Money is the root of all evil and power corrupts.

So, you might as well start educating your children about both at an early age.

Teaching children about power usage can be a difficult task. It’s not easy explaining the concept of electricity to a child, let alone the fact that we have to pay for it. (But, why, Mom?) A cute little pig might help to solve this problem and monitor television and game usage at the same time. Power Hog is designed to teach children about the energy costs associated with their electrical devices.

Power Hog, an adorably pig-shaped power monitor introduces kids to energy efficiency (and general thriftiness) by piggybacking upon the familiar format of the piggy bank. You simply plug the tail into the power outlet and the snout into the electric device, feed in some coins and this little piggy does the rest. When the Power Hog is connected the dollar sign glows green, it fades when there is sufficient credit and alerts you that money is running low by blinking red.

The hog’s casing will be composed of an up-cycled resin made from recycled PET bottles, and it will ship with eco-friendly packaging. The pig itself is 100% recyclable and the cord is PVC free.

The Power Hog was designed by Mathieu Zastawny, Mansour Ourasanah, Tom Dooley, Peter Byar, Elysa Soffer and Mathieu Turpault and won second place in the Greener Gadgets Design Competition held in February 2009.

The Power Hog is marketed to parents who want to teach their children that electricity isn’t a free, never-ending resource as well as those who want a clever way to limit TV time. It is a novel way to associate energy conservation with savings. Even if your kid just unplugs the pig and plugs their device directly into the wall, surely anything that heightens a child’s awareness of power usage is a positive.

Do your friends and family email you jokes like this:

For several years, a man was having an affair with an Italian woman. One
night, she confided in him that she was pregnant. Not wanting to ruin his
reputation or his marriage, he paid her a large sum of money if she would go
to Italy to secretly have the child. If she stayed in Italy to raise the
child, he would also provide child support until the child turned 18. She
agreed, but asked how he would know when the baby was born.

To keep it discrete, he told her to simply mail him a post card, and write
‘Spaghetti’ on the back. He would then arrange for the child support
payments to begin.

One day, about 9 months later, he came home to his confused wife. ‘Honey,
’she said, ‘You received a very strange post card today.’ ‘Oh, just give it
to me and I’ll explain it later,’ he said. The wife obeyed and watched as
her husband read the card, turned white, and fainted.

On the card was written:

‘Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.

Three with meatballs, two without.

Send extra sauce.

I have no idea where this came from originally, but it’s pretty funny.

I much prefer these forwarded emails to the infamous chain letters. What if I don’t have 20 people in my address book to whom I want to send religious/political/racist/sexist/ignorant claptrap. Spam filters don’t catch this stuff either, because it’s typically sent from people you know and want email from, just not this kind of email. Has anyone figured out a filter for this kind of forwarded email? If they have, where can I get it?

Happy Belated Birthday Barbie!

Barbie doesn’t look a day older than at her debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959.

“I’m a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world” - the music group Aqua’s tune was the only possible soundtrack to celebrate the iconic doll with her fantastical wardrobe turning 50. Mattel teamed up with the Council of Fashion Designers of America to bring 50 designer fantasies to the runway for Barbie’s birthday.

New versions of Barbie have been produced each year, along with a never-ending stream of outfits for her and her friends (nearly one billion over the years), including special high fashion designs by Versace, Gucci and Givenchy (much-prized by collectors; after all, who can afford a life-size version?).

“Barbie is everything that an all-American gal should be - sporty, smart, sophisticated and sexy,” said Michael Kors, while Tommy Hilfiger called the plastic fantastic with impossibly slim hips and preternaturally rounded bosoms “the quintessential American icon.”

Barbie has spent the last five decades setting a standard—for good or ill—for how some girls view themselves. Part of Barbie’s appeal, sociologists say, is that she has always had a foot in two worlds. While praised for representing an independent, adventurous female, feminists who say she portrays women as sex objects have long targeted her.

Mattel has been accused over the years of ignoring ethnic diversity by creating African-American, Hispanic and Asian Barbie versions that had darker skin tones but retained white features of the traditional doll. Mary Rogers, a sociologist at the University of West Florida and author of “Barbie Culture” said, “That [Mattel] can manipulate racial and class imagery is what makes Barbie such a powerful commentator on who we are and the cultural contradictions we have.”

Barbie evolved from a teenage fashion model in 1959 to a successful career woman. She took on non-traditional female roles such as astronaut, Army medic, NASCAR driver and presidential candidate years before real women did. She taught us independence. Barbie was her own woman. She could invent herself with a costume change: sing a solo in the spotlight one minute, pilot a star ship the next. She was Grace Slick and Sally Ride, Marie Osmond and Marie Curie. She was all that we could be.

An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death. An abortion can occur spontaneously due to complications during pregnancy or can be induced. Abortion as a term most commonly refers to the induced abortion of a human pregnancy, while spontaneous abortions are usually termed miscarriages.

Abortion has a long history and has been induced by various methods including herbal abortifacients, the use of sharpened tools, physical trauma and other traditional methods. Modern medicine utilizes medications and surgical procedures to induce abortion. The legality, prevalence, and cultural views on abortion vary substantially around the world. In many parts of the world there is a divisive public debate over the ethical and legal aspects of abortion between the pro-life and pro-choice movements.

Reasons for procuring induced abortions are typically characterized as either therapeutic or elective. An abortion is medically referred to as therapeutic when it is performed to:

* Save the life of the pregnant woman

* Preserve the woman’s physical or mental health

* Terminate pregnancy that would result in a child born with a congenital disorder that would be fatal or associated with significant morbidity

* Selectively reduce the number of fetuses to lessen health risks associated with multiple pregnancy

An abortion is referred to as elective when it is performed at the request of the woman “for reasons other than maternal health or fetal disease.”

Worldwide, almost all abortions are the result of unintended pregnancies. Common factors cited to have influenced the abortion decision were: desire to delay or end childbearing, concern over the interruption of work or education, issues of financial or relationship stability, and perceived immaturity. Some abortions are undergone as the result of societal pressures. These might include the stigmatization of disabled persons, preference for children of a specific sex, disapproval of single motherhood, insufficient economic support for families, lack of access to or rejection of contraceptive methods, or efforts toward population control (such as China’s one-child policy). These factors can sometimes result in compulsory abortion or sex-selective abortion.

• 83% of all abortions are obtained in developing countries and 17% occur in developed countries.
• 52% of women obtaining abortions in the U.S. are younger than 25: Women aged 20-24 obtain 32% of all abortions; Teenagers obtain 20% and girls under 15 account for 1.2%.
• While white women obtain 60% of all abortions, their abortion rate is well below that of minority women. Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are roughly 2 times as likely.
• 64.4% of all abortions are performed on never-married women; Married women account for 18.4% of all abortions and divorced women obtain 9.4%.
• Women with family incomes less than $15,000 obtain 28.7% of all abortions; Women with family incomes between $15,000 and $29,999 obtain 19.5%; Women with family incomes between $30,000 and $59,999 obtain 38.0%; Women with family incomes over $60,000 obtain 13.8%.
• Women identifying themselves as Protestants obtain 37.4% of all abortions in the U.S., Catholic women account for 31.3%, Jewish women account for 1.3%, and women with no religious affiliation obtain 23.7% of all abortions. 18% of all abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as “Born-again/Evangelical”.

The most radical formulation of the anti-abortion or “pro-life” side of the debate views abortion as the murder of unborn children, and so as the equivalent of out and out infanticide, making the legal use of abortion since Roe v. Wade, at a rate of around 1.5 million a year in the United States, into a holocaust of the innocent fully comparable to the Nazi genocide against the Jews.

On the other hand, the most radical formulation of the pro-abortion or “pro-choice” side views opposition to abortion as opposition to the freedom of women, as hatred of women, and as part of a historical effort to “subjugate” women as nothing more than baby-making machines or, failing that, to see that they die in botched abortions as part of, indeed, something comparable to the Nazi genocide of the Jews.

And that is where they both lose me. If you have to equate your opponent with Hitler and the Nazis to win a debate, you don’t have a sound argument and that’s an automatic “fail” in my book. Which is why I’m firmly in the middle. I have friends in both camps, but I don’t completely agree with either side. I think, as with most things, the extreme views are wrong. Life isn’t black and white. Sometimes an abortion isn’t just the best choice; it’s the only choice. Abortions should not be used as post-conception birth control, but some women do not have access to adequate contraception. What are they supposed to do? Why do we insist that it is an either/or situation?

The “Americans With No Abilities Act” is being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition.

Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society. We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability (POI) to be ridiculed and passed over. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they have some idea of what they are doing.

Advocates point to the success of the U.S. Postal Service, which has a long-standing policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance. Approximately 74 percent of postal employees lack any job skills, making this agency the single largest U.S. employer of Persons With No Ability.

Private-sector industries with good records of non-discrimination against the inept include retail sales (72 percent), the airline industry (68 percent), and home-improvement warehouse stores (65 percent). At the state government level, the Department of Motor Vehicles also has an excellent record of hiring Persons with No Ability (63 percent).

Under the Americans With No Abilities Act, more than 25 million mid-level positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance.

Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given so as to guarantee upward mobility for even the most unremarkable employees. The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations that promote a significant number of Persons of Inability (POI) into middle-management positions, and give a tax credit to small and medium-sized businesses that agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires.

Finally, the Americans With No Abilities Act contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the non-abled, banning, for example, discriminatory interview questions such as, “Do you have any skills or experience that relate to this job?”

“As a non-abled person, I can’t be expected to keep up with people who have something going for them,” said Mary Lou Gertz, who lost her position as a lug-nut twister at the GM plant in Flint, Mich., due to her inability to remember righty tighty, lefty loosey. “This new law should be real good for people like me.” With the passage of this bill, Gertz and millions of other untalented citizens will finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

The same privileges that elected officials enjoy ought to be extended to every American with no abilities. Each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her inadequacy, should be provided with some sort of space to take up in this great nation and a good salary for doing so.

Original at The Onion.

I want a Movito. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t actually on the market yet, I still want one. In fact, I think I want more than one. One for each of us sounds much better.

Movito is a fully electric scooter designed for the dense urban landscape of the future. Its sexy design appeals to hip and trendy young adults, making a striking statement wherever it goes with its sophisticated styling and two toned colors.

Engineer/Designer Tiam Chiem’s “Movito” is a 2-modular design consisting of an upper scooter chassis and the base, which provides the drive via an in-wheel electric motor and hubless front wheel. The modular design allows a range of possible morphs, including multiple bodies to be connected to the base or two bases to be connected in parallel to form a two-seater.

The in wheel motor

The use of an in-wheel motor has allowed Chiem to design the structure of the scooter for weight reduction and a dynamic shape and form. Developed by CSIRO Australia, the in-wheel motor, which is currently utilized in solar powered, racing cars, boasts 98% efficiency, claimed by CSIRO to be higher than any other in-wheel motor. Weighing in at only 6kgs, the direct drive eliminates drive train loss and Li-ion batteries stored in the central body charge the motor.

Steering

The Motivo’s hubless wheel is based on the technology developed by Osmos and provides, amongst other benefits, for greater precision when riding. The steering pin of the orbital wheel is designed around a second large bearing in the hollow section of the circular runner. This inner bearing and the arms that attach the wheel to the main body manage steering.

Additional features

The Motivo features an integrated CPU and organic LED touch screen which allows the rider to customize the scooter to their own preference. Along with this are the features that enable the rider to connect wirelessly to the Internet, to access GPS or an iPod dock to listen to music.

The folks at NASA Tech Briefs were sufficiently impressed with the Movito design that it was recently awarded first prize in the transport category in their recent Create The Future Design Contest.

I ticked my husband, James, off this morning.

I made a comment about not having the right to complain if you didn’t vote. James said, “ You do realize you’ve managed to insult like 18 years of my life?” He also told me that there are arguments for and against voting, and I shouldn’t be so judgmental.

Whatever.

James' point of view

The only argument for not voting that I have any sympathy for are those people who are too poor to take time off from their multiple jobs to go vote. Sadly, it’s those people who need to vote the most. They are the people whose economic, social, and physical interests are constantly overlooked at best, and destroyed when inconvenient.

Remember New Orleans?

Why isn’t Election Day a national holiday? We can have a holiday for presidents long dead, but not one for choosing a new President? In what world is that sane or sensible?

We are all supposed to have a choice in our government. Unless you’ve broken some law and lost the right to vote, everyone is “allowed” to vote for his or her choice in government. Unfortunately, allowed does not mean enabled. Almost everyone in our country is “allowed” to vote, but many of us are not enabled to do so.

For some people it is the inability to take time off from work, others simply can’t get to the voting booth, and then some can’t even get to the polling place. Whatever the reason, it is a fact that too many Americans don’t participate in the most basic of civilian duties in a democracy: voting.

Found this online:

If any day on the entire calendar should be a Holiday in a democracy, it should be Election Day.   National elections should be national holidays.  State and local elections should be state holidays.  Schools should be closed for Election Day.

As a practical advantage, elementary schools could be used for polling places, without interference from or interfering with the childrens education.  And, we could very likely hire some teachers to work the polls. Teachers are good at giving instructions, and at getting people to cooperate and stay in line.

by Stephen Hansen

In a stunning and unexpected 6-3 ruling the right-leaning Supreme Court went against the wishes of the last president, took the wind out of the sails of health care reform of the current president, sent irresponsible Big Pharma a major wake up call, and bluntly told the arrogant FDA that they are indeed not above the rule of law. It is a major victory for every American citizen.

Is the FDA doing it's job?

Central to the issue is a power struggle between the federal government and states, which in this situation meant the federal government authority to pre-empt your state rights to sue if you are injured by a drug. The FDA, acting on behalf of the Bush administration and on the side of Big Pharma, has helped tie up thousands of drug injury lawsuits across the country. The FDA, who is supposed to be protecting consumers from drug injury and ensuring a correct risk/safety picture for any person taking a drug, was instead trying to shirk their responsibility and simply claim that Americans had no right to sue.

The Bush Administration had intentionally appointed anti-safety people in high positions within the FDA, starting with its Chief Counsel, Daniel Troy (and continued as a legal philosophy after Troy was forced out for his Big Pharma connections). Troy set in motion the legal problem the Supreme Court just decided.

During the final years of the Bush administration cancer industry insider Andrew von Eschenbach, MD, was appointed to run the FDA, and Wall Street insider, Scott Gottlieb, MD, was second in command. These individuals sought to fully implement the FDA label as senior to any rights of citizens. Their intention was to make sure that new biotech drugs would be protected from lawsuits, as the FDA wanted to speed new and even more dangerous drugs onto the market so as to foster the development of the biotech industry. In essence, the FDA management wanted to turn the American public into one large clinical experiment, with no right of recourse when injured.

This was occurring against a backdrop wherein the FDA couldn’t even name all the drugs currently on the market, had failed to demand required aftermarket follow up safety testing on drugs, and had intentionally withheld safety information on existing drugs from the public. The current situation with drugs is that almost no drug, even blockbusters and those in use for decades, have an accurate risk/benefit profile.

FDA allows tidal wave of drugs.

The FDA knows that when a new drug is approved for the market the full extent and range of  side effects won’t be known for years. History shows us time and again that Big Pharma actively hides risk data from the FDA and pays for “science” that distorts reality. This irresponsible behavior goes along with closed-door negotiations with the FDA, and has resulted in numerous drug disasters like Vioxx. FDA managers oftentimes go against the wishes of their own safety scientists and then move on to six figure salaries in the industry they regulate. Doctors are not apprised of the actual risks and consumers are left in the dark.

The FDA insistence that a drug label (based on what is known at the time of approval) should supersede citizen’s states rights to sue if they were injured has almost nothing to do with consumer safety. Rather, it is a federal power grab that is in the best financial interests of Big Pharma and Big Biotech, industries that do not have consumer safety as their top priority.

Experts believe this system is so badly broken, due to gross FDA mismanagement, that it will take 10 years of studies and many billions of dollars just to understand the actual risks of the drugs Americans are already taking.

In writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens put Big Pharma on notice. The defendant in this case, Wyeth, had argued that it could not comply with both federal and state law. Stevens told them they had a fundamental misunderstanding of regulation and were trying to hide behind the FDA, going on to say that it is a central premise of federal drug regulation that the manufacturer bears responsibility for the content of its label at all times.

That is not what Big Pharma wanted to hear.

…in my dreams anyway.

Known as the Sliding House, this unique piece of architectural lateral thinking was designed by London-based practice de Rijke Marsh Morgan. The brief was for a self-build house where the client could grow food, entertain, enjoy the landscape and basically retire in peace. The outcome was three buildings arranged along a longitudinal axis, with a garage set perpendicularly, off to the side to create a small patio… and one heck of a surprise.

The Surprise

Well, the name does kind of give it away. What appears to be the house’s exterior walls and roof is actually a second skin that slides across a longitudinal axis to reveal a second facade. Sliding back and forth, the mobile exterior offers the house’s residents flexibility with the look and behavior of the building. The lighting and mood of the interior spaces can be altered with the simple movement of the exterior, creating combinations of enclosure, open-air living and framing of views according to position. The building’s architectural flexibility also provides a means to control the buildings heating and cooling, according to the position of the sliding exterior.

Movement

The 20-ton house will traverse the entire site in only 6 minutes, with movement powered by hidden electric motors and wheels integrated into the wall thickness. The tracks for the outer wall have the option of being extended should the client wish to build a swimming pool, which may need occasional shelter. The entire house sits on a concrete bed, which partially hides the mechanism that allows the home to reveal a second facade.

If achieving a flexible outcome within tight planning constraints is truly the hallmark of a great architect, then dRMM architects can clearly take a bow. We absolutely loved this one.

About dRMM

Alex de Rijke, Philip Marsh and Sadie Morgan founded dRMM, a London-based studio of international architects and designers, in 1995. Now a team of about 20, the practice takes pride in only carrying out work that is innovative, high quality and socially useful. They have a track record of creating extraordinary architecture within the standard constraints of the construction industry. Their radical projects are led by site, client needs, concept and construction, rather than formulaic or style-based decisions. The team defines its approach as economy of means, expressive of use, materials and construction: an architecture of ‘maximalism’.

Doctors:

The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000. Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year is 120,000. Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.

(Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services)

Now think about this:

Gunowners:

The number of gunowners in the U.S. is 80,000,000. (Yes that is 80 million) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500. The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.000188.

(Statistics courtesy of FBI)

So, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Remember, “guns don’t kill people”, doctors do!

Fact: Not everyone has a gun.

Fact: Almost everyone has seen at least one doctor in their lifetime.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must BAN doctors before this gets completely out of hand.

Out of concern for the general public, the statistics on lawyers have been withheld for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention.

OK, I’ll admit it, I laughed at this lame joke. I’m anti guns and doctors, so this cracked me up when I first read it. But, being the kind of person who at least tries to be honest with myself, I had to point out that you can make figures say almost anything you want.

They’ve used some figures and drawn a conclusion that isn’t necessarily accurate. Even if the numbers are accurate, consider:

How many people (on average) does a gun encounter in a day?

How many people (on average) does a doctor encounter in a day?

Do the figures hold up when we consider average deaths per person encountered? How about if we consider that mostly ill people (more likely to die) visit doctors. Does that influence the figures?

“Accidental” is a loaded word (pardon the pun) here.

Today, there is more information than you can shake a stick at.  Question. Think. Investigate. Decide.  Don’t blindly accept what people tell you - not even me.

Find out for yourself.

The 4moms Cleanwater Infant Bath tub with digital thermometer could make the job of bathing baby a little easier with a design that allows clean running water to enter the bath tub and be tested for correct temperature before coming into contact with your baby’s delicate skin.

The water collection area in the tub flows from the faucet into the reservoir where the temperature is tested by a digital thermometer. The water from the reservoir then overflows into the main part of the tub in a gentle, flowing motion. Meanwhile, dirty water is being continually expelled through sidewall drains.

The thermometer responds immediately to the water temperature and the color changing backlit display shows at a glance when the water is too hot (red), just right (green) or too cold (blue). In addition, there is an audible high temperature alert so you can focus on bathing baby without worrying about the water temperature.

The bottom of the tub is contoured and will fit in single and double basins as well as in the bathtub. The bath also includes a rinse cup, which is handy when it comes time to rinse baby’s head after shampooing.

They also sell this:

The 4 Moms Bath Spout Cover with Digital Thermometer brings a whole new degree of ease to bath time. No more checking the water temperature with your hand or wrist. Simply set the water temperature using the faucet and see it on the screen. No more worries about faucet danger. The soft, cushy cover protects even the most active child. Now your child can enjoy a comfortable bathing experience while you enjoy complete peace of mind, every time baby gets in the tub. The fast responding digital thermometer makes it easy to set a safe, comfortable and consistent bath temperature for your child. The soft cushy cover protects baby’s head from bumps and bruises. The backlit display, which changes color with water temperature, and graphic Comfort Zone take the guesswork out of monitoring bath temperature.

These are just more pieces of plastic junk that parents don’t need, use valuable resources to make, and with electronics embedded are a chore/responsibility to dispose of or recycle correctly.

Is bathing your child really this difficult?

The inside of my wrist was an acceptable temperature gauge for my kids. If it’s hot for you, it will burn the baby. If it’s cold, the baby will cry. Doesn’t seem overly complicated to me. I can understand wanting to cushion that hard bathtub faucet, but do you really need a built-in electronic thermometer?

I think it is a far better idea to simply test the water on yourself, and then stay with your kids while they bathe. If you’re there watching them, accidents are much less likely and you won’t have to worry about padding the faucet. Unless you are the one who needs the protection from burning and bumping, in which case I apologize for my rant and wish you the best of luck.

After all the serious diabetes posts, I needed something a little lighter.

GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:

1. No matter how hard you try, you can’t baptize cats

2. When your Mom is mad at your Dad, don’t let her brush your hair.

3. If your sister hits you, don’t hit her back. They always catch the second person.

4. Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.

5. You can’t trust dogs to watch your food.

6. Don’t sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.

7. Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.

8. You can’t hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.

9. Don’t wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.

10. The best place to be when you’re sad is Grandpa’s lap.

GREAT TRUTHS THAT ADULTS HAVE LEARNED:

1. Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a wall.

2. Wrinkles don’t hurt.

3. Families are like fudge…mostly sweet, with a few nuts.

4. Today’s mighty oak is just yesterday’s nut that held its ground.

5. Laughing is good exercise. It’s like jogging on the inside.

6. Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy.

GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD

1. Growing up is mandatory; growing old is optional.

2. Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.

3. When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you’re down there.

4. You’re getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.

5. It’s frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.

6. Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.

7. Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone

Alternative medical treatment

Effective alternative treatment that directly leads to a cure is available today for some Type I and for many Type II diabetics. About 5% of the diabetic population suffers from Type I diabetes; the remaining 95% suffer from Type II diabetes. Gestational diabetes is simply ordinary diabetes contracted by a woman who is pregnant.

For the Type I diabetic an alternative methodology for the treatment of Type I Diabetes was the subject of intensive research in the early 1990’s with several papers presented in the scientific journals. This was done in modern hospitals in Madras, India and subjected to rigorous double-blind studies to prove its efficacy. The protocol operated to restore normal pancreatic beta cell function so the pancreas could again produce insulin as it should. This approach was, apparently, demonstrated to be capable of restoring pancreatic beta cell function where it had been lost. A major complication lies in whether the antigens that originally led to the autoimmune destruction of these beta cells have disappeared from or remain in the body. If they remain, a cure is less likely; if they have disappeared, the cure is more likely.

This early work in Madras India has been continued in a number of laboratories throughout the world and much of it has been published in scientific journals

If a patent search is conducted to discover research work done on type I diabetes that never seems to make it to the marketplace, a number of patents on herbal remedies will be found. These patents typically make strong claims about the regeneration of pancreatic beta cells and the  restoring of them to normal function. In particular, patent number 5,886,029 entitled “Method  and composition for treatment of diabetes” claims to restore pancreatic beta cell function by regenerating the pancreatic beta cells. This particular patent states in part:

The unique combination of components in the medicinal composition leads to a regeneration of the pancreas cells which then start producing insulin on their own. Since the composition restores normal pancreatic function, treatment can  be discontinued after between four and twelve months.

For reasons which, while understandable, are not at all acceptable, this promising line of research never matured and today can be found only in the archives of a few obscure scientific journals and in the patent office. Since absolutely no financial incentive exists to cure type I diabetes, this methodology is not likely to reappear any time soon and certainly not in the American orthodox medical community.

The goal of any effective alternative program is to repair and restore the body’s own blood sugar control mechanism. It is the malfunctioning of this mechanism that, over time, directly causes all of the many debilitating symptoms that make orthodox treatment so financially rewarding for the diabetes industry. For Type II Diabetes, the steps in the program are:

Repair the faulty blood sugar control system. This is done simply by substituting clean healthy beneficial fats and oils in the diet for the pristine looking but toxic trans-isomer mix found in attractive plastic containers on room temperature supermarket shelves. Consume only flax oil, fish oil and occasionally cod liver oil until blood sugar starts to stabilize. Then add back healthy oils such as butter, coconut oil, olive oil and clean animal fat. Read labels; refuse to consume cheap junk oils when they appear in processed food or on restaurant menus. Diabetics are chronically short of vitamins and minerals; they need to add a good quality broad spectrum supplement to the diet.

Control blood sugar manually during the recovery cycle. Under medical supervision, gradually discontinue all oral hypoglycemic agents along with any additional drugs given to counteract their side effects. Develop natural blood sugar control by the use of glycaemic tables, by consuming frequent small meals, by the use of fiber, by regular post prandial exercise, and by a complete avoidance of all sugars along with the judicious use of only non-toxic sweeteners. Avoid alcohol until blood sugar stabilizes in the normal range. Avoid caffeine as well as other stimulants; they tend to trigger sugar release by the liver. Keep score by using a pin prick type glucose meter. Keep track of everything  you do with a medical diary.

Restore a proper balance of healthy fats and oils when the blood sugar controller again works Permanently remove from the diet all cheap toxic junk fats and oils and the processed and restaurant foods that contain them. When the blood sugar controller again starts to work correctly, gradually introduce additional healthy foods to the diet. Test the effect of these added foods by monitoring blood sugar levels with the pin prick type blood sugar monitor. Be sure to include the results of these tests in your diary also.

Continue the program until normal insulin values are also restored after blood sugar levels begin to stabilize in the normal region. Once blood sugar levels fall into the normal range the pancreas will gradually stop over producing insulin. This process will typically take a little longer and can be tested by having your physician send a sample of your blood to a lab for a serum insulin determination. A good idea is to wait a couple of  months after blood sugar control is restored and then have your physician check your insulin level. It’s nice to have blood sugar in the normal range; it’s even nicer to have  this accomplished without excess  insulin in the bloodstream.

Separately repair the collateral damage done by the disease. Vascular problems caused by a chronically elevated glucose level will normally reverse themselves without conscious effort. The effects of retinopathy and of peripheral neuropathy, for example, will usually self repair. However when the fine capillaries in the basement membranes of the kidneys begin to leak due to chronic high blood glucose, the kidneys compensate by laying down scar tissue to prevent the leakage. This scar tissue remains even after the diabetes is cured and is the reason why the kidney damage is not believed to self repair.

A word of warning: when retinopathy develops a temptation will exist to have the damage repaired by laser surgery. This laser technique stops the retinal bleeding by creating scar tissue where the leaks have developed. This scar tissue will prevent normal healing of the fine capillaries in the eye when the diabetes is reversed. By reversing the diabetes instead of opting for laser surgery, there is an excellent chance that the eye will heal completely. However if laser surgery is done, this healing will always be complicated by the scar tissue left by the laser.

The arterial and vascular damage done by years of elevated sugar and insulin and by the proliferation of systemic candida will slowly reverse due to improved diet. However, it takes many years to clean out the arteries by this form of oral chelation. Arterial damage can be reversed much more quickly by using intravenous chelation therapy. What would normally take many years through diet alone, can often be done in six months with intravenous therapy. This is reputed to be effective over 80% of the time. For obvious reasons, don’t expect your doctor to approve of this, particularly if he is a heart specialist.

The prognosis is usually swift recovery from the disease and restoration of normal health and energy levels in a few months to a year or more. The length of time that it takes to effect a cure depends upon how long the disease was allowed to develop. For those who quickly work to reverse the disease after early discovery, the time is usually a few months or less. For those who have had the disease for many years, this recovery time may lengthen to a year or more. Thus, there is good reason to get busy reversing this disease as soon as it becomes clearly identified.

By the time you get to this point in this article, and, if we’ve done a good job of explaining our diabetes epidemic, you should know what causes it, what orthodox medical treatment is all about and why diabetes has become a disgrace both in the US and world wide. Of even greater importance, you have become acquainted with a self help program that has demonstrated great potential to actually cure this disease.

Orthodox medical treatment

After the diagnosis of diabetes, modern orthodox medical treatment consists of either oral hypoglycemic agents or insulin.

In 1955, oral hypoglycemic drugs were introduced. Currently available oral hypoglycemic agents fall into five classifications according to their biophysical mode of action.

These classes are:

Biguanides

Glucosidase inhibitors

Meglitinides

Sulfonylureas

Thiazolidinediones

The biguanides lower blood sugar in three ways. They inhibit the normal release, by the liver, of its glucose stores, they interfere with intestinal absorption of glucose from ingested carbohydrates and they are said to increase peripheral uptake of glucose.

The glucosidase inhibitors are designed to inhibit the amylase enzymes produced by our pancreas and which are essential to the digestion of carbohydrates. The theory is that if the digestion of carbohydrates is inhibited the blood sugar cannot be elevated.

The meglitinides are designed to stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin in a patient that likely already has an elevated level of insulin in their bloodstream. Only rarely does the doctor even measure insulin levels. This drug is frequently prescribed without any knowledge of pre-existing insulin levels. The fact that elevated insulin levels are almost as damaging as elevated glucose levels is widely ignored.

The sulfonylureas are another pancreatic stimulant class designed to stimulate the production of insulin. Serum insulin determinations are rarely made by the doctor before prescribing this drug. This drug is often prescribed for type II diabetics, many of whom already have elevated ineffective insulin. These drugs are notorious for causing hypoglycemia as a side effect.

The thiazolidinediones are famous for causing liver cancer. One of them, Rezulin, was approved in the USA through devious political infighting but failed to get approval in England because it was known to cause liver cancer. The first doctor that had responsibility to approve it at the FDA refused to do so. It was only after he was replaced by a more compliant official that Rezulin gained approval by the FDA. It went on to kill well over 100 diabetes patients and cripple many others before the fight to get it off the market was finally won. Rezulin was designed to stimulate the  uptake of glucose from the bloodstream by the peripheral cells and to inhibit the normal secretion of glucose by the liver. The politics of why this drug ever came to market and then remained in the market for such an unexplainable length of time with regulatory agency approval is not clear.

Today insulin is prescribed for both the Type I and Type II diabetics. Injectable insulin substitutes for the insulin that the body no longer produces. Of course, this treatment, while necessary to preserving life for the Type I diabetic, is highly questionable when applied to the Type II diabetic.

It is important to note that neither insulin nor any of these oral hypoglycemic agents exert any curative action whatsoever on any type of diabetes. None of these medical strategies are designed to normalize the cellular uptake of glucose by the cells that need it to power their activity.

The prognosis with this orthodox treatment is increasing disability and early death from heart or kidney failure or the failure of some other vital organ.

The third step to a cure for this disease is to become informed and to apply an alternative methodology that is soundly based upon  good science.

Nature of the disease

Diabetes is classically diagnosed as a failure of the body to properly metabolize carbohydrates. Its defining symptom is a high blood glucose level. Type 1 Diabetes results from insufficient insulin production by the pancreas. Type 2 Diabetes results from ineffective insulin. In both types, the blood glucose level remains elevated. Neither insufficient insulin nor ineffective insulin can limit post prandial (after eating) blood sugar to the normal range. In established cases of Type 2 Diabetes, these elevated blood sugar levels are often preceded by and accompanied by chronically elevated insulin levels and by serious distortions of other endocrine hormonal markers.

The ineffective insulin is no different from effective insulin. Its ineffectiveness lies in the failure of our cell population to respond to it. It is not the result of any biochemical defect in the insulin itself. Therefore, it is appropriate to note that this disease is a disease that affects almost every cell in the seventy trillion or so cells of our body. All of these cells are dependent upon the food that we eat for the raw materials that they need for self repair and maintenance.

The classification of diabetes as a failure to metabolize carbohydrates is a traditional classification that originated in the early 19th century when little was known about metabolic diseases or about metabolic processes. Today, with our increased knowledge of metabolic processes, it would appear quite appropriate to define Type 2 Diabetes more fundamentally as a failure of the body to properly metabolize fats and oils. This failure results in a loss of effectiveness of insulin and in the consequent failure to metabolize carbohydrates. Unfortunately, much medical insight into this matter, except at the research level, remains hampered by its 19th century legacy.

Thus Type II Diabetes and its early hyperinsulinemic symptoms are whole body symptoms of this basic cellular failure to properly metabolize glucose. Each cell of our body, for reasons which are becoming clearer, find themselves unable to transport glucose from the blood stream to their interior. The glucose then either remains in the blood stream, is stored as body fat or as glycogen, or is otherwise disposed of in urine.

It appears that when insulin binds to a cell membrane receptor, it initiates a complex cascade of biochemical reactions inside the cell. This causes a class of glucose transporters known as GLUT 4 molecules to leave their parking area inside the cell and travel to the inside surface of the plasma cell membrane. When in the membrane, they migrate to special areas of the membrane called caveolae areas. There, by another series of biochemical reactions, they identify and hook up with glucose molecules and transport them into the interior of the cell by a process called endocytosis. Within the cells interior, this glucose is then burned as fuel by the mitochondria to produce energy to power cellular activity.

Thus these GLUT 4 transporters lower glucose in the blood stream by transporting it out of the bloodstream into all of our bodily cells.

Many of the molecules involved in these glucose and insulin mediated pathways are lipids, also known as fatty acids. A healthy plasma cell membrane, now known  to be an active player in the glucose scenario, contains a complement of cis type w=3 unsaturated fatty acids. This makes the membrane relatively fluid and slippery. When these cis fatty acids are chronically unavailable because of our diet, trans fatty acids and short and medium chain saturated fatty acids are substituted in the cell membrane. These substitutions make the cellular membrane stiffer and more sticky and inhibit the glucose transport mechanism.

Thus, in the absence of sufficient cis omega 3 fatty acids in our diet, these fatty acid substitutions take place, the mobility of the GLUT 4 transporters is diminished, the interior biochemistry of the cell is changed and glucose remains elevated in the bloodstream.

Elsewhere in the body, the pancreas secretes excess insulin, the liver manufactures fat from the excess sugar, the adipose cells store excess fat, the body goes into a high urinary mode, insufficient cellular energy is available for bodily activity and the entire endocrine system becomes distorted. Eventually pancreatic failure occurs, body weight plummets and a diabetic crisis is precipitated.

Although there remains much work to be done to fully elucidate all of the steps in all of these pathways, this clearly marks the beginning of a biochemical explanation for the known epidemiological relationship between cheap engineered dietary fats and oils and the onset of Type 2 Diabetes.