Venus Williams Adopts A New Raw Alkaline Vegan Diet!

When tennis pro Venus Williams discovered her fatigue and pain resulted from an autoimmune disease, she took action byadopting a raw vegan diet. And she proved the wisdom of that choice by slamming her way through a winning round one in the U.S. Open, reported the Los Angeles Times August 28. "I can never be surprised when Venus is playing well," her opponent declared. But since becoming ill with Sjogren's syndrome, which drains her energy, "playing well" has taken on new meaning for Venus.

Although "dry eyes and dry mouth are the hallmark symptoms, fatigue can be so heavy that sitting in a chair is a huge effort," Venus recently told a CBS reporter about her autoimmune disease. She drinks "a lot of wheat grass shots, lots of fresh juices and things like that. As a professional athlete, if you have fatigue, then that's tough. You can also have joint pain," and she also has problems with her "internal systems." But Venus is hopeful. She believes that she has made "huge improvements since I was first diagnosed," and that "changing my diet has made a big difference."

View slideshow: Winning Venus Williams Proves Vegan Diet Works

As evidenced by her winning form on the court this week, Venus has improved dramatically since changing her diet. When she was first diagnosed, she told People magazine that she could not raise her arm over her head. She said that the "racket felt like concrete. I had no feelings in my hands. They were swollen and itchy." Venus chose to use holistic alternatives, such as the raw vegan diet, yoga, and massage, based on her sister Serena's suggestions, reported the Daily Mail. Serena did more than make a suggestion: she joined her sister in her vegan diet. "I don’t want her to come home and see a piece of chicken and be like, ‘Oh, I want it,’ and she can’t have it. It would be like a stumbling block for her," Serena said, in explaining why she decided to change during a phone interview with the Washington Post.

Dr. Robert O. Young's Reserach Validated

Dr. Robert O. Young has been sharing his research for now over 30 years.  He has documented the pleomorphic nature of biological transformations of the red blood cells into different types of cells.  Now scientists from Johns Hopkins has validated  his researech and biological transformation or pleomorphism by returning red blood cells into stem cells.

Researchers Return Blood Cells to Stem Cell State

ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2012) — Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a reliable method to turn the clock back on blood cells, restoring them to a primitive stem cell state from which they can then develop into any other type of cell in the body.

The work, described in the Aug. 8 issue of the journal PLoS ONE, is "Chapter Two" in an ongoing effort to efficiently and consistently convert adult blood cells into stem cells that are highly qualified for clinical and research use in place of human embryonic stem cells, says Elias Zambidis, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of oncology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering and the Kimmel Cancer Center.

"Taking a cell from an adult and converting it all the way back to the way it was when that person was a 6-day-old embryo creates a completely new biology toward our understanding of how cells age and what happens when things go wrong, as in cancer development," Zambidis says.

"Chapter One," Zambidis says, was work described last spring in PLoS One in which Zambidis and colleagues recounted the use of this successful method of safely transforming adult blood cells into heart cells. In the latest experiments, he and his colleagues now describe methods for coaxing adult blood cells to become so-called induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPS) -- adult cells reprogrammed to an embryonic like state, and with unprecedented efficiencies.

Zambidis says his team has managed to develop a "super efficient, virus-free" way to make iPS cells, overcoming a persistent difficulty for scientists working with these cells in the laboratory. Generally, out of hundreds of blood cells, only one or two might turn into iPS cells. Using Zambidis' method, 50 to 60 percent of blood cells were engineered into iPS cells.

Zambidis' team also found a way around the use of viruses to convert the cells to a stem cell state. Traditionally, scientists use viruses to deliver a package of genes to cells to turn on processes that convert the cells from one type (such as skin or blood) back to stem cell states. However, viruses used in this way can mutate genes and initiate cancers in newly transformed cells. To insert the genes without using a virus, Zambidis' team uses plasmids, rings of DNA that replicate briefly inside cells and then degrade. The blood cells were also given an additional new step in which they were stimulated with their natural bone-marrow environment.

For the new study, the Johns Hopkins team took cord blood cells, treated them with growth factors, and used plasmids to transfer four genes into them. They then delivered an electrical pulse to the cells, making tiny holes in the surface through which the plasmids could slip inside. Once inside, the plasmids triggered the cells to revert to a more primitive cell state. The scientific team next grew some of the treated cells in a dish alone, and some together with irradiated bone-marrow cells.

When scientists compared the cells grown using the blood cell method with iPS cells grown from hair cells and from skin cells, they found that the most superior iPS cells came from blood stem cells treated with just four genes and cultured with the bone marrow cells. These cells converted to a primitive stem cell state within seven to 14 days. Their techniques also were successful in experiments with blood cells from adult bone marrow and from circulating blood.

In ongoing studies, Zambidis and colleagues are testing the quality of the newly formed iPS cells and their ability to convert to other cell types, as compared with iPS cells made by other methods.

Efficient methods to produce virus-free iPS cells may speed research to develop stem cell therapies, using nearly all cell types, and may provide a more accurate picture of cell development and biology.

ON THE OPENING OF THE 2012 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

by Karl Kadie

                       For Bill Costley

The speakers are all talking about

themselves: me, me, me;

How I made it by myself,

how great it is to be me,

And with an example like me

Someday you become the destined you.

When New Jersey Boss Chris Christie says

What’s needed is leadership,

I’m surprised: I didn’t know I asked for a new boss –

Ding, ding!

– To keep my kids out of the schools and hospitals

To neglect the roads I drive,

To make it easier for the corp lords to

Reduce my pay or cut my job,

To build the black, wrought iron fence

‘Round Christie’s house with a

Healthy, stealthy electric charge.

Ding, ding!. 

The Ninety-Nine Percent bell rings in my head once more.

Yet when I think about the present alternatives,

I can barely breath.  A public meeting at the

Library, whose moldy air sets the stage

For dark coffins of paper to drop

Off the edge of the age’s edifice,

Treasures to trash, a handy metaphor

For our own marginalization.

We enter the meeting,

Arms full with gifts, voices, and money,

And leave by the red exit,

Our hearts vacuumed out, our hands empty.

Standing on the margins

Of a new edifice of power,

I know I’m a Ninety-Nine Percenter,

And when I hear Chris Christie say

What’s needed is leadership,

I suspect I have much more to lose,

And muse that connecting

With my community

May be the only prayer

Ever to be heard.

Karl Kadie has poems in The New Verse News, The Santa Clara Review, Haiku Headlines, and poetry blogs, and featured at Poetry in Song and Cupertino Winter Light.  Karl is a native Californian, and holds an MA in English from San Francisco State University.
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SUPERABLED

Poem by Charles FredericksonGraphic by Saknarin Chinayote

Paralympics 26 sports 39 disciplines

Ethos

Determination Inspiration Courage Equality

Facing every endurance test head-on

Prideful smiles emanating from within

These very special gifted athletes

Making most of God-given talents

Rigorous training empowers buoyant resilience

Determined to improve personal bests

Defeatist attitudes the real disability

Victors simply refuse to lose

Also-rans brilliant in valiant attempts

Gaining confidence next time victorious

Dominated by latest greatest hi-tech

Prosthetic limbs running on stilts

Wheelchairs of Fire blazing passionately

Steely flint nerves sparking victory

Success calculated choice not chance

Quitting not true grit option

Uncompromising pursuit of plucky excellence

Olympiad moments forever cherished memories

Respectful dignity treatment is non-negotiable

Heroic struggle overcoming daunting obstacles

Reaching beyond dark horse

 blinders

Lubricated hugs soothe heartache kiss-offs

No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .

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SONNET TO ISAAC

by David James Olsen

Image source: Skye

Dear laughing Isaac, listen if you please:
Don't dig your wells in New Orleans now tame.
I beg of you to curve your course with ease
And twirl out toward the sea from whence you came!
For seven years ago your sis did lick
This city's soul and break its levees large,
But screw their courage have they done to stick
And stand against your Grendel's gutt'ral charge.
A pact: like Milton, sell my sight I might
If you'd turn your blind eye at my request.
Ironic and coincidental blight:
Speed not o'er land, just ocean without rest.
Present your cruel account on waves of blue,
And leave pure hearts of people dry and true.


David James Olsen is a 29-year-old writer/actor living in NYC.
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MOONWALK

by Wayne Scheer

I may be the only person in America my age
who didn't watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.
It was a conscious choice.
Talk of patriotism and courage
was too much for me to handle
that July of '69.
I would soon be on my way to Basic Training
and Vietnam after that, I assumed.
After a year of fighting the draft,
I was too filled with hatred and fear
and the resignation that comes with defeat
to give a damn about somebody walking on the moon.


Since his retirement from a college teaching career, Wayne Scheer has published hundreds of short stories, essays and poems on line and in print, including Revealing Moments, a collection of flash stories, published by Thumbscrews Press.  His work has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net.  He lives in Atlanta with his wife and can be contacted at wvscheer(at)aol.com.
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GODSPEED NEIL

by Jon Wesick

Dad handed me the binoculars.
I stared into the Florida sky.
In the distance the big Saturn V
was a splinter atop an inch-long, orange flame.
Five days later we watched
humanity’s thousand-year dream come true
on a black and white TV.
A man had stepped on another world.

There was no end to the possibilities –
moon bases, footsteps on Mars,
travel to the edge of the solar system
but the fickle public grew bored
voted with their pocket books for coffee,
cigarettes, and liquor instead.
Once we raised our eyes to the stars.
Today we look at our shoes.



Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, instigator of the San Diego Poetry Un-Slam, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published over two hundred fifty poems in journals such as The New Verse News, Pearl, Pudding, and Slipstream. He has also published over fifty short stories. Jon has a Ph.D. in physics and is a longtime student of Buddhism and the martial arts. One of his poems won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists contest. Jon was fortunate enough to see the Apollo 11 liftoff in 1969.
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ELECTRIC-BLUE EYES

by Bill Costley

Bill Costley has served on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco Bay area chapter of the National Writers Union. He lives in Santa Clara, CA. The latest volume ( Number Eleven)  of Costley's  New Verse News epic The Chen@id can be accessed by clicking here.
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CHECKPOINT

by Sari Krosinsky


After the bus at the head of the line
is de-boarded, inspected, and re-boarded,
the dew-faced, khaki-clad blond asks us
if we’re citizens. All three of you? she asks.

Yes, we chorus a second time. We’re all
white, so our word is good. I couldn’t bear
to be kept from you, the way borders
are thrust between other lovers.

After the blond releases us, I’m impatient
with every pause, every mile that divides
me from you. If I’d been born a little south
instead of a lot east, iron might divide us.

The glass glitter of Albuquerque reflects
below as we top the last hill. Soon, you’ll
be holding me. Soon, the dew-faced blond
will stop someone she won’t let pass.


Sari Krosinsky's first full-length book, god-chaser, is forthcoming from CW Books. She co-authored a chapbook, Yossele: a tale in poems, with Robert Arthur Reeves. She publishes Fickle Muses, an online journal of mythic poetry and fiction. Her poems appear regularly in literary and genre magazines. She received a B.A. in religious studies and M.A. in creative writing from the University of New Mexico. She lives in Albuquerque, N.M., with her partner and cat.
_____________________________________________________

Save Lives - Become a pH Miracle Coach

     

pH MIRACLE COACH TRAINING PROGRAM  Here is your golden opportunity to become a Certified pH Miracle Coach! This program is a 3 week course with conference calls, power point presentations and video conferencing when needed. Dr. Robert O. Young and Shelley Redford Young will be teaching a segment of this course, along with Co-Directors of our Coaching Division; Dawn Kali and Caroline Robitaille. Once you have completed this course there will be follow up support with further education and help with expanding your business. The pH Miracle® Center is in need of pH Miracle® Coaches that will agree to teach 100% Dr. Robert O. Young and Shelley Redford Young's teachings. They've spent the last 30 years researching and developing this protocol and now we need your help to spread this around the world. If you want to be a part of the pH Miracle® Coaching Program and you can commit to teaching their protocol—without exception—then this course is for you. For more details please contact Dawn.kali@phmiracle.com or Caroline.Robitaille@phmiracle.com - The pH Miracle Institute / Enrollment Staff

Follow Us On: To learn more about Dr. Robert and Shelley Young's Science visit: www.articlesofhealth.blogspot.com

pH Miracle Living Center 16390 Dia Del Sol Valley Center, California 92082 US © Copyright 2012 - pH Miracle, Inc. All rights are reserved. Content may be reproduced, downloaded, disseminated, or transferred, for single use, or by nonprofit organizations for educational purposes, if correct attribution is made to Dr. Robert O. Young. and Shelley Redford Young

THE CANDIDATE PLAGUE

by Sarah Brown Weitzman


In the beginning
     they will come in swarms
clogging the air
     waves, spewing abuse
as much on each other
     as on their common enemy
the Incumbent
   
And they will multiply in grass
     roots movements
stirring dissent and fear
     even among billionaires
Casting blame like stones
    in endless debates

In a hail of accusations
    they will denounce
each other as false prophets
     with the harshest epithets:
Conservative, Ultra-conservative,
     Liberal, Intellectual

Bringing the affliction
     of the Handshake
they will be visited upon cities
     and small towns alike
like celebrities drawing crowds
     of the media who will scrutinize
their wives, past utterances,
     past wives, voting
records and tax returns

But nothing will shake
    the enthusiasm of the Followers
who will not let them go
    off the stage
without, youbetcha,
    the prophesy of Cheers

And women will weep
     as they hold up their First Born
high over the crowds
     to let them glimpse
Him who may be
     the Chosen  One

So it will come to pass
      that people in no great percentages
will be called Deciders
    and will be hunched
in narrow private cubicles
     touching the name
of their Candidate
     on a small lighted screen
with reverence like worshipers
     before a sacred relic


Sarah Brown Weitzman has had work in numerous journals and anthologies including The North American Review, American Writing, Potomac Review, Art Times, The Bellingham Review, M.I.T.Rune, Rattle and Slant.  Her second chapbook, The Forbidden was published by Pudding House in 2004 followed in 2005 by Never Far From Flesh, a full-length volume of poetry (Main Street Rag).  She received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 1984.  Her latest book, Herman and the Ice Witch, a children’s novel, was published in 2011 by Pure Heart/Main Street Rag.  A former New York academic, Sarah Elizabeth Brown [Weitzman] is retired and lives in Florida. Sbwpoet(at)aol.com
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Everything You Need To KNow About Alkaline Foods From a pH Professional for over 30 Years

WALK THE ALKALINE

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ALKALINE FOODS FROM A PH PRO

by SHELLEY YOUNG

WE’VE ASKED THE TEAM from pH Miracle to keep talking to usabout the powerful effect internal pH can have on our overall health. Doctor Robert Young and his wife Shelley are the scientific masterminds behind pH Miracle’s effective programs and protocols that have helped so many recover from disease and reclaim vital health. The Youngs were even instrumental in helping our June Guest Editor Kris Carr find her path to wholeness and healing. Get ready for a little chemistry lesson as Shelley helps us unpack the basics of body alkalinity and guides us through the importance of drinking alkaline water!

Shelley Young: These days, we’ve got so much more medicine, but so much less health. More children are suffering from needless obesity and the three top killers, heart disease, cancer and diabetes, are on the rise! Something’s got to change!

Before things can change with the state of human health on this planet, we all have to realize that just as the earth has an external environment that has to be kept clean and clear for fresh air and pure water, each of us has an internal environment that must also be kept clean and clear. We have internal rivers and streams, veins, arteries and lymphatic vessels running through our bodies that must also be kept running pure, the state of which are vital to optimum health and strength.

The blood, tissues and organs of our bodies are kept in a delicate state of pH balance which is set as alkaline at 7.365. Many of you already know that a fish aquarium must be kept at a proper pH or the fish will die. Think of all of the cells in your body as being suspended in your own body “ocean”. The health of your cells will be determined by the environment they swim in. Those of you who enjoy your own swimming pools and hot tubs must also check the pH of the water to maintain its clean quality where bacteria cannot grow.  Just as your internal body temperature is held at 98.6, you are engineered to be alkaline by design at 7.365 and acidic by function.

(Quick review for those of you who haven’t taken chemistry in decades: the pH Scale goes from 1 to 14 – 7 being neutral. Anything below 7 is acid, and anything above 7 is base or alkaline.)

All body functions – respiration, perspiration, urination and defecation – create acids that must be handled and discarded by the body. If the acids are not discarded, toxicity (acidity) will build up in the internal environment. When your body temperature changes (rises above or falls below 98.6), it is actually a sign that something is wrong. If your body pH changes, symptoms can occur.

The blood is strictly held at its alkaline pH by keeping mineral salts balanced in the blood. Acids that build up can be held in the connective tissues and other body tissues such as the skin, muscles and organs. These acids can result in degeneration and dis-ease. What we eat and drink contributes to the system which keeps the body in a state of pH balance. Once you learn more about your body chemistry, you can make the adjustments toward optimum health and vitality.

Hydrate Your Way To Health

The water you drink plays a crucial role in maintaining the body’s internal pH balance. You may have noticed water bottles with their pH listed right on the bottle. This is because pH MATTERS!

There is acidic water and alkaline water. The important thing is to drink water that is close to your own blood pH or even higher. Most water has a pH of around 9. It takes 20 parts alkalinity (sodium bicarbonate) to neutralize 1 part acidity (carbonic acid) in the body. You can’t over alkalize, but you can become overly acidic quite easily. Most people who eat the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) with its acidic foods and drinks become sick and tired. Signs that one is over-acidic include:

• pain and inflammation
• retention of water
• skin rashes and eruptions
• fatigue and allergies
• More serious diagnoses could include cancer, diabetes, lupus, and heart disease, just to name a few

Hydration is the single most important thing you can do to start your alkalizing regime. A good rule is to drink one liter of pH water for every 30lbs of body weight.

Water ionizers can be connected to your kitchen sink to make all your drinking water alkaline. They also make acid water which can be used for external cleaning purposes (floors and counters). There are also drops made by health companies which use mineral salts such as Sodium Chlorite that can be added to any drinking water to push the pH up over a 9 while adding nacient oxygen to the water, too. BACTERIA CAN’T LIVE IN AN OXYGEN-RICH ENVIRONMENT. Dr. Robert O. Young, my husband and co-author of The pH Miracle, has developed these type of drops that are convenient for travel called Purify Drops.

When you are properly hydrated with pH structured water, all body systems usually improve in function – even the blood cells appear more plump and healthy! Circulation can improve! Once you start drinking water that is closer to the pH of your own blood and tissues, pain may diminish, rashes can clear up, unwanted pounds often drop off.

It only makes sense that keeping the pH balance in the body’s internal rivers and streams would improve the chances for good health, just as fish who swim in the proper pH fishbowl can survive and thrive. Think about it. If your pet fish was sick, would you treat the fish, or change it’s water?

Start alkalizing by just changing your water and see how you feel!

To your health,

Shelley Young

photo credit

Alkalizing Giveaway!

We would love to give away some pH Miracle Purify Drops to one lucky Chalkboard reader today! Simply leave us your comments below to win. We want to hear your tips, questions or thoughts on body alkalinity! Good luck, readers!

SHELLEY YOUNG
view all posts from Shelley
visit Shelley's site

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