The ''Dirty Dozen'' Fruits and Vegetables Containing the Most Pesticides

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has produced a new wallet-size Shoppers' Guide listing the 12 fruits and vegetables that are the most contaminated with pesticides (the "Dirty Dozen"), as well as those that generally contain the lowest amount of pesticides (the "Cleanest 12").

The information is based on nearly 43,000 tests conducted by the USDA and FDA.The last EWG Guide was issued in 2003, and there have been several revisions to the list.

Carrots have been removed from the most contaminated list, but lettuce has been added.

Likewise, cauliflower is no longer listed as one of the cleanest vegetables, but cabbage is now one of those "clean" 12.

An analysis by the EWG estimated that consumers could reduce their exposure to pesticides by almost 90 percent merely by avoiding foods on their "Dirty Dozen" list. A few members of that list include:

• Peaches
• Apples
• Sweet bell peppers
• Celery
• Strawberries
• Spinach

Conversely, the "Cleanest 12," according to the EWG, only expose you to less than two pesticides per day, a huge difference from the 15 pesticides per day you'd be exposed to with the fruits and vegetables on the "Dirty Dozen" list.

Among the cleanest fruits and vegetables you can buy at your grocery store:

• Onions
• Avocado
• Pineapple
• Asparagus
• Broccoli

Epicurious November 6, 2006
Environmental Working Group October 4, 2006

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

Some three years ago, I warned you about the fruits and vegetables containing the highest amount of pesticides as determined by the Environmental Working Group.

Now their new, updated list is out.

To stay away from pesticides that do great harm to your health, I urge you to download the EWG's complete listings of the best and worst whole foods at their Web site today.

Remember that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers 60 percent of herbicides, 90 percent of fungicides and 30 percent of insecticides to be carcinogenic.

Pesticides can have many negative influences on health,

• including neurotoxicity
• disruption of the endocrine system
• carcinogenicity
• and immune system suppression.

Pesticide exposure may also affect male reproductive function and has been linked to miscarriages in women.

That's just part of the reason why you should always be on the lookout for organically grown fruits and vegetables. Where traditional farmers apply chemical fertilizers to the soil to grow their crops, organic farmers feed and build soil with natural fertilizer.

Traditional farmers use insecticides to get rid of insects and disease, while organic farmers use natural methods such as insect predators and barriers for this purpose.

Traditional farmers control weed growth by applying synthetic herbicides, but organic farmers use crop rotation, tillage, hand weeding, cover crops and mulches to control weeds.

The result is that organically grown food is not tainted with chemical residues, which can be harmful to humans.

The major problem most people have with organic food is the expense.

However, if you plan wisely, eating organically is actually quite affordable.

A diet based on whole organic foods does not have to be cost-prohibitive for the average family or single consumer.

However, I'd like to say that if the choice is between fresh conventional vegetables and wilted organic ones, I would recommend you choose the conventional vegetables; old and wilted vegetables lose many of the vital micronutrients that make them so healthy.

If you do buy conventional vegetables, I certainly recommend that you go with the ones on the "Cleanest 12" list.

You can see the comments to this article at Vital Votes. If you would like to add your own comment or vote on someone else's all you have to do is register.

The 10 Things That Will Cause You to be Fat

The 10 Things That Will Cause You to be Fat

It's well known that:

• poor food choices and
• sedentary lifestyles

are the two most likely causative factors of the current epidemic of obesity.

But many scientists believe that other factors must also be involved in such a sudden and dramatic rise in obesity over the last few decades.

A group of 20 obesity experts has determined the 10 most plausible additional explanations, which include:

• Not enough sleep:

People who sleep less than seven hours a night tend to have a higher body mass index (BMI) than people who sleep more. This could be because sleep deprivation alters metabolism. Leptin, the hormone that signals satiety, falls while ghrelin, which signals hunger, rises -- and this boosts appetite.

• Prenatal effects:

Children of obese mothers are much more likely to become obese themselves. While this is likely due in part to genetics, there is also evidence of "intrauterine programming."

• New drugs:

Many types of drugs, including neuroleptics, anticonvulsants, antihypertensives, protease inhibitors, and diabetes medications, have been shown to cause weight gain.

• Pollution:

Low levels of industrial chemicals such as pesticides, dyes, resins and solvents can lead to weight gain. Mice given small amounts of the pesticide dieldrin more than doubled their body fat, and hexachlorobenzene, another pesticide, caused rats to gain weight even when they only ate half as much.

International Journal of Obesity November 2006; 309(11): 1585-1594
New Scientist November 3, 2006

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

If these causes of weight gain sound very familiar, it may be because most are variables I've covered here previously. Of the ones above and the several more in the article itself, I've discussed:

• Lack of sleep
  

If you sleep less than six hours per night you will radically decrease the sensitivity of your insulin receptors, which will raise your insulin levels. This is a surefire way to gain weight as the insulin will seriously impair your body's ability to burn and digest fat. It will also increase your risk of diabetes.

• Using drugs
  

A surprising number of prescription drugs have weight gain as one of their side effects. Popular drugs like beta blockers and birth control pills are good examples.

• Pollution
  

This is a surprising one, but long-term exposure to many of the chemicals in our environment have recently been strongly associated with weight gain. Pervasive fire-retardant chemicals like PDBEs are a good example.

• Stopping smoking

While this is a good thing overall, it is very common for this to cause weight gain. I helped my sister stop smoking 20 years ago and she has never been able to lose the 100 pounds she gained after stopping.

However, what the article refers to as "The Big Two" -- sedentary living and a lack of exercise and making unhealthy food choices -- are undoubtedly the biggest factors in the epidemic of obesity sweeping the United States and other industrialized nations.

Exercise and nutrition go hand-in-hand.

There is no doubt that both physical activity and a proper diet can:

• Help treat health problems
• Lower your risk for diseases
• Help you live a long life full of energy and passion

One of the most important factors in helping you achieve good health is to have a diet based on eating the right foods for your specific genetics and biochemistry. One of the ways you can determine this is through metabolic typing.

The foods that may be healthy for others are not necessarily healthy for you, and vice-versa. Thus, eating according to your specific type is the proven way to ascertain which foods work best for you.

Also, controlling your insulin levels is important to optimize your health. You see, when you eat grains and sugar your insulin levels increase.

When insulin levels increase, you are telling your body to store carbohydrates as fat and to not release any of the stored fat. (This makes it very difficult for you to use your own stored body fat for energy.)

So the excess carbohydrates in your diet not only make you GAIN WEIGHT, they make sure you keep that weight on. By cutting grains and sugars from your diet you will not only tame your weight but also fight illnesses.

A daily exercise routine is another main factor in accomplishing optimal wellness.

The key to exercising is to make sure you are using it effectively. By doing so, you will ensure all your hard efforts are not wasted and are having a positive effect on your body.

To aid you in your exercise efforts, there are three important variables to keep in mind:

• Length of time
• Frequency
• Intensity

I encourage my patients to gradually increase the amount of time they are exercising to one hour a day. Initially the frequency is daily. This is a treatment dose until you normalize your weight or insulin levels. Once normalized, you will only need to exercise three to four times a week.

You should exercise hard enough so that it is difficult to talk to someone next to you. However, if you cannot carry on a conversation AT ALL, then you have gone too far and need to decrease the intensity.

There are some good comments on this article at Vital Votes. You can comment yourself or vote on the comments by registering at Vital Votes.

How to Beat Arthritis Naturally With Acupuncture, Turmeric

A pair of studies in the same journal (Arthritis and Rheumatism) suggest that acupuncture and an extract of turmeric (a spice found in curry) may both offer significant pain relief to arthritis patients.

A German research team found that a combination of acupuncture and conventional medicine can increase the quality of life of osteoarthritis patients.

Meanwhile, American researchers found that a special turmeric extract, composed largely of chemicals called curcuminoids, can prevent both acute and chronic rheumatoid arthritis.

In experiments on rats, the turmeric extract appeared to block inflammatory pathways associated with rheumatoid arthritis.

As for acupuncture, the study of some 3,500 subjects showed that chronic osteoarthritis patients who received it in addition to their more traditional care showed marked improvement, with only 5 percent experiencing minor side effects.

Osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis in the United States, is a progressive degeneration of bone cartilage. Rheumatoid arthritis is an immunological disorder leading to painful inflammation of the lining of the joints.

Nearly one in five Americans, a total of 46 million, suffers from some form of arthritis. Another 23 million have undiagnosed chronic joint pain. Some 40 percent of arthritis patients in the United States have turned to alternative medicine to help them with their pain.

Arthritis and Rheumatism November 2006; 54(11): 3452-3464 (turmeric)
Arthritis and Rheumatism November 2006; 54(11): 3485-3493 (acupuncture)
iVillage October 30, 2006

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

This pair of studies underscores the growing interest conventional medicine has in complementary alternative medicine. It's great to see more proof of the seemingly inevitable shift the U.S. health care system is taking from a model based on treating symptoms with expensive drug solutions to one that focuses on the foundational cause of disease.

Many systems utilizing these newly applied natural healing tools, such as acupuncture, naturopathic and chiropractic medicine, focus on health rather than disease. They understand that the absence of disease does not equate to health.

If you've been reading my newsletter for a while, you already know how acupuncture eases the pain associated with tension headaches and curcumin, the yellow compound in turmeric, blocks the development of cancer.

In India, where turmeric is widely used, the prevalence of the top four U.S. cancers -- colon, breast, prostate and lung -- is 10 times lower.

And there's no doubt acupuncture is effective for many health problems; for example, in a recent study electrically stimulated acupuncture lowered blood pressure levels by 50 percent . If you aren't crazy about needles, however, you do have other alternatives that can be just as helpful.

I have found that Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a needle-free acupressure energy psychology tool that uses the same energy meridians as acupuncture, is a very effective method. I use it in my practice daily, and it can be a powerful means of headache relief.

See the Glass as Half Full? Your Health Will Thank You

Being optimistic may increase physical health and mental functioning, a recent study showed.

Researchers assessed health survey results of 447 patients who completed a personality test in the 60s and a follow-up self-assessment in the 90s.

When the tests were compared, it was found that pessimists reported poorer physical and mental functioning, as well as lower quality of life, than optimists.

Additionally, out of eight measured scales (physical functioning, physical role limitations, bodily pain, general health perception, vitality, social functioning, emotional role limitations, and mental health), pessimists scored lower than the national average on five of them.

The results supplement a past study that indicated optimists tend to live longer than pessimists do.

However, while these finding suggest that attitude may play an important role in health, questions remain about whether this can be applied practically by health care practitioners.

Mayo Clinic Proceedings August 2002;77(8):748-53

Dr. Mercola's Comment

Your mental attitude has a major influence on your health. A truth of life is that the thoughts you consistently focus on are often manifested into reality.

Wouldn’t it be nice to manifest some good things in your life? We tend to get what we expect, so focus on expecting some good things, even when life seems to be saying otherwise.

W. Clement Stone, who passed away earlier this year, was fond of promoting being an inverse paranoid.

He took the position that the world was conspiring to make him happy and successful and that everything that happened to him was for his own good.

This is a marvelous attitude to take and one that can easily be adopted by using psychological acupressure techniques like EFT.

If you haven’t looked at the free EFT manual yet, it provides you with a comprehensive resource for learning this effective technique. You can go to the Affirmations and Goal Setting Page for effective strategies on how to implement positive perspectives.

A Surefire Plan to Looking (and Feeling) Younger

While you can't prevent getting older, there are some steps you can take that will drastically affect the way you look and feel as you age.

There is a big correlation between how you look and how you feel--when most of us think of looking younger we picture someone with a glowing complexion, firm skin and a youthful energy, in other words we picture someone who looks healthy.

Well, looking healthy comes from the inside out, so the most important thing you can do is improve how you feel by fortifying your body with nutrients and rest. When you feel good on the inside, you will naturally look healthy on the outside too.

We've all seen those people who we know are "older" but yet they still "look great." Well, here is how you can become one of those people--and you don't need cosmetic surgery to do it. Plus, since you're addressing your health from the inside you will not only look great, but you'll feel great as well.

You Are What You Eat

There is a reason why the phrase "you are what you eat" became popular. I cannot stress enough how important diet is in the way you look and feel. If you choose to eat primarily junk food and processed food, not only are you not giving your body the nutrients it needs, but also you are consciously ingesting toxins that your body will have to work to remove.

On the other hand, if you eat a diet full of pure, whole foods, your body will be healthy and will have the nutrients to devote to things such as skin and hair. If you want the details of a diet that is truly anti-aging, check out my nutrition plan.

There are many factors that come into play in respect to diet and aging. Some scientists believe that cutting calories is an effective anti-aging strategy. I do believe that eating less is likely to be healthier for us in the long run.

This is largely related to reductions in insulin levels, the major accelerant of aging. Insulin levels can be kept to a minimum by reducing or eliminating grains and sugar in your diet.

Consuming sugar and grains will increase your insulin level, and that is the equivalent of slamming your foot on the aging accelerator. There is simply no more potent way to accelerate aging than eating sugar and grains.

Along with the healthy diet described in my nutrition plan, there are certain foods that are particularly helpful to looking younger, such as blueberries. Blueberries are rich in antioxidants that have anti-aging effects.

Most fruits and especially vegetables contain antioxidants, but blueberries have been ranked #1 in antioxidant activity by the USDA when compared to 40 other fresh fruits and vegetables. We now carry delicious and convenient Wild Blueberry IQ Softgel Capsules in our store that are made from whole fresh blueberries -- and contain 40mg of potent disease fighting anthocyanins per capsule -- more than any other available supplement!

Another excellent anti-aging food is coconut oil, and this one is doubly beneficial because it can be eaten and applied directly to your skin. Coconut oil can be used in place of oils, margarine, butter or shortening and used for all your cooking needs. It can help you lose weight, or maintain your already good weight, reduce the risk of heart disease and lower your cholesterol, among other things.

Plus, coconut oil can be used as a face and body lotion to reveal younger looking skin. Since it prevents destructive free-radical formation and provides protection against them, the coconut oil will not only bring temporary relief to the skin, but it will aid in healing and repairing.

It can help to keep the skin from developing liver spots and other blemishes caused by aging and over exposure to sunlight, and it helps to prevent sagging and wrinkling by keeping connective tissues strong and supple. In some cases it might even restore damaged or diseased skin.

If this sounds surprising, I encourage you to read "The Truth About Coconut Oil: Why it Got a Bad Rep When it's Actually Good." Also, be sure you only use a healthy and safe coconut oil, such as the premier virgin coconut oil we offer on this site.

Routine consumption of omega-3 fats through fish oil is another highly recommended method to feel and look younger.

Fish oil contains high levels of the best omega-3 fats--those with the EPA and DHA fatty acids--and, as it is in pure form, does not pose the mercury risk of fresh fish. Fish oil will help you to normalize your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio.

The Carlson brand of fish oil and cod liver oil, regularly tested by an independent FDA registered laboratory, is the most highly recommended for its potency and purity. I now offer the Carlson brand of fish oil and cod liver oil in my "Recommended Products" section, or you may be able to find this exceptional quality brand in your local health food store.

Also, make sure that you drink plenty of pure water throughout the day, as this will help to hydrate your skin and flush toxins from your body.

Smile During the Day and Get Your Beauty Sleep at Night

There is quite a bit of truth behind the term 'beauty sleep.' That's because when you sleep your body is able to repair cells and rest your heart and mind. It's imperative that your body has a chance to revitalize itself overnight. Too many nights of missed sleep will show up on your face and will take a toll on your body too.

While you're awake make sure that you take some time to enjoy life. It's no illusion that stressful events seem to make wrinkles and gray hairs appear overnight. Stress will wear you down both inside and out--it has been estimated that up to 90 percent of illness and disease is stress-related.

If you feel that stress is taking a toll on your health, consider using Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a type of psychological acupressure. EFT is remarkably effective in relieving stress associated with all kinds of events, from work to family to trauma. You can check out my free, 25-page EFT manual for some guidelines on how to perform EFT.

By Dr. Joseph Mercola with Rachael Droege

Why Are Health Care Costs So High?

More and more Americans are becoming concerned with the rising costs of the U.S. health care system. While it is touted as providing the best medical care in the world, people are increasingly unable to afford it.

Eighty percent of respondents to a recent poll said they were unhappy with the $2.2 trillion, or $7,129 a person, being spent on health care this year in the United States. Most who responded thought medical company profits or malpractice lawsuits were the biggest drivers of spending.

In actuality, medical inflation is driven in large part by the popularity of new drugs and technology, which are frequently much more expensive than older treatments.

Other key factors include the rising costs of medical services, waste and inefficiency, and the growing number of chronic diseases caused by the American epidemic of obesity.

A majority of poll respondents favored switching to a universal health care system, as long as doing so did not restrict doctor or treatment choice, or prove more expensive.

In addition:

• 79 percent supported requiring businesses to offer health insurance to full-time employees, and 64 percent said employers should also be required to cover part-time employees.
• 65 percent supported requiring all Americans to have health insurance, with tax credits to help low-income people pay for it.
• 82 percent supported expanding government health programs such as Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.
  

USA Today October 16, 2006

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

If you were to believe the propaganda, the United States has the best "health" care system in the world, but this is a pack of deceptive lies.

The real truth is that we have the best disease-care system in the world designed to extract the maximum amount from consumers and taxpayers with the illusion of getting "miracle" quick and easy pill solutions for our illnesses.

In another of an interesting series of articles from USA Today on the sick state of America's hobbled health care system, a new poll has identified growing concerns about the soaring costs of medicine and how it happened, as well as the quality of care across the nation.

And, no surprise, even though Americans want major health care reform, they won't give anything up to achieve it.

According to one expert, health care costs won't slow down without consumers making "trade-offs," a big problem considering few patients feel they are responsible for this dramatic lift.

The first and most important way to come to grips with this crisis that has emptied bank accounts and done nothing to protect and improve the overall health of Americans:

Taking responsibility for your own health through simpler, gentler, but no less effective, solutions.

The real way to drop medical costs is to look at pragmatic steps emphasizing care, not treatment, and personal responsibility.

Drugs, surgery and hospitals rarely solve chronic health problems.

However, taking control of your own personal health --

• by eating healthier
• and incorporating exercise into your daily routine for starters --

will go a long way toward solving them.

By Dr. Mercola

Belly Fat: Danger You Should Not Ignore

If you store more fat in your belly than in your hips, your cells are likely to be resistant to insulin which puts you at high risk for high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and premature death.

In one recent study, researchers measured insulin resistance and compared it to several risk factors for diabetes in men and women:

• heart-lung fitness
• whole-body fatness and
• abdominal obesity (Diabetes Care, March 2006).

They showed that lack of physical fitness and overweight are very significant predictors of diabetes in men and women and that the single most important measure of insulin resistance is storing fat in the belly rather than the hips.

Storing fat in your belly causes you to store excess fat in your liver, which interferes with its function of removing insulin from your bloodstream after it has done its job of driving sugar into cells.

When your blood sugar rises after meals, your pancreas is supposed to release enough insulin to keep it from rising too high. If your cells cannot respond to insulin adequately, you are called insulin resistant, your blood sugar rises too high and your pancreas releases huge amounts of insulin.

When your blood sugar rises too high, sugar sticks to cells. Once there, the sugar cannot get off the cells and is eventually converted to a poison called sorbitol that destroys the cells to damage nerves, arteries and other tissues throughout your body.

Excess insulin act on your brain to make you eat more and on your arteries to cause heart attacks.

By Dr. Gabe Mirkin