-  weak bones
 -  weak joints and muscles
 -  heart disease
  - diabetes
  - kidney disease
  - and a host of other health problems.

In other words, long-term health and longevity have everything to do with acid-alkaline balance."

BeWellBuzz.com offers these suggestions to increase the alkaline foods in your diet: "Have a big salad at least once a day using green leafy vegetables (especially collard or mustard greens, endive and kale) and add sprouts, broccoli, parsley, asparagus and peppers. Grind black pepper on everything savory. Squeeze lemon or lime juice on fish, salads or in your beverage. Munch on pumpkin seeds or add them to salads. Use sea salt (Celtic, French or Himalayan preferred) rather than regular table salt. Use Apple cider vinegar rather than Balsamic vinegar. Drink ginger tea instead of coffee. If you like radishes, eat them like candy. If you want something sweet, eat cantaloupe, tangerines, mandarins and assorted berries. Let vegetable juices be your summer thirst quencher. Quell a hunger with celery smeared with nut butter [Ed. note: Make that almond butter. Most nuts are acid forming]. Smear half of an avocado on toast, rather than margarine [Ed. note: Toast is also acid forming]." 

This is making me hungry!

If you want to test your own pH, many natural foods stores and drug stores carry pH test strips. Test your saliva and urine first thing in the morning to get an idea how acid-forming or alkaline-forming your diet was the day before. The strips should turn green and ideally the color should be the same on both strips. If the strips stay yellow, you need more fruits and vegetables in your diet. Starting the day with a green smoothie (fresh fruit and leafy greens) really helped get my alkaline balance back.

If you are strongly acidic, it may take several days of eating a predominantly alkaline diet to see a change. Our bodies should ideally have an alkaline reserve, but we tend to lose it as we grow older, so you may have to rebuild the reserve before your test strips will turn green.

Note: If strips turn blue you are overly alkaline, and that is not good either. A handful of walnuts, a cup of coffee, or acid-forming grains can quickly get you back in balance.

Environmental Working Group has surpassed themselves this time. They have done all the research for us and created an easy-to-navigate website that rates household cleaning products from grades A to F, depending on their health and environmental impact.

Did you know there is not one dusting product that rates higher than a C, or that you can choose between 4 dishwasher detergents that get an A rating? You might be surprised that some of your "environmentally friendly products" are really not as pure as they claim to be. Find out which products you can really trust by visiting Environmental Working Group's new website to find out more.

Though women are still strongly pressured to get mammograms, studies show that they may actually cause breast cancer. According to Mercola.com, "Mammograms use ionizing radiation at a relatively high dose, which can contribute to the mutations that can lead to breast cancer. You can get as much radiation from one mammogram as you would from 1,000 chest X-rays. Mammography also compresses your breasts tightly, which can lead to a dangerous spread of cancerous cells, should they exist.

"Dr. Samuel Epstein, one of the world's top cancer experts, has stated: 'The premenopausal breast is highly sensitive to radiation, each 1 rad exposure increasing breast cancer risk by about 1 percent, with a cumulative 10 percent increased risk for each breast over a decade's screening.'" 

But there is hope! The article goes on to say: "When JoEllen Welsh, a researcher with the State University of New York at Albany, injected a potent form of vitamin D into human breast cancer cells, half of them shriveled up and died within days. The vitamin D worked as well at killing cancer cells as the toxic breast cancer drug Tamoxifen, without any of the detrimental side effects and at a tiny fraction of the cost."

That sounds worth exploring a lot more. Meanwhile, make sure you get plenty of vitamin D from sunshine and/or a D3 supplement. Mercola recommends that your vitamin D level is 70 to 100ng/ml if you have been diagnosed with cancer. Get the blood test if you are not sure.

In case you don't read the following article, here's one statistic from it that you won't want to miss: 93 percent of women with breast cancer had root canals! Wow, that is a pretty strong correlation.

Is your dentist telling you that a root canal is your best option? Read this article carefully before you go ahead with it. Your life may depend on it.

According to this recent Mercola.com article: "Nearly every chronic degenerative disease has been linked with root canals, including:

    - Heart disease
    - Kidney disease
    - Arthritis, joint, and rheumatic diseases
    - Neurological diseases (including ALS and MS)
    - Autoimmune diseases (Lupus and more)

"There may also be a cancer connection. Dr. Robert Jones, a researcher of the relationship between root canals and breast cancer, found an extremely high correlation between root canals and breast cancer. He claims to have found the following correlations in a five-year study of 300 breast cancer cases:

    - 93 percent of women with breast cancer had root canals
    - 7 percent had other oral pathology
    - Tumors [ ] occurred on the same side of the body as the root canal(s) [ ]

"Dr. Jones claims that toxins from the bacteria in an infected tooth or jawbone are able to inhibit the proteins that suppress tumor development. A German physician reported similar findings. Dr. Josef Issels reported that, in his 40 years of treating 'terminal' cancer patients, 97 percent of his cancer patients had root canals. If these physicians are correct, the cure for cancer may be as simple as having a tooth pulled, then rebuilding your immune system." [Ed. note: That should include thorough cleaning of the socket of the pulled tooth. A biological dentist will usually be skilled in this procedure.]