Fight cancer by fasting

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With cancer poised to become the number one killer in North America and traditional therapies not cutting the mustard for long-term success, it may be time to rethink the war on cancer. We have been focused on killing it conventionally at all costs, even when the collateral damage is significant and often accelerates the demise of a weakened immune system.

So instead of an all out attack on a weakened immune system, how about choosing a method that allows the immune system to regenerate and heal itself with its infinite wisdom?

Feasting vs fasting

The irony of the state of nutrition in North America is that most people are overfed and undernourished. We tend to overeat and this constant feasting puts a continual strain on our digestive system and organs that are responsible for breaking down this often questionable food. This puts undue stress on our immune system, of which 80% lies in the gut.

With this constant feasting our digestive and immune systems are chewing up a large part of our available energy to undertake this arduous task. This means less energy is available to the body to detoxify and to repair cells, tissues, and organs.

So what happens when we fast?

When the body is not directing its energy towards digestion, it uses that extra power to clean our internal abode. When fasting (whether it is just water or liquids), the body starts to use stored fat as a source of energy. In the beginning, it will rid itself of diseased tissues, excess nutrients, and accumulated wastes and toxins. This process creates an environment for the body to begin healing by repairing and regenerating different areas of the body, including the digestive and immune system.

Fasting and its effects on cancer

A study by researchers at the University of Southern California showed that extended fasting not only protects against immune system damage, but also induces immune system regeneration.

In a clinical trial involving patients who were receiving chemotherapy, scientists found that when patients didn’t eat for an extended period of time, their white blood cell count went down. This induces changes that trigger stem cell based regeneration of new immune system cells, so cycles of fasting basically help generate a new immune system.

Another study conducted on the effects of fasting on cancer patients has shown that those who included fasting in their therapy had fewer side effects from chemotherapy and it slowed down the growth of tumors and even eliminated the threat of cancer in some patients. According to Research Professor Valter Longo, University of Southern California:

“What we are seeing is that the cancer cell tries to compensate the lack of all these things missing in the blood after fasting. It may be trying to replace them, but it can’t. The cell is, in fact, committing cellular suicide”.

The researchers also stated that fasting essentially “…flips a regenerative switch” which prompts stem cells to create new white blood cells and begin regenerating the entire immune system. Not only that, but they found that prolonged fasting also reduces the enzyme PKA, which is linked to a hormone which increases cancer risk and tumor growth.

In response to criticism that fasting could cause issues in cancer patients, Dr. Longo stated “…there is no evidence at all that fasting would be dangerous while there is strong evidence that it is beneficial. Thus far the great majority have reported doing very well and only a few have reported some side effects including fainting and a temporary increase in liver markers.”

It’s important to note there are several types of fasting, including no food or drink, just water, and just liquids. There are also different types of fasting that can be as little as 16 hours and as much as 30 or more days.

One of the more popular and safer fasting rituals is green juicing, which is a great way to give your digestive system a rest while it nourishes and detoxifies your system with beneficial, regenerating nutrients. Doing this type of therapy over a period of 3 days at least once a month can accelerate the repair of a damaged immune system, and help the body heal from cancer and its conventional treatments like chemotherapy.

If you are new to these types of fasting, consult a knowledgeable holistic health coach or naturopath on how to approach it so it works best for you. In addition to that, understand the complete picture of what causes cancer and how to nourish and detoxify your body to eliminate it by reading Naturally Avoid and Eliminate Cancer. For when you aren’t fasting, check out these Foods that Kill Cancer.

Learn more:  http://www.naturalnews.com/048451_cancer_prevention_fasting_natural_cures.html#ixzz3RT0g4CKq

Sources:

http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com

http://fractalenlightenment.com

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

http://www.naturalhealth365.com

About the author:
Derek Henry, B.Kin, is a highly revered holistic health coach and world renowned natural health blogger and educator who created Healing the Body to help people understand the fundamental principles to exceptional health so they can overcome their own health challenges.

Learn more:  http://www.naturalnews.com/048451_cancer_prevention_fasting_natural_cures.html#ixzz3RT0lKnkC

Documentary Film Explores the Enormous Price We Pay for Ignoring the Need for Sleep

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By Dr. Mercola

January 17, 2015

According to the documentary, Sleepless in America, coproduced by the National Geographic Channel, 40 percent of Americans are sleep deprived. Many get less than five hours of sleep per night. Percentage-wise, adolescents are among the most sleep deprived.

The consequences are dire, not just for the individual who isn’t getting enough rest, but for those around them as well. While most people don’t give lack of sleep much thought, there are in fact life-threatening consequences.

Notably, “experts now believe that sleep deprivation may have played a role in the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Staten Island ferry crash, and the Three-Mile Island nuclear meltdown,” the film states. Countless people have also lost their lives to tired drivers who simply dozed off behind the wheel.

It’s important to realize that getting less than six hours of sleep each night leaves you cognitively impaired. Sleep deprivation has also been linked to health effects such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s,1and cancer. Depression and anxiety disorders are also adversely impacted by lack of sleep.

The Importance of Staying in Sync with Nature

Maintaining a natural rhythm of exposure to sunlight during the day and darkness at night is one crucial foundational component of sleeping well.

This was addressed in a previous interview with researcher Dan Pardi. In it, he explains how exposure to bright daylight serves as the major synchronizer of your master clock—a group of cells in your brain called the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN).

These nuclei synchronize to the light-dark cycle of your environment when light enters your eye. You also have other biological clocks throughout your body that are synchronized to your master clock.

One reason why so many people get so little sleep, and/or such poor sleep, can be traced back to a master clock disruption. In short, most people spend their days indoors, shielded from bright daylight, and then spend their evenings in too-bright artificial light.

As a result, their body clocks get out of sync with the natural rhythm of daylight and nighttime darkness, and when that happens, restorative sleep becomes elusive.

An estimated 15 million Americans also work the night shift, and the adverse health effects of working nights are well documented. As just one example, three years of periodical night shift work can increase your risk for diabetes by 20 percent, and this risk continues to rise with time.

What Happens When You’re Sleep Deprived?

What makes sleep deprivation so detrimental is that it doesn’t just impact one aspect of your health… it impacts many. Among them are five major risks to your mental and physical well-being:

    1. Reaction time slows: When you’re sleep-deprived, you’re not going to react as quickly as you normally would, making driving or other potentially dangerous activities, like using power tools, risky. One study even found that sleepiness behind the wheel was nearly as dangerous as drinking and driving.2
    2. Your cognition suffers—both short- and long-term: A single night of sleeping only four to six hours can impact your ability to think clearly the next day. In one animal study,3 sleep deprived mice lost 25 percent of the neurons located in their locus coeruleus, a nucleus in the brainstem associated with cognitive processes.

Hence, if you’re sleep-deprived you will have trouble processing information and making decisions. This is why it’s so important to get a good night’s sleep prior to important events at work or home.

For example, research discussed in the film found that diagnostic mistakes shot up by 400 percent among doctors who had worked for 24 consecutive hours.

Sleep deprived medical residents also reported a 73 percent increase in self-inflicted needle sticks and scalpel stabs, and when driving home from work, they had a 170 percent increased risk of having a serious motor vehicle accident.

Research4 also suggests that people with chronic sleep problems may develop Alzheimer’s disease sooner than those who sleep well. One of the reasons for this is because sleep is critical for brain detoxification—a process during which harmful proteins linked to Alzheimer’s are cleared out. 

    1. Memory and learning declines: The process of brain growth, or neuroplasticity, is believed to underlie your brain’s capacity to control behavior, including learning and memory. However, sleep and sleep loss modify the expression of several genes and gene products that may be important for synaptic plasticity.

Furthermore, certain forms of long-term potentiation, a neural process associated with the laying down of learning and memory can be elicited in sleep, suggesting synaptic connections are strengthened while you slumber.

    1. Emotions are heightened: As your reaction time and cognition slows, your emotions will be kicked into high gear. This means that arguments with co-workers or your spouse are likely, and you’re probably going to be at fault for blowing things out of proportion.

The amygdala controls basic emotions like fear and anger. As discussed in the film, another area of your brain called your frontal cortex, plays a key role in the regulation of emotions, and sleep is vital for its function.

When you’re well rested, your frontal cortex is nicely connected to your amygdala—that deep emotional center—and works almost like “a break to your emotional gas pedal.”

Sleep deprivation causes a disconnect between these two brain centers, allowing your emotions to run amok. Sleep deprivation also plays an important role in mental illness, and tends to result in more adverse psychiatric outcomes.

    1. Immune function and health deteriorates: Sleep deprivation has the same effect on your immune system as physical stress or illness,5 which may help explain why lack of sleep is tied to an increased risk of numerous chronic diseases.

For example, research shows that sleeping less than six hours per night more than triples your risk of high blood pressure, and women who get less than four hours of shut-eye per night double their chances of dying from heart disease.6

You Need Around Eight Hours of Sleep Every Night

The studies are quite clear and most experts agree, you are seriously fooling yourself if you think you can do fine on less than eight hours of sleep. But eight hours of sleep is not eight hours in bed. If you go to bed at 10 pm and get out of bed at 6 am, you might say you’ve slept for eight hours. In reality, you probably spent at least 15-30 minutes falling asleep and may have woken during the night one or more times.

With the advent of fitness-tracking devices such as Jawbone’s UP, however, we now have access to actual sleep data (and more) from wristband users. The data is quite useful on a personal level and they helped me understand that I need to start getting to sleep around 9.30 PM if I hope to get a full eight hours of sleep, which I now typically do.

Newer devices, like Jawbone’s UP3 that should be released in early 2015, can even tell you what activities led to your best sleep and what factors resulted in poor sleep. It’s also fascinating on a larger scale, as the data reveal insights into sleep patterns from around the world.

The Glorification of Sleep Deprivation

According to the 2013 International Bedroom Poll by the National Sleep Foundation,7 25 percent of Americans report having to cut down on sleep due to long workdays. On average, Americans get only 6.5 hours of sleep on weeknights, but report needing 7.25 hours in order to function optimally. As noted in a previous article in The Atlantic:8

“For some, sleep loss is a badge of honor, a sign that they don’t require the eight-hour biological reset that the rest of us softies do. Others feel that keeping up with peers requires sacrifice at the personal level—and at least in the short-term, sleep is an invisible sacrifice.”

Modern man’s penchant for equating sleep with unproductiveness (if not outright laziness) can be traced back to the heyday of Thomas Edison, who was known for working around the clock. According to the featured article:9

“Edison spent considerable amounts of his own and his staff’s energy on in publicizing the idea that success depended in no small part in staying awake to stay ahead of the technological and economic competition.”  No one… did more to frame the issue as a simple choice between productive work and unproductive rest … 

Over time, children’s books and magazines began to promote this type of Edisonian asceticism… Edison encouraged all Americans to follow his lead, claiming that sleeping eight hours a night was a waste and even harmful. “There is really no reason why men should go to bed at all,” he said in 1914.”

This culture of sleep deprivation started with the invention of the light bulb, and has only gotten worse with the proliferation of light-emitting electronics, which disrupt your natural waking-sleeping cycle. The following infographic, created by BigBrandBeds.co.uk, illustrates how your electronic gadgets wreak havoc on your sleep when used before bedtime.10

The Importance of Addressing Sleep Apnea

As discussed in the film, sleep apnea is another common cause of sleep deprivation. Sleep apnea is the inability to breathe properly, or the limitation of breath or breathing, during sleep. Obstructive sleep apnea consists of the frequent collapse of the airway during sleep, making it difficult to breathe for periods lasting as long as 10 seconds. Those with a severe form of the disorder have at least 30 disruptions per hour. Not only do these breathing disruptions interfere with sleep, leaving you unusually tired the next day, it also reduces the amount of oxygen in your blood, which can impair the function of internal organs and/or exacerbate other health conditions you may have.

The condition is closely linked to metabolic health problems such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, and according to research,11 even a modest weight reduction can halt the progression of obstructive sleep apnea. Shedding excess pounds might even cure it, according to one five-year long study.12 That said, you do not have to be obese to suffer from sleep apnea. As discussed by Dr. Arthur Strauss, a dental physician and a diplomat of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine, factors such as the shape and size of your mouth, and the positioning of your tongue, can also play a significant role.

If your sleep apnea is related to your tongue or jaw position, specialty trained dentists can design a custom oral appliance to address the issue. These include mandibular repositioning devices, designed to shift your jaw forward, while others help hold your tongue forward without moving your jaw. Relief may also be found in the form of speech therapy treatment called oral myofunctional therapy, which helps to re-pattern your oral and facial muscles. For more information about this, please see my previous interview with Joy Moeller, who is a leading expert in this form of therapy in the US.

How to Support Your Circadian Rhythm and Sleep Better for Optimal Health

Making small adjustments to your daily routine and sleeping area can go a long way to ensure uninterrupted, restful sleep and, thereby, better health. I suggest you read through my full set of 33 healthy sleep guidelines for all of the details, but to start, consider implementing the following changes to ensure more shut-eye:

  • Avoid watching TV or using your computer in the evening, at least an hour or so before going to bed. These devices emit blue light, which tricks your brain into thinking it’s still daytime. Normally, your brain starts secreting melatonin between 9 and 10 pm, and these devices emit light that may stifle that process. You can also download a free application called F.lux13 that automatically dims your monitor or screens in the evening, which can help lessen the adverse effects if you have to use them in the evening.
  • Get some sun in the morning, and at least 30 minutes of BRIGHT sun exposure mid-day. Your circadian system needs bright light to reset itself. Ten to 15 minutes of morning sunlight will send a strong message to your internal clock that day has arrived, making it less likely to be confused by weaker light signals during the night. Also, if you work indoors, make a point to get outdoors for at least a total of 30-60 minutes during the brightest portion of the day.
  • Sleep in a dark room. Even the slightest bit of light in your bedroom can disrupt your body’s clock and your pineal gland’s melatonin production. I recommend covering your windows with drapes or blackout shades, or using an eye mask.
  • Install a low-wattage yellow, orange, or red light bulb if you need a source of light for navigation at night. Light in these bandwidths does not shut down melatonin production in the way that white and blue bandwidth light does. Salt lamps are handy for this purpose.
  • Keep the temperature in your bedroom below 70 degrees F. Many people keep their homes too warm (particularly their upstairs bedrooms). Studies show that the optimal room temperature for sleep is between 60 to 68 degrees F.
  • Take a hot bath 90 to 120 minutes before bedtime. This increases your core body temperature, and when you get out of the bath it abruptly drops, signaling your body that you are ready to sleep.
  • Avoid electromagnetic fields (EMFs) in your bedroom. EMFs can disrupt your pineal gland and its melatonin production, and may have other negative biological effects as well. A gauss meter is required if you want to measure EMF levels in various areas of your home. Ideally, you should turn off any wireless router while you are sleeping. You don’t need the Internet on while you’re asleep.
  • Use a fitness tracker to track your sleep. Chances are you’re not getting nearly as much sleep as you think, and using a fitness tracker that monitors your sleep can be a useful tool to help motivate you to get to bed earlier so you can get eight hours of sleep. When I first started using a fitness tracker, I was striving to get 8 hours of sleep, but my Jawbone UP typically recorded me at 7.5 to 7.75. Part of the equation too is going to bed earlier, as most of us have to get up at a preset time.

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Inflammation May Cause Depression, Scientists Say

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BY EMI BOSCAMP, MBG EDITORIAL
JANUARY 5, 2015 5:00 AM EST

Depression needs to be treated like a physical illness — not a mental disability. With “mental disability” comes a stigma of weakness. So it’s understandably something people have trouble admitting they have. But would people be less ashamed of their depression if it was regarded as a bodily condition? Because that’s exactly what it is, according to a growing number of scientists.

George Slavich, a clinical psychologist at the University of California in Los Angeles told the Guardian, “I don’t even talk about it as a psychiatric condition any more. It does involve psychology, but it also involves equal parts of biology and physical health.”

In other words, depression has just as much to do with the body as it does with the mind.

It seems kind of obvious once pointed out, but when people are sick, they show classic signs of depression: lethargy, apathy, and an inability to get one’s self off of the couch. So could there be a common cause for both depression and feeling physically ill? Recent research says yes. It’s inflammation.

Research has shown that healthy people can be temporarily put into a depressed, anxious state when given a vaccine that causes a spike in inflammation. A family of proteins called cytokines sets off inflammation in the body, and shifts the brain into sickness mode.

Both cytokines and inflammation have been shown to rocket during depressive episodes and to drop off in periods of remission in bipolar people.

Another researcher Turhan Canli of Stony Brook University in New York believes infections are the most probable culprit behind inflammation, going as far as to say that we should rebrand depression as an infectious — but not contagious — disease.

However, infection is not the only way to incite inflammation. A diet rich in trans fats and sugar has been shown to promote inflammation, and obesity is another risk factor because body fat, particularly around the belly, stores large quantities of cytokines.

It seems like depression is some sort of allergic reaction to our own lifestyles. Stress, especially the kind induced by social rejection or loneliness, also causes inflammation. We’re literally eating, drinking, and isolating ourselves into inflammatory — and therefore depressive — states.

There is hope, though. We can change our diets to reduce this inflammation (though we shouldn’t rid ourselves of it entirely because our immune system needs it to fight off infections). Plus, the clinical trials conducted so far have found that adding anti-inflammatory medicines to antidepressants not only improves symptoms, it also increases the proportion of people who respond to treatment, but more research needs to be done on this.

Carmine Pariante, a psychiatrist at Kings College London, said that in between five to 10 years there may be a blood test that can measure inflammation in people with depression so that they can be treated accordingly.

Maybe it would help, too, if people didn’t look down on those suffering from depression, if people could have a little more sympathy for others. Inflammation is a condition that rears its ugly head in every person at a given time. If depression could be thought of as something as common and inevitable as inflammation, maybe we’d all be more understanding.

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The Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

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The Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

By Dr. Mercola

It’s long been known that calorie restriction can increase the lifespan of certain animals. More recent studies suggest that intermittent fasting can provide the same health benefits as constant calorie restriction, which may be helpful for those who cannot successfully reduce their everyday calorie intake. “Undernutrition without malnutrition” is the only experimental approach that consistently improves survival in animals with cancer, and extends overall lifespan by about 30 percent.

Both intermittent fasting and continuous calorie restriction have been shown to produce weight loss and improve metabolic disease risk markers. However, intermittent fasting tends to be slightly more effective for reversing insulin resistance. Besides turning you into an efficient fat burner, intermittent fasting can boost your human growth hormone production (aka HGH, the “fitness hormone”) by as much as 1,200 percent for women and 2,000 percent for men.

Intermittent fasting can also improve your brain function by boosting your production of a protein called  brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which protects your brain from the changes associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and  helps prevent neuromuscular degradation.