Please note…

My intention with this post is to be of help to anyone who’s in that no-man’s-land between a positive HIV test, and being sick enough to qualify for government-issued  medication.

However, although the suggestions are given with the best of intentions, they are not a substitute for trained medical advice, counselling, or medical prescription.

Please make sure you go to a properly qualified person to find out as much as you can about your condition.

The more you know about your health status, the more you’re able to help yourself.

Some basics first…

What is HIV?

HIV is a virus of the type that possesses just one strand of genes. The strand is called RNA.

In contrast, each one of our human cells has two strands of genes, wound around each other into a cork-screw shape. I’m sure you remember seeing the model of the double coil of human DNA in biology classes at school.

How does it multiply?

In order to multiply, the virus needs two strands of genes, so that when it splits into two, each new virus has one strand each.

So, once inside its human host, the virus makes a bee-line for particular types of cell, and burrows inside them.

There, the virus tricks the host cell into making another strand of genes for it. With two strands of RNA, the virus can now divide into two new virus cells.

Those two virus cells dupe their host into making another RNA-strand for each of them. Now there are 4 virus clones inside the host cell. Then 8…16… 32… 64… 128…

In no time at all, after doubling and re-doubling, the numbers of virus clones inside the host cell is so large the host cell bursts open, releasing a huge number of new virus clones  into the blood stream. They go off and invade new host cells, multiply, and eventually burst out of those host cells.

Which host cells are preferred?

HIV is programmed to hide away and multiply in certain cells of the infected person’s immune system. Although other types of immune system cells are invaded, most people talk about the CD4 cells.

Hiding and multiplying in the CD4 cells is a very good ploy by the virus clones, because there they are out of reach of the natural killer cells (NKC’s) that would gobble them up if  they had invaded other body cells.

CD4 count, and viral load

As the virus clones burst out of the CD4 cells, the CD4 cells are destroyed. Thousands of new virus particles find more CD4 cells to invade, and eventually burst out of those, going on to find other CD4 cells, and so on.

In this way, the number of CD4 cells destroyed in the HIV-infected person increases. And therefore the number of CD4 cells remaining that aren’t infected, gets less and less.

Doctors refer to the number of remaining healthy CD4 cells as the CD4 count.

Doctors also talk about viral load. That’s the number of virus clones in a certain volume of blood.

Both viral load, and the CD4 count, are therefore an indication of the activity of the HIV infection. If the viral load is increasing, and the number of remaining healthy CD4 cells is decreasing, HIV infection is actively multiplying.

AIDS

When the defensive cells of the immune system have been reduced to a low-enough level, infections that would normally be rapidly dealt with have a chance to take hold.

When several infections occur at the same time, it’s called a syndrome. AIDS is short for auto-immune deficiency syndrome, meaning a group of diseases occurring at the same time, as a  result of a weakened immune system.

Further reading

Of course, this is a very simplified version of what happens. There’s a really excellent description, with much more detail, at Wikipedia. Just type HIV into the Wikipedia search box and hit go.

Or you can use this direct link to Wikipedia’s HIV page (it will open in a new window).

Medical treatment

Doctors are trying to invent drugs that will kill the virus before it has a chance to invade the CD4 cells. And they’re also looking at ways of preventing the host CD4 cells from making another RNA strand of genes for the virus, so the virus can’t multiply.

In South Africa, the drugs that help to stop the HI virus multiplying in the CD4 cells (anti-retrovirals, or ARV’s) are theoretically made available when the infected person’s CD4 count has fallen from a healthy value of about 1000, to a low 200.

Even though South Africa has provided ARV’s to more HIV-positive people than any other country, sadly, the number of new infections is much more than the number of  government-funded ARV treatments started. And many Provinces are struggling to find the money to pay for the vast numbers seeking ARV’s.

If you can afford to pay for them yourself, start taking ARV’s much, much earlier than when your CD4 count has reached 200. Talk with your medical adviser about the possibility, and the costs involved.

Self help…

What everyone can afford though, is as soon as you know you’ve got HIV, start immediately doing everything you can to help yourself.

Please don’t waste your money and hopes on ‘street-corner’ pills or potions claiming to cure HIV. After more than 20 years, and billions of dollars spent on research, scientists  still haven’t found a cure for HIV, so it’s very unlikely the guy boiling up stuff in his garage will have found a cure.

Don’t despair, though. There’s a lot you can do.

Lifestyle changes…

Safer sex

Start your lifestyle changes by making sure you don’t spread your HIV about. Something like 1,400 people get infected with HIV for the first time, every day, in South Africa. And then go on to infect thousands more people.

That’s an alarming number of people ignoring an easy way of enjoying sex and staying alive. Using a condom will increase your chances of survival, but remember they’re not a 100 percent guarantee, so make sure you use them with utmost care.

And use a condom, even if you both have HIV. There are several different strains of HIV now, so it’s possible to get infected with a different strain from the one you’ve already got. Then you’ll have double the number of your CD4 cells being attacked, and double the viral load. The consequences are obvious.

Keep your immune system strong

The time between acquiring HIV and developing AIDS varies greatly from person to person: anything from two weeks to more than twenty years.

Why such a large difference? It’s most likely to do with the strength of your natural defences: your immune system.

If you keep your natural defences strong, you stand a much better chance of delaying the onset of AIDS, and getting into the twenty-plus-years group.

With this goal in mind, it makes sense not to drink, breathe in, or eat anything that may strain or weaken your immune system.

Put into your body only those things that will keep your natural defences as strong as possible.

Positive things you can do to keep your immune system strong

* Avoid alcohol, and popular fizzy drinks. They’re a waste of your money, and of no nutritional value at all. Instead, drink plenty of fresh (preferably filtered) clean tap water to help flush out toxins.

Rooibos and green teas (preferably without added cow’s milk or sugar) are also good, because they contain protective antioxidants.

* Do not smoke anything, and keep away from those who do. There’s no doubt at all that smoke deprives your body of life-giving oxygen by ruining your lungs, heart, and blood vessels.

* Avoid smoked and barbecued foods. After I read that researchers years ago, who were trying to find out about lung cancer, used chemicals from burnt meat to induce cancer in laboratory cells, I decided immediately to avoid eating anything smoked! You may want to do the same.

* Read the labels on food packaging, and if they’ve got chemical additives, colourings, synthetic flavourings, or preservatives, put them back on the shelf. Your liver and kidneys can get on with their normal functions, if they don’t have the burden of getting rid of foreign chemicals in your food.

* Processed foods like burgers, pies, pasties, and processed meats like polony often contain lots of unhealthy fat, useless carbohydrate, chemical ‘enhancers’, and preservatives. None of those ingredients helps your immune system.

* Factory-made foods from processed white flour, like biscuits, rusks, cakes, muffins, white bread and rolls are missing a lot of the nutrients Mother Nature put in the original grains from which the white flour is made.

Instead, eat small quantities of foods made from whole  grains, like brown wholemeal spaghetti, brown seed bread, and brown (basmati) rice.

If you’ve got an oven, bake your own bread. It’s really easy to knock up a loaf, and you’ll be amazed how much better it tastes.

* A plateful of pasta, a stack of bread, or a pile of mashed potato causes your insulin levels to run amok, which contributes to weight gain, diabetes, and robs you of energy.

Instead, when thinking carbohydrates, think vegetables. Vegetables contain much less carbohydrate, volume for volume, than grain foods.

For example, if you managed to eat 12 cups of broccoli, you’d only have the equivalent whack of carbohydrate you’d get from eating one cup of rice. So with vegetables, you feel nice and full with much less carbohydrate. Your insulin-producing pancreas will love you for it.

* Add a few lentils, beans, seeds, nuts, barley, oats, and millet (called mabele, here in SA) to your food choices. They’re full of vitamins, minerals, good fats, and fibre. They have a lot of calories though, so be careful with how much of them you eat.

* Good protein choices are chicken, turkey, ostrich, fish, and non-GMO soya protein instead of red meat. Cut all the visible fat off meat. And remove the skin from poultry, before you cook it, as that’s where most of the unhealthy saturated fat is stored.

* Processed and heated fats hinder your immune system, so avoid all fried foods, brick margarines, and tea and coffee whiteners.

* Use short cooking times. A long time in the pot destroys vitamins, enzymes, and antioxidants. Instead, steam vegetables, and eat them a bit crunchy rather than soft and mushy.

* Regularly eat some plain yoghurt. It contains healthy bacteria for your intestines, which help to strengthen your immune system. If you need to sweeten it, mix some  freshly-mashed fruit into it. The one we use is the plain yoghurt from the South African company, Bonlé. It’s real yoggie with no chemical additives.

* Garlic, onions, and leeks contain natural germ-killers that help stave off infections, so eat plenty of them.

* Choose vegetables and fruits with vibrant colours like yellow, orange, red, and deep green. They’re full of carotenoid and flavonoid antioxidants to fight free radicals and help keep your immune system strong.

* Eat plenty of cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower. And vegetables with dark green leaves, like spinach, kale, and parsley. They are known to help protect against cancer and other illnesses.

There’s a helpful list of good fruit and veg choices in my last post, here.

* Sprinkle a teaspoon of cold-pressed virgin olive oil over the vegetables on your plate. It tastes nice, and helps them slide down the hatch.

Also, the olive oil helps to dissolve fat-soluble vitamins and protective antioxidant carotenoids in the vegetables, so you’ll benefit from digesting more of those important nutrients.

And it’s got very little saturated fat, and more of the ‘good’ fats than other food oils.

* Spices like chillies, ginger, and turmeric are packed with natural disease fighters, so add them to your food as often as possible.

We grow our own chillies. They’re really easy…  and the monkeys don’t eat them! Just put a few seeds from a dried chilli into a pot of soil, and hey presto! Chilli plants.

A few general food tips

* Thoroughly wash fruits and vegetables before you eat them, to remove the chemicals farmers spray on them in order to prolong their sell-by date.

That includes things you normally peel, like bananas. And citrus fruits, which are usually sprayed with chemicals such as ortho-phenyl phenol, thiabendazole, and imazalil to stop fungus and other stuff growing on them.

If you don’t wash the chemicals off, they get on your fingers when you peel the fruit, then onto the segments when you touch them, and end up inside you after you’ve chewed and swallowed.

* GNLD LDC is good for dissolving and removing the chemicals (see GNLD section, below). And it rinses completely away, leaving a clean peel so you won’t get horrible chemicals under your thumbnail and on your fingers when you peel a piece of fruit.

General tips

These general tips may all seem obvious to most readers. However, the pictures in my mind after a visit to an HIV/AIDS hospice prompt me to repeat them here. If they’re not helpful for you, they may be of help to someone you may know of…

* Keep hair, skin, clothes, and bedding really clean to help avoid skin infections.

* Brush teeth, gums, and tongue with a clean toothbrush half-an-hour after every meal to keep your mouth healthy.

If your gums are sore, or bleed, use a soft toothbrush and brush them gently anyway. Avoiding the cleaning will only make matters worse.

Do not use a mouthwash containing alcohol. I think this tends to knock off some bacteria, but not others, thus disturbing the natural bacterial balance in your mouth and throat. If you must gargle with something, use half-a-teaspoon of table salt in a glass of warm water.

Hands are the primary spreaders of diseases, so…

* Always wash your hands thoroughly after going to the toilet.

* Always wash your hands before preparing food.

* Wash your hands often during the day, even when you think you don’t need to.

Most people pick their nose, where a bacterium called Staphylococcus aureus lives. After a good clear-out, lots of the bacteria will be on your finger, and from there it could get into your intestines or lungs, where it could set up an infection… especially if your immune system is weak.

There’s no need to buy disinfectant soap for your hands (once again, it only kills some bacteria, thus disturbing the natural harmony). Plain, simple soap does the job well.

* Keep your bathroom, toilet, floors, and all kitchen work surfaces germ free with a suitable disinfectant. GNLD’s Care is very good for this (see GNLD section below).

* If you’re a couch potato, get off your behind and go out into the fresh air to do some gentle exercise.

You don’t need to spend money on a gym membership. Walking is good. So is swimming. If you’ve got a bicycle, dust it off and ride it. Kick a ball about. Practice your cool disco moves. Anything to get moving!

* Another bonus of getting out into the sunshine is that the sunlight encourages your skin to make vitamin D, which helps strengthen your natural defences.

Be careful not to bake yourself: 20 minutes or so is enough, without sun protection.

* Thinking of protection, if you have sex, don’t forget to make sure you, or your partner carefully uses a condom every time… even if you’re both HIV positive. Remember, it is possible to get infected again, with a different strain of HIV, and that would be a disaster for you both.

GNLD products:  healthcare, and homecare ranges

The idea of healthy food choices, and taking good-quality food supplements to fill any nutritional gaps, is to help your body keep it’s natural defence systems strong, which will keep your CD4 count as high as possible, and your viral load as low as possible, for as long as possible.

Although the market is flooded with products claiming to make you healthier, very few of them actually do what they claim. And even fewer can back their claims with proper scientific evidence that’s been checked by independent experts.

One company that can prove their claims is GNLD International.

All GNLD’s food supplements are made from real food humans have been eating for centuries. They don’t contain tree bark, pond scum, marigold flowers, obscure berries, roots, or anything else humans don’t normally eat.

Nutritional supplements are not required by law to be controlled in the same way medicines are controlled. However, GNLD does proudly maintain a pharmaceutical licence. And they voluntarily subject their supplements to the same strict control of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that medicines have to undergo.

You can certainly trust GNLD for purity, and for quality. And their supplements really work!

Suggested GNLD healthcare supplements…

Remembering that no supplement will cure HIV or AIDS, and that they’re not a substitute for a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, they’re still a good investment.

They’ll fill any nutritional gaps, helping you and your immune system stay as strong as possible.

GR2 Meal Replacement

Gr2 Meal Replacement has been designed as a complete meal. It’s not just a protein drink. Apart from protein, there’s also a nice long list of vitamins and minerals, enzymes, ‘good fat’, and fibre in it.

You can get it in vanilla, or chocolate flavours, and it mixes easily with milk, in natural yoghurt, in fruit and veg smoothies, or in water.

Many people with AIDS find it difficult to eat properly, because of mouth and throat ulcers. GNLD GR2 Meal Replacement mixed with water is a nutritious drink that can be sipped, and is comfortable to swallow.

The protein in GR2 is in the form of single amino acids. That means there’s hardly any digestion is required, so it’s easily absorbed from your intestines.

All 22 amino acids necessary for human nutrition are present, too.

Amino acids

Amino acids are very important for everyone’s health. They’re used to make virtually everything in our bodies, including…

* hair

* skin

* nails

* bones

* gums

* teeth

* enzymes for digestion and other processes

* healing

* hormones

* red blood cells

* antibodies

* white blood cells (including CD4 cells, and all the other immune system cells)

As you can see from the list (which is by no means complete), it’s very important to have a daily supply of amino acids.

GNLD GR2 Meal Replacement is a great way of ensuring you get these essential nutrients.

GNLD Carotenoid Complex

GNLD Carotenoid Complex has been shown in tests by American government scientists, and various Universities, to…

* boost cancer-fighting natural killer cells (NKC’s)

* reduce the harmful effects of ‘bad’ cholesterol

* boost the cells of the immune system

GNLD’s dedicated website has lots of info about Carotenoid Complex, including the clinical evidence of why it works so well. If you want to read about it, please visit the website, here.

Formula IV Plus

Even with the most careful shopping, you won’t get all the vitamins and minerals you expect to have in your food.

One report on South African oranges showed the vitamin C content varied from zero to 60mg per orange. Doesn’t matter how many of those zero oranges you eat, you’ll still have a big vitamin C gap in your diet.

That’s where Formula IV Plus comes in. It contains a healthy list of vitamins and minerals, including the minerals usually processed out of food… selenium, chromium, and molybdenum.

Selenium is very important for the immune system. In Senegal, the number of HIV positive people, who develop Aids, is much fewer than in South Africa, even though the rate of infection is about the same. This difference is thought to be because the levels of selenium in the soil are much higher in Senegal. And therefore much higher in the fruits and vegetables grown in that soil.

In addition, Formula IV Plus contains Tre-en-en, GNLD’s unique ‘good fat’ extracts from rice, wheat, and soya berries. They’re deliberately removed by food processing, but they’re essential for healthy cell formation and function, including the cells of your immune system.

There’s more info about the benefits of GNLD Tre-en-en on our new product blog, here.

GNLD LDC (Light Duty Concentrate)

LDC is a biodegradeable, non-toxic, non-caustic, non-flammable, multi-purpose cleaner excellent for…

* washing dishes by hand. It works in hot, cold, and even salt water.

* washing clothes by hand

* washing yourself in the bath and shower

* as a hair shampoo

* washing waxes and pesticides off fruit and vegetables before eating or cooking them

This last use is the one we consider most important in our home.

We wash everything with LDC before we put it in the fridge, cupboards, cook it, or peel and eat it.

You might think that’s a bit fanatical, but if you could see the number of people who walk out of the men’s W.C. (even the thunder boxes) without bothering to wash their hands… ‘Nuff said.

GNLD Care Disinfectant

GNLD Care Disinfectant is biodegradeable, yet strong, passing the SABS 636 standard. That standard means GNLD Care kills a very wide range of germs around the home, and in clinic, hospital, and hospice settings.

It’s very economical, too. One litre of concentrate will make 51 litres of disinfectant for your home use (or 11 litres for hospital use). So you can afford to spray it everywhere to keep your home as germ-free as possible.

As I said at the start, my intention with this post is to offer some common-sense, helpful pointers in the right direction.

If you think I’ve left anything important out, please let me know in the comment box below. Thanks a lot.

Which fruits and vegetables would you choose from these mouth-watering displays?

lovely selection of fruits

fresh, colourful, health-giving vegetables

Fruits and vegetables provide us with mixed fibre (essential for intestinal health and regularity), vitamins, minerals, carotenoids (antioxidants protecting the oily parts inside us), flavonoids (antioxidants protecting our watery parts), and a host of other disease-fighting nutrients.

But they don’t all contain similar amounts of health-giving compounds.

I’m sure you’ll agree, if you’re going to be eating fruits and vegetables, you might as well choose the ones that are going to give you maximum health benefits.

Here’s a handy list to help you make the healthiest choices…

Fruits rich in carotenoids, flavonoids, and other phytonutrients

Apricots

Blackberries

Blueberries

Cherries

Cranberries

Fruit salad – tinned

Grapes – dark red, and black ones

Grapefruit – pink ones

Guavas

Mangoes

Nectarines

Nartjies

Oranges

Papayas

Passion fruits

Peaches

Plums

Prunes

Raspberries

Strawberries

Tangerines

Watermelons

Fruits not so rich in carotenoids, flavonoids, or other phytonutrients

These fruits aren’t bad for you. They provide fibre, vitamins, and minerals, too. It’s just that they’re not bursting with antioxidants like the fruits in the list above.

Apples

Bananas

Currants

Dates

Figs

Gooseberries

Grapes – white ones

Grapefruit – yellow ones

Honeydew melons

Kiwi fruits

Lemons

Pears

Pineapples

Raisins

Rhubarb

Vegetables rich in carotenoids, flavonoids, and other phytonutrients

Asparagus – green tips

Beans – green ones

Beetroot

Broccoli

Brussels sprouts

Cabbage – dark green, red, and bok choy

Carrots

Cauliflower

Corn – yellow

Green leaves from calabrese (sprouting broccoli), collard, dandelion, horseradish, kale, lettuce (red-leaved, and dark-green leaved), mustard, turnip

Mixed frozen vegetables

Parsley

Peas

Peppers – hot ones, red ones, and yellow ones

Pumpkin

Radish

Red onions

Squash – all yellow, and all orange types

Spinach

Sweet potatoes – red, and orange

Tomatoes

Watercress

Vegetables not so rich in carotenoids, flavonoids, or other phytonutrients

Of course, these vegetables aren’t bad for you. They provide fibre, vitamins, and minerals, too. It’s just that they’re not bursting with protective antioxidants like the vegetables in the list above.

Artichokes

Avocados

Beans – pale-coloured, and bean-sprouts

Cabbages – white, or savoy

Celery

Corn – white

Cucumbers, and zucchini

Lettuce – iceberg

Mushrooms

Olives

Peppers – green

Potatoes – white

White onions

GNLD phytonutrient supplements from whole foods

If you’re not keen on fruits and vegetables, or tend to chose the ones not so rich in health-giving phytonutrients, don’t worry. You can bridge the gaps in your nutrition by taking GNLD phytonutrient supplements every day.

Here’s a brief description of each nutritional product, covering the three main phytonutrient groups.

For more detailed info about the supplements, and how to get them, please visit our Healthy Business GNLD products blog.

GNLD Carotenoid Complex

World’s most powerful complex of carotenoids (fat-soluble antioxidants), derived entirely from whole-food from the human food chain. One bottle of 90 capsules is guaranteed to contain 15 powerful carotenoid family members, equivalent to eating 115 kg of the component raw fruits and vegetables. Just imagine munching your way through all that!

Proven by the USDA, and various Universities, to boost the disease-fighting cells of the immune system.

The protective, immune-boosting carotenoids are: alpha-carotene; beta-carotene; cis-beta-carotene; gamma-carotene; zeta-carotene; lycopene; cis-lycopene; lutein; zeaxanthin; alpha-cryptoxanthin; beta-cryptoxanthin; violaxanthin; canthaxanthin; capsanthin, and cryptocapsin.

And they’re derived from real foods:

Carrot

Red Bell Pepper

Tomato

Spinach

Apricot

Strawberry

Peach

Natural Vitamin E Complex (containing all eight family members)

Lecithin from soy beans (as emulsifier)

Pure Olive Oil (enhances absorption of fat-soluble carotenoids)

GNLD Flavonoid Complex

Flavonoids protect the watery parts of our bodies, in a similar way the carotenoids protect the oily parts.

GNLD Flavonoid Complex is guaranteed to contain the following water-soluble antioxidant flavonoid groups: ellagic acid; flavones; flavanols; flavanones; anthocyanins, and catechins as they occur in the human food-chain. They’re derived from real, whole food:

Cranberry

Kale

Green Tea

Beet

Mixed Berries

Red Grapes

Black Grapes

Orange

Lemon

Grapefruit

Natural Vitamin C (to enhance absorption)

GNLD Cruciferous Plus

This is a great supplement for those who don’t like the ’smelly’ vegetables, like broccoli. Guaranteed to contain health-promoting isothiocyanates and indoles derived from:

Broccoli

Radish

Kale

Black Mustard and Brown Mustard

Watercress

With added terpenes from orange, chalcones from liquorice root, and isoflavones from soya milk.

GNLD supplements are…

Based in Nature, backed by Science. That means you get only the parts Mother Nature put in fruits and vegetables for humans to eat and benefit from, and nothing from dubious sources like marigold flowers, or tree bark. Guaranteed.

You can trust GNLD.

There isn’t a medicine to prevent swine flu. But there are common-sense steps you can take to help prevent catching it. And if you’ve got it, prevent passing it on to strangers, family, and friends.

if you’ve got flu…

• Stay at home. Don’t go visiting family or friends. And don’t go to crowded places, like schools, churches, or shopping malls.
• Cover your mouth and nose every time you cough or sneeze.

The government spokesman on the radio has been recommending sneezing into a tissue, and then disposing of the tissue in a waste-bin.

I think the recommendation is good for some, but not for others, for two reasons.

First, there are many, many people in South Africa with compromised immune systems (the ones most likely to get flu), who are having a challenge scratching enough money together for food: they’re not going to buy expensive tissues to sneeze into.

And second, there’s a culture in this beautiful country of throwing unwanted stuff onto the ground and walking away from it. There’s already too much litter: we don’t need germ-ridden tissues blowing about as well.

Here’s a photo I took with the cell-phone this morning, while out with the dog…

don't want the packaging?... throw it in the bush!

A litter-free suggestion is to raise your bent arm, bend your head down to it, and cough or sneeze into your elbow region. Yes, most of the droplets you blast out will be caught by your clothes, but they won’t be spread into the air around you for other people to breathe in.

• Your flu virus can be transferred from your hands to other surfaces.

After picking your nose, picking your teeth, or sneezing and coughing onto your hand, you’ll have flu virus on your fingers you’ll daub all over the place.

Bugs can’t be seen with the naked eye, so wash your hands frequently, even though you don’t think you need to. Make sure your paws are clean before eating your meals, and especially if you prepare food for other people.

Don’t worry too much if you haven’t got the alcohol-based soap the government chappie recommends, or any soap at all. Rub your hands strongly together, while holding them under running water. The friction of skin-on-skin will remove dead skin cells and surface dirt that could be contaminated with your flu virus.

Dry your hands on a paper towel (dispose of it carefully), or with a clean towel (wash it often), or by rubbing them together in the air (but please don’t blow on them to speed the drying!).

• Resist kissing your loved ones. You’ll give them your flu virus from your wet lips.
• Avoid shaking hands with people, unless you know your hand is clean… and you can be sure their hand doesn’t have any germs on it you might get.

if you haven’t got flu…

Keep your eyes open for what people around you are doing. Is someone next to you in the shop coughing, or sneezing? Are they making any effort to cover their mouth and nose?

There’s no need to run away screaming. Just put a few metres between you and sneezer. In a supermarket, move to another aisle, or move behind the thoughtless person. If you’re outside, go up-wind so their germs blow away from you.

And breathe through your nose: it’s a natural filter.

inform yourself…

There’s been a lot of scare-mongering about swine flu. It’s always sad when people die, but please let’s keep a proper perspective about the numbers. In one day in South Africa…

• 222 people attempt suicide, 22 of whom are successful.
• 1,400 or more new people get infected with HIV.

The daily statistics are alarming… much more alarming than swine flu statistics. So far, there have been six  confirmed deaths from swine flu in South Africa since the first reported case in June (as at 16 August).

There’s a very informative, common-sense article about swine flu, written by Dr Mercola in April this year. He regularly updates it. It was one of the most widely-read posts on the internet. If you’ve not had a chance to read it yet, you can go to it with this link.

And he writes openly and honestly about the vaccines being rushed through development. Are they being tested thoroughly? Are they safe? Dr Mercola’s article on the subject makes very interesting reading.

your immune system…

Like the common cold and other flu’s, swine flu is sent through the air in tiny droplets of moisture when someone who’s got it coughs or sneezes. If you breathe in the droplets, you’ll breathe in the virus.

But if you’ve got a strong, virulent immune system, there’s a good chance the virus will be attacked and destroyed by your own specialised ‘killer’ white blood cells before it can multiply. And even if it does manage to get a hold, your symptoms will be mild and you’ll manage to shake it off and get back to normal quickly.

For your immune strength…

• Avoid things that reduce the power of your immune system, like smoking, drugs (including alcohol), late nights, stress, irregular meals, fried foods, and sugary drinks.

Instead, do the things your mother told you… get enough sleep (so your body can rejuvenate); eat all your veggies (to get disease-fighting vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants); drink plenty of clean water (to flush out toxins), and go out in the open air and exercise.

And here’s our advice to add to your mother’s… take GNLD Carotenoid Complex.

We make sure we have it every day: wouldn’t be without it, especially with all the germs floating about nowadays. It’s proven by American Government scientists, and many other University scientists, to increase the numbers of the special defence and attack cells of the immune system. Powerful protection.

If you want to find out about the unique supplement, and how you can get it, there’s lots of info on our other blog in this post.

What do you think about the swine flu ’scare’? Let’s hear your views, ideas, and suggestions in the comment box below.

Sometimes, when I’m talking with people about network marketing, they say,  ‘Oh yeah! I know… it’s like a pyramid, isn’t it?’ …Wrong!

Here are 16 important differences…

Pyramid scheme

Network (or Multi-Level) Marketing

Product not market related

Market has been investigated and (mainly consumable) products are produced for the market

Encourages large outlay

Has a nominal joining fee, and stock is purchased only when required

Requires fixed monthly payments to assure turnover & profits

Payments only made when purchasing stock; for annual subs, or once-off starter kit

Not everyone has the same opportunity of profit sharing

Everyone has the same opportunity to develop business and generate profits

Earnings are based primarily on signing people (money for signatures)

Rewards are offered for retailing and networking activities, not signatures

Governed by a fixed matrix structure of recruits at each level                   

No restriction on the number of people at each level, or in the whole network

Promotional material sold at profit-making prices

Promotional material sold at nominal prices

Promises money for no work through pyramid-shaped sponsor lines

Fairest system of “he who does the work earns the money”

Provides inadequate training (if any at all)

Free & comprehensive training provided on products and all business aspects

On closer inspection, there’s no obvious product

Confidence from real products supported by money-back guarantee

Cannot out–earn the person above you

Can out-earn anyone above you

Is illegal in most countries

Legal business endorsed by SA Revenue Services

Does not adhere to a code of conduct, or submit to an Ombudsman

Affiliated to, and governed by, the Direct Selling Association (DSA)

Usually not in existence for longer than a year or two

Can have a long history. (GNLD has been in business successfully for over 51 years)

Does not operate simultaneously in more than one global market

Can span many consumer markets globally. (GNLD operates in 55 countries)

If you know any more differences, please share them in the comment box below. Thanks a lot.

When is it?

Friday July 10th and Saturday July 11th are the two days of GNLD’s All Africa Convention. Put them in big red letters in your diary so you won’t miss a really exciting time at the International Convention Centre in Durban, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.

Check out the details at GNLD’s Events website

Apart from you, and at least 3000 other Distributors, who else is going to be there?

Roget Uys, our very own South African, inspired everyone when he was at the helm of GNLD Africa. Now he’s doing a fantastic job as President and CEO of GNLD International, based at HQ in California. It’ll be great to have him back for a while.

Ian Parker, VP of Sales & Marketing, Africa, grew up in Durban. He’ll be back home for the Convention, sharing his enthusiasm and expertise with us. We always learn a lot from Ian, so we’re looking forward to meeting him again.

Two more South Africans, Charlie and Alta Bolton will be there from Addo, in the Eastern Cape. They’ve been 5 Diamond Directors for 12 years straight, and have developed the largest team in GNLD, anywhere in the world. Their team is named the Eagle Team, with something like 500,000 members in 30 countries… wow! Heide and I are really proud to be Eagles!

From KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, Mdu and Fikile Mokoena are also 5 Diamond Directors. They’re a dynamic duo, with a dynamic team… the fastest-growing in GNLD. It’s worth attending the Convention to share their team’s amazing enthusiasm.

Moses and Juliet Klinogo have managed to rise from humble beginnings in Accra, Ghana, to 5 Diamond Directors. Like everyone else, they started as Distributors with a GNLD kit and lots of dreams. Their determination has carried them to the top in only 10 years. They share how they did it, so come and hear their amazing success story.

What’s it cost?

Distributors going on Friday 10th only… R10 per person.

There’s no entrance fee for guests, so bring anyone whose life you want to change for the better. This is a really great chance to show people struggling financially, a way out. In South Africa, anyone over 18 can start their own GNLD business for just R300!

And it’s a great chance to help anyone you know, who has a health challenge… GNLD’s nutritional products are the best: they work!

Any Distributor attending Friday and Saturday (that is, the whole Convention) will be asked for R105 per person. That includes the Friday night entrance fee.

In addition, there’s an optional Convention Pack, containing a DVD and all sorts of literature, for R56 per pack.

Tickets

If you like standing in long queues, get your tickets at the door. Otherwise get them from your local DSC before the Convention.

Why not come early and have a look around Durban? The amazing 2010 stadium is nearing completion… you’ve got to see that. And there’s uShaka Theme Park… restaurants… the beach… hotels… B & B’s. Check it all out on Durban’s new 2010 FIFA website.

See you at the Convention!

We’re very excited to support this fantastic initiative to encourage 1 million South Africans to plant something edible on 22 September, the start of the next planting season. And to learn how to grow it organically.

Doesn’t matter if you haven’t got a garden: a pot or window box is just fine, so literally everyone can take part.

Please click on the button above to do your bit on planting day. And don’t forget to let all your friends know about it, so they have a chance of taking part, too.

If you want to join the Facebook group, just click here… Facebook

Are you a GNLD Distributor in South Africa, West Africa, or East Africa?

Got a question about a GNLD product?

Here’s another great new service for Distributors from GNLD… the email hotline for Southern Africa:  productenquiries@gnld.co.za

You can also get the right answer by contacting the right person directly. Here they are…

South Africa

Anèl van der Merwe, Information Resource Co-ordinator. Tel: 011-409-3031 or anel@gnld.co.za

Nokuthula Nwaoshai, Assistant Product Manager. Tel: 011-409-3121 or nokuthula@gnld.co.za

West Africa

Sanmi Asalu, Sales & Product Director. Tel: +234-1-271-8638 or oasalu@gnld-ng.com

East Africa

Nkatha Mwenda, Assistant Product Manager. Tel: +254-20-2212127 / 342222 or nkatham@gnld.co.ke

The most succinct video I’ve ever seen on the secrets of success, is the short video by Richard St. John, posted on www.ted.com. He says it all in less than 4 minutes.

Check it out and tell us what you think.

In our neck of the woods Tuesday is rubbish-collection day. Each household is allowed to put out two big black plastic bags of household refuse, and orange plastic bags of paper and cardboard. There are also blue plastic bags for garden rubbish.

The black bags and the orange bags are provided free of charge by the city council, though of course we indirectly pay for them in our local taxes. The blue bags aren’t provided: they have to be bought, which pays for the extra collection service.

Under a kilometre away from our home is a recycling depot, where glass, metal tins, aluminium cans, and plastic can be handed in for recycling. There’s no on-the-spot payment for this service, either.

It’s a really good system, and doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how it works.

A couple of Saturdays ago, I saw our Rottweiler’s rear end poking out of the chain-link fence. She was busy squeezing her way through a hole she had made. She’s an obedient dog, and reversed out of the hole when I called her.

Closer inspection revealed the attraction. Some bright spark had put two bags of household rubbish on our neat grass verge. It was in blue plastic bags meant for garden refuse. Duh!?! Wrong bags; wrong day!

Of course, it didn’t take long for some of the local dogs to find the bags and rip them apart, scattering the rubbish all over the place in their frenzied search for food remnants. Just like the last time it happened, bits of paper and plastic were blown by the wind onto our wire fence, creating a collage all-too-familiar in many parts of this country. And the aromas wafting in Roza’s direction had prompted her to attempt an escape, so she could rake through the rubbish herself, before I had a chance to clear up the mess.

Out I went again, armed with black bags and orange bags… wearing yellow Marigold gloves. A real sight for sore eyes! It’s amazing what you can deduce about people from having a sift through their rubbish! An empty ‘Pulmicort’ container, so someone has athsma. Unopened tins of dog food past their sell-by date, and empty dog-food packets, so there’s a dog in the house. A box from dry cat food points to a cat, too. A couple of small nappies from a baby. An amazing assortment of wrappers and boxes from most of the local fast-food joints suggests, perhaps, a working mother pressed for time to make proper food. Four rolls of biscuits, unfinished. A packet of sandwiches, half eaten, and a whole pot of double cream, unopened, suggests further waste of hard-earned cash. Empty wine and beer bottles; tin cans; aluminium drink cans; plastic pots; an assortment of plastic bottles from household cleaners; newspapers; cardboard boxes, … all could be recycled.

Aha! Two envelopes! Unfortunately, window envelopes, so there’s no name or address. But wait! What are these?… Two slips of paper from a local security company detailing the date and time of visits. And the address. Gotcha!

I took the newly-sorted rubbish home. Much to Roza’s chagrin, who had closely observed my activities, I put it in the garage out of her reach to wait for the next Tuesday collection day. Last time I put the bags next to our dustbins, and Roza waited until we’d gone to bed before going on a night-time raid. That week I had the pleasure of clearing up twice.

Sunday afternoon, I got an unopened pack of black plastic bags from the garage, and went off for a chat with the neighbours. Pleasant people. Apologised. Appreciated the gift of ‘free’ black bags. Thankfully, I haven’t had to clear up any more of their mess. And Roza hasn’t been tunnelling, contenting herself with our daily morning walk.

You can take a look in our black bag, if you want. There’s no paper, metal, glass, or plastic. No vegetable matter either: we compost that.

Notice I wrote bag, not bags. In our home, we only use GNLD household cleaners. They not only work very well, they’re biodegradeable, non-caustic, and non-flammable. And they are concentrated. Very concentrated.

For example, just one litre of GNLD disinfectant, called ‘Care’ in South Africa, can be diluted 50:1 with tap water for normal home use. Pay for a litre and get a whopping 51 litres of disinfectant out of it. We like that!

A 1litre bottle of Super 10 makes 11 litres of multi-purpose cleaning fluid. Use it everywhere in the home and garage: walls, floors, tiles, baths, showers, w.c.bowls, stain removal from carpets and clothes, barbecue grills, car wheels, chrome, cleaning the motorbike chain, oil-drip removal from concrete driveways, washing down before painting, to name just a few of the myriad of uses.

Don’t know what we’d do without LDC, either. Among many uses, it performs a very important job in our house… removing chemicals from fruit and vegetables, our main source of carbohydrates. Our largest bill is the greengrocer’s bill, and without LDC we’d be eating tons of hormone-changing compounds on the skins, leaves, and peel of everything we buy there.

So do we practise what we preach? Reduce, reuse, recycle? We recycle GNLD’s biodegradeable plastic bottles. But not very often! Don’t have to… a biodegradeable plastic bottle from Care about once a year; a biodegradeable bottle from Super 10 about once every 4 months, and a biodegradeable bottle from LDC about once every 3 months. Using GNLD’s Homecare concentrates is why we have under half a plastic bag of rubbish a week, using very little space in the local landfill site. So that’s ‘recycle’ and ‘reduce’ taken care of.

The three GNLD spray/mixing bottles we bought 9 years ago are still in daily use… that’s ‘reuse’ for sure!

How about you? What’s going out of your house in your rubbish bags? What sort of impact are you making on the environment?

Ever noticed what people often say when you ask them a question about something, like what they’ve done, a place they’ve visited, or the car they drive?

“It was an interesting day, but… “

“It was a nice place, but… “

“Yeah, the car goes well, but… “

Here’s a way to turn your replies into positive ones:  ‘but’ out!

‘But’ invites you to add something that’s not positive at all. So leave the word ‘but’ out of your sentences.
At first you’ll need to think about it to catch yourself when your mind is formulating something beginning with ‘but’.
With practise though, you’ll eventually remove it from your habitual vocabularly.

Instead, use the word ‘and’ to join your thoughts together.
‘And’ forces you to think about something positive to say after it.

“It was an interesting day, and… I thoroughly enjoyed myself.”

“It was a nice place, and… I met many new people.”

“Yeah, the new car goes well, and… I’m really enjoying driving it.”

Try it. You’ll be amazed at the difference it makes to your thoughts.

And if your thoughts are more positive, you’ll feel more positive.

And if you feel more positive, your actions will be more positive.

And if your actions are more positive, you’ll be more successful at everything you do.