There are many organs (the skin, liver, bowels, etc.) to consider when we are desirous of cleansing the body for a goal of optimal health. Thanks to new technology, though, we can now see exactly how the brainwashesitself – not in the metaphoric sense, but how the glial cells, which power cerebrospinal fluid, help wash out guck from the brain.
How the Brain Washes Itself
Fortunately, the kind of toxic goop that the liver or intestines take on doesn’t cross the blood-brain barrier and interfere with the fatty mass between our ears. This is how the brain protects itself from pathogens like viruses and microbes. In order to protect itself, yet still flush out toxins, the brain makes a fluid called cerebrospinal fluid that scientists once had a hunch helped keep the body and brain healthy, but weren’t exactly sure how.
Using a two-photon microscope, scientists were recently able to see exactly how the brain washes itself even with the blood-brain barrier in place. Special cells, called glial cells form the glymphatic system. These cells power the cerebrospinal fluid. They do so by forming little feet which wrap around vessels and veins to carry blood – almost like a pipe in regular ‘this old house’ plumbing. The pipe the glial cells form have tiny pores within it that suck nutrient-rich cerebrospinal fluid from the vessels into a channel that is full of nerve cells, and pores located elsewhere along the channel pump out the waste-filled fluid. The brain cells are therefore fed with nutrients and cleaned of toxins at the same time.
In many separate studies conducted on cerebrospinal fluid, it has been hypothesized that its statis (in activity or sluggish flow) can cause all sorts of disease. There are many factors which determine the flow of this important brain fluid, including the overall cardiovascular health, respiratory health and vasomotor health of an individual, and healthful nutrients are as important to the glial cells and lymphatic flow as anything.
Where there is dis-harmony in the body, the cerebrospinal fluids may not be able to flow appropriately, and this in turn can lead to poor cellular metabolism – even of brain cells and important neurons which must communicate with one another to keep our hormones in balance, our nervous systems functioning properly, and allow us to make intelligent decisions in our every day activities. It is for this reason that many postures in yoga aim to move cerebrospinal fluid up and down the spine so that it can reach the brain stem.
Simple Ways to Help the Brain Clean Itself
Other therapies which help the brain clean itself by utilizing good cerebrospinal flow include cranial manipulation, cranial sacral therapy, massage therapy including promotion of lymph flow, and breathwork. Nutrition and overall detoxification of the body can also ensure that the other organs of elimination are not overloaded so that once the glial cells ‘dump’ waste into the blood, these toxins can be removed from the body appropriately.
Proper nutrition, cleansing techniques and good cerebrospinal flow are imperative to removing amyloid plaques that may be the basis of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia like Parkinson’s Disease or Lou Gerhig’s Disease. In younger stages of the body, we can utilize these therapies as a means to keep the brain and spinal fluid healthy so that our mind’s can function at peak levels.
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Christina Sarich is passionate about natural health and wellness, and as well as running her own Yoga blog, she contributes to timetocleanse.com, a popular cleansing and clean living website.
Grammy award-winning singer Lauryn Hill has been ordered by a judge to “undergo counseling because of her conspiracy theories.” What was her conspiracy theory? That the music industry oppresses people with actual talent in favor of pumping out mindless nonsense.
Selected quotes from WSJ Op-Ed today by distinguished Princeton physicist Dr. William Happer: Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer: In Defense of Carbon Dioxide The demonized chemical compound is a boon to plant life and has little correlation with global temperature. WSJ.COM 5/8/13: Of all of the world’s chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation than carbon dioxide. Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That’s simply not the case. Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by increasing agricultural productivity... Crop yields in recent dry years were less affected by drought than crops of the dust-bowl droughts of the 1930s, when there was less carbon dioxide. Nowadays, in an age of rising population and scarcities of food and water in some regions, it’s a wonder that humanitarians aren’t clamoring for more atmospheric carbon dioxide. Instead, some are denouncing it.
We know that carbon dioxide has been a much larger fraction of the earth’s atmosphere than it is today, and the geological record shows that life flourished on land and in the oceans during those times. The incredible list of supposed horrors that increasing carbon dioxide will bring the world is pure belief disguised as science.
Pollinators participate in the sexual-reproduction of plants. When you eat an almond, beet, w[youtubeatermelon or sip on coffee, you’re partaking of an ancient relationship between pollinators and flowers. But since the 1990s, worldwide bee health has been in decline and most evidence points to toxic pesticides created by Shell and Bayer and the loss of genetic biodiversity due to the proliferation of GMO monocrops created in laboratories by biotech companies like Monsanto.
But never worry, those real life pollinators—the birds and the bees, as they say—may soon be irrelevant to the food needs of civilization. Harvard roboticists are developing a solution to the crisis: swarms of tiny robot bees made of titanium and plastic that can pollinate those vast dystopian fields of GMO cash crops.
The Harvard Microrobotics Lab has been working on its Micro Air Vehicles Project since early 2009. Borrowing from the biomechanics and social organization of bees, the team of researchers is undergoing the creation of tiny winged robots to fly from flower to flower, immune to the toxins dripping from petals, to spread pollen. They even believe that they will soon be able to program the robobees to live in an artificial hive, coordinate algorithms and communicate amongst themselves about methods of pollination and location of particular crops.
Of course, published reports from the lab also describe potential military uses—surveillance and mapping—but the dime-sized cyber-bees have yet to be outfitted with neurotoxin tipped stingers.
(NaturalNews) The collective psyche of American society is long overdue for a major paradigm shift in its understanding of fats, inflammation, cholesterol, and the true cause of most chronic illnesses. Even many physicians, who should know better, still argue that cholesterol is evil and that sticking to a low-fat diet is good for health. But the fact of the matter is that avoiding fats is toxic to your health, and consuming the many food additives that commonly replace them – these include synthetic trans fats, refined sugars, and processed grains – are a primary cause of disease-causing inflammation.
It all makes sense if you just stop and consider the native role cholesterol plays in protecting arteries against lesions and other damage. Rather than being the cause of plaque buildup in the circulatory system, cholesterol is actually the healing agent the body sends to sites that have been damaged by inflammation. In other words, if you have too much cholesterol buildup in your arteries, your real problem is too much inflammation rather than too much cholesterol, and a whole different mitigatory approach is required to address the problem.
“It’s the inflammation in the vessels that starts the lesion,” says Dr. Beverly Teter, a lipid biochemist from the University of Maryland who has been researching fats and their affect on the human body for many years, as quoted by CBN.com. “The body then sends the cholesterol like a scab to cover over it to protect the blood system and the vessel wall from further damage.”
This runs completely contrary to the prevailing medical dogma, which still maintains that saturated fat and cholesterol are silent killers that can lead to heart disease, diabetes and other forms of chronic illness. As a result, millions of Americans have been duped into avoiding these necessary nutrients to their own demise, while they instead gorge on unhealthy vegetable oils, trans fats, sugars, grains, and phony low-fat junk foods.
“When choosing which fats to eat, pick the ones that are high in omega-3 fats and also choose natural saturated fats,” advises Lorie Johnson from CBN.com. “On the other hand, stay away from the fats that lead to inflammation, such as trans fats and omega-6 fats,” she adds, noting that most of the oils used in processed food are unhealthy vegetable oils posing as “nutritious.”
Saturated fat and cholesterol necessary for proper cellular function, brain health
What few people today realize is that their bodies actually require both saturated fat and cholesterol for proper metabolism, brain health, hormone balance and cellular homeostasis. Without these two important nutritional components, a cascade of health problems can ensue, including debilitating brain conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. This is especially true for people who take toxic statin drugs to artificially lower their cholesterol levels.
“People with high cholesterol live the longest,” says Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, M.D., Ph.D. “Consider the finding of Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University, who reported in 1994 that old people with low cholesterol died twice as often from a heart attack as did old people with high cholesterol.”
Food rights activists from around North America will meet at the Sauk County Courthouse in this tiny town on May 20 to support Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger and food sovereignty. Hershberger, whose trial begins that day, is charged with four criminal misdemeanors that could land this husband and father in county jail for up to 30 months with fines of over $10,000.
The Wisconsin Department of Agricultural Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) targeted Hershberger for supplying a private buying club with fresh milk and other farm products.
DATCP has charged Hershberger with, among other things, operating a retail food establishment without a license. Hershberger repeatedly rejects this, citing that he provides foods only to paid members in a private buying club and is not subject to state food regulations. “There is more at stake here than just a farmer and his few customers,” says Hershberger, “this is about the fundamental right of farmers and consumers to engage in peaceful, private, mutually consenting agreements for food, without additional oversight.”
A little more than a year ago, food rights activists from around the country stood in support of Hershberger at a pre-trial hearing. They read and signed a “Declaration of Food Independence” that asserts inherent rights in food choice. This month after the trial each day, many of the same food rights activists plus others will gather at the Al Ringling Theater across the street from the courthouse and hear presentations by leaders in the food rights movement. Notable speakers include Virginia farmer Joel Salatin, Mountain Man show star Eustace Conway, and food rights organizer from Maine, Deborah Evans.
Hershberger, and other farmers around the country, are facing state or federal charges against them for providing fresh foods to wanting individuals. In recent months the FDA has conducted several long undercover sting operations and raids against peaceful farmers and buying clubs that have resulted in farms shutting down and consumers without access to the food they depend on.
It’s not likely that you are the victim of arsenic poisoning. But the average modern lifestyle could put you in contact with heavy metals through your food, the air you breathe, and the water you drink—not to mention the products you use in your home. These heavy metals can do significant damage to your body over time. Luckily there are completely natural ways to expel these metals from your body and therefore prevent the damage they are capable of causing.
Heavy metal chelation is often marketed as some major undertaking that requires bottles of various supplements and several days of free time to dedicate to the process. And while significant heavy metal contamination may warrant such an approach, your body can handle heavy metal removal with just some simple additions to your diet and lifestyle.
Drink Water
Firstly, stay hydrated. No toxins will be removed if you don’t provide the vehicle for them to exit on. In other words, water is the ultimate purifier and should be your first line against toxins of all kinds. Make sure your water is purified and free of fluoride and chlorine whenever possible. And don’t wait until you are thirsty to drink water; drink it when you first wake, with meals, throughout the day, and before bed. Drink water when you exercise and when you relax. Basically, drink it all the time.
Include these Specific Foods in Your Diet
Next, include foods that are naturally good at heavy metal chelation. I profiled six of them here in 6 Foods for Natural Heavy Metal Chelation. Foods like garlic, onion, and cilantro naturally bind with heavy metals to remove them from the body. Amino acids found in eggs and fish are particularly good to balance enzymes in the liver, crucial to detoxification. Charcoal is another good source of chelating benefits.
Omit these Specific Foods
Change what you eat. High fructose corn syrup often has high levels of mercury. If you are still eating processed foods that contain HFCS, it’s high time you stopped. Consumer reports also points to fitness protein shakes as a common source of heavy metals. But even things like non-organic produce, wines, and canned foods can be contaminated with heavy metals.
As with any unhealthy foods or toxins, you must pay attention to both what you take in and what you expel. From eating the right foods to practicing hydration and other methods to eliminate toxins, there are several naturally simple ways to reduce your exposure to heavy metals.
by Christina Sarich
By Russ McSpadden
Natural News
by Elizabeth Renter
PN 