The Importance of Being Flexible

I am a scientist with over 300 inventions related to health, longevity and medicine. This newsletter installment is about stretching, flexibility and its effects on your body.

Bone Up on Your Stretching

You attempt to bend down and lift your cat but your lower back creaks, seizes up and complains. Your hamstrings are tight as two boards of plywood from years of running, but will not allow you to reach down to pick up your grandchild. You stretch for the bar of soap in the shower but your shoulder tightens in its rotator cuff. Your body rattles, grates and squeaks like the tin man as you stiffly maneuver through your busy day.

If you want to retain a youthful flexible body that will bend at your request, then move the toxins out and get the oxygen in to the connective tissues and joints. You may not ever be ready to run away with the trapeze lady at Cirque de Soleil, but you will be able to bend down and pick a flower or tie your shoe all the way into your 70’s if you give in to a routine practice of stretching.

Flexibility is a health issue for many adults as the average person loses up to 70% of flexibility between the ages of 20 to 70 if they do not take conscious action to stretch their joints, ligaments, and bones. Although not life-threatening, lack of flexibility is a health concern for those who exercise, and for those who don’t, because of its debilitating effects on the human body, as joint stiffness increases and muscles become less limber with age.

Stretch These Old Bones

Extended periods of inactivity bring about chemical changes that can limit flexibility. Underused connective tissue loses elasticity as it becomes stiff and dense. The human body goes through a similar process as it ages, but a flexibility program will not only improve physical fitness, it can give you a more youthful body. Stretching will increase suppleness by stimulating the production of chemicals that lubricate the connective soft tissue. Stimulating the production of lubricants between connective tissue fibers promotes hydration and as a result, the pliancy and agility of the movements of your body, slowing down the aging process.

Flexibility is defined as the absolute range of motion available in any joint. It is joint specific. How far will the joint yield to slow steady stretches while breathing deeply. It is also movement specific. You may be flexible in one shoulder stretch, but not in another. Flexibility training promotes relaxation both mentally and physically. Body awareness, aligned posture, and proper breathing patterns will be enhanced and carry over into your daily life, which is the ultimate goal of all exercise and health care. You exercise to increase the quality of your life through taking care of the body. Stretching quickens the delivery of oxygen and other nutrients, while speeding the removal of lactic acid and other waste products. It is vital to hydrate, and re-hydrate after deep stretching, to help remove the toxins from the body and to promote suppleness and lasting health.

Recommendations for Flexibility Training

1. Stretch and flexibility training should be done when the body is warm.

2. Yoga is an amazing practice to strengthen and stretch the body and mind.

3. Never stretch to the point of pain, only slight discomfort.

4. Slow long inhales and exhales will aid you to get into a stretch, and ease the muscles over time into relaxing more deeply.

5. Hydration is a necessary way to keep healthy, removing the toxins from the muscles, joints and connective tissue.

Water These Old Bones

Some of you may say, "Well, I hate water and I don't want to drink anymore than I have to," and while I want to enforce that water is essential to our bodies and minds, seeing as how we are mostly comprised of it, there are other ways to make the most of the water that you do drink.

Make sure you can absorb the nutrients with proper hydration. That means enough of the right kind of water each day. The naturally present water in raw foods is a great source but also make sure your water has a low surface tension.

Though most tap and bottled water has high surface tenions, there are ways to make water more available to your body's cells.

Silica is a natural mineral and special forms of microcluster® silica are small enough to change the absorption properties of water. Ask your vitamin store for it.

How Stress Effects Neurotransmitters

The brain uses feel-good transmitters called endorphins when managing daily stress. When the brain requires larger amounts of endorphins to handle increased stress, the ratio of many of the other transmitters, one to another, becomes upset creating a chemical imbalance. We begin to feel stress more acutely -- a sense of urgency and anxiety creates even more stress. As a result, harmful chemicals are released in our bodies that may do damage, causing more stress. This vicious cycle is called the "stress cycle." Emotional fatigue might result and be experienced and felt as depression.

The body responds to emotional stress exactly as it responds to physical danger. Without our being aware of it, usually not feeling it at all, our bodies are continuously reacting to emotions such as frustration, irritation, resentment, hurt, grief and anxiety. We physiologically respond to these mental and emotional struggles with a primitive "fight or flight" response designed to prepare our bodies to face immediate danger. Today, we usually don't fight, we usually don't flee. Instead, the high-energy chemicals produced in many everyday situations insidiously boil inside us.

Most all of our body organs and functions react to stress.

Your body responds to stress with a series of physiological changes that may include increased adrenaline secretion, blood pressure elevation, heartbeat acceleration, and increased muscle tension. Digestion may slow or stop. It is likely that within one to two days after a stress-anxiety-anger reaction, physical symptoms will occur. Excessive stress could manifest into illness.

Increased adrenaline production causes the body to increase metabolism of proteins, fats and carbohydrates to quickly produce energy for the body to use. The pituitary gland increases production of andrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which in turn stimulates the release of cortisone and cortisol hormones. These hormonal releases may inhibit the functioning of disease fighting white blood cells and suppress the immune system's response.

According to NeuroGenesis, Inc., researchers estimate that stress contributes to as many as 80% of all major illnesses. Studies by the American Medical Association have shown stress to be a factor in over 75% of all illnesses today.

Is there any alternative?

There are many natural products on the market that may help with disorders where stress is a factor. Do your homework before making a choice. "beCALM'd" is one such product that may be useful in helping to reduce stress. NeuroGenesis states that “beCALM’d” has 13 years of successful use in over 700 clinics, hospitals, drug and alcohol rehab centers.

NeuroGenesis also states that the ingredients in “beCALM'd” provide cells with the required nutrients to produce the necessary amounts of the neurotransmitters the brain needs to stay in balance.

Always be sure to check with your health care provider before you take any nutritional supplement. Some supplements may not be right for you.

History

Chandler (2005) argues the relative success or failure of American and European chemical companies is explained with reference to three themes: "barriers to entry," "strategic boundaries," and "limits to growth." He says successful chemical firms followed definite "paths of learning" whereby first movers and close followers created entry barriers to would-be rivals by building "integrated learning bases" (or organizational capabilities) which enabled them to develop, produce, distribute, and sell in local and then worldwide markets. Also they followed a "virtuous strategy" of reinvestment of retained earnings and growth through diversification, particularly to utilize "dynamic" scale and scope economies relating to new learning in launching "next generation" products.

Chemical companies

The largest corporate producers worldwide, with plants in numerous countries, are BASF, Dow, Shell, Bayer, INEOS, ExxonMobil, DuPont, SABIC, and Mitsubishi, along with thousands of smaller firms.

In the U.S. there are 170 major chemical companies.^{[citation needed]} They operate internationally with more than 2,800 facilities outside the U.S. and 1,700 foreign subsidiaries or affiliates operating. The U.S. chemical output is $400 billion a year. The U.S. industry records large trade surpluses and employs more than a million people in the United States alone. The chemical industry is also the second largest consumer of energy in manufacturing and spends over $5 billion annually on pollution abatement.

In Europe, especially Germany, the chemical, plastics and rubber sectors are among the largest industrial sectors.^{[citation needed]} Together they generate about 3.2 million jobs in more than 60,000 companies. Since 2000 the chemical sector alone has represented 2/3 of the entire manufacturing trade surplus of the EU. The chemical sector accounts for 12% of the EU manufacturing industry's added value.

The chemical industry has shown rapid growth for more than fifty years.^{[citation needed]} The fastest growing areas have been in the manufacture of synthetic organic polymers used as plastics, fibres and elastomers. Historically and presently the chemical industry has been concentrated in three areas of the world, Western Europe, North America and Japan (the Triad). The European Community remains the largest producer area followed by the USA and Japan.

The traditional dominance of chemical production by the Triad countries is being challenged by changes in feedstock availability and price, labour cost, energy cost, differential rates of economic growth and environmental pressures. Instrumental in the changing structure of the global chemical industry has been the growth in China, India, Korea, the Middle East, South East Asia, Nigeria, Trinidad, Thailand, Brazil, Venezuela, and Indonesia.

Chemical industry

The chemical industry comprises the companies that produce industrial chemicals. It is central to modern world economy, converting raw materials (oil, natural gas, air, water, metals, minerals) into more than 70,000 different products.

Products

Polymers and plastics, especially polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene terephthalate, polystyrene and polycarbonate comprise about 80% of the industry’s output worldwide.[citation needed] Chemicals are used to make a wide variety of consumer goods, as well as thousands inputs to agriculture, manufacturing, construction, and service industries. The chemical industry itself consumes 26 percent of its own output.[citation needed] Major industrial customers include rubber and plastic products, textiles, apparel, petroleum refining, pulp and paper, and primary metals. Chemicals is nearly a $2 trillion global enterprise, and the EU and U.S. chemical companies are the world's largest producers.

Product Category Breakdown

Sales of the chemistry business can be divided into a few broad categories, including basic chemicals (about 35 to 37 percent of the dollar output), life sciences (30 percent), specialty chemicals (20 to 25 percent) and consumer products (about 10 percent).[citation needed]

Basic chemicals are a broad chemical category including polymers, bulk petrochemicals and intermediates, other derivatives and basic industrials, inorganic chemicals, and fertilizers. Typical growth rates for basic chemicals are about 0.5 to 0.7 times GDP. Product prices are generally less than fifty cents per pound. Polymers, the largest revenue segment at about 33 percent of the basic chemicals dollar value, includes all categories of plastics and man-made fibers. The major markets for plastics are packaging, followed by home construction, containers, appliances, pipe, transportation, toys, and games. The largest-volume polymer product, polyethylene (PE), is used mainly in packaging films and other markets such as milk bottles, containers, and pipe. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), another large-volume product, is principally used to make pipe for construction markets as well as siding and, to a much smaller extent, transportation and packaging materials. Polypropylene (PP), similar in volume to PVC, is used in markets ranging from packaging, appliances, and containers to clothing and carpeting. Polystyrene (PS), another large-volume plastic, is used principally for appliances and packaging as well as toys and recreation. The leading man-made fibers include poly-ester, nylon, polypropylene, and acrylics, with applications including apparel, home furnishings, and other industrial and consumer use. The principal raw materials for polymers are bulk petrochemicals.

Chemicals in the bulk petrochemicals and intermediates are primarily made from liquified petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, and crude oil. Their sales volume is close to 30 percent of overall basic chemicals. Typical large-volume products include ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, xylenes, methanol, vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), styrene, butadiene, and ethylene oxide. These chemicals are the starting points for most polymers and other organic chemicals as well as much of the specialty chemicals category. Other derivatives and basic industries include synthetic rubber, surfactants, dyes and pigments, turpentine, resins, carbon black, explosives, and rubber products and contribute about 20 percent of the basic chemicals external sales. Inorganic chemicals (about 12 percent of the revenue output) make up the oldest of the chemical categories. Products include salt, chlorine, caustic soda, soda ash, acids (such as nitric, phosphoric, and sulfuric), titanium dioxide, and hydrogen peroxide. Fertilizers are the smallest category (about 6 percent) and include phosphates, ammonia, and potash chemicals.

Life sciences (about 30 percent of the dollar output of the chemistry business) include differentiated chemical and biological substances, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, animal health products, vitamins, and crop protection chemicals. While much smaller in volume than other chemical sectors, their products tend to have very high prices—over ten dollars per pound—growth rates of 1.5 to 6 times GDP, and research and development spending at 15 to 25 percent of sales. Life science products are usually produced with very high specifications and are closely scrutinized by government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration. Crop protection chemicals, about 10 percent of this category, include herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides.

Specialty chemicals are a category of relatively high valued, rapidly growing chemicals with diverse end product markets. Typical growth rates are one to three times GDP with prices over a dollar per pound. They are generally characterized by their innovative aspects. Products are sold for what they can do rather than for what chemicals they contain. Products include electronic chemicals, industrial gases, adhesives and sealants as well as coatings, industrial and institutional cleaning chemicals, and catalysts. Coatings make up about 15 percent of specialty chemicals sales, with other products ranging from 10 to 13 percent.

Consumer products include direct product sale of chemicals such as soaps, detergents, and cosmetics. Typical growth rates are 0.8 to 1.0 times GDP.

Every year, the American Chemistry Council tabulates the U.S. production of the top 100 basic chemicals. In 2000, the aggregate production of the top 100 chemicals totaled 502 million tons, up from 397 million tons in 1990. Inorganic chemicals tend to be the largest volume, though much smaller in dollar revenue terms due to their low prices. The top 11 of the 100 chemicals in 2000 were sulfuric acid (44 million tons), nitrogen (34), ethylene (28), oxygen (27), lime (22), ammonia (17), propylene (16), polyethylene (15), chlorine (13), phosphoric acid (13) and diammonium phosphates (12).

Chemical engineering

Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with the application of physical science (e.g. chemistry and physics), with mathematics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms. In addition to producing useful materials, chemical engineering is also concerned with pioneering valuable new materials and techniques, an important form of research and development. A person employed in this field is called a chemical engineer.

Chemical engineering largely involves the design and maintenance of chemical processes for large-scale manufacture. Chemical engineers in this branch are usually employed under the title of process engineer.


Chemical Engineering Timeline

In 1824, French physicist Sadi Carnot, in his “On the Motive Power of Fire”, was the first to study the thermodynamics of combustion reactions in steam engines. In the 1850s, German physicist Rudolf Clausius began to apply the principles developed by Carnot to chemicals systems at the atomic to molecular scale.[1] During the years 1873 to 1876 at Yale University, American mathematical physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs, the first to be awarded a Ph.D. in engineering in the U.S., in a series of three papers, developed a mathematical-based, graphical methodology, for the study of chemical systems using the thermodynamics of Clausius. In 1882, German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, published a founding thermodynamics paper, similar to Gibbs, but with more of an electro-chemical basis, in which he showed that measure of chemical affinity, i.e. the “force” of chemical reactions, is determined by the measure of the free energy of the reaction process. Following these early developments, the new science of chemical engineering began to develop. The following timeline shows some of the key steps in the development of the science of chemical engineering:[2]

* 1805 – John Dalton published Atomic Weights, allowing chemical equations to be balanced and the basis for chemical engineering mass balances.
* 1882 – a course in “Chemical Technology” is offered at University College London
* 1883 – Osborne Reynolds defines the dimensionless group for fluid flow, leading to practical scale-up and understanding of flow, heat and mass transfer
* 1885 – Henry Edward Armstrong offers a course in “chemical engineering” at Central College (later Imperial College), London.
* 1888 – There is a Department of Chemical Engineering at Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College offering day and evening classes[3].
* 1888 – Lewis M. Norton starts a new curriculum at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): Course X, Chemical Engineering[4][5]
* 1889 – Rose Polytechnic Institute awards the first bachelor’s of science in chemical engineering in the US.[6]
* 1891 – MIT awards a bachelor’s of science in chemical engineering to William Page Bryant and six other candidates.
* 1892 – A bachelor’s program in chemical engineering is established at the University of Pennsylvania.
* 1901 – George E. Davis produces the Handbook of Chemical Engineering
* 1905 – the University of Wisconsin awards the first Ph.D. in chemical engineering to Oliver Patterson Watts.
* 1908 – the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) is founded.
* 1922 – the UK Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) is founded.
* 1942 – Hilda Derrick, first female student member of the IChemE.[7]

Chemical reaction

A chemical reaction is a process that always results in the interconversion of chemical substances. The substance or substances initially involved in a chemical reaction are called reactants. Chemical reactions are usually characterized by a chemical change, and they yield one or more products which are, in general, different from the reactants. Classically, chemical reactions encompass changes that strictly involve the motion of electrons in the forming and breaking of chemical bonds, although the general concept of a chemical reaction, in particular the notion of a chemical equation, is applicable to transformations of elementary particles, as well as nuclear reactions.

Different chemical reactions are used in combinations in chemical synthesis in order to get a desired product. In biochemistry, series of chemical reactions catalyzed by enzymes form metabolic pathways, by which syntheses and decompositions ordinarily impossible in conditions within a cell are performed.

Reaction types

The large diversity of chemical reactions and approaches to their study results in the existence of several concurring, often overlapping, ways of classifying them. Below are examples of widely used terms for describing common kinds of reactions.

* Isomerisation, in which a chemical compound undergoes a structural rearrangement without any change in its net atomic composition; see stereoisomerism
* Direct combination or synthesis, in which 2 or more chemical elements or compounds unite to form a more complex product:

N2 + 3 H2 → 2 NH3

* Chemical decomposition or analysis, in which a compound is decomposed into smaller compounds or elements:

2 H2O → 2 H2 + O2

* Single displacement or substitution, characterized by an element being displaced out of a compound by a more reactive element:

2 Na(s) + 2 HCl(aq) → 2 NaCl(aq) + H2(g)

* Metathesis or Double displacement reaction, in which two compounds exchange ions or bonds to form different compounds:

NaCl(aq) + AgNO3(aq) → NaNO3(aq) + AgCl(s)

* Acid-base reactions, broadly characterized as reactions between an acid and a base, can have different definitions depending on the acid-base concept employed. Some of the most common are:

* Arrhenius definition: Acids dissociate in water releasing H3O+ ions; bases dissociate in water releasing OH- ions.
* Brønsted-Lowry definition: Acids are proton (H+) donors; bases are proton acceptors. Includes the Arrhenius definition.
* Lewis definition: Acids are electron-pair acceptors; bases are electron-pair donors. Includes the Brønsted-Lowry definition.

* Redox reactions, in which changes in oxidation numbers of atoms in involved species occur. Those reactions can often be interpreted as transferences of electrons between different molecular sites or species. A typical example of redox rection is:

2 S2O32−(aq) + I2(aq) → S4O62−(aq) + 2 I−(aq)

In which I2 is reduced to I- and S2O32- (thiosulfate anion) is oxidized to S4O62-.

* Combustion, a kind of redox reaction in which any combustible substance combines with an oxidizing element, usually oxygen, to generate heat and form oxidized products. The term combustion is usually used for only large-scale oxidation of whole molecules, i.e. a controlled oxidation of a single functional group is not combustion.

C10H8+ 12 O2 → 10 CO2 + 4 H2O
CH2S + 6 F2 → CF4 + 2 HF + SF6

Organic reactions encompass a wide assortment of reactions involving compounds which have carbon as the main element in their molecular structure. The reactions in which an organic compound may take part are largely defined by its functional groups. Defined in opposition to inorganic reactions. Reactions can also be classified according to their mechanism, some typical examples being:

* Reactions of ions, e.g. disproportionation of hypochlorite
* Reactions with reactive ionic intermediates, e.g. reactions of enolates
* Radical reactions, e.g. combustion at high temperature
* Reactions of carbenes


Chemical kinetics

The rate of a chemical reaction is a measure of how the concentration or pressure of the involved substances changes with time. Analysis of reaction rates is important for several applications, such as in chemical engineering or in chemical equilibrium study. Rates of reaction depends basically on:

* Reactant concentrations, which usually make the reaction happen at a faster rate if raised through increased collisions per unit time,
* Surface area available for contact between the reactants, in particular solid ones in heterogeneous systems. Larger surface area leads to higher reaction rates.
* Pressure, by increasing the pressure, you decrease the volume between molecules. This will increase the frequency of collisions of molecules.
* Activation energy, which is defined as the amount of energy required to make the reaction start and carry on spontaneously. Higher activation energy implies that the reactants need more energy to start than a reaction with a lower activation energy.
* Temperature, which hastens reactions if raised, since higher temperature increases the energy of the molecules, creating more collisions per unit time,
* The presence or absence of a catalyst. Catalysts are substances which change the pathway (mechanism) of a reaction which in turn increases the speed of a reaction by lowering the activation energy needed for the reaction to take place. A catalyst is not destroyed or changed during a reaction, so it can be used again.
* For some reactions, the presence of electromagnetic radiation, most notably ultra violet, is needed to promote the breaking of bonds to start the reaction. This is particularly true for reactions involving radicals.

Reaction rates are related to the concentrations of substances involved in reactions, as quantified by the rate law of each reaction. Note that some reactions have rates that are independent of reactant concentrations. These are called zero order reactions.