American Children Drowning In Diet Drinks

U.S. Kids Drowning In Diet Drinks

Aug 31 2012 |By Dr. Mercola Per capita soft drink consumption has increased nearly 500% over the past five decades, and children, unfortunately, are a major reason for this staggering increase. Kids are introduced to soda at very young ages and consumption only increases as they get older. An estimated 56% of 8-year-olds drink soda daily, and once the teenage years come, some kids drink at least three cans of soda each day. Regular soda is, of course, a significant source of sugar (mostly in the form of fructose), with each can containing about 10 teaspoons of sugar, but due to artificial sweeteners' health effects, diet sodas may have far more serious health effects. Consumption of sugar-sweetened soda and other beverages has been linked to the rising obesity epidemic, along with other health issues, among kids. Likely as a result, a campaign has begun to get kids to stop drinking so many sugar-sweetened beverages… unfortunately, rather than replacing them with water or other healthy beverages it appears many kids are simply chugging down diet sodas instead – an absolutely terrible choice for kids' health.

Diet Beverage Consumption Doubles Among U.S. Kids Researchers at Emory Univ in Atlanta have found that more kids than ever in the United States are downing diet drinks – approximately double the number that were drinking them a decade ago. The study looked at data from a federal health survey, which ended with the year 2008 and showed that 12.5% of children were drinking artificially sweetened beverages. On the surface this may appear to be a positive switch if it means kids are consuming less sugar as a result, but diet sodas are actually worse for your health than regular soda, due to the artificial sweeteners they contain. As senior research of the study, Dr. Miriam Vos, noted: "We do want children to drink less sugar. But the challenge is that there are no studies that have looked at the long-term health effects of artificial sweeteners in growing children." Diet Drinks May Actually Make Kids Gain Weight U.S. kids are having a hard time keeping their weight under control. And one of the glaring issues surrounding diet drinks is that the artificial sweeteners they contain are linked to weight gain. If kids are getting hooked on diet drinks (and I do mean hooked, as these substances are very addictive, which I'll explain shortly), it could set them up for a lifetime of weight struggles. Take, for instance, a study by researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.5 After following 474 diet soda drinkers for nearly 10 years, they found that their waists grew 70% more than the waists of non-diet soda drinkers. Further, those who drank two or more diet sodas a day had a 500 percent greater increase in waist size! As you may know, your waist size is not only a matter of aesthetics, but also one of the most powerful predictors of lean body mass and your risk of serious degenerative disease. Your waist size is a far more accurate predictor of your heart risks than your body mass index (BMI), so any habit that has the potential to increase your waist size by 500% more than someone who does not have that habit is one worth breaking.

Worse still, no one knows what impact these substance will have on kids who start drinking them at young ages and continue on for decades throughout their lives. Case in point, a second study by some of the same researchers also revealed that mice eating food laced with the artificial sweetener aspartame had higher blood sugar levels than mice eating food without it, which suggests it may increase your risk of diabetes and metabolic syndrome. One study even found drinking a diet soda daily may increase your risk of type 2 diabetes by 67%. Furthermore, research by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, who was also involved in the studies noted above, and her colleagues found that your risk of obesity increases by 41% for each can of diet soda you drink in a day! Diet Soda May Increase Your Risk of Having a Stroke Also concerning, if you're considering letting your child drink diet drinks, is that researchers found people who drank diet soft drinks daily were 43 percent more likely to have suffered a vascular event, including a stroke. This significant association persisted even after controlling for other factors that could increase the risk, such as smoking, physical activity levels, alcohol consumption, diabetes, heart disease, dietary factors and more. According to the authors: "This study suggests that diet soda is not an optimal substitute for sugar-sweetened beverages, and may be associated with a greater risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, or vascular death than regular soda." In other words, if you're letting your child consume diet drinks in lieu of sugary drinks, you aren't doing their health any favors. Instead, you're simply swapping the health risks of sugar for the health risks of artificial sweeteners, which include a significant increase in the risk of stroke. Your Child May Have a Hard Time Giving Up Diet Drinks Once They Start

As I mentioned earlier, it's easy to become addicted to diet drinks, and experts note that you can become both psychologically and physically dependent on them. One of the problems is that artificial sweeteners tend to trigger enhanced activity within your brain's pleasure centers, yet at the same time provide less actual satisfaction. This separation of the taste of sweetness from caloric content means that when you consume artificial sweeteners, your brain actually craves more of it because your body receives no satisfaction on a cellular level by the sugar imposter. This can actually contribute to overeating and weight gain as well. In other words, as far as "sweetness satisfaction" in the human brain is concerned, your brain can tell the difference between a real sugar and an artificial one, even if your conscious mind cannot. So you continue to crave more and more sweetness, in the form of diet drinks, sugar or whatever sweet treats you can find. As stated in the journal Nursing:

"Artificial sweeteners are 200 to 13,000 times as sweet as sugar, and this enhanced sweetness is mildly addictive. Sweet taste triggers the dopamine signal, the same pathway triggered by drugs of abuse such as cocaine. If artificially sweetened sodas increase cravings, a person may need more sweets to feel satisfied, leading to excessive calorie consumption and weight gain." Beware of Diet Waters The market has been flooded with "functional waters," fortified (supposedly) with everything from vitamins and minerals to electrolytes, oxygen, fiber, and even protein. Supermarket beverage aisles can entice you along a virtual sea of beverage choices – energy drinks, vitamin waters, fitness waters, and sports/electrolyte concoctions in every imaginable color and flavor. Flashy labels, pretty colors, and seductive scents are not always harmless to your health – but they are incredibly alluring, especially to kids. But if you take a closer look at the labels, you'll discover they're spiking these waters with a lot of unsavory ingredients, many capable of wreaking havoc on your metabolism, hormones, and other physiological processes. Many of these so-called "functional waters" contain one, two or more artificial sweeteners, even though the water may not be advertised as "diet" or "low-calorie." Some even contain sugar, corn syrup and artificial sweeteners like acesulfame potassium (ace-K) or sucralose (Splenda).

The only way you can learn that the artificial sweeteners are there is if you read the tiny 4-point font on the label… so don't just assume that if your child is drinking a supposedly "healthy" flavored water that this is better than diet soda. Be sure to check the labels very carefully for harmful additives like artificial sweeteners. Is Your Child a Soda or Diet-Soda Junkie? If you or your children drink diet beverages or eat diet foods, I suggest you read through my book Sweet Deception. This book will explain how you've been deceived about artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose – for greed, for profits... and at the expense of your own, and your children's, health. Complete avoidance of sweets, including diet drinks, is often necessary to break the addictive cycle if your child is already hooked. However, you can also try swapping their diet drink for a "natural soda" made from the herb stevia and carbonated water (my favorites are the liquid stevias that come in flavors like English Toffee and French Vanilla). If your child is unable to resist the diet drinks, the emotional connection to cravings might be an important factor. One of the most profound methods I know of for diminishing the effects of food cravings is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT is the psychological acupressure technique routinely used in my practice to help people reduce their cravings, and it works well for kids. Turbo tapping, in particular, is very useful for soda addiction. Make no mistake, though – food advertisers are doing all they can to lure your child in, just as Big Tobacco did generations ago.

So you need to first educate yourself about proper nutrition and the dangers of junk food, diet foods and processed foods in order to change the food culture of your entire family. To give your child the best start at life, and help instill healthy habits that will last a lifetime, you must lead by example. Children will simply not know which foods and drinks are healthy unless you, as a parent, teach it and role model it to them first. My nutrition plan offers a step-by-step guide to feed your family right, and I encourage you to read through it now to learn how to make healthy eating decisions for you and your children. Each stage (beginner, intermediate and advanced) offers a separate section on beverages as well, which I suggest you share with your children to help them learn how to make healthier drink choices.

Beat Cancer=Acidic Cells cause Illnesses & Cancers SO -Get Alkaline

Prostate Cancer: Six Things Men Should Know About Tomatoes, Fish Oil, Vitamin Supplements, Testosterone, PSA Tests ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2012) — When it comes to prostate cancer, there's a lot of confusion about how to prevent it, find it early and the best way -- or even whether -- to treat it. Below are six common prostate cancer myths along with research-based information from scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to help men separate fact from fiction. ________________________________________ Myth 1 -- Eating tomato-based products such as ketchup and red pasta sauce prevents prostate cancer. "The vast majority of studies show no association," said Alan Kristal, Dr.Ph., associate director of the Hutchinson Center's Cancer Prevention Program and a national expert in prostate cancer prevention. Kristal and colleagues last year published results of the largest study to date that aimed to determine whether foods that contain lycopene -- the nutrient that puts the red in tomatoes -- actually protect against prostate cancer. After examining blood levels of lycopene in nearly 3,500 men nationwide they found no association. "Scientists and the public should understand that early studies supporting an association of dietary lycopene with reduced prostate cancer risk have not been replicated in studies using serum biomarkers of lycopene intake," the authors reported in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. "Recommendations of professional societies to the public should be modified to reflect the likelihood that increasing lycopene intake will not affect prostate cancer risk." Myth 2 -- High testosterone levels increase the risk of prostate cancer. "This is a lovely hypothesis based on a very simplistic understanding of testosterone metabolism and its effect on prostate cancer. It is simply wrong," Kristal said. Unlike estrogen and breast cancer, where there is a very strong relationship, testosterone levels have no association with prostate cancer risk, he said. A study published in 2008 in the Journal of the National Cancer Inst, which combined data from 18 large studies, found no association between blood testosterone concentration and prostate cancer risk, and more recent studies have confirmed this conclusion. Myth 3 -- Fish oil (omega-3 fatty acids) decrease prostate cancer risk. "This sounds reasonable, based on an association of inflammation with prostate cancer and the anti-inflammatory effects of omega-3 fatty acids," Kristal said. However, two large, well-designed studies -- including one led by Kristal that was published last year in the American Journal of Epidemiology -- have shown that high blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids increase the odds of developing high-risk prostate cancer. Analyzing data from a nationwide study of nearly 3,500 men, they found that those with the highest blood percentages of docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, an inflammation-lowering omega-3 fatty acid commonly found in fatty fish, have two-and-a-half times the risk of developing aggressive, high-grade prostate cancer compared to men with the lowest DHA levels. "This very sobering finding suggests that our understanding of the effects of omega-3 fatty acids is incomplete," Kristal said. Myth 4 -- Dietary supplements can prevent prostate cancer. Several large, randomized trials that have looked at the impact of dietary supplements on the risk of various cancers, including prostate, have shown either no effect or, much more troubling, they have shown significantly increased risk. "The more we look at the effects of taking supplements, the more hazardous they appear when it comes to cancer risk," Kristal said. For example, the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT), the largest prostate cancer prevention study to date, was stopped early because it found neither selenium nor vitamin E supplements alone or combined reduced the risk of prostate cancer. A SELECT follow-up study published last year in JAMA found that vitamin E actually increased the risk of prostate cancer among healthy men. The Hutchinson Center oversaw statistical analysis for the study, which involved nearly 35,000 men in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. Myth 5 -- We don't know which prostate cancers detected by PSA (prostate-specific antigen) screening need to be treated and which ones can be left alone. "Actually, we have a very good sense of which cancers have a very low risk of progression and which ones are highly likely to spread if left untreated," said biostatistician Ruth Etzioni, Ph.D., a member of the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division. In addition to blood levels of PSA, indicators of aggressive disease include tumor volume (the number of biopsy samples that contain cancer) and Gleason score (predicting the aggressiveness of cancer by how the biopsy samples look under a microscope). Gleason scores range from 2-5 (low risk) and 6-7 (medium risk) to 8-10 (high risk). "Men with a low PSA level, a biopsy Gleason score of 6 or lower and very few biopsy samples with cancer are generally considered to be very low risk," Etzioni said. Such newly diagnosed men increasingly are being offered active surveillance -- a watchful waiting approach -- rather than therapy for their disease, particularly if they are older or have a short life expectancy.

"The chance that these men will die of their disease if they are not treated is very low, around 3%," she said. Similarly, such men who opt for treatment have a mortality rate of about 2%. "For the majority of newly diagnosed cases of prostate cancer, giving initial clinical and biopsy information, we can get a very good idea of who should be treated and who is likely to benefit from deferring treatment." Myth 6 -- Only one in 50 men diagnosed with PSA screening benefits from treatment. "This number, which was released as a preliminary result from the European Randomized Study of Prostate Cancer Screening, is simply incorrect," Etzioni said. "It suggests a very unfavorable harm-benefit ratio for PSA screening. It implies that for every man whose life is saved by PSA screening, almost 50 are overdiagnosed and overtreated." "Overdiagnosis" is diagnosing a disease that will never cause symptoms or death in the patient's lifetime. "Overtreatment" is treating a disease that will never progress to become symptomatic or life-threatening. The 50-to-one ratio is based on short-term follow-up and "grossly underestimates" the lives likely to be saved by screening over the long term and overestimates the number who are overdiagnosed. "The correct ratio of men diagnosed with PSA testing who are overdiagnosed and overtreated versus men whose lives are saved by treatment long term is more likely to be 10 to one," she said.

Don Porter Beat Cancer - NO CHEMO or Radiation Search Google - donportercancer http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/podcasts/gupta/site/2011/08/29/sgmd.last.heart.attack.cnn?iref=videosearch http://curecancer73-don.blogspot.com/ -- http://dporterbeatcancer.com/ http://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4359677327049191904#allposts http://curingcancerwithdiet.blogspot.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wZendyXhU4

How to Beat Cancer Free Community Presentation in CT

Prevent Event

You Are Invited A Special Evening with Don Porter and How He Beat Stage IV Cancer ! Take Responsibility for your health and learn how to conquer illness and disease through whole food nutrition

Don Porter is a retired Investment Banker of 45 years in Connecticut and Wall Street with a BS from The University of Connecticut. He is a Cancer survivor with many years of collaborative research with recognized doctors and other healthcare professionals. In this informative presentation you will learn: • How anyone can beat cancer and other chronic diseases such as Heart Disease, Cancer and Diabetes. • Specific foods and dietary plan to kill cancer cells. • Supporting data from the research of Nobel Prize winning author, Dr. Otto Warburg. • Why the normal acidic American diet causes cancer. Wednesday, September 12th 7:00 - 8:00 PM

21 Old Albany Turnpike (Route 44) - Canton, CT. 06019 Healthcare professionals will be available to answer questions. RSVP: Kimberly Porter Dowie 860-227-1328 or kpdwellness@gmail.com Sponsored by JuicePlus, Ellen Palmer Wellness, & Jazzercise with Lisa Angerami. In Loving Memory of Laurie Porter Campbell

Water is the new gold, a big commodity bet

Water is the new gold, a big commodity bet

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — “Is water the gold of the 21st century?” asks Fortune. Answer: Yes, water is the New Gold for investors this century. In 2010 global water generated over a half trillion dollars of revenue. Global world population will explode from 7 billion today to 10 billion by 2050, predicts the United Nations. And over one billion “lack access to clean drinking water.” Climate and weather patterns are changing natural water patterns. And industrial pollution is making water a scarce commodity. So the good news is that huge “opportunities exist for businesses that can figure out how to keep the pipes flowing.” Yes, it’s a hot market. So, expand your vision for a minute. How many bottles of water do you drink a week? How much did you use for a shower? When you flushed a toilet? Wash your car? Cooking? Lattes? And my guess is your city water bill’s gone up in recent years.

So ask yourself: What happens in the next 40 years when another three billion people come into the world? Imagine adding 75 million people every year, six million a month, 200,000 every day, all demanding more and more water to drink, to shower, to cook, to everything. All guzzling down the New Gold that’s getting ever scarcer. Population, the explosive driver in the demand for ever-scarcer water Now here’s the real scary stuff, the investor’s basic multiplier. In the 12 short years leading up to 2011 the world added a billion people. China’s population is now 1.3 billion. Plus they’ll add another 100 million in the next generation, while India adds 600 million according to United Nations experts. China’s already planning as many as 500 new cities to house all their new folks. Imagine, 500 new cities each housing 100,000 or more people, and that’s just for half of China’s projected growth to 2050, all demanding more water. The numbers are overwhelming. Today Americans use 150 gallons a day, compared with 23 gallons in China. But they’re catching up, just check out any panoramic travel photos of China’s beautiful megacities, Shanghai, Beiiing, Guangzhou. And read about skyrocketing sales of Ferraris, Cartier watches, Gucci handbags and luxury goods in China. China has its own version of the American Dream! Seriously, just a few decades ago China was an emerging country, a bit backward, not a global economic threat. But change is happening at light speed. Soon their GDP will overtake ours. India expects their water demand to double in one decade while Fortune says “expanding populations will also swell demand for agricultural water some 42% by 2030,” in two decades.

China’s mining “new gold,” for agriculture, industry, economic leadership You probably “think individuals consume the most water,” says Fortune. Not so. Agriculture accounts for 71%, and industry another 16% for a total 86% of all water use in the world. It even takes 71 gallons to produce a single cup of coffee, forcing Starbucks to “cut its in-store water usage by 25% by 2015 with, for example, espresso machines that dispense less water.” Here’s Fortune’s summary of the global market for all water users: Total worldwide revenues of $508 billion in 2010 … the bottled water market generated $58 billion of that total and growing fast … industry needs $28 billion for water equipment and services to all kinds of businesses … another $10 billion covers agricultural irrigation … another $15 billion in retail products like filters and various heating and cooling systems … $170 billion is used for waste water, sewage systems, waste-water treatment and water recycling systems … and $226 billion for water utilities, treatment plants and distribution systems. Read our Weekend Investor column on food and water investments to weather the drought. New Gold hidden in steaks, auto tires, chickens, designer jeans So humans consuming lots of bottled water are not the world’s biggest guzzlers. It’s our lifestyle and consumer habits that accelerate the impact of population growth. Everything we eat, wear and use has a big water-use price tag, says Fortune: “Consider the impact on the water supply when more people in developing nations begin living Western lifestyles. In India alone, water usage is expected to rise by nearly 100% over the next 20 years. Expanding populations will also swell demand for agricultural water some 42% by 2030.” What we must do is grow more crops “with less water by applying genetically modified seeds, drip irrigation, and other technologies.” In short, New Gold is costly to purify and the cost will keep going up. So the price of the New Gold will appreciate in the future for investors betting on this key commodity. Consider this data: It takes 70 gallons of water to produce 50 cents worth of milk, says Danielle Commisso in Carnegie Mellon Today. In Fortune we learn those designer jeans your daughter just bought require 2,906 gallons of water, mostly from growing cotton ... a pound of that juicy prime steak you had for dinner required 1,857 gallons ... while a pound of that finger-licking-good chicken for lunch used 467 gallons … a pound of rice pilaf is a little less at 407 gallons … how about that bowl of shredded wheat you had for breakfast? A pound needed 160 gallons ... and a pound of steel needs a mere 31 gallons … so why does a car requires 104,000 gallons you ask? Most of it from the rubber. Add it all up and you got mega-opportunities the next generation, in a world adding a staggering 200,000 people each and ever day. Long-range solutions do exist for coming global water shortages “The good news is that long-term solutions” do exist for today’s global water problems: “20% of Singapore’s drinking water comes from processed sewage” thanks to innovative superfine filters. China’s constructing a 1,816-mile “aqueduct to move water from rivers in the south to the parched northeast.” And global water cos like Veolia and Suez, in France, and ITT are “partnering with municipalities to manage water.”

“Beating the Coming Water Shortage” was the challenge headlining Fortune’s feature. To get the message across it also highlighted several examples where government and industry are cooperating to “beat the water shortage” problem: In America a desalination project is underway, at a cost of $700 million, to supply 8% of San Diego County’s drinking water by 2014, a county growing at a rate of almost 17% a decade. The Tampa Bay Water Utility is spending $210 million for Veolia to build a treatment plant to provide 120 million gallons a day for 2.4 million people who had been using well water. Get your feet wet in wet stocks and watery ETFs Where can you invest is the New Gold? Easy: Check out the two French giants, the $17 billion Veolia Environment (VE) , a global leader in environmental services. And the $8 billion French company GDF Suez Energy North America, which has customers in 12 states. The $3.4 billion ITT is a competitor in water treatment technology arena. And $1.6 billion Siemens is a new player, in “services and water-purification membranes.” Water bottlers duking it out for consumer and investor dollars are Coke (KO) , Pepsi (PEP) and Danone. Coke’s “goal is to safely return to nature and communities an amount of water equal to what we use in our beverages and their production.” That’s a partial response to negative press following the 2010 publication of “Coke Machine: The Dirty Truth Behind the World’s Favorite Soft Drink.” And if all this is new to you, but you want get your toes wet investing in the New Gold, try some water-based ETFs. The Wall Street Journal’s Liam Pleven wrote about four water-based ETFs: PowerShares Water Resources (PHO) is the “largest of the water ETFs, with $852 million in assets.” Other ETFs include: PowerShares Global Water (PIO) ; Guggenheim S&P Global Water Index (CGW) ; and First Trust ISE Water Index (FIW) . But in comparison to Veolia and Suez, these ETFs are a mere drop-in-the-bucket. So yes, water is the 21st century’s New Gold. And, yes, growing shortages guarantee price appreciation for this ever-scarcer commodity. But still, something doesn’t feel right. Yes, Fortune presents a solid, upbeat picture. But in the end something was missing. Because this does not reveal a serious long-term strategy. The fact is, no nation on Earth has a long-term plan to reverse the real problem, that’s not the “coming water shortage.” The real problem is our suicidal growth rate adding water users on a planet that’s incapable of feeding 10 billion.