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Dear Valued Clients, Sierra Holistic wishes to send greetings for a healthy winter season. In order to maintain a healthy immune system during cold and flu season, we have all heard the typical advice before. Get plenty of rest, fresh air, exercise, and eat right. Take your vitamins and “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, etc. I have been asked repeatedly, should I or should I not get a flu shot? My answer is always the same. I cannot decide for you, however, I can help you prevent cold or flu by following some simple realistic guidelines. The purpose of this letter is to enable you to incorporate some features in your daily life to help make this winter/spring season your healthiest ever. I. Never drink cold drinks and avoid cold foods, particularly soda pop, and including cold fruit juices. These are yin or cooling foods and are best kept for cooling you down in warmer weather. Fruit may still be eaten, but it is better if poached, and don’t eat if first A.M. as it is too yin after the yin/dark part of the day. Soups and hot tea, particularly herbal teas with stimulating spices such as ginger, cloves, cayenne, cinnamon, etc. are warming, and will effectively keep the core warm. Which leads us to point #2. II. Keep your core warm by proper clothing. Never let the midsection or chest be exposed in cold weather. Scarves for the neck are protective for those prone to sore throats, chest colds, or stiff necks. Hands and feet should also be kept warm as they relate to thyroid/adrenal function. III. Vitamin C, D, A, zinc and herbs such as echinacea (should not be taken long term), olive leaf extract, oil of oregano, golden seal, myrhh, and cayenne are all appropriate infection fighters. Taking vitamin D in supplement form has been shown in studies to be the most beneficial in boosting immune to prevent cold and flu season illnesses. Proplis has been proven in studies to be as effective as antibiotics in its infection fighting capacity. A good remedy for fighting influenzas and colds is to chop 6 – 12 cloves garlic in 3 cups raw apple cider vinegar and 4 tablespoons raw honey. Allow for this mixture to sit for 6 days. When ready take up to 1 TBSP. every hour in acute cases to reverse infection when fighting sore throats and cold symptoms. A wonderful tea of fresh brewed ginger (peeled and cut in rounds in 2 qts. water, bring to boil & let simmer for 20 minutes on low heat, turn off heat & cover), raw honey, juice of lemons and cayenne powder. This concoction will soothe and warm an upper respiratory infection. Taking cod liver oil (1 TBSP) with fresh orange juice can be used as an effective preventative remedy that has been used since Grandma’s time. IV. Plenty of rest, for adults in winter between 8 & 9 hours. The earlier to bed before midnight is best as it has double the beneficial effects as the hours spent at rest after midnight. High quality food, a diet excluding sugar, alcohol, and caffeine (which has an immuno suppressive consequence of 50 to 80 percent), daily appropriate supplementation and routine exercise are timely considerations for personal care in building a strong immune defense system. This is a common sense approach in maintaining health to withstand the added stressors of the winter months. Pathogens are present in our personal environment unceasingly. Whether we allow space for them to get a foothold in our bodies remains much in our power to prevent. So, the question still remains, “should I, or should I not get a flu shot?” Does statistical analysis of flu vaccinations prove that they are safe and effective? First of all flu vaccinations are strains of flu that researchers find in Asia the year before our flu season. Last year two of the three strains cultured never found their way in North America. The flu strains are cultivated in chick embryos for several weeks and are then deactivated by formaldehyde, embalming fluid and a known carcinogen, and then preserved with Thimerosal, which is 49 percent mercury by weight. According to the CDC (Center for Disease and Control) some contain as much as 25 mcg of mercury per dose, which is 250 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit for mercury. Fetuses and children are at highest risk of damage from this neurotoxin as their brains are still developing. Yet the CDC still recommends that children over 6 months of age and pregnant women receive the flu vaccine each year. In addition to mercury, the vaccines contain other toxic and hazardous ingredients such as aluminum, (a neurotoxin related to Alzheimer’s disease), detergent, carbolic acid, ethylene glycol (antifreeze), disinfectants, and spermicides. Reactions to flu vaccine include life-threatening allergies to various ingredients, Guillain-Barre syndrome (a severe paralytic disease that is fatal in about 1 out of 20 cases), encephalitis (brain inflammation), neurological disorders, and thrombocytopenia (low platelets which can inhibit clotting). A quote from the package insert of the flu vaccine FLULAVAL for the 2009-2010 season states that it is a flu vaccine for adults 18 years of age and older and that there have been no controlled trials demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccination with FLULAVAL. A study published in the October 2008 issue of Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine found that vaccinating young children against the flu had no impact on flu-related hospitalizations or doctor visits during two recent flu seasons. The researchers concluded that “significant influenza vaccine effectiveness could not be demonstrated for any season, age, or setting” examined. A 2008 study published in the Lancet found that influenza vaccination was NOT associated with a reduced risk of pneumonia in older people. This supports an earlier study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Research published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine also confirms that there has been no decrease in deaths from influenza and pneumonia in the elderly, despite the fact that vaccination coverage among the elderly has increased from 15 percent in 1980 to 65 percent today. In 2007, researchers with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases and the National Institutes of Health published this conclusion in the Lancet Infectious Diseases: “We conclude that frailty selection bias and use of non-specific endpoints such as all-cause mortality, have led cohort studies to greatly exaggerate vaccine benefit.” A large-scale, systemic review of 51 studies, published in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews in 2006, found no evidence that the flu vaccine is any more effective than a placebo in children. The studies involved 260,000 children, age 6 to 23 months. As I mentioned before, I cannot make that decision for you, but I can provide you with information to assist you in making an informed decision. In our next newsletter, we will consider ways to embrace the concept of spring cleaning, and I don’t mean your house. Good Health to You, Sincerely, Sierra Holistic Healthcare Center Information by Michael Gerber MD, HMD.

Source: http://donnacarmony.info/docs/Sierra%20Holistic%20Newsletter%20Vol1%20Let1.pdf