Health

A recent report on MSNBC.com - "Baby shampoo study raises chemical concerns" - indeed raises serious concerns regarding the safety of our children in our chemical dependent society. A recent study indicated that certain industrial chemicals, called phthalates, common ingredients in ordinary household products, cosmetics, plastic bottles, toys and in this case baby products, were found in elevated levels in the urine of babies after being shampooed, powdered or lotioned with baby products.

Phthalates have shown to cause reproductive disorders - sterility, birth defects, deformed sex organs and cancer in animals. These same chemicals are now abundantly found in the products that we use, in the water that we drink and in the food that we eat. There is growing evidence that phthalates are major contributors to female disorders, male reproductive disorders and cancer in men and women. Called hormonal disruptive chemicals, phthalates belong to a large family of manmade chemicals that have shown to disrupt the endocrine/ hormonal system, shatteringthe health and development of newborn animals and humans who were exposed to these chemicals through breast milk.

Phthalates are potent estrogen mimicking substances adding to the overall estrogenic impact of chemicals on our bodies and in particular our children's bodies - which are smaller and therefore pound-for-pound more vulnerable to this chemical onslaught.

Yet in spite of the growing evidence to the devastating effects of industrial chemicals on our society and particularly on our children, government officials dismiss the findings with the same old same old statement: "Should new data emerge, we will inform the public..."

Meanwhile, no one is doing anything besides some environmental advocacy groups and activists, all good people who adamantly protest but apparently with no solution. What can we do to protect our lives and our children's future?

First, we can't overlook this problem any more. Our society is getting fatter and sicker than ever, largely due to these chemicals which have been penetrating our bodies and persistently accumulating in our tissues. Second, since it's virtually impossible to avoid chemicals in our mechanized and industrialized lifestyle, it's critically important to take action now to lower the collateral damage of chemicals on our bodies. Here are a few things you can do to protect yourself and your family:

• Avoid plastic packed foods if you can. Drink water from glass bottles, buy sauces, oils and juices packed in glass rather than plastic. Note that frozen food or juices packed in plastic are safer than non-frozen ones (freezing lowers the rate of chemical leakage).
• Eat organic, avoid conventional meat, dairy or produce if possible. Note that fruits or vegetables with peels are safer (after peeling) than non-peeling ones.
• Avoid conventional chemical-loaded cosmetics, shampoos, lotions and soaps - use instead natural products - available in health stores or online.
• Detoxify your body on a daily basis with natural cleansing herbs and detox programs. Natural detox is the most effective way to neutralize/remove toxins and thus counteract the chemical impact.
• Ban all insect sprays, gardening pesticides and housekeeping chemical deodorants.
• Remember, our bodies have never adapted to chemicals and all chemicals cause side effects; these include synthetic vitamins, chemical food additives, artificial sweeteners and synthetic sugar alcohol - therefore avoid all synthetic vitamins and all diet products drenched with synthetic additives, even if they're labeled as health items.
• Learn how to use hormonal balancing herbs and foods to naturally counteract the hormonal shattering effects of chemicals.

Our sympathetic nervous system (SNS) has been under a massive attack by industrial chemicals and bad diets. The SNS is responsible for the regulation of alertness, energy expenditure and body weight via the endocrine and hormonal system. An increasing number of studies report that exposure to chemicals disrupt the SNS, adversely affecting it’s capacity to regulate energy production, and sustain a lean, healthy body. Another influencing factor in antagonizing the SNS is the high frequency of meals - particularly those rich in refined carbs and processed food.

The recent surge in child and adult overweight and obesity rates is most likely due to the failure of mainstream health care programs to address the above combined factors. A viable solution to this current epidemic requires more than just eat less and exercise more". This redundant doctor advice has failed to translate into real life positive results. The data shows that people today do not consume more calories than ten years ago, and physical activity among adults in the U.S. and the U.K. actually has increased in the past decade. Yet, there has been a rapid acceleration in weight gain and obesity in the U.S. and the U.K. during the past ten years with a prediction of getting worse in the future. Something drastic must be done now to stop this adverse trend.

The Warrior Diet is designed to help people do just that - based on survival science and anthropological research, The Warrior Diet proposes a radical yet effective solution to our current health crisis. Its premise: eat one main meal a day, avoid chemicals, and exercise properly. The Warrior Diet approach is controversial, but nonetheless, it has been endorsed by scientists and researchers and has been gaining increased recognition by virtue of its simplicity and effectiveness to help people reset their biological clock, support the SNS during the day, get leaner, stronger and healthier.

The Warrior Diet newly revised and expanded edition is available now in book stores and at Amazon.com. To learn more about The Warrior Diet browse our website at www.WarriorDiet.com.

Regarding arginine containing supplements (and lotions), here is my view. The amino acid arginine is the precursor for nitric acid (NO), which plays critical roles in vasodilation and sexual arousal, as well as neuro and muscular functions. For that matter, arginine has been an ingredient in potency and sport nutrition supplement products, under the premise that arginine supplementation can help increase virility and muscular performance, respectively. However, commercialization and true science do not always go hand in hand and what seems theoretically true often fails to work in real life.

There are several problems with arginine supplementation:

First, arginine feeds the herpes virus. If unbalanced with the amino acid lysine (such as with some arginine containing products), arginine may increase the risk for contracting herpes.

Second, arginine is abundantly found in food (nuts and seeds are very high in arginine, compared to other amino acids). Arginine deficiencies are rare but lysine deficiencies are common. (Note that lysine is marginally deficient in most plant foods and it can be easily destroyed during cooking or processing due to its high sensitivity to heat.) Therefore, there is evidently a notable unbalance between arginine and lysine in our typical diet, which favors arginine over lysine. Supplementing with unbalanced arginine will just make it worse.

Third, hypertension and impotence are often associated with impairments with the enzyme NOS (nitric oxide synthase) that produces NO. Supplementing with arginine won't help resolve these metabolic impairments. In fact, it may increase the levels of harmful metabolic by-products such as nitrites and nitrates.

Fourth, lotions containing arginine do not make sense. There is no evidence that arginine can be even assimilated via the skin. Unlike oils and small lipophylic compounds that can penetrate the epidermis, the assimilation of protein is highly questionable.

Generally speaking, scientists and science have shown clearly that when you undereat, the brain exercises exactly like a muscle exercises. Brain-derived growth factors are triggered and new brain cells are produced by stem cells. Tissue recycling - a controversial issue - occurs. Nonetheless, scientific thinking is dogmatic. They postulate:

"If this is the Prediction then let us start isolating diet elements. Let us isolate the calorie intake alone. Let us then analyze the exercise element alone. Then let us combine the overall diet element and the overall calorie intake element. After that, let us examine the exercise elements and see how the two - exercise and diet - interact."

I contend that these sub-elements cannot and should not be separated. For example, a person adhering to the principle of intermittent fasting, as outlined in the Warrior Diet, should under-eat during the day followed by night eating. After a period of time they will find that appetite and food consumption, their choice of foods, even their taste preferences, will change. This usually manifests within five to six weeks. If you follow this eating cycle for a protracted period, you will eat differently and crave different foods. You will naturally develop a taste for foods at the bottom of the food chain. Your appetite and preferences will morph and become different. You literally will undergo a transformation in habits and tastes.

According to Dr. Mark Mattson, a leading researcher on intermittent fasting, participants who follow a one meal per day cycle have shown a natural tendency to reach a full sense of satiety on a lower calorie intake than the fixed calorie intake requirements imposed in studies. This skews results: instead of letting the participants follow their natural instinct, to eat less and feel full faster rather than observe how a one-meal-per-day approach naturally morphs caloric intake downward, participants are force-fed. They had to keep eating, against their will, to comply with the study's fixed calorie intake terms and precepts. With all due respect, it will take years before researchers realize how things really work in real life. There are so many variable and complexities, various elements are intertwined. There is the feeding cycle element, the food/fuel element, the calorie intake element, the exercise element - there are changes in food availability, and don't forget the gender element! It will take scientists, using classical analysis, forever to analyze and dissect these findings. Perhaps in the distant future science will come to the conclusions what we already know to be true! We already have so much empirical evidence, so much real life experiences (just check out our online Forum), that one can only hope that science will eventually catch up.

It is now known that the sympathetic nervous system virtually rejects eating! Here is the heart of the problem: most of us eat under stress during the day – and we're not supposed to! We are supposed to eat very little! That's the way the human body was designed. When you take a flesh machine designed to run on very little food and overwhelm it with food, bad food to boot, bad things are going to happen. Recent scientific literature on intermittent fasting proves my point. I published this theory seven years ago and since then, many in the scientific community embraced the concepts I set forth. However, scientists work according to predictions, and life is about surprise. The best and smartest scientists working in this field have already been predicting that we humans are not designed to eat much food during the daily working hours. We have inherited mechanisms that compensate us when we don't eat.

When we do as we were originally intended, when we take advantage of our primordial hardwiring and limit food intake during the day, we realize a host of amazing benefits: increased energy, increased and improved food/fuel utilization, increased alertness, increased toxin removal capacity, improved stress-handling ability...The list of benefits goes on and on.

On the other hand, when we overeat the wrong stuff during the day the list of disabilities, drawbacks, downsides and health consequences is equally as devastating: diabetes, heart attack, obesity, arterial clogging, constipation . . . on and on it goes.

Humans are inherently night eaters. Our autonomic nervous system is well programmed for night feeding. At night the body is under the dominance of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is triggered by eating large meals. This nightly nervous system is responsible for the regulation of critical nightly functions including relaxation, digestion and sleep.

Any interruption in the parasympathetic nervous system may cause severe side effects including: insomnia, indigestion, chronic fatigue, agitation, inability to cope with stress, physical weakness, craving for sweets and eating disorders.

The premise of the one main meal per day - at night - goes against all industrial interests. It means less money spent on breakfast, less on lunch, less on commercial products and less on doctor bills. An army of nutrition experts would tell you that this goes against any conventional dietary approach and doctors recommendations. Regardless, this is how humans are supposed to eat and if they don't, they will suffer the consequences like most people today do.