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Fat, Not Glucose, is the Preferred Fuel for Your Body from Mercola.com

By Dr. Mercola

While we may consider ourselves to be at the pinnacle of human development, our modern food manufacturing processes have utterly failed at improving health and increasing longevity.

During the Paleolithic period, many thousands of years ago, our ancestors ate primarily vegetables, fruit, nuts, roots and meat—and a wide variety of it. This diet was high in fats and protein, and low in grain- and sugar-derived carbohydrates.

The average person’s diet today, on the other hand, is the complete opposite, and the average person’s health is a testament of what happens when you adhere to a faulty diet. Humans today suffer more chronic and debilitating diseases than ever before.

And there can be little doubt that our food choices play a major role in this development. Quite simply, you were not designed to eat large amounts of refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, cereal, bread, potatoes and pasteurized milk products.

As Mark Sisson states in the featured article1:

“If you want to live a better life and eat the best foods nature provided for health and fitness, then it’s time to ditch the old paradigms and climb on to the primal approach to eating better.”

Is Glucose Really Your Body’s Preferred Fuel?

The notion that glucose is the preferred fuel for your body is a pervasive one. Everyone from diabetics to top athletes are advised to make sure they eat “enough” carbs to keep their systems from crashing. This is unfortunate, as this misguided advice is at the very heart of many of our current health failures.

As Mark so succinctly spells out in his article, FAT is actually the preferred fuel of human metabolism, and this can be traced back to our evolutionary roots.

Historically speaking, carbohydrate intake has always been quite low. Likewise, the diseases we now know are associated with insulin resistance—which is primarily caused by excess consumption of refined carbs—have been quite rare.

The evidence is both clear and overwhelming: Carbohydrate intake is the primary factor that determines your body’s fat ratio, and processed grains and sugars (particularly fructose) are the primary culprits behind our skyrocketing obesity and diabetes rates.

“It follows logically that if you can limit carb intake to a range of which is absolutely necessary (and even up to 50 grams a day over) and make the difference up with tasty fats and protein, you can literally reprogram your genes back to the evolutionary-based factory setting you had at birth – the setting that offered you the opportunity to start life as a truly efficient fat-burning organism and to continue to do so for the rest of your life as long as you send the right signals to your genes,” Mark writes.

Why the Low-Carb/High-Fat Diet Works for Weight Loss

Switching from a carb-based diet to a fat- and protein-based diet will help rebalance your body’s chemistry, and a natural side effect of this is weight loss, and/or improved weight management once you’re at an ideal weight. One explanation for this is that you don’t really get fat from eating too much and exercising too little. Nor do you get fat from eating fat. One researcher that has clearly established this is Dr. Richard Johnson, whose latest book, The Fat Switch, dispels many of the most pervasive myths relating to diet and obesity.

Dr. Johnson discovered the method that animals use to gain fat prior to times of food scarcity, which turned out to be a powerful adaptive benefit. His research showed that fructose activates a key enzyme, fructokinase, which in turn activates another enzyme that causes cells to accumulate fat. When this enzyme is blocked, fat cannot be stored in the cell. Interestingly, this is the exact same “switch” animals use to fatten up in the fall and to burn fat during the winter. Fructose is the dietary ingredient that turns on this “switch,” causing cells to accumulate fat, both in animals and in humans.

In essence, overeating and excess weight could be viewed as a symptom of an improper diet. It’s not necessarily the result of eating too many calories, per se, but rather getting your calories from the wrong sources. In simple terms, when you consume too many sugars and carbs, you set off a cascade of chemical reactions in your body that makes you hungry and craving for sweets:

First, fructose is metabolized differently from glucose, with the majority being turned directly into fat because fructose stimulates a powerful “fat switch.”
This rapidly leads to weight gain and abdominal obesity (“beer belly”), decreased HDL, increased LDL, elevated triglycerides, elevated blood sugar, and high blood pressure—i.e., classic metabolic syndrome.
Dietary carbohydrates, especially fructose, are also the primary source of a substance called glycerol-3-phosphate (g-3-p), which causes fat to become fixed in fat tissue
At the same time, high carb intake raises your insulin levels, which prevents fat from being released
Fructose further tricks your body into gaining weight by turning off your body’s appetite-control system. Fructose does not suppress ghrelin (the “hunger hormone”) and doesn’t stimulate leptin (the “satiety hormone”), which together result in feeling hungry all the time, even though you’ve eaten. As a result, you overeat and develop insulin resistance, which is not only an underlying factor of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and a long list of other chronic diseases
The resulting equation is simple: fructose and dietary carbohydrates (grains, which break down into sugar) lead to excess body fat, obesity and related health issues. Furthermore, no amount of exercise can compensate for this damage because if you eat excessive fructose and grains—the primary ingredients NOT found in our ancestral diet—it will activate programming to cause your body to become, and remain, fat.

How Much Glucose or Carbs Do You Really Need?

The debate about whether or not you really need glucose, and if so, how much, is by no means settled. Earlier this year, I ran a series of articles featuring the back-and-forth discussion between two well-researched experts on this topic, Dr. Jaminet and Dr. Rosedale.

Dr. Jaminet is a proponent of so-called “safe starches,” and is of the conviction that depleting your glycogen store can stress other systems to provide the glucose your body requires to perform. Dr. Rosedale, on the other hand, points out that because glucose consumption will undoubtedly spike blood glucose levels and increase insulin and leptin, promoting resistance, glucose consumption is always associated with some incremental degree of damage and/or increased risk of mortality. His diet is subsequently extremely carb-restrictive.

Yet another diet similar to Drs. Jaminet and Rosedale’s is the GAPS diet, created by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, which is specifically designed to help “heal and seal” your gut. As such, it primarily consists of easily digestible, lightly cooked foods that are high in protein, fats, and fermented foods, and low in fiber and carbs.

Mark Sisson also adds valuable insight to this discussion2:

“At any one time, the total amount of glucose dissolved in the bloodstream of a healthy non-diabetic is equivalent to only a teaspoon (maybe 5 grams). Much more than that is toxic; much less than that and you pass out. That’s not much range for a so-called ‘preferred’ fuel, is it?

Several studies have shown that under normal low MET conditions (at rest or low-to mid- levels of activity such as walking and easy work) the body only needs about 5 grams of glucose an hour. And that’s for people who aren’t yet fat-adapted or keto-adapted. The brain is the major consumer of glucose, needing maybe 120 grams a day in people who aren’t yet on a low carb eating program.

Low carb eating reduces the brain’s glucose requirements considerably, and those who are very low carb (VLC) and keto-adapted may only require about 30 grams of glucose per day to fuel the brain… Twenty of those grams can come from glycerol (a byproduct of fat metabolism) and the balance from gluconeogenesis in the liver (which can actually make up to a whopping 150 grams a day if you haven’t metabolically damaged it with NAFLD through fructose overdosing).

Bottom line, unless you are a physical laborer or are training (exercising) hard on a daily basis, once you become fat-adapted, you probably don’t ever need to consume more than 150 grams of dietary carbs – and you can probably thrive on far less. Many Pbers [Mark’s diet, Primal Blueprint] do very well (including working out) on 30-70 grams a day.” [Emphasis mine]

Key Point: Replace Carbs with Healthful Fats

As I see it, this is really a non-issue for most people as few people anywhere near Dr. Jaminet’s recommendation of cutting carbs from the standard 50 percent down to 20-30 percent of total calories. However, if you’ve already begun to seriously address your carb intake then you may want to experiment with various amounts of “safe carbs” like rice and potatoes. As Mark describes, the actual amount of carbs could vary anywhere from 30 to 150 grams a day, depending on whether your body has adapted to burning ketones and your level of exercise.

Keep in mind that when we’re talking about harmful carbs, we’re only referring to grains and sugars, NOT vegetable carbs.

When you cut grain/sugar carbs you actually need to radically increase the amount of vegetables you eat since, by volume, the grains you need to trade out are denser than vegetables. You also need to dramatically increase healthful fats such as avocados, coconut oil, egg yolks, raw grass fed organic butter, olives and nuts.

You would not want to use highly processed and genetically engineered omega-6 oils like corn, canola and soy as they will upset your omega 6/3 ratio. Of course you want to avoid all trans fats, but contrary to popular advice, saturated fats are a key component of a healthy diet that will promote weight loss.

A reasonable goal will be to have as much as 50-70 percent of your diet as healthy fat, which will radically reduce your carbohydrate intake. It can be helpful to remember that fat is far more satiating than carbs, so if you have cut down on carbs and feel ravenous, this is a sign that you have not replaced them with sufficient amounts of healthy fat. Sources of healthy fats that you’ll want to add to your diet include:

Olives and Olive oil (for cold dishes) Coconuts, and coconut oil (for all types of cooking and baking) Butter made from raw grass-fed organic milk
Raw Nuts, such as, almonds or pecans Organic pastured egg yolks Avocados
Pasture finished meats Palm oil Unheated organic nut oils

Most people will likely notice massive improvement in their health by following this approach as they are presently consuming FAR more grain and bean carbohydrates in their diet, and any reduction will be a step in the right direction. To help you get started on the right track, review my Nutritional Plan, which guides you through these dietary changes one step at a time.

Recent Research Confirms Benefits of Low-Carb/High-Fat Diet

Conventional advice has focused on low-fat diets for weight loss and heart disease prevention, but again and again, studies demonstrate that this advice is diametrically opposed to reality… In one such study, researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Heart and Vascular Institute compared the effects of two diets on vascular health; one low in fat, the other low in carbs. The study in question was presented at this year’s meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Denver, on June 33.

The study included a total of 46 men and women weighing on average 218 pounds. The six-month long weight loss program consisted of moderate aerobic exercise and strength training, and one of two diets, either:

Low-carb, high-fat: Less than 30 percent of calories from carbs (pastas, breads and sugary fruits), and up to 40 percent from fats (meat, dairy products, and nuts)
Low-fat, high-carb diet: Less than 30 percent of calories from fat, and 55 percent from carbs
The low-carb group on average shed 10 pounds in 45 days, while the low-fat group took 70 days to lose the same amount of weight. In terms of vascular health, the low-carb, high-fat dieters showed no harmful vascular changes, which is the primary reason for why so many are afraid of high-fat diets.

According to the lead investigator, professor of medicine and director of clinical and research exercise physiology, Kerry Stewart, Ed.D:

“Our study should help allay the concerns that many people who need to lose weight have about choosing a low-carb diet instead of a low-fat one, and provide re-assurance that both types of diet are effective at weight loss and that a low-carb approach does not seem to pose any immediate risk to vascular health. More people should be considering a low-carb diet as a good option.”

Stewart also believes that the emphasis on low-fat diets has likely contributed to the obesity epidemic in the US by promoting overconsumption of sugars and grains. I couldn’t agree more. The simple reason for this is that grains and sugars raise your insulin levels, which causes insulin resistance and, ultimately, weight gain, diabetes, and heart disease.

Listen to Your Body

The evidence is quite clear that chronically raising your blood glucose through consumption of grains and sugars will increase your insulin resistance, which in turn will increase insulin and leptin resistance. And avoiding insulin and leptin resistance is perhaps the single most important factors if you seek optimal health and longevity.

That said, the degree to which you choose to reduce carbs however is, ultimately, up to you. And certain individual biochemical differences can make one diet more beneficial for you than others. The key point is to be aware that consuming sugar, grains and starches will promote insulin resistance to some degree or other, depending on the amount you consume.

As always, remember to listen to your body as it will give you feedback if what you are doing is right for your unique biochemistry and genetics. So listen to that feedback and adjust your program accordingly.

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Wee People Are Out There: Part 1- Is it all True Series #246

Little Brownie — looking around the tree

One of my favorite paranormal subjects is the story of the Wee People. Over the years, I have heard hundreds of fascinating stories and have caught a few of them on my digital camera doing my vortex photography in the high country east of Albuquerque, New Mexico (see above photo of a brownie peering around the tree just right of center).

Like humans, these Wee People come in varies shapes, sizes and colors. I have heard they are as tall as 4 ft and as little as 3 inches, (and I have a photo of them) like the ones in Gulliver’s Travels book/movie. They are always a curious lot, and love to do human watching. They are tricksters and if you encounter them, they may ask for something, like food, your jewelry or a small item. An Indian Elder in the Four Corners area told me that if you decline them something quite strange could happen to you, so it is best to give them something. His tribe has several encounters with these beings yearly and they deal with them extremely cautiously.

I have also heard stories from reliable sources telling a common theme of Wee beings entering their camping area asking for food, note most of these beings don’t speak, most of them sign or telepath with the humans. Of course most humans are in shock by their appearance, the Wee People seem to have a calming effect on the campers, but after the beings leave all hell breaks loose as the campers start freaking out as they realize what they just witnessed.

There is one local story here in New Mexico that I love to tell, about a family on a weekend camping trip in the mountains around Albuquerque. Everything started out quite normal until a Wee person stumbled into their camp and seem quite disoriented, shy and unable to speak. The being seemed to be hungry and thirsty, but wouldn’t take any food or drink. It seemed like it just wanted the company of the humans. The being was about two feet tall, like an overweight baby, fully dressed in bright colored clothes he had silver blue eyes. Its hair was long, dark and uncombed. The campers didn’t know what to do with the being, so one of the campers strangely called the Sandia Labs and it seems within just minutes, four armed men came and took the being away, almost like this wasn’t their first event of this type.

Well more Wee stories to come next week, in Part 2.

Sleep tight – maybe if you are quiet in the woods and have good thoughts you may encounter these precious little ones.

MWiz.

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The Ahau Chronicles Volume 48– Jim Turner

The countdown has begun! There are exactly 100 days until the Nov. 13th, 2012 Total Solar Eclipse.

Tomorrow I will dine in Panama then dip below the equator to Recife, Brazil on my way to the second Apocalypse Island. The expedition to Fernando de Noronha island promises to be exquisite and is a perfect stepping stone in our preparations for MAYAPOLOOZA.

The quest continues….

Enjoy!

Jim

Click on the blue link below

The_Ahau_Chronicles_Volume_48Happy Ahau Day!

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Albert Rosales and his very Strange World, # 85

112.
Location. Punta Gorda, Florida
Date: November 3 2009
Time: 0125a
At first the witness saw two pairs of lights near their backyard over empty lots that are wooded. The lights seemed to dance and moved between trees and brush. Once he stepped out and they both pointed directly at him as if the lights were mounted on a helmet or head. The lights were amber in color and round. On October 25 at 2130 the witness saw strange lights moving through wooded areas near her residence, they were moving in and out of the tree coverage. Sighting lasted about 1 minute and video was taken of the event. One light was due west about 300 yards from his property. October 29 she noticed lights in the sky, in the eastern horizon. The first light traveled in from the sky at about a 45 degree angle and stopped suddenly. About a minute later a second light streaked in from the south and also stopped suddenly. At about this time he started taping the event. About 2 to 3 minutes later the third light came in from the north and streaked in, in three separate bursts of speed. Once all three lights were in a triangle formation they seemed to instantly inch towards the ground. The formation of lights then seemed to quickly shift a few degrees instantly. His wife also witnessed this and quickly went back into the house. At first he could hear a helicopter approaching from the south, the helicopter seemed to approach the formation of lights between him and the lights. The helicopter also flew directly over his house and circled the house after he pointed the camcorder at it. The objects eventually went up slowly and started to separate and disappeared over a long period of time. The helicopter returned the next night but flew in one direction. On the date in question the witnesses heard noises in the backyard, the witness and his son in law went outside and they could hear noises and branches breaking. The son in law pointed his flashlight in the direction of the shrubs and they saw what looked like a pale white skinny arm grasping a branch. It seemed to hide from the light but they could still see the hand and part of the arm. They froze and went into a sort of shock and returned to the house quickly and did not go back outside. The hand seemed to have a total of four digits, 3 fingers and one thumb, and the center finger was longer than the other two fingers. The skin was pale gray.

HC addendum
Source: http://skyscan.org
Type: D?

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Harvard Study Confirms Fluoride Reduces Children's IQ—Health Alert — Via Mercola

By Dr. Mercola

A recently published Harvard University meta-analysis funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has concluded that children who live in areas with highly fluoridated water have “significantly lower” IQ scores than those who live in low fluoride areas.

In a 32-page report that can be downloaded free of charge from Environmental Health Perspectives1, the researchers said:

“A recent report from the U.S. National Research Council (NRC 20062) concluded that adverse effects of high fluoride concentrations in drinking water may be of concern and that additional research is warranted. Fluoride may cause neurotoxicity in laboratory animals, including effects on learning and memory…

To summarize the available literature, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of published studies on increased fluoride exposure in drinking water and neurodevelopmental delays. We specifically targeted studies carried out in rural China that have not been widely disseminated, thus complementing the studies that have been included in previous reviews and risk assessment reports…

Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children’s intelligence… The results suggest that fluoride may be a developmental neurotoxicant that affects brain development at exposures much below those that can cause toxicity in adults…

Serum-fluoride concentrations associated with high intakes from drinking-water may exceed 1 mg/L, or 50 Smol/L, thus more than 1000-times the levels of some other neurotoxicants that cause neurodevelopmental damage. Supporting the plausibility of our findings, rats exposed to 1 ppm (50 Smol/L) of water-fluoride for one year showed morphological alterations in the brain and increased levels of aluminum in brain tissue compared with controls…

 In conclusion, our results support the possibility of adverse effects of fluoride exposures on children’s neurodevelopment.

Future research should formally evaluate dose-response relations based on individual-level measures of exposure over time, including more precise prenatal exposure assessment and more extensive standardized measures of neurobehavioral performance, in addition to improving assessment and control of potential confounders.“

Studies have Repeatedly Linked Fluoride to Reduced IQ and Brain Damage

There are so many scientific studies showing the direct, toxic effects of fluoride on your body, it’s truly remarkable that it’s NOT considered a scientific consensus by now. Despite the evidence against it, fluoride is still added to 70 percent of U.S. public drinking water supplies.

It amazes me that the medical (and dental) communities are so stubbornly resistant to connect the dots when it comes to the skyrocketing increase of cognitive decline in adults, and behavioral issues in children (ADD, ADHD, depression and learning disabilities of all kinds). In fact, there have been over 23 human studies and 100 animal studies linking fluoride to brain damage3. Fluoride can also increase manganese absorption, compounding problems since manganese in drinking water has also been linked to lower IQ in children.

Reported effects of fluoride on your brain include:

Reduction in nicotinic acetylcholine receptors Damage to your hippocampus Formation of beta-amyloid plaques (the classic brain abnormality in Alzheimer’s disease)
Reduction in lipid content Damage to purkinje cells Exacerbation of lesions induced by iodine deficiency
Impaired antioxidant defense systems Increased uptake of aluminum Accumulation of fluoride in your pineal gland

Six Facts You Need to Know About Water Fluoridation

Harmful Effects have Been Known for Half a Century…

What is perhaps most surprising is that the harmful effects of fluoride have been known by conventional medical organizations for over half a century. For example, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) stated in their September 18, 1943 issue that fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons that change the permeability of the cell membrane by certain enzymes. And, an editorial published in the Journal of the American Dental Association, October 1, 1944, stated:

“Drinking water containing as little as 1.2 ppm fluoride will cause developmental disturbances. We cannot run the risk of producing such serious systemic disturbances. The potentialities for harm outweigh those for good.”

Part of the problem is that it’s an accumulative toxin that, over time, can lead to significant health problems that are not immediately linked to fluoride over-exposure. In a 2005 paper entitled “Fluoride—A Modern Toxic Waste,” Lita Lee, Ph.D. writes4:

“Yiamouyiannis’ book, “Fluoride, The Aging Factor,” documents the cumulative effect of tissue damage by fluoride, commonly seen as aging (collagen damage), skin rashes and acne, gastrointestinal disorders, and many other conditions, including osteoporosis. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and the Safe Water Foundation reported that 30,000 to 50,000 excess deaths occur in the United States each year in areas in which the water contains only one ppm fluoride.

… Fluoride suppresses the immune system: Fluoride inhibits the movement of white blood cells by 70%, thereby decreasing their ability to reach their target. Yiamouyiannis cites 15 references in his pamphlet, Lifesavers Guide to Fluoridation, that document immunosuppressive effects of as little as 10% of the amount of fluoride used in fluoridated water… Immunosuppressive effects run the gamut, from a cold that won’t go away to increased risk of cancer and other infectious diseases.”

Studies have shown that fluoride toxicity can lead to a wide variety of health problems, including:

Increased lead absorption Disrupts synthesis of collagen Hyperactivity and/or lethargy Muscle disorders
Thyroid disease Arthritis Dementia Bone fractures
Lowered thyroid function Bone cancer (osteosarcoma) Inactivates 62 enzymes and inhibits more than 100 Inhibited formation of antibodies
Genetic damage  and cell death Increased tumor and cancer rate Disrupted immune system Damaged sperm and increased infertility

Suppressed Science: Fluoride Link to Cancer

Long-lost research linking fluoride to cancer has resurfaced in a Dutch film clip featuring Dr. Dean Burk, who in 1937 co-founded the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) and headed its cytochemistry department for over 30 years. In the taped interview, he equates water fluoridation to “public murder,” referring to a study that had been done on the 10 largest U.S. cities with fluoridation compared to the 10 largest without it.

The study clearly demonstrated that deaths from cancer abruptly rose in as little as a year or two after fluoridation began. This and other studies linking fluoride to cancer were government-ordered but were quickly buried once fluoride was found to be linked to dramatic increases in cancer.

Join the Fight to Get Fluoride Out of Drinking Water

There’s no doubt about it: Fluoride should not be ingested. At least when it comes to topical application, you have a choice. You can easily buy fluoride-free toothpaste and mouthwash. But you’re stuck with whatever your community puts in the water, and it’s very difficult to filter out of your water once it’s added. Many do not have the resources or the knowledge to do so.

The only real solution is to stop the archaic practice of water fluoridation in the first place. Fortunately, the Fluoride Action Network5 has a game plan to END water fluoridation in both Canada and the United States.

I urge you to join the anti-fluoride movement in Canada and United States by contacting the representative for your area below.

Contact Information for Canadian Communities:

  1. If you live in Ontario, Canada, please join the ongoing effort by contacting Diane Sprules at diane.sprules@cogeco.ca.
  2. The point-of-contact for Toronto, Canada is Aliss Terpstra. You may email her at aliss@nutrimom.ca.

Contact Information for American Communities:

We’re also going to address three US communities: Portland, Wichita, and Phoenix:

  1. Portland, Oregon: Even though residents have voted down fluoridation three separate times, the pro-fluoride lobbying is now working to influence city councilors to ignore the public and pass fluoridation without another vote.  If you live in the Portland area, please contact FAN’s Oregon point person, Kimberly Kaminski.  You can email her at kim@safewateroregon.org.  Portland residents will be battling a very well financed campaign by the ADA, Delta Dental and the PEW Charitable Trust.  Please consider making a donation to Oregon Citizens for Safe Drinking Water.
  2. Witchita, Kansas: The pro-fluoride lobby has also targeted Wichita for forced fluoridation.  If you live in Kansas and would like to help protect the safety of the citiy’s drinking water, please contact Fluoride Free Kansas at fluoridefreekansas.org/contact-us
  3. Phoenix, Arizona — The city council is reassessing their fluoridation program.  The issue was raised by Councilman Tom Simplot and local fluoride-free campaigners.  The city currently spends more than $500,000 annually on fluoridation, and currently joins only 9 other Arizona communities in fluoridating their water.  The city council is expected to study the issue and meet on September 11, when it will hold further hearings and decide the fate of the practice.  If you live in the Phoenix area and would like to get involved, please contact FAN’s Phoenix coordinator.
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Mermaids and Mermen – It may all be true – part 2 Is it all True Series–#245

As I wrote in part 1 last week August 11th on this site, Mermaids are probably more than a fun legend. They are creatures of the deep and part human at least in looks and part fish probably in function.

On an island northeast of Australia called New Ireland, sightings of these beings are quite common, and the locals talk about them as another species of common fish.

There are witnesses on that island who swear they have seen mermaids and mermen caught in fishermen’s nets. One such event happened when an “RI” (mermaid) was left on the beach under the watch of some young boys. But the boys allowed the creature to return to the water, because the mermaid was ashamed of her nakedness, and I guess the boys felt sorry for her. More than likely she had probably glamoured them to let her go.  Most beings of this type have the ability to control humans’ thoughts and actions if they are threatened.

Another interesting fact about the sighting is that many of the mermaids have monkey-type faces, sort of like the Sasquatch, while some have human-like faces.

Now some quite disturbing information:  there are villages in this same area where there is talk about villagers killing and eating the “RI”. Several of the villagers also witnessed the butchering of the mermaids, and like humans the “RI” had a great deal of blood and their body fat was yellow much like humans. As you probably know fish have minimal blood as they are cold-blooded, but warm-blooded creatures like humans carry much blood in their systems.

Further descriptions of the beings depict them as having upper human-type torsos and lower fish-type appendages. The females have breasts and both males and females have human-like genitals. Their fingernails are long and their hands are rough and scaly looking.  They talk in low whispers, but nothing seems to be recognized. Their skin is thin and fragile and a very pale white in color.

Well there is probably something to the above details. Since there is some part human in these beings I hope their murder stops.

Sleep tight – as I say– Reality is Not what it seems.

MWiz.

 

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Shocking Story Reveals How the FDA Is Recklessly Abandoning Drug Safety

By Dr. Mercola

In the wake of shocking reports on how the FDA, terrified of being outed for its questionable practices, spied on its own employees in the hopes of rooting them out before they could become whistleblowers, a new story has emerged on how deep the deceit goes. From marginalizing safety reports to not reading them at all?and then going ahead and approving the drugs in question?the FDA once more stands accused of being little more than a rubber-stamping agency for Big Pharma.

Explosive revelations of an intensive spy operation by the FDA on its own scientists emerged last month. Using sophisticated spy software, the agency tracked and logged every move made by the targeted individuals. The program even intercepted personal emails and copied documents on their personal thumb drives.

The targeted scientists had expressed concern over the agency’s approval of dangerous medical imaging devices for mammograms and colonoscopies, which they believe expose patients to dangerous levels of radiation. Now, another whistleblower has stepped forward, and what he has to say about the agency’s drug safety reviews is shocking even to the jaded…

Former FDA Reviewer Speaks Out About Systemic Suppression of Safety

Ronald Kavanagh was a drug reviewer for the FDA in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research from 1998 to 2008. In a recent interview he reveals how the FDA bypassed or ignored safety issues on major drugs approved during his employment. In an interview for the online news magazine Truth-Out he tells Martha Rosenberg1:

“In the Center for Drugs [Center for Drug Evaluation and Research or CDER], as in the Center for Devices, the honest employee fears the dishonest employee.

There is also irrefutable evidence that managers at CDER have placed the nation at risk by corrupting the evaluation of drugs and by interfering with our ability to ensure the safety and efficacy of drugs. While I was at FDA, drug reviewers were clearly told not to question drug companies and that our job was to approve drugs. We were prevented, except in rare instances, from presenting findings at advisory committees.

In 2007, formal policies were instituted so that speaking in any way that could reflect poorly on the agency could result in termination. If we asked questions that could delay or prevent a drug’s approval – which of course was our job as drug reviewers – management would reprimand us, reassign us, hold secret meetings about us, and worse. Obviously in such an environment, people will self-censor.”

According to Kavanagh, people would be shocked if they knew just how malleable safety data is. As examples, he points out that human studies are typically too short and contain too few subjects to get a clear picture of potential risks. In such a scenario, even a single case of a serious adverse event must be taken very seriously, and data from other longer term safety studies also need to be carefully analyzed. Kavanagh claims he has seen drug reviews where the medical safety reviewer completely failed to make such evaluations prior to the drug’s approval.

FDA Actively Thwarts Serious Safety Investigations

There’s no telling how many ineffective and/or dangerous drugs and medical devices have been approved and ushered into market through sheer intimidation and bullying, either by pharmaceutical companies or FDA management. Perhaps even more shocking are the revelations that some of the internal rules and regulations of the FDA are clearly designed to thwart serious safety reviews from the get-go.

According to Kavanagh:

“[H]uman clinical pharmacology trials are typically done in Europe, yet clinical pharmacology reviewers at FDA have been barred from analyzing this information prior to studies being conducted in the US. Without being able to do this, we are unable to detect evidence of risks early and cannot provide guidance that would help with the development of the drug in terms not only of safety and proving efficacy, but also with the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the drug’s development.”

Another loophole that can put your health in serious jeopardy is that drug companies are not required to include adverse events on the drug’s label if the adverse reaction is:

  • Below a certain percentage, and/or
  • Below double the rate of the adverse event found in a placebo

According to Kavanagh:

“By this rule, certain serious and potentially lethal adverse events that eventually resulted in a drug being withdrawn from the market would not have had any mention of the adverse events made in the labeling at all.”

Kavanagh also claims to have discovered another common loophole used by pharmaceutical companies to circumvent safety issues. They’d simply submit bits and pieces of data to different places, effectively preventing the reviewer to pull it all together. Then, because the safety issues falsely appeared to be negligible, it would be decided that no further evaluation would be necessary…

“On one occasion, the company even told me they were going to call upper management to get a clear requirement for approval that they did not want to fulfill eliminated, which I then saw happen. On another occasion a company clearly stated in a meeting that they had “paid for an approval,” Kavanagh says.

“Sometimes we were literally instructed to only read a 100-150 page summary and to accept drug company claims without examining the actual data, which on multiple occasions I found directly contradicted the summary document. Other times I was ordered not to review certain sections of the submission, but invariably that’s where the safety issues would be. This could only occur if FDA management was told about issues in the submission before it had even been reviewed.

In addition, management would overload us with huge amounts of material that could not possibly be read by a given deadline and would withhold assistance. When you are able to dig in, if you found issues that would make you turn down a drug, you could be pressured to reverse your decision or the review would then be handed off to someone who would simply copy and paste whatever claims the company made in the summary document.”

Examples of Dangerous Drug Approvals

In his interview, Kavanagh discusses some of the dangerous drugs that were approved in the face of unequivocal safety concerns. One is the nerve gas drug pyridostigmine—a prophylactic drug against the nerve agent Soman. The drug was approved under the “Animal Rule,” which allows drugs to be approved based on animal data alone. There were multiple problems with this approval. First, the animal studies did not reflect how the drug would be used in humans. Second, the drug actually increases lethality if nerve agents other than Soman are used.

According to Kavanagh:

“This information was not secret – both FDA and DoD public documents acknowledge increased lethality with other nerve agents such as Sarin, and DoD and other government documents that are public also document that Saddam Hussein was not using Soman and was instead using these other nerve agents exclusively.

Yet because I raised this as an objection, I was immediately replaced as the primary reviewer so that I could not document my concerns and so that pyridostigmine could be approved. It’s since been proposed that if we ever face the prospect of nerve agents in the future, that this approval will be used as a justification to convince the President at that time to waive informed consent without presenting a full picture.”

Pediatric drugs also end up posing unnecessary risks due to the FDA’s failure to adequately review safety risks, and the many scientific loopholes employed by pharmaceutical companies. For example, the following flawed parameters are typically used in pediatric drug studies:

  • Dosages are based on approved adult dosages, without regard for metabolic differences between a developing child’s body and an adult
  • Exposure studies oftentimes use overweight children, and include too few children to adequately evaluate risks
  • No allowances are made for race, age, puberty, or actual weight

Dangers to pregnant women and their developing fetuses are also frequently ignored. All in all, the FDA appears to be engaged in a systematic hush-operation designed to give just about anything Big Pharma develops the green light. Essentially, dangerous drugs are given a rubber stamp of approval—the necessary go-ahead to make obscene profits while killing and injuring hundreds of thousands of people every year. It is, quite simply, inexcusable. The mainstream media has a lot to answer for as well, as their lack of reporting on these issues contributes to the problem by keeping a lid on reality.

According to Kavanagh:

“FDA’s response to most expected risks is to deny them and wait until there is irrefutable evidence postmarketing, and then simply add a watered down warning in the labeling. In fact, when patients exhibit drug toxicity, it is usually attributed to an underlying condition which we know is likely to make the drug toxicity worse. This also allows the toxicity to be dismissed as being unrelated to the drug in any way.

Consequently, toxicities are only attributed to the drug when the evidence is irrefutable. Thus the majority of cases where there is a contributing factor are simply dismissed. When you do raise potential safety issues, the refrain that I heard repeatedly from upper management was‚”where are the dead bodies in the street?” Which I took to mean that we only do something if the press is making an issue of it.”

FDA Safety Reviewers Made to Fear for Their Lives?

Kavanagh was not surprised to learn about the agency’s retaliation against the five whistleblowers, giving several examples of how he was personally intimidated, to the point of fearing for his life, and the safety of his children!

“After FDA management learned I had gone to Congress about certain issues, I found my office had been entered and my computer physically tampered with,” Kavanagh tells Rosenberg.

“… After I gave Representative Waxman’s (D-CA) office a USB drive with evidence, FDA staff was admonished that it was prohibited to download information to USB drives. Then, after I openly reported irregularities in an antipsychotic drug review and FDA financial collusion with outsiders to Senator Grassley’s office and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I was threatened with prison if I should release trade secret information to Congress… [T]he Food Drug and Cosmetics Act explicitly allows communication of trade secrets by FDA employees to Congress, but since most people are unaware of this, FDA management can use the threat of jail for violation of the Trade Secrets Act, not only to discourage reviewers, but in my case they got Senator Grassley’s staff to destroy the evidence I provided them.

The threats, however, can be much worse than prison. One manager threatened my children – who had just turned 4 and 7 years old – and in one large staff meeting, I was referred to as a “saboteur.” Based on other things that happened and were said, I was afraid that I could be killed for talking to Congress and criminal investigators.”

We Now Know What Domestic Surveillance of Whistleblowers Looks Like

The following video features attorney, Stephen Kohn, executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center and attorney for the FDA whistleblowers in the recently revealed FDA spy operation against them2.

 “For the first time, we now have a glimpse into what domestic surveillance of whistleblowers looks like in this country with the modern technological developments,” Kohn says. “The agency [sought] to destroy the reputation of these whistleblowers forever.”

FDA Failures Place Health of Americans and Nation at Grave Risk

The FDA’s mission statement reads as follows:

“The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation. The FDA is also responsible for advancing the public health by helping to speed innovations that make medicines and foods more effective, safer, and more affordable; and helping the public get the accurate, science-based information they need to use medicines and foods to improve their health.”

In 2007, a report bearing the revealing title “FDA Science and Mission at Risk” by the Subcommittee on Science and Technology3, detailed how the FDA cannot fulfill its stated mission because:

  1. Its scientific base has eroded and its scientific organizational structure is weak
  2. Its scientific workforce does not have sufficient capacity and capability, and
  3. Its information technology (IT) infrastructure is inadequate

Furthermore, the report found that “the development of medical products based on “new science” cannot be adequately regulated by the FDA, and that the agency does not have the capacity to carry out risk assessment and analysis. Additionally, the agency’s science agenda “lacks coherent structure and vision, as well as effective coordination and prioritization.”

The fact that the FDA does not have its ducks in a row; has sorely misplaced its priorities; and is not working to fulfill its mission is clearly evidenced in the numerous cases where hundreds and sometimes thousands of complaints about dangerous drugs (like Vioxx and Avandia), vaccines (like Gardasil), and additives (like aspartame) are stubbornly ignored, while SWAT-style teams armed to the teeth are sent to raid supplement makers, whole food businesses, organic farmers, and raw dairies when oftentimes not a single incidence of harm can be attributed to their products.

According to the Science and Technology Subcommittee’s report, the failures of the FDA is placing the health of Americans, and indeed the economic health of the entire nation, at grave risk:

“The FDA constitutes a critical component of our nation’s healthcare delivery and public health system. The FDA, as much as any public or private sector institution in this country, touches the lives, health and wellbeing of all Americans and is integral to the nation’s economy and its security.

The FDA’s responsibilities for protecting the health of Americans are far-reaching. The FDA protects our nation’s food supply through regulatory activities designed to cover 80 percent of the food consumed in this country. The FDA also regulates all drugs, human vaccines, and medical devices, and hence plays a critical role in ensuring the appropriate safety and efficacy of rapidly emerging medical products.

… The FDA is also central to the economic health of the nation, regulating approximately $1 trillion in consumer products or 25 cents of every consumer dollar expended in this country annually.. Thus, the nation is at risk if FDA science is at risk.  The Subcommittee concluded that science at the FDA is in a precarious position: the Agency suffers from serious scientific deficiencies and is not positioned to meet current or emerging regulatory responsibilities.”

Final Thoughts

One of the root causes for their utter abandonment of public safety is that the majority of the FDA’s funding comes from the very companies that it is seeking to monitor and evaluate. The FDA has progressively morphed into a mere pawn and instrument of the drug industry, which has little to do with drug safety, and everything to do with maximizing profits.

As Dr. David Graham—another prominent FDA whistleblower who blew the lid on the Vioxx scandal—stated in a 2005 interview:

“As currently configured, the FDA is not able to adequately protect the American public. It’s more interested in protecting the interests of industry. It views industry as its client, and the client is someone whose interest you represent. Unfortunately, that is the way the FDA is currently structured.

Within the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, about 80 percent of the resources are geared towards the approval of new drugs and 20 percent is for everything else. Drug safety is about 5 percent. The “gorilla in the living room” is new drugs and approval. Congress has not only created that structure, they have also worsened that structure through the PDUFA, the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, by which drug companies pay money to the FDA so they will review and approve its drug.”

The only real solution isn’t minor changes to the existing structure, but a complete reform of the FDA. But until then, please, don’t risk your money or your life on a paradigm designed to profit from your ill health. Instead, switch to natural methods that will allow your body to heal itself without the need for the deadly drugs being pushed on you by the drug companies and the FDA.