[The Tiny URL takes you to NYT where you can read the full article, best to see his full report]
Contaminating Our Bodies With Everyday Products
- By Nicholas Kristof - The New York Times, Sunday Review - Nov. 28, 2015
Excerpts:
. . . virtually every pregnant woman in America has at least 43 different chemical contaminants in her body. . . .
. . . “Emerging evidence ties endocrine-disrupting chemical exposure to two of the biggest public health threats facing society — diabetes and obesity,” the Endocrine Society said in announcing its 150-page “scientific statement.” It added that “mounting evidence” also ties endocrine disrupters to . . . .
. . . Of the 80,000 or more chemicals in global commerce today, only a tiny share have been rigorously screened for safety. Even when a substance is retired because of health concerns, the replacement chemical may be just as bad. . . .
. . . The chemical lobby spent the equivalent of $121,000 per member of Congress last year, so expect chemical companies to enjoy strong quarterly profits, more boys to be born with hypospadias and more women to die unnecessarily of breast cancer. . . .
. . . For now, experts say the best approach is for people to try to protect themselves. . . . try to eat organic,
reduce the use of plastics, touch cash register receipts as little as possible, try to avoid flame-retardant couches and consult the consumer guides at www.ewg.org [Environmental Working Group] . . . .
[Full article at link above.] -
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
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Keebler
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- Happily just stumbled upon this while reading Huffington Post today. And it appears that today is the release date of this new book:
posted
@ Keebler ... thx for sharing that post ! For me working on adrenals seemed to work best for improving sleep , still not great , but better . My cortisol levels were way too high in the pm ... I have tried all kinds of sleep supplements over the years , natural & not & did not want to become addicted to the not natural ones so quit them. after a week or so of tossing & turning I started a tincture called " Adrenal Support " by Herb Pharm which I buy from Vitacost ... seems to help me stay calm during the day & sleep better @ night . Everyone is different but this works for me for what it is worth.
-------------------- "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues , but the parent of all others "....Cicero Posts: 254 | From new jersey | Registered: Jul 2009
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Keebler
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Staring into screens at night can disrupt our sleep-wake cycles. Many experts recommend avoiding smartphones in the hour before bed—but that can be easier said than done.
In this episode of If Our Bodies Could Talk, James Hamblin proposes an approach that might soon be sweeping the nation, and maybe the world:
The Amazing Hour. -
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Keebler
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- An extensive article that touches on so much beyond the breathing exercise - and with 3 videos as well:
The suprarenal glands, also known as adrenal glands, belong to the endocrine system. They are a pair of triangular-shaped glands, each about 2 in long and 1 in wide, that sit on top of the kidneys (image below).
The suprarenal glands are responsible for the release of hormones that regulate metabolism, immune system function, and the salt-water balance in the bloodstream; they also aid in the body’s response to stress.
[Much more here about the anatomy and duties of the adrenal glands. Great illustrations, too. It's very intricate, indeed.] -
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. . . This is the really important thing you should understand about melatonin: Melatonin is a sleep and body clock regulator – NOT a sleep initiator. Melatonin works with your biological clock by telling your brain when it is time to sleep. . . .
. . . The correct dosage of melatonin can be a problem. According to research conducted at MIT, the correct dosage of melatonin for it to be effective is 0.3 - 1.0 mg.
Many commercially available forms of melatonin are in 3 to 10 times the amount your body would need. In fact, there is some evidence that higher doses may be less
Melatonin can have side effects. Doses of melatonin (2-3 mg or higher) have reported side effects of: . . . .
Sleeping -
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Keebler
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- My notes from the program. I love, love, love Endeavour. I won't look into this right now but it sure could explain why I kept passing out at times in the past.
I imagine there are varying degrees of adrenal distress / shock regarding blood insulin stability.
Character Dr. Max DeBryn, Home Office Pathologist / coroner states:
[paraphrasing] year set: 1967 " . . . not fully understood, but the latest thought is that hypoglycemia causing death is likley due to falling glucose levels as
the falling glucose level causes massive release of adrenaline which trigers electrical disturbances in the heart. Hypoglycemic Shock " declares the doctor.
The case involves a series of murders by insulin injection
A Sleep Scientist on the Vicious Cycle of Insomnia and Sleeping Pills
By Lily Carollo - New York Magazine / The Cut - October 20, 2017
Excerpts:
. . . Matt Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, has a bit of bad news for you.
In a section of his new book, Why We Sleep, Walker explores the latest scientific research to show the unfortunate truth about sleeping pills:
They don’t work as well as we wish they did.
. . . The quality of sleep that you have when you’re on these drugs is not the same as normal, naturalistic sleep.
They’re classified as “sedative hypnotics,” so the drugs actually just sedate you — and sedation is not sleep. . . .
. . . they just switch off the top of your cortex, the top of your brain, and put you into a state of unconsciousness.
Sleep, in contrast, is this incredibly complex ballet of neurochemcial brilliance that results in numerous areas of the brain both switching on and switching off.
We don’t have any good pharmacological approach right now to replicate such a nuanced and complex set of biological changes. . . .
[Full interview at link above.] -
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Keebler
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- Excellent article that, um, shines a good light.
Of course, note that this discussion does not factor in illness issues that interfere with whatever type of sleeper you really are / would be without lyme, babesia or other interfering elements.
Attention to good sleep hygiene should not go out the window in any case. Yet this might help balance your goal when considering your actual biology and circadian fingerprints of sorts.
. . . It’s estimated 50% of the population isn’t really morning or evening-oriented, but somewhere in the middle. One in four of us, though, are night owls . . . .
. . . circadian cycle . . . .
. . . your sleep preference may be biologically ‘bundled’ with other characteristics. . . .
. . . Again, correlation isn’t causation, she says. But there may be a connection to genetics. . . .
. . . Being a 'morning person' can be forced, but late-sleepers who set early alarms aren't necessarily any happier or productive . . . . -
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Keebler
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- Still, Many with lyme might think they have become night owls but that could be a dangerous assumption.
Why dangerous, you ask? Because if the adrenal dysfunction that goes with lyme, et.al. is left unchecked,
the cortisol surges that often seem to give a late evening or even midnight "second wind" can cause body & brain great damage.
For anyone just finding this thread now, be sure to scroll back for the detail on dangers of adrenal stress and what helps specifically where lyme - and especially BABESIA is concerned (oh, the drenching night sweats and nightmares of babesia!).
Direct antimicrobial treatment is required yet so is very specific adrenal support and good sleep / rest hygiene. -
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Keebler
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Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In An Underslept State'
October 16, 2017 - NPR, Fresh Air with Terry Gross
Listen 38:20 AUDIO link
Interview with sleep scientist Matthew Walker, PhD
ARTICLE with Interview Highlights
. . . "Every disease that is killing us in developed nations has causal and significant links to a lack of sleep," he says.
"So that classic maxim that you may [have] heard that you can sleep when you're dead, it's actually mortally unwise advice from a very serious standpoint."
Walker discusses the importance of sleep — and offers strategies for getting the recommended eight hours — in his new book, Why We Sleep.
. . . On what you should do if you can't sleep . . . . [and how to improve] -
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Keebler
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- From my file notes this autumn, same author, different details highlighted in this interview:
A Sleep Scientist on the Vicious Cycle of Insomnia and Sleeping Pills
By Lily Carollo - New York Magazine - October 20, 2017
. . . Matt Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley . . . .
. . . In a section of his new book, Why We Sleep, Walker explores the latest scientific research to show the unfortunate truth about sleeping pills: They don’t work as well as we wish they did. Sleep medications don’t deliver the same restorative benefits as natural sleep . . . -
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Keebler
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- International Institute for Integrative Sleep
At a shiny new lab in Japan, an international team of scientists is trying to figure out what puts us under.
By Veronique Greenwood - The Atlantic - Jan. 3, 2018
Excerpts:
. . . The institute is five years old, its building still younger, but already it has attracted some 120 researchers from fields as diverse as pulmonology and chemistry and countries ranging from Switzerland to China.
An hour north of Tokyo at the University of Tsukuba, with funding from the Japanese government and other sources, the institute’s director, Masashi Yanagisawa, has created
* a place to study the basic biology of sleep, *
rather than, as is more common, the causes and treatment of sleep problems in people. . . .
. . . Sleep pressure changes these brain waves. The more sleep-deprived the subject, the bigger the waves during slow-wave sleep, before REM.
This phenomenon has been observed in about as many creatures as have been fitted with electrodes and kept awake past their bedtimes, including birds, seals, cats, hamsters, and dolphins. . . .
. . . “What I want to know is, what about this brain activity is so important?” says Kasper Vogt, one of the researchers . . . .
. . . Sleep-inducing substances may come from the process of making new connections between neurons. . . .
. . . Maybe sleep is when this cleanup happens. . . .
. . . Yanagisawa himself has always had a taste for epic projects, like screening thousands of proteins and cellular receptors to see what they do. In fact, one such project brought him into sleep science about 20 years ago.
He and his collaborators, after discovering a neurotransmitter they named orexin, realized that the reason the mice without it kept collapsing all the time was that they were falling asleep.
That neurotransmitter turned out to be missing in people with narcolepsy, who are incapable of making it, an insight that helped trigger an explosion of research into the condition’s underpinnings.
In fact, a group of chemists at the institute at Tsukuba is collaborating with a drug company in an investigation of the potential of orexin mimics for treatment. . . .
[Full article at link above] -
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Keebler
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How Howard Bloom, Writer and Former Publicist, Spends His Sundays
SUNDAY ROUTINE
By John LeLand - The New York Times - Jan. 5, 2018
Excerpts:
. . . . For 15 years, he suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome so severe that he barely got out of bed.
“And for five of those years I was too weak to speak and too weak to have another person in the room with me,” Mr. Bloom, now 74, said.
Nonetheless, he managed to write three science-related books during those years, and recently published his seventh, “How I Accidentally Started the Sixties,” a memoir of chemical and spiritual experimentation that begins in 1962. Mr. Bloom lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where he runs several online discussion groups.
SLEEP SOLUTION
When I was fighting chronic fatigue syndrome, one of the first symptoms was insomnia.
Eventually it occurred to me that my body was trying to tell me something. It didn’t want to sleep the normal routine eight hours.
So I broke the eight hours into two four-hour shifts, and started to do one of the four-hour shifts from 11 o’clock in the morning to 3 o’clock in the afternoon,
and the other one from 4 o’clock in the morning until 8 o’clock in the morning.
And it was one of those tiny incremental things that helped me get out of the bedroom.
TAKE IT EASY
Sunday is a day I don’t force myself to do any exercises, any push-ups, or take a bath, because I’m taking it easy.
. . . Over the course of a long time, I accumulated a list of these 30 drugs that worked
and this one injection that works, and they are the reasons I’m stronger today than when I was 19 years old. It takes 20 to 25 minutes. . . .
. . . ON THE MOVE
I take normally a 2.73 mile walk up to Prospect Park and around the meadow, and I walk down the hill to a cafe called Chocolateria, and I settle myself in and do as much work as I can until 8 o’clock at night, and then I run one of my groups. . . .
[Full article at link above] -
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klutzo
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SERIPHOS has been a miracle for helping my insomnia. I take 1 capsule 4 hrs. before the high cortisol wide awake and shaking starts, and another capsule 2 hrs. later, and it prevents me from waking at 3 or 4 am and shaking until 8 or 9 am.
Besides Lyme insomnia, I am voluntarily withdrawing from 34 yrs. on benzos and insomnia is the major symptom, despite slow tapering.
If trying Seriphos, make sure to get the original formula with phosphorylated serine.
If you can afford it, I would have an ASI test with 5 tubes first, to make sure your cortisol is too high, using the 5th tube at the time you start shaking and can't sleep any longer.
Julia Ross's book says not to take it more than 3 mos. but I've been taking it for 13 months and saw on another forum someone who had taken it for 3 yrs. I cannot find out why not to take it, if cortisol is still high at night.
I also take a lot of L-tryptophan, L-theanine, a tiny amt. of Melatonin once in awhile, .03 mgs. only, and .01 mgs. Clonidine and or 25 mgs. Beandryl if having a tough time. If I haven't slept for several nights, I take a Unisom, the one with doxcylamine.
Posts: 1269 | From Clearwater, Florida, USA | Registered: May 2004
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Keebler
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- Thanks, klutzo.
I'd forgotten how good this was for me some time ago. Delighted to see it at VitaCost.com where I get most of my supplies / supplements. Though the discount for this is not as much as they have for most other items, your point about getting the real deal is important.
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