The 1-Minute Weight Loss Cheat Sheet – Quick Shortcuts & Tactics for Busy Women (9 page)

It is time that gets rid of the virus. But the antibiotic is often praised as the cure.

I’ll get back to the over-prescription of antibiotics but first you need to understand the importance of your gut. More and more health practitioners these days are realizing that if they “fix the gut” they “fix the patient.”

Our stomachs contain billions and billions of bacteria. When we are healthy, we usually refer to that bacteria as
probiotics
or
healthy flora.
The natural bacteria in our guts is healthy bacteria that attacks and breaks down the food we eat and helps to eliminate invading bad bacteria. Our natural stomach bacteria is good bacteria, very good indeed.

Sugar, grains, and other starches rob our guts of this bacteria. Any foods that quickly convert to sugar fights against our guts’ natural order and robs our guts of healthy bacteria we need to keep our bodies in balance.

And antibiotics are one of the biggest thieves of good bacteria in our stomachs. The problem is that antibiotics do their job well. They are very “anti” when it comes to bacteria so they kill all our good bacteria.

First of all, don’t ever accept an antibiotic prescription again without first demanding a CBC blood test. It’s not just that antibiotics can kill off whatever good bacteria your stomach has. This damage to your stomach can continue
for up to four years after you finish the antibiotics!

One way to
help
ward off the damage a prescribed antibiotic does to you is to eat yogurt, kefir, and sauerkraut while on antibiotics. This food replaces the flora in your gut that the antibiotics kill off. Eat as much as you want to during a round of antibiotics. Your stomach should recover far faster and so should you.

All these
foods: sauerkraut, miso wine, organic sour cream, soy sauce (don’t worry, this is a soy that I approve of), kefir and yogurt are
fermented foods
. These literally are foods that are allowed to sour and ferment before you eat them.

If that sounds gross, every piece of cheese you’ve ever eaten has probably been fermented during its creation. Real parmesan cheese (not the stuff in the shakers but the cheese made only in Parma, Italy and imported here called
Parmigiano-Reggiano
cheese) literally sits on a shelf at room temperature
for two years
before it’s sold! This is a fact and I’ve been to Parma and went into the huge warehouses where 25-foot high shelves go on for seemingly acres and acres with huge round wheels of the delicious stuff just sitting there waiting out their 2-year service before being sold.

Your body
loves
fermented food. And your body, when it has good bacteria in your stomach, stays healthier than it otherwise would.

Note:
If you just won’t or can’t make your own yogurt and kefir, get organic Greek yogurt. Stay away from the sweet dessert-like stuff that is just one step from ice cream which you see in the little white cups near the dairy section. Those are loaded with sugar or worse High-Fructose Corn Syrup (often disguised on the label) and soy (never disguised for some odd reason).
Oikos
Greek yogurt is a good brand that we sometimes use. It comes from Stoneyfield Farms and you can learn more about them in the must-watch movie,
Food, Inc
.

You can even make your own sauerkraut and it’s the most remarkably simple fermented food you can make. Literally, to make sauerkraut you put fresh, organic cabbage in water for
7 to 60 days, depending on which process you choose. (You’ll use a special ceramic pot for this that you can find on Amazon.) Out comes sauerkraut that, unlike what you buy at the store, has never been cooked so the original cabbage’s vitamins and minerals are intact and your stomach loves all of it. And your next round of antibiotics will work on your bad bacteria without being able to kill off all the good stuff.

The reason you want fermented foods
daily
is that your gut needs fermented foods. You often get sick in the head from colds and allergies because your
gut
is lacking the flora needed to attack antibodies that are always around us. As I said, fix your gut and you fix your body.

That good flora eliminates or reduces the effects of many
routine sicknesses that you’d otherwise get. The world around us is unnatural with toxins galore. Loading up our guts with good bacteria, the probiotics from these fermented foods enables our bodies to function in balance to help ward off sickness, even after direct exposure to sickness.

Note:
The natural health industry has found numerous alternatives to antibiotics, some having better results than others. Adding these to your diet, along with the fermented foods described above, should go a long way towards keeping bacterial problems away from you and perhaps getting you well from bacterial problems without the need for antibiotics: honey (locally grown honey close to where you live has the highest rate of antibacterial properties for your body), vitamin D3 (a minimum of 1,000 IU daily and nobody in
my
family takes less than 5,000 IU daily), and vitamin B3.

A second problem with the overuse of antibiotics – that is, the over-medication and over-prescribed use of them – is bacterial mutation.

In the history of modern science, not one mutation has
ever
been recorded that is beneficial. Not one. This is critical to keep in mind.

Bacteria mutates when allowed to flourish.

That mutation is bad. Very bad. The mutation means that antibiotics that used to work well have a harder and harder time attacking the bad, mutated bacteria in our bodies. This means more medical research has to be done to find more potent antibiotics. More money is spent. People stay sicker until an appropriate antibiotic is found.

Every time I get a CBC test and find that I need antibiotics, my doctor says the same thing to me: “Take the entire antibiotic prescription. Even if you start feeling better; finish the
entire
antibiotic prescription. Even if you are completely well by tomorrow, finish the entire prescription. Because remember:
dead bacteria cannot mutate.
”

Oh, if only every doctor for the past 50 years had given their patients that advice!

It’s true that when on antibiotics, especially a 7- to 10-day dose prescription, people often feel completely well a day or more before the antibiotic is all taken. The problem is this: many of the bad bacteria are still in the body. There may not be enough alive to take down the body any longer but there are enough bad bacteria to remain alive. This is when mutation raises its ugly head. And remember, I stated that
not one observed mutation has ever been shown to be beneficial.

Note:
This is why some newer antibiotics such as the
Z-Pack
(Zithromax) are designed to be taken completely in only 3- to 5-days. People are more likely to follow the entire prescription protocol when the time frame is short.

Many of the new strains of bacteria exist because:

1.
    
Doctors over-prescribed unneeded antibiotics.

2.
   
Patients stopped taking antibiotics before the prescription ran out.

This pair of no-no’s encourages mutation. And not one observed mutation has (repeat after me): Never. Been. Shown. To. Be. Beneficial.

But if we take the entire round of antibiotics as prescribed, the odds are great that the bad bacteria will all die. And as my doctor says, “Dead bacteria do not mutate.”

Perhaps you’ve heard of the diseases people now routinely get in hospitals.
MRSA
(Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) and other bacterial infections are now appearing that are extremely difficult to eliminate, even with the strongest of antibiotics.

Our overuse of antibiotics, the over-prescription of unneeded antibiotics, and our not following the instructions for use have created mutating monster bacteria. We are suffering because of all this.

Things just get worse with our overuse of antibiotics.

Our immune systems are constantly on lookout for foreign invaders, naturally occurring cell defects and mutant cells. Our immune systems have the vast capacity to remember enemies of our bodies and deploy attacks that have worked in the past to rid us of those problem invaders. Some of the fastest growing cells in the human body are immune cells. Antibiotics hurt our body’s natural ability to stay well.

Sadly, it’s babies that feel this destructive use of antibiotics more than anyone:

80+ percent of the body’s immunity is built in the intestinal tract by the friendly bacteria balance that resides there. The intestinal flora starts building in an infant while still in his/her mother’s womb but the flora really takes off after eight days of age. Starting with the colostrum milk, the gut begins to populate with more bacteria while the infant’s immune system starts an inventory of good and bad cells in the body. This inventory is a life-long process and the immune system never forgets an invader.

It is said that the absolute worst thing to do to any infant is to give them an antibiotic. Antibiotics indiscriminately kill bacteria, both good and bad. One round of antibiotics will permanently change the baby’s immune system, and because a majority of neuro-chemicals are also made in the gut, the baby’s neurology is also altered.
 The antibiotics that have been touted as the savior of mankind from disease are costing us in cancer and degenerative, chronic diseases.

Once the very first antibiotic is administered to the infant or child, the bacteria in the gut is wiped out and the immune system is permanently altered in its ability to manufacture appropriate immune cells. Fungus in the gut is now unopposed and begins to proliferate unchecked by the friendly bacteria. After fungus sets up strongholds then parasites move in to share the bounty of food and minerals meant to feed the body. This is the first step
for chronic disease and cancer.

Obviously you stop taking antibiotics when your blood test shows you don’t need them.

The next step is to begin adding to you and your family’s diet many fermented foods. Dr. Weston A. Price surveyed a dozen of the world’s healthiest cultures. These cultures were lived on different continents, inside vastly different environments, eating extremely varied kinds of food, and living entirely different physical lives from sedentary to active. The
only
factor that Dr. Price found common in the entire dozen cultures, the 12 healthiest cultures on earth with lifespans that dwarfed all the rest, was: fermented foods.

Yes, if you get a lot of colds and flues, fixing your stomach
can
reduce your illness. Sometimes by an amazing amount. Your stomach is responsible for eliminating a lot of heavy metal toxins in your body. A healthy supply of good bacteria will aid in that elimination.

In the previous chapter I discussed some problems with prescription medicines, namely that of antibiotics. Antibiotics deserve their own chapters because they are so common and so commonly abuse both by patients and by doctors who over-prescribe them. The mutation that then occurs is bad for everybody, both those who are healthy and especially those already weakened such as patients in MRSA-infested hospitals.

If antibiotics were the only prescription problem, it would be bad enough. Sadly, it’s only the start.

Consider these facts, offered by the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently printed in the Los Angeles Times regarding the 2009 death statistics:


     
For the first time ever in the US, more people were killed by drugs than motor vehicle accidents


     
37,485 people died from drugs, a rate fueled by overdoses on prescription pain and anxiety medications, versus 36,284 from traffic accidents


     
Drug fatalities more than doubled among teens and young adults between 2000 and 2008, and more than tripled among people aged 50 to 69

In spite of these sobering numbers, the newspaper headlines are not filled with this epidemic. And it
is
an epidemic. Keep in mind these are not deaths resulting from illegal “street drugs.” These are deaths from medicine prescribed by licensed, state-approved, government-sanctioned doctors.

Dr. David Healy calls this
Pharmageddon
. He says that drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax, and Soma cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.

Perhaps surprisingly, the average age of people who die from prescription drugs is between 40 and 50. Using prescription drugs eliminates the stigma of someone being a “junkie.” That is most sad because the stigma is a good thing for a healthy society. We should work to stigmatize the overuse of prescription drugs the way we have stigmatized street drugs.