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Jimi's Daily Health Articles

Jimi

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Rhianne

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ECF Refugee
The Importance of Being Barefoot


Just about 40,000 years ago, human beings made an elective decision that changed the course of humanity forever.


They started wearing shoes.


Although scientific theories differ as to why we started wearing shoes, several common ideas prevail. For example, the time that we started wearing shoes corresponds with certain social changes humans were making.


Labor began to be divided. Agriculture started to replace hunting as the main source of sustenance. More precise tools were invented, such as sewing needles. So it seems as though shoes had less to do with protection being required, and more to do with the fact that we had the time and resources to consider covering our feet.


After all, warming your feet helps to maintain your entire body’s temperature. And about 40,000 years ago, we were able to think less about where our next meal was coming from, and more about how to make ourselves more comfortable.


In the modern world, there are much better reasons to wear shoes.


Concrete is dirty, litter is everywhere, and most of the world more than half of the world lives in urban environments.


But what have we lost by severing the connection between our feet and the earth? As with most human inventions, shoes have altered our biology significantly since we’ve adapted to a new mechanism that the human body wasn’t designed to use.


There are surprising health benefits to kicking off our shoes and letting our feet commune with the ground.


Let’s explore what some of those health benefits are…




Posture


Walking barefoot restores the body to its natural walking position, or gait. The shoes of the modern world are laced with technology that supports the heels, provides cushioning, and elevates and depresses the step in varying levels.


What that means is…


We’re not regulating our steps ourselves. The muscle groups we would have used to keep our spines erect and our gaits strong and regular aren’t being used and thus aren’t as strong as they would have been.


When the small muscles in the feet have a barrier between them and the ground they’re walking on, it dilutes the information that they send to the larger muscles in the legs, and the messages that they send to the spine.


Walking barefoot improves our natural posture and balance.


Hitting Reflex Points


The science of reflexology is pretty simple. There are reflex points on your hands and feet that are able to stimulate nerve functions to help you have more energy, better circulation, fewer headaches, more beneficial sleep, and reduced depressive symptoms.


When you walk barefoot, you’re stimulating the reflex points in your feet that chronic feet-coverers don’t expose to the world.


Walking barefoot allows the muscles in your feet to grow stronger, and the reflex points in your feet to be activated more regularly.




Negative Ion Charge


The earth has a negative ionic charge. Our bodies are made up mostly of water, which is an excellent electrical conductor.


What the means is… walking barefoot is a great way to connect to the earth’s negative ionic charge. What can that charge do for your body?


Research suggests that exposing your body to negative ions, either through the air, sunlight, or the earth, can reduce the symptoms of depression, influence cognitive performance, increase metabolism, regulate circadian rhythms, increase immune function, and promote antimicrobial activity.


Since it isn’t often considered safe to go barefoot in the corporate, urban universe humans have designed, being barefoot when you can is imperative. Shoes serve the purpose to keep our feet warm and to prevent penetrative injury.


So whenever possible - in the woods, in your home, on bare grass, at the beach - slip off your shoes and stretch your toes.


Take your piggies out for a spin!

Well, just not now in the middle of winter!! But it’s really grounding, just wish there was less concrete around. And they don’t let you sit on the grass around my building anymore!
 

Jimi

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Member For 5 Years
Well, just not now in the middle of winter!! But it’s really grounding, just wish there was less concrete around. And they don’t let you sit on the grass around my building anymore!
What,:eek: they don't let you sit on the grass:gaah: well that just ain't right. And with that Cell tower close by, Hmmm time to move to the country;) or at least a better place
 

Rhianne

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What,:eek: they don't let you sit on the grass:gaah: well that just ain't right. And with that Cell tower close by, Hmmm time to move to the country;) or at least a better place

They are such assholes, you wouldn’t believe it!! They had benches and trees etc and they just cut down the tree one morning and removed the benches.
I’ve never lived in the country, but it sounds nice. I don’t NY at all anymore!
 

Rhianne

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Member For 2 Years
ECF Refugee
I wish I lived in the country too, but at least i'm not in a big town:eek:

Where we live isn’t really the suburbs, so it’s not really that nice anymore. Although hipsters are moving here like crazy. And there are couples with kids and dogs in an apartment! I dunno, it’s so different than where I grew up. I’m hoping we can move somewhere better, but it prolly won’t happen for a few years.
 

Rhianne

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ECF Refugee

These are so funny, thank you. My dad just had an accident, he tripped and fell. I’ll send him these, he’ll get a kick out of them.

They think he has early onset Alzheimer’s, so I’m a bit worried. His wife thinks their diet is fine. If I mention “diet”, she tells me they don’t need to lose weight!! :facepalm:
 

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
These are so funny, thank you. My dad just had an accident, he tripped and fell. I’ll send him these, he’ll get a kick out of them.

They think he has early onset Alzheimer’s, so I’m a bit worried. His wife thinks their diet is fine. If I mention “diet”, she tells me they don’t need to lose weight!! :facepalm:
Good maybe it will cheer him up, Then it's good for him to exercise his mind, if you can get him into doing little puzzles and word games, it will help to slow the progression;), I went through that with my mom before she passed:(
 

inspects

Squonkamaniac
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I fixed a few loafs of Paw Paw bread and never looked up the benefits of eating it raw. So, looked it up and thought I'd share ;)
https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/benefits-paw-paw-7399.html

Sent from....somewhere on Tapatalk
LOL Wolfie....I never heard of Paw Paw Bread before, but I have guanabana trees growing at my lil farm in Ecuador....love that fruit, but I usually pick it before it becomes too ripe, man is it ever SWEET, to sweet for me really. It is sure packed full of great vitamins tho....:)
 

Jimi

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Member For 5 Years
LOL Wolfie....I never heard of Paw Paw Bread before, but I have guanabana trees growing at my lil farm in Ecuador....love that fruit, but I usually pick it before it becomes too ripe, man is it ever SWEET, to sweet for me really. It is sure packed full of great vitamins tho....:)
Cut it up and have it in your morning Oatmeal Dale, I have to have fruit in my oatmeal and walnuts and...and...and
 

Jimi

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Member For 5 Years
One article two posts

Since I was a kid, I’ve loved pomegranates (Punica granatum). What I absolutely hate is the frustration of all those tiny seeds (which are stated as “edible” by many but I tend to spit them out like cherry pits). Eating an actual pomegranate was a lot of work for very little return.

That’s why when I discovered the juice of this delicious fruit was (finally) available on the market a few years ago, I almost swooned with happiness. I bought it to drink with breakfast, to add a bit to my shakes, and as a mixer at parties.

That was before I understood the overwhelming benefits of pomegranate juice for my heart!

Now that I’ve personally passed the 40-year mark, maintaining my own heart health has taken a priority spot in what I think about in the long term. It’s great when something I already enjoy can help me with that. However, the nutrient-dense pomegranate is good for all of you!

  • The most impressive quality of these pretty, delicious, and exotic fruits is how anti-inflammatory it is. Since inflammation is a bio-marker in all major diseases, this is a big deal. They’ve been shown particularly effective in lowering inflammatory markers for those who suffer from digestive distress, heart disease, and arthritis.
  • Pomegranate juice helped to increase bone mass in laboratory animals (which helps to lower the risk of breaks and fractures).
  • If you need a brain boost, pick pomegranates! Just a small amount was shown to improve memory skills and overall cognition in both healthy patients and those diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Scientists have confirmed that pomegranates are effective at lowering inflammation found in many types of cancer cells (prostate, breast, and colorectal), which may help to prevent or slow tumor growth.
  • They stimulate estrogen and serotonin receptors that help improve mood.
  • The benefits of pomegranate juice include being naturally antibacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal, and antimicrobial. This effect works with your own immune system to ward off harmful invaders that lead to infections.
  • They’re simply packed with antioxidant nutrients such as vitamin C, folate, potassium, vitamin K, fiber, protein, and bioactive plant polyphenols. In fact, pomegranates have the most powerful antioxidant benefits of all fruits. The high levels of polyphenols and flavonoids makes them the ideal choice for a pop of nutrition.
  • The bioactive compounds (punicalagins and punicic acid) are higher in pomegranates than those found in green tea, berries, or red wine.
Pomegranates have a fine history (one of the first fruits written about in ancient texts) and have been used in culinary and medicinal applications in the world’s oldest civilizations.

Let’s Talk about Your Heart

Heart disease is the number one killer of men and women globally. In 2012 alone, more than 17.5 million people died from cardiovascular disease around the world according to the World Health Organization (WHO). That is the equivalent of 31% of all deaths from all causes.

A truly staggering statistic.

Incorporating healthy lifestyle changes is going to get you on the road to avoiding the fate of many millions. That includes eating nutritious foods, controlling body weight, quitting smoking, limiting alcohol, and getting regular exercise (even if it’s mild).

The experts are agreed that your diet has more impact on your lifelong health than every other factor. What they bicker over is no-fat vs healthy fat, fake sugar vs minimal sugar, and lots of grains vs limited grains.

The long-standing tables of what we’ve been assured was “healthy” are being steadily overturned by new science that debunks the claims made by the food industry (and backed by the majority of the medical community) for several decades.

New whole foods that feed your cells and assist hundreds of critical systems inside you are finally getting the attention they deserve. Pomegranate juice benefits are emerging as strong helpers in the health of your heart.

 

Jimi

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Member For 5 Years
Part Two


Johns Hopkins summarized their review of pomegranate studies by saying, “Pomegranate juice is rich in tannins, possesses anti-atherosclerotic properties, has anti-aging effects, and potent anti-oxidative characteristics. Pomegranate juice consumption may reduce systolic blood pressure, inhibits serum ACE activity, and is convincingly a heart-healthy fruit.”

Heart disease has many contributing factors and pomegranate juice seems to have an effect on the biggest ones.

In one study, participants who presented with high LDL “bad” cholesterol and triglycerides saw an improvement in both within a month. It also raised the HDL “good” cholesterol. Another showed that pomegranate juice prevented oxidation of LDL particles. It enhances blood flow, which is excellent for the heart and overall energy.

In a small study of less than 20 patients with atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), one group was given a cup of pure pomegranate juice each day. Within three months, the participants had a dramatic 13% decrease in carotid artery thickness which continued to improve over a year to a 35% decrease. The control group who didn’t drink the showed a 9% increase in carotid thickness.

In addition, patients who began the study (with an average systolic pressure of 174) experienced a consistent 12-point average drop in the juice group that ended up being more than 20-points lower by year-end (to an average systolic pressure of 152).

To review…drinking one cup daily of pomegranate juice benefits your artery health, lowers blood pressure, lowers cholesterol, lowers triglycerides, appears to reverse existing damage, and boosts overall health.

You need this good stuff in your life (and your diet).

A Word of Caution…

A word of caution, if you’re taking certain drugs, talk to your doctor before making the juice part of your diet. The Mayo Clinic had this to say: “Pomegranate juice may cause dangerous side effects when it interacts with certain prescription medications, such as the blood thinner warfarin (Coumadin, Jantoven) and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, including captopril (Capoten), enalapril (Vasotec), and lisinopril (Prinivil, Zestril).”

What Are Your Thoughts?

Pomegranate fruits are available in the winter months and keep for a long time if they’re refrigerated. However, I highly recommend the many benefits of pomegranate juice (and drink it myself)! It’s available year-round, isn’t outrageously expensive, stores well, is much more convenient, and gives you a daily dose of some of the best disease fighters you’ll find. Make sure you buy pure juice with no added sugars!

Have you added pomegranate juice to your eating plan? Did you do so for an existing condition? How has it worked for you?

My favorite part? No seeds!

There are many natural, inexpensive, and (most important!) effective treatments like this to prevent heart disease and help keep your heart pumping for decades to come. Read Heart Strong right now and start your journey to true heart health.

To Your Health,
 

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
One article two posts


Just How Deadly Is Mercury?
Make Up Your Own Mind After Reading This Appalling Story.

Karen Wetterhahn (KW) was a chemistry professor who researched toxic metal exposure. She had an influential career at a prestigious institution and there were few—maybe none—in the world who knew mercury toxicity better than her. And yet...

She accidentally spilled 2 drops of dimethylmercury on her gloved hand… and subsequently died in agony.

Now it’s important you take note this is dimethyl mercury, which is NOTORIOUSLY dangerous. Methyl mercury, which caused the outbreak of Minamata Disease in Japan in the 1960s and 70s was METHYL mercury, not DIMETHYL mercury. We all saw the horrible picture of young kids from the city of Minamata, twitching and jerking in wheelchairs, as they slowly died.

Well, dimethylmercury is ten times as deadly.* It’s horrible!

KW turned up in ER five months after her accidental exposure. She was sure that she had not touched the chemical. She apparently followed the full detox procedure at the time (she was a professional, after all). But…

This is what happened to her: she noticed progressive deterioration in balance, gait, and speech; she has lost 15 pounds in the 2 months leading up to her admission, and experienced several brief episodes of nausea and abdominal discomfort.

She started walking into walls and assumed she had not been paying proper attention. Then, one day, she almost got into a car accident. She started asking her husband to drive her to university. Maybe she hadn't slept well, she thought.

When examined, she had a condition called “dysmetria” ("dys-" meaning wrong, and "-metria" meaning length). She was mis-estimating distances and how close or far away things were, which made her extremely clumsy.

Similarly, she had ataxic gait, meaning her walk was was awkward, imbalanced, and disorderly. Both of these were combined with lousy handwriting and slurred speech, all of which amounted to severe neurodegeneration, with mercury as the likely culprit.

She was a skilled professional and she knew what all this meant. She was right to be concerned about her condition.

As the days continued, KW reports that she has a tingling in her fingers that's getting stronger. She sees brief flashes of light in both eyes. She introduces the concept of white background noise that begins to wash away her normal hearing in both ears. Her gait becomes even more ataxic. Her speech becomes more slurred; her field of vision, more narrow.

A blood test revealed that her blood mercury levels were over 4,000 mcg/L. That’s 4,000 times greater than the upper limit of normal. Obviously, mercury poisoning was THE cause of her condition.

But the sad part of the story is that she did not show any signs of recovery, many weeks after leaving the lab. Where was the mercury hiding? It was clearly not being excreted. 95% of her “dose” was unaccounted for.

In fact it ended up in the nervous system. Remember, she was not poisoned by mercury metal but the dimethyl form, which has a strong affinity for fatty tissue. What’s the fattiest organ in the body?

The brain! It’s over 60% fat.

So a near-lethal dose of organic mercury is transferred to her brain and nervous tissues. She was in big trouble.

The problem with dimethylmercury is that, in the liver, it's broken down to methylmercury, which still dissolved strongly in fatty tissue (hence Minamata Disease). Even worse, it's known to bind to tissue and cause free radical damage and oxidative stress, and form complexes that accelerate cell death.

The best solution here is to trap the mercury inside a molecule that's water-soluble on the outside, so that it will grab the mercury but still dissolve in water and be excreted by the kidneys. We call this “chelation”, from the Latin word for a crab’s claw!

But it was too late. A week later a neuropsychiatric consultant found severe cognitive deficits. She’s losing touch. Her husband tries to speak to her, but she would stare blankly into a void.

At 3 weeks' time after initially presenting to the emergency room, KW becomes unresponsive to verbal, visual, and touch stimuli. From the depths of her coma, she is sometimes found yawning spontaneously with brief episodes of agitation, screaming, crying, and unprompted sudden, jerky limb movements. There's someone inside, but that person is trapped in a prison of her own comatose body.

There continued to be some debate whether her condition was caused by steady accumulation of mercury from her work. But a hair analysis showed that was not the case.

The amount of free mercury found in her body halved every 75 days, with a maximum excretion recorded roughly 150 days before presenting to the emergency room: the time she was subject to the spill in the lab.

Working backwards, it became obvious that she had absorbed a MASSIVE quantity of demethylmercury, four times the lethal dose. She was as good as dead from the moment of the spill. In fact at one point her blood mercury levels were likely to be 16,000 times the upper limit of normal, it was calculated.

It was discovered later that dimethylmercury does, in fact, diffuse through the type of disposable latex gloves KW wore that day, and it does so within seconds. The small exposure, equivalent to a few drops absorbed into her skin, embedded into her body and caused delayed onset of cerebral disease.

In view of the dismal prognosis and after more than three months of trying everything they could do to save her, the patient's advance directives were followed, and she was left to die peacefully on June 8, 1997, 298 days after exposure.

Before she lapsed into a vegetative state, the patient requested that her case be presented to the general medical community, to scientists working with mercury, and to toxicologists, in the hope of improving the recognition, treatment, and prevention of future cases of mercury poisoning.

Only three other cases of dimethylmercury poisoning have been documented in history. In 1865, two lab assistants who were synthesizing it for the first time passed away several weeks after doing so. In the 1960s, another lab worker was exposed to it and he too suffered a delayed neurologic decline in the same fashion as KW.

In general, it's a good rule to not touch things if you don't know what they are. Be cognizant of what comes in contact with your skin. Unless you're a chemist, you probably won't come into direct contact with dimethylmercury the way that KW did. And don't worry, you would have to eat 65,000 kg of fresh Atlantic salmon in one sitting to get you to where she was.

It is important to understand that methyl and dimethylmercury are ORGANIC forms of mercury, not the same as thiomersol at all (mis-spelled by Americans as thimerosal).

I don’t think it is appropriate to illustrate this story with an image of the patient. But if you want to watch a YouTube video about this famous case, go here:
 

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Part Two



LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=NJ7M01jV058&feature=emb_logo

A gloomy story. And of course it poses the obvious question: why would they want to put ANY form of mercury into babies? Teething powders resulted in deadly “pink disease”, back in the 1940s and 50s. Then it was used in vaccines. Duh! Now we have to worry about polluted fish (from coal burning and other industrial waste). As a general rule, smaller fish, like squid, scallops, sardines, contain less mercury than larger varieties such as tuna and swordfish, which are higher up the food chain.

Also—a good idea: get yourself a copy of the Monterey Aquarium phone app. Check the quality of fish you are eating!

https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/our-app

 

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Physical Signs That You’re Emotionally Overwhelmed


The health industry in the Western world is one of the strongest profit machines ever invented. Thanks to Nixon’s 1973 Health Maintenance Organization act, doctors, health insurance companies, clinics, and hospitals could begin to function for profit…


And the diagnosis game was never the same.


Privatizing pharmaceuticals meant that emphasis was placed on treatment through more medication and less homeopathy. After all, you can’t charge incredible mark-ups on emotional self-care.


It doesn’t come in a bottle, and there isn’t one size that fits all.


It stands to reason, then, that some physical ailments actually stem from emotional distress and should be taken as signs that you’re emotionally drained or frustrated.


Now, emotional care shouldn’t be used in the case of a physical malady like, say, strep throat.


But physical pain is often a manifestation of stress or other imbalance in our emotional equilibrium.


Let’s get closer to the cause of some common physical indicators…


Chronic Fatigue and Lethargy


Feeling physically exhausted doesn’t always mean that you’re not getting enough sleep, or eating the wrong food, or you’re dehydrated.


Oftentimes, chronic physical exhaustion and tiredness is an emotional issue rather than an error in energy conversion.


Chronic fatigue can actually be the result of emotional grief, depression, anxiety, or burn-out from high stress - issues that medication can help with, but not solve. If you’re experiencing chronic fatigue, it may be worth looking inward to determine where you aren’t feeling at peace, rather than caffeinating or trying to stay awake with external stimuli.




Stomach Aches and Bowel Issues


The more we learn about the connection between gut health and mental activity, the more clear it becomes that each is constantly influencing the other.


Stress can actually cause a whole host of digestive issues simply by changing the composition of the gut microbiota, or the collection of bacteria that live and thrive in your gut, controlling everything from immune function to our physiological response to microbiota.


Stress activates the nervous system’s fight-or-flight response, which can involve the prolonged constriction of stomach muscles, and the blood fleeing the digestive tract to power up the lungs and muscles.


When that happens, you may experience diarrhea, stomach cramps, constipation, and other digestive issues.


Aches and Pains


Experiencing regular stress means that the stress hormone, cortisol, is more present in your body than in someone who isn’t stressed would have.


Increased cortisol is often found in the cells of chronic pain sufferers, indicating that stress and aches are connected.


This can be a telltale sign that your physicality has been influenced by your mental state. You see, when you’re chronically stressed, your body tenses your muscles in preparation for danger. If there’s no danger present in the real world, then there’s no outward indication that your muscles can relax, and they’re just waiting for the signal from your brain that everything is okay.


When that signal doesn’t come, your muscles stay tense. And start to ache. And throb. And there, chronic pain.




High Blood Pressure


This is a huge money-maker for Big Pharma. Currently, the blood pressure monitor market is worth $1.25 billion.


The medical community isn’t exactly motivated to suggest that blood pressure can be brought down by paying attention to your emotional state.


Many studies have been conducted to illustrate the connection between negative emotions and high blood pressure, and the results are pretty conclusive. Stress and rage raise blood pressure.


Periods of peace and calm lower blood pressure.


If your blood pressure is higher than it should be, consider that you may be in the midst of a turbulent emotional period, and look into ways that you can relax yourself naturally. Calming music and soothing scents have actually made great strides in lowering blood pressure and calming test subjects.


A lot of physical ailments can’t be cured with a better mood - things like cancer, or genetic diseases, or broken bones.


But chronic fatigue, blood pressure, libido, digestive issues, insomnia, and frequent sickness (due to lowered immune function), and even acne can actually be emotion-activated issues.


Stress takes energy away from areas of the body that need constant attention, and sends the energy to our muscles and lungs to prepare the body to fight an oncoming enemy.,


But if the enemy we’re fighting is our own emotional well-being…


We might want to consider tackling the cause of our emotional poisoning before we treat the symptoms.
 

2WhiteWolves

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Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
LOL Wolfie....I never heard of Paw Paw Bread before, but I have guanabana trees growing at my lil farm in Ecuador....love that fruit, but I usually pick it before it becomes too ripe, man is it ever SWEET, to sweet for me really. It is sure packed full of great vitamins tho....:)

Paw Paws, to me, are not sweet at all. But, I'm all into sweetness, so I'd probably like those guanabana....also sounds interesting, lol.
I'm glad I looked it up, I had no idea that Paw Paws are so healthy.

Sent from....somewhere on Tapatalk
 

2WhiteWolves

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Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
Thank you Wolfie, I'll haveta check that out:cool:
You're welcome :) .
But, I'm the one that needs to say.... Thank you . You're the one that is posting so very important information on here, helping all those who want to be healthier, and possibly saving quite a few lives. You just don't know how many lives you are impacting :hug: Thank you, Jimi :blowkiss:

Sent from....somewhere on Tapatalk
 

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