Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
(Feb. 29, 2008) The United Nations estimates that 200 million girls are currently “missing” from the planet as a result of sex-selection abortion, largely because of a preference for boys in many Asian cultures. While most of us have been unaware, the same practice of fetal sex testing has been becoming increasingly more acceptable in North America.
By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
(Feb. 29, 2008) According to the editors of a UCLA student magazine, the racist policies of Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, continue to exist in the organization today. After conducting a multi-state probe, the students found not a single clinic willing to turn away a donation earmarked for “reducing the number of blacks.”
by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
(Feb. 28, 2008) Two nasty same-sex break-ups are playing out in the New York court system and are bringing much-needed public attention to the sky-high “divorce” rates among same-gendered couples.
by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
(Feb. 28, 2008) A Senate Committee has unanimously approved legislation that may help reduce the number of abortions of babies with Down Syndrome and other conditions. The bill would require that parents who receive a poor pre-natal diagnosis be provided with up-to-date information about the condition of their baby and available support services.
By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
(Feb. 28, 2008) A rash of recent stump speeches by pro-abortion politicians on Catholic premises has promoted a coalition of 18 Catholic organizations to demand that these institutions “get their priorities straight.”
by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
(Feb. 27, 2008) A combination of post-modernism, New Age spirituality and the glamorization of witchcraft in teen fiction has created the “perfect storm” for youth who are turning in ever increasing numbers to Wicca rather than the Christian faith of their upbringing.
By Susan Brinkmann
Staff Writer
(Feb. 26, 2008) A coalition led by the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Psychological Association (APA) has sent a 24-page booklet to all 16,000 public school superintendents in the United States advising them to affirm homosexual orientation and behavior.
by Susan Brinkmann
Staff Writer
(Feb. 26, 2008) Evangelical Christians are now the largest religious tradition in the U.S., edging out mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics for the first time, according to a new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
(Feb. 26, 2008) In the same month when a prestigious bioethics journal called for the killing of babies born with disabilities and the world’s richest man is quoted as having applauded his mother for killing herself, Pope Benedict XVI categorically condemned all forms of direct euthanasia.
Most of us know that British tap water contains some heavy metals (primarily from the soil and rusty water pipes), hormones (from the drugs people and cattle farmers flush down their drains), fluoride (that some municipalities add deliberately) and drug residues (that people flush down their drains).
Although the focus for many has been on water purification, massive benefits can be gained from drinking filtered, hydrogen-rich water and also alkaline antioxidant water. In this article, we intend to summarise the science of each.
Good water filters such as the Energy Plus remove or significantly reduce the heavy metals, hormones, drugs, fluoride, and even some other chemicals from your tap water.That’s why you should use best water softeners for better quality water.
When independent academics from the University of Edinburgh’s department of engineering tested the Energy Plus water filter, they found that it could almost completely remove fluoride, heavy metals, oestradiol (a hormone), bisphenol-A (a toxic substance that leaks from plastic) and chlorophenol (a substance found in pesticides).
Since those tests were conducted, the Energy Plus has been fitted with a new filter which reduces chloramine (>99%), chlorine (>99%), volatile organic contaminants (>98%) and pharmaceutical compounds (>95%).
1. Even at the legally permitted amounts, fluoride can cause osteoarthritis, bone brittleness, impaired brain and cognitive development, and obesity and depression because of inhibiting the activities of the thyroid.
With these terrible consequences, it is staggering that some municipalities still add it to water because they believe it to be beneficial.
2. Lead – the most common heavy metal in British tap water – compromises your neurological development and give rise to a long list of brain and nervous system disorders. As a nation, we complain when it accidentally ends up in our children’s toys, but bewilderingly, we are relaxed when it shows up in our drinking water.
3. Hormones could compromise children’s normal sexual development.
4. Bisphenol-A causes erectile dysfunction, lower fertility and carries a risk of breast and prostate cancer.
5. Many studies have linked chlorophenol to various types of cancer.
Some alkaline antioxidant water filters provide water which is rich in molecular hydrogen, which has recently been subjected to an impressive amount of research as a health aid.
The molecules are small enough to pass through cell membranes with little effort, and researchers believe hydrogen-rich substances to be almost completely without adverse health effects. It is also inexpensive relative to most medicines.
In fact, if you have a hydrogen water filter, you are at the cutting edge of medical science, as some physicians are beginning to prescribe hydrogen saline injections, hydrogen baths and hydrogen gas to inhale.
With such a water filter, you can effectively have your own medicine on tap.
6. Hydrogen Water Tablets are potent antioxidant. It can prevent oxidation from inflicting damage on cells throughout your body, and it can repair cells that have already been damaged by it, thereby preventing them from becoming free radicals that steal electrons away from their neighbouring cells in the process of trying to repair themselves.
Alkaline water, such as is produced by popular filtration systems, has been tested specifically and discovered to be one of the strongest antioxidants ever examined. Oxidative damage is one of the causes of many health problems, including cancer, early aging, dementia and other neurological conditions.
Damaged cells cannot function as required, which means that no-one with a significant amount of oxidative damage can genuinely have energy, mental clarity, good health and so on.
7. After applying hydrogen-rich solutions to cancer cells in the laboratory, scientists concluded that they could shrink and suppress the growth of such cells.
Many animal studies have concurred, and since some researchers subjected the laboratory animals to no cancer treatment other than the alkaline water, it seems as if the inhibitory effect of such solutions on cancer cells can be incredibly strong.
As always, it is worth mentioning that you should not abandon your cancer treatment in favour of alkaline or hydrogen-rich water; the research has not been repeated on a sufficient number of human beings in their natural settings to risk your life on it. But it can be a powerful addition to your existing cancer treatment.
8. Drinking hydrogen-rich water can protect against the neurological damage of brain injury, both the type that occurs during surgery and stroke, and that which occurs over time due to oxidative stress.
If you play contact sport, your children play contact sport, you consider yourself to be a particularly poor driver, you take care of a relative who has suffered a stroke, or you are horrified at the idea of dementia, it is worth considering.
9. Many animal studies have shown that hydrogen-rich substances can greatly improve the prospects of sufferers of heart failure and heart attacks.
Of course, you might be deemed mad if you insist that your hydrogen water filter be brought to the emergency room after a heart attack, but scientists have also proven that hydrogen-rich substances (primarily hydrogen saline) can prevent cardiovascular damage caused by oxidative stress and/or inflammation, even after serious cardiac events.
10. Hydrogen attacks inflammation. Researchers at the Forsyth Institute in Boston caused inflammatory bowel disease in mice, and found that drinking hydrogen-rich water could relieve the inflammation and even prevent it in those mice who received it before the disease was brought about.
Other scientists found that it could relieve inflammatory liver disease and lung inflammation, which could be particularly helpful for asthma sufferers. In fact, when one research team tested hydrogen sulphide on asthmatic rats, they discovered that it did prompt considerable relief.
Some experts also discovered that it could slow the progression of rheumatoid arthritis and relieve some of its symptoms. Rheumatoid arthritis is, at its core, a condition that causes inflammation in the joints.
11. Hydrogen-rich water improves fat and glucose metabolism, even in people with type 2 diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance.
If you have enjoyed a typical Western diet of refined bleached grains and hydrogenated oils until recently, you are probably not as sensitive to glucose as you should be.
In a study on rats, academics found that hydrogen has an effect on fatty liver, cholesterol and obesity, so you have a lot to look forward to.
12. Hydrogen supports strong bones and muscles. This will come as no surprise to knowledgeable alkaline water drinkers – it’s one of the most frequently investigated benefits.
Alkaline, antioxidant water helps your body maintain pH balance without it having to loot minerals like calcium and magnesium, which are stored in the cells of bones and muscles.
As a result, it prevents bone loss and osteopenia, which is a condition in which the protein and mineral content of bone tissue is reduced, but less severely than in osteoporosis.
