Healing with Nature

Due diligence is a business term that means to perform a complete and thorough investigation before committing to a deal or a transaction. Any successful business person will always do their due diligence before going into any relationship or accepting any proposal.

If this is true why do so many people do nothing when they are told something about health and then believe it to be the sacred truth. Nutrition and health are two of the most important subjects when it comes to information, they can make the difference between life and death in many cases.

Unfortunately these two subjects are the source of more misinformation than most any other topic known. A simple stroll through any bookstore or health food store will prove this. There are thousands upon thousands of books and magazines that have ’scientific’ information on health and nutrition.

The problem is that nearly every single book or article has another book or article that claims that the exact opposite is the actual truth. For example there are the low carbohydrate diet books that show without a doubt that we humans must eat a low carbohydrate diet.  Then there are the books that align with people like Dr. McDougall that say we must eat a lot of carbohydrates to stay healthy.

It is a very confusing and dangerous situation out there if you really want to get to the real scientific facts about human health. Most people give up shortly after they start off due to this confusion. Some will simply follow the diet or health plan that is in fashion for that month or that week. Once there is a new fasionable diet plan they will switch to the new one.

Could this be a healthy way of life? Certainly not. We have only one life and playing with it by following a poor diet can only lead to serious problems. It sure makes the book authors rich but not a lot more is accomplished by this.

How does one find the truth in diet, nutrition and lifestyle? What should a layman do to find the truth from all of the tabloid diets and fashionable suggestions? First of all, if you really are interested in your health then you need to at least understand basics. What do I mean by basics? At least understand the difference between protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients.

I will not define these here as that is out of the scope of this posting but these terms are defined in most any school biology textbook. Go to your local library and read at least 2 or 3 books that describe these.

Once you have mastered these basics then learn something about how the body uses food and nutrition (nutrition also comes from air, sunshine, emotions and other sources besides food). Read about the way the blood carries nutrients to the many cells of the body. Try to understand how this can be done in an efficient or inefficient way.

Once you have these basics understood then go out and read some of the health, diet and nutrition books. This time read them with a skeptical eye. Ask yourself if the author is just making the information up in his mind to sell more books or if he or she is really intelligent and knows about biology and metabolism.

After reading one book then go out and read another one that is in contrast to the first one and ask yourself the same questions while you read it. See which story seems to be more realistic with respect to the scientific knowledge that you have acquired.

They can not both be correct in all respects, you need to decide for yourself which one makes sense and which one is an attempt to convince the ignorant to buy products, supplements, foods, books, etc.

Do some further research in libraries, in bookstores, online. Read several pages of information and always be skeptical of everything especially if it is not consistent with the biological way that a human body functions.

Try to see if there are any inconsistencies in the information. One example that I recently saw was a book by a very popular raw food leader that had said that some of the references on the book might not have credits due to the chaos research magic that created the book. I would have some extreme doubts about a book that starts out with something like that.

Again, there are many deceiving and confusing stories about diet, health and nutrition out in the world. Do your due diligence to get the most realistic information that makes biological and logical sense. Get all sides of the story and make sure it fits in with the scientific and biological facts. If the information is not jiving then throw the book away and find a new one.

Surprise! Most people find it unbelievable that what they do to themselves during their life will result in their good or bad health. It’s a shocking concept to actually think that living healthfully can prevent negative consequences later on in life. They also do not believe that living a poor lifestyle will result in poor health.

I wonder why this idea is so pervasive? If you spend all of your money you earn and then you need to make the mortgage payment you won’t be able to pay it. That seems to make sense to most people but if you tell these same people if they save their health then they will have good health they won’t believe that for a second.

Why is health such a mystery to most of the world? Is it because the media, medical establishment and most of the rest of the world intentionally try to confuse us? If they are trying to confuse us they sure are doing a good job since most people are very confused.

I do believe that most people prefer to do the right thing for themselves to maintain health but are so confused by the misinformation. We are bombarded with so much misinformation daily that it’s a wonder that anyone knows the truth about health.

I hear very often of food that is labeled as healthy but plainly is not even compatible with a human body. Just walk into any popular grocery store and there are posters of most any product and the word healthy is often used to describe it. With so many healthy foods to buy it’s a wonder there are even any unhealthy people around.

If you look for the real ways to become healthy and live a healthy lifestyle while ignoring all of the misinformation you will be working towards health. It’s really simple. Health accumulates with consistent healthy practices thus avoiding unhealthy practices.

I kind of see it like this, if someone continuously drops a heavy weight on their foot every day, the foot that receives the heavy weight will get swollen, bruised, bloody and throb. If it is stopped these symptoms will eventually go away and the foot will recover. With time the symptoms that were produced due to the heavy weight will become less and less since the body will defend itself from this damage by creating possibly a thicker skin over the area that takes the weight.

Maybe even the person doing this will stop feeling pain completely and will continue to drop the weight on their foot because they feel there is no more damage being done to the foot. The damage continues of course but the symptoms of it are less. This is a basic survival mechanism, the pharmaceutical companies understand this reaction very well and create medicine that mimics the same toxins that people use to make the body stop producing symptoms.

The user of these medicines is sure the illness is gone because they don’t feel the pain any longer. They immediately recognize the medicine as the solution to their self-inflicted problem. Now they are hooked on medication and the pharmaceutical company executives smile all the way to the bank.

There are no mysteries to health. If you obey the laws of nature you get rewarded, if you do not then you’re playing Russian roulette with only 1 chamber empty. 

This world is full of people who are in denial of their extremely poor lifestyle habits. Most people live their daily life without even thinking about the consequences of their poor lifestyle decisions.

Most people know of someone who is seriously ill or has died at a relatively young age. These unfortunate people were living the usual western lifestyle. Some were participating in poor health habits like smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, or even the consumption of drugs for recreational purposes, but most were not doing anything blatantly bad except for their generally poor lifestyle.

Even driving around the city I see so many people with a memorial on their truck or car describing the birth and death of a loved one. Whenever I notice one of these I always look at it to see how long the person lived. Nearly all of them passed away before they reached the age of 50 years.

The cause of death is never written on the memorial but assuming they died from one of the two most common causes of death is probably a reasonable assumption at least in most cases.

The two most common causes of death for most western societies are cardiovascular disease and cancer. Of course many of these people might have died in automobile accidents or other traumas but probably many died from the most common causes of death.

I assume that these people were living the typical western lifestyle since nearly all people in western countries choose to live the same standard lifestyle. Both of these causes of death are completely preventable by living within the laws of nature.

The odd thing is that these people who obviously were grieved by the passing of their loved ones still live the exact same lifestyle as their deceased relatives or friends. I don’t understand what they are thinking when they expect different results by doing the exact same thing.

It is said that the definition of insanity is the repetition of the exact same behavior but expecting a different result. I am not sure if these people are suicidal or if they are insane.

If they are not suicidal and they do want to live a long healthy life then they must be insane. They are repeating the exact same behavior of their dear deceased loved ones and expect a different result. I can not see any other way to explain it.

Possibly they are just not educated in the laws of nature or have no idea that lifestyle and disease or death are related. Maybe these people are fooled or tricked somehow into thinking that what happened to their loved ones was some sort of random evil spell that just happens out of nowhere.

Certainly this evil spell having struck their loved one can never strike them as that is not allowed according to probabilities. It’s nearly impossible for lightning to strike twice, isn’t it?

Fortunately for the readers of this blog, things are much clearer for you. You understand the laws of nature and therefore you know that there is no evil spirit going around causing disease and death. You know that sickness and death is due to ignorance and apathy and not at all random or evil.

People who live according to the laws of nature will avoid most of these avoidable illnesses and death. They do not expect a different result by repeating the same behavior that their unfortunate dead loved one was doing before they became ill. These people are repeating the causes of health and wellness and expecting the same results as the rest of the natural hygiene community who are thriving and prospering all across the world.

For most of the world their health is low on their list of priorities. Nearly everyone on this planet takes their level of health for granted. Of course there are people who read the latest survey or the latest study and take whatever recommendations are given in the study.

Some will start a vitamin regime, some will take minerals, some will even modify their diet to include more or less of the food or substance that is under study. Some will even start an exercise or fitness regime. The majority of people however are too busy with the rest of their life or just are not interested in health because they either were never sick or they just don’t care.

No matter which category of the above you fit in, it is highly likely that you are not doing the right things to maintain health. Eating one food because it was shown in a study to improve something is not at all a way to improve health. Health is much more complex than something that can be modified by eating more or less of one food or even starting an exercise regime.

Most of us who were born on this planet are quite lucky. Many children do not survive childbirth and therefore they can not be reading this. Those of us who have made it through that critical time were blessed with an entire body that is self maintaining. The human body is capable of keeping itself in the best possible health.

After that point in time, the majority of people started to do self-destructive behaviors. Most were not even started on their own accord but by their guardian. Parents and guardians generally do not know the first thing about health and immediately start poisoning their recently born child.

They are often a first time parent and they will read books written by authors who know nothing about health but who do know how to market a book. Other sources of information come from the very good medical establishment whose interest doesn’t lie in the health of the people but in the pocketbooks of the people.

Still other sources of information comes from word of mouth. Obviously if your next door neighbor raised some ‘healthy’ children they must know what is the right thing to do. With the number of obese and overweight children approaching 40% in the US, most likely these children are not very healthy at all.

There is a problem with information and apathy in the world when it comes to health. It seems that most do not even care to know about health until it is too late and often times beyond that point or if they do care they do not know how to tell which information is accurate and which is not.

There is a lot of confusing and conflicting information available and the medical establishment thrives on this as they know that confused people are very easy to persuade. They are gullible.

The scientifically proven to be dangerous and even deadly Atkins diet was one of the most popular diets of all time. Many people still follow this diet. I hear people who shun carbohydrates as if they are the plague. There are many other similar diets and even more misinformation out in the world than can be listed here.

Everyone has a grandmother who made a remedy for most anything. Many people have heard so much of this misinformation and lies for so long they do more than believe it but trust it as somthing that is more true than their own name.

People seem to accept ideas that conform to their deepest beliefs and reject anything that does not. Most people do not have much of a biological or physiological education or even a mind to understand logic and science. They just take whatever they see or hear and throw it against their inner beliefs and if it sticks it becomes a new belief.

Unfortunately health doesn’t take care of itself if you do not follow the laws of nature. Yes we all do have a body that is designed to maintain itself as long as the user does the right things that allow it to do it’s work.

If you have a pet dog and you never gave it any attention, if you would just let him go out on his own without supervision and did not take care of him, eventually he will disappear. Possibly he will run away or get killed or become severly injured.

Health is not something that can be taken for granted. Even with our self-maintaining bodies we all need to do the right things to allow them to do their work. If you keep health low on the priority list then do not expect it to last for very long. Your body will give back exactly what it can given the inputs you have given it. If those inputs include the standard western diet, little or no exercise, negative thoughts and relationships, tobacco, alcohol and other toxins then you must expect the inevitable - loss of health.

There is a guy named Brian Dunning who posts on a web site called skeptoid.com. He includes podcasts of every post. The one I am addressing here is number 28 posted on February 19, 2007 which pertains to Natural Hygiene. If you have not read or heard this then go to the article and read it or listen to the podcast here: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4028 then return to read my rebuttal.

For anyone who is already familiar with natural hygiene, this blog entry is a complete moot point as Brian is so off of the mark with this article that it is not even worth a rebuttal. For those who are less familiar with natural hygiene and who might be open to the article or even possibly believe it, this is for you.

First of all, Brian doesn’t understand natural hygiene at all. He stresses that natural hygiene’s basis is that medicine and vaccinations are harmful to the body and should be avoided. Never in the article does he ever mention that natural hygiene is a totally different lifestyle from the popular or standard lifestyle that the vast majority of people choose to live. Nothing is further from the truth.

Natural hygiene is a lifestyle that includes the avoidance of medical procedures, medications, herbs, supplements, and vaccinations. Avoiding these without living within the natural laws of nature is not at all natural hygiene and no hygienist would ever live the standard life and simply avoid medications unless they are in transition to a complete natural hygienic life.

Consuming toxins on a daily basis, not getting enough sleep, exercise, positive stimulation, sunshine and all the other necessary inputs that a natural hygienist requires and then refusing medical treatment doesn’t make any sense for one and second, doing so can actually be more harmful than helpful unless the person is ready to transition fully into a hygienic lifestyle. 

I am not saying that the medicines and medical procedures that people use are helpful, no, not at all, but I am saying that if a person is already so toxic that their body doesn’t know how to react to more toxins, then taking these medicines might make the person feel like they are recovering from whatever they were suffering from. It is only after these people detox and completely transition to a natural hygiene lifestyle that they should avoid toxins, many of which are called medicine, herbs, supplements, and vaccinations.

Also Brian fails to mention that everytime that someone ‘miraculously’ gets healed from a dis-ease that it was their body that healed them (in all cases, 100% of the time) and not the medicine or other modality. He seems to think that some medicines or other sources can actually do something helpful to the body that the body could not do itself. He fails to mention that adding the medicine will usually if not always actually get in the way of the body’s natural healing systems.

His example of getting a cut and applying some disinfectant can heal the cut faster and with less risk of infection has no references and there isn’t even a piece of evidence that this is a fact. He also never discusses the fact that someone who practices natural hygiene rarely if ever gets a serious illness in the first place. He also doesn’t mention that most hygienists will go through a period of fasting if and when there is a need to in order to heal any substantial illness or dis-ease.

Brian mentions that child mortality is to blame for a substantial increase in life expectancy over the years. He implies that this is due to child inoculations to prevent childhood dis-eases. Natural hygienists’ children rarely suffer from these childhood dis-eases as their body is non toxic and they do not harbor the environment internally that is attractive to the germs and mirobes that cause these dis-eases.

It is also mentioned that ‘modern day non-civilized native tribes’ lack access to modern medicine and thus are the only large groups ‘practicing natural hygiene’. This is a complete inaccuracy as most of these tribes do not practice natural hygiene at all, they only do not have access to modern medicines, which as I mentioned is not practicing natural hygiene by any means.

I also have no idea where he pulled that number of having a life expectancy of 34 years from. There are no references of how he arrived at that number, and even if it was correct, these tribes are not practicing natural hygiene so it really is nothing to do with natural hygiene at all.

Brian mentions that modern natural hygiene practitioners choose to become natural hygienists after they reached adulthood and therefore are past the vulnerable childhood years when they can contract dangerous and deadly childhood dis-eases. There is some truth to the first part as most children in the world are being raised by parents who have no idea about the laws of nature and natural hygiene.

It is not the children’s choice to be raised in such a toxic lifestyle at all. Still there are many parents who do live within the laws of nature and do practice natural hygiene and do raise their children with natural hygiene and most of these children are thriving beyond human belief. Many of them never even see one sick day in their life and never have the childhood inoculations or dis-eases, ever.

In summary, there is nothing in Brian’s article that even remotely refers to the actual natural hygiene lifestyle. He seemed to have made up a new definition of natural hygiene for his own purposes and then goes on to prove that it (the incorrect definition of natural hygiene) is not helpful. Even his arguments for this are full of holes and nothing is referenced. 

Anyone who actually knows what natural hygiene is and understands it will surely get a good laugh from this inaccurate folly of made up blunders. Thanks for the laugh, Brian, it will help my readers get one of the important factors necessary for living a natural hygiene lifestyle, laughter!

This entire web site is devoted to the laws of nature. Several of the others postings have covered this topic to some degree but this one will explain more precisely what the laws of nature really are. What is an immutable law? Immutable means that there are no changes, once set or created there can never be modifications. The laws of physics for example are immutable because they explain how matter and energy interact no matter where it is in the universe, no matter how big or how small the objects are, no matter what other influences are existing at the time, they exist for both organic and inorganic matter in exactly the same way.

Most people fail to understand that the laws of nature are immutable, they are always the laws and they are constant through time and location. Before advanced life forms existed on earth the same laws of nature existed. Throughout the history of life on earth, the same laws of nature have always been in place. Nothing can or ever will change the laws of nature.

New discoveries, new technologies, new species, changes in the atmosphere, changes in the climate, etc. do not and will never change the laws of nature. Man can create all the pharmaceuticals possible, all the food additives possible, all the genetically modified food possible and still the laws of nature will not change. Medical technology will also never change the laws of nature. People might be able to create a machine that keeps a living organism alive for hundreds of years, but that will not change the laws of nature.

Life as we know it on earth is opportunistic in nature. This means that when there is a condition or environment that is formidable to a particular life form, the life form will find its way to exist in the environment, either by evolving into it or by transitioning from another environment. If the environment is stable enough for the life form, the life form will not just survive but it will thrive and flourish.

The important parts of all of this are the environmental inputs which must be the correct ones for the life form. This carries over for human life as much as any other life form. Humans must get certain environmental inputs in order to live, but in order to thrive and flourish they need stable and reliable inputs in sustainable amounts.

The inputs that a human needs to maintain life, which includes health are the following:

1. Good quality diet which the human digestive system can use without the expense of vast amounts of energy, science and archeological evidence prove that the ultimate human diet is a raw unprocessed diet that is comprised of mainly plant foods including ripe and fresh fruits, leaves, shoots and a few nuts and seeds with minute amounts of other forms of life like certain bacteria.
2. Exercise, humans as well as most advanced life forms need to continuously keep active. The muscular, skeletal, respiratory, and even nervous systems need to have activity on a daily basis to stay tuned and in good condition.
3. Mental state needs to be positive and there needs to be useful and meaningful thoughts and thought patterns. Long periods of negative thoughts or an idle mind can create health issues.
4. Positive relationships, humans are social beings and they need to have strong social relationships.
5. Sleeping is an often neglected activity in the modern world. Many people will opt to consume strong caffeinated foods or beverages in order to artificially have a feeling of being awake. This deprives the body of essential sleep which is the only way to refresh the body, regenerate and heal tissues and the mind.
6. Sunshine on exposed naked skin is critical to human health. Vitamin D as well as other essential nutrients are only manufactured by the body when it is exposed to the rays of the sun. The sun also helps with mental state and helps with many other functions throughout the body.
7. Rest is also an essential component of health. It is often over looked and many people will not take enough time to relax even when they have faced constant stress in their life.
8. Clean fresh air is essential as humans breath air.
9. Comfortable temperature in the range of 68 degrees fahrenheit to about 85 degrees fahrenheit.
10. A natural habitat where there are many kinds of natural species and beauty. Humans use their eyes which see in color for most of their senses of the outside world. A beautiful natural setting stimulates the brain and creates positive feelings.
11. Feelings of security and no fear of harm.

There are other environmental factors necessary for humans to thrive but these are some of the most important ones.

Our body is so well adjusted to the changes that have occurred in the past due to ice ages, natural disasters, fire, floods, and droughts that most of us can survive without these optimal inputs for a certain length of time. We can still stay alive without clean fresh air for a time or without easy to digest food for a while but if these sub-optimal conditions last for too long the body will suffer and dis-ease results. A thriving human must have a balance of all of these inputs available to them all the time.

The world’s environment today is such that getting the inputs that are necessary for thriving is nearly impossible. Most people live in large high density populated cities with low quality air, little if any natural areas. Most people consume a diet that is so far from the optimal human diet that it is a wonder they can even survive. Most people rarely exercise, have negative and dangerous relationships, work in a job that they hate, many smoke tobacco products, is it any wonder that humans seem to be having more and more chronic and acute illnesses and premature deaths? If you disobey the municipal law you might get caught and get fined but if you disobey the laws of nature you will have a much worse fine to pay.

This might be a controversial topic for some of you readers but it really needs to be understood. The world contains so many different people, some of whom are popular or famous for certain skills, some of whom are lucky, some of whom are infamous for something they said or have done, but no matter who they are, in all likeliness they are not following the rules of nature (except in a few cases) and therefore no matter what their accomplishments in life were or are they can all go away in one fatal second.

What do I mean by this? Let’s take the wealthiest man on earth as recognized by Forbes magazine, Mr. Warren Buffett. Most people, especially stock market investors believe that he is a genious. In fact many people equate material wealth with intelligence. I will not comment on this as we all know there are some very stupid people who are extremely wealthy on this earth. Wealth is not at all correlated to intelligence. In the case of the wealthiest man on the planet, Mr. Buffett, I know for a fact that he enjoys his toxins and is probably addicted to more than the average person. I have seen his photo with his cans and bottles of Coca-Cola and other highly toxic foods and beverages.

He is addicted to these poisons as much as the homeless people who we see on the street. He probably is like the 95 to 98% of the population who have enough plaque covering their internal blood vessels that he is like a living time bomb ready to explode at any moment. Mr. Buffett is now 77 years old and as people age the probability of a serious or fatal sudden illness gets higher, especially if they ignore the laws of nature. What I am trying to say is that even with his billions of dollars he is so ignorant of the laws of nature that he is risking sudden death every second that he is alive.

How much good will these billions of dollars do him when he is lying in a velvet lined box in a funeral home? Sure the box might be made of gold, or titanium, or whatever he wishes, but still he has no ability to even know about that at that point in time. Wouldn’t it be better to have a healthy body and even have a small amount of money and not be living with the same risks that the majority of the population live with?

Isn’t it better to be alive and able to earn money than to have all the money in the world but being dead? This is why I no longer respect those people who are wealthy, who are famous, who have acheived their life long goals unless they also live according to the laws of nature. What is the value of making it to the top in any human activity if you are abusing your only attachment to life, your own body.

Even if you are the top student of the top university of the world you will lose everything when the time bomb goes off. When and where it goes off is unknown but the fact is that it will go off and it is almost always preventable by living according to the laws of nature.

There are so many examples of this that I find it a moot point to even list any. Just look around and you’ll see so many obese people who seem to be so passionate about their hobby, craft, skill, whatever. Maybe they received a nobel prize, maybe they climbed the corporate ladder to be the CEO in large corporation, whatever their acheivement, still it will all disappear in a puff of smoke when their internal time bomb goes off.

My respect is now all saved for the people who live within the laws of nature each and every day. They are the strong and intelligent breed, regardless of their financial or creative acheivements. They understand life more than any of these so called social heros. Don’t you agree?

If you have seen the movie “The Killing Fields” which is concerning the Khmer Rouge’s defeat of the Cambodian army in 1975 and the subsequent genocide, you probably already know who Dith Pran is. I have been to Cambodia and saw with my own eyes the tremendous atrocities that were done to the people of Cambodia by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. I saw the skulls, the prison cells, the photographs of the victims, no words can ever describe the scenes that these people were witnessing every day for nearly 5 years. Dith Pran was a photographer for the New York Times. He was forced to remain in Cambodia because he was captured by the Khmer Rouge and not allowed to leave. He spent nearly 5 years pretending to be an uneducated peasant so that he wouldn’t be killed. He finally escaped and eventually found his way to the Thai border. Few Cambodians survived and escaped the genocide. Estimates of 2 million Cambodians were killed. Most every educated Cambodian over 17 years old was killed.

Last Sunday, March 30th, Dith Pran died from pancreatic cancer. He was only 65 years old. I can not do more than speculate that he was consuming a diet that is similar to the standard western diet. He was living in the New York City area for most of the time that he lived in the US. Even if he maintained his Cambodian diet, still it is not in any way a healthy diet for a human being. One of the biggest risks for pancreatic cancer are chemicals called nitrosamines, these chemicals are often found in processed meats and cooked foods. In any case, Dith Pran is a hero in my eyes for his braveness during a very dangerous time. Unfortunately his lifestyle caused his premature death.
Click Here to see a tribute to Dith Pran

 It seems like the media loves to make us all feel good about doing the wrong thing. They want to take everything that we do wrong and turn it around. If we smoke, they will try to put a positive spin on it or better yet they will try to sell us a product that can be used to quit smoking (made by the pharmaceutical industry in all likelihood). If we eat fast food and low quality food they will say that it is okay as long as we get exercise, or if we eat it in moderation. If we do not exercise that is okay also because there are machines and pills that can replace exercise. Well here is a real doozie, the article below is now taking the real cause of diabetes (type 2) which is a combination of diet and exercise mostly (both are totally voluntary) and turning it into a non-voluntary issue related to sleep. There is a possible link between diabetes and sleep, but if the subjects of the study were healthy in the first place and followed a natural hygiene lifestyle there would be no issue of diabetes whatsoever even if they were in their 60’s, 70’s, 80’s or 90’s. This is a blatant misrepresentation of the truth and is the way the media wants to make us feel like we are doing right even if we are do very very wrong.

The following article is from the AP and was written by Randolph E. Schmid, AP Science Writer.   

 WASHINGTON - When Shakespeare called sleep the “chief nourisher of life’s feast,” he may have been well ahead of his time, medically at least. Researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center report that disrupting sleep damages the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar levels, potentially raising the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

In a small experiment, researchers led by Dr. Esra Tasali, an assistant professor of medicine, found that disrupting the deepest sleep periods of volunteers rapidly resulted in reduction in their ability to regulate blood-sugar levels.

The findings are reported in Monday’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers studied the sleep patterns of nine volunteers, five men and four women, all of normal weight, in good health and aged 20 to 31.

Normal sleep is divided into several stages, with the so-called slow-wave sleep considered the deepest.

Whenever the volunteers went into slow-wave sleep the researchers made noise — enough to disturb the sleep though not to fully awaken them.

After just three days the ability of the volunteers to regulate blood sugar was reduced by 25 percent, the researchers reported.

Earlier studies have indicated that lack of sleep can reduce the ability to regulate sugar, and this report adds evidence that poor sleep quality is also a diabetes risk.

“This decrease in slow-wave sleep resembles the changes in sleep patterns caused by 40 years of aging,” Tasali said in a statement. Young adults spend 80 to 100 minutes per night in slow-wave sleep, while people over age 60 generally have less than 20 minutes. “In this experiment,” she said, “we gave people in their 20s the sleep of those in their 60s.”

“Since reduced amounts of deep sleep are typical of aging and of common obesity-related sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea, these results suggest that strategies to improve sleep quality, as well as quantity, may help to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes in populations at risk,” said co-author Dr. Eve Van Cauter, a professor of medicine.

Sleep is a very popular activity in the world. Humans sleep on average about 1/3 of their life. We usually sleep a lot as a baby. A baby has a lot of organs and brain cells that are brand new that need to grow and become more like those of an adult. These changes require huge amounts of energy. Energy is supplied to the body by our digestive tract from the components in food. When there is sufficient energy coming in through the digestive tract we can use this energy for the millions of activities our body must do on a daily basis. If the energy that we use to aquire this energy is too high because digestion uses the most energy of all of the body functions then we will feel sleepy.

This is normal because the brain is the second highest user of energy in the body and it shuts off when we need energy for other purposes. The best thing to do when we feel this sleepiness is to give into the feeling and sleep. Babies know nothing about the stresses of our modern life and do not fight the urge to sleep. Adults who for example have to study for tomorrow’s mid term will fight this urge and try to stay awake.

Some people will take stimulants such as coffee, tea, caffeine pills, chocolate, or even drugs to get over this feeling. What happens when someone doesn’t allow their body to go to sleep and do it’s work? It is like starting a project like paving a road and mid way through the paving the work suddenly stops. What do you think that road will be like? Probably it will be half paved and half unpaved. Would you like to drive over that road in your new car? Probably not.

The body is only half done on it’s healing and internal activities and it needs to shut down for some heavy duty work. The coffee you drank stopped the whole project and it is only half way through. Do you think it is healthy to stop the body from completing it’s work? Probably there are toxins or other issues in the body which were to be removed and possibly new cells needed to be created to help the liver function. Now the wonderful cup of java is responsible for stopping these important tasks and you stay awake.

Leaving the toxins in the body is not a good idea. These toxins can lead to worse problems in the future. One of the theories of the evolution of cancer is that the body was unable to remove a toxin and instead it built a wall of cells around it to prevent it from getting into other organs of the body. This wall of cells and the toxin are shut off from the oxygen and blood flow. When tissues are shut off from oxygen they must get nutrition in some way and this is usually anaerobically.

This means that the cells use sugars instead of oxygen to get energy. Cancer cells do exactly this and therefore this is one plausible theory. I do not wish to alarm anyone but I am saying that possibly cancer can be helped or even caused by avoiding the call from nature when we need to sleep. Sure there are times when for example we are on a freeway driving and this sleep urge comes to us. The best solution at that time is not to drink coffee but to pull over to the side of the road (if it can be done safely) and sleep. Your body will then be able to get it’s spring cleaning all done and you will be much more refreshed when you wake up.