Smartphone Options

I am one of those smartphone customers that did not buy an iPhone because of experience I've had with AT&T's spotty coverage in the region I live in. I had heard Verizon would have a phone that would perform like the iPhone. Prior to the release date of this phone, Several days berfore the Droid was released, I Googled the Internet and found many articles published in a rush to be the first.  Some articles were full of hopefull speculation by people looking for an alternative to the iPhone or the Pre, while the iPhone paradigm was well represented by disparaging comments adamantly proclaiming no phone could ever be as good as the iPhone. 

November 6th, the release date for the Droid, arrived and I took my place in a line waiting for the store to open three hours early. Armed with as much information as I could glean from naysayers and hopefull speculators, I was escorted into the store by a courteous and knowledgeable representative. The store was full of helpful and knowledgeable representatives who had received their Droids the day before. Many had not slept the prior night, while they obsessively learned the advanced capabilities of their Droids and installed apps from the Android market site. There was excitement in the store as sales representatives showed off the features and apps of their personal phones with the customers. I didn't wait to get home to try my Droid. I sat in the parking lot, trying to think up excuses why I might be late for a meeting I had sheduled, as I explored the features of my new Droid. The phone was so intuitive I had mastered and setup the desired features in less than ten minutes and I made it to my scheduled appointment on time.

Verizon's Droid is an impressive alternative to the current leader in the smartphone market, iPhone. It's Android 2.0 operating system by Google, offers a large bright high-resolution 854p x 480p screen, an open app market, Google Maps with navigation for free, and multitasking capabilities that may provoke envy in some iPhone users.

Each screen will display a dozen thumbnail previews of Web pages that are crisp enough to be recognizable, and Google Maps satellite imagery dazzles. The Droid flies with blazing speed that matches the fluidity of the iPhone. The browser, like that of the iPhone 3GS, is a joy to use. Sites designed for use on mobile devices seem to be intantly accessable.   The Droid keyboard, makes apps, such as instant messengers and word processors much easier to work with since all the pixels are available for viewing and editing instead of  consuming a significant portion of the screen by an on-screen keyboard.

While many people will still prefer the iPhone's entertainment apps, Android’s open sourcing could make it a more appealing media platform than the iPhone, since developers won't have the same concerns as the Apple aproval process.  Some iPhone devotees still feel the iPhone OS is still more elegant and intuitive. The Android OS is solid,  with features similar to desktop computing shrunken to phone size.


This posting is not meant to persuade people to change services or phones or in any way suggest one phone is far superior to another, but rather to share with my many friends my experience with an impressive product that offers a real solution and real choice.

Health Care Options

What is CAM?

Complementary and alternative medicine is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine.

How Many People Use CAM?
In the United States, approximately 38 percent of adults (about 4 in 10) and approximately 12 percent of children (about 1 in 9) are using some form of CAM.

Who Uses CAM Most?
People of all backgrounds use CAM. However, CAM use among adults is greater among women and those with higher levels of education and higher incomes. Figure 2 shows the percentage of people using CAM by age.


What CAM Therapies Used the Most?

Nonvitamin, nonmineral natural products are the most commonly used CAM therapy among adults.
CAM Therapies Included in the 2007 NHIS

Acupuncture*
Ayurveda*
Biofeedback*
Chelation therapy*
Chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation*
Deep breathing exercises
Diet-based therapies
Atkins diet
Macrobiotic diet
Ornish diet
Pritikin diet
South Beach diet
Vegetarian diet
Zone diet
Energy healing therapy/Reiki*
Guided imagery
Homeopathic treatment
Hypnosis*
Massage*
Meditation
Movement therapies
Alexander technique
Feldenkreis
Pilates
Trager psychophysical integration
Natural products (nonvitamin and nonmineral, such as herbs and other products from plants, enzymes, etc.)
Naturopathy*
Progressive relaxation
Qi gong
Tai chi
Traditional healers*
Botanica
Curandero
Espiritista
Hierbero or Yerbera
Native American healer/Medicine man
Shaman
Sobador
Yoga

An asterisk (*) indicates a practitioner-based therapy.

Health Conditions Prompting CAM Use

People use CAM for an array of diseases and conditions. American adults are most likely to use CAM for musculoskeletal problems such as back, neck, or joint pain. The use of CAM therapies for head or chest colds showed a substantial decrease from 2002 to 2007.


CAM Use Among Children

The 2007 NHIS asked selected adult respondents about CAM use by children in their households. Overall, approximately 12 percent of children use some form of CAM. Use is greater among:

Children whose parents used CAM (23.9%)
Adolescents aged 12-17 (16.4%), compared to younger children
White children (12.8%), compared to Hispanic children (7.9%) and black children (5.9%)
Children whose parents had higher education levels (more than high school: 14.7%)
Children with six or more health conditions (23.8%)
Children whose families delayed conventional care because of cost (16.9%)

What is Chiropratic

Chiropractic is a healthcare discipline that emphasizes the healing and wellness without the use of drugs or surgery. Chiropractic focuses on the relationship of the body's structure and function and how that relationship affects the preservation and restoration of health.

Many people suffer with prolonged joint pain or stiffness due to maladapted musculoskeletal patterns following auto accidents, work or sports injuries, or prolonged or repetitive stress on the body. This can be due to joint displacement or contractures in the soft tissue that create interference to proper healing and if left unattended interferes with the patients ability to work or compete in sports as well as accelerate aging or degeneration in the affected body segment.

Chiropractors utilize methods to remove interference (subluxations) in the joints and supportive soft tissue to return the body to a more normal structural relationship thus allowing the body to heal. It's purpose is to restore normal motion or position of the musculoskeletal system. This usually involves a quick movement of a displaced or restricted joint called manipulation to overcome maladapted joint patterns.

Lifestyle, diet, nourishment, emotional stress, etc. contribute to interference patterns. Comprehensive chiropractic care supports these needs to return the patient to health, happiness, and recreation.

Nutrients vs. Nourishment

In my chirporactic practice I am ofen asked whether people can get all the nutrition they need from simply eating good foods. While it is possible to obtain nutrients form the foods we consume that is not the same as nourishment to maintain or heal our bodies.

The so called western or affluent diet perpetuates obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Scientific literature is replete with studies directly linking nutrition to the solutions to these problems; from mere dietary modifications to targeted nutritional supplementation. Further, studies have shown that nutrition of the mother determines genetic expression in the offspring for several generations. It is the nutrition, the building blocks of every cell, tissue, organ, system and body of our being, which determines health.

Despite all the research dollars, and promised guarantees from antibiotics and chemical pesticides, industrialized agriculture produces more volume while at the same time delivering nutrient depleted, pesticide tainted, genetically scrambled crops which further perpetuate or even initiate some of our health and environmental problems.

Nutrient Density

USDA data is very clear; nutritional values of foods produced today by conventional agriculture are 30 to 70 percent lower that in the 1940’s. Nourishment value is linked directly to balanced nutrient density of the food.

Nourishment differs from "nutrition" because there is the not only implication of effectiveness of the nutrient but also the subtle bioenergetics component that nourishment provides even when nutrition may not. Nutrients need to be in a bio-available form. Ions or molecules need to be able to be transported into the cells transport channels. Very subtle and often neglected factors by many nutritional product manufacturers, can make the difference in healthful nourishment and merely nutritional components that are poorly utilized or have to be converted by the body to provide life support.

Nutrients are the names given to minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, fats, proteins and carbohydrates for purposes of identifying and discussing them. Nutrients are items needed by every living organism for nourishment necessary for growth and development, detoxification, immune function, healing and reproduction. Standard dietetics classifies nutrients as fats, proteins and carbohydrates and assesses diets for “nutritional value” based upon these three categories.

Nutrients, however, do not necessarily constitute nourishment. Nourishment assumes the progressive gain in desired function of the organism from the nutrients given. In other words, if a person takes calcium, a nutrient, the nourishment value of that product is determined by the chemical complex of the calcium, how appropriate it is for that individual and most importantly the “calcium” result in the body from taking that particular calcium supplement.

Living systems, our bodies included, are very particular about the biochemistry, structural integrity and subsequent bioelectrical (bioenergy) characteristics of nutrients taken into the body. Ultimately, nourishment is about cellular communications and the transference of information and energy around the cell and between cells. Without this there is life force decline and cellular death.

Another example of nutrients not providing nourishment is in the case of genetically engineered crops. The most common today are corn and soybeans in the American food chain. Though our body can digest and utilize the nutrient components from standard corn and soybeans, genetically engineered versions have foreign protein sequences that, like fingerprints, don’t match what our digestive and metabolic systems recognize as nourishment. Every animal and human study has shown significant inflammatory responses to genetically manipulated crops. The immune system’s recognition of “foreign” materials is at the bioelectrical level of recognition, perhaps analogous to a voice print, more crudely a fingerprint. In the case of such “foods”, nutrient value does not correspond to nourishment.

Nutrient measurement is mostly about raw chemistry corresponding to quantity of generic fats, proteins, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins. There is no consideration for the integrity of the sources of such nutrients, the bioactivity of said nutrients and certainly no consideration for the bioelectrical integrity of said nutrients.

Food quality is an important factor in the nourishment value of food and the foundation in any healing and maintenance program. Comprehensive nourishment for healing cannot be entirely achieved with supplementation alone. Quality, nourishing food must be included in the plan. Most people think of food quality in the context of “locally grown”, “fresh”, “organic” or “blemish free” when these are merely procedural labeling. Food quality is really about nourishment value.

Avoid Genetically Engineered Foods

Genetically engineered foods will never be accepted by our bodies. The proteins formed by these freak foods are foreign substances not seen by humans until industrial food suppliers began their quest for higher profits and ownership of genetic strains or our food sources. In their minds they feel they have done so to reduce susceptibility to weeds, disease and pest but it an inflammatory reaction to these foods is seen in human and animal studies. This inflammatory reaction results in a number of bad consequences from allergies to early tissue degeneration to early death as shown in a Russian mouse study. Of course the industry, having Billions of dollars at stake, the politicians having millions in campaign contributions at stake, do everything possible to discount, even discredit any contrary information.

Consider for a moment that most genetically engineered crops are designed to either produce a poison to kill insects or tolerate a favored herbicide. Of course this perpetuates guaranteed sales of seeds along with their accompanying royalties; herbicides tied to the seed varieties and nitrogen fertilizers because nitrogen is the mainstay of conventional agriculture.

Consumers should understand that the very reason we have weed or insect problems in crops is because of conventional farming practices, especially the abuse of nitrogen. Conventional agriculture deliberately neglects looking at the underlying causes of insect pests attacking agricultural crops. These farming practices weaken the crops and make them susceptible to pest and disease. The real solutions are rooted in nutrition of the soil and good agricultural practices, not in the continued sales of chemical weapons.

Contribute to Environmental Health


When food is grown the way it should be grown, we also solve environmental issues of greenhouse gases, erosion, pollution and sustainability. Appropriate farming technology sequesters carbon in the soil as humus thus holding the soil together so it doesn’t erode. Appropriate agriculture technology doesn’t use toxic chemicals; rather it actually detoxifies them in the soil via the appropriate microbiology. Appropriate agricultural technology can also improve the health of our planet.