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Diet has two main different meanings which depend on the context in which they are used. First is what you eat on a regular basis. The other definition is what you don’t eat or do eat just to lose weight. I’m going to be writing about the first definition and how it impacts our health.

In the Philippines, …. Nah, I need to change up the format on my Life Here & There articles so you’ll get the comparison at the end. Trust me. It is a positive one for the Philippines.

In the USA, there are a few major leading causes of death with some of the top ones being heart attack, cancer and the medical industry. The average lifespan is decreasing in the USA as well. This is due to overmedication, lack of proper exercise, lack of balance of exposure to the sun and poor diets. Diabetes Type 2 is on the rise courtesy of so many being overweight and excessive consumption of large amounts of sugar – usually in sodas such as Coke or Pepsi. If you think drinking diet sodas will get around that, the sweeteners in those are also bad so look out for anything with aspartame in it and avoid it.

The junk food or chips, candy, microwave meals and more bring with it extensive amounts of chemicals that accumulate in the body and cause all sorts of diseases and ailments including cancer. From this article, we can find even more problems with common foods eaten in the USA.

“The USDA reports that the top nine foods eaten by Americans are:

* Whole cow’s milk
* 2 percent milk
* Processed American cheese
* White bread
* White flour
* White rolls
* Refined sugar
* Colas
* Ground beef

All of these foods are foreign to our genome that evolved on a Paleolithic diet. This mono diet creates altered patterns of gene expression that lead to disease, including food allergy or sensitivity.”

Translation is the standard diet of Americans is not healthy at all.

What is called for is drinking pure or distilled water (of course it tastes better cold), skim milk or 1% milk at the most, avoid the soy, and eat lots of raw vegetables, raw fruits, and proteins raised in on organic or natural grass. That last part means the chicken, pork or fish should be caught in the wild or fed foods that were not processed or treated with chemicals as those chemicals collect in the body of the animal and transfer the poison and toxins into your body.

Unfortunately, you can’t trust much of the food in the grocery store as even the fruit and raw vegetables are sprayed with chemicals to help them last longer and look more appealing to shoppers.

How does the Philippines compare on this? Do we grow our fruit and eat it raw? Check. (Deep fried bananas may taste good but may not be good for you.) Do we grow and eat our veggies raw? Oftentimes, yes we do. Do we avoid white flour? Hey, we’ve got rice. Are the proteins raised on organic foods? Most of the time, they are.

So diet wise, I think Pinas has the advantage. As for the other definition of diet, many Filipinas have no problem with this. With a few alterations of getting the junk food out of our system, all of us can live healthier lives.

Thank you,

Anah

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One thing everyone needs to understand is the title a person holds whether it is an Engineer, Scientist, Doctor, Chemist, Accountant, CEO, President, or Janitor is they are individuals with a variety of opinions and beliefs just like you and me. That they hold a position is more about their ambition and ability to have some skills in a certain area does not make them someone special. Their beliefs are a combination of life experiences and instruction they have received whether it is a formal or informal education.

To summarize that, I will refer to a comment my husband uses. “It doesn’t matter what a person’s title is. They all drop their pants and take a poop like the rest of us. I’ll respect the title but the person still has to prove themselves to me.”

How does all that tie in with the title?

Specialists in the medical field are quite good at what they do. I have nothing but respect for their professions and their service provided. However, there is a little detail most individuals overlook in the USA. Courtesy of some federal government regulations, competition issues, and generally laziness of the patient in tending to their own medical issues, specialists represent vulnerability in the USA medical system. The specialists have their copy of your medical records that pertain to them. Your Family Practice doctor doesn’t have the same copy unless you, the patient, have the foresight to give it to them.

IF the individual doctor stays current on the wealth of information in their field AND can get past what they were told to believe even when verifiable facts disprove a long standing assumption, then you have a good doctor. However, doctors are human too. Combined with insufficient information from incomplete medical records and generally accepted assumed practices, a Family Practice or general doctor can make a mistake that compounds issues. It happens all too frequently.

Let me give you a real life example.

My hubby has issues with his ankles like I’ve written about before. His left one causes a daily problem with a blood vessel. That in turn increases his cholesterol as the liver produces it to mend the interior walls of the blood vessels. The Orthopedic doctor knows about the blood vessel issue but the Family Practitioner only saw the blood test results and wanted to move on medication for the elevated cholesterol which was related to the ankle injury. That caused even more problems.

His father got hit with what is called the pharmacology ladder. Basically, he also had problems with blood vessels in his legs. At that time, they thought the cholesterol caused the heart issues so he was prescribed Statin. But each long term side effect of the statin was not recognized as coming from the medication so more medication was prescribed. In the end, he has far more medical issues to deal with because of the medication than he had before it. This unfortunately is becoming more and more common. The medical industry is killing the patients with the medicine. You can read more about it here, here, and here.

Thank you,

Anah

In our lives, some of us have to deal with challenges of a special sort with individuals in our lives. My life growing up was no different. The same thing happened in my hubby’s life too. Many of us know of someone who became addicted to some substance whether it was alcohol, drugs, gambling or whatever.

Signs of substance abuse are about the same for any of them as the pattern holds. In the Philippines, the drug of choice is alcohol. Some thought drinking it made them manly or whatever their reason. I lost an uncle who let his addiction consume him.

Drug addiction symptoms often carry with them telltale signs such as apathy, denial of the issue, and stooping to new lows to acquire the drug or substance of choice. The truly sad part is there is very little you can do to help someone trapped in this cycle. They have to choose to say enough is enough. They have to hit the bottom so they can finally look up as that is the only direction left in their life.

Is it difficult to do? Yes, it is incredibly difficult. Effects of substance abuse can tear a family apart. They can even force you to stand by and let the inevitable happen. No matter how much you care for them, you may be forced to let them go.

I recommend clicking on the links above to find out all of the steps so you can be on the watch for it in the lives of those around you. Help them if you can. But sometimes the best form of helping is to try to raise the warning flag while knowing when to let them fall. You can never help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. If you keep trying, you may end up only enabling them to continue the addiction.

Thank you,

Anah