Medical Health

Dangerous Household Ozone Generators

Last month I looked up information about in-home ozone generators. A friend of mine was thinking of buying a house in Arizona (she bought it), and the sellers were using indoor ozone generators. The ozone gave my friend a severe headache and caused her blood pressure to rise to dangerous levels. (She takes blood-pressure medication and had to increase the dosage after inspecting the house.)

I rushed to my computer and found quite a few useful websites, and, yes, ozone causes headaches, high blood pressure, sore throats and coughs (see Effects of Ozone Pollution on Seniors and Ozone Generators May Be Dangerous to Your Health). Ozone irritates the lungs, exacerbates lung disease, accelerates aging, and damages home electronics and wiring. In combination with air fresheners or household disinfectants, ozone will produce formaldehyde, a chemical that can cause cancer (see Study Warns of Cleaning Product Risks). The California Department of Health Services began warning consumers about indoor ozone generators back in the 1990s. And Health Canada says, “If you have an ozone generator in your home, stop using it.”

Take a look at these web pages, too:

California Indoor Quality Program

Hazardous Ozone-Generating ‘Air Purifiers’

Ozone Generator Fact Sheet

American Lung Association

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Air Cleaners

National Institutes of Health: Ozone.

BPA-free Biodegradable Plastic Bottles

We hear about how plastic bottles are filling our landfills and oceans, but bottled water manufacturers and consumers can solve this problem. We do have biodegradable choices, and biodegradable plastic may cost us a little more in the short term, but I’m sure the costs will fall in the future, as our health and our planet’s health improve.

See www.biogreenbottles.com and BioGreen Biodegradable BPA-Free Sport Bottle with Wide Mouth DuoFlow Lid (26-Ounce). These bottles are BPA, DEHA and DEHP Free, and they are made in the USA.

Tell the bottled water industry that we insist on safe biodegradable plastic.

Also see the post Avoiding BPA in Plastic.

Avoiding BPA in Plastic

For a good article on plastics and BPA (Bisphenol A), see this National Wildlife Federation Article. The authors identify the plastic products that contain BPA and they tell you how avoid them.

Healthy Dating?

Here is what I posted on a dating site:

I’m not looking for makeup and hairdos. Personally I think you’re foolish to post your photo on a free, open-access dating site that most likely attracts not only legitimate daters but also men and women from the slinky side of shady (if you know what I mean). I don’t want my photo mixed in with theirs.

Hiking and Trail Etiquette

If you join a hiking group you will, of course, meet people from a variety of places and backgrounds. And you will usually meet them early in the morning and then carpool to the trailhead, which is fine when your fellow passengers are courteous enough to refrain from riding along when they have bad colds or bacterial bronchitis. The morning doesn’t seem quite right when the stranger in the backseat shakes your hand, coughs repeatedly, talks about the antibiotics he’s taking and about how his live-in girlfriend died last month after a very prolonged illness that required multiple hospitalizations, how he is looking for a job because he has spent his savings after buying a 2700-square-foot foreclosed home and because his dead girlfriend’s social security checks have stopped coming.

Then later, on the trail, when he keeps sliding on loose rock (you don’t want walk below him), you see that the soles on his 20-year-old hiking boots are worn smooth — there’s no tread.

H1N1 Swine Flu News

If your local news stations announce that H1N1 vaccinations are available at special clinics in your area, make sure you double check the facts.

This last weekend in the Phoenix, Arizona, area one news station stated that H1N1 vaccinations were available for children and pregnant women at about 15 clinics. Another evening news program provided the same information and added that individuals with underlying health conditions were also eligible.

Long line-ups at the flu clinics ensued.

But if you were able to talk to the H1N1 clinics before you took half a day to stand in line, you discovered that only children and pregnant women were eligible to receive H1N1 vaccinations. The clinics were not dispensing vaccinations to individuals with underlying health conditions (unless, of course, they were children or pregnant women).

Double check the TV news. Phone the health clinics.

More About Cancer Prevention

In addition to my Anti-cancer Diet and Vitamin D, I work out at the gym 3 days a week and take walks and/or lift weights at home 3 to 4 days a week. At the gym, I run 2 miles and then lift weights for an additional 60 to 90 minutes.

I also take numerous 6- to 9-hour hikes up mountains and into canyons, sometimes for 7 days in a row. The hiking may help ward off colon cancer, and I am a firm believer that running helps stave off lung cancer.

My Anti-Cancer Diet

Also see my post Cancer Prevention Foods and Spices. And search the United States government’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine web site and Mayo Clinc.

Daily anti-cancer foods and supplements:

1) I bought one pound of Organic Connections beet powder for $23.80. (That’s the best price I found).

– I take 1 tsp. of beet powder a day in a shake.

2) I bought one pound of Frontier brand organic turmeric powder for $11.80. (I shopped around and that’s the best price I found. You might get Organic Connections turmeric even cheaper.)

– I take 1 heaping teaspoon of turmeric powder a day in a shake.

3) I eat one ounce (28 to 30 grams) of dark chocolate every day. It has to be 70% or better. I most often eat 85%. But do not take it with milk. Milk inactivates the good ingredients in chocolate.

4) I have about 1/2 to 1 cup of fresh cabbage juice every day.

5) I eat spinach every day.

6) I eat cherries every day.

7) I drink a mug of green tea steeped for 15 minutes every day. You have to steep it for 15 minutes to get the most from it.

8 ) I try to eat a red apple almost every day.

9) I eat broccoli or cauliflower most days.

10) The only powdered “greens” I recommend in Canada is Progressive Nutritional PhytoBerry. It does not have the herbs and alfalfa found in many greens products these days. You should be able to purchase 900 grams (60 servings) of Progressive Phytoberry for $57 to $60. Shop around–the price varies. I like it a lot and have it 3 to 6 times a week.

When I am not taking PhytoBerry, I use Rainbow Vibrance Super Food

11) I take pharmaceutical grade fish oil, usually Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega or Ascenta Nutra Sea HP.

Also see cancur.org.

Cancer Prevention Foods and Spices

As part of your cancer prevention diet consume dark chocolate, cabbage juice, homemade tomato sauce, pharmaceutical grade fish oil, green tea, turmeric, and ginger every day. But don’t overdo it: fish oil, turmeric, ginger, green tea, garlic and cinnamon thin the blood. When you thin the blood too much, you are susceptible to hemorrhagic strokes and other serious health problems. If you already take prescription blood thinners (such as warfarin), you should talk to your doctor about using fish oil, turmeric, ginger, green tea, garlic and cinnamon as health supplements.

Your dark chocolate should be at least 70% cocoa and you should consume 1 ounce (about 30 grams) each day. Eating more than an ounce a day will add to your fat load and make you gain weight.

You should be sure that your fish oil is pharmaceutical grade. Lower quality fish oil products contain contaminants. I take Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega and Ascenta, Nutra Sea HP fish oil. From what I have read, Dr. Sears and Dr. Weil also market quality fish oil.

My homemade tomato sauce consists of strained Italian tomatoes (from the bottle) slightly simmered with Italian spices. Cooking tomatoes makes the lycopene antioxidant more accessible.

I make cabbage juice every day and drink it immediately after preparing it. I also include a heaping teaspoon of organic turmeric, a half teaspoon of organic powdered ginger, one ounce of 80% – 90% dark chocolate, a mug of green tea (steeped for 15 minutes), and Nordic Naturals fish oil in my daily regimen.

Take turmeric and powdered ginger the easy way: put them in a protein shake at lunch.

Also see cancur.org.

World Health and Arrogant Ecologists

We cannot assert that all ecologists and environmentalists are arrogant, but I have encountered quite a few who would have made stronger contributions had they attended compulsory courses in ethics and human kindness. In fact, I believe that many of our professional conservationists have retarded our fight against global warming. If we had replaced them long ago, we would have made more headway in our attempts to introduce preemptive environmental measures.

For example, once when I was discussing the fact that as part of one of my research projects, a rather large group of Seventh Day Adventist fishermen contributed logbooks detailing their catches of salmon, a prominent fisheries ecology professor told me, “Those guys are perverts, the type who climb telephone poles and peep through windows at trailer parks.”

I guess that fisheries ecologist thought of himself as a fighter. But all he was really doing was shooting himself in the foot.

Related Posts:

Science, Ethics, and Abuse

Global Warming and Publish or Perish

The Fisheries Turnoff