Gwyneth Paltrow reveals vitamin D deficiency caused osteopoenia diagnosis

Gwyneth Paltrow reveals vitamin D deficiency caused osteopoenia diagnosis

Gwyneth Paltrow reveals vitamin D deficiency caused osteopoenia diagnosis

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Editor of NaturalNews.com

courtesy: http://www.naturalnews.com/029750_Gwyneth_Paltrow_vitamin_D.html

(NaturalNews) Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed to her online fans that she has a severe vitamin D deficiency. "My doctors tested my vitamin D levels which turned out to be the lowest thing they had never seen -- not a good thing," she said earlier this month. She then went on to reveal she is suffering from osteopenia, a thinning of the bones.

These two things are, of course, strongly related. Because vitamin D is necessary for your body to absorb and integrate calcium into your bone structure, being deficient in vitamin D is a sure way to end up diagnosed with osteoporosis or osteopenia.

To reverse this condition, Gwyneth Paltrow was prescribed high dose vitamin D and told to spend more time in the sun. (Good advice!)

It's about time a celebrity started getting some sound health advice from health practitioners. Sunlight and vitamin D is exactly what Gwyneth needs. And I'm glad to see she had the courage to go public with this private information and set a good example by boosting her vitamin D intake.

This advice seemed to initially confuse Gwyneth who said, "I was curious if this was safe, having been told for years to stay away from [the sun's] dangerous rays, not to mention a tad confused!"

And here we discover the harm that has been caused by all the medical charlatans who have urged people to stay out of the sun: Oncologists, dermatologists, general practitioners and even non-profits like the American Cancer Society. In making people afraid of sunlight, they have strongly contributed to a global vitamin D deficiency that actually causes cancer, diabetes, kidney and liver disorders, bone disorders and even influenza. These health "authorities" who tell people to avoid the sun and coat their bodies with toxic sunscreen chemicals are killing people!

Fortunately, Gwyneth Paltrow found this out before any cancer appeared. Had she stayed on this course of vitamin D deficiency for longer, cancer would have been a very likely result. And then she might have found herself pushed into toxic chemotherapy and radiation -- the death tools of an industry that's now poisoning Michael Douglas (http://www.naturalnews.com/029685_M...) and has already killed rock stars (http://www.naturalnews.com/029699_c...) and other famous actors such as Farrah Fawcett (http://www.naturalnews.com/026511_c...).

Most of the industrialized world is vitamin D deficient

What's really shocking about the vitamin D story is not that Gwyneth Paltrow was deficient in it, but that as much as 90 percent of the first-world populations are chronically deficient.

In the UK, deficiency is at epidemic levels. The same is true in Canada and the northern states of the USA. Even in the southern states like Florida and California, most people live their lives indoors, hiding from the sun while becoming more vitamin D deficient with each passing day.

Vitamin D deficiency is the underlying nutritional deficiency that keeps modern medicine in business. When you don't have enough vitamin D, things start to go wrong with virtually every organ in your body. There are vitamin D receptors on every major organ and organ system in your body, and vitamin D activates hundreds of different genes in your body that prevent chronic disease.

The simple act of testing for vitamin D and boosting vitamin D levels across the entire population would do more to increase health and reduce health care costs than all the health care reforms Congress has ever debated.

You cannot control health care costs without addressing the issue of widespread vitamin D deficiency.

In other words, if the population remains vitamin D deficient, health care costs will always spiral out of control because it's more expensive to treat sickness than to keep people healthy with low-cost vitamin D supplements.

Let's hope that more people will pay attention to the experience of Gwyneth Paltrow and find the personal courage to treat their vitamin D deficiencies by boosting their intake of vitamin D (and getting more sunlight when possible).

It's nice to see a health-conscious celebrity setting a good example, much like Drew Carey did by beating diabetes. Celebrities have tremendous power to influence the public, and sadly, most celebrities abuse that power. But a few stand out as positive influences who have the personal integrity to lead by example so that their fans might improve their health, too.

Successful Self-Dentistry - 8 Simple Steps - NaturalNews.tv

Successful Self-Dentistry - 8 Simple Steps - NaturalNews.tv

Thanks for asking about where to get the steps, please find a copy here: http://www.livinglibations.com/body-care/tooth-care Or email us at sage@livinglibations.com to get a printable version. Soon we will have decals for you mirror with our dental kits Jworley - Treat any oral infection, like an infection get the immune system singing with vitamin C, probiotics etc. and with a dedicated application of the steps - you will have a chance! Shoelaced - Yes, the gum pockets will grow back to a healthy level. It begins to feel permanent when we continue the same habits that created the recession in the first place. There will be an interview about all of this and more on Natural News Talk Hour http://www.create-health-and-wellness.com/talk-hour.html Best to you all, Nadine


http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=BE878620699E741FA61FA12AC5095C84

Learn all about successful, self-dentistry with Nadine Artemis, a gifted beauty visionary. Discover 8 simple steps to stop plaue buildup, tooth decay and re-generate your teeth and gums.

Learn more at: http://www.livinglibations.com

Video Keywords: teeth, gums, oral care, self, dentistry, nutrition, organics, water, herbs, natural cures, western medicine, children, family, green living, personal care, science, technology, nadine artemis,

Where's the health in health care reform?

Where's the health in health care reform?

Where's the health in health care reform?

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

Editor of NaturalNews.com

Friday, October 14, 2005

courtesy: http://www.naturalnews.com/012330_health_care_reform_sick_system.html

In the months and years ahead, you're going to hear a whole lot of talk about health care reform, but most of what you're going to hear is about reform, not health. You see, there's this great lie out there, this huge misconception, this big shell game, where all these politicians and power-hungry people think they can convince the public that health care reform is just about shifting paper around and deciding who pays.

But I say that you cannot talk about health care reform with any degree of honesty or credibility until you talk about health. None of the discussion I have seen from anybody out there – not the press, not the health care authorities, not the American Medical Association, not the politicians who are going to ride this issue all the way into public office – covers substantial ideas about actually making people healthier. So I ask: Where's the health in health care reform?

You can't reform your way out of chronic disease by changing who pays for it. You can't take away a nation of degenerative brain disorder sufferers and a whole generation of children who have been born with malfunctioning nervous systems because of the malnutrition the mothers have been experiencing. You can't take that away by changing who's writing the check. You can't solve obesity and diabetes by insuring all the uninsured. This is not a paperwork problem, yet that's the solution we hear out there. It's all about paperwork.

It's all trending towards a national system – a government-sponsored health care system, just like they have in Canada. Now, personally, I'm not necessarily for or against the government-sponsored system. I've seen countries do it very well; I've seen countries do it poorly, too. It's not the system that's good or bad; it's the idea that you can wiggle your way out of the health care crisis just by shuffling paperwork around and changing who's writing the checks to cover the costs.

Health care reform: Money vs. people

Now, let's get serious about this: If you want to reform health care, what are you really talking about here? You're talking about two things: Cost and people. And that's the order that most people think of them in, by the way. It's the money first. Why? As a nation, we're going bankrupt. We're already bankrupt, actually, but we're just making it even worse with these sky-high health care costs.

Our employers are going bankrupt trying to fund the health insurance of their employees. It makes U.S. workers unable to compete in the global marketplace. This is one of the reasons jobs are increasingly shifting overseas. It's because U.S. workers are just too expensive to insure due to our health care system (if you can call it that). I say you can't solve this problem by subsidizing insurance or by forcing employers to cover everybody. You can only solve the problem by making people healthier. You've got to address the health.

Now, secondly, it comes down to the people because now we have a whole nation of unprecedented illness and chronic disease. Anywhere from 25 to 46 percent of our nation is suffering from mental illness, depending on whom you ask. We have 40 percent of our people on prescription drugs – drugs that take away mental clarity and quality of life. These drugs are killing people at a rate that's approaching the Holocaust.

At the same time, we've got a nation with a public school system that continues to feed our children junk food, soft drinks and candy bars. The school lunch programs are a nutritional disaster. We've got hospitals serving hamburgers and fries. We've got hospitals where we can buy a pizza. "Come out of heart surgery and get yourself some extra cheese!"

Health reform starts with food reform

You see, all this talk about covering the uninsured and saving people money and all these ridiculous distractions like the Medicare drug discount card are all a shell game. It's all a show; it's just theater designed to keep people occupied so that nobody has to talk about the real issues.

The real issues start with the foods – that's right, the foods. These products are manufactured by big businesses that have a whole lot of influence in Washington, and they don't want anybody talking about them because their foods are causing these diseases. It's all that added sugar and white flour, and all those refined carbohydrates. You've got hydrogenated oils that function as brain poison and heart poison in the human body. You've got sodium nitrate that causes cancer. That's why people who consume processed meats have a risk of pancreatic cancer that is 67% percent higher than everybody else. You've got added salts, artificial colors, all kinds of preservatives and monosodium glutamate (MSG) hidden in foods. It all starts with the foods, so all this talk about who's going to pay for the disease is all just a distraction so no one has to talk about the foods and the beverages that are causing these diseases in the first place.

The food and beverage companies, of course, would love to keep it that way. They would love for everybody to just keep arguing over who's paying these sky-high prescription drug prices while ignoring the simple fact that prevention programs and junk food advertising bans could make prescription drugs practically irrelevant. Of course, all these drug companies say they need the money to "find a cure for cancer." What a brilliant con!

You don't need to find a cure for cancer if you stop poisoning the public with the national food supply. You don't need a cure for cancer if nobody has cancer. The way you have a population that's cancer-free is to teach people about the healing power of sunlight – about getting some sunlight and some vitamin D. You teach people to avoid these dangerous ingredients and you ban them from the food supply: You outlaw hydrogenated oils. You outlaw refined sugar. You outlaw sodium nitrate. That's what you do if you want to reform health care.

It's the only approach that makes any sense. It's the only sane approach. That's exactly why no one's talking about it. No, we can't have anything that actually works in this country because the pharmaceutical industry would lose money. What would all those people who work for the hospitals do and what would the drug companies and all those drug reps and doctors do? Gee, what would people do for jobs if so many people weren't so sick?

Big Business makes big bucks off a nation of diseased people

Health care and all the discussion about health care reform is really a discussion about managing a nation of diseased people. It's not about ending disease. It's not about curing cancer. It's not about preventing heart disease. It's about managing these illnesses. The question essentially becomes: "How are we going to keep people on just enough prescription drugs so we make a lot of money from them, but not so many that it kills them?" That's basically the strategy of Big Pharma. "How are we going to extract a whole lot of profits out of the general public and call it science-based medicine?"

There are all sorts of people – most of them in Washington D.C. – who are scheming about how to make this happen. And sitting to the right of them is, of course, the food industry – the Big Sugar people, the oil processors and the grain processors – the big food companies. They're all saying, "Hey, don't mention the foods. Don't talk about us. Make sure you frame this whole discussion of health care reform in terms of who pays for it and who gets coverage." That's because if they can keep you in that little box of thought, then you won't talk about the causes of these diseases, which are largely found in foods.

Then over on the left side of these decision makers, you've got reps from the pharmaceutical industry, and they're saying, "Make sure our drugs are covered because we want to keep selling drugs and have the government pay for them. That way we'll shift money from the pockets of taxpayers to ourselves and our investors and we'll call it public health."

Wow, what a great scheme, and if the FDA is protecting the U.S. drug market, they can set any price they want because the FDA will say the drugs from overseas are dangerous. The drugs you buy in the United States are perfectly safe, but if you buy the exact same chemical compound from Canada, "No, no, those are dangerous. You're unpatriotic. How dare you buy them from overseas? You must buy them here in America where we set the prices." It's called a monopoly. It's called protectionism. It's called screwing the U.S. consumer and it's what's going on right now, every single day in America.

Everyone's out to make a buck

Unless we see a radical shift towards disease prevention rather than disease treatment in this country, what we're really going to end up with is a health care system that is ultimately designed to do two things. Number one: Extract as much money as possible from the taxpayers and shift it into the pockets of drug companies. Number two: Distract people from the real causes of disease so that everyone continues to believe that disease is just a matter of bad luck or bad genes, and that only drugs can treat or cure any disease.

It seems that everybody out there is greedy and wants to make more money. And most don't really care who suffers in order to make that money. The politicians, they want to get in power. How do you get in power? You keep big, rich companies happy. That's how you get in power, and that's how you stay in power. And once you're in power, you thank them by passing new legislation that makes sure there is a windfall of public money headed in their direction.

And how do you do that? You announce the Medicare drug discount card and make it illegal for the government to negotiate volume discounts with drug companies. You mandate mental health screening for the entire population. You make sure that health insurance has to cover Viagra even if it's being prescribed to sex offenders, which is exactly what's going on in this country. That's a good example of how insane our health insurance industry and health care coverage really is. We're using taxpayer dollars to pay for Viagra for people who have been convicted of sex crimes.

Health care reform goes far beyond crunching numbers

Now, I repeat my first statement here, which is that you can't have an honest debate about health care reform unless you address the issue of health. Yet in the months and years ahead, you're going to see a whole lot of people out there with all kinds of credentials, degrees and positions of authority, who are going to try to convince you, the consumer, that health care reform has nothing to do with heath. It only has to do with promoting a financial shell game by pushing nonsensical ideas like "the government here to rescue you." We're going to mandate coverage for all drugs and it's going to be paid for by the government.

They don't talk about who funds the government: The taxpayers. It's your money. It's just a matter of how you wish to redistribute it. And frankly, if our nation continues to be so diseased (cancer, obesity and diabetes are all at record heights), then we're going to basically drive ourselves into extreme poverty because you cannot afford to keep funding chronic disease and the treatment of symptoms through prescription drugs and expensive medical procedures. You can't keep doing that over and over, with the same patients, generation after generation, if you want your nation to be financially solvent. You just can't keep doing that. You can't spend 25 percent of the GDP on health care and be the world economic leader. Do the math.

You've got other nations spending a fraction of that on health care. They manage to cover everybody. Most nations will spend at least one or ten percent of their health care budget on prevention. But here in the U.S., we don't spend anything on prevention. Nothing. In this country, we think prevention should almost be outlawed. "How dare you teach people about nutrition? It's unproven," say these doctors, medical researchers, medical journals and corrupt health authorities. "How dare you teach people to heal themselves with foods?" They want to outlaw healing. They want to outlaw nutrition. They want to make sure people only choose drugs. Choose drugs: that's what makes money for the people in power.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

The bottom line is that if you have a nation of people who are healthy, your health care costs plummet. Do you know what my own personal health care expenses are? Zero. I spend nothing on over-the-counter or prescription drugs and nothing on doctors; nothing whatsoever.

I do spend some of my money on prevention, of course. How do I do that? I visit natural health care practitioners and naturopaths to keep me healthy – not because something hurts or is falling off, not because I'm having a heart attack, or I'm going blind or I'm having seizures and my leg went numb because I'm diabetic and I'm still drinking soft drinks by the gallon. I'm going to my health practitioners because I want to stay healthy. It's all about prevention, people. Prevention is dirt cheap. So is good nutrition.

A drugged nation can't think clearly about health

Now, here's the ironic thing about all of this: No matter what health care reforms they come up with and try to pitch to the public, no matter how ludicrous and insane they may seem, most people will buy into them because half the nation is drugged. I'm not making this up. Half the nation is literally drugged up. They've lost mental clarity. They can't think straight. They can't make good decisions anymore. They've got brain fog side effects from their prescription drugs (like anti-inflammatory drugs).

So, when a politician comes along and says, "We're going to provide universal health care and cover everybody," people are going to say, "I'm voting for you!" But they don't realize what it means. What it means is financial bankruptcy because, again, if you don't address the health, there is no real solution. We are at a crossroads here in terms of the history of human civilization on this planet. What's going to happen to this particular nation, the United States of America?

I think that if we had some courage, some honesty and some people who were willing to stand up and tell the truth, we could turn this around. We could ban junk food advertising to children. We could ban dangerous ingredients. We could arrest the criminals at the drug companies and decision makers at the FDA who have deliberately put us in this mess. We could reform the USDA and break the ties between food companies and regulators. There are people in government who have been colluding with the very industries they are supposed to be regulating.

With some major changes in place, in one generation we could have a nation of really healthy and happy children who have the ability to learn well, who are emotionally balanced and who are not predisposed to diseases like schizophrenia, type 2 diabetes, heart disease or obesity. We could have a nation that could get back to doing some good things, some creative things, and a nation that could take a leadership role in the world.

But we've got to make that decision now because, if we don't make that decision, if we go the other way – that is, the way of protecting special interest groups, protecting the corrupt profits of drug companies and keeping the FDA in power so it can continue to exploit public health in order to send more profits to the drug companies – if we make this decision, we keep protecting the politicians that act on the interests of private business instead of protecting the public. If we allow junk food companies to keep marketing to children, if we allow our schools to be infiltrated by all these foods that promote disease and learning disabilities and aggressive behavior in young children, then we are doomed as a nation. We really are. We're heading down the path of self destruction and we won't be the first nation to go down in history as one that imploded.

America could fall, simply from bad health

You might recall that the Roman Empire did sort of the same thing. It's amazing what a bit of heavy metal in the plumbing will do for a city. In the case of ancient Rome, the lead poisoning drove the citizens (and their leaders) mad. But today, instead of poisoning ourselves with lead, we are poisoning ourselves with food additives. We are doing it consciously. We know it's happening. It isn't a mystery, but we are allowing it to happen because the special interest groups are running the country; they are arm-twisting these politicians who don't have the courage to stand up and do what's right for the people.

If we don't make some changes fast, we're going to get past the point of sanity. We may be past that point already. We're going to get to a point where maybe 60 or 70 percent of the people in this country are diseased and beyond the ability to think. How do you run a democracy when 60 or 70 percent of the people don't have the presence of mind to even vote rationally? How do you run a democracy like that? Well, you don't. It's gone. It's basically run by the special interest groups, just a few people in power who are acting like it's a democracy. I think that's actually where we are today.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we can turn this around, but I don't see any indication of it. I don't see any honest discussion of health care reform, do you? Look around out there! We don't see people talking about health care reform and saying, "We need to address the health: We need to ban dangerous food ingredients. We need to teach people about sunlight and water. We need to educate mothers on how to have good nutrition for their children." Have you seen any of that going on out there? I haven't and I've been paying attention. I review hundreds of news articles every single week and I haven't seen a word about this. It's all about who pays for the drugs.

A nation invested in disease must change from the top down

We are a nation invested in disease. There are so many vested interests in chronic disease that it's almost impossible to change the system incrementally. You have to really reform this system from the top down. You have to overhaul it; you have to unleash a health care revolution.

All the top Fortune 500 companies out there (and a lot of people's egos, careers and positions of power) are all invested in disease. Did you know the top ten drug companies in America make more money than the other 490 companies on the Fortune 500 list?

On top of that, you've got the American Cancer Society, which is based on cancer. You've got the American Diabetes Association, which is based on diabetes. You've got drug companies that are counting on the next wave of Alzheimer's patients and counting on another generation of obese children growing up and consuming these foods so that they're obese just like their parents are today. They are counting on all of this. They've mapped this out and they're rolling out new, patented drugs to cash in!

So, what happens if you try to challenge this system? Oh boy, you're in for a ride! You're going to be discredited. You're going to be censored. You're going to be attacked because there's simply too much money at stake here. Politicians and power brokers are counting on this disease to pay some salaries, make some profit, pocket some cash and to keep them in office because when there's a health care crisis going on, somebody can always get elected by promising a solution, regardless of whether or not that solution makes any sense.

Any real solution to health care must involve addressing health; any solution that addresses health must challenge the status quo; any solution that challenges the status quo will be viciously attacked by the interests that already hold positions of power and profit in our nation. So, you see how this system is very difficult to change. In fact, if I was a betting man – and I'm not – I would bet that this system's going to implode. I don't think we're going to turn this around.

I think only a few individuals are going to emerge from this with any degree of sanity or health, and those will be the individuals who take charge of their own health, who work outside the system, who find a naturopath, who say no to prescription drugs and who start feeding themselves healing foods and outstanding nutrition. They'll be parents who take charge of the health of their children and don't feed them soft drinks and candy bars and who don't allow them to eat those nutritionally depleted school lunches. These are the people who are going to emerge from this system as being sane, healthy and emotionally balanced.

But the masses will probably never come around to the power of nutrition. If you have a nation of people who are mad (who don't have fully functioning nervous systems), I don't think you can last very long in the competitive global marketplace. You've got people in India who make top U.S. students seem retarded. You've got people in China who work for a fraction of what we work for. You've got schools with real quality standards all around the world; meanwhile, in America, we have daycare that we call public education. We're stuffing our children full of these toxic foods, just to make sure they don't "misbehave." You can't compete like that anymore.

No health discussion = No health care solution

Unless we make some changes and really start talking about the health in health care reform, nothing's going to change. It will just be the status quo applied to another generation of sorry, suckered Americans who are now chronically diseased just like their parents. To drive this point home, America used to be number one in a lot of things: We used to be number one in information technology and computer programming. We used to be number one in science and math. You know what we're number one in today? Mental illness. We are the best in the world at driving our population mad. That's right, mental illness – number one in the world; no one comes close to us. We're also number one in obesity.

Here in the U.S., we poisoned an entire generation with fast food, sugars and hydrogenated oils. We made sure they never got good nutrition. We drove them mad with violent television programming, violent video games and insane public school systems. We did a good number on those kids, didn't we? What are we going to do when those kids grow up and they have diseases? What are we going to do then? There's an estimate out there that says that 100 percent of the population will be diabetic if the current trends continue – just in the next decade or so, 100 percent. Think about that and then think about the real conversation out there about health care reform. Remember, if you don't address health, any discussion is essentially pointless.

It's like the captain of a sinking ship arguing about the color of the deck paint.

Now frankly, if the mentally unstable people who run this country were crazy enough to put me in charge of the national health system, oh my, we would have this thing licked in a couple of years. Every pharmaceutical company out there would hate me and the food companies would hate me because I'd make them use nutritious ingredients. I would outlaw those toxic substances that are now added to the food supply (like MSG, aspartame, yeast extract, etc.).

I would make school lunch programs actually serve nutritious food to children. I would ban junk food vending machines. I would have the taxpayers pay for nutritional supplements for all pregnant women because we would save billions of dollars in long-term health care costs by spending PENNIES on nutrition for each expectant mother. I would have some pretty radical ideas that would definitely disturb the status quo. Not surprisingly, we'd end up with a generation of people who are actually healthy.

Wow, imagine that for a change. Drug companies would go out of business. And that's why they can't let it happen. That's why they would never let a guy like me, or even someone with a lot of public health credentials who shared my beliefs, call the shots. It's just too good. It solves so many problems. It eliminates all these jobs in the health care and disease management industries. It would shrink the pharmaceutical industry. It would shrink the sick care system out there. Hospital beds would go empty.

People would live longer and start collecting more social security because now they'd be living longer. The government would have to pay more money because these people wouldn't be dying off as they are today. It would cost the government and the pharmaceutical companies money. Gee, the only people that would be better off would be... well... real people! The public would experience happier people, longer lives, greater cognitive function, greater clarity of mind and healthier, happier children. There would be far less disease, more stable mental states and enhanced learning abilities. These are the benefits that would occur.

So, call me a pessimist if you like, but I think I'm actually a realist and an optimist on a personal level. I'm an optimist in my own health and the health of everybody who wants to take responsibility for their own health. And there are many, many people like that. Just don't expect to hear anything sane or useful from our public health officials or politicians who claim to be solving this health crisis with their ridiculous proposals for health care reform. This is Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, for Truth Publishing.

Guru Nanak was a Hindu- KOENRAAD ELST

Guru Nanak was a Hindu- KOENRAAD ELST

courtesy: http://koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2010/07/guru-nanak-was-hindu.html

In contemporary devotional pictures and posters of Guru Nanak (1469-1539), as seen in taxis and shops, the Guru is invariably shown as wearing a pagari or turban, like his pupils (Sikh-s) today. But this is a recently-imposed convention, not followed in his own day and in subsequent centuries.

In traditional paintings, the Gurus never wore turbans, a custom that even according to Sikh teaching itself was only instituted by the tenth and last Guru, Govind Singh, in 1699. All the Gurus are typically shown as wearing a topi (Hindu-style cap) and patka (sash). We discuss one instance.

K.C. Aryan (born 11 August 1919, died 2002), a Partition refugee from West Panjab, was an accomplished painter. He founded the Museum for Tribal and Folk Art in Gurgaon, still functioning today. He saved plenty of old paintings, sculptures and other arts & crafts objects for posterity by collecting them in his museum or donating them to more established institutions. 

In 1970, he presented to the publishing unit of Punjabi University Patiala a manuscript with illustrations for a book, 100 Years Survey of Panjab Painting (1841-1941). It was eventually published by the PUP in 1975, but only in mutilated form. The Senate Board of the University objected to the inclusion of one particular painting, and threatened that if it were published, the grant for the whole publishing unit would be stopped.

The contentious painting, executed by a Pahari painter in the mid-19th century (whose name, as often in folk art, remains unknown), shows a topi-wearing Guru Nanak praying to Lord Vishnu. The Board took the Sikh-separatist line that that Sikhism has nothing to do with Hinduism, and that the Gurus are above the “Brahminical” gods. It is the same line that keeps the Sikh establishment from calling their central shrine, the Hari Mandir (“Vishnu temple”), by its proper name, hiding it behind the superficial designation “Golden Temple” or the Moghul term “Darbar Sahib”. 

It is also why in 1922 they threw out from the Hari Mandir the murti-s that had been worshipped there ever since Arjan Dev inaugurated it in 1604. Sikh identity as a separate religion, rather than as one of the many panth-s in the Hindu commonwealth, is based on a denial of history, and this requires a constant censoring of unwilling historical data: names changed, scriptures doctored, murti-s thrown away, the publication of a painting suppressed.

K.C. Aryan donated the painting in ca. 1982 to the Himachal State Museum in Shimla. There, it is significantly not on display but kept in storage. That is, if it has not been lost or illegally sold by some babu unconcerned with art and heritage; or somehow eliminated by one with Khalistani.leanings eager to destroy the evidence for an inconvenient fact: that Guru Nanak was every inch a Hindu.

'If Hinduism has to remain respected, it must weed out its Loony Fringe.'

‎'If Hinduism has to remain respected, it must weed out its Loony Fringe.'

Im still trying to find this so called dangrous loony fringe but i cant seem to find them.Are they busy hiding in north warziristan ? lol Hinduism is already respected even with all the anti Hindu nonsense the Indian media tries to promote. Most people abroad are not affected at all.We have yoga schools mushrooming everywhere. Sanskrit is getting popular.The aum is one of the most popular tatoos .Indian food is the most popular.. Vedanta and other hindu schools of thought are getting very popular.Hollywood is using hindu concepts and ideas like recently with 'Avatar' and some future movies which are coming which is sowing hindu ideas in the masses. I know many western Hindus and they know many more.Ive helped to bring in few into Hinduism myself and I’m not even an expert on Hinduism..And I can give many more examples of Hindu culture spreading.Hinduism is spreading by stealth and only Hindus who are aware of the pattern know what is really going on..

So theres is no problem about it losing respect jus because some Hindus smashed a few windows on valentines day ..You need to get out more than hiding under your bed with your laptop and wasting time on FB all day while suffering from paranoia that bajrang dal are looking for you..They’re too busy planning to smash someone’s window then looking for u..So dont worry in the near future you wont be forced to wear oversized colonial khaki shorts which some may say could be the only threat to but to fashion lol

Cancer is not a Disease - It's a Survival Mechanism (Book Excerpt) by: Andreas Moritz, citizen journalist

Cancer is not a Disease - It's a Survival Mechanism (Book Excerpt)

Cancer is not a Disease - It's a Survival Mechanism (Book Excerpt)

by: Andreas Moritz, citizen journalist

Friday, February 01, 2008

courtesy: http://www.naturalnews.com/022578_cancer_body_cells.html

(NaturalNews) What you are about to read may rock or even dismantle the very foundation of your beliefs about your body, health and healing. The title, "Cancer Is Not a Disease" may be unsettling for many, provocative to some, but encouraging for all. This book will serve as a revelation for those who are sufficiently open-minded to consider the possibility that cancer and other debilitating illnesses are not actual diseases, but desperate and final attempts by the body to stay alive for as long as circumstances permit.

It will perhaps astound you to learn that a person who is afflicted with the main causes of cancer (which constitute the real illness) would most likely die quickly unless he actually grew cancer cells. In this work, I provide evidence to this effect.

I further claim that cancer will only occur after all other defense or healing mechanisms in the body have failed. In extreme circumstances, exposure to large amounts of cancer-producing agents (carcinogens) can bring about a collapse of the body's defenses within several weeks or months and allow for rapid and aggressive growth of a cancerous tumor. Usually, though, it takes many years, or even decades, for these so-called "malignant" tumors to form.

Unfortunately, basic misconceptions or complete lack of knowledge about the reasons behind tumor growth have turned "malignant" tumors into vicious monsters that have no other purpose but to kill us in retaliation for our sins or abusing the body. However, as you are about to find out, cancer is on our side, not against us. Unless we change our perception of what cancer really is, it will continue to resist treatment, particularly the most "advanced" methods. If you have cancer, and cancer is indeed part of the body's complex survival responses and not a disease, as I suggest it is, you must find answers to the following pressing questions:

* What reasons coerce your body into developing cancer cells?

* Once you have identified these reasons, will you be able to change them? What determines the type and severity of cancer with which you are afflicted?

* If cancer is a survival mechanism, what needs to be done to prevent the body from taking recourse to such drastic defense measures?

* Since the body's original genetic design always favors the preservation of life and protection against adversities of any kind, why would the body permit self-destruction?

* Why do almost all cancers disappear by themselves, without medical intervention?

* Do radiation, chemotherapy and surgery actually cure cancer, or do cancer survivors heal due to other reasons, despite these radical, side-effect-loaded treatments?

* What roles do fear, frustration, low self-worth and repressed anger play in the origination and outcome of cancer?

* What is the spiritual growth lesson behind cancer?

To deal with the root causes of cancer, you must find satisfying and practical answers to the above questions. If you feel the inner urge to make sense of this life-changing event, (cancer that is), you most likely will recover from it. Cancer can be your greatest opportunity to help restore balance to all aspects of your life, but it can also be the harbinger of severe trauma and suffering. Either way you are always in control of your body.

To live in a human body, you must have access to a certain amount of life-sustaining energy. You may either use this inherent energy in a nourishing and self-sustaining or in a destructive and debilitating way. In case you consciously or unconsciously choose negligence or self-abuse over loving attention and self-respect, your body will likely end up having to fight for its life.

Cancer is but one of the many ways the body tries to change the way you see and treat yourself, including your body. This inevitably brings up the subject of spiritual health, which plays at least as important a role in cancer as physical and emotional reasons do.

Cancer appears to be a highly confusing and unpredictable disorder. It seems to strike the very happy and the very sad, the rich and the poor, the smokers and the non-smokers, the very healthy and the not so healthy. People from all backgrounds and occupations can have cancer. However, if you dare look behind the mask of its physical symptoms, such as the type, appearance and behavior of cancer cells, you will find that cancer is not as coincidental or unpredictable as it seems to be.

What makes 50% of the American population so prone to developing cancer, when the other half has no risk at all? Blaming the genes for that is but an excuse to cover up ignorance of the real causes. Besides, any good genetic researcher would tell you that such a belief is void of any logic and outright unscientific (as explained in the book).

Cancer has always been an extremely rare illness, except in industrialized nations during the past 40-50 years. Human genes have not significantly changed for thousands of years. Why would they change so drastically now, and suddenly decide to kill scores of people? The answer to this question is amazingly simple: Damaged or faulty genes do not kill anyone. Cancer does not kill a person afflicted with it! What kills a cancer patient is not the tumor, but the numerous reasons behind cell mutation and tumor growth. These root causes should be the focus of every cancer treatment, yet most oncologists typically ignore them. Constant conflicts, guilt and shame, for example, can easily paralyze the body's most basic functions, and lead to the growth of a cancerous tumor.

After having seen thousands of cancer patients over a period of three decades, I began to recognize a certain pattern of thinking, believing and feeling that was common to most of them. To be more specific, I have yet to meet a cancer patient who does not feel burdened by some poor self-image, unresolved conflict and worries, or past emotional trauma that still lingers in his/her subconscious. Cancer, the physical disease, cannot occur unless there is a strong undercurrent of emotional uneasiness and deep-seated frustration.

Cancer patients typically suffer from lack of self-respect or worthiness, and often have what I call an "unfinished business" in their life. Cancer can actually be a way of revealing the source of such inner conflict. Furthermore, cancer can help them come to terms with such a conflict, and even heal it altogether. The way to take out weeds is to pull them out along with their roots. This is how we must treat cancer; otherwise, it may recur eventually.

The following statement is very important in the consideration of cancer: "Cancer does not cause a person to be sick; it is the sickness of the person that causes the cancer." To treat cancer successfully requires the patient to become whole again on all levels of his body, mind and spirit. Once the cancer causes have been properly identified, it will become apparent what needs to be done to achieve complete recovery.

It is a medical fact that every person has cancer cells in the body all the time. These cancer cells remain undetectable through standard tests until they have multiplied to several billion. When doctors announce to their cancer patients that the treatments they prescribed had successfully eliminated all cancer cells, they merely refer to tests that are able to identify the detectable number of cancerous cells. Standard cancer treatments may lower the number of cancer cells to an undetectable level, but this certainly cannot eradicate all cancer cells. As long as the causes of tumor growth remain intact, cancer may redevelop at any time and at any rate.

Curing cancer has little to do with getting rid of a group of detectable cancer cells. Treatments like chemotherapy and radiation are certainly capable of poisoning or burning many cancer cells, but they also destroy healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract, liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, etc., which often leads to permanent irreparable damage of entire organs and systems in the body. A real cure of cancer does not occur at the expense of destroying other vital parts of the body.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of people who were once "successfully" treated for cancer die from infections, heart attacks, liver failure, kidney failure and other illnesses because the cancer treatments generate a massive amount of inflammation and destruction in the organs and systems of the body. Of course, these causes of death are not being attributed to cancer. This statistical omission makes it appear we are making progress in the war against cancer. However, many more people are dying from the treatment of cancer than from cancer. A real cure or cancer is achievable only when the causes of excessive growth of cancer cells have been removed or stopped.

Power in the Word

Cancer is the second leading "cause" of death for Americans. According to the American Cancer Society, about 1.2 million cases will be diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. in 2008. More than 552,000 Americans will die of it. Among men, the top three cancer diagnoses are expected to be prostate cancer (180,400 cases), lung cancer (89,500 cases), and colorectal cancer (63,600). The leading types of cancer among women are breast cancer (182,800 cases), lung cancer (74,600), and colorectal cancer (66,600 cases).

Cancer is not just a word, but also a statement that refers to abnormal or unusual behavior of cells in the body. However, in quite a different context, cancer is referred to as a star sign. When someone tells you that you are a "cancer", are you going to tremble with fear of dying? It is unlikely, because your interpretation of being of the cancer sign does not imply that you have cancer, the illness. But if your doctor called you into his office and told you that you had cancer, you would most likely feel paralyzed, numb, terrified, hopeless, or all of the above.

The word "cancer" has the potential to play a very disturbing and precarious role, one that is capable of delivering a death sentence. Being a cancer patient seems to start with the diagnosis of cancer, although its causes may have been there for many years prior to feeling ill. Within a brief moment, the word "cancer" can turn someone's entire world upside down.

Who or what in this world has bestowed this simple word or statement with such great power that it can preside over life and death? Or does it really? Could it actually be that our collective, social belief that cancer is a killer disease, in addition to the aggressive treatments that follow diagnosis, are largely responsible for the current dramatic escalation of cancer in the Western hemisphere? Too far fetched, you might say! In this book, however, I will make the point that cancer can have no power or control over us, unless we unconsciously allow it to grow in response to the beliefs, perceptions, attitudes, thoughts, feelings we have, and the life choices we make.

Would we be just as afraid of cancer if we knew what caused it or at least understood what its underlying purpose is? Unlikely so! If truth were told, we would most probably do everything to remove the causes and, thereby, set the preconditions for the body to heal itself.

A little knowledge (which is what we call ignorance) is, in fact, a dangerous thing. Almost everyone, at least in the industrialized world, knows that drinking water from a filthy pond or polluted lake can cause life-threatening diarrhea, but still only few realize that holding on to resentment, anger and fear, or eating fast foods, chemical additives, and artificial sweeteners, is no less dangerous than drinking polluted water; it may just take a little longer to kill a person than tiny amoeba can.

Mistaken Judgment

We all know that if the foundation of a house is strong, the house can easily withstand external challenges, such as a violent storm. As we will see, cancer is merely an indication that there is something missing in our body and in life as a whole. Cancer shows that life as a whole (physical, mental and spiritual) stands on shaky grounds and is quite fragile, to say the least. It would be foolish for a gardener to water the withering leaves of a tree when he knows so well that the real problem is not where it appears to be, namely, on the symptomatic level (of withered leaves). By watering the roots of the plant, he naturally attends to the causative level, and consequently, the plant regenerates itself swiftly and automatically.

To the trained eye of a gardener, the symptom of withering leaves is not a dreadful disease. He recognizes that the dehydrated state of these leaves is but a direct consequence of withdrawn nourishment that they need in order to sustain themselves and the rest of the plant.

Although this example from nature may appear to be a simplistic analogy, it offers a profound understanding of very complex disease processes in the human body. It accurately describes one of the most powerful and fundamental principles controlling all life forms on the planet. However skilled we may have become in manipulating the functions of our body through the tools of allopathic medicine, this basic, highly evolved principle of evolution cannot be suppressed or violated without paying the hefty price of side-effect-riddled suffering and pain - physically, emotionally and spiritually.

I fervently challenge the statement that cancer is a killer disease. Furthermore, I will demonstrate that cancer is not a disease at all. Many people who received a "terminal" cancer sentence actually defied the prognosis and experienced total remission.

The Need for Answers

There is no cancer that has not been survived by someone, regardless how far advanced it was. If even one person has succeeded in healing his cancer, there must be a mechanism for it, just as there is a mechanism for creating cancer. Every person on the planet has the capacity for both. If you have been diagnosed with cancer, you may not be able to change the diagnosis, but it is certainly in your power to alter the destructive consequences that it (the diagnosis) may have on you. The way you see the cancer and the steps you take following the diagnosis are some of the most powerful determinants of your future wellness, or the lack of it.

The indiscriminate reference to "cancer" as being a killer disease by professionals and lay people alike has turned cancer into a disorder with tragic consequences for the majority of today's cancer patients and their families. Cancer has become synonymous to extraordinary suffering, pain and death. This is true despite the fact that 90-95 percent of all cancers appear and disappear out of their own accord. There is not a day that passes without the body making millions of cancer cells. Some people, under severe temporary stress make more cancer cells than usual and form clusters of cancerous cells that disappear again once they feel better. Secretions of the DNA's anticancer drug, Interleukin II, drop under physical and mental duress and increase again when relaxed and joyful. Thus, most cancers vanish without any form of medical intervention and without causing any real harm.

Right at this moment, there are millions of people walking around with cancers in their body without having a clue that they have them. Likewise, there are millions of people who heal their cancers without even knowing it. Overall, there are many more spontaneous remissions of cancer than there are diagnosed and treated cancers.

The truth is, relatively few cancers actually become "terminal." However, once diagnosed, the vast majority of all cancers are never even given a chance to disappear on their own. They are promptly targeted with an arsenal of deadly weapons of cell destruction such as chemotherapy drugs, radiation and the surgical knife. The problem with cancer patients is that, terrified by the diagnosis, they submit their bodies to all these cut/burn/poison procedures that, more likely than not, lead them to the day of final sentencing, "We have to tell you with our deepest regret there is nothing more that can be done to help you."

The most pressing question is not how advanced or dangerous a cancer is, but what we need to do to not end up dying from it. Why do some people go through cancer as if it were the flu? Are they just lucky or is there a mechanism at work that triggers the healing? In other words, what is that element that prevents the body from healing cancer naturally, or what is that hidden element that makes cancer so dangerous, if it is dangerous at all?

The answers to all these queries lie with the response of the person who has the cancer, and not with the degree of "viciousness" or advanced stage it appears to have progressed to. Do you believe that cancer is a disease? You will most likely answer with a "yes," given the 'informed' opinion that the medical industry and mass media have fed to the masses for many decades. Yet, the most pressing yet rarely asked question remains: "Why do you think cancer is a disease?" You may say: "Because I know cancer kills people every day." I would question you further: "How do you know that it is the cancer that kills people?" You would probably argue that most people who have cancer die, so obviously it must be the cancer that kills them. Besides, you may reason, all the expert doctors tell us so.

Let me raise another question, a rather strange one: "How do you know for sure that you are the daughter/son of your father and not of another man?" Is it because your mother told you so? What makes you think that your mother told you the truth? Probably because you believe her; and you have no reason not to. After all, she is your mother, and mothers do not lie about these things. Or do they? Although you will never really know that the person you believe to be your father is, in fact, your father, you nevertheless have turned what you subjectively believe into something that you just "know," into an irrefutable truth.

Although there is no scientific proof whatsoever that cancer is a disease (versus a survival mechanism), most people will insist that it is a disease because this is what they were told to believe. Yet their belief is only hearsay information based on other people's opinions. These other people heard it from someone else. Eventually, the "truth" of cancer being a disease can be traced to some doctors who expressed their subjective feelings or beliefs about what they observed and wrote about in some review articles or medical reports. Other doctors agreed with their opinion, and before long, it became a "well-established" fact that cancer is a vicious illness that somehow gets hold of people in order to kill them. However, the truth of the matter may be quite different.

Wisdom of Cancer Cells

Cancer cells are not part of a malicious disease process. When cancer cells spread (metastasize) throughout the body, it is not their purpose or goal to disrupt the body's vitals functions, infect healthy cells and obliterate their host (the body). Self-destruction is not the theme of any cell unless, of course, it is old and worn-out and ready to be turned-over and replaced. Cancer cells, like all other cells, know that if the body dies, they will die as well. Just because some people assume that cancer cells are there to destroy the body does not mean cancer cells have such a purpose or ability.

A cancerous tumor is neither the cause of progressive destruction nor does it actually lead to the death of the body. There is nothing in a cancer cell that has even remotely the ability to kill anything. What eventually leads to the demise of an organ or the entire body is the wasting away of cell tissue resulting from continued deprivation of nutrients and life force. The drastic reduction or shutdown of vital nutrient supplies to the cells of an organ is not primarily a consequence of a cancerous tumor, but actually its biggest cause.

By definition, a cancer cell is a normal, healthy cell that has undergone genetic mutation to the point that it can live in an anaerobic surrounding (an environment where oxygen is not available). In other words, if you deprive a group of cells of vital oxygen (their primary source of energy), some of them will die, but others will manage to alter their genetic software program and mutate in a most ingenious way: the cells will be able to live without oxygen and derive some of their energy needs from such things as cellular metabolic waste products.

It may be easier to understand the cancer cells phenomenon when comparing it with the behavior of common microorganisms. Bacteria, for example, are divided into two main groups, aerobic and anaerobic, meaning, those that need to use oxygen and those that can live without it. This is important to understand since we have more bacteria in our body than we have cells. Aerobic bacteria thrive in an oxygenated environment. They are responsible for helping us with the digestion of food and manufacturing of important nutrients, such as B-vitamins. Anaerobic bacteria, on the other hand, can appear and thrive in an environment where oxygen does not reach. They break down waste materials, toxic deposits and dead, worn-out cells.

The body sees the cancer as being such an important defense mechanism that it even causes the growth of new blood vessels to guarantee the much-needed supply of glucose and, therefore, survival and spreading of the cancer cells. It knows that cancer cells do not cause but, prevent death; at least for a while, until the wasting away of an organ leads to the demise of the entire organism. If the trigger mechanisms for cancer (causal factors) are properly taken care of, such an outcome can be avoided.

It is commonly believed that our immune system protects us against cancer. However, this is only partially true. On the one hand, the immune system readily destroys the millions of cancer cells that a healthy human body produces as part of the daily turnover of 30 billion cells. On the other hand, the immune system takes no action to eradicate cancer cells that develop in response to a build up of toxins, congestion and emotional stress.

Cancers and all other tissues in the body are larded with cancer-killing white cells, such as T-cells. In the case of kidney cancer and melanomas, for example, white cells make up 50 per cent of the mass of the cancers. Since these T-cells easily recognize foreign or mutated cell tissue such as cancer cells, you would expect these immune cells to attack cancer cells right away. However, the immune system allows cancer cells to recruit it to actually increase and spread the cancer to other parts of the body. Cancer cells produce specific proteins that tell the immune cells to leave them alone and help them to grow

Why would the immune system want to collaborate with cancer cells to make more or larger tumors? Because cancer is a survival mechanism, not a disease. The body uses the cancer to keep deadly carcinogenic substances and caustic metabolic waste matter away from the lymph and blood and, therefore, from the heart, brain and other vital organs. Killing off cancer cells would in fact jeopardize its survival. Cleansing the body of accumulated toxins and waste products through the various cleansing methods advocated in my book Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation (www.ener-chi.com) removes the need for cancer.

Cancer is not a disease; it is the final and most desperate survival mechanism the body has at its disposal. It only takes control of the body when all other measures of self-preservation have failed. To truly heal cancer and what it represents in a person's life we must come to the understanding that the reason the body allows some of its cells to grow in abnormal ways is in its best interest and not an indication that it is about to destroy itself. Cancer is a healing attempt by the body for the body. Blocking this healing attempt can destroy the body. Supporting the body in its healing efforts can save it.

Andreas Moritz's book, Cancer is not a Disease - It's a Survival Mechanism, explains the root causes of cancer and how to eliminate them for good. Available through www.amazon.com or www.ener-chi.com.

About the author

Andreas Moritz is a medical intuitive; a practitioner of Ayurveda, iridology, shiatsu, and vibrational medicine; a writer; and an artist. He is the author of the international bestseller, The Amazing Liver and Gallbladder Flush; Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation, Lifting the Veil of Duality, Cancer Is Not a Disease, It's Time to Come Alive, Heart Disease No More, Diabetes No More, Simple Steps to Total Health, Diabetes—No More, Ending the AIDS Myth and Heal Yourself with Sunlight. For more information, visit the author's website: www.ener-chi.com

Scientists astounded: 83-year-old man lives without food, water by: David Gutierrez, staff writer

Scientists astounded: 83-year-old man lives without food, water

Scientists astounded: 83-year-old man lives without food, water

by: David Gutierrez, staff writer

Sunday, September 12, 2010

courtesy: http://www.naturalnews.com/029716_fasting_health.html

(NaturalNews) Scientists with India's Defense Research and Development Organization claim they have observed 83-year-old yogi Prahlad Jani go without food or water for two weeks. Even more shockingly, Jani claims he has not eaten or drunk anything since some time during World War II.

"I can't recall exactly what it was," he said. "It was such a long time ago."

In a 15-day study, Jani was kept under isolation in an Ahmedabad hospital while doctors monitored the function of his organs, brain, blood vessels, heart, lungs and memory.

"[Jani's] only contact with any kind of fluid was during gargling and bathing periodically during the period," said G. Ilavazahagan, director of India's Defense Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences.

'What is truly astonishing, and something we have no explanation for, is that he has not passed stools or urine. To my knowledge, that is medically unprecedented.'

Although results from more intensive DNA, hormone, enzyme and energy metabolism tests have yet to come back, all scans performed during the study came back normal.

"The reports were all in the pre-determined safety range through the observation period," said neurologist Sudhir Shah.

"We still do not know how he survives."

Jani says he was blessed by a goddess at the age of 15.

"Although I walk 100 or 200 kilometers in the jungle, I never sweat and don't feel tired or sleepy," he said. "I can meditate for three, eight or 12 hours -- or even months."

Sanal Edamaruku of the Indian Rationalist Association questioned the study's findings, noting that his request to independently monitor the experiment was denied.

"Dr Shah has been in charge of three similar investigations over the past ten years, and he has never allowed independent verification," Edamaruku said. "This particular hospital, led by this particular doctor, keeps on making these claims without ever producing evidence or publishing research."

Starvation diets are known to produce dangerous and even fatal effects within days and should not be tried at home.

Sources for this story include: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.ce6e076d355a498ef621bad2bbef1a32.f1&show_article=1  ; 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1274779/The-man-says-eaten-drunk-70-years-Why-eminent-doctors-taking-seriously.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

The man who says he hasn't eaten or drunk for 70 years: Why are eminent doctors taking him seriously?

By TOM RAWSTORNE

Last updated at 1:11 AM on 8th May 2010

There are few people, however busy their lives, unable to remember the last meal that they consumed. But Prahlad Jani is one of them. 

And the reason is that the last morsel of food that he says passed his lips did so in the early years of World War II.

‘I can’t recall exactly what it was,’ the 82-year-old Indian admits. ‘It was such a long time ago.’ 

During the 70-odd years since, Mr Jani says he has eaten not so much as a single grain of rice nor consumed a drop of water. And while such an extended gap between meals might be expected to have a fatal impact on the activities of one so deprived, this octogenarian says he’s never felt better.

Tests: 83-year-old Prahlad Jani has twice attended hospital to be watched round the clock by eminent doctors

‘Although I walk 100 or 200 kilometres in the jungle, I never sweat and don’t feel tired or sleepy,’ he says. ‘I can meditate for three, eight or 12 hours — or even months.’

No food? No water? Superhuman strength? One straitjacket (size zero) for Mr Jani, please.

It is, of course, more than tempting to dismiss this Hindu holy man and his claims as the stuff of absolute nonsense.

Medical science tells us that human beings rarely survive more than a week without water, and a couple of months at most without food. To even suggest otherwise is ridiculous, and also potentially dangerous. 

Practitioners of extreme starvation diets can cause serious damage to their bodies, leading to death. And yet, despite all that is known, there is a growing bandwagon that says Mr Jani and his incredible claims should not be dismissed entirely out of hand.

On Thursday afternoon, he emerged from hospital in the Indian state of Gujarat, where he had spent 15 days. He was monitored around the clock and, according to the medics who oversaw him, consumed no food and no water whatsoever.

No human should be able to survive such conditions unscathed — the lack of water alone should have killed him. But Mr Jani apparently suffered absolutely no ill-effects at all.

Hindu: Mr Jani is one of countless from his religion to make claims of unworldly feats

Attending a press conference at the Sterling Hospital in Ahmedabad, he said: ‘I am fit and strong today and even the doctors agree. They ran every test possible for 15 days and proved that I do not need food to keep me strong. 

'I am strong and healthy, because it is the way God wants me to be.’

So what is the explanation for his ability to endure such privations? No one knows for sure. But over the next three months, the medics will attempt to come up with some answers as they study the results of a battery of tests.

Military scientists drawn from India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation believe that Mr Jani could hold the key to understanding how humans can be taught to survive for long periods without sustenance.

‘It is possible that it will be able to help save human lives during natural disasters, high altitude, sea journeys and other natural and human extremities,’ said a spokesman for the team.

‘We can educate people about the survival techniques in adverse conditions with little food and water, or nothing at all.’ He added: ‘If his claims are verified, it will be a breakthrough in medical science.’

By any standards that is a very big ‘if’. For starters, the doctors are considering only the two weeks during which Mr Jani was under their supervision. His claims not to have eaten for the preceding seven decades can and will never be verified. The same goes for much of his early history.

According to his version of events — and there is no other — Mr Jani left his home in Rajasthan at the age of seven, and went to live in the jungle.

When he reached the age of 11, he underwent a religious experience during which he became a follower of the Hindu goddess Amba. In her honour, he chose to dress as a female devotee, wearing a red sari-like garment, nose-ring, bangles and crimson flowers in his shoulder-length hair. 

In return, Mr Jani believes that the goddess has sustained him ever since by feeding him with a lifegiving, invisible ‘elixir’, which has supposedly given him the strength to continue without food or water. 

For at least the past 40 years, Mr Jani has been living, hermit-like, in a cave in the jungles close to the Gujarati temple of Ambaji. He rises at 4am, spending most of the day meditating. 

While well-known locally, for many years Mr Jani was no more famous than the millions of other Hindu holy men — sadhus or yogi as they are known — in India. 

Mystical figures, these individuals renounce normal life for one on the margins of society, focusing every waking minute on the spiritual. They often assume austere or extreme practices — standing on one leg or refusing to talk for years on end.

Like Mr Jani, many sadhus regularly undergo lengthy periods of fasting. But the claim that his fast had endured for decades caught the public imagination and first propelled him into the limelight. 

Challenged to prove that he could survive without food or water, in 2003 he underwent his first hospital investigations. Then, as now, he was placed under the care of Dr Sudhir Shah, a consultant neurologist from Ahmedabad who specialises in studying people with seemingly ‘supernatural’ powers.

Doctors had prepared a special glass-walled room equipped with CCTV cameras to monitor Mr Jani for ten days. The toilet was sealed to test his claim that he had no need to urinate or defecate. 

The only fluid allowed was a small amount of water, to use as mouthwash. This was collected and measured in a beaker when he spat it out, to make sure that none had been drunk. 

Scans revealed some urine accumulation in his bladder, but this seemed to be re-absorbed by the body because it was never passed. 

In every other respect, clinically, Mr Jani was found to be perfectly normal. 

While the results secured him an international following, they failed to offer any concrete answers. As a result, Dr Shah and the military team decided to repeat the experiment this year.

'We may never know the truth, but until he is exposed as a fraud, perhaps we should enjoy suspending our disbelief and give Mr Jani the benefit of the doubt'

So, on April 22, Mr Jani re-entered the hospital for 15 days of tests. They ended on Thursday afternoon with doctors admitting that they were baffled by what they had seen. 

Presenting their preliminary findings, Dr Shah was joined by biologist Dr Ilavashagn, director of the Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), a heavily-funded department of the Defence Research and Development Organisation.

The doctors announced that despite apparently living on thin air for two weeks, the holy man was more healthy than someone half his age. 

Blood tests, hormone profiles, MRIs and angiographs (imaging tests of the blood vessels) all pointed to the conclusion that Mr Jani had not needed to eat, drink or use the toilet once. 

Dr Ilavazhagn said: ‘Clinical, biochemical, radiological and other relevant examinations were done on Prahlad Jani and all reports were within the safe range throughout the study. He is healthy, his mind is sharp. 

'What is truly astonishing, and something we have no explanation for, is that he has not passed stools or urine. To my knowledge, that is medically unprecedented.’

There will be many who maintain that the latest tests prove nothing — and that Mr Jani’s survival is down to nothing more mysterious than trickery.

That’s the view held by the Indian Rationalist Association, an organisation which publicly campaigns against superstition and spiritual fraudsters.

It has attacked the Indian Ministry of Defence for even agreeing to take part in the tests, accusing them of being ‘taken in by the absurd claims of a village fraud’. 

Sanal Edamaruku, the association’s secretary general, told the Mail: ‘I asked to be allowed to send an independent team to survey the room where this test is taking place, but I was repeatedly turned down. 

'It is ridiculous to ask people to believe that any man can go 15 days, let alone 70 years, without food or water. 

Seven decades: Mr Jani claims he had a religious experience as a teenager

‘Dr Shah has been in charge of three similar investigations over the past ten years, and he has never allowed independent verification. 

'In 2000, he was asking for funds to investigate a man he claimed got his energy from the sun, just like plants do.

‘In 2003, he even approached NASA for funds to investigate Mr Jani, claiming astronauts might benefit from the research. This particular hospital, led by this particular doctor, keeps on making these claims without ever producing evidence or publishing research.’

Mr Edamaruku is convinced that Mr Jani must have had access to food and water at the hospital, and does not believe that he was kept under strict supervision around the clock. 

He says that whenever the Rationalist Association has investigated individuals making similar claims, all have been exposed as frauds. 

In 1999, they investigated a woman who claimed that she was the reincarnation of another Hindu goddess. For five years, she had remained alone in a small closet where it was claimed she had not eaten nor passed any urine or faeces. 

In co-operation with the police, investigators from the association searched the room, finding a toilet hidden behind a shelf and a disguised hole through which she received food. Blood tests revealed the presence of glucose, indicating the intake of food.

To further prove the case, a gas was released into the room that made the woman vomit. The contents of her stomach were found to include pieces of recently-eaten chapatti and potatoes. 

'I am strong and healthy, because it is the way God wants me to be,’ says Prahlad Jani

  

Mr Edamaruku is concerned that by publicising the activities of individuals such as Mr Jani, others will be encouraged to copy. 

‘The Hindu religion is a belief system that’s all about magical thinking, about great things happening that are not understandable to the ordinary person,’ he explained. 

‘These claims are very dangerous, because people try to follow these holy men and can end up hurting themselves.

‘In any other religion there’s a priest who requires a lot of training and there’s a structure which means people can’t just make up their qualifications. 

'In Hinduism, anyone can become a guru overnight. You just decide that’s what you are, dress the part and become it.’

Perhaps he’s right. Doesn’t logic and common sense dictate that Prahlad Jani must be tricking the world somehow? 

And yet, there’s a part of all of us that would love to believe such a human ‘miracle’ could be true. 

After all, isn’t a consultant neurologist staking his reputation on these tests being entirely watertight? 

We may never know the truth, but until he is exposed as a fraud, perhaps we should enjoy suspending our disbelief and give Mr Jani the benefit of the doubt. 

After all, wouldn’t life be boring if everything was rational?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1274779/The-man-says-eaten-drunk-70-years-Why-eminent-doctors-taking-seriously.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz0zR5UtaWV