AGENDA: Grinding America Down (Full Movie) FREE to watch for a limited time!

A film that finally puts the pieces of the puzzle together. If you've wondered why America has been falling apart from within, you will love AGENDA. View HERE.

(NaturalNews) Former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul doesn't seen a rosy future ahead for the United States. In fact, he sees a repeat of recent history - though not U.S. history - on the horizon.

In an interview with radio host Alex Jones, of InfoWars, Paul - who is a physician by trade and has recently launched his own radio and television network - said he sees the "bust coming soon."

"They're (Washington collectively) not going to work their way out of it, so it's just (all) going to collapse," he said. "Let's just keep working on the fact that, when we get around to rebuilding this whole entire system, that we do it the way it was intended originally, and actually improve upon it."

Less government, more freedom

Continuing, Paul said, "I think the concept of liberty has advanced even since the time of the founders, but we've regressed so desperately far from what they intended... I think we should anticipate that, you know, in the future, in the next several years, you're going to see a big, big collapse, and then we have to talk about what kind of a monetary policy, why we need to bring our troops home, why we have to quit expanding the deficit every day, and raising these debt limits, planning on total, socialized medicine - that all has to end, and it's going to end because it's going to fail. I think we should anticipate that, and look at it as an opportunity..."

He added, "Less government and more freedom is what we need."

Jones noted that many people believe the U.S. is headed for history's dustbin and that the country is currently in a death spiral, of sorts. Only question now, he says, is when - and how it will happen.

"It's hard to predict the timing," Paul said, "but I think I agree with the assessment that it will end... I look at it like a building standing [with] no foundation. It's sort of sitting there and wobbling, but it hasn't crashed, and I think it will, because you know, the financial system is so unstable, it's totally based on debt, and confidence in the dollar and confidence in the [Federal Reserve], that they'll always print the right amount of money and they'll always keep the interest rates right, and they'll always bail out everybody that needs bailed out - which I think is a total hoax..."

Paul says that the "big event could occur next week, it could occur in five years from now," but especially whenever the dollar is no longer credible as a reserve - or primary - currency.

The physician-lawmaker also said recent polling showing a distinct lack of trust by the American people in their government was "a good thing."

"Because that means that now they'll quit believing the government," he told Jones. "I mean, they don't trust the government, they don't believe the government, the government always lies to them... whether its foreign policy or domestic policy."

'We're probably about in 1987...'

He referenced recent testimony by the nation's spy chiefs, in which they appear to have lied about the actual number of terrorist plots thwarted by the NSA's massive theft of Americans' phone data, as well as the existence of the program in the first place.

Paul said "the system" we live in "was always assumed to be much healthier than it is today."

"But," he continued, "just think how quickly the Soviet system disappeared. I think that was the greatest miracle, or event at least, in the twentieth century" that nobody saw coming.

"You know, the day before, the month before, the year before, if someone would have said, 'Oh, you know, next year,' the Soviet system would be gone, everybody would have considered that person nuts. But it was fragile, and it fell apart, and quickly, and thank goodness we didn't have to have a nuclear war in order to get rid of the Soviet system.

"We're probably in 1987, where the Soviets were in '87, in two years they were gone," he said.

Sources:

http://www.infowars.com

http://www.ronpaulchannel.com

http://cnsnews.com

Learn more.

The UN-Affordable Care Act

Wait until you find out what I found out about Obama's new "Affordable" Care Act - that is actually un-affordable for a family.  According to the law, if the employer offers the employee coverage just for the employee (not including coverage for spouse or children) at 9.5% or less of income, then the employee and anyone in the household - read: spouse and children - are NOT eligible for any subsidies or tax-credits in the Marketplace state exchanges.  Let me put it in layman's terms - if your husband's job offers insurance to cover him only at 9.5% or less, then you do not qualify for tax credits or subsidies, no matter how poor you are!  Yes, that is right - it doesn't go by the FAMILY coverage - it only goes by the individual coverage.

Example

A family of 4 that makes $40,000 (before taxes) a year.  The employer offers insurance to cover employee - the husband - at $3,700 a year, which is lower than 9.5% of his income.  However, if he wishes to insure his wife and 2 kids, he has to pay a family coverage premium of $12,600 a year (1,050 a month).  His wife and kids are NOT eligible to enter the state exchange and get a subsidy or tax credit, even though their premiums would be over 30% of their income.  They are stuck either being un-insured or paying 1,050 a month, and that doesn't include deductibles, copay and co-insurance.  

What is more humorous is the lady at the headquarters of the state exchanges told me that surely the law wouldn't leave me and my kids out of being eligible for the tax credit on such a low income.  Wait until she finds out what I read on USA Today, NY Times and the Washington Post about this very thing.  Even Bill Clinton spoke out against in September but seemingly the media didn't want to blaze that abroad because it would be bad publicity for Obama and the democrats.  See, they have got to pass the funding for this thing and will even let the government shut down to do so, so shhh, don't spread this part of the law abroad just yet.

Meanwhile, those that don't work at all (not talking about disabled and elderly) can have FREE housing assistance, FREE food stamps, FREE Obama-phone and now FREE healthcare and your hard-working man gets to pay for others laziness AND pay extremely HIGH premiums to insure your family.  Yes, we are punished for doing what is RIGHT.  The family that actually wants to provide for their own and not make others pay to house, feed and insure their family - is punished by not only paying for others, but also paying more for their families.  Welcome to Socialist America!

Obama doesn't care one bit about you homemakers or children because he knows that to cover you, it would cost 48 billion more and that would make his "affordable" plan - UN-affordable!  Wait until all these Obamacare supporters find this out..........I can't wait till it hits the fan and exposes this welfare-state-health-insurance for what it really is.

By: Christian Home-keeping

Learn more here.

The True Cost of a Flawed Health Care Paradigm

By Dr. Mercola

Americans spend twice as much on health care per capita than any other country in the world; in fact, according to a series of studies by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co, the US spends more on health care than the next 10 biggest spenders combined: Japan, Germany, France, China, the U.K., Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain, and Australia.
Other astounding statistics include:

• The US spends more than 17 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare¹
• If the US health care system was a country, it would be the 6th largest economy on the entire planet²
• While the US makes up only five percent of the world’s population, Americans consume over 50 percent of all the world’s pharmaceutical drugs
• Overall, Americans also pay 50 percent more than other countries for identical drugs, as a result of laws and regulations preventing the US government from reining in drug prices like other nations do

Despite all of this spending and pill-popping, the US ranks dead last in terms of quality of care among industrialized countries, and Americans are far sicker and live shorter lives than people in other nations. Clearly, we have taken a wrong turn down the wrong road somewhere...

The US Health Care System Is Fundamentally Flawed

A review of US healthcare expenses by the Institutes of Medicine³ (IOM) revealed that 30 cents of every dollar spent on medical care is wasted, adding up to $750 billion annually. For perspective, the defense budget proposed by the Pentagon for 2014 was just under $527 billion.⁴
The IOM report identifies six major areas of medical waste: Unnecessary services; inefficient delivery of care; excess administrative costs; inflated prices; prevention failures; and fraud. Also, as stated in the featured Time Magazine article⁵:

“A central reason U.S. health care spending is so high is that hospitals and doctors charge more for their services and there’s little transparency about why.

There is no uniformity to the system, in which public and private insurers have separate, unrelated contracts with hospitals and doctors. The result is a tangled, confusing and largely secretive collection of forces driving health care prices higher and higher.

This isn’t possible in many other countries either because governments set prices for health care services or broker negotiations between coalitions of insurers and providers.“

The True Cost of Health Care

The documentary film The True Cost of Health Care⁶ by Dr. David Belk, MD (featured above) also reveals a number of shocking details that help explain the exorbitant cost of American health care. For example:

• Generic medications can cost 100 percent less than their brand-name equivalent, and usually cost less than most insurance co-pays. This means you might actually pay LESS by purchasing a generic medication out of pocket, compared to using your insurance if you have a co-pay. In essence, going through your insurance amounts to paying extra for the privilege of being overcharged...
• Hospitals routinely bill 10 or more times what they expect to be paid for any given service. As I discussed in a previous article, most hospitals end up receiving just 35 percent of what they bill, yet they still manage to make tens of millions of dollars in operating profits each year. Some hospitals, including Sloan-Kettering and MD Anderson, who are tougher in their negotiations with insurance companies, end up getting around 50 percent of their total billings.
• Most diagnostic tests and procedures are inexpensive to perform. However, the charges for these tests and procedures typically have no relation to the actual cost. Each hospital has an internal price list called a chargemaster, which contains every single item you may be given or come in contact with during your hospital stay. The problem is, no one quite knows how the prices in the chargemaster are created. What is clear is that there’s absolutely no market feedback to regulate and control the prices that are charged.
• Health insurance companies deliberately manipulate these costs to maintain their profits. As explained by TheTrueCostofHealthCare.org:⁷ “Health insurance companies can manipulate a patient’s out of pocket payments to make it appear as though health care is more expensive than it really is. Insurance companies sell security against financial risk. If no one really understands what that risk is (because all prices are hidden or deceptive) then the price of the security (insurance) can be grossly inflated.”

The Chargemaster: What You Need to Know if You Want to Avoid Medical Bankruptcy

Each hospital has an internal price list called a chargemaster, which contains every single item you may be given or come in contact with during your hospital stay. That includes the little white paper cup you get your medicine in, every box of tissue and band-aid, even a toy to a child (which many mistake as a “gift”) can be billed at upwards of $200. The problem is, no one quite knows how the prices in the chargemaster are created. What’s worse, there seems to be no real rationale or process behind this important document. As journalist and author Steven Brill has stated:⁸

“That so few consumers seem to be aware of the chargemaster demonstrates how well the health care industry has steered the debate from why bills are so high to who should pay them... [T]he drag on our overall economy that comes with taxpayers, employers and consumers spending so much more than is spent in any other country for the same product is unsustainable. Health care is eating away at our economy and our treasury.”

There is no real marketplace as such, as you the buyer is completely separated from the seller. There’s absolutely no market feedback to regulate and control the prices that are charged. For the most part, the hospitals charge as much as they want, which plays a large role on why these charges have gotten so outrageously out of control. This simply doesn’t happen in countries outside of the US.
In response, a small grassroots-type industry has emerged as a result of shell-shocked patients reaching out for help to understand their medical bills. Referring to themselves as medical-billing advocates, they help you not only read and understand the content of your bills, but also negotiate with the hospital to reduce the charges. The problem with that, of course, is: what about the people who don’t realize they CAN bargain with a major hospital? And should we really accept “bills of fiction” to begin with?
Even with the help of a medical-billing advocate (who of course charges a fee for the service), many uninsured patients still overpay. After all, getting a 50 percent discount on a test billed at $200, which should cost $15 is not necessarily a great bargain, although it’s certainly an improvement if we only take fictional numbers into account. The sad thing is, as mentioned earlier, the overcharges are SO grossly inflated that even if you get the bill cut in half, the hospital still makes out like a bandit!

Conventional Medicine Is Actually One of Your Greatest Health Risks...

There's no shortage of evidence that the US health care system is in need of urgent transformation. Over a decade ago, Professor Bruce Pomerance of the University of Toronto concluded that properly prescribed and correctly taken pharmaceutical drugs were the fourth leading cause of death in the US!
In 2000, the Institutes of Medicine reported that medical errors were the eighth leading cause of death in the US, killing between 44,000 and 98,000 people each year. This was followed by a 2003 article aptly titled "Death by Medicine", authored in two parts by Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, which described in excruciating detail how the modern conventional American medical system has bumbled its way into becoming the leading cause of death and injury in the United States, claiming the lives of nearly 784,000 people annually!
These iatrogenic deaths (meaning deaths resulting from the activity of physicians) include everything from adverse drug reactions to medical errors, to hospital-acquired infections and surgeries gone bad—including 37,000 deaths from unnecessary medical procedures. The authors took statistics straight from the most respected medical and scientific journals and investigative reports by the Institutes of Medicine (IOM), showing that on the whole, American medicine is causing more harm than good. In 2010, two additional reports published in New England Journal of Medicine⁹ and the Journal of General Internal Medicine¹⁰ respectively, showed just how little things have changed since 2003. For example:

• Out of 62 million death certificates dated between 1976-2006, almost a quarter-million deaths were coded as having occurred in a hospital setting due to medication errors.¹¹
• An estimated 450,000 preventable medication-related adverse events occur in the US every year.
• The costs of adverse drug reactions¹² to society are more than $136 billion annually -- greater than the total cost of cardiovascular or diabetic care.

Taking Control of Your Health Is Part of the Solution

Hundreds of thousands are killed by medical care itself, while others are walking around with far less than stellar health due to conventional treatments. Rates of chronic diseases are through the roof, and we're facing epidemics of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, depression and too many others to list. As a whole, Americans are not healthy – they're tired, depressed, stressed out and often in pain.
Out of sheer desperation, many people have taken their health into their own hands by abandoning this fatally flawed medical model and embracing holistic modalities that can help heal on a body-wide level. It is through their many success stories that we can discern a clear way out of this flawed and outright deadly paradigm.
The more you take responsibility for your own health – in the form of nurturing your body to prevent disease – the less you need to rely on the "disease care" that passes for health care in the United States. In the majority of cases, you’ll likely find that you can prevent or resolve common health conditions by following these basic tenets of optimal health:

1. Eat a healthy diet focused on fresh, whole foods (ideally organic and/or locally grown). Try to eat a large portion of your food raw. You want to pay careful attention to keeping your insulin levels down, which means avoiding sugars and grains of all kinds, and replacing the lost carbs with healthful fats. Also be mindful of your protein sources, making sure they’re of high quality (ideally organically-raised and pasture-fed). A high fat, moderate protein, low carb diet is likely to improve the health of most people. My optimized Nutritional Plan can guide you, whether you’re at a beginner’s or advanced level.
2. Consume healthy fat. The science is loud and clear on this point: omega-3 fats are essential for optimal health. Unfortunately, most fish commercially available today are polluted with mercury, PCBs and other toxic substances, which is why I recommend you take a supplement like krill oil instead of getting it from your food. Other healthy fats include coconut oil, avocados, olives, olive oil, butter and macadamia nuts. All these fats are low in protein and carbs and will not impair insulin, leptin or mTOR.
3. Make clean, pure water your primary beverage, and steer clear of all sweetened and/or flavored beverages, including those that contain artificial sweeteners.
4. Manage your stress.
5. Exercise regularly. Ideally, you want a comprehensive fitness regimen that includes stretching, high intensity interval training, core strengthening exercises and strength training.
6. Get plenty of appropriate sun exposure to optimize your vitamin D levels naturally. UV exposure also has additional health benefits beyond vitamin D production. A robust and growing body of research clearly shows that vitamin D is absolutely critical for your health. The D*Action project has been initiated by GrassrootsHealth along with 42 leading vitamin D researchers to demonstrate how health can be achieved right now with what’s known about vitamin D with a combination of vitamin D measurement and health outcome tracking. To learn more, please see this recent article.
I encourage you to participate in the D*Action Project, which has multiple concurrent vitamin D programs going on. Not only will you be able to take control of your own health by participating, you’ll also become part of one of the most profound public health projects of the 21st Century. To participate, simply purchase the D*Action Measurement Kit and follow the registration instructions included.

As a participant, you agree to test your vitamin D levels twice a year during a five year program, and share your health status to demonstrate the public health impact of this nutrient. There is a $65 fee each 6 months for your sponsorship of the project, which includes a test kit to be used at home, and electronic reports on your ongoing progress. You will get a follow up email every six months reminding you "it's time for your next test and health survey."


7. Limit your exposure to toxins of all kinds. The number of toxic chemicals and their sources is so large, addressing them all could easily require an entire library, but I believe you can help you keep your toxic load as low as possible by becoming an informed and vigilant consumer. This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives.
8. Get plenty of quality sleep. Scientists have discovered that your circadian rhythms regulate the energy levels in your cells. In addition, the proteins involved with your circadian rhythm and metabolism are intrinsically linked and dependent upon each other. Therefore, when your circadian rhythm is disrupted, it can have a profound influence on your physical health. For example, research has also linked disrupted sleep cycles to serious health problems like depression, coronary heart diseases, and even cancer. If you have any kind of sleep problem, whether you’re having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, my article 33 Secrets to a Good Night's Sleep is packed with great tips to help you finally get some good rest.

8 Things Your Grandparents Did That Could Save Your Life

For even more inspiration and guidance, check out the following eight “forgotten wisdoms” your grandparents adhered to that could quite literally save your life. To learn more, please follow the hyperlinks provided:

Grow your own food	Get back in the kitchen and learn to cook from scratch
Make your own cleaning products	Learn some home remedies
Discover the power of broth	Ferment your own foods
Firm up your social network and close friendships	Spend time outside / Go barefoot

In the event you do need medical care, seek out a health care practitioner who will help you move toward complete wellness by helping you discover and understand the hidden causes of your health challenges, and create a customized and comprehensive – i.e. holistic – treatment plan for you.

Learn more here.

Beat Back Cold and Flus with... Garlic!

By Dr. Mercola

If you want a simple way to increase the disease-fighting power of your meals, be generous with your use of high-quality herbs and spices. This applies year-round, but as cold and flu season nears, you may want to consider spicing things up more than you might normally.
There is no shortage of research showing that herbs and spices are among the healthiest you can consume. And they’re a “secret weapon” that just about everyone can take advantage of, regardless of your budget.
Garlic in particular has long been hailed for its healing powers, especially against infectious diseases like cold and flu.
This is likely due to its immune boosting effects. Fresh garlic is also a potent antibacterial, antiviral and anti-fungal agent. But its therapeutic effects may go much further than that.

Garlic—An All-Around Health Boosting Herb

The featured article in Medical News Today¹ contains an impressive list of garlic’s historical use as a natural medicine, and modern research to back up the wisdom of such antiquated claims. Green Med Info has also assembled a list of studies demonstrating more than 150 beneficial health effects of garlic! For example, studies show that regular consumption of (primarily raw) garlic:

• May be effective against drug-resistant bacteria
• Reduces risk for heart disease,² including heart attack³ and stroke
• Helps normalize your cholesterol⁴ and blood pressure
• Protects against cancer,^{5, 6} including brain,⁷ lung,⁸ and prostate⁹ cancer
• Reduces risk of osteoarthritis¹⁰

It’s thought that much of garlic’s therapeutic effect comes from its sulfur-containing compounds, such as allicin, which are also what give it its characteristic smell. Other health-promoting compounds include oligosaccharides, arginine-rich proteins, selenium and flavonoids.¹¹
Research¹² has revealed that as allicin digests in your body, it produces sulfenic acid, a compound that reacts with dangerous free radicals faster than any other known compound.
This is one of the reasons why I named garlic as one of the top seven anti-aging foods you can consume. Garlic is also a triple threat against infections, offering antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties.
Not only is it effective at killing antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including MRSA, but it also fights yeast infections, viruses and parasites. Garlic must be fresh to give you optimal health benefits though.
The fresh clove must be crushed or chopped in order to stimulate the release of an enzyme called alliinase, which in turn catalyzes the formation of allicin.¹³ Allicin in turn rapidly breaks down to form a number of different organosulfur compounds. So to “activate” garlic’s medicinal properties, compress a fresh clove with a spoon prior to swallowing it, or put it through your juicer to add to your vegetable juice.
A single medium size clove or two is usually sufficient, and is well-tolerated by most people. The active ingredient, allicin, is destroyed within one hour of smashing the garlic, so garlic pills are virtually worthless.
You also won’t reap all the health benefits garlic has to offer if you use jarred, powdered or dried versions. Worse yet, at least two supermarket-brands containing garlic powder imported from China have been found to be contaminated with high levels of lead, arsenic and added sulfites, according to a recent article by PreventDisease.com.¹⁴
If you develop a socially offensive odor, just decrease the amount of garlic you’re consuming until there is no odor present. If garlic makes you feel ill, this is probably your body's way of letting you know you should avoid it.

Garlic versus Tamiflu

Garlic may be particularly useful in preparation for cold and flu season, as it contains compounds capable of killing a wide variety of organisms, including viruses and bacteria that can cause earaches, colds and influenza. The respected research organization Cochrane Database—which has repeatedly reported that the science does not support the use of flu vaccine as a first-line defense—has also reviewed studies on the alternatives, such as the use of garlic.¹⁵
They found that those who took garlic daily for three months had fewer colds than those who took a placebo, and, when they did come down with a cold, the duration of illness was shorter—an average of 4.5 days compared to 5.5 days for the placebo group.
While this may not seem overly impressive, it’s still better than the results achieved by the much-advertised flu drug Tamiflu. If taken within 48 hours of onset of illness, Tamiflu might reduce the duration of flu symptoms by about a day to a day and a half. That's the extent of what this $100-plus treatment will get you. It’s virtually identical to just taking garlic on a regular basis!
However, some patients with influenza are at increased risk for secondary bacterial infections when on Tamiflu—a risk you won’t take by eating garlic... Other adverse events of Tamiflu include pediatric deaths, serious skin reactions, and neuropsychiatric events, including suicide committed while delirious.

Cold and Flu—Symptoms of Vitamin D Deficiency

While colds and flus are caused by viral infections, compelling research suggests that your ability to "catch" these infections may actually be a symptom of an underlying vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D is a potent antimicrobial agent, producing 200 to 300 different antimicrobial peptides in your body that kill bacteria, viruses and fungi. Suboptimal vitamin D levels will significantly impair your immune response, thereby making you far more susceptible to contracting colds, influenza, and other respiratory infections.
In the largest and most nationally representative study¹⁶ of its kind to date, involving about 19,000 Americans, people with the lowest vitamin D levels reported having significantly more recent colds or cases of the flu -- and the risk was even greater for those with chronic respiratory disorders like asthma. At least five additional studies also show an inverse association between lower respiratory tract infections and vitamin D levels.
The best source for vitamin D is direct sun exposure. While it may not be possible to get enough sun exposure during the winter, every effort should be made to attain vitamin D from UVB exposure as there are many additional benefits from this route other than vitamin D. The next best option to sunlight is the use of a safe indoor tanning device. As a last resort, if neither natural nor artificial sunlight is an option, you may taken an oral vitamin D3 supplement. However, if you do, you need to be aware of the following:

• Make sure you’re taking the correct vitamin D supplement. You want D3, not D2, as the latter may end up doing more harm than good.
• Based on the latest research from GrassrootsHealth, the average adult dose required to reach vitamin D levels of about 40 ng/ml is around 8,000 IU's of vitamin D3 per day. For children, many experts agree they need about 35 IU's of vitamin D per pound of body weight.
• Get your vitamin D serum level checked at regular intervals to make sure you’re taking the appropriate dose to get within the therapeutic range of 50-70 ng/ml.
• If you’re taking high dose vitamin D supplements you also need to take vitamin K2—not K1 that is typically in vegetables as it will not work synergize with vitamin D. Vitamin K2 deficiency is actually what produces the symptoms of vitamin D toxicity, which includes inappropriate calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries. The reason for this is when you take vitamin D, your body creates more vitamin K2-dependent proteins that shuttle the calcium into the appropriate areas. Without vitamin K2, those proteins remain inactivated, so the benefits of those proteins remain unrealized.

Four Factors That Undermine Your Immune System

Again, it’s important to remember that both colds and various influenzas are caused by a wide variety of viruses, not bacteria. Hence, taking an antibiotic for your cold or flu will NOT do you any good whatsoever. Antibiotics only work on bacterial infections, such as sinus, ear and lung infections, including bronchitis and pneumonia. The latter two are potential secondary infections that can develop from a serious bout of cold or flu, so you do want to keep an eye out for signs and symptoms of such bacterial infections.
At the end of this article, you’ll find some guidelines to help you decide when it would be prudent to see a doctor.
Now, the most common way cold and flu viruses are spread is via hand-to-hand contact, so the easiest way to cut down your risk is to frequently wash your hands (see next section below). However, the key to remember is that being exposed to a cold virus does not mean that you're destined to get sick. Again, whether or not you’ll actually get sick is primarily dependent on the functioning of your immune system. If your immune system is operating at its peak, it should actually be quite easy for you to fend off the virus without ever getting sick.
As discussed above, vitamin D deficiency is a major factor that will depress your immune function, leaving the door open to invading viruses. Other lifestyle factors that can depress your immune system, alone or in combination, include:

• Eating too much sugar/fructose and grains. Sugar in all its forms takes a heavy toll on your immune system. One of the ways it does this is by unbalancing your gut flora. Sugar is "fertilizer" for pathogenic bacteria, yeast, and fungi that can set your immune system up for an assault by a respiratory virus. Remember, 80 percent of your immune system lies in your gastrointestinal tract, which is why limiting your sugar intake is CRUCIAL for optimizing your immune system.
It would be wise to limit your total fructose consumption to below 25 grams a day if you're in good health, or below 15 grams a day if you have high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, or are insulin resistant or are trying to recover from an acute illness like the flu.

• Lack of sleep. If you aren't getting enough restorative sleep, you'll be at increased risk for a hostile viral takeover. Your immune system is also the most effective when you're not sleep-deprived, so the more rested you are the quicker you'll recover. You can find 33 guidelines for a better night's sleep here.
• Insufficient exercise. Regular exercise is a crucial strategy for increasing your resistance to illness. There is evidence that regular, moderate exercise can reduce your risk for respiratory illness by boosting your immune system. In fact, one study¹⁷ found that people who exercised regularly (five or more days a week) cut their risk of having a cold by close to 50 percent. And, in the event they did catch a cold, their symptoms were much less severe than among those who did not exercise.
Exercise likely cuts your risk of colds so significantly because it triggers a rise in immune system cells that can attack any potential invaders. Each time you exercise you can benefit from this boost to your immune system. It can also help boost your immune system acutely, by increasing your body temperature. This helps kill off invading pathogens, similarly to the fever your body produces when sick.

• Using ineffective strategies to address stress. Emotional stressors can also predispose you to an infection while making cold symptoms worse. Finding ways to manage daily stress as well as your reactions to circumstances beyond your control will contribute to a strong and resilient immune system. Effective strategies include a variety of energy psychology tools, such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).

Other All-Natural Strategies That Send Pathogens Packin'

Frequently washing your hands with soap and water is one of the easiest ways to wipe out germs and viruses and reduce your chances of becoming sick. Don’t make the mistake of using antibacterial cleansers, as their widespread use contributes to strains of resistant bacteria, or "superbugs" that render antibiotics useless. Besides, research¹⁸ has shown that people who use antibacterial soaps and cleansers often develop a cough, runny nose, sore throat, fever, vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms just as often as people who use plain soap and water. There’s no real justification for using an antibacterial soap when plain soap is safer, and just as effective.
Another strategy that many report success with is to administer a few drops of 3% hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into your ear canal. Quite frequently, people claim to have been able to cure a cold or flu within 12 to 14 hours this way. Simply put a few drops into your ear; wait until the bubbling and stinging subside (usually 5 to 10 minutes), then drain onto a tissue and repeat with the other ear.
There are also a number of supplements and simple treatments that can be beneficial for colds and influenza, but I believe they should only be used as adjuncts to an otherwise healthy diet and lifestyle. For detailed instructions that will help set you the right path can be found in my optimized nutrition and lifestyle plan. Some of the more helpful options for cold and flu—besides vitamin D and garlic discussed above--include:

Zinc: Research on zinc has shown that when taken within one day of the first symptoms, zinc can cut down the time you have a cold by about 24 hours. Zinc was also found to greatly reduce the severity of symptoms. Suggested dosage: up to 50 mg/day. Zinc was not recommended for anyone with an underlying health condition, like lowered immune function, asthma or chronic illness.	Vitamin C: A very potent antioxidant; use a natural form such as acerola, which contains associated micronutrients. You can take several grams every hour till you are better unless you start developing loose stools.
Olive leaf extract: Ancient Egyptians and Mediterranean cultures used it for a variety of health-promoting uses and it is widely known as a natural, non-toxic immune system builder.	Propolis: A bee resin and one of the most broad-spectrum antimicrobial compounds in the world; propolis is also the richest source of caffeic acid and apigenin, two very important compounds that aid in immune response.
Oregano Oil: The higher the carvacrol concentration, the more effective it is. Carvacrol is the most active antimicrobial agent in oregano oil.	Medicinal mushrooms, such as shiitake, reishi, and turkey tail.
A tea made from a combination of elderflower, yarrow, boneset, linden, peppermint and ginger; drink it hot and often for combating a cold or flu. It causes you to sweat, which is helpful for eradicating a virus from your system.	Echinacea is one of the most widely used herbal medications in Europe to combat colds and infections. One review of more than 700 studies found that using Echinacea can reduce your risk of catching cold by as much as 58 percent.

When Should You Call Your Physician?

Generally speaking, if you have a cold, medical care is not necessary. Rest and attention to the lifestyle factors noted above—particularly the admonition to avoid sugar—will help you to recover quickly and, if you stick to them, will significantly reduce your chances of catching another cold anytime soon.
Getting back to garlic for a moment, a previous article by PreventDisease.com¹⁹ gives instructions for a garlic soup that can help destroy most viruses and help you recover a little quicker. Ideally though, you’d want to incorporate immune-boosting diet- and lifestyle strategies as soon as possible to prevent illness in the first place.
So, when should you call your doctor?
Sinus, ear, and lung infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia CAN be bacterial however, and if so, may respond to antibiotics. If you develop any of the following symptoms, these are signs you may be suffering from a bacterial infection rather than a cold, and you should call your physician's office:

• Fever over 102 degrees Fahrenheit (38.9 degrees Celsius)
• Ear pain
• Pain around your eyes, especially with a green nasal discharge
• Shortness of breath or a persistent uncontrollable cough
• Persistently coughing up green and yellow sputum

Visit Dr. Joseph Mercola's site to learn more about taking control of your health. 

Syria's 'chemical weapons' turn out to be sodium fluoride

By: Mike Adams
(NaturalNews) Natural News can now reveal that the Syria chemical weapons narrative being pushed by the White House is an outlandish hoax.

To understand why, you have to start with the story published in The Independent entitled Revealed: Government let British company export nerve gas chemicals to Syria.

Sounds scary, right? As The Independent reports:

The Government was accused of "breathtaking laxity" in its arms controls last night after it emerged that officials authorised the export to Syria of two chemicals capable of being used to make a nerve agent such as sarin a year ago.

What, exactly, are those two dangerous chemicals that need to be controlled via "arms control" regulations? You won't believe me when I tell you. They are:

• sodium fluoride
• potassium fluoride

You can see this yourself in the screen capture of The Independent breaking news story. Note the headline and the subhead. The headline describes "nerve gas chemicals" and the subhead explains them as "sodium fluoride" and "potassium fluoride."



click here to watch my video explaining all this at TV.naturalnews.com.

U.S. water fluoridation chemical is Syria's "chemical weapon"

If these chemical names sound familiar, that's because sodium fluoride is the same toxic chemical that's routinely dumped into municipal water supplies all across the USA under the guise of "water fluoridation."

In fact, the forced feeding of sodium fluoride to the U.S. population is called a "public health" victory by the CDC, FDA and dentists everywhere. Yet this same chemical, when sold to Syria, is openly and repeatedly referred to as a "chemical weapon." This is true across the BBC, the Guardian, Daily Record and Sunday Mail, France24.com and literally thousands of other news websites.

According to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, any government "regime" that uses chemical weapons against its own people should be bombed / invaded / overthrown by a coalition of other United Nations members. By his own definition, then, the United States of America should now be invaded by the UN because the government uses a deadly chemical weapon -- sodium fluoride -- on its own people.

By implication, then, John Kerry is now calling for the UN to bomb the USA. As the international media now confirms, sodium fluoride is a chemical weapon, and this chemical weapon is used against the American people every single day in the water supply, a favorite attack vector for terrorists.

"Evidence" of chemical weapons nothing more than hair samples of people who drank sodium fluoride

As you might have guessed, Secretary of State John Kerry is running around "pulling a George Bush" by claiming Syria has used weapons of mass destruction on its own population. Here's a sample of his claims:

"In the last 24 hours, we have learned through samples that were provided to the United States that have now been tested from first responders in east Damascus and hair samples and blood samples have tested positive for signatures of sarin." Kerry said this on NBC's Meet The Press.

But what, exactly, is he saying? That hair samples have tested positive for "signatures" of sarin, not sarin itself. What is a "signature" of sarin? The fluorine element, which is of course the basis for sodium fluoride.

In other words, this "evidence" of chemical weapons in Syria may be nothing more than a collection of hair samples taken from people who drank fluoride. As this study shows on SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, hair analysis is a commonly-used practice for assessing exposure to fluoride. It concludes, "hair may be regarded as biomaterial of high informative potential in evaluating prolonged exposure to fluorides..."

Typically, this analysis is conducted with ICP-MS instrumentation, using a plasma torch that disintegrates all organic molecules, leaving only the resulting elements (fluorine). Tests done on Syrian citizens using ICP-MS would not be able to distinguish between sodium fluoride and sarin exposure in terms of the detection of elemental fluorine.

Read that again, because it's crucial to understanding the hoax being perpetrated by the White House: Tests on hair or other tissues, if done using ICP-MS (the most common elemental analysis technology used today), would not be able to distinguish between sodium fluoride and sarin.

Sarin has the chemical formula:
[(CH₃)₂CHO]CH₃P(O)F

You will notice that the only elements in this formula are:

Fluorine
Carbon
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Phosphorous

Out of those five elements, four of them (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorous) occur naturally in the human body in large quantities. Fluorine is the only element that strongly stands out against the rest in terms of elemental analysis. And fluorine is the same element that forms the basis of sodium fluoride. Sarin can, of course, also be detected as a complete molecule using liquid chromatography systems (HPLC), but this is highly unlikely to have taken place given the inherent instability of the molecule, which breaks apart upon exposure to simple moisture in the air or in the body.

Thus, ICP-MS testing could be used to intentionally "blur" the evidence, making sodium fluoride appear to be "signatures" of sarin, precisely as Kerry is now claiming in the media. As the whole point of all this is to fabricate evidence to justify a political war in the first place, there isn't any real scientific scrutiny being applied to all this. Obama, Kerry and others are spouting whatever they think the people will swallow, and since most of the U.S. public is scientifically illiterate, it turns out they will swallow some real whoppers.

Same sodium fluoride chemical added to water for infants

Sodium fluoride, by the way, is also added to drinking water for babies and infants. It's a key ingredient, actually, in a product called Nursery Water that's "enriched" with extra sodium fluoride, the same chemical now being called a "chemical weapon" by the international media. You can see this for yourself at www.NurseryWater.com or just check out the photo below...

Read the full article here.

How Psychiatric Drugs Can Kill Your Child - Documentary Video