IMPROVE YOUR VISION WITH BATES METHOD, VITAMIN C & LUTEIN

I have never heard of the Bates Method, but here it is. The key is that it's not that your eye muscles are too weak. Less than perfect vision is the result of having muscles too strong. Mercola says that you want your eye muscles to relax, and you do this through focusing and relaxation strategies, but

TIPS: 

1.  Don't squint. The worst thing you can do. Why? Squinting makes your vision worse. It's better to blink. This will help you relax your muscles. 

2.  Avoid any tension around your eye; avoid squinting 

3.  Don't use sunglasses. 

4.  Don't increase the size of the font on your computer.  You want to continually challenge your vision.  

5.  Seeing great without the use of corrective lenses.  As people get beyond 40, many of us require reading glasses.

6.  Mercola says that "You should avoid eyeglasses, LASIK surgery, and other potentially harmful eye treatments."

7.  Use the Bates Method.

FOOD REMEDIES FOR YOUR EYES  

What about carrots?   Americans eat carrots thinking they're getting vitamin A.  Carrots provide fiber and that fiber interferes with absorption of the beta-carotene.  Lutein is a carotenoid, like beta-carotene, but lutein comes from kale, spinach, and eggs and not carrots. In fact, carrots don't even contain vitamin A.  The beta-carotene in carrots is converted to vitamin A in your liver but only when you add some fat to a meal.  So you can get vitamin A from carrots but only conditionally.  Lutein supplements, on the other hand, are a powerhouse for your eyes.  Try it and you will be amazed. 



ADD VITAMIN C TO YOUR LUTEIN

one study shows that about 294 mg of vitamin C significantly decreases the risk of cataracts compared to 77 mg. per day (about the level set by the Academy of Sciences). [Clin Chem 39: 1305, 1993] To get that much vitamin C a person would have to consume 5 oranges per day. Daily consumption of vitamin C supplements for 10 years or more results in a 77-83 percent reduction in the prevalence of cataracts. [Am J Clin Nut 66: 911-16, 1997]

To get enough vitamin C, what are you gonna do, eat 12 oranges a day?  Check this out.

There is concern that maximal upper limits may not accommodate the nutritional needs of specific organs in the body. Nutritional authorities have given too much attention to achieving minimal and maximal blood levels of nutrients, which may not be an adequate measure of nutrients in specific tissues. For example, it has been stated that the blood circulation becomes saturated with vitamin C at about 240 milligrams. Even when saturation has been achieved in the blood plasma, the provision of 2000 milligrams of vitamin C further increases the levels of vitamin C in the aqueous fluid of the human eye by 35 percent. (Meaning that your eyes can absorb more vitamin C than other tissues, and if they can absorb more, it means your eyes use more vitamin C than other organs.)  Higher levels of vitamin C are required in the aqueous fluid of the eye than in the blood circulation because the human eye is transparent and is prone to harm by-products of oxidation (hydrogen peroxide) emanating from exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation. Much higher levels of vitamin C are required to prevent cataracts than to prevent scurvy. The daily amount of vitamin C required to prevent cataracts is in the range of 300-2000 milligrams (the equivalent of 6-30 oranges), which exceeds the best dietary consumption (about 200-250 milligrams from consumption of five servings of fruits and vegetables). The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) now considers 2000 milligrams of vitamin C as "toxic." [See my addendum regarding the issuance of new recommendations for antioxidants by the NAS below.] The human eye has a greater need for vitamin C, lutein, vitamin E, glutathione and vitamin A, than most other tissues in the body. 

Again, on the virtues of vitamin C, your eyes, and the prevention of cataracts.  

One of the fallacies of current vitamin C research is the use of blood serum levels as the gold standard for establishing recommended daily consumption levels. A 1991 study, conducted at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, found that there were "striking differences" in ocular levels of vitamin C among older adults who consume 148 mg of vitamin C from their daily diet (which is 2.5 times the old 60 mg RDA and 1.6 times the current 90 mg recommendation) compared to adults who took 2000 mg daily from supplements. The level of vitamin C in the focusing lens and aqueous fluid of the eye increased by 22-32 percent with consumption of 2000 mg of daily vitamin C supplementation, which affords protection against cataracts. Thus the idea that vitamin C levels reach a saturation point at about 240 mg in the blood serum, and that additional vitamin C is worthless and only washes out in the urine, is dispelled by this research. [Current Eye Research 8: 751-59, 1991] This is the same level of vitamin C that the National Academy of Sciences now considers "risky." [NAS press release April 10, 2000] 

BEE POLLEN

I just tasted the difference between Air Dried Fresh California Bee Pollen packed by Rainbow Acres of California and the raw, organic variety from raworganicandmore.com.  

The raw, organic variety you can literally taste a variety of floral or flowery fragrances in the pollen.  With the Rainbow Acres, I taste nothing beyond the cakey pollen.  I get sugars from it, and that's good, right?  But this Raw Organic and More is absolutely amazing.  Compared to the air dried stuff, there is no comparison.  It is rich and deep and fragrant.  Wow!

And after spending a few minutes at Raw Organic and More's site, I can see that they offer a lot of excellent products.  I know where I'll be shopping for my bee products from now on.

Raw Organic & More does carry a fresh Royal Jelly.  It comes in two sizes, 2 ozs. for $11, and 8ozs. for $40.  But then if you buy online you're going to pay for shipping, and shipping today is expensive; in some cases, costing as much or more than the product itself.

FLOURIDE: JUST BECAUSE

OBAMACARE MEANS HIGHER COSTS

We've all heard about the rising cost of health care in recent years and many have experienced the effects in their daily lives. Well, the Wall Street Journal is calling attention to the problem with a piece in which a doctor-lawyer tells the story of a massive hospital bill that he received after taking his young son for a precautionary visit to the emergency room.

Here's a portion of the piece by Dr. Eric Michael David, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Organovo Inc., a biotech company in California.

As a doctor and a lawyer, I like to think I'm pretty good at navigating the health-care system. So when my wife and I found a large swollen bruise on our 3-year-old son's head more than a week after he had fallen off his scooter, I was confident we could get him a CT scan at a reasonable cost.

We live near one of the top pediatric emergency rooms in the country. The care was spectacular. My son was diagnosed with a small, 11-day-old bleed inside his head, which was healing, and insignificant.

I was proud to see the health-care system working, to see academic medicine working, and most of all to see my son run as fast as he could out of the ER two hours later.

Then the bill arrived, and you know where this is going: $20,000. Our insurance had already paid $17,000, and we owed $3,000 out-of-pocket. What for? Among the items listed on the printout was a $10,000 charge for a "trauma team activation." This made me want to give consumers some very simple tips on how to fight their health-care bills, so here goes:

1. Get yourself a job as a doctor or nurse. I've served on trauma teams in two of the busiest hospitals in New York City, and I know what a trauma-team activation looks like: doctors, nurses and residents running and yelling, IV lines, monitors. You know one when you see one. Nothing like that happened around my son. So I picked up the phone and told the hospital that the trauma charge was a mistake.

The billing agent explained that it was hospital protocol to call a trauma team when there is internal bleeding in a head injury. I argued, correctly, that it wasn't clinically indicated.

2. Have or gather the legal knowledge to know when you are being lied to. The hospital billing agent wasn't a physician and couldn't refute my clinical judgment, so she told me it was "county protocol" to call a trauma in such cases. This was a bluff, meant to get me off the phone by hiding behind regulations, a very effective tactic used by hospital administrators.

I called her bluff and said if she could show me the county regulation requiring a trauma team for an 11-day-old head injury, I'd happily pay my bill. She said she'd have the head of emergency services call me.

Read the full article.

Stuart Varney reacted this morning on America's Newsroom, explaining that David - being a doctor himself - knew how to get through the "massive levels of bureaucracy" to have the $10,000 charge removed. The average American, however, may not have the same success.

He emphasized that the implementation of ObamaCare is not reducing the cost of health care and many of these stories will surface in the coming years. The Affordable Care Act also failed to reduce the bureaucracy and red tape involved in medical bills, he added.

Catch Varney & Co., weekdays at 11a ET on Fox Business Network.

How standing might be the best anti-ageing technique

Spending less time on the sofa lengthens 'telomeres' - the caps on chromosomes which protect the genetic code inside

from Telegraph UK

A telomere, the highly repetetive end segment or terminator of a DNA chain that functions as a cap  Photo: Alamy

By Sarah Knapton, Science Correspondent

12:00AM BST 04 Sep 2014

      

243 Comments

The best anti-ageing technique could be standing up, scientists believe, after discovering that spending more time on two feet protects DNA.

A study found that too much sitting down shortens telomeres, the protective caps which sit at the end of chromosomes.

^{Scientists found that the less time a person spent sitting, the longer their telomeres, and the greater their chance of living longer.}

Short telomeres have been linked to premature aging, disease and early death. So spending less time on the sofa could help people live longer by preventing their DNA from aging.

The research found that people who were frequently on their feet had longer telomeres, which were keeping the genetic code safe from wear and tear.

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Intriguingly taking part in more exercise did not seem to have an impact on telomere length.

Prof Mai-Lis Hellenius, from Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, said : "In many countries formal exercise may be increasing, but at the same time people spend more time sitting.

"There is growing concern that not only low physical activity but probably also sitting and sedentary behaviour is an important and new health hazard of our time.

"We hypothesise that a reduction in sitting hours is of greater importance than an increase in exercise time for elderly risk individuals."

Telomeres stop chromosomes from fraying, clumping together and "scrambling" genetic code.

Scientists liken their function to the plastic tips on the ends of shoelaces, and say that lifespan is linked to their length.

Researchers looked at 49 overweight sedentary adults in their late sixties and measured the length of the telomeres in their blood cells.

Half of them had been part of an exercise program that lasted six months, while the other half had not.

Physical activity levels were assessed using a diary and pedometer to measure the amount of footsteps taken each day.

The amount of time spent sitting down was worked out through a questionnaire.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal, revealed that although people who did more exercise tended to be healthier, the most important factor was how much time they spent sitting down.

Scientists found that the less time a person spent sitting, the longer their telomeres, and the greater their chance of living longer.

The study was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.