in our culture are estrogen dominant, so using the progesterone goes a long way towards balancing hormones which usually:
Decreases a woman's risk for breast cancer,
Improves her PMS and breast tenderness and
The table below lists the properties of estrogen relative to progesterone. Some of the reasons that estrogen is frequently in excess in many women are:
Overproduction of estrogen. Ovarian cysts or tumors can lead to excess estrogen production. Stress also increases production, but probably the most common cause is obesity. All body fat has an enzyme which converts adrenal steroids to estrogen, so the more fat you have, the more estrogen is present.
Inability to breakdown estrogen. Excess estrogen is generally removed by the liver. Diseases of the liver like cirrhosis or decreased enzyme activity can lead to increased estrogen levels. Vitamin B6 and magnesium are necessary for the liver to neutralize estrogen. Increased sugar intake will also excrete magnesium and interfere with its ability to breakdown estrogen.
Exposure to pesticides in foods. Most of us eat foods that have pesticides on them. These and many other unnatural chemicals share a common structure with estrogen and serve as "false" estrogens which further stimulates the body's estrogen receptors.
Estrogen supplementation. Clearly any additional estrogen given by prescription will increase the level unless it is properly balanced with natural progesterone.
Decreased production of progesterone. Progesterone is necessary to counterbalance estrogen. If women do not ovulate during their cycle they will not produce any progesterone that cycle. This happens commonly and worsens the already disturbed progesterone/estrogen balance. Decreased progesterone levels are one of the most common reasons for miscarriages.
To minimize your risk of cancer it is very important to understand that you should never take any supplemental estrogen without taking natural progesterone. Note that I use the term "natural' progesterone, or the real hormone. Taking synthetic versions like Provera will actually increase your risk of cancers and heart disease.
Estrogen Effects
Progesterone Effects
Stimulates breasts cysts
Protects against breast cysts
Increases body fat storage
Helps use fat for energy and keep it off hips
Salt and fluid retention
Natural diuretic (water pill)
Depression and headaches
Natural anti-depressant
Interferes with thyroid hormone
Facilitates thyroid hormone action
Increases blood clotting and risk of stroke
Normalizes blood clotting
Decreases libido (sex drive)
Increases libido
Impairs blood sugar control
Normalizes blood sugar levels
Loss of zinc and retention of copper
Normalizes zinc and copper levels
Reduced oxygen level in all cells
Restores proper cell oxygen levels
Increased risk of endometrial cancer
Helps prevent endometrial cancer
Increased risk of breast cancer
Helps prevent breast cancer
Helps decrease bone loss slightly
Increases bone building
Why You Should AVOID All Oral Hormone Preparations
There are many ways to "naturally" address bioidentical hormone replacement but one of the most common mistakes is to use oral hormones.
If nature had intended to locate your ovaries in your stomach or somewhere else in your GI tract it might make sense for women to swallow progesterone. If your ovaries were in your GI tract, your body would certainly have been equipped with a way to process them safely and efficiently so that everything worked in perfect synchrony.
Of course your ovaries are not in your GI tract but in your pelvis outside your GI tract and connected to your uterus and vagina through your fallopian tubes. Your ovaries have direct access to your blood stream through a pelvic plexus of veins, which delivers their hormone secretions to your heart which in turn pumps them, unchanged to hormone sensitive cells throughout your entire body.
If you swallow steroid hormones you will seriously distort their natural metabolism When you swallow them they will encounter potent stomach acids. The hormones that survive this assault then go to your liver where they will be further broken down. Your liver screens all molecules that enter your blood stream, passing some onward, modifying or detoxifying others, and rejecting a few.
This routing of orally swallowed hormones is in sharp contrast to the way nature intended them to be distributed to your tissues. If you swallow hormones only 10-15% will eventually reach the target tissues and you will need to take an oral dose that is 500% higher than you need. Over 30 different metabolites are created in your liver when you swallow the progesterone and any of these can then have unwanted side effects.
So if you or anyone you know currently use oral hormones like progesterone or DHEA or any hormone, I encourage you to strongly consider phasing them out.
Like most good things in life if you use too much of the hormone cream, complications can develop and disrupt your hormone balance.
The Key to Safely and Effectively Using Progesterone Cream
If you want to copy nature and reproduce a hormonal environment that most closely resembles a normal premenopausal woman the first logical step would be to get the hormones directly into your blood stream, just the way your ovary does.
Hormones carefully measured and formulated in an appropriate cream or gel need only be rubbed once or twice a day into your mucous (epithelial) membranes. Since there are no destructive detours through your GI tract when administered this way, your tissues are exposed to the appropriate concentrations of the hormone without the side effects of 30 different liver metabolites.
I first started using these creams in the early 1990s be became gradually disenchanted with them after I noticed that they typically worked wonderfully initially but then invariably stopped working. This is now known as "dermal fatigue".
What happens, not only for progesterone cream, but for ANY hormone preparation you use by applying as a cream to your skin is that within a few weeks to a few months you will saturate the fat tissue with the hormones and they will actually stop working or can even make your symptoms worse.
The problem relates to the fact that progesterone is highly fat soluble and once applied to your skin will store itself in your fat tissue. When one initially uses the cream, there aren't any problems as the fat stores are very low. But as time goes on, the cream accumulates and contributes to disruptions in your adrenal hormones such as DHEA, cortisol, and testosterone. I have learned that although progesterone cream is an enormously useful tool, it needs to be used very cautiously.
I found that many of the women who were on the cream have terribly elevated levels of this hormone. Progesterone is normally a cyclical hormone and the body really needs to see a change in the concentration to affect a proper physiological response. If the level is constantly above the concentration that it recognizes as "off" or low, this is not possible.
Fortunately, this is repairable. But it may involve going off the cream for as long as two years to wash the progesterone out of your system.
Best Way to Use Progesterone Cream
The key mistake that many well intentioned knowledgeable doctors, including myself made is to advise to use the cream on your skin. While this certainly provides better results than swallowing the hormones, it can still be improved.
There is a relatively minor tweak you can make with the creams which avoids nearly all of the side effects of applying the cream on your skin.
If you apply the cream to your mucous epithelial membranes that line your uterus and vagina you obtain a virtually ideal administration system. Not only is absorption through these membranes more complete than through your skin, but hormones absorbed through your vaginal membranes enter the very same pelvic plexus of veins that your ovaries normally empty into.
From here the hormones are carried to your heart and lungs and distributed to your tissues just as if your ovary had actually produced them.
Men also require hormones. Obviously men don't have a vagina to use but we do have a rectum that has a similar mucosal epithelial surface and can be used to administer the hormones in a near ideal fashion without any of the complications previously described.
Timing and Dose of Progesterone Cream
For most premenopausal women the usual dose is 15-24 mg/day for 14 days before expected menses, stopping the day or so before menses. So you would use the cream for twelve days and then stop. Typically this would mean you would start on day 12 of your cycle and stop on day 26.
The abrupt lowering of your progesterone level is the primary stimulus for your period to start. Hopefully when it starts any PMS and painful periods will be dramatically reduced.
When a women is in menopause she may only need 15 mg but taken for the first 25 days of the month, then take 5 or 6 days off and restart on the first of the month.
For most women a single daily application will work. However, because the half-life is relatively short, some women find that they get a more satisfactory response by splitting the daily dose in two, half in the morning and half in the evening. If you are only taking the hormones in the morning and begin to feel symptoms later in the day, splitting the dose in two should solve this problem.
Testing of Your Natural Hormones
This is somewhat of a controversial area but basically involves three different types.
Blood
Saliva
Urine
I have never been a fan of blood testing as many of the hormones are secreted in a pulsatile fashion and it is difficult to get an accurate idea of the levels in this way.
Saliva testing is easier than urine but is not as accurate.
My current belief is that a 24 hour urine test is the preferred method and the one I use for myself and family. This is the one that Dr. Wright advocates in his own clinic. Dr. Wright has trained many hundreds of physicians in this system and if you are seeking further guidance in this area it would be wise to seek one of them to help you in this area.
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