By the Grace of God

This story was sent to me by a friend.. Robin Bee, who sends us lots of inspirational stories.. passed on from who knows where...? But I liked this one. Once again an illustration that we need to keep a view of the big picture before we make judgements.

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.

Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions. One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky. He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost.He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. He cried out, "God! How could you do this to me?"

Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island! It had come to rescue him! "How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.

The Moral of This Story: It's easy to get discouraged when things are going bad, but we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of our pain and suffering.

Remember that the next time your little hut seems to be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal that summons the Grace of God.

Circle of Life

Nicolette's new blog.. it is promising to be a blog of note, well worth a visit. On the circle of life and death and some very personal insights.

Go and check it out!

Makes You Think...

A quote from the testimony of Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials, not long before Hitler's Vice-Fuehrer poisoned himself in his jail cell:

It is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.

This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

It works the same in every country.

No further comment required I believe.

Eat your Blueberries!! to slash the risk of cancer.

Berries are rich in something called flavonoids.. which are potent antioxidants - what does that mean? well they are scavengers for the stuff in our body that we don't need.. those things called free radicals - in a word the aging molecules - which easily interfere with the healthy function and reproduction of our cells.

Researchers in the US at Rutgers University and the US Dept of Agriculture made joint study on animals and found that the compound found in blueberries, called pterostilbene, lessened pre-cancerous lesions and inhibited the genes involved in inflammation.
Their study showed that eating blueberries reduced the rate of colon cancer in rats by a staggering 57 percent! Well of course we are not rats - but this study gives us some very interesting information that backs up previous research that tells us eating our berries, particularly blueberries on a daily basis can really help to keep us healthy.

A great start to your day can be some good quality whey protein to assist the action of your insulin and keep obesity at bay - combined with a handful of fresh or frozen blueberries - preferably organic - blended together with milk, soy milk or water.
Yum.

Exposure To Environmental Toxics and the Parkinson Connection

Excess iron early in life and exposure to Paraquat - a very nasty herbicide, have been shown to increase the risk of Parkinson's Disease - certainly this study was done on mice, but it points clearly to the importance of detoxification of environmental chemicals to avoid neurone damage. The article linked above states:

Those mice treated with the antioxidant, which was delivered at the same time as the environmental toxin, had significantly less nerve death in the area of the brain commonly affected by PD.

It was also stated:

“The fact that the antioxidant treatment prevented much of the nerve damage in the mice points to the need for an early diagnostic test for Parkinson’s disease,” said Andersen. “Currently, by the time humans are diagnosed with the disease they have already lost 60% of the neurons implicated in PD; treatment with an antioxidant would likely be maximally effective if taken before symptoms appear in order to halt disease progression.”

Interesting the way the scientific mind works.. I would have said.. perhaps taking antioxidants could be a great preventative for many things - not just early diagnosis and then take them. How about taking them as a matter of course?!

And antioxidants are not just in pill form - green tea, green leafy vegetables as fresh and organic as you can get, juices (for a great juicer see here) and of course all those yummy berries the more red colour the better!

Yet more evidence that says eat your fruits and vegies!!

Aspartame Warnings - How Many do we have to have?

Once again Aspartame is in the news.. this time with the results of an Italian study which demonstrated the incidence of increased cancer in rats fed with Aspartame. We here at Best Health have been telling people for years to get off this nasty substance.

The effects can be insidious and people who finally wake up and stop using it can experience relief from many niggling and not so minor symptoms. Try it and see.. just for even a week, stop your diet drinks, your sugar free chewing gum, or mints .. see what happens.
We suggest that symptoms such as irritability, nervousness, possibly headaches, rashes, digestive disturbance and more can "magically" disappear. For a great site with lots of info on the subject you can go to the Aspartame Toxicity info site.

Big business has a big say in whether our watchdogs sit up and take notice. So if the FDA is ignoring this Italian study you may want to ask yourself why? Is it because the study is flawed, or is it because it is in the interest of those with power to ignore it? We suggest there is a lot of ignoring going on.

Stand Up and Show Your Soul

I fell across an article from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D Author of the best seller Women Who Run with the Wolves today and it resonated so much with what I would like to say to each and everyone of us in this time that I needed to bring it to the attention of us all.

She says we are made for this time, it is our time, and it is not the time to focus on the heaviness and the wrongs of this chaotic world we are living in. But it is the time to stand up and show our souls. To join our lights to that of others of like minds and hearts, - it is not our job to make a massive change but to add our voice and heart to the surge of the thousands of others who are stretching out to mend the part of the world that is wihin our reach.
For the full text of her inspirational words click here