How to Kill Candida and Balance Your Inner Ecosystem

Most people ingest too many refined, processed foods. Even us health nuts have a tendency to do this. In this fast paced world, with the body biologically programmed to desire sweets and other easy carbohydrates that are so much harder to find in nature, it’s common and totally normal to have too much Candida in our body.

If you experience this problem, and again, most people do, here are some ways you can balance your gut flora. Balancing the flora will alleviate many health issues, even little annoying ones you thought you were stuck with for the rest of your life such as itchy ear canals, body odor, and eczema.

Garlic

Most people know that garlic is antifungal, antiparasitic, antibacterial, and antiviral. It also helps with a host of other issues including the removal of toxins in the body. If I could only choose one single item to work with when it comes to healing and treatment modalities, I would choose garlic. Unfortunately, many people don’t know exactly how to use it to reap the benefits.

First and foremost, don’t cook it. It loses all its Candida fighting properties when you do. Secondly, cut it up and give it a minute before ingesting it. Or, if you’ve got a strong stomach and an even stronger mouth, chew it up for a minute with your mouth open, breathing in and out. This is also an incredibly effective treatment for tooth and gum problems, and even bad breath; though swallowing it, of course, can lead to garlic breath for many, but garlic breath is a sign of a toxic body.

Don’t use garlic from China, even if it’s organic. One way to tell, is those smaller, bright white garlic bulbs are almost always grown in China. China’s soil is just too toxic.

Essential oils

Oil of oregano has antifungal, antibacterial, and antiparasitic properties as well. Oil of oregano is exceptionally powerful and can be taken in tablet form.

Some other essential oils that kill candida include lavender, thieves, tea tree, and peppermint, though I don’t recommend taking these oils internally. They are a good solution for Candida skin rashes, though they can be painful to use. In most cases, they will not harm the skin even though you will feel a burning sensation.

Oils

Coconut oil is known for its antibacterial, antifungal, and antiparasitic properties, though it’s efficacy with Candida control is weak compared to other ingestible choices. Neem oil is an oil with similar antiparasitic properties, a bit stronger at parasitic control than coconut oil, but it should only be applied topically.

Other notable items that are known to combat fungus include wormwood, black walnut hull, Spanish black radish, Pau d’Arco, goldenseal, coptis chinensis, ginger, cinnamon, and olive leaf extract. All of these are great to have around, and a few of them are exceptional at killing parasites, viruses, and bacterial infections (coptis chinensis, wormwood, black walnut hull, Spanish black radish) but while they are certainly antifungal, they’re not the strongest solution.

My favorite combination for eliminating excess yeast in my body is undecenoic acid (Thorne SF722) and very high quality probiotics. Combine this with Shillington’s intestinal cleanse and with big salads everyday with lots of different vegetables, and you’ve got yourself a clean colon free of excess Candida in days, often in just one day. What I love about undecenoic acid and probiotics is that they don’t kill off good bacteria. They only eliminate Candida and other fungi. If I want to knock out parasites as well, I use MicroDefense – Pure Encapsulations, which has wormwood and black walnut hulls (and other good stuff that parasites hate).

Whatever approach you take with intestinal maintenance, a diet with a diverse selection of lots of raw vegetables is the most important thing you can do for your colon and your whole body.

Recommended Supplements:

(You can take these altogether)

Further Reading:


Foods that Kill Cancer

In order to defeat cancer and ensure there is no recurrence, the body must be brought into balance and the immune system rebuilt and fine tuned. So how is this feat accomplished? Detox, detox, detox and achieve a slightly alkaline pH, while filling the body with the best, organic, nutritionally dense food available. Your goal is to rebuild a killer immune system as you bathe every non-cancerous cell in your body with nutrition.

For specific foods known to eliminate cancer, check out the following list:

Omega 3

Oily fish, fish oil, flax seed oil, hemp oil, and healthy oil blend supplements provide omega 3 fatty acids (and other beneficial fatty acids), which fight inflammation and make the body less hospitable to cancer cells. Vitamin D is also known to kill cancer, and you can find many fish oils and some vegan oil blends with vitamin D in them.

Cruciferous Vegetables

Cruciferous vegetables include broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, watercress, kale, collard greens, cauliflower, bok choy, turnips, rutabagas, radishes, arugula, and more. These vegetables contain sulforaphane and other helpful compounds, which help fight tumors, breast, prostate, brain, and colorectal cancers, as well as leukemia. Broccoli sprouts and mature broccoli in combination really pack nutritional, cancer fighting punch.

Berries

Black raspberries appear to reign supreme, though all berries contain cancer fighting phytonutrients and high amounts of ellagic acid, which inhibit tumor growth.

Maitake and Shiitake Mushrooms

Google maitake mushrooms and cancer and the American Cancer Society pops up at the top of the search list. For one brief moment it seemed they might actually be doing their job, but no. They claim there have been no studies to show that maitake or any other mushroom help fight cancer. Continue your search and study after study reveals they do indeed.

Mushrooms boost immune function and are a great source of antioxidants. They are also rich in vitamins C and B vitamins as well as calcium and other minerals.

Tumeric

Curcumin, found in turmeric, inhibits the spread of cancer (metastases) along with its anti-inflammatory and oxidative effects. Tumeric can be found at farmer’s markets in root form. It can be used liberally to spice your food (great on salads or in salad dressing as well as in cooked dishes) with no side effects.

Tomatoes

The active compounds found in tomatoes, carotenoids and lycopene (especially lycopene), are very helpful, especially in the fight of prostate and pancreatic cancer in men. Seven to ten helpings are week are suggested, both cooked and raw juice. To gain the health benefits of juice, make your own. Store bought tomato juice will be pasteurized. Lycopene is a strong antioxidant.

Folate

Egg yolks, avocadoes, apricots, green leafy vegetables, and pumpkin are among the foods rich in folate. For meat eaters, chicken livers are very high in folate. Studies involving folate or its synthetic form, folic acid, show a significant reduced risk of colorectal cancer. Folate or folic acid ?is essential for the body to correctly replicate DNA.

Garlic

Even the National Cancer Institute admits garlic “…may reduce the risk of developing several types of?cancer, especially cancers of the?gastrointestinal tract”.
Garlic reduces inflammation, fights free radicals, and fights cancer. Eat it raw or chop it up and let it sit for 10-15 minutes before cooking with it or its beneficial compound, allicin, will not be released.

Grapes

The compound found in red grapes, resveratrol, is a powerful antioxidant that also saves cells from oxidant-caused death. Grape seeds have huge benefits. We recommend you don’t eat grapes without seeds.

Conclusion

An alkaline, balanced diet with plenty of nutrition, and as few toxins as possible, makes the body inhospitable to cancer. Sugar feeds cancer. Processed and refined foods feed cancer. Raw, organic vegetables, especially when grown for maximum nutrient content (as opposed to large scale farming) should be the foundation of any healthy diet. We also recommend that anyone with cancer undergo a full body detox with a supplement regimen specifically designed for your current state of health. For more information on what to do for cancer, check out the first three sources. For information on detoxifying, check out Cheap And Easy Detox Diet Plan.

Further Reading:

Resources:



The Fascinating Bacteria in our Gut, and How it Affects Our Whole Lives

We are host to somewhere between 300-1000 different species of bacteria, each of which has one goal—to survive and multiply. While they live and thrive in our gut, beneficial bacteria provide many necessary and health-related functions. They help us digest our food. They line our intestinal wall, providing a physical barrier against bad bacteria and fungi that may damage or inflame the tissues. Some produce vitamin K and B vitamins, while others aid in synthesizing vitamins. They produce 95% of our serotonin as well as other neurotransmitters. They make up 80% of our immune system, and more. The by-products of their lifecycle benefit us through a harmonious, symbiotic relationship.

We classify bacteria as bad bacteria when their byproducts or functions can harm our bodies.   For example, most of the E-coli bacteria strains are harmless. In fact, the harmless strains help prevent colonization of pathogenic bacteria and produce vitamin K2, whereas the pathogenic E-coli strains cause a variety of infections and may even cause death.

Related: Candida, Gut Flora, Allergies, and Disease

Aside from illness, researchers are learning that specific species of bacteria exert different influences on their host bodies. One example is our metabolism. The bacterial makeup of a lean person is different than the bacterial makeup in someone who is obese.

One study showed that Enterobacter, an endotoxin-producing bacterium, taken from the gut of a morbidly obese human, induced obesity and insulin resistance in healthy mice. In a volunteer with an initial weight of 385 lbs, Enterobacter made up 35% of the gut bacterium. After 23 weeks of a diet of whole grains, traditional Chinese medicinal foods, and prebiotics, the volunteer lost 113 lbs and all traces of Enterobacter. The conclusion was that this endotoxin-producing bacterium creates inflammation that causes insulin resistance resulting in weight gain.

Another recent study showed a direct correlation between a high or low level of bacterium in the gut and the subjects’ weight. A high level of bacterium, with a high level of diversity, was linked to a healthy weight, whereas a low level of bacterium was linked to overweight individuals.

Related: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

The amount of bacteria in the gut relates to more than weight, it is also an indicator of overall health. Our actions affect the amount, the diversity, and the ratio of good to bad bacteria. For example, antibiotic use indiscriminately kills bacteria. Antibiotics do not just target the one pathogen causing an infection in our body; they kill off much of the bacteria in our gut as well. Not only do we need the good bacteria to do its work (including keeping the bad bacteria in check), we need to maintain the delicate balance between bacteria and fungi. Candida is opportunistic. Given a chance, it will quickly mass-produce, wreaking havoc in the digestive tract and, in time, the entire body.

As research continues to reveal that diversity in gut bacterium is essential to good health and can influence bodily functions such as serotonin production (a huge factor in depression) or metabolism (a factor in weight control), researchers are learning more about which particular bacteria are beneficial and which bacteria have an unhealthy effect on the body. The day may soon come when we choose our probiotics to manage our weight, to maintain our mental health, or to treat a variety of diseases. Until that day arrives, our diet choices can and will alter this internal balance.

We do have a basic knowledge of which foods promote beneficial bacteria and which foods and medications promote bad bacteria, and we know how to increase the beneficial organisms to crowd out those that do not serve our health.

Related: Hypothyroidism – Natural Remedies, Causes, and How To Heal the Thyroid

The first and most important step to increase health inducing bacterium in the gut, is to eat a diet rich in prebiotics—in other words, lots of raw vegetables and fruit. A large salad each day, filled with a wide variety of vegetables, provides the healthy bacterium in our gut with the food it needs to thrive. Insoluble fiber also houses good bacteria, giving it a structure upon which to multiply. Raw, whole, organic vegetables and fruits (more vegetables than fruit) should always comprise 80% of our diet.

We not only know what to feed good bacteria, we know what feeds or promotes bad bacteria: processed dead foods, acidic foods (factory raised meat and dairy), pasteurized foods, irradiated foods, sugar, antibiotics, antacids, and anti-inflammatory drugs. Choose only organic grass fed beef, organic free-range chicken, and raw dairy. Never eat farm raised fish. Avoid all GMOs, including second generation GMOs from animals raised on GMO feed.

If we were to believe the advertisements, one or two servings of sugar filled, pasteurized, yogurt (often with other ingredients added to thicken, stabilize, preserve, and/or add artificial flavor)  would provide all the beneficial bacteria we need. If any beneficial bacteria from this yogurt survived our stomach acid and made it to our intestines, the dairy and sugar content alone would negate its benefits (pasteurized dairy and sugar feed Candida and “bad” bacteria). There are better ways to include probiotics in our diet.

Related: How to Kill Candida and Balance Your Inner Ecosystem

Probiotic foods such as coconut kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi, and raw, organic apple cider vinegar all increase healthy bacterium in the gut.  There are also excellent probiotic supplements formulated with very strong bacteria strains that have the ability to make it past the stomach acid before releasing the bacteria into the intestines. These probiotics are rare; most on the market are useless. But the good ones are powerful and can help reset your ecosystem. Remember, while probiotics can be very helpful, more benefit is gained from prebiotics, vegetables in particular. Conversely, if your appendix has been removed, you may need a daily probiotic supplement for the rest of your life. FloraMend Prime by Thorne Research is a very strong and stable probiotic that we highly recommend.

Every choice we make to detox, cleanse, and properly feed our bodies will affect the microbes in our gut. Though we were born with a particular balance of bacteria, it has been influenced throughout our lives by toxins, antibiotics, vaccines, and the foods we have eaten. But we do have the power to change it. We can increase the amount and the type of bacteria in our bodies primarily by the foods we choose to eat and the foods we choose to avoid.

If you want to reduce Candida and harmful bacteria in your gut be sure to check out Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases, and we recommend the following:

Recommended Supplements:

Further Reading:

 Sources: 

  • Na Feiand Liping Zhao, An Opportunistic Pathogen Isolated from the Gut of an Obese Human Causes Obesity in Germfree Mice; The ISME Journal (2013) 7, 880–884
  • Q. Aziz, J. Dore´,A. Emmanuel, F. Guarner, & E. M. M. Quigley; Gut Microbiota and Gastrointestinal Health: Current Concepts and Future Directions, Neurogastroenterol & Motility (2013) 25, 4–15


Inexpensive, Easy Detox – The One Gallon Challenge

You’ve heard of the ice bucket challenge, and maybe even the Ferguson Challenge. Here’s a new challenge: the one gallon challenge. Drink a gallon of cranberry lemonade a day, sweetened with stevia, and spiced with cayenne. This is one of the best ways to detoxify and clean out your system.

There’s more.

Exercise. Sweat. Get your heart rate going. Deep, heavy breathing helps detoxify the body. Exercise vigorously for 20 minutes a day. If you have access to a sauna, especially one of a non-toxic variety, use it! A steam room is great, too, as long as the water is purified, with the fluoride and other chemicals removed.

Rebounding

There is one specific exercise that can help this detox in an unusual way—bouncing. Rebounding on a trampoline, jumping rope, or jogging while ensuring that you’re running with good form (not heel striking) all help circulate your lymph. Do one of these activities for at least 20 minutes a day. Of course, if done vigorously enough to induce heavy breathing and to work up a sweat, the bouncing activities count as the exercise for the day.

Eat. This isn’t a fast. You can detoxify without fasting. You are welcome to fast if you want to and you know your body can handle it, but it’s not necessary in order to receive amazing benefits. Eat produce, salads and fruits. A serious detox is a good time to avoid pretty much anything else and just focus on produce. If the body is very toxic or so sick that it cannot get nutrition out of food, it is a good time to juice. Otherwise, we recommend eating whole, unadulterated vegetables and fruits in order to get the fiber and many other benefits that are lost when juicing.

If the gut is out of balance, i.e. Candida overgrowth and/or an abundance of bad bacteria, eat lots of garlic with those salads, and take a high quality probiotic and some undecylenic acid or oil of oregano. (When taking oil of oregano, do not take it with probiotics as it will kill the beneficial bacteria}.

Cranberry Lemonade Recipe

  • Glass gallon jar
  • Safe, clean, spring water or distilled water
  • 1 cup of organic cranberry juice, not from concentrate
  • 3 organic fresh lemons
  • A citrus juicer
  • Liquid stevia
  • Liquid cayenne

Fill the jar to about 85% capacity with spring water (or distilled water). Squeeze the lemons and pour the juice into the water. Add cranberry juice. Add stevia to taste and then add cayenne to taste. The amount of cayenne used is up to you, but the more the better.

If you don’t have access to a good spring water source, use other clean drinking water that does not have fluoride. If you don’t have access to organic lemons, use conventional. If there are no fresh lemons, use bottle lemon juice. If you can’t get cranberry juice that is not from concentrate, get the reconstituted kind (just don’t get any kind of cranberry juice that has any other ingredients like sweeteners or other juices). If you can’t stand cayenne, don’t use it. No glass jar? Use plastic. No excuses.

If you have powdered cayenne and/or powdered stevia, I recommend using a blender to mix some of the liquid with the powders so they don’t settle later.

Drinking a gallon of water a day makes an amazing difference to your health and your appearance (google gallon a day water before and after). Drinking this much fluid flushes the organs and the lymph nodes, hydrates the skin, and helps the body to rebuild cells and regenerate in ways that most people do not get to experience. The cranberry and the lemon help flush the liver and the kidneys even more, and in my experience it’s a lot easier to drink a gallon of cranberry lemonade than it is to drink a gallon of plain water. And cayenne has a ton of amazing health benefits. For more, check out, Cayenne – Natures Miracle Medicine.

How long should you do this for? I challenge you to ten days. But do it as long as you like. While produce should always be the staple of any healthy diet, no matter what you’re eating, your body will always benefit from this gallon of hydration a day.

Please use common sense with this. If you do not follow a healthy diet with lots of produce, the amount of liquid consumed on this regimen can deplete the body of much needed minerals. Do not attempt to drink a gallon of anything in one sitting. This has been known to kill people, even with just water. If you have kidney problems, this may be the best thing for you. On the other hand, depending on your health issues, it may overload the kidneys. I find that smaller people who weigh less than 120 pounds can see the benefits at 1/2 to 1/3 of a gallon. Your health is in your hands. Again, please use good judgment.

If you’ve got a bit of money and you’re willing to take this detox program to a whole other level, consider detoxifying the blood, killing parasites, and balancing the body’s ecosystem. Shillington’s Blood Detox, MicroDefense – Pure Encapsulations, and will detoxify the blood and kill parasites. SF722 will kill Candida (yeast). Shillington’s Intestinal Cleanse will clean out the colon, and FloraMend will restore beneficial bacteria.

If Candida is an issue for you, as it is for most, check out How to Cure Candida.

Recommended Supplements:
Further Reading:


Repel Ticks with this Natural Oil

(NaturalNews – Heidi Fagley) With summer in full bloom and more and more cases of Lyme disease being reported, many are searching for ways to repel ticks without having to resort to harsh chemicals. Luckily, there is one sweet-smelling alternative that is proving to be quite powerful in the fight against this growing concern.

It’s summer and time to experience the great outdoors, yet many are opting out in order to avoid the feared tick bite that could possibly lead to a host of health challenges. The good news is that something as simple and natural as rose geranium essential oil has been found to help ward off those pesky little parasites.

Ticks operate mostly by using their sense of smell. Ticks don’t jump or fall from trees; instead, they do something called “questing.” That is, they climb to the top of a blade of grass or plant and stick their front legs up in the air, waiting for the scent of a victim to walk by. If you find one on your head, then it crawled there. Their front pair of legs have what are called Haller’s organs, which detect smell, temperature, movement and carbon dioxide. This is how they know that you are coming. And since it is well known that they like warmth and moisture, they are waiting for a warm, moist environment to call their home. The best part about this is that, for some reason, they are not attracted to the scent of rose geranium essential oil.

There are two varieties of rose geranium oil. In order to get the most bang for your buck in repelling ticks, you want to find the one with the botanical name Pelargonium capitatum x radens. The more popular rose geranium oil under the name Pelargonium graveolens is from the same family, but not the same species.

Most essential oils need to be diluted, but rose geranium does not fall into that category if used in small doses. So, because all you need is a few drops to do the job, a little most definitely goes a long way. Simply placing one drop on each ankle and on the wrists, then a little behind the knees and one on the back of the neck is all you will need to do the trick. Since dogs are extremely sensitive to smell, you will want to go easy on the oil for your canine friends. One drop behind each shoulder blade and at the top of the base of the tail. Be careful to avoid the face and nose; their sensitive sniffers can’t handle anything anything too strong.

Other essential oils such as lavender, lemongrass, citronella, eucalyptus, and cedar wood have all been found to be helpful in repelling these unwanted guests as well. Please check specific directions before using to ensure safety for dilution purposes.

Whatever scent you use, take caution and remember to double-check yourself from head to toe after coming in from a summer stroll.

Note:

The essential oil of rose geranium is one single oil and not a mixture of rose and geranium oils.

Not all essential oils are recommended for animals, especially cats and horses. Consult your veterinary doctor before using any essential oil for pets.

Sources include:
http://insects.about.com



Growing Boneset for Health Benefits

Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum), a member of the aster family, is also known as white Joe-Pye Weed, an herb that has long been used by both Native Americans and European settlers for its healing properties.

The tiny white flowers, which grow in clusters, blossom during the late summer and early fall seasons. Boneset is plentiful in fields and meadows but can be easily cultivated in gardens. A perennial, boneset grows in planting zones 4-8.

Boneset seeds can be grown indoors or outdoors once the last frost has passed. Growing boneset from seeds indoors instead of outdoors offers several advantages: being very tiny in size, the seeds will not be washed away by the rain or eaten by birds, and it will be easier for you to check the moisture level of the soil as the seeds enter the germination stage. The soil should always be kept moist once you plant boneset seeds.

To grow boneset from seeds indoors, start off with using dampened soil in your starting container. Gently tap the seeds into the surface of the damp soil. Do not cover the tiny seeds with a heavy layer of soil. You can either leave the seeds exposed, or covered with a very thin layer of damp soil. Place the starting container close to a window that has southern exposure, for the seeds require sunlight to germinate. Check the soil every 24 hours to make sure it remains damp so the seeds can germinate. If the soil gets dry, lightly water the soil. Once the seeds germinate into plants, they can be transplanted outside once the last frost of the season has passed.

Boneset will grow well in partial shade as well as full sunlight. The plants will grow from 2 – 5′ tall so allow between 18 – 24” of space for each plant. Boneset stalks are sturdy and will not require support of any kind. Water established plants once a week, and twice a week during dry periods.

Boneset tea is a diaphoretic, expectorant, tonic and febrifuge when taken for colds and influenza. As a diaphoretic, boneset produces perspiration, thus causing fevers to pass quickly. It is an expectorant as it removes excess mucus from the bronchial tubes should the patient have difficulty breathing. Boneset has tonic properties that strengthens internal and external tissue, which makes it suitable for healing bruises, cuts and scrapes.

To make boneset tea, use a proportion of one ounce of dried boneset leaves and flowers to a pint of boiled water. Strain the leaves from the tea. Drink 2 to 3 cups of boneset tea a day until the cold or flu has reached its end. The tea will also help individuals with emphysema, asthma, and bronchitis. For use as an internal tonic, mix a teaspoon of boneset powder in a cup of cold water for drinking and take several times a day.

A poultice can also be made from boneset for use on cuts, broken bones, or sprains. Use a tablespoon of dried boneset which has been crushed into powder form – a mortar and pestle can be used for this purpose – and thoroughly blend into a tablespoon of cocoa butter. Alternately, the powdered boneset can also be mixed with some warm water to form a poultice, then applied to sprains, broken bones, arthritic joints, or bruises.

Sources and Further Reading:



Do You Have Sick Building Syndrome?

We have become concerned about the outside air we breathe, and legitimately so. With factories, automobiles, heavy machinery, chemtrails, and Fukushima to contend with, we have no shortage of clean air supply problems. But what if our inside air was as bad, or worse, than the pollution outside? It’s a very real question, one that we are about to answer.

The Causes of Sick Building Syndrome and the Increased Dangers

“Indoor air pollution in residences, offices, schools, and other buildings is widely recognized as a serious environmental risk to human health,” explains Michael Hodgson, M.D., M.P.H., of the School of Medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center.

Dr. Hodgson notes that most people in industrialized nations spend more than 90% of their time indoors, that indoor concentrations of pollutants are often substantially higher than those found outdoors, and that small children, the elderly, and the infirm are likely to spend all their time indoors, leading to permanent chronic exposure to low grade toxic factors.

In most cases, problems with a building’s engineering, construction, and ventilation systems are the causes. Studies suggest that symptoms occur 50% more frequently in buildings with mechanical ventilation systems. Among 2,000 office workers in Germany with work related symptoms, there was a 50% higher that average rate of upper respiratory tract infections that were directly traceable to problems with mechanically ventilated buildings. A U.S. study found that 20% of office workers had job-related  SBS (sick building syndrome) symptoms, including a subjective sense of being less productive in their work.

Besides ventilation problems, other sources of indoor toxic pollution include volatile organic compounds (VOC’s) released from particleboard desks, furniture, carpets, glues, paints, office machine toners, and perfumes. All contribute to a complex mixture of very low levels of individual pollutants. Bioaerosols are also indoor contaminants that originate as biological agents from mild spores, allergy producing microbes, mites, or animal dander, and they are distributed through an indoor space by ventilation, heating, or air conditioning systems.

Of buildings classified as sources of SBS, one study showed that 70% have an inadequate flow of fresh outside air. It also found that 50% to 70% of such buildings have poor distribution of air within the occupied space, 60% have poor filtration of outdoor pollutants, 60% have standing water that fosters biological growths, and 20% have malfunctioning humidifiers.

Sick Building Syndrome Symptoms

In the early 1980’s, physicians began using the term sick building syndrome (SBS) to refer to a host of symptoms caused by low-grade toxic environmental conditions found in living, work, or office spaces. SBS symptoms are numerous and include:

  • Mucous membrane irritation (eyes, nose, and throat)
  • Chest tightness
  • Skin complaints (drying, itching, abnormal redness)
  • Headaches
  • Fatigue
  • Lethargy
  • Coughing
  • Asthma
  • Chronic nasal stuffiness
  • Temporary weight loss
  • Infections
  • Emotional irritability

All of these depress the immune system, rendering the individual susceptible to long-term chronic illness. Combat SBS by taking more breaks outdoors, investing in plants that filter the air, and by ensuring you support proper liver function to facilitate easier removal of these indoor toxins. Sources for this article include: Trivieri, Larry. Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts, 2002. Print.