Plant-powered bacon

Plant-powered bacon

A lot of moms complain that they cannot get enough protein into their toddlers. This recipe might be helpful. I challenge you to make this deliciously satisfying plant-powered bacon recipe.

Ingredients

  • ½ cup dried adzuki beans or other small red beans
  • ⅓ cup hulled wholegrain buckwheat (not buckwheat flour)
  • 1 tsp. onion powder
  • 1 tsp. hickory liquid smoke
  • 4 tsp. nutritional yeast
  • 1 tsp. smoked paprika
  • 1 Tbsp. tamari, soy sauce or Braggs Liquid Aminos
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • 2 tsp. tomato paste
  • 1 tsp. coconut oil
  • 2 tsp. maple syrup

  • Instructions

Overnight preparation:

  1. Rinse the raw beans and buckwheat, place in large bowl covered with several inches of cold filtered water; let soak overnight. (You can pre-cook the beans and buckwheat by boiling if you’d prefer to do so, but it’s not necessary)

Let’s get cooking:

  1. Preheat the oven to 205°C / 400°F
  2. Strain the soaked beans and buckwheat and rinse well.
  3. Place in the bowl of a food processor. Add the onion powder, liquid smoke, nutritional yeast, smoked paprika, tamari, salt, tomato paste, coconut oil, and maple syrup.
  4. Pulse several times to combine, scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl and continue pulsing until uniform but not as pureed as hummus.
  5. Line a shallow 23 x 33 cm / 9×13 inch baking tray with parchment paper and coat uncovered sides with a touch of coconut oil.
  6. Place bacon mixture in pan and spread as much as possible with a firm spatula, to get the mixture very thin and evenly spread and fill in any bare spots.
  7. Bake for 10 minutes.
  8. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes, then slice into 24 strips. Do this by making one lengthwise cut down the center, and then eleven cuts across the shorter side (each is about 2.5cm x 10cm / 1 inch x 4 inches).
  9. Remove the strips with a small spatula.

Eat now:

  1. Heat a tablespoon of coconut oil in a frying pan on medium-high heat. Fry the bacon slices for 2-3 minutes, flipping once. Alternatively, before frying, you can freeze the bacon, then fry when ready to serve (no need to thaw first).

Too Much Protein

Too Much Protein

How and Why Too Much Protein Triggers Aging and Cancer

By Dr. Joe Mercola (www.mercola.com)

Anti-aging expert Ron Rosedale, M.D., was among the first to warn people about the dangers of eating too much protein — a stance that has received a fair share of criticism over the years, although mounting research now offers strong support for this notion.

He was the first to help me understand the importance of insulin in 1995 and more recently the importance of protein and mTOR as discussed in the above video. I consider him my most important nutritional mentor.

The featured lecture was given in February of this year at Vail. In it Dr. Rosedale details the ancestral connection between protein, mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), the aging process, and cancer formation.

He starts out by offering an absolutely simple yet profound piece of wisdom in that “your health and likely your lifespan will be determined by the proportion of fat versus sugar you burn over a lifetime.”

In essence, he proposes that any food that helps you burn fat is likely beneficial for health, and any that makes you burn sugar is likely not. This is largely because sugar is a “dirty” fuel and fats and ketones burn far cleaner causing far less oxidative damage.

Hormones and the communication between them play an important role here, and those hormones are determined by the foods you eat. According to Rosedale, “you should eat today to control the hormones that will tell you what you will need to eat tomorrow.”

In a nutshell, this hypothesis completely ignores the “calories in, calories out” dogma, and instead focuses on foods that support hormones and growth factors that make your body burn fat rather than sugar.

Protein Restriction — An Important Dietary Strategy for Optimal Health

The low-carb diet made its initial appearance some 40+ years ago. In particular, it was found that low carb diets facilitated weight loss.

At the time, most people recommended replacing carbs with high amounts of protein, and these low-carb, high-protein diets (such as Atkins’) worked quite well for the purpose of shedding weight.

Dietary fat was almost universally avoided, as most experts embraced the “low fat myth” and fat was thought to promote obesity and heart disease. Rosedale, however, wanted to treat diabetics, and was one of the few who promoted a high-fat diet for that purpose.

One of the primary problems with excess protein or amino acids is that it stimulates mTOR, which stimulates growth rather than regeneration. Fat calories did not stimulate mTOR, leptin or insulin. They were essentially metabolically free calories.

Rosedale found a diet high in healthy fats worked quite well for diabetes and heart disease patients. Over time, he discovered that restricting protein was another important factor that could affect health, and even more specifically the aging process.

Why Paleo Diets Don’t Promote Longevity

Dr. Rosedale is of the opinion that while the Paleo diet may help mimic a diet that will optimize reproductive success, it will not necessarily help you live longer, because life extension and reproductive capacity do not go hand in hand.

“We can’t use nature, in general, to tell us how to live a long happy life,” he says, “because nature doesn’t care [about life extension]. Nature’s purpose is to get genes passed along [to the next generation].”

From an evolutionary perspective, nutrients had to be allocated by an organism either for a) growth, replication, and reproduction, or b) maintenance and repair, which helps you stay alive longer.

As a rule, nature will keep an organism alive long enough to replicate and reproduce; it doesn’t care much about staying alive post reproduction, and that’s why we age and die. “What we want to do is apply that science post reproductively,” Rosedale says.

Life Extension Depends on Upregulating Repair Mechanisms

At any given moment, there’s competition in your body between cellular damage and repair. As the damage becomes greater than your body’s ability to repair and regenerate, deterioration sets in. “If we could repair damage as fast as it occurs, we could live forever,” he says.

The reason we cannot keep up with this maintenance is because our repair mechanisms become damaged over time as well. So your best chance of living longer is to upregulate your repair mechanisms, because you simply cannot stop damage from occurring. Simply breathing creates oxidation and damage.

Fortunately, all organisms, including humans, are equipped with a mechanism by which cells can outlast nutrient deprivation (famine), and that’s part of the answer.

Remember, the foods you eat will influence either a) repair, which will help you live longer, or b) reproduction, and your body is ingeniously equipped with “nutrient sensors” that help determine how the nutrition will be used.

Insulin, leptin, and insulin-like growth factor (IGF) are examples of nutrient sensing hormones that in turn regulate metabolism, growth, cell differentiation, and cellular survival. Organizing all of these nutrient sensors is the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR).

According to Rosedale, mTOR is the most important signaling pathway in your body. It’s an ancient pathway found in virtually all organisms, including bacteria.

Why mTOR Is So Important for Longevity

Your mTOR pathway orchestrates all the available nutrient sensors in your body, and decides whether cells should replicate now or stay alive to replicate at a more opportune time in the future when nutrients are more plentiful.

The latter is part of the mechanism that allows for life extension, and this is why calorie restriction appears to be so effective at making organisms live longer. In one experiment, the lifespan of a mouse was extended from two to four years by inhibiting IGF receptors through a calorie restrictive diet.

Other research cited in Rosedale’s lecture has demonstrated that by using a drug compound that inhibits growth hormone, they were able to reverse signs of aging, noting this may seem counterintuitive as some older people take growth hormone for revitalizing purposes.

As noted by Rosedale, “there’s a dichotomy, apparently, between growth, reproduction, and longevity.”  He also points out that there’s a cross-reaction between insulin and IGF. High insulin is detrimental to health in part by stimulating IGF receptors, which is a growth hormone.

High insulin also causes insulin resistance of course, which has an adverse effect on your metabolism. But by promoting growth hormone, high insulin effectively decreases longevity, as growth and longevity cannot be promoted simultaneously.  You’re choosing one or the other.

Calorie Restriction, Longevity and Thyroid Function

On a side note, since we’re talking about hormones, a 2005 study noted that “some of the common and consistent effects of calorie restriction… include lower fat mass, particularly visceral fat, lower circulating insulin and IGF-1 concentrations, increased insulin sensitivity, lower body temperature, lower fat-free mass, decreased levels of thyroid hormones and decreased oxidative stress.”

According to Rosedale, this is an important piece of information, because if you embark on a ketogenic, high-fat, low net carb diet you may notice your thyroid hormone levels going down, which may raise concerns about thyroid disease. Such concerns are unwarranted (as long as your TSH level is normal). In fact, this is a much healthier state, Rosedale says.

“You’re running cooler, allocating more resources toward maintenance, repair, and longevity,” he says. “It’s not thyroid disease … because TSH did not go up, which is how you define hypothyroidism.”

Protein Intake Determines Your IGF Concentration

So IGF is a key player when it comes to longevity. It appears that by inhibiting IGF you can boost lifespan and reduce your risk of cancer (remember, cancer is an out of control proliferation of malignant cells. By redirecting energy from proliferation to repair and maintenance, cancer growth is impeded). And what nutrient determines your level of IGF? Protein. Higher protein intake elevates IGF, and lower intake decreases it.

As noted by Rosedale, there’s a major difference between a low-carb/high protein diet and a low-carb/high-fat diet. The former raises IGF, and the latter does not. In the early days of the low-carb revolution, no distinction was made between high protein or high fat, and since fat was so vilified, most people replaced the carbs with protein. It worked well for weight loss, but drawbacks also became apparent.

Since then, researchers have discovered that low-protein diets extend lifespan in flies, and the underlying reason for that is improved mitochondrial function and mTOR inhibition. According to the authors, “the molecular mechanisms responsible for the lifespan extension in the flies have important implications for human aging and diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cancer.”

Rapamycin, mTOR and Cancer Risk

Rapamycin, which is an mTOR inhibitor, is an antifungal agent that also inhibits cancer. Interestingly, it’s also an immune suppressant, and in medicine it’s used to suppress immune function during organ transplantation to avoid organ rejection.

Research shows that kidney transplant patients actually have a lower incidence of cancer — despite having lowered immune function — and this effect is thought to be due to the protective effects of rapamycin. It seems counterintuitive, since strong immune function is typically considered to be foundational for cancer suppression, so these findings suggest something else, and something quite powerful, is at play.

That “something,” is mTOR. By inhibiting mTOR, rapamycin powerfully inhibits cancer, despite lowered immune function. So what else affects mTOR? Amino acids and glucose both affect TOR directly, which is why carbs and protein have such a detrimental effect on health and aging. Insulin and other growth factors all upregulate TOR, which is why it’s so important to keep your insulin and IGF low.

Remember, TOR regulates growth and repair. Either growth is promoted or maintenance and repair, depending on whether TOR is up- or downregulated. When TOR is suppressed, maintenance and repair is upregulated and that results in increased longevity, which is what you want.

Exercise and Fasting Upregulates Genetic Expression of Maintenance and Repair

Again, mTOR senses nutrient availability, and directs energy accordingly. Hence your diet can have a tremendous influence on your lifespan.  Glucose and amino acids are the nutrients and fuel necessary for replication and reproduction. If you keep glucose, amino acids, insulin, and growth factors like IGF low, you will suppress mTOR, thereby allowing the upregulation of the genetic expression of maintenance and repair.

TOR also plays an important role in autophagy, the process by which your body cleans out debris, including toxins, and recycles damaged cell components. A similar process is known as mitophagy, where damaged mitochondria are cleaned out and replaced with new, healthy ones, and this process is also largely regulated by mTOR.

By boosting your body’s autophagy processes, you dampen inflammation, slow down the aging process, and optimize biological function. Autophagy occurs in response to stress. Exercise is one way by which you boost autophagy. Fasting is another. As noted in a 2011 study published in Molecular Cell Biology:1

“In all eukaryotes [incl. humans], the TOR signaling pathway couples energy and nutrient abundance to the execution of cell growth and division, owing to the ability of TOR protein kinase to simultaneously sense energy, nutrients and stress and, in metazoans [incl. humans], growth factors. In the past few years, a significant advance in our understanding of the regulation and functions of mTOR has revealed the crucial involvement of this signaling pathway in the onset and progression of diabetes, cancer and aging.”

Excessive Protein Shuts Down Autophagy and Increases Cancer Risk by Stimulating mTOR

Of all the components that stimulate mTOR, amino acids are the most potent stimulators. Hence, eating large amounts of protein is also one of the quickest ways to shut down autophagy, which prevents your body from effectively cleaning out debris and damaged cells. According to Rosedale, even if you do everything else right to keep glucose and insulin low, your mTOR would still be elevated if you eat too much protein.

He also notes that virtually all cancers are associated with mTOR activation, so activating mTOR is something you’ll definitely want to avoid. This is why I recommend limiting protein to about 40 to 70 grams per day, depending on your lean body mass.

The specific formula is one gram of protein for every kilogram of lean body mass, or one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. To determine your lean body mass, subtract your percent body fat from 100. For example, if you have 30 percent body fat, then you have 70 percent lean body mass. Then multiply that percentage (in this case, 0.7) by your current weight to get your lean body mass in pounds or kilos.

In the past, Rosedale used to recommend cutting that down to 0.75 grams per kilo of lean body mass if you were diabetic. Today, he believes this may actually be a more ideal amount for everyone, and you could even go below that because your body will conserve protein when you suppress mTOR and increase maintenance and repair. That said, protein is important for muscle maintenance and growth, so there’s definitely a fine balance that needs to be struck.

Protein Sources

Substantial amounts of protein can be found in meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, legumes, nuts, and seeds. Some vegetables also contain generous amounts of protein — for example, broccoli. Forty grams of protein is not a large amount of food — it’s the equivalent of one 6-ounce chicken breast.

To determine whether or not you’re getting too much protein, simply calculate your body’s requirement based on your lean body mass, and write down everything you eat for a few days. Then calculate the amount of daily protein you’ve consumed from all sources. If you’re currently averaging a lot more than what is optimal, adjust downward accordingly. The following chart provides a quick overview of how much protein is in various foods.

✓ Red meat, pork, poultry, and seafood average 6 to 9 grams of protein per ounce.An ideal amount for most people would be a 3-ounce serving of meat or seafood (not 9- or 12-ounce steaks!), which will provide about 18 to 27 grams of protein ✓ Eggs contain about 6 to 8 grams of protein per egg. So an omelet made from two eggs would give you about 12 to 16 grams of proteinIf you add cheese, you need to calculate that protein in as well (check the label of your cheese)
✓ Seeds and nuts contain on average 4 to 8 grams of protein per quarter cup ✓ Cooked beans average about 7 to 8 grams per half cup
✓ Cooked grains average 5 to 7 grams per cup ✓ Most vegetables contain about 1 to 2 grams of protein per ounce

Is Protein Restriction Even More Important Than Net Carbohydrate Restriction?

Since mTOR can be elevated even if your glucose and insulin levels are low, and since mTOR regulates energy distribution, growth, and repair, Rosedale now believes protein restriction may be even more important than the restriction of net carbohydrates (total carbs minus fiber). This theory has in fact been tested, and found to hold true. As noted in a 2014 study in Cell Metabolism:2

“Longevity and health were optimized when protein was replaced with carbohydrate to limit compensatory feeding for protein and suppress protein intake … The results suggest that longevity can be extended in ad libitum-fed animals by manipulating the ratio of macronutrients to inhibit mTOR activation.”

It’s worth noting they didn’t test a high-fat diet. They were only looking at carbs versus protein, and if those were your only choices, protein restriction may in fact be more important than carb restriction. However, there are many drawbacks with eating lots of non-fiber carbs too, so it’s far from an ideal solution. Your best alternative is to replace net carbs with high quality healthy fats, and restrict protein to just what your body needs (as described above).

Beware: Ketogenic Diets Can Be High-Protein or High-Fat, But Only the Latter Is of True Benefit

Now, here’s where things might get confusing, because research3 has also shown that ketone body utilization drives tumor growth and metastasis. (Ketones are acids made by your body when it burns fat rather than carbohydrates as its primary fuel.) This finding appears to be completely contradictory to so many other studies that show a ketogenic diet effectively “starves” cancer. But there is an answer to this apparent contradiction, which Rosedale explains in his lecture.

“It isn’t ketogenesis, really, that we’re after,” he says. “It’s fat burning. They’re not the same. You can have a ketogenic diet by eating protein. It isn’t the ketones, necessarily, that give you the benefit, it’s the fact that you’re burning fat, and the ketones are a byproduct. So you have to specify if you’re going to [promote a] ketogenic diet that it’s a high fat ketogenic diet.

It’s really the burning of fat that’s of benefit. As a result, you’ll get ketones that your brain needs. They do good things too … So a ketogenic diet is a good diet, but not because it’s ketogenic. It’s [good] because it’s an indication that you’re burning fat.”

The Ideal Diet? Think Low-Carb, Moderate-Protein, High-Fat

I believe it’s absolutely crucial, no matter what type of cancer you’re trying to address, to incorporate a high-fat ketogenic diet, meaning a diet high in healthy fats like avocado, coconut oil, butter, olive oil and macadamia nuts, low in net carbs (total carbs minus fiber), and moderate amounts of high quality protein, ideally no more than about 1 gram per kilo of lean body mass.

Such a diet, along with Peak Fasting can be easily integrated into whatever cancer treatment plan you decide to follow. More importantly, this kind of diet may be key for preventing cancer and other chronic diseases in the first place. It also appears to be key for longevity, and will help optimize your weight as well, since eating this way will help you convert from burning sugar to burning fat as your primary fuel.

White Chocolate

White Chocolate

This comes from he Rawlicious team of Peter and Beryn of the SUPERFOOD fame:

Ingredients: (can be purchased at RAWGANICS on Thesen Island)

1 cup cashew nuts (140g)

1 cup cacao BUTTER (140g) (melted)

1/4 cup coconut oil (2 tblsp) (melted)

1/4 cup honey (2 tblsp)

2 tblsp mesquite

1 tblsp lucuma powder

1/2 tsp vanilla

Melt the cacao butter and coconut oil in a double boiler. Don’t burn! Place cashews in a high speed blender and blend till powder. Add melted butter and oil till smooth. On a slower speed, add honey, lucuma and vanilla.

Pour into moulds (or ice trays) and harden in the fridge/ freezer.

Drop a taster off for Brett and Vicci…

Are Cell Phones Hazardous

Are Cell Phones Hazardous

Original article by By Dr. Mercola

In May 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), declared cell phones a Group 2B ‘Possible Carcinogen,’ meaning a “possible cancer-causing agent,” based on the available research. According to the press release:1

“Dr. Jonathan Samet … Chairman of the Working Group, indicated that ‘the evidence, while still accumulating, is strong enough to support a conclusion and the 2B classification … and therefore we need to keep a close watch for a link between cell phones and cancer risk.’

‘Given the potential consequences for public health of this classification and findings,’ said IARC Director Christopher Wild, Ph.D., ‘it is important that additional research be conducted into the longterm, heavy use of mobile phones.

Pending the availability of such information, it is important to take pragmatic measures to reduce exposure such as handsfree devices or texting.’”

Since 2011, there has been an accumulating body of scientific evidence suggesting the IARC classification should be upgraded. For example, leading brain tumor researcher, Dr. Lennart Hardell in Sweden, in December 2014, called for an upgrade to a Group 1 Carcinogen, saying:2

“After that meeting supportive evidence has come from e.g. the French CERENAT study and also our recent publication on glioma.

An increased risk for acoustic neuroma associated with use of wireless phones was published by our research group after the meeting giving pooled results of our study periods 1997 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009.

Also other studies have reported similar findings. We evaluated the Hill viewpoints on association and causation used in the 1960s in the debate on lung cancer risk among smokers.

Using these viewpoints our summary was that RF-EMF exposure should be a Group 1 carcinogen according to IARC criteria. There is now a petition to support that notion aiming at alerting IARC to classify such exposure to cause human cancer.”https://www.youtube.com/embed/714IFgGHJfk?feature=oembed

Latest Radiofrequency Study — A Wake Up Call for Cell Phone Hazard Deniers?

Despite such findings, cell phones have become increasingly pervasive and such a common part of our daily lives that most people never think twice about using them and carrying them on their body all day long.

Some do exercise caution, using speakerphone or texting, for instance, instead of holding the phone up to their ear (and right next to their brain), but many still refuse to believe the risks are real.

Alas, researchers have demonstrated that wireless phones and other gadgets have the potential to cause all sorts of health problems, from headaches to brain tumors, with young children being at greatest risk.

Sure, some studies have also found no effects, but most of these were industry-funded, which tends to render the results less reliable.

In fact, 72 percent of industry-funded studies have failed to discern any biological effect from cell phone radiation exposure, whereas 67 percent of independent studies (those not funded by industry) did find biological effects.3

For example, by 1990, before there even was a consumer cell phone industry, at least two dozen epidemiological studies on humans indicated a link between electromagnetic fields (EMF) and/or radio frequencies (RF) and serious health problems, including childhood leukemia.

And in 1977, there was a Senate hearing on the subject of radiofrequency radiation and brain tumors. The link between brain cancer and cell phone use has been a particularly persistent one, and mounting research has only made this association stronger.

Most recently, partial results of a large U.S. federal government funded animal study suggests wireless radiation from mobile phones increased the risk of heart and brain tumors in male mice.4,5,6,7,8

Heart and Brain Tumors Found in Rats Exposed to Cell Phone Radiation

The study was done by the National Toxicology Program (NTP), an interagency research program started by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 1978 and now housed at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

To evaluate the impact of RF on the rats, the animals were placed in special chambers in which they were exposed to various levels of cell phone radiation for a total of nine hours a day, seven days a week, from birth to the age of 2 (basically the full lifespan of a rat).

Both Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and Global System for Mobile (GSM) modulations were used.

A control group lived out their lives without exposure. Of the exposed rats, 2 to 3 percent of the males developed malignant gliomas (a form of brain cancer). None in the control group developed cancer.

Interestingly, exposed female rats had far lower cancer rates than the males — nearly three-quarters lower — but gender differences are not an unusual finding in research, according to experts.

Of the male rats exposed to the highest levels of cell phone radiation, 5 to 7 percent also developed schwannomas (nerve cell tumors) in their hearts. None in the control group developed this problem.

According to the authors, these brain and heart cancers were likely caused by whole-body exposure to the cell phone radiation. No statistically significant difference in the numbers of tumors was noted between CDMA versus GSM modulations.

(Note that other research has shown even greater risk for brain tumors from newer 3G phones or Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), despite the power being significantly lower. This suggests a similar animal study, such as the NTP study, using 3G technology, might show even greater tumor risk.)

Disagreements Over Test Results Abound

The study has been criticized for its anomalies however, which include an increased death rate among the controls, and the fact that none of the controls developed cancer. In other studies performed by the NTP, an average of 2 percent of controls tends to develop gliomas.

Still, the authors warn that even if the risk is very small, it should not be discounted. Moreover, the results do indicate a dose-dependent relationship between exposure and cancer risk, meaning the longer the rats were exposed the greater the risk.

“Given the extremely large number of people who use wireless communication devices, even a very small increase in the incidence of disease resulting from exposure to the RFR (radio-frequency radiation) generated by those devices would have broad implications for public health,” they say.

Dr. Otis Brawley, Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society also noted that “the NTP report linking RFR to two types of cancer marks a paradigm shift in our understanding of radiation and cancer risk.” This was an about-face for the American Cancer Society, which has long been a denier of risk.

Christopher Portier, Ph.D., retired head of the NTP who was involved in the launch of the study, also insists the differences between the sexes means it’s not an associated finding, but rather a clear and causative relationship between exposure to GSM and CDMA radiation and cancer among the male rats.

“I would call it a causative study, absolutely,” he told Scientific American.9 “They controlled everything in the study. It’s [the cancer] because of the exposure.” Previous research certainly supports these findings. In one, those who began using cell phones heavily before age 20 had four to five times more brain cancer by their late 20s, compared to those whose exposure was minimal.10,11

Electromagnetic Fields Can Damage Cells and DNA Via Cellular Stress Responses

Research by Martin Blank, Ph.D., a Special Lecturer and retired Associate Professor at Columbia University in the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics and former president of the Bioelectromagnetics Society,15 explains that electromagnetic fields (EMF) damage your cells and DNA by inducing a cellular stress response.

He gave an informative speech at the November 18, 2010 Commonwealth Club of California program, “The Health Effects of Electromagnetic Fields,” co-sponsored by ElectromagneticHealth.org (embedded above for your convenience).

According to Blank, the coiled structure of DNA is very vulnerable to electromagnetic fields. It possesses the same structural characteristics of a fractal antenna (electronic conduction and self-symmetry), and these two properties allow for greater reactivity of DNA to EMF than other tissues. Moreover, no heat is required for this DNA damage to occur.

Blank believes the potential harm of wireless technologies can be significant, and that there’s plenty of peer-reviewed research to back up such suspicions. For example, a 2009 review16 of 11 long-term epidemiologic studies revealed using a cell phone for 10 years or longer doubles your risk of being diagnosed with a brain tumor on the same side of the head where the cell phone is typically held.

Thousands of studies showing biological effects from low-intensity EMF were also synthesized and summarized in the BioInitiative Report17 (2007 and 2012), including immune system effects, neurological effects, cognitive effects and much more.

Another important study,18,19 funded by the U.S. government, was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2011. Using a positron emission tomography or PET scan capable of detecting alterations in glucose, the researchers determined that cell phone radiation triggers your brain cells to metabolize glucose at an increased rate.

Glucose metabolism equates to cell activation, so the findings indicate that radiation from your cell phone has a well-defined measureable influence on your brain. Essentially, each time you put a cell phone up to your ear, you’re artificially activating your brain cells. That said, it’s still unclear whether this excess glucose production is directly harmful, or can cause a cascade of problems down the line, but there is no question there are biological effects from the radiation.

Epidemiologist Calls for Revised Cell Phone Standards

Devra Davis, Ph.D., an epidemiologist and author of the book, “Disconnect,” has been an outspoken proponent of improved cell phone standards and regulations. At present, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) bases its standards on a model that overwhelmingly does not apply to the population at large. As explained in a recent article by STAT:20

“[T]he current FCC standards are unrealistic because they’re based on … a creature called Standard Anthropomorphic Man, or SAM — that’s larger than the average person, and, therefore, able to withstand more radiation exposure than most people. ‘SAM is not an ordinary guy,’ Davis wrote.

‘He ranked in size and mass at the top 10 percent of all military recruits in 1989, weighing more than 200 pounds, with an 11-pound head, and standing about 6 feet 2 inches tall.

SAM was not especially talkative, as he was assumed to use a cell phone for no more than six minutes.’ On Friday [May 27, 2016], Davis reiterated her call for revised FCC standards that would be based on the average person … ‘Every parent who thinks it’s so cute to give their kids a little cell phone should ask themselves if they would give them a glass of whiskey or a gun,’ she said.”

Camilla Rees of ElectromagneticHealth.org says there is also question as to whether the FCC is enforcing its own thermal guidelines. She says:

“While we know the FCC SAR limits are only intended to protect from potential heating effects, and do not consider low-intensity biological effects which are equally important, questions exist about the FCC’s effectiveness at regulating the thermal risks they do acknowledge. Some believe a great number of phones on the market today are well over the FCC limit, and greater surveillance to protect the public is needed.”

1 in 4 Car Accidents Caused by Cell Phones

It’s not just the RF that makes cell phones dangerous. They also play a significant role in car accidents caused by distracted drivers, which took the life of nearly 3,330 people in 2012 and injured 421,000.21 Last year, the National Safety Council (NSC) reported that cell phone use is responsible for 26 percent of all car accidents in the U.S.22

Surprisingly, only 5 percent were related specifically to texting, suggesting talking on the phone is just as risky, if not more. Among teen drivers, the influence of cell phones on accident rates is much higher however. According to a recent report by the American Automobile Association (AAA), 60 percent of car crashes involving teenagers are due to talking, texting and other distractions.23

Aside from cell phone usage, other distractions for teens causing them to be involved in car accidents included talking to passengers and looking at something inside the car.

Overall, using your cell phone in any manner while driving increases your chances of an accident, as it takes your attention off the task at hand, which is to keep your eyes on the road, your hands on the wheel, and your mind on safe driving. Indeed, research24 has shown that driving performance is equally affected while using either a handheld or hands-free phone, leading to effects such as increased reaction time.

This warning is especially relevant for American drivers, as a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that talking, texting and reading e-mail on the phone while driving are far more prevalent in the U.S. than in Europe.

In the U.S., 69 percent of drivers between the ages of 18 and 64 reported talking on their cell phone while driving within the last 30 days. One-third of U.S. drivers also read or sent text messages or emails while driving — twice the rate of texting and emailing drivers in Spain.

A little more than 30 percent of U.S. drivers report never using a cell phone while driving, compared to nearly 80 percent of drivers in the U.K and about 60 percent of drivers in Germany, France and Spain.

Also on the rise are pedestrian injuries from cell phones, which are up 35 percent since 2010. It’s estimated that 10 percent of the 78,000 US pedestrian injuries in 2012 were the result of “mobile device distraction.”25 In this case, research has shown that texting is significantly more dangerous than talking on a cell phone while walking.26 To make the roads safer for everyone, the CDC offers the following commonsense recommendations:

  • Model safe behavior behind the wheel — never text and drive.
  • Always stay focused and alert when driving.
  • Take the pledge — commit to distraction-free driving.
  • Speak out if the driver in your car is distracted.
  • Encourage your friends and family to designate their cars a “no phone” zone when driving.It is important to note potential conflicts of interest in the media, and know the values of the people at publications from whom you receive your information. When one looks into who owns The New York Times, it is not surprising to learn that billionaire telecom magnate Carlos Slim, who owns wireless assets globally, and who is Chairman and Chief Executive of telecommunications companies Telmex and América Móvil, is a major shareholder.31How to Protect Your Health From Cell Phone RadiationNevertheless, as the years pass, more and more studies keep coming to the conclusion I formed several years ago, which is that the risks of RF are real, and that we need to invoke the precautionary principle with regards to the use of cell phones and other wireless technologies. International EMF scientists from 39 countries last May issued the International EMF Scientist Appeal to the United Nations calling for precautionary action, announced by spokesperson Dr. Martin Blank (see video above).34 Until the industry and regulators start taking this matter seriously, the responsibility to keep children safe falls on the parents and schools. To minimize the risk to your brain, and that of your child, I recommend paying heed to the following common-sense advice:
  • It’s important to note that researchers are in general agreement that there’s a latency period of about 10 years or more before the damage shows up, which places children at greatest risk, since their exposures are earlier in life and longer.
  • Last year, I was interviewed for a New York Times33 article about the health concerns associated with wearable technologies. As usual, I was criticized for raising concerns, and after the fact the editor even noted that I shouldn’t have been used as a source due to being “widely criticized by experts for his claims about disease risks and treatments.”
  • Joel Moskowitz, Ph.D. of U.C. Berkeley has created a table, “Spin vs Fact: National Toxicology Program on Cancer Risk from Cell Phone Radiation,”32 to illuminate some of the ways parties have downplayed the recent rat study, contrasting the spin with facts. The flurry of media coverage on this topic has highlighted biases at a number of publications, so remember to not take anything on face value alone, but instead always dig into the facts and learn which publications have an industry slant.
  • While many publications wrote responsibly about the recent NTP rat study, such as The Wall Street Journal,27 Scientific American,28 Mother Jones, Science,29 Consumer Reports,30 and several others globally, The New York Times downplayed the findings, and also put out a video on the subject that contrasted sharply with the video of the Wall Street Journal’s Ryan Knudson.
  • Beware of Industry Bias
✓ Don’t let your child use a cell phoneBarring a life-threatening emergency, children should not use a cell phone, or a wireless device of any type. Children are far more vulnerable to cell phone radiation than adults due to having thinner skull bones, and developing immune systems and brains.
✓ Keep your cell phone use to a minimumTurn your cell phone off more often. Reserve it for emergencies or important matters. As long as your cell phone is on, it emits radiation intermittently, even when you are not actually making a call. Use a landline phone at home and at work, and if you use a cell phone, develop a practice of forwarding it to a landline whenever possible.
✓ Reduce or eliminate your use of other wireless devicesJust as with cell phones, it is important to ask yourself whether or not you really need to routinely use wireless devices. A hard-wired Ethernet internet connection for computers, printers and peripherals is not only safer for your health, but significantly faster and more secure. Reconsider any wearable tech, like smart watches, which emit extremely high levels of radiation. Wireless on the body is extremely misguided.
✓ Opt for older portable home phonesIf you must use a portable home phone, use the older kind that operates at 900 MHz. They are no safer during calls, but at least some of them do not continuously broadcast when not in use. Note the only way to truly be sure if your cordless phone is emitting radiation is to use an electrosmog meter, and it must be one that goes up to the frequency of your portable phone. (I recommend looking for an RF meter that goes up to 8 Gigahertz to cover most phones).You can find RF meters at www.emfsafetystore.com. Even without an RF meter, you can be fairly certain your portable phone is problematic if the technology is labeled DECT, which stands for “digitally enhanced cordless technology.” Alternatively, be careful with the base station placement as that causes the bulk of the problem since it transmits signals 24/7, even when you aren’t talking.Try keeping the base station at least three rooms away from where you spend most of your time, especially your bedroom. Ideally, it would be beneficial to turn off or disconnect your base station at night before you go to bed. Or, better yet, just have it on hand for times when portability is essential and use a corded landline phone the majority of time.
✓ Limit cell phone use to areas with excellent receptionThe weaker the reception, the more power your phone must use to transmit, and the more power it uses the more radiation it emits. Ideally, only use your phone with full bars and good reception.
✓ Avoidv carrying your cell phone on your body, and do not sleep with it below your pillow or near your headIdeally put it in your purse or carrying bag. Placing a cell phone in your bra or in a shirt pocket over your heart is asking for trouble, as is placing it in a man’s pocket if he seeks to preserve his fertility.
✓ Don’t assume one cell phone is safer than anotherThere’s no such thing as a “safe” cell phone. A specific absorption rate (SAR) value for a phone only addresses one form of risk, the thermal effects, comparing one phone to another, and it is not a measure of biological safety. Frequencies, peaks, pulsing and other signal characteristics are also biologically active. The longer one is exposed the greater the risk. If you want to be safe, use hard-wired connections.
✓ Respect others; many are highly sensitive to EMF/RFSome people who have become sensitive can feel the effects of others’ cell phones in the same room, even when it is on but not being used. If you are in a meeting, on public transportation, in a courtroom or other public places, keep your cell phone turned off out of consideration for the “second hand radiation” effects. Children are also more vulnerable, so please avoid using your cell phone near children.
✓ Use a well-shielded wired headsetWired headsets will certainly allow you to keep the cell phone farther away from your body. However, if a wired headset is not well-shielded — and most of them are not — the wire itself can act as an antenna attracting and transmitting radiation directly to your brain.So make sure the wire used to transmit the signal to your ear is shielded. Better headsets use a combination of shielded wire and air-tube. These operate like a stethoscope, transmitting the sound to your head as an actual sound wave. Although there are wires that still must be shielded, there is no wire that goes all the way up to your head.
✓ Be a role modelSet limits on how people can communicate with you to minimize cell phone and wireless radiation exposures. The instant gratification one may get from being in constant contact is not worth the serious risks of radiation exposures. Take a stand for yourself and be a role model for your children.
✓ Help educate your children’s schoolsBring evidence of risk from cell phone and wireless technologies to schools and teachers unions. Protective change is not going to happen soon enough at the federal level, thus grassroots action to educate people responsible for the lives of vulnerable populations is essential. Follow this topic at Campaign for Radiation Free Schools on Facebook.

For the full article, go to : http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/06/15/cell-phone-radiation-effects.aspx?utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20160615Z2&et_cid=DM110433&et_rid=1529980772