5 Simple Rules For Amazing Health

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5 Simple Rules For Amazing Health
Sept 26, 2013 | Authority Nutrition | Kris Gunnars

Being healthy often seems incredibly complicated.

There are advertisements everywhere and various experts giving conflicting advice.

However… being healthy does not need to be complicated.

People were much healthier in the past, before all the dieting and “health products” took hold of our society.

The rules haven’t changed since then… our genetics are the same and what worked for us back in the day can also work for us now.

To gain optimal health, lose weight and feel better every day, then all you need to do is follow these 5 simple rules.

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1. Do Not Put Toxic Things into Your Body

There are so many things in the environment that are downright toxic to our bodies.

Given the addictive nature of some of these things, people often have a real hard time avoiding them.

This includes the usual suspects like cigarettes, alcohol and abusive drugs. If you’ve got a problem with those… then diet and exercise are the least of your worries.

Alcohol is fine in moderation for those who can tolerate it, but tobacco and abusive drugs are bad for everyone.

But what is MUCH more common today is eating unhealthy, disease-promoting foods. If you want to gain optimal health, then you need to minimize your consumption of these foods.

Probably the single, most effective change you can make to improve your diet is to cut back on processed, packaged foods.

This can be tough, because many of these foods have been altered by so-called food engineers to make them as addictive as possible (1).

Regarding specific ingredients, added sugars are by far the worst. This includes sucrose and high fructose corn syrup. Both can wreak havoc on your metabolism when consumed in excess, although some people can tolerate moderate amounts (2).

Avoiding wheat may also be of critical importance and this includes whole wheat… which can lead to all sorts of problems (3).

Then it is a good idea to avoid all fats that require chemicals and factories to produce… this includes man-made trans-fats, as well as refined seed- and vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower oils (4, 5, 6, 7).

Bottom Line: You can’t be healthy if you keep putting disease-promoting things into your body. This includes the usual suspects like tobacco and alcohol, as well as certain foods and ingredients.

2. Lift Things and Move Around  

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It is extremely important for optimal health to use your muscles.

No… it’s NOT just so that you can get a sixpack and a bulging vein on your biceps.

Lifting weights and exercising goes way beyond just looking good.

True… if you exercise, it is pretty much guaranteed that you will improve your appearance and attractiveness to the opposite sex.

But these benefits are just the tip of the iceberg… exercise is also crucial for your body, brain and hormones to function optimally.

Lifting weights lowers your blood sugar and insulin levels, improves cholesterol and lowers triglycerides (8, 9).

It also raises your levels of testosterone and growth hormone, both associated with improved wellbeing (10, 11, 12).

Then lifting weights (and other forms of exercise) can help reduce depression and your risk of all sorts of chronic diseases, including obesity, type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s and many more (13).

Exercise can also help you lose fat, especially if it’s combined with a healthy diet. Not just because it burns calories, but because it improves your hormonal status and overall function of your body.

Fortunately, there are many ways to exercise. It doesn’t have to be in a gym.

You can do all of this stuff for free in the comfort of your own home if you look on Google or YouTube for “bodyweight workouts” or something similar.

It’s also important to go outside and move around there, especially if you can get some sun while you’re at it (for a natural source of Vitamin D). Walking is a good choice and a highly underrated form of exercise.
The key is to choose something that you enjoy and can stick to in the long run.

If you’re completely out of shape or you have any medical problems, then it is a good idea to talk to a doctor or qualified health professional before starting a new training program.

Bottom Line: Exercise doesn’t just make you look better, it also improves your hormonal status, makes you feel better and reduces your risk of all sorts of diseases.

3. Sleep Like a Baby

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Sleep is very important for overall health and studies show that sleep deprivation correlates with many diseases, including obesity and heart disease (14, 15, 16, 17).

It is highly recommended to make time for good, quality sleep.

If you can’t seem to sleep properly for some reason, then see a doctor. Sleep disorders like sleep apnea and others are very common and in many cases easily treatable.

Here are a few effective ways to improve sleep:

• Do not drink coffee late in the day.
• Try to go to bed and wake up at similar times each day.
• Sleep in complete darkness, with no artificial lighting.
• Dampen the lights in your home a few hours before bedtime.
• More tips here.

Bottom Line: Getting quality sleep can improve your health in more ways than you can imagine. You’ll feel better both physically and mentally and lower your risk of all sorts of health problems down the line.

4. Avoid Excess Stress

Being healthy is about more than just diet, exercise and sleep.

The way we feel and how we think is also very important… and being stressed all the time is a recipe for disaster.

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Excess stress can raise cortisol levels and cause severe harmful effects on metabolism. It can increase junk food cravings, fat in the abdominal area and raise your risk of all sorts of diseases (18, 19, 20).

There is also evidence that stress is a significant contributor to depression, which is a massive health problem today (21, 22).

In order to reduce stress, try to simplify your life. Do some exercise, practice deep breathing techniques and maybe even meditation.

If you simply can not handle the burdens of daily life without becoming overly stressed, consider seeing a psychologist. There are many ways to learn how to deal with stress.

Not only will overcoming your stress make you healthier, it will also improve your life in other ways. Going through life worried, anxious and never being able to relax and enjoy yourself is a big waste.

Bottom Line: Stress can wreak havoc on your health, leading to weight gain and all sorts of diseases. There are many ways to learn how to deal with stress.

5. Nourish Your Body With Real Foods

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The simplest and most effective way to eat healthy is to just focus on real foods.

Choose unprocessed, whole foods that resemble what they looked like in nature.

It is best to eat a combination of animals and plants… Meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, as well as healthy fats, oils and high-fat dairy products.

If you’re healthy, lean and active, then eating whole, unrefined carbs is absolutely fine. This includes potatoes, sweet potatoes, legumes and non-gluten grains like oats and rice.

However… if you’re overweight/obese or have started to suffer from metabolic issues like diabetes or metabolic syndrome, then cutting back on major carbohydrate sources can lead to dramatic improvements (23, 24, 25).

People can often lose a lot of weight simply by cutting back on carbohydrates, because they subconsciously start eating less (26, 27).

Whatever you do, make an effort to choose whole, unprocessed foods instead of foods that look like they were made in a factory.

You Need to Stick With it For Life 

It’s important to keep in mind that the “dieting” mindset is a bad idea, because it almost never works in the long term.

For this reason, it is critical to aim for a lifestyle change.

Being healthy is a marathon, not a race.

It takes time… and you need to stick with it for life.

Thanks To Obamacare, Employer-Based Health Insurance Is Becoming An Endangered Species

Thanks To Obamacare, Employer-Based Health Insurance Is Becoming An Endangered Species
Sept 27, 2013 | Economic Collapse Blog | Michael Snyder

Barack Obama promised to fundamentally transform America, and when it comes to health care he has definitely kept his promise.  Thanks to Obamacare, health care spending is up, health insurance premiums are up, the number of hours Americans are working is down and employer-based health insurance is becoming an endangered species.  Of course employer-based health insurance will not disappear completely any time soon, but it has been steadily shrinking for over a decade, and Obamacare will greatly accelerate that decline.  If you go back to 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance.  That was pretty good.  Today, only 54.9 percent of all Americans are covered by employment-based health insurance, and now thousands upon thousands of U.S. employers are considering reducing the scope of the health plans they offer to employees or eliminating them altogether due to Obamacare.  If you are thinking that this sounds like a potential nightmare for millions of Americans families, you would be exactly right.

There have already been widespread reports of companies dropping health insurance, but nobody knows for sure how widespread the carnage will be.  According to Businessweek, the surveys that have been done up to this point have come up with widely varying results...

A Deloitte study last year suggested 10 percent of employers would stop offering group health plans. A widely criticized McKinsey report from 2011 put the number as high as one-third. The Congressional Budget Office’s latest projections suggest 8 million fewer people will be covered by employer plans five years from now under the ACA than without it. Many of them will get policies through health insurance exchanges instead.

But what everyone does agree on is that employer-based health coverage will continue to diminish.

And we are already watching this happen right in front of our eyes.  Just this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the largest security guard firm in the United States is dropping health coverage for 55,000 employees...

The nation's largest provider of security guards plans to discontinue its lowest-cost health plans and steer roughly 55,000 workers to new government-sponsored insurance exchanges for coverage next year, in the latest sign of the fraying ties between employment and health care.

The U.S. arm of Sweden's Securitas AB is among more than 1,200 employers that offer the kind of bare-bones health plans that must be phased out beginning Jan. 1 under the health-care law. Nearly four million people are enrolled in these so-called mini-med plans, which cap benefits to participants, sometimes at as little as $3,000 a year.

"The mini-meds go away and we're not replacing them," said Jim McNulty, a spokesman for Securitas's U.S. operation. "Their option is to go to the exchanges."

Other big employers, including Darden Restaurants Inc., Home Depot Inc. and Trader Joe's Co., say they will stop offering health insurance to part-time workers, and will direct those employees to the state exchanges. Darden, Home Depot and Trader Joe's previously offered mini-meds to their part timers.

Speaking of Trader Joe's, I wrote about how they are eliminating health coverage for part-time workers the other day.  Instead of providing health insurance for their part-time workers, Trader Joe's will be writing them a check and pushing them on to the Obamacare exchanges...

Trader Joe's, the grocer once lauded for providing health care coverage to its part-time workers, is about to push those employees off its plan.

According to a memo obtained by the Huffington Post, the company will stop covering employees who work less than 30 hours per week.

The change is set for the start of 2014. Instead of insurance, workers instead will get a check for $500 in January.

"Depending on income you may earn outside of Trader Joe's, we believe that with the $500 from Trader Joe's and the tax credits available under the [Affordable Care Act (ACA)], many of you should be able to obtain health care coverage at very little if any net cost to you," said Trader Joe CEO Dan Bane in the memo.

And this is a huge reason why the shift from full-time work to part-time work in America has accelerated this year.  Obamacare creates an incentive for companies to have more part-time workers and less full-time workers.  In fact, almost all of the jobs that have been "created" by the U.S. economy in 2013 have been part-time jobs.

But it is incredibly difficult to try to support a family on a part-time job.  Sadly, the quality of our jobs continues to decline rapidly and only 47 percent of all adults have a full-time job in America today.  This is only going to continue to get even worse under Obamacare.

As a result of these trends, more Americans are going to be forced to go out and buy health insurance "on the individual market".  When they do, they are likely to be in for a really nasty surprise...

Andy and Amy Mangione of Louisville, Ky. and their two boys are just the kind of people who should be helped by ObamaCare. But they recently got a nasty surprise in the mail.
"When I saw the letter when I came home from work," Andy said, describing the large red wording on the envelope from his insurance carrier, "(it said) 'your action required, benefit changes, act now.' Of course I opened it immediately."

It had stunning news. Insurance for the Mangiones and their two boys,which they bought on the individual market, was going to almost triple in 2014 --- from $333 a month to $965.
The insurance carrier made it clear the increase was in order to be compliant with the new health care law.

Are you ready to have your health insurance premiums potentially double or triple?

In other cases, families are discovering that health insurance companies are simply cancelling their health insurance plans...

Across the country, insurers are sending out ObamaCare-induced health plan death notices to untold tens of thousands of other customers in the individual market. Twitter users are posting their ObamaCare cancellation notices and accompanying rate increases:

Linda Deright posted her letter from Regency of Washington state: "63 percent jump, old policy of 15 yrs. cancelled." Karen J. Dugan wrote: "Received same notice from Blue Shield CA for our small business. Driving into exchange and no info since online site is down." Chris Birk wrote: "Got notice from BCBS that my current health plan is not ACA compliant. New plan 2x as costly for worse coverage." Small-business owner Villi Wilson posted his letter from HMSA Blue Cross Blue Shield canceling his individual plan and added: "I thought Obama said if I like my health care plan I can keep my health care plan."

In fact, this even happened to one member of Congress.  U.S. Representative Cory Gardner had purchased health insurance on his own because he wanted to experience what his constituents were going through, and he recently got a letter informing him that his old plan had been "discontinued"...

"After my current plan is discontinued," he wrote last week, "the closest comparable plan through our current provider will cost over 100 percent more, going from roughly $650 a month to $1,480 per month." He now carries his ObamaCare cancellation notice with him as hardcore proof of the Democrats' ultimate deception.

Is this what Obama was talking about when he promised that we could keep our old health insurance plans if we were happy with them?

In the end, millions upon millions of us are going to get pushed on to the Obamacare health insurance exchanges.

We were promised that there would be lots of competition and that prices would be reasonable.

Unfortunately, in some areas of the country it turns out that the "exchanges" are turning out to be "monopolies" where consumers will only have one company to choose from...

“Although seven insurance companies currently operate in North Carolina, under the new Obamacare exchanges, those options will dwindle down to one in the majority of counties,” Ellmers said Thursday following the disclosure of figures by federal health officials showing that more than 60 percent of North Carolina counties will have only one insurance provider option under Obamacare: Blue Cross Blue Shield.

“The whole point of an online marketplace was to provide options, so North Carolinians could go online, compare prices, and choose plans from different companies. That is how competition is supposed to work!,” Ellmers said.

Beginning October 1 under Obamacare, Blue Cross Blue Shield will be the only health insurance provider serving the entire state of North Carolina in the new Obamacare exchanges, serving all 100 of the state’s counties. Its competitor Coventry Health Care, which is owned by Aetna, will only reach 39 counties.

That leaves 61 counties, or 61 percent of all the state’s counties, in a Blue Cross Blue Shield-only zone.

Not only that, but a lot of these exchanges are not even going to be ready to function properly on October 1st.  For example, according to the Washington Post, the D.C. "health marketplace" is a complete and total mess at this point...

Just days away from launch, the District of Columbia's health marketplace is announcing a pretty significant delay.

While the D.C. Health Link will launch a Web site on October 1, shoppers will not have access to the their premium prices until mid-November. The delay comes after the District marketplace discovered "a high error rate" in calculating the tax credits that low- and middle-income people will use to purchase insurance on the marketplace.

The insurance marketplaces, if working as plan, are supposed to spit out an estimate for a tax credit after a shopper enters in some basic information about where she lives and how much she earns. In the District, that won't happen next month. Instead, the eligibility determination will be made "off-line by experts" by early November.

So who is going to benefit from this new system?

Well, it turns out that the health insurance companies will greatly benefit.  Health insurance companies helped write Obamacare, and their stock prices have absolutely soared since Obamacare was signed into law.  If you doubt this, just check out the amazing charts in this article.

Not that they were hurting under the old system either.  They have been raking in gigantic mountains of cash for years while trying to provide as little health care as possible.  For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled "50 Signs That The U.S. Health Care System Is A Gigantic Money Making Scam".

For the rest of us, Obamacare is going to be even worse than the old system.  A 2013 Health Care Survey that polled 200 top health care professionals discovered the following about what they believe Obamacare will bring...

-- 53 percent, “Quality of health insurance policies will suffer.”
-- 51 percent, “Quality of care will go down.”
-- 49 percent, “The law is overly complicated.”
-- 42 percent, “Insurance exchanges will be poorly managed.”
-- 37 percent, “The law still allows insurance companies to be the middleman.”
-- 32 percent, “Too complex for businesses.”
-- 19 percent, “Americans will die earlier.”

So Americans are going to pay more, get worse care, have more paperwork and a more complicated system, and they are likely to die younger too?

Wow, that sounds like a great deal.

Where do we sign up?

From the front lines of medicine, disillusioned nurse reveals why America's health care system is imploding

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From the front lines of medicine, disillusioned nurse reveals why America's health care system is imploding
Sept 26, 2013 | Natural News | Mike Adams

America's health care system is crumbling. Costs are skyrocketing to the point where employers are now forced to simply fire people in order to avoid the enormous financial burden of paying for their health care. Obamacare was sold to the nation as a way to make health care "affordable," but the reality is that it only strengthened and emboldened the pharmaceutical monopoly that has hijacked health care and turned the whole system into a "disease management profit center."

But don't take my word for it, read this letter from someone on the front lines of the health care system. What follows is a letter from a veteran of the health care industry, a nurse who has finally left the system in disgust over its practices:

A letter from a nurse 

As the heated debate about Obamacare continues our politicians and media are failing to talk about the real problem. Obamacare is only adding to the problem that already exist, so what's the real problem? The problem is that we DO NOT provide healthcare in this country, we provide a health industry that practices medical care.

What that means is healthcare's goal is to maintain a healthy person as compared to medical care which treats sick people for profit. Medical facilities hire the bare minimum staff that is mandated to maximize profits. Nurses and aids are over-worked and barely have enough time to finish their work. They are told to clock out even if they are not done to save money on overtime. The days of a nurse sitting at the bedside of their patients and talking to them are gone.

As a nurse of 20 years I have seen the profession that I love become hijacked by the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. When I started nursing, we would apply ice and heat for pain and sore muscles; today we hand out opiates and muscle relaxants for the same thing. After realizing that I had become nothing more than a Pez dispenser for the pharmaceutical industry I left the field.

Thirty years ago my mother could take me to our family doctor and reach in her purse to pay him when we were done. Today you might get charged well over $100 the minute you sign in and have your temperature taken. We have turned the human body into nothing more than a bunch of billing codes for the insurance industry.

If we were practicing true healthcare we would reward doctors for maintaining their patients healthy and preventing them from having to constantly seek care. The current system of medical care that we have rewards doctors financially for the amount of care they render. In essence the more you go to the doctor the better for business and the biggest winners are Big Pharma. This type of care leads to unnecessary test, unnecessary treatments, and unnecessary medications which often cause other conditions that need to be treated as well. This revolving door of care for profit only increases the cost for everyone and it's in the best interest of the health industry to create and maintain as many CUSTOMERS as possible.

The debate shouldn't be about Obamacare or the uninsured, it should be about the cost of care, but all you hear on TV and from our politicians is about the cost of HEALTH INSURANCE. Obamacare will not fix our current problem of high costs, it only provides the Health Industrial Complex with more customers under the current failing system.

- Anonymous nurse

Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Huber about GMOs

Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Huber about GMOs
Sept 27, 2013 | Mercola

http://articles.mercola.com/ Natural health physician and Mercola.com founder Dr. Joseph Mercola interviews Dr. Don Huber!

The Future is Local, the Future is Organic

The Future is Local, the Future is Organic
Sept 26, 2013 | Global Research | Colin Todhunter

The future is local. The future is organic. Well, at least it could be if we base our food production on an increasing body of evidence that indicates the harmful effects of petrochemical, corporate-controlled agriculture.

In June, researchers at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand concluded that the GM strategy used in North American staple crop production is limiting yields and increasing pesticide use compared to non-GM farming in Western Europe. Led by Professor Jack Heinemann, the study’s findings were published in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability.

The study finds that Europe is decreasing chemical herbicide use and achieving even larger declines in insecticide use without sacrificing yield gains, while chemical herbicide use in the US has increased with GM seed.

In effect, Europe has learned to grow more food per hectare and use fewer chemicals in the process. The US choices in biotechnology are causing it to fall behind Europe in productivity and sustainability. The decrease in annual variation in yield in the US suggests that Europe has a superior combination of seed and crop management technology and is better suited to withstand weather variations. This is important because annual variations cause price speculations that can drive hundreds of millions of people into food poverty.

The report also highlights some grave concerns about the impact of modern agriculture per se in terms of the general move towards depleted genetic diversity and the consequently potential catastrophic risk to staple food crops. Of the nearly 10,000 wheat varieties in use in China in 1949, only 1,000 remained in the 1970s.

In the US, 95% of the cabbage, 91% of the field maize, 94% of the pea and 81% of the tomato varieties cultivated in the last century have been lost. GMOs and the control of seeds through patents have restricted farmer choice and prevented seed saving. This has exacerbated this problem.

The conclusion is that we need a diversity of practices for growing. We also need systems that are useful, not just profit-making biotechnologies, and which provide a resilient supply to feed the world well.

On the heels the Heinemann team’s research comes a September 2013 report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which states that farming in rich and poor nations alike should shift from monoculture towards greater varieties of crops, reduced use of fertilisers and other inputs, greater support for small-scale farmers and more locally focused production and consumption of food. More than 60 international experts contributed to the report.

The report, ‘Wake up before it is too late: make agriculture truly sustainable now for food security in a changing climate’, states that monoculture and industrial farming methods are not providing sufficient affordable food where it is needed, while causing mounting and unsustainable environmental damage. The system actually causes food poverty, not addresses it.

Over the past few years, there have been numerous high level reports from the UN and development agencies arguing in favour of small farmers and agro-ecology, but this has not been translated into real action on the ground where peasant farmers increasingly face marginalisation and oppression, as we have seen in India. According to Vandana Shiva, the plundering of Indian agriculture by Big Agra is resulting in a forced removal of farmers from the land and the destruction of traditional communities on a scale of which has not been witnessed anywhere before throughout history.

Elizabeth Mpofu, general coordinator of the organization La Vía Campesina says that long before the release of this new report, small farmers around the world were already convinced that we need a diversified agriculture to guarantee a balanced local food production, the protection of people’s livelihoods and the respect of nature. To achieve this goal, she feels the protection of the huge variety of local seeds and farmers’ rights to use them is paramount. Small farmers are struggling to preserve their indigenous seeds and knowledge of farming systems.

Evidence is mounting that the industrial food system is not only failing to feed the world, but also responsible for some of the planet’s most pressing social and environmental crises. Industrial food system is directly responsible for around half of all global greenhouse gas emissions. We cannot solve the climate crisis without confronting the industrial food system and the corporations behind it.

Pat Mooney of the ETC group adds that the corporate food chain uses about 70-80% of the world’s arable land to produce just 30-40% of the food we eat. In the process, peasant farmers, the real food producers, get thrown off their land and tremendous environmental harm is done. This is clearly not the way to feed the world.

There are lessons here for India, as the biotech sector continues to push its second ‘Green Revolution’ – GMOs. The original Green Revolution in India has been a failure, with Indian farmers in debt, paying high costs for seed and pesticides, committing suicide, and resulting in a depleted water table and a poisoned environment.

Punjab was the ‘Green Revolution’s’ original poster boy, but is fast becoming transformed from a food bowl to a cancer epicentre and now reels under an agrarian crisis marked by discontent, debt, water shortages, contaminated water, diseased soils and pest infested cops.

As the new UN report indicates, what is required is a shift from corporate-controlled agriculture towards more biodiverse, organic systems that place emphasis on local economies and food sovereignty. The answer is to return to basics by encouraging biodiverse, organic, local crop systems, which is more than capable of feeding the world – and, unlike chemical intensive agriculture – feeding it healthily.

Why Is The Food Industry Poisoning Us With Trillions of Nanoparticles?

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Why Is The Food Industry Poisoning Us With Trillions of Nanoparticles?
Sept 24, 2013 | Green Med Info | Sayer Ji

The U.S. food industry is notorious for poisoning the very consumers who drive their multi-billion dollar enterprise, even spending millions against their right to informed consent (truthful GMO labeling). So, is it any wonder that this deregulated and increasingly deranged juggernaut is experimenting on its own customer base by exposing them to trillions of toxic nanoparticles?

A new study published in Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy titled, "Effects of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in human gastric epithelial cells in vitro," reveals for the first time that the nanoparticle form of the common "whitening" agent known as titanium dioxide is capable of inducing "tumor-like" changes in exposed human cells.[1]

Whereas previous cell research has established that titanium dioxide (TiO₂) is cytotoxic (cell damaging),[2] this is the first study of its kind to find exposed cells undergo a 'phenotypal' transition from normal to cancerous cell traits, including an increased rate of cell proliferation and a decrease in programmed cell death – hallmark features of precancerous and/or cancerous cells associated with 'immortalization.'

Owing to the fact that the researchers tested human gastric epithelial cells, a type of stomach cell in direct contact with material we eat, and considering the broad range of drug, personal care and food products nanoparticle TiO₂ is commonly used within, the toxicological implications of these findings are deeply concerning.

We Are Already Eating Titanium Dioxide  

TiO₂ is a naturally occurring oxide of titanium, and has a wide range of industrial applications as a "whitening" pigment in plastics, ceramic glazes and paints. It is used in sunscreens as a UV absorbing "sun protection factor," due to its high refractive index.  Most of our risk of exposure comes from its use in toothpaste, drugs and excipient-heavy supplements as a pill coating, and food products, including even milk (to 'improve' appearance and texture).

Indeed, given that TiO₂ is found in thousands of consumer products, the odds are that you are already being exposed to a significant quantity of them on a daily basis.  As reported by Everydayhealth.com, "You ingest around 100 trillion nanoparticles every day, researchers at Binghamton University and Cornell University say."

So, what are some common brands who use it? Nanotitanium is found in products produced by Jello, Nestlé, M&M's, Mother's, Mentos, Albertson's, Hostess and Kool Aid.

Below is a table from the 2012 E Magazine article "Eating Nano" revealing its presence in common U.S. packaged goods.

Is Titanium Dioxide Regulated?  

Much like present day radiobiological risk assessments for technologies like mammography were developed long before the discovery of DNA, making it impossible to comprehend their DNA-damaging properties at that time, present day biosafety regulations of TiO₂ were determined long before the advent of nanotechnology.  In both cases, the true harms of these technologies were -- and still are -- greatly underestimated.

As a result of this information gap, TiO₂ is currently classified as 'generally recognized as safe' (GRAS) by the FDA, regardless of format. Remarkably, the FDA still allows titanium dioxide in sunscreens "at concentrations of up to 25 percent alone and 2 to 25 percent in combination with any proposed Category I sunscreen active ingredient" without considering the toxicity differential of particle size.[3] Considering that concentrations as low as 0.001% by weight have been found to exhibit clear cytotoxicity within exposed cells,[4] the biosafety regulations governing TiO₂  are as great as 5 orders of magnitude or higher less stringent than they should be to protect the consumer.

Nanoparticles are so small they are below the threshold of visibility. This is one reason why they are used for sun protection factor, as 100 nanometers or smaller particles will not leave the white pasty appearance on the skin associated with larger particles.  What you can't see, however, is still there – and in the case of nanotitanium, may slip through the surface layers of our skin into more sensitive tissues, as well as our blood stream. This is also why, if you use sunscreen, you should make sure the ingredients say "non-nanoparticle" when describing titanium dioxide or zinc oxide. And this rule applies to purportedly 'natural' brands as well.


Technically, a nanoparticle, also known as a 'ultrafine particle,' is a particle that is sized within the nanometer scale: literally, anywhere between 1-100 billionth (nano) of a meter in diameter.  Going up in scale, larger particles are known as 'fine particles,' sized between 2,500 and 100 nanometers, and so-called 'coarse particles' are sized between 10,000 and 2,500 nanometers.

How 'Smaller' Can Indicate A Much Larger Problem

Nanotechnology inverts the unsophisticated logic of conventional toxicology risk assessments: namely, that the smaller the amount of something (concentration or size), the less harmful it is. We have seen how this logic has failed with petrochemical-derived chemicals like benzene, considered toxic in the parts-per-trillion range, and endocrine disrupters like bisphenol A and parabens, which exert powerful hormone-mimicking properties that sometimes increase as their concentration decrease. More recently, Monsanto's Roundup herbicide (glyphosate), was found to exhibit estrogenicity (and concomitant carcinogenicity) in the parts-per-trillion concentration range. There is also the case of so-called 'low dose' radioisotopes such as depleted uranium, whose relatively low radiolytic decay relative to gamma-ray emitting plutonium generates the illusion that it is safer (recent research performed by the U.S. Army's own Radiobiological Research Institute indicates these "lower risk" radiation sources cause up to a million-fold more damage than present risk models explain due to a phenomenon known as the photoelectic effect).

In other words, less is not only more, but when it comes to particle size, smaller sizes often convey exponentially higher toxicity than larger ones.

Why Are We Not Being Protected? 

  So, why isn't more being done to protect the consumer from the clear and present health threat represented by nanotechnology? Considering that the Food and Drug Administration does exactly that: administers and/or executes the interests of the food and drug manufacturers, we are supplicating to the wrong entity. The FDA is at least consistent by deciding to allow the food industry to govern itself, but what about the food industry's liability in saturating our food supply with trillions of nanoparticles per serving, without warning the consumer?

According to Tom Philpot, writing for Grist in 2010, "As with GMOs, the strategy seems to be: release into the food supply en masse first; assess risks later (if ever)."

This strategy, while a seemingly successful short-term business model for nanotechnology stakeholders, is utter insanity when one considers the long-term fall out it will have on the industry once millions wake up to the fact they have been treated, once gain, like guinea pigs.

Moreover, as a growing body of peer-reviewed research on the dangers of nanoparticles accumulates, the millions who have already been exposed unknowingly to their ill effects have a legal right to sue for damages.  The food industry's increasingly nefarious stance towards the very consumers who ensure their continued business defies logic, and indicates just how unethical their business model really is.

There is really only one answer to this problem. As with unlabeled GMOs, the consumer must refuse to consume them, forcing the manufacturers to bow to the holy dollar and reformulate; or, better yet, the 'consumer' must learn how to redefine itself entirely by becoming, once again, a producer, one garden (urban, suburban or rural) at a time. By growing and eating whole foods directly from the earth, we eliminate a wide range of health hazards the mass market food industry has built into their disease-promoting business model.

---

[1] Monica Catarina Botelho, Carla Costa, Susana Silva, Solange Costa, Alok Dhawan, Paula A Oliveira, João P Teixeira. Effects of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in human gastric epithelial cells in vitro. Biomed Pharmacother. 2013 Aug 23. Epub 2013 Aug 23. PMID: 24051123

[2] GreenMedInfo.com, Research > Problem Substances > Index: T's > Titanium Dioxide

[3] FDA. Sunscreen Drug Products for Over-the-Counter Human Use; Amendment to the Tentative Final Monograph; Enforcement Policy. Federal Register. 1998;63:56584–56589.

[4] Julia X Yu, Thomas H Li. Distinct biological effects of different nanoparticles commonly used in cosmetics and medicine coatings Cell Biosci. 2011; 1: 19. Published online 2011 May 19. doi: 10.1186/2045-3701-1-19

About the Author

Sayer Ji is an author, researcher, lecturer, and advisory board member of the National Health Federation.
 
He founded Greenmedinfo.com in 2008 in order to provide the world an open access, evidence-based resource supporting natural and integrative modalities. It is widely recognized as the most widely referenced health resource of its kind.

Russia considers total ban on all GMO products

Russia considers total ban on all GMO products
Sept 25, 2013 | GM Watch

The Russian Prime Minister has ordered relevant agencies to consider a possible ban on the import into Russia of GM products.

The story below is also available to subscribers to Interfax News Service:

http://www.interfax.co.uk/russia-news/russia-may-ban-import-of-products-containing-genetically-modified-organisms/

Russia considers total ban on all GMO products

Sustainable Pulse, September 25, 2013

http://sustainablepulse.com/2013/09/25/russia-considers-total-ban-on-all-gmo-products/#.UkMBgbyE7gM

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the relevant agencies to consider a possible ban on the import into Russia of products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by October 15.

The order is addressed to Rospotrebnadzor, the Health Ministry, the Agriculture Ministry, and the Trade and Economic Development Ministry. They are ordered to “submit proposals on amendments to the Russian legislation aimed at tightening control over the turnover of products containing components obtained from GMOs together with the relevant federal executive bodies.”

The aforementioned agencies are also ordered to submit proposals “on the possibility of banning the import of such products into the Russian Federation.”

A list of the prime minister’s orders was drawn up to fulfill the presidential orders issued after the meeting on the socio-economic development of the Rostov region held on September 18. Medvedev’s orders have been posted on the government website, Interfax news agency reported today.

Russia is currently taking a hard line on GMOs – in August the first independent project for identifying whether Russian farmers are growing illegal GM crops started in the Belgorod region.

NAGS (The National Association for Genetic Safety) conducted the first checks of agricultural crops for the presence of GMOs. No GMO plants were found in any Belgorod fields.

We remind you that currently, according to the law in Russia, 19 GM lines are allowed in foodstuffs, but the cultivation of GMOs is not allowed.

After joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Russia is obliged to simplify the procedure for registration of genetically modified products, seed and feed, to stop their safety checks, and to stop controls over their distribution.

7.0 magnitude earthquake strikes along the coast of Peru

7.0 magnitude earthquake strikes along the coast of Peru
Sept 25, 2013 | Extinction Protocol

 September 25, 2013 – PERU - There is no tsunami threat to Hawaiʻi after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake reported at 6:43 a.m. HST on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2013 off the coast of Central Peru, officials said. The magnitude of the quake was initially reported as a 6.8.  It was then downgraded shortly after to a 6.6, and finally upgraded to a 7.0 after further analysis, according to the USGS. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a statement saying there is no tsunami threat to Hawaiʻi based on all available data. Officials with the USGS say the quake occurred at at depth of 20.5 miles. The USGS reports that the quake was located 28 miles S of Acari, Peru; 56 miles SE of Minas de Marcona, Peru; 74 miles SSE of Nazca, Peru; 83 miles SSW of Puquio, Peru; and 308 miles SSE of Lima, Peru. This is the second 7.0+ magnitude earthquake to strike the planet in 24 hours. –Maui News

Victory: Senate to Kill Monsanto Protection Act Amid Outrage

Victory: Senate to Kill Monsanto Protection Act Amid Outrage
Sept 25, 2013 | Natural Society | Anthony Gucciardi

In a major victory brought upon by serious activism and public outrage, new legislation changes will shut down the Monsanto Protection Act rider that granted Monsanto protection from legal action and was set to renew on September 30th.

© Natural Society

This unprecedented move shows the true power of the anti-GMO, anti-Monsanto movement, and how elected officials are now being forced to side with the concerned population over the money-spewing Monsanto. After all, it was Monsanto who purchased its way into the initial Senate spending bill legislation via a rider dubbed the ‘Monsanto Protection Act’  through Senator Roy Blunt.

Officially labeled the Farmer Assurance Provision under Sec. 735 of the Senate Continuing Resolution spending bill, Senator Blunt was conveniently given over $64,000 by Monsanto before he handed the biotech corporation the ability to write its own legislation for the Monsanto Protection Act. And as I told you back in March here on the frontlines of anti-GMO activism, the financial payload dished out by Monsanto was enough to secure a major victory for corporations over both the public and even the federal government.

It was last March that Obama signed the initial Senate spending bill into law, subsequently bringing the Monsanto Protection Act rider into legal validity as well. But the rider only extended until September 30th of this year, and it was up to Monsanto to pull another slippery legislative trick out of their sleeves in order to pass a Monsanto Protection Act 2.0 renewal. Once again, however, Monsanto executives underestimated the power of the alternative news community and the intelligence of those who do not want to eat contaminated food.

And as a result, Senators are being forced to respond in a big way. As one Senator put it:

“That provision will be gone,” said Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) told Politico.

There is even discussion of how the Monsanto Protection Act came to exist in the first place, and more importantly how we can hold the politicians responsible.

“Short-term appropriations bills are not an excuse for Congress to grandfather in bad policy,” said Colin O’Neil, director of government affairs for the Center for Food Safety.

Once again, we have achieved a major victory in the fight against Monsanto and GMOs at large. As information on the subject continues to spread like intellectual wildfire, Monsanto’s days as a food supply hog consistently dwindle.

About the Author

Google Plus Profile Anthony is the Editor of NaturalSociety, producer, consultant, and seeker of truth. Anthony's work has been read by millions worldwide and is routinely featured on major alternative and mainstream news website alike, like the powerful Drudge Report, NaturalNews, Infowars, and many others. Anthony has appeared, oftentimes routinely, on programs like Russia Today (RT), The Alex Jones Show, Coast to Coast AM, and others. Anthony is also a founding member of Natural Attitude and the creator of the independent political website Storyleak

Major Earthquake Rocks Pakistan, Causes 'Island' to Form

image: USGS

Major Earthquake Rocks Pakistan, Causes 'Island' to Form
Sept 23, 2013 | Common Dreams

A 7.7 magnitude earthquake rocked the Baluchistan province of Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 45 people, according to media reports.

Reuters reports that

The earthquake was so powerful that it caused the seabed to rise and create a small, mountain-like island about 600 meters (yards) off Pakistan's Gwadar coastline in the Arabian Sea.

Dozens of houses collapsed in Awaran, about 42 miles north of the quake's epicenter, and shocks were felt as far away as Karachi and New Delhi.

Muhammad Riaz, a senior Pakistan meteorologist, told reporters that "heavy destruction" was likely.
The death toll is likely to climb.  The U.S. Geological Survey issued a red alert level for fatalities after the earthquake, writing that "High casualties are probable and the disaster is likely widespread. Past events with this alert level have required a national or international level response."

15 Beliefs and Habits of Highly Effective and Happy People

15 Beliefs and Habits of Highly Effective and Happy People
Sept 23, 2013 | Prevent Disease | Tara Laserna

Regardless of industry, profession, town, city or nation, highly effective and happy people share many of the same perspectives and beliefs and they act on those beliefs.

1. Time doesn't fill me. I fill time.
The average person who is given two weeks to complete a task will instinctively adjust his or her effort so it actually takes two weeks. Average people allow time to impose its will on them; remarkable people impose their will on their time and allow fluidity. They don't stress about time and because their perception is more fluid, time does not become their focus and tasks become more manageable.

2. I understand balance.
They know that the terms money and success are not interchangeable. They understand that people who are successful on a financial level only, are not successful at all. They have an off switch. They know how to relax, enjoy what they have in their life and to have fun. Their career is not their identity, it’s their job. It’s not who they are, it’s what they do. Unfortunately we live in a society which teaches that money equals success. Like many other things, money is a tool. It’s certainly not a bad thing but ultimately, it’s just another resource. Unfortunately, too many people worship it.

3. The people around me are the people I chose.
Choose the people you want around you and don't let people you don't want around you choose you. If the people around you make you unhappy it's not their fault. It's your fault. They're in your professional or personal life because you drew them to you--and you let them remain. Kind people like to associate with kind people.  It's about aligning yourself with like-minded people. They understand the importance of being part of a team. They create win-win relationships. A mean boss will only attract people he or she can control where a boss that empowers will attract people that love to be empowered. The former is a disempowering relationship while the latter is an empowering relationship. Know the difference.

4. I'm never bored and I never complain.
Complainers, whiners and those who refuse to take complete responsibility for their actions and outcomes (or lack thereof) often meet their demise in this respect. They bore easily because they are too busy pretending life has to meet their expectations instead of them reaching out and being passionate about every experience. It's about being busy, productive and proactive. While most are laying on the couch, planning, over-thinking, sitting on their hands and generally going around in circles, effective people are out there getting the job done. When you are living the life you choose, complaining, whining and boredom don't exist.

5. I have never paid my dues.
Dues aren't paid, past tense. Dues get paid, each and every day. The only real measure of your value is the tangible contribution you make on a daily basis. No job is ever too menial, no task ever too unskilled or boring. Remarkably effective people never feel entitled--except to the fruits of their labor.

6. I ask the right questions.
They consciously and methodically create their own success by asking the questions that will make them more productive, creative, with a more positive mindset and empowering emotional state.

7. Failure is something I accomplish; it doesn't just happen to me.
Occasionally something completely outside your control will cause you to fail. Most of the time though, it's you. And that's okay. Every successful person has failed. Numerous times. Most of them have failed a lot more often than you. But they found lessons in failures, not problems or misery. That's why they learned how to be effective. Embrace every failure: Own it, learn from it, and take full responsibility for making sure that next time, things will turn out differently.

8. Clarity, innovation and focus.
They have clarity and certainty about what they want (and don’t want) for their life. They actually visualize and plan their best reality while others are merely spectators of life. They innovate rather than imitate. They don’t procrastinate and they don’t spend their life waiting for the ‘right time’. The focus and apply themselves.

9. Volunteers always win.
Whenever you raise your hand you wind up being asked to do more. That's great. Doing more is an opportunity: to learn, to impress, to gain skills, to build new relationships--to do something more than you would otherwise been able to do. Success is based on action. The more you volunteer, the more you get to act. Effective people step forward to create opportunities. Remarkably effective people sprint forward. They look for and find opportunities where others see nothing.

10. Not only good communicators, but the best communicators
They are good communicators and they consciously work at it. They are more effective than most at managing their emotions when communicating with others and they are not slaves to these emotions. Ego does not rule their lives. They have identified their core values (what is important to them) and they do their best to live a life which is reflective of those values when speaking with others. Their ethical behavior is sound.

11. I address the solutions, not the problems.
People have a tendency of creating more problems than solutions which hinders their effectiveness. They can only see obstacles where as others just have a way of seeing past them and getting right to the solutions that no longer make a problem....well, a problem anymore. They are solutions seekers, not problem enablers.


12. I am humble and happy to admit my own mistakes.
They apologize when they must. They forgive and they are confident in their ability, but not arrogant. They are happy to learn from others and see other perspectives than their own. They are happy to make others look good rather than seek their own personal glory.

13. I set higher standards for myself.
This in turn produces greater commitment, more momentum, a better work ethic and of course, better results. They don’t rationalize failure. While many are talking about their age, their sore back, their lack of time, their poor genetics, their ‘bad luck’, their nasty boss and their lack of opportunities (all good reasons to fail), they are finding a way to succeed despite all their challenges.

14. I finish what I start.
While so many spend their life starting things that they never finish, effective people get the job done – even when the excitement and the novelty have worn off. Even when it ain’t fun.

15. Being multi-dimensional, amazing, and wonderfully complex
They realize that not only are they physical and psychological beings, but emotional and spiritual creatures as well. They consciously work at being healthy and productive on all levels inside and out. They don’t hang out with toxic people and they don’t invest time or emotional energy into things which they have no control of. They do what they can do advance themselves to the best of their ability and never look back, even for a second, because the past is no longer within their control. They plan for the future in harmony with their present state of mind and don't overplan or overanalyze because they understand that thought processes are constantly evolving and forever growing.

Tara Laserna is a Reiki master, energy healer, meditation and wellness coach.

Monsanto unleashes massive GMO push into Africa

activism

Monsanto unleashes massive GMO push into Africa
Sept 24, 2013 | Natural News | Ethan A. Huff

When Wikileaks first dropped the bomb on the U.S. Department of State's active involvement in pushing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on Africa back in 2010, subsequent reports affirming that the corporate cabal of predatory biotechnology was also busy conniving with corrupt government agencies to make inroads into the otherwise untapped agricultural markets of Africa quickly surfaced. But now this sinister scheme has apparently been shifted into overdrive, as the biotech industry and its many front groups grow increasingly desperate in their attempts to conquer Africa and claim it for their own.

As compiled and reported by GMWatch.org, new information gathered from multiple sources reveals that biotech companies have now infiltrated the U.S. Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe, which is right now actively advocating what it ridiculously claims is the proven safety and efficacy of GM crops. This is, of course, in addition to the many other biotech-backed lobbying groups, non-profit foundations and developmental organizations that continue to tour the nations of Africa and aggressively blitz them with endless pro-GMO propaganda.

Though such activity has been taking place in Africa for years, it is only continuing to intensify, say experts, as the patience of biotech companies like Monsanto and DuPont grows thin. Europe has all but banned GMOs, with the exception of imported animal feed, and the U.S. is growing more and more resistant to GMOs with each passing day. So the biotech industry is shifting its focus to Africa, much of which is stricken with poverty and drought -- in other words, Africa is ripe for exploitation by multinational seed corporations.

"While Africa has long been intransigent in its stance against introducing genetically modified crops, cracks are forming in the opposition, and the world's leading biotechs -- DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta among them -- are poised to take advantage of the weakening stance and flood the market with seed, fertilizer, and pesticides," writes Rich Duprey for The Motley Fool about the situation. "With Europe effectively closed off to GM crops, the seed and chemical giants are looking to Africa to be their next growth market."

Corporate lobbyists shamelessly use poverty, hunger as cover story to pillage African agriculture

According to GMWatch.org, former State Department communications expert-turned-Monsanto public relations lobbyist Jay Byrne, for instance, has been actively meeting with lobbying front groups in Africa to advocate for more acceptance of GMOs. Other so-called "biotech ambassadors" are engaged in similar lobbying efforts, including pro-GMO activist Mark Lynas, who, as we previously reported, spends much of his time touring Africa and giving speeches about how GMOs can save Africa.

All this corporate pandering in promotion of GMOs has nothing to do with ending hunger and poverty in Africa, of course. This is just the front story that the biotech industry and its lackeys in the federal government are using to advance their agenda of enslaving African farmers into a system that will require them to purchase seeds from Monsanto every year rather than save and reuse them. It is about power, control and greed -- an incessant bloodlust for agricultural dominance in every corner of the globe.

"If Africa does succumb to the siren song of GM crops, control of the food chain will be taken from the hands of the family farmer and placed into those of the agri-giants," adds Duprey. "For farmers who wished to go back to the old ways, their fields would have to lie fallow for years before the chemicals poured onto them were gone, a practical impossibility when the harvests are used for subsistence ... A new era of agricultural colonialism will be born where the local farmer ends up becoming enslaved to the global profit demands of corporate agriculture."

Sources for this article include:

http://gmwatch.org

http://www.fool.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://science.naturalnews.com

Why drugging all schizophrenics for life is not the answer

Fascinating research reveals that some people
who suffer a psychotic break do better
without a lifetime of medication.

SOTT: Why drugging all schizophrenics for life is not the answer
Sept 19, 2013 | Alternet |  Bruce E. Levine

It was an amazing victory for mental health treatment reform activists and one investigative reporter: on Aug. 28, 2013, National Institute of Mental Health director Thomas Insel announced that psychiatry's standard treatment for people diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses needs to change.

After examining two long-term studies on schizophrenia and psychoses, Insel came to what was previously considered a radical conclusion: in the long-term, some individuals with a history of psychosis do better off medication.

Insel finally recognized what mental health treatment reform activists and investigative reporter Robert Whitaker have been talking about for years - the research shows that American psychiatry's standard treatment protocol has hurt many people who could have been helped by a more selective and limited use of drugs, and a more diverse approach such as the one used in Finland, which has produced the best long-term outcomes in the developed world.

Like many treatment reform activists and Whitaker, Insel does not completely reject the use of medications, but instead called for a more judicious use of them. Insel concluded:

Antipsychotic medication, which seemed so important in the early phase of psychosis, appeared to worsen prospects for recovery over the long-term....

It appears that what we currently call "schizophrenia" may comprise disorders with quite different trajectories. For some people, remaining on medication long-term might impede a full return to wellness. For others, discontinuing medication can be disastrous.

What is amazing about this recent conclusion by the NIMH director is that it means less money for drug companies, which in the past, have heavily influenced psychiatric treatment through their financial clout. Big Pharma has profited enormously from the current standard treatment protocol that calls for lifetime antipsychotic medication after a single psychotic episode. Because of this treatment protocol and the increasing use of antipsychotic drugs for nonpsychotic conditions, antipsychotics grossed over $18 billion a year in the United States by 2011. The antipsychotic Abilify became the highest grossing of all drugs in the first quarter of 2013, and it is on track to gross $6 billion this year (entire corporations that only grossed approximately $5 billion last year include Facebook and Yahoo).

How did this activist victory happen?

For several decades, a small group of mental health treatment reform activists, comprised of dissident mental health professionals and "psychiatric survivors" (who themselves had received nonproductive and counterproductive treatments) have been engaged in an uphill battle for truly informed choice, including multiple options which reflect the diversity of the population diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses.

Dissident psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals at the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry, patient and ex-patient activists at MindFreedom International, and patients' rights advocates at National Association for Rights, Protection and Advocacy have not received attention from the mental health establishment or from most of the mainstream media. But they aroused the curiosity of investigative reporter Robert Whitaker.

In 1998, Whitaker co-wrote a series on psychiatric research for the Boston Globe that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. The more Whitaker dug, the more he uncovered glaring problems in standard psychiatric treatment. He found a dramatic rise in U.S. mental illness disability rates; research revealing the failure of standard psychiatric treatment protocols; World Health Organization findings that schizophrenia outcomes are much better in India and Nigeria than in the United States; WHO findings of an association between good outcomes and not remaining continuously on psychiatric drugs; and treatment options that were far more effective than American psychiatry's standard of care. His book Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill was published in 2001.

Whitaker did not let go of this story until the mental health establishment was forced to listen. In 2010, Whitaker's book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America won the Investigative Reporters and Editors book award for best investigative journalism. The mental health establishment could no longer ignore him, and so they invited Whitaker to their institutions to speak with the hopes of discrediting him, but they could not do so.

The research that convinced the NIMH Director

One of the two major research studies NIMH director Insel adduced to justify his recent conclusions is a study on long-term treatment of schizophrenia by Martin Harrow, a psychologist at the University of Illinois Medical School. Ironically, Harrow's study had been rescued from oblivion by Whitaker in Anatomy of an Epidemic, after NIMH and the mental health establishment had buried it. As Whitaker noted:

In 2007, the year [Harrow] published his [15-year] results in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, NIMH issued 89 press releases, many on inconsequential matters. But it did not issue one on Harrow's findings, even though his was arguably the best study of the long-term outcomes of schizophrenia patients that had ever been done in the United States.

What is so important about the Harrow study for Whitaker - and now for Insel? In February 2012, Harrow published his 20-year followup, "Do All Schizophrenia Patients Need Antipsychotic Treatment Continuously Throughout their Lifetime? A 20-Year Longitudinal Study, which reiterated his 2007 conclusions. Specifically, Harrow found that patients diagnosed with schizophrenia who were "not on antipsychotics for prolonged periods were significantly less likely to be psychotic and experienced more periods of recovery."

Harrow and his research team had enrolled patients from two Chicago hospitals diagnosed with schizophrenia (as well as patients diagnosed with mood disorders with psychosis) to examine long-term outcomes. All of the patients had received conventional medication treatments when hospitalized, and then Harrow followed them as their lives unfolded, periodically assessing how well they were doing. The majority of patients continued their antipsychotic medications, while about a third of them did not comply with medication treatment and stopped taking them.

The 20-year results, like the 15-year results, showed that patients diagnosed with schizophrenia (and those patients with mood disorders with psychosis) who took antipsychotic medication regularly during the 20 years actually experienced more psychosis, more anxiety, and were more cognitively impaired and had fewer periods of sustained recovery than those who quit taking antipsychotic medications.

The psychiatric establishment, after first burying the Harrow study, tried to minimize its importance when Whitaker brought it to public attention in Anatomy of an Epidemic. Prior to Insel's recent acknowledgement of its importance, the psychiatric establishment claimed Harrow's study proved nothing because it was a prospective, naturalistic study, not a randomized design. But in July 2013, Dutch researcher Lex Wunderink and his team published a study in JAMA Psychiatry which used a randomized design, the "gold standard" of research, and Wunderink had similar results as Harrow. The psychiatric establishment had been checkmated.

Specifically, Wunderink reported on a seven-year follow-up of people diagnosed with schizophrenia and related disorders who had experienced a first episode of psychosis. After six months of remission following antipsychotic treatment, the patients were randomly assigned to either maintenance on antipsychotic drugs or a tapering-off and discontinuation of the drugs. Insel himself summarizes the results: "By seven years, the discontinuation group had achieved twice the functional recovery rate: 40.4 percent vs. only 17.6 percent among the medication maintenance group."

Accompanying the study by Wunderink, a JAMA Psychiatry editorial argues that psychiatry needs to respond to this data and adopt new drug-use protocol:

In moving to a more personalized or stratified medicine, we first need to identify the very small number of patients who may be able to recover from first episode psychosis with intensive psychosocial interventions alone. For everyone else, we need to determine which medication, for how long, in what minimal dose, and what range of intensive psychosocial interventions will be needed to help them get well, stay well, and lead fulfilling and productive lives. These factors have rarely been the goal in the real world of clinical psychiatry - something we must finally address now that we are armed with stronger evidence to counter poor practice.

Finland's open dialogue: A better approach already exists

While Insel's announcement acknowledged both the Harrow and the Wunderink findings that Whitaker had worked hard to make known, Insel omits a proven alternative. Open Dialogue therapy in northern Finland has, for more than two decades, provided the kind of treatment that Harrow's and Wunderink's research recommends. Whitaker had detailed Open Dialogue in Anatomy of an Epidemic, and he summarizes it in his July 13, 2013 blog, "Harrow + Wunderink + Open Dialogue = An Evidence-based Mandate for A New Standard of Care."

The Open Dialogue therapy protocol delays the use of antipsychotics in first-episode patients, instead using psychosocial support and selective use of anxiety-reducing benzodiazepines (e.g. Ativan, Klonopin,Valium) with the hope that patients can "chill out," and get through their first crisis without ever going on antipsychotic medications. If patients need to go on antipsychotics, the Open Dialogue protocol allows for them to subsequently try to taper from the drugs.

The results? "With this selective use of antipsychotics," Whitaker reports, "Open Dialogue has produced the best long-term outcomes in the developed world. At the end of five years, 67% of their first-episode patients have never been exposed to antipsychotics, and only 20% are maintained regularly on the drugs. With this drug protocol, 80% of first episode patients do fairly well over the long-term without antipsychotics."

The Harrow and the Wunderinks studies, Open Dialogue, and the lives of many ex-patient activists dispel the myth that people do not fully recover from psychotic states. The reality is that people can experience long-term recovery, and for many of these people, rejecting standard psychiatric treatment has been their salvation. It is good news for them and the rest of us that the director of NIMH has finally acknowledged this reality.