Monday Mix up - How do you define health care?

Have you noticed how the term "Health Care" is always associated with pictures of doctors and nurses? Seriously, google it and click on images. I have to wonder how and when medication and surgery became a part of health care? Think about what the word "health" actually means to you. When you say you want to get healthy, it conjures up images of fruit and vegetables and a person dressed in gym clothes happily jogging along a beach. What it DOESN'T conjure up is an image of you popping off to a hospital...

We DO associate health with good, clean food and exercise. Google "healthy person" and this is what you find:

So how did, what doctors do, become "health care"? I think it's that, when healthy living doesn't produce the results we want, we always know we can fall back on medication, and we do, instead of persevering with that healthy living. It's too much effort and we comfort ourselves that we tried our best and we take those pills to give us an illusion of health and we manage to convince ourselves that we ARE actually healthy again.

When did we start accepting that taking medication on a regular or semi-regular basis was part of health care? Did you know that the average person fills 11.6 prescriptions per year?! That's a lot of medication for one person and that doesn't even tell us how MUCH medication is on each prescription. Taking medication has nothing to do with health care and everything to do with sick care. If you need to fall back on medication, it's because there is a bigger, underlying problem that pills aren't going to be able to adequately fix. They are going to mask the problem, temporarily fix the symptoms and give you the illusion of health.

Health means that you don’t need medication. It suggests vitality. It means you feel good, you have energy, and you are functioning well in your day to day life. It means that you take preventative measures to stay healthy, like eating the right foods and exercising. Those are not considered medication and I have to wonder why not. They certainly are more effective in the longterm.

What does it mean to prevent health problems? Is medication a part of that? Bear in mind that we're talking about your average person. I don't mean people who have serious health problems like needing a kidney transplant etc.

Most of us are born healthy. And, from birth, our only requirements to maintain that health are:

• Water 
• Macro-nutrients (fat, protein, carbs) 
• Micro-nutrients (vitamins and minerals) 
• Motion (exercise) 
• Emotional support 

In case you're wondering, that last one IS a requirement. There is plenty of research that has been done on this. Think of people in longterm abuse situations and what is does to their psyche, or babies and children that are left alone, in the dark, and have their physical needs tended to, but have no contact. They show stunted growth, never learn to move or speak, and a lot of them die very young. It's a fact that people who live "normal" lives, but don’t have emotional support tend to have higher levels of stress, depression, and physical disease too.

To go back to those bullet points, it therefore stands to reason that prevention should actually focus on the things that we need to maintain our health, to prevent disease. That should be a no-brainer. To be more specific, we should be eating healthy foods, and eating ENOUGH of them. We need to exercise regularly, even if it’s just a brisk, short walk, and it also means we need friends and family surrounding us and supporting us. Each person’s needs are unique when it comes to healthy food, exercise, and support, but each person STILL needs all of them.

Now that you have a better understanding of health and prevention, I'll ask this question: Where does medication fit into a person's life? It's not a part of prevention. We aren’t born deficient in medication. We don’t actually NEED them to be healthy. Medication manipulates our bodies to do a certain thing: to kill bacteria, lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure or get rid of a headache etc. They don’t correct imbalances or address underlying causes in the longterm. They make the numbers appear on paper the way they “should.” They don't create health, or prevent disease.

This goes against everything I believe in, but I know, in some cases, there may be a time and a place for medication. If you have lived an excessively unhealthy life, and there are just too many things wrong, medication may help your body move past one part of it all so that you can start fighting everything else yourself. Just remember that medication may make you “okay” but it will never actually cure you and it will always cause side effects which you'll then need to recover from. The best thing to do in a case like that is bite the bullet, take the meds, but then change your life and prevent it happening again.

I mentioned that medication causes nasty side effects that your body will need to recover from. That, in itself can make you feel just as sick as the illness. Using medication too often creates a lot of additional problems. For example, we know that antibiotics are overused - we’ve created superbugs that are antibiotic-resistant thanks to doctors giving out scripts for the common cold and the flu. Antibiotics lead to further infections, diarrhea, and lots of other nasty side effects. They don't create health. Yes, they are intended to kill the bad bacteria that is making you sick, but they don’t actually make you healthy. They make you more sick and here's why.

Most people don't take probiotics with antibiotics. They don't change their diet to help their body to get back to its former self in terms of health. That is why they get sick again and again. Giving your body the food and nutrients it needs after antibiotics is part of prevention and health. 

If you take anything from this post, I hope it's this: Medication does not make you healthy. It is not part of a healthy lifestyle. It is to be used very rarely, in the case of a serious illness, to give the body a fighting chance. But it should never be a daily habit.

Now, if you’re new here, you might still subscribe to the view that medication is normal and okay to use. If you have a headache, you think nothing about popping a nurofen, if you have a cold or flu, you probably start by going to a chemist and getting some over-the-counter medication which seldom works. That's when you head to the doctor to get a prescription. Prescriptions are probably a fairly regular part of your life.

There is another way, though.

Go through some of the archives and find alternative solutions to medication.  Over the past year 2 years, I've cleaned out all of our over-the-counter meds and we don't go to doctors anymore. Never underestimate the power of herbs and spices.  They are extremely effective AND they don’t cause side effects. They're also WAY cheaper! I haven't taken a pill in over 2 years and that includes something as basic as panado and disprin. When you change your mindset and simply accept that those aren't options anymore, you open yourself up to a whole new world of options.

When I have a heachache, I consider the possible causes and then take the necessary action. If I've over-indulged (which doesn't happen often thank goodness), water, milkthistle tea, a homemade rehydrate drink and a combination of cinnamon, ginger and cayenne pepper sorts me out. If I have period pains, I warm up a beanbag to hug and drink the same spicy concoction (Those are great natural painkillers) If it's a tension headache, I lie down and rest as soon as I can after drinking the same spicy mix. It's my go-to painkiller. I used to get headaches daily and I lived on all manner of headache tablets which, ironically, gave me MORE headaches. These days I seldom get them and I attribute it to not being reliant on pain pills anymore, or any chemicals for that matter.

I’m not suggesting that you never see a doctor again, or turn to chanting and meditation instead of medicine (although there is a lot to be said for meditating;) I’m suggesting that for minor illnesses, headaches, colds and flu etc, you try using natural methods instead of going straight to conventional medication or visiting a doctor. 

Live according to your body's needs as I listed above. Work on prevention instead of the quick fix and keep your body in a state of real health, not an illusion of health. I promise it will make a huge difference to your energy levels and to your life.

Monday Mix up - Is Coca Cola really all that bad for you?

In a word: YES. But you knew that already, didn't you? I'm sure most of you have heard the urban legends about coke. There was one doing the rounds a few years back about a tooth being dissolved in a glass of coke overnight etc. Snopes picks the story apart and explains why it isn't an issue. They say that coke has the same acidity as orange juice, probably less, and both have the potential to damage teeth so it's stupid to point the finger at coke.

Ok, so if Snopes has proven that the claim was false, why am I even blogging about this? Well, here's the thing: comparing orange juice to coke is a bit like comparing an apple to a piece of cardboard that has been dipped in mercury. While orange juice may be highly acidic, there are definitely SOME benefits to drinking it whereas, drinking coke has, oh let's see, ZERO benefits.

I find the whole argument on Snopes absolutely typical of something a doctor or a scientist would say actually. No concern for health, only for what can be proven through scientific research. What I find scary is that, even a conventional nutritionist would tell you to drink a coke light rather than a glass of fruit juice! Now, I'm not one to promote fruit juice. Unless the juice is made in a blender right before your eyes, and still contains all the pulpy bits, they're not as full of goodness as you'd like to think.

HOWEVER...

To actually CHOOSE something that is man-made, in a lab, and contains absolutely nothing natural or good, over something that grows from a tree and contains a good amount of all sorts of macro and micro nutrients (in its unprocessed form) is just plain wrong. Forget calories. People are too obsessed with their body fat and not obsessed enough with their health. A glass of coke should NEVER be your first choice, period.

I'm kind of an all or nothing girl. If I know something is bad for me, that's it. It's over and it's out of my life. But I know you get people who live according to the 80/20 rule. That means that 80% of their life is clean, which gives them room to have 20% of it not so clean. If you live like that then, having a coke now and then shouldn't be TOO detrimental to your health, although it should never replace more nutritional options.

Then you get those people who live according to the "life is short and I'll do what I want until the day I die" rule. Other people who fit into this category are the "I have absolutely no clue about health and nutrition and I couldn't tell you what food is good or bad for you because it never entered my head to think about it" people. I think the former are worse than the latter only because they KNOW some things are bad for them, they just have an "I don't care" kind of attitude. The latter are simply too ignorant to consider other options. They don't know options even exist.

The people that fall into the above category are the ones that are really in danger from something that, according to Snopes, is harmless. Let's look at the damage to teeth issue first. The excuse that you'd have to hold coke in your mouth for long periods for it to damage your teeth, is a stupid one in my opinion. If you are drinking 2 or 3 litres of coke a day, that stuff is going to be touching your teeth every time you drink it.

Let's try a quick experiment: If you have a drink nearby, grab a sip and analyse the process of sipping and swallowing. How long does it stay in your mouth? If it's a particularly hot day and I'm feeling like I need some cold liquid to cool me down, I actually hold the liquid in my mouth for a second or two before I swallow it, to really feel the effects. I'm not saying this happens every time, but it happens often enough to notice it. I'd hazard a guess that I'm not alone in doing this. Not everyone grabs a coke and pours it straight down their gullet unless they're in a coke advert. Normal people savour every sip.

I happen to know several people who's drink of choice was always coke. Over a few years, their teeth literally started to turn black around the edges. These were professional people who looked after their teeth, brushing them every day, flossing and using mouthwash etc. The fact is, your average person can't brush their teeth after every glass of coke and, when you are drinking 3 litres a day, that is a lot of exposure to something like coke.

What I find interesting is that you seldom, if ever, see people drinking orange juice by the gallon the way that some people drink coke. Funny that... Why DO people actually include coca cola in their monthly budget and stock up on in as if the coke well is about to dry up? I see families doing their monthly shop with the whole bottom half of their trolleys taken up by 2 litres cokes! Why do they choose it over just about any other drink and why do they drink SO MUCH of it? It's simple.

Coca cola is addictive. Number one: it contains caffeine and number two: it is loaded with sugar, or high fructose corn syrup, a particularly nasty invention. Both are stimulants and both are highly addictive. Your body very quickly comes to rely on the boost that your glass of coke gives you and it struggles to do without it once you're hooked. You can even convince yourself it tastes really good, simply because you're that addicted. I used to be addicted. I drank coke every chance I got when I was a teenager and I thought I loved the taste of it. I found it very interesting that, when I stopped drinking it, and the withdrawals disappeared, I suddenly couldn't even stand the smell of it, let alone the taste. Speaking of the withdrawals, they are highly unpleasant with symptoms such as headaches, nausea, fatigue, loss of concentration and an inability to focus, irritability, constipation, depression, muscle pain and stiffness, flu-like symptoms and insomnia (ironically).

Does that sound like something that is doing your body any good? Here's what happens to your body when you drink a coke:

• 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system within the first 10 minutes. In case you were wondering, this is 100% of your recommended daily intake. The only reason you don’t vomit as a result of the overwhelming sweetness is because phosphoric acid cuts the flavour.
• Within 20 minutes, your blood sugar spikes, and your liver responds to the resulting insulin burst by turning massive amounts of sugar into fat 
• Within 40 minutes, your body has absorbed all the caffeine; You can tell because your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, and your liver dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. 
• Around 45 minutes after drinking a coke, your body increases dopamine production, which stimulates the pleasure centres of your brain - a physically identical response to that of heroin, by the way. 
• After 60 minutes, you’ll start to have a sugar crash and you'll be craving another coke, or something else sweet to give you a boost, and the whole cycle will start again.

Scary, isn't it? But why stop there? Here's another downside to drinking lots of coca cola. The carbonation itself is really bad for you. It causes calcium loss in your bones and this is how:

• The carbonation irritates the stomach 
• The stomach “cures” the irritation the only way it knows how. It adds the only antacid at its disposal: calcium, which it gets from your blood 
• The blood, which is now low on calcium, replenishes its supply from the bones. It has to because, if it didn't, muscular and brain function would be severely impaired. So your bones become weakened over time. 

Unfortunately, that's not all though. Coke contains phosphoric acid (and that's not the same as the carbonation, which is just carbon dioxide mixed with the water). Snopes will tell you it contains very little phosphoric acid. But again, if you are addicted and drinking 3 litres a day, small amounts add up fast. Phosphoric acid also causes your bones to soften and become weak and brittle. So, between the carbonation and the phosphoric acid, you are probably on your way to getting osteoporosis. A big problem is that people choose coke as their drink of choice. In other words, drinks that COULD be replacing some of the calcium loss, like water and milk, are being completely eclipsed by coke, making the effects of coke even worse.

Snopes will tell you that your stomach lining is pretty tough stuff. True story. It is. And that's why coke probably won't damage your stomach. Here's what they DON'T mention:

• Mechanical damage to cells is a huge risk factor for cancer.
• All soft drinks cause acid reflux (stomach acid rising up past the oesophageal valve). It's worse when the body is horizontal (as in sleeping), however, given the sheer volume of coke people drink, it's becoming an issue at any time of the day. Any time you drink a gassy drink, you are going to start burping, and that is going to release acid into your oesophagus. The research doesn’t tell us how much is too much. We DO know that most of us are far, far, far past the limit. 
• Stomach acid is pretty strong stuff as I said. The stomach lining is built to withstand a lot of stuff like coke. But that lining doesn't extend into the oesophagus. That means the lower oesophagus is getting damaged by acid pretty much every time you drink a coke and experience acid reflux. That's going to result in mechanical damage to the cells, which is going to increase cell mutations and that means you at a much greater risk of getting cancer. Oesophageal cancer was very rare two generations ago. Now, it’s extremely common. 

Don't be fooled into thinking that coke zero or coke light are the better option. They aren't for all the reasons set out in the above paragraphs. Sugar replacements like aspartame aren't any better for you than high fructose corn syrup. Aspartame has been linked to numerous diseases and health problems. You should also take into account the fact that whether it's coke, coke light or coke zero, they all contain food dyes and other chemical additives that are known carcinogens, in other words, they cause cancer.

A main ingredient in coke and other soft drinks is tap water. What's wrong with that? A lot, actually if you follow the link. Tap water can contain any number of chemicals including chlorine, trihalomethanes, lead, cadmium, and various organic pollutants.

There is not ONE thing in a coke that is actually good for you and plenty of things that are bad. But, if you still think it's worth it for the kick, please just try and do it in moderation, and for heaven's sake, don't let your kids near it! If it's bad for you, it's only going to be worse for a developing body. You are setting them up for all sorts of future problems.

We are already battling so many environmental toxins that are almost impossible to avoid. Why would you voluntarily add to those by pouring toxins into your body?