The first product, NuvaRing, is available by prescription only, as are all contraceptives. It was also the subject of a heavily funded advertising campaign (thus the term consumer-oriented), which has since been withdrawn on the news that Nuva Ring may be implicated in at least two deaths.

NuvaRing is, as its name implies, a flexible plastic ring which delivers low doses of progestin and estrogen in varied amounts during the month to prevent conception. Jointly developed byMerck & Co., Schering-Plough, and Dutch-based Organon BioSciences, NuvaRing was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, in 2002.

Consumer complaints say the contraceptive ring is responsible for:

• Blood clots in the legs (which can be very dangerous if the clots travel to the lungs)
• Breast cancer
• Clotting in the blood vessels of the eye (which can cause vision problems)
• Gallbladder disease
• Heart attack
• High blood pressure
• Stroke

The first complaint alone should have sent Merck et al back to the drawing board. As most adults know, blood clots in the legs, technically known as deep vein thrombosis, can break away and travel to the lungs, causing extreme shortness of breath because the body is deprived of oxygen. The blockage can also cause the blood to retain carbon dioxide. Finally, if the clot is big enough, it can block blood flow from the right side of the heart to the lungs, causing immediate death.

In light of that, the other hazards mentioned above seem mild. Breast cancer has become more amenable to treatment. Even heart attack damage can be minimized via the application of pharmaceuticals and surgical or therapeutic intervention. And the typical side effects of NuvaRing – headaches, nausea, vaginal infections and weight gain – are just a walk in the park.

Mirena is another intrauterine contraceptive device, or IUD, given extensive media coverage and high praise (mostly from its maker, Bayer Pharmaceutical, which has more money than God).

Bayer advertises Mirena as “an effective, long-acting and completely reversible method of birth control that uses levonorgestrel (a form of progestin not to be confused with the natural hormone, progesterone) to prevent pregnancy for up to 5 full years.” The description is Bayer’s, the caveat mine, adapted from opinions by both mainstream medical doctors and holistic practitioners.

Some sex toys, especially if they are made from cheap materials can also cause harm such as itching, irritation, infections and even cancer. There is a great guide on TheToy on materials that are safe to be used on sex toys and vibrators.

Of the more than 33 side effects, including depression, abnormal cervical cancer (Pap) smears, ectopic pregnancies, the sometimes fatal infection known as sepsis, hypertension, and perforation of the cervix or uterus, Mirena can affect breastfed infants by causing a higher-than-normal incidence of neurological defects.

For one woman, Mirena was a nightmare. The device migrated to a fallopian tube, causing excruciating pain, but the hospital she was sent to could not perform a surgery since its surgical suites were filled that day. After suffering well into the next day, she was operated on by a colleague of the doctor who had installed the device.

Either the embedding or the surgery may have made this woman sterile, and she fully intends to initiate a personal injury lawsuit in view of the fact that neither Bayer nor her doctor ever informed her of all the possible risks. In addition, the FDA has received and catalogued more than 47,000 negative user reports. If ever a proposed lawsuit had a head start at winning, it would be this one.

In the last decade the majority of outcome-oriented physicians observed a major shift: we realized that it was neither the lack of vitamins or growth hormone that made our patients ill. We discovered that toxicity and chronic infections were most often at the core of the client’s suffering. We watched the discussion, which infection may be the primary one: mycoplasma, stealth viruses, HHV-6, trichomonas, Chlamydia pneumoniae, leptospirosis, mutated strep, or what else?

The new kid on the block is Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) and some of us have looked at it for a long time as possibly being the bug that opens the door for all the other infections to enter the system. Lyme disease has become a buzzword in the alternative medical field. Since none of the recommended treatments are specific to either one of the microbes, we can never assume that we really know what we treated once a patient has recovered.

Microbiologist Gitte Jensen, PhD had shown, that the older we get, the more foreign DNA is attached to our own DNA. Somewhere along the line pathogenic microbes invade the host’s DNA and become a permanent part of it. Since we use only 2% of our DNA, it may not be a problem. In fact, it may make us who we finally become. It may also cause a number of symptoms and chronic illness.

Genius Guenther Enderlein’s discoveries take us off the hook: if one microbe can change into another given the right environment, why bother to find out, who we are infected with? The book “Lab 257” suggests that Bb is an escaped man-made US military bio-warfare organism (just like myoplasma incognitus and HHV 6).

Other authors suggest that different subtypes of Borrelia, which cause illness in humans, such as B. afzelii and B.garinii have probably existed longer then B.burgdorferi and occur naturally and have been with us for a long time, maybe centuries or much longer then that.

Microbes have always been with us. They are not the enemy. It is we who have altered the environment so severely and in a way which facilitates the growth of lower evolved species like cell wall deficient microbes and viruses, and ends the life for many more evolved species. Lyme disease is a messenger. If we do not change, we may be on the endangered species list someday not too far from now.

• Lyme Protocol 2008
• Lyme disease: A Look Beyond Antibiotics
• The Treatment of Lyme Disease with Bee Venom
• Treating Lyme Disease, Explore Magazine, May 2006
• The use of Pharmax nutriceuticals in the treatment of chronic lyme disease

Texting and Driving: What’s REALLY going on in our head?

Driving, as with most activities, requires visual, manual and cognitive attention.  Texting requires the same kind of attention, but the brain can’t do both, safely, at one time.  When you, as a driver, switch your attention to a text message, visually you are taking your eyes off of the road.  Manually, you are taking your eyes off of the wheel (to grab the phone, push a button to read the text, push button to responds).  Cognitively, you are taking your mind off of driving.  When a driver hears the beep of a text alert, the brain becomes distracted and almost immediately, the driver’s cognitive attention is altered.

The brain (and the way it responds) works on sensory information.  All sensory information, such as sight, sound, and thoughts, must be committed to short-term memory before it can be acted on.  However, short-term memory can only hold basic information for a short period of time (a few seconds), but in order to get information to short-term memory the brain must prioritize and process information.  This stage is called “encoding”, which is the step in which the brain selects what to pay attention to.  When a driver receives a text, the brain’s encoding has been negatively affected by the distraction.  While the brain works to filter out information, by prioritizing, there are some decisions which are conscious and within a driver’s control while others are unconscious.  If a driver chooses to respond to a text message the brain “overloads” and is unable to alert the driver to pay attention to the road, often putting the driver and others at great risk of an accident or other potentially dangerous situations.  Simply put, once a driver chooses to respond to a text message, while driving, the cognitive attention required for driving is impaired.

What about Hands-free devices?

Many drivers know that texting and driving is unsafe and as a result they opt to use what they see as “safer” options, such as hands-free devices.  While a hands-free device allows drivers to keep their visual and manual attention on the road, cognitive attention is still impaired, taking a driver’s attention off of the road and increasing the risk of an accident.

A safe and attentive driver silences the cell phone, avoids all distractions, and focuses on the road.  When you’re driving down the road at 55 mph, the landscape changes quickly and danger can happen suddenly.  When you are focused on a text and not the road your reaction time, in the event of a potentially dangerous situation, will be slower.  Drive first and text later!

However, what if you’re falling short on your z’s? Maybe you’re one of those people who is so busy and sleep happens when (and if) it happens. Before you shrug off NSF’s recommendations, here are some issues that can surface due to continued sleep deprivation:

What Happens in Your Brain?

When you sleep, your brain has a chance to prep for the next day and it forms new pathways to help you learn and remember information. If you don’t sleep, your brain doesn’t get the chance to do what it does best, such as paying attention, making decisions, and solving problems. Lack of sleep affects practically every part of your brain and over time, you can start to feel depressed, be prone to fits of emotion, experience memory loss, suffer from brain damage, and even have hallucinations. In some cases, sleep deprivation can lead to an increase of risk-taking behavior and even suicide.

Physical Health Issues

If you’re not getting enough sleep at night, not only will your brain feel the effects, but your physical health can be affected, too. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, just like sleep is important in repairing your brain, sleep heals and repairs your heart and blood vessels. Poor sleep can increase the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, obesity, and a compromised immune system.

Poor Performance Throughout the Day

Even if you sleep the recommended amount on a regular basis, losing even forty minutes to an hour of sleep in an evening can affect your day. For instance, take Springtime Daylight Savings Time. Due to the lack of sleep, lost during Daylight Savings, the probability of workplace injuries is increased. Sleep deprivation not only affects your productivity and safety at work, but it can also affect your safety on the road. Much like distracted action of texting and driving, a drowsy driver’s cognitive process can become impaired.

Operating a vehicle while sleep deprived is similar to driving under the influence of alcohol and drowsy driving is responsible for thousands of fatal crashes each year.

Tips for a Better Night’s Sleep

Sleep is often difficult when living in such a busy world, but it’s important for your overall health and longevity. Here are some tips to get a better night’s sleep:

• Stick to a Sleep Schedule, Even on the Weekends
• Get Daily Exercise and Eat Well
• Eliminate Distractions Before Bedtime, Create a Calming Ritual (avoid screen time, caffeine, or food right before bed)
• Make Your Room Sleep Friendly: Is it Dark? Cool? Free From Distractions?

What’s Happening When You Multitask?

Multitasking is one of the skills that may set you apart (and sometimes ahead) of others, but before you keep doing more than one thing at a time, it’s time to find out what’s really going on in your head. Let’s say you have a tight deadline at work and the only way to get everything done by the end of the day is to do a couple of things at once, such as answering emails and talking with clients on the phone at the same time. The truth is, you’re not actually answering your emails and talking at the same time. Your brain is quite impressive, quickly switching focus back and forth between the two tasks, but in the end (even if you finish the tasks), the quality may not be as good as it could be had you focused on one thing at time. Although there is a small percentage of individuals who can truly multitask, which means that the quality and efficiency of their tasks are affected, a majority of “everyday multitaskers” are really just making their lives busier and more stressful.

The Dangers of Multitasking

Not only can multitasking affect the quality of your work, but it can affect how you interact with others. Have you ever been accused of not “being present” or have your kids complained that it seems like you never have time for them? It may be time to slow it down and work on one task at a time. Rather than trying to get multiple things done at home, assign and share your tasks with others or encourage them to help you so that your family time encourages closeness rather than distance and failure to focus.

Another major risk associated with multitasking is dangerous driving. A multitasking driver, whose cognitive process is impaired, is the same as a distracted driver. How many times have you witnessed a fellow motorist talking on a cellphone while driving and perhaps engaging in additional activities such as eating a sandwich or even shaving? Each day in the U.S., over 8 people are killed and 1,161 are injured in car accidents involving a distracted driver and sadly, distracted driving accidents are one of the most preventable accidents on our roadways.

If you wouldn’t dream of breaking the rules of the roadway and engage in distracted behaviors, you should try to kick your multitasking habit at home and in the office.