What have they been pounding into our heads for years now? "Your body needs at least 8- 8oz glasses of water a day to work properly". I have to say I was a little shocked the other nite when on the "Evening News with Katie Couric" they announced "Recent research shows this just is not true". I have to laugh out loud at this one. Here we are fighting about whether "bottled" water is better than tap, what the plastic from the water bottles is doing to the environment, and now they're saying we don't need it anyway! Well, that's not exactly true, but we don't need as much as they have been telling us we need. If your urine is dark, drink more. If your urine is clear, you're drinking too much. It's that easy.
What's funny is one of the doctors I have been getting a newsletter from for quite awhile, has been preaching this now shocking news about water for a few years. While regular medicine calls him a quack regarding many issues, this is another one he can now rack up on his "I was right" side. For me as a lifelong dieter, I will continue to drink water along with all the other liquids I consume because I drink it to flush my body, not to hydrate it.
Feel free to leave your comments concerning how you feel about this news. I put it up there on the scale with "Mammograms Don't Save Lives", altho I thought that was a really stupid piece of journalism.
Don't Drink The Water?
Why Death Visits During The Holidays...
I think by the time you get to be my age, you have probably lost at least one friend or a relative sometime around the holidays. Personally, I always thought suicide rates were definitely up this time of year due to people getting so depressed and stressed. Not enough money for gifts, too many bills, loneliness, etc. The holidays have a way of accentuating all of these.
Some think it's due to the colder climate. Shoveling snow is definitely not a year round exercise!
Then there's always the alcohol related auto accidents resulting in highway deaths. All the holiday parties, people drinking more due to depression, etc. Although this time of year is know for excess food and alcohol, the following may surprise you. It did me.
1. National statistics show that suicides are actually lower during the holiday season, while deaths due to heart disease go up.
2. Climate has little if anything to due with death during this time of year. Dr. Robert A. Kloner, a cardiologist at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, and his research team examined L.A. County death records of 220,000 people who died of heart disease over a 12-year period. In a paper published in the journal Circulation, they reported that heart disease deaths were 33% higher in December and January than they were from June through September -- even in Southern California's consistently mild climate.
3. Despite the winter holidays' reputation for revelry, more people die on our nation's roads due to drinking and driving during summer holidays than during those during the colder months, according Dr. Michael Garr, associate professor of sociology at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Ironically, the holiday most noted for drinking -- New Year's -- has the smallest number of alcohol-related deaths at 61 in 2001. Thanksgiving and Christmas had significantly fewer deaths, too, only 77 and 81, respectively.
I find the information above so totally shocking compared to what we normally believe. Come to find out the biggest culprits in the Holiday Death Toll, may be ourselves and the very medical facilities we count on to save our lives. It turns out that during the holidays, besides the fact that we eat and drink too much and exercise less, we tend to put off going to the doctor for what ails us. We tend to get so busy and just figure we will visit our friendly M.D. after the holidays are over and things start slowing down. For many, that's too late.
We also have a tendency to have so many things on our minds, that many forget to take their medication. This can have dire consequences in some cases because many medications have to be discontinued a little at a time. Quitting medications all of a sudden can actually bring on the very thing they are meant to protect us from.
Due to the above and the consistent spike in deaths, doctors have labeled Christmas, the 26th and New Year's Day the "Holiday Effect" or "Merry Christmas Coronary" and "Happy New Year Heart Attack."
The second culprit according to studies, is the quality of care we get if we have to go to a hospital over the holidays. According to Duke University Medical Center researchers, heart attack patients admitted to U.S. hospitals during the winter holidays have higher mortality rates than those admitted during the rest of the year. The researchers found that during these holiday hospitalizations, patients were less likely to receive the same care they would normally receive if they were admitted any other time of the year. Patients were less likely to be prescribed aspirin as well as beta blockers at admission and/or at discharge. They also were less likely to receive major procedures necessary to open blockages, etc.
To make sure you're around long after singing "Auld Lang Syne" I offer up the following tips.
1). While holiday eating and drinking are especially pleasant this time of year, use some control and common sense, especially if you normally follow some special diet (low fat, low cholesterol, etc.). Don't use the holidays as an excuse to blow off your exercise program. With all the stress and busy-ness during this time of year, use it as "Me Time", giving yourself a chance to regroup.
2). If you are feeling bad or something is "out of whack" see your doctor. There is nothing so important to do this holiday season if you're not around to see another one.
3). Make sure to keep up with all medications. Enough said. I don't think the prescription said "take a break from these for as a Christmas Present". LOL.
4.) If you're going to be traveling, make sure you know where to get medical care if necessary at your destination. Studies show the exceptions to the "holiday effect" seems to be during the years of 1973 and 1981. Holiday travel was down during these years due to an embargo in 1973 and a recession in 1981. Once again, don't put off seeing your doctor before you go. He's familiar with your history and may be able to help you have a safer and much more pleasant trip.
Unresolved Issues
I read somewhere quite awhile ago that cancer was caused by deeply held resentments and hates. People who carried grudges for years, hated someone for years, etc. As I think about different people I know who have or have died from cancer, the ones I know well enough, each of them has something in their past they have never been able to let go of. This morning in my inbox was a health news letter that again brought this issue to light for me.
German New Medicine (GNM), developed by Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer, M.D., operates under the premise that every disease, including cancer, originates from an unexpected shock experience.The discovery came after Dr. Hamer, the former head internist in the oncology clinic at the University of Munich, Germany, lost his son in an unexpected tragedy, then developed testicular cancer. The diagnosis led him to study the connection between stressful events and disease by investigating the histories of his cancer patients.He found that, like himself, every one of his patients had gone through a very stressful episode prior to developing cancer, and, upon investigating other diseases found that every disease is controlled from its own specific area in the brain and linked to a very particular, identifiable, “conflict shock.”GNM is based of five biological laws that apply scientifically to each and every case of disease. They include:
#1: Every disease is caused by a conflict shock that catches an individual completely off guard.
#2: Provided there is a resolution of the conflict, every disease proceeds in two phases, a conflict-active phase and a healing phase.
#3: Ties the findings of the first two laws into the context of embryology and the evolution of man. It illustrates the biological correlation between the psyche, the brain, and the organ from an evolutionary point of view.
#4: Addresses the role of microbes in the context of evolution and in relation to the three germ layers from which our organs originate. Microbes are indispensable to your survival.
#5: Every so-called disease has to be understood as a “meaningful special biological program of nature” created to solve an unexpected biological conflict.
Further, Dr. Hamer believes that a person cannot die of cancer in and of itself. If someone dies during the conflict-active phase of disease, he says, it’s because of energy loss, weight loss, sleep deprivation, and emotional and mental exhaustion. The stress of receiving a cancer diagnosis, or being given a negative prognosis, is often enough to deprive a person of their life-force. Conventional cancer treatments only accelerate the downward spiral.If a patient has not undergone any conventional treatments such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy, GNM has a success rate of 95 percent to 98 percent.While trying to publicize his findings, Dr. Hamer has been persecuted and harassed by German and French authorities. He is now living in exile in Spain where he is continuing his fight for official recognition of GNM.
German New Medicine (pdf)
German New Medicine Home Page
To get more on this subject and to learn how to combat the emotional things that may be causing your body conflict, visit Dr. Mercola at http://www.mercola.com I don't neccessarily agree with all of his stuff, but I found this especially interesting.
For quality Vitamins and Supplements for your lifestyle, physical and emotional, visit me at
http://www.lbeamish.qhealthbeauty.com
Thanks to Dr. Joseph Mercola for the above article.
© Copyright 2005 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved. This content may be copied in full, with copyright, contact, creation and information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not-for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Dr. Mercola is required.
Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional.