It is almost impossible to keep track of food recalls today. When we worried about mad-cow disease, the whole world seemed to stop and take notice, the tomato scare, a little bit less, the peanut-butter thing, ehhh, what could it really do? It’s how we as a society react to real threats. Unfortunately, media decides how we truly feel about something. Sure, if you look deeply into any subject you will know so much more, but most of us get our information from the evening news, or maybe a newspaper, possibly on our computers during lunch-hour, and if our reporters aren’t covering it, you aren’t hearing it.

Here’s a true story: several years ago, there was a summer when all you heard about was shark attacks. Do you remember? Everyday, there was a shark being spotted here, a person being attacked here. We were suddenly at risk of sharks. Then, all of the sudden, they disappeared. Truth was, that the year before, there were actually way more shark attacks than the year it was covered in the news, but you never would have known it. Here’s why. It was simply a boring summer. There were no elections, race riots, no stars being arrested. Media still has to fill an hour of TV time. They still need to get you to read their paper instead of someone else’s. And the way to do it is fear. Oh my gosh, I might be attacked by a shark. I should buy that paper and read how I can protect myself.

But, with food safety, it’s actually the opposite. Here, these are things we need to know, but media knows that they can only keep a person’s interest for so long. Everyone knows that blood sells, and there are way more exciting things to read about than people who got diahrrea from contaminated food. But it’s still so important, as little by little, we contaminate our bodies with unclean food.

You can keep up on food safety at www.foodsafety.gov, which lists all the most recent recalls and safety information. But that is not enough. You need to take control of the foods you eat.

Recently, there was an outbreak of salmonella in pistachios (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/business/31nuts.html). That is just weird! There should be no way in nature that it would happen.

There was a case a while back where several people suddenly fell ill with stomach infections. They all had gone out to eat and had a Caesar Salad  (http://www.carec.net/pdf/mobidityreview/8.%20Food-borne.pdf). But what in a Caesar salad would cause them to get so ill? Turns out, the lettuce was contaminated from not being properly washed.  Read more here: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/foodspot.htm We think of diseases from things like dirty hands, meat and milk. But lettuce? How?

Everybody knows that food born diseases are caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses or their toxins.   But where do they com from?  They do not come from air!  Most of the time they come from feces:   human of animal.

Cows! Cows are just one example of animals being raised in confinement, being fed hormones to make them produce more milk, and leaving the animal succeptable to many more illnesses. When they move their bowels, it goes into the soil, the soil is used as fertilizer for our  lettuce, which is, in turn, not properly washed.

The most practical advice here is to wash, wash and wash. Wash your hands. Wash your salad. Don’t trust labels that say something is pre-washed. Just think of who is out there washing your lettuce the way it should be washed.

Also try to know the source of your food. If you can, you should grow your own, or buy organic where possible.

Make sure that you have acid in your stomach. What happens is that most of the people don’t have enough acid to fight off these infections. This is where you need to be under the care of a holistic doctor to help monitor you.

Now what about you?

• Are you suffering from food poison?
• Do you know if your body can fight certain viruses?
• Do you need to increase your immune system?

For more information visit Dr Kalitenko’s website at  www.doctorkalitenko.com to make an appointment or call our offices at 718-382-9200.

You may also find interesting:

• Mexican Serrano Peppers May Be Dangerous to Eat
• How much water do you need to drink every day?
• Poisons in the Tap Water

Drugs that give us a quick fix, medications from the drug companies, could be giving us more than we bargained for, as we are learning in the many examples where drug companies are not telling the truth:

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/02/26/another-drug-company-accused-of-hiding-negative-study-results/?mod=djemHL

The Department of Justice’s complaint against the lab that markets Celexa and Lexapro has once again brought to the forefront that drug companies may be hiding bad results of their medications, while only releasing the better data.

I don’t argue that we need drugs sometimes for a quick fix, but in the long run, natural solutions are the only thing that we can trust with our lives.

www.clinicaltrials.gov was created to encourage drug companies to be open about their trials, may be helpful in finding some information, but shouldn’t be wholly trusted either.

Sometimes the Food and Drug Administration subsidizes studies, and we’ve seen before that those can’t always be trusted as well, but many studies are subsidized by the drug companies themselves. How much honest information can you expect?

You can look naturally to find long term solutions, to find the root cause of a problem and help you get rid of it, rather than relieve symptoms temporarily with medication.

There are many things you can look to find where something is coming from:

1.    What you eat
2.    Your stress levels
3.    The medications you are currently on
4.    Hormone deficiencies
5.    Your happiness
6.    Vitamins

It’s been a controversy for years. And yet, it’s also the butt of jokes, something you do in high school with your friends. You hold up your hand, fingers together. And depending on the length of your ring finger as compared to your index finger, it tells you if you are gay or not. And in high school it is then put aside as a joke.

However, some scientists take it very seriously and there have been several studies that claim to actually show a correlation between the length of your fingers and your sexual orientation.

Scientists in Berkeley, California almost 10 years ago released a study that says lesbian women and gay men have a greater difference in length between their ring finger and index finger than straight women do.

See the full findings at http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2000/03/03-29-2000a.html

According to a BBC article published at the time about the study, the scientists were testing a theory that higher levels of androgen – male sex hormones – in the womb influence both finger length and sexual orientation.

Normally, it was thought that the ring finger and index finger tend to be about the same length in women, while in men, the index finger is usually shorter. But, the study found that in lesbian women, they seemed to have a shorter index finger.

Everybody wants to smell nice to attract the opposite sex. But it may be too pricey.  Because using deodorants may not always be safe for several reasons.

1.  Deodorants often contain parabens, linked to cancer.
2.  They often contain antiperspirants with aluminum. It is a neurotoxin and clogs the pores of your sweat glands.
Keeping in mind that most of the toxins from your breasts are going to the armpit to be eliminated, do you think, that that it is a good idea to clog the pores and prevent toxins from your breast to be released?

Let me ask you a question: why do we always have a biopsy and check histology of the breast lesions and cancers, but in clinical practice we never check their toxicology? I think you know why.  Because if we do it we would know which toxins may be responsible for cancer.

So what is the solution?
1.  Do not shave hair. It prevents sweat from accumulating and being destroyed by bacteria with resulting odor.

2.  Baby soap and water are good.

3.  Essential oils like eucalyptus, coconut, lavender, peppermint, and rosemary in an olive oil base are worth to try.

Any other suggestions?

Watching sports games on television or in person, doubled the cardiac events rate.  A new study, published in New England Journal of Medicine, showed that watching sports games on television or in person, doubled the cardiac events rate.  Do I suggest stop watching games or TV? No.  What I suggest is to have meds handy while enjoying excitement.

Long, thick and dark eyelashes! Who would refuse?

The problem is that except cosmetics, we do not have any way to get eyelashes longer. But there is a rumor, that very soon we’ll have a new drug to do it.

The new product is going to be manufactured by famous Allergan. The story of this product is similar to Botox: doctors noticed that glaucoma drug Lumigan makes eyelashes longer, darker and thicker. And the decision was made to use this drug, containing Bimatoprost, for eyelashes.

This drug should be applied to the eyelid margin. So far Allergan is waiting for FDA approval. There is no drug name yet.

There is an unconfirmed rumor that Wyeth Pharmaceutical is requesting the FDA approve its new antidepressant Pristiq for hot flashes secondary to menopause.

In other words, instead of hormone replacement therapy our women will get another antidepressant? Does it make any sense to you? Not to me.

I think, that primary menopause treatment should be hormones, not chemicals. We don’t need another drug, but an actual solution and in my field I have found that this is a real solution.

An unknown pharmaceutical company recently filed an application for the generic version of Cialis.

Cialis is widely known for how it helps erectile dysfunction. It is available as a once-a-day medication so that men can be ready at anytime, and also as a quick-shot pill that works within a half-hour.

If it is approved, and competition heats up, we may expect prices to go down soon.

There is a new study from Israel suggesting that cell phone use is related to increased incidents of parotid tumors.
Parotid glands are the largest salivary glands in humans. The risk was higher for those who use the same ear most of the time to talk on the phone.

Looks like the majority is blaming radio waves.

Maybe the better explanation is repeated mechanical micro trauma of parotids by the cell phone itself?

I don’t  know for sure if Spears’ breakdown could have been prevented, but very often, mood swings are caused by serotonin deficiency.

A seratonin deficiency can lead to depression, anxiety, poor sleep, panic, obsession and suicidal tendencies.

The famous antidepressant drug Prozac works by increasing serotonin concentration in the brain because of reuptake inhibition. As per my knowledge the most of serotonin is produced in the gut.

It is known that the deficiency can be caused by a bad diet, so maybe we should fix out diet and hence our gut to avoid mood swings and dangerous behaviors such as we witnessed in this star?