If it says it has science backed products, how do you check?

New Health Tips for the Consumer

So what is science? If you pick up a highly recommended vitamin, supplement from your health store, nutraceutical company, etc. how do you know what's in there? Does it work? How does it affect my body? If you are at a retail store they will tell you to look at the label. Some natural food stores actually train their staff and they have a good idea of what does what. When you ask them, how do you know it works? Some will say science, my  next question is what science?  Usually I get a blank stare. Some will cite science based on one of the ingredients  What happens when they are mixed with other ingredients? Is there science behind THIS particular product you are recommending?

I thought I purchased a really good supplement and had been taking it for awhile. I didn't notice much but with the way I eat sometimes, I figured something is better than nothing.  Then a friend challenged me, "how do you know it works?". Well  I didn't  I went online and emailed the company and asked, especially since it had SCIENCE all over their website. Backed by SCIENCE, Proven Ingredients, etc. You get the picture. They emailed me back:

****** has not done the research so we are not able to send out this information. The studies have been done with to the ingredients. Try doing a search with the name of the ingredients not our product name.

Ok so if the ingredients are mixed with other ingredients (like a recipe or even a pharmaceutical company changes the formula it has to be re-tested) yet they want me to think that if i research the individual generic ingredients stuffed in their product that it will show what the mix will do as a whole? I can tell you from being a not so good cook, that if I mix up the ratios or leave an ingredient out or put an extra one in, it can taste different, cook different, well, mine turn out horrible really. So they like us to believe if you look a one ingredient on the label and there is science tests behind it the mix or that ratio in their product will have the same result. It must be true. REALLY?  Well guess what? My blood work said otherwise. Good grief what a waste. 

 I have found that there are products out there rooted in real science. I can check them out by name on pubmed.gov or google scholar.  They are tested in whole and by product name. I have to say my blood test were near perfect this last month, well  I need to eat more protein and get out in the sun a bit more, but by golly when I took something that had real science from independent science resources like pubmed.gov, it worked.

To get on pubmed.gov and/or be published in a medical/science journal you  need to have it peer reviewed. That's scary. If I had to hand my masters thesis over to the best students in the class before I could submit it, I would still be waiting on my masters. Dig folks, don't let the labels fool you. They can look pretty and say many things, but check out the science before you waste your money! 

Bombs and killers, what makes them tick?

About six months later I get a call out to the same county holding and when I hear the name I knew it was him. Then I found out that it was a busy night and since he was a minor we would have to escort him to a non locked building across the way with no back up. Thankfully my clinician in training was a big guy at 6'3.  I was fearful the patient would be really upset with me, I was the bad guy last time and it was clear he didn't want to go to the hospital. On the way over to the other building I told him it was a fresh start, nothing would be held against him, that we were here to listen to his needs but he had to be honest this time.   He was in fairly good spirits and didn't seem to care that it was me doing the assessment again. When we first sat down I said, " last time I wasn't sure what you needed, I told you I could be wrong but that I thought you needed to go to the hospital. Looking back, was I right or wrong?"  Then something profound happened, he openly and honestly said, " I needed to go. I didn't want to go. I had stashed the gun back in my room and had planned to go back and finish what I started. Because I went to the hospital, I wasn't able to kill myself. I needed to go."

How do you know?

This week has been sad. The Boston Marathon is a tragedy  Who does something like this? Why do innocent people and children have to get hurt?  For over 10 years I worked in the Mental Health field. My specialty, assessing children for suicide and homicide. I had to assess whether they would actually commit acts of violence against himself or someone else. How can you tell? What is at the basis of the mental state of someone trying to harm others or himself?

It's a complicated web that takes investigation. First, are they noticable? Do they look like the crazed deranged person portrayed on TV? Sometimes, I've seen both. Some are cool and calculating, those are generally the personality or conduct disorders. Some have overwhelming pain and agony from life or chemical/hormonal imbalance. They act out, yell, scream, make threats. I prefer the ones that are talking even if they scream. It's the quiet ones... those are the dangerous ones. 

I was called in late one night to the county 5150 holding for a teen who was reported by the school psychologist as suicidal. She stated that the teen told her, and a friend confirmed, that he had a gun, pointed it at his head, shot it but missed and it went into the ceiling    When he came in to be interviewed we asked him all the usual questions to assess suicide  How are you feeling? Has any major tragedy happened lately?  Tell us about the gun and what happened, etc. there's a 2 page list of questions. Some really basic and some pretty clinical. In the end  we couldn't get a read on him. He answered all the questions, seemed pretty pleasant, denied all the claims about the gun and said they just made it up (even though a parent confirmed the bullet in the ceiling so we knew he was lying but you wouldn't be able to know that unless we had concrete evidence otherwise). So I was perplexed, what do you do? No clear suicidal ideations, no crazy behavior, we were at an impasse  You cannot commit a child if they don't have a means, method or opportunity that can't be remedied.  We had none of the above. But we KNEW he was lying and we had a sinking feeling. So we used the oldest technique in the book good cop /bad cop.  I was the bad, I thought he needed to go to the hospital and be evaluated further. My partner did also but was less convinced so she did the "pleading on his behalf". I proceeded to poke and prod him, saying I wanted  to send him to the hospital because I believed he wanted to kill himself and  the other clinician didn't and so she and I began a verbal back and forth as to why he should and shouldn't go. All the while he grew more and more intense we could feel it but still no behavior. Then it started seeping out. First he started to clench his jaw, his words got tighter like a searing  he started to grab the base of his chair and locking his arms.  The other clinician and I saw it and had to keep going because we needed verbalization or behavior to show necessity to keep him for evaluation.  It didn't take long, maybe 5 minutes before he broke the chair in half and stood up rigid with fear and anger in his eyes. He was tall and lean and we were no match for him. The other clinician hit the panic button on the wall and two large men  (yes its true big guys come in but they weren't wearing white coats) and restrained him. He fought like he was doing battle with himself  Screaming and kicking, screaming and spitting. It was horrible. I know you are mortified, we were also... but there is more....
I was appreciative and honored by his honesty and stunned at how a bit of very uncomfortable prodding lead to a much needed intervention to save his life. On a side note, we hospitalized him again that night. He made the choice, verbally stated why he was feeling like dying and went peacefully to the unit. We saw him once more, that time we were able to avoid hospitalization and he and his dad worked out an agreement on how to be safe and what he needed. We never saw him again after that but, what if? What if we did the easy thing and took his word for it? What if  we did not work with the teacher, parents, and psychologist?  It's a very scary thought. We all need to know our kids and the kids they hang around with. 

Full Circle

So how do we know the kid or adult is going to want to harm himself or society? How can we tell if we are in danger?  There are lots of answers and lots of unknowns. Sometimes you can tell and sometimes you can't. The key is to be aware, ask questions, observe your surroundings and don't  ignore signs. For instance if your child is writing a story and it's full of doom and gloom, kids getting injured etc, and it's NOT part of the assignment to have that context, ask them, what does this story mean to you? When this character does xyz why is she/he doing that?  This will give you insight into what that person is thinking and help explore if it's creativity or something more. It's okay to ask.

 If there is a concern, help get that person to a doctor. Encourage medical tests for oxidative stress, hormones, basic micronutrient panel, etc. Many times low mood is related to a medical condition that can be helped before it turns to a long term change in our chemical and DNA make up. Catch it early don't wait! If the medical doctors clear them, turn to a qualified mental health professional that has worked with the concern (anxiety, depression, etc). They are in that field because they love helping others. But, please don't stay with the same doctor or mental health professional if you don't feel they have your best interest at heart. I've worked with many good but there are some who don't really care, get out. You can CHANGE your medical/mental health provider. They are a part of your team and if they aren't adding to your health, look for someone who will, it's okay, really it is!

As for the Boston bombing  there is now way to protect us from an unknown enemy. We have to live our life to the fullest. Train ourselves to be smart. Look at ways to teach our children and have action plans for emergencies. This is true in so many area's of our life. Teach, train, and learn!   It's a great model for anything we do in life.

Nrf2... the new way to be healthy

Have you heard of Nrf2? If you haven't you will soon. 

All these years we've thought that antioxidants are the way we help our body stay healthy and heal. This is true but how we go about it has been the subject of new research. Most antioxidants are what we call DIRECT, we eat, swallow, drink something with high "antioxidants". We see it on all the labels. 

It's funny, you know how there is always a fad. Something that comes in, seems to be everywhere then vanishes or you find out it's not what it was cracked up to be?  Think about the words "diet", "low fat", "all natural", "organic" and the new one "no GMO" (Genetically modified organisms (i think that means fake food!), etc.  Why is GMO so big now? Why does everything have ANTIOXIDANTS on the label  We perceive it to be healthier  better for us, and most importantly keep us healthy. Then we come to find out we should keep things like they were way back when. 

The new but old is Nrf2. Nrf2 is a protein in your body that helps regulate YOUR bodies own enzyme production. Why is that important? well as you age your enzyme production slows down in areas you don't want it to and increase in areas that are bad for you. What does Nrf2 do? It helps put things back to healthy levels. Think of a piano new when you get it, perfectly in tune, then over years of use it's out of tune. You get a specialist to come in and tune it up. That is what Nrf2 does. When we activate Nrf2, we get our bodies back in tune. How do we do it? well it's not easy but we can do it synthetically (your will need a prescription and may have  side effects), all naturally with Protandim, or try to eat a ton of Nrf2 activating agents such as broccoli, like 5 pounds a day!

I was watching Candice Glover  sing her amazing rendition of  The Cure's, 'Love Song.' and was AMAZED! How does she do it? Is it real or is it Memorex?  How do we know if what we do to our body is real or fake?  I'm pretty certain Candice Glover is the real deal. I can't decide between her or Angie Miller, they both deserve to be recording artists, but how do we know? Is it because we feel it? See it? touch it?  What is the difference between the placebo and the real deal?  When it comes to science or Nrf2 how do you know? Test's my friend. 

How do you know if Nrf2 works for you? Universities all over the US and Netherlands are chasing Nrf2 technology. They have blood tests, human and mice tests. They check our blood, they check our disease state. It works. Check out Pubmed.gov put in Nrf2. They know how it helps our body get fine tuned again. If it's all natural like a salad we eat, why do we worry about putting something in our bodies? Because we have to ask a doctor first? Has that been helping us? Did see the statistics on what we go into doctors for? It's not to keep us healthy its mostly to deal with disease or illness. Lets start finding ways to fine tune our bodies! Get some Nrf2 today! www.fliptheswtich.com  for more information or order HERE

Is Disease Preventable?

It's time for people to take health into thier own hands. Doctors are well meaning but have little time and less resources  Health care changes are making it impossible for doctors to give the care they want to give. Is it a "preventative" system?  Not in my book. A statistic sited by the new documentary Escape the Fire (http://www.escapefiremovie.com/trailer) Shows that 75% of healthcare costs are spent on PREVENTABLE diseases!!!! WHAT?

Its time folks, time to start taking ownership back of our health, our finances, our life. To better educate and investigate what we are told. To research what's in the medicines (are they toxic? what will it do to other parts of my body?). 

A friend of ours has a horrible medical condition. One the doctors can't wrap thier arms around. He's been to all sorts of specialists and on all sorts of medications. He's a loving father and husband but is at wits end. WHY, because they can't figure out with all the modern technology what's wrong!   So they put him on one  medicine, then two, then three. Lets add in steroids and other synthetic materials to our body. His body is not tollerating it well and after being in and out of the hospital he is now on a transplant list... the doctors in the best attempt to save him, to help him back to health, have killed off one of his vital organs.

Was anyone at fault? No, everyone had good intentions. Was there something DIFFERENT that could have been done? YOU BET!  It's not fair that the medical community has little or no training in natural, holistic or true preventive medicine. Its not right that we dismiss anything that is natural because it does not have FDA approval. Do you know that the FDA is there to make sure we don't die from synthetic drugs?

What are you going to do? What can we do?  Check out www.fliptheswtich247.com and find out natural ways to help our body fight off attacks!

Stay tuned, it's time to teach, learn, listen and help each other!