A little preventative sale today, ending by Sept. 30th

Yesterday I was in a grocery store and noticed the very, very prominent “FLU SHOT” signs. Since, when does the grocery store become the hot bed for injections.

It seems fewer and fewer people are getting shots so they must need to ramp up the marketing by going to places people shop. Another major retailer even had a huge, dedicated, tent with tables in the very front of the store with fake trees to make it seem inviting.

“Here come, sit down, let me stick some toxic chemicals in your body.”

The signs are pretty and the message is sweet as cotton candy. You won’t get sick if you let us inject you. You are getting very sleepy. You have to do this because your body is useless. You have no power to resist germs without our chemicals.

Can you feel the sarcasm. I’m laying it on thick to make the subtle messages more obvious.

The short answer to the flu shot questions:

• Every year it is considered a failure.
• It is filled with toxic, harmful, chemicals.
• The longer and more flu shots you get, the weaker your immune system will get.

The short answer to preventing the flu:

• Improve or maintain your immune system so strong that viruses don’t stand a chance.

So lets just start the winter off right because when it comes to health this is the time to ramp up.

#1 The drug companies want to sell you a toxic soup called the flu shot.

#2 The lack of exercise tends to drop peoples health

#3 The lack of sunshine tends to drop vitamin D levels

#4 Holidays tend to spike the sugar intake

All these can lead to a drop in the immune system. So how can you make a difference? Well, for one I’d never get a flu shot and if that ruffles your feathers take a peek at mercola.com and seach for flu shot. It is such a bad thing I don’t want to waste time rewriting about it.

When it gets cold, staying inside feels really good. Exercise is still important, so crank up the treadmill and the kettlebells and get you sweat going. This will also help keep the holiday eating in check.

The topic of vitamin D is an important one. We’ll cover it in the next post. It is time to start thinking about getting the cod liver oil flowing again. I’ll have more info coming soon.

As the cookie trays get passed around the pounds can add to your waistline faster than Santa can deliver toys. Sugar is the single toughest thing on the immune system. If you can minimize your sugar intake you can it will keep you much healthier this winter.

My favorite ways to keep my immune system humming at top speed.

1. I get adjusted. A chiropractic adjustment to keep my nervous system functioning is number one. I can’t even remember all the patients who flew through winter with no illness after they started getting adjusted.
2. Cataplex C from Standard Process. This is such a powerful supplement, especially during winter. This is the single best nutrient for the immune system.
3. Immunplex from Standard Process. This is a supplement with all the nutrients for the immune system in one package. If you get sick easily, you likely need this. I take it as a preventative. A well nourished immune system is a good thing.
4. Cod Liver Oil. This has some serious power for two reasons. Besides natural vitamin C, Vitamin A in probably the next most powerful then vitamin D. Well, cod liver oil has vitamins A & D naturally occurring. This is not the case with regular fish oil. I should have more info for you next week on how to order. This is not from Standard Process.

If you do those 4 things, it will be really tough to get sick. The only thing that can trump those 4 and bring you down will be high levels of stress and lack of sleep.

If you order either Cataplex C or Immuplex by Sept. 30th, your whole order is 20% off.

To order just call my order line Voicemail: 612-BE-GREAT ((612-234-7328))
email me: docaltman (at) gmail (dot) com
or leave a message on our site.

Enjoy a healthy winter,
Dr. Altman

Part 1

Saving lives is heavy stuff.  Obviously, if you crash your car and are impaled with glass and steel you need an E.R. doc, but in every day life two of the most amazing things people don’t usual think of are chiropractic adjustments and supplements. I know one chiropractor that really did save a babies life with an adjustment. After a fall he quit breathing, and after a very gentle neck adjustment he started gasping for air.

I have also seen Catalyn to save a few peoples lives.  Catalyn is the multivitamin with the funny name from Standard Process.   The name comes from the ability to act as a catalyst in improving health.  This multivitamin is something truly special and shouldn’t be missed.  It has a long history and has made amazing changes in patients lives, dare I say, saved them.

The first person I have seen with an amazing story actually gave a 20 minute lecture to one of my classes on her life.  In a nut shell, she started life as an alcoholic and through her early life she was very malnourished and sickly.   After an accident she ended up in a chiropractors office.  He gave her a big bottle of Catalyn and told her to go home and take a handful and take more whenever she thinks of it.  Needless to say she started getting better.  She credits the chiropractor and Catalyn for saving her life.

For those of you who take one multivitamin a day and call it good, this type of treatment may seem very unusual until…

…I give you a little more info about Catalyn.

Catalyn is the first whole-food vitamin.  What that means is it is actually made from food,  (15 to be exact).  Most retail multivitamins, especially the ones on commercials, are made from isolated vitamin components , artificial colorings, and lots of words you have never heard of.  They spend a lot of money on making the labels look pretty and jacking up the numbers on the label to give the consumer the illusion they are getting a ton of vitamins.  I can promise you this, it is an illusion.  I hear it in the office every week.  People ask why Catalyn looks so weak.  It is all in what you know.

Would you rather eat 1000 banana peels or the inside of 1?

Which do you think would give you more nutrition?

Now magnify that by 15 to give you the 15 foods in Catalyn. 

Now consider the carrot root in Catalyn has at least 200 known ingredients just by itself. 

People are starving for nutrition in our modern age and the easiest and most powerful way I’ve come across is to use Catalyn.  This is a huge topic that has the potential to fry your brain, so part 2 will be yet to come.

This is just the beginning, why Catalyn is a Standard Process fundamental supplement.

Here is a great story of a woman the used chiropractic, Catalyn, and Organic Minerals to save her life.

“In a nutshell… Dr. Altman saved my life. When I first came to Dr. Altman 6 weeks ago I felt hopeless. I’m 36 years old and I truly felt that I was dying. I was so deeply entrenched in medical problems and worries since I was 6 years old, but I didn’t care what medications I took just as long as I could temporarily feel better. After all I thought didn’t have much longer to live, even my body support this feeling.

I was lethargic, depressed, forgetful, and had pain everywhere. I was taking 2 to 10 Ibuprofen a day. I was going through a bottle of antacids per week. This was in addition to my prescription. For asthma allergies and high blood pressure, but I was still having health problems.

I was referred to Dr. Altman and after my first adjustment I felt like new and I could actually move around without being stiff or in pain. I was put on a special diet with supplements. Each week that passed, I was able to ween myself off, of different medications and I didn’t have any more problems with heart burn or body aches, and I have more energy and can even work out without using my asthma rescue inhaler. I even lost 10 pounds without even trying.

So, now I am down to one medication and a standby asthma inhaler, which I rarely use. A big triumph was getting off the prednisone, which I have been on for almost a year. It was indeed killing me.

No, it’s not easy avoiding food, I crave, Nor is it a simple thing to force myself to exercise on certain days, but the results are worth it. I still have work to do. But with Dr. Altman’s everlasting kindness knowledge we’ve accomplished so much in so little time, and we’ll continue to see results. I am hopeful and I feel alive. People have noticed this at work. I’d have at least 10 different people mentioned how good and healthy I look. I am and forever grateful to Dr. Altman for saving my life.”

- Monica Spees ,Mapleton, October 2008

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life,
which fade and are tasteless without it.
-Seneca
Health literally creates some of the best experiences.  Every time my health has been in the tank, I haven’t enjoyed it very much.

My concern is that people are sacrificing what they have for the illusion of something better and in most cases, people can save a ton of money, eat better and get more bang for their buck with a whole food vitamin and better food.

But to understand the great vitamin lies, I need to make sure I talk about the importance of vitamins, how they are used, lost, made, and ultimately how they can make your life better.  I know my health and subsequently my life are better because I learned about food first, then vitamins second.

“Let food be thy medicine, thy medicine shall be thy food.”
- Hippocrates

That may have been true a few thousand years ago, but our current food supply is very stressed.  There are two main problems with our food.

#1 The commercial processing of our food.
#2 The commercial farming of our soil.

Let’s start with processing, or should I say killing and completely destroying nature.

Most Americans are eating at least some processed food everyday.  Universally, Americans are not eating enough fresh vegetables and fruits, and most of the grains are processed.  Start thinking cereal, pasta, toast and donuts.

Let’s pick on wheat for a moment, only because it is so common in most people’s lives.

Grains are processed for one reason only…shelf life.  So what happens when you shred a grain apart.

#1. Take a kernel of wheat, filled with vitamins and minerals, bran and germ.

#2.  Rip everything of value out: the bran, germ, vitamin E, calcium, manganese, copper, zinc, and potassium, and leave us with the starch.

#3.  Bleach it, so it looks pretty.

#4.  Spray some artificial B vitamins (often derived from coal tar) and iron on it. (called enriched) Enriched is a great term to make you think you are getting something great, but you are really getting ripped off.

#5. Package it up so it can sit on a store shelf in a pretty box.  Unable to spoil, because not even bacteria can live on it.  This process includes packaged breads, rolls, muffins, donuts, cereal, pasta, and all those yummy cakes and cookies in boxes. 

That brings up a fundamental question of commonsense.  If bacteria can’t spoil a product, there is nothing alive or of value in it.  Your body can’t use it either.  “Non-perishable foods” are just that.

Modern milling rips all the nutrition out and leaves us holding an empty bag.  If you follow the modern food pyramid, you’ll be getting 6-11 servings of grains, most of which is processed, empty and dead.   If you see the words enriched or bleached it is definitely processed.  If it is white, you’re in trouble.  Here is a good project for you to get rid of any white bread you have laying around and are now not going to eat.
“Best use of white bread and a $1.41 “

Sadly and quite amazingly this has been going on for a long time.  About 1901, Harvey Wiley M.D. the chief of what we call the FDA now, started fighting for a law to prohibit this kind of adulteration of food.  He actually was able to get a law passed in June of 1911, forbidding “the addition of deleterious substances by the manufacturer.”  “The abstraction of any valuable ingredient also is an adulteration”.  As published in the Washington Post by Dr. Wiley in 1912.

Dr. Wiley also said in 1912 “The manufacturers of our food supply, and especially the millers, would devote their energies to improving the public health and promoting happiness in every home by the production of whole ground, unbolted cereal flours and meals.”

After that, Dr. Wiley was no longer able to rock the boat.  He was removed as the chief of the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry (todays FDA) in 1912.   Too bad, he was on a roll.

Essentially after WWI (1918) food became universally processed, refined, preserved, and general tampered with.  Today almost all food in a grocery store is processed.  Don’t start to panic, help is on the way.  We’ll talk about how to fix it.  I am hoping you are starting to see an emerging picture of why whole food vitamin supplements started to emerge in the 1920’s.  Vitamin deficiencies were showing up back then.

The following headline is the exact reason this book is so relevant.  You shouldn’t buy most multivitamins.  Most vitamins on the market are bad for you, or at the best worthless.  Does that mean you don’t need extra vitamins?  Absolutely not.  This article also highlights why it is so incredibly difficult to study vitamins.
Feb 9, 7:48 PM EST

Huge study boosts disappointment on multivitamins

Image via Wikipedia

By LINDSEY TANNER
AP Medical Writer

“CHICAGO (AP) — The largest study ever of multivitamin use in older women found the pills did nothing to prevent common cancers or heart disease. The eight-year study in 161,808 postmenopausal women echoes recent disappointing vitamin studies in men.

Millions of Americans spend billions of dollars on vitamins to boost their health. Research has focused on cancer and heart disease in particular because of evidence that diets full of vitamin-rich foods may protect against those illnesses. But that evidence doesn’t necessarily mean pills are a good substitute.

The study’s lead author, researcher Marian Neuhouser of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, offered this advice: “Get nutrients from food. Whole foods are better than dietary supplements,” Neuhouser said.

The study appears in Monday’s Archives of Internal Medicine.

They are almost 100% correct.  You do need a multivitamin, but you don’t need a artificial, synthetic one.

They are absolutely right when they say you need to get your vitamins from food.  Vitamins give the body strength, power, and the ability to function.  Vitamins in food have many different pieces all put together, like a 1000 piece puzzle that takes days to do.  Vitamins in most dietary supplements are like the naughty kid who scrambles up the puzzle before Grandma can put the last piece in.  The pieces are strewn about randomly and violently.  So violently, that now all that work is gone and some pieces are missing down the air ducts, never to return.  Get your vitamins from food.

What they missed was separating out the people taking “whole food” multivitamins vs. everything else.  There is a monumental difference.  It is the difference between having the puzzle completed into a beautiful mountain scene or a random mess of turned over pieces.   It was nice to see the recognition that people may need some for of supplementation for poor eating habits.  Unfortunately, that’s most, if not all of us.

Vitamins aren’t drugs.

I know…shocking news.  What I mean by that is a drug is an isolated substance that forces the body to do something, whether it wants to or not.  Thus, it is easier to do double-blind medical research tests with drugs than vitamins.  Vitamins in a food are complex, and depending on the health and nutritional status of the person, vitamins will be used differently.  The body decides what it wants to do with them.   For example: vitamin C may be used to help repair body tissues, to prevent scurvy or it may be picked up and used by the white blood cells to help fight an infection.