My daughter’s recent bout with Mono has been an education for me. We treated it holistically, and probably halved the amount of time she was feeling ill (based on the usual course of the disease). Thankfully, she is totally fine now, and back at school. But, of course, I was interested in what may have caused her to get sick. Continued

How far you can reach beyond your toes from a sitting position, back against the wall, legs straight out in front of you? It may sound like an unimportant question, but it may actually be an important predictor of your longevity.

There are several accurate predictors of longevity that I have written about in prior Musings, including the length of our telomeres and our lung capacity. But another one that I have not yet written about is our flexibility. The health Continued

Now that winter is here, I am making more than ever my batches of dehydrated crackers. My favorite recipe is for my Rosemary Crackers (which are universally loved), for which I use sprouted flax seeds and sprouted almonds. It’s important to sprout raw nuts and seeds by soaking them first. Nature’s defense mechanism includes nutritional inhibitors and toxic substances — enzyme inhibitors, phytates (phytic acid), polyphenols (also known as tannins), and goitrogens. All these are removed automatically by nature: when it rains, the nut or seed gets wet and can then germinate to produce a plant. When we soak our nuts and seeds, we are mimicking nature. Continued

My Last Musings discussed Angelina Jolie’s (in my mind, ill-advised) decision to have a prophylactic double mastectomy. In this Musings, I stay with the celebrity theme, and question New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s February decision to have Lap-Band surgery to bring his weight down. Continued

LESSONS

Lesson 1: We constantly have Streptococcus in our throats, yet we rarely experience Strep Throat. The same is true of cancer; Lewis Thomas, past President of Sloan-Kettering, proposed the prevailing theory of cancer – that we have cancer cells in our bodies all the time, but only when our immunity doesn’t recognize the cancer cells as pathogenic entities, are they allowed the replicate and cause health issues. The same is true of Swine Flu and other viral strains. Thus: good immunity; no flu. Continued

The Healing Corridor of East 20th Street

It occurred to me what an amazing corridor for healing East 20th Street is – so I decided to give a conceptual map of all of what is happening on my street – from the east river to 5th Ave (at which point the street changes to the much less interesting West 20th St). Continued

I have recently seen two documentaries that are important.

The first was begun by Ruth Sackman, who served as my first mentor in holistic health shortly after I moved to New York. In 1971, Ruth founded The Foundation for Advancement of Cancer Therapies, the first non-profit organization whose sole purpose was to dissiminate information about non-toxic, biological therapies for cancer (and all other abnormal bodily conditions). Ruth’s guidance saved my mother’s life as she struggled with the metastatic cancer (from breast to bone) that had afflicted her – and she was, thus, able to move from a wheel-chair to playing tennis again. Ruth died two years ago, at the age of 93, while the film was still in process. Continued

As the co-author (with Jay Gutierrez) of a recent book, Because People Are Dying, on the healing technology of radiation hormesis – the use of low-level radiation to strength the immune system and heal diseases — I felt I should give out as much credible information as I can about the disaster that is unfolding in Japan, and what that may mean to both the Japanese and to those of us who are safely tucked away in or own homes, watching with sympathy and tears of grief for all those who are suffering. Continued

For almost a year now I have been participating in an experiment which has the possibility of extending my life. The process is a bit bizarre. I lie on a mat which is energized by a contraption that makes a fair amount of noise, but most bizarrely, it makes my battery operated alarm clock go off every few minutes. Also, light bulbs held in my hand start glowing, even though they are not plugged into an outlet. Sounds kind of sci-fi – and I guess in a sense, it is. Continued

I am happy to announce that I WILL NOT be arrested. I was running scared there for a while. As a member of the Nemenhah Native American Tribe, I was somewhat involved in the Danny Hauser case. If you haven’t been reading the papers in the last week, he is a 13-year-old boy, diagnosed with cancer, who told his mother after one chemotherapy session that he would not have another. There was a court hearing to decide if he could be forced into chemotherapy, and Danny told the judge that if they insisted on giving him more chemo, he would kick and bite anyone who tried to force him to have it. Continued

My mother died of cancer when she was 64; my sister died of cancer when she was 57. Because of a possible genetic predisposition to cancer, the “dreaded disease” is never far from my mind, as I know it is on the minds of many other people. Continued

The guy:

I have just returned from visiting my farm (formerly home to La Casa Resort Spa) in the rain forest of Puerto Rico. I took time out to meet a man I have been wanting to meet for quite a while. He is a physician, and an oncologist who did his internship and residency in radiation oncology at Johns Hopkins, and taught as an instructor in radiation oncology at my alma mater, Washington University (School of Medicine) as well as at the University of Miami School of Medicine. You can see from his credentials that for many years Victor treated cancer patients with standard medical protocols including chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Fifteen years ago, however, he threw in the towel of orthodox medicine and became a medical renegade, practicing only holistic medicine. Continued

The world is abuzz about Angelina’s recent decision to have both breasts removed — a double mastectomy. Angelina does not have cancer. She has the genetic marker(BRCA1 or BRCA2) for a specific form of breast cancer, thus, presumably, increasing her genetic predisposition for getting breast cancer at some point in her life. Angelina stated that she hopes “that other women will benefit” from her experience. Continued

The Two Best Brains You Have (after the one in your head)

The nutritionist who saved my mother’s life from terminal cancer – Bernard Jensen – was fairly obsessed with bowels. He wrote a book called Tissue Cleansing through Bowel Management, which was a seminal book on understanding the relationship between the bowel/the gut and health. He also developed the colema board, a kind of home colonic unit that Ruth Sackman, founder of the Foundation of the Advancement of Cancer Therapies, had all her cancer patients using. My mother was one of Ruth’s patients, and she used it diligently as one of the methods of detoxifying her body. We attributed my mother’s cure from terminal cancer, in part, to her consistent cleansing of her bowel. (The other changes were committing to a nutritional program that emphasized live foods, and finding emotional balance through the process of psychoanalysis.) Continued