Get in ‘touch’ with Mother Earth in Dominica

“It was good for the skin to touch the earth, and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth….The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing, and healing.” … Chief Luther Standing Bear TETON SIOUX

 

 

I love to lay on the ground and look at the night sky or the day sky and the clouds. I also absolutely love laying on rocks and practicing yoga in direct connection with these natural surfaces is a favourite activity of mine.

I have always enjoyed sleeping; resting; sitting and walking on the earth. As my children grew up we camped a lot not only to get in nature but to be able to sleep in direct connection with the earth. For me it was a deeply rejuvenating and healing experience.

Recently the value of direct contact with the earth has become more and more recognized.

According to the Earthing Institute:

“The surface of the Earth resonates with natural, subtle energies. Ongoing scientific research is discovering the details as to why people feel significantly better when they connect with these omnipresent energy fields. Earthing refers to the process of connecting by walking barefoot outside, as humans have done throughout history, or sitting, working, or sleeping grounded indoors. For more than a decade, thousands of people around the world—men, women, children, and athletes—have incorporated Earthing into their daily routines and report that they sleep better, have less pain and stress, and faster recovery from trauma. Earthing immediately equalizes your body to the same energy level, or potential, as the Earth. This results in synchronizing your internal biological clocks, hormonal cycles, and physiological rhythms, and suffusing your body with healing, negatively charged free electrons abundantly present on the surface of the Earth.”

“Throughout time, we humans have strolled, sat, stood, and slept on the ground—the skin of our bodies touching the skin of the Earth—oblivious to the fact that such physical contact transfers natural electrical energy to the body.

Modern lifestyle has disconnected us from the Earth’s energy, making us more vulnerable to stress and illness.

Earthing is the landmark discovery that this energy upholds the electrical stability of our bodies and serves as a foundation for vitality and health.

In an age of rampant chronic disease, reconnecting with the Earth’s energy beneath our very feet provides a way back to better health.

We are bioelectrical beings living on an electrical planet.”

For more information on Earthing check out Understanding Earthing.

Recently released studies are showing Native Indians were absolutely right in their belief that walking on the ground was healing.

The most recent study published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine July 2012 shows that Earthing or Grounding the body reduces blood viscosity.

Subjects were grounded with conductive patches on the soles of their feet and palms of their hands. Wires connected the patches to a stainless-steel rod inserted in the earth outdoors. Small fingertip pinprick blood samples were placed on microscope slides and an electric field was applied to them. Electrophoretic mobility of the RBCs was determined by measuring terminal velocities of the cells in video recordings taken through a microscope. RBC aggregation was measured by counting the numbers of clustered cells in each sample. Settings/location: Each subject sat in a comfortable reclining chair in a soundproof experiment room with the lights dimmed or off. Subjects: Ten (10) healthy adult subjects were recruited by word-of-mouth. Results: Earthing or grounding increased zeta potentials in all samples by an average of 2.70 and significantly reduced RBC aggregation. Conclusions: Grounding increases the surface charge on RBCs and thereby reduces blood viscosity and clumping. Grounding appears to be one of the simplest and yet most profound interventions for helping reduce cardiovascular risk and cardiovascular events.

In March 2012 The Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine published an article describing the interaction of the Earth’s mass-electrolytic conductor on the electrical environment of human organism-aqueous environment and skeleton released by Department of Ambulatory Cardiology, Military Clinical Hospital, Bydgoszcz, Poland.

They found results indicate that up-and-down movement and the elimination of potentials in the electrical environment of the human organism by the Earth’s mass may play a fundamental role in regulation of bioelectrical and bioenergetical processes. The Earth’s electromagnetohydrodynamic potential is responsible for this phenomenon.

In January of 2012 The Journal of Environmental Health published ‘Earthing: health implications of reconnecting the human body to the Earth’s surface electrons’; the source was the Developmental and Cell Biology Department of the University of California. This paper reviews the earthing research and the potential of earthing as a simple and easily accessed global modality of significant clinical importance.

Their conclusion: Emerging evidence shows that contact with the Earth—whether being outside barefoot or indoors connected to grounded conductive systems—may be a simple, natural, and yet profoundly effective environmental strategy against chronic stress, ANS dysfunction, inflammation, pain, poor sleep, disturbed HRV, hypercoagulable blood, and many common health disorders, including cardiovascular disease. The research done to date supports the concept that grounding or earthing the human body may be an essential element in the health equation along with sunshine, clean air and water, nutritious food, and physical activity.

Seems like Earthing is among the most natural and safest things we can do to live healthier! Oh joy!

Dominica is the perfect place to hike barefoot or practice yoga in nature and take advantage of those healing energies.

 

What is natural salt?

Natural salt is unrefined; often gray in colour and the granules are moist and stick together somewhat. Natural salt contains sodium and minerals in balance; often the sodium content is less than 50%. Natural salt is good for us to eat in small quantities.

On the other hand refined salt is generally 95 to 99% sodium – the minerals are stripped away through a heating process that changes the molecular structure.

Income potential doubles for the product as nigari and sodium can then be sold instead of just one item.

Salt has long been used for its healing properties

There has been a plethera of new salt companies open in the Caribbean over the last 20 years. Most of these companies offer a gourmet natural sea salt; if only someone in Dominica could do that!

Companies producing salt in the Caribbean; each company lists their process and they are all very different from high tech to recycled glass panes from hurricane damage.

Cayman Islands

Haiti

Bonaire

When I travelled through the Caribbean in 1980/81 studying the use of herbs in daily life, vegetarian cooking and sustainable living I talked to elderly people who still remembered gathering their own salt by the sea.

 

Insecticides and Human Health

We are putting chemicals originally developed as neuro toxins in the second world war on our food and therefore in our food, our rivers, our soil and our oceans. This affects those who apply the chemicals, and those who consume them as well as those who are nearby when the application is happening or afterwards.

The following information is a copy and paste from Medscape, I have highlighted a few sentences

Authors:

Frances M Dyro, MD  Associate Professor of Neurology, New York Medical College; Neuromuscular Section, Department of Neurology, Westchester Medical Center

Organophosphates (OPs) are chemical substances originally produced by the reaction of alcohols and phosphoric acid. In the 1930s, organophosphates were used as insecticides, but the German military developed these substances as neurotoxins in World War II. They function as cholinesterase inhibitors, thereby affecting neuromuscular transmission.

Organophosphate insecticides, such as diazinon, chlorpyrifos, disulfoton, azinphos-methyl, and fonofos, have been used widely in agriculture and in household applications as pesticides. Over 25,000 brands of pesticides are available in the United States, and their use is monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Diazinon was sold in the United States for 48 years with 14.7 million pounds sold annually. It was the most widely used ingredient in lawn and garden sprays in the United States. Diazinon was found under the brand names Real Kill, Ortho, and Spectracide. In the past decade, the EPA reached an agreement with the pesticide industry to end the production of diazinon by March 2001 for indoor use and June 2003 for lawn and garden use. Chlorpyrifos (Dursban) was involved in a negotiated phaseout in June 2000. These phaseouts resulted from recognition of the special risk that these substances posed for children. Four percent of patients presenting to poison control centers report pesticide exposure. Of those patients, 34% are children younger than 6 years.

Toxic nerve agents used by the military are often of the organophosphate group; an example is sarin, the nerve gas used in a terrorist action in Tokyo in 1995. In anticipation of military use of OP neurotoxins during the Gulf War, the US military was given prophylactic agents which some believe caused some of the symptoms of Gulf War syndrome.

With the emergence of the West Nile virus in the northeastern United States, programs of spraying have been implemented in large urban areas, in particular New York’s Central Park.

Controversy exists regarding the long-term effects of exposure to low levels of potentially neurotoxic substances.

Therapeutic uses of organophosphates

Several organophosphate agents are being tried therapeutically. Cholinesterase inhibition, which in large doses makes these agents effective pesticides, also may be useful in other doses for treating dementia. Metrifonate has been used to treat schistosomiasis and is undergoing trials for the treatment of primary degenerative dementia.

The organophosphates pyridostigmine and physostigmine are carbamate anticholinesterases that have been used for many years for the treatment of myasthenia gravis. Although the short-duration anticholinesterases are generally safe, reports of their abuse are associated with a picture similar to pesticide intoxication.

One of the author’s patients had been diagnosed erroneously as a myasthenic. Long-term “therapeutic” doses of physostigmine chemically altered her neuromuscular junctions to the point where she had to be slowly weaned from the drug.

Sung and others have reported on the ability of these substances to induce nicotinic receptor modulation. This explains the action of these drugs and may result in development of more effective agents.

Historic and new uses of organophosphates

The first organophosphate was synthesized in 1850. Physostigmine was used to treat glaucoma in the 1870s. By the 1930s, synthetic cholinesterase inhibitors were being used for skeletal muscle and autonomic disorders. Some organophosphates were tried in the treatment of parkinsonism.

In 1986, testing began for tacrine, the first cholinesterase inhibitor to be tried for Alzheimer disease; it was released for clinical use in 1993. It is no longer in use. The blood-brain barrier has been the limiting factor in developing a cholinesterase inhibitor for use in dementia. Drugs such as rivastigmine are now widely used. Reported adverse effects are nausea and vomiting, with resultant weight loss because of the increase in cholinergic activity. It has been shown to be useful in mild to moderately severe Alzheimer disease.

Pyridostigmine has been tried for the fatigue of postpolio syndrome but showed no benefit.

 

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1175139-overview

 

Hike Fest Dominica 2012

“A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.”  – Paul Dudley White


 Join us for Hike Fest 2012! Walk in the footsteps of the ancestors. Take this unique opportunity to experience the healing energies of Dominica’s natural areas.

Hiking is a traditional way of life in Dominica. Only 100 years ago these same trails were our main method of getting around. In those days if you were from Grandbay, Castle Bruce or La Plaine and you wanted to sell your eggs, milk, or fresh produce in Roseau market you carried it over the paths often during the night cause if you left at dawn you could not get there early enough.

The Carib Indians paved their major paths with stones, you will see an example of this on the first hike of the fest. I love the thoughts of tredding on the same stones as those amazing people, who were so closely attuned to nature and such great navigators.

The Maroons, freedom fighters from the days of slavery, mapped the whole island out in trails joining all their villages, at one place called Jaco Flats there was a pulley system built to get big loads down the mountainside. These freedom fighters knew their paths and forest so well, foreigners thought they appeared and disappeared in the forest at will.

To this day our school trips are often “Belle Marches”, a much healthier and environment friendly school trip with many educatonal opportunities.

The Dominica Hotel and Tourism Association are an amazing example of what people can achieve working together to create a dream.

One part of the many ways DHTA promotes tourism here is their yearly Hike Fest.

As a visitor or resident this is a lovely opportunity to immerse in nature, explore the trails of Dominica and learn about the island while meeting a mix of people of many ages from Dominica and all over the world.

This year DHTA has partnered with the Waitukubuli National Trail, Discover Dominica Authority and various other Hiking Committees and Tourism Stakeholders to plan Hike Fest 2012.

This year’s itinerary:

Saturday May 05th

Waitikubuli National Trail Segment 5 (River Hike)

Pond Casse to Castle Bruce, ending at Castle Bruce playing field.

This trail nestled within the Morne Trois Pitons World Heritage Site traverses the Old Carib Trace – a Kalinago stone pathway that leads through the Emerald Pool and Fond Melle areas. It features the long standing contributions of our indigenous people, the struggles of a resilient people and the value of our forest and water resources.

Vegetation Type: Rain Forest, Cultivation & Coastal Forest

Distance: 12 km or 7.5 miles

Estimated Walking Time: 6 hrs

Climb: 533 miles or 1,750 ft

Type of Hike: Moderate, family hike

Areas of interest:

Old road (Carib trace)

Emerald Pool

Castle Bruce Swamp

Forest Station & Nursery

Neg Maron Headquarters

Savanne David

Castle Bruce Village

Jaco Cave

Morne Turner (Morne Neg Maron)

Creole Gardens

Spanny Falls (optional)

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Saturday May 19th

Segment 10 and part of 11 (Cross Country Hike)

Starting Colihaut Heights and ending in Picard, Portsmouth.

This trail traverses old and abandoned farm and estate roads, heavily forested areas and sections of the Northern Forest Preserve. It provides an excellent opportunity to sight the rare Jaco or Sisserou Parrots in their natural habitat. While walking this trail, one can learn about our farmers, about our many trees and listen to the merry sound of our birds. Morne Diablotin National Park is the most popular spot on island for bird watching. Maroons used this trail in the 19th Century!

Vegetation Type: Rainforest; Secondary Rainforest; Cultivated

Distance (km): 6.4

Estimated Walking time (hrs): 4

Type of hike: Easy hike, family hike

Climb: 610 metres or 2000 ft

Areas of interest:

Morne Diablotin

Secondary forest

Agricultural farming

Parrot habitat

Syndicate Nature Trail & Welcome Center (optional)

Lookout points

Morne Diablotin National Park

Rain forest

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Saturday May 26th Beach Hike

Eden by the Sea, Wesley to Londonderry, ending at Cabana Beach

This beach hike with dramatic views of the Atlantic Coastline will commence at Eden on the Sea in Wesley and will end at Cabana on the Londonderry beach.

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The health benefits of these hikes are amazing.

Walking in nature is a proven stress management technique; it releases hormones that fight depression and strengthens our bones and muscles. Hike for Health.

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I love to meet people, and these hikes are a great way to get to know other people who love nature and being active while exploring Dominica’s nature spots.

After each hike there will be a celebration in a nearby village where you can purchase food and drinks.

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Price:

EC$40 for 1 hike

Ec$ 70 for 2 hikes

EC$90 for 3 hikes (DHTA Members)

EC$100 for 3 hikes (Non-DHTA Members)

Price includes: Transportation, Water and a Hike Fest 2012 t-shirt!

Waitikubuli National Trail

Hike Fest on Facebook

 

Benefits of Exercise

 

“In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” ~ Eric Hoffer

                                

RESPECT  to Eleanor Lambert.; a longtime healthy living promoter on island. She dedicated hours to starting a recycled container programme at Ross University Food Court. She introduces incoming students to our local foods through workshops, cookbooks and teaches nutrition at Ross Medical University. Her Healthy Snack Shack provides homemade yogurt; wraps and other healthy foods – vegetarian and non vegetarian. You can always count on a cup of hot oatmeal porridge in the morning……… nuff respect.

 Healthy Lifestyle

Exercise – add a few years to your life!

If we were offered a pill that we took every day to add years to our life and quality to each extra day we live would we take it? Most of us! Exercise is that pill – slightly more time consuming then the seconds it takes to swallow a pill but worth it!

New studies have shown that including exercise into daily life can add years to our lives. How many more times will we be able to hug our children and their children in that time; how much more we can help our community and families when we feel good for our whole lives!

 

Home Birth

I believe all women should have the right to choose their birth place.  Where ever they feel most comfortable whether it be home, birthing clinic or hospital. – Trudy

In many countries in the world homebirth was the norm in my parents generation. Slowly over the 20th century hosptital birth became mandatory.

When my children were born home birthing was illegal and midwifes who helped happy couples birth healthy babies were always working just outside of the law. My midwife was truly an intricate part of my healthy easy birth for my first child. She provided personal care throughout my pregnancy and for a few weeks after my birth. I will be forever grateful to her even though I ended up having a natural birth in hospital.

Times change and over the years and many provinces in Canada have made it legal to have a home birth. A 4 year baccalaureate midwifery education program has operated at Ryerson University in Ontario since 1993.

There is a wealth of opportunities for women birthing in both hospitals and at home from hypno birthing to water birthing to

A two year study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 2002 showed that women who gave birth at home attended by a midwife had fewer procedures during labour compared with women who gave birth in hospital attended by a physician. It was also found that rates of perinatal mortality, 5-minute Apgar scores, meconium aspiration syndrome or need for transfer to a different hospital for specialized newborn care were very similar for the home birth group and for births in hospital attended by a physician.

A more recent  four year study  published in the same journal in August of 2009 found home birth attended by a registered midwife was associated with very low and comparable rates of perinatal death and reduced rates of obstetric interventions and other adverse perinatal outcomes compared with planned hospital birth.

Now that we have proven that home birth assisted by a midwife is as safe as birthing in a hospital; I hope women will enjoy a wide range of options for their birthing experience.

 

What you put on your skin ….

The next message you need is always right where you are.
~ Ram Dass

About a week ago I started to realize I had a chemical taste in the back of my mouth.

The only thing I could think might have caused it was I might have eaten perhaps a food that was laced with agrochemicals.

The taste came and went over the next days and I finally connected it to something!

I remembered that recently I had thought I might have a local skin condition so I purchased a cream made locally that contains sulphur. I used it off and on over the weeks – what I was tasting was the sulphur in the back of my throat. It had travelled through my body in just hours.

Experiment: I stopped using the cream for a few days then used it at 1 oclock in the afternoon; I realized I was strongly tasting the sulphur by the time I reached Portsmouth to teach my class at 4 pm.

That is how quickly what we put on our skin enters our blood stream and circulates through the body enough to come out on the breath!

This got me to remembering a friend of mine who was the guniea pig in an experiment at a Massage School in Toronto They wanted to know how quickly what they put on the skin travelled through the body so they put crushed garlic on her feet; within a very short period of time they were smelling it on her breath; they were shocked at how quickly!

This also got me to thinking of some of the stuff that is in cosmetics ; and how that would be coming out our breath within minutes of applying and entering our brain and other organs!

This experiment inspired me to start making my own cosmetics over 30 years ago.

I am glad I only put ingredients on my and my families skin I can eat! Less chemicals in my body and in the environment around me.

Traditionally Dominicans often made their own skin creams from local herbs; coconut oil; cacao butter and beeswax. 

What you put on your skin ….. goes into your body and comes out on your breath.

 

Healthy Lifestyles and Prostate Cancer

I want to get old gracefully. I want to have good posture, I want to be healthy and be an example to my children. ~ Sting

Dr. Dean Ornish is a medical doctor from California who has dedicated his life to diet and lifestyle research and their effect on disease.  He is also well-known as an author advocating lifestyle changes to improve health.

He is the founder, president, and director of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, where he holds the Safeway Chair and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

His first book on lifestyle changes and weight loss called Eat More; Weigh Less talked about Dr. Dean Ornish’s Life Choice Program for Losing Weight Safely While Eating Abundantly.

A study he released in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998 showed that it was possible for heart disease to be prevented and reversed through comprehensive lifestyle changes. During this study healthy effects on obesity were observed too.

A earlier  study on prostrate cancer; directed by Dr. Ornish, and Peter Carroll, MD, chair of the Department of Urology, both of the University Of California, San Francisco, and the late William Fair, MD, Chief of Urologic Surgery and Chair of Urologic Oncology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center was released in the September 2005 issue of the Journal of Urology.

In that study after one year, the researchers found that psa levels (a protein marker for prostate cancer) decreased in men in the group who made comprehensive lifestyle changes but increased in the comparison group.

Also, they found that serum from the participants inhibited prostate tumor growth in vitro by 70 percent in the lifestyle-change group but only 9 percent in the comparison group.

His most recent study shows changes at the genetic level.

The researchers tracked 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer who decided against conventional medical treatment. The men underwent three months of major lifestyle changes. They lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and saw other health improvements; but most interesting; researchers also found the activity of disease-preventing genes increased while a number of disease-promoting genes, including those involved in prostate cancer and breast cancer, shut down.

Participants in the both studies were placed on a diet consisting primarily of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes supplemented with soy, vitamins and minerals. They participated in moderate aerobic exercise, yoga/meditation, and a weekly support group session. A registered dietitian was available for consultation, and a nurse case manager contacted the participants regularly.

“It’s an exciting finding because so often people say, ‘Oh, it’s all in my genes, what can I do?’ Well, it turns out you may be able to do a lot,” Ornish, said in a telephone interview.

“‘In just three months, I can change hundreds of my genes simply by changing what I eat and how I live?’ That’s pretty exciting,” Ornish said. “The implications of our study are not limited to men with prostate cancer.”

For me this is one of the most exciting articles I have written; we can change oiur genes! How amazing!

by Trudy Scott Prevost; Rainbow Health and Wellness; Dominica

 

Random Acts of Kindness

“Kindness is like sugar, it makes life taste a little sweeter.” Carla Yerovi

Modern research shows that kindness, one of the most pleasurable of all human acts is also one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself and for others.

The benefits of kindness have been discussed throughout written history.

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop

“Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in feeling creates love.” –Lao-Tzu

“That best portion of a good man’s life, is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.” – William Wordsworth

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?”" –Martin Luther King, Jr.

David McClelland, a professor of psychology formerly at Harvard and now at Boston University, began researching how people could improve the functioning of their own immune system in the 1970s. As part of this research, he showed movies of Mother Teresa helping babies to his students at Harvard to see if a film could transmit feelings of caring and loving, and then see if that experience had positive effects on the immune system. It did.

McClelland verified this by measuring the amount of immunoglobulin A (part of the body’s defense against cold viruses) in saliva, which increased in students watching the film, regardless of whether or not they claimed to admire Mother Teresa’s work.

The best-known study regarding the importance to health of a spiritual lifestyle was reported by psychiatrist George Vaillant in his book, Adaptation to Life, which was based on a 30-year study of a group of Harvard graduates. Vaillant concluded that adopting an altruistic lifestyle is a critical component of mental health.

When we do kind things for others, our body rewards us by releasing powerful chemicals (endorphins) which make us feel good.

Kindness is a stress-reducing behavior. It can reverse feelings of depression, supply social contact, and decrease feelings of hostility and isolation that can cause stress. It is regular, small acts of kindness that off-set and help to buffer us from the daily stress of life.

The pleasure that results from random acts of kindness is real and may help to reduce pain messages from all sorts of ailments, like arthritis or headache pain.

 Acts of kindness take our minds off our own problems and increase our sense of self worth.

The health benefits and sense of well-being return for hours, days and sometimes for a lifetime whenever the helping act is remembered.

In the book Meaning & Medicine, (Bantam Books, 1991) author Dr Larry Dossey tells us, “Altruism behaves like a miracle drug, and a strange one at that. It has beneficial effects on the person doing the helping – the helper’s high; it benefits the person to whom the help is directed; and it can stimulate healthy responses in persons at a distance who may view it only obliquely.”

In his book, The Healing Power of Doing Good, Allan Luks states, “It is not necessary to wait until you have an opportunity to donate a kidney or save the whole world to enjoy this good feeling. A small effort to help one person can create these same feelings and attitudes.”

Quoting the words of scientist George Washington Carver to close this article: “How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong because someday in your life you will have been all of these.”

Anyone living in or visiting Dominica has been or will be on the receiving end of many acts of kindness. People will enthusiastically help you find your way; make sure you are dressed properly; assist you with car troubles; offer a ride; offer a glass of water; or share their food – they often say that is how they were raised!

Dominica is a kind and gentle country in many ways – part of the health and wellness attributes of the island!

 

Healthy Lifestyle as Treatment for Prostate Cancer

“What we need today is to place more emphasis on what we eat. Food should be eaten whole and more effort should be made to preserve nutrients of food and present a well balanced diet.” ~ PLAT KWEYOL STE. LUCIE AND THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM; Madam Cella’s Body Care Programme – Prevention is Better than Cure; 1990

Healthy Lifestyle as Treatment for Prostrate Cancer

  A  study on prostrate cancer (directed by Dr. Ornish, and Peter Carroll, MD, chair of the Department of Urology, both of the University Of California, San Francisco, as well as the late William Fair, MD, Chief of Urologic Surgery and Chair of Urologic Oncology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center) was released in the September 2005 issue of the Journal of Urology.

 

In that study after one year, the researchers found that psa levels (a protein marker for prostate cancer) decreased in men in the group who made comprehensive lifestyle changes but increased in the comparison group. They also found that serum from the participants; inhibited prostate tumor growth in vitro by 70 percent in the lifestyle-change group but only 9 percent in the comparison group.

 

 

 Dr. Dean Ornish’s most recent study is mind blowing – it shows changes at the genetic level.  The researchers tracked 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer who decided against conventional medical treatment. The men underwent three months of major lifestyle changes. They lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and saw other health improvements; but most interesting; researchers also found the activity of disease-preventing genes increased while a number of disease-promoting genes, including those involved in prostate cancer and breast cancer, shut down.

In a telephone interview sited on Reuter’s Health Dr. Ornish is quoted as saying “It’s an exciting finding because so often people say, ‘Oh, it’s all in my genes, what can I do?’ Well, it turns out you may be able to do a lot. The implications of our study are not limited to men with prostate cancer.”

(full article)

Healthy Lifestyle and Prostate Cancer Links.

 Prostate Cancer Society USA

  Prevent prostate cancer by eating more vegetables; less meat

 Healthy Lifestyle Keeps Prostrate Cancer From Returning