DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY PBS SHOW

I want to tell you about an important PBS special that is airing soon. I think every one of you should take the time to watch it.

It is called UNSTUCK, and in this new ninety-minute television program James S. Gordon, MD, founder and director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine, brings to life his revolutionary book Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey out of Depression.The book and the PBS special start by asking a simple but profound question ...

Do you feel stuck?

Many of us do, at least from time to time, and in this television special Dr. Gordon provides a simple, yet extremely effective, seven-step method for getting unstuck. Whether you are caught in a mire of depression, stress, and anxiety, or are just a little confused, overburdened, or unhappy, this show will provide you the tools and techniques you need to free yourself from the bog of your thoughts and emotions and get unstuck once and for all.

As Dr. Gordon explains, when we are stuck it is an indicator "that our lives are out of balance." Rather than getting buried in these moments we can use them as "a wake-up call" to a journey "that can change and transform our lives."

Dr. Gordon's groundbreaking program, which he has successfully used in the U.S. and around the world, offers easy but powerful exercises that reduce stress and feel good, including "soft belly" and "shaking and dancing." One such exercise involves eating something small, such as a strawberry or a piece of chocolate, in a mindful way, to improve relaxation and happiness.

In his seven-stage program, Gordon discusses the benefits of:

• Food and nutritional supplements
• Movement, exercise, and dance
• Psychotherapy, meditation, and guided imagery
• Spiritual practice and prayer

The program will air nationally on PBS November 28th through mid-December. Check the link below to find show times in your area:

http://www.cmbm.org/downloads/Unstuck-PBS dates.pdf

You can also see a preview of the show by going here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_JG4XBeiKw

If you have ever felt stuck-and almost all of you have-I strongly encourage you to take an hour and a half and watch this show. It has the power to transform your life.

I also urge you to pledge to PBS during the Unstuck show. If you do, you'll not only support your local Public Television station, but also contribute to the amazing work Jim Gordon and his colleagues are doing to use the Unstuck method to help populations in the US and abroad who are traumatized by war and natural disasters.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, MD

This is cut and pasted from Dr. Hyman's email of yesterday and I find him a very reliable source of good health advice.  View his website here

BREAST CANCER AND VITAMIN D

Eradicate Breast Cancer With Vitamin D?

Canada NewsWire
11-05-09

TORONTO, Nov. 4, 2009 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) --

Breast cancer risk 'virtually eradicated' by elevated vitamin D levels,researchers suggest.

Breast cancer is a disease so directly related to vitamin D deficiency that a woman's risk of contracting the disease can be 'virtually eradicated' by elevating her vitamin D status to what vitamin D scientists consider to be natural blood levels.
That's the message vitamin D pioneer Dr. Cedric Garland delivered in Toronto Tuesday as part of the University of Toronto School of Medicine's "Diagnosis and Treatment of Vitamin D Deficiency" conference - the largest gathering of vitamin D researchers in North America this year. More than 170 researchers, public health officials and health practitioners gathered at the UT Faculty club for the landmark event.
Garland's presentation headlined a conference that reviewed many aspects of the emerging vitamin D research field - a booming discipline that has seen more than 3,000 academic papers this calendar year alone, conference organizers said. That makes vitamin D by far the most prolific topic in medicine this year, with work connecting it with risk reduction in two dozen forms of cancer, heart disease, multiple scleroses and many other disorders.
Dr. Reinhold Vieth, Associate Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at University of Toronto, and Director of the Bone and Mineral Laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital, organized the event in conjunction with Grassroots Health - an international vitamin D advocacy group founded by breast cancer survivor Carole Baggerly.
Baggerly implored the research group to take action and encourage Canadians to learn more about vitamin D and to raise their vitamin D levels.
An estimated 22,700 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009, according to the Canadian Cancer Society's latest figures.
As much as 97 percent of Canadians are vitamin D deficient at some point in the year, according to University of Calgary research - largely due to Canada's northerly latitudes and weak sun exposure. Sunshine is by far the most abundant source of vitamin D - called 'The Sunshine Vitamin' - with salmon and fortified milk being other sources. Vitamin D supplementation helps raise levels for many as well.
Grassroots Health's "D-action" panel - 30 of the world's leading researchers on vitamin D and many other vitamin D supporters - recommend 2,000 IU of vitamin D daily and vitamin D blood levels of 100-150 nanomoles-per-liter as measured by a vitamin D blood test.
Vieth pointed out that natural vitamin D levels of mammals who live outdoors in sunny climates is higher than that - up to 200 nanomoles-per liter. And Garland, whose presentation was entitled "Breast Cancer as a Vitamin D Deficiency Disease" presented data showing that raising one's vitamin D status near those levels decreased breast cancer risk more than 77 percent.
'The Sunshine Vitamin' was once thought of only for bone health, helping the body process calcium. But more recent work has shown that all cells in the body have "vitamin D receptors" which help control normal cell growth. Additionally, Garland presented new evidence that low vitamin D status compromises the integrity of calcium-based cellular bonding within tissues, which when eroded allow rogue cancer cells to spread more readily.
Grassroots Health is trying to raise vitamin D awareness among Canadians. Despite epidemic-level vitamin D deficiency in Canada, fewer than nine per cent of Canadians have ever had their vitamin D levels checked by a professional and most who have do not know their vitamin D blood level.
SOURCE: GrassrootsHealth
CONTACT: or to set up an interview with Dr. Vieth, please contact: Michelle Di Rocco, (416)
360-6522 ext. 251 or michelle@punchcanada.com
Copyright (C) 2009 CNW Group. All rights reserved.

I can't help myself here and I don't mean to demean the seriousness of this devastating disease, especially during Breast Cancer Awareness month but... is this why so many of us caring men advocate clothing optional beaches around the world?

COFFEE GOOD TODAY

Coffee brims with health benefits, researchers say

The Palm Beach Post, Fla.
11-02-09

Oct. 31--Drink up, coffee lovers. Not only is coffee aromatic and delicious, it's good for you.
Who says? None other than Harvard Medical School.
Once considered questionable for your health, it turns out that the beloved beverage is actually healthful in moderation. That means a few cups a day.
At about 20 cents per 6-ounce cup, coffee is a good deal if you brew it yourself.
Harvard researchers say drinking coffee may help prevent diseases such as:
Cancer: Some studies have found coffee drinkers have lower rates of colon and rectal cancers and are 50 percent less likely to get liver cancer than coffee abstainers.
Type 2 diabetes: Coffee is thought to contain chemicals that lower blood sugar because heavy coffee drinkers may be half as likely to get diabetes as those who drink little or no coffee. Coffee also may increase your resting metabolism rate, which could help prevent diabetes.
Parkinson's disease: Coffee seems to help protect men from Parkinson's disease, but not women. The difference might be due to estrogen, researchers say.
Heart disease: Coffee is not linked to the development of heart disease. In the past few years, Harvard scientists say, coffee has been shown to be safe even for heart attack survivors. Scientists think antioxidants in coffee may reduce inflammation and protect blood vessel walls.
Life span: Recent studies suggest that drinking coffee decreases the risk of premature death, especially in women. Women who drank at least five to seven cups a week had a death rate 26 percent lower than non-consumers, a large investigation by researchers in Spain and at Harvard Medical School found.
It's not only Harvard researchers who are touting the brew's benefits.
Last month, a study led by Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., showed that people with chronic hepatitis C and advanced liver disease who drank three or more cups of coffee a day cut their risk of the disease progressing by 53 percent.
Although caffeine might be considered the "active ingredient" in coffee, coffee is only 2 percent caffeine and 98 percent "other stuff," including more than 1,000 different compounds such as vitamins, minerals and amino acids.
It even contains fiber. Each cup contains from 1.1 to 1.8 grams of soluble dietary fiber, the kind that dissolves in water and helps prevent cholesterol from being absorbed by the intestines, according to researchers at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid.
Do researchers have any words of caution? Yes -- although regular coffee drinking isn't harmful for most people, that might not hold true for pregnant women. Research has linked miscarriage to caffeine consumption of 200 milligrams or more per day. A typical cup of coffee has 100 to 150 milligrams, Harvard reports.
Of course, we like to be able to justify our morning addiction as healthful, when the truth may be we can't get moving without it!
Is it possible to be caffeine-addicted? Yes, University of Florida professor and director of toxicology Bruce Goldberger says.
"It is one of the most commonly ingested drugs worldwide. It is addictive. One example of that is if you consume a lot of caffeine, then you don't, you start to crave it. If you consume a lot of caffeine, and it is not working, then you need to consume more," Goldberger said.
Like anything, experts advise, moderation counts. Anyone who's ever had the jitters from drinking too much coffee knows that.

What can I add but the fact that coffee seems to get a bad rap for awhile and then we read something like this, but good news; no warning labels on a bag of beans, so far. And, in case you are interested, I think the best coffee in the world is Kona coffee and I accept bags of whole beans in the mail should you wish to send some...
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BOOMER HEALTH IMPROVES WITH FIBER

Dr, Mark Hyman writes in his blog post about ways to be more healthy. I strongly recommend checking out his blog weekly here


9 Tips for Increasing the Fiber in Your Diet.

1. Get the flax. Get a coffee grinder just for flax seeds, grind 1/2 cup at a time, and keep it in a tightly sealed glass jar in the fridge or freezer. Eat 2 tablespoons of ground flax seeds a day. Sprinkle it on salads, grains, or vegetable dishes or mix it in a little unsweetened applesauce.2. Load up on legumes. Beans beat out everything else for fiber content! 3. Bulk up on vegetables. With low levels of calories and high levels of antioxidants and protectivephytochemicals, these excellent fiber sources should be heaped on your plate daily. 4. Go with the grain. Whole grains like brown rice or quinoa are rich in fiber, too. 5. Eat more fruit. Include a few servings of low-sugar fruits to your diet daily (berries are the highest in fiber and other protective phytochemicals). 6. Go nuts. Include a few handfuls of almonds, walnuts, pecans, or hazelnuts to your diet every day. 7. Start slowly. Switching abruptly to a high-fiber diet can cause gas and bloating. Increase your fiber intake slowly till you get up to 50 grams a day. 8. Consider a good fiber supplement. If you're have trouble getting your fill of fiber, choose a supplement that contains both soluble and insoluble fiber and no sweeteners or additives. 9. Choose GM. By now, you know that my favorite kind is glucomannan (GM), or konjac. Many companies sell it in capsule form. Although I don't normally recommend specific brands, I like the one produced by Natural Factors called WellBetX. You can take 2 to 4 capsules with a glass of water, 30 to 60 minutes before eating. Don't take any medications within 1 hour before or 2 hours after taking it because the fiber may absorb the medication.

As you can see, fiber has big benefits for your health -- from encouraging weight loss to preventing chronic diseases. I hope you'll start adding more of this important compound into your diet today!

CRANBERRIES AND HEALTH

Cranberries Provide Eight-Hour Health Protection----New Research Reveals Urinary Tract, Cardiovascular and Cancer Benefits of the Berry from the Bog- PR Newswire 10-29-09 SAVANNAH, Ga., Oct 28, 2009 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- For those who think cranberries are nothing more than a turkey side dish, new research revealed this week confirms that the crimson berry may be small, but its health benefits are large. Leading scientists from throughout the country and abroad convened today in Savannah, GA, for the Fourth Cranberry Institute Health Research Conference to review the latest findings on the potential health benefits of cranberries, including studies that reveal an eight-hour protection against certain harmful bacteria and significant improvements in biomarkers for many chronic diseases. More than 30 nutrition scientists from leading research institutions, including the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and a variety of prestigious universities, presented new findings about the cranberry's antibacterial and anti-adhesion properties, as well as promising new areas of research in anti-aging, anti-cancer and protection against cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes. "New studies are continually finding how unique cranberries are, and that their potential health benefits are impressive," said Jere Downing, executive director, Cranberry Institute, the nonprofit organization dedicated to cranberry health research. There seems to be no denying that cranberries are antioxidant-rich and deliver unique proanthocyanidins (PACs) that are responsible for cranberries' beneficial anti-adhesion properties. Cranberry Juice Cocktail Offers Eight-Hour Urinary Tract Protection Cranberries may offer help to more than 11 million American women each year who contract urinary tract infections (UTIs). UTIs cost some $1.6 billion in healthcare and the only known treatment is antibiotic therapy, which increasingly contributes to creating bacterial resistant strains of pathogens. Cranberry PACs have been shown to protect against P-fimbriated Escherichia coli (E. coli), which is thought to be responsible for as much as 95% of urinary tract infections, and other strains of E. coli bacteria through anti-adhesion properties, so that pathogenic bacteria are unable to adhere to our cells, multiply and cause an infection. New research presented by Amy Howell, Ph.D., associate research scientist at Rutgers University, Marucci Center for Blueberry and Cranberry Research and Extension, examined the anti-adhesion effects of 16 oz. of cranberry juice cocktail (CJC) versus water on subject urine samples exposed to E. coli bacteria. The researchers, including lead researcher Terri A. Camesano, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, reported that CJC provided protection against the pathogen for up to eight-hours. "The potential for cranberry juice cocktail to help prevent urinary tract infections is significant, especially since we know that the berry's unique proanthocyanidins offer at least an eight-hour anti-adhesion benefit," said Howell. "Based on this and other studies, we recommend that drinking cranberry juice twice daily can help maintain a healthy urinary tract," she added. Pathogen Protector The same anti-adhesion benefits studied in urinary tract health are now being identified in other areas of the body, such as the oral cavity, stomach and small intestine. Studies at the conference identified that cranberry PACs help prevent oral bacteria from adhering to tooth and denture surfaces, thereby helping to protect against gum disease and cavities. In addition, researchers from the University of Maine conducted trials to determine if cranberry PACs can help protect against E. coli 0157:H7, the strain responsible for serious--and even life-threatening--cases of foodborne illnesses. While more studies are needed, the preliminary studies suggest that cranberry PACs may play a role in oral health, gastrointestinal health and protection against bacterial, fungal and even viral illnesses. Heart Health Emerging research suggests that cranberries may also play a role in cardiovascular health. A University of Scranton study presented one way in which the cranberry provides cardioprotection. In the study, animals fed a high-fat diet with two doses of cranberry juice cocktail (CJC) daily had significantly decreased atherosclerotic development, compared to animals fed a high-fat diet without CJC. The mechanism of the effect of CJC on atherosclerosis is currently under examination, but is thought to be from the potent antioxidant capacity of the berries. Anti-Cancer Numerous ongoing and recently completed studies are evaluating the role cranberries may have in preventing certain cancers. Preliminary in vitro studies conducted at the University of Massachusetts found that compounds in cranberries limit the proliferation of human breast, colon and prostate tumor cell lines in a dose-dependent manner. Researchers at the University of Western Ontario presented research showing that cranberry extracts impaired the growth of eight different human cancer cell lines. The Cranberry Institute The Cranberry Institute is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1951 to further the success of cranberry growers and the industry in the Americas through health, agricultural and environmental stewardship research, as well as cranberry promotion and education. CONTACT: Tasia Hurt/Emily Blasi Pollock Communications 212-941-1414 thurt@pollock-pr.com/eblasi@pollock-pr.com SOURCE The Cranberry Institute www.prnewswire.com

H1N1 FLU

I wish that I could figure out which side of the fence I'm sitting on regarding flu shots. I've never had a flu shot in my life and I almost never (touch wood) get the flu. On those few occasions over the years when I had the flu - well, I had the flu...and got over it. Color me skeptical about a vaccination that has been created in record time, approved in record time and is now being marketed by everyone from newspapers to Presidents, from doctors to Prime Ministers. What a wonderful service the pharmaceutical industry is providing to mankind - saving us all so that we can continue to buy our prescriptions, I presume. I am amazed that we have spent decades and billions of dollars trying to find a cure for cancer, AIDS and heart disease without success but in a few short months, this H1N1 vaccination has been foisted upon us as the Saviour of mankind. I have not fallen prey to the previous pandemics like the bird flu, West Nile virus, Mad Cow disease, Hantavirus, ebola and the black plague so perhaps I live some sort of charmed life.
Maybe this one is different.  All the media certainly are saying that it is, not that I think there are that many qualified journalists who also have doctorates in infectious diseases but they are parroting what other so called experts are saying. I am not suggesting that there is some sort of conspiracy about, but the speed with which this has been proclaimed and the magic bullet concocted, approved and delivered is somewhat suspect in my little corner of the world. Perhaps you think that I am just an old, curmudgeonly skeptic but what happens when people start having all sorts of unexpected reactions to the vaccinations? Is this like most other products created in the labs of big pharma and has a laundry list of side effects that are scarier than what it is supposed to cure? If you are going in for the needle - do you know the potential hazards of taking it in the arm?
Perhaps I will wait and let you and a few million others pretend to be lab rats and see what the results are. In the meantime, I will wash my hands frequently and cover my face when you cough.
I guess I'm off the fence for the time-being - is red wine good for the flu too?

retirement rocks!

retirement rocks!

LIFESTYLE RELATIONSHIP FINANCES

By

Heather Compton &

Dennis Blas

ISBN 978-0-9812573-0-3

Available at www.retirementrocks.ca $24.95

I’ve been looking forward to this book for several months and the wait was worth it. First of all, yes the book deals with the financial aspects of how much is enough, designing a lifestyle to suit your financial abilities, taking care of the legalities, tax savings, investments, expenses, planning, pensions and money management issues. And yes, this is done in a way that is professional, understandable, engaging and sensitive. If I stopped at that point, I would say the authors gave great value for the investment of $24.95 and that I would have felt much more knowledgeable and prepared to look at my financial future.

What pleased me most about this book is that the writers decided to offer so much more than financial advice and looked at some of the most important issues about retirement and the most challenging for many. We have all laughed at the story of the stay-at-home wife who lives in fear as the clock strikes down to retirement and HE is going to be around the house all day. We have also seen people who retired to a recliner and reruns of I Love Lucy and died 2 years later from boredom. More and more, we are hearing from relationship professionals about late life marriage breakdowns. Rarely would a top flight retirement planning book take on these issues as part of the process of a successful last phase of our lives, and it is high time that someone did. Thankfully, retirement rocks! has done just exactly that.

The authors place primary importance on our lifestyle and relationships by placing these sections first in their book and it makes such good sense. It is easy to see that Heather and Dennis have worked hard and successfully at their own relationship and we are the better for it. They share their personal experience and have called upon many other examples to provide us with a full range of thought provoking and soul searching methods to make sure we have the most important parts of our lives in place before the frying pan of retirement hits us on the head. The two sections on Lifestyle and Relationships make this a book that is valuable and useful to people everywhere and not just in Canada where the financial advice applies most specifically. Some equally smart American accountant/advisor could easily lift the first two parts and add U.S. focussed financial material and turn this into an international best seller – yes, it’s that good. This book is full of sensible, practical advice for being proactive about creating a retirement that rocks for you and me.

Buy this book for the financial planning but

read it for the glimpse at a life worth living.

www.retirementrocks.ca

Robert J. Bannon

Book reviewer

HEALTH FULL BOOMER

I recently bought a book entitled, StrengthsFinder 2.0 which includes the opportunity to go online and by answering about 20 minutes worth of questions, determine what our 5 key areas of strength are. Many of you may already know yours ( or think you do) and I must admit that after doing the tests and reading the comprehensive reports they sent me, I was able to look and say, "oh yeah, I guess that is true." One area of strength is my need, or drive to learn and assimilate knowledge and another strength is my ability to take information from a wide variety of sources and disciplines and put it together in some sort of cohesive package of researched facts and make sense out of it on a larger scale. Until I did the tests, I didn't necessarily see these things as strengths as I always assumed that it was better to specialize and focus our efforts on increasingly smaller areas of study. After all, in medicine, it's the specialists who make all the money and perhaps this is true in most other areas of business, marketing, writing, education, science, etc. This would account for my increasing frustration with people and organizations that just can't seem to see the big picture, i.e. governments, schools, religions and other bureaucracies.

Over the past few months I find myself totally immersed in several disparate areas of study and haven't thought too much about how it all comes together, until now. I realize that some of it has to do with approaching retirement age, not being sure of our ability to afford retirement, seeing so many people around me having serious (and worse) medical conditions, personally being irresponsible with weight, food and fitness choices and the general malaise that seems to come with economic meltdowns. It also occurs to me that I am not alone in these struggles as so many of us try to make sense out of a world that is moving increasingly faster with annual pandemic panics that are starting to happen twice a year, food that is unsafe to eat, wars, pestilence, diseases that have been raising billions of dollars with no cures in sight, government agencies rife with corruption (including ones responsible for our health and nutrition safety), multi-national pharmaceutical companies that have created junkies out of everyone, taxation that punishes the successful and independent and a laundry list of other depression inducing nonsense that would drive one to a good bottle of wine - if one could afford one.

Out of this field full of fertilizer a few flowers must eventually sprout and I have decided to create or at least plant, a flower of my own. I will continue to use this space for my excess Mind Gas and general ranting about whatever suits my fancy but I am initiating a new blog dedicated to providing positive options as a result of all of the seemingly unconnected reading, research and interests that I have been working on. It will be focused toward people who are considered to be "baby boomers" and looking for alternative ideas about everything from health to income opportunities, retirement planning to travel and fitness solutions to safe food choices. I will do my best to boil down some of the interesting research and new information into plain language with connections to my sources so that the reader can continue their own investigation.



Some of you may be aware of my like for contradiction and whenever I find information that flies in the face of conventional and accepted wisdom, I devour it. I use the excuse of keeping an open mind when I stumble into that kind of research - really, it is just plain glee at pricking a hole in all of those pompous gas bags that try to control our lives. You won't need to be a contrarian to enjoy the new blog but I really believe that there is an enormous amount of BS in most of the fields I study and that some professions (and you know who you are) shroud the truth in obfuscation and diatribe that is intentionally designed to make it more difficult for laymen - see, I can do it too.



OK, so the new blog is called Health Full Boomer and I plan to offer information on the complete "health" areas of our lives including medical, fitness, nutritional, financial and anything else that contributes to the whole person and our enjoyment of life. Life is for living, not waiting and it is a lot easier (as I have recently found out) when we are physically fit. I don't know about you but I come from the school of 'no pain - no gain' and during that pursuit I have discovered a program developed by a doctor (of all people!) from Florida who has turned the entire idea of long, boring, exhausting workouts on its head. He claims, and has the research to back it up, that we need 12 minutes per day of intense workout to reclaim the fitness that our bodies were created for. No expensive gym memberships, hour long jogs or $2,000.00 electronic clothes hangers in the basement. I currently have his program open on my desk as I put together a new 12 minute routine for next week. I have been using his ideas for about a month and a half and can happily report that it really works! So, if you are curious, my first posting at Health Full Boomer will be about the PACE program developed by Dr. Al Sears, MD.
In the new blog, I will try to keep the tone light and informative and save my whining for this space. I am also hoping to drive more traffic to Health Full Boomer and will be writing some magazine articles, etc. that will reference it. If you are so inclined, I would appreciate your help in spreading the word about it and will be offering some FREE reports and information exclusively available to followers of the blog.



To your continuing prosperity and good health...