Creatine. It’s Not Just for Bodybuilders Anymore.

by Michael Fuhrman D.C.

Creatine is a naturally occurring substance that is synthesized in the human body, and for that matter in all vertebrates, in the liver and kidneys from the amino acids arginine, methionine and glycine. It is then transported to areas of the body where energy requirements are very high. These would be the skeletal muscles, where approximately 95% of the body’s stores of creatine are found and secondarily, the brain. Biochemically and physiologically, creatine’s main function is its participation in the synthesis of ATP, the primary compound involved in cellular energy production, metabolism and respiration. Meat and fish are the primary sources of creatine so it naturally stands to reason that those who are vegetarian may be deficient in this extremely important compound and may require supplementation. Additionally, even those athletes and bodybuilders that consume animal protein may have increased energy demands which would require additional creatine ingestion.

Neurological and brain health

Of particular interest are the properties and applications supplemental creatine can fulfill that go beyond its better known anabolic and exercise enhancing qualities. For instance, past research has shown that errors in creatine metabolism may be related to higher incidences of developing depression and other neuro-psychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions. It is possible that creatine supplementation can be of particular value in such a population of patients. The connection between creatine and its role in both neurological and brain health may be very well tied to its importance in cellular energy production and subsequent mitochondrial health.

In view of this fact that creatine may show utility in psychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions, it may not be a stretch that the compound may also be useful in applications of brain health and cognition as well as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and various other severe mental and emotional conditions.

Liver dysfunction

For those who consume either a high fat or high carbohydrate diet, the risk of developing associated liver dysfunction increases dramatically. In the obese and diabetic patient, the prospects of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease or simply accumulation of fat in the liver is always a possibility. Creatine use in animals fed a high fat diet demonstrated positive effects as the compound was able to prevent the condition from developing, suggesting a therapeutic role in these types of patients.

Potential help with substance abuse

Is it possible that creatine can help those individuals with substance abuse issues? Studies have shown this population to be consistently deficient in creatine and thus its therapeutic use shows effects similar to those demonstrated by traditional antidepressant drugs.

Benefits for the elderly

In the elderly population sarcopenia (age-related muscle wasting) is constantly a risk, for example from immobility due to long term hospitalization. Creatine has been shown to help improve this condition in spite of a lack of physical stimulation or exercise.

Together these benefits can yield profound improvements in various aspects of health and quality of life when viewed in the context of improving cognition, physical strength, endurance and related fatigue. With its positive benefits in mitochondrial health and energy production it appears that creatine can be a logical and important choice for a variety of patients and conditions or simply as a beneficial nutrient.

Broccoli and Sulforaphane

by Michael Fuhrman, D.C.

The understanding of broccoli’s health benefits has brought about a significant interest in and subsequent research on the plant in recent years. The family of compounds that have really grabbed the imagination of scientists is called the glucosinolates. This group of substances, once consumed, will, with the assistance of an enzyme called myrosinase, convert to a new biologically active group of compounds called isothiocyanates. One of them, sulforaphane, is the primary member of this group and has received a significant amount of scientific attention.

Phase II detoxification

Perhaps the most clinically valuable role isothiocyanates, and specifically sulforaphane, play in the human body is their ability to stimulate phase II detoxification pathways in addition to cytochrome P450 enzymes. The P450 enzyme family acts, among other things, as catalysts for reactions involving the metabolism of many drugs, precancerous chemicals such as PCBs, and hormones including 17-beta estradiol. This mechanism of action, the activation of P450 enzymes, in addition to activating Nrf2, may perhaps be where sulforaphane displays its cancer-protective properties. Nrf2 is a transcription factor that, when activated, stimulates the body’s primary antioxidatve response pathway. This pathway is essential in reducing damage and protecting cells as well as DNA from toxin-generated reactive oxygen species, which can lay the groundwork for the genesis of cancer.

H. pylori

One property that many clinicians may not be aware of is sulforaphane’s ability to heal gastrointestinal mucosa damaged by H. pylori. H. pylori infections can generate a high amount of localized oxidative stress. This effect can be very damaging, greatly compromising the integrity of the GI tract’s epithelial lining. It is again sulforaphane’s antioxidative properties that act as tissue-protective agents, minimizing GI damage in those suffering with H. pylori. Additionally, broccoli sprouts high in sulforaphane were shown to help control and minimize H. pylori colonization as well.

Neuroprotection

Another application that was investigated through sulforaphane’s induction of the Nrf2 pathway was its ability to act as a neuroprotective agent. Spinal cord injuries can obviously be very traumatic with high post-injury levels of tissue-damaging inflammation, oxidation and antioxidant depletion being key factors in the resultant pathophysiology of the injury’s cascade. Researchers found that in animal models of contusive spinal cord injury, sulforaphane use holds potential as a therapeutic tool, as it was shown to help mitigate tissue damage through the activation of the Nrf2 pathway.

In one final reference to Nrf2, sulforaphane use was shown to suppress the accumulation of mercury in the brain (a major issue for individuals suffering with autism and ADHD for instance) in study animals exposed to methylmercury.

UV radiation

Exposure to excessive amounts of UV radiation is a continued health concern for many people, including clinicians. It can inflict its detrimental effects through lipid peroxidation, suppression of the immune response, and direct damage to vulnerable DNA, among others effects. Sulforaphane was shown to reduce damage to skin tissue, indicating its usefulness as a possible skin-protective compound.

Broccoli and its potent constituent sulforaphane can be powerful allies in helping to prevent disease. For those who have an aversion to the vegetable, perhaps broccoli sprouts or a daily dose of a sulforaphane-containing supplement can help protect us from some of the daily chemical toxic insults we all unfortunately encounter.

Benefits of Keeping a Food Journal

What you eat plays a huge role in how you build your body. And eating is like fishing - lots of tall tales are told and there can be a big difference between what you thought you did and what you actually did. One simple way to remedy this is with a food journal. No, it is not a list of foods to eat or not it. It is simply a notebook in which you write down everything that goes into your mouth. And it may shock you.
To make this work, you have to be totally honest and put down everything you ingest, including liquids and snacks. How long? Two weeks. Write down everything you eat and drink (including water) for the next two weeks. Include both what you are eating and how much you are eating of it. Also note the times that you are eating and drinking.
Don't cheat - put it all down. Also, don't try and eat differently to make your eating habits appear better. At this point you are just looking at a diagnostic test, not yet repair. The dietary repair comes last.
Once you have two week's worth of data on what you have been eating sit down and analyze it. Or if you aren’t that strong on nutrition, have a pal or someone who knows good nutrition analyze your diet. Are you getting enough protein? Drinking too much caffeine? Snacking on the wrong stuff? A two week overview should provide a fairly good picture on what your eating habits are and let you know if you need to improve.
Once you have the two week overview finished, as well as an analysis of what you ate, it is now time to move onward. Fix the holes in your diet by setting up a plan to improve your dietary intake, based on what your two week journal revealed. Get rid of the things you need to, improve any bad habits, etc.
This dietary journal is a simple yet very effective way to rapidly diagnose and improve your diet. It is a good idea to perform this journal check at least once a year and preferably twice a year if you are serious about changing your diet. Remember, change your diet and in turn change your condition.

Foods that Speed up Metabolism

  Boost your Metabolism and Lose Weight with these Common Foods

I am on a quest to eliminate fat speedily, so I’ve been studying meals that velocity up metabolic rate to assist me out. I consider my metabolic process has slowed down as I’ve gotten a tiny older (I’m not old, mind you, just older than I the moment was!), and so I’m seeking to, as that famous guy on that well-known food channel states, “kick it up a notch.”

Anyway, I discovered some great suggestions that I assumed I would share with everyone else who is also hunting to get forward of the body weight reduction video game.

Almonds. Packed with “good fats,” fiber, and protein, and also tasting great, the almond is a very good addition for your grocery record. They contain vital fatty acids that raise your body’s metabolic process just by consuming them. They also contain antioxidants and are just basically a tremendous very good foods.

Green tea. A excellent enhance for extra fat burning in the early morning to get you heading. Another gain of green tea is its cancer-combating potential so it genuinely packs a punch to commence your day. You are going to discover green tea in a lot of industrial extra fat-burning preparations.

Beans. Packed with fiber, beans assist you really feel entire for an extended interval of time which will aid you in your body weight decline strategy.

Eggs. Forget all the “aged information” about this food becoming bad for you. It can be not! Eggs are 1 of the best protein sources and do a fantastic career at escalating your metabolic process.

Peanut butter. Yet another foods that you should forget about what you’ve got been hearing about it, just distinct it out of your thoughts. This is an excellent resource of important fatty acids, protein, and fiber. Extremely very good for you and tremendous delicious. Stay away from the usual identify manufacturers and go for the natural peanut butter or make your individual at home with raw peanuts and you’ll have a excellent healthy and advantageous snack.

Berries. You have most likely heard that berries have tons of anti-oxidants, but you may possibly not have known they can aid with excess fat burning as nicely. Add these to your grocery checklist, and if you cannot find them clean try some frozen blackberries or blueberries which are usually easily offered.

Cayenne pepper. This ingredient is one more one particular usually utilised in business metabolic process-boosting preparations. It contains thermagenic attributes which heat up your physique and pressure your technique to utilize calories to great down.

These are just a couple of of the food items you can consume to increase your metabolism and speed excess weight loss outcomes, merely simply because they need a lot more of your body’s energy to burn up. Keep in mind to eat small meals throughout the day so that your body is constantly in a state of burning calories.

How To Lower Blood Pressure Naturally?

 6 Practical Tips

High blood pressure is not a good thing! It is one of the most common abnormalities among people. High BP is not good because it can inherently increase stress and it can also put you at the risk of cardiovascular diseases, stroke and many other fatal illness.
As I said earlier the sad thing is that this has become a more common issue mainly due to the nature of food we consume and our lifestyle.
I discuss 6 practical tips in this post that will help lower your blood pressure naturally.

Exercise regularly

Exercising is a great way to regularize blood pressure. You can hit many birds with one stone when you exercise regularly. You can de-stress yourself, which is a great way to keep high blood pressure off the fence.

And also by exercising you can keep yourself fit and healthy. But do note that I said “exercise regularly” – yup, “regularly” is the key.
There is no point in exercising 4 hours in a row during the weekend and stay sluggish all week! You have to be consistent – even if you don’t exercise everyday, you can exercise say, 3 or 4 times per week and be consistent with it.

Lose those pounds to naturally lower blood pressure

Being overweight usually leads to an increased blood pressure. Your heart has to work harder to pump blood around your blood vessels if you are overweight. In particular a big waistline can be a greater risk to your increased blood pressure.
If you are overweight, any medications you take to reduce blood pressure will not work efficiently. Hence it is always highly crucial to put extra care on watching your weight.

Watch your intake of sodium

Sodium intake is very well known to increase blood pressure. If you are recently diagnosed with a high blood pressure, and if it is really not that severe, you can keep it in check by simply regularizing your sodium intake. Cut back salt by half or even to zero (this can be quite hard for some people) in your food.
Rather than pleasing your taste buds, a little sacrifice here can be a life saver for you.
Even if your blood pressure is really high, cutting back on sodium will certainly help!
Not only the food you cook at home, but the processed foods you purchase from the stores can have sodium in it. So make sure you read the labels before buying processed food. Above all, it is much better to reduce the consumption of processed food and cook food from scratch (this is also good for those who love frugal living, like me ).
As I said earlier, cutting back on salt can be quite difficult for many people (that could be you!). If so, you need not drastically reduce to zero in one day. Reduce the amount of salt you add in food gradually so that you allow enough time for your body and taste buds to adjust.

Practice calming habits to reduce stress

Usually high blood pressure is directly related to increase in stressful activities and emotions. I often hear people saying that if a person shouts in anger he/she has a high blood pressure. But I personally think that the person boosts his/her blood pressure up high by becoming stressed and angry. It is just the other way around.
We should not blame high blood pressure for our stress. It is the stress that causes our blood pressure to rise.
There are lots of activities you can do to reduce stress. Being contented with what you have, staying in peace with everyone, and so on – I can put down a list of numerous things that will give you peace and will make you stress free. But it is really about you. You know it best.
Analyze your own circumstances and family situations and identify those things that make you stressed. Find out ways to keep those things off the fence or learn how to handle them efficiently.
If indulging in yoga, exercising, prayer, meditation or whatever helps you, by all means do it!

Regularly monitor your blood pressure

If you are diagnosed with a high blood pressure, you need to get yourself a BP monitor – it can either be a wrist BP monitor or an upper arm monitor.
If not daily, depending upon how bad your blood pressure is, you need to monitor it regularly at home. If there is any drastic abnormality in your blood pressure, you can immediately identify it with a blood pressure monitor at home without having to wait for your next appointment with your doctor.
You can also adjust your food intake and indulge in relaxing activities and in exercise if you find a slight increase in your blood pressure.

Cut back on caffeine and alcohol

Caffeine and alcohol are know to increase your blood pressure. Whenever you come to know that something you consume causes an increase in BP it is wise to either totally avoid it or at least cut back.
Caffeine and alcohol are no exception. If you are a coffee drinker, opt for a decaf coffee.

How to Combine Foods for Optimal Health

Dr. Wayne Pickering is a naturopathic physician on the East Coast of Florida, and was a good friend of fitness legend Jack LaLanne. He gave a beautiful eulogy at Jack’s funeral. At the age of 67, he swims several miles a week in addition to extensive biking and a wide variety of calisthenics, pushups and pull ups.
He has quite an impressive exercise regimen and is a personal inspiration to me as I hope to be in as good a shape as he as that age. He also has one of the most positive attitudes of anyone I know.
He eats plenty of fruit and caused me to seriously reevaluate my position on consuming fruits and I have gradually been increasing my intake of them, especially mangoes, which is his pseudonym (Mango Man). He even has a variety of mangoes named after him. I actually have two of the Pickering mangoes growing in my yard.
But one of the things he’s known for in the nutrition world is food combining—and he is truly like a walking billboard for his program. The man looks about 20-30 years younger than his calendar age.

“Age is not a matter of years; it’s a matter of condition. You can keep your health up until you die because you have 75 to 90 trillion cells in your body that work symbiotically on your behalf striving towards health. You cut yourself? It’s going to heal without a thought. It just does,” he says.

Improper food combining is one of the primary factors that cause gas, flatulence, heartburn, and upset stomach. What’s worse, poor digestion can also contribute to malnutrition, even if you think you’re eating a decent diet.
In his youth, Dr. Pickering was no different from most Americans today—severely overweight, out of shape, and eating the wrong foods. He recalls the key moment that turned his life around:

“I was in Illinois when I came back from Vietnam. I stayed up there for a year in Rockford. A little lady found me one day in a distraught situation. She owned a health food store. I went in there, and I bought a bottle of vitamins and a little book, How to Be Healthy with Natural Foods, by Edward E. Marsh.”

He also found a postcard-sized food combining chart. He’d had frequent stomach pains for years, and was absolutely shocked when 24-hours after putting the information into practice, he didn’t suffer with indigestion anymore.
Since then, Dr. Pickering has become an avid teacher of natural health, in which health and longevity is the natural outgrowth of proper nutrition—which also encompasses proper food combining, to optimize digestion.

Three Principles of Health

Many are under the mistaken belief that the human body is a frail instrument, prone to disease and pre-programmed to decay. Dr. Pickering wholeheartedly disagrees, and I second that motion. The truth is, your body is infinitely wise, with a natural inborn “instinct” toward health, and by following certain natural principles, you allow your body to do what it does best, which is to maintain an equilibrium of health. Dr. Pickering’s three basic principles of health are:

1. You are automatically healthy, by design, and sick only by default
2. You don’t catch disease; you “earn” it, as it stems from “crud in the blood from being drunk with junk,” as he says
3. You get well by what comes out of you, not by what goes into you

In essence, health is as much based on getting rid of toxins and other harmful substances as it is based on optimizing your nutrition. Part and parcel of this philosophy is that food is your number one ally. And while certain nutritional supplements can be beneficial, they will not allow you to circumvent a poor diet. They can only complement your diet; they cannot take the place of a meal.

“Nutrition doesn’t heal. It doesn’t cure. It doesn’t do anything,” Dr. Pickering says. “It’s a science though and it never changes... Here’s what nutrition is: it’s a series of four processes that your body employs to make food materials for the body to use.”

Those four processes are the following:

1. Digestion
2. Absorption
3. Assimilation
4. Elimination

Four Principles of Wholesome Nutrition

According to Dr. Pickering, one of the most important factors when it comes to healthful eating is to make sure you’re eating foods that are in season. Your constitution changes with the seasons of your local climate, and eating local foods when they’re in season is a natural way to harness that intrinsic relationship your body has with the Earth.
Seasonal foods will typically be at their cheapest when they’re in season, and will be readily available in most stores and farmers markets. Dr. Pickering’s food combining guide¹ can also help you determine which foods are in season, in addition to how to combine them for optimal health.
Next, Dr. Pickering advises eating foods that are indigenous to your area. Eskimos, for example, are not going to reap the same nutritional rewards from watermelon as someone living in the American South where watermelons grow naturally. The climate itself makes nutritional demands on your body.
Third, you also want to select foods according to the type and amount of physical activity you’re involved in (an office worker, for example, will not benefit from the diet of a triathlete), and lastly, you want to choose foods according to your body’s digestive chemistry. As a side note, albeit an important one, Dr. Pickering also points out the importance of your thoughts.

“Your thoughts, you see, help to govern chemistry,” he explains. “When you sit down to eat, it’s crucial to not talk about problems at the dinner table; talk about joyous things just because it gives you a chance to get together [with each other].”

Recent research has even confirmed that if you want to make your food taste better, and more thoroughly enjoy the experience of a meal, perform a ritual first. One of the most rewarding rituals you can do before a meal is to stop and give thanks for your food.
Not only might this make your food taste better, but also people who are thankful for what they have are better able to cope with stress, have more positive emotions, and are better able to reach their goals. People who give thanks before they eat also tend to eat more slowly and savor the meal more so than those who do not, lending a natural transition to mindful eating, which has a direct and beneficial impact on digestion.

Why Food Combining Matters

Wayne is probably best known for promoting the importance of food combining. If the food you eat is not digesting properly, not only can painful gas, heart burn, acid reflux and other stomach problems arise, but your body will also be deprived of critical nutrients.
The short definition of digestion is: you put food or liquid into your mouth, swallow it, and then your body breaks these molecules down into a size it can absorb. What your body doesn't use is excreted as waste. These are the four processes listed above—digestion, absorption, assimilation and elimination. But food is actually broken down in a number of different areas, including in your mouth, stomach, and the first and middle sections of your small intestine, called the duodenum and jejunum respectively. Furthermore, you have two kinds of digestion:

1. Mechanical (chewing and churning) digestion
2. Chemical digestion

Food combination takes into account the area and complexity of digestion of each food, to ensure it goes through your entire digestive system with ease. Dr. Pickering explains:

“There’s only one food that chemically breaks down in the stomach and that’s protein. Proteins require pepsin, a very highly acidic [enzyme] in conjunction with hydrochloric acid. But the hydrochloric acid doesn’t have the ability to break the food down. It just sets the medium for the concentration of the amount of pepsin that’s poured into the stomach to digest whatever food that’s in there. The intelligence of this human body is phenomenal.”

There are three primary categories of food: proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Proteins, again, begin their digestion chemically in your stomach. Carbohydrates are divided into two categories: fruits and starches. While fruits pass through your digestive system with relative ease, starches require three levels of breakdown; the very first stage is in your mouth. That’s why it’s crucial to carefully chew starchy foods.
According to the rules of food combination, you do not want to mix proteins and starches in the same meal. This means, no bun with your hamburger, no meatballs if you have pasta, no potatoes with your meat... Why is that? Dr. Pickering explains:

“Starches require an alkaline digestive medium to digest. If you put your fist in your stomach while it’s digesting steaks and all that, chances are, you wouldn’t have a hand anymore. The acid is intense... When you mix them both together – an acid-type of food and an alkaline – basic chemistry shows that they don’t digest. They neutralize. Then what happens? If the food is not digesting... it’s going through your body [undigested], throwing it into all kinds of turmoil.”

The Three Commandments of Food Combination

Dr. Pickering lays out three basic commandments of eating that he recommends you not deviate from:

1. No proteins and starches at the same meal, as they neutralize each other and prevent proper digestion of either food. To ensure proper digestion of each food, wait two hours after eating a starch before eating protein. And wait three hours after eating protein before eating a starch.
2. No fruits and vegetables at the same meal. Fruits are either a single or double sugar, whereas the starches are a triple sugar. Fruits mechanically break down in your stomach, but chemically, they don’t break down until they reach the third and fourth stage of your digestive system, which are in your small intestine. Starches, again, are broken down in three different stages, starting in your mouth.
According to Dr. Pickering, this is also why it’s crucial to not eat dessert after a meal. When you do, it gets trapped in your stomach with all that other food, where it starts to rot as it’s not being chemically digested there. Therefore, eat fruit 30-60 minutes before dinner. The same applies if you want to eat another piece of fruit. Acidic fruits, such as lemons for example, also do not combine well with starches. Lemon and banana is but one example of a combination that is sure to lead to gastrointestinal upset...
Many people consider tomatoes a fruit, yet it’s commonly added to salad. Dr. Pickering classifies tomatoes as a “fruit-vegetable,” because even though they don’t have the sugar like most fruits, they’re still an acidic fruit-vegetable. As such they’re okay to combine with other vegetables. He suggests the following recipe for an excellent salad:


“Any kind of vegetable that has seed in it; for example summer squash, zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, bell peppers, and okra—those are all fruit-vegetables. Your tomatoes go well with those. And since lettuce and celery have a neutral effect, as far as the breakdown of food, the celery and the lettuce combine very well with all of that. You can also add avocados.”


3. “Eat melon alone, or leave it alone, or your stomach will moan.” In short, melons do not digest well with other foods and will frequently cause problems unless consumed by itself.

The When and What of Eating

According to Dr. Pickering, the amount and sequencing of the foods you eat can also make a difference. He recommends the following eating schedule:

• Morning meal: The least concentrated foods, in the greatest amount. Ideal food choice: fruits
• Middle of the day: More complex foods, but in a smaller amount than your first meal. Ideal food choice: starchy carbs
• Evening: The most concentrated foods, but in the least abundant amount. Ideal food choice: protein

More Information

Your body is, by design, programmed for health, and disease is just as much a matter of eliminating toxins as it is about eating proper foods. Elimination, however, is dependent on a healthy digestive system, and by combining foods in a certain way, you can help your body digest all the foods you eat with ease.
You can further promote healthy digestion by paying attention to the amount and distribution of protein and carbohydrates in each meal. Again, the greatest amounts of the least dense foods, i.e. fruits, are best eaten early in the day. Then, for lunch, eat a smaller amount of denser, more complex carbs, followed by a small amount of protein—the densest meal—in the evening. For more information about the digestive process and food combination, check out the following two web sites:

• CombineWhenYouDine.com has a 20" x 24" custom-laminated full-color guide for Healthy Eating that classifies fruits, vegetables and proteins to show the most compatible combinations for proper digestion.
• MangoManDiet.com offers a 27-day long course on food combining, as well as 400 recipes, nearly 140 articles, and several hours-worth of audio programs on nutrition.

Health Benefits of Calcium Supplements

Calcium is the most common mineral found in your body. It is incredibly important to keep your calcium level balanced, as it is crucial for bone health, vascular and muscular contraction, nerve impulse transmission, and blood clotting. It is best to receive your calcium through a balanced diet. According to the Mayo Clinic, calcium is found in foods such as:calcium health properties

Dairy products (ex: cheese, milk, yogurt)
Dark green leafy vegetables (ex: broccoli and kale)
Fish with edible soft bones (ex: sardines and canned salmon)
Calcium-fortified foods and beverages (ex: soy products, cereal, fruit juices)

However sometimes your diet may fall short and you may not get the daily dose of calcium that your body needs. This is when you may need a calcium supplement. Consult your doctor before beginning a calcium supplement regime. Listed below is the recommended dietary allowance of calcium per day provided by the Office of Dietary Supplements of the National Institutes of Health:

Children ages 1 to 3 years – 700 milligrams (mg) a day
Children 4 to 8 years – 1,000 mg a day
Children 9 to 18 – 1,300 mg a day
Adults ages 19 to 50 –1,000 mg a day
Ages 50 to 70: Men ­– 1,000 mg a day; women – 1,200 mg a day
Both men and women older than 70 – 1,200 mg a day

Benefits of Calcium
Prevents osteoporosis

Calcium is essential for maintaining strong bones and teeth. For children and young adults, consuming enough calcium helps increase bone mass throughout growth. For adults, it prevents bone loss and the development of osteoporosis.
Weight loss

As stated in the article “Calcium-Rich Health Benefits” by Michel Borboa, MS, research shows that calcium may avert weight gain because it “promotes more fat to be burned and less fat to be stored.”
Decreases cholesterol

In combination with fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products, calcium can help maintain a healthy blood pressure and inhibits the absorption of dietary fat, resulting in a decrease in cholesterol.

There is no doubt that calcium is essential for your health. However, there is a possibility of ingesting too much calcium. As reported by the Mayo Clinic, having excessive calcium may result in health problems such as:

Kidney stones
Prostate cancer
Constipation
Calcium buildup in blood vessels
Impaired absorption of iron and zinc

4 Things You Need Daily to Fuel Your Best Performance

Your body needs more than just daily exercise to be at its peak fitness—it needs good nutrition to fuel the progress!

Simply eating a decent diet, watching your calories and not gaining a pound just isn’t enough if you want to help your body recover quickly (i.e. reduce the soreness and fatigue) and gain lean muscle to burn more calories and look great in your favorite jeans.

So, what does your body need every day to get there? Here are a few keys to fuel your performance and your results:

1. The Right Protein. There’s a reason why amino acids are called the “building blocks” for your muscles; that’s what they truly do! The best way to take advantage of amino acids and ensure you get the maximum benefit is to consume pure, undenatured whey protein. “Undenatured” means the protein hasn’t been heated in such a way that harms the amino acids in the protein. Isagenix® whey protein, featured in key products such as IsaLean® Pro, IsaLean Shake, IsaLean Bars and IsaLean Soup, is undenatured and is from New Zealand dairy cows that are milked to season, are antibiotic- and hormone-free and exceed USDA Organic standards.

2. Caffeine. (Wait, did we really just say “caffeine???”) YES! According to the International Society of Sports Nutrition, caffeine is effective at enhancing performance man mountain bike2in trained athletes when consumed in low to moderate doses. That means that downing a huge amount of caffeine from those sugar- and artificial-flavor-enhanced energy drinks are out, but the “right” amount is in! Isagenix e+ energy shot has a moderate amount that will give you the extra lift you want before you hit the treadmill, the weights or whatever workout you’re craving.

3. Replenishing Nutrients. Your body works hard when you put it through the paces in a workout. After you’ve thrived through another grueling workout and you’re drenched in sweat, you need to replenish what’s been lost and give your cells exactly what they need. Enter your daily vitamin pack. You want omega-3s, CoQ10, Resveratrol, Calcium and Vitamin D, just to name a few. Thankfully, you can grab your daily A.M. and P.M. packets with Ageless Essentials Daily Pack with Product B and your day will be covered from start to finish. Here’s a peek at why this pack is especially important to an athlete’s performance.

4. Adaptogens. These little guys pack a powerful punch when it comes to helping your body “adapt” to the stresses of exercise and a tough day at work.

Tips to lose weight

Tip 1: Fill up on vegetables and proteins

As everyone knows, the silhouette depends in large part of the diet. Among the top tips for weight loss, discuss the consumption of vegetables, but also, and this is less known, proteins, important for a long-term and effective weight loss.

Tip 2: Vegetables at every meal

All nutritionists say, need to eat at least five fruits and vegetables per day to be healthy and keep the line. However, eating too much fruit, rich in sugars, may have the opposite effect. But the vegetables, can be consumed at will. To lose weight, nothing better than to eat more than five different vegetables! Feel free to push up to eight, or even 10 vegetables a day.

Indeed, vegetables, for their very low-calorie, do not grow. In addition, they fill the stomach, thus delaying the feeling of hunger, you can eat less at each meal to not snack in mid-afternoon.

One of the tricks to lose weight is to start each meal by vegetables (two or three different vegetables), with not afraid to fill a large plate, and then to eat green salad after the main course, which can not be reused as a main course. In effect, even if the vegetables, very few calories, eat little, is to eat a big plate will have a psychological impact that will give you the impression of eating much; In addition, this will delay feelings of hunger before the next meal.

Tip 3: Do not flee the proteins

It is less known, but proteins are necessary during a slimming diet. Meat, eggs, fish, milk, are essential to increase our muscle mass and calcium on the bone; This allows the same time fill the stomach and to avoid eating too many starchy foods. Do not hesitate to eat 125 grams of meat or fish, as well as a dairy product, at every meal, and to accompany them to a large pan of cooked vegetables (beans, carrots, eggplants, Zucchini...). Tips to lose weight more easily with the protein is to replace the meat or fish by tofu. This herbal ingredient is very low fat and brings the proteins required for the functioning of the body. The second tip to lose weight with the proteins in the choice of dairy products: use yogurt instead of 0% fat, skim milk, and do not insist on the cheese.

And starches?

Also essential to the proper functioning of the body, however starchy foods make you fat, unless we know limit them: not more than 60 grams of pasta or rice at every meal! A little trick to lose weight however with starchy foods? Choose wholegrain bread, potatoes, lentils or other pulses, which, thanks to their high fiber content, have the advantage of delaying the feeling of hunger between meals. Thus, you are watching your weight without torture, always having the feeling of being full.

What Exactly is cardio?

More often than not, when patients consult their physicians about hypertension, diabetes, weight loss, and even some other respiratory problems, doctors would not only prescribe meds but also advice them to get some “cardio”. Athletes on the other hand always have a lot of “cardio” in their training. Let’s go ahead and define this widely used term.

As a technical term, cardio comes from the Greek word “kardia” which means heart. It may refer to the heart itself, or cardiology – study of the heart, cardiovascular – system composed of the heart and blood vessels, or aerobic exercise – any physical exercise that would make the body use oxygen to fuel the workout.

Cardio Exercises

Common connotation when hearing the word cardio are endurance exercises that strengthen the heart. People would usually think that a cardio workout needs to be strenuous and repetitive in such activities as running and biking. Actually, cardio is any exercise that is designed to increase the level of oxygen in the blood. As long as the exercise is done for a longer stretch of time, increasing the heart rate thereby pumping more nutrient and oxygen-rich blood throughout the body, then it is cardio. It doesn’t matter if it’s running, dancing, playing basketball, biking, or doing a triathlon, as long as it makes your heart pump faster, it is considered cardio. Even doing pull-ups or gymnastics can be regarded to as cardio.

Cardio is not only fun to do, but is also very good for the body. It could help you trim your weight down. If laughing could burn as much as 1.3 calories per minute, then a thirty-minute cardio workout would do so much more! Moving around consumes more calories than just lounging on a sofa watching a movie.

Just like any muscle, a heart needs exercise. Otherwise it will get frail. The more you perform endurance or cardio exercises, contracting the heart more and more, the more it will become stronger, and a stronger heart will surely deliver more oxygen and nutrients all over the body.

The body demands more nutrients and oxygen when cardio is done. To address this need, the lungs expand thereby increasing its capacity. The heart is able to deliver more blood via the blood vessels. The delivery system is reinforced. This would mean healthier cells all the time.

Cardio Releases More Endorphins

Doing cardio could help decrease stress and improve general mental health. Exercising stimulates the brain to produce and release more endorphins – as people call it, the happy hormones. Endorphins are responsible in improving moods and increasing energy levels. It will decrease stress, making you happier and less prone to depression. Doing cardio is said to maintain brain youth as a stronger heart will pump oxygen and nutrient-filled blood more to the brain, slowing the aging process.

Cardio can make you sleep better too. Studies show that doing regular cardio could help lessen or totally get rid of the difficulty in falling asleep and can make sleep last longer.

Lastly, cardio can improve self-confidence. Majority of people who have sedentary lifestyles have low self-esteem. They feel that their bodies are not as good as what they see on television or in magazines. Working out, making your body accomplish what you want it to do can totally change your attitude towards your body and life in general. You’ll look better, sleep better, and feel better.

Best Exercises to Help You Lose Weight

In our age now when getting fit and living healthy has become a major trend (a good one, of course), we often find ourselves musing over which strategies work best for us. So many diet plans and supplements are introduced on a daily basis but one weight loss method remains unbeaten — exercise. With the busy schedules we have, it is important to find the best kinds of exercise that will give more promising results without us having to sacrifice a huge chunk of our working time. Following are some of the tested exercises for losing weight.

1. Running

Probably the most popular and most inexpensive exercise, running is proven to be one of the best exercises especially for weight loss. First of all, no other complicated equipment is needed. Just get a good pair of running shoes and find a good place to run (a park, your own neighborhood, on a treadmill, etc) and you are all set. It is especially very effective when done in hills, with sprints, or by interval training. You can burn up to 300 calories per run depending on the speed and distance.

2. Cycling

Another common cardio exercise is cycling. You can burn up to 300 calories in 30 minutes which is very impressive. Also, you can do it outdoors or indoors (this with the use of a stationary bike). And one advantage of this exercise is that you can integrate it with your daily activities. Plus you are also doing the planet a favor by opting to ride your bike to work instead of using your car.

3. Swimming

If you have an access to a pool, then this may be the exercise for you. Swimming has been known to be a very good exercise that does not only aid in burning that extra fat but can also give your body an impressive tone and shape when done regularly. You can burn up to 800 calories by doing laps up and down the pool and it is also relatively safe given that you know how to swim.

4. Dancing

If you are looking for a more fun way of losing weight, dancing is definitely the one for you. Believe it or not, it is relatively easy. You can just pop in a dance tune of your choice and get creative with the steps. No need to be a professional dancer here. Or if you want a more structured method, you can always get yourself a copy of the many available workout dance DVDs. Not only are you burning up to 800 calories an hour, you are also relieving yourself of stress and anxiety.

5. Kickboxing

But if you want a more challenging exercise, you can always opt for kickboxing. Kickboxing is an excellent workout choice because it incorporates your entire body. Both your upper and lower body strengths are used by combining kicks and punches. And with the advent of kickboxing videos, you can choose to do it at home. You can burn up to 500 calories after an hour of kickboxing plus it is also a useful self-defense method.

There are so many other exercises to choose from and all of them can provide impressive results when done with commitment coupled with a healthy diet. It is essential to remember, though, not to overdo it. Our bodies also deserve to rest every once in a while.

weight loss diet acai berry

Acai Berry Food plan Drinks

Acai berries are small fruits that grow on the acai palm. These berries are mentioned to be intently related to blueberries and cranberries. These berries cannot be eaten instantly from the plant. They need to be processed and are principally eaten within the type of juice. The berries contain two of the highly effective antioxidants like anthocyanins and flavonoids which are essential to hold out totally different functions in the physique. They support in the technique of cell manufacturing in the body. Acai berry is also a high fats content fruit. Acai berry juice is related to a lot of health advantages and weight loss.
Within the acai berry weight loss plan and colon cleanse, when talking of the cleanse, one ought to be aware that it is a pure cleanse that is done using healthy products and foods. Eating foods wealthy in fibers is among the finest methods of a pure cleaning within the acai berry colon cleanse eating regimen. Foods like flax seeds, fruits, vegetables (green ones especially) and cereals contain high amounts of fiber and help in colon cleanse. If you happen to embrace these foods within the food plan together with the acai berries, you possibly can have a wholesome and a faster weight loss

Effective Ways to Count Your Calories When Dieting

One of the most common steps in dieting is calorie-counting. It is a tedious process (counting the amount of fats, carbs, and proteins of almost everything you put inside your mouth) that is why a lot of people tend to just give up eventually. The sad thing, though, is that dieting is almost all about the calories (how much you take in and how much you burn). To help make calorie-counting a lot easier, here are some ways you can try.

1. Know how much you need

You cannot directly begin counting your calories if you do not know the amount you need to take per day. There are several factors to consider when determining how much you need like your current weight and your activities. For more accuracy, it is best to seek for advice from an expert.

2. Know what you eat

We get our daily caloric intake from the food we eat so it is important to be familiar with them. Take a trip to the bookstore or spend some time on Google and read about the common food that you take in. Make a list of these foods along with the amount of calories and other essential components and go through the list during your free time. That way, you gradually get accustomed with them until counting their caloric content becomes a no brainer. This really helps because one of the reasons why calorie-counting gets frustrating is because we tend to not know the caloric-amount of some foods we take.

3. Have a fixed meal as much as possible

Another reason why calorie-counting becomes frustrating is because we come across foods that we are not familiar with. To address this, it does not hurt to eat the same types and amount of food per day. You can do this by fixing your own meals or by frequenting the same restaurant everyday. Cheat days are still welcome.

4. Keep a food diary

A food diary is an effective tool in tracing and keeping track of your daily caloric intake. This way, you can easily look back on the days when you might have taken in too much calories. This will also help keep you on track. Keeping a food diary does not have to be a boring activity; try to be creative with your entries.

5. Find and download a software

In the advent of technology, an activity such as calorie-counting does not anymore have to be taxing and time-consuming. There are many available software and applications that you can download to help you record and count your calories. A lot of these applications are available for your mobile so you can bring it anywhere you go.

Calorie-counting can get really annoying, especially if you are not so fond of math. But with patience and commitment, you will eventually reap the fruits of your labor.

Is Cholesterol Bad For You?

Of course not. Your body couldn't function without cholesterol. The same is true of triglycerides - another type of fat that your body stores for quick energy. But problems occur when your calorie intake is high, and your body isn't energized by physical activity. That's when triglyceride levels rise - along with heart disease risk.

So - other than making sure you get frequent exercise, how can you lower triglycerides?


Triglycerides are a lipoprotein formed and stored in the liver when we have an excess intake of carbohydrates above what the body requires for its use. For most people above the recommended triglyceride level of 100mg/dl, the reason is usually due to high intake of processed foods containing high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup is present in most processed food products. Sugar provokes insulin release; but high fructose corn syrup does not. This leads to abnormal liver response, including making more triglycerides. This can lead to more weight gain and diabetes.

The best way to lower triglycerides is to cut down on carbohydrates such as processed baked products (cakes, cookies, chips etc) and try to get more vegetables and other natural foods containing Omega 3's, fish, nuts and seeds, such as flaxseed into the diet. Fish oil capsules at up to 4 per day have been reported to lower triglycerides as well as taking a supplement called L-carnitine and taking some form of regular exercise every day also would help.

If you want to lower triglyceride levels, you must remove animal protein and dairy from the diet. Also, increase fiber to 40-50 grams per day, and exercise is crucial. Drinking plenty of spring water and green juices will also help.

However, I really can't agree too much with restricting animal protein. This goes against years of research that points to the complete opposite. No matter what faults a high-protein, low-carb diet may have, negatively impacting triglycerides is not one of them. I`m only suggesting this if your health is at risk. I`m a bodybuilder. Bodybuilders need animal protein. But if you`re into health and not into heavy lifting with weights, and do have a triglyceride problem, which could lead to high bad cholesterol levels, then you should take precautions with what you eat.

Also, if you could eliminate all sugar and grains for 30 days, I think your triglycerides would go down dramatically.

Remember, always consult your doctor before ANY diet or exercise regimen.

Report Reveals American Healthcare System Could Save BILLIONS Each Year Through Appropriate Use of Dietary Supplements

I typically do not focus my recommendations on supplements for the simple fact that the vast majority of supplements on the market are synthetic versions that might do more harm than good in the long term.
It’s important to keep in mind that there is a major difference between natural whole-food supplements and pharmaceutical grade, synthetic vitamins and minerals. Additionally, supplements are just that, something taken in addition to, NOT in place of, a healthy diet.
That said, dietary supplements in general have a tremendously strong safety profile. And according to a recent report, making better use of supplements could save the American healthcare system BILLIONS of dollars each year.

The report, titled: "Smart Prevention—Health Care Cost Savings Resulting from the Targeted Use of Dietary Supplements¹" was produced through a grant from the Council for Responsible Nutrition Foundation. As reported by Drug Store News:²

“[The report] examined four different chronic diseases and the potential for healthcare cost savings when US adults 55 years and older, diagnosed with these chronic diseases, used one of eight different dietary supplement regimens.

It demonstrated that supplementation at preventive intake levels in high-risk populations can reduce the number of disease-associated medical events, representing the potential for hundreds of millions — and in some cases, billions — of dollars in savings.”

Smart Prevention Could Save Healthcare System BILLIONS Each Year

I will review the list below, but before I do, let me mention that the featured report failed to review many other benefits of vitamin D, which is one of the least expensive supplements.

For example, experts estimate it could cut the rate of cancer by half! So, were you to factor that into the calculations, the savings could likely go up by a factor of 1,000 or more, and there would be trillions of dollars of savings instead of billions.
The four chronic diseases included in the review were the following. As stated by the authors, all of the supplements reviewed have strong scientific backing supporting their use, and I’ve written extensively on several of them. For more information about each supplement’s use for the disease in question, please follow the hyperlinks provided:

• Heart disease—Use of omega-3 supplements among adults aged 55 and over diagnosed with coronary heart disease could reduce annual hospital costs by more than $2 billion on average, saving the health care system close to $16.5 billion between 2013 and 2020. Interestingly, vitamin D would also radically lower the cost of heart disease as it has profound benefits in cardiac health. Again, the authors never factored vitamin D in into this equation.
Use of vitamins B6 and B12 among the target population could reduce hospital costs by an average of more than $1.5 billion annually, saving the health care system more than $12.1 billion between 2013 and 2020. According to the authors:


“An average of $4.23 billion per year and a cumulative savings of $34 billion from 2013 to 2020 in avoidable hospital utilization costs is potentially realizable if all US adults over the age of 55 diagnosed with CHD were to use phytosterol dietary supplements at protective levels.
Likewise, potential total cost savings among the same target population given the use of the psyllium dietary fiber at preventive daily intake levels would be an average hospital utilization cost avoidance of $4.38 billion per year and cumulative savings of $35.05 billion from 2013 to 2020.
The potential net health care cost savings of phytosterols and psyllium dietary fiber supplementation, after accounting for the cost of supplement utilization, would be an average annual savings of $3.32 billion per year and $2.48 billion per year, respectively, after accounting for the costs of supplementation utilization from 2013 to 2020.”


• Diabetes—Use of chromium picolinate to reduce type 2 diabetes-attributed coronary heart disease (CHD) among adults over the age of 55 who are diagnosed with both diabetes and CHD could save an average of more than $1.2 billion annually, with a cumulative savings of $9.75 billion between 2013 and 2020, assuming that the annual average cost per person experiencing a CHD-related event of $16,690. This is yet another area that vitamin D has well-documented benefits.
• Age-related eye disease—If every person over the age of 55 with age-related eye disease were to take lutein and zeaxanthin at preventive dosage levels, medical savings would average $57.4 million per year. Furthermore, reductions in direct medical costs and post-procedure assisted living costs related to cataracts would average $3.81 billion annually. Please remember that lutein and zeaxanthin are dated and the newest studies show that astaxanthin is FAR more effective at preventing and treating this condition.
• Bone disease—If women over the age of 55 who are diagnosed with osteoporosis were to take calcium and vitamin D supplements at preventive daily intake levels, it could save an average of $1.87 billion annually in avoidable hospital costs. More than $1.5 billion in net annual health care cost savings could be achieved after the cost of the supplements.
Here, I would add that vitamin K2 is another critical component that work synergistically with calcium, vitamin D and magnesium to promote heart and brain health and build strong bones. The biological role of vitamin K2 is to help move calcium into the proper areas in your body, such as your bones and teeth.

It also helps remove calcium from areas where it shouldn’t be, such as in your arteries and soft tissues. Anytime you take high doses of oral vitamin D, you also need to take vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 deficiency is actually what produces the symptoms of vitamin D toxicity, which includes inappropriate calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries.
Use of magnesium supplements at preventive dosage levels could result in an average of $851 million savings per year in avoidable hospital costs. After accounting for the cost of magnesium supplements, the net health care cost savings would amount to more than $595 million per year.

Just remember, to optimize your bone health, it’s important to maintain the proper balance between calcium, vitamin K2, vitamin D, and magnesium. Lack of balance between these nutrients is why calcium supplements have become associated with increased risk of heart attack and stroke.

Steve Mister, president of the Council for Responsible Nutrition Foundation³ told Drug Store News:⁴

“Chronic disease takes a huge toll on people’s quality of life, and the healthcare system spends a tremendous amount of money treating chronic disease, but has failed to focus on ways to reduce those costs through prevention. We already knew that the dietary supplements identified in the report can play a role in reducing the risk of certain chronic diseases; we felt compelled to find out if they could also contribute to healthcare cost savings by reducing the medical events associated with those conditions. This new report says emphatically that they do.”

Supplements Used to Treat Brain Injuries

This is a Flash-based video and may not be viewable on mobile devices.

A related news story⁵ highlights the potential role of simple nutrients in the treatment of acute and severe brain trauma. Dr. Leslie Matthews, a surgeon at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, uses vitamin D and omega-3, both of which are potent anti-inflammatories, to reduce brain swelling in brain injured patients. Eighteen-year old Lacy Adamson, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car crash, was also given progesterone and liquid glutamine (an amino acid), to help protect against nerve cell damage.

As reported by Fox News:⁶

“Every brain trauma patient at Grady receives the same supplements... '[B]asically you're giving the body what it needs to heal itself,' said Matthews. 'The body, the way God designed the body, is to heal itself if you give it the right nutrients.' Matthews said that Lacy began to wake up and follow simple commands in three days.

'She was taken off of the breathing machine on day 10. Lacy had to relearn how to walk and talk slowly and she recovered her memory. Fourteen months after her accident, she's almost fully-recovered.’ ...Dr. Matthews believes supplements like vitamin D can not only help treat brain injuries, they can help prevent them.”

Who Benefits by Scaring You Away from Dietary Supplements When They Could Reduce Health Care Costs by More Than $11 Billion Annually?

Earlier this summer, a flurry of media reports told readers to beware, if not outright afraid, of taking supplements. Two of the primary figureheads in his summer drive of anti-alternative health PR were Dr. Paul Offitt and Senator Dick Durbin. Offitt, notorious for his claim that infants can tolerate 10,000 vaccines at once, penned a New York Times article with the unambiguous headline: "Don't Take Your Vitamins.⁷"
Senator Durbin, meanwhile, was on the war path against supplements, trying to push through a wholly unnecessary supplement bill that would require supplements to be tested like drugs—a tactic that would surely drive most supplement makers out of business due to the sheer cost-to-profit ratio involved. Either that, or supplements would end up with price tags rivaling that of drugs... Either way, it would be a boon for the pharmaceutical industry.
So, just how dangerous are nutritional supplements? Numerous studies have shown that dietary supplements, on the whole, have an enviable safety profile. You’re taking far greater risks taking aspirin than most supplements. Granted, synthetic supplements can be risky in the long-term, which is why I recommend taking high-quality whole-food supplements.
That said, it’s worth noting that supplements are FDA-regulated under the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA),⁸ and every single data collection source shows supplements of all types produce far fewer adverse reactions than either drugs or vaccines. Dietary supplements are also required to meet the FDA’s Good Manufacturing Practices.
In light of the featured report, combined with studies showing the safety of dietary supplements (see below), it should be abundantly clear that any fears associated with the use of supplements are vastly exaggerated. It also illustrates why the pharmaceutical and medical industries are so adverse against supplements.
After all, according to the featured report, preventive use of just nine supplements could reduce health care costs associated with four chronic health conditions by more than $11 BILLION PER YEAR! This is a truly astounding conclusion! Again, these featured report never even looked at vitamin D for a number of other chronic health conditions. Had they done so, the savings would clearly be in the trillions.
As stated by Chris Shanahan, global program manager of Frost & Sullivan, the economic firm responsible for creating the report:⁹

“I anticipate this report will fuel the critical conversation around the importance of preventive healthcare practices to control healthcare spending, and the critical role dietary supplements can play in reducing the risk of medical events associated with these diseases. This report provides one more reason for doctors and other healthcare practitioners to open a dialogue with their patients about incorporating supplement usage along with other healthy behaviors. For consumers, it’s a wakeup call to talk to their doctor or nurse practitioner, their pharmacist or a registered dietician about smart prevention, including which dietary supplements and what intake levels are right for their individual lifestyle."

Data Shows the Safety of Supplements

The March 2013 GAO Dietary Supplements report,¹⁰ for example, showed how incredibly safe supplements are—particularly when compared to drugs and vaccines. Since 2008, the supplement industry has been required to report adverse events to the FDA’s adverse effects reporting (AER) system, pursuant to the 2006 Act. Consider the following statistics comparing dietary supplement AERs with drug AERs from the 2013 GAO report for the year 2008:

• 1,080 dietary supplement AERs were reported to FDA
• 526,527 prescription drug AERs were reported
• 26,517 vaccine AERs were reported

When you do the math, there were 488 times as many adverse events reported from prescription drugs as from dietary supplements! In all, the number of AERs is miniscule compared to the hundreds of millions of supplement servings consumed each year.¹¹ In fact, according to a 2007 National Health Interview Survey,¹² more than half of American adults (157 million individuals) take nutritional supplements. Further compare that to the statistic that about the same number of people—just over half of all Americans—take two or more prescription drugs,¹³ and the difference in safety between supplements and drugs becomes even more clear. Other data further supports the remarkable safety record of dietary supplements.
For example:

• In 2002, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reversed its long-standing anti-vitamin stance with the publication of two scientific reviews (based on 30 years’ worth of scientific papers looking at vitamins in relation to chronic diseases), both of which recommended daily multivitamin supplementation for all adults.¹⁴
• Data from the US National Poison Data System’s annual report, which tracked data from 57 U.S. poison centers, showed vitamin and mineral supplements caused zero deaths in 2010. For comparison, pharmaceuticals caused more than 1,100 of the total 1,366 reported fatalities.
• FDA-approved drugs cause 80 percent of poison control fatalities each year.¹⁵ Poison control centers report 100,000 calls, 56,000 emergency room visits, 2,600 hospitalizations and nearly 500 deaths each year from acetaminophen (Tylenol) alone.
• Data from the European Union indicate that pharmaceutical drugs are 62,000 times as likely to kill you as dietary supplements. You’re actually more likely to be struck dead by lightning or drown in your bathtub than have a lethal reaction to a dietary supplement.

When Greed Rules, Obvious Solutions Are Ignored... 

I hope the featured report is remembered the next time public discussion turns to the use of supplements, and is brought to the fore when legislative efforts to regulate nutritional supplements off the market are initiated. Remember, nutritional supplements are NOT drugs—they’re nutrients. And provided you’re buying high-quality products made from whole foods, they’re essentially equivalent to concentrated food products.

Granted, there are poor-quality products out there—many of which, by the way, are produced by large pharmaceutical companies—that are made with synthetic ingredients that could potentially do more harm than good, especially in mega doses, which I don’t recommend. Yet the overall safety record of supplements, despite some inferior products being used, really speaks volumes... The same cannot be said for drugs, where even drugs perceived as more or less harmless, such as aspirin, actually cause more adverse event reports than supplements.
Furthermore, about 90 percent of each dollar Americans spend on food is spent on government-subsidized, disease-inducing denatured processed foods that leave many vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies. Drugs clearly cannot fix this problem, although conventional medicine surely tries by throwing prescriptions at each and every symptom that is, ultimately, rooted in poor nutrition.
I also hope that these, or other researchers, will do similar investigations and do formal analysis on the economic impact of optimizing vitamin D levels on a national basis, as there is no doubt in my mind the savings would be at least 10 percent of the health care budget, which would put the savings at $3 trillion dollars.
Truly, it’s a topsy-turvy world when nutrients are regarded as dangerous substances while pharmaceutical drugs, made from synthetic chemicals, are touted as “essentials” for health and disease prevention... If the featured report does anything, it illustrates the power of nutrients as disease-preventers. Ideally, you’d get most or all of these nutrients from whole food, but there are cases in which a supplement can be helpful to counteract a deficiency. If you’re eating a wholesome diet you’re FAR less likely to end up with nutritional deficiencies, however.

3 Important Things To Ensure Your Complete Well-Being

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People who want to stay fit and healthy, have been conscientiously caring for their bodies for quite some time now. However, it has slowly filtered through that although fitness and health seem to go hand in hand; it is not always the case.

Okay, our fitness may be  taken care of, but what about the health and well-being we also want? Assuming that an exercise routine is already being followed, below are some of the things that we should all be focusing on, which will give us that buzz of well-being and happiness we all desire.

Sleep

Sleep is an unbelievably important part of your health and well-being. You should be sleeping for at least 8 hours a day, as this is the only time your body and mind can recover from the battering they take every day.

Make sure that your sleep is quality sleep, including deep sleep and REM sleep, as these have the greatest benefit. If you find it difficult to fall asleep, you need to discover the cause. Being unable to sleep can be a symptom of a problem, or can cause the onset of one.

Friends and Family

If you have neither of these you need to act now, as having people that you can relax with and talk to is important to us all. Many things can happen in our lives where we need the help and advice of people close to us and not being able to unburden yourself of one problem can easily create another; leading to a kind of snowball effect.
It is also important to feel loved and to love others, as this gives most people a fulfilling, meaningful existence. If you are shy with very few or no friends, try to join a club where you can find others who have similar interests, you will be surprised how many friends you can find doing this.

Set Goals

Everybody should have a goal, or something that they strive to be. Without an aspiration life can become dull for people, and we always feel best if we feel we are filling our potential.
Just because you have already reached the height of your profession, and your family life is perfect, it does not mean you need to stop. You can take up painting, start working for a charity, or study for a new degree; it doesn’t matter what you are doing, what matters is that you have new goal to achieve.
It doesn’t matter what age you are or what situation your life is in, the satisfaction of progress and the arrival at a destination is the surest way to feel that you are a success. Remember that achievement and success breed confidence, and that will always make you feel good.
Health and well-being encompass things as varied as hygiene and self-confidence; it is a total package and way of life that we need to follow to feel complete. These examples won’t make you a complete individual with a fulfilled life, but they will start you down the road. Good luck on your journey to well-being, and enjoy the trip.
Today’s guest author, Karen Fernandes, is a fitness enthusiast who often writes on topics related to health and wellness online. She is associated with One Fitness, a team of professional personal trainers having extensive experience in health and fitness. She practices yoga and martial arts in her spare time. You can follow her on Twitter for more information.

How to Cut Your Breast Cancer Risk Naturally

According to estimates by the American Cancer Society, about 232,300 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013, and about 39,600 will die from the disease.
Dr. Christine Horner is quite familiar with breast cancer. She began her career as a board certified general- and plastic surgeon, performing breast reconstructive surgeries on women who'd had full mastectomies due to breast cancer.
While Dr. Horner was still in college, her mother developed breast cancer. Despite having a mastectomy, and successfully addressing a second breast tumor that appeared 13 years after the first one, she later died from cancer that metastasized in her femur.

“That’s the thing that really rocked my world,” Dr. Horner says. “In the interim, I had started my plastic surgery practice.

Because my mom had had breast cancer, I thought, well, I’d get active with the American Cancer Society. I was the spokesperson for the American Cancer Society on breast cancer issues.

I was trained to say, “We don’t know what causes it. We don’t have any known cures. The best things that women can do are mammograms and breast exams in the hope of catching it early to save lives.”

[Then] it was like, “Well, that didn’t work for my mom.” And then, I noticed at my practice that my patients started getting younger and younger and younger. Finally, I was doing women in their 20s. I just thought, something is way wrong with this picture.”

Thousands of Studies Show Why We’re Not Winning the War on Cancer...

Dr. Horner began reviewing the medical literature in search of clues that might reveal an answer to the dramatic increase in breast cancer, now appearing in women at an increasingly younger age.
What she discovered was thousands of studies that show exactly why we have a cancer epidemic—factors that contribute to it, and factors that are highly protective.

“And they were all natural,” she says. “It’s food, supplements, herbs, diet, and lifestyle. ... I’m board certified in general surgery and plastic surgery... there’s 11 years of training in there.

I didn’t have a single course in nutrition. I learned nothing about health – nothing. All I learned was how to suppress symptoms with pharmaceutical medications or cut it out.

It wasn’t until I discovered that there was such an association with diet, herbs, lifestyle, and emotions too, that I thought, okay, these are the real secrets to health.”

As a result of her research, she got trained in Ayurveda, a traditional system of medicine from India. “Ayur” means life and “veda” means knowledge, so it literally means “the knowledge of life”; wisdom that, if followed, can bring you into balance and enhance your body’s innate self-healing intelligence.
The truth is, there are many simple strategies that can drastically reduce your chances of developing cancer, or any other chronic disease for that matter; strategies that do not involve harmful side effects.

“I decided to quit my practice and dedicate myself to teaching people about what they can do – the simple things that they can do – that can have a dramatic impact on their life,” she says.

“With all my research in the area of breast cancer, I thought the first thing I’m going to do is write a book on all the natural approaches to protecting against and fighting breast cancer because, definitely, we have the information to end the breast cancer epidemic. No question about it.”

It's worth mentioning that the same strategies apply for other types of cancer as well. Prostate and colon cancer tumors, for example, are similar to breast cancer tumors, as certain hormones cause them all to grow. Hence, protective strategies that are effective against breast cancer also work on these other types of cancer. Cancer prevention strategies will also virtually eliminate most other chronic disorders.
Her dedication, research, and ultimate findings led to her writing the book, Waking the Warrior Goddess: Dr. Christine Horner's Program to Protect Against and Fight Breast Cancer, which contains research-proven all-natural approaches for protecting against and treating breast cancer.

Conventional Cancer Screening is NOT a Preventive Strategy

When it comes to breast cancer, it’s important to understand that getting regular mammogram screenings is NOT going to prevent anything. In fact, mammography, which employs radiation, can increase your risk since ionizing radiation itself causes cancer... As Dr. Horner writes in her book:

“A European study published in 2012 found that when those who have the genetic predisposition for breast cancer (BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation) are exposed to any diagnostic radiation before age thirty, their risk of breast cancer increases by 90 percent.

The study also found that a history of mammography before age thirty raised the risk by 43 percent. In fact, even one mammogram before the age of thirty for those with the BRCA1 gene mutation was associated with an increased risk.

A newer type of mammogram touted to be much better at detecting breast cancers, called tomosynthesis, takes a 3-D image of the breast. You definitely want to avoid this type of mammogram because it uses three times more radiation than the standard type!”

Furthermore, mammograms:

• Are incorrect 80 percent of the time (providing a false negative or false positive)
• Use compression, which can damage breast tissue or potentially spread cancer
• Are not effective for up to 50 percent of women (women with dense breasts or implants)
• Can lead to over-diagnosis and over-treatment of non-invasive cancers
• Can lead to the disturbing practice of “preventative” double mastectomies

MRI's, which do not use ionizing radiation, are not a practical tool as they are very expensive, and, like mammograms, they’re not very specific. Ultrasound is another technique used in Western medicine. The traditional ultrasound can see whether a mass is cystic or solid.

But while a solid mass is generally considered to be something that might be of concern, this is not 100 percent certain either, as cancer tumors can sometimes have cysts in them.
In her book, Dr. Horner also mentions another type of ultrasound called “elastography,” which shows the elasticity of tissues.

Cancerous tissue is typically stiffer than healthy tissue, so this ultrasound can identify cancer based on the firmness of the tissues. Several studies published since 2007 have concluded that elastography ultrasound is a useful tool for detecting cancers without using harmful radiation. It also helps reduce the number of unnecessary biopsies from false-positive mammography readings.

Most Natural Prevention Strategies Cut Your Risk in Half

What’s most important, however, is Dr. Horner’s discovery that most of the lifestyle strategies that have been scientifically tested have the ability to cut your risk of cancer by about 50 percent; sometimes more. And yet virtually no one in conventional medicine talks about and shares such findings with their patients. Why? For example, turmeric can slash your risk by about half, while optimizing your vitamin D levels has been shown to cut breast cancer incidence by 77 percent¹ in four years!
Of course, other lifestyle factors are also important in preventing cancer, such as nutrition, exercise, sleep, and managing stress. However, vitamin D’s critical importance seems to grow with every emerging study. Carole Baggerly, founder director of GrassrootsHealth—an organization dedicated to increasing awareness about vitamin D and the crucial role it plays in health—believes that as much as 90 percent of ordinary breast cancer is related to vitamin D deficiency, which is 100 percent preventable!
Despite its name, vitamin D is actually a powerful neuro-regulatory steroid with epigenetic influence over more than 2,000 genes in your body. That’s about 10 percent of all your genes. There are more than 830 peer reviewed scientific studies showing vitamin D's effectiveness in the treatment of cancer, and personally, I believe it is virtually malpractice to not optimize vitamin D levels when treating someone with cancer. In this case, your vitamin D levels should be around 70-100 ng/ml. For more information about optimizing your vitamin D levels, please see my previous article Test Values and Treatment for Vitamin D Deficiency.
Now, if making just ONE beneficial change can halve your risk, or more... imagine what can happen if you address several lifestyle factors known to have an effect.

“It becomes incredibly simple to dramatically lower your risk of developing this disease,” Dr. Horner says. “And then it takes the fear away. We don’t have to be so afraid of this horrible disease... we do have tremendous power in dramatically lowering our risk.”

Most importantly, Dr. Horner discovered that there are a number of healthy habits we've stopped doing in our modern culture that are highly protective against cancer. We've dramatically altered our diets—shunning our native, whole-foods cuisine for highly processed fare—and engage in very little physical activity, for example. We’ve also been told to fear the sun and slather our children in toxic sunscreens instead of reaping the tremendously protective benefits of vitamin D production that appropriate sun exposure brings. Fortunately, these factors are entirely within your personal control.

When it Comes to Breast Screening Options, You Do Have a Choice

Dr. Horner is a strong proponent of using thermography to track physiological changes that could indicate the beginning stages of cancer formation. Contrary to mammography, thermography does not provide you with an anatomic image. Rather it measures the infrared heat emitted by your body and translates this information into thermal images.
Thermography does not require mechanical compression or ionizing radiation, and can detect signs of physiological changes due to inflammation and/or increased tumor related blood flow approximately 8-10 years before mammography or a physical exam can detect a mass.

“To me, it’s an incredibly useful tool,” Dr. Horner says. In her book, she writes: “Research shows that, unlike mammograms, when thermography suspects something is wrong, it usually is. A study published in the American Journal of Radiology in January 2003 concluded that this technology could help prevent most unnecessary breast biopsies: “Infrared imaging (thermography) offers a safe noninvasive procedure that would be valuable as an adjunct to mammography in determining whether a lesion is benign or malignant.”

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Thermography Can Empower Your to Take Control of Your Health

Since it can give you close to a decade’s worth of “lead time” it can be very empowering tool. Should the image indicate an area of inflammation, you can immediately start applying strategies to reverse such symptoms, and within a couple of months be able to confirm that it’s working by taking another picture. Since it’s as harmless as taking a photograph of yourself, you need not worry about making more frequent follow-ups.

“One of the most exciting and important uses for thermography, I believe, is being able to use it on young women,” Dr. Horner says. “The earlier we can get them, the earlier we can get them involved in their own health...

Mammograms don’t usually work on women 40 and under because their breast tissue is too dense. Plus, the other really scary thing about it is that when our breast tissue is younger, it’s more sensitive to radiation. If you’re getting mammograms when you’re younger, it’s far more damaging. We know that radiation is a contributor to the cause of breast cancer. It’s like why do you do a test that uses something that actually causes that disease? Hello? Early on, it’s worthless.”

Again, the reason why thermography is so effective as a preventive tool is because it can detect the potential for cancer, and can detect already formed cancers at a far earlier stage than a mammogram. Essentially, it detects areas of high inflammation, which can be viewed as a “hot-spot” with cancerous potential.
But it’s important to understand that thermography does not diagnose cancer. Again, higher temperature readings indicate higher levels of inflammation, which can lead to cancer. But if your thermogram shows areas of high inflammation, it doesn’t mean you have cancer. Rather it lets you know you need to address that inflammation to avoid deterioration, and in some cases that the area needs further evaluation.

What Does the Science Say About Unfermented Soy and Breast Cancer?

I’ve typically recommended avoiding unfermented soy due to their being high in plant estrogens, or phytoestrogens, also known as isoflavones. Dr. Horner, however, disagrees with the notion that soy can work in concert with human estrogen to increase breast cell proliferation, thereby increasing your risk of mutations and cancerous cells.

“After all this research, I am very aware of the plant estrogen controversies,” she says. “These are the following facts that I can tell you. Most of the concern over "plant estrogens" come from one study that isolated and concentrated one chemical from soy, genistein, andgave it to women for one year as a supplement. At the end of the year, the breast cells in these women showed signs of stimulation. This study certainly raises the concern that taking isolated, concentrated genistein supplements does not protect the breast tissue and in fact may increase the risk of cancer.
Therefore, taking this type of supplement is not advisable. But many people leaped to the conclusion that all soy foods or anything with phytoestrogens in it must have the same effects in our bodies and should be avoided. But, thousands of studies show eating foods high in "plant estrogens," like whole soy foods, lower the risk of breast cancer.” Whole soy foods have many different "phytoestrogens" in them as well as hundreds of other constituents and are clearly processed in your body differently from the isolated chemical genistein.”

Flax seeds, for example, also contain phytoestrogens and, according to Dr. Horner, there are hundreds of studies showing that flax not only protects against breast cancer more effectively than any other food we know of, but may also shrink breast tumors. She also cites research by Lilian Thompson at the University of Toronto, who has done many studies on flaxseeds and estrogen-positive tumors. In one of Dr. Thompson’s studies, she found that estrogen-positive breast tumors shrank in every woman given flax seeds for three weeks.

“I had personal experience with this,” Dr. Horner says. “My business manager's mother developed breast cancer. I started her on three tablespoons of flax seed per day, plus a potent herbal antioxidant. Her tumor was 1.5 cm on mammogram. At the time of surgery three weeks later her tumor had shrunk to 0.5 cm.
With all these cancer fighting effects, not surprisingly, research shows that women who have the highest level of lignans in their body have the lowest risk of breast cancer. Flax seeds contain 100 times more lignans than any other known plant source and are one of the most power foods you can eat to lower your risk of breast cancer.
Here's the key to understanding this controversy: Plant estrogens are not the same as the estrogens your body makes, or synthetic estrogens found in hormone replacement therapy. They are very different. Many actually act more like selective estrogen modulators or SERMS (Tamoxifen is a SERM) and as aromatase inhibitors like Arimidex. These plant chemicals act in so many complex ways that we may never fully understand them all.”

Dr. Thompson’s and other research shows that flax lignans fight breast cancer: in a number of ways by:

Lowering your overall production of estrogen	Blocking environmental estrogens from attaching to breast tissue
Creating more of a "good" protective type of estrogen	Protecting your breast tissue from the damaging effects of environmental toxins
Decreasing three different growth factors associated with the growth of breast cancer	Blocking the aromatase enzyme in a way similar to the drug Arimidex
Lengthening your menstrual cycle	Blocking the estrogen receptor in a way similar to the drug Tamoxifen

Dr. Horner has a chapter dedicated to the latest research on soy in her book, which will give you far more details on this complex topic. But according to Dr. Horner, the bottom line is that:

1. You should avoid taking a genistein supplement
2. Plant estrogens, although referred to as estrogens, actually are very different from estrogen
3. Thousands of studies show eating foods high in "plant estrogens" has a significant protective effect against many diseases including breast cancer
4. Effectively protecting yourself from breast cancer or improving your chances of successfully fighting it does not come from "one" thing -- it comes from the sum total of all of your diet and lifestyle choices.

Are You Ready to Switch to a Health-Based Paradigm?

It’s unfortunate that today’s “health care” system is so financially wrapped up in maintaining the illusion that there’s not much you can do about your health. Diseases are seen as something that sooner or later will “happen” to you, and when you become ill, the remedy is usually a toxic pill or invasive and costly procedure. It doesn’t have to be this way. As Dr. Horner says:

“My message to women, particularly when we talk about breast cancer, is that you have an extraordinary power in lowering your risk of this disease, which is all too prevalent in our culture, and that there are so many simple things that you can do. So you do one thing – again, one thing – and you can cut your risk in half. If you do more than one thing, those things will multiply up together. It becomes incredibly simple to dramatically lower your risk. The side benefit is that you feel better and better and better. It’s simple. It’s not complex.”

To learn more, I highly recommend picking up Dr. Horner’s book, Waking the Warrior Goddess, winner of the Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) “Best book of 2006 for health / nutrition / medicine.” You can also find more information on her website, DrChristineHorner.com.² Last but not least, below you’ll find 10 of my own strategies that I believe will go a long way toward warding off breast cancer.

10 Simple Lifestyle Strategies to Reduce Your Risk of Breast Cancer

• Radically reduce your intake of sugar/fructose and processed foods. Normalizing your insulin and leptin levels by avoiding sugar and fructose is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to lower your risk of cancer. Unfortunately, very few oncologists appreciate or apply this knowledge today. Refined f ructose is especially dangerous, as research shows it actually speeds up cancer growth.
• Optimize your vitamin D level. Ideally it should be over 50 ng/ml, but levels from 70-100 ng/ml will radically reduce your cancer risk. Safe sun exposure is the most effective way to increase your vitamin D levels, followed by using a tanning bed that has an electronic ballast instead of a magnetic one. Either of these methods are far better than taking a high-dose supplement, which would necessitate increasing your intake of vitamin K2 as well, either from food or a supplement.
• Make intermittent fasting part of your lifestyle. Intermittent fasting will help your body shift to burning fat instead of sugar as its primary fuel. There are only two types of fuel; your body can burn carbs/sugar or fat. Nearly everyone who has cancer is burning carbs as their primary fuel. Since cancer cells thrive on sugar this is something you want to avoid.
Intermittent fasting involves timing your meals to allow for regular periods of fasting. To be effective, the length of your fast must be at least 16 hours. This means eating only between the hours of 11am until 7pm, as an example. Essentially, this equates to simply skipping breakfast, and making lunch your first meal of the day instead.

• Maintain a healthy body weight. It's important to lose excess weight because estrogen is produced in fat tissue. Fortunately, this will come naturally when you begin eating right and exercising. Intermittent fasting is also extremely effective for weight loss and weight management. As for exercise, I strongly recommend incorporating high-intensity burst-type activities, which are part of my Peak Fitness program.
• Get plenty of high quality animal-based omega-3 fats, such as those from krill oil. Omega-3 deficiency is a common underlying factor for cancer.
• Drink a pint to a quart of organic green vegetable juice daily. Please review my juicing instructions for more detailed information.
• Avoid drinking alcohol, or limit your drinks to one a day for women.
• Watch out for excessive iron levels. This is actually very common once women stop menstruating. The extra iron actually works as a powerful oxidant, increasing free radicals and raising your risk of cancer. So if you are a post-menopausal woman or have breast cancer you will certainly want to have your Ferritin level drawn. Ferritin is the iron transport protein and should not be above 80. If it is elevated you can simply donate your blood to reduce it.
• Get proper sleep, both in terms of enough sleep, and sleeping between certain hours. According to Ayurvedic medicine, the ideal hours for sleep are between 10 pm and 6 am. Modern research has confirmed the value of this recommendation as certain hormonal fluctuations occur throughout the day and night, and if you engage in the appropriate activities during those times, you're 'riding the wave' so to speak, and are able to get the optimal levels. Working against your biology by staying awake when you should ideally be sleeping or vice versa, interferes with these hormonal fluctuations. If you have children breastfeed exclusively for up to six months. Research shows this will reduce your breast cancer risk.