Watchman News

By Dr. Mercola

If you ever feel like it’s difficult to eat enough veggies, making a small investment in a high-quality juicer is one of the best steps you can take for your health. Raw juice can be likened to a “living broth,” as it is teeming with micronutrients that many people are lacking.
When you drink fresh-made green juice, it is almost like receiving an intravenous infusion of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes because they go straight into your system without having to be broken down.
Drinking your juice first thing in the morning can give you a natural energy boost without resorting to stimulants like coffee. Since the juice is already in an easily digestible form, it can help revitalize your energy levels within as little as 20 minutes… and this is only the beginning of its benefits.

Three Reasons Why Juicing Is a Phenomenal Health Habit

There are three main reasons why you will want to consider incorporating vegetable juicing into your optimal health program:

Juicing helps you absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. This is important because most of us have impaired digestion as a result of making less-than-optimal food choices over many years. This limits your body’s ability to absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. Juicing will help to “pre-digest” them for you, so you will receive most of the nutrition, rather than having it go down the toilet.

Juicing allows you to consume a healthier amount of vegetables in an efficient manner. Virtually every health authority recommends that we get six to eight servings of vegetables and fruits per day and very few of us actually get that. Juicing is an easy way to virtually guarantee that you will reach your daily target for vegetables.

You can add a wider variety of vegetables in your diet. Many people eat the same vegetable salads or side dishes every day. This violates the principle of regular food rotation and increases your chance of developing an allergy to a certain food.

Plus, it limits the number of different phytochemicals in your diet, as each vegetable will offer unique benefits. With juicing, you can juice a wide variety of vegetables that you may not normally enjoy eating whole.

Additionally, juicing can help:

Promote weight loss. In one study, adults who drank at least eight ounces of vegetable juice as part of a diet lost four pounds over 12 weeks, while those who followed the same diet but did not drink the juice lost only one pound. The vegetable juice drinkers also significantly increased their intake of vitamin C and potassium, while decreasing their overall carbohydrate intake.

Boost your immune system by supercharging it with concentrated phytochemicals. Raw juice also contains biophotonic light energy, which can help revitalize your body.

Increase your energy. When your body has an abundance of the nutrients it needs, and your pH is optimally balanced, you feel energized. Since it can be utilized by your body immediately, those who juice report feeling the “kick” of energy almost instantly.

Support your brain health. People who drank juices (fruit and vegetable) more than three times per week, compared to less than once a week, were 76 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Kame Project.1

Juice Cleanses: Even Kids Are Doing Them

Juice cleanses are the latest health fad, with juice bars and prepackaged juice cleanses now widely available. There is certainly a case to be made for short (or even lengthier) juice fasts, in which you drink only fresh vegetable juice for a period of one to several days.
This is typically done for cleansing purposes or to treat certain health conditions, and should only be done under the guidance of a natural health care practitioner if you intend to go on a longer juice fast. Some people also drink green juices as part of their intermittent fasting regimens.

Time Magazine recently reported that even children are jumping on the juice cleanse bandwagon, and at least one company markets a cleanse specifically for children for about $100.2 Those geared toward adults can be even costlier – upwards of $600 for a five-day cleanse.
I am not opposed to juice cleanses under the right circumstances, but children are generally not the best candidates, as their bodies require healthy fats and proteins that are missing from fresh juices. Further, you needn’t spend hundreds of dollars on a fancy juice cleanse – it’s easy to make your own juice at home for a fraction of that cost, and it’s going to be fresher, too.
My philosophy regarding juicing is to view it as a regular part of your diet, not just a fad that you engage in once or twice a year. Drinking green juice every day is going to give you far more benefits than a sporadic three-day cleanse will. Kids, too, can enjoy vegetable juice on a daily basis, either as a beverage with a meal or as a snack (ideally along with a source of healthful fat to ensure all those fat-soluble nutrients get absorbed).

Focus on Green Juice, Not Fruit Juice

This is an important distinction to make because, if your juice contains too many fruits, it will be both higher in calories and sugar (fructose). You can add in an apple, a kiwifruit, or a handful of berries to give your juice flavor, but the bulk of it should come from organic, green veggies – spinach, celery, kale, Swiss chard, etc. Unfortunately, green juice has a stigma for tasting bad and many people avoid it simply because of its color. A recent survey by Jamba Juice even revealed that 28 percent of US adults “fear the look” of green juice and 32 percent said green juice is their least favorite type of juice.3 This negative reputation persisted despite the fact that 32 percent said they believe green juice is the healthiest option.
It may take some getting used to, but green juice actually has a very pleasant flavor, and you can tweak it to fit your taste. If you’re new to juicing, you can start with more mild-tasting veggies, like celery and cucumbers. From there you can work your way up to red leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, spinach, and escarole, along with parsley and cilantro. Greens like kale, collard, dandelion, and mustard greens are quite bitter, so you’ll want to start slowly and add just a few leaves at a time. If you would like to make your juice taste a bit more palatable, especially in the beginning, you can also add these elements:

Limes and lemons: You can add one half to a whole lime or lemon for every quart of juice. You can actually juice the skin if you want to avoid the hassle of peeling them. Limes work well to cut bitter flavors.

Cranberries: You can also add some cranberries if you enjoy them. Limit the cranberries to about four ounces per pint of juice.

Fresh ginger: This is an excellent addition if you enjoy the taste. It gives your juice a little “kick”!

What Type of Juicer Works Best?

High-speed blenders like Vita Mix are great for green smoothies, but they are not the best juicers. You have a world of options when it comes to actual juicers, starting below $100 on the low end. You start getting into better quality juicers around $150. There are a number of different types of juicers, from fast-spinning centrifugal juicers to slow-moving masticating juicers. The slower the juice is extracted, the more nutrients are preserved. If you are new to juicing, I recommend a mid-priced juicer. The cheap centrifugal juicers (like the Juiceman) break easily, produce low-quality juice, and are very loud, which may contribute to hearing loss.

They also don’t last very long. My favorite are the single gear juicers, which are relatively fast, less expensive and easier to clean than more expensive juicers like twin gears or even the $2,000 Norwalk juicers. Here is my current favorite juicer. When looking at your options, remember to evaluate the cleanup required, as this could influence your willingness to use it every day. As the “juice lady” Cherie Calbom says, “In the end, the best juicer is the one you’ll actually use.”

Juicing Tips to Get You Started

Once you get into the habit of juicing, you’ll find that you’ll look forward to your green juice and even miss it if you skip a day. You can find a detailed guide to juicing here, but to get started, you need a good recipe — something that tastes great, or else you’ll likely quit before you’ve really gotten started.

“Add in some dark greens because that’s so wonderful for your health,” Cherie suggests. “I use coloreds and Swiss chard, kale, parsley. I combine that with cucumber and celery. But if you’ve never juiced before, then you want to add in some flavorful things; a little bit of carrot. Some lemon is wonderful. It really improves the taste. I add lemon to almost everything I make.”

I strongly recommend using organic vegetables as much as possible, and drinking it shortly after you make it. Vegetable juice is highly perishable so it’s best to drink all of your juice immediately. However, if you’re careful, you can store it for up to 24 hours with only moderate nutritional decline. This is really helpful if you are bringing your juice to work with you so you can consume it during the day. To properly store your juice:

Put your juice in a glass jar with an airtight lid and fill it to the very top. There should be a minimum amount of air in the jar as the oxygen in air (air is about 20 percent oxygen) will “oxidize” and damage the juice.
For even better storage, consider purchasing a food vacuum pump like Food Saver with a Ball jar attachment. You can pour your juice into a mason jar and put the lid on and use the Food Saver to suck out the air in the jar to vacuum pack it. This will remove most of the oxygen that will damage the juice.

Immediately store it in the fridge and consume it when you are ready. It is best to drink it as soon as possible and in any case within 24 hours of juicing.

Most people juice in the morning, but if that does not work out well for your schedule, please feel free to choose whatever meal works best for your lifestyle.

By Dr. Mercola

Magnesium is a crucially important mineral for optimal health, performing a wide array of biological functions, including playing an important role in bone health. In fact, of the 25 grams of magnesium found in an average adult, up to 60 percent of it is found in your bones.1
Multiple studies have shown that higher magnesium intake is associated with a higher bone mineral density in both men and women,2 and recent research from Norway has even found an association between magnesium in drinking water and risk of hip fractures.

Magnesium May Lower Your Risk of Hip Fractures

Norway, like the US, has a high rate of hip fractures, but the researchers noted that its incidence varies by region, with those living in urban areas more likely to have hip fractures than those in rural locales. They suggested this could be due to naturally varying levels of minerals like magnesium in the drinking water, although this didn’t turn out to be the case.
What they did find, however, was that while concentrations of magnesium (and calcium) in drinking water were generally low, there was an inverse association between concentration of magnesium and risk of hip fracture in both men and women.3 The researchers concluded:
“Magnesium in drinking water may have a protective role against hip fractures.”

The finding is significant considering how debilitating a hip fracture can be, especially among the elderly. A broken hip carries a great risk of complications and usually requires prolonged specialized care for recovery. It’s estimated that 25 percent of elderly people suffering a hip fracture die as a direct result.4

Magnesium Is Involved in Bone Formation and Health

It’s estimated that 80 percent of Americans are deficient in magnesium, which could have a dramatic influence on bone health. Magnesium influences activities of both osteoblasts (cells responsible for bone formation) and osteoclasts (the cells that break down your bone).
Magnesium is thought to play a role in preventing and fighting osteoporosis.  According to the National Office of Dietary Supplements:5
“Magnesium also affects the concentrations of both parathyroid hormone and the active form of vitamin D, which are major regulators of bone homeostasis… Research has found that women with osteoporosis have lower serum magnesium levels than women with osteopenia and those who do not have osteoporosis or osteopenia. These and other findings indicate that magnesium deficiency might be a risk factor for osteoporosis.”

In fact, one study found that postmenopausal women with osteoporosis were able to suppress bone turnover (which suggests bone loss decreased) just by taking 290 mg/day of magnesium for 30 days.6

Your Calcium-Magnesium Ratio: Are You Taking Too Much Calcium?

Over the past 30 years, women have been told to take supplemental calcium to avoid osteoporosis. Many foods have also been fortified with extra calcium to prevent calcium deficiency among the general population.
Despite such measures, osteoporosis has continued to climb, and this could be, in part, because of an imbalanced calcium-magnesium ratio. According to Carolyn Dean, a medical and naturopathic doctor:
“I’ve heard statistics like a 700 percent rise in osteoporosis in a 10-year period, even while taking all this calcium. The myth that’s been created about calcium is that we need twice as much calcium as we do magnesium. Most of the supplements reflect this. We’ve got a situation where people are taking 1,200 to 1,500 milligrams of calcium and maybe a few hundred milligrams of magnesium.

The 2:1 ratio—that was a mistake; a mistaken translation from French researcher Jean Durlach, who said never ever go beyond two parts calcium to one part magnesium in your food, water, or supplement intake combined.”

This was misinterpreted as meaning a 2:1 ratio was an appropriate ratio, which it’s not. A more appropriate ratio of calcium to magnesium is 1:1. This may not only pose a risk to your bones but also to your heart. If you have too much calcium and not enough magnesium, your muscles will tend to go into spasm. So excessive amounts of calcium without the counterbalance of magnesium can lead to a heart attack and sudden death. Quite simply, with insufficient amounts of magnesium, your heart simply cannot function properly.

For Optimal Bone and Heart Health, You’ve Got to Balance Magnesium with Vitamins K2 and D

When balancing calcium and magnesium also keep in mind that these must be balanced with vitamins K2 and D. These four nutrients perform an intricate dance together, with one supporting the other. Lack of balance between these nutrients is why calcium supplements have become associated with increased risk of heart attacks and stroke, and why some people experience vitamin D toxicity.

Part of the explanation for these adverse side effects is that vitamin K2 keeps calcium in its appropriate place. If you’re K2 deficient, added calcium can cause more problems than it solves, by accumulating in the wrong places, like soft tissue.

Similarly, if you opt for oral vitamin D, you need to also consume it in your food or take supplemental vitamin K2 and more magnesium. Taking mega doses of vitamin D supplements without sufficient amounts of K2 and magnesium can lead to vitamin D toxicity and magnesium deficiency symptoms, which include inappropriate calcification that may damage your heart.

Magnesium and vitamin K2 complement each other, as magnesium helps lower blood pressure, which is an important component of heart disease. So, all in all, anytime you’re taking any of the following: magnesium, calcium, vitamin D3, or vitamin K2, you need to take all the others into consideration as well, since these all work synergistically with one another.

What Else Is Magnesium Good For?

It would be misleading to simply classify magnesium as a mineral for your bones or your heart. Researchers have now detected 3,751 magnesium-binding sites on human proteins, indicating that its role in human health and disease may have been vastly underestimated.7 Magnesium is also found in more than 300 different enzymes in your body and plays a role in your body’s detoxification processes, making it important for helping to prevent damage from environmental chemicals, heavy metals, and other toxins. Even glutathione, your body’s most powerful antioxidant that has even been called “the master antioxidant,” requires magnesium for its synthesis. Recent research also showed that higher intakes of dietary magnesium were associated with a lower risk of colorectal tumors.8 To date more than 100 health benefits of magnesium have been identified so far, including therapeutic benefits for:9

Fibromyalgia
Atrial fibrillation
Type 2 diabetes
Premenstrual syndrome

Cardiovascular disease
Migraine
Aging
Mortality

Watching Out for Symptoms of Magnesium Deficiency

There’s no lab test that will give you a truly accurate reading of the magnesium status in your tissues. Only one percent of the magnesium in your body is distributed in your blood, making a simple sample of magnesium from a blood test highly inaccurate. Some specialty labs do provide an RBC magnesium test, which is reasonably accurate, and other tests that your doctor can use to evaluate your magnesium status include a 24-hour urine test or a sublingual epithelial test. Still, these can only give you an estimation of your levels, and doctors typically need to evaluate them in conjunction with the symptoms you exhibit.

If you suspect you’re not getting enough magnesium, you should keep a watchful eye out for symptoms of deficiency. If you eat a poor diet, including one that’s mostly processed foods, this could apply to you. Further, if any of these conditions below apply to you, you may want to take extra precautions to make sure you’re getting a sufficient amount of magnesium in your diet, or, if needed, from a magnesium supplement, in order to avoid magnesium deficiency. >

An unhealthy digestive system, which impairs your body’s ability to absorb magnesium (Crohn’s disease, leaky gut, etc.)
Alcoholism — up to 60 percent of alcoholics have low blood levels of magnesium10

Unhealthy kidneys, which contribute to excessive loss of magnesium in urine
Age — older adults are more likely to be magnesium deficient because absorption decreases with age and the elderly are more likely to take medications that can interfere with absorption

Diabetes, especially if it’s poorly controlled, may lead to increased magnesium loss in urine
Certain medications — diuretics, antibiotics, and medications used to treat cancer can all result in magnesium deficiency

 
In her book, The Magnesium Miracle, Dr. Dean lists 100 factors that will help you decide whether or not you might be deficient. Early signs of magnesium deficiency to watch out for include loss of appetite, headache, nausea, fatigue, and weakness. An ongoing magnesium deficiency can lead to more serious symptoms, including:

Numbness and tingling Muscle contractions and cramps Seizures

Personality changes Abnormal heart rhythms Coronary spasms

What Are the Best Dietary Sources of Magnesium?

Many people are low in magnesium. In order to ensure you’re getting enough, you first need to be sure you’re eating a varied, whole-food diet like the one described in my nutrition plan. Green leafy vegetables like spinach and Swiss chard are excellent sources of magnesium, as are some beans, nuts, and seeds, like almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds. Avocados are also a good source. Juicing your vegetables is an excellent option to ensure you’re getting enough of them in your diet.
One important point to mention, though, is that the levels of magnesium in your food are dependent on the levels of magnesium in the soil where they’re grown. Organic foods may have more magnesium, as most fertilizer used on conventional farms relies heavily on nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium instead of magnesium. Another one of the major benefits of getting your nutrients from a varied whole-food diet is that you’re far less likely to end up with too much of one nutrient at the expense of others. Foods in general contain all the cofactors and needed co-nutrients in the proper amounts for optimal health, which takes out the guesswork. When you’re using supplements, you need to become a bit savvier about how nutrients influence and synergistically affect each other.

In case you’re interested, another way to improve your magnesium status is to take regular Epsom salt baths or foot baths. Epsom salt is a magnesium sulfate that can be absorbed into your body directly through your skin. Magnesium oil (from magnesium chloride) can also be used for topical application and absorption.

The 8 Forms of Magnesium Supplements: What Type Is Best?

If you opt for a magnesium supplement, be aware that there are several different forms of magnesium. The reason for the wide variety of magnesium supplements on the market is because the magnesium must be bound to another substance. There’s no such thing as a 100% magnesium compound supplement (except pico-ionic magnesium). The substance used in any given supplement compound can affect the absorption and bioavailability of the magnesium, and may provide slightly different, or targeted, health benefits. Following is a general guide to help you sort through the eight different formulas you’re likely to come across:

Magnesium glycinate is a chelated form of magnesium that tends to provide the highest levels of absorption and bioavailability and is typically considered ideal for those who are trying to correct a deficiency Magnesium threonate is a newer, emerging type of magnesium supplement that appears promising, primarily due to its superior ability to penetrate the mitochondrial membrane

Magnesium chloride / magnesium lactate contain only 12 percent magnesium, but has better absorption than others, such as magnesium oxide, which contains five times more magnesium Magnesium sulfate / magnesium hydroxide (milk of magnesia) are typically used as a laxative. Be aware that it’s easy to overdose on these, so ONLY take as directed

Magnesium carbonate, which has antacid properties, contains 45 percent magnesium Magnesium taurate contains a combination of magnesium and taurine, an amino acid. Together, they tend to provide a calming effect on your body and mind

Magnesium citrate is magnesium with citric acid, which has laxative properties Magnesium oxide is a non-chelated type of magnesium, bound to negatively charged oxygen (oxide). It contains 60 percent magnesium and has stool-softening properties

By Dr. Mercola

Every year, millions of Americans turn to acupuncture as part of their health care routine, using it to relieve chronic pain, high blood pressure, nausea and much more. Although in the US, acupuncture is considered an alternative to conventional forms of medicine, it is actually one of the oldest healing practices in the world.
In China, Japan, Korea, and other Asian countries, acupuncture has been used for thousands of years, and its staying power isn’t merely a matter of superstition or coincidence.
Acupuncture has withstood the test of time because it works to safely relieve many common health complaints. And, interestingly, one recent study even showed that not only does acupuncture work, but so, too, does a sham acupuncture procedure…

Acupuncture May Ease Menopausal Symptoms in Cancer Patients
New research has again confirmed acupuncture’s usefulness, this time among women being treated with aromatase inhibitor drugs for breast cancer. The drugs, which lower estrogen, often lead to significant menopausal symptoms including joint and muscle pain, hot flashes, and night sweats.
The study involved nearly 50 breast cancer patients taking aromatase inhibitors. They received either eight weekly acupuncture sessions or a sham procedure involving non-penetrating needles placed in “fake” acupuncture points.1
It turned out that both sets of patients reported significantly improved symptoms, especially among hot flashes. This included those who had received either the real or sham acupuncture.

This could certainly be a demonstration of the placebo effect in action, although the researchers also suggested that the slight pricking of the skin involved in the sham procedure may have caused physiological changes. Either way, if it works to make you feel better, does it really matter why? As Dr. Ting Bao, the study’s lead author, stated:2

“Acupuncture as a medical procedure has been practiced for thousands of years… It has a minimal risk and potentially significant benefits.”

How Does Acupuncture Work?

With documented use dating back more than 2,500 years, acupuncture is based on the premise that there are more than 2,000 acupuncture points in the human body, which are connected by bioenergetic pathways known as meridians. It is through these pathways that Qi, or energy, flows, and when the pathway is blocked, the disruptions can lead to imbalances and chronic disease.

The treatment itself, which involves the insertion of metallic hair-thin needles (typically three to 15) into specific acupuncture points, can be conducted by a physician or a trained acupuncturist. It generally involves little or no discomfort, and patients often report feeling energized or relaxed following the procedure.

Acupuncture is proven to impact a number of chronic health conditions, and it’s thought that it stimulates your central nervous system to release natural chemicals that alter bodily systems, pain and other biological processes. Evidence, in fact, suggests that acupuncture impacts the body on multiple levels, including:3

Stimulating the conduction of electromagnetic signals, which may release immune system cells or pain-killing chemicals
Activation of your body’s natural opioid system, which may help reduce pain or induce sleep
Stimulation of your hypothalamus and pituitary gland, which modulate numerous body systems
Change in the secretion of neurotransmitters and neurohormones, which may positively influence brain chemistry

Acupuncture Has Nearly 30 Proven Uses and 60+ Potential Uses
When it comes to acupuncture, one of the most common uses is in treating chronic pain. One analysis of the most robust studies available concluded that acupuncture has a clear effect in reducing chronic pain, more so than standard drug-based pain treatment.4
Study participants receiving acupuncture reported an average 50 percent reduction in pain, compared to a 28 percent pain reduction for standard pain treatment without acupuncture
However, chronic pain is only one of 30+ proven uses for this natural treatment. The World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an extensive review and analysis of clinical trials related to acupuncture, and reported the procedure has been proven effective for the following diseases:5

✓ Adverse reactions to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy
✓ Allergic rhinitis (including hay fever)
✓ Biliary colic

✓ Depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke)
✓ Dysentery, acute bacillary
✓ Dysmenorrhoea, primary

✓ Epigastralgia, acute (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic gastritis, and gastrospasm)
✓ Facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders)
✓ Headache

✓ Hypertension, essential
✓ Hypotension, primary
✓ Induction of labor

✓ Knee pain
✓ Leukopenia
✓ Low back pain

✓ Malposition of fetus
✓ Morning sickness
✓ Nausea and vomiting

✓ Neck pain
✓ Pain in dentistry (including dental pain and temporomandibular dysfunction)
✓ Periarthritis of shoulder

✓ Postoperative pain
✓ Renal colic
✓ Rheumatoid arthritis

✓ Sciatica
✓ Sprain
✓ Stroke

✓ Tennis elbow

 
Additionally, acupuncture has also shown a therapeutic effect for treating the following diseases and conditions, which range from premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and addictions to whooping cough, although further research is needed:

✓
Abdominal pain (in acute gastroenteritis or due to gastrointestinal spasm)
✓ Acne vulgaris
✓ Alcohol dependence and detoxification
✓ Bell’s palsy

✓ Bronchial asthma
✓ Cancer pain
✓ Cardiac neurosis
✓ Cholecystitis, chronic, with acute exacerbation

✓ Cholelithiasis
✓ Competition stress syndrome
✓ Craniocerebral injury, closed
✓ Diabetes mellitus, non-insulin-dependent

✓ Earache
✓ Epidemic haemorrhagic fever
✓ Epistaxis, simple (without generalized or local disease)
✓ Eye pain due to subconjunctival injection

✓ Female infertility
✓ Facial spasm
✓ Female urethral syndrome
✓ Fibromyalgia and fasciitis

✓ Gastrokinetic disturbance
✓ Gouty arthritis
✓ Hepatitis B virus carrier status
✓ Herpes zoster (human (alpha) herpesvirus 3)

✓ Hyperlipaemia
✓ Hypo-ovarianism
✓ Insomnia
✓ Labor pain

✓ Lactation, deficiency
✓ Male sexual dysfunction, non-organic
✓ Ménière disease
✓ Neuralgia, post-herpetic

✓ Neurodermatitis
✓ Obesity
✓ Opium, cocaine and heroin dependence
✓ Osteoarthritis

✓ Pain due to endoscopic examination
✓ Pain in thromboangiitis obliterans
✓ Polycystic ovary syndrome (Stein-Leventhal syndrome)
✓ Postextubation in children

✓ Postoperative convalescence
✓ Premenstrual syndrome
✓ Prostatitis, chronic
✓ Pruritus

✓ Radicular and pseudoradicular pain syndrome
✓ Raynaud syndrome, primary
✓ Recurrent lower urinary-tract infection
✓ Reflex sympathetic dystrophy

✓ Retention of urine, traumatic
✓ Schizophrenia
✓ Sialism, drug-induced
✓ Sjögren syndrome

✓ Sore throat (including tonsillitis)
✓ Spine pain, acute
✓ Stiff neck
✓ Temporomandibular joint dysfunction

✓ Tietze syndrome
✓ Tobacco dependence
✓ Tourette syndrome
✓ Ulcerative colitis, chronic

✓ Urolithiasis
✓ Vascular dementia
✓ Whooping cough (pertussis)

There Are Many Different Types of Acupuncture: You Choose What Works Best for You

While traditional acupuncture involves the use of needles (acupuncture actually means “to puncture with a needle”), sometimes the stimulation of acupuncture points is done using electricity, lasers, or acupressure (the use of pressure to stimulate acupuncture points).

The term acupuncture is often used to describe all of these modalities, as each has shown similar benefits. This means that if you like the idea of trying a natural, ancient technique like acupuncture, but don’t like the idea of having needles inserted into your body, there are needle-free alternatives you can try that can offer many of the same benefits.

In one study that evaluated acupuncture for cancer patients suffering from nausea during radiotherapy, one group received traditional acupuncture with skin-penetrating needles while a second group received simulated acupuncture with a blunt placebo needle that only touched their skin.6 Interestingly, 95 percent of the patients in both groups felt that the treatment helped relieve nausea, and 67 percent experienced other positive effects such as improved sleep, brighter mood, and less pain.

My favorite form of “needle-less acupuncture” is The Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT, which is the psychological acupressure technique I most highly recommend. EFT is based on the same energy meridians used in traditional acupuncture to treat physical and emotional ailments but without the invasiveness of using needles, nor the inconvenience and cost of having to have a practitioner available to treat you.

Instead, simple tapping with the fingertips is used to input kinetic energy onto specific meridians on your head and chest while you think about your specific problem — whether it is a traumatic event, an addiction, pain, etc. — and voice positive affirmations. This combination of tapping the energy meridians and voicing positive affirmation works to clear the “short-circuit” — the emotional block — from your body’s bioenergy system, thus restoring your mind and body’s balance, which is essential for optimal health and the healing of physical disease.

You can conduct EFT yourself, but if you are not getting the results you would like, or you have a particularly traumatic issue, consider consulting with a skilled EFT professional. Likewise, if you decide to give traditional acupuncture a try, be sure you consult with a qualified practitioner, as your results may vary depending on the practitioner’s skill level.

By Dr. Mercola

Many people regard the holiday season as a time for well-deserved breaks and festivities. Included in that merry-making is typically a myriad of sweets, carb-heavy comfort foods, cocktails and more than a few excuses for skipping the gym.
As a result, the average American gains close to one pound during the six-week period from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day.1
This may not sound so bad, but if you don’t lose it you’ll be up 10 pounds in a decade without even noticing it. If you’re already overweight or obese, which two-thirds of Americans are, the weight gain tends to be more substantial – around 5 pounds each year.
This weight gain amounted to more than half of individuals’ annual weight gain, whether they were overweight or not, which means the holiday season really is the time of year when you’re most likely to put on the most extra weight, even though it’s only several weeks long.
This isn’t written in stone, however, and there are plenty of actions you can take to not only prevent holiday weight gain, but even to lose weight during the holidays if you need to.

6 Top Tips for Preventing Holiday Weight Gain

1. Keep a Food Diary to Plan Meals

Most people who keep a food diary note what is eaten after it is eaten. By that time, any poor decisions would already have been made. Instead, try keeping a proactive food diary. That is, start your day by writing down exactly what you plan to eat, and then stick with it. While it’s ok to allow yourself a treat here and there, make sure it’s one you “planned for” in your diary that won’t throw off your entire day’s meals.
Also useful, while jotting down your daily food, make notes about how good you’ll feel while eating these healthy foods, and how they will help you achieve your ultimate goal of losing weight or not gaining weight, etc. The old adage is that if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

2. Eat When You’re Hungry

Have you ever tried to “make up” for what you know will be a gorge-worthy holiday meal by eating nothing leading up to the big event? It is likely that when you arrived at the festive occasion, you were so famished that you devoured everything in sight. This is a big mistake that will only make you eat more in the long run.
A far better bet is to eat reasonable meals beforehand so that you feel satiated and are less likely to overindulge on sweets or stuffing. In fact, eating a bowl of broth-based soup before a meal is likely to result in your consuming 20 percent fewer calories total (including the soup!).2

3. Eat Your Fat First

Fat will help you to feel full while also stimulating your metabolism. So “snacking” on your portion of these foods first, before helping yourself to all of the starchy sides and desserts, may help you keep your cravings and total food intake in check. Good examples of fat are olives, olive oil, coconut oil, butter and nuts — macadamia nuts are particularly useful as they are high in fat and low in protein.

4. Go for a Walk

A brisk walk after your meal has several significant benefits. First, it will get you away from the food, making it less likely that you’ll help yourself to seconds or overindulge in dessert upon your return. Second, while supporting your digestion and metabolism, the physical activity will help to lower your blood sugar levels and insulin (i.e. the fat-storing hormone).

5. Recondition Your Brain

Make no mistake: the highly processed foods – cookies, cinnamon rolls, bread, crackers, boxed stuffing and more — so common at holiday feasts are engineered to appeal to your primal drive for calories, fat, sugar, and salt.
From the intense advertising to the lab-tested recipes, the junk food system is orchestrated to keep you buying more junk in lieu of real food. As you consume more and more of these highly processed products, you lose touch with the foundations of healthy eating – and your kids may grow up never knowing the value of a home-cooked meal. Your brain will also become conditioned to crave these unhealthy foods, making it nearly impossible to resist them.
When you eat sugar, for instance, it triggers production of your brain’s natural opioids — a key ingredient in the addiction process. Your brain essentially becomes addicted to stimulating the release of its own opioids as it would to morphine or heroin.
One way to help “reprogram” your brain so you don’t feel powerless to resist unhealthy foods is with the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). When your body’s energy system is disrupted, you are more likely to experience distractions and discomforts related to food, and more likely to engage in emotional eating. Instead, if you engage your body’s subtle energy system with EFT, the distracting discomforts like food cravings and hunger pangs often subside.

6. Try Intermittent Fasting

Our ancestors rarely had access to food 24/7 like we do today, and it makes sense that our genes are optimized for intermittent fasting. It takes about six to eight hours for your body to metabolize your glycogen stores and after that you actually start to shift to burning fat. However if you are replenishing your glycogen by eating every few hours, you make it far more difficult for your body to actually use your fat stores as fuel.Research has shown a beneficial glycemic effect from fasting that resulted in a lower gain in body weight than in non-fasting animals.3

Other research suggests fasting triggers a variety of health-promoting hormonal and metabolic changes similar to those that occur when you exercise. Fasting is historically commonplace as it has been a part of spiritual practice for millennia. Modern research has also confirmed there are many good reasons to fast intermittently, including:

Normalizing your insulin sensitivity, which is key for optimal health as insulin resistance is a primary contributing factor to nearly all chronic disease, from diabetes to heart disease and even cancer
Normalizing ghrelin levels, also known as “the hunger hormone”
Promoting human growth hormone (HGH) production, which plays an important part in health, fitness and slowing the aging process
Lowering triglyceride levels
Reducing inflammation and lessening free radical damage

If you’re healthy and you do decide to give intermittent fasting a try, do so gradually (don’t try to do a 24-hour fast on your first day). Ultimately, you can opt for a 12-16-hour fast as frequently as you can. You can also consider fasting every other day, or simply delaying certain meals, such as skipping breakfast and exercising on an empty stomach.
There are many options, and you can discover what works best for you by listening to your body, and going slow; work your way up to longer fasts if your normal schedule has included multiple meals a day. You can also start out by ending your meals earlier in the evening or late afternoon and fasting overnight while you sleep.
I have revised my personal eating schedule to eliminate breakfast and restrict the time I eat food to a period of about six to seven hours, which is typically from noon to 6 or 7 pm. On the days that I exercise in the morning, I will have one scoop of Pure Power Protein about 30 minutes after the workout to provide nutrients, especially leucine, for muscle growth and repair. Interestingly, since adopting this approach for the past few months I have lost two inches from my waist size and gained three pounds, which means I have lost body fat and gained muscle mass.

Weight Loss Tips That Work Year-Round

Achieving and maintaining your ideal weight isn’t something to think about only during the holidays; it should be more of a year-round lifestyle. If you have ever struggled with losing weight and keeping it off, you already know what a challenge that can be. Dr. Richard Johnson of the University of Colorado has recently written a book called The Fat Switch, which presents a groundbreaking approach to preventing and reversing obesity. According to Dr. Johnson, based on his decades of research:

“Those of us who are obese eat more because of a faulty ‘switch’ and exercise less because of a low energy state. If you can learn how to control the specific ‘switch’ located in the powerhouse of each of your cells – the mitochondria – you hold the key to fighting obesity.”

There are five basic truths that Dr. Johnson explains in detail in this new book:

Large portions of food and too little exercise are the result of your fat switch being turned on
Metabolic Syndrome is the normal condition that animals undertake to store fat
Uric acid is increased by specific foods and causes obesity and insulin resistance
Fructose-containing sugars cause obesity not by calories but by turning on the fat switch
Effective treatment of obesity requires turning off your fat switch and improving the function of your cells’ mitochondria

I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book, which has been described as the “Holy Grail” for those struggling with their weight. Dietary sugar, especially fructose, is a significant “tripper of your fat switch,” so my long-standing advice to keep your TOTAL fructose consumption below 25 grams per day still stands. However, most people would be wise to limit their fructose to 15 grams or less, particularly if you have elevated uric acid levels, which can be used as a predictor for fructose toxicity.
For the majority of people, severely restricting non-vegetable carbohydrates such as sugars, fructose, and grains in your diet will be the key to weight loss. Refined carbohydrates like breakfast cereals, bagels, waffles, pretzels, and most other processed foods quickly break down to sugar, increase your insulin levels, and cause insulin resistance, which is the number one underlying factor of nearly every chronic disease and condition known to man, including weight gain.
As you cut these dietary villains from your meals, you need to replace them with healthy substitutes like vegetables and healthy fats (including natural saturated fats!). You will probably need to radically increase the amount of high-nutrient, low-carbohydrate vegetables you eat. I’ve detailed a step-by-step guide to this type of healthy eating program in my comprehensive nutrition plan, and I urge you to consult this guide if you are trying to lose weight.
Next, you’ll want to add in proper exercise. The key to boosting weight loss and getting the most out of your exercise routine is to make sure to incorporate high-intensity, short-burst-type exercises, such as my Peak Fitness Program, two to three times per week. Several studies have confirmed that exercising in shorter bursts with rest periods in between burns more fat than exercising continuously for an entire hour. And because each session lasts just 20 minutes, there’s no excuse not to do it, even during the busy holiday season.