Aspartame has been Renamed as a Natural Sweetener

Artificial sweeteners especially aspartame has gotten a bad rap over the years, most likely due to studies showing they cause cancer. But not to worry.  About a year ago, Ajinomoto, the company that makes Aspartme, has changed the name to AminoSweet. It has the same toxic ingredients but a nice new sounding name.

And if you or your child happens to be allergic to Aspartame, well don’t take it personally, it’s just business.

Despite the evidence gained over the years showing that aspartame is a dangerous toxin, it has remained on the global market. In continues to gain approval for use in new types of food despite evidence showing that it causes neurological brain damage, cancerous tumors, and endocrine disruption, among other things.

Most consumers are oblivious to the fact that Aspartame was invented as a drug but upon discovery of its’ sweet taste was magically transformed from a drug to a food additive. HFA (Health Freedom Alliance) wants to warn our readers to beware of a wolf dressed up in sheep’s clothing or in this case Aspartame dressed up as Aminosweet.

Over 25 years ago, aspartame was first introduced into the European food supply. Today, it is an everyday component of most diet beverages, sugar-free desserts, and chewing gums in countries worldwide. But the tides have been turning as the general public is waking up to the truth about artificial sweeteners like aspartame and the harm they cause to health. The latest aspartame marketing scheme is a desperate effort to indoctrinate the public into accepting the chemical sweetener as natural and safe, despite evidence to the contrary.

Aspartame was an accidental discovery by James Schlatter, a chemist who had been trying to produce an anti-ulcer pharmaceutical drug for G.D. Searle & Company back in 1965. Upon mixing aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two naturally-occurring amino acids, he discovered that the new compound had a sweet taste. The company merely changed its FDA approval application from drug to food additive and, voila, aspartame was born.

G.D. Searle & Company first patented aspartame in 1970. An internal memo released in the same year urged company executives to work on getting the FDA into the “habit of saying yes” and of encouraging a “subconscious spirit of participation” in getting the chemical approved.

G.D. Searle & Company submitted its first petition to the FDA in 1973 and fought for years to gain FDA approval, submitting its own safety studies that many believed were inadequate and deceptive. Despite numerous objections, including one from its own scientists, the company was able to convince the FDA to approve aspartame for commercial use in a few products in 1974, igniting a blaze of controversy.

In 1976, then FDA Commissioner Alexander Schmidt wrote a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy expressing concern over the “questionable integrity of the basic safety data submitted for aspartame safety”. FDA Chief Counsel Richard Merrill believed that a grand jury should investigate G.D. Searle & Company for lying about the safety of aspartame in its reports and for concealing evidence proving the chemical is unsafe for consumption.

The details of aspartame’s history are lengthy, but the point remains that the carcinogen was illegitimately approved as a food additive through heavy-handed prodding by a powerful corporation with its own interests in mind. Practically all drugs and food additives are approved by the FDA not because science shows they are safe but because companies essentially lobby the FDA with monetary payoffs and complete the agency’s multi-million dollar approval process.

Changing aspartame’s name to something that is “appealing and memorable”, in Ajinomoto’s own words, may hoodwink some but hopefully most will reject this clever marketing tactic as nothing more than a desperate attempt to preserve the company’s multi-billion dollar cash cow. Do not be deceived.

Sources:
Ajinomoto brands aspartame ‘AminoSweet’
Aspartame History Highlights
FDA’s approval of aspartame under scrutiny
An Overdue Ban On A Dangerous Sweetener
http://www.naturalnews.com/028151_aspartame_sweeteners.html

I encourage you to begin doing some label reading and some investigation of your own into what you put into your body and the potential for health concerns.  It will certainly benefit your health as well as the health of your children. 

Thank you for your consideration.

Doc Rick

The Natural World

Chiropractic care may be a common part of your health care practices, but the tens of millions of species on our planet thrive and prosper without relying on outside agencies. Isn't it interesting that modern humanity is the only species for which the abundance provided by the global ecosystem is insufficient?

Getting Healthy and Staying Healthy with Chiropractic Care

Nutritious food and regular exercise will only go so far if your nervous system is not working properly. Spinal nerve irritation can block the free flow of information between your brain and the rest of your body, interfering with healthy functioning and leading to a wide range of diseases. Irritated nerves cause too many nerve signals or too few nerve signals to flow between the brain and the body. Information transfer is either speeded up or slowed down - either situation leads to a breakdown in communication and results in various disorders and diseases. Your chiropractor is a specialist in detecting and correcting spinal nerve irritation or nerve interference. Chiropractic adjustments help restore normal nerve transmission, helping restore optimal health and well-being.

The natural world functions very well on its own. Left to their own devices, members of the tens of millions of species on our planet thrive and prosper without relying on outside agencies.

In order to grow abundantly, plants consume carbon dioxide, water, and nutrients from the soil. Likewise, herbivorous animals consume plants whereas carnivorous animals consume other animals. Insects eat a wide variety of foods, including plants, fruit, other insects, detritus (dead leaves, stems, and twigs), and even blood. Many types of bacteria and fungi recycle decomposing matter. Whales, the top predator in the oceans, may consume more than a ton of plankton per day in addition to fish, squid, and other crustaceans.

Every member of every species excepting humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) obtains everything it needs from the environment. Modern humanity is the only species for which the abundance provided by the global ecosystem is insufficient.

For instance, mountain lions, raccoons, and coyotes don't need sleeping pills. But humans spend more than $1.5 billion per year on the sleep aid Ambien. Dolphins, antelope, and bluebirds don't have problems with blood glucose levels. In stark contrast, the annual cost of diabetes medications in the United States was $12.5 billion in 2007. In the wild, oak trees, tuna, and elephants don't need nutritional supplementation. Humans, however, spend more than $23 billion annually in the United States alone. What is wrong with this picture?

As a species, humans have the unprecedented ability to manipulate and drastically alter the world in which we live. Also aside from epidemic infectious disease, there exists no natural check on human population growth. As populations expand, resources become scarce. Populations flocking to urban enclaves not only leave behind the countryside but also local sources of fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and poultry. Canning, packaging, and transportation of food over long distances become necessary to supply the energy needs of cities. But only calories and not much else are obtained by these methods. Energy is provided but food quality is substantially reduced.

Chronic disease becomes widespread. Diabetes, cardiovascular disorders including high blood pressure, heart attacks, and stroke, and obesity are all the direct result of a severely compromised food supply.^1,2,3

Our disconnect from the natural world poses many additional challenges. Our bodies were designed to meet the demanding physical requirements of a hostile environment. But for the most part we don't do physical work anymore. If we don't find satisfactory substitutes for strenuous physical activity our musculoskeletal, metabolic, and endocrine systems easily deteriorate. The consequences include osteoporosis, chronic aches and pains, gastrointestinal problems, and anxiety and depression.

It takes a lot of effort to maintain good health when we're so far removed from the natural world. We need to make sure our diets are healthy and we need to get sufficient and regular strenuous exercise. The short- and long-term benefits include happiness, self-esteem, and ongoing well-being.

¹Kesse-Guyot E, et al: Adherence to nutritional recommendations and subsequent cognitive performance: findings from the prospective Supplementation with Antioxidant Vitamins and Minerals 2. Am J Clin Nutr Nov 24 2010 (Epub ahead of print)

²Wolfe AR, et al: Dietary protein and protein-rich food in relation to severely depressed mood: A 10 year follow-up of a national cohort. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry Nov 22 2010 (Epub ahead of print)

³Pekmezi DW, Demark-Wahnefried W: Updated evidence in support of diet and exercise interventions in cancer survivors. Acta Oncol Nov 24 2010 (Epub ahead of print)

Weight Loss Secrets - Drink Plenty of Water

Overweight and obesity are common health problems worldwide. Food plans that work – those that help people lose weight and help them keep the weight off – embody only a few simple principles. Drinking plenty of water is a critical part of any healthy food plan. Actually, drinking enough water is the most important nutritional advice anyone can give to anybody

Chiropractic Care and Healthy Nutrition

Now that you're drinking enough water, what's your body going to do with it? If all your body's systems are communicating communicating properly with each other, water will be used where it's required. You'll use the water to help build new cells and tissues and break down those that are no longer needed. But if the nerve signals from your brain and spinal cord are not getting through at the right place and/or the right time, drinking sufficient water won't be of much use in helping you to get healthy. Regular chiropractic care helps you get the most of all the positive nutritional steps you're taking, including drinking enough water. Regular chiropractic care corrects spinal misalignments and helps make sure your nerve system is working at peak efficiency. By doing these things, chiropractic care helps the rest of your body work better by enabling nerve signals to flow freely. The result is ongoing improvement in overall health and well-being.

Overweight and obesity are common health problems worldwide. Food plans that work – those that help people lose weight and help them keep the weight off – embody only a few simple principles. These weight loss secrets include eating five or six small meals each day, combining protein and carbohydrates at each small meal (food combining), eating at least five portions of fresh fruits and vegetables every day, and drinking plenty of water.^1,2

Water is essential to human life. In fact, our bodies are composed of about 70% water. All our biochemical reactions take place in a watery environment. Therefore, drinking plenty of water is a critical part of any healthy food plan. Actually, drinking enough water is the most important nutritional advice anyone can give to anybody.

So drinking enough water every day would seem to be a no-brainer. But hardly anyone does it. And the simple fact is that if you’re not drinking enough water your internal environment is toxic. That’s right – toxic.

Water helps flush away waste products of metabolic activities. Not enough water means that waste products accumulate, irritating nerve endings and interfering with normal physiology. Bottom line – your skin breaks out, people start to offer you Tic-Tacs, you become irregular, you develop allergies and asthma, you don’t sleep well or need extra sleep to feel rested, you are irritable and nervous, and you start having headaches. Any or all of these.

These are real problems, and the list could go on.3 The common solution – drink sufficient water. Once people begin drinking enough, they report that lots of physical problems automatically improve. They sleep better, headaches go away or are less troublesome, their skin clears up, allergies improve, and their digestive systems function more normally. All this from just taking the time to drink more water. Pretty amazing.

In terms of weight loss, drinking enough water helps support your exercise program and helps support healthy nutrition. If you don't drink enough water, you won't be able to build the new fat-burning muscle cells you're hoping to build with exercise. If you don't drink enough water, you won't be able to properly metabolize carbohydrates. Instead of being used for energy, these carbs will be stored as fat. Drinking enough water helps ensure you get the weight-loss results you want to get.

How much water is enough? Recommendations range from six to eight to ten glasses per day. However, there is such a thing as water toxicity. You don’t want to overload an unprepared system. If you’re used to drinking no water, which is true for many people, start by drinking two or three glasses in a day. Get used to that for a week, and then drink four glasses a day for a week, and build up to six or so glasses a day.

A very good rule of thumb is this – if you’re thirsty, it’s already too late. Hikers know this. If you’re hiking and you become thirsty, you’re on your way to feeling light-headed and getting a headache. All of a sudden you lose your footing or take a wrong turn and get lost.

Hikers know they need to drink water throughout the hike to stay alert and keep their mind sharp. So hikers continually take small sips of water, all along the way.

We want to do the same – drink water throughout the day.

¹Daniels MC, Popkin BM: Impact of water intake on energy intake and weight status: a systematic review. Nutr Rev 68(9):505-521, 2010

²Dennis EA, et al: Water consumption increases weight loss during a hypocaloric diet intervention in middle-aged and older adults. Obesity (Silver Spring) 18(2):300-307, 2010

³Roussel R, et al: Low water intake and risk for new-onset hyperglycemia. Diabetes Care 34(12):2551-2554, 2011

Strike a Chord

Tuning Your Instrument

When your piano is out of tune you call in the piano tuner. Likewise with your violin, cello, or bass fiddle. If you want to do more than just sing in the shower, you start taking singing lessons to learn how to sing on key. Using your body is exactly the same. You're a fan of "Dancing with the Stars" and think "hey, I want to do that!" So you begin ballroom dance lessons and study the mambo, tango, swing, and fox trot. Your body gains sophisticated knowledge. It learns how to create musical movement. Your body itself needs to be functioning harmoniously for you to be able to create graceful, harmonious movement, whether in ballet, salsa, football, or basketball. Chiropractic care helps ensure harmonious functioning by balancing the interactions of nerves, bones,  muscles, and joints. The access to this physiologic balance is the spinal column, the primary focus of chiropractic care.

Physicians and scientists have often called the human body a beautiful instrument.  The sense in which this metaphor is applied is primarily mechanistic. The human body is a beautiful instrument in that its parts mesh properly and each component performs its function superbly. 

The metaphor "beautiful instrument" can be also be interpreted from the perspective of music. Just as playing the piano, the cello, or the saxophone can create wonderful tones, harmonies, and melodies, the workings of the human body may also create beautiful music. 

The movements of the planets, stars, and constellations have been termed the "music of the spheres". Patterns of motion of the celestial bodies are precise, regular, and harmonious. These reliable patterns allow sailors to navigate safely and confidently on the open ocean, and allow farmers to determine their planting seasons with high levels of accuracy. 

The human body, as awe-inspiring and as beautiful as the Eagle Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy, or the rings of Saturn, possesses internal mechanisms as precise and complex as those astronomers are able to observe in the deepest regions of space. The music the body creates is similarly as beautiful. 

In music, a major chord is a simultaneous combination of three notes - the root, a major third, and a perfect fifth. If you want to play a C major chord you strike (or hold) a C, an E, and a G. If you're playing an F major chord, you play an F, an A, and a C. In a sense, this system describes a musical code. Your body has many such codes. 

The genetic code is one example. Every protein in your body is composed of a precise sequence of amino acids. Substitute glycine for valine or glutamine for serine and you've got a completely different protein. Precision in manufacture means your body works the way it is supposed to work, with no errors or failures. 

Proteins such as hemoglobin or insulin are built exactly the same way every time. This level of 100% accuracy is made possible by the genetic code. Each amino acid that makes up hemoglobin or insulin has its own corresponding genetic sequence which is composed of three pieces of information - just like a major chord. 

1 We can say that wellness is a state of physiologic harmony. 2,3 We become unwell when we're "out of tune". At such a time our internal chords aren't being played properly - "notes" aren't being put together properly or are being played out of sequence.
Chiropractic care can help restore musical balance. 

By making sure the spine is in alignment, chiropractic care helps restore precision and harmony to all the functions of the body. Proteins are built properly, enzymes function at the right time and in the right proportion, biochemical reactions take place efficiently, and health and wellness is the result.

1Martinez-Mekler G, et al: Universality of rank-ordering distributions in the arts and sciences. Public Library of Science (PLOS) Mar 19, 2009 (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004791)
2Heber D: An integrative view of obesity. Am J Clin Nutr Nov 18, 2009 (abstract online - http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2009.28473Bv1)
3Endler PC, et al: Sense of coherence and physical health. A "Copenhagen interpretation" of Antonovsky's SOC concept. Sci World J 20(8):451-453, 2008

Your Baby's Health

A while back when I took the train into my New York City Office, I was noticing an article in the Daily News that caught my attention.  The article entitled "Nursing a Cultural Gap" appeared in the Body & Soul Section.  Although it was angled toward the differences in health between educated and non-educated minorities, I felt the information was equally applicable to all women, not just minorities.  That being said, I was inspired to write this article.  I still feel the information is applicable to today's New Mom or Mom-to-be.

Most women don't seem to want to breast-feed.  They feel it is embarrassing, and if a new mom has formula available, she is not going to breast-feed.  She may know the benefits of breast-feeding, but because she has other "options," she doesn't. 

"If they do breast-feed they usually stop after a month either because they have to go back to work or are going to school.  And many employers won't accomodate pumping on the job." 

Drink For Their Health

Breast milk is widely regarded as the most complete form of nutrition for infants.  In addition to providing the best nourishment, breast milk protects infants from many childhood illnesses, such as ear infections, diarrhea, allergies, respiratory and viral infections and obesity. 

More importantly, researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences found that breast-fed American children are 20 % less likely to die during the first year of life than those who are not nursed.  Also, the longer babies are breast-fed, the lower the risk of an early death. 

The American Pediatrics Association recommends that babies be breast-fed exclusively through at least the first six months, continuing with the appropriate solids for a full year, and as long thereafter as mutually desired.

"A lot of women plan to return to work rather quickly, and they are concerned that the baby will not take the bottle when they return to work, so they don't breast-feed at all or ween them too soon."  Simple ignorance is a factor too.  "Many women express concerns that their bodies won't produce enough milk-- they don't trust their bodies.  Then there is the belief that breast-feeding hurts.  People also really don't know how to do it properly." 

The medical establishment must take responsibility.  "Doctors and the medical staff don't encourage breast-feeding enough because there is so much formula around.  One must also be aware of the infant formula companies and their campaigns that make formula seem equal to breast milk."  This couldn't be further from the truth.  Natural Breast-milk contains a specific ingrediant known as Colostrum which could never be accurately duplicated by the formula companies.  It is a by-product of natural cellular metabolism within the breast tissue.  This vital ingredient, made only within the breasts, is necessary for the normal development of the child's Immune System.  If a baby is bottle fed, they will be lacking this and end up being over-weight with a deficient Immune System.  Other misconceptions that abound are that breast-feeding will make breasts sag and that it is simply not the normal thing to do.  If you value your childs health, both short-term and long-term, you will absolutely breast-feed.

 

What To Consider

If you are a mother to be, or are interested in becoming pregnant, you'll want to consider the following.  If you have sugar cravings, or have been on antibiotics at any time in your life, you'll want to get checked for a Systemic Digestive Yeast/Candidia Imbalance.  To learn more about this condition and how common it is, go to www.spineboy.com and read the back issue on Sugar and Your Immune System.  It will explain what happens to the body after antibiotics and if you eat too much sugar.  Unfortunately, this condition is all too common today.  Equally unfortunate is that if you have this imbalance and you become pregnant, you will pass on the imbalance to your unborn baby.  This will result in a child who craves sugar, produces large amounts of mucous in the respiratory system leading to ear infections, respiratory infections, asthma, colic, allergies and other repeated infections.  This of course will result in giving your child antibiotics, possibly having ear-tubes put in, and then graduating to allergy shots, inhalers and obesity.  

My Offer To You

If you are a mother-to-be or wanna-be, I will be happy to evaluate your current level of health to determine if you presently have a Systemic Yeast/Candidia Imbalance.  If you do, I will help you to understand what is involved with returning your body to proper digestive balance, and how to make sure your child avoids all the "typical" childhood illnesses.  

For ALL Current Practice Members, I will do this on your next scheduled visit as part of your normal office visit.  This is a $75.00 value and will save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in healthcare costs for your child.   This offer is good through the 2nd week of March.  After this date, the offer will be gone.  So call The Office at 561-2225 and let me know you are interested in Getting Ready For Having My Baby.  I'll schedule you for the appropriate amount of time during your next visit.  And if you know of someone who would benefit from this information, please forward them this newsletter.

 

For ALL Potential New Practice Members, if you want to start your family off the right way, I will extend to you the same offer.  Call The Office for our FREE Health Care Class which is held at 6:30 pm on Tuesday at the Newburgh Office and I will be happy to include that evaluation as part of the FREE Class.  Simply call The Office at 561-2225 and tell me you want to come to our next class and I will put you on the list.  As class size is limited, reservations are required.