Archive for July, 2010

Recent breaking news:  Lipitor, the world’s best selling drug by Pfizer will now be available in chewable pill form for your children to enjoy.  Yummy.  In an article written by the Associated Press earlier this month, it states that this pill will be designed for children with “Genetic Diseases” like Familial Hypercholesterolemia.

This is quite upsetting.  Am I the only one who sees it?  I’m about to give you a lesson in genius marketing.

Article

Here are some facts about cholesterol you might not have known:

Fact: 85% of the cholesterol in your body is produced by your liver.

Fact:  Blood Cholesterol levels rise in response to stress and high levels of sugar in the diet.

Fact: Cholesterol is a requirement to generate new cells in healing, to make every hormone in the body, and to keep your mood elevated.  There is no such thing as “Good” and “bad” cholesterol.  That’s marketing.

Fact:  Your arteries get injured because of all the insane amounts of sugar damaging the walls. When cholesterol comes to the rescue, the LDL proteins can get stuck in the injured area and become oxidized (“rusted”) and can clog your arteries.  The cholesterol is not the bad guy!  The sugar and stress is!

Fact:  No money can be made in telling you to change your lifestyle.  Billions can be made in marketing a lie and repeating it so much that it’s a belief that now doctors don’t even question.

Fact:  Cholesterol lowering drugs damage muscle tissue.

Fact:  The heart is almost all muscle!

Fact:  Cholesterol lowering drugs have nasty side effects.

Watch this short clip from “Fat Head” … a GREAT documentary.

Here’s the genius:  Market a disease, talk about how many millions of people die of it, and market a symptom that can be easily seen in a test and create a drug to manipulate the way the body works to change the results of the test.  Now give people the false illusion that the drug is keeping them alive and making them healthier.

Here’s the bad news:  As you sit here reading this article, people in suits and ties are strategizing on how to get more drugs into more people.  And because of this—they’re constantly changing the guidelines on what’s “too high” for cholesterol levels.  Now as you can see, they’re marketing to the kids.

What gets passed down to your children?  Lifestyle habits.  Are you spending time in front of the TV with your kids, or are you out in nature hiking with them?  Do your children watch you drink excessive amounts of alcohol, smoke, and drink sodas by the truckloads?

We call these genetic disorders, but your genes are adaptable based on the environment you are living in.  How you eat, how you move, how you think, and how clear your nervous system is will determine your health.

Even though statins like Lipitor are among the best selling pharmaceuticals, most of the people taking them don’t need them.  Don’t believe the hype.  Do your research.  Don’t believe anyone—even someone wearing a white coat that tells you that you need to take something for the rest of your life.  Find another way and use pills as a last resort.

Appreciate clever marketing for what it is… but don’t become victim to it.  Keep your kids off the pharmaceuticals and teach them that they have everything within them to be healthy and fulfilled in life.

Tips for optimizing your family’s cholesterol levels:

1)   Cholesterol rises in response to stress.  This is a normal, healthy, and appropriate response.  Find ways of dealing with the cause, not the response.  What emotional charges are you burying and not dealing with?

2)   Keep your insulin levels low by minimizing sugar and grains

3)   Increase your healthy fats:  Fish oils, avocados, nuts, seeds, coconut oil, olive oil… even BUTTER!  (preferably grass fed organic)

4)   STAY AWAY from processed oils like corn oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, and shortening

5)   Exercise for the love of God.  If you get a high cholesterol diagnosis, take it as feedback from your body rather than something you “caught” that’s “genetic” that’s “out of your control”.

6)   If you are on a statin, make sure you’re taking Co Q10 which is important in energy production and free radical protection in your cells as well as cardiac function.  Statins deplete CoQ10 in the cells.

I’m on a mission to inform the planet of the amazing ability of your body to adapt to the environment we put it in.  The choices we make in our lifestyles and how clear our neurological connection is between brain and the 100 trillion cells in your body play the most important role in determining your health.

From Depression, to Swine Flu, to High Cholesterol, you’re being sold sickness dozens of times a day.  Remember that every time you see a pharmaceutical ad on TV.

Start paying attention to those who are teaching real health.  Do your reading.