We Choose our Emotions and not vice versa

I don't have a link on this post but just a thought. My belief is that we choose our emotions and that is what differentiates them from instincts. Instincts are physiologic/neurologic responses that function much like a reflex in the musculoskeletal system. If x happens then y reflex occurs. Now its not quite the same because it does appear that there is a wider range of responses to an instinctual stimulus than to a reflex producing stimulus such as a reflex hammer in a doctors office. However generally the principle holds.

Our emotions on the other hand have are controllable and that control is completely resting with us. I was reminded once more today that we have the power to choose our emotional response no matter what difficult situation we are presented with. This simple concept in my mind separates the men from the boys when it comes to how we operate our lives.

Next time you are presented with a stressful or difficult emotional situation remember that you always have the power to choose your emotional state and that it is not controlled by someone else.

Have a great weekend.

Big decision.... huge implications

This case is only mentioned here because of its relationship to health decisions. I believe the right decision was made in this case. If this decision was allowed to stand it would set a precedent. The precedent is that any minor who would choose an alternative treatment for cancer in consultation with his parents, would be forced into medical treatment by child protective or social services. This decision would have far reaching affects and would appear to trample all over many civil liberties including the right to abstain from immunization and other medical treatments that are not scientific and don't show proper efficacy above an alternative treatment.

Just something to be aware of.... the freedom to choose.

More natural oncology approaches coming maybe

This article was interesting on two fronts.

1. In the first paragraph the article admits that current cancer treatment in all its forms does not cure cancer but only prolongs life. Many are under the mistaken notion that chemotherapy, radiation and the like actually cure cancer. They do not. The strongest claim an oncologist can make is that the treatment may (big word) prolong life. Then the next question that immediately follows is what kind of quality of life does this treatment prolong. I currently have patients in my office that we are treating that have cancer of one type or another. They are taking the approach that meets best with their belief system, philosophy and desires after fully researching all options available. These patients are doing well and share an exceptional quality of life all things considered. The one patient is even conducting a business start-up while being very responsible for his health.

2. At least some institutions of higher education and research are starting to look at ways to treat cancer that may mimic what we sometimes see the body naturally do. Instead of trying to destroy the body to heal it which has never made sense to many in the alternative and natural world. They might be onto something. Trying to help the body do what it needs to do in a more natural means. Funny, this is what natural and alternative health practitioners have been doing for years. Seems revolutionary now :) I guess that just proves there is nothing new under the sun.

Long Time Coming.. But is it Enough ?

Finally the FDA steps in and decides to start policing one of the most corrupt organizations going, itself. Less than this type of collusion is what got Martha Stewart thrown in minimum security. For decades physicians and others who have been paid and otherwise compensated by pharmaceutical companies, have been on FDA panels and advisory board that approve the use of that pharma companies new drug after a trial. That sounds kind of fishy doesn't it.

If you want a really good book out there that is current and details this corruption and how far it extends and how it can affect your health go here and here. Just for qualification, this does not mean that I believe there is not a time and a place for pharmaceutical intervention but I believe it to be rare and in very specific circumstances.

Patient heal thyself with knowledge :)

Men Take Note... We Are Dulling Ourselves

It appears that men that share a bed with anyone, woman, dog, cat are more dull the next day. Maybe the Victorian era was good for some things. When men and women had separate bed suites and would have the occasional "visit" for certain activities. What is interesting is that women seem to be no less dull the day after spending the night in bed with someone. Not sure what this study or notion suggests but I am sure you and your spouse or significant other will get a laugh.

Children Should Play Outside...How do we do this ?

I think this article is right on the money and is desperately needed. We are seeing more and more children at earlier and earlier ages becoming obese. But here is my problem. How do we do this ?
Let me throw this contrast your way.

When I was growing up we would run home from the bus. Throw our bookbag on the table, grab a snack and run back out the door to play "kick the can" for the next three hours. Running all over the neighborhood, into and out of others yards etc. Most kids today don't even know what "kick the can" is. Then we would eat and if we had our homework done we could run out again and play for another hour before the sun went down or bed time.

Today, kids are lucky to get that much physical exercise in a week. No I still think with a lot more effort and money kids could get that type of physical exercise. Sure put them in organized activities all the time. Well for those who have larger families expense becomes and issue. Well, maybe we should just have them play more in the yard. In this day and age you can't trust that some pedophile or other freak won't be trolling around the neighborhoods "asking your kids to look at his baby puppy" as happened in our neighborhood recently.

The real solution to having kids get more exercise is getting rid of video games and TV and making our world safer for kids so they can play outside. Both of these things sadly or happily are controlled by parents. Get to work folks

Blood Type Diet

I think as a premade diet program this is one of the best out there. If you are looking for a plan to follow and don't want to have to pay someone to tell you all the foods you should and shouldn't eat this is a good one. Granted, if you follow any diet for any of the blood types you will have good results. These diets are based on the idea of reducing Antigen-antibody type reactions that occur in the body with certain foods. The name of this protein is called a Lectin. When certain Lectins in the blood come into contact with certain food chemicals they create a reaction that causes the bodies immune system to become overactive. The result is impaired digestion, water retention, fat storage and a whole host of other offenses.

I don't agree with everything here and I think there are certain parts of this book that are vague and unsupported the general premise holds promise. Also another site you should look at in conjunction with this one is Elisa/Act testing. I offer this test in my office and it has been really helpful for people in conjunction with dietary changes.

Here is another article on medical errors

No comment here. Just another article detailing the same information on medical errors

We should expect drug and medical errors

This is truly scary. We should expect to have one drug error per day in a hospital ! Why ?. It is a wonder anyone gets out alive. It is amazing, don't you think, that you hear plastered all over the media the massage therapist, chiropractor or other non medical professional in the last 5 years who has actually done permanent damage to a patient. Meanwhile medication death errors that occur on a regular basis in hospitals and at home are largely ignored and don't even hit the media radar screen. Hum ! Something smells fishy.

Is it any wonder medical doctors are having patients leave their practices in search of friendlier and less damaging climes at an alarming rate. Maybe because this system is not working.

New Warnings for Anti-depressants

Haven't we seen enough of these lately. How many more warnings can we have before we determine that something is bad for you. While I don't completely agree with Tom Cruise (I do believe there are rare circumstances where antidepressants are needed) I have grave concerns.

My concerns are over the long term damaging effects that these medications will have on a future generation. This is in terms of actual damage to a persons mental and emotional health and physiology. It is also in terms of teaching our children and adults that the route to happiness in their life is to take a pill. We therefore learn that happiness is external to us and is not something we decide or control. Hope this post and article will once again get attention if not for you, for your friends or family.

Chlorine exposure appears to be bad

This study seems to point to enclosed chlorine exposure being a bad thing. I would tend to agree with this sentiment. It seems to me that I also remember a few years ago a study that warned that chlorine in drinking water could also be part of the rise in frequency of heart attacks and arterial plaquing. There are things that you can do to protect yourself. The first is right in your own home. Getting a filter for your shower that has a crystals in it that remove chlorine or filters chlorine would be great. It appears that exposure to heated water steam is where the highest chlorine exposure comes from.

Try this experiment to see what I mean. Get in a really hot shower, shut the shower curtain so that no steam escapes and then try taking a deep breath. You will notice that one will cough fairly violently or can't take a deep breath. This reaction, many believe, is not just due to the heat as many would suppose but due to the airborne chlorine concentration. There are many filters available on the internet. Compare and get one. You will notice the difference in the feeling of your skin and your breathing after a shower. Sure makes a vote for a salt water pool.

Women Just Stop Working So Darn Much

Is it that women who work long hours have worse health, or women that work long hours just have that much more to do when they get home because the spouse or partner they are living with doesn't pick up the slack. Not sure but maybe you can decide. I generally see that longer work days effect my female patients more because they still come home and the expectation is that they will be handling most of the children and household cooking chores. Women are just plain working too much.

Maybe we should start a study that looks at whether or not these same women's health would improve if they had a partner who picked up the slack or a live in housekeeper. Then we would really know why women seem to be effected more by long hours.

Consultations

I have had individuals email me from locations other than the greater Houston area about my practice. I do consult with individuals outside Texas and even outside the U.S. If you would like more information about this you can contact my office at 281-419-9104.

Medical Fertility - Not Much Bang for The Buck

This study mentioned in this article sort of proves what I have always thought. Fertility treatment is about as good as throwing a dart at a dart board and trying to hit a bulls-eye. But it sure costs alot and is big business for pharmaceutical manufacturers and medical practice alike. I know this article mentions people that have at least a 30-40 percent chance of conceiving within twelve months but how the heck are we supposed to know this anyway. C'mon. That is crazy. If people knew that they had a chance of being pregnant in the next 12 months at an odds of thirty to forty percent they might not be using fertility treatment anyway.

Anyhoo, I would suggest a few other more mundane and less costly options first:

1. Assessing hormone levels with saliva testing to determine progesterone levels
2. Decrease Stress anyway you know how
3. Have more sex with your spouse
4. Eat organic foods as much as possible to avoid additional contaminants in your diet
5. Evaluate Copper and Zinc levels for women and men
6. Consider N.E.T. (www.netmindbody.com) or counseling to resolve issues with whoever you are trying to make a baby with.
7. Acupuncture treatment for fertility. Some promising preliminary information on this topic. Of course no one is funding studies with billions of dollars because if it were proved to work the economic machine called "fertility specialist" would be gone.

And there are more where this list leaves off.

Have a great weekend and happy baby or no baby making

Morning Sickness Evolved ?

This one really got me to thinking. Are there really scientists out there who think that morning sickness just evolved. I don't know personally but if you ask women out there they can tell you the last for or five generations of women in there family and how hard their pregnancies and morning sickness was. I doubt vary highly that this just evolved, for all the Darwinists out there.

How about this thought. It has been around since women started having babies and only until recently has anybody really care what a women went through during the forty weeks of pregnancy leading up to birth. I do agree with the idea that morning sickness should tell you pregnant Mom's something. Listen to your bodies and hear what they are telling you.

Do you need to slow down, hydrate more, raise blood sugar, get more protein, get off your feet etc etc. Listen to what your body and mind is telling you . It is never wrong and to violate body and mind during pregnancy is to ask for trouble.

The Pond Water / Ear Infection Connection

Interesting article on ear infections. Small sample size, poorly constructed study, and very poor analysis and application of results. However, what got me to laughing was the "bio film" thought. What the heck is a biofilm. By definition of this study it appears to be human moss that is growing in your children's ears causing them to contract ear infections.

I have a more logical solutions to solve ear infections:

1. If your children swim in pools, lakes or streams have them use dry ear alcohol drops to remove moisture after swimming.

2. Take you children off dairy and gluten for three weeks and watch what happens

3. Put your child on a probiotic that has live cultures that must be store in the cold. Preferably 23 to 25 different bacteria contained. I have found one with fourteen. The highest I have been able to find so far.

4. Give them proper rest

5. If that doesn't work get them Elisa/ACT tested for food allergies. Hint this is not done at your local allergists office most of the time.

If that doesn't work call me we will go to second line of defense.

A Vote for Taking a Lazy Morning

I found this article very interesting in light of what I have been reading with regard to Adrenal Fatigue. You may have already known that the adrenal gland itself does not really fully rest unless we are in laying down position. This is because the adrenal gland helps to regulate postural changes in blood pressure. So we already knew the fact that if you are going to take a rest it should be fully lying down otherwise you might as well keep working or playing because your not truly resting. We have also been told that proper rest can improve memory and our health and help us feel less aged. Of course these are all the same things that good adrenal function helps with to. So is it really the rest or is it that the rest supports healthy adrenal function.

This study seems to show that good solid rest helps with performance of memory and test taking ability. As the number of cases of Adrenal Fatigue increases with out hectic and emotionally and mentally stressful lives, it becomes even more important to get adequate rest. If you are suffering from lack of energy, poor mental function, feeling overly stressed, or even jittery when you try to sleep or rest consider going to bed before 10:00 pm. It appears that there is suggestion in some studies that getting to bed before ten will allow the adrenal gland to heal and going to bed later than that does not afford the same benefit.

Give it a try and let me know what you find out.

Universal Consciousness and Pandemic/Epidemics

The Quantum Physicists among us will sometimes talk about universal consciousness as it relates to pandemics/epidemics. The idea behind universal consciousness, as I understand it, is that we are all connected by a stream of energy/thought. This life/energy stream is accessible to all living beings in the morphic field that exists in our universe and beyond. The proof for this universal consciousness is supported by many experiences. One support would be the ideas for inventions and the fact that if you have just devised a new invention it is said that there are already seven other people in the world that have the same idea. The person that gets credit is the first to patent and get it to market.

The bubonic plague in England was catastrophic, but many quantum physics studiers believe that the reason it was even more devastating in human life toll was because of the immense societal fear that was transmitted in consciousness. The belief was that everyone in society was fearing this so severely that it created weakened immune systems and the ability of the body to fight of this virus was destroyed. I will let you read Rupert Sheldrake and David Bohm on your own. I warn you ahead of time that the reading is not light but it is definitely brain expanding. What I would like you to think about is this idea related to Bird Flu.

If you will notice the media can't seem to let this one go. Every time there is one case in the world its back in the news with all the material telling us that it is fatal in some god awful percentage of people that contract it. They (the media) continue to stir up more and more fear about this travesty crossing the ocean and entering the US population. While there is no support for this, a large part of the US population now fears an epidemic of Bird Flu that will eventually devastate our country.

The question for you: Does this fear and negative thinking bring about a shift in universal consciousness that allows the immune system to break down in just the right way so that it is susceptible to the Bird Flu. I will let you answer the question, but If you read quantum physics writings first I will tell you the answer is yes. So whether you agree or not with the physicists, for my sake, can you just think positively and strongly that your immune system and the immune systems of your friends, family, church and neighbors will hold strong. You will start to shift the balance of the universal consciousness on this subject in a more evolved direction.

Thank you

Breast Feeders of the World Unite

You may remember a few days ago that I posted on Breastfeeding and its many benefits. This was enlighten of an article written about a Victoria's Secret store that prevented and even banished a mom from the store for wanting to discreetly nurse her child.

Well Victoria's is not going to like this but the article above leans against them. I have special interest in this because my son was born at 1 pound 10 ounces which is below the study weight of 2 pounds 3 ounces or less. This is not the first study to point to the benefits of breast feeding over formula feeding. Not just for bonding but for mental and neurologic development. Take a read, you may feel more supported in your decision to breastfeed.

Immunizations. Scientific - Don't be too sure

Read this article when you get a chance and go to Dr Melissa's blog . In her post entitle "persistent coughing in children" she discusses this article and what it portends. All I have to say is that there are two sides to the immunization issue and you would do well to investigate both. Not just the side that you see trumpeted via your pediatrician, pharmaceutical rep, or the newspapers.

Steve

Toxicity and The Thyroid

This article I found most interesting, especially if you extrapolate out to other types of toxicity. I was found that a large percentage of those exposed to the fallout and radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor have developed thyroid cancer. I have always felt that the thyroid can be a gate keeper for the body letting you know when there is imbalance of any type.

I have seen patients with thyroid issues that have toxic level of chemical exposure, emotional exposure or medication exposure. If you are having thyroid balance issues or heaven forbid thyroid cancer, toxifying yourself with chemo and other so called chemical/medical treatments may not be the answer. Consider some natural approaches if you are able and then consider any levels of chemical, medicinal or emotional exposure that is toxic.

Again, none of the recommendations on my website should be used to diagnose or treat any medical condition. Find your natural healthcare provider of choice to do that :)

Body Worlds -- come join us

I will be leading a group of students through the bodyworld exhibit on July 21st from about 9:30 am -2 pm. We will discuss anatomy and physiology as its relates to exercise, training and body function. The cost is $64. $14 for the ticket of admission and $50 for the class/guided tour. We are now taking reservations on first come first serve basis. If you are interested please email me on my website link at www.drclouthier.com

Please start evaluating how your emotions effect your health

I think this story is a case in point in how emotions can affect health. I read this story in wonderment at how a formerly healthy executive with the world at his feet could in a few short years go to ill enough health to have a heart attack and die. I don't believe his nutritional status changed that much during the last few years during the Enron debacle. Structurally he still looked to be in great shape. Emotionally I believed him to be a wreck of a man. Now me saying this does not mean I am letting him off the hook for wrongdoing. All I want you to focus on is the fact that this man (largely of his own doing) had his heart broken (emotionally) and his life and future tarnished and largely ruined. Do I think devastating emotional stressors unresolved can cause health crisis of the heart attack variety. SURE DO. Please start looking at your own health pattern and look for emotional triggers to your health complaints. You might just be surprised.

Day of Rest

As July 4th approaches I have had a longer than usual weekend to reflect on the idea of taking a rest. Almost all religions that I am aware of recommend a day of rest. A time where we turn our hearts and minds toward something greater than our pursuits, lives, and ourselves. This principal of cycles of activity and inactivity is sound throughout our created world.

1. The heart has a contraction and relaxation phase
2. Day and night
3. Creation of six days and then a day of Rest
4. Contraction of a muscle and relaxation of an opposing muscle
5. AC Electrical current or AC standing for alternating current of an on and off cycle
6. Exhalation and inhalation
7. Etc etc etc

Why not take some time this long weekend to think about whether or not your life has these periods of activity and rest and whether they are balanced. Without proper rest cycles we never will reach our true highest potential during our period of activity or work. I think if you shoot for the goal of taking one day out of seven as a day of rest to focus on family and spiritual pursuits and shooting for taking 6 weeks of vacation per year you will see the quality of your life improve. Give it a shot. Trust me, I tried it and it worked.

I have included a link by clicking on this title which can get you started with how to get a better night of rest. Start small but think big.

Breastfeeding

This post is for all those Mom's out there who have chosen against societal pressure and ignorance to breastfeed their babies. Over and over again studies support breast feeding as the best way to nourish your child nutritionally. This is in addition to the studies that show higher cognitive function, better bonding with mother and greater social integration. There are times when breastfeeding can not be the method of choice for nourishing a child but it should be the exception and not the rule. Our society seems to have a problem with this choice and I am not sure why.

I don't know if it is our general lack of respect for mothering and children in our society or something else. Maybe some of you moms would like to post back to me and let me know your thoughts. Anyhow, I wanted to encourage you Mom's that do breastfeed to keep up the good fight and do what is best for your baby. The benefits are really immeasurable and beyond significant. Don't be dissuaded by societies continued attack on your position as expert about your child. Stand strong with the fifteen other Mom's in this article about Victoria's Secrets view of the most important bond of life.

Have a great July 4th and celebrate independence with gusto :)