Health Information
Following the Advice of Ancient Philosophers Can Make You Happier
By Dr. Mercola For many, happiness is elusive at best and at times near impossible. There’s always something (or someone) pushing our buttons, making us feel less than joyful. According to Barbara Fredrickson, a psychologist and positive-emotions researcher, most Americans have two positive experiences for every negative one. While that sounds good and well, this 2-to-1 positivity ratio is barely enough to get by. To flourish emotionally, Fredrickson’s research1 shows you need a 3-to-1 ratio. That is, you need to have three...
read moreCholesterol Isn’t the Problem in Heart Disease; Inflammation Is
By Dr. Mercola Cholesterol is a waxy substance found in nearly every cell of your body and is essential to good health. Your body uses it to make hormones, protect your cell membranes, digest food and manufacture vitamin D after exposure to the sun. Your liver manufactures most of the cholesterol your body requires from nutrients extracted from your food. Animals use cholesterol in much the same way. This means the meats from beef, pork or chicken have similar levels of cholesterol. Even fat cells in animal meat have the same amount of...
read moreGoogle Apocalypse Looms Large
By Dr. Mercola I’ve written about the dangers of monopolies within the drug and agricultural industries on numerous occasions, but Google is perhaps one of the greatest monopolies that ever existed on the planet. The reason why I’ve decided to address Google here is because the technology giant is injecting itself ever deeper into our day-to-day lives, from childhood education to patented meat substitutes1,2 and health care, and with its internet monopoly and personal information tracking and sharing, Google poses a very unique...
read moreThe Hidden Health Hazards After Flooding
By Dr. Mercola Across the world, countries have experienced significant changes in weather patterns in the past decades.1 Recently, the southern U.S. coastline was again hit with category 4 hurricane winds, dumping over 50 inches of rain on Texas.2 People in Louisiana are still digging themselves out of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and experts expect Houston may experience the same long-term consequences that have affected the residents of New Orleans. Meteorologists are calling the flooding and storms that hit Texas...
read moreA CRISPR Future New Form of Eugenics?
By Dr. Mercola Gene editing was once a very imprecise and expensive process, but today, thanks to the development of CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat, scientists can go into your DNA and essentially cut and paste it at specified places. Progress is being made in tackling genetic diseases such as sickle-cell anemia and certain forms of blindness and muscular dystrophy. A CRISPR clinical trial in people with cancer is already underway in China, and the technology has been used to edit human embryos made from...
read moreFarming Contaminates Water in More Ways Than One
Cypress Island Atlantic Salmon Spill from Liam Gallagher on Vimeo.By Dr. Mercola Water pollution is a growing problem, and nonorganic farming activities — both on land and in water — are significant contributors. In addition to farming chemicals such as nitrates, which pose a serious threat to water quality, there’s the issue of drug-resistant bacteria. As reported by the Center for Public Integrity,1 water testing in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin, has revealed coliform bacteria “at levels too dangerous to drink.” Drug-resistant bacteria...
read moreIs PetMed Selling Opiates for People, Not Pets?
By Dr. Mercola Every day, 91 Americans die from an opioid overdose, including those obtained via a prescription. Intended to be reserved for only the most serious cases of pain, opioids are being vastly overprescribed, including for noncancer chronic pain, such as back pain or that from osteoarthritis. With overdose deaths on the rise, public health agencies are urging doctors to cut back on inappropriate prescribing of these powerful drugs — which could be spurring more people to look for them elsewhere. PetMed Express, an online store...
read moreCan Dry Brushing Help Your Lymphatic System?
By Dr. Mercola Your skin is the largest organ of your body, so treating it with TLC and maintaining its health will go a long way toward making you look and feel your best. Besides consisting of blood vessels, sweat glands and nerve endings, your skin helps remove waste, aids in digestion and has a lot to do with good circulation Nicole Eckert, a certified holistic nutritionist based in Newmarket, Ontario, believes that delving into a balanced, nutritionally optimal lifestyle should include a practice some have never heard of — skin brushing,...
read moreCoffee Is Even More Beneficial for Those Over 45
By Dr. Mercola If you’ve ever heard of people who drink a lot of coffee every day on a regular basis and thought, “Whoa —that can’t be good,” you may not be right after all. Some may think drinking four to six cups a day is too much, but scientists say it might actually be good for you. Keep in mind, though that a true “cup” — an actual measure of 16 tablespoons — is an important distinction, because some of the giant mugs many like to use often hold twice that and more. The remarkable thing for coffee...
read moreLarge-Scale Study Proves High-Fat Diet Promotes Health and Longevity
By Dr. Mercola Mitochondria — the tiny energy factories within your cells — generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy currency your body needs to run its systems. Your mitochondria are also responsible for apoptosis (programmed cell death), and serve as important signaling molecules that help regulate your genetic expression. Hence, the state of your mitochondria plays a key role in health and disease. Once your mitochondria become damaged and dysfunctional, your energy reserves decrease, leading to a wide variety of symptoms, some of...
read moreCheesy Broccoli Chicken Zucchini Boats
Recipe From Ruled.Me Stuffed vegetables are popular because they pack essential nutrients into one enticing package, with bell peppers being the most commonly used base ingredient. However, using bell peppers all the time can become mundane, which is why it’s important to mix things up every now and then to keep discovering new flavors. This recipe, which was submitted by Craig Clarke of Rule.Me, uses zucchini as the base vegetable. This results in a crunchy texture that manages to hold all the ingredients together, and is a great...
read moreMind Hack — How Corporations Took Over Our Bodies and Brains
By Dr. Mercola The science is in: Processed food is addictive, can make you extremely unhappy and will prematurely kill you. How did this happen? And how have food manufacturers been able to deceive the world about these facts? Dr. Robert Lustig has written a new book, “The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains,” in which he explains how and why this occurred. He is perhaps most well-known for his brilliant research into sugar and obesity, and his previous book, “Fat Chance: Beating...
read moreInPower: A Mass Action of Liability
By Dr. Mercola Last month I published an article discussing the documentary “Take Back Your Power,” directed by Josh del Sol Beaulieu, in which he investigated some of the many problems associated with smart meters — including the devastating health effects they’re having on some people, and how these meters are part of a much larger covert surveillance system designed to spy on and track users, and to profit from the sale of user data. “InPower Episode 1: A Mass Action of Liability” is the follow-up to that...
read moreYet Another Reason Not to Hold Your Cellphone
By Dr. Mercola Cellphones are growing in popularity every year. Smartphones enable users to call, text and use the internet from almost anywhere there is a cellphone signal. From the convenience of a piece of equipment that fits in your pocket, you can communicate and receive news from anywhere in the world. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly 90 percent of Americans own a cellphone and two-thirds of those are smart phones.1 The cellphone has become the most rapidly accepted device in the history of consumer technology. Pew...
read moreThe Steep Cost of Sleep Deprivation
By Dr. Mercola Sleep deprivation has the same effect on your immune system as physical stress or illness, which helps explain why lack of sleep has been shown to raise your risk of numerous chronic diseases. Sleep is also intricately tied to important hormone levels, including melatonin — an antioxidant with powerful anticancer activity — which is diminished by lack of sleep, and to brain detoxification and rejuvenation, which only occur during deep sleep. Cutting just one hour of sleep a night increases the expression of genes associated...
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