Mercola speaks – does your family think you are nuts?
The article and VIDEO can be seen here: http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/archive/2007/05/30/Do-Your-Family-Members-Not-Believe-You-About-Health.aspx
Dr. Mercola here. In today’s video, I’ll be sharing an interesting story with you about my own family. A few weeks ago, I went to a birthday party for my niece. I hadn’t seen my family for a while, and it was a nice opportunity to get together with them.
As I was sitting next to my small niece, I found it really interesting that she was having some dessert, some really great strawberries, and she was dipping them in piles of Equal, or NutraSweet. It was a real challenge for me to watch her do that. This is my brother’s daughter. I love my brother dearly, but he and his wife don’t really understand the dangers of NutraSweet. But I just bit my tongue and let my niece continue to consume Nutrasweet-coated strawberries.
Now, in case you are unaware of the dangers of NutraSweet, you may want to read my book called, Sweet Deception. It’s a phenomenal book that really goes into specific details, primarily about sucralose, but also about all of the artificial sweeteners. NutraSweet is clearly something that’s been well documented to have significant adverse effects, and has a variety of chemicals that rapidly break down, often causing significant problems, especially when used regularly over time, and specifically in young children.
It can produce problems such as seizures, headaches, migraines and even brain tumors in some cases. So, it’s certainly something you’ll want to avoid, and not even limit, but simply avoid altogether.
My brother-in-law, (under 50 years of age) who was also at the birthday party, had suffered a heart attack a few weeks ago, and had to have open bypass surgery. Thankfully, he’s doing quite well following that. But his physicians who are monitoring him actually suggested that he avoid all red meat and to stop using salt.
Again, I had to bite my tongue because, avoiding red meat, though it may be a wonderful move for some people (some should never eat red meat, primarily those who are carb nutritional types) if in fact you’re a strong protein type, that would be the worst thing you could do. If you’re a protein type, eating red meat and dark meat regularly will help the extra purine proteins, and the fat will actually help lower your cholesterol and normalize your physiology, helping to reduce the risk of heart disease.
It’s very difficult to give a broad nutritional recommendation for everyone, unless of course, it’s simple basics, like avoiding sugar. As we know, sugar isn’t good for anyone, no matter what their nutritional type is.
I thought it was interesting though. I’ve written two New York Times best-selling health books, have a website with a million subscribers and many people are interested in what I have to say about health and the years of research I’ve done. But my own family has really chosen not to believe what I was suggesting might be helpful to them.
My guess is that you are also going to encounter similar challenges in your own families, and I just want to mention that it’s to be expected.
Fortunately, I have other family members, such as my parents and one of my sisters, who actually adopt most everything I suggest, and have had enormous improvements in their health. My dad specifically almost died from complications of diabetes before I made a diagnosis of iron overload and got him on a good program which controls his diabetes. My mom is doing great too.
So most likely, it will be similar with your own family. Some will believe you, and some will not. We feel the tendency to continue to preach to them on a soapbox and explain things to them. But it’s just like with someone who is smoking. They have to be self-motivated.
So, my advice to you is, if they ask your advice, clearly, share it with them. But if they don’t, you’re just going to have to bite your tongue and just hope for the best for them. Everyone has freedom of choice in life, and even if it’s your own family members, frequently, you’re not going to be able to influence them.
This of course doesn’t mean you should abdicate your responsibility to understand critical health information. Ultimately, we’re our own physicians, and we don’t want to completely abdicate this responsibility to physicians or other family members. You’ll really want to take control of your health.