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Caffeine Addicted E-Coli?

April 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Yes indeed. Scientists have created a new strain of E-Coli (as if there weren’t enough of the old one to go round). But here’s where it gets weird. The new strain is permanently ADDICTED TO CAFFEINE!

I have to wonder whether much research these days is carried out BEFORE a benefit is known, and when the research creates something unusual, they begin thinking up a possible use. It goes without saying that if they can’t explain why they spent so much on a study, they will drop down the funding list, so it behooves them to make something up.

The report on the study tells us that there are serious pollution problems from caffeine in the form of coffee grounds. Looking at Starbucks at 8;30 am with people lining up for their shot of Joe, I never contemplated the sheer volume of waste coffee grounds.

So the scientists have bred these nasty little critters up. E-Coli ARE nasty, make no mistake. But these custom made E-Coli are ..er, good E-Coli because we may be able to set ‘em loose on coffee grounds strewn around the environment. So coming to a store near you, “E-Cafi” your handy Tetrapack of caffeine addicted E-Coli. Just open the pack and set ‘em loose on that lump of coffee grounds you found on your lawn this morning. Plastic gloves included with every pack. be sure to wash hands after use.

Getting a little mores serious, caffeine is a paid up member of the Methylxanthine group – molecular compounds that act simultaneously as cardiac stimulants, diuretics, and smooth muscle relaxants. While the most commonly known form is caffeine, certain of these compounds are used as bronchodilators to stimulate the cardiovascular and respiratory systems in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). They are able to provide short-term relief from the effects of COPD, and can be administered immediately in the event of a respiratory episode.

More and more information is arising showing an increasing volume of all forms of medications in our water supply. Rest assured an AlkaWay water filter system will reduce or remove most if not all of these rather Frankensteinian contaminants.

Filed Under: Coffee, Crazy Science, Pharmaceuticals, Water filtration, Water Toxins Tagged With:

Vitamin K2 Bone effect validated: Osteoporosis results

March 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment

bodyAs many of my readers know, I had a rather unwelcome surprise fifteen months ago when I had a mild ‘ankle sprain’ fall off my son’s skateboard. The result? Broken leg, and after a Dexa scan, I was informed I had severe osteoporosis. A great gift after 13 years on the alkaline diet and much of the reason for Cassie’s innovation, the Alkaline Paleo Diet.

Well, I had my latest Dexa scan a month ago and my pelvis is around 8% better which is apparently good. But I can say that it wasn’t my alkaline ionized water that did it, even though i still love my water – but Cassie’s research and her bon-friendly supplementation of Vitamins K2, D and A.

K2 is also available from dairy cows on green grass, and from their meat. We are lucky enough to have a good supply of grass fed beef, and I’m supplementing daily.

I think this extract from a company site sums up the role of K2 better than i can, particularly the ‘calcium paradox’.  I’ve been concerned for quite some time at how the body manages our calcium so that it goes where it is supposed to you instead of becoming an atherosclerosis risk factor.

“Vitamin K2 MK-7 plays a crucial role in the calcium balance and aids the optimal distribution of calcium in the body.

Several recent high profile studies have reported an increased risk of cardiovascular disease associated with high calcium intake from particularly dietary supplements in men & women.
MGP – the strongest known inhibitor of arterial calcification  – is activated by vitamin K2 MK-7 and works by binding calcium. As a consequence, it inhibits calcium from depositing in the arterial cell wall.
Osteocalcin is synthesized inside the bone forming cell where it is activated by the presence of Vitamin K2, MK-7. Upon this activation it can bind calcium efficiently and contribute to the formation of a stronger bone structure (hydroxyapatite).The “calcium paradox” describes the relationship between osteoporosis and atherosclerosis – a phenomenon that largely can be explained by lack of activation of osteocalcin and MGP.With the presence of vitamin K2 MK-7, sufficient activation of osteocalcin and MGP takes place. Calcium is removed from the blood stream and tied up into the bone mass.”

 

As promised, here’s the latest scientific report on the bone building effect of K2.

Worth a read by every sugar-addicted acidic human of median age.

Filed Under: arthritis, Gout, Osteoporosis, scientific studies, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

How Much Water Should we Drink, when and what type?

March 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment

hydratefaceThere is just SO much misinformation on the web about how we should approach the concept of hydration.

I recently read a Choice Magazine article on enhanced water, and with the article it claimed that tea and coffee do NOT dehydrate us, claiming scientific studies as proof.

I think many of us are confused, and reports like this don’t help. Cassie and I discussed the question over a hot cup of Lavazza Americano, and realised that we get caught on terminology. When you drink any water based liquid, be it tea, coffee or beer, the water has to go somewhere, (assuming don’t immediately pee it out) and in doing so it cannot NOT hydrate us. So yes, the article was probably correct, but the EFFECT of some drinks are diuretic, which means, simply, they make you pee. So yes, drinking tea or coffee doesn’t dehydrate you, but the effect of drinking them does in the sense that peeing always reduces your level of internal hydration!

Why oh why does everything have to be so darn complex?

Dr Corinne Allen is a died-in-the-wool-ionized water fan and she has spent a lot of time spreading the message. One of her pessages is on this very subject and it includes protocols for the consumption of alkaline ionized water.|

She says drinking ionized water is the easiest single thing you can do to support the environment in your entire body.

Her recommendations are:

Begin by drinking water with a pH of 8.5.
On day 1 drink 2, 8 oz glasses
Day 2 drink 4, 8 oz glasses
Day 3 drink 6, 8 oz glasses
Day 4 drink 8, 8 oz glasses
After this day you should stop drinking any of your former water except for medications or vitamins

For non Americans an 8oz glass is roughly equivalent to a 250ml glass, so she builds up to a total intake of 2 litres, which, coincidentally or not, is the same mantra we have heard for years; drink 8 glasses of water a day.

She says that after day 5 you can move up to higher pH water. She suggests pH 9, but also says that you should stay on 8.5 if ‘symptoms persist’. I’m not sure what she’s referring to but I suspect she refers to the detox symptoms many people experience when beginning alkaline ionized water. Our two year study of users confirmed many common symptoms including shoulder muscle aches, ‘thick’ head, fatigue, skin problems and cold symptoms, which just happn to be the same symptoms I have experienced many timed during detox sessions regardless of the protocol.

After day 5 begin on 9.0 water or when symptom free from the 8.5 water.

She encourages us to eventually move to pH 9.5, but to take it easy and not be afraid to drop back to a lower pH if symptoms make like difficult.

After this breaking in period she recommends building up to 1 oz of water per pound of body weight. I get a bit lost in translation here so I’ll assume she is talking about pounds of body weight and ozs of water, in which case I, at 85kg, am 187 pounds, so I would be trying for 185 oz of water, which equates to 5530 ml of water, or 5.53 litres, which at 250ml per glass, equals 22 glasses!

Help me out here. have I converted incorrectly? Is she really asking me to drink 22 glasses of water? In an 8 hour day, that’s a glass of water every 22 minutes. I think my boss would be getting a little irate about my pee breaks!

She does have a caveat. She says we should only drink an oz of  ionized water per half our body weight, the rest should be purified water. So.. up to noon, 11 glasses of ionized water. after noon, 11 glasses of pure water. That would be the simplest to implement and remember.

She also cautions seniors (like me), those with sever illness or with brain injury to go much slower.

Now here’s the interesting bit. She says that you must opt for more neutral pH water during your detox period. Simply put, the more water, the faster the detox. I have a bit of a problem with this because excess water consumption will leach your electrolytes. i have known people to faint from excess water consumption.

I certainly agree with her admonishment to not be in a  hurry to detox. Men seem to be the culprits here. Getting their new water ionizer seems to be similar to getting a new car or motorcyle. They want to go as fast as they can.

Dr Allen continues with a few recommendations on what to eat during your introduction to the water. She makes the point that it took a long time to become acid so it’s unreasonable to expect alkalinization to happen overnight.

Her other recommendations include getting completely off sodas, and meat for the duration of the detox, but perversely, she recommends FRUIT and vegetables. Given the high acid-loading you experience with almost all fruit, this may be a popular recommendation but not one that stands up to scrutiny. She recommends fruit smoothies with riceprotein; both acidifying, with fruit smoothies being literally fructose on steroids and an instant acid overload.

Summarizing, Dr Allen has made a pretty good fist of a hydration and alkalizing regimen, with a few small things I disagree with. From my own research the jury is still out on optimum amounts of water we should drink per day, and certainly new research casts even more doubt on our newfound need to load up on H2O. However it’s my view after talking to thousands on the same subject that 8 glasses a day is a pretty good average.

Filed Under: alkalizing, Hydration, Water Ionizers Tagged With:

The Perfect Storm. A rather scary but visionary talk by a pioneer in land use.

March 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Osteoporosis and Alkaline Ionized water

March 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment

I grabbed this scientific study with both hands. Recovering from severe osteoporosis, I needed good news, particularly given that I have been drinking electrolytically ionized water for over 13 years.

Alas, the report was, to my mind, inconclusive at best, and came down to a comparison of calcium absorption.

I am still a huge fan of alkaline ionized water, but not for bone health. Cassie’s research, on the other hand has me on daily doses of K2, D and A, plus thr Paleo diet.

For those of you interested, here is the report.

 Effects of alkaline ionized water on formation & maintenance of osseous tissues

 By Rei Takahashi Zhenhua Zhang Yoshinori Itokawa (Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Dept. of Pathology and Tumor Biology, Fukui Prefectural University)

Effects of calcium alkaline ionized water on formation and maintenance of osseous tissues in rats were examined. In the absence of calcium in the diet, no apparent calcification was observed with only osteoid formation being prominent. Striking differences were found among groups that were given diets with 30% and 60% calcium. Rats raised by calcium ionized water showed the least osteogenetic disturbance. Tibiae and humeri are more susceptible to calcium deficiency than femora. Theses results may indicate that calcium in drinking water effectively supplements osteogenesis in case of dietary calcium deficiency. The mechanism involved in osteoid formation such as absorption rate of calcium from the intestine and effects of calcium alkaline ionized drinking water on maintaining bone structure in the process of aging or under the condition of calcium deficiency is investigated.

Osteoporosis that has lately drawn public attention is defined as “conditions of bone brittleness caused by reduction in the amount of bone frames and deterioration of osseous microstructure.” Abnormal calcium metabolism has been considered to be one of the factors to contribute to this problem, which in turn is caused by insufficient calcium take in, reduction in enteral absorption rate of calcium and increase in the amount of calcium in urinal discharge. Under normal conditions, bones absorb old bones by regular metabolism through osteoid formation to maintain their strength and function as supporting structure. It is getting clear that remodeling of bones at the tissue level goes through the process of activation, resorption, reversal, matrix synthesis and mineralization.

Another important function of bones is storing minerals especially by coordinating with intestines and kidneys to control calcium concentration in the blood. When something happens to this osteo metabolism, it results in abnormal morphological changes. Our analyses have been focusing mostly on the changes in the amount of bones to examine effects of calcium alkaline ionized water on the reaction system of osteo metabolism and its efficiency. Ibis time, however, we studied it further from the standpoint of histology. In other words, we conducted comparative studies on morphological and kinetic changes of osteogenesis by testing alkaline ionized water, tap water and solution of lactate on rats.

Three week old male Wistar rats were divided into 12 groups by conditions of feed and drinking water. Feeds were prepared with 0%, 30%, 60% and 100% of normal amount of calcium and were given freely. Three types of drinking water, tap water (city water, about 6ppm of Ca), calcium lactate solution (Ca=40ppm) and alkaline ionized water (Ca =40ppm, pH=9, produced by an electrolyzer NDX 4 LMC by Omco OMC Co., Ltd.) were also given keely. Rats’ weight, amount of drinking water and feed as well as the content of Ca in drinking water were assayed every day. On the 19th and 25th days of testing, tetracycline hydrochloride was added to the feed for 48 hours so as to bring its concentration to 30mg/kg. On the 30th day, blood samples were taken under Nembutal anesthesia, and tibiae, humeri and femora were taken out to make non decalcified samples. Their conditions of osteoid formation and

rotation were observed using Villanueva bone stain and Villanueva goldner stain.

Three groups that were given different types of drinking water and the same amount of Ca in the feed were compared to find out no significant difference in the rate of weight gain and intakes of feed and drinking water.

Alkaline ionized water group had significantly greater amount of tibiae and humeri with higher concentration of calcium in the bones. The group of 0% calcium in the feed saw drastic increase in the amount of osteoid. There was not much difference by types of drinking water. Almost no tetracycline was taken into tibiae and humeri, although a small amount was identified in ferora. As a result, osteogenesis went as far as osteoid formation, but it was likely that decalcification has not happened yet, or most of newly formed bones were absorbed.

As to the groups of 30% and 60% calcium in the feed, increase in the area of tetracycline take in was more identifiable with higher clarity in descending order of alkaline ionized water, calcium lactate solution and tap water groups. Especially in case of tap water group, irregularity among the areas of tetracycline take in was distinctive.

The group of 100% calcium in the feed saw some improvements in osteogenesis in descending order of alkaline ionized water, calcium lactate solution and tap water. In any case, bone formation seemed to be in good condition at near normal level.

Alkaline ionized water was regarded to be effective for improvements of osteogenesis under the conditions of insufficient calcium in the feed. Also, the extent. of dysosteogenesis differed by the region. That is, tibiae and humeri tend to have more significant dysosteogenesis than femora.

In addition, there is a possibility that osteo metabolism varies depending on enteral absorption rate of calcium, adjustment of discharge from kidneys and functional adjustment of accessory thyroid in the presence of alkaline ionized water. We are now studying its impact on calcium concentration in the blood. We are also examining whether it is possible to deter bone deterioration by testing on fast aging mouse models.

Filed Under: Osteoporosis, scientific studies

What a World! Goats producing human milk enzymes.

March 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment


Researchers from University of California Davis have reported in PLOS ONE the development of transgenic goats that produce lysozyme, an antimicrobial normally found in human breast milk. The idea is to use the milk to prevent or alleviate the effects of gastrointestinal infections.

The team then setup an experiment where two groups of pigs infected with E. coli were fed from the new, and from the boring old goat’s milk. The results showed that pigs who drank milk from the new transgenic goats did much better in recovering from the infection.

Here’s the Abstract from the study..

Childhood diarrhea is a significant problem in many developing countries and E. coli is a main causative agent of diarrhea in young children. Lysozyme is an antimicrobial protein highly expressed in human milk, but not ruminant milk, and is thought to help protect breastfeeding children against diarrheal diseases.

We hypothesized that consumption of milk from transgenic goats which produce human lysozyme (hLZ-milk) in their milk would accelerate recovery from bacterial-induced diarrhea. Young pigs were used as a model for children and infected with enterotoxigenic E. coli. Once clinical signs of diarrhea developed, pigs were fed hLZ-milk or non-transgenic control goat milk three times a day for two days.

Clinical observations and complete blood counts (CBC) were performed. Animals were euthanized and samples collected to assess differences in histology, cytokine expression and bacterial translocation into the mesenteric lymph node. Pigs consuming hLZ-milk recovered from clinical signs of infection faster than pigs consuming control milk, with significantly improved fecal consistency (p = 0.0190) and activity level (p = 0.0350). The CBC analysis showed circulating monocytes (p = 0.0413), neutrophils (p = 0.0219), and lymphocytes (p = 0.0222) returned faster to pre-infection proportions in hLZ-milk fed pigs, while control-fed pigs had significantly higher hematocrit (p = 0.027), indicating continuing dehydration. In the ileum, pigs fed hLZ-milk had significantly lower expression of pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-8 (p = 0.0271), longer intestinal villi (p<0.0001), deeper crypts (p = 0.0053), and a thinner lamina propria (p = 0.0004). These data demonstrate that consumption of hLZ-milk helped pigs recover from infection faster, making hLZ-milk an effective treatment of E. coli-induced diarrhea.

Filed Under: Autoimmune disease, scientific studies

Ketogenic Diet for Cancer Recovery? An interesting Video

March 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment

As my readers are aware, both Cassie and I are on a ketogenic diet, A.K.A. Alkaline Paleo Diet. We have a good friend in Chicago battling her own brain cancer on a ketogenic diet, recommended by her doctor.

This quite detailed video below is really worth persisting with.

I found this article on Joe Mercola’s site, even though Cassie and I have been also researching ti for a long time. Here’s the link to Dr Mercola’s quite excellent summary.

Filed Under: Alkaline Diet, Alkaline Paleo Diet, alkalizing, cancer, Paleo

Prostate sufferers: good news?

March 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment

As a sufferer of  Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia, I have a secret. It’s share  only between certain men. I’ll tell you how it works.

This week I attended a meditation with a well-known spiritual figure, John De Ruiter. Now the thing about John’sessions is that he sits up front in silence until someone is moved to ask a  question. So for two hours it was an eyes-open meditation. That’s when I recognise my own. It’s the men of a certain age who start fidgeting then just have to get up and ‘leave the room’. They are my fellow BPH sufferers.

My own case is actually getting  better. I only get up once a night now compared to at least two times, and I have less urgency that before – all of which I attribute to Cassie’s alkaline paleo diet.

But I still prick up my ears when I see new medical technology that may assist.

Take a look:

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With:

Water Quality: Better? or Worse

March 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Suspected carcinogens in your tap water? It’s scary but true for many communities across the United States.

The Environmental Working Group’s 2013 Tap Water Report revealed that 201 water systems that serve 100 million Americans in 43 states are polluted with toxic chemicals created by the reaction of chlorine and rotting organic matter such as leaves, insects, farm and yard runoff and sewage. Just last week, we released our new Water Filter Buying Guide to help you remove these and other chemicals that may be hazardous to your health.

We know the government is dropping the ball when it comes to keeping toxic chemicals out of your tap water.

Filed Under: Chlorination, Environment, Toxins, Water filtration

India on the Alkaline Express; Alkaline Water expands in India

March 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Hot on the heels of news that our new Indian outlet has begun, comes news of the second alkaline ionized water plant in India, in Goa.

My years in India convinced me that Indian people are amazingly inventive. My Ashram had been equipped with solar water systems many years before they became popular in the West. Here’s the article.

Indian diet, generally speaking, is acidic.

Filed Under: Alkaline Diet, Water Ionizers