Over 100 million Americans have mercury amalgam dental fillings. Though most think of these as “silver” dental fillings, in reality they are 50% mercury and only about 30% silver, with smaller amounts of copper, tin and zinc. Mercury amalgams were introduced into dentistry in 1819 in England, and soon after in France, since they were a cheaper substitute for gold. Though the effects of mercury poisoning were well known at the time, they were overlooked in favor of mercury’s amazing ability to combine with other metals and durably bond to the tooth.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

For many years the ADA maintained that mercury did not escape from the amalgam fillings. That view began to change in 1981 when Dr. C. W. Svare reported his study in The Journal of the American Dental Association showing that mercury vapor definitely does penetrate the saliva covering the teeth. The April 1994 issue of JADA states:

“Dental amalgam can release minute amounts of elemental mercury, a heavy metal whose toxicity at high exposure levels is well established.”

Prosthodontist Dr. David Eggleston notes various studies proving mercury amalgam does accumulate in the blood, breath, kidney and brain. He studied 83 age-matched cadavers from the Los Angeles morgue and found three times the level of mercury in the brains of those with mercury fillings as in those without. The only question is whether those levels are high enough to produce mercury poisoning.

Among the most interesting research proving that mercury definitely escapes from your dental amalgams, is that done in Sweden by corrosion chemist, Jaro Pleva, Ph.D. Using a scanning electron microscope Dr. Pleva found that a five year-old amalgam filling contained only 27% mercury, as compared with its original content of 50%. Therefore, nearly one-half the mercury escaped the filling going into the body of the patient!

METHYL MERCURY PROBLEMS

While elemental mercury is dangerous, methyl mercury is 100 times more toxic to the nervous system and 1000 times more toxic in producing genetic damage. Bacterial action in the mouth from Streptococcus mutans, a common bacteria in the mouth believed to cause dental decay, can react with amalgam fillings producing methyl mercury. Perhaps more significantly, this “methylating” of mercury from dental fillings appears to “program” the body to hang on to mercury from other sources, such as seafood, paint, cosmetics, and other environmental sources.

YOUR MOUTH—THE ONLY SAFE PLACE?

Government agencies like OSHA and EPA regard mercury as toxic in the dental office both before it’s placed in a patient’s mouth and after it’s removed from a patient’s mouth. For example, if OSHA detected readings of more than 50 mcg/M3 of mercury in a dental office, they would close the office immediately and levy a $10,000 fine. After removal, strict disposal procedures must be followed to keep from violating environmental laws. So mercury is toxic before it’s in your mouth and after it’s removed from your mouth. The ADA wants you to believe that the only safe place for mercury is in your mouth! If that makes sense to you, I’d like to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.

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What’s the most important ingredient to good health? If you think it’s good, natural food, you’re wrong? If you think it’s the right kind of vitamin supplements, you’re wrong again. You can live without food for 30 or 40 days. What you can only live without for a couple of days is water. Water is therefore the supreme health ingredient. Our bodies are 70% water, and all that water is replaced every five to ten days! But what is the quality of the water you drink?

Drinking water that’s full of poison would obviously not be very beneficial to your health. Thus, we must approach water from the point-of-view of both quality and quantity. For good health you must have enough water (quantity), but almost more important, you must have pure water (quality) for it to really benefit your health.

WATER QUALITY PROBLEMS

Several problems emerge when it comes to water quality. Here are some possible sources of contamination:

1. Air Pollution —So what does air pollution have to do with water pollution? Rain and snow fall through the atmosphere and pick up whatever contaminants are in the air. Once upon a time rain or snow water would have been pretty pure, but not today. Keep in mind that this is where all the fresh water ultimately comes from. So, even before anything else happens to water, its original source is polluted. It only gets worse from there on.

2. Agricultural Chemicals—Pesticides, herbicides and nitrates from synthetic fertilizers all eventually end up in the underground water supplies. While I’m big supporter of organic farming, and am an organic gardener myself, that can have it’s drawbacks too. Cattle manure, that good organic fertilizer we like to use, also contaminates the water. This has become a significant issue particularly around feed lot operations.
   The nitrates from synthetic fertilizers can form cancer-causing compounds called nitrosamines. High nitrate levels are very common in major agricultural areas such as the central valleys in California.

3. Industrial Chemical Wastes —Benzene, Trichloroethylene, and Trihalomethanes are but a few of the common industrial chemicals that can affect water.

4. Heavy Metals —The EPA says that 38 million Americans are drinking water that exceeds the 50 ppb maximum for lead. Other toxic metals like arsenic, excess copper, mercury and others can also affect the water. Lead and other heavy metals can come from water pipes, soldered joints on copper pipes, and brass fixtures.

5. Pathogenic Organisms —Here we’re concerned with bacteria, viruses, protozoa, amoebae and the like. Of particular concern is the Cryptosporidium protozoan parasite. The largest recorded outbreak of a waterborne disease in U. S. history was caused by this organism in Milwaukie, Wisconsin in 1994. The statistics are incredible: 400,000 people ill, 41,000 treated for abdominal cramps and diarrhea, 4000 hospitalized, and 104 people dead! As is probably obvious, chlorine doesn’t kill Cryptosporidium.

6. Chlorination —What? Chlorination as a source of water contamination? I thought that’s what we did to water to make it healthy? Well, yes and no. Chlorine does kill harmful bacteria and viruses, but it also can combine with organic contaminants in the water (like sewage) to form chloroform and Trihalomethanes (THM’s), both of which are potent carcinogens.

7. F. Von Deltinger, M.D. stated that injury to the mitral valve of the heart and cardiac insufficiency may result from severe exposure to chlorine.To further complicate this, Vitamin E, often thought of as the “heart vitamin,” is destroyed by chlorine exposure. This may be part of the reason for the link between heart disease and water chlorination.

8. Fluoridation —If I was on controversial ground on waterchlorination, I’m really pushing the envelope on water fluoridation. Fluoridation of public drinking water supplies is an emotional issue to say the least. Never has so much energy been exerted attempting to persuade the public that something was good for them. Opposing fluoridation often gets one caricatured as a little old lady seeing communists behind every tree. The proponents of fluoridation are excellent propagandists, who understand the principle that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will eventually accept it as truth.

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We may joke about being “sick and tired” of being “sick and tired,” but in reality fatigue is no laughing matter. Virtually every person that walks into one of our clinics mentions fatigue as one of their symptoms, if not their major complaint. No matter whether your malady is allergies, depression, PMS, menopausal symptoms, candidiasis, arthritis, fibromyalgia, cancer or whatever . . . fatigue is probably one of your symptoms. Let’s take a look at possible causes of fatigue, wrong approaches to resolving fatigue and effective natural medicine approaches for fatigue.

CAUSES OF FATIGUE

If you figure out what causes your fatigue, you’ve come at least half way toward solving it. Fatigue, like most health problems, may have physical, emotional or even spiritual ingredients. As always, individualized testing will indicate specific causes, but here are the possibilities:

1. Junk Food Diet —The food we eat is probably the number one cause of fatigue. Refined, adulterated food, such as most people consume daily, simply is not the right “fuel” for the human body. God created your body to “run” on the food He causes to grow on the earth — living, whole, pure foods. Man always thinks he knows better than His Creator, so he turns that “living, whole, pure” food into “dead, refined, adulterated food.” The reasons, of course, for thus perverting the natural food supply are to (1) improve taste, (2) improve appearance, and/or (3) to extend shelf life. In other words, make all the money you can off of the food, and who cares what the resulting health problems may be.So what are the big offending foods when it comes to fatigue? Number one is refined sugar. Let me be blunt: you cannot be healthy in general, or fatigue-free in particular, as long as you’re consuming refined sugar. The sugar has to go! Whether it’s white sugar, sucrose, dextrose, brown sugar, so-called “raw” sugar, turbinado sugar, corn syrup or foods with any of these sugars added, they are all basically the same — a product refined and devoid of the vitamins and minerals necessary to metabolize it. This results in a leaching of nutrients from your body as your body in effect has to “steal” vitamins and minerals from what you already have to metabolize the sugar coming in. Therefore, sugar not only adds no nutrition to the body, but rather it depletes already existing nutrients, classifying it as an “anti-nutrient.” This junk food diet produces nutrient deficiencies and resulting fatigue. All of your body’s nutrients go into the product of energy, and therefore any nutrient deficiency could contribute to fatigue. Having said that, though, the most common nutrient deficiencies associated with fatigue are the B vitamins. Few clients complaining of fatigue at our clinics do not test out deficient in B vitamins. Other significant “anti-fatigue” nutrients include magnesium, chromium, and occasionally iron.

2. Food Sensitivities —Perhaps the least suspected, yet one of the most common causes of fatigue are food sensitivities. Unlike the restrictive medical definition of “allergy,” the term “sensitivities,” as applied to foods, refers to any way eating a particular food produces an undesirably reaction. Fatigue is probably the most common food sensitivity reaction. Though potentially any food could produce a sensitivity reaction of fatigue, some of the most common are cow’s milk, wheat and baker’s yeast. Again, individualized testing is essential to determine which foods are a problem and to get on a desensitizing program.

3. Adrenal Weakness —The adrenal glands, which sit on top of the kidneys, provide various stress hormones. Adrenal hormones the “emergency fuel” for stressful situations like the so-called “fight or flight” responses. We infuse ourselves with adrenal hormones whenever our body is under any kind of stress. It might be a physical stress like an infection, injury, or allergic reaction. Or, it might be (and usually is) an emotional stress reaction that triggers adrenal activity. Because most people live in a near-constant state of stress, they’re constantly demanding the adrenals pump out anti-stress hormones. Remember, the adrenals were created to be an emergency system, one required only occasionally. Is it any wonder that our adrenals become exhausted. Once that happens, you have major fatigue at the least and Addison’s Disease (adrenal failure) at the worst.

4. Toxicities —Toxins (poisons) from a variety of sources may produce fatigue. We can categorize these as either, (1) External toxins, such as from chemicals, heavy metals, food additives, bacteria, viruses, and drug residues; or (2) Self-produced toxins, such as Candida albicans yeast overgrowth, or other digestive tract toxins. Whichever type of toxicity is present, fatigue is a likely result.

5. Poor Elimination —When the sewer backs up into the kitchen your home doesn’t function so well. The same thing happens in the body with lack of bowel regularity — the toxins really need to get out to have good health and good energy. Now think about it for a moment: If you eat three meals per day, yet only have one bowel movement every day or two or three, can that possibly be healthy? Obviously not. Those who study primitive peoples eating whole, natural food diets find that they generally have the same number of bowel movements per day as there are meals. Otherwise, you’re just recycling toxins and that’s going to make you fatigued.

6. Emotional Stress —Here’s two questions to assess your emotional stress levels: (1) Are you happy? and (2) Do you like yourself? When you’re unhappy and have low self-esteem, you’re not going to have a whole lot of energy. Your mindset can deflate your energy levels in a few moments, in some cases. Other emotions like anger, bitterness, resentment, fear, or feeling overwhelmed effectively shut down your body as a escape mechanism. Mental attitude is a choice. You decide whether the glass is half-full or half-empty. But if you really want more energy, you’d better decide to see the glass half-full. Instead of problems, see possibilities and opportunities. Truly vibrant people know this and do this.

7. Spiritual Roadblocks —If you’re not a Christian, you are disconnected from the grace, love, forgiveness, and power that come from being “in Christ.” That can mean fatigue. But if you are a Christian and are not walking with the Lord, again you invite a lot of problems including physical fatigue. The Bible describes the spiritually fatigued person this way:

“The backslider in heart will have his fill of his own ways, but a good man will be satisfied with his.” (Proverbs 14:14)

Restore your fellowship with God through confession of any known sin (I John 1:9) and turning from it. A side-benefit of this will be more energy.

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Antibiotics are among the most frequently prescribed and taken medications. I am amazed at the rather nonchalant attitude most of my clients have regarding having recently taken an antibiotic for some infection — it’s kind of like that’s just what you do when you have a sinus infection or whatever, like doesn’t everybody do this?

Well, as a matter of fact everybody doesn’t take antibiotics every time they get an infection! I probably last had an antibiotic when I was college and didn’t know any better. As my clients learn the dangers of antibiotics and the natural medicine alternatives to taking them, they too find at least the routine usage of antibiotics to become a thing of the past.

WHAT ARE ANTIBIOTICS?

Antibiotics are drugs that kill or inhibit infectious organisms. Originally they were organic compounds made from bacteria or molds, though today most are synthetic. Louis Pasteur is credited with discovering the “antibiotic effect” during the 19th century. However, most people associate the beginning of antibiotic therapy with Sir Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin in 1928. Difficulties in purification and other technical aspects of making antibiotics caused them to not come into routine usage until the 1950’s. The post World War II generations have largely grown up with antibiotics.

Types of antibiotics include the penicillins (ampicillin, amoxicillin), cephalosporin, aminoglycosides, tetracyclines, macrolides (erythromysin), and sulfonamides.

BENEFITS OF ANTIBIOTICS

I would be the last one to deny that antibiotic drugs have saved many lives, and thus been a wonderful medical discovery. Diseases that once ravaged the population, such as tuberculosis and pneumonia, have significantly less mortality today because of antibiotics. For life-threatening infections, antibiotics are highly appropriate.

PROBLEMS OF ANTIBIOTICS

The basic problem with antibiotics is summed up in the etymology of the word itself — “antibiotic” means “anti-life.” Antibiotics not only kill the “bad” bacteria, but also the “good” bacteria in our digestive tracts that comprise an integral part of our immune systems. While the antibiotic is seemingly “solving” your current infection, in reality it is setting you up for repeated infections, which your compromised immune system will have greater difficulty handling.

Think of it this way: Imagine yourself the general of an army, facing an opposing army in battle. Your advisers tell you that you can quickly and simply destroy the opposing army by nuking them. However, there is one slight drawback — you will also destroy a significant percentage of your own army while annihilating the enemy.

Any general that agreed to that strategy would undoubtedly be court-martialed. Yet no one seems to want to “court martial” the medical doctors that routinely use antibiotics, and in so doing destroy their patient’s natural immune systems, their own “army,” if you will. It becomes a basic, “At what price victory?” question.

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In Health and Wholeness,

Leah Kline

CNC, Health and Wholeness Coach

Journey to Better Health Naturally!

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