Our Stress Allowance System

-An allowance is a predetermined amount of something that we are determined to tolerate.

-How much stress will you tolerate?

-What happens when you hit your tolerance for stress?

-You change and grow, or you die.

How Do We Defeat Stress?

-The only way to defeat stress is to outgrow it.

-How do you outgrow stress? By realizing it doesn't exist

-How so? Stress is always a lie, a misperception. When we see things the way they really are, stress goes away. There is no stress in reality, only in our judgements and misperceptions.

-Stress cannot tolerate the full light of truth.

The Grand Key to Defeat Stress

-Develop your spiritual reality to a higher level.

-Find your purpose in life. Continually challenge it. Make it better and better, until it is perfect. In a perfect life, meaning a perfectly faithful life, "The Master prefers what occurs." Then there is no stress.

If this was too fast the first time through, read it again. If it still didn't sink in all the way, please come to our excellent stress reduction class on May 9 or May 12 and you will learn how to lead a stress-less life. Read on for more details.

By: David Biello

Tests of river fish indicate their flesh carries enough estrogen-mimicking chemicals to cause breast cancer cells to grow.

Many streams, rivers, and lakes already bear warning signs that the fish caught within them may contain dangerously high levels of mercury, which can cause brain damage. But, according to a new study, these fish may also be carrying enough chemicals that mimic the female hormone estrogen to cause breast cancer cells to grow. "Fish are really a sentinel, just like canaries in the coal mine 100 years ago," says Conrad Volz, co-director of exposure assessment at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. "We need to pay attention to chemicals that are estrogenic in nature, because they find their way back into the water we all use."

Volz and colleagues, including biochemist Patricia Eagon, took samples from 21 catfish and six white bass donated by local anglers as part of a study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in Los Angeles this week. The fish were caught in five places: a relatively unpolluted site 36 miles upstream from Pittsburgh on the Allegheny River; an industrial site on the Monongahela River; an Allegheny site downstream from several industries that release toxic chemicals; and the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, where Pittsburgh dumps much of its treated sewage and sewer outflows. "This is the largest concentration of combined sewer outflows in the U.S.," Volz notes, about the confluence, known as the Point. The researchers also bought several fish at the store as controls.

Using an organic solvent, the researchers created an extract from the skin, flesh, and fat of the various fish. They then bathed a breast cancer cell line-known as MCF-7-in the extract. "We used this cell line because it has estrogen receptors in it, meaning that if estrogens are present, it causes this cell line to proliferate," Volz explains. "If you put something on it and it grows, then it must be stimulating the estrogen receptor." In addition to responding to pure estrogen applied as a positive control, the extract from two of the white bass and five of the catfish caused the breast cancer cells to thrive.

The highest response came from fish caught in the industrial section of the Monongahela River. "The Monongahela River area is the area in Pittsburgh that was the site of most of the steel production over the last 100 years," Volz says. "That area is still an industrial beehive." But the broadest response came from where the sewer outflows and sewage treatment plants flow into the rivers from Pittsburgh; three of the four catfish caught here caused the breast cancer cells to proliferate. "Sewage might be more responsible for putting estrogenic chemicals in the water than the industries alone," Volz adds. "All of the hormone replacement products that women use go down the drain, along with birth control pills, antibacterial soaps, and many of the plastics we use, like Bisphenol A, have such effects."

It remains unclear exactly what estrogen-mimicking chemicals were actually present in the fish and what kind of cancer-causing role they might have. But their effects on the fish themselves were clear: the gender of nine of the fish could not be determined. "Increased estrogenic active substances in the water are changing males so that they are indistinguishable from females," Volz says. "There are eggs in male gonads as well as males are secreting a yolk sac protein. Males aren't supposed to be making egg stuff."

And this estrogen burden is widespread. The store- bought white bass caused breast cancer cells to grow like its river-caught counterparts (as well as containing higher levels of mercury, arsenic, and other contaminants) after being trucked to Pittsburgh from Lake Erie. "These fish, again, were in waters that were seeing industrial waste as well as possible combined sewer outflows," Volz notes. "This isn't just happening in Pittsburgh; this is happening everywhere in the industrialized world."

Volz says he and his fellow researchers are launching a broader survey this summer that will entail sampling fish all along the Allegheny River. Efforts will be made to determine if it is industrial waste, sewage, or agricultural runoff-or all three-that is responsible for the problem. In the meantime, cooking the fat out of fish may be the best defense. "If you broil fish and let the fats drip out, that will take most of the contaminants out," Volz says, though that may not be enough given other exposures to potentially tainted water. "What our study does show us is that there is exposure potential to vast populations that use water from our rivers as their drinking water supply."

Therapy still right for some, doctors say

Two studies released Wednesday suggest that going off hormone therapy significantly reduces a woman's chances of developing ovarian cancer as well as breast cancer.

An update of the landmark Million Women Study found that taking hormones caused a small but significant increase in the risk of ovarian cancer among postmenopausal British women. But their risk returned to normal after they went off the medications.

Meanwhile, an extended analysis of U.S. breast cancer rates reinforced the notion that the recent decrease in the number of women in whom that disease was diagnosed was caused by the drop in the use of hormone therapy.

Doctors noted the cancer risk from hormones is very small, and hormone therapy is still right for some women.

Researchers announced in December that breast cancer diagnoses in this country dropped by nearly 7 percent in 2003 after rising steadily for two decades, then leveling off. The decline from the previous year was about 15 percent in women older than 50, the group most likely to have been taking hormones before a well-publicized federal warning in 2002 scared millions into stopping.

In this week's New England Journal of Medicine, the same research team added data from 2004, which showed that the incidence of breast cancer remained at about the same level as the year before-the lowest level in 20 years.

"We all were worried it was going to be a one-year wonder-that stopping hormone therapy would result in a dip for one year then the levels would go back up," said Dr. Peter Ravdin of the University of Texas. "It turns out that in 2004, the decline didn't deepen but it was maintained, which is kind of nice. That's 16,000 women a year who didn't get breast cancer."

Ravdin and his colleagues stressed their analysis does not prove the drop in breast cancer cases was caused by women abandoning hormone therapy, but the circumstantial evidence is compelling.

"It's a smoking gun that is really smoking," said Donald Berry, senior investigator on the New England Journal paper. "Nothing else can explain it."

The decline began in mid-2002 and leveled of after 2003, the researchers found, using data collected from the regional registries of the National Cancer Institute. The Women's Health Initiative-a huge, federally funded trial of hormone therapy-reported in July of 2002 that hormone therapy increased the risk of breast cancer and heart disease. Within months, use of hormones by U.S. women plummeted by about 50 percent.

The researchers said the decline in breast cancer cases occurred only in women older than 50, and only in the type of tumors that are fueled by estrogen.

Both Ravdin and Berry said the results of their study do not mean all women should stop taking hormones.

Ravdin, a physician, said he tells his patients to use hormones if necessary to control hot flashes and other symptoms.

"The risk of developing breast cancer from use of these hormones is relatively small," he said, "and for some women with menopausal symptoms, the benefits of hormone therapy are well worth the risk."

Invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in nearly 180,000 women in the U.S. this year, and about 40,000 will die of the disease, according to estimates of the American Cancer Society. Ovarian cancer is much less common-but much more lethal. About 22,000 women will hear diagnoses of ovarian cancer in 2007, and more than 15,000 will die from it.

The Women's Health Initiative found a suggestion that combined hormone therapy (estrogen plus progesterone) increased the risk of ovarian cancer. But the much larger Million Women Study has now confirmed that.

In this week's issue of The Lancet, British researchers led by Dr. Valerie Beral of Oxford reported that ovarian cancer had been diagnosed in nearly 2,300 women.

In absolute terms, the risk of getting ovarian cancer remained small whether the women took hormones or not: For every 1,000 women using hormones, 2.6 developed ovarian cancer over 5 years, compared with 2.2 per every 1,000 women who did not take hormones.

By: Judy Peres, Chicago Tribune 2007

By: Carl Manning

Hays, Kansas--When 95-year-old Nola Ochs graduates next month, she will be the world's oldest college graduate. The record Ochs will break, according to Guinness World Records, belongs to Mozelle Richardson, who at the age of 90 in 2004 received a journalism degree from the University of Oklahoma.

On Thursday, the Kansas Legislature honored Ochs with praise and standing ovations.

Ochs did not plan to break records. She started taking classes at a community college after her husband of 39 years, Vernon, died in 1972. A class here and there over the years, and she was close to having enough hours for an undergraduate degree.

Last fall, Ochs moved the 100 miles from her farm to an apartment at Fort Hays State University to complete the final 30 hours to get a general studies degree with an emphasis on history.

An added joy for Ochs is that her 21-year-old granddaughter, Alexandra Ochs, will graduate with her. "How many people my age have a chance to hang out with their grandmothers?She's really accepted by the other students," Alexandra said. "They enjoy her, but probably not as much as I do."

With her white hair pulled into a bun, Nola Ochs walks purposely down hallways to classes with her books in a cloth tote bag. Students nod and smile; she is described as witty, charming, and down to earth.

"Everybody has accepted me, and I feel just like another student," she said. "The students respect me." She added: "I don't dwell on my age. It might limit what I can do. As long as I have my mind and health, it's just a number."

Todd Leahy, history department chairman, wondered at first if Ochs could keep up with the other students. After her second week, all doubts were gone. Now he wants to record oral histories with her after she graduates.

"I can tell them about it, bit to have Nola in class adds a dynamic that can't be topped," Leahy said. "It's a firsthand perspective you seldom get."

For instance, Ochs offered recollections of the 1930s Dust Bowl-skies so dark that lamps were lit during the day, and wet sheets placed over windows to keep out dust that sounded like pelting sleet hitting the house.

"We should all be so lucky to do such amazing things. Her achievement challenges us all to reach our own goals and dreams," said Tom Nelson, chief operating officer of the American Association of Retired Persons.

Ochs is proudest of being the matriarch of a family that includes three sons-a fourth died in 1995-along with 13 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren.

After graduation, Ochs might travel or take some more classes at a community college. And after that, "I'm going to seek employment on a cruise ship as a storyteller," she said, smiling.

-A new study published in the journal Circulation supports recent efforts to rid the American diet of trans fats. In the study, women with the highest levels of trans fat in their blood had triple the risk of heart disease. All of the Wholefood Farmacy foods have zero trans fats and zero cholesterol.

-Evidence that pesticides can cause Parkinson's disease is stronger than ever. One study shows that farm workers who used the common weedkiller, paraquat, had two to three times the normal risk of Parkinson's, a degenerative brain disease that eventually paralyzes patients. A second study shows that animals exposed to paraquat have a build-up of protein called alpha-synuclein in their brains. This protein has been linked to Parkinson's in the past. A third piece of the puzzle shows that this build-up of protein kills the same brain cells affected in Parkinson's.

-Researchers found that people who develop dementia or Alzheimer's disease experience brain structure changes years before any signs of memory loss begin. These findings may help identify people at risk of developing mild cognitive impairment (MCI) which leads to Alzheimer's.

-Researchers found that children of moms who munched on more than 4 apples per week were 37 percent less likely to have a history of wheezing and 53 percent less likely to have doctor-confirmed asthma, compared to moms who ate one or no apples per week while pregnant.

-Women in their 70s who exercised 75 minutes a week reported fewer symptoms of arthritis than those who did less, while more spry women who were active at least 2.5 hours weekly had even less pain in the three years that followed. One in five adults has been diagnosed with arthritis, costing billions of dollars each year. In both the U.S. and Australia, it is the No. 1 cause of disability.

-Consuming water, fruits, and vegetables worsen the taste of cigarettes, while consuming alcohol, coffee, and meat enhanced their taste, according to scientists. The findings could lead to a "Quit Smoking Diet," or to development of a gum or lozenge that makes cigarettes less palatable. (Dr. O's Comment: What?!? Why not just have them eat fruits and vegetables, take Juice Plus, or eat Wholefood Farmacy's organic raw foods?)

Coming up on Saturday, May 19....Dr. Olson will be hosting a 6-hour workshop that delves deep into the 5 aspects of Health: Spiritual, Emotional, Nutritional, Structural, and Energetic. Learn how to understand, harness, and control the power you have over every aspect of your Health.

Where: Unless specified otherwise, the workshop will be held at Olson Chiropractic, 1360 Big Bend Square, 63021.
When: Saturday, May 19 from 9AM-4PM (with a one- hour lunch break)
Cost: $75 per person, but you will receive $10 off for every guest you bring.

Be the "Healthiest you" you can be! Call Diane or Nicole at 636-225-2121 to register today!

Join us for a one-hour seminar on ways to eliminate stress in your life. When your body is stress-free, then it can function optimally. Find out what steps you need to take to reach a higher level of Health.

Where: Olson Chiropractic, 1360 Big Bend Square, 63021
When: Either Wednesday, May 9th at 7PM or Saturday, May 12, at 10AM
Cost: $20 per person, but if you bring one guest, your cost is $10. If you bring 2 guests, your cost is $5, if you bring 3 or more guests, you are FREE. All guests are FREE of charge.

Seating is limited for these classes, so reserve your spot today by calling Diane or Nicole at 636-225 -2121.

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:
-29 have been accused of spousal abuse
-7 have been arrested for fraud
-19 have been accused of writing bad checks
-117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
-3 have done time for assault
-71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
-14 have been arrested on drug-related causes
-8 have been arrested for shoplifting
-21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
-84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year

Can you guess which organization this is?

Give up yet?

It's the 535 members of the United States Congress; the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.