modern day ilness

Kulapavana · December 9, 2004

Source: Independent Media TV

Published: December 8, 2004 Author: Beldeu Singh

For the last 100 years sperm count in the human male has been declining while in the last 25 years, the incidence of breast cancer in females is on the rise. Cancers, arthritis, gout, endocrinal problems, male erectile dysfunction, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease and acquired immune deficiency syndrome are on the rise. In this scenario, a sign that cannot be ignored is the increasing incidence of abnormalities found in frogs in ponds and lakes. Something is amiss.

All of the above has taken place in global scenario that occurred for the first time on earth. In this scenario we created biologically dead rivers. We reduced virgin forests that had stood for a 100 million years into pockets. We produced unprecedented damage to biodiversities and biodiversity webs, starting with clearing temperate forests. Many species of wildlife became extinct. The damage is continuing relentlessly in the name of economy and population pressures and now our rainforests are being decimated under this onslaught supported by illegal poaching. The pollution rates are going up – not down. And there are no programs on an international scale coordinated to rehabilitate the environment in which we live.

Modern industry is big business. In the last 50 years, industrial scientists have created many new chemicals that are toxic and carcinogenic and the annual production of these chemicals runs into hundreds of millions of tons. A large part of this toxicity enters our environment and ends up in our food.

For the environmentally aware, there is no need to describe the environmental problems we face today. Literally thousands of books, articles and films have been produced showing that the biosphere has been dramatically disturbed and chemically changed by human activities (Ecology 30). But the average individual may not know that in 1989 alone, more than 1,000,000,000 pounds of chemicals were released into the ground, contaminating our farmlands and drinking waters. Over 188,000,000 pounds of chemicals were also discharged into surface waters such as lakes and rivers. More than 2,400,000,000 pounds of chemicals were pumped into the air we breathe. A grand total of 5,705,670,380 pounds of chemical pollutants were released into the environment which we eat, breathe, and live in—all in just one year (cf Nicole MR 2002, ISP, College of Lifelong Learning; Wayne State University). All of these are toxic to some degree or are free radicals or generate free radical damage in the body. Some of these chemicals are similar to biomolecules in the body and they are utilized in metabolic reactions resulting in disease conditions simply because the body cannot differentiate between them.

The automobile created the automotive industry. It all started with the invention of the internal combustion engine that turns the wheels of economy. That same engine competes with life forms for oxygen and spews thousand of tons of toxic fumes and very fine pollutants which can lead to cardiovascular disease or sudden heart failure. Ever heard of traffic jams and cardiovascular disease or sudden heart failure in the 1950s?

We have polluted our seas with mercury, lead and cadmium. When a ship sank near New Zealand thousands of tons of rat poison disappeared into the sea in minutes. When the US military bombed Vietnam with napalm or Agent Orange, thousands of tons of toxic dioxins was spread on the rainforests. It eventually entered the ecology and through the water systems began to pollute the fish in the South China Sea. In short, our food chains now contain heavy metals and free radicals and the only fish oil I will consume must be molecularly distilled!

As if that toxicity in the environment is not enough, people take to smoking, taking millions of free radicals with each puff and consume large quantities of alcohol. Alcohol converts to acetaldehyde in our body, which has shown to increase breast cancer in animals. Alcohol depletes folic acid, which causes gene mutation resulting in higher cancer risk. Alcohol can damage the liver, which increases estrogen in the body because the liver cannot effectively detoxify it. We can, in fact, talk in terms of smokers’ diseases and alcohol illnesses, all of which are caused by or initiated by free radicals generated by smoke or alcohol in the body.

Certain segments of our society also use products derived from petrochemicals as sexual lubricants and in certain cosmetic products that are toxic to various degrees and even carcinogenic. Many of such chemicals generate free radicals in the body leading to immune deficiencies and lymphomas or opportunistic infections.

During the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 an old story was retold in new halls – 85% of US farm soils were depleted of minerals with a worldwide depletion of 75%. A forgotten US Senate Report (Document 264) dating to 1936 had given the same warning and in clear terms stated that food grown on such farms was also depleted of minerals. The implications have grave impact on health. With the depletion of micronutrients in farm soils the levels of vitamins and minerals have dropped drastically. The table below (Table I) paints the grave picture clearly.

Table I: Comparison of Minerals

1940 & 1991 Showing Depletion (% Less)

Report By Medical Council Research: Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food And Royal Society of Chemistry: Source – (Editor Lynne Mc Taggart – 2003,Publisher Bryan Hubbard)

Item Mineral

Carrots magnesium 75%, calcium 48%,iron 46%, copper 75%

Broccoli (Boiled) calcium 75%

Spring onion calcium 74%

Spinach (Boiled) iron 60%, copper 96%

Swede iron 71%

Watercress copper 93%

Potatoes magnesium 30%, calcium 35%,iron 45%, copper 47%

All meats calcium 41%, iron 54%

All fruits zinc 27%

Apples and oranges iron 67%

What this data means is worrying. You have to eat 10 tomatoes in 1991 to obtain the same amount of copper you got from one tomato in 1940 and drink juice from 3 oranges to get the iron you got from one orange in 1940. Today you probably need to eat three apples to keep the doctor away. But, that is not the answer.

The startling conclusion thus far is this: The levels of free radicals and free radical generating chemicals in our environment have gone up many fold while the level of micronutrients and antioxidants in our food intake has declined by 33 – 43%! That is the recipe for the rise in modern illnesses which has ballooned treatment costs and has proved to be a boon to the pharmaceutical industry characterized by a silent shift from health to treatment by drugs.

The prevalent use of immunotoxic or immunodepressant medication for treatment of diseases and all the chronic illnesses that are linked to free radicals or chemicals that generate free radicals in the body only adds to the problem scenario. This is compounded by the practice of seeding soils with only three minerals and this story, which is a “tragedy-in-agriculture”, goes back to a chemist in Germany by the name of Justus von Liebig (1803 – 1873).

Justus von Liebig, using crude equipment tested ash from burnt plant material which revealed only three substances – N, P and K (nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium). Later, biotechnology revealed a long list of other minerals, some in trace amounts in the ash of burnt plant material. In the late 19th century NPK was introduced as a fertilizer which at first appeared to boost agriculture. The fertilizer industry, producing NPK, grew big enough to pressure commercial decisions and “the West continued to embrace NPK fertilizers”. This has not changed till today and most people in developed societies continue to consume food and fruits from agriculture that are relatively deficient in nutrients compared to farm produce 50 years ago.

After 50 years of NPK we discovered the following;

Table II: Comparison of Food Then And Now

Wheat (1900) – 90% protein - Down to 9.0%

100 g of Spinach (1948) – 150 mg of iron - Down to 27 mg (1965), Down to 2.2 mg (1973), Down to 1.0 mg

The conclusion that most people in cities have zinc, selenium, vitamin C, beta-carotene, vitamin E and other antioxidants below the nutritionally accepted levels is quite natural based on the fact that about 50 minerals in most soils have depleted through leaching and NPK dependence. That is not good news for maintaining robust health and the finding reported in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1969; 22: 1332–9) that most Americans are clinically deficient in chromium, magnesium and manganese, especially teenage girls and the elderly comes as no surprise but more like an expectation. Going by the available data and by scientific inference, it can be safely stated that many minerals, anthocyanins, polyphenolic compounds, flavonoids and vitamins have decreased in fruits, cereals and vegetables.

And those nutrients, including those that are depleting in our farm soils, are important to maintain high blood anti-oxidant levels to scavenge free excess free radicals or minimize oxidative stress or oxidative damage to cells and both antioxidants and minerals are required for metabolic activity in cells and tissues and maintain good health or restore health.

Free radicals cause arrhythmias, cardiovascular disease, AIDS, cancers, problems in endocrinal function as well as problems in reproductive biology and are linked to at least 100 chronic illnesses. The full range of minerals in food is important in healthy functioning of cells and for a healthy immune system together with vitamins and other antioxidants. Antioxidants scavenge free radicals in the body and render them harmless. This mechanism protects the cell walls and protects the metabolic activities in cells. Therefore the levels of the full range of micronutrients and anti-oxidants in the blood have a meaningful correlation with ageing and chronic illnesses and the body’s ability to heal.

So, the NPK theory is the world’s biggest fraud and hurts health as much as the rise of free radicals in our environment. Continuing with the NPK theory in the face of science and continuing to pollute our environment with free radicals or dependence on immunotoxic medication or free radical generating medication to treat modern illnesses is simply absurd.

March 1, 2005

While adressing the real problem of NPK, you may also think about the fact that it is kaliyuga, where everything is supposed to run down.

they believe P to be the key to agriculture, while my own investigations over the last twenty years have taught me it is silicea, whichj is the real key and which is found only in traces. the low sperm count has its advantages - barbarians breed badly. if you eat healthy, you need not worry and produce as many devotees as you can, to turn the tide.