Signals from nervous system influence immune system, study shows

In a discovery that demonstrates a clear link between the mind and body at a molecular level, scientists have shown that a chemical signal which normally allows nerve cells to communicate with each other -to alter sleep cycles, for example—can also re-direct actions of the immune system. The research in mice confirms mounting evidence from studies of cultured cells that the nervous system directly influences the immune system.

In the PNAS paper and in the companion paper in the FASEB Journal, the researchers showed that the strength of the VIP signal received by the T cells regulates the balance between two types of immune T cells, Th1 and Th2. Th1 is normally involved with protection from bacterial invasion and other defenses, but Th1 in excess can lead to autoimmune disorders.

Th2 protects from parasitic infections and autoimmunity, but in excess can lead to allergies. The researchers discovered the effect of VIP on the Th1/Th2 balance by examining the relative production of the Th cells’ protein products, known as cytokines. When the balance is tipped toward Th1 in knockout mice lacking a critical form of a VIP receptor, allergy is suppressed and resistance to some types of infections is boosted, along with other reactions, they found.

The research did not determine if the impact of the neuropeptide VIP is sufficient to change the course of infections, inflammation or autoimmune disease in which T cells are involved.

Source: http://www.thenewwellness.com/?p=2665

Chiropractic Facts & Myths

Many people have misconceptions about Chiropractors, largely due to several myths about the profession. To clear up these misunderstandings, we would like to discuss some myths and facts about Chiropractors.

Myth # 1: Chiropractors Aren’t Really Doctors

Fact: This is not true. Chiropractors must attend years of schooling and obtain their license to practice just like any other type of doctor. In fact, we would say some of the best doctors in New Jersey are Chiropractors. The primary difference between a Chiropractor and any other doctor are the methods they use for healing. Medical doctors usually prescribe medications to treat your symptoms, but Chiropractors like Dr. Josh and his associates treat the actual cause of the problem. This helps you to feel better and avoid further complications over the long term, and ensures that you do not have to take potentially harmful drugs or chemicals.

Myth #2 Chiropractic Adjustments are Dangerous

Fact: There is nothing at all dangerous about getting an adjustment. It's one of the safest and most natural ways to improve the overall health of your body. Your spine is intended to remain in place, so when it falls out of alignment it will have a negative impact. You may lose energy, have trouble sleeping or feel constant pain, and the more out of alignment you are, the worse your body gets. People often rely on medication to dull the pain, but taking chemicals into your body is far more dangerous than a natural adjustment, and it does nothing to solve the problem. When your spine is properly adjusted, you will feel better, sleep better be more alert and have an overall quality of life that is much higher.

Myth #3 Once you Start Going to a Chiropractor You Must Always Go

Fact: You will not need to keep going forever. Generally speaking, the truth is the medical profession is designed to force you to seek treatment throughout your entire life. That's because doctors often prescribe medication to combat the symptoms you may feel from an illness or ailment instead of figuring out what is actually causing you to become ill in the first place. Chiropractic physicians like the ones at Cafe of Life are trained to treat your problem itself, and not just the side effects of that problem. By its very nature the Chiropractic profession is designed to provide a cure, and help you avoid needing to visit doctors in the future.

Myth #4 Medical Doctors don’t think Chiropractors Can Help People

Fact: While it is possible that there is some mistrust and ill will between people in any type of professions, there is no rivalry between medical doctors and Chiropractors. In fact, many medical doctors are treated by Chiropractors every year, and some chiropractic professionals are actually hired to work full time at hospitals and other health care facilities.

Myth #5 You Can Actually Adjust Yourself

Fact: You cannot adjust yourself, and by moving your neck or back around until it cracks you can actually do harm to your body. The popping noise is produced by one of the segments in your spine, and it has nothing to do with the back or neck pain you may be experiencing. California chiropractic professionals like the ones at Cafe of LifeChiropractic are certified to safely and accurately make an adjustment on anyone. Don't put yourself at risk by thinking you can produce your own cure; always rely on a trained professional.

Myth #6 Chiropractic Adjustments Are Painful

Fact: It is actually quite pleasant. Most people feel much better the moment their spine has been adjusted. When your spine is not aligned properly, that can produce a great deal of pain and create many other health related issues. A spinal adjustment is designed to help your back, and it will leave you feeling well, alert and pain free.By now you may be asking "How do I choose a Chiropractor?", and the answer is you should make sure they are well qualified, and that you feel comfortable going to see them. The best way to determine this is to go and see one! Come see the Chiropractic physicians in Mill Valley at the Cafe of Life. Dr. Deitch is a well-known and respected wellness doctor, and he is ready to help you start feeling better today.

Source: http://www.healthyadjustments.com/chiropractor-myths-vs.-facts.html

Following Your Dreams

I read the following article the other day and found myself completely inspired. Often people don't understand the value of chiropractic, so this is just a perfect example of just how powerful it really is:

This article by Dr. R. Dean Harman discusses how chiropractic changed his life and why he became a chiropractor:

Each day, everyday I struggle very hard to keep going. I suffered from constant neck spasms, pain in the back of my head, loss of balance, and absolutely crushing fatigue for 6 to 7 years. As a 30-year old IBM electrical engineer, I was unable to climb a flight of stairs without resting on the landing halfway up, Some days the room whirled so much I couldn't get up without falling and would be unable to eat, drink, or stop vomiting. The resulting dehydration would be so severe as to cause an erratic heart beat. An ambulance would have to be called to transport me to the hospital since I couldn't even stand up.

During those years I made many visits to internists, orthopedists, ear specialists, neurologists, and neurosurgeons. I went to the largest clinic in New York City at the time--reportedly better than the Mayo Clinic. I went to the two largest specialty ear clinics in the US, the latter trip all the way from New York State to the California clinic where the astronauts were tested.

That was 1968 or so, before MRI and other diagnostic equipment was available- not that those test would have detected my problem. The first ear clinic wanted to drill a hole under my brain to drain the fluid out of my inner ear. However, they agreed with me that removing the fluid would INCREASE my loss of balance AND that I would be deaf in that ear. They had no test to decide which ear to drain, so I prudently declined the surgery.

One neurosurgeon I consulted in that time frame was of some help. He thought my neck spasm clamped down on the arteries in my neck, resulting in fluid asymmetry between the left and right inner ear causing the loss of balance. He did find one muscle relaxant that provided some relief. All other medications for my symptoms were useless, some with nasty side effects.

At the second clinic, desperate and becoming suicidal, I was tested for two whole days. (If you've ever been seasick or motion sick, think about being that way 24hours a day for years. Imagine, if you can, what it's like going to bed at 6 p.m. and feeling even more tired the next morning. I might have been able to tolerate the ever-present neck pain and headache in the absence of the other symptoms. Life not only wasn't any fun - it barely worth living under those conditions.) They performed every test known to medicine at the time, except for putting me in the centrifuge. I was already dizzy and the centrifuge belonged to NASA.

Two doctors sat down with me afterwards to discuss the results of my tests. I was told:

1) you smoke too much,

2) you drink too much coffee,

3) you're faking,

4) or you're crazy.

But I'd smoked for only one year, ten years before, while in the Navy and didn't drink coffee. Having required hospitalization numerous times, faking didn't seem likely either. But, I did consider that I might be crazy and spent the next six months seeing a succession of four different psychiatrists. I found two of them to be certifiably crazy themselves--the other two of no help.

In that time frame I crushed a lumbar vertebra (50%) in an accident. I refused surgery again, and spent 9 months instead in a Jowett brace. I was pain-free for about a year before back pain set in. I couldn't even lean back against a foam couch and driving was becoming a problem.

A fellow IBMer finally persuaded me to go see his chiropractor with him, a 60-mile trip over a very bad lane road where people crashed and died nearly daily. His doctor specialized in a chiropractic technique called Van Rumpt's technique. After watching him work on Joe I almost fled; it looked really weird to me as a young engineer.

After an x-ray and examination he told me that he probably couldn't help my back pain due to the amount of crush, 50%, and consequent scar tissue, BUT told me he could take care of my headaches and dizzy spells. I didn't know chiropractors worked on anything but backs. Since I hadn't even mentioned the other problems to him, I thought he was some kind of crazy quack and told him so. I got up from the table and started out of the office.

Fortunately there was a 3 X 5 index card thumb-tack to the back of the front door, stating that treatment was available for $4 if paid in cash in advance (1968). What went through my mind was that nothing else had worked over the years and I might not even make it back home alive on those roads. I had also spent tens of thousands of dollars already and gotten nowhere medically!

After a moment's pause, I turned around and challenged him to prove he could help me. He was nice enough to take me as a patient after my comment about his being a quack. He adjusted only my upper neck. My headache vanished instantly! I sat up on the table and the room didn't spin. I tried lying back down--the room spun and I fell off the table. Two days later I returned for a 2nd treatment, a 120-mile extra loop before driving to New York City for a meeting. Oh, by the way--my back pain went away over time too with chiropractic treatment.

The pastor of my church phoned me early the next morning after my first adjustment because I was reportedly behaving "strangely." I had great difficulty convincing him I had just been to a chiropractor the night before. He thought I had been out taking some kind of recreational drugs because the change was so striking and broad in scope. No headache, no dizziness, and normal energy for a 30-yr old. Did fellow IBM employees pass me in the hall at work that day and didn't recognize me? Yes. Was it a miracle? Absolutely to me, and that's why I left IBM to become a chiropractor. It just took me 15 years to get up the courage to change careers.

-R. Dean Harman, DC

Swine Flu Vaccines

Dana Ullman, MPH, citizen journalist

Natural News 

Evidence to date suggests that the H1N1 flu is not a major threat, and there is little evidence that flu vaccines are effective in preventing the flu, so says Tom Jefferson, MD, arguably the world's leading expert on influenza vaccines.

Dr. Jefferson has authored 10 reviews of research on the influenza vaccine for the Cochrane Collaboration, which is a widely recognized leading international science institution that evaluates clinical research.

Jefferson notes that Australia has just completed its wintertime, and only 131 deaths related to the flu occurred this year. Because Australia's population is 22 million people, this death rate is not significant. One does not need to predict the future when the future has already happened somewhere else.

Jefferson's previous detailed analyses of flu vaccines show very little efficacy in providing real health benefits. Jefferson's team asserted strongly, "There is not enough evidence to decide whether routine vaccination to prevent influenza in healthy adults is effective."(1) Jefferson's research confirmed that flu vaccination did reduce slightly the number of adults experiencing confirmed influenza, but there were increased numbers of adults experiencing "influenza-like illness" (its symptoms are similar to the flu, though are presumably causes by other viruses, not the flu viruses). The bottom line is that the number of adults needing to go to the hospital or take time off from work did not change between those adults giving the flu vaccine and those who did not.

Although the media commonly promotes the flu vaccine for children, Jefferson and his research group summarized their investigation on this subject by asserting, "National policies for the vaccination of healthy young children are based on very little evidence."(2) They expressed strongest concern about the lack of efficacy and safety of flu vaccination of infants two years of age and under. They did note that the flu vaccine is effective in reducing the flu in children over two years of age, but they found little evidence that the flu vaccine was even effective in reducing school absences. Further, they found "no convincing evidence that vaccines can reduce mortality, hospital admissions, serious complications and community transmission of influenza.

The strongest evidence of benefit to the flu vaccine is in the elderly.(3) However, the researchers found that the benefits to the elderly were "modest." In fact, the number of flu-related deaths in elderly Americans has actually increased steadily during the past 33-year-period despite the fact that there has been a large increase in flu vaccinations for this population. Only 20% of all elderly Americans had a flu shot in 1980, compared with 65% in 2001.

Jefferson expresses some considerable surprise at how few studies have been conducted on the elderly, especially recently. He notes, "Only five randomly controlled trials have been carried out in elderly people, of which only one was carried out in the past 2 decades using vaccines available today." (4)

Dr. Jefferson's team noted that the benefits of the flu vaccine for the elderly are "consistently below those usually quoted for (national policy) decision or economic model making."

What about the H1N1 Vaccination?

Jefferson had some particularly harsh words about the safety and efficacy of this vaccination. The FDA recently announced the approval of four (!) H1N1 vaccines. And Dr. Jefferson has expressed serious alarm about the "evidence" for the safety and efficacy of these vaccines:

1)The study was tiny, only 240 adults. The authors made reassuring statements about Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), which is ridiculous because GBS occurs in one out of 750,000 to 1 million vaccinations, and this study only had 240 participants;

2)One-third of these volunteers had side effects that resembled influenza-like illness (fevers, headaches, sore throats, etc.), so they were vaccinating to prevent symptoms that they were causing;

3)There was no placebo arm in the study, yet there's no ethical excuse for not having a placebo arm because these are experimental vaccines; and

4)The description of what additive substances were in the vaccine was unclear. We know that there is thimerosal [mercury] in this H1N1 vaccine, but its manufacturer did not say whether there are additional substances like aluminum, which can be found in many other vaccines. We just don't know. And they are advising this vaccine for pregnant women and children over six months of age!

Is There Really a Pandemic?

Something "fishy" seems to be going on at the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO has declared a "flu pandemic," in part because they changed their definition of the word "pandemic" in May, 2009.

The earlier version defined pandemic as: "An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness [emphasis in the original document]." The NEW definition of pandemic was changed to: "A disease epidemic occurs when there are more cases of that disease than normal. A pandemic is a worldwide epidemic of a disease. An influenza pandemic may occur when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity."

Because flu viruses change on a regular basis, the WHO will declare a new "pandemic" when simply one more death than the "normal" is observed. Big Pharma "warns" people about the yearly possible pandemic, pumping more fear into the hearts and minds of the susceptible and gullible public.

When Jefferson was asked about the flu pandemic, he responded directly: "this pandemic really is a commercial operation."

In light of some recent efforts to make the H1N1 vaccination mandatory, it seems that Big Pharma's commercial operations have become so successful that they have successfully lobbied politicians to require health and medical workers to get the H1N1 vaccine. Big Pharma's efforts have been so successful that they have almost successfully fooled other scientists to think that it is unethical to conduct a placebo-controlled trial due to the (incorrect) assumption that flu vaccines are effective.

Even Big Media whose coffers are filled with Big Pharma's advertising are not immune to this influence. Isn't it a bit strange that the research of Tom Jefferson and his team have been virtually ignored by Big Media, despite the fact that this research has been published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal), the Lancet, the Cochrane Database, and other high-impact scientific journals. One would hope that the media and government would follow the research rather than the money.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/027292_vaccines_influenza_vaccination.html

Discover Wellness, by Jason Deitch, D.C.

Discover Wellness by Jason Deitch, D.C.

Welcome to Discover Wellness: How Staying Healthy Can Make You Rich!

"In this book I want to share with you the best and latest information on creating a life that can provide you the ability to make choices to help you age gracefully and to look and feel your very best. It has been my experience that people who are free from chronic pain, are active and feel their best are the people who tend to be happiest with themselves, nicest to others, are best able to contribute to their employers, families and communities. They have the most rewarding relationships and spend the least on medical expenses. It is this combination of factors that I have seen makes people RICH."

-Jason A. Deitch, D.C.

Dr. Jason is the co-author of the bestselling book: Discover Wellness, How Staying Healthy Can Make You Rich as well and founder of the Discover Wellness Center, an emerging leader in cutting edge wellness care. Combining the skills of a variety of health care professionals with the latest technology and revolutionary concepts, Dr. Deitch is redefining our approach to health care.

Dr. Jason consults with and speaks to groups of employers, insurance brokers, wellness professionals and to the public to inspire them to discover how wellness is the ultimate solution to America's health care crisis.

Dr. Jason believes that we live our lives based on what we feel and what we know. We can improve our lives when we either feel differently or learn something new. Dr. Jason is committed to seeing a healthier more powerful future, through healthier more powerful people. His enthusiasm and passion for constant growth and learning is contagious.

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