Since my personal practice includes gargling with warm water and salt and also using a neti pot whenever I have a 'tickle' in my throat or other signs of upper respiratory infections, I really liked what Dr Goyal suggested.  It's just a reminder for me and perhaps you.

Because I don't like meds or immunizations in general, I have learned to protect myself and boost my immune system naturally.  If you'd like to protect yourself either from  the flu, viruses or upper respiratory infections, read below for Dr Goyal's suggestions.Dr Vinay Goyal:

The only portals of entry are the nostrils and mouth/throat. In a global epidemic of this nature, it's almost impossible to avoid coming into contact with H1N1 in spite of all precautions. Contact with H1N1 is not so much of a problem as proliferation is.

While you are still healthy and not showing any symptoms of H1N1 infection, in order to prevent proliferation, aggravation of symptoms and development of secondary infections, some very simple steps, not fully highlighted in most official communications, can be practiced (instead of focusing on how to stock N95 or Tamiflu):

1. Frequent hand-washing (well highlighted in all official communications).

2. "Hands-off-the-face" approach. Resist all temptations to touch any parthttp://friendfeed.com/marsupilamima of face (unless you want to eat, bathe or slap).

3. *Gargle twice a day with warm salt water (use Listerine if you don't trust salt). *H1N1 takes 2-3 days after initial infection in the throat/ nasal cavity to proliferate and show characteristic symptoms. Simple gargling prevents proliferation. In a way, gargling with salt water has the same effect on a healthy individual that Tamiflu has on an infected one. Don't underestimate this simple, inexpensive and powerful preventative method.

4. Similar to 3 above, *clean your nostrils at least once every day with warm salt water. *Not everybody may be good at Jala Neti or Sutra Neti (very good Yoga asanas to clean nasal cavities), but *blowing the nose hard once a day and swabbing both nostrils with cotton buds dipped in warm salt water is very effective in bringing down viral population.*  More about yoga as an alternative natural medicine.

5. *Boost your natural immunity with foods that are rich in Vitamin C (Amla and other citrus fruits). *If you have to supplement with Vitamin C tablets, make sure that it also has Zinc to boost absorption.

6.. *Drink as much of warm liquids (tea, coffee, etc) as you can. *Drinking warm liquids has the same effect as gargling, but in the reverse direction. They wash off proliferating viruses from the throat into the stomach where they cannot survive, proliferate or do any harm. (Green Tea has self-healing properties.)

Dr. Vinay Goyal is an MBBS,DRM,DNB (Intensivist and Thyroid specialist) having clinical experience of over 20 years. He has worked in institutions like Hinduja Hospital , Bombay Hospital , Saifee Hospital , Tata Memorial etc.. Presently, he is heading our Nuclear Medicine Department and Thyroid clinic at Riddhivinayak Cardiac and Critical Centre, Malad (W).

I haven't eaten this stuff in years but remember driving up to a local Friendly's drive through as a teenager asking for cheeseburger with french fries and a coke.  It was delicious to my young palate.  Now I refrain from eating in restaurants unless I know the owners or the chefs who make the food.  I'm a good cook and I usually buy organic.  Well, I do 'cheat' sometimes but I pay the price.

Video Clip:

Sara from Diet.com and author and Obesity Acitivisist, Julia Havey, show what happens to an aged(4 years) McDonald's cheesburger.  It looks like fast food cheeseburgers age better than most humans.  The French Fries still look fresh and vibrant.

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The Truth About Back Pain by Todd Sinett and Sheldon Sinett- Todd is on CBS-TV video telling us how we can help the soreness or pain in our backs. You can hear Dr Sinett give great suggestions. 

Remember to sign up and get all the wonderful bonuses on the virtual book tour- $1327 in better health and wellness bonuses with your copy of his book.

Sign up now for your FREE Access Pass and watch the video.

Todd Sinett writes about his book on The Huffington Post.

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Ideally we should synchronize our sleep cycles with the sun, so we should go to sleep as close to the sun setting as possible.  Most people don't go to sleep at 7 or 8 at night, so he's just saying that if you go to bed in the middle of the night, it doesn't bode well for your health.

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I wrote that important hormones are only reproduced during sleep cycles, so here's another reason to get the right amount of sleep.  Check how you feel when you get 5, 6, 7 or 8 hours of sleep.  You can decide how much sleep you really need to have a sense of well being.

In an article from sleepfoundation.org, it seems how much sleep you really need depends on many factors.

The first thing experts will tell you about sleep is that there is no "magic number." Not only do different age groups need different amounts of sleep, but sleep needs are also individual. Just like any other characteristics you are born with, the amount of sleep you need to function best may be different for you than for someone who is of the same age and gender. While you may be at your absolute best sleeping seven hours a night, someone else may clearly need nine hours to have a happy, productive life. In fact, a 2005 study confirmed the fact that sleep needs vary across populations, and the study calls for further research to identify traits within genes that may provide a "map" to explain how sleep needs differ among individuals.

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Lesley Stahl reported on 60 Minutes- sleep research which showed why humans need sleep and the dire consequences when they don't get enough. 

Not getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night affects our health in many ways including memory and the immune system.  Stahl reports that in this study, healthy young volunteers had their bodies monitored while their sleep was interferred with for 6 nights in a row.  The researchers noticed after testing that the young subjects were in a pre diabetic state.  On the road to diabetes after only 6 nights of interrupted sleep!

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The study also showed that lack of sleep may be contributing to the epidemic of obesity through the work of a hormone called leptin that tells your brain when you're full.  After the six nights of sleep interruption,  the subjects had a drop in their leptin levels which then told the body it was hungry when it really wasn't.  So, they ate and ate more.  So now not only eating too many calories can put the weight on but also not sleeping enough.

Technorati Tags: sleep, lose-weight, cardiovascular, condition, metabolic, disorder, weight-loss, well-being, tired, leslie stahl, 60 minutes, diabetes, heart, disease, obesity, dr oz, anti-aging, high, blood pressure, stroke, memory, loss, immune system, leptin, hormone, sleeplessness

I just got off the phone with Anthony(there he is running in the photo) and we spoke about the Blood Type Diet.  He's a B blood type, I'm a rare AB.  Anthony told me that he could make a bar with my blood type beneficial ingredients. 

So now I can design a bar myself.  I've been getting yummy chocolate cherry bars with beneficial ingredients at the blood type store.  This is an interesting and creative option.  Imagine choosing YOUR own ingredients!

Here's the history of the You Bar in Anthony's words:

After years of being enthusiastic consumers of commercially available nutrition bars, L.A. mom Ava and her USC business student son Anthony got fed up with buying mass-produced bars that reflected generic tastes. Ava wanted bars that weren't too sweet with loads of protein to fuel her days teaching snowboarding and bellydancing. Anthony, a marathon-running athlete, needed high carbs and no milk products (he's allergic). The nutrition bar craze went wild at the beginning of the new millennium, but the number of commercial bars Anthony and Ava (that's us!) could eat actually decreased.

So we took the bar by the horns and began making our own nutrition bars at home. It was as though we'd died and gone to heaven, except for the dishes we had to clean! We finally had nutrition bars with the exact ingredients that we wanted free from preservatives and corn syrup, freshly made and as delicious as Mom Ava's fluffy wholegrain pancakes. And they never got boring either: smooth, crunchy, chewy, sweet and savoury to suit any mood!

We began making customized nutrition bars for the rest of our family and friends' the response was great. (Dad didn't even mind the messy kitchen!) We learned we weren't the only ones fed up with eating mass produced bars. Almost everyone we knew lit up at the possibility of creating bars tailored to their own tastes and dietary dreams. And so You Bar was born.

We've been making our own nutrition bars for over two years and now you can too. Try creating your own nutrition bar it's fun, easy, fresh and most importantly tastes like you want it to with the nutritional content that you choose. You are what you eat (as Nana used to say), so choose!

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One day last week, I ran out of my juiced ginger that I keep in a spice jar refrigerated(lasts 2 days) and drank green tea alone without the usual ginger…stomach ache.  I juiced more on the spot and my stomach was peaceful again. That's how medicinal ginger is.  So now we can talk about green tea, weight and fat loss.

The University of Connecticut's Richard Bruno, PhD, RD, and colleagues reported in February's edition of The Journal of Nutrition that green tea might block fat and promote weight loss according to preliminary lab tests in mice.

Here's what those preliminary lab tests in mice show:

Less weight and fat gain among mice with an obesity gene, those that ate chow laced with green tea extract gained less weight and less fat. Less fat in the liver. There was less sign of "fatty liver" disease in the mice with the obesity gene that ate chow laced with green tea extract. Lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels in mice with the obesity gene that ate the chow laced with green tea extract compared to other mice with the same obesity gene.

You would have to drink seven cups of green tea daily to equal a smiliar amount of the tea extract in this study.

In an article about the benefits of green tea from WebMD, a new study shows that drinking green tea may also help to reduce fat.

Here's why:  most teas contain large amounts of polyphenols, which are plant-based substances that have been shown to have antioxidant, anticancer, and antiviral properties.  However, green tea is rich in a type of polyphenols called catechins which may affect body fat accumulation and cholesterol levels.

Researcher Tomonori Nagao of Health Care Products Research Laboratories in Tokyo suggests:

the catechins in green tea contribute to the prevention of and improvement in various lifestyle-related diseases, particularly obesity.  Catechins may trigger weight loss by stimulating the body to burn calories and decrease body fat.

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A study conducted at McMaster University by the Department of Kinesiology’s Exercise Metabolism Research Group found that milk does help exercisers gain muscle and lose fat.

Researchers found that the milk drinking group had lost nearly twice as much fat as the carbohydrate beverage group.  Those drinking soy lost no fat.  The gain in muscle was much greater among the milk drinkers than either of the other two groups.

Stuart Phillips, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster, who led the research study had this to say:

This simultaneous gain in muscle and loss of fat is a pretty powerful combination. Milk contains two types of proteins, whey and casein, that are the highest-quality proteins known. They contain all of the essential amino acids, the necessary building blocks of proteins in our bodies. Whey contains one called leucine, which may be a key trigger for the synthesis of new muscle proteins

The loss of fat mass, while expected, was much larger than we thought it would be. I think the practical implications of these results are obvious: if you want to gain muscle and lose fat as a result of working out, drink milk.

The evidence is beginning to mount. Milk may be best known for its calcium content in supporting bone health, but our research, and that of others, continually supports milk’s ability to aid in muscle growth and also promote body fat loss. To my mind – with milk being a source of the nine essential nutrients – it’s a no brainer: milk is the ideal post-workout drink for recreational exercisers and athletes alike.

To read more about the study with reader's comments, go here. Technorati Tags: body, build, muscle, weight, loss, fat, exercise, weights. gain, milk, carbs, carbohydrates, soy, proteins, whey, essential, amino, acids, leucine, calcium, growth

Just 10, 20 or 30 minutes of yoga or qi gong 3 times a week is a good start.  Check out Lee Holden or Peggy Cappy.  They  both have beginner through advanced dvd's that you can use at home.  Lee does qi gong and Peggy does yoga although its amazing how similar the workouts seem to be.

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So here's Mercola's deal.  It's about 'brown seaweed' in supplement form since its impossible to get the real thing for the next ten years(as he says).  If you don't want to get the supplement, the video is filled with great information as usual.  Who doesn't need reminders anyway.

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At my request, a friend and healer came to visit when I needed some rejuvenation.  I was very stressed out that day.  Being a master of Vibrational Healing, he brought Tuning Forks.  After a 30 minute session I sat up with a smile and felt totally relaxed and calm. 

I want to thank Michael Kopel for his ease and comfortable style.  Here is his explanation about tuning forks and why, in my opinion, they should be an integral part of your doctor's natural healing modalities:

Nitric Oxide and Tuning Forks
– by John Beaulieu, ND, PhD

Landmark research is shedding new light on the effects of music and sound in relationship to healing and energy. In 2002, Dr. George Stefano and I made an exciting discovery: Specific vibrations transferred to cells using tuning forks causes the spiking of nitric oxide. This release of nitric oxide sets off a cascade physiological events that directly influences our health, well-being, state of mind, and consciousness.

To read more on Nitric Oxide and Tuning Forks, go to Omnivos. Michael's site and click on the education link.  Download the free eBook on Nitric Oxide at the bottom of the article by Dr. John Beaulieu.

Technorati Tags: tuning, forks, chakra, vibrational, sound, therapy, healing, wellness, sound, reiki, acutuning, omnivos, therapeutic, pain, well, being, healer