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From a spiritual perspective, when we talk about physical health, the question arises: are you your body or are you something other than your body?

And you may ask why should we consider the spiritual aspect when looking at physical health?

The answer is simple. Without a focus on our spiritual health, as well as on our body, the latter will not shape up as well as it could. A more holistic approach to the self is vital on the road to physical health. This article seeks to explain why this is so.

As implied above we are not our body, but rather we are spiritual beings who are simply caretakers of our bodies whilst in the physical vehicle. The body is the temple as they say, and it houses our spirit but it is not our spirit, or essential nature. This is why Sri Ramana Maharshi, a great Indian sage who became enlightened at the age of 16, said, “To identify oneself with the body and yet seek happiness is like attempting to cross a river on the back of an alligator. In truth, you are Spirit.”

The key is to be conscious of this truth, and focus both on healing ourselves of any illness and conditions, as well as healing those aspects that hinder our awareness of the spiritual being that we are. And what does the latter mean? It means enquiring into ourselves, questioning ourselves at a deeper level, and as we do, we start the journey towards wholeness of body, mind and spirit.

Through the spiritual perspective we begin to see how we view ourselves with a vision that is fragmented which leads to, at best, fragmented health. But with knowledge of the greater Self that each of us is, we begin to allow this Self to take the helm and bring wholeness into our life. You could say that the real Self pulls all the strings of the balloons we try to keep in the air together into one hand, whereas with a fragmented view of life (mind, body and soul as separate compartments) the strings are in separate hands and may even be tied to our legs or arms!

So as we open our mind to the spiritual dimension of life, we begin to develop what is known as Qi (pronounced chi) or Chi.

But first of all, what is Chi and why should we develop it?

In Oriental traditions, Chi is the life force, or vital energy, that permeates the world, all beings, and even places and buildings. In yogic traditions it is known as prana. In its proper balanced state, Chi moves through the space it occupies, whether a body or a place, freely and unhindered. But if there is some blockage then it is hampered in its flowing and the imbalance can lead to ill health or an uncomfortable environment.

In western countries now also, the concept of balancing this vital energy is seen as important in achieving a life of calm and happiness. I was recently very heartened to see that a T’ai Chi course I attended in London, UK, had a high number of attendees, most of them participants over 50-60 years of age, some over 70 years of age, who had been attending for 2-3 years continuously.

Another similar practice is Qi Gong (pronounced Chi Gung), which is similar to T’ai Chi, as well as acupuncture and acupressure which are said to unblock the flow of Chi in a person’s body.

Each of us has a limit to the energy we have available during a lifetime.  This is proven by the fact that we will all someday die! Our bodies are not immortal.  However I believe that we were meant to, and are capable of, living longer lives if we care-take our spiritual life as much as we care-take our physical life.

From a physical perspective, we can make choices about how we live, our lifestyle, our diet, and our emotional wellbeing, all of which will use up more or less energy depending on these choices. Thus for example, if we eat junk food with few nutrients, we can expect to shorten our life span and illness will be a more frequent visitor.

In this scenario you could say that the body is having to work harder and to fight harder than it should for its survival. On the other hand, if we eat nutritious, fresh foods and keep active, then we can reasonably expect to have a longer life. Of course there may be other aspects at play, such as hereditary factors, but you get the general gist.

Well, this is all well and good, and logical, isn’t it? Most of us know what is good for our health and what is not, but is it easy to pay heed to this advice? No. This is because if we operate our lives from the level of the mind by telling ourselves what we should and shouldn’t do we are ultimately in a losing battle because this only works for the short-term, and constant effort to ‘keep going’ is required.

Yes, we can have discipline. Yes, we can have will power. But have you noticed how much effort this all involves and how difficult it is to maintain? Even if we do succeed to adopt a healthier diet or lifestyle through primarily will power, the effort involved takes it toll.

This is because there is usually always a feeling of some negative emotion underneath, some guilt, or fear about ourselves, and this is the spur for us to change. But negative emotion as a motivational factor has its negative impacts.

One being the energy required to maintain the ‘corrective actions’ and another that the negative emotion is never usually appeased so satisfaction eludes us. Have you noticed that even when we do achieve something (a health benefit, improved lifestyle or whatever) it’s never enough? There’s always something else that is ‘wrong’ and needs to be ‘dealt with’?

Thus the question arises: how can we live a life of health and satisfaction given that we are human beings with many challenges and stresses, especially in the difficult times we find ourselves in thesedays?

The answer is to focus on our spiritual life. This means going beyond the mind, the ego, and into the space where the real Self resides, and finding out who you really are. There are many resources available to help us in self-enquiry, not least http://www.soulalert.com, which I helped to launch recently, but also many books, and other online videos and articles that can springboard our whole life into a fresher, more holistic dimension.

As we progress along this path of self-enquiry, greater peace and satisfaction are experienced, and ultimately we begin to see that there is nothing wrong. The Universe and all that it contains is perfect as it is.

With greater insights into life as it really is (rather than as we think it is) our Chi becomes more free-flowing and health improves. This may require practice and yes, some will power. But gradually as we raise our Consciousness, this becomes the director of our lives (rather than mind or will power) and we naturally align with our own good, making instinctive choices for our well being.

We begin to simply know what we should be doing, and the choices we should make, and conflict and confusion subside. Life begins to flow more, with less effort.

Where illness is experienced, we may be able to accept more readily the difficulties and suffering this brings, rather than resisting it and fighting it. If we are sick, it is far preferable to accept it, than to fight it. Why fight something that has already happened? Moreover we are not providing ourselves with a fair fight, but one which cannot be won, since we cannot turn the clock back and undo what is already happening.

As Byron Katie, the Founder of ‘The Work’, says, “Arguing with ‘what is’ is like teaching a cat to bark.” When we fight illness, we are essentially fighting ourselves and robbing ourselves of peace of mind. When we accept ‘what is’ we have a far better chance of healing.

So we come back age-old wisdom of accepting ourselves first, on every level, and in that space, we learn to be kinder to ourselves, and forgive. This is the spiritual journey. And this is also the foundation to greater physical wellness.-

About the Author:
Reena Gagneja is a ‘Spiritual’ Entrepreneur’. She is an internet marketing expert and also offers Spiritual Counselling and Soul Contract Reading sessions to private clients. Reena’s passion is your success and empowerment, both inner and financial.  To receive Reena’s Spiritual Entrepreneur Empower Now tips enter your details on Reena’s Reena’s Personal Blog.
To find out about one aspect of Reena’s internet marketing work click here.
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The risk factors related to Fibromyalgia are as follows:

Age: Generally, people between the ages of 20 to 60 are more likely to get affected by fibromyalgia. Going by the statistics, people around thirty five years of age are mostly affected by this disease.

Gender: Women are more affected by this disease as compared to men. They generally tend to develop this disease during menopause. Some studies show that nine out of ten fibromyalgia patients are women.

Genetic factors: Studies have shown that genetic factor is involved in the development of this disease. People with family members suffering from fibromyalgia are more likely to get affected by this disease. According to reports, 28 per cent of children of mothers suffering from fibromyalgia developed this disease.

Sleep disorders: People suffering from different kinds of sleep disorders such as insomnia, sleep apnea, are more likely to get affected by this disease.

Rheumatic disease: People with rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and lupus are at a higher chance of developing Fibromyalgia.

Muscle injury: Any kind of muscle injury can result in the formation of trigger points. Continuous stress on such trigger points can lead to fibromyalgia. During recovery from surgery or stroke, one can experience trigger points in the muscle.

Other factors: Generally people coming from a stressful environment or who have undergone physical or psychological trauma are at a higher risk of developing fibromyalgia. People suffering from stress, depression or anxiety are more susceptible to this.

Considering the risk factors involved in this disease, people experiencing any symptom need to consult a doctor for proper treatment of Fibromyalgia at an early stage.

Looking for more information regarding fibromyalgia tender points, fibromyalgia cure and costochondritis symptoms kindly visit: Fibromyalgia-symptoms.org

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/the-several-risk-factors-associated-with-fibromyalgia-1601523.html

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I always jump out of joy when my clients compliment me. Saying my program has helped the to improve their health positively. And has also made their lives much happy.

This is especially true of my Fibromyalgia program feedback. The same theme is often repeated – my program helped where nothing else did, starting with the fact that I consider fibromyalgia to be a medical condition.

It is no longer surprising to me that many doctors STILL don’t treat fibromyalgia, whose main symptoms include chronic pain and fatigue, as the disease that it is. They often misdiagnose it as depression (this is a symptom of fibromyalgia – not the cause), if they even diagnose it at all. Many still believe that the patient is making it up or it’s some sort of psychosomatic cause.

The daughter of one such client wrote to me, telling me that her mother, who was suffering from some form of dementia and was being tested for Alzheimer’s was also suffering from fibromyalgia. The pain medication prescribed wasn’t working and seemed to actually contribute to the mental confusion her mother was experiencing.

This happened after following my program regularly. Her mother’s memory problem and language lapses have also been jointly cured with joint pain and chronic fatigue dissipate.

How could a program intended for one condition treat another? In short, this can happen with many of my programs – many of them are designed to provide the body with the proper amounts of oxygen. It’s understandable that more oxygen to one area will also mean more oxygen to another.

In this instance, however, it’s more than that. This is because another symptom of fibromyalgia, while not as well known, can still be just as exasperating to deal with. This is called fibro fog. Sufferers of fibro fog can experience one or more of the following: short-term memory loss, clouded thinking, intermittent language lapses and difficulty concentrating.

It is just a mystery. Just like fibromyalgia fibro fog too doesn’t have a definite cause.

Many theories are formulated by experts, but the so far proposed theories are lack of oxygen to the brain, lack of delta wave sleep (deepest level of sleep) and side effects of certain medications (among them, ironically, medicines to treat fibromyalgia pain).

When one cannot go into deep sleep, the brain will not be able to sort through all the details that is kept in the conscious mind. And this can lead to memory loss. You can’t say that the memory is affected but it is the difficulty remember the detail. Pain from fibromyalgia can be caused from lack of sleep.

While the above symptoms of fibro fog do seem to mimic Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, one should note that fibro fog is a physical symptom of fibromyalgia and is not a degenerative disease. This means that if one can clear up fibromyalgia symptoms, this one will dissipate as well and “normal” thinking will occur again.

Other methods include sleeping well, you can try a fan or a “white noise.” Start taking notes – carry around a small notebook or PDA and take notes often. Not only will you have the information available later but the act of writing helps commit the thought to memory. Repeating words is also quite helpful.

You can also seek the consultation of a physician to rule out the possibility of Alzheimer’s or any other form of dementia. Apart from this you can choose a quiet place to work you should avoid all distractions.

You can also involve in games like crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles and chess. This will activate your brain a lot and helps you with your memory and concentration.

You can also exercise on a regular basis as it is highly recommended. But moderate exercise is the requirement. You can get your blood pumping to get that oxygen to the brain. Rigorous exercising can actually make ibromyalgia pain worse.

My programs are all natural and will definitely work. The breathing and relaxation exercises in my fibromyalgia program is uniquely created for the treatment. Moreover, if you also affected by any kind of dementia the you should make use of my dementia program which about to be launched.

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Christian Goodman has pledged his life to health research and found solutions for most dangerous conditions. You can know more on him on his natural health alternatives blog where you can read on his solutions for many conditions such as hypertension, snoring, and his new Natural Fibromyalgia Pain Treatment Program.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/fibro-fog-is-this-a-form-of-dementia-1593544.html

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Do you ever get the painful, mind-boggling effects of a horrible headache? Well, it’s the most common type of irritation. The headache can be caused by a number of things. I’m not sure why exactly they occur as far as biology and medicine goes, I just know that they are common, annoying, and super prevalent. Here is a list of things that can cause one of those horribly painful headaches that make you want to end your suffering for good.

1. Staring at a computer screen all day under fluorescent lighting.

2. A Train Horn being honked within 10-15 feet of you.

3. Reading all day.

4. Writing all day.

5. Playing too much video games.

6. Watching too much television.

7. Talking too much on your cell phone or falling asleep on the phone.

8. Temperature changes in the air.

9. Sleeping in room full of dust, mold, rust, or signs of asbestos.

10. Eating too much ice cream.

11. Not eating anything all day.

12. Exposing yourself to headphones and speakers for a long period of time.

13. Going to a heavy metal concert.

14. Dealing with incessant baby cries.

15. Getting hit in the head hard.

16. Getting hit in the head or body frequently.

17. Suffering from a brain tumor.

18. Being cross-eyed.

19. Lack of sleep.

20. Too much caffeine.

21. Sniffing intoxicating gases.

22. Smoking too many cigarettes.

23. Standing on your head for too long.

24. Singing in concert for hours on end.

25. Being exposed to harmful gases and chemicals.

26. Painting for too long of a period with toxic paints.

27. Being trapped in a shopping mall with loud, annoying teenagers.

28. Driving for way too long.

29. Taking prescription medications.

30. Being confined to cell walls.

Most of these are done on a daily basis for us working class people, with the exception of incarceration. Be sure to get the proper amount sleep, take breaks during computer work, cut back on the video games, and avoid air horns at all costs.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/30-things-that-can-cause-a-headache-1556766.html

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According to researchers, about 20 million Americans suffer from some sort of mood disorder. And even the most cheerful of us sometimes have down days, experience grief, or maybe just get overwhelmed by circumstances such as overwork.

What if you could stir up an instant mood-elevating drink when you need one? One with natural ingredients that are actually good for you? Apparently now you can.

A new mood drink product called MoodBoost comes in foil packets that you mix up in water for a quick mood adjustment. Ingredients include vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and herbal extracts—with no artificial sweeteners and no caffeine.

The mood drink includes ingredients that have been associated with raising the levels of serotonin and other neurotransmitters that help alleviate seasonal mood swings, control stress, and simply make people feel better.

This is especially interesting, because extensive medical research in Europe, where herbs are often prescribed by medical doctors, has shown that St. John’s wort, one of the ingredients in MoodBoost, is a natural antidepressant that is as effective in alleviating depression as antidepressant drugs, but without the side effects of prescription drugs.

Additional important ingredients include 5-HTP, vitamin D, Rhodiola rosea, vitamin B12, L-tyrosine, L-glutamine, magnesium, and zinc. Other medical research has shown that many people do not have enough vitamin B-12, vitamin D, and certain amino acids, such as L-tyrosine and L-glutamine.

What about the taste? The manufacturer has added tropical flavors, so the drink may actually taste good. And anyway, if you are depressed, it would be well worth mixing the powder into a small glass (or bottle) of water and chugging it down. I plan to give it a try.

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Oh, wait! That is not a new idea. In fact, it is 100 years old. President Teddy Roosevelt, leader of the Rough Riders, outdoorsman, adventurer, Republican, was the first U.S. President to advocate healthcare for all.

While Canada and most countries of Europe have achieved that goal. the U.S. has been repeatedly prevented from protecting all its citizens from dying for lack of medical care. Nowadays 18,000 people a year die because they cannot afford health care. Some of them have jobs.

In other countries, like Canada and England, everyone gets free healthcare. A young American man I worked with had a sudden heart attack in his 30s while visiting his cousins in Canada. He said his care doctors and hospital care were top notch, and they cost him nothing.

As one British doctor told an American patient, “Call us selfish, but we don’t want you getting us sick.”

Yet Canadian and British doctors are well paid, have nice houses and cars and are happy with the system. When interviewed last year, one young doctor near London mentioned his $million dollar home and could not understand why anyone would think that English doctors are not well paid.

So here is a video of President Obama on Labor Day, explaining once again why we must have healthcare reform, and we cannot afford to wait while insurance costs, which have risen three times as fast as wages, continue to soar.

Notice as he says that while Americans are dying for lack of healthcare and being denied coverage or losing their insurance just when they need it most, some profitable insurance companies are being subsidized by the U.S. government.

Subsidizing the insurance companies? That alone is enough to make me sick. It has got to stop.

“Women have a much stronger reaction to food, such that whether they try to inhibit their desire or not, they have stronger signal [in the part of the brain that controls hunger perception and desire to eat],” study leader Gene-Jack Wang, MD explains.

Dr. Wang and his team at Brookhaven National Laboratory in NY have been using the latest techniques in brain imaging to find the parts of the brain involved in eating behavior.

Previously this group of researchers had shown that obese people are less able than normal weight subjects to sense when they are full.

Dr. Wang wondered if there might be a difference in the brains of men and women, and how they react to food.

It was this question that prompted he and his team to look at what happens in our brains when we can see, smell, taste but not eat foods we love. A test of willpower to be sure.

The study involved testing 13 women and 10 men, all of normal body weight, using three different PET scans – one a control, the other two for testing – given in random order.

The participants fasted for 18 hours before each scan – in one scanning session they were tempted by their favorite foods – everything from chocolate cake and cinnamon buns to barbecue ribs and pizza.

During the scanning they could see and smell the food, and were even given tastes applied to the tongue with a cotton swab. New, hot food was brought in every four minutes during the 30 minute scan. The final barrier to eating was a quiz on their hunger, desire for food and alertness.

A second scanning session had subjects fasting 18 hours once again, and then being presented with favorite foods, just as before.

Only this time subjects were asked to practice ignoring the food… shifting their thoughts away from it and onto other things.

During this scan the subjects were told, “to inhibit their desire for food and suppress their feelings of hunger.”

This worked for the men in the study, but wasn’t as successful for the women.

Though some of the female subjects were better than some of the men at suppressing food desire, overall the female brains showed just as much hunger activity after they tried to tone down their desire.

“Even though the women said they were less hungry when trying to inhibit their response to the food, their brains were still firing away in the regions that control the drive to eat,” Wang explains.

“In contrast, men’s brain activity decreased along with their self-reports of hunger during the scan when they were asked to keep their hunger in check.”

An expert in the brain circuits responsible for feeding behavior and regulating body weight agrees that we may be uncovering a structural basis for why we eat the way we do.

Rexford S. Ahima, M.D., PhD., associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania notes that, “The interesting thing about the Wang study is that when they present food to people and ask them to consciously inhibit the urge to eat, men are better able to do it than women.”

What’s likely to blame is those pesky female hormones, already linked to promoting weight gain and overeating.

We all know women who crave sweets (or salt) during particular times of their menstrual cycles.

It might have been a plan of evolution that women learned to seek food more avidly than men- especially as females were counted on to have and care for children.

And while men are better able to inhibit the desire for food, does that mean they are also better able to resist emotional eating?

More work will need to be done to test this idea directly. The study appears in the January 15th online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In the meantime, to control hunger better, try to surround yourself with healthy, nutritious options – foods that are filling yet low in calories. Raw veggies, whole grain crackers and fresh fruits are all delicious examples. Even if you only replace one junk food snack with something healthier, you’re still doing better for yourself and your body.

Back on the 1980s when the term Alzheimer’s came become popularly known, it was common for doctors to diagnose patients as having Alzheimer’s when there was really no way to be sure.

There are other conditions with similar symptoms. Some of those conditions and diseases are life-threatening, and some of them are treatable.

As Alzheimer’s became more widely known, more and more people were (rightly or wrongly) diagnosed with it. Many others became fearful of getting it, especially if they had a close family member who had been diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s.

Nowadays a bit more is known about Alzheimer’s. Most doctors are not quite so quick to label patients with it. There are more and better tests. And there are actually some treatments that help Alzheimer’s patients greatly by slowing or stopping the progress of the disease.

When people fear that there is no help for a disease, they may avoid going to the doctor for fear of receiving the feared diagnosis. They may ignore ore deny symptoms for years. Sometimes that keeps them from getting treatment that would have prevented or lessened the very thing they fear.

The Alzheimer’s Association has published a list of the warning signs of Alzheimers. On the same page is a list of the differences between Alzheimer’s and some of the many conditions that can have similar symptoms.

10 Warning Signs of Alzheimer’s

1. Memory loss. Forgetting recently learned information is one of the most common early signs of dementia. A person begins to forget more often and is unable to recall the information later.

What’s normal? Forgetting names or appointments occasionally.

2. Difficulty performing familiar tasks. People with dementia often find it hard to plan or complete everyday tasks. Individuals may lose track of the steps involved in preparing a meal, placing a telephone call or playing a game.

What’s normal? Occasionally forgetting why you came into a room or what you planned to say.

3. Problems with language. People with Alzheimer’s disease often forget simple words or substitute unusual words, making their speech or writing hard to understand. They may be unable to find the toothbrush, for example, and instead ask for “that thing for my mouth.”

What’s normal? Sometimes having trouble finding the right word.

4. Disorientation to time and place. People with Alzheimer’s disease can become lost in their own neighborhood, forget where they are and how they got there, and not know how to get back home.

What’s normal? Forgetting the day of the week or where you were going.

5. Poor or decreased judgment. Those with Alzheimer’s may dress inappropriately, wearing several layers on a warm day or little clothing in the cold. They may show poor judgment, like giving away large sums of money to telemarketers.

What’s normal? Making a questionable or debatable decision from time to time.

6. Problems with abstract thinking. Someone with Alzheimer’s disease may have unusual difficulty performing complex mental tasks, like forgetting what numbers are for and how they should be used.

What’s normal? Finding it challenging to balance a checkbook.

7. Misplacing things. A person with Alzheimer’s disease may put things in unusual places: an iron in the freezer or a wristwatch in the sugar bowl.

What’s normal? Misplacing keys or a wallet temporarily.

8. Changes in mood or behavior. Someone with Alzheimer’s disease may show rapid mood swings—from calm to tears to anger – for no apparent reason.

What’s normal? Occasionally feeling sad or moody.

9. Changes in personality. The personalities of people with dementia can change dramatically. They may become extremely confused, suspicious, fearful or dependent on a family member.

What’s normal? People’s personalities do change somewhat with age.

10. Loss of initiative. A person with Alzheimer’s disease may become very passive, sitting in front of the TV for hours, sleeping more than usual or not wanting to do usual activities.

What’s normal? Sometimes feeling weary of work or social obligations.

When Should You Be Concerned?

If you’ve noticed memory changes that worrying you, call the Alzheimer’s Association anytime at 1.866.ALZ.4199.

The Dark Side of Soy

Authors Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, PhD, have investigated the available medical research findings and discovered that we have been dangerously, horrifyingly wrong. Soy is bad for us! And very, very bad for our babies!

You can read their complete article “Soy, the Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food at http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/darkside.html. Meanwhile, here is a quick summary.

Even a Little Bit Hurts

New research shows that eating soy even a couple of times a week can suppress the thyroid, causing Alzheimer’s-like symptoms in younger people. In very sensitive people, even the small amount of soy flour that is in bread can cause problems.

Medical research shows that if you are taking thyroid medication, even a tiny bit of soy can cancel it out. Soy has long been known to cause thyroid enlargement in women and children. If medical researchers knew that, why were we not told?

How Much Is Too Much Soy?

If you think you never eat soy products, think again. Soy is in much of our food. Start reading labels in the grocery store, and try to find a loaf of bread that does not contain soy flour. Good luck!

Here are some of the common foods that contain soy, typical quantities, and how many milligrams of soy each contains:

Bread with added soy flour, 2 slices 4 mg
Meatless chicken nuggets, 1/2 cup 15 mg
Soy hot dog 15 mg
Soymilk, 8-ounce glass 20 mg
Miso, 1/4 cup 21 mg
Tofu, 1/2 cup 28 mg
Soy cheese, 1/2 cup 31 mg
Soymilk skin or film , cooked, 1/2 cup 51 mg
Tempeh, cooked, 1/2 cup 53 mg
Soybean chips , 1/2 cup 54 mg
Revival soy-based meal replacement, 1 serving 160 mg

Is it Alzheimer’s, or Is it Soy?

Symptoms of severely low thyroid include mental symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s disease, such as memory loss, confusion, slowness, paranoid depression and even hallucinations. Other symptoms of low thyroid (hypothyroidism) include fatigue, loss of hair, difficulties at menopause, digestive problems, constipation, infertility, brittle bones, and heart disease.

Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies Caused by Soy

Part of the problem with soy is caused by phytoestrogens, plant substances that mimic estrogen. But there are other problems. One is phytic acid which blocks the absorption of zinc. You need zinc for your brain to work properly.

And there is more: Modern processed soy foods have high levels of MSG, fluoride and aluminum, which are toxic to the nervous system. And food processing creates at least two kinds of carcinogens: lysinealanines and nitrosamines.

Soy products also contain certain enzymes that make it difficult to absorb protein and that irritate the digestive tract.

Even rats that were fed soy protein isolates (which are in many foods) became deficient in vitamins E, K, D and B12 and in the minerals calcium, magnesium, zinc and many others.

Asians Actually Do Not Eat Much Soy

Soy enthusiasts say that soy is a staple food in Asia, but that is not true. Asians use soy only as a condiment.

People in China average only two teaspoons of soy a day. People in Japan average about 1/4 cup of soy a day, but they also eat large quantities of seaweed, which is very high in iodine. That somewhat protects them from the negative effects of soy.

But that is not the worst. Americans often eat much more soy than Asians, because it is hidden in so many foods. It is even in baby formula. At the rate at which many Americans eat soy, it can cause hormone disruption in women and developmental problems in children.

Bad for Babies

Even worse, infants who are given only soy-based baby formula are taking in 4 to 11 more soy than most adults in proportion to their body weigth. Babies who are fed soy-based formula have been found to have 13,000 to 22,000 times more isoflavones in their blood than babies fed milk-based formula.

In fact, a New Zealand toxicologist, Dr. Mike Fitzpatrick, estimates that a baby that is fed only soy formula is getting the equivalent in phytoestrogen of five birth control pills per day—or more.

Are you wondering if Asians give their babies soy-based baby formula? Well, they don’t. They use cow milk or buffalo milk instead.

What We Thought We Knew Was Wrong

For awhile, researchers thought that premature development of menstuation and sex characteristics in children was caused by meat. Well, the evidence is in. The actual culprit seems to be soy-based baby formula.

New research links soy baby formula learning disabilities, extreme emotional behavior, depression, asthma, immune system problems, pituitary insufficiency, thyroid disorders and irritable bowel syndrome.

News of Soy Effects Repressed by Researchers?

But here is what is really scary: Some researchers have suppressed the negative findings about soy because they were assured by the soy industry that soy was perfectly safe!

What to Do if You Are Hurt by Soy Products

Consumer groups in Canada and New Zealand are working to ban soy infant formula. The law firm of Johnston Lawrence in New Zealand is collecting the names of victims for a class action lawsuit in New Zealand. They will then follow up in the US.

If you believe your child has been hurt by soy infant formula, or if you have suffered thyroid problems from ingesting soy, write to PO Box 1213, DX SP 20004, Wellington, New Zealand or roger@johnlaw.co.nz and tell them your story.

In America the Weston A. Price Foundation is working to have soy baby formula taken off the market. If you think your child may have been harmed by soy baby formula, write to the following congressmen, and send a copy of the letter to the Weston A. Price Foundation:

Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA)
United States Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee
328A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT)
Senate Subcommittee on Health Care of the Finance Committee
Caucus of Complementary and Alternative Health Care
219 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Dan Burton (R-IN)
Chairman, House Committee on Government Reform
Caucus of Complementary and Alternative Health Care
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
Caucus of Complementary and Alternative Health Care
U.S. House of Representatives
1730 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

The Weston A. Price Foundation
PMB 106-380 4200 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016

Reference Sources

www.csa.com/hottopics/thyroid/oview.html
soyonlineservice.co.nz
www.westonaprice.org

Who Are Sally Fallon and Mary Enig?

Sally Fallon is the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, with Mary G. Enig, PhD (NewTrends Publishing 877-707-1776). She is the founding president of the Weston A. Price Foundation (www.westonaprice.org) and founder of A Campaign for Real Milk (www.realmilk.com).

Mary Enig, PhD is the author of Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol (Bethesda Press 301-680-8600). She is President of the Maryland Nutritionists Association and Vice President of the Weston A Price Foundation, Washington, DC.