Interesting Research

Interesting Research

EMF protection.

What are EMFs?

Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) are caused by the artificial current (AC) that surrounds us everyday. Power lines, airport and military radar, cell phone towers, substations and transformers are but a few of the ways we are exposed to EMFs in the community. In the home or office, we are exposed to EMFs from fluorescent lighting, microwaves, computers, wireless routers, appliances, TV's, the power breaker, telephone, clock radio next to the bed and much, much more. Basically, any machine, wire, plug or device that carries a current or any device that emits a frequency produces EMFs. Objects that use batteries such as wristwatches, pagers and MP3 players also emit EMF Frequencies.

The frequency at which an EMF is pulsed determines whether or not it is harmful. For example, the voltage of the electric current used in homes in the United States is 60 Hz (cycles per second). In contrast, the ideal frequencies of the human brain during waking hours range from 8 Hz to 20 Hz, while in sleep the frequencies may drop to as low as 2 Hz. The higher frequencies of EMFs generated by artificial electrical currents may disturb the brain's natural resonant frequencies and, in time, lead to cellular fatigue which decreases a wide range of natural body functions. In laboratory studies, cancer cells reproduced up to 24 times faster when exposed to EMFs.

EMFs have been shown to disrupt biological rhythms, brain functions and lower immune system functioning. Animal and human studies have linked EMFs to birth defects and miscarriages. Over 60 studies now link EMFs to cancer, leukemia and tumor growth. Fortune magazine reports that up to 30% of childhood cancers are linked to EMFs. Although they cannot be seen, these silent, odorless and tasteless, unperceived EMFs are in many ways contributing to a subtle assault on our immune systems and overall health.

You can protect yourself and your loved ones from harmful EMF exposure with the appropriate EMF devices. We offer everything you need to remediate phones, cell phones, TV's, computers, automobiles, wall circuits and D.C. (battery-operated) devices such as pagers, headphones, MP3 players, wristwatches or any other device used near the body.

During the winter season, people are often given antibiotics for their colds and flus. But colds, flus, cough and sinus congestion are symptoms of upper respiratory infections that are typically caused by viruses. However, antibiotics act only against bacteria and are ineffective against viral infections and Allergies. Taking an antibiotic when you don’t need it is not without risk. Antibiotics can drastically decrease the numbers of normal, protective intestinal flora normally present in the intestines – which can leave you too deficient – and cause an increased risk of getting even more infections. A well known research study on antibiotics showed that taking even a single regimen of antibiotics (i.e. about 10 days) makes a person 3 to 4 times more likely to get another infection. This is because antibiotics often kill off too much of the host’s inherent beneficial flora (which may have already been deficient in the first place), leaving the host even more unprotected in the fight against new infectious agents. Types of Infections. Generally speaking, infections are typically caused by three different agents: viruses, bacteria and fungi:

Examples of viral infections include the flu (influenza), the common cold (adena viruses) and AIDS.
Bacteria.
Bacterial infections include strep throat, most bladder infections and ear infections in children. Although bacteria can be killed by antibiotics like penicillin and sulfa, antibiotics create abnormal, cell-wall deficient bacterial forms which can embed deeper into your intestinal mucosa. That is why taking antibiotics increases your susceptibility to future infections. With every dose of an antibiotic, you also increase the potential incidence of resistant, “super forms” of bacteria.

Fungal infections include skin rashes like athlete's foot and a type of meningitis called cryptococcal meningitis. Antifungal drugs often have many negative side effects and are ineffective in those who already have a weakened immune system. Antibiotics Are Not Harmless According to recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, taking properly prescribed medical drugs was listed as the third leading cause of death in the U.S., presumably due to the extensive side effects of many drugs. Antibiotics were specifically listed as one of the drugs in this category. At times, antibiotics can be highly toxic and even deadly. Here are some of the potential adverse effects of taking antibiotics:

Many people wrongly believe they are allergic to certain antibiotics, such as penicillin, because it may give them an upset stomach or headache. In fact, some reactions to antibiotics are really toxic reactions whereby the body is reacting to the toxic nature of the antibiotic. For example, one patient developed a severe reaction to sulfa drugs. Her entire skin blistered and sloughed off, and her vital organs began to shut down. She had been taking the antibiotic for a simple bladder infection, yet she died four days later.

Alteration of normal bacterial flora.
Broad-spectrum antibiotics are undiscriminating: in addition to “bad bacteria”, they also kill healthy bacteria which normally live in the intestines and the vagina, and which are a necessary part of the indigenous flora to keep the body healthy. Antibiotics alter the normal flora in the gastrointestinal system, killing off the bad as well as the good bacteria. This leaves the person without sufficient normal protective bacteria. This is why antibiotics can cause bouts of diarrhea. If the flora is severely altered (in which too many beneficial bacteria die), it can even lead to life-threatening colitis, a severe inflammation of the colon. In some cases, young patients have required surgery after antibiotics because of development of colitis, after which they needed a colostomy bag. In addition, antibiotics alter the normal vaginal flora and often bring about vaginal yeast infections. When the "good" bacteria are killed with antibiotics, then yeast, which is part of the normal flora of the body, can begin to overgrow 50 because the antibiotics have altered the body’s healthy terrain (internal ecological balance) allowing the yeast to hyperproliferate and cause many far-reaching, toxic symptoms. Antibiotics do not kill yeast. Many women find after taking antibiotics, they get vaginal yeast infections (because their normal bacterial balance has been lost). Antibiotics can also bring about fungal skin infections for the same reasons. Sometimes these skin infections are difficult to clear.

Creation of super-strain resistant bacteria. Bacteria often become resistant when they are repeatedly exposed to antibiotics. The genetic makeup of the bacteria changes, which can make infections extremely difficult to treat. Some doctors consider antibiotics, like penicillin and amoxicillin, to be harmless and they often prescribe them even for relatively minor infections. However, we now know that frequent antibiotic use can cause a long-lasting upset in the body’s normal healthy bacterial ecology. For example, super-resistant staph infections and others have become so resistant mostly because of the frequent, repeated use of antibiotics.

Interference with vitamins and minerals. Antibiotics can interference with the absorption of many vitamins and minerals, leading to deficiencies in vitamins and minerals. Deficiencies in these nutrients can set the stage for increased susceptibility to more infections.

Interference with other medications. Antibiotics can abnormally alter the way other medical drugs are metabolized. A Different Approach For centuries in many different cultures all around the world, even serious infections have been effectively and safely cleared with the use of natural herbal agents. The function and use of these herbs has been handed down from generation to generation for the health and well being of the families and cultures. Natural Anti-Infective Agents. Unlike antibiotics, natural anti-infective botanical agents, such as olive leaf extract, hyssop, garlic and many others, can effectively kill the offending infectious bacteria without altering the body’s own normal healthy flora or compromising the body’s intestinal tract or other organs and glands.

Olive Leaf Extract. Also, unlike antibiotics, many herbal agents such as Italian olive leaf extract can effectively eliminate viruses from the body, including the AIDS virus. This powerful, broad-spectrum herbal remedy has been used for centuries, is readily available, highly effective and is a very reasonable cost. Unlike antibiotics, Italian olive leaf extract has no harmful side effects.

Probiotic Complexes. During times when the body’s immune system is under attack and an infection is trying to gain hold such as a cold or flu, taking several capsules of a natural probiotic complex can be a tremendous help in replacing greater amounts of beneficial bacteria in the intestines to help the immune system fight off the invaders and most efficiently eliminate them. The effects can often be felt almost immediately. If a cold or flu is already underway, taking probiotics can tremendously shorten the recuperation time. They are also an excellent infection preventative agent when taken daily. Aspirin Not

Despite the vast size of these meta-analyses, the evidence in support of aspirin preventing atherosclerotic events is still inconclusive. The third meta-analysis from the Antithrombotic Trialists' Collaboration contains data on over 100,000 patients at high risk of atherosclerotic events, representing more than 250, 000 patient years of follow up.

 

(1) This meta-analysis and its predecessors form the major argument for the current widespread fashion of prescribing aspirin to such patients.

(2, 3) It is an enormous body of research and the collaboration is to be congratulated for having gathered so much data. However, quality as well as quantity matters. And the quality is such that the results can only be inconclusive.

Summary Points:

• The series of meta-analyses on the anti-platelet activity of aspirin overvalues aspirin's effectiveness and safety. • All the large long term trials of aspirin after myocardial infarction show no effect on mortality. • Aspirin may change the way vascular events present rather than prevent them. • This may lead to a "cosmetic" reduction in non-fatal events and an increase in sudden death. • Data on the safety and cost-benefit of aspirin are inadequate. • Advocating the use of aspirin for preventing atherosclerotic events diverts attention from other, more effective, drugs.

Trials Do Not Show That Aspirin Saves Lives Meta-analysis is increasingly viewed either as a way of verifying that the outcome of an individual trial is consistent with the rest of the known data or as a way of generating a hypothesis.

However, in the absence of a definitively positive trial, many consider meta-analysis inadequate evidence for clinical decision making. The series of metaanalyses from the trialists' collaboration contains serious additional flaws.

(3-6) It is remarkable and probably statistically significant how seldom trials of anti-platelet agents have shown benefit on their selected primary outcome. The choice of the primary endpoint by the Antithrombotic Trialists' Collaboration is arbitrary and suspect. Antiplatelet agents seem to be substantially more effective in reducing the incidence of non-fatal events than in reducing death. Indeed, among large long-term trials after myocardial infarction there is no evidence that aspirin saves lives. An intervention can reduce non-fatal events in three ways: by genuinely reducing them, by concealing them, or by converting non-fatal events into fatal ones. The failure of aspirin to reduce mortality despite a reduction in non-fatal events in many studies suggests that aspirin may conceal, rather than prevent, vascular events. (6) Epidemiological data suggest that 25% of non-fatal myocardial infarctions are silent.

(4,5) As aspirin, even at low doses, is an analgesic and because it may provoke dyspepsia, which may create confusion about the cause of chest pain, it is not difficult to believe that aspirin could increase the proportion of silent events from 25% to 30%. This could explain all the benefits of antiplatelet agents on non-fatal myocardial in the meta-analysis. Aspirin increased the risk of sudden death in every long-term study after myocardial infarction that reported such events. 38 This increase was from 4.4% on placebo to 5.6% on aspirin in the persantine-aspirin reinfarction (PARIS) study; from 2.0% to 2.7% in the aspirin myocardial infarction study (AMIS); and from 2.0% to 2.4% in the persantine-aspirin reinfarction study (PARIS-II).

(9) This could reflect an increased risk of sudden death among concealed, and therefore untreated, events. Another possible mechanism by which aspirin may convert non-fatal events into fatal ones is by increasing the risk of hemorrhagic conversion of cerebral and myocardial infarctions. All cause mortality and, arguably, disabling stroke are the only robust markers of benefit with an antiplatelet agent. It is not clear that antiplatelet agents reduce the risk of either. Some trials that were included lost more than a quarter of their patients to follow up(10) In similar circumstances, with other agents, it has been suggested that all patients lost to follow up in the active treatment group should be considered to have died and none of those in the control arm. Such an analysis would neutralize the benefit observed in one of the few seemingly convincingly positive studies of aspirin, the ISIS-2 trial.

(11)Bias In Interpretation The Antithrombotic Trialists' Collaboration shows bias in the analysis and interpretation of their results. We are given scant detail on how the numbers of events credited to each trial changed between meta-analyses.

(2, 3) Trials were retrospectively reanalyzed, resulting in resurrection of a number of apparently dead patients and the discovery of a number of new deaths. Most interventions probably help some people some of the time and harm others some of the time. A small benefit could reflect a small overall benefit in a large population or a substantial benefit in some patients and harm in others. Aspirin could exert a short-term benefit followed by long term harm, in which case the benefits and safety of aspirin could be increased by using only a short term course of therapy.

(14) Aspirin may be harmful in patients with coronary disease and heart failure.

(5, 6, 12) The evidence for an adverse interaction between aspirin and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors observed in the SOLVD (studies of left ventricular function) and HOPE (heart outcomes prevention evaluation) trials is also a matter for concern.

(6, 12) These are important issues that have not been adequately addressed. Neither Safe Nor Cheap Many believe that, even if aspirin is not effective, it is safe. Aspirin does appear to be relatively safe for the patients included in clinical trials, but as these studies excluded by design patients at risk of adverse events with aspirin and tended to include younger patients with lower multiple morbidity it is likely that aspirin is not as safe as suggested. Low dose aspirin for cardiovascular prophylaxis may account for more than 30% of all major gastrointestinal hemorrhage in patients

(4, 6, 15) and may also be associated with an increased risk of renal failure. Finally, there is a widespread view that aspirin is cheap. However, when evaluating the costs of treatment the amount and type of benefit and the costs of managing adverse effects also need to be evaluated. Very few economic appraisals of aspirin have been done. One such analysis, recently commissioned by the chief scientist's office in Scotland, suggested it may cost more than £80 000 to prevent one event with aspirin for primary prevention and more than £3000 for secondary prevention.

(16) These analyses have assumed that aspirin is as effective as the meta-analyses suggest, which may not be true.

A Diversion:

Perhaps the greatest potential detriment of aspirin on health care, however, is that it diverts attention away from treatments that are of unequivocal benefit to many groups of patients. The reader should not accept the conclusions of the Antithrombotic Trialists' Collaboration uncritically but rather read the original papers on which their conclusions are based.

References

  1. Antithrombotic Trialists' Collaboration. Prevention of death, myocardial infarction and stroke by antiplatelet therapy in high-risk patients. BMJ 2001; 323: 71- 86[Abstract/Full Text].
  2. The antiplatelet trialists' collaboration. Secondary prevention of vascular disease by prolonged antiplatelet treatment. BMJ 1988; 296: 320-331[Medline].
  3. The antiplatelet trialists' collaboration. Collaborative overview of randomized trials of antiplatelet therapy - 1:Prevention of death, myocardial infarction, and stroke by prolonged antiplatelet therapy in various categories of patients. BMJ 1994; 308: 81-106[Abstract/Full Text].
  4. Cleland JGF, Bulpitt CJ, Falk RH, Findlay IN, Oakley CM, Murray G, et al. Is aspirin safe for patients with heart failure? Br Heart J 1995; 74: 215- 219[Medline
  5. Cleland JGF. Anticoagulant and antiplatelet therapy in heart failure. Curr Opinion Cardiol 1997; 12: 276-287[Medline]. 39
  6. Cleland JGF, John J, Houghton T. Does aspirin attenuate the effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors in hypertension or heart failure? Curr Opin Nephrol Hypertens 2001; 10: 625-631[Medline].
  7. The Persantine-Aspirin Reinfarction Study (PARIS) Research Group. Persantine and aspirin in coronary heart disease. Circulation 1980; 62: 449- 462[Abstract].
  8. The Aspirin Myocardial Infarction Study Research Group. The aspirin myocardial infarction study: final results. Circulation 1980; 62: V79-V84[Medline].
  9. Klimit CR, Knatterud GL, Stamler J, Meier P. Persantine-aspirin reinfarction study. Part II. Secondary coronary prevention with persantine and aspirin. J Am Coll Cardiol 1986; 7: 251-269[Medline].
  10. Breddin K, Loew D, Uberla KK, Walter E. The German-Austrian aspirin trial: A comparison of acetylsalicylic acid, placebo and phenprocoumon in secondary prevention of myocardial infarction. Circulation 1980; 62: V63-V71[Medline].
  11. ISIS-2 Collaborative group. Randomised trial of intravenous streptokinase, oral aspirin, both, or neither among 17,187 cases of suspected acute myocardial infarction. Lancet 1988; ii: 349-360.
  12. Jones CG, Cleland JGF. Meeting report - LIDO, HOPE, MOXCON and WASH Studies. Eur J Heart Failure 1999;425-31.
  13. Pulmonary Embolism Prevention (PEP) Trial Collaborative Group. Prevention of pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis with low dose aspirin: Pulmonary Embolism Prevention (PEP) trial. Lancet 2000; 355: 1295-1302[Medline].
  14. Lewis HD, Davis JW, Archibald DG, Steinke WE, Smitherman TC, Doherty JE, et al. Protective effects of aspirin against acute mycardial infarction and death in men with unstable angina. N Engl J Med 1983; 309: 396-403[Abstract].
  15. Weil J, Langman MJS, Wainwright P, Lawson DH, Rawlins M, Logan RFA, et al. Peptic ulcer bleeding: accessory risk factors and interactions with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Gut 2000; 46: 27-31[Abstract/Full Text].
  16. McMahon AD, MacDonald TM, Davey PG, Cleland JGF. The impact of low-dose aspirin prescribing on upper gastrointestinal toxicity, renal toxicity 

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