PHYSICAL FACTOR AFFECTING YOUR HEALTH
Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.
—Plato
Exposure to cell phone radiation is the largest human health experiment ever undertaken, without informed consent, and has some 4 billion participants enrolled. . . . I fear we will see a tsunami of brain tumors, although it is too early to see that now since the tumors have a thirty-year latency. I pray I’m wrong, but brace yourself.
—Lloyd Morgan, director, Central Brain
Tumor Registry of the United States, author of
Cell Phones and Brain Tumors: 15 Reasons for Concern
The Physical Pathway offers another opportunity to choose health. It involves the physical factors inside and outside your body, such as the health benefits you can reap by simply changing the way you breathe or by getting adequate sunlight. In this chapter I also give you alarming news about the harmful effects of everyday objects, like the dishwasher in your kitchen and the cell phone in your pocket. Use the Physical Pathway in the same way as the other pathways—as a guide to help you achieve a life free of disease.
What happens when we persistently use something in ways it’s not designed to be used? Most of the time it will break down a lot faster than if we stick to the recommendations in the owner’s manual. If we don’t move, rest, and use our bodies the way they are meant to be used, we pay with damaged health. This chapter covers physical activities, like exercising, breathing, and sleeping, as well as elements of the physical environment—sunlight, electromagnetic fields, and noise—that impact your health.
Exercise
Exercise is one of the most effective medicines in the world—far more effective than prescription drugs. Many of today’s health problems are linked to modern lifestyles that are simply incompatible with optimal biological functioning. We are the most sedentary people in history, yet it is a fact that an active lifestyle lowers the risk of getting sick and helps in getting well. As you now know, your health depends on giving your cells the nutrition they need and protecting them from toxins. However, here is another factor: the need to move and stretch your cells.
Moving and stretching cells facilitates the delivery of nutrients and the removal of toxins. Exercise is like a miracle drug; a 2013 study in the British Medical Journal concluded that exercise is more effective than frequently prescribed drugs. Movement is life. If you aren’t moving, you are dying. In addition to helping deliver nutrients and promote detoxification, exercise balances hormones, reduces inflammation, and improves immune function. It fundamentally changes every system and function in your body. Exercise improves digestion, and a ten- to fifteen-minute walk after any meal has a beneficial effect on digestion. Exercise is like an essential nutrient; if you don’t get the amount you need, you will get sick. Unfortunately, one in three Americans get little or no exercise at all.
While almost half of all Americans will develop cancer in their lifetime, only 14 percent of those who are physically active will develop cancer. Just thirty minutes of exercise every other day has been shown to cut the risk of breast cancer by 75 percent. A man’s risk of prostate cancer is cut in half. Regular exercise has been shown to stimulate special cells in the brain, increasing their production of repair chemicals, protecting the brain from aging, and reducing the risk of cognitive decline. It actually triggers new brain cell growth in areas involved with higher mental function, making you smarter.
Exercise helps to provide oxygen to tissues. It helps to balance hormones by reducing the excess of estrogens and testosterone that are known to promote breast, prostate, uterine, ovarian, and testicular cancers. Exercise reduces insulin and blood sugar levels. Insulinlike growth factor (IGF), which contributes to inflammation and tumor growth, is also reduced. The amount of inflammatory cytokines in the blood is lowered with exercise, in turn lowering inflammation in the body. Exercise reduces platelet stickiness, reducing blood clot risk; it also increases the activity of clot-dissolving enzymes. By resetting the body’s metabolism, exercise results in more fat burning. Exercise pumps the lymph system, improves lymph flow, and promotes the removal of toxic wastes from the body. In addition, exercise supports the immune system, stimulating natural killer (NK) cell activity, which is critical to preventing and curing cancer. There isn’t a drug or a medical treatment in the world that can do all this! Best of all, this miracle treatment doesn’t cost you a dime. The American Cancer Society recommends at least thirty minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity five or more days a week.
While it’s a good thing that you want to exercise, be careful where you exercise. Bicycling, jogging, or working out near a heavily traveled roadway can actually do more harm than your exercise is doing good. Studies show that exhaust fumes from cars and trucks cause health-damaging oxidative stress and inflammation throughout the body.
Historically, our daily survival required a lot of physical activity. Today we spend a lot of time sitting, and the latest research indicates that even if you exercise regularly, sitting for long stretches will make you sick. The lack of muscle contraction from lack of movement decreases blood flow throughout the body and reduces the efficiency of biological processes. In fact, sitting appears to be an independent risk factor for a variety of disease conditions. It’s so bad that adults who spend an average of six hours a day watching television cut their life expectancy by five years. When doing prolonged sitting, regularly standing up is even more beneficial to health than continuing to sit and then doing regular walks.
All exercise is good, whether walking, swimming, or tennis, but with our busy lifestyles, many people say they can’t find the time to exercise. Fortunately, there is a way to cheat—an extremely effective form of exercise that anyone can do at home. Rebounding is a type of exercise that involves bouncing up and down on a mini-trampoline, and its effects are almost magical. Simple, surprisingly easy to do, safe, and a lot of fun, rebounding can be done by almost anyone, regardless of age or physical condition. You can rebound while you watch TV or even while talking on the telephone. Get up from your desk or the couch every half hour and rebound for a couple of minutes. Rebounding tones, conditions, strengthens, and heals the entire body in as little as fifteen minutes per day—more is better.
Jumping up and down on a rebounder moves and stretches every cell in your body simultaneously, so it is a concentrated form of exercise. When you bounce on a rebounder, your entire body (internal organs, bones, connective tissue, and skin) becomes stronger, more flexible, and healthier. Blood circulation, oxygen delivery, lymphatic drainage, and toxin removal are vastly improved.
Rebounding alternately puts pressure on and takes pressure off body cells, like squeezing a sponge. This moving and stretching of the cells facilitates nutrient delivery and toxin removal, which is exactly what you need to be healthy. Rebounding gives you all of this without having to take the time to go to the gym, work up a sweat, or end up with sore muscles and possible injuries. One caveat is that poor-quality rebounders may shock the joints and tissues and cause injury. Look for barrel springs that are fatter in the middle and tapered at the ends. (See Appendix A for assistance.)
The good news is that studies show that a modest amount of exercise, even fifteen minutes a day, can increase your life span and reduce all-cause mortality. On the other hand, every hour spent sitting reduces life expectancy, comparable with other major risk factors, such as obesity. Exercise is an amazing wonder drug!
Breathing
Oxygen is our most critical nutrient. We can live only minutes without it. Getting the oxygen we need depends on numerous factors, including how we breathe. Failure to breathe correctly deprives our cells of needed oxygen and changes body chemistry. Deep breathing supplies more oxygen, and shallow breathing less. Most of us do shallow breathing.
Just as we can control what foods we eat, the toxins we are exposed to, the thoughts we put into our mind, and how much exercise we get, we can also control how we breathe and how much oxygen we supply to our bodies. The way you breathe can substantially affect how you look and feel, your resistance to disease, and even how long you live. Proper breathing technique helps to optimize your health as well as keep you relaxed and more mentally alert.
We are all born knowing how to breathe correctly, but the stress of modern living has caused many people to develop poor breathing habits. The most common problem is shallow or rapid breathing, also called overbreathing. Despite the name, overbreathing actually results in less oxygen being available to cells. Overbreathing is usually caused by stress, and it manifests as shallow chest breathing, irregular breathing, rapid breathing, or holding of the breath. On occasion, overbreathing is not a problem, and we all do it, but many of us breathe too rapidly all the time. We breathe more times per minute than we should and take breaths that are too shallow.
Overbreathing not only causes an oxygen deficiency, it also causes a carbon dioxide deficiency. Rapid breathing causes the body to lose too much carbon dioxide; the body needs to maintain normal levels of both oxygen and carbon dioxide. Oxygen is transported to tissues by bonding with hemoglobin in red blood cells. Normal oxygen respiration creates carbon dioxide as a metabolic waste product. Local concentrations of carbon dioxide signal the red blood cells to release their oxygen so that your cells can obtain a new supply of oxygen. When you expel too much carbon dioxide through rapid breathing, insufficient carbon dioxide is present to cause the hemoglobin to release its oxygen. Your cells and tissues then become oxygen-deficient. In addition, insufficient carbon dioxide changes the pH of the blood, causing a loss of alkaline minerals and contributing to osteoporosis.
To breathe correctly, bring air down into the lungs by using the diaphragm, a deep abdominal muscle that nature intended for breathing. Breathing downward with the diaphragm (belly breathing instead of chest breathing) is an effortless and efficient way to breathe. Unfortunately, people often use their chest and upper back to breathe; chest breathing takes more effort and is less efficient. Breathing downward with the diaphragm (as opposed to outward with the chest) moves the viscera (guts) down and away, making more room for the lungs and creating the capacity for more air in your lungs and more oxygen for your tissues, whether you are exercising or at rest. Each breath should begin downward in the belly, only moving up into the chest when necessary. Correct breathing should be effortless, through the nose rather than mouth, and relatively slow—at a resting rate of less than fifteen breaths per minute, preferably eight to ten. The way we breathe has such profound effects, both physically and psychologically, it is little surprise that many ancient traditions—such as meditation, yoga, and martial arts—rely first and foremost on breathing technique. Daily deep breathing exercises are very calming and help to keep you oxygenated and healthy.
Sunlight
Sunlight is like an essential nutrient and a magic elixir for the body. It’s one of nature’s most powerful healing agents and goes way beyond the benefits of creating vitamin D. Our ancestors were out in the sun all the time, and cancer was a rare disease. Yet we are advised to avoid the sun, and cancer is epidemic. This bad advice has created an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency, costing countless thousands of lives from vitamin D–deficiency diseases such as heart disease, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, type 1 diabetes, infections, autoimmune diseases, depression, asthma, and cancer. Science doesn’t even begin to understand all the marvelous benefits of sunlight, yet the disease industry continues to perpetuate the myth that the sun causes cancer. Exactly the opposite is true. Cells have light-activated receptors that, when triggered, initiate a number of beneficial and cancer-protective biological reactions. Sunlight has a beneficial effect on platelet stickiness and helps to prevent blood clots. Sunlight also affects cell membrane electrons, helping to charge your batteries and energize your body.
Vitamin D plays a critical role in preventing cancer. It is one of our most important nutrients, and about 90 percent of our vitamin D comes from the interaction of sunlight with cholesterol-like compounds in our skin. If sunlight were bad for us, why would Mother Nature make us dependent on it? We are designed to need sunlight, and the more sunlight you get, the healthier you will be. In fact, because people who live in the northern latitudes get less sunlight, they get more cancer. Northerners get more of all kinds of vitamin D–deficiency diseases. More than 40 percent of the U.S. population is vitamin D deficient, and that can go up to 75 percent by the end of the winter. Vitamin D is crucial to immune function, and flu spreads quickly in the winter because people are vitamin D deficient.
Vitamin D acts like a hormone and interacts with genes, giving them crucial instructions that prevent cancer. Without sufficient vitamin D, the risk of cancer skyrockets. Research indicates that people with the lowest blood levels of vitamin D are four times more likely to die of colon cancer. A 2008 study in Carcinogenesis found that women with breast cancer were three times more likely to have low vitamin D levels.
Caution: The fact that sunlight is necessary for health is not an invitation to rush out and get sunburned. Sunburn damages DNA and can cause cancer. Too much of a good thing can be bad for you. People with light skin need less sunlight than those with dark skin. In fact, people with dark skin need a lot more sunlight to get the same benefits. Use the sun sensibly. Don’t abuse it, and it will be your partner in health. Best is to get sun as often as possible in small, graduated doses. When outdoors for long periods, wear protective clothing and a wide-brimmed hat.
Research shows that sunlight nourishes and energizes the human body, helping in the prevention of infections from bacteria, molds, and viruses. Sunlight helps to regulate hormones and stimulates the production of melatonin and testosterone. Sunlight enhances the immune system by increasing white blood cell count as well as gamma globulin, a protein that helps the body fight infection. Significantly, sunlight stimulates the production of more red blood cells, increasing the oxygen content of the blood, which helps to prevent and reverse cancer.
Sunlight is also good for the heart. It enables the body to lower the resting pulse rate, lower blood pressure, and lower cholesterol as well as triglycerides in the blood. In fact, sunlight may decrease cholesterol by more than 30 percent. It also enhances the power of the skin to resist diseases such as psoriasis, eczema, and acne. Sunlight lowers blood sugar and enhances liver function as well. It stimulates the liver to produce an enzyme that increases your ability to detoxify environmental pollutants. Further, sunlight stimulates the pineal gland to produce vital brain chemicals such as tryptamines, which cheer you up and prevent anxiety and depression.
Do not use sunscreens! Sunscreens are neither beneficial nor safe. They block out essential wavelengths that the body needs. Most sunscreen products contain numerous toxic chemicals, some of which can even cause cancer. Further, sunscreens contain aluminum nanoparticles. These nanoparticles get into the body and damage mitochondria, severely depleting ATP production and reducing your energy supply. Dating from antiquity, approaches to protecting against sun damage have included using high-quality olive oil or coconut oil on the skin.
Electromagnetic Fields
The human body is a battery-operated electronic device. Each of our trillions of cells produce their own magnetic fields and communicate via electromagnetic frequencies. Cell membranes act as semiconductors, diodes, microprocessors, and capacitors to store voltage. Every organ in the body produces its own unique electromagnetic field.
Disturbing your electromagnetic balance affects your health, and a growing body of evidence indicates that brain cancer is only one of the many health problems that our new wireless society is producing. Invisible to the human eye, electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are present everywhere in our environment. The body’s electromagnetic field and its electrical system are affected by the external EMFs, increasingly coming from Wi-Fi networks, cordless phones, cell phones, and cell phone towers. Over the last century, exposure to man-made EMFs has been increasing steadily as growing demand for electricity, ever-advancing technologies, and changes in social behavior have created more and more artificial sources. At home and at work, from the generation and transmission of electricity, to domestic appliances and industrial equipment, to telecommunications and broadcasting, all of us are now exposed to a complex mix of electric and magnetic fields.
Increasingly, people are becoming electromagnetically sensitive. An estimated 5 percent of the population in developed countries now experience serious electrohypersensitivity symptoms, while 35 percent experience mild symptoms. Some people can be totally debilitated just by walking into a Wi-Fi–equipped area. One symptom of electrohypersensitivity is altered sugar metabolism similar to diabetes. In fact, some researchers believe we have a new kind of diabetes caused by electromagnetic sensitivity. A study in a 2010 issue of Electromagnetic Health found that cordless phones can interfere with your heart, causing abnormal rhythms. Dr. Thomas Rau, medical director of the world-renowned Paracelsus Clinic in Switzerland, says he is convinced that electromagnetic loads lead to concentration problems, ADD, tinnitus, migraines, insomnia, arrhythmia, Parkinson’s, and cancer.
Given that the body is a battery-operated electronic device, no one who understands this will question whether external electromagnetic fields are affecting us. The only real question is how much harm they are doing.
Power Lines
A 2007 study in the Internal Medicine Journal found that living next to high-voltage power lines increased the risk of cancer. People who lived within 328 yards of a power line up to age five were five times more likely to develop cancer. In addition, children who lived that close to a power line at any point during their first fifteen years were three times more likely to develop cancer as adults. The study concluded that living for a prolonged period near high-voltage power lines is likely to increase the risk of leukemia, lymphoma, and other cancers later in life. The power industry had previously dismissed safety concerns after studies failed to show increased cases of leukemia in children living near power lines. This 2007 study is significant and alarming because it shows that, while the children didn’t get cancer, their exposure had long-lasting effects and the cancer shows up in adults who were exposed as children. Based on this study and others, it would be prudent not to live, work, or go to school within 300 yards of a high-voltage power line.
Cell Phones
EMFs present challenges for those wishing to stay healthy. We are all exposed to EMFs in our daily living. We can’t escape them because electromagnetic pollution is the single largest change we have made to our environment. Cell phones, computer screens, TV sets, hair dryers, refrigerators, dishwashers, and even the clock radio by the side of your bed are putting out unhealthy levels of EMFs. Driving your car exposes you to a lot of EMFs. While we have little personal control over many of the EMFs in our environment, such as radio and TV broadcasts, we have a lot of control over some of them. Cell phone use is one example. A Swedish study has found that heavy users of cell phones had a 240 percent increase in brain tumors on the sides of their heads on which the phones were used. This is a good reason to limit cell phone use and to use the speakerphone option to avoid holding the phone next to your head. In 2007 the European Union’s environmental watchdog agency warned that cell phone technology “could lead to a health crisis similar to those caused by asbestos, smoking, and lead in petrol.”
Tragically, children and teens are using cell phones. In the United States, 90 percent of sixteen-year-olds have their own cell phones, as do many primary school children. It is noteworthy that brain cancer has now surpassed leukemia as the number-one cancer killer in children. The incidence of pediatric brain cancers in Australia increased 21 percent in just one decade.
Because the negative effects of cell phone usage are not immediate, people think cell phones are safe. While cell phones have been used heavily for about twenty years, it can take up to thirty years for brain tumors to develop as a result of their use. Children, however, are more susceptible to cell phone damage because their cells are still reproducing more rapidly. Their brains and nervous systems are still developing, and their skulls are thinner. A study by Dr. Lennart Hardell, a professor of oncology and cancer epidemiology in Sweden, found that teenagers who use cell phones heavily have 500 percent more brain cancer as young adults. The study also found that the risk for young people who used cordless phones was almost as great, at more than 400 percent higher than those who avoided their use. In Europe and the United Kingdom, the incidence of brain tumors has increased by 40 percent over the last twenty years. Some researchers are predicting an epidemic of brain cancer as cell phone use continues to grow. Here is what Dr. Hardell had to say about cell phone use in a July 2003 interview on 60 Minutes:
What we did find was an increased risk for tumors in the temporal area of the brain, which is that part of the brain where the highest exposure to microwaves on the same side as the person had used the mobile phone. We found overall an increased risk of 30 percent for brain tumors, increasing for those who had used the mobile phone for over 10 years to 80 percent increased risk. This is a significant finding.
One of the largest studies ever, the Interphone study, involving thirteen countries, found a 300 percent increased risk of acoustic nerve tumors, and an increased risk of tumors of the parotid salivary gland, owing to cell phone use. An Israeli scientist, Dr. Siegal Sadetzki, concluded in an American Journal of Epidemiology study that there is a link between cell phone usage and the development of cancer of the salivary glands. Other studies have indicated risks beyond brain and salivary tumors, finding cognitive problems, disorientation, eye damage, bone damage, Alzheimer’s, and others. A 2002 study in Epidemiology and a 1998 study in Lancet found that cell phone radiation causes miscarriages and increases blood pressure.
Research sponsored by the telecommunications industry found an almost 300 percent increase in the incidence of genetic damage when human blood cells were exposed to cell phone radiation. Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, the head of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, advises against using cell phones in public places because it exposes other people to the hazardous EMFs that you are generating. Cell phones not only affect the user but, like secondhand smoke, also affect those around the user. Even being more than ten feet away from a cell phone user modifies your brain wave patterns, affects your short-term memory, and even affects your ability to perform physical tasks such as driving a car. In 2009 Dr. Herberman issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff: Limit cell phone use because of the health risks. Students with the highest frequency of cell phone use have lower grade point averages, experience more anxiety, and are less happy than peers who used cell phones less often.
Children especially should be protected from this EMF pollution; cell phones should not be used in close proximity to children. Lloyd Morgan, a director of the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States, had this to say: “Exposure to cell phone radiation is the largest human health experiment ever undertaken, without informed consent, and has some 4 billion participants enrolled. I fear we will see a tsunami of brain tumors, although it is too early to see that now since the tumors have a thirty-year latency. I pray I’m wrong, but brace yourself.”
Studies in other nations confirm that living close to cell phone towers damages health. People living close to these transmitters suffered extreme sleep disruption, chronic fatigue, nausea, skin problems, irritability, brain disturbances, and cardiovascular problems. German researchers found that people living within 1,200 feet of a cell tower experienced high cancer rates and developed their tumors on average eight years earlier than the national average. Breast cancer topped the list. Spanish researchers found that people living within 1,000 feet of cellular antennas developed illnesses at average power densities thousands of times lower than those allowed by international exposure standards. Researchers in Israel found that people who lived near a cell tower for three to seven years had a cancer rate four times higher than the control population.
Rooftop transmitters, which readily pass microwave radiation into structures, can be especially dangerous. Across the world there are reports of cancer clusters and extreme illness in office buildings and multitenant dwellings where antennas are placed on rooftops directly over workers and tenants. In 2006 the top floors of a Melbourne University office building were closed after a brain tumor cluster drew media attention to the risks of cell phone towers on top of the building.
Wi-Fi
Countless Wi-Fi systems, indoors and out, accommodate wireless laptop computers, personal digital assistants, Wi-Fi–enabled phones, gaming devices, video cameras, even parking and utility meters. Hundreds of cities already have or are planning to fund Wi-Fi networks, each consisting of thousands of small microwave transmitters bolted to buildings, street lamps, park benches, and bus stops, and even buried under sidewalks. All this has been planned with virtually no studies or warning signs about radiation exposure. Not a single environmental or public health study has been required as the industry unleashes this new wireless technology from which no living thing will escape.
Dr. Robert Becker, noted for decades of research on the effects of electromagnetic radiation, has warned, “Even if we survive the chemical and atomic threats to our existence, there is the strong possibility that increasing electropollution could set in motion irreversible changes leading to our extinction before we are even aware of them.”
Good Advice
To protect your health, limit your cell phone use to only the most essential calls, and then limit the call to less than two minutes. Cell phones are a fact of life. They aren’t going to go away. The challenge is to use them as safely as possible. Make no nonessential phone calls. When cell phones are on, they are emitting radiation, even when you are not using them. Do not carry a cell phone close to your body while it is on. Keep your phone turned off when it is not being used; turn it on as needed to check for messages. Do not hold a phone next to your brain. Use the speakerphone feature to make your calls, keeping the phone as far away as possible. Keep children away from the immediate vicinity when you make a call. Do not allow children under the age of eighteen to use a cell phone except in emergencies. Use of cell phones inside buildings, aircraft, or in cars increases cancer risk, because it increases the radiation a phone must emit in order to function. Don’t live within 1,200 feet of a cell phone antenna. Use of text messages and nonwireless headsets can reduce, but not eliminate, cancer risk. The evidence is becoming overwhelming that cell phone use is hazardous to your health, but do not count on the government to protect you. Federal exposure limits have been deliberately set so high that no matter how much additional wireless radiation is added to the national burden, it will always be “within standards.”
When buying a home or choosing an apartment, choose one that is not immediately adjacent to high-voltage transmission lines, cell phone towers, or transformers. Be prudent in the use of appliances. When possible, use rechargeable battery-powered appliances rather than plug-in models. Do not stand immediately next to an electrical appliance when it is turned on. Turn on the dishwasher when finished in the kitchen and you are ready to leave the room. Avoid electric blankets or use them only to warm up the bed before you get in it. Keep telephone answering machines and electric clocks away from your head while you are sleeping. Increase distance from televisions (at least six feet away) and avoid appliances that come into close contact with your body such as hairdryers and nonbattery electric razors.
Airport Scanners
Another hazard worthy of special note is the body scanners used to screen passengers in airports. One type of scanner uses x-rays, and it is a well-established fact that the ionizing radiation of x-rays damages DNA and causes cancer. However, another type of scanner uses a technology called terahertz waves (THz waves). THz waves are thought to be safe because they do not have the energy of x-rays and are not ionizing. However, while the energy of THz waves is low and nonionizing, research at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico raises questions. These waves may interact with double-stranded DNA in a novel way. They produce resonant forces that unzip the strands of the DNA, doing catastrophic damage, interfering with gene expression and DNA replication. No one knows what the effects may be. Given these facts, being bombarded by THz waves in every airport is probably not a good idea.
While these scanners may be good for security, they are not good for your health. To be safe, refuse to go through airport scanners. This will subject you to the inconvenience of a personal search, but the inconvenience is better than the unknown consequences of the damage the scanners can cause.
Sleep
Getting a good night’s sleep is essential to good health and another piece of the puzzle to preventing disease or restoring health. The body is designed for certain sleep patterns, and disturbing those patterns can seriously alter the balance of hormones in your body. The reality is that our bodies have been programmed over millennia to sleep when it’s dark and be awake during daylight. This is how our ancestors lived, and when you do otherwise, you are sending conflicting signals to the body. This upsets normal biochemistry and balance, creating disease. We know that sleep affects immunity, blood pressure, diabetes, and even obesity.
Unfortunately, a good night’s sleep is increasingly losing out to late-night TV, the Internet, emails, and the other distractions of modern life. According to a poll by the National Sleep Foundation, the majority of Americans are not getting enough sleep. Only 40 percent of the respondents reported getting a good night’s sleep every night or almost every night. Lawrence Epstein, president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, said, “We have in our society this idea that you can just get by without sleep or manipulate when you sleep without any consequences. What we’re finding is that’s just not true.”
The amount of necessary sleep varies from person to person. Most people need between seven and nine hours. Research indicates that sleeping less than eight hours a night has significant cumulative consequences.
People who get less than six hours are at greatly increased risk for disease. A study by Harvard Medical School of over 82,000 nurses found that getting less than six hours sleep per night increases the risk of premature death. Links have also been discovered between too little sleep and diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and high cholesterol. Surprisingly, there was also a risk of premature death for those sleeping more than nine hours.
The picture that is emerging is that not sleeping enough, being awake in the early-morning hours, or waking up frequently at night throws the body’s internal clock out of whack. “Lack of sleep disrupts every physiologic function in the body,” said Dr. Eve Van Cauter of the University of Chicago. “We have nothing in our biology that allows us to adapt to this behavior.”
Sleep regulates hormonal balance, and hormonal balance is essential to health. Studies indicate that lack of sleep increases the production of stress hormones, and stress hormones both cause and drive cancer. Cortisol is one of the hormones affected. Cortisol helps to regulate the release of natural killer cells that help the body battle cancer. Cortisol needs to be properly balanced, but night shift workers have a shifted cortisol balance. People who wake up frequently during the night are also more likely to have abnormal cortisol rhythms that throw the body out of balance.
Melatonin is another hormone affected by sleep. This hormone is produced in the brain during sleep; it helps people fall asleep faster and stay asleep, experience less restlessness, and prevent daytime fatigue. It boosts the immune system. Melatonin provides powerful anticancer benefits and interferes with tumor growth. Melatonin is a powerful antioxidant, helping protect DNA from cancer-causing mutations. However, melatonin production is sensitive to the amount of sleep we get and the amount of light we are exposed to. This has become a problem, especially with the exploding number of artificial light-producing electrical gadgets that are now part of our daily lives. Many people keep these devices in close proximity during night hours and are continually exposed to light emissions during sleep that reduce melatonin production. A wealth of research is indicating an increasing risk of cancer as a result.
Research shows that even the smallest amount of light from devices such as iPods, laptops, electronic readers, and TV sets is sufficient to cut melatonin production in half. This emphasizes the importance of sleeping in a totally dark room to lower cancer risk. Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) in the bedroom can also disrupt melatonin production. You can purchase a gauss meter to measure EMF levels in various parts of your home. Move all electrical devices at least three feet from your bed. Shift workers who are up all night produce less melatonin. This is why the World Health Organization has labeled this kind of work a “probable carcinogen.”
Insufficient melatonin affects levels of other hormones and increases estrogen. High estrogen increases the risk of breast and prostate cancer. The truth is that even minimal exposure to an artificial light source is sufficient to alter the expression of genes that are connected to the formation of cancer as well as of genes that assist in the fight against cancer. When melatonin production is delayed or halted by artificial light sources, our nighttime rhythms are disturbed, and normal metabolic activity required for cellular repair is disrupted. The body requires seven to nine hours of uninterrupted sleep each night, with no light distraction, to complete the repair functions that are essential to maintaining optimal health.
Interfering with the body’s natural rhythms is never a good idea. Health is when the body is balanced and functioning normally. Female night-shift workers have higher rates of breast cancer than women who sleep normal hours, and they are more likely to have more rapid tumor growth and to die earlier from breast cancer. Tumors grow two to three times faster in laboratory animals with severe sleep dysfunctions. Sleep helps to restore one’s internal environment, and people who sleep poorly or do not get enough sleep have higher levels of inflammation. Getting six or fewer hours of sleep increases levels of three inflammatory markers: fibrinogen, IL-6, and C-reactive protein, resulting in chronic low-grade inflammation.
Cell phones are another problem affecting sleep. A Swedish study published by MIT’s Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium said there was now “more than sufficient evidence” to show that cell phone radiation delays and reduces sleep. Using cell phones before bed causes people to take longer to reach the deeper stages of sleep and to spend less time in them. Less time in the deeper stages of sleep interferes with the body’s ability to do its daily repairs. Repair deficits impair your immune system, leaving you less able to fight off diseases of all kinds, as well as contributing to the aging process. Adequate sleep is one of the most important factors in your health and quality of life.
Noise
Noise can kill! Research has proven that noise can cause serious health problems. Chronic noise raises the level of stress hormones and substantially increases the risk of heart attack, high blood pressure, and stroke. Exposure to high levels of aircraft noise increases risk of cardiovascular disease. Noise has been linked to cancer through disrupted sleep patterns and the resulting hormonal imbalances. Everything from aircraft traffic to barking dogs and loud music can interrupt sleep patterns and result in abnormal hormone secretions. Disrupted hormonal balance creates abnormal immune responses, resulting in cancer-supporting conditions. The problems caused by noise go beyond sleep loss. Workers chronically exposed to loud noise suffered calcium and magnesium losses, which can affect a variety of health problems, from osteoporosis to cancer.
The body reacts to noise by secreting inflammatory chemicals (cytokines). Some researchers believe that one reason cytokine production rises as we grow older is exposure to a lifetime of noise. The bottom line is that noise disrupts normal hormonal balance and normal immune response, and creates inflammation in the body. Inflammation is the foundation of every chronic disease. As much as possible, reduce the amount of noise in your life.
Things to Remember
Many factors affect our overall health, and the factors in the Physical Pathway are among them. By controlling these factors in your favor, as well as those in the other five of the Six Pathways, you can move yourself toward a disease-free life.
• Be sure to get at least thirty minutes of exercise every other day at a minimum.
• Rebounding even twenty minutes a day as you watch TV or listen to music will do wonders for your health, and at no inconvenience.
• Watch your breathing throughout the day. Proper breathing will
help you relax, lower your stress levels, and supply more oxygen to your cells.
• Get frequent sunlight on most of your body. When this is not possible, be sure to take a high-quality vitamin D supplement.
• Minimize your exposure to radiation of all kinds, from medical x-rays to cell phones to airport scanners.
• Go to bed before 11 pm and try to get eight hours of sleep every night.
• Avoid noise, especially chronic, loud noise.
