here’s a major threat to your health looming in your home that you can’t escape. Most people want to ignore it. I know I did. But the more I learned about this invisible pollution, the more I realized I had to make some changes in my life. Reducing my exposure to these toxins made the difference between health and illness. And it will for you too.

As you read this warning, I ask that you keep an open mind. Also remember that whenever I talk about a problem, I include solutions. Solutions you can do and solutions you can afford. So while this topic may seem overwhelming at times, it’s not that bad. And I’ve found it’s always best to face problems head-on and do whatever we can to solve them. Fortunately, the solutions to this problem are far easier than I expected.

The problem:

I’ve told you many times in the past, one of the most beneficial steps you can take to improve your health is to regularly detoxify yourself. That’s because the world is full of toxins. Some of these are natural, such as mold. Some are manmade, such as petroleum products, pesticides, herbicides, and many other contaminants.

But I was surprised to discover that these are neither the worst source of pollution nor necessarily the most harmful. Another silent, invisible toxin has invaded our lives. And while some scientists insist it’s safe, others have been warning us for years about its dangers.

I’m talking about electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and RFs (radio frequencies). EMFs are the energy fields that emanate from cell towers, TVs, cell phones, computers, microwaves, and coffee makers. And all wireless communications from cell towers to broadcast antennas, including radar and satellites, emit RFs. The original debate was about the possible dangers of microwave ovens and cell phones. But electropollution is caused by many more than these two devices.

Basically, concerned researchers insist anything and everything that produces or uses any form of electricity is a source of potentially harmful electromagnetic field exposure. The more you’re exposed to it, the greater the risk to your health, they say. Since 1985, scientists have warned us that EMFs can cause a myriad of health problems. These include various cancers, epilepsy, and lower sperm count in men. And they’ve got the studies to back this up.

Not all electrical frequencies are alike. Some are more harmful than others. It depends on their frequencies, how close you are to them, and for how long. Meanwhile, every year new digital toys and wireless conveniences come on the market, producing yet more electromagnetic and RF pollution. While I was writing this article, several new “advances” came on the market.

Electropollution already affects our health on many levels. It’s especially noticeable in people who are sensitive to it. If you have unexplained symptoms and have looked everywhere for an explanation, but haven’t found any answers, EMFs may be the culprit.

Here’s why.

Our bodies are 75% water, and water conducts electricity. So your body is just like a large antenna that’s always turned on. It picks up any and all electrical fields to which you’re exposed, from your clock radio to the power lines that carry electricity into your home. Then your cells become overwhelmed with electronic “noise” and are unable to send accurate messages to one another. It’s like turning on your immune system when you’re exposed to a flu virus. Or breaking down cell membranes, allowing toxins to get in.

But don’t despair. This isn’t a losing battle. There are solutions. Some are expensive. For instance, you can hire a savvy electrician to set up a safe electrical system in your home to reduce emissions. Others are less expensive and very effective. So let’s concentrate on finding steps you can take that can make a difference in your health — both now and in the future.

You don’t have to give up your big TV or clock radio. But you can place them farther away from your bed or chair. And there are other steps you can take to reduce your exposure to EMFs. I know. Most people who talk about the dangers of EMFs make the problem sound impossible to remedy. But I’ve found simple solutions to this very real problem that are both affordable and available.

The little-known solution

One thing you can count on: EMFs are not going away. In fact, they’re going to get worse. The genie is out of the bottle and we can’t put it back in. If we’re to live in a world where we’re bombarded with EMFs from birth to death, we need to find solutions to their harmful effects. These solutions must be effective, affordable, and do-able.

EMFs were brought to our attention more than a decade ago when a few researchers discovered that some microwaves “leaked” radiation. Some of them did, although newer ones tend to be much safer.

Internist Gerald Goldberg, MD, who has been researching biomedical literature for the past 15 years, found that microwave radiation depletes people of antioxidants that can then lead to serious illnesses. These illnesses can include cancer, impaired brain function, macular degeneration, an increased risk for cataracts, and accelerated aging. Increasing specific nutrients reduces the electrical pollution damage from microwaves.

More recently, Ann Louise Gittleman, a clinical nutritionist for 30 years who is particularly sensitive to electrical pollution, researched both EMFs and RFs. She discovered that all forms of electrical pollutants deplete the body of particular nutrients, not just microwaves. And these deficiencies can cause the same illnesses attributed to EMFs and RFs.

In other words, one of the best ways to lower your exposure to electronic pollution, and improve your health, is to replenish the nutrients they destroy.

In her new book, Zapped (HarperCollins, 2010), Gittleman lists the products and websites that contain solutions to electrical contaminants. She also goes beyond what anyone has previously discussed: little-known nutrient solutions. She identifies the supplements and foods that contain the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients depleted by electronic pollutants. Get this valuable book. With this information you can boost specific nutrients and guard yourself against depletion no matter what your exposure.

Nutrient repletion is the solution that most medical professionals have overlooked until now. Yet it’s one of the simplest remedies — and it’s available to all of us.

Next month, I’ll talk about some of the most effective nutritional solutions to electromagnetic pollution. Instead of throwing away your cell phone, TV, computer, and other electronic devices, you can protect yourself. You don’t have to suffer from the nutrient depletion that leads to the many illnesses attributed to EMFs.

Goldberg, Gerald, MD, Would You Put Your Head in a Microwave Oven? AuthorHouse, 2006.

Unraveling the Confusing New Data on Soy and Breast Cancer

Approximately half of all breast cancers in premenopausal women and two-thirds of breast cancers in postmenopausal women are sensitive to estrogen. In fact, these sensitive cancer cells need estrogen to survive.

Soy contains plant-based estrogens. Therefore, women who have had breast cancer and women who want to reduce their risk should avoid soy and its phytoestrogens, right?

Not necessarily. It’s not that simple.

Numerous studies have found soy and soy phytoestrogens, called isoflavones, to be helpful — not harmful. The truth is phytoestrogens, which have a chemical structure that’s similar to human estrogens, can either trigger estrogen-like actions or inhibit them. Confused?

Here’s some of the latest research on soy’s effect on breast cancer. You’ll see that when you look past the news-making headlines, the results are not always what they seem to be initially.

Last year, a Chinese study got a lot of media attention. Researchers followed more than 500 women for five to six years. All of them had gone through breast cancer surgery. The women who ate the most soy foods had a 29% lower risk of death and a 32% lower recurrence of breast cancer than those who ate the least soy.

But their cancers were not only estrogen-receptor positive, some were progesterone-receptor positive. The researchers gave all of the study participants Anastrozole. This is a drug that lowers estrogen. It turns out that the researchers designed this study to collect information on a drug, not a food. But they found some very important information about soy.

Postmenopausal patients who ate a high-soy diet had a lower risk of a breast cancer recurrence. But was this due to the Anastrozole, dietary soy, or both? And would women who had progesterone-receptor positive cancer have a low risk of recurrence simply because they had so little estrogen initially? This study leaves us with more questions than answers.

Finding the answers

A second study out of the University of Buffalo (NY) may offer some answers. It looked at how dietary isoflavones affected a woman’s risk for tumors of various sizes and stages. It also compared results for pre- and post-menopausal women.

While the overall protection for stage-1 disease was just 30% in premenopausal women, this rose to a 70% decreased risk of having a tumor larger than two cm. The isoflavones in soy foods protected premenopausal women better than postmenopausal women. And the tumors in those who did get breast cancer were smaller.

Why would soy be beneficial for premenopausal women who have more estrogen than postmenopausal women if it is estrogenic? Perhaps because plant-based estrogens (phytoestrogens) are protective against cancer.

But if soy is helpful for women with more estrogen in their bodies, why isn’t it more protective for postmenopausal women whose estrogen levels have already decreased with age? Once more, the questions outnumber the answers.

These two studies had hundreds of participants. The Shanghai Breast Cancer Survival Study had even more. This study followed over 5,000 breast cancer survivors for three years. Researchers found that the women who ate the most soy were less likely to die, or have a recurrence, than women who ate the least amount. Estrogen receptor-positive or negative status made no difference. Nor did it matter whether or not the participants took tamoxifen, a drug that reduces estrogen.

So we’re seeing that soy appears to protect premenopausal women from getting breast cancer. And it protects postmenopausal survivors from a recurrence or death. But none of these new studies found soy foods protected postmenopausal women from getting breast cancer in the first place. Neither did they find that soy foods posed a risk to healthy women.

We know that soy has other health benefits from lowering menopausal symptoms to reducing the risk for heart disease. Only when researchers give isolated isoflavones, such as genistein, to laboratory rats do we see tumor growth stimulated. The truth is whole soy foods do not stimulate tumor growth. And not all animal studies found that isolated isoflavones stimulate the growth of breast tumors.

What we know from all of this is that soy foods that are not highly processed appear to be safe, although perhaps not beneficial, for healthy postmenopausal women.

At this time, I don’t recommend anyone take isoflavone supplements until we have more or better studies. The whole food is superior to its individual components and often safer. I don’t see a problem for vegetarians or Asians to continue eating soy foods. As for the rest of us, moderation is the key. There should be no problem in eating soy occasionally, but I wouldn’t eat large quantities daily until we have more information.

Kang, Xinmei, Qingyuan Zhang, Shuhuai Wang, Xu Huang, and Shi Jin. “Effect of soy isoflavones on breast cancer recurrence and death for patients receiving adjuvant endocrine therapy,” CMAJ, 10.1503/cmaj.091298.

Messina, M., et al.”Can clinicians now assure their breast cancer patients that soy foods are safe?” Women’s Health, May 2010.
ScienceDaily, November 9, 2010.

Shu, XO et al. “Soy food intake and breast cancer survival,” JAMA, December 9, 2009.

Warning: Pharmaceutical Companies Have Turned Symptoms Into Diseases

Are you shy? If so, there’s not much you can do about it. That’s just the way you are, right? Well, not if you listen to the hype from pharmaceutical companies. They’re saying that shyness is a treatable “disease.” In the hands of their public relations firms, shyness has become a “social anxiety disorder,” a medical condition that you can alleviate by taking their drug — the antidepressant Paxil.

In fact, that’s just what GlaxoSmithKline did to sell more antidepressants. The company hired a PR firm to promote the drug. The ads they came up with featured a professional football player who admitted he was shy. The firm then marketed him as being “allergic to people.” I’m not kidding.

The firm followed this celebrity campaign with a number of psychiatrists who were working on social anxiety disorder and arranged to have them interviewed in the media. References to social anxiety disorder jumped in two years from 50 to over a billion! A disease — and cure — was born. And GlaxoSmithKline reaped the profits of this marketing campaign. The PR firm they used won an award for the best PR campaign of the year.

Shyness is not the only symptom that’s been turned into a disease. There are scores of others.

You may remember that I’ve already explained how osteopenia is a made-up disease. The drug company Merck created it to sell more Fosamax after sales began to lag. My article appeared in the September 2010 issue (which is available on my website). I suggest you reread it. It can save you from taking an expensive, harmful, and unnecessary drug.

One major problem with this new designation is that not every woman with normal bone thinning gets osteoporosis. But the folks at Merck gave this potential symptom of aging a name that sounded like a disease: osteopenia. When women saw this word on their bone scan reports they gladly began taking Fosamax. Sales climbed. So have the terrible bone-destroying side effects from taking Fosamax or other bisphosphonates for five years or more.

Today, creating a disease is as important to pharmaceutical companies as creating a drug. Marketing is the name of the game. And we consumers are left believing we have a serious health problem when we may only have a symptom that a change in diet or lifestyle could fix.

Another symptom-turned-disease is PMDD or premenstrual dysphoric disorder. It came about after health food stores began selling inexpensive and highly effective vitamin supplements high in magnesium and vitamin B6 that reduced symptoms of PMS (premenstrual syndrome). The supplements cut into the sales of PMS drugs. The drug companies created PMDD and called it a severe form of PMS. Severe PMS affects only 3-5% of menstruating women. That’s not enough to warrant a new disease and cure — unless you have a good PR firm marketing it.

If you have particularly painful menstrual cramps or premenstrual depression, you now have a dilemma. Do you have PMS or PMDD? If you haven’t found a solution to your PMS, you very well may agree with your diagnosis of PMDD and take one or more drugs to treat it.

What your doctor may not tell you is that many of these pharmaceutical solutions to PMDD are antidepressants. Does this mean that your cramps are making you depressed and if you’re less depressed they won’t be as painful? Again, the drugs treat a symptom, not a real disease.

From mild incontinence (overactive bladder) to heartburn (gastroesophageal reflux disease) and dozens of other conditions, disease branding makes a condition sound more serious than it is, or destigmatizes it so you’re more likely to discuss it with your doctor.

There’s one thing you can be sure about, though. Along with disease branding comes a pharmaceutical solution and often side effects. No drug is benign. That’s why I continuously suggest more natural remedies before taking a medication — unless you and your doctor agree that you have no other option.

Elliott, Carl. CNN, October 11, 2010.

NUTRITION DETECTIVE

Why You Should Eat More Grains

Proponents of the Atkins diet and other high-protein, low-carbohydrate programs have been backing their rationale with studies showing that this is what our ancestors ate. They say that we should base our diets on the diets they ate over many thousands of years. These diets are healthier and help keep our weight down.

I’ve been telling you for years that no matter what these studies say, a high fat-and-protein diet is not as healthful as a diet higher in grains and root vegetables. Now there’s evidence that the extensive use of these foods has been part of man’s diet for thousands of years! It looks like our ancestors ate a high-carb diet after all. That’s what the most recent study is saying. And it’s more healthful, as well.

Let’s first look at the health benefits of each diet.

A study published in the journal Diabetes (December 2009) evaluated these two diets in a group of pre-diabetic overweight adults. Type-2 diabetes is rampant these days. Both diets had equal health benefits with one huge exception. The high-fat, low-carb diet increased their risk for heart disease and caused stiffer, less elastic arteries.

Dr. Steven Hunter, the lead researcher for this study, admits that a diet higher in fats and lower in carbohydrates is often more palatable. And that it gives an initial rapid weight loss. But he cautions against a program where the potential negatives of causing heart disease far outweigh an easier diet to maintain.
But what about our ancestors’ diet?

Recently, a team of Canadian researchers found stone tools in a cave in Mozambique that indicated wild grains were a significant part of their diet. “This happened during the Middle Stone Age, a time when the collecting of wild grains has conventionally been perceived as an irrelevant activity and not as important as that of roots, fruits, and nuts,” said Julio Mercader, the archeologist who made this discovery.

If you want to lose some extra pounds quickly, you may want to go on a low-carb diet for a few weeks. But for long-term weight loss, your safest diet is one our ancestors ate: lower in fats and higher in carbs.

“Mozambican grass seed consumption during the Middle Stone Age” will be available in the December 18, 2010 issue of Science.

Bradley, U., et al. “Low-fat versus low-carbohydrate weight reduction diets: effects on weight loss, insulin resistance and cardiovascular risk. A randomised trial.” Diabetes, December 2009, vol.58, no. 12, 2741-2748. doi: 10.2337/db09-0098.

LETTERS

Q: I’m a cancer survivor and I’m taking Pectasol to detoxify from mercury, lead, and other toxins. I read in your newsletter that modified citrus pectin (MCP) is the most important supplement to prevent cancer. After I stop taking PectaSol, should I take MCP? — A.L., e-mail

A: Let me help you understand these products, because you’re confused. Pectasol IS modified citrus pectin.

There are three different Pectasol products. Pectasol-C is designed for cancer patients. Pectasol Chelation Complex (PCC) removes heavy metals and other toxins from the blood. PCC also contains Pectasol-C at a lower dose. And Pectasol Detox Complete removes toxins and metals from tissues.

You should be taking the chelation product AND the detox formula. Together they remove heavy metals and toxins from the blood and tissues. If you take the detox formula alone, you risk re-absorbing the toxins instead of removing them. Some people just take the chelation formula, and that has benefits. But since we tend to store toxins in our tissues over the years, I find the combination works best.

The manufacturer suggests taking PectaSol Chelation Complex for one month and then adding PectaSol Detox Complete. I’d take both products for six months and retest for heavy metals. It’s safe to take them long term if needed. When your heavy metal levels are low, I’d suggest the Pectasol-C to help protect you from a recurrence.

You can order PectaSol Chelation Complex through Advanced Bionutritionals (800-791-3395). If you have cancer, you can order the high-dose Pectasol-C and the other PectaSol products through EcoNugenics (800-308-5518).

Q: I read your article about the importance of iodine. Which foods are highest in iodine? — E.R., Algonquin, IL

A: Iodine and iodide are two forms of iodine found in the thyroid and breast tissues. It normalizes hormone receptors so your hormones work best. It regulates your thyroid, protects your breasts from fibrocystic breast disease, and supports your adrenal glands (which handle stress).

You can’t get enough iodine from your diet to correct a deficiency, but dietary sources can help. These include seaweed, seafood, eggs, and cheddar cheese. Don’t depend on iodized salt to raise your iodine level. You have to eat too much salt to get enough iodine. And, as you know, sodium can cause high blood pressure.

You can find the correct balance of iodine and iodide in several supplements. Iodoral is available on the Internet, and Iodine Complex from ProThera is available by calling 888-488-2488. Whenever I tested patients for iodine sufficiency using a 24-hour urine test, I found them low. But I still advocate being tested before taking iodine supplements.

For information on iodine testing, contact FFP Laboratory (877-900-5556). They will help you decide which test is appropriate for you, send you a test kit, and give the results to your doctor. If your doctor won’t accept your results, Dr. Jorges Flechas, MD, of FFP Labs will go over your results with you by phone. Ask FFP about all costs.