A Natural Environmental Health Facts Ezine

`````````````````````````````````````````````````````
"A NATURAL ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH FACTS Ezine" Here to Inform and Help You Become Healthier and Happier while Achieving Quality Longevity!

http://www.antibiotic-alternatives.com
Email Lena
928-636-9425
Wednesday November 02, 2005
````````````````````````````````````````````````````

Watch for Monday's "Ask Lena Health Q & A edition.
Get Your Health Question Answered Email Click Here
&
Tuesday's & Thursday's "Your Home Business Coach"

This Ezine is available by subscription only and subscriber requests are kept on file!

I strive to bring you only the most timely, pro's & con's information for the betterment of your health without clogging the issue or your email box with a lot of advertising and other such junk! If I am not succeeding mailto:health@antibiotic-alternatives.com and let me know!!

Our subscriber list is confidential and we respect your privacy. A N.E.H.F. does not make its list available to third parties. All subscribe and unsubscribe information can be found at the end of this issue. The Mission of this Ezine Click Here

============================
=> IN THIS ISSUE!
============================

==> Editors' Ranting & or Warnings
==> Something To Think About
==> Health Thought for the day!
==> Showcase Health Spotlight
==> Monthly Spotlight Ads
==> Today's Health Tip
==> Food of The Week
==> Health Today
==> Environmental Report
==> Life Changing Information

As the week moves along! I find health care and information continues to get more mysterious weekly. The drug companies are working their hardest to keep us in the dark... Finding the truth is becoming more difficult but I shall continue to wade through all the information and bring it to you as unbiased as possible... Enjoy the rest of the week...

After the disasters that have and are sweeping through the world give as much as you can as often as you can to help in time of great need... $1 is better than nothing! *Red Cross Click Here *Whole host of other organizations helping out Click Here

If you have a question or comment (good or bad) send it to me... Click Here
Remember ANEH Facts archives Click Here
Ask Lena Health Q & A Archives Click Here
Take charge of you and your family's health before it takes charge of you!
Lena

==> Find An Alternative Health Professional
==>Latest Product Recalls - I'm appalled at the number of things, particularly medications, recalled weekly/daily neither your doctor nor your news stations are telling you about, so how are you going to know? Look here for DAILY Product Recall Site
===> Help The World Without Spending!
http://www.unicefusa.org/emergencies/
===>Help Feed The Hungry Doesn't Cost You A Penny
http://www.thehungersite.com Share your LOVE here!

==================================
Something To Think About
===================

Proven Fact Of Marketing!
Takes a minimum of seven times readings an ad
before the normal buyer will take advantage of your offer...
GET THAT ADVANTAGE HERE!
Spotlight your product or service here!
Ad Information Click Here

======================================
We accept all advertisements in good faith, but the advertisers are completely responsible for the content and accuracy of their advertisements. We do not give any warranties and accept no responsibility. The editor and publisher suggest that you exercise due diligence!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This bill would prevent parents from suing drug companies or doctors for ANY DAMAGE OR DEATH CAUSED BY VACCINATION.

That golden treasure full of taste and health! cornucopia

It's that time of year again. The warm, comforting smell of spicy pumpkin pies and muffins fill our homes, and our summer floral centerpieces are replaced by playful displays of pumpkins and gourds. A member of the cucurbits family of fruits. This is one I'm not really sure about? A fruit or vegetable? Gourds are supposed to be in the squash family I thought and since pumpkin is also listed by many as a gourd I don't know about the fruit aspect. Take this tidbit for what it's worth? I'm simply telling you what I've found reported in some writer's and university extension sites.

Pumpkins date back many centuries. The name pumpkin originated from the Greek word for "large melon" which is "pepon." and was nasalized by the French into "pompon." The English changed "pompon" to "Pumpion." Shakespeare referred to the "pumpion" in his Merry Wives of Windsor. American colonists in turn changed "pumpion" into "pumpkin." The "pumpkin" is referred to in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater and Cinderella. It has grown to be a center of attention in the U.S. at Halloween, not as a food but as a dećor. Most assuredly is much greater for eating!

Thanksgiving here in the U.S. brings the pumpkin pie tradition. Native Americans dried strips of pumpkin and wove them into mats. They also roasted long strips of pumpkin on the open fire and ate them. The origin of pumpkin pie occurred when the colonists sliced off the pumpkin top, removed the seeds, and filled the insides with milk, spices and honey. The pumpkin was then baked in hot ashes. Now that sounds really good to me and I'm going to try it if I can find one small enough for two. The early Americans used pumpkin as a pie crust and not a filling.

The bright orange color of pumpkin is a dead giveaway that pumpkin is loaded with an important antioxidant, beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is one of the plant carotenoids converted to vitamin A in the body. In the conversion to vitamin A, beta carotene performs many important functions in overall health.

Current research indicates that a diet rich in foods containing beta-carotene may reduce the risk of developing certain types of cancer and offers protect against heart disease and other illnesses. Beta-carotene offers protection against other diseases as well.

Low in calories and rich in nutrients - 1 cup organic, boiled and drained, without salt - contains;

Calories 49, Protein 2 grams, Carbohydrate 12 grams, Dietary Fiber 3 grams, Calcium 37 mg, Iron 1.4 mg, Magnesium 22 mg, Potassium 564 mg, Zinc 1 mg, Selenium .50 mg, Vitamin C 12 mg, Niacin 1 mg, Folate 21 mcg, Vitamin A 2650 IU, and Vitamin E 3 mg.

Pumpkin seeds are rich in nutrients as well as very tasty and one of my youngest daughter's favorite things. She makes many jack-o-lanterns every Halloween just so she can dig the seeds out and roast them. Now if she would only use those for eating?

Pumpkin flowers are also edible and many love them, I'm told. I found recipes for pumpkin flower soup, deep fried pumpkin flowers and stuffed pumpkin flowers. Rather unique but I haven't tried any of them. I plan on doing that one day.

Pumpkins were once recommended for removing freckles and curing snake bites, of which I am a bit skeptical that it worked very well? Native American Indians made an emulsion from a mixture of pumpkin and watermelon seeds that served to heal wounds for members of the Yuma tribe. The Catawbas ate the fresh or dried seeds as a kidney medicine, while the Menominees drank a mixture of water and powdered squash and pumpkin seeds to ease the passage of urine. In settler folk medicine the ground stems of pumpkin were brewed into a tea to treat "female ills," and the ripe seeds were made into a palatable preparation to dispel worms.

Pumpkin was used in folk medicine to treat kidney inflammation and intestinal parasites and was once listed as one of the Four Greater Cold Seeds in an 18th century list of medicines. Today pumpkin is employed to treat irritable bladder and prostate complaints, namely benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). The fatty oil in pumpkin seeds is mildly diuretic, and the seeds' principal constituent, cucurbitacins, appears to inhibit the conversion of testosterone into dihydrotesterone. The presence of zinc and amino acids further treat BPH. Pumpkin is not said to reduce prostate enlargement but to relieve symptoms only. Pumpkin seeds are also thought to help relieve dizziness.

Pumpkin seeds are taken principally as a safe deworming agent. They are particularly useful against tapeworms in pregnant women and in children, for whom stronger-acting and toxic preparations are unsuitable. The seeds are also mildly diuretic, and have been used in Central American herbal medicine as a treatment for nephritis and other urinary system problems. Varieties of pumpkin that are particularly diuretic, tonic to the bladder, and high in zinc have been recommended in the early stages of prostate problems. The pulp is used as a decoction to relieve intestinal inflammation, and is applied as a poultice or plaster for burns.

So these gold globes have many uses and medicinal content. Eat and enjoy the traditional pumpkin pie.

My Pumpkin Pie recipe that combines the health of soy to the pumpkins great health inducing nutrients;

Makes two pies

1 box of silken firm tofu, drained
2 cups of fresh pumpkin puree or canned pumpkin
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground dry ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoons nutmeg

2 - 9" pie crusts

Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

Put tofu and pumpkin in a food processor or blender and blend on high until smooth and creamy, about four minutes. Stop the machine every once in a while to scrape large pieces of tofu down into the machine's blades. Add rest of ingredients and blend well...The result should be a light orange-colored creamy paste with no lumps of tofu.

Pour into uncooked pie crusts;
Bake 40 to 60 minutes or until the crusts are dark brown (but not burned).

PS: Sometimes, after I pour the pie filling into the crusts, I will line the outer edge of the pie with pecan halves, all around it, and bake. Gives a slightly decorative look as well as a really neat flavor?

Enjoy your healthy treat,
Lena

MAMMOGRAPHY - THE HIDDEN DOWNSIDE, PART FOUR

This week I continue my series on screening mammography.

Cornelia J. Baines, MD, of the University of Toronto, deputy director of the prestigious Canadian National Breast Screening Study, has written several papers that are critical of screening mammography. She writes: "An unacknowledged harm [of screening mammography, ed.] is that for up to 11 years after the initiation of breast cancer screening in women aged 40-49 years, screened women face a higher death rate from breast cancer than unscreened control women, although that is contrary to what one would expect" (Baines 2003).

How could this happen? How can it be that instead of saving their lives, earlier detection might actually result in a greater likelihood of death in these women?

It is a phenomenon well known to researchers that the removal of the primary tumor can trigger the sudden growth of tiny clusters of cancer cells (called 'micrometastases') that have until that point lain dormant in distant sites. Researchers have shown that the primary tumor inhibits the ability of these subsidiary distant deposits to grow, perhaps by releasing powerful biologically active substances, such as angiostatin and endostatin, which prevent tumors from stimulating the development of their own blood supply (a process known as angiogenesis).

Without the ability to generate a new and adequate blood supply, tumors, even tiny, clinically invisible tumors, cannot grow, and while the primary tumor is still in place, and still secreting these angiogenesis-suppressing substances, the micrometastases remain dormant. But once the primary tumor - the "conductor of the cancer orchestra," so to speak - has been removed, the restraints on growth are removed and the microscopic malignant deposits in distant sites suddenly acquire the power to induce their own blood supply and grow independently.

Much of the pioneering work on the role of angiogenesis in tumor growth was done by Judah Folkman, MD, of Harvard University, winner of the American Society of Clinical Oncology's (ASCO) highest honor, the Karnofsky Award (1996). Working alongside Prof. Folkman, Dr. Michael Retsky and other researchers have studied the question of the mammography paradox and have suggested that not only is the removal of the primary tumor the spur to proliferation of dormant metastases, but also that surgery itself, by creating a physical wound, independently triggers the release of growth factors that, in addition to assisting healing of the surgical wound, also promote tumor growth. This effect is particularly marked in younger women with node-positive disease.

The fact that the mammography paradox is confined to younger (as opposed to older) women undergoing mammography is a reflection of the biological differences between pre- and postmenopausal women, Dr. Retsky and his colleagues suggest. In premenopausal women, the hormonal environment may encourage the estrogen-driven proliferation of breast cancer cells, putting younger women at an extra disadvantage in terms of their susceptibility to aggressive metastatic cancer growth.

For a previous newsletter on the subject of Retsky's work on the role of surgery in stimulating cancer growth, please click or go to:
http://www.cancerdecisions.com/073105.html

In a 2001 paper on the subject of the mammography paradox, published in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, Dr. Retsky and colleagues state that "Each woman should be informed of the risks and benefits [of mammography] and decide for herself whether to undergo screening mammography. Young women are, however, not routinely warned that screening and resection may accelerate breast cancer mortality" (Retsky 2001).

This sentiment is echoed by the University of Toronto's Dr. Baines, who asks, "Shouldn't women aged 40-49 years know that, 3 years after screening starts, their chance of death from breast cancer is more than double that for unscreened control women? Shouldn't they be informed that it will take 16 years after they start screening to reduce their chance of death from breast cancer by a mere 9 percent?"

Dr. Baines, the author of 70 PubMed-listed scientific articles, also points out that there is an almost willful silence both within and outside the medical profession on the subject of the dangers and ineffectiveness of screening mammography. Although the mammography paradox was originally identified in an article published in 1997 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, this important news was cited only 8 times in the ensuing 6 years ? and four of these citations were by the same group of researchers (Cox 1997).

Contrast this peculiar absence of debate with the deafening clamor from all sides in favor of mammography screening ? and with the mounting chorus in support of the recommendation that women should begin annual mammography at the age of 40 - the very group of women most likely to be harmed, rather than helped, by mammography.

It is often fear that drives women to seek screening mammography, a fear that is fostered, actively and tacitly, by a medical profession (and a highly profitable screening industry) that is doing little to inform women of their real risks, nor what gain, if any, they can really expect from mammography.

The risk of developing breast cancer is 11 percent (1 in 9) over a woman's lifetime. While women tend to believe that almost 40 percent of all deaths among women are due to breast cancer, in reality the actual percentage is 4 percent. In a survey of 1000 American women, 71 percent expressed the belief that screening reduces breast cancer deaths by 50 to 100 percent (Domenighetti 2003).

Meanwhile, several rigorous clinical trials have shown that mammography not only does not confer a clear survival benefit, but may in fact have the opposite effect, contributing to an increased, rather than a reduced risk of dying in premenopausal women. Despite these stark facts, raising questions about the value of mammography has come to be seen as "un-American," one epidemiologist reportedly remarked (Baines 2005).

As journalist and medical writer Gina Maranto pointed out succinctly in a Scientific American article on the subject:

"Physicians, radiologists, statisticians and public health officials have made claims and counterclaims and with sometimes startling emotion have accused one another of misreading or misrepresenting data, of performing faulty analysis and of perpetuating myths that have dire consequences for women. Some specialists, as well as cancer societies, women's health advocates and manufacturers of mammography machines, have argued that mass screening saves lives; others on the clinical front lines and in policy-setting roles have contended that evidence from a number of randomized controlled trials does not support such a claim" (Maranto 1996).

The National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and most of the other public agencies charged with formulating recommendations for screening based on scientific evidence routinely go out of their way to discredit studies that cast doubt on the usefulness of mass mammography screening. Mammography is a cornerstone of the American ?war on cancer.' That these national policy makers cannot even bring themselves to publicly acknowledge misgivings about the procedure, much less to re-examine their recommendations in the light of the alarming truth about the mammography paradox is little short of staggering.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK.

--Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.