1) "Starve a cold; feed a fever": With illness usually comes a significant reduction in appetite. If this is you, listen to your body and switch to partaking of fluids (fresh veggie juices; veggie broths; chicken soup for omnivores; water; etc) alone. In this way you would be 'starving' both a cold and a fever. Long fasts have ample tradition and science behind them, regarding the ability of the mammalian body to recover from a variety of mild to serious illnesses via abstaining especially from the standard western diet, but also solid food in general. So have no fear of abstaining for the shorter duration of colds and flu illnesses.
On the flip side, if you do experience an appetite during colds and flus, eat wisely. The food treatment I grew up with -- canned soup; Spaghettios with hot dogs; bowls of ice cream -- though common comfort foods, were probably not the most helpful for the healing process. Fortunately, the Mom serving the food made up the difference!
Instead of eating processed goodies when ailing, consider more the brown rice, miso, steamed veggies, salad approach to healthful nutrition. If someone can serve it to you, all the better.
One personal case study to share was when I came down with a flu while working at a natural foods store. My body craved only heavily processed "Power Bars", of which I ate about six throughout the day. Sure enough, the flu symptoms were almost gone by day's end...correlation or causation??
Bottom line: Tune into your body, and fast whenever your body loses its appetite when ill. Eat wisely if you do have an appetite, leaning toward brown rice vs Spaghettios. But see if you can more and more perceive when your body may be making a special request for an unusual healing agent....treat outside the box!
2) Wait 30 minutes after eating before swimming with the fishes: There's nothing really special about swimming in this case, other than that you don't sink into the ground and die if you want to stop exercising on land after a sizeable repast. While it isn't true that your body has to shunt too scarce blood from your muscles to your digestive system after eating, it is true that, after eating a large meal, exercising in general just isn't comfortable for most. Once again, instead of following a trite and inaccurate health formula from the past, tune into your own body and sense whether, in this case, it is ready to exercise at all after your meal.
Bottom line: In general, if your meal was a cup of rice yogurt and a banana, feel free to start your triathlon. If it was a 7-course meal at Buco di Beppo's, consider playing paddle ball on the shore for awhile before testing the swells.
3) To sober up, drinks lots of coffee: Nope, that won't work -- drat! -- though the stimulating caffeine will neutralize some of the sedating effects of alcohol intake. However, one's blood alcohol level will remain just the same as before you ingested the coffee. Sedation neutralization also means that you may feel even more confident at operating the proverbial heavy machinery if you mix alcohol and stimulants. And while you may be somewhat correct with this confidence, the law doesn't give a damn. So, in order to sober up, the only thing to do is stop drinking and to take a nice, long rest. Your liver will process the alcohol at it's own set rate, and will continue to do so over the course of your lifetime if you are moderate with your party favoring and general toxin-ingesting -- as well as if you genetically 'blessed'.
Other non-sober-uppers: Cold showers; exercise; fresh air; eating food; drinking water...
Bottom line: just rest!
4) Swallowed chewing gum will take seven years to digest: This fits into the same category of absurdity as stomach-sprouting watermelon seeds and...gerbils. I think Moms just make these things up for easier child manipulation/training. But why seven years? Why not 77 times 7, to get biblical about it?
Bottom line: Swallowed gum will take the usual, up to 48 hours or so, to digest and/or be excreted as indigestible fiber...along with any stray watermelon seeds. The gerbils are on their own.
41/2): High 'bad' (LDL) cholesterol causes cardiovascular disease/heart attacks: High LDL blood levels are just one way in which to disrupt the immune cell network that maintains appropriate arterial cholesterol levels. Once this system is disrupted, by any means, there is a greater likelihood that cholesterol-filled plaque can impede arterial blood flow and ultimately end up as arterial blockage and a heart attack or stroke.
However, any given person with a higher than average LDL blood content may yet have a fully functional immune system ideallly regulating arterial cholesterol and plaque formation. Similarly, any given person with lower than average blood LDL may have their arterial plaque formation worsened via other means than excess LDL (such as deficient 'complement' proteins in the immune system, etc).
This is a classic situation in which 'all' arterial blockage is created by excess cholesterol-containing plaque, but not all cholesterol-containing plaque is created by excess LDL in the blood. Just like, "All pigeons are doves; but not all doves are pigeons." Capiche? If not, try this article:
Understanding at least that there is no one-to-one correlation between lab-measured blood LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular disease, why is this test still done ad nauseum in clinics around the world? IMHO it's likely due to human inertia, as well as the human dislike of admitting wrong that is seemingly multiplied by several factors during typical medical schooling.
What physician is willing to say, "For decades we've been obsessing about your blood cholesterol in order to prevent your heart disease. In reality, it's much more complex, and those cholesterol tests and numbers and ratios probably, ummm actually, meant closer to nothing at all. Sorry! That'll be $200 if you don't have insurance..."? That's right, I'M willing to say that. Trick question...
Bottom line better approach: Keep blood pressure under 120/80 for your entire life; Keep your body fat percentage below 20%; Keep fasting triglyceride (blood fat) levels at 100 or below; THEN keep your eyes on your LDL/HDL/apoprotein lipid levels via a complete lipid panel if you choose. This method will help keep you much freer from cardiovascular disease then altering LDL blood levels alone!
Myths are wonderful seeds for inspiration, but don't let them control your life...
I don't have an official ND degree because I don't need one, nor do I care to have one under the current 'BS' system that supplies people with their degrees, but I think staying healthy is as simple as eating high quality, ripened fruits and veggies (80% fruit or more is best though)as this will detoxify our cells and eliminate all mucus and acidosis which is the primary cause of all health disorders. Diseases are simply labels and all diseases are nothing more than mutated and damaged cells. 'True' Naturopathy is "detoxification and cell regeneration" (which automatically results after detoxification-- after the cells are returned to a state of health). Unfortunately most don't learn that in Naturopathy schools since most Naturopathic schools here in America are largely owned by the corrupt allopathic community. I know from personal experience and also clinical experience (helping others to recover) that 'detoxification' which consists of following a raw, low fat, high fruit diet, with some periodic fasting (either mono-fruit or water) along with taking the right tissue specific, high potent organic herbs (lymphatic, kidney, GI tract, and endocrine gland herbs are the fab 4) will automatically get one's lymph system (the body's bathroom) moving and clean out of all this mucoid plaque and acids which decay and destroy cells, and ultimately lead to what the ignorant medical doctors call "disease" (as if it is some unknown entity that has decided to just enter one's body at will). I don't care what the person's problem is. The whole body (all of our organs, glands, the brain, the heart, etc) is just made up of a bunch of cells. And there are only 2 fluids (lymph75% and blood 25%) that see to the health of these cells. Get the lymph system moving again and it will discharge the wastes that build up in these cells, and then the cells will become healthy and so no more 'disease'.. It's too simple for the medical doctors who have wasted 10 years or so of their life learning bogus info (for the most part) about how the body "doesn't work"..
ReplyDeleteAlso, a 'cold' or flu is a good thing to have (a type of healing crisis even) that the body uses to purge and expectorate itself. The flu isn't the enemy, it's our friend. Do you concur?