Mike Adams

Mike Adams

Truth Publishing International, Ltd  P. O. Box 29-99 Taichung, Taichung City 40899 Taiwan
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 Conquering the Common Cold

Contents

1 Beat that cold so you can get on with your life

3 What you're about to learn

4 The true causes of the common cold

5 The real culprit: Chronic stress

6 Detecting the early warning signs of a cold

7 Taking immediate action to halt the cold

9 Don't forget to move your limbs

9 Nutritional supplements for blasting the common cold

10 Vitamins that conquer the cold

11 Whole food concentrates boost your immune response

12 Cold-busting herbs

13 Kicking the cold with everyday foods

14 Raw foods vs. cooked foods during a cold

16 The power of raw berries


 Conquering the Common Cold

17 Danger foods you must avoid

17 How excessive salt consumption worsens your cold

19 Steer clear of dairy products

20 Avoid red meat

21 Stop the sugar habit

22 The importance of hydration

23 Shift the pH of your diet

25 Managing the stress factor

27 Review of concepts

28 Important changes in your exercise routine

29 Gentle, low-stress activities are the key

30 Listen to your appetite

32 Boosting your natural energy

33 Don't expend energy on others

35 Medical myths about the common cold

36 The orange juice myth

37 The medication myth

38 Even over-the-counter drugs may be dangerous

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 Conquering the Common Cold

40 The fever myth

42 The antibiotics myth

43 Breeding grounds for superbugs

44 Your body is not entirely human

45 Think twice before taking antibiotics

45 The myth of antibacterial soaps

46 More useless products: Antibacterial pencils

48 Why people stay sick longer than they should

49 Symptomless flu

50 Your amazing immune system

51 Now you know the answers

52 If you're sick, work with professionals

III
 Conquering the Common Cold

Introduction

This is a book about how to conquer the common cold. You might ask, "Why
do we need a book like this? Don't we have doctors out there treating colds?"
Well, sure we do, but they're treating them with antibiotics, which are utterly
useless against viruses. Any doctor will tell you that. Mostly, doctors give
people antibiotics for a placebo effect. Then people go home and continue
with their own healing process. Eventually, they get over the cold and say,
"Oh yeah, the antibiotics really worked," but, in fact, they didn't.

There are so many myths and so much misinformation about the common
cold, like that you should eat chicken soup to get over a cold or that a fever
is bad for you or that you should use antibacterial soaps in your kitchen
to avoid catching a cold. There is so much misinformation that it is time
somebody went out there and told the truth about this. That's what this
book is all about. Here, you're going to get very practical and down-to-earth
information about how to beat the common cold.

Beat that cold so you can get on with your life

This book is not about prevention. It is about beating a cold once you have it.
This is a recipe of exactly what to do, step by step, once you start feeling those
early symptoms of a cold coming on to make sure it takes no longer than 48
hours for you to get back on your feet. This will ensure you don't spend weeks
and weeks suffering from some cold.


 Conquering the Common Cold

That's what normally happens with people. They start to get some early
signs, and what do they do? They take antibiotics and painkillers to mask
the pain symptoms. They try to control their fever. They end up on over-
the-counter drugs that suppress the body's ability to heal itself, and instead
of conquering this cold in 48 hours or less, they end up spending weeks
suffering from this thing. You don't have to do that. You can beat the
common cold in 48 hours or less.

Most of the time, I beat them in one night, and I have rarely been sick in
the past several years. I would say in the past eight or nine years, I have only
been sick maybe two or three times, although I have had bouts of successfully
fighting off cold symptoms that failed to drag me down. Most of the time
when I feel something coming on, I beat it overnight. I do it using this
recipe, because once you know you have a cold coming on, you really have to
scramble. You have to get certain substances into your body very quickly, and
you have to avoid certain other substances. You have to change your lifestyle.
You have to change your sleep patterns, reduce your stress and modify the way
you approach exercise. You have to pay attention to your body and enhance
your body wellness. That's what this book is all about: The recipe for beating
the common cold.

These things are not difficult to do, but you do have to follow the recipe.
If you follow the recipe, you can usually be completely over your sickness
in 48 hours or less. In fact, as I'm writing this, I felt a virus coming on
just yesterday, and I used the same technique that I'm going to share with
you—both last night and this morning—and today I'm perfectly fine. I feel
completely healthy and ready to go on with life after having only spent a
couple of extra hours sleeping. That's a great payoff, compared to spending
weeks fighting a cold the way some people do.


 Conquering the Common Cold

What you're about to learn

Let's cover what you're going to learn in here very quickly, because this is really
a practical guide. This is not about theory. I'm not trying to prove something
to you from a scientific sense. I'm just trying to give you practical information
you can use right now to beat any cold or flu. First we will learn what causes a
common cold and discuss some of a cold's early warning signs.

In America, and in other Western societies, many people are trained to ignore
early warning signs of a cold or cover them up with over-the-counter drugs.
I'm going to show you how to tune in to those early symptoms, so that you
know what's happening with your body and can take precautions early on.

We're going to talk about sleep, supplements, hydration, nutrition, what foods
to avoid and what foods to eat and how to go alkaline and get your body out
of an acidic state. We're going to talk about reducing stress, changing your
exercise patterns, listening to your appetite and keeping your energy inside
yourself so you can use it for healing, rather than wasting it on external things.
We're also going to cover all the medical myths about common colds and the
treatments people think help but actually don't.

Again, this is hands-on, practical information. I understand that most people

who are reading this probably have a cold right now, and they want to get over
it in 24 hours or less, so I'm not going to waste time with a lot of background
information. Let's get started with the actual steps that you can use to get
over this cold as quickly as possible.


 Conquering the Common Cold

The true causes of the common cold

First we must ask: What causes a cold or flu? What is a cold or the flu? Is there
a difference? There's really no technical difference at all. The words "cold" and
"flu" are used interchangeably by the general public. Both colds and flus are
typically caused by a virus, or sometimes a virus with an overlapping bacterial
or fungal infection. But the primary threat, and our focus in this book, is
defeating the virus.

The virus has entered your bloodstream in some way—either through your
respiratory system, your foods, your nose or even through your eyes. It can
get in through your body in lots of places, and once a virus gets in your
body, it starts replicating by taking over the DNA of your cells. It basically
hijacks your biology, using its own genetic code to override yours and start
replicating in your cells.

A lot of people mistakenly believe that a cold or flu is caused merely by the
presence of a virus, but this explanation is actually too simplified. A cold or
flu is really caused by an opportunity. You walk around the world every single
day with viruses all around you. Every time you touch a doorknob or blow
your nose, every time you pick up a fork or drink out of a glass in a restaurant
and every time you brush your teeth or flush a toilet, you are exposing yourself
to viruses—literally millions of viruses. Well, why don't those viruses make
you sick? If viruses cause the cold, how come they don't make you sick?

The answer is because most of the time your immune system is doing its job.
You have a defense against infectious disease. This defense normally works just
fine. The only time you get a cold is when your defenses are down, when
your immune system is suppressed or, for some reason, fails to do its job.


 Conquering the Common Cold

The real culprit: Chronic stress

The number one cause of immune system suppression in the human body
today is chronic stress. This stress can come from many places. It can come
from a lack of sleep, or it can be dietary stress due to the consumption
of processed foods, soft drinks or nutritionally depleted foods. It can also
be emotional stress or relationship stress. It can be environmental stress
from the air you breathe, the water you drink or a lack of sunshine. You
can have all kinds of stresses, and, ultimately, these stresses suppress your
immune system.

Stress depletes your body of vitamins and makes it so you cannot defend
yourself against invading viruses. This creates the opportunity in which a
virus can get through your defenses, and, after a few hours of replication,
you start feeling the symptoms of a cold or flu. So it's not merely the virus
that really causes the cold or the flu; it's also your lack of defense. It's your
suppressed immune system. The virus is just waiting for an opportunity.

Therefore, maintaining a high-performing immune system that can do its job

and defend itself makes instant sense when you think about how to prevent
getting a cold or flu. Keep this in mind when people say, "I got another virus."
They blame the virus and think they have to solely attack the virus, but that's
not the full story. It's really about boosting your immune system function.

You have the best nanotechnology system ever invented on the planet
coursing through your veins right now. It's part of your DNA; it's part of
your blueprint. It's nanotechnology. It is a highly complex immune system
that's ready to go to work for you if you just give it the tools it needs and stop
putting it under so much stress.

If you think about the last time you got a cold or the flu, there was probably
some highly stressful event that immediately preceded it. Maybe you got


 Conquering the Common Cold

fired from a job or had a big argument with somebody close to you. Maybe
you had an extreme workout—extreme strength training or cardiovascular
training—and you stressed your body physically.

Maybe you were traveling, and you had jet lag from sitting on an airplane
for six or eight hours—that is stressful to the human body. Oxygen levels
are actually depleted in the blood of air passengers, and that's stressful. Any
of these things could precede your "catching" a flu or cold, so to speak. This
teaches you, once again, that it is really the suppressed immune system that
determines your susceptibility to the cold or the flu, not merely the presence
of viruses.

Detecting the early warning signs of a cold

Let's talk about the early warning signs of a cold or flu. How do you know
that you have one coming on? This has to do with body awareness. You must
start paying attention to your body, because if you ignore these early warning
signs and don't notice things until they're really bad, then it's often too late
to do much good in terms of a lot of these supplements. You need to catch
this early, and that means tuning in to your body.

There are basically three big signs that can tell you things are going wrong.
Number one is fatigue: If you suddenly feel unusually tired in the middle of
the afternoon, and you don't know why, it is a sign your immune system is
suppressed and that you're fighting something. You may not know what it
is yet, and you may not have any other signs, but something's going on. A
normal, healthy human being doesn't get tired all of a sudden, for no reason.
If you feel tired, there's a reason for it. It could mean you're infected with a
virus.

Number two: If you have a sore throat—even if you just start to feel a little


 Conquering the Common Cold

If you suddenly feel unusually tired in

the middle of the afternoon, and you
don’t know why, it is a sign your immune
system is suppressed and that you’re
fighting something.

bit of soreness at the very back of your tongue or at the very top of your
throat—this is an early sign. You may not be sure what this soreness is. Maybe
it just feels a little dry, but you drink some water and find out it's still sore.
This is an early sign that something's wrong, and it's time to deal with this.

The third sign is the easiest one to pick up, and it is the most common in my
experience: Aching joints or an aching spine. If you get lower backaches for
no reason, this probably means you're fighting a virus. Something is wrong
there. You're not supposed to just randomly hurt all of a sudden.

Taking immediate action to halt the cold

Let's move on to the steps you should take after you notice these signs. The
first step you need to take is to get a lot of sleep. This is the most important
strategy you can use to beat the common cold. You have to get lots of sleep—as
much as you can stand, basically. I say you should get a minimum of 10 hours
of sleep, but if you can sleep 12 hours, then do it.

At this point, you might ask, "What about my job? What about my work?"
Call in sick. That's what sick days are for. Don't force yourself to go to work
the next day; it will just suppress your immune system even more, and then


 Conquering the Common Cold

The third sign is the easiest one to pick

up, and it is the most common in my
experience: Aching joints or an aching
spine. If you get lower backaches for
no reason, this probably means you’re
fighting a virus.

you'll be sick for a week or two. You can often conquer this thing in one night
if you allow yourself to sleep 10 to 12 hours. Even then, after you wake up,
you might feel sleepy in the middle of the day. In that case, you should sleep
again. If you need 16 hours of sleep in that 24-hour period, take it.

Your body needs all this sleep so it can focus its energy and effort on beating
the cold. Your immune system, as miraculous as it is, is still based on biology.
It still takes cellular energy, and it still takes resources to do its work. If you're
running around the house doing laundry or other housework, or if you're
out walking around the city or something, you're taking energy away from
your immune system, and your body only has so much energy. You have to
use this energy in one place or another, so if you stay in bed and sleep, your
immune system gets most of the focus, and it can use that energy to overcome
an infectious disease very quickly.

I say you should drop everything else, cancel all your appointments, rewrite
all your priorities and get yourself some sleep. This is exactly what I do. It
doesn't matter if I'm in the middle of writing an important book or feature
article or if I have an important meeting. I cancel everything and sleep. Sleep
is what will solve this problem, especially when you preload your body with
the right supplements and nutrients, which we will talk about later.


 Conquering the Common Cold

Don't forget to move your limbs

Now, there is one note about this: You don't want to spend all your time
in bed. It is important to move. Movement is important because it moves
your lymph fluid, which is a part of your immune system. You need gentle
body movements as part of your cold recovery strategy. If you don't have any
body movement whatsoever, then you risk stagnation. Your blood and lymph
won't flow very well without movement.

So, while you want to have a lot of sleep, you also want to get up and move
around in a non-stressful way. You need to do more than just walking. You
especially want to lift your arms over your head because this moves the lymph
nodes under your arms. You want to move your legs around, too. Tai chi is
perfect for this, but you don't have to do Tai chi; you can also just do some
stretches or play some air guitar or do whatever you want to do. Just make
sure you're moving your limbs around very gently—not in a stressful way—to
get things moving.

Nutritional supplements for blasting the common cold

Now we need to discuss supplements. What do you take to beat the common
cold? I already talked about antibiotics and how useless those are, so you
don't want to take those unless your doctor is absolutely sure you have a
bacterial or fungal infection (not common, but it does happen). If you do
take antibiotics, by the way, you'll probably end up with diarrhea because
antibiotics destroy the friendly intestinal flora in your system. I've met people
who have had a cold, gone to a doctor for some antibiotics, took them and
said, "This cold gave me diarrhea." I say, "No it didn't; it was the antibiotics
that gave you the diarrhea. If you didn't take those, you'd be just fine. In fact,
you'd probably be over your cold sooner."


 Conquering the Common Cold

There are many things you can take—besides antibiotics—that can help you.
Let's start with the simple things, which are zinc and magnesium. Zinc is
number one in terms of minerals that can help you beat a cold or flu. You
need a lot of zinc to get over a cold. I usually take triple the recommended
dosage on the zinc supplement bottle, which is usually fine because people
tend to be deficient in zinc anyway. But zinc, like any metal, does have a
toxicity level. It you were to eat an entire bottle of zinc supplements, it would
be bad for you, so you don't want to go too crazy with this.

When you are taking any supplements whatsoever, I always recommend—as a

disclaimer—that you work with a naturopath or qualified health practitioner.
Don't take this as any kind of medical advice. I'm merely sharing my personal
experience here. I take a whole lot of zinc. Magnesium is also important,
so if you can get that, take that, too. Zinc and magnesium are of extreme
importance in terms of minerals.

Vitamins that conquer the cold

With vitamins, it's important to get lots of B vitamins. These are very important
for your immune system function. Other vitamins are certainly important, as
well—vitamin D, E and so on—but the B vitamins are especially important
for immune system function. When you combine B vitamins with vitamin
C—and I'm a believer in mega doses of vitamin C when you're fighting a
cold—you tend to get over these colds very quickly. I might take 5,000 to
10,000 milligrams of vitamin C in one 24-hour period. In some people, that
can cause diarrhea; it just depends on your specific tolerance. If you have
doubts, just take 1,000 to 2,000 milligrams. That's a fairly small dosage, and
is nowhere near the levels of toxicity for this vitamin.

You an also take very high doses of B vitamins, because it's very difficult
to overdose on them. B vitamins are water-soluble vitamins. Technically, a

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person can take 10,000 times the recommend daily allowance and still have
no signs of toxicity with the B vitamins (but of course I'm not recommending
that dosage) unless this dosage is repeated daily. That's not true with other
vitamins—like vitamin D or vitamin A or the mineral zinc—but it is true for
vitamin B.

The B vitamins have a unique metabolic pathway, so it's very difficult to

overdose on them. B vitamins will turn your urine yellow, and your body
might get a lot more of it than it can use, but it's cheap prevention compared
to the cost of being sick. Vitamin B is cheap, and I always say to get your
vitamins from natural foods sources whenever possible. I'd much rather eat
some superfoods or whole food concentrates that contain these vitamins than
take isolated supplements.

Whole food concentrates boost your immune response

Speaking of whole food concentrates, you want to take these as supplements.
You can call them whole food concentrates or whole fruit concentrates. These
would include freeze-dried powders of blueberries, figs, pomegranates and
other fruits, especially berries. These can be very potent in terms of antioxidant
capabilities and are effective in protecting your nervous system and boosting
your immune system function.

Fruit concentrates or whole food concentrates enhance a number of

metabolic functions, so you should look for these products. You can find
them in health food stores or various places on the internet. Basically, they
are just vitamins, powders or tablets made from whole food sources, instead
of isolated vitamins.

As of this writing, a couple of the ones I recommend are the Alive Whole
Food Energizer supplement made by Nature's Way and a product from New

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Chapter called Berry Green. The Garden of Life also offers a whole food
concentrate product as well as a fruit concentrate. So if you just look around
the market, you can find these things. A lot of different companies have them,
and it's important for you to get quality ingredients into your body in this
concentrated format.

Cold-busting herbs
Next, we'll talk about some herbs, and these are some of the most potent cold
fighters in terms of supplements because they directly attack the viruses and
stop them from replicating and communicating at a cellular level. These herbs
have proven antiviral properties, and here's what I take: I start with three or
four capsules of olive leaf extract. Then I take aloe vera concentrate, which is
antiviral and a strong booster of immune system function. You don't want
to take the whole aloe vera leaf because the whole leaf contains a chemical
that will loosen your stools quite aggressively and can cause diarrhea. What
you want is the inside gel. The gel won't cause diarrhea, and it is available in
various capsules or soft gels from a variety of companies. You can also take
lemon balm as a tincture, capsule or tablet, depending on how you can find
it. As a warning, the tincture can have an unsavory taste.

Elderberry extract is also good to take. Elderberry exhibits well-documented

antiviral properties. Elderberry really works. You can take this in large doses.
Sometimes I take a half dozen elderberry capsules at once because I want
elderberry in my system. I want those vital nutrients circulating in my blood
and beating the virus.

Then there is green tea. Green tea is antiviral and antibacterial. It boosts
immune system function and the oxygen-carrying ability of your blood, as
does aloe vera. Some of these herbs, including aloe vera, also reduce the
stickiness of your blood cells. In other words, your blood becomes more

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 Conquering the Common Cold

viscous, and there is less friction between your blood cells. This helps your
blood more efficiently carry nutrients—such as oxygen—to the various cells
in your body, which means your immune system function is going to be more
efficient, and the digestive system is going to be more effective. Other herbs
worth mentioning are St. John's Wort and echinacea. If you have those, you
should consider taking them to help fight the common cold or flu bug. As
always, get the approval of a qualified health practitioner before taking any
supplements, especially St. John's Wort, which may interfere with a number
of prescription medications.

Kicking the cold with everyday foods

Foods have healing properties, especially when you deliberately choose foods
to overcome a cold or a virus. So what kind of foods should you eat? And, just
as important, what kinds of foods should you avoid, since getting over a cold
requires avoiding certain foods and food ingredients?

Let's start with what to eat. First of all, you should eat a lot—as much as
you can stand—of ginger, garlic and onion. These three things will help you
conquer any cold or virus. They also happen to be anticancer foods, so not
only will they boost immune system function, they will also help prevent
cancer tumors from growing in your body.

You should also eat culinary herbs. Whether you're talking about peppermint,
cilantro, sage or rosemary, almost every one of the culinary herbs is antiviral.
It you eat them in large quantities, you can really get some impressive levels
of these vital nutrients in your body and in your blood, where they can fight
the cold. So if you happen to love mint, then eat some fresh mint. Fresh is
the only way to go. Artificial mint flavor does nothing for you. You have to
get a fresh source of mint leaves. Growing them yourself is the best option
for potency.

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 Conquering the Common Cold

Next, you want to eat some boiled grains. By boiled grains, I mean whole
grains boiled in water. If you want to sweeten them up a bit, use some stevia,
but don't put any sugar in there, and don't put any salt in there. Those are
two big things to avoid when you're trying to beat the cold, and I'll talk more
about that in a minute.

My top recommended boiled grain is pearled barley. Barley is especially good

for you when you are fighting a cold because it is easy to digest. It doesn't take
a lot of your body's energy to go through your digestive system. In addition
to being relatively easy to digest, barley also helps enhance kidney and
spleen function, which are both important for getting over the cold. While
the kidneys help extract toxins from your blood stream and eliminate these
toxins through your urine, the spleen is important for your immune system
function. So if you have this grain that supports the kidney and spleen, you're
going to be much better off in terms of fighting this cold.

Another whole grain that I strongly recommend is quinoa. Quinoa is good

because it has just the right ratios of fiber, protein and complex carbohydrates.
It's really an outstanding grain, and it's easy to make. You just boil it for 20
minutes, and it boils even more easily than barley. You can add flavor to
quinoa with some cinnamon and stevia, or you can put some apple chunks
or blueberries in there, or add some homemade nutmilk (or cow's milk, if
you drink that). You can easily prepare warm meals with these whole grains,
which is important because you want to eat warm foods.

Raw foods vs. cooked foods during a cold

A lot of the time, when I talk about nutrition for people who are not sick, I
recommend eating a lot of raw foods—raw fruits, raw vegetables, raw nuts and
seeds. However, when you are fighting a cold, I recommend you balance your
consumption of raw foods with cooked foods (although I never recommend

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anything that's cooked at high temperatures, such as deep-fried foods). Why

limit your consumption of raw foods? Because you want to minimize the
effort that your body has to expend to digest these foods. In other words, you
want to predigest them as much as possible before eating them. So if you're
eating some carrots, for example, steam them or blanch them first. If you're
eating some broccoli, steam the broccoli first, or stir-fry it Chinese-style with
some healthy oils, so you don't have to break down all the complex structures
of the broccoli with your digestive tract. This will ease the load on your body
during digestion.

Some of the things that should never be cooked, by the way, are fruits, sugars
of any kind and processed carbohydrates (like white bread or donuts). Also,
animal products (animal meat, fat, milk, etc.) should never be consumed
while fighting a cold, because they stagnate the body and impair your immune
response.

Getting back to vegetables, gently heating them makes some of their nutrients
more bioavailable. For example, when eating carrots, if you want to unlock
more of their beta carotene, it's important to steam them first. The same
thing is true of tomatoes. If you're eating a tomato, and you're trying to get
the lycopene, it's more difficult when that tomato is raw because the lycopene
is chemically bonded to protein molecules. To get the lycopene, you want to
steam the tomatoes first or cook them in some way.

Because of this, eating tomato paste when you're sick is in some ways better
than eating raw tomatoes. Of course, cooked tomatoes lack the enzymes and
energy of raw tomatoes, so I do recommend some raw elements in the diet.
My top choice? Sprouts. Eat small bunches of living sprouts: Bean sprouts,
clover sprouts, broccoli sprouts or even radish sprouts. This is your best living
food during any cold.

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When you’re sick, you should focus

on eating small berries, especially
blueberries, which should be your
number one fruit when you have a cold.

The power of raw berries

I also recommend eating berries raw, and this is something I strongly believe
in. I believe that blueberries, raspberries, cranberries, blackberries—all
these small berries—are the most potent sources of antioxidants found in
nature, other than superfoods and microalgae. Berries are fantastic cold
fighters, and you should get as many of these into your body as you feel
comfortable getting.

You can eat them by the handful. I certainly do. I eat them every day, even
when I'm not sick. When you're sick, you should focus on eating small berries,
especially blueberries, which should be your number one fruit when you have
a cold. You need these fresh berries in your body, and you do not want to
cook them, because, in this case, they're not that difficult to digest. Berries
are easier to digest than vegetables, and if you do cook them, you're going to
lose some of the antioxidant characteristics of these berries. You want to eat
these raw. Never cook fruits.

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Danger foods you must avoid

In addition to what you should eat, we must also talk about what you shouldn't
eat. This is just as important as what you do eat. Some people, after I give
them this list of foods to avoid, say, "Maybe I can manage to not eat these
things for one or two days, but I couldn't do this for my whole life." That's
fine. I'm not trying to convince anybody to eat this way for the rest of his
or her life. Now, if you want to be perfectly healthy, then this is a good way
to eat for the rest of your life, but if you just want to get rid of your cold as
quickly as possible, then you can limit this to just a few days. It's up to you.

This information is meant to help you get over a cold. What you do with
it is up to you, but the truth is, following this advice will help make you
well. To get over a cold, you must have no milk or dairy products, no red
meat, no refined sugar, no white flour and absolutely no added processed salt
whatsoever. That means no milk, no cheese, no yogurt, no hamburgers, no
steak, no sausage, no bacon, no white flour, no white bread, no pastries, no
donuts and no added sugars of any kind, which eliminates a lot of breakfast
cereal products. Finally, you must have no added salt, which means no chicken
soup. None of the common canned soups out there are good for you when
you have a cold.

How excessive salt consumption worsens your cold

Let's address why these foods and food ingredients are so bad when you have
a cold. We'll start with processed salt (common salt). Salt is bad because it
stagnates the body. Although we need a certain amount of salt to be alive, nearly
everyone in modern society today gets far more salt than they could possibly
need. Most people get way too much salt, and when you have too much salt,
you start to actually impair the function of your organs and the movement of
the water from your organs to your blood stream throughout your body.

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This actually impairs the flow of water through your body. Water follows salt;
wherever you put salt, it will absorb water. If you consume all this excess salt,
you're actually going to have too much water in some places in your body and
not enough water in other places, because most people don't drink enough
water. You're going to have all these organs and tissues loaded with salt and
starving for water. They will try to pull water out of the bloodstream. In this
way, excess salt actually creates excessive dehydration at the organ level, so too
much salt is very bad for you.

As we all know, hypertension and high blood pressure are some of the clinical
side effects of long-term excess salt consumption, but the real problem with
salt has to do with hydration and water balance. If you want to get rid of your
cold, you have to allow your immune system to flow and do its job. It has to
move freely through your body and be able to carry nutrients to your organs
and tissues. It has to be able to carry away waste products from all the cells in
your body, and it can't do that very well if you have too much salt blocking up
all these pathways. It's sort of like trying to slog through mud or molasses.

If you reduce your salt intake, then you will flow much more easily. Your
body will actually be more liquid. Remember, you're around 75 percent water
as it is right now. You have microscopic, chemical "water pumps" in your
body that pump water in and out of the cells, and too much salt imbalances
them. If you want that water to move freely in and out of the cells, and if
you want osmosis to take place at the cellular level as it is supposed to, you've
got to limit that salt. The minute you think you're getting a cold, you should
drastically reduce your salt intake.

The other thing to cover here is the difference between processed salt and
sea salt or Himalayan salt. If you're going to eat any salt at all, make sure
it's a full-spectrum salt that contains trace minerals. Recommended salt
products are Celtic Sea Salt and Himalayan Crystal Salt. These provide a

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healing complement of natural salt from the ocean, and these salts can actually
rebalance your mineral profile, speeding your cold recovery. Never consume
simple table salt. Always choose some variety of natural sea salt instead. It also
tastes better, by the way.

Steer clear of dairy products

The reasons for avoiding milk and dairy products are similar to the reasons
for avoiding salt, although different biochemical or biological pathways
are involved. Milk, like salt, causes stagnation, mostly because it is not
nutritionally designed for human beings. Cow's milk is designed for baby
cows, which is why baby cows drink cow's milk. Human babies, on the other
hand, are designed to drink human milk, not cow's milk. You don't see baby
cows drinking human milk, and you don't see human babies suckling on
cows. Babies know what is good for them, and what is good for them is milk
from their own species.

Nutritionally, cow's milk is very different from human milk, and one of the
most alarming differences involves a protein found in cow's milk called casein.
Casein is a type of protein that is very difficult for humans to digest, although
it is easy for cows to digest. Cows can swallow and digest an entire lawn, so
it's not surprising that they have no problem with casein. But humans do
have a problem with it, and casein becomes an allergen in the human body.

The human body responds to these allergens by creating mucous. Mucous is

designed to insulate the delicate tissues inside the body from invading allergens,
such as casein molecules, which is why people who drink a lot of milk products
often end up with chronic sinus stagnation, runny noses and a lot of phlegm
production in their throats, sinuses and large intestines. These people end up
with constipation and a lot of mucous in their intestinal track, and sometimes
they can't have a bowel movement for days because they're all stopped up.

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Now think about this: If milk and casein produce stagnation in the human
body, is that going to be good for your flow? Is that going to be good for
conquering your cold and enhancing your immune system function? I think
not. Stagnation is bad. It clogs up everything in your body and makes it hard
for you to fight this cold. So milk products are definitely off the list when you
have a cold. Once you get over the cold, if you want to go back to consuming
a liquid extracted from furry animals, that's your choice. Just don't do it
while you're sick if you want to get over the cold.

Avoid red meat

Red meat is another food that causes stagnation. There is no fiber in red
meat, and it is nutritionally imbalanced for heavy consumption by humans.
While it might be okay to eat red meat in very small quantities, most people
in Western societies tend to eat it in very large quantities. They make it the
entire meal, with a little side of rice or a side of vegetables, but it should be the
other way around. It should really be the vegetables with a tiny side of some
kind of meat, if you choose to eat red meat at all.

If you do choose to eat red meat, it should be organic free-range meat, not the
processed meat we get in every grocery story and restaurant in America today.
Red meat is bad for another reason. It's highly acidic and hard to digest. The
acidic nature of read meat helps create an internal environment in your body
in which viruses thrive. If you want to get over the cold, you want more of an
alkaline environment, and that means avoiding red meat.

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Stop the sugar habit

The next ingredient to avoid is sugar. Sugar stresses your organs—most notably
your pancreas, and to some extent to your liver—and also results in nutritional
deficiencies. Sugar strips B vitamins and minerals like magnesium and zinc
right out of your body, because your body actually has to use these vitamins
and minerals to process sugars. In other words, sugar will deplete your body
of the very vitamins and minerals it needs to conqueror a cold.

If you eat sugar, you're going to be missing these vital nutrients, and it's
not just eating sugar that poses a problem; it's also drinking it. Most people
drink sugar in the form of carbonated soft drink beverages that contain an
ingredient called high fructose corn syrup, or just corn syrup, which is little
more than liquid sugar.

When you consume this liquid candy, you deplete your body of essential
nutrients, such as B vitamins, magnesium and zinc, which are the exact
nutrients you need to overcome a cold or flu. I've heard some people say, "I'm
sick. I'm going to drink some Sprite, because it makes my stomach feel better."
I think to myself, "Why not chug some milk, eat some red meat and salty soup
all at once?" Some people do. Then they wonder why they feel worse, and they
wonder why they're still not well after 10 days. On the other hand, people who
follow the recipe in this book feel fine the next day. It really is cause and effect.
You can overcome the common cold if you treat your body right.

If you use these techniques to beat the common cold, you're going to feel
great when it's over with. You're going to feel great because you've stopped
consuming all those sugars, red meats and milk products. You've got all that
garbage out of your diet by basically using a detox diet with outstanding
nutrition for a day or two. You're going to feel great. I ask people, "If you feel
so good, why would you ever go back to eating the old way?" I don't know
why, but some people do.

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The importance of hydration

The next topic is hydration. Hydration is so important when you're sick.
You must drink water—fresh water, spring water, clean water, distilled water,
filtered water—just make sure it's not tap water because tap water contains
chlorine and often fluoride. (That is the subject of another book entirely, but
the bottom line is that tap water is not suitable for human consumption.)
When you are sick, you want water and only water. You should never drink
anything else when you're sick—no juices, no soft drinks and no milk. Tea
is acceptable, especially if it's an herbal tea, but it cannot have any sugars
in it whatsoever, and it should never be cold tea. Warm or hot tea is okay
because it's basically just water with some herbs in it, so it still comes back
to water.

Why do we need so much water when we're sick? Again, it has to do with
flow. Remember, your body is 75 percent water. If you do not have enough
water in your system, your body cannot function properly. If you don't have
enough water, your immune system can't possibly do its job. You cannot
eliminate toxins through your urine if you don't have enough water. One of
the purposes of your kidneys, and your whole elimination system, is to get
rid of these toxins, but if you're not drinking enough water, you have no way
to get rid of them.

When you're sick, you should be urinating with great frequency. You should
be drinking so much water that you have to go to the bathroom every
few hours. If you're not going to the bathroom every few hours, you're
not drinking enough water, and you're not allowing the flow to happen
in your body. It is, of course, possible to overdo it with water, just as with
everything else, so don't chug five gallons of water all at once. You can
literally kill yourself doing that. Just about anything can be toxic in high
enough doses, so be reasonable.

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I drink a lot of water on a normal day, and when I'm sick, I might drink four
liters of water a day. That's a lot of water, and most people don't drink even
close to that. Some people drink no water. Some people get their water only
from other beverages, which I find absolutely amazing, because it's water
that your body craves. It doesn't crave milk, soft drinks or sports drinks,
which are really just artificial colors and salt combined with a few minerals
and a lot of sugar. It doesn't crave these things. Your body is thirsty for water,
and that's what you should drink if you want to get over your cold as quickly
as possible.

Shift the pH of your diet

It's also very important to shift to an alkaline diet, which means eliminating
acidic foods in favor of alkaline foods and beverages. Water is basically pH
neutral, so you're fine with plenty of water, but let's talk about the difference
between alkaline and acidic.

Foods that promote disease are acidic, and these include all sugars, refined
white flour products, refined grains and red meat. Any kind of meat, actually,
is acidic, as are processed foods and fried foods. Snack chips, potato chips
and nacho chips are all highly acidic. On the other hand, alkaline foods
include vegetables like carrots, peas, broccoli, cabbage, squash, potatoes, root
vegetables, nuts, seeds and even fruits.

From a chemical perspective, people will say an orange is acidic, but in terms
of what it does in your body, it has more of an alkaline effect. I treat oranges,
lemons and any of the citrus fruits as being in the healthy food group, even
though, chemically speaking, they're more acidic. Other fruits, like apples,
figs and berries—blueberries, cranberries, raspberries and strawberries—are
all alkaline foods, especially considering their metabolic effect in your body.

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So why do you want an alkaline diet? Alkaline foods boost immune system
function, while an acidic biological environment creates stress. An acidic
environment suppresses your immune system and encourages the growth of
bacteria and viruses. An alkaline environment, on the other hand, suppresses the
growth of bacteria and viruses and enhances your immune system function. You
see this demonstrated in plants all the time. Some plants like more acidic soils,
and some plants like more alkaline soils. If you don't give the plant the right pH
level, that plant will suffer. It will start loosing its leaves and turning brown, and
it just won't grow to its fullest potential. When you give it the right pH—the
pH that it wants—it flourishes and starts producing fruit, flowers, leaves and
structure. It just grows and grows. Much the same is true in your body.

If you create an environment in which bacteria and viruses thrive, then they
will happily do so. On the other hand, if you create more of an alkaline
environment, your immune system will thrive. Your white blood cells will
replicate more quickly, and they will be more effective in protecting your
health. They will be able to hunt down all of these little viruses and bacteria
in your system and actually remove them from your system. Remember, your
immune system is quite a miracle. It's a miracle of nanotechnology, if there
ever was one, but you've got to give it the right environment in which to
operate, and the right environment is a more alkaline environment than what
most people currently have.

How do you get more alkaline? There are a couple of easy ways to do this.
Number one is to take a lot of superfood supplements, like chlorella, spirulina
and whole vegetable concentrates. These are all very alkaline, and while they
may not taste that great, if you can somehow consume them—perhaps by
blending them into a drink—you can change your pH level. You can give
yourself a more alkaline environment. Minerals are also alkaline. If you can
get more magnesium, zinc and calcium into your system, you're going to
support an alkaline environment while helping eliminate internal acidity.

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Now, I don't mean to imply that these strategies are actually going to change
the pH level of your blood. Your blood has to operate in a very narrow window
of pH tolerance. Otherwise, you'll die. That tolerance level is around 7.1. Your
blood has to maintain this level, and your body will do everything it possibly
can to make sure your blood stays exactly in that pH range. For example, if
you drink a lot of soft drinks and have a lot of acidic foods in your system, your
body will actually strip minerals right out of your bones to buffer that acidity
so that it can maintain the proper pH. Your body will even hyperventilate to
exhale more carbon dioxide and inhale more oxygen. (Oxygen is an alkaline
molecule that helps balance the pH level in your blood.)

Your body will do everything necessary to get that pH level balanced, but that
takes work. If you're ingesting all these acidic foods, your body is working
extra hard to balance its blood pH. It's taking energy away from your immune
system. Again, you want to make things as easy as possible on your body,
so that the immune system can have all the power and energy it needs to
overcome infectious disease. You do this by eating alkaline foods and avoiding
all acidic foods and beverages. So again: No sugar, no white flour, no red
meat and no processed foods. What you need are all-natural, alkaline foods
like vegetables, boiled grains, berries, fresh fruits, superfoods, microalgae and
lots of water. These are the things that will make you healthy and help your
immune system do its job to overcome any cold or flu.

Managing the stress factor

Next, it's important to reduce your level of stress. What do I mean by stress?
Stress can include job stress, relationship stress, environmental stress and
physical stress. It can be sleep stress or dietary stress. We've talked about
eliminating dietary stress through smart nutrition, but how can you eliminate
other forms of stress?

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It’s very important to reduce your

stress load. You must take every
precaution to avoid stress while you’re
overcoming this cold.

It's very important to reduce your stress load. You must take every precaution
to avoid stress while you're overcoming this cold. This might just mean calling
into work and saying, "I can't come in today and maybe not even tomorrow,
because I have to overcome this cold." It might mean talking to your spouse
or your family members, and saying, "I have to overcome this cold. Take it
easy on me for the next 48 hours so I can be well. I promise I'll make it up to
you afterward." However you do it, you just need to get that stress off your
back for the next 48 hours so you can recover.

There is also environmental stress. To minimize it, breathe fresh air whenever
possible, and get plenty of sunlight and fresh water. You don't want any
exposure to polluted water, air or light. (Polluted light means florescent
lighting or internal incandescent light, while healthy lighting is full spectrum
lighting.) When it comes to environmental stress, you must think about your
entire environment. For example, make sure you're not breathing in a lot of
mold carried by the air ducts in your home. Make sure you're breathing
clean air and getting fresh air and sunlight whenever possible. Don't drive in
traffic where you're inhaling a lot of toxic fumes from all the cars out there.
Don't smoke a lot of cigarettes. Don't sit under artificial lighting for too
many hours.

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Part of this stress reduction strategy involves a bit of letting go. I know some
people get stressed out when they don't go to work. They say, "I'm getting
a day off, but I feel stressed out about it. I feel guilty because I'm not going
to work." My advice is, give yourself a break. Take the day off. Consider it a
vacation day. It's your sickness recovery day. Take it easy. Rent some movies.
Eat some berries. Just have some relaxing time. Maybe this is some time to
catch up on some reading you've wanted to do. Maybe you can work on some
other low-effort projects. Maybe you've wanted to do some painting, work
with some pottery or do some gardening. Do something that's not highly
stressful and that allows your mind and body to relax together.

All this will accelerate your healing because, remember, it's that
immunosuppressed state that allowed the viruses to get into your body and
start replicating in the first place. So it's the elimination of stress, or the
relaxation of your body and mind, that's going to help your immune system
win this little battle. That's what's going to get you well in 48 hours or less.

Review of concepts
Let's go over what we've covered here, in terms of the recipe for conquering
your cold in 48 hours or less. We've talked about what the flu really is or what
a cold really is. We've talked about the early warning signs and how you know
a sickness is coming on. We've covered the importance of getting lots of sleep
in order to give your body a chance to recover and give your immune system
an opportunity to do its job. We've also talked about supplements, including
herbal supplements, vitamins, minerals and whole food concentrates.

We've covered what foods to eat—including garlic, ginger and berries—and

we've talked about what foods to avoid, most notably milk, red meat, sugar
and especially salt. We've talked about hydration and why you need water in
your body so your immune system can fight the cold. We've also talked about

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going alkaline and making sure the pH in the foods you put in your body is
more alkaline than acidic and why this is important for giving your body the
proper environment in which it can fight the cold.

We are moving very quickly here, because you want to get over this thing as
quickly as possible. In the next section, we'll talk about how to move your
body correctly in order to move lymph fluid, and we'll talk about how much
exercise is too much exercise. We'll discuss listening to your appetite and how
to know when to eat and how much to eat.

We'll also talk about keeping your energy within yourself so you don't waste
your energy outside yourself, because you need it to heal. We'll also cover
some medical myths surrounding colds and dispel these myths, so you don't
make these mistakes (so that if your doctor tells you any of these things,
you can walk away knowing they aren't true). I want you to have all this
information about how the cold or flu really works, so that you can conquer
them as quickly as possible.

Important changes in your exercise routine

In this section, we're going to work on conquering the common cold by
changing your exercise routine. Maybe you don't have an exercise routine
at all. If you don't, you need one if you have a common cold, but it may
not be the one you think. If you do have an exercise routine, you need to
modify it when you have a cold. Here's why: Remember that the cold is
an opportunistic situation. It takes advantage of your suppressed immune
system, and stress suppresses your immune system.

Stress can come in many forms, and one of those forms is physical exertion.
It is stressful to your body to exercise. You need this kind of stress on a long-
term basis if you're going to be healthy. On a long-term basis, you need to

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challenge your muscles, bones and heart muscle in order to allow your body
to adapt and be stronger and healthier. But when you are dealing with a
sickness like a cold or flu, you want to minimize this kind of stress. So, if
you're typically a body builder and you regularly engage in strenuous strength
training or resistance training, stop doing that when you're fighting a cold.
Don't do any strenuous strength training when fighting a cold. That's rule
number one: No strength training.

Rule number two: No heavy exertion. If you are riding your bike and find
yourself out of breath, you've gone too far. You are actually suppressing
your immune system at that point, so you want to stop that and go back to
gentle exercise. That's what you need when you're fighting a cold.

Here's the thing: You want to get that lymph fluid moving throughout your
body. You want to oxygenate your organs and tissues, and you can only do that
by breathing. You want to circulate water through your body. Basically, you
want to stretch your muscles and ligaments. You want your body to be more
fluid. You want your body to flow. This will help you overcome any infectious
disease. Therefore, you want to move, but only with gentle movements.

Gentle, low-stress activities are the key

What kinds of gentle movements am I talking about here? Yoga, Tai Chi,
walking and slow swimming are all good, gentle exercise activities. Jumping
rope, for example, is too intense, so you want to do something a little less
intense than that. Just try anything that gently moves your body.

You might think Pilates would be a good idea, but that only works if you're
in great shape and you already have good abdominal strength. Otherwise,
Pilates is too intense for most people. So, look for anything that's gentle and
slow and doesn't leave you out of breath. That's the kind of body movement
that you want.

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Gardening is an excellent form of body movement when you're fighting a

cold. Besides allowing you to move your body, it gets you outside. This helps
expose you to sunshine and fresh air, and it gets you in touch with nature,
which also helps you heal in other ways. Simply stretching out is also good for
you when you're sick. It may be a little more painful than usual if you have
a backache or joints that feel sore or inflamed, but you won't hurt yourself if
you just move slowly and carefully.

Listen to your appetite

This next section is all about appetite. Now, you may know that when you get
sick, weird things happen to your appetite. One day you don't feel like eating
anything at all. The next day, all of a sudden, you feel like you're starving.
Your appetite can just come and go unexpectedly, so what do you do? There
is a wide range of opinions regarding how people should handle this.

There are a lot of sayings like, "You should starve a cold or feed the flu." I
don't even know which way it is, but it doesn't matter, because I say the
important thing is to listen to your body. Trust in your body's wisdom. If
your body has turned off your appetite, it has done so for a reason. If you're
not hungry and you don't feel like eating, then don't eat. If you can, take
nutritional supplements, but don't overdo it, because you don't want to load
up an empty stomach with a bunch of vitamins that might make you feel
nauseated. So, go easy and listen to your appetite.

The body might be saying, "We need all the energy to focus on the immune
system right now, and we don't have any extra energy to spend on digestion
at all." If that's the case, it's fine. Go with it. That's what your body wants.

Remember, your body has figured out this whole survival thing, that's why
your ancestors survived in the first place. You have made it through hundreds

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of thousands of years of evolution. You have survived countless infections,

and your ancestors figured out how to beat this thing. You have a built-in
biology that knows how to conquer infectious disease. Antibiotics have only
been around for a blink of an eye in terms of human history. Your body has
known how to beat infectious diseases for eons. You should listen to that
wisdom and not worry if you suddenly lose your appetite.

You're not going to starve to death in 48 hours if you don't feel like eating or
even if you are vomiting and can't keep your food down. You are not going
to starve. If you're like most people in the Western world, you're overfed
anyway. You probably have a couple of days' worth of calories just in terms of
glycogen storage right now. On top of that, you probably have an immense
supply of body fat on you. So you're not going to starve. Just be sure to drink
plenty of water, even if you're not hungry, because dehydration is a serious
concern for people fighting sickness.

Now, suppose your body, at some point, says, "Well, now I'm going to be
hungry. It's time to eat." What do you do then? My personal opinion is that
you should (and this is what I do) eat like a hog. That's exactly what I do,
because if my body says it's time to eat, I pay attention to it. I eat like crazy,
but, of course, I only eat natural foods and high-density nutritional sources
that are going to help me overcome the common cold. I don't eat any sugar,
salt, refined white flour, red meat, milk products or processed foods. I stuff
myself with whole grains, fruits, vegetables and, of course, lots of berries. I
drink a lot of water. I give myself nutritional supplements and superfoods.
Those are the foods I eat.

Is it any wonder that usually by the time my appetite returns a couple of

hours later, the whole thing is over and done with? The cold is conquered. My
immune system has emerged victorious, and I can go on with my normal life
again. I don't worry about gaining weight or anything during this time. I'm

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eating healthy foods anyway. If the body wants to eat, feed it. That's what I
say. On the other hand, if the body doesn't want to eat at all, then don't feed
it. I say, pay attention to your appetite.

Now, this is not the way I operate on a normal day-to-day basis. Sometimes,
when I'm on my particular food schedule, I will feel hungry and I will not
feed myself. And I don't pig out every single day. In fact, I rarely pig out. It
is only when I have this huge appetite emerging on the tail end of a cold, and
the body has flipped a switch that says it's time to eat, that I eat. So, I don't
mean to imply that this way of eating should be an everyday thing. This is just
helpful in dealing with the common cold.

Boosting your natural energy

Let's go on now to talk about keeping your energy up. From time to time,
I discuss the energetic nature of disease or health. Remember, your immune
system needs a lot of energy to beat infectious disease, and you can talk about
that energy in terms of caloric energy (energy from food calories) or in terms
of bio energy—the energy of life that's in your system right now. Your system
needs both of these types of energies in order to successfully do its job.

So, in addition to conserving caloric energy and making sure you're not doing
a lot of other crazy things (like going jogging) when you're trying to fight the
flu or a cold, I say, conserve your life energy; conserve your bio energy—that
non-physical, non-chemical energy that really defines who you are as a human
being. It's part of your existence.

What should you do in practical terms? Number one: Stop worrying about
external problems for this time period. If you are normally concerned with
running a company or with what's happening with your job or the people
who work for you, or if you're worried that something's wrong with the lawn

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or the house needs to be repaired or you are behind on dishes or groceries,

I say—to the extent that you can—let those things go. Ask someone else to
cover them, or just let them slide for a day or two.

Don't invest all of your energy worrying about these external challenges. The
world is not going to end in 24 hours if you don't do the dishes. You need to
get well. That's the number one priority here—you getting well. Once you're
well, you will have the energy and presence of mind to go out and address
all these things and solve them in due time. It's not okay to put this energy
into everything else out there when you're trying to heal yourself. You need
to conserve your energy, and step one is to stop worrying about everything
else outside of you.

Don't expend energy on others

Step two is to avoid other people. Why do I say this? It's not because you
don't want to make them sick, although that might be a courtesy. It's because
you don't want to spend your energy talking and interacting with others.

A lot of people out there can actually suck away your energy. They take
energy from you. Do you ever notice how you feel exhausted around some
people? Some people just seem to be energy vampires. They steal your energy,
and you feel like you can't do anything else after spending a few hours with
these people. Well, there's something really going on here. These people, in
some way, really deplete your energy. They may not do it consciously, but it
happens nonetheless. You certainly don't want to give up your energy to these
people when you are trying to heal yourself, so don't enter into taxing social
situations.

What you need to do instead is stay home and stay in bed. Have a great time
reading some books or watching some documentaries on DVD—something

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you can do by yourself that allows you to heal and keep your energy inside
yourself. Talking expends a lot of energy. It takes a lot of energy to say things
and to listen and pay attention to others. If you're in a social situation, you're
expending energy. That's a waste of energy that should be put to use in your
immune system.

Remember, it's not selfish to say, "I need to take care of myself." I've talked to
people about this. Sometimes they say, "Isn't that being selfish? Shouldn't I care
about others?" This especially comes from healers such as massage therapists,
acupuncturists and so on. "Even though I'm sick, I have appointments with
patients," they say. In my view, you should cancel those appointments. How
can you be an effective healer if you're sick? You've got to take care of yourself
first.

You can only heal others when you are in a place of wellness yourself. It's not
selfish; it is not greedy to say you have to be well first. After all, it's your life
that you're living. You should take care of yourself first, and then, when you
are healthy, you can go out, help others, be a healer or a mom or whatever
it is you are looking to be in your life. But you can't do any of that very well
when you're sick, so enough with the guilt trip.

It's not selfish to take care of yourself and make everybody else a second
priority. That's what I do when I'm sick. Everything else becomes a second
priority, and my wellness becomes priority number one. That's what usually
gets me back on my feet in 24 hours or less, and then I can make decisions
about who I'm going to help or what book I'm going to write or who I'm
going to reach out to today.

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If you look at popular soups, you’ll see

they are loaded with salt, which is – as
we covered in detail in the previous
section – precisely what you need to
avoid when you are sick.

Medical myths about the common cold

With that said, let's move on to the medical myths section. I want to blow
away some of the misinformation and myths out there about how to treat
the common cold. Let's start with the most common myth of all—that you
should eat chicken soup.

The myth says, "Are you sick? Here, have some chicken soup." Is there
something magical about chicken flesh in water that's supposed to make you
well? Well, no. In fact, chicken soup is terrible for you for several reasons.
First of all, it contains ridiculous amounts of sodium. If you look at popular
soups, you'll see they are loaded with salt, which is—as we covered in detail in
the previous section—precisely what you need to avoid when you are sick.

You don't need any more salt to get well. If you can find some chicken soup
with no salt added, that's okay, but you don't want chicken soup with salt,
which is what you're normally going to find on the shelves in every grocery
store in North America and around the world. There isn't even anything
special about chicken that helps you get well. It's just chicken meat. It could
be pork, beef, turkey or emu meat for all I care; it's not that medicinal. It's
not really going to help you get well.

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Another thing in a lot of chicken soups is noodles, and what's in the noodles?
Refined grains and refined white flour, which are, again, on the list of things
to avoid when you're sick. With a lot of these soups, you get the high sodium
content plus the white flour in the noodles, and, on top of that, you get MSG,
or monosodium glutamate. This clobbers your nervous system and can lead to
migraine headaches. Then you think you have a headache because you're sick,
but really it's because you drank the chicken soup. What a miserable time
that is. So, don't eat chicken soup. It's not part of any reasonable strategy for
getting well.

The only healing part about chicken soup is the soup stock, which is usually
made with onions, garlic and perhaps a bit of ginger. In truth, it is these herbs
that make chicken soup good for colds. So you'd be much better off just
making vegetable broth and drinking that—without the chicken!

The orange juice myth

The next myth is orange juice. People think, "Oh, I'm sick; I should drink a
lot of orange juice." There are a couple of problems with that. It's okay to eat
oranges because whole fruits are good for you, even if you're sick, but orange
juice is refined and processed. It doesn't have the fiber of an orange.

One good thing about orange juice is that it does contain vitamin C,
and vitamin C is good for overcoming any infectious disease, including
the common cold. However, orange juice is also high on the glycemic
index; it's very high in sugars, even if they are natural sugars from freshly
squeezed juice. Orange juice also tends to be acidic, and the fact that it's
so highly processed and highly concentrated in sugars means it's going
to stress your pancreas. That, in turn, will take energy away from your
immune system again.

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Orange juice also tends to be acidic, and

the fact that it’s so highly processed and
highly concentrated in sugars means
it’s going to stress your pancreas. That,
in turn, will take energy away from your
immune system again.

Oranges are not on the top of my list of foods to eat when you're sick. I
would much rather eat a bunch of berries and boiled barley. Steamed carrots
and steamed peas would be higher on my list than oranges. You want vitamin
C when you're sick, but get it from other food sources, such as the berries I've
already mentioned. Or eat fresh, unprocessed oranges.

The medication myth

The next myth to tackle here is the one that says you can just take an assortment
of over-the-counter drugs to mask the symptoms of your flu or cold, and that
this will help you get right back to work without missing a beat.

For some odd reason, people think they are very smart when they do this.
No matter what symptom you have, there is an over-the-counter drug that
will mask it, but does it really do you any good? You see, you're supposed to
listen to your body. If your back hurts, if your throat is sore, if your head is
throbbing or if your nose is running, these are signs that you're dealing with
an infectious disease. These are signs that say, "Hey, take it easy."

It's much smarter to get some sleep. Take some nutritional supplements and
take some antiviral herbs. Eliminate salt and sugar. Drink lots of extra water.

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That's what your body is trying to tell you, but most people just mask
the symptoms. Why? So they can keep on working. That way they can
go to work the next day, and they won't miss out on that paycheck. They
think they're smart, so they spend the next 10 days suffering from all the
outrageous side effects of this infectious disease, like bone pain, joint pain,
nausea and runny noses.

Do people think this is a better alternative than just calling the day off and
sleeping away this thing? Sure, you can mask all the symptoms with over-
the-counter drugs. Similarly, if you break your leg, you can shoot yourself up
with some painkillers and keep on playing backyard football, but it doesn't
mean you should. Pain has a purpose. You're supposed to listen to it and stop
what you're doing. Let your body rest and recuperate. Give yourself a chance
to recover.

This is why I, personally, never use over-the-counter drugs. I don't use

prescription drugs, either. The only time I think it's appropriate to ever use
these is if you are in acute pain from some kind of trauma or injury. In
cases like these, painkillers are appropriate. The rest of the time, they may
ultimately do more harm than good.

Even over-the-counter drugs may be dangerous

Besides, why would I ever want to mask the symptoms of the cold or flu? I
want to be aware of my body. I want to be in control, not allow some drug
to control me. A lot of drugs cause drowsiness, so you don't know if you're
feeling sleepy because of the drug or if you're feeling sleepy because your body
needs some rest. You have to start second-guessing everything; you can't trust
the signals from your body anymore because your body has been hijacked by
the chemicals found in these over-the-counter drugs.

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Your body knows how to heal itself. If

your nose is running, that’s a strategy.
It’s not a mistake. It’s not like something
is leaking up there. Your body is
producing this mucus on purpose to try
to flush bacteria out your system.

Many of these drugs are truly very dangerous, by the way. A lot of painkillers,
if you combine them with alcohol, will damage your liver. (The No. 1 cause
of liver disease in America is, believe it or not, over-the-counter painkillers.
That's a fact.) They will cause liver toxicity and can actually kill you. A lot
of people don't know this, but these drugs can have absolutely terrible side
effects. Liver toxicity is just one of them.

These drugs, in many ways, will actually impair your body's ability to heal
itself. That's why you're much better off avoiding prescription drugs and
antibiotics, in my opinion. You're much better off taking care of yourself by
giving yourself rest, reducing your stress and getting outstanding nutrition
and lots of water. That's what your body needs. You don't need all of these
over-the-counter chemicals.

Some over-the-counter drugs work against themselves, anyway. There is one

kind of cold/flu item available in every pharmacy that's supposed to stop runny
noses. You're supposed to empty this packet—either a tablet or powder—into
a glass of hot water, and then you're supposed to drink the water. Well,
think about it: Hot water has steam, which loosens up mucus, but the active
ingredients in this concoction actually constrict the mucus in your nose and
sinuses. So, the hot water counteracts what the drug itself is trying to do.

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Basically, you're wasting your money, confusing your body and slowing your
healing process. Your body knows how to heal itself. If your nose is running,
that's a strategy. It's not a mistake. It's not like something is leaking up there.
Your body is producing this mucus on purpose to try to flush bacteria out
your system. It's trying to prevent bacteria from clinging to the back of your
throat. It's trying to solve this problem for you.

If you do want to pick up something to treat symptoms, go with homeopathic

remedies. I'm a true believer in homeopathy. Homeopathic remedies have
been proven to work in randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled studies
again and again. We know homeopathic remedies really work, and there are
many that you can use when you have a cold or flu that can help you recover
more quickly.

I recommend these because they don't have negative side effects, and they
aren't going to interfere with your immune system. They are only going to
complement your immune system. These are not drugs that are going to
hijack your body chemistry. These are vibrational nutritional remedies that
are going to complement your body's ability to fight off infectious disease.
You can take them right alongside nutrition. You can use them while you're
getting lots of extra sleep.

The fever myth

Let's move on to the next myth, which says, "I have a fever. I've got to
bring that down." For some odd reason, doctors and patients have come
to the ill-informed conclusion that fevers are mistakes and that, somehow,
the body just overheated like a car engine that lost its radiator. Let me
correct them.

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The body heats itself up on purpose. The body has a strategy. It knows that
infectious disease can typically only survive in a very narrow range of body
temperature. So, 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is typical body temperature, and
that's the temperature that replicating viruses and bacteria want your body
to be at. (I apologize to all of those outside the U.S. who work with the more
effective metric system, but we're stuck with the Fahrenheit scale here in the
U.S., so those are the numbers I know.) If you raise the body temperature to
102 or 103 degrees Fahrenheit, the infectious disease cannot replicate as well.
Your body knows this.

That's why your body starts cranking up the temperature: To slow the
replication of the virus. This gives your immune system the chance to catch up
and win this battle. The fever is a good thing, to a point. Of course, if you start
to reach higher temperatures like 104 or 105 degrees, then this is a medical
emergency. You run the risk of brain damage if you keep cooking your brain
at that temperature, and you should seek urgent medical care. Very rarely,
however, do fevers ever get to that point. Most people's fevers run around 101,
102 or maybe 103 degrees at the high end. People get all panicked about this
and think, "I've got to get this down; fill the bathtub with ice!"

Let the temperature play out. It's probably going to do you some good,
especially if you're combining this fever strategy with great nutrition and lots
of water while avoiding salt, sugar and milk products. Pay attention to your
body. Remember, it knows how to survive. It's done this before. You're here;
you made it. You survived. Your ancestors lived long enough to reproduce,
didn't they? Just let your body do what it's trying to do. Support it; don't
fight against it.

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The antibiotics myth

The next medical myth involves the use of antibiotics. This is a big one, and
it makes a lot of money for the drug companies. This myth says, "Here, write
a prescription for this guy. He thinks he's sick." Antibiotics, of course, are
chemicals that inhibit the growth of bacteria. Notice I did not say viruses,
because antibiotics are absolutely useless against viruses. Viruses are not single-
celled organisms. They are actually little bits of genetic material. They're really
RNA strings floating around waiting to replicate. They are not bacteria; they
are a fraction of the size of bacteria. They don't even live and breathe the way
that bacteria do. So antibiotics don't work against viruses. Yet, literally millions
of patients who have the common cold (almost always a viral infection) are
prescribed an antibiotic when they go into their doctors' offices.

Why does this keep happening? And what are the side effects? It happens
because most patients want the doctor to do something, and many doctors will
just give patients something to get them out of the office. Many doctors think,
"Maybe this antibiotic will do them some good. At least it won't hurt them."
So, they prescribe an antibiotic and the patient walks out with a slip of paper.
The local pharmacy makes a killing on selling the antibiotic, and everybody
thinks they've done their part. In reality, it's worse than doing nothing,
because the antibiotic wipes out the friendly intestinal flora and creates an
environment that can breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or superbugs.

When you repeatedly expose a population of bacteria to a specific chemical

antibiotic, you're going to find that a few isolated organisms in this bacteria
population are able to resist that antibiotic. It is these bacteria that are able to
replicate. In time, this new strain takes over and becomes the new population.
From that point forward, all of the bacteria are resistant to that antibiotic,
so the antibiotic becomes absolutely useless. If, in some way, this strain
passes from one person to another, then you have a contagious, replicating,
antibiotic-resistant infection (now common in many hospitals).

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Breeding grounds for superbugs

This abuse of antibiotics has many health authorities concerned today. It's the
widespread abuse and over-prescription of antibiotics that's causing this creation
of superbugs, and superbugs pose a huge health risk to many patients.

Entire floors of hospitals in the United States and around the world are off
limits to normal patients because patients infected with superbugs are, in
effect, quarantined in those sections of the hospital. These patients are basically
left to fight the infection on their own. There isn't anything that conventional
medicine can do. We've run out of chemistry. The bodies of these patients,
instead of having an easy-to-kill infection, now have this super strain that's
been genetically bred by repeated exposure to antibiotic chemicals, which
selectively created this monstrous superbug bacteria that can't be treated by
modern medicine.

All this follows directly from the overuse of antibiotics. In this way, antibiotics
are not just harmless or neutral; they're actually dangerous, and not just to
that one patient, but to public health in general because they create superbugs.
(Of course, they are also extremely useful in cases of treatable acute infection.
But using them, even when justified, comes with a long-term cost.)

Getting back to you, how do antibiotics harm you as a patient? They wipe out
your friendly intestinal flora. Why is this important? Because your intestinal
flora participate in your digestive process. That may sound strange. You may
think, "I'm a human being; I'm an isolated body that exists all by itself and
has this eggshell protection around it that keeps viruses out. I do everything
myself. My organs and my tissues take care of everything of that I need in
order to live as a human being." You may be living under that misconception
right now.

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Your body is not entirely human

You are, in fact, an ecosystem. You contain living, breathing, consuming,
excreting microbes, and they are as much a part of you as many other cells
and organs in your body. You depend on them, and they depend on you. The
friendly E. coli bacteria are just one example. These bacteria in your intestinal
tract help digest much of your food. Their waste products contain vitamins
you need to survive, like the B vitamins. Vitamin B12 is essentially a waste
product of certain bacteria.

You have these bugs—these friendly bacteria in your body—and you depend
on them. They actually balance your digestion in many ways that scientists
are just beginning to understand. The whole field of probiotics is relatively
new. There is some fascinating research happening on it right now (and some
revealing studies have come out in the past couple of years). The bottom line is,
when you swallow a bunch of antibiotics, you disrupt your entire ecosystem.
You kill off all your friends who were doing you a big favor by helping you
digest these foods and create nutritional balance in your body. You kill them
off. What happens then? Well, often you get severe diarrhea. All of a sudden
you can't digest foods in the same way. You also may get nutritional deficiencies
as a result. None of this helps you fight the common cold.

None of it helps you at all. In fact, it may take you weeks afterward just to re-
establish the same intestinal flora that you had before you took the antibiotics.
In fact, you may never fully establish the same balance again, because some
of the antibiotic-resistant bacteria that were able to survive that chemical
onslaught may have replicated to take over a bigger portion of your intestines,
and now they're in charge. It's very difficult for other friendlier, less aggressive
bacteria to ever repopulate that same region in that same proportion. You've
really imbalanced things for a long time to come, just because you wanted to
take something from your doctor to get over that cold—something that was
utterly useless and doesn't even affect viruses at all.

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Think twice before taking antibiotics

Unless you're truly suffering from some bacterial infection or food poisoning,
or if you've been scraped by something that somehow transmitted infectious
bacteria into your body, forget about antibiotics. Make sure the doctor
knows what he or she is doing. Make sure that they positively identify that
this is a bacterial infection before agreeing to antibiotics. Otherwise, you're
potentially doing yourself a lot of harm while spending a lot of money for
useless medicine.

The myth of antibacterial soaps

There's one more item in the category of medical myths. This is a favorite of
mine: The use of antibacterial soaps. This is brilliant marketing, really, on the
part of product companies, personal care product manufacturers, cosmetics
companies, soap makers and tissue makers like Kleenex. They've been able to
convince people that if they buy products laced with toxic chemicals that kill
nerve cells, they will be safer.

They've been able to convince everybody that these products are useful. They
say, "If you use these products, your house is going to be cleaner. You won't
have bacteria around you. You won't catch colds anymore because you're
using these antibacterial products."

Of course, it's all complete marketing propaganda. Remember what we said

at the beginning of this program? The common cold is not caused by bacteria;
it's caused by a weakened immune system, which gives bacteria an opportunity
to invade your body and replicate. It's not the mere presence of bacteria or
the presence of a virus that causes you to get sick. It's a suppressed immune
system. So, how does eliminating a few bacteria make you any safer? Unless
you are trying to operate in a clean room environment, it doesn't. Unless you

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spray down your entire house, every kitchen counter and doorknob, with this
toxic chemical—which is molecularly quite similar to Agent Orange, by the
way—there is no way you're going to have a bacteria-free home.

Even if you did manage to spray everything down, the minute you open that
front door, you let in a few hundred thousand more microbes, more spores
and fungi, more viruses and bacteria. They're floating in the air all the time.
You're breathing them in and out with every breath, so you cannot create a
clean room in your home.

What's the point of these antibacterial products? They're basically just a

marketing con. They're just a big marketing gimmick that a whole lot of
people have fallen for. In fact, if you look at the medical claims on these,
you'll find they don't even claim to protect people from viruses and bacteria.
They only protect the product.

Kleenex has a product with antibacterial chemicals in the tissue. What does
it claim to do? It claims to kill 99.9 percent of the bacteria in the Kleenex.
Does this help me? Is there a household of people who are sharing Kleenex?
Is there a father of the house who blows his nose into a Kleenex, then he gives
it to his daughter and says, "Here, blow your nose now, too?" Unless people
are catching colds from sharing Kleenex, I'm not sure what good it does to
put this chemical in the Kleenex. Think about it. Apply some basic logic here.
These products are useless.

More useless products: Antibacterial pencils

Another product I've found—and I even did a story on this—is an antibacterial
pencil. Made by Paper Mate, it has an antibacterial chemical embedded in the
pencil. If you read the fine print on it, it says the antibacterial properties of
this do not extend to the skin. It only protects the pencil.

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Now, maybe I've gone mad, but the last time I checked, pencils weren't
falling over dead from viral infections. I don't think we need to protect
our pencils from bacteria and viruses, do you? Do we need to protect our
pencils or Kleenexes from viruses? Are they getting sick and dying from
infectious disease? What about these soap products? You coat your dishes
with this antibacterial chemical. Is it really a problem that our dishes are
getting infected with disease? Have you ever had a plate die? Have you ever
had a fork with a fever? Is this really a big problem? Of course it isn't. This is
all marketing sleight-of-hand—a gimmick to get people to pay more money
based on empty marketing promises.

These products may sound good on paper, and there is certainly a huge
marketing push for them. Advertisements show a bunch of sick kids running
around, the mother spraying down the countertop with the antibacterial soap
and wiping it down with a big smile on her face, saying, "We're safe now. We're
not going to be sick now." The only thing that's safe is the countertop.

You can't kill all of the bacteria in your home. You can't get rid of them
that way, unless you're running a clean room because you manufacture
microprocessors or something like that. Even then, some microbes still manage
to get through, and that's why they're all wearing clean room suits in there.
Unless you're going around living as a bubble boy and wearing some kind of
biological hazard suit all the time, you're going to be exposed to viruses and
bacteria sooner or later. It's probably going to be sooner.

Defending yourself from the common cold is not about trying to kill everything
around you. Besides, the toxic chemical used in these products is not very
healthy for human beings. It harms your nervous system. This has been well
documented. It's not something you want to be ingesting. You certainly don't
want to be coating your dishes with it. It kills bacteria and viruses. How do
you think it does that? There's a chemical that poisons biological life.

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Why people stay sick longer than they should

If you look at all these medical myths we've covered about the common cold,
and you check around with what most people do when they feel like they're
getting sick, you immediately realize why people stay sick.

Think about it. People are out there eating chicken soup, getting a lot of
salt and drinking a lot of highly acidic orange juice. They're taking a lot
of painkillers and over-the-counter medications to mask the symptoms of
their cold. They continue working and stressing themselves out. They're
not taking time off, and they're not getting enough rest. They're trying to
counteract their fever with antibiotics that destroy friendly intestinal flora.
They're eating off of plates that have been coated with antibacterial chemicals.
They're not taking the right nutritional supplements; they're not taking the
antiviral herbal supplements we talked about in the previous section. They're
not eating the foods that help them heal. They're not drinking enough water.
I wonder, why it is, then, that they get so sick?

I've heard people say they were sick for three weeks. How can you be sick
for three weeks? At some point, your body should either make a decision to
get well or die. Three weeks to figure this out? It shouldn't take that long.
Something is wrong here. If your body is functioning properly—if you
give it the right nutrition and avoid poisoning it with the wrong foods and
environmental toxins—it should figure this thing out well before three weeks.
Your immune system just has to figure out what the invaders look like or
what they feel like at a molecular level.

Once your immune system finds the virus, it makes a pattern and starts
distributing that pattern to the rest of cells in the immune system, sort of like
the WANTED picture that you see in the post office. Your immune system
says, "Here, here's what this bad guy looks like. Find him and get him out of
the system." The cells in your immune system run out there and start looking

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for this thing—this virus or this invader—and they find it, capture it and
destroy it. This process should not take three weeks in a healthy individual.

If it takes three weeks, something's wrong. Maybe your immune system is

just not communicating very well. If you're sick for more than a few days,
there is definitely something wrong—too much stress, not enough nutrition,
not enough water, too much salt or something.

Symptomless flu
If you talk to people who say they've never been sick—and I'm one of those
people who rarely gets sick—it's not that we've never been exposed to bacteria
or viruses; it's not that they haven't invaded our bodies and started replicating.
It's that our immune system did its job so well that it conquered the invasion
before we even knew what was going on. It's happened before to you, too.
There are many times that you've been invaded and your immune system has
conquered it, and you never knew anything about it. You never felt a single
symptom because your immune system did its job.

Even in 1918, in the great flu outbreak, as many as 6 percent of the people
who were exposed to the influenza virus showed no symptoms whatsoever.
They didn't even know they had it. Years later, they were found to have
antibodies for this influenza (meaning they beat the virus), but they never
showed a single sign or symptom of the disease at all. This is what happens
with the common cold or the common flu. Healthy people get it just like
everybody else, but they conquer it. They beat it without ever having to pay
any attention to it. Healthy people who understand this know it's not about
avoiding viruses and bacteria or avoiding crowds and airplanes, but rather
about winning the war against infectious disease without ever having to suffer
from it.

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Healthy people get it just like

everybody else, but they conquer it.
They beat it without ever having to pay
any attention to it.

It's about having a super-healthy immune system that can handle anything
you throw at it. I can walk into a room at a trade show and meet 600 people
I've never met before, and maybe 100 of them are carrying some kind of
virus or bacteria that I've never been exposed to before. I can walk away from
that completely well (usually, anyway) because my immune system, even
though it's been exposed to these new infectious agents, finds them, tracks
them down and gets them out of my body before I ever know what's going
on. It's all on autopilot. It's amazing technology; it's what I call biological
nanotechnology.

Your amazing immune system

This stuff is absolutely amazing, and it works well when you give it the right
ingredients. You've got to give it the right tools. You have to stop tying the
hands of your immune system. You've got to treat your body right, and then
this happens automatically.

Your immune system can be your best friend, believe me. The truth is, if
it weren't for our immune systems, we'd all be dead right now. We'd die
in a matter of days, because there is always some bug trying to get inside

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you, trying to use your protein, blood and tissues as its food source. If we
didn't have an immune system, that would be happening right now. We'd
all be dead. We wouldn't even exist as a human race if we didn't have fully
functioning immune systems.

What strikes me as so remarkable about this is the fact that most people take
their immune systems for granted. When they get some kind of infectious
disease, they think they're defenseless. They think it has to be treated with
drugs or that only their doctor can make them well or that only some
expensive, powerful drug can make their bodies healthier. They don't give
their body itself any credit at all

That's a shame, because your body usually has the answer. Your body has all
this wisdom built in. It's part of your blueprint, part of your DNA and part
of your ancestry. It's a gift nature has given to you. It's much smarter, wiser
and more experienced than any drug, doctor or so-called modern medical
technology. Your body is a walking, living, breathing miracle. You just have
to give it a chance to do its job. Stop poisoning it with all these high-sodium
foods, milk products and other ingredients that actually make it difficult for
you to be healthy and fend off infectious disease.

Now you know the answers

That's the whole recipe, then. It is really pretty simple if you break it down—
just a few basic steps, things to do and things not to do. Remember, if you
look at most people out there who catch colds, they don't follow this recipe.
That's why they stay sick. Sadly, many of the people in the health profession
don't understand this, either. They give people bad advice, or they give people
good advice, and those people ignore it and say, "Give me a drug instead. I've
got to go work tomorrow."

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The recipe for beating the common cold is not that difficult. What's difficult
is getting people to make these decisions because, ultimately, the only person
in control of your health is you. You've got to make the decision to go to bed
on time and get 10 or 12 hours of sleep. You've got to make the decision to
call in sick to work the next day or spend most of your Saturday sleeping.
You've got to make the decision to stop drinking soft drinks and putting
sugar and salt into your body and start drinking lots of water and getting
good nutrition in your body.

You have to make these choices; no one else can do it for you. It's cause and
effect; it is all up to you. If you want to spend the next three weeks sick and
spending $50 on Kleenex and $100 on antibiotics, missing out on $1,000
worth of paychecks from your employer because you're home in bed, then
there's an easy way to do that. Just do the opposite of everything we talked
about here. Do what everybody else does. Follow the herd. They get sick and
they stay sick. But if you want to get well, follow this recipe. This is how you
can beat most common colds in 48 hours or less, often without knowing you
were ever infected in the first place.

If you're sick, work with professionals

Now, as a final thought—a disclaimer actually—you should always work with
a qualified health practitioner when you're sick. Don't take this information
as a replacement for medical advice. Be sure to work with your doctor or
naturopath or someone qualified to diagnose and treat your condition. At the
same time, think for yourself. Be a skeptical consumer. Ask good questions.

Furthermore, don't just take the advice of somebody because they happen
to have a certificate from a medical school. The vast majority of med schools
don't even teach nutrition. They don't even understand the fundamentals of
nutrition. They won't even tell you to eat less salt and sugar. They just say,

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"Here's a drug to mask that symptom; go on about your day now." So, be a
smart consumer and put yourself first. Educate yourself, most of all, about
how to be well.

I hope this has been helpful for you. I hope you use this information to
conquer any common cold in 48 hours or less. Remember, your body
knows how to do this. Trust your body. Give your body the tools it needs to
conquer this infection. You will get over it. You will live to see another day
and it will happen much sooner than if you take a handful of prescription
drugs and keep stressing yourself out. Take care of yourself. It's okay to
put yourself first. You've got to be healthy before you can go on with your
regular, everyday life.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share some of this experience
with you. Remember, I don't feel like I'm the teacher here. I'm really the
student. I'm a student of nature, just like you are. My job is to listen to nature
and pass that information on to you. I've learned much of this by listening to
my body. You can learn the same things by listening to yours.

We are all students of nature. We really should be humble students of nature.

We're not any smarter than our bodies. We're not smarter than Mother
Nature, that's for sure. We just have to have the humility to sit down and
listen to what's going on and hopefully share that information with others
when we have the opportunity.

53
About Mike Adams

A holistic nutritionist with over 5,000 hours of study on

nutrition, wellness, food toxicology and the true causes
of disease and health, Mike Adams is also the author
of The 7 Laws of Nutrition, Grocery Warning, How to Halt
Diabetes in 25 Days and many other books available at
www.TruthPublishing.com

Adams is also the creator of the popular Honest Food Guide,

a free downloadable nutritional guide found at www.HonestFoodGuide.org. In addition, more
than 1,500 free articles on health, nutrition and wellness have been authored by Adams and are
available at www.NaturalNews.com

Adams uses no prescription drugs whatsoever and relies exclusively on natural health,
whole foods, superfoods, nutritional supplements and exercise to achieve optimum
health. To prove the value of nutrition and physical exercise in enhancing health,
Adams publishes detailed statistics on his own blood chemistry (with full lab results) at
www.NaturalNews.com/AdamsHealthStats.html

“Over the years, not only have I learned to respect and consider Mike Adam’s opinion
in all areas of nutrition, I have also found the scientific facts he references about his
subject matter to be consistently accurate. Every time I get to read his words or
see him speak, he makes my day The Best Day Ever! He can do the same for you!”

-David Wolfe, author of The Sunfood Diet Success System

“Mike you are a true American hero. All of us are lucky to have you out there not only
fighting for our rights but protecting us, informing us, educating us
and making it a better place to live.”

-Gregory Kunin, Principal, Ola Loa / DrinkYourVitamins.com

Copyright © 2006 by Truth Publishing International, Ltd.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.