Thanks to Sandra for sending us the following article..Myrl


The Rise of Modern Illnesses

December 08, 2004

By: Beldeu Singh
Independent Media TV

For the last 100 years sperm count in the human male has been declining
while in the last 25 years, the incidence of breast cancer in females
is on the rise. Cancers, arthritis, gout, endocrinal problems, male
erectile dysfunction, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease,
Alzheimer's disease and acquired immune deficiency syndrome are on
the rise. In this scenario, a sign that cannot be ignored is the
increasing incidence of abnormalities found in frogs in ponds and
lakes. Something is amiss.  All of the above has taken place in global
scenario that occurred for the first time on earth. In this scenario we
created biologically dead rivers. We reduced virgin forests that had
stood for a 100 million years into pockets. We produced unprecedented
damage to biodiversities and biodiversity webs, starting with clearing
temperate forests. Many species of wildlife became extinct. The damage
is continuing relentlessly in the name of economy and population
pressures and now our rainforests are being decimated under this
onslaught supported by illegal poaching. The pollution rates are going
up - not down. And there are no programs on an international scale
coordinated to rehabilitate the environment in which we live.

Modern industry is big business. In the last 50 years, industrial
scientists have created many new chemicals that are toxic and
carcinogenic and the annual production of these chemicals runs into
hundreds of millions of tons. A large part of this toxicity enters our
environment and ends up in our food.

For the environmentally aware, there is no need to describe the
environmental problems we face today. Literally thousands of books,
articles and films have been produced showing that the biosphere has
been dramatically disturbed and chemically changed by human activities
(Ecology 30). But the average individual may not know that in 1989
alone, more than 1,000,000,000 pounds of chemicals were released into
the ground, contaminating our farmlands and drinking waters. Over
188,000,000 pounds of chemicals were also discharged into surface
waters such as lakes and rivers. More than 2,400,000,000 pounds of
chemicals were pumped into the air we breathe. A grand total of
5,705,670,380 pounds of chemical pollutants were released into the
environment which we eat, breathe, and live in-all in just one year
(cf Nicole MR 2002, ISP, college of Lifelong Learning; Wayne State
University). All of these are toxic to some degree or are free radicals
or generate free radical damage in the body. Some of these chemicals
are similar to biomolecules in the body and they are utilized in
metabolic reactions resulting in disease conditions simply because the
body cannot differentiate between them.

The automobile created the automotive industry. It all started with the
invention of the internal combustion engine that turns the wheels of
economy. That same engine competes with life forms for oxygen and spews
thousand of tons of toxic fumes and very fine pollutants which can lead
to cardiovascular disease or sudden heart failure. Ever heard of
traffic jams and cardiovascular disease or sudden heart failure in the
1950s?

We have polluted our seas with mercury, lead and cadmium. When a ship
sank near New Zealand thousands of tons of rat poison disappeared into
the sea in minutes. When the US military bombed Vietnam with napalm or
Agent Orange, thousands of tons of toxic dioxins was spread on the
rainforests. It eventually entered the ecology and through the water
systems began to pollute the fish in the South China Sea. In short, our
food chains now contain heavy metals and free radicals and the only
fish oil I will consume must be molecularly distilled!

As if that toxicity in the environment is not enough, people take to
smoking, taking millions of free radicals with each puff and consume
large quantities of alcohol. Alcohol converts to acetaldehyde in our
body, which has shown to increase breast cancer in animals. Alcohol
depletes folic acid, which causes gene mutation resulting in higher
cancer risk. Alcohol can damage the liver, which increases estrogen in
the body because the liver cannot effectively detoxify it. We can, in
fact, talk in terms of smokers' diseases and alcohol illnesses, all of
which are caused by or initiated by free radicals generated by smoke or
alcohol in the body.

Certain segments of our society also use products derived from
petrochemicals as sexual lubricants and in certain cosmetic products
that are toxic to various degrees and even carcinogenic. Many of such
chemicals generate free radicals in the body leading to immune
deficiencies and lymphomas or opportunistic infections.

During the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 an old story was retold in new
halls - 85% of US farm soils were depleted of minerals with a
worldwide depletion of 75%. A forgotten US Senate Report (Document 264)
dating to 1936 had given the same warning and in clear terms stated
that food grown on such farms was also depleted of minerals. The
implications have grave impact on health. With the depletion of
micronutrients in farm soils the levels of vitamins and minerals have
dropped drastically. The table below (Table I) paints the grave picture
clearly.

Table I: Comparison of Minerals
1940 & 1991 Showing Depletion (% Less)
Report By Medical Council Research: Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food And Royal Society of
Chemistry: Source - (Editor Lynne Mc Taggart -
2003,Publisher Bryan Hubbard)
Item Mineral
Carrots magnesium 75%, calcium 48%,iron 46%, copper
75%
Broccoli (Boiled) calcium 75%
Spring onion calcium 74%
Spinach (Boiled) iron 60%, copper 96%
Swede iron 71%
Watercress copper 93%
Potatoes magnesium 30%, calcium 35%,iron 45%, copper
47%
All meats calcium 41%, iron 54%
All fruits zinc 27%
Apples and oranges iron 67%


What this data means is worrying. You have to eat 10 tomatoes in 1991
to obtain the same amount of copper you got from one tomato in 1940 and
drink juice from 3 oranges to get the iron you got from one orange in
1940. Today you probably need to eat three apples to keep the doctor
away. But, that is not the answer.

The startling conclusion thus far is this: The levels of free radicals
and free radical generating chemicals in our environment have gone up
many fold while the level of micronutrients and antioxidants in our
food intake has declined by 33 - 43%! That is the recipe for the rise
in modern illnesses which has ballooned treatment costs and has proved
to be a boon to the pharmaceutical industry characterized by a silent
shift from health to treatment by drugs.

The prevalent use of immunotoxic or immunodepressant medication for
treatment of diseases and all the chronic illnesses that are linked to
free radicals or chemicals that generate free radicals in the body only
adds to the problem scenario. This is compounded by the practice of
seeding soils with only three minerals and this story, which is a
"tragedy-in-agriculture", goes back to a chemist in Germany by the
name of Justus von Liebig (1803 - 1873).

Justus von Liebig, using crude equipment tested ash from burnt plant
material which revealed only three substances - N, P and K (nitrogen,
phosphorous and potassium). Later, biotechnology revealed a long list
of other minerals, some in trace amounts in the ash of burnt plant
material. In the late 19th century NPK was introduced as a fertilizer
which at first appeared to boost agriculture. The fertilizer industry,
producing NPK, grew big enough to pressure commercial decisions and
"the West continued to embrace NPK fertilizers". This has not
changed till today and most people in developed societies continue to
consume food and fruits from agriculture that are relatively deficient
in nutrients compared to farm produce 50 years ago.

After 50 years of NPK we discovered the following;

Table II: Comparison of Food Then And Now

Wheat (1900) - 90% protein - Down to 9.0%
100 g of Spinach (1948) - 150 mg of iron - Down to 27
mg (1965), Down to 2.2 mg (1973), Down to 1.0 mg



The conclusion that most people in cities have zinc, selenium, vitamin
C, beta-carotene, vitamin E and other antioxidants below the
nutritionally accepted levels is quite natural based on the fact that
about 50 minerals in most soils have depleted through leaching and NPK
dependence. That is not good news for maintaining robust health and the
finding reported in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1969; 22:
1332-9) that most Americans are clinically deficient in chromium,
magnesium and manganese, especially teenage girls and the elderly comes
as no surprise but more like an expectation. Going by the available
data and by scientific inference, it can be safely stated that many
minerals, anthocyanins, polyphenolic compounds, flavonoids and vitamins
have decreased in fruits, cereals and vegetables.

And those nutrients, including those that are depleting in our farm
soils, are important to maintain high blood anti-oxidant levels to
scavenge free excess free radicals or minimize oxidative stress or
oxidative damage to cells and both antioxidants and minerals are
required for metabolic activity in cells and tissues and maintain good
health or restore health.

Free radicals cause arrhythmias, cardiovascular disease, AIDS, cancers,
problems in endocrinal function as well as problems in reproductive
biology and are linked to at least 100 chronic illnesses. The full
range of minerals in food is important in healthy functioning of cells
and for a healthy immune system together with vitamins and other
antioxidants. Antioxidants scavenge free radicals in the body and
render them harmless. This mechanism protects the cell walls and
protects the metabolic activities in cells. Therefore the levels of the
full range of micronutrients and anti-oxidants in the blood have a
meaningful correlation with ageing and chronic illnesses and the
body's ability to heal.

So, the NPK theory is the world's biggest fraud and hurts health as
much as the rise of free radicals in our environment. Continuing with
the NPK theory in the face of science and continuing to pollute our
environment with free radicals or dependence on immunotoxic medication
or free radical generating medication to treat modern illnesses is
simply absurd.


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