Author: Michael Edwards

Michael Edwards is the founder, owner, editor-in-chief, and janitor for Organic Lifestyle Magazine. At age 17, Michael weighed more than 360 pounds. He suffered from allergies, frequent bouts of illness, and chronic, debilitating insomnia. Conventional medicine wasn’t working. While he restored his health through alternative medicine he studied natural health and became immersed in it.

‘Alarming’ Explosion of Toxic Pesticide Use Causing Insect Apocalypse in United States: Study

“Insect abundance has declined 45 percent. This is a global crisis—we must ban neonics to save the bees!”

(Common Dreams) The rapid and dangerous decline of the insect population in the United States—often called an “insect apocalypse” by scientists—has largely been driven by an increase in the toxicity of U.S. agriculture caused by the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS One.

We need to rapidly shift our food system away from dependence on harmful pesticides and toward organic farming methods that work with nature rather than against it.”

—Kendra Klein, Friends of the Earth

The study found that American agriculture has become 48 times more toxic to insects over the past 25 years and pinned 92 percent of the toxicity increase on neonicotinoids, which were banned by the European Union last year due to the threat they pose to bees and other pollinators.

Kendra Klein, Ph.D., study co-author and senior staff scientist at Friends of the Earth, said the United States must follow Europe’s lead and ban the toxic pesticides before it is too late.

“It is alarming that U.S. agriculture has become so much more toxic to insect life in the past two decades,” Klein said in a statement. “We need to phase out neonicotinoid pesticides to protect bees and other insects that are critical to biodiversity and the farms that feed us.”

“Congress must pass the Saving America’s Pollinators Act to ban neonicotinoids,” Klein added. “In addition, we need to rapidly shift our food system away from dependence on harmful pesticides and toward organic farming methods that work with nature rather than against it.”

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

According to National Geographic, neonics “are used on over 140 different agricultural crops in more than 120 countries. They attack the central nervous system of insects, causing overstimulation of their nerve cells, paralysis, and death.”

With insect populations declining due to neonic use, “the numbers of insect-eating birds have plummeted in recent decades,” National Geographic reported. “There’s also been a widespread decline in nearly all bird species.”

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

As Common Dreams reported in February, scientists warned in a global analysis that by decimating insect populations, widespread use of pesticides poses a serious threat to the planet’s ecosystems and ultimately to the survival of humankind.

Klein said the “good news” is that neonics are not at all necessary for food production.

“We have four decades of research and evidence that agroecological farming methods can grow our food without decimating pollinators,” said Klein.

Just 10 Streams Carry 95 Percent of Plastic Into Oceans

(Dr. Mercola) Every minute, another truckload’s worth of plastic trash ends up in the ocean, amounting to 8 million tons every year.1 That plastic is ending up in sea turtle and whale stomachs, strangling seabirds and, perhaps even worse, being broken down into microplastics that are consumed by fish and plankton — with unknown consequences.

How to clean up the swirling garbage patches in the world’s oceans is a daunting question. At least one organization, The Ocean Cleanup, is tackling it from a practical standpoint, using a passive trash-collecting system that they estimate may remove half the plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (which covers 1.6 million square kilometers (nearly 618,000 square miles) of the Pacific Ocean’s surface) in just five years.

Another option is to tackle the garbage at its source, a task that may be more achievable than it seems because 95 percent of the riverborne plastic flowing into the ocean comes from just 10 rivers.2

Related: How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors

10 Rivers Carry Almost All Plastic Into the Ocean

Researchers from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany, looked at the concentration of plastic in 57 rivers throughout the world.

Data on both microplastics (particles less than 5 millimeters (mm), such as microfibers and microbeads) and macroplastics (particles greater than 5 mm, such as plastic bags and bottles) were analyzed, with researchers multiplying the concentrations of plastic in the river with water discharge to figure out how much plastic (by weight) was entering the oceans.

“They then fed these data into a model that compared them with the estimated weight of plastic litter generated per person per day along each river,” Scientific American reported.3 The study authors added, “A substantial fraction of marine plastic debris originates from land-based sources and rivers potentially act as a major transport pathway for all sizes of plastic debris.”4

Their analysis revealed that large rivers with dense populations along their shores delivered a disproportionate amount of mismanaged plastic waste into the ocean. “The 10 top-ranked rivers transport 88 to 95 percent of the global load into the sea,” the researchers concluded.5

Eight of the rivers (the Yangtze, Yellow, Hai, Pearl, Amur, Mekong, Indus and Ganges Delta) are found in Asia while two (the Niger and Nile) are in Africa. The worst polluter of the bunch, by far, is the Yangtze, located in China, which releases 1.5 million tons of plastic waste into the Yellow Sea annually (more than is released by the other nine rivers combined6).

Related: Ocean Plastic to Triple Within a Decade

Together, the 10 rivers are responsible for dumping 0.47 to 2.75 million tons of plastic into the world’s oceans every year.7 The silver lining to the finding, if there is one, is that better waste-management practices targeting these 10 rivers could have a major effect in curbing the amount of plastic flowing into the ocean.

The Top-Polluting Rivers Are Located in Asia, With the Yangtze River Topping the List

A similar study published in 2017 in Nature Communications created a global model of plastic inputs from rivers into oceans, based on waste management, population density and hydrological information.8 The model estimated that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tons of plastic waste enter the ocean every year from rivers, with 74 percent of the emissions occurring between May and October.

The researchers, from The Ocean Cleanup, also found that rivers account for a hefty share of ocean plastic, in this case revealing that the 20 top-polluting rivers, most of them located in Asia, accounted for 67 percent of the global total of river plastic emissions into the ocean.

Again, the Yangtze River in China, which is the third-longest river in the world, earned the dubious moniker of top polluter. The Ocean Cleanup researchers stated:9

“Most of this river plastic input is coming from Asia, which emphasizes the need to focus on monitoring and mitigation efforts in Asian countries with rapid economic development and poor waste management … there is very little data to document these assumptions and thoroughly verify the validity of our model.

Yet, the relatively high concentrations of ocean plastic found at the surface of the North Pacific Ocean where buoyant plastics originating from Asia can accumulate, suggest that our assumptions are plausible.”

Fisheries, fishing vessels and other ships contribute less than 20 percent of plastic debris in the oceans. The rest, more than 80 percent, starts off on land. Once in the ocean, it’s known that nearly 700 species (and probably many more) are negatively impacted by such debris.

According to environmental advocacy group Ocean Conservancy, some plastic products persist for so long, even in salty ocean water, that they’ll still be recognizable after 400 years.10

In the U.S., one of the top waste-generating countries, littering is a major issue, especially in the form of single-use plastics, like soda bottles, drinking straws and potato chip bags. In much of Asia and Africa, however, plastic debris ends up in rivers due to lack of proper disposal and handling of general waste as well as that from landfills and industry.

Efforts to Curb Plastic Pollution Should Target Freshwater Environments

Rivers, being a major source of transport of plastic into oceans, should be a major focus of cleanup and prevention efforts, not only to curb the transport but also because, as Martin Wagner, an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) department of biology, “Rivers are wonderful and complex ecosystems in themselves.”11

In a book on the topic titled “Freshwater Microplastics: Emerging Environmental Contaminants?” Wagner points out that there are more than 5,300 grades of synthetic polymers, each with different physicochemical properties. As such, each is likely to exert very unique effects once in the environment.

Related: Microplastics in Sea Salt – A Growing Concern

“In light of this, treating microplastics as a single pollutant does not make sense,” he writes. The book continues:12

“Due to the chemical makeup of plastic materials, receiving environments are potentially exposed to a mixture of micro- and nano-sized particles, leached additives and subsequent degradation products, which will become bioavailable for a range of biota.

The ingestion of MPs [microplastics] by aquatic organisms has been demonstrated, but the long-term effects of continuous exposures are less well understood.”

Further, much of the study on plastics in the environment has centered on the ocean, while little is known about plastics in freshwater systems. As of the book’s writing, less than 4 percent of publications referred to plastics in freshwater, “reflecting the idea that streams, rivers and lakes are mere transport routes transferring plastics to the oceans similar to a sewer … this is too simplistic,” the books preface notes.13

Wagner believes that focusing on removing plastic from the ocean is a shortsighted solution because in order to stop it in the long run, it has to be traced back to its source, which in most cases is land and the rivers that transport it. “We have to go to the source of the problem to stop it, and the source is on land,” he said in an NTNU news release, adding:14

“We also don’t know how much plastic there is in rivers and lakes. This is crucial knowledge to be able to identify and understand the most important sources of plastic litter — which in turn is essential to find effective solutions to the problem … Plastics break down into microplastics.

We know very little about the impact of microplastics on ecosystems, whether we’re talking about freshwater or oceans … Long-term experiments and new methods are needed to find out how microplastics affect nature — and us.”

Majority of Fish in Freshwater Environments May Contain Plastic

What little research that has been done on plastics in freshwater environments is not reassuring. In one such study, 83 percent of the fish had plastic debris in their gut, mostly microplastics, particularly microfibers.15

The fish appeared to consume more microplastics near urbanized sections of the river and when fish ate a lot of the plastics, they appeared to eat a less diverse variety of other food items. Microfibers have also been found in most water samples collected from the Hudson River,16 and studies show concentrations of fibers tend to be particularly high in beach sediment near wastewater treatment plants.17

So, ironically, the practice of recycling plastic bottles into clothing items, which is done by certain outdoor companies as a way to reduce waste, may ultimately end up being environmentally destructive, as microfibers from clothing are released during washing.

These microscopic plastic fibers soak up toxins like a sponge, concentrating PCBs, flame retardant chemicals, pesticides and anything else found in the water. It could be that the longer the particles stay inside the fish, the more chemicals may leach into its body. So the microfibers may be harming marine life via two mechanisms: physical blockage and chemical poisoning.

One solution to the microfiber pollution problem would be to install filters in washing machines — similar to lint traps in dryers — that could catch the fibers prior to their being released with the wastewater. Special coatings may also help to stop the loss of microfibers during washing, but the apparel industry has been slow to respond in taking steps to stop microfiber pollution.18

Doing Your Part to Curb Plastic Pollution

Efforts to improve waste management in Asia are urgently needed to help curb plastic pollution, but you can also make a dent in the waste by using less plastic in your daily life, especially in the case of single-use disposable items like straws, bottles, bags and cutlery.

Data obtained by The Guardian suggests 1 million plastic bottles are purchased every minute worldwide. Worse still, this is expected to increase by 20 percent by 2021 and reach more than half a trillion sold every year by 2020.19

Fewer than half of the plastic bottles purchased in 2016 were recycled, and only 7 percent were made into new bottles,20 which means the rest end up in landfills or marine environments. Don’t underestimate the impact even one person can have by making simple tweaks to their routine.

Will you really miss that plastic straw with your water? Do you really need a throwaway bag to carry home one or two items from the store? It’s time to rethink our throwaway society and choose reusable over single-use whenever possible (and it’s usually possible).

Following are some of the most straightforward steps you can take to cut down on plastics usage in your life. Share them with a friend or two and the positive impacts will only continue to be magnified:

Use reusable shopping bags for groceries Take your own leftovers container to restaurants
Bring your own mug for coffee, and bring drinking water from home in glass water bottles instead of buying bottled water Request no plastic wrap on your newspaper and dry cleaning
Store foods in glass containers or mason jars rather than plastic containers and plastic freezer bags Avoid disposable utensils and straws and buy foods in bulk when you can
Opt for nondisposable razors, washable feminine hygiene products for women, cloth diapers, handkerchiefs instead of paper tissues, rags in lieu of paper towels, and infant toys made of wood rather than plastic

As 1.5 Million Flee Hurricane Florence, Worries Grow Over Half Dozen Nuclear Power Plants in Storm’s Path

“Flooding-prone Brunswick Nuclear Plant among rickety old Fukushima-style reactors in likely path of Hurricane Florence.”

(C

ommon Dreams by Julia Conley) With 1.5 million residents now under orders to evacuate their homes in preparation for Hurricane Florence’s landfall in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, the region faces the possibility of catastrophe should the storm damage one or more of the nuclear power plants which lie in its potential path.As the Associated Press reported on Monday, “The storm’s potential path also includes half a dozen nuclear power plants, pits holding coal-ash and other industrial waste, and numerous eastern hog farms that store animal waste in massive open-air lagoons.”

Related: Air Pollution Causes People to Lose A Year of Education

The plants thought to lie in the path of the hurricane, which is expected to make landfall on the Southeastern U.S. coast on Thursday, include North Carolina’s Brunswick Nuclear Power Plant in Southport, Duke Energy Sutton Steam Plant in Wilmington, and South Carolina’s V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville.

“Florence will approach the Carolina coast Thursday night into Friday with winds in excess of 100mph along with flooding rains. This system will approach the Brunswick Nuclear Plant as well as the Duke-Sutton Steam Plant,” Ed Vallee, a North Carolina-based meteorologist, told Zero Hedge. “Dangerous wind gusts and flooding will be the largest threats to these operations with inland plants being susceptible to inland flooding.”

In 2015, the Huffington Post and Weather.com identified Brunswick as one of the East Coast’s most at-risk nuclear power plants in the event of rising sea levels and the storm surges that come with them.

Related: Study Shows Cell Phone Towers Harmful To Animals, Plants – 5G Will Be Much Worse

As of Tuesday afternoon, Hurricane Florence was thought to have the potential to cause “massive damage to our country” according to Jeff Byard, associate administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The storm was labeled a Category 4 tropical storm with the potential to become a Category 5 as it nears the coast, with 130 mile-per-hour winds blowing about 900 miles off the coast of Cape Fear, North Carolina.

Meteorologists warned of hurricane-force winds in the region by mid-day Thursday, with storm surges reaching up to 12 feet or higher.

The 2011 Fukushima disaster remains the highest-profile nuclear catastrophe caused by a natural disaster. The tsunami that hit Japan in March of that year disabled three of the plant’s reactors, causing a radioactive release which forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

In 2014, Shane Shifflett and Kate Sheppard at the Huffington Post reported on the risk storms like Florence pose to nuclear plants:

Most nuclear power facilities were built well before scientists understood just how high sea levels might rise in the future. And for power plants, the most serious threat is likely to come from surges during storms. Higher sea levels mean that flooding will travel farther inland, creating potential hazards in areas that may have previously been considered safe.

During hurricanes, many nuclear facilities will power down—but this is not a sure-fire way to avoid disaster, wrote Sheppard and Shifflett.

“Even when a plant is not operating, the spent fuel stored on-site, typically uranium, will continue to emit heat and must be cooled using equipment that relies on the plant’s own power,” they wrote. “Flooding can cause a loss of power, and in serious conditions, it can damage backup generators. Without a cooling system, reactors can overheat and damage the facility to the point of releasing radioactive material.”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

What Happens to Your Body When You Eat Gluten?

(Dr. Mercola) The word “gluten” has become such a buzzword in recent years, most likely because of the sudden popularity of the gluten-free diet that’s been endorsed by famous personalities. Before you consider trying this diet, read this page first to learn about gluten, and how it can negatively impact your body and health in the long run.

What Is Gluten?

A type of protein, gluten is composed of glutenin and gliadin molecules that form an elastic bond when mixed with water. Gluten is highly noted for its adhesive abilities that can maintain a compact structure for holding bread and cakes together, and providing a spongier texture. This ability isn’t surprising, considering that the word “gluten” is derived from the Latin word for “glue.”

While it does wonders for these foods, the same cannot be said for your body. Research has shown that gluten can be quite harmful for you because of the vast range of complications it might cause (more on this to come in a while).

What Does Gluten Do to Your Body?

A major caveat linked to gluten is its tendency to impede proper nutrient breakdown and absorption from foods, regardless if they have gluten or not. This may prevent proper digestion because excess gluten leads to the formation of a glued-together constipating lump in the gut.

Afterward, the undigested gluten prompts the immune system to attack the villi, or the fingerlike projections lining your small intestine.1 This may lead to side effects such as  diarrhea or constipation, nausea and abdominal pain.

Excessive gluten consumption and further small intestine damage and inflammation may predispose a person to nutrient malabsorption, nutrient deficiencies, anemia, osteoporosis, other neurological or psychological diseases, and complications linked to the skin, liver, joints, nervous system and more.

Related: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

What Are the Types of Food That Contain Gluten?

Gluten is predominantly found in whole grains like rye, barley, triticale and oats; in wheat varieties like spelt, kamut, farro, durum; and in other products like bulgar and semolina.2 Wheat-based flours and byproducts that also contain high quantities of this protein include:3,4,5,6

Wheat-Based Flours Wheat Byproducts

• White flour

• Whole wheat flour

• Graham flour

• Triticale

• Wheat germ

• Wheat bran

• Pasta

• Couscous

• Bread, bread crumbs and croutons

• Flour tortillas

• Cookies, cakes, muffins and pastries

• Cereal

• Crackers

• Beer

• Gravy, dressings and sauces

• Conventional oats (these have a high chance of being contaminated during the growing, harvesting or processing stages

If there’s another compelling reason why you shouldn’t eat processed foods, it’s because these items often contain gluten. Here are examples of foods with gluten, even though they’re not made from grains:7,8

Processed broth and bouillon cubes9

Fried foods

Candies

Lunch meats and hot dogs

Cold cuts

Dumplings

Self-basting poultry

Crab cakes

Imitation fish

Seasoned rice10

Matzo

Modified food starch11

Salad dressings

Seasoned chips and other seasoned snack foods

Processed yogurt12

Ice cream cones

Even worse, manufacturers deceive customers by “hiding” gluten products like wheat under other names in food labels, such as:13,14

•Malts

•Starches and other derivatives

•Hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP)

•Hydrolyzed wheat protein15

•Textured vegetable protein (TVP)

Common Signs of a ‘Gluten Allergy’ You Should Watch Out For

Consuming too much gluten can prompt various complications, such as a gluten allergy, wherein the immune system produces “weapons” to combat gluten in your system. However, a gluten allergy is not to be confused with gluten intolerance, gluten sensitivity16 or celiac disease.17

It is quite similar to other food allergies, since these are all responses to a particular allergen. Some of the most common gluten allergy symptoms are:

Coughing

Nasal congestion

Sneezing

Tightness of throat

Asthma

Tingling

Itching

Tongue and/or throat swelling

A metallic taste in your mouth

Abdominal pain

Muscle spasms

Vomiting

Diarrhea

As the book “Gluten-Free Cooking for Dummies” further highlights, a gluten allergy may lead to adverse effects such as anaphylaxis or an anaphylactic shock that may affect different organs. People may experience agitation, hives, breathing problems, reduced blood pressure levels, fainting or even death, if the reaction is very severe.18

Warning Signs of Gluten Intolerance

Should the immune system have an unusual response to gluten in your system, then it might be a sign that you have gluten intolerance.19 Sometimes it can be mistaken for celiac disease (another gluten-related disorder) or a wheat allergy.20

The root cause of a gluten intolerance is not fully understood, although it has been linked to the digestive system, compared to celiac disease where a genetic link has been found.21

Typical gluten intolerance symptoms include bloating, belly pain, diarrhea, tiredness and a general feeling of being unwell. Someone with a gluten intolerance might also experience these indicators, although these are less frequent and already affect areas beyond the gut:

Joint or muscle pain

Anxiety

Headache

Nausea

Confusion

Numbness

If you or someone you know experiences any of these symptoms, seek medical attention immediately. This will help you determine whether you have gluten intolerance or if the symptoms occur because of other health reasons.

This greatly applies if you or someone you know has severe belly pain. An extreme stomachache is not a sign of gluten intolerance, so it might be due to another potentially devastating disease that may require immediate treatment.

Related: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Having gut-related symptoms checked immediately may be helpful too, as numerous conditions that target the gut can overlap with other diseases. Fortunately, these can be examined during a checkup and your doctor may rule out other causes.

Take note that symptoms of gluten intolerance are generally similar to those of celiac disease, although the reactions that people with these conditions experience aren’t identical.

To diagnose a gluten intolerance, it’s important that you continue eating your usual meals, especially if it’s abundant in foods with gluten. This could help the doctor determine the main cause of the symptoms. An inaccurate diagnosis might occur if the patient decides to stop eating gluten-loaded foods prior to, or during, a consultation.22

Common Indicators of Gluten Sensitivity

In various studies, gluten sensitivity is also called non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) as celiac disease patients are sensitive to gluten too.

The difference between a gluten sensitivity and celiac disease is that the former may be triggered not just by wheat, but by other grains like rye and barley, too, as these grains are known to have the glutenin and gliadin proteins (or protein fragments) also found in wheat.23

Typical symptoms of gluten sensitivity include nausea, skin irritation, bloating and gas, brain fog, and fatigue. However, these indicators can widely vary and may also occur alongside gynecologic conditions, lactose intolerance and irritable bowel syndrome.24

Because there is no specific laboratory test for gluten sensitivity, your physician will have to rule out other possible causes. In some cases, patients may need to be checked for wheat allergy or celiac disease. Should test results be negative, a gluten-free diet may be advised.25

However, if any of the aforementioned tests deliver positive results, then you may want to continue eating gluten-rich foods for a more accurate diagnosis.26

Why a Gluten-Free Diet Works

A gluten-free diet is an important course of action for combating gluten-related disorders, and picking gluten-free foods is the first step in doing so. Because there are foods that are incorrectly labeled “gluten-free,” it may be quite tricky at first to select the correct items.

A set of guidelines on proper gluten-free labeling standards released in 2013 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may help. The organization states that for a food product to bear the gluten-free label and be considered such, it must be:

•Naturally gluten-free — Rice, non-GMO corn, quinoa, sorghum, flax and amaranth seed are naturally gluten-free grains.

•Refined to remove gluten — Gluten must be removed from any gluten-containing grain. As such, the final product should not contain more than 20 parts per million (ppm) of gluten.

Extreme vigilance is only likely if you have celiac disease, since exposure to gluten can cause sickness and threaten your health in the long run. What’s great about a gluten-free diet is that nearly everyone can benefit from it, whether you have a gluten intolerance or not. Grains, even whole sprouted varieties, tend to cause many problems because of the following factors:

Wheat hybridization

Gluten

Other wheat proteins

Fructans

Milling or baking process

Glyphosate contamination

Grains have high net carbs, so removing them from your diet can help improve mitochondrial function. Taking care of your mitochondrial health is important if you want to reduce your risk for problems linked to insulin resistance, such as being overweight and having high blood pressure levels, as well as diseases like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Related: Is Wheat Poison? What’s Behind the Rise of Celiac Disease and Gluten Intolerance

Prior to beginning a gluten-free diet, consult a dietitian or health expert who can give advice on how to effectively avoid foods with gluten while eating a healthy and balanced diet.27

Best Foods to Eat if Following a Gluten-Free Diet

Once you’re given the go-signal to try a gluten-free diet, stock up on these natural and unprocessed foods:28,29

Beans (provided that you try to sprout and/or ferment your beans to reduce its lectin content, which may negatively impact your health in the long run) Seeds (chia, pumpkin or sunflower) Nuts (pecans, macadamias or walnuts)
Organic and pasture-raised eggs Organic and grass fed meats that aren’t breaded, batter-coated or marinated Fish (wild-caught Alaskan salmon, sardines, anchovies and herring) that aren’t breaded, batter-coated or marinated
Organically grown, GMO-free fruits and vegetables Raw, grass fed milk or yogurt Healthy fat sources (raw grass fed butter, coconuts and coconut oil, olives and olive oil, and avocados)

If you think going on a gluten-free diet limits eating choices and preparations, you’d be surprised to know that it won’t. Type “gluten-free recipes” on a search engine and you’ll see a wide variety of gluten-free recipes, ranging from savory to sweet. A good and delicious example is this Coconut Flour Almond Meal Pancakes Recipe from MindBodyGreen:30

Related: Gluten Intolerance, Wheat Allergies, and Celiac Disease – It’s More Complicated Than You Think

Coconut Flour Almond Meal Pancakes Recipe

•1/2 cup Dr. Mercola’s coconut flour

•1/3 cup almond meal

•1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

•4 organic, pastured eggs

•1 tablespoon Dr. Mercola’s coconut oil, melted

•1/3 cup raw cow’s milk or coconut milk

•1 teaspoon vanilla extract

•A pinch of Dr. Mercola’s Himalayan salt

•1 to 2 tablespoons organic, raw grass fed butter, plus more for serving

•Pure maple syrup to drizzle (optional)

Cooking Directions

1.In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients: the coconut flour, almond meal, baking powder and salt.

2.Slowly whisk in the wet ingredients: the eggs, coconut oil, milk and vanilla. Mix until the batter is smooth. (If it feels a little dry, add more milk until it reaches the consistency you’re after).

3.Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the butter and allow it to melt, then add scoops of batter (about a 1/4 cup each) for silver dollar pancakes. Cook for about a minute on each side until golden brown. Slather with butter and drizzle maple syrup as desired.

This recipe makes about 16 small pancakes.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 10 minutes

Related: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

Additional Reminders When Following a Gluten-Free Diet

Gluten Free & More magazine highlights these important tips for people who are following a gluten-free diet:31

•Read labels carefully — Knowing how to read labels properly will greatly help if you’re following a gluten-free diet. Ideally, never assume something is gluten-free even if the word “gluten” isn’t anywhere in the list.32 As mentioned earlier, some manufacturers purposely use other names to hide gluten in their products.

•If you’re in doubt, don’t buy the product — If you cannot verify that the product is free of grains, don’t buy or eat it at all. The same principle applies if you cannot find an ingredients list on the product.

•Remember that being wheat-free doesn’t automatically make a food gluten-free — This is because spelt, rye or barley-based ingredients, all of which contain gluten, may be used in products with a wheat-free label on them.

•Introduce new foods slowly — Ensure that you incorporate only one new food at a time, and take note of symptoms before adding another item.

•Be a “food detective” — Call, email or write a letter to a food manufacturer to verify a product’s ingredients. Take note of the ingredient and the lot number of the food. Once you are in touch with a representative, clearly state your concerns and be persistent, polite and patient.

Lyme Disease Facts You Should Know

This is an excerpt from the extensive article Best Supplements To Kill Lyme and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Lyme Disease.

Current diagnostics miss up to 60% of acute cases. This is what’s so infuriating for those trying to figure out what’s going on with their bodies: Testing for Lyme is inaccurate, but especially so in the beginning. By the time the tests are likely to show positive for someone with Lyme, antibiotic treatments are typically no longer effective. In other words, people would go to their doctor and ask if they have Lyme, the doctors would say how rare it is (fortunately doctors are getting much better about this lately), but would reluctantly perform the tests, only to find no trace of Lyme. So the person would assume some other autoimmune disease while the Lyme slowly proliferates. Then the person would eventually seek another opinion, get another round of tests, and maybe (but often not) find out they do in fact have Lyme. Or, they often find out that one can have Lyme and still test negative indefinitely, but at this stage, the person is showing enough symptoms that the new more knowledgeable doctor can easily conclude that it’s Lyme.

But now the antibiotics will no longer be effective. It’s too late. Many people try anyways, wrecking their immune system in the process.

I suspect that often times a heavy round of antibiotics works to kill the bacteria, but the body is left so badly damaged that new infection (often Candida being the first) takes over, and all of the symptoms remain.

Borrelia does not seem to circulate in the blood. This is the main reason it is so difficult to detect. The bacteria also have a very slow replication rate, so the number of bacteria found in a host remains small, at least for a long time.

There are multiple tests for Lyme. The CDC recommends screening with the ELISA test and then confirming the results with the Western blot test. As mentioned, these tests are completely unreliable during the first 4-6 weeks of infection. The tests only measure the patient’s antibody response to the infection, not the presence of the bacteria itself.

Lyme disease is notoriously difficult to diagnose using conventional tests. And there’s great variation in the presentation of the disease as well, depending on where you contracted it, and whether or not you have any other coexisting infections. There is a group of seven or eight microbes that are the most common. The worst ones are Babesia microti and the different forms of Bartonella.

It is said that an initial course of antibiotics given in stage one cures the disease most of the time, but why not all the time? Is the course of antibiotics too short? Should more be given? Should they be given long term, especially for those who have stage 3 symptoms? What if blood tests no longer show spirochetes? If the antibiotics don’t work, the patient now has to combat Lyme with a very depleted immune system.” – Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, MD, PhD

Why Antibiotics May Not Work for Lyme Disease

These days, early treatment is typically successful, according to the latest science, but most patients go undiagnosed for years. At least 20% of those who are said to be successfully treated for Lyme will experience the same symptoms after treatment, which as mentioned, can easily be attributed to a depleted immune system leading to Candida overgrowth or other fungal pathogens, opening the door for many other infections as well.

Antibiotic resistance occurs at a high rate with spirochete bacteria. Borrelia (and also its co-infections), will respond slowly to antibiotics. They will develop resistance. The bacteria that survive antibiotics can become completely antibiotic resistant. This is why doctors are starting to use multiple antibiotics at once seems, and this does lead to better chance of defeating Lyme, and depleting the immune system. If the medication fails, the bacteria that have survived will not only become resistant, but it will also become much more entrenched in the host.

The Lyme Timeline

Phase One – 3 to 30 Days

Also called early localized infection

Some say less than 50%, others say up to 70-75% develop the bullseye rash, starting at the site of the tick bite. It is not itchy or painful but they are usually warm to the touch. Sometimes flu-like symptoms develop soon after, including fever, chills, swollen lymph glands, headaches, muscle pain, and joint pain.

Phase Two – Days to Weeks After Bite

Also called early disseminated infection

  • Rash spreads
  • Large joints may become swollen and painful
  • Stiff neck in some cases
  • Meningitis may develop
  • Dizziness
  • Heart palpitations

Phase Three – Later Months to Years

Also called late disseminated infection

Many infectious disease specialists believe that “chronic Lyme disease” does not exist, and that Lyme disease from a tick bite can be cured with a short course of antibiotics. It is possible that those who have undergone antibiotic treatments are suffering from the side effects of antibiotics, but more and more experts are coming around to the idea that Lyme disease can survive and cause long-term autoimmune symptoms when antibiotics don’t work. We all know (or at least, we all should know) that antibiotics do not always work and can cause more problems.

  • Arthritis symptoms – swollen, painful joints (fluid-filled joints)
  • Neurological symptoms – numbness, tingling, shooting pains
  • Cognitive symptoms – brain fog, short-term memory deficits, confusion
  • Mood disturbance – depression
  • Fatigue
  • Abnormal heart rhythms and heart failure

Facial paralysis sometimes occurs in this stage or stage two.

Scary Lyme Facts You Should Know

How does Lyme make us sick, and why is it so damn resilient?!?!

  • Spiders, mosquitoes, fleas, and mites may also be spreading the same or similar bacterial infections.
  • Tests are unreliable because they measure the patient’s antibody response to the infection, not the bacteria itself.
  • There’s great variation in the presentation of the disease, depending on where it’s contracted, and whether there are other coexisting infections. At least eight other microbes make up the most common co-infections., including Babesia microti and different forms of Bartonella.
  • Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, has a corkscrew shape that allows it to bore deep into tissues and cartilage (including the brain and nervous system), safely out of reach of most antibiotics.
  • Borrelia burgdorferi can give up its corkscrew shape and convert to a form that is able to live inside cells (“intracellular”) where again, antibiotics have less reach.
  • Borrelia burgdorferi, along with other similar microbes, can form dormant cysts that are completely resistant to antibiotics; the harder you hit it, the more resistant it becomes.
  • Most ticks carry multiple disease-causing pathogens called co-infections. Borrelia burgdorferi is usually accompanied and aided by co-infections of other stealth microbes.
  • Lyme disease has been reported in all 50 states.
  • Lyme disease has been found on every continent except Antarctica.
  • Ticks carrying Lyme can be smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
  • Many, perhaps most, do not get the bull’s eye rash. Some develop flu-like symptoms a week or so after becoming infected, however, many people are asymptomatic but can develop Lyme symptoms months, years or decades later.
  • It is called the great imitator; looking like many other health problems (Fibromyalgia, Arthritis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Bells Palsy, ADD, MS, and Lupus).
  • People with other chronic disease are much more susceptible to Lyme disease, making Lyme even more likely to go undetectedcted.
  • The medical community is divided over the diagnosis and treatment guidelines.
  • Health insurance still often won’t cover the treatment for Chronic Lyme disease.
  • Lyme Disease transmission may be possible through intercourse, and can likely be passed down through the womb.
  • There are 12 strains of Borrelia that are known to cause Lyme Disease, and standard testing only tests for one.
  • Lyme Disease is more epidemic than Aids, West Nile and Avian Flu combined.
  • Lyme Disease can cause more than 300 different symptoms.
  • The average Lyme patient takes 2-3 years to get diagnosed correctly.
  • 25% of the reported cases are children.

Lyme Disease Cofactors

Leaky Gut and Lyme

In response to pathogenic toxins leaking from the intestines, the immune system produces multiple inflammatory compounds: Transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGF Beta-1), Matrix metallopeptidase 9 (MMP-9), Interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), and Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1). These inflammatory compounds affect multiple systems of the body. Because of the inflammatory compounds that become elevated in people with Lyme disease or co-infections, they are at greater risk of leaky gut. In a study on Lyme disease patients, Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) and Interleukin-13 (IL-13) were found to be elevated in different phases of infection. TNFα has also been found to be elevated in Bartonella infections, mice infected with Babesia, mice receiving Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever antigens, Ehrlichia infections, and in Brucellosis patients. Both TNFα and IL-13 have a direct effect on increasing intestinal lining leakage. Unfortunately, western medicine lacks a way to accurately diagnose and to treat leaky gut syndrome.” – Plugging the Holes in Lyme Disease Leaky Gut

I am of the opinion that a leaky gut is the root of most chronic disease. True or not, a leaky gut always exacerbates every ailment, every disease, every single health issue. You cannot cure any chronic disease without a healthy gut.

Lyme Disease and Co-infections

Ticks can carry many bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoans within them, and transmit these pathogens with a single bite.

The most common tick-borne diseases in the United States include Lyme disease, babesiosis, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, relapsing fever, tularemia, Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF). Diseases acquired together like this are called co-infections. Click below to learn more about specific Lyme disease co-infections. – About Lyme Disease Co-Infections

We also borrowed their chart:

image-21896

Lyme and Candida Overgrowth

Yeast overgrowth is a common concern for Lyme patients who undergo antibiotic therapy. Whether or not the Lyme or other bacterial pathogens are killed, the immune system is depleted, the body;’s beneficial bacteria is eradicated, and the body is almost guaranteed to be overrun with fungal pathogens. If one is cured of Lyme disease they will then have to rebuild their immune system (along with healthy gut flora). Most people don’t know how to do this. If they did, they most likely would not have been susceptible to Lyme in the first place. But for those who do the Lyme treatment without successful elimination of Lyme now have to deal with a body that soon inundated with fungi.

Lyme Disease and Amalgam Fillings, Vaccines, and Other Toxic Compounds

Mercury toxicity has been linked to chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, panic attacks, insomnia, cognitive decline (Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and more), chronic headaches including migraines, joint pain, Candida overgrowth, and much more. The body cannot fend off Lyme under such conditions. People with a history or poor diet, antibiotic use, mercury fillings, or immunizations, are extremely susceptible to Lyme disease and the many co-infections the come with it.

This is an excerpt from the extensive article Best Supplements To Kill Lyme and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Lyme Disease.