It might be more affordable if health insurance covers it
But is it too much government?

It’s election season and our minds are on politics.

An international pharmaceutical trade-group known as CODEX is preparing to limit dietary supplements to RDA-quantities only, and make any supplement over the RDA a prescription-only item. A number of European countries have already taken the initiative.

In Norway, vitamin C above 200 mg is illegal. The Norwegian FDA attempted to incarcerate a distributor for importing Vitamin C and Vitamin E poweder. He fought back and won, but other battles loom.

In the US, FDA regulations have already resulted in at least six supplement products being pulled off the market, and one of these is, of all things, a brand of calcium powder. Another is the essential amino acid Tryptophan. So FDA will be on CODEX’s side.

“Every time the FDA comes out and so sweetly says, ‘CODEX is not going to take ANYBODY’S vitamins away,’ you can tell them that we’ve heard it all before,” writes John Hammell, of International Advocates for Health Freedom. It took the Proxmire Amendment to stop the FDA from making supplements prescription in 1976. It took the Dietary Supplement Education Act to stop FDA from making supplements prescription in 1994.

Meanwhile, pregnant women don’t mind asking their doctors to write prescriptions for their prenatal vitamins since their health insurance foots the bill. The savings help since prices for vitamins can add up quickly. If other types of vitamins end up behind the pharmacists’ counter, the potential savings for anyone trying to maintain health could be significant. For example, Transitions™ Support Formula for thyroid health costs $42 for a 30-day supply; a 6.35 oz bottle of Complete Greens costs $35 and a 45-day supply of Isotonix Acal, which promotes cognitive health costs $42.

That’s about $119/month or $1,428 per year!

What do you think? Are prescriptions for vitamins a good thing or a bad thing?

Visit http://www.talktogov.com/ to email Congress.

I’ve been aware of this issue for over 3 years, when I received one of those forwarded emails we either love or despise.  I was compelled to read it because of the subject and at the time I was still experimenting with new supplements.  When I finished reading the email, I immediately forwarded it to almost everyone in my address book as the information struck a serious chord with me.

Regulating our nutritional supplements will take away control over our health.  The Wellness Industry is sustained and grows from knowledgeable and curious consumers looking to make their lives better through natural and preventative practices that are easily accessible.

One of the reasons that got me so wound up about this topic is that my dad started his healthy, preventative kick shortly before I received that email.  He was getting physicals twice a year and taking matters into his own hands. 

He has really bad joint challenges where in the winters he could barely walk outside which affected his work with the Clean Water Action, canvassing neighborhoods to educate households on their local water supply.

After being his own detective, his research led him to glucosamine, rather than prescribed pain relievers and anti-inflammatory medicine.  I was very proud of my dad and happy to know his health was going to improve because it also led him to take more supplements that support his cardiovascular health and immune system.

As for myself, I am an experimenter, love home remedies, and use pharmaceuticals as a last resort (in some cases not at all).  Where if this were to go into effect, I would constantly be visiting my doctor which is very costly and time consuming.  Also I may not be as proactive with my health, or even worse would conform to pharmaceuticals.

There are many ways to voice your opinion on this topic and take action.  Just think about the next time you have a cold and want to take Vitamin C or Echinacea, no more running to the drug store, or when you want to actively support your cholesterol level with Omega’s, fight the aging process and increase your energy level with B vitamins. 

Making an appointment with your doctor, the trip to his/her office, paying for the visit, going back the pharmacy dropping off your prescription, waiting or making a second trip, paying for the prescription, and going through the refill process…will you keep up with it?

Tiffany Houser
The Balance Group

The move to issue a prescription note to purchase vitamins and supplements is one more step towards impacting your personal freedom to choose natural products for your health.  While the FDA is failing miserably at monitoring our food supply, personal care products, toys and prescription drugs how could they have the audacity to mandate this next move?  I am sure that top executives within the pharmaceutical industry are just waiting to get their greedy hands around the market share generated from current sales of natural health products.   Complementary and Alternative Medicine use in the United States has grown exponentially, vitamins, supplements and herbal remedies are at the forefront of use for most consumers.

Lurking behind this major issue is something called the Codex Alimentarius, I strongly urge you to educate yourself about this issue before it is too late.  Codex Alimentarius is slowly making a path for the pharmaceutical industry to recover the lost income and sales from natural healthcare products. 

While prescription drug use is at an all time high, it is not surprising that   the number of serious adverse drug events more than double between 1998 and 2005 in the United States, as did the number of related deaths.  I am often astonished that the human body can withstand 13 or more prescriptions taken daily by individuals, especially the elderly.  Left unchecked by doctors or family members, the interactions of multiple medications is unknown and long terms affects remain to be seen.

Consumers drive the marketplace and spending for vitamins and supplements is in the rise. This is largely due to the fact that many are disenfranchised with mainstream medicine and find that complementary and alternative medicine products and services are more congruent with their own values, beliefs and orientation towards health.

When used appropriately vitamins and supplements can often work better than prescription drugs with little or no side effects.  I believe that if you need medication then by all means take it, but seeing your primary care physician for 500Mg of   Vitamin C may be in our imminent future.  The only way to ensure that this doesn’t happen is through serious activism, with the amount of money behind this issue it is our only hope.  Otherwise,   we can expect to watch nutritional supplement manufacturers and, thus health food stores, to go out of business.

For more information on this issue and to see how you can participate and raise awareness visit:

www.healthfreedomusa.org

www.floridahealthfreedom.org

Rachel A. Markel
Plant Medicine Company

For the past 15 years Rachel A. Markel has been working in the field of Complementary Alternative Medicine with a focus on plant based medicines.  Through her educational company she has trained practitioners from every level of western and non-traditional medicine. As a Instructor for Miami Dade College, Continuing Education for Health Careers Department,  Rachel has been teaching an Aromatherapy Certification Course for several years.   She also consults with individuals regarding, healthy living with plant based medicines, which includes the recommendation of essential oils and certified organic herbs. 

It was 2 years ago when a friend of mine had brought to my attention the facts about High Fructose Corn Syrup, which he described it as “Sweet Crack”.

By nature I’m a label reader.  I want to know everything that is in the packaged food I eat.  When this week’s issue was first being developed it was based on a CNN Investigative Report that ran over a month ago about the American Diet.  Filled with information on HFCS, Artificial Sweeteners, and Trans Fat (Hydrogenated Oils/Soybean Oil), it wrecked the idea of just eating what you want to eat… the foods that make you happy.

Quickly, I realized there was too much information that needed to be covered so we’re going to cover one topic at a time.

By reading the labels of your favorite packaged foods, you’ll see these ingredients – beware sometimes they are camouflaged.  I just found out the “healthy” flax seed bread I was eating contained HFCS, which I bought on rushed trip to the grocery store (you would have thought I was playing SuperMarket Sweep).

I love French toast, pancakes and waffles, which I normally order when in a restaurant but decided recently to get frozen organic flax seed waffles, and needed maple syrup.  I used to buy a top brand of maple syrup, but when I looked at the label, it was loaded with HFCS.  So I decided to go with the all-natural brand which was double the price but better for my health in the end.

When looking for alternatives, try to go all natural.  No sugar at all is the best option, but most of us were raised on sweeten foods and our system craves, needs, and enjoys the flavor.  Try honey, agave, all natural maple syrup, amasake, fructose, or molasses the next time you want to add a little sweetness to your food or beverage.

It Creeps Up On You When You Least Expect It.
Mysterious Cause of Love Handles, Saddlebags and Flabby Triceps Discovered.

So, you stopped trick-or-treating a long time ago (and you haven’t seen horror headlines like that since the last time you watched TNT). And now that you’re trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle, you’re buying Power Bars for the kids rather than candy corns and Butter Fingers.

But now you’ve gotta worry about the horror headlines about our entire population drowning in high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a widely accepted sweetener made from corn grown on U.S. corn fields.

“High-fructose corn syrup climbed from zero consumption in 1966 to 62.6 pounds per person in 2001,” reported the Washington Post in 2003.  “In 1966, refined sugar, also known as sucrose, held the No. 1 slot, accounting for 86 percent of sweeteners used, according to the USDA. Today, sweeteners made from corn are the leader, racking up $4.5 billion in annual sales and accounting for 55 percent of the sweetener market.”

The San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2004: “Almost all nutritionists finger high fructose corn syrup consumption as a major culprit in the nation’s obesity crisis. The inexpensive sweetener flooded the American food supply in the early 1980s, just about the time the nation’s obesity rate started its unprecedented climb.”

Our fellow capitalist food-makers are so addicted to this stuff as a cheaper sweetener for foods that they put it in EVERYTHING.  Look at the nutrition label of most foods, and high fructose corn syrup is a main ingredient in even the foods we thought were healthy for us:

- Pepperidge Farm’s line of 100% whole grain breads
- Kellogg’s Crunchy Blends Mueslix® with Raisins, Dates & Almonds
- Nabisco Wheat Thins
- Breyer’s Yogurt -Fruit on the Bottom - Strawberry Lowfat
- Mott’s Applesauce
- Miracle Whip Salad Dressing - Non-fat

Go ahead…click here for more scary surprises!

We already know drinking alcohol isn’t healthy, but El Paso Chili Key Lime Margarita Mix adds insult to injury with more high fructose corn syrup. And if you’re sick, it’s even in your cough syrups like Robitussin Pediatric Cough & Cold Formula and Vicks NyQuil multi-symptom - original and cherry.

So what’s the solution? Some have turned to artificial sweeteners like Equal and Splenda - which may be even worse than HFCS.

A recent study by two Purdue University researchers found that the consumption of artificial sweeteners might impair your body’s natural ability to monitor calories.  Researchers concluded that the unconscious ability to monitor caloric intake helps to control overeating; therefore, the loss of that ability could lead to overall weight gain. 

This recent study is yet another blow to the artificial sweetener industry, as decades of research already suggests that these sweeteners contain dangerous neurotoxic chemicals that are extremely detrimental to human health.

Your best bet is to go all natural: raw unfiltered honey, cinnamon, the natural sugars that break down when you bake foods like butternut squash, sweet potatoes and pears, pure maple syrup, molasses, stevia, or Rapadura (dehydrated cane sugar juice).

Tell us: What’s your favorite natural sweetener?

by Olga El 

It is well known that sucrose (white or table sugar) can cause health problems, such as tooth decay or diabetes, if ingested in excess. However, that doesn’t mean that artificial sweeteners are a healthier alternative. These chemical sugars can actually increase the desire for sugar because they can trick the body into thinking it is eating something that it isn’t. In lab animals, artificial sweeteners have been proven to cause diseases such as lymphatic cancers and brain tumors and insufficient research has been conducted on the effects of artificial sweeteners on humans.

In the US, five artificially derived sugar substitutes have been approved for consumption. The three most common of these are Sucralose, Saccharin, and Aspartame. Read the ingredients on any diet, calorie-free, or “lite” sweet treat and you should notice one of these.  The food and beverage industry is gradually replacing its use of sugar and corn syrup with the use of artificial sweeteners because artificial sweeteners are cheaper to use. Whether or not these products are safer has not been taken into account.

For example, saccharin was proven to be carcinogenic in 1977 but was allowed to stay on the market because there were no officially-recognized sugar alternatives for diabetics at the time. Although today there are many healthier, natural sugar alternatives, saccharin continues to stay on the market. Sucrolose is 600 times sweeter than sugar. Of all the approved artificial sweeteners, this sweetener has had the least amount of studies conducted on it. The food-chain Whole Foods refuses to carry products containing sucralose, because of its potential for toxicity and the lack of research surrounding this chlorinated sweetener. Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar and is often sited as the most dangerous sugar substitute. It forms formaldehyde in the body which causes damage to the immune and nervous systems. Aspartame also breaks down the protective coating surrounding neurons in our brain thus making it easier for toxins to enter the bloodstream. It also causes brain tumors and lymphatic cancers in lab animals.

Many people are attracted to artificial sweeteners because they are presumed to be safe for diabetics and contain little food energy (calories). I don’t think they are worth the risk. However, humans are predisposed to sweetness from birth and we need not deny our fondness for sweets. It is possible to moderate the use of table sugar or look to natural sweeteners such as:
• Agave Nectar
• Organic sugar
• Apple Juice Concentrate
• Molasses
• Raw Sugar
• Bananas
• Barley Malt Syrup
• Brown Rice Syrup
• Date Sugar
• Date Syrup
• Evaporated Cane Juice
• Fruit Juice
• Fruit Juice Concentrate
• Honey
• Licorice Root
• Maple Syrup
• Maple Sugar
• Orange Juice

As a Fitness Trainer when I think of High Fructose Corn syrup I undeniably link it to diabetes. The intake of refined sugar is harmful to the health of people without diabetes and even worse for those with it. Most of your sodas and soft drinks contain these detrimental ingredients and add to the rising population of Obese people in our country. These are simple facts that allow the user to say “hey maybe if I limit my sugar content and try artificial sweeteners as a substitute I am safe?” the answer is no.

Even though the artificial sweetener such as “equal” might lower your chances of type II diabetes and obesity, there is still the risk of cancer that comes from the saccharin found in sweeteners.  So what is the best possible way to avoid the danger of Cancer, Obesity, and Diabetes.  I personally recommend eating sugar in light moderation, or going with raw honey as a substitute. Also maintaining a healthy lifestyle so you can utilize the carbohydrates found in sugar for work.

Tony Thomas
Fitness Contributor

Ever since Westerners started practicing yoga, a.k.a. the gateway drug to alternative therapies, the health care industry has lost its final word on cures for allergies, back pain, common cold, lack of energy, weight loss, anti-aging, digestive disorders, heart conditions, joint pain (and all those other side effects you get from taking pharmaceuticals).

The term “quackery” no longer holds water, no two remedies are equal for different individuals and getting second, third and eighth opinions are a few clicks away. Knowing what the choices are, and then experimenting by trial and error have become the final barometer, not the American Medical Association (AMA) or the Food and Drug Administration.

More cops or more meditators?
Approximately 4,000 meditators reduced crime in Washington, D.C. from June 7 to July 30, 1993.

Pepto Bismol or Acupuncture?
Tongues are the new X-Rays — According to the 2002 National Health Interview Survey, 8.2 million people in the U.S. have tried acupuncture, but the A.M.A. reports that only one percent of U.S. doctors recommend the therapy.

Stick your tongue out in front of a mirror. Go ahead. Look at it. What a weird part of your body! It’s slimy, it may be different colors in different places, maybe even a little bumpy.

So many things to look at, yet an acupuncturist sees more: “Your liver is a bit toxic…you’ve got too much yeast in your intestines…your spleen is unhealthy…” Some people think this is just a bunch of hocus pocus, while others swear that it has helped prevent heart disease, liver problems and any other ailment you can think of. And, it’s a great way to kill time while waiting for your doctor’s prognosis. 

Cold Medicine or Hot Bath?
From Russian and Turkish bath houses to Native American sweat lodges to models partying (and sweating) half-naked at clubs with saunas in Germany, the healing power of water is becoming a tried and true alternative therapy for fighting off colds, stress and circulatory problems.

Swim laps or Mesotherapy?
Singer Roberta Flack reportedly lost about 40 pounds through Mesotherapy, occiassionally referred to by some critics as a “Cowboy Cosmetic Fix.” While it is probably healthier to do those laps or ride that elliptical machine at the gym, it doesn’t always get rid of those pesky dimples….but the jury is still out on this relatively new therapy giving liposuction a new competitor.

Brand New House or Burn Sage?
As the suburbs fill up with brand new cookie cutter homes, conservationists moving into and restoring old homes have borrowed the Native American ritual of burning sage to clear previous owners’ energies.

Asprin or Chiropractor?
Many mainstream health insurance companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield are now covering chiropractic medicine, once pooh-poohed by the AMA. Now they’re saying it cuts health care costs. Hey, when it comes to saving money (and maybe avoiding a nasty pain reliever habit & surgery to reduce their back pain) Westerners are as willing as a chick at the club to try something new.

Explore the Alternative: Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Eastern medicine, Ayurvedic Medicine, Holistic Medicine, Environmental Medicine.

Tell us: How do you alleviate your aches and pains outside the doctor’s office?

Entering the world of Alternative Therapies is the best way to know your mind, body and soul.  We can only get so much from Western Therapies and Medicine, and in some cases the wild, wild, west creates other ailments and dependencies.

Two weeks ago we talked about detoxifying and cleansing the body, which are common alternative therapies. Others seem so far out (singing soothes the soul), and some are just common sense (drinking water alleviates headaches).

Being your own detective and playing a role in your diagnosis and treatment will have you actively exploring alternative therapies.  In The Story of how The Balance Group was started, I talked about the book, Ultra Prevention, the book that changed my life! 

 “My life was controlled by allergies and the medications to relieve the symptoms.  After reading Ultra Prevention, I learned that my allergies were a result of the food I was eating and the main culprit were Dairy products.  So I stopped eating cereal, drank my coffee black and cut out 99% of ice cream and other dairy treats, but not cheese (can’t get the monkey completely off my back).  Within in 2 months I was off my daily double dose of allergy medications”

Ultra Prevention was written by the Medical Directors of Canyon Ranch.  In the book they discuss several cases they’ve had where the patients did not receive the proper diagnosis and treatment.  These people were suffering for years and hopped on medication, which in some cases, led them to taking more medications because of the new ailments that developed from the original treatments (we all remember Vioxx which reduced inflammation but came with a high risk of heart attacks and strokes and was withdrawn from the market…CRAZY!)

In the end, your doctor is a great resource but you should be involved in the process and look outside the box.  Western Practices are needed, but living in a preventative state and being open to Alternative Practices will add your health, happiness, longevity and possibly your bank account. 

Tiffany Houser
The Balance Group