Jul 8, 2009

Are you feeding your cells to degenerate or regenerate?

Cellular Nutrition www.herbabodyshop.com

We have no choice but to live in our present environment. Our bodies are affronted daily by excessive production of free radicals caused by our polluted environment, stressful lifestyles, and over-medicated society. Though we can certainly reduce the amount of free radicals our bodies produce by: not smoking, decreasing stress levels, and avoiding toxic chemicals, most of our bodies are still unable to fight the overwhelming daily attack on the natural defense system. Remember balance is the key--we need enough antioxidants available to neutralize the free radicals produced.

Over the past 50 years, nutritional medicine and supplementation has focused on replenishing a nutritional deficiency. Countless hours and dollars have been spent trying to determine exactly which nutrients our bodies are depleted of. Blood tests, urine tests, hair samples, muscle testing, and more have been conducted in an attempt to determine which nutrients we need to supplement. However, we have been aiming at the wrong target. The present problem is not a nutritional deficiency, but rather, underlying oxidative stress. Oxidative stress has now been shown beyond any shadow of doubt via medical research to be the root cause of over 70 chronic degenerative diseases. Diseases like heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer’s dementia, macular degeneration, lupus, MS, and the list goes on and on.

Because oxidative stress is our concern rather than specific nutritional deficiencies, we must determine what is the best approach to preventing or controlling oxidative stress. This is accomplished by bolstering one’s natural defenses through cellular nutrition.

Cellular nutrition is simply providing ALL nutrients to the cell at optimal levels. This allows the cell to determine what it actually does and does not need. I don’t have to worry about determining which nutrients the cell is deficient in. I simply provide all of the important nutrients at optimal levels—those levels shown to provide a health benefit in the medical literature. Any nutritional deficiencies will be automatically corrected over the next few months by this approach and all the other vital nutrients will be brought up to their optimal levels as well.

Cellular nutrition is providing the body with all the antioxidants along with the supporting B vitamins and antioxidant minerals at optimal levels. This is "preventive medicine" at its best because we can literally attack the disease process at its core by preventing oxidative stress from occurring.

You may be wondering if we can control oxidative stress by simply improving our diet and eating more fruits and vegetables. This is definitely a good start. By simply eating 7 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables each day you can decrease the risk of heart attack, stroke, Alzheimer’s dementia, and cancer, two to three fold. We certainly want to supplement a good diet—not a bad diet. However, even if you eat a great diet you can barely obtain the RDA level of all essential nutrients. Medical studies have shown that less than 1% of the American population accomplishes this on a consistent basis.

Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA):

Research studies reveal standards of recommended daily allowance (RDA’s) have absolutely nothing to do with chronic degenerative diseases. RDA’s were developed to avoid what are known as acute deficiency diseases like scurvy (deficiency of vitamin C), rickets (deficiency of vitamin D), and pellagra (deficiency of niacin). In other words, if you consumed the RDAs for vitamin C, vitamin D, and niacin, you would not develop any of these illnesses.

Admittedly, the RDA’s have done their job—how many people do you know suffer from these diseases? RDA’s first developed in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The list of nutrients included in the RDAs grew over the next two decades and in the early 1950s, the definition of RDAs expanded to include the amounts of nutrients needed for normal growth and development. Despite the fact that RDAs have proved useful, most physicians and laypeople tend to assign more meaning to RDA standards than they should.

After researching medical literature on the topic of oxidative stress and the amount of nutrients needed to prevent it, I found the optimal levels of nutrients known to provide health benefits are significantly greater those suggested by RDA levels. For example, the optimal level of vitamin E is 400 IU. The RDA is only 30 IU. That being the case, you may consider eating 400 IU of vitamin E. You would only need to eat 33 heads of spinach, or 27 pounds of butter; 80 avocados will do, or an alternative 5 pounds of wheat germ each and every day to obtain that level of vitamin E.

Similarly, the optimal level of vitamin C is approximately 1200 to 2000 mg daily, while the RDA is only 60 mg. To eat the optimal levels of vitamin would need to consume 18 oranges, or 17 kiwifruit, or 160 apples. Put in this perspective, it becomes clear that the only way to obtain these levels of nutrients is to supplement our diet. And this requires more than a generic multiple vitamin. One-a-day multiple vitamins are primarily based on RDA levels, thus providing no measurable health benefits. Significantly more potent supplements are needed each day to provide the optimal levels to provide cellular nutrition.

By Ray D Strand M.D.

What colour is your music?

Are you one of those few people who see music in colors?

When I was a kid, I started piano at four and sang in choirs from eight. I loved singing and playing. There is a huge thrill to be part of a team, a choir, to be part of the vibration of sound, create perfect harmony and to perform. In the choir I always knew when we went sharp or flat. It was just an instinct. I thought everyone knew it. It is hard to describe. I felt or saw music in my head and if it went sharp I felt like the picture went lighter in colur and if we went flat it changed its shade to grey or dark. The more I sang and played, the more I could recognize each note of the piano and started to see colors. Any song I learnt, I was able to recall any time and always starting it on the right pitch. I remember rare incidents when during the concert something went wrong in the choir and we fell apart in a challenging piece. I just waited for the suitable place where the music had some structural cut or a new entry. I made sure that I came in first on the right pitch, leading the choir back where we all felt familiar, saving the performance. If all went well, nobody in the audience noticed it but everyone knew it in the choir and excitedly talked about it as we left the stage. It was a huge risk to take but there was no other solution. It was just a natural instinct. It was not planned, it just happened. Funnily, our conductor knew that someone will save the performance. He just did not know when and how! The same happened to me a few times as a conductor. It is a less ideal situation because when singing comes from the conductor, it is more noticeable, especially if not a choir but an orchestra is falling apart!!! These are behind the scene secrets but everyone remembers them for the rest of their lives. I believe, in medical or scientific terms, I have no absolute pitch nor synaesthesia. I just had good skills and I am a result of a long term, fantastic training and decades of disciplined work.

Seeing Music

What colour and shape is your favourite song? For some people with synaesthesia, it's a pretty straightforward question. Due to connections between different perceptual areas of their brain - like the part of the brain that perceives colour being linked with the area that detects a tone - synaesthetes tend to have two or more of their senses that are connected. With one type of synaesthesia, those affected will see colours and shapes when they listen to music, and may associate a specific colour with each letter and day of the week. Synesthesia runs strongly in families, but the precise mode of inheritance has yet to be ascertained. As many as 1 percent of people have the most recognizable form of synesthesia, studies say. Acclaimed Russian-American author Vladimir Nabokov, who wrote "Lolita," famously had the disorder, as did physicist Richard Feynman and Hungarian composer and piano virtuoso Franz Liszt.

Is D Yellow for you?

"You can't get a more yellow key than D, he (Aaaron McMillan) told me as he played the familiar notes of Rachmaninov's Prelude in D. Most ears could not 'hear' any yellow, but for Aaron, every piece of music conjured a distinct band of the color spectrum."

"Aaron McMillan pianist was certain that he did not have the neurological condition synesthesia, which blurs the senses, causing people to taste names or smell colors or see sounds; he simply associated each musical key and its mood with a color. C major was pure white and the other keys fanned out in a rainbow from red A up to violet G. If he were asked to compose while sitting in a green field, for example he knew he would have to write in grassy E flat or the more stridently green E. This was his personal interpretation but he was satisfied to learn that the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin had also linked each key with a color. Aaron was uncomprehending when another composer told him he pictured G as the green key. G could only be violet. "Life In His Hands The true story of a Neurosurgeon and a Pianist by Susan Wyndham

Jul 7, 2009

How 8 glasses a day keeps the fat away

HOW 8 GLASSES A DAY KEEPS THE FAT AWAY

Incredible as it may seem, water is quite possibly the single most important catalyst in losing weight and keeping it off. Although most of us take it for granted, water may be the only true “magical potion” for permanent weight loss.

Water suppresses the appetite and helps the body metabolise stored fat. Studies have shown that a decrease in water intake will cause fat deposits to increase while an increase in water intake can actually cause fat deposits to reduce.

GOT TO FILL THOSE KIDNEYS

Here’s why. The kidneys cannot function properly without enough water. When they do not work to capacity, some of the load is dumped into the liver. One of the liver’s primary functions is to metabolise stored fat into usable energy for the body. But if the liver has to do some of the kidney’s work, it cannot work at full throttle. As a result, it metabolises less fat; more fat remains stored in the body and weight loss stops.

SHED WATER WITH WATER

Drinking more water is the best treatment for fluid retention. When the body gets less water, it perceives this as a threat to survival and begins to hold on to every drop. Water is stored in extra cellular spaces (outside the cells). This shows up as swollen feet, hands, and legs. Diuretics offer a temporary solution at best. They force out stored water along with some essential nutrients. Thus, the condition quickly returns. The best way to overcome the problem of water retention is to give your body what it needs-plenty of water. Only then will stored water be released.

If you have a water retention problem, excess salt may be the blame. Your body will tolerate sodium only in certain concentrations. The more salt you eat, the more water your system retains to dilute it. To rid the body of unneeded salt-just drink more water. As it is forced through the kidneys it takes away the excess sodium. The overweight person needs more water that the thin one as larger people have larger metabolic loads. Since we know that water is the key to fat metabolism, it follows that the overweight person needs more water.

Water helps to maintain proper muscle tone by giving muscles their natural ability to contract and by preventing dehydration it also helps prevent the sagging skin that usually follows weight loss. Shrinking cells are buoyed by water that pumps the skin and leaves it clear, healthy and resilient.

Water helps rid the body of wastes. During weight loss, the body has a lot more waste to get rid of – all that metabolised fat must be shed. Again, adequate water helps flush out the waste.

WATER RELIEVES CONSTIPATION

Water can help relieve constipation. When the body gets little water, it siphons what it needs from internal sources. The colon is one primary source. Result!! Constipation. But when a person drinks enough water, normal bowel function returns.

So far we have discovered some remarkable truths about water and about weight loss.

· The body will not function properly without enough water and cannot metabolise stored fat efficiently.

· Retained water shows up as excess weight.

· To get rid of excess water you must drink more water.

· Drinking more water is essential to weight loss

HOW MUCH WATER IS ENOUGH

On the average a person should drink 8 glasses every day. However, an overweight person needs one additional glass for every 12kgs (25lbs) of excess weight. The amount that you drink should be increased if you exercise or if the weather is hot. Water should preferably be cold - it is absorbed more quickly into the system than warm water. Some evidence suggests that drinking cold water can actually burn calories. To utilise water most efficiently try and drink a full glass of water every hour.

When the body gets the water it needs to function optimally, its fluids are perfectly balanced. When this happens you have reached the breakthrough point. What does this mean??? The endocrine gland function improves. Fluid retention is alleviated, as stored water is lost. More fat is used as fuel because the liver is free to metabolise stored fat. Natural thirst returns. There is a loss of hunger almost overnight. If you stop drinking enough water your body fluids will be thrown out of balance again and you may experience fluid retention, unexplained weight gain and loss of thirst. To remedy this situation you have to go back and force another breakthrough.

Taken from the Snowbird Diet by Donald S. Robertson, MD MSc and Carol Robertson

Jul 3, 2009

The Fibonacci Sequence in Music - is music mathematical?


The Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144 . . .) occurs throughout the worlds of nature, art, music, and mathematics!

Each term in the series is produced by adding together the two previous terms, so that 1 + 1=2, 1 + 2=3, 2 + 3=5, and so on. The sequence takes its name from a famous thirteenth-century European mathematician, Leonard of Pisa (?1170-1250), also called Fibonacci. Fibonacci was one of the first Europeans to use Arabic numbers, whose use he explained in his 1202 Liber abaci.


Arthur Benjamin: The magic of Fibonacci numbers Ted Talks

The basic structures of certain instruments display the use of Fibonacci numbers and the Golden section. The most widely used instrument in music, the piano, displays the use of Fibonacci numbers. For instance, there are 13 notes that separate each octave of 8 notes in a scale. The foundation of a scale is based around the 3rd and the 5th tones. Both pitches are whole tones, which are 2 steps from the 1st note of the scale, also called the root.




The keys of a piano also portray the Fibonacci numbers. Within the scale consisting of 13 keys, 8 of them are white, 5 are black, which are split into groups of 3 and 2. Look familiar? Well, it should, it's Fibonacci! The keys of a piano also portray the Fibonacci numbers. Within the scale consisting of 13 keys, 8 of them are white, 5 are black, which are split into groups of 3 and 2. Look familiar? Well, it should, it's Fibonacci!


The proportions of the violin conform to the ratios of the golden section or the Fibonacci sequence.

The Fibonacci sequence can also display the preference of the human ear to music. The following is some Fibonacci music. It consists of the first eight Fibonacci numbers. For each new number that is performed, the note length is decreased rotationally by 1/2 or 1/3. After four steps of the sequence are completed the tune starts over at the root, one octave up, while the other one continues, so there is an overlapping effect.



Fibonacci numbers occur many times in the natural world. Plants tend to have a number of leaves that is a Fibonacci number, and flowers have a Fibonacci number of petals. Seeds in a flower head are often arranged in spiral patterns that are related to Fibonacci numbers (for example, the number of spirals that curve to the left and the number of spirals that curve to the right will be adjacent numbers in the Fibonacci sequence). Spiral shells also exhibit patterns related to the Fibonacci sequence.

Fibonacci numbers are also important in art and music. The ratio between successive Fibonacci numbers approximates an important constant called "the golden mean" or sometimes phi,which is approximately 1.61803. The higher you go in the Fibonacci sequence, the more closely the ratio between two successive numbers in the sequence approximates phi. (By the way phi2=phi + 1!)

A rectangle whose sides are in the proportion 1 : 1.61803 is supposed to be the most aesthetically perfect rectangle (the "golden rectangle"). The Parthenon in Athens has such a rectangle as its face, and phi is said to have figured in the construction of the Great Pyramids. The "golden section," in which a line is divided into segments of lengths in the ratio 1 : .61803 is supposed to be an aesthetically ideal way to divide a line.

Numerous artists have used the golden section in their works, as well as composers, including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, Satie and the Hungarian Bela Bartok.

Fibonacci Fingers?

Look at your own hand:
You have ...
2 hands each of which has ...
5 fingers, each of which has ...
3 parts separated by ...
2 knuckles

Is this just a coincidence or not?





Golden Ratio in Human Body video

However, if you measure the lengths of the bones in your finger (best seen by slightly bending the finger) does it look as if the ratio of the longest bone in a finger to the middle bone is Phi?

What about the ratio of the middle bone to the shortest bone (at the end of the finger) - Phi again?

Can you find any ratios in the lengths of the fingers that looks like Phi? ---or does it look as if it could be any other similar ratio also?

Why not measure your friends' hands and gather some statistics?

For some amazing pictures of examples of the Fibonacci series in nature please watch this video:




1.618 Phi, The Golden Ratio, God Creator of Heaven and Earth

The healing power of sound - join a choir or play in an orchestra!

Singing is as old as human cultures. Why do we enjoy singing, playing an instrument, being member of a choir or an orchestra or listening to music so much? Why opera is the most complex and most powerful art form? It is said that music can get to places in our body where nothing else can.

Sound Healing is based on the scientific principle that all matter vibrates to a precise frequency. In your body, every cell, tissue, organ, and energy center vibrates at its own frequency. Like instruments in an orchestra, when one organ in your body is out of tune, it affects your whole body. Powerful resonant sound vibrations can restore an innate frequency and even rearrange molecular structure. As a result, it's quite possible for seemingly miraculous things to occur-vertebrae align, muscles relax, chronic pains disappear, energy centers are balanced, traumas and blockages are released.

For instance, Tibetan Buddhists have used singing bowls for centuries to fine-tune the body’s energy fields, or chakras. The effect is a balanced alignment between the emotional mind and the physical body.

Sound bypasses the mind and intellect, so it can make progress in healing regardless of the client's state of mind.

The power of sound has helped patients dealing with a variety of physical and emotional illnesses. No wonder sound is used in hospitals and doctors offices around the world. London's Royal Marsden hospital calls it knifeless surgery, and uses it on liver cancer and organ tumors.

Sound Healing combines safely with any medication or protocol and is safe for everyone, including young children and the elderly.

To read more visit: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-sound-healing.htm

Who is saving troubled youths through music?

Called El Sistema by its members, the programme is celebrating 30 years of making classical musicians out of half-a-million young Venezuelans, and it has transformed the lives of many underprivileged and at-risk youths in the process.

"I wish players in the US were here to hear the conviction with which you play," Gwyn Richards, dean of Indiana University's School of Music, told a Caracas youth orchestra after it played Dmitri Shostakovich's Festive Overture in honour of his visit.

"No-one is just walking through it, watching the clock," he said later. "When they play, they really mean it."

An oboe player with the Caracas Youth Symphony
Visitors say the children play with unusual conviction

The young musicians' excitement stems from the programme's social mission, which its founder Jose Antonio Abreu describes as helping "the fight of a poor and abandoned child against everything that opposes his full realisation as a human being".

One of Mr Abreu's musicians is Lennar Acosta, 23, who six years ago was already making his ninth visit to a Caracas correctional facility after a history of heavy drug use and armed robbery.

While the facility denied Mr Acosta's request to return to school, the youth orchestra took him on as a student and soon gave him a scholarship.

He now earns his living at a music institute, has played a dozen times in the nation's famed Teresa Carreno music hall, and is studying to perform Mozart's clarinet concerto.

"One of the biggest emotions I've felt was when they gave me a clarinet," Mr Acosta said, sitting with his instrument in hand in a Caracas music conservatory.

"El Sistema ended up straightening me out. It is my family, like my home."

To read more visit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4457278.stm

Jul 1, 2009

Healing power of music

"A study conducted at London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital between 1999 and 2002 found the level of the stress hormone cortisol was forty-eight per cent lower in patents who had been exposed to soothing visual art or live music than in those who had not experienced either. Anxiety was thirty-two per cent lower and depression thirty-one per cent lower in patients after listening to music. A German doctor, Ralph Spintge, has in recent years assembled similar data on one hundred and fifty thousand surgical and pain patients. He found that if he played music during certain clinical procedures he could reduce the patents' subsequent drug dosages by half because the biochemistry of their blood was altered. " Life In His Hands, The true story of a Neurosurgeon and a Pianist by Susan Wyndham

Featured Post

Bartok, the Concerto and his Leukemia

I am reading a fascinating book by Hungarian-born Canadian author, speaker, and retired physician with a special interest in childhood deve...

Fibonacci