Undigested foods also cause both detectable and hidden excessive mucous in the colon. An abnormal amount of mucous is the tip of the iceberg of problems that are on the horizon. Food that is not completely digested is counter productive to any efforts to establish or maintain optimal health. Undigested food is directly related to the creation of toxins in the colon, which tends to overwhelm the immune system. The relationship between a healthy colon and the immune system is well documented. When the body is forced to rid itself of chemical combinations that diminish functionality; the energy required to facilitate the elimination of these chemicals lowers the available energy needed from normal cellular processes. As a result, it’s not difficult to understand why poor digestion is a factor in every chronic illness.

A colon cleanse is the initial step to improving many conditions associated with poor digestion. Many experts suggest a cleansing at a minimum of once a year, however the more popular suggestion is every three months.

By:Sydney Hayes

Over time, the colon can lose the ability to process vital nutrients, absorb water and eliminate fecal matter from the body. Constipation is commonly recognized as a condition where the fecal matter is so tightly packed together, that bowel movements are infrequent, as a result eliminations occur with painful difficulty and straining. In fact, many people are constipated without even recognizing the condition. Old hardened feces stick to the walls of the colon. The inner diameter of the colon is compressed like a water pipe blocked by mineral deposits, and eventually the opening becomes narrower and narrower making it more difficult to pass waste through. Since the caked feces line the colon wall, the colon is unable to absorb nutrients from our food. Most people have no idea how much old, hardened, fecal matter is lodged within their colons. Constipation can injure the colon or be a sign of a malfunctioning colon. When we don’t eliminate our waste, toxins back up in the colon which can cause “auto-intoxication” or self-poisoning. Wastes from the blood stream, which should normally be drawn into the colon through the colon walls are re-absorbed by the body along with other toxins from the fermentation and putrefaction from undigested food. For that reason, intestinal stasis often follows which occurs when the muscular contractions known as peristalsis can no longer sweep the hardened feces along the digestive canal. The body reacts to this constricted bowel by stepping up the frequency of the peristaltic wave action to allow the waste to exit the body. Taken to its limit, the effect can be diarrhea, which is when the body moves the waste out so fast, the bowel doesn’t have time to remove the water and consolidate the waste into stool.

Toxic material is broken down so it can no longer harm the body or inhibit assimilation and elimination is the reasoning behind why most people choose to do a colon cleanse. Even debris built up over a long period is gently, but surely removed in the process of a series of treatments. Once impacted material is removed, the gentle filling and emptying of the colon improves peristaltic muscular contraction activity and the colon naturally moves material as it was intended.

By:Sydney Hayes

Dr. Williams: Thank you so much for having me. I really look forward to the discussion, Kevin.

Kevin: Well, this is great. We got over 300 questions. I think that I’ve kind of filtered them out into specific categories, so we’ll be able to address some of them.

But first, why don’t you tell everyone just a little bit about yourself? Just tell us a little about how you got into this and why you’re really just speaking very highly of all this sort of natural medicine in terms of viral and bacterial and just immunity in any sort of way.

Dr. Williams: Kevin, I’m going to just give you a quick update on what I’m doing right now, and then I’m going to jump back about thirty-some years, because your question’s highly important.

I am currently working with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami, in their department of integrative medicine, and upgrading and working with them and bringing in other universities from around the world into the same areas that I work in to drive, really a scientific model. There’s both intuitive and scientific model in this work.

And I think, as you know, my books are both current, up-do-date, they’re science-based, but they really touch that soul of natural medicine. Now, jump back 30 plus, plus, plus years. I recognized very early on, because of my patients that were coming in, now, in the late 70s, early 80s, that was just when the tip of the iceberg of AIDS was, we didn’t even have it diagnosed then, and Hepatitis C, we didn’t have it diagnosed, not until ‘89, if you can believe that or not.

And then we were looking at chronic fatigue and environmental syndromes, increasing incidences of cancer, all types of allergies, very strange things that didn’t show up. We were seeing diseases that occurred typically only in older people, some of them very rare diseases or very uncommon like MS, for example, and other autoimmune diseases, and I started to look at this.

You know, what could be the cause? And at the time, everybody was blaming viruses, and so I said, well, let me take a closer look. It turned out that it really wasn’t viruses that were causing all of these problems whatsoever. It was environmental reasons, but when I looked at the viral issue more closely, and then AIDS came up, and then Hepatitis C and then SARS, and many, many, many, many, many others, I realized, and then with my latest book “Beating the Flu,” about pandemic influenza, that probably our number one weakest link was our immune system.

And our number one greatest problem was viral illnesses. We had no medications. It was an undefeatable enemy. It was the smallest thing known. Viruses can even infect bacteria. That’s how small they are.

Kevin: Um-hmm.

Dr. Williams: So I got on the viral trail, and I tried to educate lay people, the public, as well as physicians, because medical doctors had absolutely no idea, had zero training on viruses at the time. They have very little today.

Kevin: Right. And how has that changed over the last 30 years?

Dr. Williams: Well, unfortunately it’s changed in kind of skewed way. We have kind of a limping drunk, you know, the son of a rich man, or something like that, who’s gone out for the evening and has gained a lot of experience, but in the wrong things.

Kevin: Gotcha.

Dr. Williams: And immunology itself, the science of immunology, has just become revived, and we’ve looked at it in a much, much deeper way. We now understand that what we used to think, and the old paradigm is still in place, that what we used to think is completely not only outdated but mostly wrong. It’s a much more highly complex system. It’s an intercommunicative system, and it works within all areas of the body. It’s dependent on hormones, nutrients, and immunity, as well as environmental pressures.

We slanted our interest in viral research onto AIDS and what we thought were the more serious diseases because that’s where a lot of the research money was in, but not where the real problem was. And, for example, some of the highest incidences of viral infections is in Denge fever, but that hardly ever touches the United States, so if the poor people of the Philippines and the Brazilian Amazon are dying from Denge, we don’t really fund that type of research.

But, you know, if a senator’s son or something has AIDS, then we’re going to fund that. So it became a little bit too political, and now thankfully, it’s slanting away from that. Because what we’re seeing is this idea that four or five years from now, we’re going to have a vaccine. We’ll have a cure. Never, ever happened.

It’s now been, let’s take ‘84 as kind of a lynchpin year, when we started to realize that viruses were becoming a more serious problem than we ever could have imagined. That’s more than 20 years ago. And they were saying at the time, every four or five years, that we’d have a cure. And so that’s about eight times that’s been said, and we’re no closer than we were 24 years ago.

So, I think we’re starting to take that more seriously. Clinicians are starting to take it more seriously. And we have to upgrade our education, reeducate ourselves, and then help the public to understand that if there’s any one thing that is truly a serious issue, and this is my most significant point, is that the environmental changes that we’re experiencing, you know, we’re looking at global warming as kind of the big umbrella aspect of it, but there’s so many insidious changes that are dampening and weakening or disrupting our immune system, and that are at the same time allowing for viruses to be spread easier and to mutate easier. So we’re having strengthening viruses and weakening humanity without any medications to deal with it.

Kevin: Wow. Now, the conventional approach, or the conventional thought, is that once you have a virus, you can’t do anything about it. It’s just there. Why don’t you just go through the basics of, and very, very quickly because I want to get into a little more detail, but the basics of viruses? And what are some of the implications of having a virus? I mean, a lot of us have viruses. It’s definitely more the norm. And how do they affect us generally? And then we’ll kind of delve into the specifics of it.

Dr. Williams: The word ‘virus’ comes from Latin. It means ‘poisonous fluid’ and it’s a beautiful word in a strange sort of way. And we use this old word because it still fits, but they have technical names to them. But they’re very, very small. As I said, they’re so small they can infect bacteria, which everyone knows we can’t see with the naked eye. We only started to be able to see viruses with electron microscopes in the middle of the last century, and only up until recently. Still we can’t see them all. We kind of guess what they look like.

They’re intracellular molecular parasites, so they enter the body silently as a rule. And then the immune system, the fever and so forth, it’s not the virus causing that, that’s our own immune system. But many of them are stealth-like, and they enter completely silently. They don’t arouse the immune system. It’s like a burglar who knows how to tiptoe around your sleeping watchdogs in a way, or circumvent your alarm, and in the morning everything’s gone. Some of them do cause the alarm to go off, but many of them don’t.

They have no metabolic life of their own. We don’t know how to classify viruses. Are they living organisms, or are they dead? Well, they’re not dead, because they can come back to life. We don’t know how long they can exist. Some scientists believe that viruses could exist in intracellular space. They don’t need oxygen to survive, and they go into a type of dormancy where they act completely shut down, as if they were dead, as if they were stone on your driveway. They can live in ice, they can live in different extremes of temperature

with or without moisture, or even suggesting an intracellular space. And then at the right moment when they connect with the living organism- it has to be the right organism, it can’t just be any, it has to have an affinity to it -then they wake up, they come alive, they rise up. And they have a remarkable intelligence and this superb ability to survive and adapt to the new environment.

They link up then, they enter the body, if it’s in a human, and enter the cell itself and then penetrate the cell and enter into the nucleus of the cell and then link up with the genetic material. In other words, they access the computer program or they access the library, learn everything that there is to know about you, particularly your immune system, and then, in a way, hijack it. So that’s in a brief way what a virus is. And they’re essentially proteins wrapped in a kind of a slippery, fatty envelope.

Now, they’re not all bad, which is important. Viruses pass from generation to generation in the embryo genetically. And as I said, they read the material, they transcript or recode or they kind of rewrite history. In some ways, which we really don’t know hardly anything about how this might take place, but they may be involved in human evolution or the evolution of animals and plants. Everything, as I said, even bacteria, can be infected by viruses. So they may play a very important role. We suspect that they play a role in how the body manages disease. For example, when we eradicated smallpox, I think everyone knows that was in Africa in the 70s when the last case was discovered, through a massive vaccination campaign, but at the same time, it’s not completely eradicated because we have stockpiles of smallpox live virus in several storage vaults around the world.

But at the same time, the incidence of asthma went up. So smallpox was going down, asthma was going up. And we first thought it was this pollution in the air and other things like allergies and so forth that may have caused that. But now we suspect that there’s an inter-linking of even deadly viruses like smallpox that somehow retool or program our own immune system to help handle the environment in which we live, in this example, asthma. So that as we breathe the air, there’s all kinds of things that come in the air, microscopic, typically, but smoke, that’s something that might be visible. Also infectious elements and pollutants, and so forth. And another part of our immune system has to deal with that. If they can’t, then it causes respiratory distress and closing down of the airways and irritation and inflammation. Some viruses may participate in helping our mucouso-immunity, that immune system that is highly active and that lines all of our inner membranes, to adapt to the environment in which we live.

By:Kevin Gianni 

Dr. Williams: [laughs] Well, I’d probably say 90 to 100, closer to 100. One time a very well known bacteriologist, a specialist in bacteria, was giving a lecture by my invitation at one of the medical schools that I worked with. I was in the audience and he was pointing out the number of cells in the body. It is fascinating that we have more bacteria by number, so many trillions of bacteria compared to so many hundreds of billions of living tissue cells. There’s four times more bacteria that actually compose who we are. Can you believe that? And all of those, except when we’re affected, are supposed to be there. That’s our robiotics. It’s not just in the gut, they’re through all our other tissues. And then he said, “Where viruses are not supposed to be there.” And then he looked up at me and said, “Well, Dr. Williams might have a different view because he’s kind of the pro-viral immunity doc!”

We kind of had a little eye to eye and smiled. Afterwards we chatted a little bit and realized that his information was from a different paradigm, more than 20 years ago. And mine was a little more current in that we get infected by viruses, and we used to think that the body cleared everything out, but now we realize that it doesn’t.

Anywhere between 90 and 95%, maybe higher, carry antibodies to a very common herpes virus called Epstein-Barr. And you can go, and this has been tested, into Brazilian Amazon natives along the river to the Northern Artic Eskimos to urban people in pretty much every country and every continent. So how did the virus become so global and so ubiquitous that it infects almost everybody? During childhood, it remains there. Another is roseola. The list goes on and on. Those are all herpes virus family microorganisms. So the number may be anywhere from 90 to 100% for carrying some type of virus around with us.

Kevin: So Epstein-Barr, for those people who don’t know, that’s what causes
mononucleosis.

Dr. Williams: Yes, exactly. The kissing disease. It can be very severe. When I’m talking to people, for example, with chronic fatigue, one of the first things I want to track down is, is the fatigue caused by an infection, and what type of infection could that be? Could it be spyro-acute lyme disease, a type of bacteria, or another bacteria or parasites or yeast organisms or virus? Those are the main infectious microorganisms. And if it is, then I try to narrow it down further. Which type of infectious agent is it? If it’s viruses, well, then you’re in my domain!

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Williams: But interestingly, probably the smallest percentage of chronic fatigue are really caused by infectious organisms, and only a part of those that are caused by infectious are by Epstein Barr. But in the history taking, what I’ll do is I’ll try to ask the patients, did they ever have mono, will be one of the main questions, and then to what degree did it make them sick. They could have been in bed for two months with an enlarged spleen; I mean, very, very sick. Or, they could have had almost nothing. Maybe it was just like a passing cold or they thought they had a flu but actually they had mono. And it may or may not, the degree that they’re infected originally, may or may not have a bearing on how their immune system and how their body is now responding to a reactivation to this latent viral form of Epstein Barr.

Every modern disease or most of them, but certainly cancer, diabetes, even all the auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and MS and not to mention chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and the list goes on and on, the most common modern degenerative chronic ailments are linked by one thing, and that’s the immune system. And so, in researching viruses and in treating viruses what I found was that since there’s no drugs or even effective herbs or things that we have to come up with a strategy which I call the viral immunity or the viral immunity program or strategy, to strengthen and to modulate or to boost our immune systems, and what are the most important elements. And finally, by the way, I’m working, I’m just on the edges of working, concept only, right now, but with a very large international company with research in Canada and Korea and other places to develop a really world class immune-strengthening supportive formula that’s kind of broad based and would help the immune system in general, but particularly against viruses.

Kevin: What are the signs obviously that…people kind of know the signs of a weakening immune system, but what is the strategy, like what, how do you start, when do you decide to go on some sort of program that will help boost your immune system? Do you do it all the time? Is it something you go on and off of? I think this kind of encompasses a lot of questions that the audience is after.

Dr. Williams: Because there’s such a problem with dampening, weakening, or imbalancing immune system, and it tends to show up more under people with a lot of stress, and as you get older. But don’t just use those two as the only marker; it can happen to anybody at any time under many, a variety of circumstances, but the. And because all of these diseases I talked about are so linked to immunity, if there’s one thing that kind of linked them all together it would be an imbalanced or weakened or damaged immune system, that it’s important for everyone to start to take corrective action in their lifestyle, in their diet, their, the way they move, their exercise, to strengthen their immunity and to protect their immunity and to enforce it and maintain it lifelong.

Then the next part of that question is that for those people who do have the signs of a weakening immunity, then they should start to actively treat it in a, maybe we’d call it a soft way, but in a daily basis with nutrients and perhaps some herbal therapies. And then they should have the information and knowledge how to either, how to modulate upward or boost up the activity of some of those medications that they’re taking during like the fall and winter when the flu season is high, and, or if there’s, if they suspect they’re getting a virus or that they have a latent virus that’s reactivating. So, one is lifestyle part of it which everybody should do which includes also awareness of the severity of and the commonality of viral illness. And, two, a general program, sort of, almost kind of a one-sized general program that might fit everyone or close to it. And then some more specific boosting or modulating or up-regulating substances that you would only take when you need them for short periods of time, so a little kind of boost or jets of energy.

Kevin: And is it possible to eat your food so cleanly that you don’t need any of the
extra stuff?

Dr. Williams: That’s a great question. I totally anticipated this one, Kevin. [laughter] I hear this so often that people say they live the perfect. . .I mean, in their own mind they, I’m exaggerating, but as if they lived the perfect diet. Nobody lives a perfect lifestyle and the perfect diet in our world, believe me. The foods that we eat in America; you could shop at the health food store and buy organic and everything; and that’s important, that’s a huge plus, and that’s going to help you a lot, but nothing in this country is pure or safe from genetically adaptation, and even trucking the fruits and vegetables, they have to be fumigated, and so forth. So, there’s no such thing as that; that’s like living in a bubble, in a pure world.

And even the places I go high in the Andes, these like Shangri-la type of places, they and other parts of the world, the living is rugged, and yes, the air is pure and clean, and the people have no disease, and etc., but it’s encroaching in on them. And it’s long, long, long ago, generations ago have encroached in on us, so our genetics have already been altered or modified. We can improve our genetic expression. We can help ourselves, in other words. But we can’t often undo the damage that our parents experienced before we were born. And so, the other thing is that if you have no immunity to infection, you’ll get infected, no matter how strong you are. In matter of fact, it will lay low the strongest of the strong, the youngest and the bravest of the brave, no one is spared when nature roars. And when viruses come in, if you don’t have the immunity to it and your immune system reacts aggressively, it’s the immune system that kills you, not the virus.

So the answer is, it’s very helpful, and it will help prevent a lot of immune system related conditions but it won’t make you completely immune or armor you to a point where you’re invincible or completely invulnerable. That’s not how biology works. And then there’s every shade of not only gray but every color of the rainbow in terms of viruses. It’s quite interesting.

by:Kevin Gianni 

One way how to stop armpit sweating is to simply change the way you’re dressing. This involves wearing more natural fibers that allow your body to breathe, such as wool and cotton. You want to eliminate fibers such as polyester, nylon and the like.

Also, another thing is you’re going to want to wear lighter colored clothes as these don’t attract and absorb as much sunlight or even indoor light as darker clothes would. When clothes attract light, it will inadvertently cause you to sweat, you don’t want this. So although sweat may not show up as well on darker clothes, you will sweat more if you do actually wear them.

Aside from these methods, another way how to stop armpit sweating is to change your diet. You see, eating foods which are spicy will induce sweating, so limit these types of foods in your diet.

Also related to food, if you have the weight to lose, going to the gym and losing those extra few pounds can help as well. You see, we sweat to regulate our body temperature and anything that gets in the way of that is only going to make matters worse. Believe it or not, fat actually inhibits this natural process, so the less fat you have on your body the better!

By:Renard Muldrake 

Problems of development associated with cloning have not been solved. Scientists aren’t sure why cloned animals show differences in telomere length. According to the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, “there has not yet been a single cloned mammal that has yet been alive long enough to have lived a natural life span for that animal. We can’t underestimate the unanswered questions about cloning.” Yet, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded meat and milk from cloned animals are safe for human consumption, clearing the way for cloned products to enter the U.S. food supply. Remember, this is the same FDA that proclaimed DES was safe in our food which was later discovered to cause cancer, and the same FDA that permits synthetic steroid male and female hormones and synthetic growth promoters to be added to our food today. The FDA in its ruling also concluded no labeling is required to inform the consumer that the food is derived from cloned animals or their offspring.

“The FDA has acted recklessly, and I am profoundly disappointed in their rush to approve cloned foods,” said Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski, co-sponsor of a bill amendment passed by the U.S. Senate which asked the FDA not to rule until further research was available. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said cloned animal products may not be safe and further study was needed. Of course, the biotechnology industry disagrees with the EFSA and Senator Barbara Mikulski. “The biotechnology industry applauds the FDA for its comprehensive scientific review of this new assisted reproductive technology,” said Jim Greenwood, president and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, which represents companies and institutions in the biotech field.

The FDA asked for a “voluntary moratorium” on keeping cloned products out of the food supply for now. However, a New York Times article reports that Donald Coover of Kansas has sold enough semen from a cloned bull in one year to inseminate 2,000 cows. In 2008, Coover told the Washington Post that it “is a fairy tale that this technology is not being used and is not already in the food chain.”

Are meat and milk from cloned animals really safe to eat? The rush to judgment by the FDA prevents a safe and thorough answer to that question. Once again, the American consumer becomes the laboratory test animal as in the case of DES.

By:Sandy Powers 

Hemorrhoids causes can be divided in 9 major groups:

1. Improper diet - Shortage of high fiber food in our every day diet and insufficient water intake, too much coffee, sodas and alcohol causes dehydration.

2. Wrong bowel movement habits - Delaying and straining during bowel movement and reading during bowel movement.

3. Everyday activities - Too much sitting or standing, causing pressure on veins in the rectum area, driving to work instead taking a public transport, bike or walking lack of exercise.

4. Lack of personal hygiene - Not washing up after the bowel movements, excessive wiping, using paper instead of washing up or using moist wipes with Witch Hazel.

5. Pregnancy - Changes caused by hormones along with amplified pressure of fetus on the veins in anal canal.

6. Obesity - Excess weight causes pressure on veins in anal canal.

7. Health conditions - Anal infection, liver or heart disease, or even tumors in the pelvic area.

8. Excessive rubbing and cleaning around anus- Do not use toilet paper, wash up after bowel movements or use moist towels.

9. Aging - Not your fault, just make sure to eat plenty of foods high in fiber, fruits, vegetables and drink lots of water.

Anything of the above can be the cause of hemorrhoids, usually it is several of these causes combined that are the problem.

Examine what you might be doing wrong:

-Analyze your diet.
-Do you exercise enough?
-Do you drink enough water?
-Do you have a job that requires lots of sitting or standing in place?

It is not simple admitting to yourself that you are doing something wrong. I know that some of this causes are hard for you to hear and I know that most of us have jobs were you can not set aside time for a good meal.

In addition, drinking lots of water will cause more frequent urination, and not all of us have access to decent bathrooms while working or commuting.

It takes little effort to remove hemorrhoid causes in our modern everyday lives, even if we think that some factors are out of our control, when actually they are not.

With small effort you can eliminate most causes and entirely avoid pricey and agonizing operation. All this can be done with just a small effort.

By:Richard Herring 

1. You need more protein in your diet. Grab your peanut butter and a spoon and place some on celery with a little raisins or on a slice of apple. Peanut butter is high in protein and also will make you feel full for a longer period of time.

2. Maybe you don’t like peanut butter or it is too much of a bother. Pick up a handful of mixed nuts or trail mix and consume them. These items will be very high in protein and are very tasty and make a great snack. This action starts the body digesting and raising the metabolism along with a constant feeling of being full.

3. Try some cheese and meat in a salad. By mixing a little protein in your salad you will obtain a more balanced meal which in turn will boost your metabolism and keep those hungry feelings away. Since many people look at salads as not hardy enough to replace a meal and they feel hungry sooner. The added protein should help fill that empty space in the stomach, try chicken, ham or a favorite meat. Cheese is a good source of protein and fats that helps increase metabolism so add it to a salad.

4. Try different types of salads. Place fresh broccoli, cauliflower or carrot pieces into a salad. Mix some tuna with a regular salad with some boiled eggs. Many people like shrimp or lobster salad if you like seafood. Look at some oriental style or southwestern style salads. One of my favorites is a taco salad. It really does fill me up for hours.

5. Breakfast. Eat meat is alright, you don’t have to eat cereal, toast or muffins only. These do not have the ingredients to jump start your metabolism. Start with something with more protein like eggs or maybe some leftover grilled chicken. A lighter meal would be fruit with cottage cheese or yogurt.

6. Drink water. just like food, withholding from your body of water can cause it to collect rather than use. To encourage your liver to concentrate on metabolism instead of water retention, be sure you drink an suitable amount of water.

The important part of the above article that you need to remember is the food you eat needs to supercharge that metabolism of yours. Also remember to eat every 3 to 4 hours so when you get the metabolism started in the morning, you keep it going throughout the day. Eat modest, steady meals. Expanding the time between meals causes your body go into hunger mode, which signifies it will hold onto as many calories as possible and stash away them as fat. This is why abstaining from food and skipping meals will only make things worse.

By:James Ellison 

The spine is a complex part of your body, and can be broken down into three main categories. The spinal column contains the bones that make up your spine, including the discs. Second, there are neural elements contained in the spine, such as the spinal cord and nerve roots. The rest of the elements of your backbone can be categorized as supporting structures. These structures include muscles, tendons, and ligaments.

The Spinal Column

Here, we will focus on the spinal column, which is made up of the collection of bones found in your back, in which the ribs connect to. The spinal column serves many purposes and functions. In terms of its purpose in the spine itself, it provides a base for attachment of the spine’s ligaments, tendons, and muscles. It protects the spinal cord, nerve roots, and many internal organs, as well as provides the main structural support for most of your body, including your head, shoulders, and chest. The spinal column gives your body proper balance and weight distribution, as well as allows your torso to have the range of motion it does, like bending forward, backward, side to side, and rotate.

Anatomy

The spinal column is made up of 32-34 individual vertebrae, which are the bones that provide the basis for the spine. These vertebrae are broken down into five main groups, according to their location on the backbone. Starting at the base of the skull, there are 7 cervical vertebrae, which make up the neck. Below those, we find 12 thoracic vertebrae, located in the upper back. The lower back (below the curve) consists of 5 vertebrae called lumbar vertebrae. Located just below those, there is a group of 5 more vertebrae. These are joined, or fused together to produce the sacrum, which is a part of the pelvis. At the very lower end of the spine is the coccyx, or tailbone. This is made of 3-5 fused vertebrae.

Each individual vertebra is made up of several parts and each one has unique features depending on the region in which it is found. Every vertebra, regardless of location, has three basic functional parts: the drum-shaped vertebral body, designed to bear weight and withstand compression or loading; the posterior (backside) arch, made of the lamina, pedicles and facet joints; and the transverse processes, to which muscles attach.

Between each of these vertebrae are intervertebral discs, commonly shortened to just “discs”. These are made of very strong, hard tissues which connect each vertebra to the next. They are located in the front of the spine and are what give your torso the ability to move forward, backward, side to side, and to rotate.

By:Kathleen Whitlow 

A better choice for obtaining pure drinking water would be a good home filtration system. This product would give you the quality assurance that is unattainable through production line h20. Plus, you would be spending only pennies per day instead of forking over a dollar at a sitting for a bottled beverage.

There are several reasons why pure drinking mineral water may lack the level of purity that you desire, and the FDA plays a large role in that. There are many rules and regulations in place for city treatment facilities that simply don’t apply towards bottled h20. Bottled water may be worse in some cases than what flows from your tap.

There is a zero tolerance rule when it comes to decal coliform and E-coli in public drinking water. There is however no such prohibition that pertains to bottlers. Knowing that a certain amount of these bacteria were considered acceptable, how could you ever consider that you had in your hand pure drinking water?

Pure drinking mineral water is largely drawn from natural springs. All standing bodies of water contain contaminants such as Cryptosporidium and Giardia. It is not required by the FDA that bottlers test their water source for these two commonly found pathogens.

Also, any water that is drawn from a surface source is required by federal law to be filtered and disinfected before it is made available for public consumption. Once again the law does not apply to bottlers. Although most companies probably do filter in some fashion, I’m not sure that I could ever just assume that a company has produced pure drinking water.

There is also an inherent danger in the plastic used to contain the pure drinking mineral water. One of the elements of plastic is a phthalate, which a cancer-causing chemical. It is commonly known in the industry that if the water is stored in these plastic bottles for any length of time, the phthalate will be absorbed by the water.

Regulations are so loose for the bottlers that the Natural Resources Defense Council declared in a report that, “While tap water is indeed risky, having compared available data, we conclude that there is no assurance that bottled water is any safer than tap water.”

With a home water purification system you will have an assurance of pure drinking water. There are many high quality systems available which will give you everything that you need in order to protect the health of your family. Let me give you a few tips on what should be included in top of the line unit.

Your purification system should feature both an activated granular carbon filter and a multi media block to wipe out the threat of chemical contamination. In addition a micron filter should be in place for bacterial and parasitic menaces. Really want pure drinking mineral water? An ion exchange has you covered on that also, plus it balances out the pH level.

Want pure drinking water Make it yourself and you will never have to worry about the quality of your beverage again.

By:Mike Logan