Taking showers can cause cancer! Twenty years ago the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) placed hot showers on their list of cancer sources. The main culprit was chlorine. Chlorine is a poisonous chemical, a bleaching agent. Sure, it does a great job of killing living things in our water, like bacteria and viruses. The problem is we’re living things too. Chlorine gas was used as a deadly weapon during World War I! Chlorine is a pro-oxidant that causes free radical damage in the body, a major factor in aging and in every kind of disease. Chlorine and its by-products have been linked with various forms of cancer, neurological issues, reproductive problems, heart disease (including atherosclerosis and hypertension), decreased immunity, allergies, hypothyroidism and lung problems. When you smell chlorine in your shower, it’s because it’s escaping into the air as chlorine gas. Since showers are usually poorly ventilated, chlorine gas concentrations can be quite high. In sufficient…

Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, has a grim prognosis for our future: “Antimicrobial resistance is on the rise . . . [As antibiotics lose their effectiveness a] post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child’s scratched knee could once again kill. Some sophisticated interventions, like hip replacements, organ transplants, cancer chemotherapy, and care of preterm infants, would become far more difficult or even too dangerous to undertake.”Well, we aren’t as gloomy about a post-antibiotic era. For all the good they’ve done, antibiotics as we’ve known them have done a whole lot of damage to almost everyone’s intestinal probiotic population, harming immunity and paving the way for all kinds of disease. We need different kinds of antibiotics that don’t indiscriminately kill good and helpful microbes along with the bad, and that the bad bugs won’t build resistance to. Fortunately,…

Beyond Health’s approach to weight loss, presented in Raymond Francis’ Never Be Fat Again, (NBFA) is based on the theory of one disease and two causes. We say there is really only one disease—malfunctioning body cells, and two reasons why cells malfunction—they are deficient in needed nutrients and/or they are being poisoned by toxins. Overweight is a type of disease, and as better health is achieved, the body will naturally lose excess weight.Intuitive eating (IE) is an anti-diet approach to weight loss which seeks to help people regain a lost or weakened ability to “hear” and respond to body cues relating to hunger and satiation. Regaining this ability, it is hoped, will lead to losing excess weight. Both IE and NBFA agree that diets don’t work. Thought they can lead to short-term weight loss, most of this weight is regained over time. They also agree that diets are usually harmful and enforce the bad habit of overriding internal body cues. Following the strategies of IE that we…