". . . people are free to use or not use GMO product."

Whereas thousands of consumers are calling for strict labeling rights as consumers, Robert Wenzel over at Economic Policy Journal says that GMOs are not dangerous.  Here is one article he cites with a comment or two . . .  

Julie Kelly writes in WSJ:

"Despite what you may hear from the culinary elite, genetic engineering is winning the day and gradually overcoming their “Frankenfood” fear-mongering. A flurry of good news this year ought to convince the public, more than ever, of the safety and the tremendous promise of this technology.

On Dec. 8 the Food and Drug Administration approved a new chicken that has been genetically modified to treat a rare and potentially fatal disorder called lysosomal acid lipase deficiency. The chicken, which won’t be available as meat, produces eggs with an enzyme that replaces a faulty human enzyme, addressing the underlying cause of the disease. Add it to the small but growing class of “farmaceuticals,” including drugs made by transgenic goats and rabbits."

The idea that all GMO food is bad or dangerous is absurd.

In this article here, he addresses some of the com mentors at his site who replied vehemently against GMOs.

His main point is this, ". . . people are free to use or not use GMO products."

"Fiber [. . . bulks] up your stool and acts like glue to keep [it] together."


By Dr. Mercola

When it comes to toileting habits, the topic is not exactly a favorite among Americans – at least for those above the age of four. Mention poop and you can easily clear a room – or at the least, generate some unusual facial expressions, nervous laughter, and wisecracks about "too much information."

But your bodily emissions are an important health topic that deserves serious attention, regardless of the "ick factor." In fact, if you ignore what you deposit in your toilet, you could be flushing your health down the drain!

Did you know the average person generates about five TONS of stool in his or her lifetime? Turns out, there is much to be learned from this mountain of poop.

The shape, size, color, and other fecal features can tell you a great deal about your overall health, how your gastrointestinal tract is functioning, and even give you clues about serious disease processes that could be occurring, like infections, digestive problems, and even cancer. Poop comes in just about all the colors of the rainbow... and please forgive me for using the words poop and rainbow in the same sentence.

Although there is a certainly a wide variety of stool colors, textures and forms that are considered "normal," there are definitely things that, if seen or experienced, warrant immediate medical attention. With this in mind, the overview that follows covers what you need to know about what's normal and not normal in the bathroom department.

WHAT IS A NORMAL STOOL?
Your stool is about 75 percent water. The rest is a fetid combination of fiber, live and dead bacteria, miscellaneous cells and mucus.^{1, 2} The characteristics of your stool will tell you a good deal about how happy and healthy your digestive tract is – the color, odor, shape, size, and even the sound it makes when it hits the water and whether it's a "sinker" or a "floater" are all relevant information. If you're one to poop and scoot quickly out of the bathroom without looking in the toilet, then you might want to slow down and look down.

The Bristol Stool Chart is a handy tool that may help you learn what you're going for. Ideally, your stool should approximate Types 3, 4 and 5, "like a sausage or a snake, smooth and soft" to "soft blobs that pass easily." Type 4 is the Holy Grail.³

Fiber tends to bulk up your stool and acts like glue to keep the stool stuck together, instead of in pieces. If your stool is on the softer side, short of diarrhea ("soft serve," as some call it), it could be related to lactose intolerance, artificial sweeteners (sorbitol and Splenda), or a reaction to fructose or gluten.

LOOK, LISTEN, AND SMELL BEFORE YOU FLUSH
What's normal and what's not when you look into the toilet? The following table will help you narrow down what to look for, so that you aren't needlessly alarmed. Of course, there are a few signs that ARE cause for concern, and those are listed too. If you have a change in stools accompanied by abdominal pain, please report this to your physician.⁴

DOES YOUR STOOL HAVE A REALLY BAD ODOR?
If your stool has an extraordinarily bad odor, it should not be ignored. I am referring to an odor above and beyond the normally objectionable stool odor. Stinky stool can be associated with a number of health problems, such as:⁷

• A malabsorptive disorder
• Celiac disease
• Crohn's disease
• Chronic pancreatitis
• Cystic fibrosis

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a disease caused by a defective gene that causes your body to produce abnormally thick, sticky mucus, which builds up and causes life-threatening lung infections and serious digestive problems. Most cases of CF are diagnosed before the age of 2, so this is more of a concern with infants and toddlers. Speaking of malodorous things, what about gas? Passing gas (flatulence) is normal. Not only is it normal, it's a good sign that trillions of hard working gut bacteria are doing their jobs. People pass gas an average 14 times per day – anywhere from one to four pints of it!⁸ Ninety nine percent of gas is odorless, so you may even be unaware you're passing it. Think about it – were it not for an exit, we'd all blow up like balloons! 

HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU MOVE YOUR BOWELS? 
Normal bowel habits vary. When we talk about regularity, what we're really talking about is what's regular for you. Three bowel movements per day to three per week is considered the normal range. What's more important than frequency is the ease with which you move your bowels. If you need to push or strain, something is off – moving your bowels should take no more effort than urinating or passing gas. The thing to watch for is a sudden change in your bowel habits. Many factors can affect regularity, such as diet, travel, medications, hormonal fluctuations, sleep patterns, exercise, illness, surgery, childbirth, stress and a whole host of other things.⁹




Keep reading . . . .

CAREFUL WITH THAT CAYENNE

Careful With That Cayenne

I have recommended cayenne pepper before. Even though this is a supplement, not all supplements are harmless or harmless in the given amounts.  I recommended taking cayenne pepper for circulatory reasons.  In that article, it stated that cayenne pepper is THE supplement to have around in case of a heart attack.  But as I've always maintained, much of what passes for therapeutic or fix-it advice on the net regarding supplements is sales copy.  And nothing sells better than fear or greed.  Promise someone they will be richer, better looking, taller, you name it, that's greed--you're selling people what they want and lots of it.  Selling fear means you scare people into a position.  "If you don't want to lose the value of your IRA, listen to this interview."  Same thing with food and with supplements.  

So, yes, it's true that cayenne pepper is great for circulation.  Absolutely.  But do you really need its powerful benefits?  I don't know.  Only you can answer that.  Maybe you could use its benefits for a short time, like in an emergency situation.  Or for a few days after that.  But remember there are a few organs involved in the circulation of your blood to, through, and from the heart.  There are your kidneys for one.  There is your heart for two.  There is your liver.  And your brain sending electronic impulses to everything else.  

Gingko Biloba is better tolerated for the long term.  That's not an endorsement per se, but Gingko is milder.  If I wanted to maintain healthy circulation I'd be running, walking, swimming, hiking, playing basketball or tennis.  Find what you like.  It may be yoga.  Find what you enjoy, find that which brings you that twenty-year-old joy.  Could be dancing or any of the other activities I mentioned.  

But be careful with cayenne pepper.  There are a few important caveats that I want to share with you.

Marie Dannie over at Livestrong reports that 

Too much capsaicin in food can lead to general symptoms of irritation in the mouth, stomach and intestines, and in some cases, it can cause vomiting or diarrhea. Capsaicin is present in both fresh and dried cayenne, as well as in cayenne powder.

A more serious risk is heartburn:

Cayenne pepper in even small amounts, but especially in high quantities, can cause heartburn. The capsaicin content in cayenne irritates the stomach and esophagus lining, increasing the amount of stomach acid produced, which can flow upward into the esophagus, creating a burning sensation in your upper abdomen. A 2010 publication of “Revista de Gastroenterologia de Mexico” found that capsaicin caused gastrointestinal reflux symptoms in people suffering regularly from heartburn as well as those who normally do not experience any reflux problems. 

Have never experienced this reaction with Ginkgo Biloba.  Again from LiveStrong.  This time from Joseph Pritchard--not good for your liver or kidneys:

Capsaicin [has] been associated with stomach upset, kidney and liver damage as well as abdominal pain, the University of Maryland Medical Center explains. Capsaicin has been associated with increased stomach acidity as well as lowering the effect of ranitidine and other stomach acid reducers. Capsaicin also potentiates the effects of blood-thinning medications. 

This is why you need something milder.  Perhaps you can find a way to take milder amounts of cayenne pepper.  Or simply take Ginkgo Biloba.  But don't give up on Cayenne Pepper on my account.  Dr. Edward Group points us to "17 Health Benefits of Cayenne Pepper," some of which seem a little contradictory in my view.  Check out how Dick Quinn relied on cayenne pepper for heart health. 

". . . a high fat, low carb diet may not only be best for weight loss, but also for reducing several markers of cardiovascular risk in the obese."

". . . athletes . . . can get their energy from ketones, not glucose."

Cardiologist, Dr. Aseem Malhotra, explains why fat is the best medicine.

For decades, we were told that eating fat would lead us to early grave. Horror stories of clogged arteries and coronaries were the norm, while foods such as pasta were seen as healthy.

This is true.  But where did people get this story that eating fat was dangerous and eating refined grains, like pasta, was the healthy alternative for us? 

Answer: Ansel Keys.

But research is increasingly disproving this theory--and sugar is now public enemy number one.

Where has he been?  Hel-lo.

In fact, fat is good for us and should be our medicine, claims cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra, who is based in Surrey.

He says a mounting slew of evidence suggests that far from contributing to heart problems, having full fat dairy in your diet may actually protect you from heart disease and type 2 diabetes.  

There are other, better fats besides "full fat dairy."  Coconut oil and coconut butter are some of the best fats; they have the highest content of saturated fats--you know--those fats that help you repair and feel better. 

Here, writing for Men's Health, he explains his controversial view... 

This morning, as I do most days, I breakfasted on a three egg omelette cooked in coconut oil, with a whole milk coffee.I enjoyed a wedge of full fat cheese with my lunch, poured a liberal dose of olive oil on my evening salad and snacked on nuts throughout the day. 

In short, I ingested a fair amount of fat and, as a cardiologist who has treated thousands of people with heart disease, this may seem a particularly peculiar way to behave. 

Fat, after all, furs up our arteries and piles on the pounds–-or at least that’s what prevailing medical and dietary advice has had us believe.

That may be true but there seems to be a better way to dispel the myths than to joke about people's old fears, which are the result of a decades' long campaign against fat.

As a result, most of us have spent years eschewing full fat foods for their ‘low fat’ equivalents, in the hope it will leave us fitter and healthier.

Yet I’m now convinced we have instead been doing untold damage: far from being the best thing for health or weight loss, a low fat diet is the opposite. 

In fact, I would go so far as to say the change in dietary advice in 1977 to restrict the amount of fat we were eating helped to fuel the obesity epidemic unfolding today.

Okay.  I agree.  Where's the proof? 

Far from being the enemy, fat is good for us and should be our medicine, claims Dr Malhotra.

It’s a bold statement, but one I believe is upheld by an array of recent research.

Totally agree.  Fat is more important than protein.  Certain when it comes to bones, collagen, which can be found in Vitamin C-rich foods like fruits and vegetables, is more important than calcium in rebuilding structure and function.  

WHY I ENCOURAGE MY PATIENTS TO EAT FAT

These days I make a point of telling my patients – many of whom are coping with debilitating heart problems – to avoid anything bearing the label ‘low fat’. 

This is good but like I said after years of being brainwashed, how are these people going to feel confident about going ahead with foods that were previously treated as taboo?

Better instead, I tell them, to embrace full fat dairy and other saturated fats within the context of a healthy eating plan. 

It’s an instruction that is sometimes greeted with open-mouthed astonishment, along with my request to steer clear of anything that promises to reduce cholesterol – another of those edicts we are told can promote optimum heart and artery health.

As we will see, the reality is far more nuanced: in some cases lowering cholesterol levels can actually increase cardiovascular death and mortality, while in healthy people over 60 a higher cholesterol is associated with a lower risk of mortality. Why, exactly, we will come to later.

First though, let me make it clear that until very recently, I too assumed that keeping fat to a minimum was the key to keeping healthy and trim.

That doesn't seem too helpful to tell his patients that he too was duped. "I thought that you were smarter than me, Doctor?" is what I would think. He may want to reconsider that statement, but simply provide a list of benefits to his patients with a list of evidentiary proof.

In fact, to say my diet revolved around carbohydrates - sugared cereal, toast and orange juice for breakfast, a panini for lunch and pasta for dinner was not an uncommon daily menu.

Good solid fuel, or so I thought, especially as I am a keen sportsman and runner. 

Still, I had a wedge of fat round my stomach which no amount of football and running seemed to shift.

That, though, wasn’t the reason I started to explore changing what I ate. 

Yeah, I think it was Gary Taubes who made the argument that exercise simply makes people hungry.  So exercise by itself without a change in one's diet is fairly useless in reducing that spare tire around your waist.  

THE TOXIC TRUTH ABOUT SUGAR

That process started in 2012, when I read a paper called ‘The Toxic Truth About Sugar," by Robert Lustig, [February 02, 2012,] in the science journal Nature.

In it, Lustig, a Professor of Paediatrics who also works at the University of California’sCenter for Obesity Assessment, said the dangers to human health caused by added sugar were such that products packed with it should carry the same warnings as alcohol. 

It was an eye-opener: as a doctor I already knew too much of anything is bad for you, but here was someone telling us that something most of ate unthinkingly every day was, slowly, killing us.

Okay, sure is bad for you.  How is that news?  I mean in the old days prior to the ubiquity of sodas and fruit juices, getting a tasty treat was something that kids did at the local five-and-dime store.  This is not news but it is definitely important information.

The more I looked into it, the more it became abundantly clear to me that it was sugar, not fat, which was causing so many of our problems.

Okay, this is an important distinction for people to make regarding how and why they are getting fat.  Step one, reduce or eliminate the sugar. Step two, increase your fat intake.  But which fat?  Aha, that is the $64 question.

This is why, along with a group of fellow medical specialists, I launched the lobbying group Action on Sugar last year with the aim of persuading the food industry to reduce added sugar in processed foods.

Good luck with that one.  The "industry" will simply rename things, tell you its fruit juice when it is juice from the sugar cane plant.  I mean they have their ways.  If they're profitable, do you really think the food industry is going to comply with an edict to change their recipe?  Don't make me laugh.

I would go so far as to say the change in dietary advice in 1977 to restrict the amount of fat we were eating helped to fuel the obesity epidemic unfolding today

He's right.  It has.  All in the name of reducing fat, of course. 

Then earlier this year I had another light-bulb moment. 

Oh, this room is wild with lights now.

In February Karen Thomson, the granddaughter of pioneering heart transplant surgeon Christian Barnard, and Timothy Noakes, a highly-respected Professor of Exercise and Sports Medicine at the University of Cape Town, invited me to speak at the world’s first ‘low carb’ summit in South Africa. 

I was intrigued, particularly as the conference hosts are both fascinating characters. 

A former model, Ms Thomson has courageously battled a number of addictions including alcohol and cocaine, but lately it is another powder – one she labels ‘pure, white and deadly’ – that has resulted in her opening the world’s first carbohydrate and sugar addiction rehab clinic in Cape Town.

Professor Noakes, meanwhile, has recently performed a remarkable U-turn on the very dietary advice he himself expounded for most of his illustrious career: that is, that athletes need to load up on carbohydrates to enhance performance. 

A marathon runner, he was considered the poster boy for high carbohydrate diets for athletes – then he developed type 2 diabetes. 

THE TERRIFYING LINK BETWEEN SUGAR AND DISEASE Effectively tearing pages out of his own textbook, Professor Noakes has now said athletes – and this goes for those of us who like to jog around the park too – can get their energy from ketones, not glucose. 

That is, from fat not sugar.

Alongside them were 15 international speakers ranging from doctors, academics and health campaigners who between them produced an eloquent and evidence-based demolition of 'low fat' thinking – as well as suggesting that it is carbohydrate consumption, not fatty foods, which is fuelling our obesity epidemic.

As one scientist said: 'You don’t get fat from eating fatty foods, just as you don’t turn green from eating green vegetables'Opening the conference was Gary Taubes, a former Harvard physicist who wrote The Diet Delusion, in which he argued that it is refined carbohydrates that are responsible for heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, and many other of our Western maladies. 

The book caused controversy when it was released seven years ago, but his message is finally gaining traction.

And that message is this: obesity is not about how many calories we eat, but what we eat. 

Refined carbohydrates fuel the over production of insulin, which in turn promotes fat storage. 

In other words: it’s not calories from fat themselves that are the problem. It’s a robust message that was reinforced time and again at the conference. 

Take Swedish family physician Dr Andreas Eenfeldt, who runs the country’s most popular health blog Diet Doctor. 

In his home country, studies show that up to twenty three per cent of the population are embracing a high fat, low carbohydrate diet. 

A ticking time bomb you might think – but contrary to expectations, while obesity rates are soaring everywhere else, they are now starting to show a decline there.

More research on this correlation is yet to be done – but in the meantime The Swedish Council on Health Technology has made its position clear. 

After a two-year review involving 16 scientists, it concluded that a high fat, low carb diet may not only be best for weight loss, but also for reducing several markers of cardiovascular risk in the obese.

A mounting slew of evidence suggests that far from contributing to heart problems, having full fat dairy in your diet may actually protect you from heart disease and type 2 diabetes

In short, as Dr Eenfeldt told the conference: ‘You don’t get fat from eating fatty foods just as you don’t turn green from eating green vegetables.’

This, of course, is a difficult message for many to swallow; particularly for heart patients, most of whom have spent years pursuing a low fat, low cholesterol diet as the best way to preserve heart health.

It’s a public health message that was first promoted in the sixties, after the globally respected Framingham Heart study sanctified high cholesterol as a major risk factor for heart disease. 

It’s a cornerstone of government and public health messages – yet what people didn’t know was that the study also threw up some more complex statistics. 

Like this one: for every 1mg/dl per year drop in cholesterol levels in those who took part in the study there was a 14 per cent increase in cardiovascular death and an 11 per cent increase in mortality in the following 18 years for those aged over 50.It’s not the only statistic that doesn’t sit with the prevailing anti-cholesterol message. 

THE LINK BETWEEN FAT AND CHOLESTEROL                         In 2013, a group of academics studied previously unpublished data from a seminal study done in the early seventies, known as the Sydney Diet Heart study. 

They discovered cardiac patients who replaced butter with margarine had an increased mortality, despite a 13 per cent reduction in total cholesterol. 

And the Honolulu heart study published in the Lancet in 2001 concluded that in the over-sixties a high total cholesterol is inversely associated with risk of death. 

Startling, isn’t it? A lower cholesterol is not in itself the mark of success, it only works in parallel with other important markers, like a shrinking waist size and diminishing blood markers for diabetes.

Conversely, a mounting slew of evidence suggests that far from contributing to heart problems, having full fat dairy in your diet may actually protect you from heart disease and type 2 diabetes. 

What most people fail to understand is that, when it comes to diet, it’s the polyphenols and omega 3 fatty acids abundant in extra virgin olive oil, nuts, fatty fish and vegetables that help to rapidly reduce thrombosis and inflammation independent of changes in cholesterol. 

Yet full fat dairy has remained demonised – until now.In 2014, two Cambridge Medical Research Council studies concluded that the saturated fats in the blood stream that came from dairy products were inversely associated with type 2 diabetes and heart disease. 

Meaning that in moderate amounts – no-one is talking about devouring a cheese board in one sitting here – cheese is actually a proponent of good health and longevity. 

The same study, incidentally, found that the consumption of starch, sugar and alcohol encourages the production of fatty acids made by the liver that correlate with an increased risk of these killer diseases.

HOW CARBS HAVE WRECKED THE HEALTH OF DIABETICS    It is around type 2 diabetes, in fact, that the anti-fat pro-carb message of recent decades has done some of the greatest damage. 

A lot of patients suffering from type 2 diabetes-–the most common kind –-are labouring under the dangerous misapprehension that a low fat, starchy carbohydrate fuelled diet will help their medication work most effectively. 

They couldn’t be more wrong. 

Earlier this year, a critical review in the respected journal Nutrition concluded that dietary carbohydrate restriction is one of the most effective interventions for reducing features of metabolic syndrome

To protect your heart, ditch low-fat spread for butter or, better still, a bottle of extra virgin olive oil

It would be better to rename type 2 diabetes 'carbohydrate intolerance disease'.

Try telling this to the public though. 

Like the man who called into a national radio show in Cape Town on which I was taking part to discuss the relationship between diet and heart disease. 

Diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, he was under the impression he had to consume sugar so his diabetes medications could ‘work’ – when in fact it was going to worsen his symptoms. 

And how many doctors and patients know that although some of these medications to control blood sugar may marginally reduce the risk of developing kidney disease, eye disease and neuropathy, they don’t actually have any impact on heart attack, stroke risk or reduce death rates? 

In fact, overmedicating on diabetes drugs is actually causing dangerously low blood sugar levels.

This is responsible for approximately 100,000 emergency room visits per year in the United States.

But who can blame the public for such misguided perceptions? In my opinion a perfect storm of biased research funding, biased reporting in the media and commercial conflicts of interest have contributed to an epidemic of misinformed doctors and misinformed patients. 

The result is a nation of over-medicated sugar addicts who are eating and pill-popping their way to years of misery with chronic debilitating diseases and an early grave.

It’s why, these days, I very seldom touch bread, have got rid of all added sugars and have embraced full fat as part of my varied Mediterranean-inspired diet. 

I feel better, have more energy and – even though I didn’t set out to do so – I’ve lost that fatty tyre around my waist, despite reducing the time I spend exercising.

Perhaps you can’t face making all those changes in one go. In which case, if you do one thing, make it this: next time you are in the supermarket and are tempted to pick up a pack of low-fat spread, buy a pack of butter instead or, better still, a bottle of extra virgin olive oil. 

Your heart will thank you for it. 

The father of modern medicine Hippocrates once said, 'let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food'. 

It’s now time we let 'fat' be that medicine.

Dr Aseem Malhotra is a cardiologist and advisor to the National Obesity Forum.  @DrAseemMalhotra.  He is currently crowdfunding for his documentary film 'The Pioppi Protocol – 21 days to whole heart health'.  

This article originally appeared on and has been reproduced with the permission of Men's Health. Read more:

The truth about fat and sugar is finally explained - Men's Health

U.S. Intel Chief Admits, "[We] may use the "Internet of Things" to spy on you."

The "Internet of Things" promises consumers convenience in use, convenience in payment, probably even options for discounts. But know this, that if each and everyone of your household appliances is plugged into the internet or the cloud or the world wide web, know that these appliances, your appliances, will be used against you. Sound familiar? Where have you heard that phrase before? By law enforcement and by our vaunted legal system. While some groups [click on that link] have pointed to the health hazards associated with the new smart meters, perhaps these very folks are playing the role of controlled opposition, whereby the arguments that oppose any harmful effects win the day against the whistle blowers tooting the horn about radiation poisoning. And as those points go unfounded or unproven, forgotten or defeated, then people take fewer actions and worry less as they become more complacent, rendering them more malleable to further incursions into prying of one's homes via the "Internet of Things."

There is one woman who warned us early on about the government's role in not only spying on Americans, but to know everything about you . . . without your permission, of course. Dr. Katherine Albrecht, Ed.D., was the first person I'd read about ten years ago now who sounded the alarm on RFID tags. 

Executive Technology Magazine has called Katherine "perhaps the country's single most vocal privacy advocate" and Wired magazine calls her the "Erin Brockovich" of RFID". Her success exposing corporate misdeeds has earned her accolades from Advertising Age and Business Week and caused pundits to label her a PR genius.