Fluoride is poison. Two of the main compounds used for fluoridating the water supply, fluorosilicic acid and sodium fluorosilicate, are both by-products of the manufacture of phosphate-based fertilizer. But what’s really disturbing, is the lack of evidence supporting the benefits of fluoride. This poisonous drug is being forced on millions of people without their consent.

Many do not realize that fluoride is indeed a drug. In fact, if you decided you wanted to take it, you’d have to get a prescription for it. Yet it’s added to municipal water supplies reaching more than 180 million Americans, including infants and the elderly. This is a significant problem, because once you add it to the water supply, you have no way of gauging how much of the drug any particular person will consume on any given day.

Consider this: It is illegal and unethical for a medical doctor to give you a drug without specifying dosage, and to fail to monitor your health for side effects from the drug. Yet, your water authority is not only allowed, but encouraged to add a toxic drug—fluoride—to your drinking water without your consent and without any way of knowing who in your household is drinking it, how much, and the effect it is having.

Read the rest of this informative article at mercola.com

The reason why you get addicted to any food, but particularly sugar, is because your brain has opioid receptors (heroin is an opioid). Interestingly, sugar binds to the same addictive receptors as cocaine and other addictive drugs. These opioid receptors are part of a primitive reward system that helps you detect, select and enjoy eating fresh foods over rancid ones.

Today, however, we live in a world where we are surrounded, not only by food in general, but by processed foods that are typically loaded with sugar. Unfortunately, this has led to a saturation of our opioid receptors, and we’ve become addicted to foods that are extremely harmful.

Now, there are compounds called opioid receptor antagonists. That means once they occupy the receptors, they prohibit you from being addicted to something else. And coffee is an opioid receptor antagonist. Caffeine can bind to your opioid receptors and may diminish the addictive impact of another substance like sugar.

“If you are addicted to sugar, for instance, and you really want to train your body gradually get rid of this addiction, using coffee would be a viable way to help yourself achieve this. Train yourself to drink black coffee. Drink it sugarless on an empty stomach and you will see how, gradually, the cravings will dissipate…”
Ori Hofmekler

So, all in all, it appears coffee may have some valuable redeeming benefits, particularly to boost the benefits of your morning workout, as long as you get high quality organic coffee, ground your own beans to make sure it’s fresh, and avoid adding sugar.

Ori Hofmekler, author of The Warrior Diet, The Anti-Estrogenic Diet, Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat, and the upcoming book Unlocking the Muscle Gene is an expert on how to improve your health with foods.
Mercola.com video transcript

You can have the healthiest lifestyle, but if you’re not getting enough sleep, over time you’re setting yourself up for disaster. Sleep deprivation can cause depression, increased risk of diabetes, weight gain, heart disease, head aches, aching muscles, confusion, and memory lapses or loss just to name a few.

If you are having sleep problems, or you simply want to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep, there are many things you can do, including:

* Go to bed around the same time each night, ideally around 10 PM.
* Avoid snacking just before bedtime, particularly grains and sugars.
* Keep the temperature in your bedroom no higher than 70 degrees F (ideally between 60-68 degrees F.
* Eat a high-protein snack several hours before bed. This can provide the amino acid L-tryptophan, a precursor to melatonin and serotonin.
* Avoid caffeine as much as possible, especially in the PM.
* Make sure you exercise regularly, but not near bedtime.

There is one more thing however, that has been shown in scientific studies to improve your sleep. Wool has been proven to outperform both synthetics and down. Dramatic results demonstrated that wool bedding such as comforters and pillows:

* Breathes more naturally than any comparable synthetics, so you reduce the thermal stress on your body AND avoid creating a hospitable environment for dust mites.
* Increases the length of your REM sleep meaning you benefit more deeply from this vitally important stage of sleep every night.
* Helps create the most optimal body temperature the body gets to a comfortable sleeping temperature more quickly and stays there longer.

And, if that weren’t enough, recent studies have shown that the resting heart rate of people who sleep under wool versus those who use synthetics is 20 beats per minute less creating a more restorative sleep experience from beginning to end.

Mercola.com

Understanding Why and How Insomnia Occurs:

The most commonly reported sleep disorder is insomnia; having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, or the inability to get quality sleep throughout the night. According to Dr. Naiman, one of the most common symptoms of insomnia is a condition called “cognitive popcorn:”

“Cognitive popcorn is something that occurs when you put your head down, trying to go to sleep or trying to get back to sleep in the middle of the night, and suddenly your mind starts to produce all of these thoughts. They’re unwanted thoughts, uncontrollable thoughts. It’s as if the mind has a mind of its own. That’s a very common complaint that keeps people awake.”

In order to understand why you can’t sleep, you need to understand that sleep is the outcome of an interaction between two classes of variables: sleepiness and “noise.

1. Sleepiness – Under normal conditions, your sleepiness should gradually increase throughout the day, peaking just before you go to bed at night. This is ideal, as you want your sleepiness to be high at the beginning of the night.
2. “Noise” – refers to any kind of stimulation that inhibits or disrupts sleep. If noise is conceptually greater than your level of sleepiness, you will not fall asleep.

“Noise” occurs in three zones: the mind level, body level, and the environmental level.

Dr. Naiman gives this example: “If you’re energized during the day, you’re feeling passionate, you want to move, be productive and so on, that’s great. But if that experience occurs in the middle of the night, that becomes a kind of noise.”

The most common type of mind noise, however, is the “cognitive popcorn;” unstoppable thoughts running through your mind at night.

Examples of body noise include pain, discomfort, indigestion, side effects from prescription drugs, or residual caffeine from drinking coffee too late in the day.

Environmental noise is usually obvious, such as noises in your room or house, a snoring partner, music, lights, or a bedroom that’s too warm.

In order to get a good night’s sleep, you want your sleepiness level to be high, and the noise level to be low.

www.mercola.com
www.drnaiman.com/

Dr. Joseph Mercola shares some bitter truths about the artificial sweetner Asparatame.

In this article written for The Huffington Post he explains the dangers of artificial sweeteners and the particular dangers of Asparatame.

A name change can’t change the facts but the producers of this sweetener are hoping that you won’t notice!

The newly named AminoSweet is trying to sneak in under the radar.

Read this excerpt then read the full article here:

How Aspartame Wreaks Havoc on Your Health

Did you know there have been more reports to the FDA for aspartame reactions than for all other food additives combined?

In fact, there are over 10,000 official complaints, but by the FDA’s own admission, less than 1 percent of those who experience a reaction to a product ever report it. So in all likelihood, the toxic effects of aspartame may have affected roughly a million people already.

While a variety of symptoms have been reported, almost two-thirds of them fall into the neurological and behavioral category consisting mostly of headaches, mood alterations, and hallucinations. The remaining third is mostly gastrointestinal symptoms.

This chart will familiarize you with some of the terrifying side-effects and health problems you could encounter if you consume products containing this chemical.

Unfortunately, aspartame toxicity is not well-known by doctors, despite its frequency. Diagnosis is also hampered by the fact that it mimics several other common health conditions, such as:

How Diet Foods and Drinks CAUSE Weight Problems

In recent years, food manufacturers have increasingly focused on developing low-calorie foods and drinks to help you maintain a healthy weight and avoid obesity. Unfortunately, the science behind these products is so flawed, most of these products can actually lead to increased weight gain!

For example, researchers have discovered that drinking diet soda increases your risk of metabolic syndrome, and may double your risk of obesity — the complete opposite of the stated intention behind these “zero calorie” drinks.

The sad truth is that diet foods and drinks ruin your body’s ability to count calories, and in fact stimulate your appetite, thus boosting your inclination to overindulge.

Unfortunately, most public health agencies and nutritionists in the United States recommend these toxic artificial sweeteners as an acceptable alternative to sugar, which is at best confusing and at worst harming the health of those who take their misguided advice.