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Author: Kristina Martin - Organic Lifestyle Magazine Author: Kristina Martin - Organic Lifestyle Magazine

Breast Cancer, Unnecessary Chemotherapy, and Invasive Procedures for Women

Is it easier to prescribe exhausting, and ineffective medications than it is to look for actual disease prevention and treatment? The answer is yes, and sixty percent of women with breast cancer are paying the price for that complacency with unnecessary chemotherapy.

A recent study released in the New England Journal of Medicine examined outcomes from two different breast cancer treatments: hormone therapy, and chemotherapy. After nine years of following patients, researchers found that the results were indistinguishable. It didn’t matter what treatment they received – nine out of ten women survived. So why do we continue with chemotherapy?

Do the ends justify the means?

Chemotherapy is our default medical standard of care for cancer. While it can eliminate the immediate threat, it’s more problematic than helpful. The cancer is gone, but many women are left crippled in another way. The immune system is a shell of what it once was, leaving the body open to all manner of infections and other health conditions.  According to Otis Brawley, chief medical and scientific officer for the American Cancer Society,

I have lost three patients over the last 25 years because they got leukemia from their chemo…I have lost patients who got congestive heart failure because of their chemo, and I have seen patients who get ‘chemo brain’ and have difficulty concentrating for the rest of their lives.”

The other, less invasive treatment option presented in this article isn’t perfect. Endocrine therapy, which inhibits the body’s ability to produce estrogen, can result in symptoms of early menopause, joint pain, and weight loss. But we didn’t have that option until recently. Why not? Is chemotherapy so effective that medicine should have stopped looking for solutions?

Recommended: How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors

It’s a Pattern

The practice of applying unnecessarily invasive treatments to an entire gender is not a new one in the United States. The World Health Organization has advocated for a c-section rate of 10-15% for over 30 years. Yet the U.S. is frequently cited for rates of more than double that. C-sections are among the most performed surgeries in the U.S., yet mothers who fight for a different outcome are constantly told that “the most important thing is a healthy baby.” Yes, this is true, but that should not be a reason to discourage informed women trying to minimize the physiological fallout from pregnancy. There is a reason the percentage of expectant mothers who find it necessary to hire a doula when giving birth has doubled in a six-year period. Having an advocate is more important than ever.

Me Too

Studies have found that doctors are less likely to listen to or take the concerns of female patients seriously, sometimes describing their pain as emotional or psychogenic. Yet that lack of engagement can lead to treating all women with one size all procedures that aren’t always necessary. It also causes many women years of frustration, searching for someone who will take their concerns seriously.

Recommended: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

It’s ironic that the alternative treatment to chemotherapy examined in this study reduces the amount estrogen in the body, literally suppressing female hormones. Women are taught to avoid rocking the boat, but speaking up or voting with your dollar and finding someone who will listen can be the thing that saves you from potential long-lasting health issues.

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Monsanto’s Name To Be Retired – Bayer Aims To Erase Sordid History

Now that the merger between Bayer and Monsanto has been approved, the German pharmaceutical giant has announced plans to scrub the Monsanto name from their agrochemical products, selling them under the name Bayer Crop Science instead. After receiving the U.S. government approval for the merger, the company announced,

Bayer will remain the company name. Monsanto will no longer be a company name. The acquired products will retain their brand names and become part of the Bayer portfolio…”

The deal is scheduled to be completed on June 14.

The Benefits

In eliminating the name Monsanto, Bayer is getting rid of quite a bit of baggage. Monsanto is responsible for the introduction of several products that have done serious damage to the environment and public health, like Agent Orange, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), saccharin, aspartame, and recently designated carcinogen, glyphosate. Entire protest movements are dedicated to opposing Monsanto, and there’s always the possibility that the more stringent regulations of GMOs have been in response to their reputation. With this move, Bayer loses the liability of the Monsanto reputation while maintaining Monsanto’s profits and market control.

Must Read: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-EW4XzQwRM

Holistic Profits

Bayer is remaking itself. Originally a pharmaceutical company, they’re now moving into agriculture. But not just any agriculture…they’re getting into agriculture with a company that has been definitively linked to making people sick. Which makes this an excellent move for Bayer. Step one, take control of the food system. Step two, make the food that causes cancer and disrupts the endocrine system impossible to avoid. Step three, sell the drugs needed to manage the conditions caused by unavoidable unhealthy food. Step four? Profit, clearly.

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Puget Sound Mussels Contain Opioids, Antidepressants, and Chemotherapy Drugs

The biannual Puget Sound mussel monitoring study found that three of eighteen samples of native bay mussels contained trace amounts of oxycodone, the chemotherapy drug Melphalan, and antidepressants. Scientists from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) transplant uncontaminated mussels to various locations in the Seattle and Bremerton harbors and check them two to three months later. It is not unusual for pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs like cocaine to be found during these surveys, but this is the first time scientists have found opioids. Jennifer Lanksbury is a biologist at the WDWW.

What we eat and what we excrete goes into the Puget Sound…It’s telling me there’s a lot of people taking oxycodone in the Puget Sound area.”

Related: How Farmed Fish Degrades Our Health and the Environment – Better Options Included

How Do They Get There?

Opioid use in the U.S. has spiraled out of control, with deaths from pharmaceutical versions, heroin, and fentanyl nearly tripling since 2002. Finding evidence of that crisis in our waterways is a when, not an if. But how does that happen?

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The biggest culprits are wastewater plants discharging into the bay. Opioids enter the waste stream through human excrement and improperly disposed of pharmaceuticals (flushing them). An earlier study in the Great Lakes found that wastewater treatment facilities were only able to remove half of the prescription drugs that enter the plant. A quarter of chemicals had low removal rates, where there was less than 25 percent chance of removing 75 percent or more of the drug. Runoff from agricultural sources is also a contributor to the presence of harmful chemicals in aquatic environments.

What Do the Fish Think?

The bay mussels are not likely to metabolize these opioids, especially in the trace amounts found, but what about other fish? Zebrafish, although not a resident of the Puget Sound, learn how to dose themselves with opioids, and scientists surmise that salmon and other native species will have similar reactions. The effects of these drugs on the aquatic population will likely be more clear as the opioid crisis continues to gain momentum.

Recommended: Why Is Candida So Hard to Kill?

The opioids were found in trace amounts, but the chemotherapy drug Melphalan was found in doses that correspond to a recommended dose in humans. This drug interacts with DNA and is a carcinogen. The National Institutes of Health notes that

…There is sufficient evidence for the carcinogenicity of melphalan from studies in experimental animals. When administered by intraperitoneal injection, melphalan caused cancer of lymphatic tissue (lymphosarcoma) in male mice, lung tumors in mice of both sexes, and cancer of the abdominal cavity (sarcoma of the peritoneum) in rats of both sexes…”

Water At Risk

Water is our most precious resource, and we have not been good stewards of it. The ecosystem that keeps our bodies of water and our very planet healthy is constantly being changed and manipulated without a way to correct for the changes. This is the first evidence of opioids in the water, but other drugs have become commonplace as we see with the Melphalan. There are no procedures in place to keep the same thing from happening with opioids.

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Fungal Infections Becoming Resistant, Evolving Like Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

Fungal infections are demonstrating resistance to fungicides in the same way that bacteria react to antibiotics, warns a new report in Science magazine. Many perceive fungal infections like candida, athlete’s foot, and others to be relatively harmless, but an estimated 1.5 million worldwide die from fungal related causes. These microbes have slowly been building resistance to traditional methods of treatment, and according to the report, that’s scary news.

Fungal infections on human health are currently spiraling, and the global mortality for fungal diseases now exceeds that for malaria or breast cancer.”

How Did We Get Here

These potentially devasting microbial evolutions follow the same pattern. People and animals are given large amounts of unnecessary antibiotics or fungicides. Even if these drugs kill all of the pathogens they are meant to (and they don’t always), they also eliminate the beneficial bacteria as well. Once the beneficial bacteria is cleared out, bacteria and fungus left untouched by the treatment have a clear field to thrive. This allows the microbes strong enough to withstand the medication with the best possible environment for it to colonize.

Related: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

Scientists predict a yearly death rate of 10 million people from antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the year 2050 if things continue as they are. Currently, deaths from those bacteria number 700,000 people a year. Estimates for deaths caused by fungal infections this year are at 1.5 million. Fungus and their spores are causing more deaths, and the most commonly used treatments for fungal issues are being used more frequently and diversely than antibiotics are.

Burying the Lede

There are two reasons to be incredibly concerned about antifungal-resistance. We are using azoles, the most commonly used family of antifungals, as medicine for people and animals, as crop protection, for preserving lumber, and as antifouling coatings applied to the outside of ships. These fungicides are everywhere, and if we’ve learned anything from the widely published antibiotic-resistant superbugs, this is bad news.

Another reason? The fungus is impossible to contain, and fungi are better at becoming airborne than other pathogens like bacteria and viruses. Every inhale contains multiple fungal infections waiting to happen. Much of our food is grown with fungus specifically added to it. There is no escape.

Related: How to Kill Fungal Infections

Taking It Seriously

Agriculture has known about fungus resistance to azoles for more than a decade. We’ve been on this train for a while now, and no one is activating the brakes. How bad is the crash going to be?

Immune System Importance

Dangerous mycotoxins (toxic substances produced by fungi) can develop in the compost pile, household mold, grains like wheat and sorghum, pet food, and dietary supplements. More people die from fungal infections than from tuberculosis. People who are taking antibiotics or who have compromised immune systems are especially susceptible. Which boggles the mind really…antibiotic use leaves you at a greater risk for a potentially dangerous fungal infection.

Related: How To Heal Your Gut

We can’t always control what we’re exposed to. The most common (and frustrating) fungal infections are caused by candida, a necessary digestive microbe! What we can control is how our body reacts to them. Balancing your microbes is key to a healthy immune system and avoiding serious illness.

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Tobacco Plant May Hold the Answer to Treating Dangerous Fungal Infections

A newly published study in Nature Communications has discovered that a peptide found in tobacco plants, NaD1, is able to combat Candida albicans cells. The compound is found in the plant Nicotiana alata, which is one of roughly 70 species of tobacco not grown for commercial use. The outer layer of Candida albicans, the most common cause of yeast infections, is torn apart by the peptide, causing the death and explosion of the fungus. According to Dr. Mark Hulett, a study author from the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science,

They [the peptides] act in a different way to existing antibiotics and allow us to explore new ways of fighting infections. It’s an exciting discovery that could be harnessed to develop a new class of life-saving antimicrobial therapy to treat a range of infectious diseases, including multi-drug-resistant golden staph, and viral infections such as HIV, Zika virus, Dengue and Murray River Encephalitis.”

Candida’s Diet

Candida is an especially insidious fungus. Since the candida is always present in the body, keeping the opportunistic microbe in balance is key. Unfortunately, the standard American diet, high in sugar and processed foods, is incredibly suited to the fungus.

Recommended: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

Figuring out the Future

The discovery of this plant’s effectiveness in killing Candida could be a breakthrough in treating the fungus. Or it could be devastating in a way we haven’t anticipated. Candida serves a necessary function, aiding in nutrient absorption and digestion. It also releases toxins as it dies, and death by explosion seems guaranteed to cause significant die-off symptoms.

Recommended: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Maybe this will work. Likely it won’t because it doesn’t deal with how the candida got out of control in the first place. The issue is diet, and that will take a more thoughtful and holistic approach than pharmaceuticals can offer.

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How Vaccines Cause Disease to Evolve

Two of the pillars of modern medicine are in trouble and it’s for the same reason – ignoring microbial evolution. Conventional medicine charged ahead with rampant antibiotic use without a full understanding of the microbiome and how our immune system works or taking into account the additional impact of eating antibiotic-treated animals regularly. Bacteria consistently exposed to low-level antibiotics has evolved past those treatments, requiring doctors to prescribe increasingly strong antibiotics to conquer these incredibly resilient bacteria. For years we’ve been treating harmful pathogens like elite athletes, giving them increasingly difficult hurdles that only the strongest survive. Now, antibiotic-resistant superbugs will kill 10 million people a year by 2050 if the way we use antibiotics doesn’t change.

Now we are finding that vaccines do the same thing with complex pathogens. The vaccine suppresses the host’s response to the pathogen but doesn’t kill it. This gives more virulent, more quickly replicating bacteria a chance to multiply without killing the host. No one dies…but the bacteria evolves to the point that the vaccine is no longer effective.

Recommended: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

Whooping Cough

People vaccinated for pertussis are carriers of the whooping cough bacteria, even if they never contract the illness. In that respect, the vaccine succeeds…but only in the short term. Since the host of the pathogen doesn’t expire from it, the bacteria develop into a stronger version of pertussis. Caused by the bacteria Bordetella pertussis, whooping cough has never been eradicated and the number of cases has been slowly increasing for years. Conventional news outlets are quick to blame anti-vaxxers every time there’s an outbreak of whooping cough, an easier solution than examining the effectiveness of the vaccine.

The whooping cough vaccine was first modified in 1992 on a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control after it was linked to seizures. The new version targets specific proteins in the bacteria, which is the perfect opening for other proteins to fill the power vacuum. Like antibiotics, microbes that don’t get targeted are able to thrive. While research has periodically called for an examination of the vaccine as reported cases of pertussis increase, a 2014 study from Australia confirms that the strains of whooping cough not targeted by the vaccine are thriving. Ruiting Lan, senior author of the latest study on whooping cough and associate professor at School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of New South Wales says, “It’s like a game of hide and seek. It is harder for the antibodies made by the body’s immune system in response to vaccination to ‘search and destroy’ the whooping cough bacteria which lack pertactin. This could mean that these pertactin-free strains have gained a selective advantage over bacterial strains with the pertactin protein.” In the course of four years, the percentage of whooping cough samples that lacked the protein targeted by the vaccine jumped over 70 percent. And that’s just in Australia. Lan also commented that “The fact that they have arisen independently in different countries suggests this is in response to the vaccine. More studies are needed to better understand the effects of vaccination on the evolution of the organism…”

Marek’s Disease

Another example of disease evolution in relation to vaccines is Marek’s Disease, a deadly ailment affecting chickens that has evolved enough to render two vaccines irrelevant and costs the poultry industry more than 2 billion dollars a year. Andrew Read, a scientist Pennsylvania State University Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, believes that the vaccine may be causing more harm than good. He’s been researching how vaccines allow bacteria and viruses to evolve and gain virulence for over 15 years and is also associated with the concept of “leaky” vaccines. Leaky vaccines, also called imperfect vaccines, save the vaccinated individual from death but turn them into a disease incubator. In his study of Marek’s Disease, Read linked leaky vaccine and increased microbe virulence.

When vaccines prevent transmission, as is the case for nearly all vaccines used in humans, this type of evolution towards increased virulence is blocked. But when vaccines leak, allowing at least some pathogen transmission, they could create the ecological conditions that would allow hot strains to emerge and persist. This theory proved highly controversial when it was first proposed over a decade ago, but here we report experiments with Marek’s disease virus in poultry that show that modern commercial leaky vaccines can have precisely this effect: they allow the onward transmission of strains otherwise too lethal to persist. Thus, the use of leaky vaccines can facilitate the evolution of pathogen strains that put unvaccinated hosts at greater risk of severe disease. The future challenge is to identify whether there are other types of vaccines used in animals and humans that might also generate these evolutionary risks.”

Marek’s Disease affects chickens, which doesn’t sound scary. The disease isn’t going to just jump to humans…that’s not how things work. But if we’re learning anything, it’s that science’s refusal to seriously consider and investigate vaccines mean that we don’t know exactly how things work.

Related:How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children

We Cannot Keep Up

Vaccines are designed to target a specific strain of a bacteria or virus and encourages the immune system to defeat it. The vaccine and its response are frequently victorious. But that focus has ignored the realities of infection and the way microbes evolve. The defeating a particular pathogen or strain of bacteria leaves room for another one to take its place. In the case of Marek’s Disease, the third iteration of the vaccine still works, but there isn’t a new one in the works.

In its success, the vaccine has opened the door to a host of other issues that modern medicine won’t be ready for until it’s too late. Of course, we won’t be ready. You can’t fix something until you admit there’s a problem, and admitting that vaccination causes serious issues is too costly an error to cop to.

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Travel is Worse for the Environment Than We Thought

Thanks to climate change, the world is looking at previously accepted practices with a greater focus on sustainability and a new study finds one area that’s a bigger problem than we thought – travel. Global tourism in the year 2013 was responsible for 4.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or 8% of the year’s total emission. Previous studies have focused on the fuel costs associated with air travel, but newly published research in Nature Climate Change examined the impact that tourism-driven food, shipping, and hotels have as well. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the traffic comes from travelers to and from high-income countries. If travel trends continue, global emissions from tourism will amount to 6.5 billion metric tons by the year 2025. Climate-conscious travel might be harder to achieve than imagined.

Running on Fumes

Planes are a major source of air pollution, which is the cause of an estimated 5.5 million deaths a year). While 92 percent of those deaths occur in lower or middle-incomes, plane exhaust and emissions are still causing significant casualties. Earlier in the decade, researchers found that those emissions kill more people than actual plane crashes, with annual deaths recorded at 10,000 and 1,000 respectively.

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Smaller trips are worse for the environment, as airplane pollution is highest at takeoff and landing. For the traveler who wants to save time, airplanes are the best option. But the question of how sustainable it is will increasingly take the forefront in discussions of tourism and travel options. How much more serious would the climate change discussion be if Americans made chose airplanes instead of cars for the majority of trips from 500 to 1000 miles?

Where Travel is Going

People are still trying to define ethical and environmentally-friendly travel. But that has butted against climate change tourism, otherwise known as visiting places where climate has or will change the landscape fundamentally. It’s easy to take advantage of the current fear of missing out (FOMO) by promising trips to locales that will no longer exist in the future like Greenland, Venice, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Amazon rainforest.

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Travel Options

The irony of climate change tourism is deeply upsetting from an environmental point of view. By seeing these wonders up close, we hasten their demise. But seeing them up close forges a connection, often times inspiring the traveler to do something about or inspiring deeper thought into the issues of climate change. Travel also brings knowledge and diversity, our best chances of future success. So is it worth it? And what will VR bring to the table?

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