The dangerous effects of asbestos have become common knowledge in recent years. Being a fibrous material, the greatest risk associated with asbestos is breathing in the tiny fibers it is composed of. These tiny fibers can become lodged in the lungs and cause serious health reactions.

Due to the heat and fire resistant qualities of asbestos it was used in many products. Some of the most common include clutches in vehicles, components of transmissions, paints and coatings which are heat resistant, materials for roofing, tiles, insulation paper, cement products, pipe insulation, door gaskets for appliances, and fireproofing products.

The dangers imposed by the existence of asbestos depends on the likelihood that it will become airborne. Asbestos that is fully contained such as in tiles or cement products pose no health risk unless and until the asbestos is disturbed by the cracking or chipping of the item. Once asbestos has found its way into the lungs it can lead to several serious illnesses. Prolonged exposure increases the changes of adverse health effects. The most common diseases linked to asbestos are:

Asbestosis – scarring of the lung tissue which cause difficulty breathing

Mesothelioma – a cancer affecting the mucus membranes in the lungs, heart, chest and abdominal lining

Lung Cancer – a cancer than causes persistent cough, shortness of breath, chest pains and anemia

Lung cancer is the most common ailment attributed to asbestos exposure and mesothelioma is almost always caused by direct contact with asbestos over an extended period of time.

Asbestos Found

There are some more hazardous applications of asbestos than others. A home inspector may discover asbestos in a house that you are considering purchasing. What is most important is to find out if and what the posing risks of such a discovery are. Pipe insulation containing asbestos should be replaced because the asbestos can be easily released into the air. Things like floor tiles and siding which are made from asbestos pose less of a direct threat because it is contained and has little risk of being released into the air. The exception to these rules is when pipe insulation is encapsulated and when tiles or siding show visible signs of deterioration such as cracks and chips.

It is perfectly acceptable to ask that asbestos containing materials be removed before agreeing to purchase a home as it can be quite costly. You wouldn’t want to disregard the discovery only to later be charged thousands of dollars to dispose of it.

To make the decision whether to pursue asbestos removal or not you need to do a little investigating for yourself. Ask the home inspector to show you the asbestos containing material so that you can rate the condition. Based on your assessments your real estate agent can work with the seller to hopefully come to an agreement that works for everyone. In order to be thorough you should have an assessment and a removal estimate done from two separate firms whenever asbestos is found. This can be presented to the seller or used for your own personal reference.

A few months ago I read the book, “Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor’s Program For Conquering Disease” by Joel Fuhrman, M.D., which led to my decision to engage in a 7-day water only fast.

If I were to pick one passage in the book which inspired me to do a fast it would be this one: “The innate wisdom of the body is such that, while fasting, it will consume for its sustenance superfluous tissues, carefully conserving vital tissues and organs. The body’s wondrous ability to autolyze (or self-digest) and destroy needless tissue such as fat, tumors, blood vessel plaque, and other nonessential and diseased tissues, while conserving essential tissues, gives the fast the ability to restore physiologic youth to the system.”

That was my motivation. Take a break from food and put my body into a fasting mode whereby it would spare protein and, instead, gobble up fat cells, cancer cells, diseased cells and atherosclerotic plaque.

Frankly, I have no idea if in the seven days of my fast I accomplished anything of that nature, with the exception of losing weight. I am, nonetheless, glad that I chose to fast for seven days and stuck with it.

What Fasting Taught Me

Although it was a physically and emotionally draining experience, it made me consider a number of things that I hadn’t thought much about prior to my fasting. It made me appreciate my willpower, that there is much I can accomplish if I apply similar tenacity and determination in other areas.

It made me appreciate my relationship with food, that my tendency in the past has been to eat when the clock, not my stomach, tells me to. Better to eat when I’m hungry, stop eating when I’m full, eat slowly to savor the distinctive flavors and taste sensations, and eat slowly for more healthy and efficient digestion.

It made me appreciate that I was not eating food for seven days by choice whereas there are millions of people not eating food for weeks and months, eventually starving to death, not by choice but because there is no food to be had.

This is disturbing enough as it is. Now add this nugget to the mix: “… the same amount of grain needed to produce one pound of meat could feed thirty-two people a day if they ate the grain directly. And so as our population increases, we will basically face the choice of whether to continue feeding our corn, wheat, barley, oats and soybeans to animals, while letting untold millions go hungry, or else to eat our grains directly, and have many times as much food available for human consumption.”

This quote comes from the book, “Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth From The Cattle Rancher Who Won’t Eat Meat” by Howard F. Lyman. This book is very easy to digest, so to speak. And very powerful. Howard Lyman was one of the good ol’ boys who used all the modern technology, antibiotics and hormones to brutally terrorize, torture and mass murder animals for food and other commodities until he woke up to the truth of what he was doing to animals, to people and to the planet.

The Price of Beef

In terms of the planet, our rainforests are disappearing so that more cattle can graze. Plants, animals and fish are becoming endangered and extinct. Our water acquifers are drying up, turning once lush grazing land into eventual deserts. All of this is happening because of the animal-based food industry’s insatiable desire for profit by any means necessary.

Unfortunately, the majority of people on the planet are in favor of what is being done to the planet in order to have a flesh and blood based diet. The sad irony is that they are unaware of what is being done to themselves in the process.

For example, allow me to borrow another quote from “Mad Cowboy” which states that “… in 1991, a thirty-six country study reported a strong and direct correlation between consumption of dairy and animal fat and the incidence of prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer and breast cancer.”

Lead aprons protect the technicians’ as well as patients’ organs and glands during exposure to medical radiation such as X-Rays. Under OSHA regulations, each organization must regularly inspect their lead aprons for cracks and tears to prevent X-ray exposure. Like any regulated heavy metal, disposal of lead aprons can be complicated and time consuming. Companies have begun offering Lead Apron Recycling Programs, some of which have been designed and implemented to not only be cost effective services, but the best are most importantly safe and simple methods for users to recycle their old worn-out aprons.

Like mercury, lead is a highly toxic heavy metal. When materials containing lead are not recycled properly, the heavy metal can and will leach into ground water. Overtime, lead bio-accumulates in plants and animals, eventually causing animals farther up the food chain to also become affected when the smaller afflicted prey is consumed, thereby further increasing lead concentrations.

When lead, in any of its forms, enters the blood stream it is highly toxic. Symptoms of lead exposure ordinarily manifest themselves after the heavy metal has had time to accumulated in the body. In both humans and animals, after sufficient amounts of lead have accumulated in the body, lead poisoning generally begins to manifest in the forms of anemia, weakness, constipation, colic, palsy, and often even paralysis of the wrists and ankles. Ingestion of elevated levels of lead can cause IQ deficiencies, reading and learning disabilities, reduced attention spans, impaired hearing and impaired balance. Lead is now known to increase blood pressure at concentration levels once thought to be safe.

Furthermore, young animals and children are at a higher risk from lead pollution, and are usually the first to begin displaying symptoms of lead poisoning. It is argued that the reason(s) adolescents are at such an elevated level of risk, opposed to that of adults, of illness and/or death from lead poisoning, is because the vital organs of the young have yet to fully mature, and are therefore prone to illness by less accumulated lead in their system. Simply put, if an adult and an adolescent consume proportionately the same amount of contaminated sustenance by volume. Over time, as the lead begins to accumulate in each of their systems, the adolescent will show signs of lead poisoning first and will suffer the most harm.

The U.S. EPA and the municipal water treatment facilities are there to provide water quality, because if they didn’t provide clean water we would have some very serious problems. Without our drinking water being properly treated for parasites and bacteria we would still be suffering from widespread outbreaks of potentially deadly waterborne diseases. These diseases are the reason we began treating our drinking water with chloramines.

Chlorine and chloramine are the two most effective chemicals for eliminating parasites and bacteria from our drinking water, but using these chemicals comes with a price. Chlorine and chloramine are known carcinogens, and you ingest one of these chemicals every time you drink from your tap.

These are not the only harmful chemicals you may be consuming on a daily basis either.

It is estimated that every one of the industrial chemicals we use in daily life have found their way into our groundwater system. In addition to that, think of all of the toxic and carcinogenic chemicals regularly dumped into our rivers, lakes, and streams over the years by unscrupulous companies.

That is a lot of potentially harmful substances that threaten our health on a daily basis, which is another reason we depend on our treatment facilities to provide water quality.

The question is whether or not these treatment facilities are truly effective in removing all of the contaminants that threaten us, and the answer is no.

These facilities are not equipped to do much more than disinfect our water, remove silt and sand, and treat it to make it clear. They do not have the equipment necessary for removing chemicals from the water, or the many other things that could cause us harm.

You cannot truly provide water quality if your facility cannot remove chemicals due to low tech, and horribly out of date equipment.

Other potential dangers in our water these facilities fail to remove include pharmaceutical drugs, chlorine and chloramine resistant cysts, or toxic heavy metals.

These all play a role in why we suffer from less than perfect health, and steps must be taken to ensure we lessen our exposure to these substances.

Paint fumes can hang around in the air (off-gas) for weeks after it has been applied. And the volatile organic chemicals that many brands contain are one of the biggest culprits of poor indoor air quality.

Home and Garden TV continues to remind us that painting is one of the quickest, cheapest, and practical ways to give a face lift to an indoor space. So here are 3 easy-to-do things that can help you eliminate the fumes and avoid both the acute and long-term health problems associated with frequent exposure.

Keep the Air Moving—-This can be done in a number of ways. If the space has windows, open them. Put a box fan in with the fan blowing the air to the outside. This will draw the fumes out of the room.

Open doors as well, particularly if they lead to the outside. Turn off air conditioning and heating while doing this to avoid having your system heat or cool the outside.

Paint Greener—This doesn’t mean that you need to use the color green, but is a suggestion for exploring more user-friendly paints that do not contain the volatile organic chemicals that have been typically a given with paints.

There are low-voc paints that have only a fraction of the volatile organic chemicals. They are typically more expensive, but well worth the extra dollars in terms of minimizing the smell and fumes.

These types of paints are particularly important to use in spaces that are being painted for babies and children. Pregnant women should also use this type of paint, and steer clear of the area until it dries completely.

Avoid oil-based paints. They contain 93% per gallon of petrochemicals. In fact, the state of California restricted the manufacture of this type of paint back in January 2003.

Use A Carbon Based Filter—Long recognized as the best type of filter to remove gaseous pollutants, any filter that is to be effective at eliminating volatile organic chemicals must use carbon.

Potassium iodide makes carbon even more effective at removing the volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) that have are typically found in paints. Filtration can scrub the air and keep it clear as paint continues to off-gas.