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At some point between June 6 and June 13, an estimated 751-842 scientists and staff members at a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) biolab were exposed to live anthrax.
The live pathogen had been sent from another, higher-security facility, which failed to follow biosafety protocols. According to one report:3
“The exposure incident is unprecedented in the history of American research on bioweapons and other deadly pathogens, prompting alarm among researchers who have already warned about the consequences of lax laboratory oversight globally.
Scientists in and out of the CDC say the process of handling such bacteria and viruses must be improved.”
While unprecedented in terms of the number of people exposed, this isn’t the first time this kind of potentially lethal blunder has occurred with live anthrax in the US. Also, it’s not unprecedented in global terms.
In the 1979 Sverdlovsk incident, 94 Russians were exposed to anthrax through an accidental release, and 64 of them died. Incidents such as these really raise questions about mankind’s ability to contain the lethal microorganisms being studied (and created) in labs around the world.
In this case, the anthrax sample was supposed to have been inactivated prior to transfer, but for a variety of reasons it wasn’t dead on arrival.
The director of the CDC’s Bioterror Rapid Response and Advanced Technology Laboratory, Michael Farrell, has since been reassigned,4 and two Congressional committees are monitoring the situation to determine whether public hearings are warranted.
All affected personnel are being treated with potent antibiotics and some have also taken an anthrax vaccine to fend off the lethal infection. But as noted byScientific American,5 the issues here go beyond figuring out why safety procedures weren’t followed in this particular incident.
“[W]hich is the more likely threat to public safety—a series of accidental releases of deadly organisms from the high-level biodefense labs that have proliferated in the wake of the anthrax attacks of 2001 or a single, but much bigger, intentional release by an actual terrorist network?” Scientific American asks.
Indeed, while the fear of a mutated virus turning into a pandemic is flouted virtually every year to some degree, a far greater concern appears to be the potential for an engineered bioweapon somehow escaping the confines of our top level bioterror labs.6, 7
The latest failure to follow safety procedures again highlights the fact that seemingly unbelievable errors can and do occur, despite all promises to the contrary. Part of the problem appears to be that most of the safety protocols center around technology and equipment, while the human factor is overlooked.
More recently, an even more disconcerting event took place that really raises questions about what pathogens we have, and exactly where they’re being kept.
It’s nice to think that all the vials of deadly microorganisms are all accounted for and safely locked away in high security labs, but we keep learning that reality does not conform to such cozy notions.
On July 8, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that vials containing the smallpox virus had been discovered in a Maryland lab—a lab that was neither approved nor equipped to handle live pathogens. As reported by Gizmodo8
“Only two labs in the entire world are legally permitted to handle the stuff: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Atlanta headquarters and the VECTOR Institute in Russia. In other words, not the NIH’s Bethesda, Maryland campus.
While it’s currently unclear how long these deadly smallpox vials (which violate at 35-year-old international agreement) have been hiding out,according to CDC spokesman Tom Skinner, the boxes holding them may date back to the 1950s.”
During an October 2007 congressional hearing, Keith Rhodes, the chief technologist at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) stated that we’re at greater risk of an infectious disease epidemic today than ever before, because of increases in the number of biolabs around the world, combined with a lack of oversight.
A 2008 Scientific American article9 also quotes Rutgers University microbiologist Richard Ebright as saying there’s been a “20- to 30-fold increase in the number of institutions and individuals with access to live, virulent bioweapons agents” after the 2001 incident where letters containing anthrax killed five Americans.
At that point, in 2008, an estimated 15,000 people at 400 institutions had access to live, lethal agents! In response to the latest anthrax exposure, Ebright stated10that: “The lapse is not an isolated incident, but instead is part of a continuing pattern of biosafety and biosecurity problems at the CDC.” As noted in the featured article,11 intentional and/or unintentional releases of deadly agents from high security laboratories have proven far more deadly, not to mention far morefrequent, than any organized terrorist attack using bioweapons…
The following is a listing of a few of these deadly biolab mistakes that have occurred over the years. Even more accidental releases are listed on Kenneth Ring’s website Germs Gone Wild.12 A 2008 article in The Observer13 also raises questions about the logic of the locations of some of these labs. For example, a high containment biolab in Galveston, Texas is located in a hurricane flood zone, making the risk of accidental release a more or less annual concern!
In 1971, a former Soviet biological weapons testing facility released a deadly strain of hemorrhagic smallpox—allegedly during an open-air test. Hundreds were quarantined, 50,000 people were vaccinated, and three people died.14 In 1978, a University of Birmingham laboratory inadvertently released the smallpox virus, which ended up killing a British medical photographer.15 In 1979 there was an “accidental atmospheric release” of anthrax in Sverdlovsk, Russia,16 which killed 64 of the 94 infected individuals.17 During the mid-1980s, Bayer sold millions of dollars worth of an injectable blood-clotting medicine to Asian, Latin American, and some European countries, knowing it was tainted with the AIDS virus. This is yet another example of how deadly pathogens can make their way out of the lab, and into the human population. . In 2001, US Army biodefense scientist Bruce Ivins allegedly mailed letters containing a live research strain of anthrax from the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Shortly thereafter, he committed suicide. Five people died from the exposure. It was the Army’s most virulent (Ames) strain. In 2004, a lab in Maryland accidentally sent live anthrax to a California children’s hospital. The CDC investigated the incident and created recommendations designed to make sure something like this would never happen again, yet the near-identical chain of mistakes and protocol failures just occurred at their own facility.18 In 2009, Baxter accidentally sent vaccines contaminated with live and deadly avian (bird) flu to a research facility in Europe. The mistake originated in a Baxter plant operating under Bio Safety Level 3 (BSL3) status — meaning that high-level precautions are supposed to be in place to make sure an accident like this never happens. The company blamed the incident on human error, again demonstrating that, apparently, it takes just one absent-minded dingbat to circumvent the highest level biosafety system currently in existence. In 2012, it was discovered that the bioterror germ lab at the CDC in Atlanta (the same building where the latest anthrax safety breach occurred) has had repeated problems with airflow systems designed to help prevent the release of infectious agents such as anthrax, dangerous strains of influenza, the SARS coronavirus, and monkeypox. Air from a research lab in one of the Biosafety Level 3 buildings was being vented into a so-called “clean” area, where visitors are not required to wear protective gear. While no one was infected, the problems were major violations of laboratory operating standards.19, 20
Also in 2012, a vaccine researcher at the Northern California Institute for Research died shortly after being infected with the Neisseria meningitides bacteria at work. He was working on a vaccine against the pathogen, and according to the site chief was following required precautions for working with the deadly pathogens.21
According to a recent report by Reuters,22 the latest anthrax release was the result of multiple protocol breaches. First of all, the anthrax researchers waited only half the time required to ensure the pathogen had been inactivated before sending it out. Protocols call for samples to be incubated for 48 hours to be sure anthrax spores are entirely inactivated, but the batch was checked after only 24 hours of incubation.
Moreover, the exact same mistake occurred in the 2004 anthrax release, when live pathogen was sent to a California children’s hospital. At the time, the CDC recommended that labs wait several days to confirm that the pathogen is in fact dead, before shipping it out to lower-security facilities. It also recommended that the receiving lab should treat samples as live until confirmed dead. When asked why the CDC didn’t follow its own recommendations, thereby allowing for a second, virtually identical anthrax release, CDC biosafety officer, Dr Paul Meechan, said it was “a great question,” to which he doesn’t have a good answer…
Another safety breach relates to the way the pathogen was inactivated. The researchers used a newer method involving chemicals rather than radiation. This method, it turns out, may not have been properly tested and validated as an effective method of inactivation.
Two investigations are currently underway to determine exactly what happened, and how to tighten safety protocols at labs working with highly infectious and lethal pathogens. The CDC is conducting its own internal investigation, and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is also looking into the breach. A 2012 USDA audit23 had already raised red flags. Even earlier reports have been equally critical. As reported by Reuters:24
“The Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, CDC’s parent agency, in reports released in 2008 and 2010, documented a long list of issues. CDC labs working with the most dangerous agents did not always ensure the physical security of the pathogens or restrict access to them, and did not always ensure that personnel received required training.”
These biosafety problems, and their inherently devastating risks to public health, have been noted worldwide. At present, 24 European countries have embraced a new set of biorisk management standards, which are also backed by the World Health Organization (WHO). These biorisk management standards will likely be adopted by the International Organization for Standardization, which could lessen the risks associated with these research facilities. But can management standards ever completely eradicate the risks posed by research into biological weapons?
As I mentioned at the outset, each year we’re warned of potential new pandemics—mutated viruses and bacteria that might kill off large portions of the population. Vaccines are the standard answer, and many of the most deadly pathogens in biolabs around the world are kept for vaccine development.
The conundrum here is that vaccine development itself is a potential source of a deadly outbreak. The industry would like you to believe that drugs and vaccines are created under pristine conditions and that nothing can go wrong. But they certainly do go wrong from time to time, and sometimes companies don’t even bother to correct their mistakes, for fear it might eat up their profits! Crazy as it may sound, Bayer’s selling of AIDS tainted blood-clotting medicine is just one of several examples of potentially lethal contaminations.
In general, I believe we need to consider the financial motives behind the promotion of pandemics and the vaccines that go along with them. From a personal perspective, it’s vital for you to carefully research ALL sides of any vaccine issue and not merely trust federal public health authorities, most physicians, and the media, as they are largely influenced by massive conflicts of interest and collusion. Seek independent and objective views like those at NVIC25 before you make any important decisions about deciding to vaccinate.
That said, the latest anthrax exposure clearly suggests that blindly accepting safety assurances is a foolhardy proposition. “Trustand verify” would be a far better approach. In the case of bioterror lab safety, the question is who is actually doing the verifying?
If you’re like many people, you may start your day with a cup of coffee. According to Health Magazine,1 about half of American adults stick to this daily ritual, despite conventional warnings that coffee might not be all that good for you.
My own understanding of coffee’s virtues and risks was greatly enhanced by my 2011 interview with Ori Hofmekler, author of The Warrior Diet and Unlocking the Muscle Gene, who has researched coffee extensively.
Ori explained how coffee, when consumed in the right way, can in fact be used as a health and fitness enhancing tool. There are caveats, however, and there are also points of contention, where the details still have not quite been teased out.
Despite that, it is possible to draw up some general guidelines that will allow you to enjoy your coffee with minimal risk. You may even be able to reap valuable benefits from your habit, provided you’re willing to make some slight alterations to how you drink it.
Ori specifically pointed out the benefits coffee might have when consumed prior to working out, and this is also the focus of the featured article.
Contrary to much of the conventional advice, which tends to revolve around coffee’s ability to raise your blood pressure, coffee does appear to have certain functional benefits—if consumed pre-exercise—that are supported by science. As reported by Health Magazine:2
“[A] Spanish study, published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism,3 found that trained athletes who took in caffeine pre-exercise burned about 15 percent more calories for three hours post-exercise, compared to those who ingested a placebo.
The dose that triggered the effect was 4.5 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. For 150-pound woman (68 kg), that’s roughly 300 mg of caffeine, the amount in about 12 ounces of brewed coffee, a quantity you may already be sipping each morning.”
According to Ori’s research, coffee can increase your metabolism by up to 20 percent, which seems to be in line with the Spaniards’ finding. Besides providing you with a temporary metabolic boost, other functional benefits of a pre-workout cup of coffee include:
- Improved micro-circulation. According to Health Magazine, Japanese researchers recently discovered that people who were not regular coffee drinkers experienced a 30 percent boost in capillary blood flow after drinking five ounces of regular coffee, compared to those drinking decaf.
Improved blood circulation typically equates to improved oxygenation of your tissues, which may boost your exercise performance.
- Pain reduction. The featured article notes research from the University of Illinois, which found that a caffeine dose equivalent to two or three cups of coffee taken one hour prior to a half-hour-long workout reduced the participants’ level of perceived muscle pain.
This pain reduction could allow you to push yourself just a bit harder, which is important during high intensity exercises.
Research from the University of Georgia, published in the March 2007 issue of The Journal of Pain,4 reported very similar findings. Here, consuming the equivalent of two cups of coffee an hour before training reduced post-workout muscle soreness by up to 48 percent.
To put this into perspective, studies using naproxen (Aleve) only achieved a 30 percent decrease in post-workout muscle soreness, and aspirin produced a 25 percent decrease.
- Improved endurance. A 2005 meta-analysis5 concluded that caffeine can reduce your perceived level of exertion by more than five percent—effectively making your exercise feel “easier.”
Moreover, caffeine improved exercise performance by more than 11 percent, which appears to be related to the reduction in perceived level of exertion.
- Muscle preservation. According to Ori, coffee triggers a mechanism in your brain that releases a growth factor called Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). Besides the brain, BDNF also expresses itself in your muscles, where it supports the neuromotor—the most critical element in your muscle. Without the neuromotor, your muscle is like an engine without ignition. Neuro-motor degradation is part of the process that explains age-related muscle atrophy. So in this respect coffee may help maintain more youthful muscle tissue.
The featured article also notes recent research from Coventry University that supports this notion. In that study, they found that caffeine helped offset age-related loss of muscle strength, again suggesting that caffeine may help preserve your muscles as you age, and reduce your risk of injuries.
- Improved memory. BDNF also activates brain stem cells to convert into new neurons in your brain, which can have definitive benefits for your brain function. Indeed, research conducted at Johns Hopkins University6 found that 200 milligram (mg) of caffeine enhanced participants’ memory for up to 24 hours.
As I mentioned earlier, there are some caveats to consider. You can easily eliminate any health benefits that coffee might provide by adding milk, creamer, sugar or artificial sweeteners to your cup, for example. Also, while some of the studies noted above used caffeine opposed to coffee, I agree with experts like Ori who warn that caffeine in isolation could be quite toxic.
It’s important to remember that the natural blend of polyphenol antioxidants (including chlorogenic acids), bioflavonoids, vitamins and minerals in coffee beans all work together to help neutralize the harsher effects of the caffeine.7
Recent research from the University of Oslo, Norway, reveals that whole coffee possesses potent anti-inflammatory chemo-protective and anti-aging properties. Coffee has shown to inhibit the pro-inflammatory pathway NFkβ, which has been directly linked to inflammation, certain cancers and accelerated muscle aging.
Note that NFkβ is inhibited by certain phenols in coffee rather than caffeine. This indicates again the superior health and muscle preserving qualities of whole coffee over caffeine alone.
There are literally thousands of different natural chemical compounds in your brew, and science now suggests the synergy between them can pack a nice nutritional punch. You’re not likely to get this synergetic effect from caffeinated supplements and beverages like Red Bull! That said, some of the primary considerations and caveats will be discussed in the following sections.
Ori recommends having just one cup of coffee or one shot of espresso in the morning or before training, perhaps another cup during work and that’s it for the day. Coffee is a potent substance, and can have an adverse effect on your adrenal glands if consumed in excess. If you’re stressed, coffee can actually help you resist fatigue, hunger and hardship but you can overdo it; drinking a whole pot of coffee is going to put you at risk for adrenal exhaustion. Also make sure you’re properly hydrated, as coffee has a diuretic effect.
Caffeine can also cause a process in your brain called glutamate re-uptake inhibition, meaning it inhibits the cellular re-uptake of glutamate—an excitoneurotransmitter essential for keeping you alert. Like other neurotransmitters, glutamate must be tightly regulated.If your caffeine intake is too high and chronic, such as due to ingestion of caffeinated energy drinks, it can cause glutamate excitotoxicity.
When used before exercise, coffee will give you a good boost, and will work to accelerate the benefits of exercise; stimulating energy production and fat burning. However, after exercise your body needs a recovery meal, not caffeine, which will inhibit the mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin); the mechanism that increases protein synthesis in your muscle. You do not build musclewhile exercising. Muscle building occurs afterward, so if your goal is to gain muscle mass, you do not want mTOR to be inhibited by caffeine…
That being said, if your main goal is to lean down and maximize fat burning, having coffee after exercise might be exactly what you need, as it will keep you burning fat while breaking down fat stores for energy. The post exercise coffee will continue mimicking the effects of exercise on your body for as long as you continue fasting; that’s until your next meal. If you exercise in the evening, you may want to skip the pre-workout cup of coffee however, as it can seriously disrupt your sleep cycle by keeping you alert well into the night.
Freshly ground organic coffee beans can be viewed as a nutritionally valuable whole food with neuroprotective properties. Decaffeinated coffee will not provide you with all these whole food benefits, as the antioxidant bioflavonoids are largely lost in the processing. So opt for “regular” if you’re going to drink coffee.
Also, opt for whole coffee beans and grind them just prior to brewing your coffee. Most coffee available today is already rancid, or close to it, by the time you get it home. This is because the rate of rancidity increases dramatically once you grind the beans. A coffee that doesn’t have a good aroma or taste is most likely stale and nutritionally useless.
Last but not least, choose organic coffee, as conventionally grown coffee beans are among the most heavily sprayed crops on the market, and pesticides will certainly not do your health any favors. To ensure compliance with organic industry standards, look for the USDA 100% Organic seal. If you have trouble finding organic coffee in your local grocery store, check online, as there are many organic coffees available. Whenever possible, purchase sustainable “shade-grown” coffee to help prevent the continued destruction of our tropical rain forests and the birds that inhabit them. There are many who say shade-grown coffee tastes better as well.
Other issues that can come to bear on the end health effects of the coffee include the way it’s dried and roasted, as this will not only affect the beneficial antioxidant content of the coffee, but also the formation of toxic acrylamides. Here, making any definitive recommendations becomes quite tricky…
In general, it has been shown that when it comes to the health benefits of organic whole-bean black coffee, the darker the roast, the better.8 It’s often the case that foods with the darkest pigments offer the most robust benefits to health, and dark roast coffee, such as French or Italian Roast, or roasts used to make espresso or Turkish coffee, appear to be no exception.
Roasted coffees are higher in neuroprotective agents than green (unroasted) coffees. For example, a study in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research9 found that dark roast coffee restored blood levels of the antioxidants vitamin E and glutathione more effectively than light roast coffee. The dark roast also led to a significant body weight reduction in pre-obese volunteers, whereas the lighter roast did not. Other studies have shown that dark roast coffee produces more of a chemical called N-methylpyridinium, which helps prevent your stomach from producing excess acid, so darker roast coffee may be easier on your stomach than lighter roast coffee.10
That said, the process of roasting will also produce acrylamide—a toxic byproduct created when you expose a food to high heat. Acrylamide has been associated with an increased cancer risk. From the perspective of limiting your exposure to this toxin, a light roast might be preferable. I don’t claim to have the answer here, but the evidence supporting dark roast for higher antioxidant content is quite compelling. It could be that a higher antioxidant content of a dark roasted organic coffee might outweigh the acrylamide formed during the roasting process… Unfortunately, I have no evidence to support such a proposition. In the end, the best recommendation I can come up with is to simply use coffee in moderation. Most studies find no added health benefits above two or three cups a day at the most.
If you use a “drip” coffee maker, be sure to use non-bleached filters. The bright white ones, which most people use, are chlorine bleached and some of this chlorine will be extracted from the filter during the brewing process and they are also full of dangerous disinfection by products like dioxin. Also be careful about the coffee container and coffee cups you use. Avoid plastic cups and containers as the BPA from the plastic can leach into your coffee.
Also avoid styrofoam cups, as they can leach polystyrene molecules into your blood. Your best options include glass, ceramic, or even stainless steel travel mugs and storage containers. Many have now started using Keurig coffee makers, which brew a single cup at a time, using small plastic coffee inserts. While the inserts claim to be BPA and phthalate-free,11, 12 they still contribute to the ever-growing problem of non-biodegradable waste.
Fortunately, the machine comes with reusable pieces that allow loose coffee grounds to be used instead of the pre-made disposable plastic cups, which would be a better option. One of the most effective tools for making coffee is good old French press. All you need is to put the freshly ground coffee inside, add hot water and press down. The coffee that you get is highly aromatic and pure with no plastics or chemicals involved.
For all the potential health benefits of coffee, it is not advisable to drink coffee during pregnancy, even if it’s organic. Caffeine easily passes through both the blood brain barrier and the placenta, and it’s also transferred through breast milk. Here, research has shown that ingesting caffeine during pregnancy can result in a wide range of problems for your baby, including:
- Increased risk of miscarriage
- Low birth weight
- Birth defects such as cleft palate
- Increased risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
- Decreased cardiac function (Please note that the equivalent of just two cups of coffee during the entire pregnancy – not two cups of coffee per day—has been shown to affect your child’s heart function!)
Like anything, coffee should not be used in excess. However, study after study has failed to prove that moderate coffee consumption increases your risk for cardiovascular disease or any other serious illness. Moreover, mounting research suggests it may have a number of previously unrecognized health-promoting properties.
Part of the confusion is likely rooted in the fact that while caffeine in and of itself is a potent and addictive drug, coffee made from whole roasted coffee beans is also a whole food, containing a wide range of micronutrients in addition to caffeine. The key to a healthy cup of coffee centers around treating it like a whole food; knowing how to select high-quality coffee, and not ruining it by adding health-harming sugar or milk to your brew.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to see clearly without glasses or contacts? According to Greg Marsh, a certified natural vision coach, clear vision is achievable by virtually everyone, even if you’re already wearing strong corrective lenses.
He created the CD program Reclaim Your Eyesight Naturally, which teaches you how to retrain your eyes to relax, thereby allowing you to see more clearly.
I first sought Greg out several years ago, at the suggestion of a man who, in his 70s, had excellent vision. After trying it out, I was hooked.
Greg got his first pair of glasses in third grade, and at every vision check, he needed stronger, thicker lenses. His life changed when, in his late 20s, he came across a book written by a teacher of Dr. Bates’ vision program.
“It just melted my heart, the stories about people improving their eyesight and getting their lives back,” he says. “I started trying it on my own near-sightedness. I had some initial success and then kind of hit a plateau.
That’s when things got really interesting for me. I eventually did a formal training as a natural vision teacher. I bought every program I could find. I also did a lot of cross-training in various ways to use the mind. I went into martial arts, meditation, and all kinds of things.
For many years, I just kept diving in every which way, and it just became irresistibly simple, interesting, and subtle.”
The method Greg teaches was initially conceived by Dr. William H. Bates, over 100 years ago. A board-certified ophthalmologist at the top of his field, Dr. Bates taught his method to many, and it was so effective that it ended up being banned in New York after the optometrists lobbied the local politicians!
In essence, it became a threat to the business model of optometrists. The prohibition on the Bates Method is still on the books in New York to this day. Whether or not it’s actually prosecuted is another issue.
“In the 1950s and the early 1960s, that’s when all the state optometry boards were going after people,” Greg says. “One of the Bates practitioners they went after was Clara Hackett, who had worked personally with Aldous Huxley, who’s one of the more famous successors.
He wrote the book The Art of Seeing. He was basically told, ‘You’re blind. Get onboard with Braille.’ He got his vision back from working with the Bates Method.
Clara Hackett was on trial because she didn’t want to fold up and go home. All these people came in and testified. Aldous Huxley, the famous author of Brave New World, came in and testified.
He was very popular, so the jury was kind of in awe. Apparently, during the break of the jury, all the jurors were palming. Then they knew the outcome was going to be good.”
So how does the Bates Method work? Greg explains:
“Basically, there are six muscles on the outside of your eye, and they’re moving it around… Ideally, these muscles are easily following visual interests… The problem is – it could be for emotional reasons, physical stress, or whatever – you start to strain. Once you start to strain, your vision starts to go.”
The action of straining essentially squeezes your eyeballs, contorting them. This makes your vision blurry, as it alters where the field of vision “lands” on your retina. Now you have three basic choices
- Find out what’s stressing you, making you strain. Let it go, relax, and get your vision back. Dr. Bates developed ingenious tools for doing just that
- Get laser in-situ keratomileusis (LASIK), which permanently alters your focal length
- Get corrective lenses. The problem with corrective lenses is that now you’re creating permanent strain
The Bates Method isn’t really an exercise; it’s more of a mental approach. It’s also worth noting that the Bates Method is clearly NOT a medical approach. You still need to see your regular eye doctor for checkups. Greg explains the theory upon which his program is based as follows:
“Dr. Bates’ keyword is ‘strain.’ If you strain your eyes, strain your thoughts, and strain your vision, these muscles are going to start getting tight. The strain is the essence of everything.
Imagine you’re on a tightrope, you’re walking, and you’re feeling your way forward. That’s how the eyes want to work. If you get tense on a tightrope, you’re dead, right? Instead of thinking of it as exercises, you have to go into it in a really subtle way; it’s more like a meditation.”
Basically, your vision is not compromised because of weak eye muscles. They’re strong enough. They’re just too tensed to work properly, so you have to relax them.
When people have a hard time seeing they typically will squint, which actually makes your vision worse. Squinting is one of the worst things you can do for your vision as it stresses your muscles. I find myself all day long paying attention to this as typical response is to contract your eye muscles and squint.
Another part of the process is “faith”—faith that your eyes “know what they’re doing” and can see well. The problem is that once you start wearing corrective lenses, you’re actually worsening your vision. This progressive worsening of your vision can lead to a defeatist mentality if you don’t realize that what you’re doing is creating the problem.
Be certain that you do the little experiment Greg discusses in the video by creating a pinhole with your hand and surprising yourself how clear your vision becomes without any corrective lenses. Just bend your finger to create a small pinhole between the skin folds. Now hold the pinhole in front of your eye, and notice how much more in focus everything is that you’re looking at. As they say, seeing is believing and this will go a long way to convince you that you can actually see well without corrective lenses.
By wearing glasses, you’re essentially retraining your eyes to strain in order to see all day long. Ideally, you’ll want to remove your glasses whenever you can safely do so. Also make sure you have appropriate lighting, especially when reading. “The amount of light is huge,” Greg notes. “While somebody is making the transition from needing glasses to not needing glasses, things like using more light really help, like if you’re reading a book.”
The two most common eyesight conditions requiring glasses are: (1) myopia (near-sightedness, which usually appears in childhood or during teenage years) and (2) presbyopia (a type of farsightedness which leads to reading glasses at middle age). They both are very responsive to the Bates Method, and in fact the approach is nearly identical. If you have a mild prescription, you can simply go more and more frequently without glasses as you improve your eyesight. Of course, you should always wear glasses if they are required for driving, until you pass your vision test without them.
Especially with nearsightedness, stronger prescriptions tend to require more creativity and persistence, since the habits of staring and straining are more established. Also with high nearsightedness, you may need to progressively work your way down, which can be an expense for more pairs of glasses. But the visual clarity and relaxation you will feel all through your body and mind makes it deeply rewarding! The need for reading glasses is a common age-related problem, but according to Dr. Bates, loss of vision is not a “fact of life” at all. Even this he relates to eye strain.
“Most optometrists or ophthalmologists would say that the ciliary muscle around the lens is the cause—that it gets frozen. They’ll say, ‘Well, gee, your lens has become impossibly hard and now it doesn’t move anymore,’ Greg says.
The lens of your eye, which is behind your cornea, right behind the iris, thickens and thins continuously all day long as you focus on various things. It also grows as you age. Eye doctors will say that your lens has become too large and rigid, and can’t flex anymore. But according to Greg, the problem with that model is that most people who sincerely apply the Bates Method do reduce or eliminate their need for reading glasses. Once again Dr. Bates’ solution is to relax the eyes so the muscles can function naturally.
Astigmatism, cross-eye, glaucoma, cataracts, and other vision conditions can also benefit from the Bates Method. With regards to cross-eye, Greg notes that this problem is not really caused by too-short a muscle pulling the eye. Rather it’s that the muscle is chronically too tight, and if you relax it, your eye will typically go back to its normal position.
“I love working with people who have been diagnosed with glaucoma or cataract and who are open to natural approaches,” he says. “One lady I worked with was about to get surgery for glaucoma. Her doctor told her she’d already lost 60 percent of her vision just in one eye. I had an amazing EFT session with her. I told her to palm 10 minutes at a time at least six times a day. Three or four days later, she let me know that her score dropped from 28 down to 12 on glaucoma in that eye. Her doctor said, ‘Oh, wow. The medicine finally started to work.'”
Dr. Bates used to experiment with visualizations for patients with cataracts—a condition where the lens of your eye gets cloudy. One of Dr. Bates’ patients who had cataracts was able to make her cataracts disappear through guided visualization alone. When she got stressed out again, the cataracts reappeared.
“I don’t want to put anybody in a box and say, ‘Oh, your thoughts are negative.’ But if you’re having negative thoughts, imagine you can feel how that manifests as, say, a cataract. Louise Hay, the guru of emotional reasons for disease, she would say the reason for cataract is the future looks dark. I can’t tell you how many people have resonated with that. They’ve had a family member who died, a big business bust, or they just realized, ‘Wow, I’m getting old. I haven’t done everything I wanted.’ That metaphor of ‘the future looks dark.’
Now just imagine the crystalline structure of the eyes and how ever that magically transmutes into the cataract and the opacity. Now imagine changing that vibration and then just asking: ‘How fast can I imagine and how fast can I allow for this change to take place?'”
Remember that the Bates Method is not a medical approach, and you must seek a licensed practitioner for any diagnosis, prescription, or treatment. The Bates Method is more like meditation or yoga. It can help you engage your mind and imagination, to relax your eyes, and bring about as much natural healing as possible.
One of the most famous Bates Method techniques is palming. Look around and notice the level of clarity of your vision at present. Then, simply place the center of your palms over your eyes. Relax your shoulders. You may want to lean forward onto a table or a stack of pillows, to facilitate relaxation. Relax like this for at least two minutes. Then remove your hands, open your eyes, and notice whether anything looks clearer. Usually, it will.
“What you’re doing is you’re letting your hands and your fingers sort of melt into your face. You feel how that affects your whole being as you let that happen. It’s almost like your whole stress system is starting to melt away,” Greg explains.
“Send love and relaxation into your eyes through your palms, which, by the way, are minor chakras, or energy centers. You’re sending all this relaxation into your eyes, and your eyes are relaxing. Imagination becomes very important here, too. You can imagine, pretend, and feel that your eyes are going back toward their natural round shape. Just stay with that as long as you want. And then when you do uncover your eyes, you’re going to see that things are more clear, at least for a moment.
See, this is a setting, a thermostat setting that your body-mind just had for a long time. It may take some practice, some awareness, and gradually learning to sustain this [relaxed state]. It’s kind of a zen thing. You can’t crave it too much because the more you crave it, now you’re trying to force it and now you’re straining again.”
Another technique is called the Bates Long Swing. Begin by simply swaying your body back and forth. The simple act of languidly moving your body, even just a little bit, has a very soothing effect on your brain and thought patterns, and that alone can sometimes help you feel more relaxed during stressful situations. Your eyes also respond. Instead of being locked in a stare, like a deer in headlights, they can begin to relax and move naturally again.
You can find a lot of information about the Bates Method on the web. The thing to be careful about is that you don’t get drawn into an “eye exercise” approach where you end up straining to get rid of the strain. I think this is the key reason people fail to get results with the Bates Method. Greg’s approach is fantastic for always bringing you back to a relaxed state of mind and body, and helping your eyes feel ready to see clearly again.
You can purchase Greg’s program, Reclaim Your Eyesight Naturally, which consists of six CDs and a 62-page guidebook that helps tie everything together. Just keep in mind that if you are looking for a quick fix, Dr. Bates’ approach is probably not for you. The time required to effect a permanent improvement can vary greatly. In rare cases just a few minutes is sufficient. However, it is often necessary to continue the program for weeks or months, or longer for extreme conditions. Greg also teaches workshops and vision coach trainings, and works with people one-on-one via phone or Skype.
“I’ve heard from hundreds of people that have done my program,” he says. “A lot of people have had stunning success with just the CD program. A lot of others need maybe one session just to get the light bulb to come on. Other people, especially if they’re backed up into a really big prescription, they may need some help unlocking the doors of: why, emotionally, am I stuck here? But it’s amazing what a little EFT, guided visualization, and awareness of tight muscles can do.”
Again, when you have tightness in your eyes, you’re more likely to get eye diseases, and stress is the leading contributor to notachieving full vision recovery. Doing the palming technique is a good foundational step to help release some of that stress and tension held in your eyes. Meditation can also be a helpful strategy, overall.
The Bates Method is really quite simple, yet it requires patience, and some finesse. Remember, the goal is not to “train” or exercise your eyes to make them stronger. The goal is to relax them. Greg’s program provides thorough instructions that can help you get there. Also remember that your mindset is important. With faith in yourself and your body’s self-regenerative ability, the toughest hurdle is learning to relax, so your eyes can function in accord with their natural design.
By Dr. Mercola
Over the last several years, researchers have slowly but surely reached the consensus that high intensity interval training (HIIT), which is characterized by relatively short bursts of intense exercise followed by periods of rest, far outperforms conventional aerobic endurance type exercises.
Not only does it beat conventional cardio as the most effective and efficient form of exercise, it also provides health benefits you simply cannot get from regular aerobics, such as a tremendous boost in human growth hormone (HGH), aka the “fitness hormone.”
Perhaps best of all, HIIT requires only minutes, compared to hours, each week. In the featured video, Dr. Michael Mosley, author of Fast Exercise: The Simple Secret of High-Intensity Training, shares his own experiences with HIIT.
As Dr. Mosley reports in the featured BBC special, groundbreaking research suggests that as little as three minutes of high intensity training per week can produce significant health benefits.
Dr. Mosley was able to improve his insulin sensitivity by 24 percent by putting in a mere 12 minutes of intense exercise per week, for four weeks. Such an effect is truly amazing, and indeed important, as improving and maintaining good insulin sensitivity is perhaps one of the most important aspects of optimal health.
He performed the exercises on a stationary bike. After warming up, he cycled “all-out” for 20 seconds, rested for a couple of minutes, and then gave it his all for another 20 seconds.
The HIIT approach I personally prefer and recommend is the Peak Fitness method of a 50% longer exercise time of 30 seconds of maximum effort followed by less recovery of only 90 seconds for a total of eight repetitions.
When you’re first starting out, depending on your level of fitness, you may only be able to do two or three repetitions, which is perfectly alright. As you get fitter, just keep adding repetitions until you’re doing eight.
About a year ago, I personally modified the number of repetitions I do from eight to six, as it was sometimes just too strenuous for me to do all eight. By listening to my body and cutting it back to six reps, I can now easily tolerate the workout and go full out. Plus, I no longer dread doing it.
I also do alternatives to elliptical now where I will do six sets with a barbell and ten pounds on it and do deadlifts, bent over rows, upright rows, squats, clean and jerks and bicep curls all in rapid succession with no breaks. It is not quite as intense but goes for about 60 seconds and really pushes me metabolically. I also rest for a few minutes until I recover. I think the variety is good.
Another tweak I made is to incorporate Buteyko breathing, which means I do most of the workout breathing only through my nose. This raises the challenge to another level.
There are very compelling reasons for trading your hour-long walk on the treadmill for a 20-minute high intensity routine, and research shows that in this case, less time can indeed lead to a greater payout, if done correctly. As Dr. Mosley writes in his book, Fast Exercise:
“I believe that we have now produced sufficient data to be able to recommend short bursts of high-intensity exercise as a safe and effective alternative to conventional workouts, removing the ‘time barrier’ as an excuse for not exercising.
This will hopefully boost compliance and help people take up an approach that will lead to a healthier way of life. The great thing about HIIT is that it can be done in the workplace or at home without preplanning or missing an episode of your favorite TV show.”
A study published in the journal Cell Metabolism1 in 2012, showed that when healthy but inactive people exercise intensely, even if the exercise is brief, it produces an immediate change in their DNA. While the underlying genetic code in the muscle remains unchanged, exercise causes important structural and chemical changes to the DNA molecules within the muscles.
This contraction-induced gene activation appears to be early events leading to the genetic reprogramming of muscle for strength, and to the structural and metabolic benefits of exercise. Several of the genes affected by an acute bout of exercise are genes involved in fat metabolism. Specifically, the study suggests that when you exercise, your body almost immediately experiences genetic activation that increases the production of fat-busting proteins! Besides lowered body fat, other benefits associated with high intensity interval training include:
- Improved muscle tone
- Firmer skin and fewer wrinkles
- Higher energy levels
- Improved athletic speed and performance
- Boosted sex drive
In the video, Dr. Mosley also meets with Dr. James Levine, a Mayo Clinic obesity expert whose research suggests that the best way to lose weight is to increase your non-exercise activity thermogenesis, also referred to as NEAT. This is the calories you expend during your day-to-day living, through body movement that have nothing to do with traditional exercise.
Similar research has been conducted by Dr. Joan Vernikos, former director of NASA’s Life Sciences Division and author of Sitting Kills, Moving Heals.
Mounting research clearly shows that undisrupted sitting for long periods of time is an independent risk factor for chronic disease and early death—even if you exercise vigorously each week. More and more, we’re starting to realize the importance of keeping your body in perpetual motion—bending, stretching, reaching, standing up…
Using so-called “fidget pants,” Dr. Levine measures how much Dr. Mosley and other volunteers move during any given day, and how that non-exercise movement translates into calories burned. As it turns out, even slight increases in daily motion can result in several hundreds of calories burned.
When asked which might be more important for health: intermittent bursts of high intensity exercise a few times a week, or more or less non-stop non-exercise movement throughout the day, Dr. Levine notes that those who exercise regularly will clearly continue to do so because they love it.
But a large section of the population gets no exercise whatsoever and think nothing of it. For those people, paying careful attention to their intermittent movements—the movement inherent in their daily living—becomes incredibly relevant and important for their health. In a nutshell, the key to optimal health is to “keep off your bottom as much as possible.” It’s just that simple. That in no way detracts from the importance or benefits you can reap from a regular fitness regimen though.
According to Dr. Levine, “there should never be an hour where you’re sitting down.” One solution, provided your job can accommodate it, is to do your work standing up. Another solution, suggested by Dr. Vernikos, is to make sure you stand up at least once every 15 minutes or so. In a previous article, I collected a list of 30 videos demonstrating quick and simple exercises you can do when you stand up.
Getting back to high intensity exercise, part of the key that makes HIIT so effective is that it engages far more of your muscle tissue than conventional aerobic cardio exercise. You have three different types of muscle fibers: slow, fast, and super-fast. Only ONE of these muscles, the super-fast fibers, will impact your production of human growth hormone (HGH), which is KEY for strength, health, and longevity. The vast majority of people, including many athletes such as marathon runners, only train using their slow muscle fibers. In fact, neither traditionally performed aerobic cardio nor strength training will work anything but your slow muscles. These are the red muscles, which are filled with capillaries and mitochondria, and hence a lot of oxygen.
The fast type of fiber, which is also red muscle that oxygenates quickly, is five times faster than the slow fibers. Power training, or plyometric burst-type exercises, will engage these fast muscles. The super-fast ones are the white muscle fibers. They contain far less blood and less densely packed mitochondria. These muscle fibers are what you use when you do anaerobic, short burst exercises. High intensity burst-type exercises are the ones that will engage these super-fast fibers. They’re 10 times faster than slow fibers, and activating them is the key to producing growth hormone! To further maximize your growth hormone release, you’ll want to:
- Get a good night’s sleep
- Optimize your vitamin D levels
- Avoid sugar, especially fructose. (If you consume sugar or fructose, especially within two hours post-exercise, you will virtually obliterate the production of growth hormone!)
Ideally, intense exercise should be balanced with strength training, proper stretching, core strengthening, stress reduction, restorative sleep, and good nutrition. You’ll find much more information about HIIT and other types of exercise in the fitness section of my website. When putting together your exercise routine, I recommend incorporating the following:
- Stand Up Every 15 Minutes. Compelling research now tells us that prolonged sitting can have a tremendously detrimental impact on your health, even if you exercise regularly. Your body needs to interact with gravity in order to function properly, and this has to be ongoing, throughout your day. Whenever you have a chance to move your body, do so! I invite you to look at our list of 30 videos for ideas about what you can do when you stand up.
- Interval Peak Fitness (Anaerobic) Training: Interval training involves alternating short bursts of high-intensity exercise with gentle recovery periods, and are central to my Peak Fitness routine.
- Strength Training: Rounding out your exercise program with a one-set strength training routine will ensure that you’re really optimizing the health benefits of your fitness program. You can also “up” the intensity by slowing it down. For more information about using super slow weight training as a form of high intensity interval exercise, please see my interview above with Dr. Doug McGuff, and my video about super slow workouts at the top of this section.
- Core Exercises: Your body has 29 core muscles located mostly in your back, abdomen, and pelvis. This group of muscles provides the foundation for movement throughout your body, and strengthening them can help protect and support your back, make your spine and body less prone to injury, and improve your balance and stability. Foundation Training, created by Dr. Eric Goodman, is an integral first step of a larger program he calls “Modern Moveology,” which consists of a catalog of exercises.
- Stretching: My favorite type of stretching is Active Isolated Stretching (AIS). With AIS, you hold each stretch for only two seconds, which works with your body’s natural physiological makeup to improve circulation and increase the elasticity of muscle joints. This technique allows your body to repair itself and prepare for daily activity. You can also use devices like thePower Plate to help you stretch.
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Here’s a sample HIIT workout that’s simple, but effective:
60 Seconds Sprint/Fast Jog
120 Seconds Walk/Slow JogI do this HIIT workout all the time on a treadmill, elliptical, or outside. The duration of “work” is 60 seconds, and my “rest” is 120 seconds. The work/rest ratio in this case is 60/120, or 1 to 2. I shoot for 5-10 cycles, depending on the type of cardio I’m doing and if it’s right after strength training. The better shape you are in, the higher intensity you can handle and the higher the work/rest ratio. For example, well trained athletes can use a 2 to 1 work /rest ratio, so they are sprinting for 120 seconds and only resting for 60 seconds. That’s tough!
Any type of cardio can be used with interval training, but I would caution against running more than a few times per week, because the demands on your metabolic system and joints are significant. For beginners, I recommend the elliptical, which is lower impact. Swimming, jumping rope, cycling etc. can all work well as training modalities.
In the Philippines, one small island almost disappeared from the pollutants coming from nearby mining company. An island suffered the same as flooding cannot be contained as a result of illegal logging, cutting of trees and no sustainable solutions in place.
Here in the USA, you can see the beauty of nature as each person try to help preserve the environment.
NPCA views the bridging of Tamiami Trail as the highest priority to restoring critical habitat and an entire ecosystem in a national park. Tamiami Trail (U.S. Highway 41/State Road 90) connects Tampa to Miami and forms a portion of the northern boundary of Everglades National Park. It provides access to one of the most popular areas of the park – Shark Valley Slough and observation tower – and is the only way to access the Big Cypress National Preserve Visitor Center and Headquarters.
Since the 1920s, an 11-mile stretch of Tamiami Trail has acted as a dam, impeding the natural north-south flow of water through the greater Everglades ecosystem. As a result, Everglades National Park is starved of vital water, causing deterioration of the park’s wading bird and wildlife habitat and its unique ridge and slough landscape.
In 1989, Congress authorized the Modified Water Deliveries project, which included bridging one mile of Tamiami Trail. Twenty years later, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers broke ground on the one-mile bridge in 2009.
In March 2013, NPCA celebrated the ribbon cutting of the one-mile bridge. This project is critical to restoring water flows and distribution that marine wildlife, fisheries, and nesting colonies of birds rely on, including the endangered Everglade Snail Kite and the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow. The bridge construction already has brought much needed jobs to South Florida. From 2010 to 2012, 1,212 jobs were created.
This one-mile bridge span is a critical first step to restoring water flows to Everglades National Park; however, it alone will not achieve the water flows necessary to restore the Everglades.
In 2010, the National Park Service (NPS) released its final environmental impact statement for the “Everglades National Park Tamiami Trail Modifications: Next Steps Project,” which identified the preferred alternative to be four additional spans of bridging, resulting in 5.5 miles in addition to the one-mile bridge. This would reestablish seasonal water depths and flooding durations critical to the survival of numerous species and bring the total elevated portions of Tamiami Trail to 6.5 miles.
NPCA strongly supports NPS’ preferred alternative for bridging an additional 5.5 miles on Tamiami Trail. The Everglades ecosystem has been severely damaged by the drastic low water levels, with Everglades National Park only receiving 30 percent of the water it needs to function properly.
In fall 2012, NPS started the planning and design phase for the next segment of bridging on Tamiami Trail, which will be a 2.6-mile span. A design build is expected to be ready mid-2014.
NPCA is exploring options to fund the construction for the next span of bridging. Among possible options are settlement penalties from the BP-Gulf oil spill because moving water south will improve the health of Southern Gulf estuaries, specifically Florida Bay and the Caloosahatchee. These estuaries are being damaged from the erratic and often devastating flows of water because water is unable to flow south through its historic course.
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