Chemicals you do not want on your skin

Chemicals you do not want on your skin

This is a 'short-list' of some of the more hazardous and toxic chemicals you will often find in your skin and personal care products. Take a very close look at the labels of your skin and personal care products, including your hair shampoo and conditioner and see if any of these potentially toxic chemicals described here are listed on the label.

If they are there, you should seriously consider finding an alternative that does not contain any of these chemicals and toss the old products out. Health food stores will offer alternatives as well as online sources.

While the majority of people will not give up hair color, hair spray, or perfume, I do recommend cutting down on as many chemicals as possible. Detox your body to stop your body from storing the chemicals. These chemicals only cause a problem when they have not been detoxed out of the body and are built up in your organs and tissues.

Methyl, Propyl, Butyl and/or Ethyl Paraben. Used as preservatives to extend the shelf life of skin and personal care products. Parabens have been reported to have caused many allergic reactions and skin rashes. Studies have shown that they are weakly estrogenic and can be absorbed by the body through the skin. Widely used even though they are potentially toxic. (See Scientific Literature).

Diethanolamine (DEA), Triethanolamine (TEA) DEA and TEA are often used in cosmetics and shampoos as emulsifiers and/or foaming agents. They can cause allergic reactions, eye irritation and dryness of hair and skin. DEA and TEA are "amines" (ammonia compounds) and can form cancer-causing nitrosamines when they come in contact with nitrates. They are toxic if absorbed into the body over a long period of time. (See Scientific Literature).

Diazolidinyl Urea, Imidazolidinyl UreaThese are widely used preservatives. The American Academy of Dermatology has found them to be a primary cause of contact dermatitis. Two trade names for these chemicals are Germall II and Germall 115. Neither of the Germall chemicals contains a good antifungal agent, and they must be combined with other preservatives. Both these chemicals release formaldehyde, which can be toxic. (See Scientific Literature).

Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulfate. A cheap, harsh detergent used in shampoos, bubble baths, hand and body wash products for its cleansing and foam-building properties. Often derived from petroleum, it is frequently disguised in pseudo-natural cosmetics with the phrase "comes from coconuts." It causes eye irritation, scalp scurf similar to dandruff, skin rashes and other allergic reactions. Avoid at all cost. (See Scientific Literature).

Methylisothiazoline (MIT)Methylisothiazolinone (MIT) is a biocide widely used in industrial and cosmetic products and has been shown to pose a potential risk to unborn babies. It is widely used in shampoos and there very well could be neuro-developmental consequences from Mit. It is of particularly concerned to women with occupational exposure to MIT during pregnancy as there is a possibility of risk to the foetus. Avoid at all cost. (See Scientific Literature).

PetrolatumAlso known as petroleum jelly, this mineral oil derivative is used for its emollient properties in cosmetics. It has no nutrient value for the skin and can interfere with the body's own natural moisturizing mechanism, leading to dryness and chapping. It often creates the very conditions it claims to alleviate. Manufacturers use petrolatum because it is unbelievably cheap. Most Petro-chemicals are carcinogens and are to be avoided. (See Scientific Literature).

Propylene Glycol. Ideally this is a vegetable glycerin mixed with grain alcohol, both of which are natural. Usually it is a synthetic petrochemical mix used as a humectant. It has been known to cause allergic reactions, hives and eczema. When you see PEG (polyethylene glycol) or PPG (polypropylene glycol) on labels, beware—these are related synthetics. The natural versions are fine and perfectly safe, not so their synthetic counter parts.
PVP/VA CopolymerA petroleum-derived chemical used in hairsprays, styling aids and other cosmetics. It can be considered toxic, since inhaled particles can damage the lungs of sensitive persons. Most Petro-chemicals are carcinogens.
Stearalkonium Chloride. A plant-derived ingredient, it reduces static electricity by neutralizing electrical charges on hair, and is a good conditioning agent. It is a quaternary ammonium compound also used in hair conditioners and creams. Developed by the fabric industry as a fabric softener, it is a lot cheaper and easier to use in hair conditioning formulas than proteins or herbals, which are beneficial to the hair. Causes allergic reactions. Potentially toxic.

Synthetic Colors used to make cosmetics "pretty," synthetic colors, along with synthetic hair dyes, should be avoided at all costs. They will be labeled as FD&C or D&C, followed by a color and a number. Example: FD&C Red No. 3 / D&C Green No. 6. Many synthetic colors can be carcinogenic. If a cosmetic contains them, don't use it. (See Scientific Literature).

Synthetic Fragrances. The synthetic fragrances used in cosmetics can have as many as 200 ingredients. There is no way to know what the chemicals are, since on the label it will simply read "fragrance." Some problems caused by these chemicals include headaches, dizziness, rash, hyperpigmentation, violent coughing, vomiting, skin irritation—the list goes on. Synthetic fragrances should be avoided. Be careful when looking at these because often the label may say "fragrance of Lavender", or fragrance of "Rose" or similarly popular essential oils. Fragrance of = Synthetic, NOT the real essential oil.

There are thousands more chemicals and it is not the intention of this article to bore you, but rather to alert you to some of the most commonly used chemicals which are found in most brands on your department store and supermarket shelves.

Natural Skin Care: I Think NOT!

Natural Skin Care: I Think NOT!

Natural Skin Care products change rapidly from the live plant to the laboratory. Don't be fooled into thinking natural is necessarily better for you because the term "natural" seems to be interchangeable in the skin care and health field. Many products touted as natural contain a list of chemicals a mile long to "stabilize" and "preserve" them. The other issue is that when you take a whole plant, it is a synergistic being. All components of that plant go into making its therapeutic properties. Isolating beneficial chemicals and compounds and then refining them changes their energetic structure. If science could create a heart that lived outside the body, would it have the same impact as the heart living inside the body? No. The function could be the same but all the chemicals in the body that interact with the heart would be missing. Robots preform the functions of man, but still are not human because they lack the synergistic properties of the human body.
Many times, the extraction process for plants and herbs is harsh and unnatural, which destroys the natural compounds and balance.
Natural skin care products are no longer clearly defined and are undergoing critical review in terms of their 'natural' components. Many companies are promoting their products as natural, however adding isolated substances, although extracted from natural sources, is not what is meant by natural skin care or natural personal care products.

What Characterizes Beauty?

What Characterizes Beauty?

According to Thomas Rabe, a research fellow at Procter & Gamble, surprisingly similar standards of beauty have endured throughout the ages, regardless of ethnicity or geographical area. These standards include:

• Full lips
• Naturally glowing pink lips and cheeks
• Large eyes
• Prominent, long, curled, dark eyelashes
• Smooth skin with subtle tonal variation
• Taught, soft skin structure
• Prominent cheekbones
• Saturated life-like color

I often hear that skin care is a luxury. Skin care should be a necessity not a luxury. Our appearance is how we view ourselves. It is also how the world views us. Right or wrong, instantaneous impressions often speak louder than words and influence our thoughts, actions and reactions to people. If your skin is aging, so is your internal body. I just had a client say to me that we are degrading and dying from the moment we are born. I do not agree with that. I know women in men that are in their later years that are more vibrant, active, quick, and full-of-life than many 30 year olds. Ask them if they feel they started to die when they were born and they will probably laugh at you. I see life, health and vitality in another way. I see a life that is full and happy; it just depends on how YOU want to view life.
While there are some things in the list above that would take a plastic surgeon to change, skin care therapists can change, maximize and minimize the list according to the standards of beauty. As we age, our lymphatic system tends to slow down due to toxic build-up. This build-up causes a back flow of retained fluid that causes facial swelling. Facial swelling makes eyes appear smaller, cheekbones disappear, and gives a soft flabby appearance.
As we age, our lips tends to shrink and collagen is lost. Through an unhealthy lifestyle, people find their skin becomes thicker, less supple and youthful. Healthy color changes and that glow is lost. Hair thins and eyelashes and eyebrows do the same. Many people attribute this to the aging process, not to years worth of an unhealthy lifestyle. An unhealthy lifestyle breaks down vitality and beauty, not age. Age is ONLY a build-up of unhealthy habits.
Aestheticians and skin care therapists can drain lymphatic build-up, rebuild collagen to maintain or find that youthful plumpness, enhance the growth of eyelashes and eyebrows, and retexturize the skin. Wellness aestheticians can start to repair the damage internally and externally allowing the skin to glow and rebuild permanently once again.

The Amazing Health Transformation Program™

The Amazing Health Transformation Program™
The most powerful Health Experience you've ever had!

Experience a life free from pain and suffering. Live full of happiness and peace.

I believe in a Healing-vs-Symptom Removal therapy: going to the core of issues not just removing symptoms.

Read more about this here

Health is much more than eating the right foods or exercising. To maintain a healthy body, you need a healthy body to start with.
And that's what we're here for!

Are you sick of being tired and tired of being sick? Are you currently or have worked with therapies that did not produce the results or change your life like you expected?

The problem is that we are all bio-chemcially, bio-energetically and bio-magnetically different. There cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to health care. If your health care professional is not addressing all aspects of your being then you are not getting what you need or should be getting; quality of life.

Our body is multi-layered. When you peel back one layer, you have another layer to address. This is how health issues remain in our tissues; via layers. The wellness process does not happen over night because it took a lifetime of layering to produce your current state of mental, emotional and physical health.

Show me someone who is living, breathing, and working in our society and I will show you many of the organs and systems, depleted and in excess, that are already taxed by our living environment. No one escapes this unless they are actively working towards maintaining amazing health.

The core of this program is to lead you into a new life. It is a life of effortless living, with excellent health, long life and plenty of time to enjoy it and accomplish wonderful things in your life. Your goal is to create this life so you will not "decline" and will have your vitality and independence well into old age.

Read more about this here

email: AYwellness@charter.net

Exercise Can Lead To An Early Death?

Exercise Can Lead To An Early Death?

Just like all things in our society, there are many myths about exercise. Dr. Wilson recently reported some of the myths surrounding exercise. There was a time when we heard stories of athletes that died suddenly, and it shocked us. This news no longer shocks us because we are hearing it more and more often. I've already explained in previous blogs about the yin and yang balance in our life and how the people that seem the healthiest, may just well be the ones that are most susceptible to diseases and an early death. While exercise provides benefits, the wrong kind of exercise can kill you.

Myth #1. Strong muscles and a beautiful body indicate you are in good health.
These may make you feel like you have health, and everyone may tell you how wonderful you look. However, I work with people who look great, but have cancer or some other disease. It is certainly wise to care for your body, but health goes far beyond muscles and fat content. Don't judge yourself and others only in terms of how much exercise you can do. Physical strength is only one parameter of health.

Myth #2. A healthy heart and healthy arteries indicate you are healthy.
This is a recent fetish. Experience with many people shows that if your body chemistry is truly in balance, your arteries and heart will be fine. Gentle exercise is beneficial for everyone, but a narrow-minded focus on cardiovascular fitness is insane. Recently a 25-year old woman consulted me complaining of fatigue and depression. She was doing aerobic exercise 3-5 evenings a week. Her heart and arteries were probably fine, but her glandular system was so exhausted she could hardly get out of bed in the morning. Her hair analysis indicated a depleted, exhausted body. Exercise was just aggravating the problem. This case is typical of the 'exhausted exerciser'.

Myth #3. Exercise rebuilds your body.
Exercise assists circulation of the blood and oxygenation of tissues, and can help rebuilding in this sense. Mild to moderate exercise is excellent for these purposes. Excessive exercise, however, can stress the heart, arteries, and glands. They are forced them to respond to stress, and to use up energy in that response. Muscles enlarge as a response or accommodation to stress. Healing and rebuilding is largely a biochemical phenomenon, requiring proper nutrients, and often requiring rest so that energy can be directed to the area in need of healing. Research supports the idea that moderate exercise can provide the same benefits as vigorous exercise. The point is, don't overdo exercise any more than you would overdo any other activity. To exercise when you feel well is great. To exercise "in order to feel well" is skating on thin ice. Today, most people are subtly malnourished due to consumption of food that is low in trace elements and other nutrients. No amount of exercise will make up for these deficiencies. It is a mistake to think you can compensate for a biochemical problem by exercising. The result will be that you will feel well for a while. Later, you will find yourself addicted to exercise. If you skip it for two days, you will feel depressed, irritable or exhausted. This occurs because exercise stimulates the adrenal glands and can keep exhausted glands functioning - like whipping a tired horse. If you stop whipping, naturally the horse will not feel like getting up.

Myth #4. Exercise cannot be harmful.
Most marathon runners are good for several years. Then they must retire because they are 'burned out'. Many professional athletes die young. Indeed, they have one of the shortest life spans of any group of adults. The slow heartbeat of professional runners is due in part to their healthy heart, but also due to a mechanism to slow their metabolism, because they put such strain on their heart. Cysteine is released from muscle tissue and slows the thyroid. The idea that since a little is good, more must be better, can be lethal when applied to exercise.

The great exercise guru, Dr. Kenneth Cooper, author of Aerobics, recently changed his mind about heavy exercise. According to his press release, he became disturbed by repeated stories of young people, supposedly in the best of shape, who developed cancer or had heart attacks at a young age. He has realized that gentle moderate exercise is plenty and no longer recommends the same level of vigorous exercise he once advocated.

Food For Thought:Clearing the Clutter On What You Should Be Eating

Food For Thought:Eating According To Your OWN Lifestyle

While you won't hear me tell you eating vegetables are bad, you will hear me say that I don't agree with vegetarianism; for everyone. I have heard all the reasons, including our teeth being shaped the way they are because we were meant to be plant eaters. While, to some degree, I believe the majority of the arguments for vegetarism, I don't subscribe to a one size fits all approach. Many of our bodies need the minerals we derive from meat. In one of my blogs, I talk about life style playing a part in how and what we eat. Our bodies are all multi-faceted. Every interplay needs to be taken into account when designing your health. This article says it all.

A young man who was very athletic, exposed himself constantly to stress during football practices. In time, he came to believe that the eating of meat (excessive fat) led to heart disease, and he had heard of football players dropping dead on the field from heart failure. This young man was very misinformed. Because of his physically stressful lifestyle, he should have made a priority of eating lean red meat on a regular basis. Instead, he eliminated all red meat from his diet and as a result became zinc deficient. Red meats are the richest food source of zinc. Consequently his copper level increased, which in turn caused his potassium level to drop precipitously. This young man also refrained from eating table salt (sodium) because he was influenced by the media regarding the dangers of sodium intake with regard to high blood pressure and heart disorders. Normal adrenal gland function is necessary to retain sodium in optimal amounts. Because many of us restrict our sodium intake and because of burnout, we have evolved into a race that has smaller adrenal glands than our more energetic and aggressive ancestors who helped build our civilization as we know it. This young man sought out a hair analysis because he was troubled by unrelenting fatigue, which was adversely affecting his athletic performance. His hair analysis report indicated extremely low sodium and potassium levels. He was advised to avoid any physically or mentally exhausting activities that would cause him to lose additional sodium and potassium. He was warned to stay away from hot showers or a jacuzzi because excessive sweating would promote excessive potassium and sodium losses. Heart failure frequently occurs when sodium and potassium levels are extremely low or extremely high. He continued to participate in football practices and unwind in the hot jacuzzi, which unfortunately cost him his life. He died of heart failure in a hot water jacuzzi. Adrenal burnout or low sodium and potassium levels are not to be taken lightly.

The Amazing Detox Properties In Your Daily Breakfast Drink

I'd really like to start this out as "Ode To The Coffee Enema" because the coffee enema is one of the most powerful healing tools we have at our disposal. No pun intended.

I really am amazed that people will accept surgery, life long pharmaceutical drugs, and even a death sentence from a doctor, yet quickly dispell the benefits of coffee enemas. Why? Because coffee enemas are not socially acceptable? Because sticking something up your rear seems "gay"? These two comments are the ones I hear most often. When it comes to your health, I say who cares what other people think! Entering into the realm of alternative care generally makes everyone feel uncomfortable at some point. Many of the therapies generally go against everything mainstream has to say is good for us. We've all heard the word enema and shuddered at some point. Enemas, like everything else, can be looked at in a good way or a bad way. It's up to you to make that choice. I usually ask people to do research and give something a try, a few times, before they form their opinion. The majority of people that come to me have never let society dictate who they were or what they should do. I always wonder why these same people let society and other people's opinions affect their choice in enemas or colonics. My goal is for people to start viewing coffee enemas for what they are; a wonderful healing tool.

An enema is “a fluid injected into the rectum for the purpose of clearing out the bowel, or of administering drugs or food.” The word itself comes from the Greek “en-hienai,” meaning to “send or inject into.” The enema has been called “one of the oldest medical procedures still used today.” Tribal women in Africa, and elsewhere, routinely use it on their children. The earliest medical text in existence, the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus, from 1500 B.C., mentions it. Millennia before, the Pharaoh had a “guardian of the anus,” a special doctor, one of whose purposes was to administer the royal enema.

The Greeks wrote of the fabled cleanliness of the Egyptians, which included the internal cleansing of their systems through emetics and enemas. They employed these on 3 consecutive days a month said Herodotus (II.77) or at intervals of 3 or 4 days, according to a later historian Diodorus. The Egyptians explained to their visitors that they did this because they “believed that diseases were engendered by superfluities of the food,” a modern-sounding theory!

Enemas were known in ancient Sumeria, Babylonia, India, Greece, and China. American Indians independently invented it, using a syringe made of an animal bladder and a hollow leg bone. Pre-Columbian South Americans fashioned latex into the first rubber enema bags and tubes. In fact, there is hardly a region of the world where people did not discover or adapt the enema. It is more ubiquitous than the wheel. Enemas are found in world literature from Aristophanes to Shakespeare, Gulliver Travels to Peyton Place.

In pre-revolutionary France, a daily enema after dinner was de rigueur. It was not only considered indispensable for health but also practiced for good complexion as well. Louis XIV is said to have taken over 2,000 in his lifetime. Could this have been the source of the Sun King’s sunny disposition? For centuries, enemas were a routine home remedy. In recent times, the routine use of enemas died out. The main times that doctors employ them nowadays are before and after surgery and childbirth. Difficult and potentially dangerous barium enemas before colonic X-rays are of course still a favorite among allopathic doctors.

The coffee bean has an interesting history. It was imported in Arabia in the early 1500’s by the Sufi religious mystics, who used it to fight drowsiness while praying. It was especially prized for its medicinal qualities, in both the Near East and Europe. No one knows when the first daring soul filled an enema bag with a quart of java. What is known is that the coffee enema appeared at least as early as 1917 and was found in the prestigious Merck Manual until 1972. In the 1920’s, German scientists found that a caffeine solution could open the bile ducts and stimulate the production of bile in the liver of experimental animals.

Dr. Max Gerson used this clinically as part of a general detoxification regimen, first for tuberculosis, then cancer. Caffeine, he postulated, will travel up the hemorrhoidal to the portal vein and then to the liver. Gerson noted some remarkable effects of this procedure. For instance, patients did not need their usually prescribed painkillers once on the enemas. Many people have noted the paradoxical calming effect of coffee enemas. And while coffee enemas can relieve constipation, Gerson cautioned: “Patients have to know that the coffee enemas are not given for the function of the intestines but for the stimulation of the liver.”
Coffee enemas were an established part of medical practice when Dr. Max Gerson introduced them into cancer therapy in the 1930s. Basing himself on German laboratory work, Gerson believed that caffeine could stimulate the liver and gall bladder to discharge bile. He felt this process could contribute to the health of the cancer patient.

Although the coffee enema has been heaped with scorn, there has been some independent scientific work that gives credence to the value of the coffee enema. In 1981, for example, Dr. Lee Wattenberg and his colleagues were soon able to show that substances found in coffee, kahweol and cafestol palimate, promote the activity of a key enzyme system, glutathione S-transferase, above its normal activity. This system detoxifies a vast array of electrophiles from the bloodstream and, according to Gar Hildenbrand of the Gerson Institute, “must be regarded as an important mechanism for carcinogen detoxification.” This enzyme group is responsible for neutralizing free radicals, harmful chemicals now commonly implicated in the initiation of cancer. In mice, for example, these systems are enhanced 600% in the liver and 700% in the bowel when coffee beans are added to the mice’s diet.

Dr. Peter Lechner, who is investigating the Gerson method at the Ladneskrankenhaus of Graz, Austria, has reported that “coffee enemas have a definite effect on the colon which can be observed with an endoscope.” F.W. Cope (1977) has postulated the existence of a “tissue damage syndrome.” When cells are challenged by a poison, oxygen deprivation, malnutrition or a physical trauma they lose potassium, take on sodium and chloride, and swell up with excess water. Another scientist (Ling) has suggested that water in a normal cell is contained in a crystalline structure. Being alive requires not just the right chemicals, but also the right chemical structure. Cells normally have a preference for potassium over sodium, but when a cell is damaged it begins to prefer sodium. This craving results in a damaged ability of cells to repair themselves and to utilize energy. Further, damaged cells produce toxins; around tumors there are zones of “wounded” but still non-malignant tissue, swollen with salt and water.

Gerson believed it axiomatic that cancer could not exist in normal metabolism. He pointed to the fact that scientists often had to damage an animal’s thyroid and adrenals just to get a transplanted tumor to “take.” He directed his efforts toward creating normal metabolism in the tissue surrounding a tumor.

It is the liver and small bowel that neutralize the most common tissue toxins: polyamines, ammonia, toxic-bound nitrogen and electrophiles. These detoxification systems are enhanced by the coffee enema. Physiological chemistry and physics has stated “caffeine enemas cause dilation of bile ducts, which facilitates excretion of toxic cancer breakdown products by the liver and dialysis of toxic products across the colonic wall.” In addition, theophylline and theobromine, two other chemicals in coffee, dilate blood vessels and counter inflammation of the gut; the palimates enhance the enzyme system responsible for the removal of toxic free radicals from the serum; and the fluid of the enema then stimulates the visceral nervous system to promote peristalsis and the transit of diluted toxic bile from the duodenum and out of the rectum.

Since the enema is generally held for 15 minutes, and all the blood passes through the liver, the palimates enhance the enzyme system responsible for the removal of toxic free radicals from the serum; and the fluid of the enema then stimulates the visceral nervous system to promote peristalsis and the transit of diluted toxic bile from the duodenum and out of the rectum. Furthermore, since all the blood passes through the liver every three minutes, “these enemas represent a form of dialysis of the blood across the gut wall.” The research by Sherry Rodgers, MD author of Detox or Die, suggests that there is no stimulatory effect of the adrenals from a coffee enema. The personal experience of Gabriel Cousens, MD supports her findings.