All Medicines Are Poisons

Dictionary.com defines "poison" as:

1. a substance with an inherent property that tends to destroy life or impair health
2. any variety of alcoholic liquor

Dictionary.com defines "drug" as:

1. a chemical substance used in treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being
2. any article, other than food, intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of humans or other animals

You can see how these 2 can certainly be interchangeable when speaking of various substances.  It's important to know that ANYTHING that is not classified as a food, that you put into your body, is considered a drug and a poison.  This means that something as simple as caffeine is considered to be a drug/poison.  Now, most of us think of something that is going to kill us when we think of the word poison.  I think the film industry is responsible for that misconception, because you can clearly see from the definition that it is not necessarily something that causes death.  It is simply something that impairs health or destroys life.

So, let's stick with the caffeine example for a minute before I get to main reason for this post.  Caffeine is the most widely used "drug" in the United States.  It is not considered a food because it has no nutritional value.  It is considered a drug because it alters various biological and physiological processes in your body.  It falls under the category of "poison" for the same reasons, including the fact that you can have side-effects from caffeine.  Side-effects are the unwanted characteristics of a drug that come along with the wanted benefits of the same substance.  When you ingest caffeine, you want to be alert, energetic, and awake, and it does just that.  However, caffeine also can cause headaches, rapid heart beat, nervousness, insomnia, and much more.  Those would be the side-effects.  Do you understand the difference?  When you eat an apple, you get the full nutritional benefits, but it doesn't come with any side-effects.  Please note here that allergies are NOT considered side effects.  So if you're allergic to peanuts, and you eat one, the cascade of unwanted events you will experience are not side effects, it's just your immune system going haywire.

Why am I talking so much about this?  Well because, in some of my previous posts, I've mentioned various diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, etc.  All of these diseases are treated with some sort of medication.  All of the medication used to treat these diseases (or any disease) will help to alleviate the effects that the disease is having on you, but they also ALL come with their own side-effects.  It's absolutely true.  Every single medicine out there has some sort of potential side effect.  And the medicines that treat the diseases I've mentioned above are usually taken for the rest of one's life.  Most of the effects of these medications start with the liver.  In case you didn't know, one of the main functions of the liver is to detoxify the blood.  As you know, anything put into your body goes into the bloodstream and thus to the liver.  From a single dose of Tylenol for a headache to a regular regimen of Lipitor to a night of binge drinking in a bar, the liver goes right to work to remove that "poison" from your system.  Obviously, over the course of several years, your liver is going to be quite overworked, especially when it comes to alcohol.  Next to the liver, the kidneys are hit pretty hard too.  Whatever the liver removes from the blood is sent to the kidneys so that it can be dumped into the bladder in order to be excreted.  Those are the two main organs affected.  Of course, side effects can affect any part of the body, including the brain, heart, lungs, muscles, bones, etc.

My message to you is to start making the changes necessary NOW to improve your diet and increase your physical activity so that you will lose unnecessary weight.  Obesity is a major risk factor for many diseases, especially the ones mentioned above.  Simply losing 10 lbs of body fat can cut your risk for developing some of this disease IN HALF or even reverse the effects of some of them!  Isn't that an amazing thing to know?

I know that eating all of your favorite sugary, fatty, fried, greasy, oily foods tastes soooo good, but is it really worth it to have a free-for-all with that stuff and suffer the annoying and painful and sometimes deadly consequences later on in life?  I don't think so.  Besides, do you really want to have to be responsible for taking 20 pills or more a day just to keep a stupid disease (that you shouldn't have) at bay?

Get healthy.  Eat right.  Exercise.  Lose Weight.  And you WON'T need to depend on poisons to keep you alive!

Are You On Track For A Heart Attack?

I never like to post things that scare people, but I believe in being true and honest.  The reality is that heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in America.  Part of it is genetic.  A very small part.  The vast majority has to do with what you eat and how much you eat.  Although heart disease can strike an overweight person just as well as it can strike a thin person, I'm writing about it because this blog is not just about losing weight, it's about being healthy.  Your first priority should be to be as healthy as possible, and things like weight loss will fall right into place.

As far as heart disease is concerned, let me explain what happens.  Basically, as you continue to consume fatty meals, plaque starts to build up in your coronary arteries.  The same kind of plaque that builds up on your teeth.  You know what that looks like.  It builds up so snugly against the walls of your arteries that it basically becomes part of the artery itself.  At least your body thinks so.  Over time (years) your arteries also lose elasticity.  Just like any other part of your body (skin, etc), elasticity decreases and the arteries stiffen up.  So, every time your heart beats, the artery wall can't expand as much as it used to. If that built up plaque gets bigger and bigger, the force of the blood moving through the artery can break a piece of that plaque off.

Now, since your body thinks that plaque is a part of itself, what happens next?  The same thing that happens when any wound occurs.  Your body tries to repair the wound. Think about if you cut yourself.  You bleed, and then your body repairs the wound by forming a scab.  The elements that form a scab are very sticky and clumpy, and that stops the bleeding.  This exact same thing happens inside your heart when a piece of that plaque breaks off.  Sticky, clumpy molecules aggregate in one of your heart's arteries to repair that wound.  There's just one problem.  Those arteries are so small and delicate, that the "scab" fully blocks the artery and blood flow stops.  100%.  Whichever part of the heart muscle is connected to that artery dies due to lack of oxygen, and you keel over in pain.  If it was a small coronary artery, you would have a mild heart attack.  If it was a larger artery, you could have a massive heart attack and possibly die.  Regardless, once a piece of the heart muscle dies, large or small, you can't get it back.  See the diagram to the right from http://www.healthy-anti-aging-solutions.com.

And so, technically speaking, no one ever had a heart attack due to the actual plaque build up.  The body's defense and repair mechanisms are what is responsible for the complete blockage of the artery.  Amazing isn't it?

After someone has a "mild" heart attack, they immediately jump on a new diet, no fat, not cholesterol, etc., etc.  That is a good thing.  It's a must.  But what I want you to know is that no one ever had a heart attack because they ate a big greasy burger last week!  The events leading up to the heart attack result from years of eating foods high in fat and cholesterol.  It's that simple.  Start eating the right foods NOW so you can stop the plaque build up in your arteries dead in its tracks.  Seriously, can you imagine what it must feel like for your heart to stop?  I don't imagine that is something you want to experience.  And you don't have to.

Make the change NOW!