Watchman News

By Dr. Mercola
Robert Romeo, a former telecommunications worker in Italy, told an Italian court that he used his cellphone three to four hours a day for 15 years as part of his job duties. He subsequently developed a brain tumor, which the court ruled was due to his constant cellphone use. As a result, he was awarded a state-funded pension of about $535 a month.1 In 2012, Italy’s supreme court similarly upheld a ruling that heavy cellphone usage — five to six hours daily for 12 years — led to a brain tumor in Innocenzo Marcolini.
He, according to Tech Times, “normally held the device in his left hand while taking notes using his right hand.” The tumor was on the left side of his head.2 In the U.S., where the safety, or lack thereof, of cellphones remains hotly debated, the issue has regained renewed attention after a statement from the office of Sen. John McCain announced he had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive and fast-growing type of brain tumor.
The question being posed is whether McCain’s tumor could be due to cellphone usage, as politicians certainly spend a good deal of time on the phone. It’s a rhetorical question at the moment, not one being seriously investigated — but perhaps it should be. Sen. Ted Kennedy was also diagnosed with, and died from, a brain tumor nearly a decade ago. Could his brain tumor also have been cellphone-related?
Is Cellphone Usage Linked With Brain Tumors?
While the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency (RF) radiation — the type used by cellphones to send signals — as a “possible human carcinogen,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stops short of making such a claim. “There is no scientific evidence that provides a definite answer” to the question of whether using a cellphone can cause cancer, they say.3
Some experts disagree, however, and there is a growing body of evidence that suggests urgent caution is warranted. In 2016, for instance, a National Toxicology Program study exposed male rats to radiofrequency radiation (RFR) at frequencies and modulations used in the U.S. telecommunications industry. Rats exposed to cellphone radiation for about nine hours a day over a two-year period were at increased risk of developing malignant gliomas in the brain and another type of tumor, schwannomas of the heart.4
The study authors noted that, given the widespread usage of cellphones, including among children, “even a very small increase in the incidence of disease resulting from exposure to RFR could have broad implications for public health.” They continued:5

“Lastly, the tumors in the brain and heart observed at low incidence in male rats exposed to … cellphone RFR in this study are of a type similar to tumors observed in some epidemiology studies of cellphone use. These findings appear to support the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) conclusions regarding the possible carcinogenic potential of RFR.”

Meanwhile, a 2017 systematic review and meta-analysis looking at cellphone use and glioma risk — while noting that current evidence is of poor and limited quality — also found that long-term cellphone use (minimum of 10 years) may be associated with an increased risk of glioma.6
Hundreds of Scientists Call on WHO to Increase Protections Against Cellphones
There was an open letter written in 2015, in which more than 200 scientists called on the World Health Organization and the United Nations to increase protection against the pervasive exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs), including the RFR from cellphones. It explained, in part:7

“Numerous recent scientific publications have shown that EMF affects living organisms at levels well below most international and national guidelines.

Effects include increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system, learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being in humans. Damage goes well beyond the human race, as there is growing evidence of harmful effects to both plant and animal life.

These findings justify our appeal to the United Nations (U.N.) and, all member States in the world, to encourage the World Health Organization (WHO) to exert strong leadership in fostering the development of more protective EMF guidelines, encouraging precautionary measures, and educating the public about health risks, particularly risk to children and fetal development. By not taking action, the WHO is failing to fulfill its role as the pre-eminent international public health agency.”

Another concerning study, published in 2015, looked at data from two previous case-controlled studies on Swedish patients diagnosed with malignant brain tumors during the periods of 1997 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009.8 The patients were between the ages of 18 and 80 years old at the time of their diagnosis. Using regression analysis, the odds of developing glioma rose concurrently with increased cellphone use.The more hours spent with a cellphone pressed to their ear, and the more years they’d spent using a cellphone, the higher the odds were.

Those who logged the most hours on their cell phones were twice as likely to develop glioma compared to those who logged the least
Those who used either a cellphone or cordless house phone for more than 25 years had triple the risk of glioma compared to those who had used wireless telephones for less than one year

To put this risk ratio into some perspective, just over five people out of 100,000 were diagnosed with malignant brain cancer between 1995 and 2002. If that rate triples, the odds of developing a malignant brain tumor rises to about 16 out of 100,000, which is alarming considering the prevalence of cellphones and other wireless technologies. According to Pew Research Center, 91 percent of U.S. adults have a cellphone.9
Further, the average age a child receives their first smartphone is just over 10 years,10 and half of children under 10 already have a cellphone.11 Children are more vulnerable to the effects of EMFs, and many use their phones more frequently and for longer periods of time each day than adults, starting from the time they’re very young. Because brain tumors may take 10 or 15 years to develop, the full extent of damage from cellphone radiation may not be fully realized for some time, which is why taking precautions now is so important.
The Primary Dangers of Cellphones Are Related to Mitochondrial Damage
The primary pathology behind cellphone damage is not related specifically to brain tumors, or even to cancer. Instead, the real danger lies in damage from the reactive nitrogen species peroxynitrites. Increased peroxynitrites from cellphone exposure will damage your mitochondria, and your brain is the most mitochondrial-dense organ in your body.
Peroxynitrite is an unstable structural ion produced in your body after nitric oxide is exposed to superoxide. This complex chemical process begins with exposure to low-frequency microwave radiation from your cellphone, Wi-Fi and cellphone towers. The process begins when low-frequency microwave radiation activates voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCC), producing calcium inside your cells and mitochondria.12 Nitric oxide is dependent on the presence of calcium to activate.
With additional calcium present, nitric oxide is then activated in the cells.13 Nitric oxide is a substance present in all vertebrates and helps to control blood flow, neural activity and clotting.14 While it has many health benefits, it can become destructive when superoxide molecules, an ionized oxygen molecule, is released during pathological change, such as a stroke or muscle injury.15 This reaction between nitric oxide and superoxide produces peroxynitrites, believed to be one root cause for many of today’s chronic diseases.16
Nitric oxide is the only molecule in your body produced at high enough concentrations to outcompete other molecules for superoxide and is a precursor for peroxynitrite.17 These changes from nitration are visible in human biopsies of atherosclerosis, myocardial ischemia, inflammatory bowel disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and septic lung disease.18 Significant oxidative stress from peroxynitrites may also result in single-strand breaks of DNA.19
This pathway of oxidative destruction triggered by low-frequency radiation emitted from mobile devices may partially explain the unprecedented growth rate of chronic disease since 1990.20 This, truly, is a far greater concern than brain tumors when it comes to the hazards of cellphones.
California’s ‘Unofficial’ Cellphone Guidelines Finally Made Public
To protect public health from the risks of cellphone radiation, California’s Environmental Health Investigations branch developed a set of recommendations and warnings. Despite being written in 2014, the guidelines were only publicly released in March 2017, after a legal battle. Joel Moskowitz, Ph.D., director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California Berkeley, requested access to the information but was denied, so he sued the state under the California Public Records Act — and won.21
What do the guidelines say? For starters, they warn that some studies suggest “long-term cellphone use may increase the risk of brain cancer and other health problems.” They also point out the risks of cellphone EMFs to children, noting that “EMFs can pass deeper into a child’s brain than an adult’s.” In addition, they recommend the following tips to reduce your exposures to EMFs from cellphones:22

Increase the distance between you and your cellphone by using the speaker phone, sending text messages and carrying your phone away from your body
Limit your cellphone use when reception is weak (as your phone will emit stronger EMFs if you have only one or two bars showing)
Reduce the amount of time you spend talking on a cellphone and keep calls short

Protect Yourself and Your Family From Long-Term Health Damage
In terms of reducing your risk of developing a brain tumor, reducing your exposure to RF radiation from cellphones and other devices is important, but keep in mind that there are many other factors at play, like your diet and light exposures, that should also be addressed. For instance, exposure to too much blue light and not enough infrared red, and not burning fat for fuel, can also play a role in cancer development.
As for as cellphone usage is concerned, however, there are strategies you can use to protect yourself from RF radiation emitted from these devices. Remember, your cellphone, portable phone, Wi-Fi router and modem are the primary devices in your home emitting microwave radiation consistently. To protect yourself and your family, get in the habit of using these strategies regularly. Cell damage builds over time. It may feel safe to use your devices as you always have since you don’t experience the health effects immediately, but it definitely is not.

• Keep the phone away from your head
Consider moving your cellphone away from your head when it’s turned on or the Wi-Fi, data or Bluetooth are enabled. You may do this by using a selfie stick, speaking on the speaker phone or using a headset. Short conversations and texting more than talking also reduce your exposure.
• Increase your distance from RF-emitting devices
The closer the device, the more radiation you absorb. Find a way to transport your phone other than in your pants pocket or bra, and avoid keeping your phone and tablets in your bedroom while you’re sleeping.
• Turn off your Wi-Fi routers
When they aren’t in use, such as at night, turn your Wi-Fi, modem and cellphone off. Many routers can be linked with an inexpensive remote, making the process simple and easy.
• Spices may reduce damage
Researchers have discovered certain spices may help prevent or repair damage from peroxynitrites.23,24 Spices rich in phenolics, specifically cloves, rosemary, turmeric, cinnamon and ginger root exhibited some protective capacity against peroxynitrite-induced damage.
However, while this is good news, it is not a reason to ignore strategies that reduce your exposure to electromagnetic radiation, since your home is not the only place you are at risk. Any public venue that hosts Wi-Fi or has a cellular tower nearby increases your exposure to microwave radiation.
As for the widely available devices that you can attach to your phone to block radiation, they do nothing to reduce this radiation exposure. They fail miserably in blocking this energy. They may have some biological benefit in mediating the way this energy interacts with your body, but this is in no way a replacement for the proactive protective measures described above.

By Dr. Mercola

Regardless of your views on the pros and cons of recreational marijuana, the body of scientific evidence about its medicinal value is getting more compelling as additional research is done.
The cannabinoids in cannabis — cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — interact with your body by way of naturally-occurring cannabinoid receptors embedded in cell membranes throughout your body.

In fact, scientists now believe the endocannabinoid system may represent the most widespread receptor system in your body.1 There are cannabinoid receptors in your brain, lungs, liver, kidneys, immune system and more, and both the therapeutic and psychoactive properties of marijuana occur when a cannabinoid activates a cannabinoid receptor.

Your body actually makes its own cannabinoids, similar to those found in marijuana, albeit in much smaller quantities than you get from the plant. The fact that your body is replete with cannabinoid receptors, key to so many biological functions, is why there’s such enormous medical potential for cannabis.
The whole plant also contains terpenes that have medicinal properties. More often than not, medicinal marijuana is made from plants bred to have high CBD and low THC content. While THC has psychoactive activity that can make you feel “stoned,” CBD has no psychoactive properties. However, recent research shows THC should not be written off completely just because it’s psychoactive. It has valuable therapeutic potential in its own right.
THC May Reverse Aging Process in the Brain

According to recent animal research,2 THC has a beneficial influence on the aging brain.3,4 Rather than dulling or impairing cognition, THC appears to reverse the aging process and improve mental processes, raising the possibility it might be useful for the treatment of dementia in the elderly.5

To test the hypothesis, mice were given a small daily dose of THC over the course of one month at the age of 2 months, 12 months and again at 18 months of age. It is important to understand that mice typically live until 2 years old. The dose was small enough to avoid any psychoactive effects.

Tests assessed the animals’ learning, memory, orientation and recognition skills. Interestingly, 18-month-old mice given THC demonstrated cognitive skills equal to 2-month-old controls, while the placebo group suffered cognitive deterioration associated with normal aging.

According to one of the authors, neurobiology professor Andreas Zimmer, University of Bonn, “The treatment completely reversed the loss of performance in the old animals. We repeated these experiments many times. It’s a very robust and profound effect.” Even more remarkable, gene activity and the molecular profile in the brain tissue was that of much younger animals. Specifically, neurons in the hippocampus grew more synaptic spines — points of contact necessary for communication between neurons.

According to Zimmer, the THC appeared to have “turned back the molecular clock” in the THC-treated animals. (Previous research has also shown that the brain ages much faster in mice who do not have functional receptors for THC, suggesting THC may be involved in the regulation of the aging process.6) The team is now planning tests to see if the same holds true in human subjects.

Cannabinoids Maintain Homeostasis

Your endocannabinoid system has homeostatic properties, meaning it helps balance your body’s response to stress. This helps explain some of the individual variations in response to cannabis.
In your brain, cannabinoids modulate neural activity. In younger people, in which endogenous cannabinoids are already plentiful, cannabis will not have the same effect as in older people, in whom activity of the endogenous cannabinoid system is much lower. The effects of THC in particular appear to vary significantly depending on age. As noted by Forbes:7

“[Y]ounger animals excelled at the tests when ‘sober’ but tended to struggle significantly under the influence of THC. ‘Mature’ and ‘old’ mice, on the other hand, struggled with tasks as consistent with their brain ages at first, but saw a huge increase in performance with THC infusions …
Overall, the results seem to support researchers’ belief that the benefits for older mice are a result of stimulating the brain’s endocannabinoid system, a biochemical pathway in both mice and human that grows less active over time.”

In other words, in young mice (and probably people as well), THC can easily have an overly stimulating effect, resulting in a decline in memory and learning (albeit temporary, while under the influence). In older mice, a small amount of THC basically restored levels to a more youthful optimum.
Similarly, one of the reasons cannabis is so effective for seizures is because of this ability to regulate neuronal activity and reestablish homeostasis. If there’s too much neuronal activity, the cannabis suppresses activity, and if activity is low, it raises it.
Cannabis for Pain

Download Interview Transcript

Polls show older Americans are becoming increasingly converted to marijuana use.8 Between 2006 and 2013, use among 50- to 64-year-olds rose by 60 percent. Among seniors over 65, use jumped by 250 percent.9 Pain and sleep are among the most commonly cited complaints for which medicinal marijuana is taken.
Considering the high risk of lethal consequences of opioid painkillers and sleeping pills, medical marijuana is a godsend. It’s really unfortunate that we’ve been so successfully indoctrinated to view marijuana as a dangerous gateway drug that will lead to illicit drug use.
The reality is that prescription drugs have far greater potential to turn you into a “junkie.” Legal drug addiction is also taking lives in record numbers. There’s absolutely no doubt that cannabis is safer than most prescription drugs — especially opioids. As noted by Dr. Margaret Gedde, an award-winning Stanford-trained pathologist and founder of Gedde Whole Health, there’s enough scientific data to compare the side effects of cannabis against the known toxicities of many drugs currently in use.
This includes liver and kidney toxicity, gastrointestinal damage, nerve damage and, of course, death. Cannabidiol has no toxicity and it’s virtually impossible to die from marijuana. It’s also self-limiting, as excessive doses of THC will provoke anxiety, paranoia and nausea.
Such side effects will disappear as the drug dissipates from your system without resulting in permanent harm, but it’ll make you think twice about taking such a high dose again. Make the same mistake with an opioid, and chances are you’ll end up in the morgue.
Cannabis Often Works Where Drugs Fail
Gedde also notes that cannabis products often work when other medications fail, so not only are they safer, they also tend to provide greater efficacy.
In 2010, the Center for Medical Cannabis Research (CMCR) released a report10 on 14 clinical studies about the use of marijuana for pain, most of which were FDA-approved, double-blind and placebo-controlled. The report revealed that marijuana not only controls pain, but in many cases, it does so better than pharmaceutical alternatives.
When cannabis is inhaled, smoked or vaporized, its effects are rapid and short-lasting. Orally, it’s the most unpredictable and delayed. When ingesting it, it can take up to two hours to take effect, but if dosed appropriately, you can achieve once-a-day dosing with an edible medicine.
As for the psychoactive effects of THC, a dose of 10 milligram (mg) or more of an oral (edible) THC product is required to produce a high.11 Taking 50 to 100 mg of oral THC could result in a serious case of paranoia, with or without nausea and vomiting.
Other Common Ailments Treated With Cannabis
Aside from pain and sleep, other common ailments being treated with cannabis include:

• Degenerative neurological disorders such as dystonia
• Multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune issues
• Parkinson’s disease
• Mood disorders, anxiety and post-traumatic distress disorder (PTSD).12,13 Marijuana suppresses dream recall, so for those having nightmares, it can be transformative. Marijuana is also reported to help individuals stay focused in the present, which is beneficial for those experiencing flashbacks.

In January 2017, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies14 began the first federally-approved study in which the subjects — combat veterans diagnosed with PTSD — will ingest marijuana by smoking. It’s also the first whole-plant marijuana study, as opposed to an extract
• Seizure disorders such as Dravet syndrome,15 also known as Severe Myoclonic Epilepsy in Infancy, a form of intractable, life-threatening epilepsy in which a child can suffer upward of 100 seizures a day. Certain varieties of cannabis offer the only real hope for children with this type of disorder, as Dravet syndrome does not respond well to standard epilepsy drugs

Cannabis even appears to be a natural chemotherapy agent. Dozens of studies point to marijuana’s effectiveness against many different types of cancer, including brain cancer, breast, prostate, lung, thyroid, colon and pituitary cancer, melanoma and leukemia.

It fights cancer via at least two mechanisms, making it difficult for a cancer to grow and spread. It’s proapoptotic, meaning it triggers apoptosis (cellular suicide) of cancer cells while leaving healthy cells untouched, and antiangiogenic, meaning it cuts off a tumor’s blood supply.

Could Cannabis Offer New Hope for Alzheimer’s Patients?

Getting back to where we started, with THC rejuvenating the aging brain, this actually wasn’t the first time THC has been shown to provide benefits against dementia.

In a 2014 study, researchers at the University of South Florida and Thomas Jefferson University found that low-dose THC directly impedes the buildup of beta amyloid plaque in the brain,16,17 which is associated with the development of Alzheimer’s, and unlike so many pharmaceutical drugs, it produces no toxicity. THC was also found to enhance mitochondrial function in the brain. Lead author and neuroscientist Chuanhai Cao, Ph.D., wrote:

“THC is known to be a potent antioxidant with neuroprotective properties, but this is the first report that the compound directly affects Alzheimer’s pathology by decreasing amyloid beta levels, inhibiting its aggregation and enhancing mitochondrial function.”

Cannabis is also known to reduce some of the non-memory-related symptoms typically experienced by Alzheimer’s sufferers, including anxiety, irritability and rage,18 so cannabis may well have multiple benefits for those with dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Where to Find Reputable Information About Medical Cannabis, Its Uses and Benefits
If the idea of using medical cannabis (provided it’s legal in your state) still makes you cringe, I recommend delving deeper into the research to educate yourself on the matter, especially if your alternative is an opioid pain pill or some other dangerous drug.
One reputable source where you can find research relating to the use of cannabis is cancer.gov.19,20 This is the U.S. government’s site on cancer. Simply enter “cannabis” into the search bar. You can also peruse the medical literature through PubMed,21 which is a public resource (again, simply enter “cannabis” or related terms into the search bar).
The Journal of Pain,22 a publication by the American Pain Society, has a long list of studies on the pain-relieving effects of cannabis and would certainly seem worth the effort for anyone with chronic pain to utilize.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse,23 which also has information relating to the medicinal aspects of marijuana, preclinical and clinical trials are underway to test marijuana and various extracts for the treatment of a number of diseases, including autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease, inflammation, pain and mental disorders.
I also recommend listening to my previous interviews with Gedde and Dr. Allan Frankel, in which they discuss the clinical benefits of cannabis. Frankel is a board-certified internist in California who has treated patients with medical cannabis for the past decade.
Awareness is starting to shift, and many are now starting to recognize the medical value of cannabis. Even the former U.S. Surgeon General has spoken out in favor of medical marijuana. His statement echoes a growing sentiment in the medical and scientific communities that the health benefits of marijuana should no longer be ignored. Murthy was replaced this month by his deputy, Rear Adm. Sylvia Trent-Adams.

By Dr. Mercola
During the past 10 years or so, intriguing scientific studies on mice have suggested certain aspects of aging, including brain function, can be slowed or reversed when older animals receive blood from younger ones.
A common technique used in such studies is called parabiosis — the process through which the circulatory systems of lab mice are surgically conjoined, co-mingling their blood. In studies dating from the 1950s, blood from young mice seems to have a rejuvenating effect on older mice.
Most recently, researchers have attempted to isolate proteins in human blood plasma that may be responsible for improving brain function in old mice infused with it. In 2016, at least two startup clinics were launched in the U.S. to bring the concept of “young blood” to human beings through pay-to-participate clinical trials, mainly as a proposed anti-aging strategy, but also in hopes of counteracting chronic disease.
At one such clinic in Monterey, California, called Ambrosia, if you are age 35 or older, you can pay $8,000 to receive an infusion of 1.5 liters of plasma from a donor between the ages of 16 and 25.1 (Note: These infusions do not involve actual parabiosis.)
PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel is one of the prominent personalities fueling the buzz around how blood transfusions may help fight aging. He reportedly has expressed interest in Ambrosia, and told Inc. he finds the mice studies involving parabiosis to be “really interesting.”2
While the results with mice related to the infusion of young blood have demonstrated positive outcomes, particularly related to learning and memory improvements, the question yet to be answered is, “How might this practice of transfusing blood from the young to the old benefit human beings?”
Young Human Blood Improves Brain Function in Old Mice
A 2017 study published in Nature3 presents evidence that a protein found in human blood plasma from young people helps improve brain function in old mice. For decades scientists have posited that “young blood” can reverse the symptoms of aging, such as loss of memory and reductions in muscle function and metabolism.
While previous studies using mouse-to-mouse transfers of “young blood” have demonstrated its rejuvenating properties on older mice, researchers suggest this is the first time a human blood protein has been shown to trigger similar anti-aging effects in older mice.
To date, at least two U.S.-based companies have launched clinical trials in an attempt to bring this research to bear on human subjects. In those trials, elderly people receive blood from younger adult donors, after which physical qualities in the older adults are evaluated for potential improvements.
Blood From Human Umbilical Cords Seems to Have the Most Dramatic Effects
In one of the clinical trials,4 researchers at California’s Stanford University School of Medicine demonstrated human blood plasma can improve the memory and learning abilities of older mice. Their tests involved infusing plasma from the umbilical cords of newborn babies into the veins of elderly mice.
With improved brain function due to the plasma infusion, the mice were able to, for example, more effectively navigate mazes and learn to avoid areas of their cages wired to deliver electrical shocks.5 These outcomes suggest something in young blood appears to be vital to maintaining mental acuity.
Because several behavioral and biological characteristics of mice closely resemble those of humans, it may follow that young blood plasma has the potential to boost cognitive ability in older humans, but more research is needed. According to the trial’s lead author Joseph Castellano, neurology instructor at Stanford University School of Medicine, the findings may support future exploration of new drugs targeting the dementia process.
“Part of what makes this exciting is it suggests there’s more communication between the blood and brain than we’ve thought,” Castellano said.6 The current study follows earlier work performed by the same team, in which old mice showed improvements in learning and memory after receiving plasma infusions from young mice.
The aim of the new research was to investigate whether young human blood also might have similar beneficial effects on older mice. According to CBS News, while several types of human blood were tested, only blood plasma from umbilical cords had noteworthy positive effects. Plasma from young adults, ages 19 to 24, was less effective, and plasma from older adults, ages 61 to 82, yielded no benefits at all.7
Can Specific Blood Proteins Like TIMP2 Help Reverse Alzheimer’s?
The Stanford team8 compared 66 proteins found in umbilical cord plasma to those in plasma of older humans, as well as proteins previously identified in parabiosis experiments with mice. Each protein was injected into old mice prior to them being run through various memory experiments. TIMP2 (tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases) was the only protein shown to improve performance. High levels of TIMP2 are found in cord plasma.
Because TIMP2 has not previously been linked to learning or memory, scientists are not yet completely sure how it exerts its effect on memory. Some have suggested TIMP2’s effects on your brain may be indirect, perhaps through alterations it makes to your immune system or metabolism.
Although still potentially several years away, Nature suggests both TIMP2 and GDF11 (growth differentiation factor 11), which was called out previously by researchers at Harvard University,9 may be useful in treating people with memory problems such as Alzheimer’s disease:10

“Infusions of young plasma — pooled from thousands of donors — could be one potential treatment for age-related diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease. Alternatively, elderly patients may one day receive a cocktail of proteins, such as GDF-11 and TIMP2, or drugs that mimic their effects.”

The Benefits of Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy
In the past decade, medical professionals have been using platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy to release growth factors that help heal and strengthen areas of the human body. As you may know, platelets are an important part of your body’s healing process — they’re responsible for blood clotting and are among the “first responders” to an injury site. By forming a clot, platelets stop bleeding.
In the process, platelets open up and spill out the growth factors held inside. These growth factors act as signaling molecules, issuing the instructions needed to call forth your body’s resources to repair damaged tissue. To avoid confusion, while some stem cells may be present in PRP therapy, stem-cell therapy is its own separate and more sophisticated process.
Blood-Based Rejuvenation Therapy Continues to Be Popular
So-called “vampire facelifts” are another phenomenon born out of the potential rejuvenating power of blood. In this case, your own blood is drawn and spun in a centrifuge to separate the platelets from the red blood cells. The platelets and a mix of natural fillers are then injected back into your face, which is said to smooth lines and reduce wrinkles.
Unfortunately, the procedure is costly — roughly $800 to $1,500 per session — and the results are only temporary. Perhaps more intriguing are studies showing PRP may promote wound healing and help your body recover from injuries. Research published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery11 suggests growth factors released from activated platelets effectively support wound healing in both soft and hard tissues. The study authors stated:

“[A] variety of potentially therapeutic growth factors were detected and released from the platelets in significant levels in platelet-rich plasma preparations. Sufficient concentrates and release of these growth factors … may be capable of expediting wound healing in a variety of as yet undetermined specific wound applications.”

Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy for Diabetic Wounds and Osteoarthritis
PRP therapy also has shown promise in treating the typically slow-healing wounds related to diabetes.12 Researchers at the Yale University School of Medicine said:

“Despite the many advances in the treatment of diabetic foot ulceration, this common complication continues to devastate the community of patients suffering from diabetes. … [T]reatment with growth factors may result in faster healing times and regained limb function, in addition to a decreased rate of amputation … PRP shows promise as an effective treatment modality in the setting of diabetic foot ulceration.”

Research published in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine investigated the effects of PRP on early knee osteoarthritis using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). About the usefulness of PRP, the study authors noted:13

“Of the 15 knees that underwent MRI assessment pre-platelet and post-platelet-rich plasma treatment, 12 of the 15 knees (80 percent) demonstrated no significant worsening of osteoarthritis in their patellofemoral joint. There was no change in the appearance of osteoarthritis one year after platelet-rich plasma therapy in 83.3 [percent] of all cases … with lateral-femoral and tibial compartment involvement.”

Ambrosia Pay-to-Participate Clinical Trial Touts Benefits of Young Blood
Entrepreneur Jesse Karmazin launched Ambrosia in 2016, focusing on bringing the concept of “young blood” to human beings. As mentioned, according to Business Insider,14 if you are age 35 or older, you qualify to participate in Karmazin’s pay-to-participate trial. For $8,000 and two days of your time, you will receive 1.5 liters of plasma from a donor between the ages of 16 and 25.
In case you’re curious about the company’s name, according to ancient Greek myths, Ambrosia referred to the food or drink of immortal Greek gods, the belief being that anyone who consumed such food or drink would have longevity or immortality bestowed upon them.
Karmazin claims most participants see improvements within a month after a single plasma infusion.15 Scientists and clinicians are skeptical about Karmazin’s methods, suggesting his trial is poorly designed and therefore unable to produce scientific evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of the transfusions. Others look down on his methods because it is a paid trial.
Although Karmazin suggests the inspiration for his work comes from earlier studies involving parabiosis with lab mice, his trial for humans does not involve parabiosis, nor does it include a control group, which is common in lab trials. Karmazin says it would not be fair to use a control group or placebos because his clients are paying for the infusion.16
As of December 15, 2016, 25 people had been infused with “young blood” at Ambrosia. Karmazin claims participants are seeing “miraculous results,” including a woman with chronic fatigue syndrome who claims to “feel healthy for the first time” and “looks younger.”17 Jonathan Kimmelman, a bioethicist at McGill University in Montreal, shared with MIT Technology Review what I think is certainly a valid concern about Ambrosia:18

“There are a lot of patient-funded trials run by companies that use the trials as a way to sell products that wouldn’t be marketable because they’d have to be regulated by the [U.S.] Food and Drug Administration.”

Peter Thiel Thought to Be on a Quest for Young Blood
Thiel, a wealthy venture capitalist, has attracted considerable attention for his interest in the science of anti-aging. He seems to be just one of many Hollywood and Silicon Valley elite expressing interest in a modern-day “fountain of youth.” About Thiel, Inc. notes:19

“More than anything, Peter Thiel, the billionaire technology investor …  wants to find a way to escape death. He’s channeled millions of dollars into startups working on anti-aging medicine, spends considerable time and money researching therapies for his personal use, and believes society ought to open its mind to life-extension methods that sound weird or unsavory.”

To date, no one is certain if Thiel has attempted parabiosis for himself, but he continues to show definite interest in techniques he believes may help him live beyond age 100. For example, Forbes said in 2014 Thiel acknowledged using human growth hormone pills as means of extending his life.20 During a 2015 interview related to his investments in biotech firms and life-extension medicine, Thiel told Inc. about his interest in parabiosis. He stated:21

“I’m looking into parabiosis, which I think is really interesting. This is where they [infused] the young blood into older mice and they found that had a massive rejuvenating effect. … [I]t’s one of these very odd things where people had done these studies in the 1950s, and then it got dropped altogether. I think there are a lot of these things that have been strangely underexplored.”

The video below, produced by DNews, highlights parabiosis as well as several scientific studies related to the potential benefits of young blood.

More Research Needed to Validate Young Blood’s Impact on Humans
While the research presented in the featured article seems promising, it’s important to remember more studies are needed to validate the potential benefits of plasma infusions for humans. It may be many years into the future (if at all) before we can embrace blood transfusions from younger donors as a verified medical solution for aging concerns such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
In terms of TIMP2, the blood protein thought to have renewing effects on aging mice brains, even Castellano is exercising caution. He said, “Now, we really need to get a better understanding of what [TIMP2 is] doing in the brain. We are not saying we’ve found the protein that’s responsible for brain aging.”22
Dr. Marc Gordon, a professor at the Litwin-Zucker Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York, also emphasized the need for further studies, especially given the research model simply involved old mice, not old mice presenting with Alzheimer’s-like pathology.
“[T]his is not saying that cord blood is a cure for aging,” says Gordon. “What this could mean for human disease is purely speculative.”23 While we await further scientific developments around anti-aging, I recommend the following strategies for counterbalancing any effects of aging that might be troubling you:

Eat a high-quality diet composed of healthy fats, grass fed meat and organic fruits and vegetables, and limit your intake of packaged and processed foods to less than 10 percent of your diet
Strive to sit less than three hours a day, engage in near-continuous movement during your non-exercise hours, exercise regularly and be sure to include some of my personal favorites, such as daily walking, high-intensity exercises, stretching and strength training
Get enough sleep according to the sleep needs of people your age, targeting around seven to nine hours per night for adults, and even more for teenagers and children

By Dr. Mercola
Falls are a leading cause of injury among Americans aged 65 and over, with 1 in 5 leading to a serious injury such as a broken bone or head injury. More than 1 in 4 older Americans falls every year, and such falls are the most common cause of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) among this population.1
In March 2017, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report with some startling figures regarding TBI in older Americans, including those related to falls.
Among those 75 and older, 1 in 45 suffered from a brain injury that led to an emergency room visit, hospitalization or death in 2013 — a 76 percent increase from 2007 — with the primary cause being falls.2
While brain injuries due to motor-vehicle accidents decreased during the study period, and considerable attention has been given to concussions in youth as a result of sports, far less attention has been given to the risk of brain injury in older Americans due to falls. The authors noted:3

“[F]rom 2007 to 2013 … the number and rate of older adult fall-related TBIs have increased substantially … the findings in this report suggest that TBIs attributable to older adult falls, many of which result in hospitalization and death, should receive public health attention.”

‘Urgent Need’ for Fall Prevention Efforts
The CDC cited an urgent need to increase fall prevention efforts in older adults, given the concerning increase in fall-related brain injuries. Adding to the risk, once a person has fallen, their likelihood of falling again doubles.4 Risk factors that increase a person’s risk of falling include:5

Lower body weakness
Vitamin D deficiency

Difficulties with balance and walking
Use of certain medications, such as tranquilizers, sedatives or antidepressants

Vision problems
Foot pain or poor footwear

Hazards in the home, such as clutter, throw rugs or uneven steps
Health conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and arthritis, as well as recent surgery, such as hip replacement

Lack of Physical Activity Increases Fall Risk
One of the many reasons why exercise is so important for older adults is that doing so can significantly lower your risk of falls and all of the health risks that go along with them. Not only that, but if you do fall, if you’re a regular exerciser you’re less likely to get hurt.
Older adults who took part in an exercise program were 37 percent less likely to be injured during a fall compared to non-exercisers, according to research published in the BMJ.6
This included a 61 percent lower risk of having a fall-induced broken bone and 43 percent lower risk of sustaining a fall-related injury serious enough to require admission to a hospital.
The exercises included an emphasis on balance training along with strength and functional training and even Tai Chi. As you get older, your muscle and bone mass decrease and the senses that guide your balance — vision, touch, proprioception — may all start to deteriorate, and this can make you unsteady on your feet.
However, eight weeks of balance training reduced slips and improved the likelihood of recovery from slips among the elderly.7 Balance training has also been found effective in improving functional and static balance, mobility and falling frequency in elderly women with osteoporosis.8
Since exercise strengthens both your body and your mind, it’s likely that regular exercisers are not only physically more able to prevent falls but also may be quicker mentally, perhaps allowing them to reach out and grab a railing for support before succumbing to a fall.
Easy Strength Training Exercises to Reduce Your Fall Risk
Strength training is also important for older adults, as it helps you maintain healthy bone mass, prevent age-related muscle loss and strengthens your connective tissues, tendons and ligaments, which help hold your body in the upright position.
Strength training also helps with functional movements — the ones you do every day — which will make activities like climbing stairs and getting out of a chair easier. This, in turn, will lower your risk of falls. Even if you’re new to exercise, there are options that can lower your fall risk, including the two that follow.
Knee Extension

Knee extension exercises will help strengthen your knees, which will improve your balance and reduce your risk of falling. Strengthening your knees will also allow you to walk and climb stairs with greater ease and comfort.

Sit on a chair with your back straight and knees bent
Slowly extend your right leg out in front of you and hold for a few seconds before lowering it back to starting position
Repeat with your left leg
Do 10 repetitions on each leg

For a more advanced version, strap an ankle weight around each ankle. Aim for a weight that is heavy enough to where you cannot do more than 15 repetitions per leg. As you get stronger, you can add more weight to keep it challenging.
Partial Squat

Squatting exercises increase hip flexibility and strengthen your hip flexors and quadriceps, which will improve both your walking ability and your ability to stand up from a seated position. They also improve your overall balance and stability, reducing your risk of falling.
For the beginner’s version, stand up using a chair for support, and perform a standing partial squat as demonstrated in the ElderGym video above. Remember to push your buttocks out as you bend to maintain a straight back posture and do not bend your knees past your toes.
Take Care of Your Vison Health
Being able to see clearly is important to avoid tripping hazards and avoid dizziness. Your diet is key to protecting your vision, including eating plenty of vitamin-C-rich foods, which may lower your risk of cataracts.9 Bioflavonoids, which may have a complementary effect when consumed along with vitamin C, are also important.
Excellent dietary sources of bioflavonoids include dark-colored berries, dark leafy greens, garlic and onions. Other notable nutrients for vision health include:

Astaxanthin
Animal-based omega-3 fat (found in wild-caught Alaskan salmon).

Anthocyanins (found in blueberries, bilberries, and black currants)
Vitamin D

Lutein and zeaxanthin (found in green leafy vegetables and pastured egg yolks)
Bioflavonoids (found in tea, cherries, and citrus fruits)

Besides eating plenty of the nutrients above, carotenoid-rich vegetables, organic pastured egg yolks, omega-3 and astaxanthin-rich wild-caught salmon are beneficial for vision health. Another important dietary aspect is to normalize your blood sugar, as excessive sugar in your blood can pull fluid from the lens of your eye, affecting your ability to focus.
It can also damage the blood vessels in your retina, thereby obstructing blood flow. To keep your blood sugar in a healthy range, follow my comprehensive nutrition guidelines, including avoiding processed foods, as they tend to be loaded with processed fructose. Exercise will also help protect your vision.
Block Blue Light to Protect Your Vision, Especially at Night
Many people are unaware of the importance of avoiding exposure to blue light after sundown, including from light-emitting diode (LED) lighting and electronics. Near-infrared light is important as it primes the cells in your retina for repair and regeneration, which explains why LEDs — which are devoid of infrared — are so harmful for your eyes.
There are cells in your retina that are responsible for producing melatonin in order to regenerate your retina during the night. If you use LED lights after sunset, however, you reduce the regenerative and restoring capacities of your eyes and with less regeneration you end up with degeneration.
In this case, the degeneration can lead to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is the primary cause of blindness among the elderly and can also contribute to falls.
So, to summarize, the main problem with LEDs is the fact that they emit primarily blue wavelengths and lack the counterbalancing healing and regenerative near-infrared frequencies. They have very little red in them, and no infrared, which is the wavelength required for repair and regeneration.
Because of this, I strongly recommend using blue-blocking glasses after sundown and swapping out your LEDs for clear bulb incandescents or even candle light. For your computer, reduce the correlated color temperature down to 2,700 K — even during the day, not just at night. Many use f.lux to do this, but I also like the software Iris for this purpose.
How to Make Your Home Safer to Avoid Falls
Home hazards can be a significant contributor to falls, as it’s estimated that one-third of falls in the elderly may be due to environmental hazards that could easily be addressed.10 Aging Care compiled a comprehensive list of tips to make your home safer in order to prevent falls.11

Install safety bars and grab bars where necessary, such as in the shower/bath and near toilets
Stairwells should be well lit, with sturdy railings that extend beyond the first and last steps
Remove loose throw rugs and tack down all carpeting/rugs

Put anti-slip mats into the bottom of the bathtub or consider a shower chair
Use a stool riser seat when using the toilet
Remove clutter from the home

Adjust electrical cords so they are not stretched across the floor
Wear shoes or slippers with non-slip soles
Keep items used daily in easily accessible locations

Avoid the use of chairs or stepladders to reach item; use a grasping tool instead
Install adequate lighting in the home

In addition, fall mats, which are cushioned surfaces that help reduce injuries in the event of a fall, can be placed in frequented areas, such as next to a bed, chair or toilet. Some people may find added support from the use of a cane or walker, but be aware that some research has linked the use of walking aids to an increased risk of falls.12
It’s important to understand that falls are not inevitable and oftentimes are preventable. By making sensible changes to your home, eating right, exercising and taking care of your vision health, you can significantly lower your risk of suffering from a debilitating fall and related brain injury.

By Dr. Mercola
One in 3 reading this likely has a serious overload of a mineral that may be more dangerous to your health than lack of vitamin D. That mineral is iron.

Making matters worse, few physicians fully appreciate the danger of excess iron, which Gerry Koenig, former chairman of the Iron Disorders Institute and the Hemochromatosis Foundation,1 discusses in this interview. Koenig’s personal story is a powerful illustration of what can happen to someone with excess iron.

Approaching his 50th birthday, he’d lost a lot of weight, worked out, and felt healthy. By age 55, he was in good shape, but he did drink more than recommended. Eventually, during a physical exam, he found out his liver enzymes were high.

“The doctor recommended I stop drinking,” Koenig says. “I stopped drinking. But I got sick again … Turned out I had hemolytic anemia. My red blood cells were breaking down.

I didn’t know what that meant, nor, apparently, did my doctor. They never tested my iron … Finally I had an episode where I went to the hospital. I had encephalopathy, a pretty serious condition … They said I would need a new liver.

I didn’t get an iron test until the eve of my liver transplant in 2005 … By chance I ran across a Scientific American article. It described something called hemochromatosis, which I didn’t know anything about. I decided I would have the test.

As it turns out, I have a single gene for one of the variants for hemochromatosis — C282Y. Because of that, I decided to look into it more and started researching it … I’ve been doing that for the last 11 years.”

Are You at High Risk for Iron Overload?

Most all adult men and non-menstruating women have damaging levels of iron. However, there is a genetic disorder called hemochromatosis which causes your body to accumulate excessive and dangerously damaging levels of iron.

If left untreated, it can damage your organs and contribute to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases and many other disorders.

The good news is iron overload is easy and inexpensive to treat. By monitoring your serum ferritin and/or gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) levels, avoiding iron supplements and donating blood on a regular basis, you can avoid serious health problems.

Sadly, many doctors are severely underinformed about iron overload. Hence the problem tends to go undetected.

How High Is Too High?

The serum ferritin test measures your stored iron. I strongly recommend all adults to get your iron tested (serum ferritin test) on an annual basis. I believe iron overload is every bit as dangerous to your health as vitamin D deficiency.

Just don’t make the mistake of going by what’s considered “normal.”2 In some labs, a level of 395 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) falls within the normal range, which is FAR too high for optimal health. In reality, you’re virtually guaranteed to develop disease at that level.

Ideally, your serum ferritin should be somewhere between 20 and 80 ng/ml, certainly no higher than that. As a general rule, somewhere between 40 and 60 ng/ml is the sweet spot for adult men and non-menstruating women.

Unfortunately, few besides children, premenopausal women who lose blood through monthly menstruation, and those with acute blood loss like a bleeding ulcer, have these ideal levels.

“Even some premenopausal women (if they’re not under control) will go up to 60 or 70, which is dangerous if they get pregnant. There’s a greater chance of poor outcomes in the pregnancy.

The U.S. is 35th in the world in infant survival. It’s a terrible situation when you look at the numbers. There’s no reason for this. There’s no reason for us to have a population that’s so unhealthy given the access to medical care that we have,” Koenig says.

Again, if your iron level is high, the solution is to simply donate your blood. If you’re an adult male, you’ll want to donate blood two to three times a year once your levels are normal. If ferritin levels are over 200 ng/ml, a more aggressive phlebotomy schedule is recommended.

Although your local blood bank may not realize this, recent U.S. legislation allows all blood banks to perform therapeutic phlebotomy for hemochromatosis or iron overload. All you need is a doctor’s order.

Recommended Lab Tests

While a full iron panel that checks serum iron, iron-binding capacity and ferritin can be helpful, you really only need the serum ferritin test. It’s fairly inexpensive — typically less than $40.

Your doctor can write you a prescription for it, or you can order it from Koenig’s website, HealtheIron.com. They recently also added a (GGT) test.

GGT measures liver enzymes, which can tell you if you have liver damage. It can also be used as a screening marker for excess iron. The free iron measured by GGT is also great indicator of sudden cardiac death.

“If you only took that marker (GGT), you have an indication of iron that’s not well-bound. When you have iron in the serum, it’s generally bound by transferrin, which carries two iron atoms through the serum.

Ferritin can hold 4,000 to 4,500 iron molecules and put those inside the cells. If those measures are high, they’re risky, because you don’t know how well your body is going to hold on to that iron when the cells fall apart over time hemolysis or catabolism.

Our diet is the biggest factor today that’s really causing this problem. It’s not so much that we’re eating too much iron; it’s that the iron we have in our body effectively can harm us. That’s where the GGT comes in. It’s a surrogate measure of free iron.”

For women, a healthy GGT level is around 9 U/L, whereas the high end of “normal” GGT lab ranges are generally 40 to 45 U/L for women. For men, Koenig recommends a level of 16 U/L (normal lab ranges for men is 65 to 70 U/L).3
“Women with GGT above 30 U/L have higher risk of cancers — breast cancer, all kinds of cancers — and they will have high risk of autoimmune disease,” Koenig warns.

What Causes Excess Iron Buildup?

Besides having one or both genes for hemochromatosis, you may also end up with high iron levels for the simple fact that most people don’t excrete iron very well. So what’s the biology behind iron loading?

Ninety percent of the energy your body creates is by burning carbs or fat with oxygen in your mitochondria to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP). You need oxygen to burn the fuel because it goes through the Krebs cycle. Ninety-five percent of the time, oxygen is converted to water.

But anywhere from 0.5 to 5 percent of the time, you’re going to develop what’s called a reactive oxygen species (ROS). The first one is superoxide, which then transforms to the next ROS, which is hydrogen peroxide.

Here’s the key: when you have excess iron in your blood, the chemical reaction (Fenton’s reaction) doesn’t produce water. Instead, the excessive iron catalyzes the formation of hydroxyl free radicals, which are the most potent and destructive free radicals known to man. They will decimate your mitochondrial DNA, mitochondrial electron transport proteins and cellular membranes.

This is how iron overload accelerates every major disease we know of. That’s how it causes the pathologies, especially in liver and cardiovascular disease. Believe me, very few health care professionals understand the molecular biology of this reaction, which is why virtually no one is sounding the alarm about excessive iron levels. This is why you need to share this article with your friends and family as you can literally save many of their lives.

It is absolutely vital to confirm that you have safe iron levels, and once they are in a safe range, continue to monitor them so they don’t rise. Remember, you don’t have to have hemochromatosis to be affected. According to Koenig, iron levels have literally DOUBLED in the general population over the past four decades.

“Serum ferritin was not measured for the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES I,4 1971 to 1974) was done. But during NHANES II5 (1976 to 1980), they measured ferritin. The male serum ferritin was under 100 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml). Now the median is close to 200 ng/ml. In some minorities, it’s a lot higher …
If you look at the scales of premature death and infant mortality in African-Americans versus whites, that big difference can be accounted for by this one element. Hispanic-Americans live longer than white Americans. They also handle the iron a little bit better,” Koenig says.

Beware of High Iron, High-Carb Diet Combination

If you eat a lot of net carbs (total carbs minus fiber), the situation is exacerbated. Unfortunately, most reading this are burning carbs as their primary fuel, which adds another 30 to 40 percent more ROS on top of the hydroxyl free radicals generated by the presence of high iron.

“What people generally have when they eat better, in terms of slowing those little fires down before they become a raging fire, are antioxidants,” Koenig says. “The most important one is glutathione. If you don’t have good cellular health, including glutathione, those fires (inflammation) will just self-ignite and you’ll have a chain reaction of effects that go on until you’re really sick.

That happened to me. I got peripheral neuropathy. They try to say it’s a diabetic problem, and I never had diabetes. Both of my legs were on fire. The pain was unbelievable. You wind up going to a specialist for that, a neurologist. But when the membranes on your neurological system essentially flare up and melt, the pain is unbearable. But nobody connected that to the iron.”

Hemochromatosis, Another Iron-Damaging Disease

About 1 in 3.5 or an estimated 100 million people in the U.S. have the single gene for hemochromatosis. But not all of them get sick with an iron overload disorder. If you have both genes for hemochromatosis, then your risk of developing iron overload and associated health problems rises significantly.

Approximately 1 million people have the double gene variant (C282Y/C282Y), which is considered the genotype most predictive of liver disease complications. However, this only becomes a serious problem if significant iron overload occurs before a diagnosis is achieved and proper treatment can be administered. Each year there are roughly 36,000 deaths from liver diseases and about 6,000 liver transplants. Most all of these cases are affected by excess iron, whether or not they have a hemochromatosis genotype.

The primary cause for liver transplantation and liver death is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a condition that can advance to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and cirrhosis. Excess dietary fructose is likely a primary contributor or initiator to NAFLD these days (especially in children and young adults), but high iron is another major culprit that triggers insulin resistance and disease progression.

Certainly, if you combine a high-sugar diet with excess iron, you’re asking for trouble. That will create a powerfully poisonous, deadly synergy that will accelerate just about any pathology. If you’ve read this far, you probably know more about this problem than your physician. High iron simply isn’t brought to their attention in the medical literature. The reason I know about it is because I’ve been personally affected.

My dad has beta-thalassemia and he gave me the gene, which is a form of hemolytic anemia (similar to sickle cell anemia). As a result of that, my red blood cells die faster than normal, and I’m prone to excess iron. My dad had a ferritin level of 800 when I diagnosed him 20 years ago.

He would be dead by now if we hadn’t taken measures to correct it. He’s now 90 years old. He was recently hospitalized with pneumonia. His doctor did an iron test, which came back “low,” despite being well over 200 ng/ml! They were about to give him an iron injection when my sister intervened and stopped them. Had she not been there, he might have ended up another medical error statistic.
Key Treatment Points

To reiterate, the three keys to control this situation are:

Lower your net carb intake and increase your consumption of healthy fats, including animal-based omega-3, to switch over to fat-burning mode and protect your mitochondria. This will help to radically reduce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and secondary free radical production.

Regularly screen for iron overload with a serum ferritin or GGT level to confirm that you don’t have excess iron, and if you do, donate blood to lower your levels.
If you are an adult male or non-menstruating woman, make sure that you donate your blood at least twice a year.

Relying on antioxidants to indiscriminately suppress ROS can backfire, as ROS also act as important signaling molecules. They’re not all bad. They cause harm only when produced in excess. You’re better off lowering the production of them rather than squelching them after they’re produced.

So optimize your ROS levels biologically rather than relying on vitamins and supplements. Eating healthy fats can make a bigger difference than you might think, especially if you have high iron. Koenig explains:

“There was a very interesting group of studies on captive U.S. Navy dolphins. The dolphins had metabolic syndrome. Very, very high ferritin (serum iron). They were unhealthy. Metabolic syndrome in any population is a sign of potential risk of going from diabetes to heart disease. They cured it by providing them good fish to have plenty of fats, where they had been getting fish with poor fats …

If anybody remembers the film ‘Lorenzo’s Oil,’ that’s where children have brain damage as a result of having this metabolism that doesn’t create a good mixture of fatty acids in the cell linings. If the cell linings are damaged, particularly if it happens in the brain … you’re going to get hurt

… If you have leakage of iron from subcells, lysosomes, and/or red blood cells (hemolysis) … it will shoot the ferritin level up high as an indication of risk. That’s when action should be taken. But it’s hard to find specialists. We need a couple of thousand general practitioners who know about this.”

Be Mindful of Food Combos That Promote Iron Retention

Here are a few other tips and suggestions regarding diet. Eating vitamin C-rich food with a meal that has iron will increase iron absorption. If you’re anemic, this might be a good thing, but if you struggle with high iron, avoid combining foods high in vitamin C and iron. On the other hand, calcium will bind to iron, limiting absorption.

It impairs iron, so to speak, so if your iron is high, consider eating iron-rich foods with foods high in calcium. Interestingly, curcumin (derived from turmeric) acts as a potent chelator of iron and can be a useful supplement if your iron is elevated.

“For most people that works well. Your body is designed to not over-absorb non-heme iron, which is elemental iron. That’s the iron inside vegetables and fruits. If you do something to enhance that absorption, the body will take it in.

The iron from meats you can’t control very well. We’re the only country in the developed world, together with Canada, to put 44 parts per million of elemental iron in our grains and flours.  The other one is the U.K. They put 16.5 parts per million. That’s a lot of iron, and [many] don’t need it,” Koenig says.

More Information

To learn more, I recommend visiting HealtheIron.com, where you can also order your serum ferritin and GGT tests or either of their special FeGGT-LifePRO™ test panels. If either serum ferritin or GGT is elevated, you need to take action. The treatment couldn’t be simpler. Unless you’re a menstruating woman, simply donate blood two to three times a year. If you cannot donate blood due to restrictions for hemochromatosis, get your doctor to write you a prescription for therapeutic phlebotomy.
Every blood bank can do that for you and many will do it free of charge, so shop around. Otherwise, a typical charge ranges from $30 to $90, which is still fairly inexpensive considering the health benefits. Most people with moderate iron overload will require no more than two or three such treatments a year to keep this risk under control.

There’s also a really informative book called “Dumping Iron: How to Ditch This Secret Killer and Reclaim Your Health,” which is a well written and easy to understand resource. Remember, high iron may not only be as common, or more, than low iron. It’s also more dangerous, and may actually be a factor in a significant number of diabetes, heart disease and cancer cases.

Unfortunately, nearly every physician is still clueless about this, and so you need to be your own advocate if you suspect (or know) your iron is too high.

I believe correcting elevated iron levels may be just as important, if not more so, than optimizing your vitamin D. If you have high iron, you definitely have the pedal to the metal when it comes to speeding up disease and aging. Koenig is a perfect example. He ended up needing a liver transplant as a result of iron overload. In conclusion, Koenig notes:

“If your doctor tells you that you have fatty liver disease, you probably have high iron, high ferritin. He probably will not test you for that. Get the test. You can see some benefit by donating blood, or changing your diet. On my website, I have about 700 publications. If you want to dig into it, it’s a section. Find out how to reduce [your iron] by diet alone. It’s been done and done successfully.”
free radicals

By Dr. Mercola

If you pick up a package of chicken breasts from your supermarket, it gives no clues to the controversies and political unrest facing the farmers that raised those chickens. Nor does it hint at the unethical, inhumane, and often unsanitary conditions that have become commonplace in “modern” poultry farming.
Who’s to blame? The giant poultry processors – like Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms, Pilgrim’s Pride, and Sanderson Farms – who dominate the industry and control the chicken farmers like puppets and punish those who dare to speak out against the system.
If you happened to catch John Oliver’s HBO episode of “Last Week Tonight” that featured this issue (it aired in May 2015), you were party to one of the most compelling and honest exposes of US poultry production to be featured by mainstream media.
John Oliver Takes on Giant Poultry Processors

Poultry processors feature promotional videos of chicken farmers who appear happy and secure in their work, but this rosy picture is, according to Oliver, nothing but PR spin.
Many farmers tell a different story of hardship and financial ruin. More than 70 percent of chicken farmers live below the poverty line,1 despite the fact that chicken is in high demand in the US, due to a process known as contract farming.
Companies bring chicks in to individual farms, drop them off and then pick them up for processing after they’re fully grown. Nearly all US chickens (97 percent) are raised in this manner, but the problem is that the poultry processors own the chickens while the farmers own the property and equipment. In other words, as Oliver put it:
“You [the farmer] own everything that costs money and we [the processor] own everything that makes money.”
Many farmers go into significant debt (over $1 million) to start up their farms because they’re led to believe they’ll have a steady source of income. But then they’re left at the complete mercy of the processors to continue on.
Even the growing conditions – the fact that chickens are raised indoors without access to sunlight and fresh air, for instance – are dictated by the poultry processors. Further, as farmers begin to pay off their debt, the processors can step in and demand costly upgrades, sending the farmers right back into the red.
Chicken Farmers Paid Using Cut-Throat Gladiator System and Face Retaliation for Speaking Out

Chicken farmers are also paid via a tournament or “gladiator system,” which pits farmers against each other. Those ranked in the top half (producing the fattest chickens with the least amount of feed, for instance) receive a bonus payment while those at the bottom will get a penalty. That may mean the farmers at the bottom receive about half the pay for the same number of chickens…
And when the farmers speak out against the industry, the processors retaliate by cutting the number and quality of chickens the farmers received. The industry denies this, but the farmers say otherwise.
Chicken farmer Mike Weaver told Politico that after he spoke at a USDA-hosted panel about the tournament system, Pilgrim’s retaliated by giving him poor-quality chicks and feed. He told Politico:2
“They do it clandestinely… They have ways of getting back at you that’s hard for you to prove.”
The retaliations are no secret among the business – so much so that it’s rare for chicken farmers to speak up at town hall meetings designed to get protective regulations in place. The poultry producers warn the farmers not to attend — and the farmers listen lest they have their livelihood threatened.
Rules to Protect Chicken Farmers Are Not Being Enforced

Rules have been made to help protect the farmers, but each year the Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) rider is inserted into the House Appropriations bill. This defunds the Agriculture Department’s efforts to protect farmers.3
This isn’t surprising, since the poultry industry spends million to lobby Congress on their behalf. As reported by EcoWatch:4

“Two lawmakers, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME), have led the charge to torpedo the GIPSA rider, but have been stymied repeatedly by colleagues like Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR)…
Womack, a member of the Appropriations Committee from the district where Tyson is headquartered, has received tens of thousands of dollars from individuals associated with Tyson and the National Chicken Council, the industry’s trade group.
But the money flow does not stop there. Kaptur published a press release with the names of representatives who voted against her provision. Of them, in 2014, Reps. Jack Kingston (R-GA), Robert Aderholt (R-AL), and Henry Cuellar (D-TX) received contributions from Tyson. 
Rep. Andy Harris (R) received contributions from Perdue (both are based in Maryland); Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) received a donation from Pilgrim’s Pride, and Sanderson gave thousands to the late Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R), who hailed from the Mississippi district where the company is headquartered…
Each of them received a substantial portion of the National Chicken Council’s $302,900 in 2014 contributions… The National Chicken Council has spent more than $2.5 million [lobbying Washington] just in the last five years…
Tyson goes above and beyond with more than $9 million in recent lobbying expenditures; Perdue has spent hundreds of thousands, as has Pilgrim’s; and Sanderson Farms has spent more than a million dollars in the last three years. They have each lobbied against GIPSA reform in some capacity.”
On a positive note, the Agriculture bill for 2016 was recently approved by the House Appropriations Committee without the GIPSA defunding rider attached for the first time in years, although for now the poultry farmers are still being gagged…
Perdue Chicken Farmer Speaks Out

In the video above, Leah Garces of Compassion in World Farming visits Craig Watts, a contract farmer for Perdue. Dissatisfied with the system, he has taken the bold step to show everyone the reality hiding behind his barn doors. “There’s a lot of flaws in the system,” he says. “The consumer is being hoodwinked.”
His chicken farm raises about 30,000 chickens at a time (which is far less than the 60 million chickens common at farms in Iowa), and over a six-week growing period, it’s considered normal for at least 1,000 of them to die. Causes of death include illness, genetic problems, and injuries occurring from overcrowding. The chicks are sent to the contract farmer from Perdue, and the farmer has no control over the health or genetics of the chicks they receive.
Their only job is to raise them, and in order to fatten them up faster, the farmers are, sadly, actually contractually prohibited from giving the flock access to open air and sunshine, because the less the chickens move, and the more they eat, the bigger they grow.
Is it any wonder that the lobbyists for the meat, egg, and dairy industries heavily promote, and several states have already enacted, so-called ag-gag laws to prevent anyone from exposing animal cruelty and food-safety issues at CAFOs? They don’t want you to know what’s really going on at their “farms,” which is a significant red flag that you do not want to eat food raised there.
It’s worth noting, too, that most CAFO animals are fed genetically modified (GM) feed, like corn and soy. These crops are heavily treated with herbicides like Roundup, the active ingredient of which is glyphosate. Glyphosate is also patented as an antibiotic — and a very effective one at that — against a large number of beneficial organisms.
Unfortunately, like all antibiotics, it also kills vitally important beneficial soil bacteria and human gut bacteria. This is yet one more way that eating CAFO foods may harm your gut, your mental health, and your physical health.
New Drug-Resistant Bacteria in Your Meat

There are other reasons to think twice before buying chickens that come from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) – the potential for drug-resistant bacteria. Nearly 25 million pounds of antibiotics are administered to livestock in the US every year for purposes other than treating disease, such as making the animals grow bigger faster. In fact, 80 percent of the antibiotics used in the US are used in agriculture, and this practice is promoting the spread of antibiotic-resistant disease.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria infect 2 million Americans every year, causing at least 23,000 deaths.5 Worse still, a report commissioned by UK Prime Minister David Cameron estimates that by 2050 antibiotic resistance will have killed 300 million people, with the annual global death toll reaching 10 million.6 And according to the CDC, 22 percent of antibiotic-resistant illness in humans is in fact linked to food,7 but a more accurate statement might be linked to food from CAFOs.
Take Klebsiella pneumonia, a bacteria that can lead to pneumonia, bloodstream infections, wound and surgical site infections and meningitis. Klebsiellaare often found in the human intestinal tract, where they are normally harmless. But if your immune system is compromised and you get exposed to an especially virulent drug-resistant form of Klebsiella, the consequences to you can be deadly. It wasn’t thought to be transmitted via food… until now. New research published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases showed that turkey, chicken, and pork sold in US grocery stores may contain klebsiella pneumonia.8  In fact, 47 percent of samples tested contained the bacteria, which was, in some cases, nearly identical to strains found in people with klebsiella pneumonia infections during the same time period. US chicken is not currently tested for klebsiella pneumonia bacteria. In the case of CAFO chicken, you’ve probably heard about the risks of salmonella, but in addition to that and klebsiella pneumonia, campylobacter is particularly problematic. Chickens and turkeys normally harbor campylobacter in their digestive tracts without becoming ill. Antibiotics routinely given to the birds in CAFOs don’t completely eliminate campylobacter from the birds’ intestinal tracts, so the surviving bacteria are the tougher ones that have resisted being killed off by the antibiotics.  Those bacteria proliferate in the birds and end up being passed on to you — along with their antibiotic-resistance. Campylobacter bacteria are found on chicken carcasses in slaughterhouses and in commercial poultry products — including on the outside of poultry packaging — where they can easily infect you, your children, or even your pets.
Another Massive Chicken Recall

It seems a week doesn’t go by without a major recall of some type of food product, often one that’s mass produced. Salmonella Heidelberg,a particularly virulent strain of salmonella, sickened several hundred people between 2004 and 2014. The strain was traced to Foster Farms, one of the largest poultry companies on the US West Coast. You can see some of Foster Farms cruel and highly questionable “business practices” in the video above (warning, it’s graphic).
From March 1, 2013 to July 11, 2014, chicken from this CAFO sickened more than 600 people before a recall was issued. Foster Farms got a fair share of bad publicity in 2014, yet no punitive action has been taken. Again in 2015, we’ve already had two large chicken recalls – Barber Foods’ recall of 1.7 million pounds of frozen and stuffed, raw chicken products, and Aspen Foods recall of 1.9 million pounds of chicken products. Both companies’ products were recalled after reports of people being infected with salmonella enteritidis after eating the chicken.
While the poultry industry reports that rates of salmonella contamination have actually gone down, rates of human salmonellosis have remained stable. But a company can actually be in compliance with the food safety standards and still be responsible for a salmonella outbreak, which is what happened in the case of Foster Farms. Since the company was meeting USDA performance expectations, the agency didn’t have the power to force a recall; it was left up to the company to voluntarily recall their tainted chicken and it was resistant to doing so.
So it’s important to realize that whole poultry is permitted to contain a certain level of salmonella — and there’s NO set level for chicken parts. Since salmonella is so prevalent, you should assume any store-bought CAFO chicken is contaminated and handle it accordingly. In fact, the USDA expects you to destroy any present pathogens through safe handling and proper cooking.
USDA Allows US Chickens to Be Shipped to China for Processing

Unbeknownst to many Americans, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) allows chicken raised in the US to be shipped to China, processed, then shipped back for US sale.9 It’s unclear which, if any, companies are using this process, but still unsettling to know it can occur, especially given that China’s food-safety record is less than admirable. Further, there are no plans for USDA inspectors to be stationed at the Chinese processing sites, and US consumers will have no way of knowing if their chicken took a trip to China, as labels aren’t required. Tom Super, spokesman for the National Chicken Council, told the Houston Chronicle:10
“Economically, it doesn’t make much sense… Think about it: A Chinese company would have to purchase frozen chicken in the U.S., pay to ship it 7,000 miles, unload it, transport it to a processing plant, unpack it, cut it up, process/cook it, freeze it, repack it, transport it back to a port, then ship it another 7,000 miles. I don’t know how anyone could make a profit doing that.”
There is potential for profit, however, because while US poultry processors are paid about $11 an hour, such Chinese workers may only earn $1.11 The seafood industry already uses such a system, sending US-caught salmon and crab overseas to China because of the “significant cost savings” in processing.12
Bird Flu Epidemic Still Raising Costs

2015 ushered in the largest outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N2 avian flu in US history. Nearly 50 million birds have been infected and killed as a result. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa have declared a state of emergency and China and Mexico have imposed bans on US poultry and eggs. The US government approved $330 million in “emergency funds” to help fight the disease’s spread.13 And the USDA also stepped in, with 266 employees dedicated to helping states affected by the outbreak. The Agency also approved $130 million (of taxpayer money) to help CAFOs “get back on their feet.”14
And the outbreak is still costing taxpayers, as the USDA has hired private security firms to place armed guards outside of CAFOs hit by bird flu, even though the birds have already been cleared out. As reported by Politico:15
“The concern, one official said, is that people enter the facilities and track the virus out to other facilities that contain healthy birds.”
The costs that have been incurred are incredible, especially considering the epidemic was caused by the CAFOs. What happens when you have tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of animals living together in cramped, waste-covered quarters, fed an unnatural and unhealthy diet, and unable to spend time outdoors or engage in any of their natural behaviors? Disease takes hold and runs rampant. As reported in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives:16
“As a general principle, the concentration of humans or animals in proximity enhances potential transmission of microorganisms among members of the group. It also creates greater potential for infecting surrounding life forms, even those of different species. The conditions created also may be a breeding ground for new, more infectious, or more resistant microorganisms.”
As a result of the epidemic, “shell eggs,” which are the type sold by the carton in grocery stores, have increased significantly in price. Wholesale costs rose from $1.19 a dozen in late April to $2.03 a dozen in late May.17 According to analysts at Goldman Sachs, consumers may end up spending up to $8 billion because of the bird-flu-induced egg shortage. If you haven’t already considered it, now would be a great time to connect with a local farm that offers healthy chicken and eggs. The products might be more expensive than the CAFO versions at your grocery store… but are they really more expensive, all things considered?
Celebrities Get Involved to Clean up the Chicken Industry

Celebrities like Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling have contacted wholesale store Costco to urge them to stop selling eggs from caged hens. Pitt wrote in an open letter to the store:18
“As you know, these birds producing eggs for your shelves are crammed five or more into cages that are not large enough for even one hen to spread her wings… In these cruel cages, the animals’ muscles and bones atrophy from years of immobilization. That’s why the cages are illegal in most of Europe, and why California banned the cages by an overwhelming vote years ago… In short, cramming hens into cages for their entire lives constitutes cruelty to animals, and animals deserve better. As you know, many major corporations, from Burger King to Unilever, are getting rid of cages – and Whole Foods hasn’t sold eggs from caged hens in years.”
While Costco hasn’t given a response about selling eggs from caged hens, the company has been involved in an ongoing push to end the use of human antibiotics in chicken and other livestock. Costco has been working with the FDA and the CDC to help eliminate the use of so-called shared-use antibiotics (those used for both humans and livestock), a step in the right direction – although taking a stand against caged hens is equally important.
Wouldn’t You Rather Eat Meat Without Drugs?

Positive change is on the horizon. Consumer demand has put pressure on meat companies like Tyson, Perdue, and Pilgrim’s Pride to adjust their production practices. Fast-food chain Carl’s Jr. even recently rolled out a burger made with grass-fed, free-range beef, promising to be free of antibiotics, steroids, and hormones,19 which shows that when enough consumers talk, corporations listen.
However, the best way to change the system is to stop supporting them. Instead, seek out a local farmer near you who is operating outside the constraints of these industry giants. By purchasing your meat from smaller farms that raise their animals in a humane fashion, according to organic principles, you’re promoting the proliferation of such farms, which in the end will benefit everyone, including all the animals. The organic industry also tends to favor far more humane butchering practices, which is another important part of “ethical meat.” The following organizations can help you locate farm-fresh foods — including organic grass-fed and finished meats — in your local area:

Local Harvest — This Web site will help you find farmers’ markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies.

Farmers’ Markets — A national listing of farmers’ markets.

Eat Well Guide: Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals — The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, inns, and hotels, and online outlets in the United States and Canada.

Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) — CISA is dedicated to sustaining agriculture and promoting the products of small farms.

FoodRoutes — The FoodRoutes “Find Good Food” map can help you connect with local farmers to find the freshest, tastiest food possible. On their interactive map, you can find a listing for local farmers, CSA’s, and markets near you.

When shopping for antibiotic-free meat, you can also keep the following labels in mind to help you find truly high-quality meat:20

100% USDA Organic label offers excellent assurance that antibiotics have not been used at any stage of production.

“Grass-fed” label coupled with USDA Organic label means no antibiotics have been used, but if the “grass-fed” label appears alone, antibiotics may have been given.

“American Grass-fed” and “Food Alliance Grass-fed” labels indicate that in addition to having been raised on grass, the animal in question received no antibiotics.

The following three labels: “Antibiotic-free,” “No antibiotic residues,” and “No antibiotic growth promotants,” have not been approved by the USDA and may be misleading if not outright fraudulent.

“Natural” or “All-Natural” is completely meaningless and has no bearing on whether or not the animal was raised according to organic principles. “Natural” meat and poultry products can by law receive antibiotics, hormones, and genetically engineered grains, and can be raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

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By Dr. Mercola

If you feel challenged in consuming enough vegetables, then making a small investment in a high-quality juicer is one of the best steps you can take for your health.

Raw juice is equivalent to a “living broth” teeming with micronutrients that many people are lacking, and this deficiency is a major factor in disease.

More people die from chronic disease today than all other causes combined. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 36 million people die every year from degenerative conditions, and 100 million are driven into poverty by healthcare costs alone.

When you drink fresh, live juice, it’s almost like receiving an intravenous infusion of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes because they go straight into your body without needing to be broken down. Since juicing is essentially “mainlining” live nutrients, it’s no surprise it can produce rapid and profound health benefits.

What if the answer to preventing and reversing disease is as simple as juicing? Jason Vale designed an experiment to help answer that question.

‘Super-Juicing’ for 28 Days Cured Diabetes and Chronic Pain

Juicing expert Jason Vale recruited eight people who collectively suffered from 22 different chronic diseases and put them on a juice-only diet for 28 days (plus exercise) in order to explore juicing’s potential benefits for reversing chronic disease. And then he filmed their experience.

The documentary “Super Juice Me” chronicles Vale’s 28-day “super-juicing” experiment. The health improvements seen by those eight are nothing short of astounding.

Every participant felt energized and lost weight, and most reported a drastic reduction in their symptoms—as well as in the number of medications they used. One man went from 52 prescription pills per day to two pills per day. Another had his diabetes completely resolve.

One woman went from years of chronic pain to being completely pain free, and others suffering from asthma, colitis, and sleep apnea enjoyed a profound reduction in symptoms.

It was not an easy journey as several experienced detoxification reactions, food cravings, and for some, a temporary increase in symptoms as their bodies began to purge toxins they’d been accumulating for years. But those reactions were relatively short-lived, and they felt immensely better on the other side—better than they’d felt in years.

The Many Health Benefits of Juicing

The movie shows an extreme example of juicing, but it can be incorporated into your life to any degree you choose—as an occasional cleanse or as the start of every morning. There are several reasons to consider incorporating vegetable juicing into your health plan:

Juicing helps you absorb all the nutrients from your vegetables. This is important because most people have impaired digestion as a result of making less-than-optimal food choices over many years, which limits your body’s ability to absorb all of the nutrients in whole, raw vegetables. Juicing helps “pre-digest” them, so that you won’t lose any of this valuable nutrition.

Juicing makes it easier to consume a large quantity of vegetables. Virtually every health authority recommends that you get six to eight servings of vegetables and fruits per day, but very few actually get that. Juicing virtually guarantees you’ll reach your daily target.

You can add a wider variety of vegetables to your diet. Many people eat the same vegetables every day, which violates the principle of regular food rotation and increases your chance of developing an allergy to certain foods. Juicing expands the number of different phytochemicals you receive, as each vegetable offers unique benefits. Juicing also allows you to consume vegetables that you may not normally enjoy eating whole.

Boosts your immune system. Raw juice supercharges your immune system with concentrated phytochemicals and biophotonic light energy, which can revitalize your body. The nutrients in fresh juice also feed your body’s good bacteria and help suppress potentially pathogenic ones.

Increases your energy. When your blood is flooded with nutrients and your body’s pH is optimized, you’ll feel energized. Since juice is absorbed and utilized by your body very rapidly, juicers report feeling an almost instantaneous “kick” of energy.

Supports your brain. In the Kame Project,1 people who consumed juice more than three times per week were 76 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who consumed juice less than once a week.

Provides structured water. Vegetable juice is one of the purest sources of water and actually qualifies as water. Vegetable water is structured water (living water), which is different from regular water—H3O2 rather than H2O. Water from vegetables is the best quality water you can drink!

What About Protein and Fat?

When you think of protein, the image that might come to your mind may be a big juicy steak—but many vegetables actually contain substantial amounts of protein. For example, broccoli contains roughly 4 to 5 grams of protein per cup. Spinach contains 5 to 6 grams, and kale, watercress, collard, and turnip greens have respectable amounts of protein as well.

So during a juice fast when you are drinking juices all day long, you could easily be consuming 20 to 30 grams of protein or more from your juices alone. If you’re doing a short fast—a few days, for example—chances are you’re going to get plenty of protein from the juices.

If you were to try an extended juice fast (as in the film), you might want to consider adding a source of high-quality protein, such as whey, especially if you’re exercising heavily. You could augment your fats by blending healthy fats into your juice, such as avocado, coconut oil, and extra virgin olive oil, as well as raw seeds (flax, chia, hemp, etc.).

It’s important to remember that juice is not a beverage—it’s a liquid food. The way to get substantial protein from veggies is to consume them in high volume, and the way to consume a high volume of veggies is by juicing! I recommend getting into the habit of juicing daily. But even if you don’t, a three- to seven-day monthly juice fast is a great detox that can give your health a considerable boost.

My Thoughts on Why this 28 Day Juice Fast Worked

If you haven’t watched the video yet, I would certainly encourage you to do so as there were some very dramatic improvements noted in the individuals who took part in the experiment. There is simply no question in my mind that high quality vegetable juices can lead to dramatic improvements in one’s health as the video clearly demonstrates. However, what the program did not elaborate on is that there was another factor involved. It was clear that most of the people on the program ate a typical Western diet. Not only did they juice, but they eliminated many of the toxic processed foods that they were eating. I suspect that in many cases it was the elimination of the processed foods was the more important factor. So unless you commit to eliminating all the processed foods in your diet, there is a strong likelihood that you will not observe the same improvements that the people in the video did.Juicers 101: Three Basic Types of Juicers

Please understand that blenders, like Blendtec and Vitamix are NOT juicers but blenders. They are great blenders but will damage the juice because they process it at much higher temperatures, and the added fiber makes it less palatable and more difficult to consume larger amounts. When it comes to juice extractors, you have three options:

Centrifugal Juicers: Centrifugal juicers separate the juice from the fiber through a spinning process. These are the most common and least expensive machines, but they are noisy, generate higher heat, are harder to clean and typically less efficient at separating the juice from the pulp.
Masticating Juicers: Auger or masticating types of juicers (single and double gear) chew up the vegetables and push them through a strainer. They work very well and tend to give you more juice than a centrifugal juicer (possibly 20 to 25 percent more), with less heat. They’re also quieter than other models and tend to be easier to clean and assemble. They cost a bit more than centrifugal juicers, but over time you’ll break even as they give you more juice per veggie.
Grind-and-press: Presses work like an apple cider mill. These are quite expensive and therefore not as popular for everyday juicing.

Study Shows Blenders Significantly Damage Vegetable Nutrients

In addition to juicers, there are also high-power blenders that some people use to make “whole juice,” which is essentially whole vegetables and/or fruits blended with water or another liquid. This is not the same as juice. You lose at least one of the major advantages of juicing—which is being able to consume a very large quantity of vegetables, because the fiber limits the amount you can drink and it’s not as tasty. While fiber certainly has its own benefits, the abundant live nutrients in real juice are more important. The following comparison between blended juice and extracted juice by Juicing Science is instructive in understanding why the fiber issue may be insignificant:2

“One hundred grams of kale contains more than 100 percent of your recommended daily intake (RDI) of vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin K, and more than 10 percent of your RDI of vitamins B1, B2, B6, calcium, iron, magnesium, and manganese. Yet, despite its dense, dry appearance, it is made up of only 1.7 percent fiber, which means it provides less than six percent of your RDI for fiber.”

So if you’re pursuing a high-fiber diet, blended green smoothies may help, but you’re still going to have to get the majority of your fiber from other sources. Another downside to blended juices is that the heat generated by blending significantly damages many of the micronutrients, due to oxidation. One laboratory analysis3 found that 60 seconds in a high-powered blender destroys between 23 and 63 percent of the vitamin C, calcium, and potassium in green vegetables. There is simply no replacement for the flood of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and phytonutrients your body gets from fresh, cold-extracted juice.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Green!

Download Interview Transcript

Your juices should consist mostly of green vegetables, with minimal fruits so its sugar (fructose) content will be low. You can add in an apple, 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. But green juice actually has a very pleasant flavor, and it’s easy to “tweak” it to taste even better.

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, spinach, and escarole, along with parsley and cilantro. Kale, collard, dandelion, mustard, and other greens can be bitter, so you’ll want to start slowly and add just a few leaves at a time.

Some of the most nutrient-dense veggies are the strongest tasting, but don’t avoid them—just use a lesser quantity in your juice until your taswissste buds acclimate. Selecting organic, non-GMO produce is very important when juicing, but the price can be a challenge for some. One alternative is to grow your own veggies, making sure to avoid toxic garden chemicals (synthetic herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers). A great trick to make your juice more palatable, especially in the beginning, is to add one or more of these elements:

Limes and lemons: You can add one half to a whole lime or lemon for every quart of juice. Provided you’re using organic lemons or limes, you can even juice the skin if you want to avoid the hassle of peeling them. Limes are my favorite for cutting 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”!
Limited amounts of apple and carrot (just be mindful of your overall sugar content)

Juice Preparation and Storage Tips

One nice thing about juicing is that you don’t have to peel the majority of your veggies, provided they’re organic—simply brush them thoroughly. One exception is beets, which have a rather foul tasting skin. If you’re using non-organic vegetables, your best bet is to peel them, to avoid juicing pesticide residues. This is particularly important for fruits and vegetables that have been waxed, as this seals in the chemicals. It can be difficult to discern if a vegetable has been waxed or not, because the wax can be applied in a very thin, transparent layer. According to Dr. Saul:

Eggplant, turnips, cucumbers, and tomatoes are almost always waxed
Zucchini and other squash are usually waxed, but not always
Carrots are never waxed

Ideally, you’ll want to drink the juice right away. The longer it sits, the more nutrients are lost through contact with the air (oxidation). You also lose taste. This brings me to another reason I prefer masticating juicers: they introduce less air into your juice, so the juice may actually stay fresher longer. When storing juice in a container, such as a Mason jar, make sure you fill it all the way up to the top to minimize air space.
You might want to enlist the help of a FoodSaver vacuum sealer, which comes with an attachment designed to suck out the air from the top of a Mason jar. You still need to keep the juice refrigerated, and you’ll want to drink it all that day to avoid the risk of botulism, which can happen over time in an oxygen-free environment.

Juices stored more than 24 hours can also build up methanol. Your body is not adapted to detoxify methanol, which can cause a number of problems—for example, it can convert into formaldehyde that can then make its way into your brain. Methanol toxicity, which is primarily associated with the artificial sweetener aspartame, has been linked to Alzheimer’s and other health problems. Methanol is not a problem in fresh produce because the methanol is bound to pectin, which allows it to safely pass through your system, but juice is a different story. So, if you haven’t consumed your juice within 24 hours, toss it into the compost bin.

Managing Cravings and Detox Symptoms

Changing your diet or any other aspect of your lifestyle is sometimes stressful, and stress can sabotage your success. As some of the people in Vale’s super-juicing experiment discovered, you might feel a little worse before you feel better, as detox symptoms and food cravings can arise. You simply can’t address your physical health without also addressing your mental health. EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) makes it possible to tap away your anxiety about dietary changes—it’s one of the most powerful tools for reducing stress and anxiety that I know of. In 2012, a triple blind study4 found that EFT reduced cortisol levels and symptoms of psychological distress by 24 percent—more than any other intervention tested.

If you worry that you won’t be able to get the juice down or you won’t take the time to do it, or your food cravings will be unbearable, EFT may be able to help. The first couple weeks of a new eating routine are typically the most challenging, while your body is making the necessary biochemical adjustments. Tapping can be extraordinarily beneficial for reducing anxiety, cravings, and detox symptoms during this time.
EFT is easy to learn and once you do, it’s always at your fingertips—whenever and wherever you need it. You can even adapt this intermittent fasting EFT video by Julie Schiffman, for juice fasting. Just as juicing helps reduce your body’s toxic burden, you can think of EFT as detoxification for your mind. By combining the two, your healing will be unstoppable!

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By Dr. Mercola

Your sense of smell is your most primal sense and exerts surprising influence over your thoughts, emotions, moods, memories, and behaviors. Scents are experienced long before words.
This is why it’s nearly impossible to describe them with language. Olfaction is different from your other senses, processed through different pathways in your brain.
For other sensations such as sounds and visual images, sensory input is delivered straight to your thalamus, which you can think of as “the big switchboard” in your head. From there, data goes out to your primary sensory cortices.
But smells are different. Before reaching your thalamus, they first wind their way through other regions of your brain, including areas controlling memory and emotion. So with scents, you have all this extra processing even before you have conscious awareness of the scent.1
For this reason, scents can have a powerful influence over how you think, feel, and behave. Aromatherapy allows you to harness the olfactory power of plants for healing, or simply to enhance your state of well-being.
Essential oils carry biologically active volatile compounds in a highly concentrated form that can provide therapeutic benefits in very small amounts. Please understand that I am referring to pure, therapeutic grade essential oils from plants, NOT synthetic fragrances and perfumes, which can be toxic and are typically loaded with allergenic compounds.

Aromatherapy Was Used to Treat the Plague

The use of fragrances has been around for thousands of years, although traditions and methodologies have changed through the ages. According to “The Smell Report,”2 the process of extracting and preserving a flower’s scent using alcohol distillation was discovered by Avicenna. Avicenna was an 11th century Arabian alchemist and physician, who sort of stumbled upon it while “trying to isolate for Islam the soul of its holy rose.” Before this, perfumes consisted only of thick resins, gums, and gooey unguents.
Back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, physicians promoted the therapeutic use of scents, including Hippocrates, Galen, and Crito. Even the plague was treated with fragrances!3
It wasn’t until the early nineteenth century that the medicinal use of aromatics was largely discredited by scientists who favored drugs. Fortunately, aromatherapy is now making a strong comeback, moving steadily in the direction of mainstream.

How Essential Oils Can Help with Several Common Maladies

There are probably as many uses for aromatherapy as there are essential oils, but research shows particular promise in relieving stress, stabilizing your mood, improving sleep, pain, and nausea relief, and improving your memory and energy level.
An important element of aromatherapy is synergy, which is why using a combination of oils often creates a much more powerful effect than any one particular oil. With a skilled aromatherapist, the possibilities are nearly endless!
In order to give you an idea of the versatility of aromatherapy, the following table lists some of the therapeutic uses of several oils for a few of today’s most common complaints. As you can see, there are some real “multitaskers,” like lavender and peppermint—oils that treat more than one problem.4
Many of these are discussed in an excellent article in The Huffington Post5 about scents that can enhance your well-being. For further information, refer to the resource section at the bottom of this article.

Complaint
Essential Oils

Stress

Lavender, lemon, bergamot, peppermint, vetiver, pine, and ylang ylang

Insomnia
Lavender,6 chamomile, jasmine, benzoin, neroli, rose, sandalwood oil, sweet marjoram, and ylang ylang; lemon can wake you up7

Anxiety
Lavender, bergamot, rose, clary sage, lemon, Roman chamomile, orange, sandalwood, rose-scented geranium, and pine8

Depressed mood
Peppermint, chamomile, lavender, and jasmine9

Pain
Lavender, chamomile, clary sage, juniper, eucalyptus, rosemary, peppermint, lavender, and green apple (especially for migraines)

Nausea and vomiting
Mint, ginger, lemon, orange, ginger, dill, fennel, chamomile, clary sage, and lavender

Memory and attention
Sage, peppermint,10 and cinnamon

Low energy
Black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, angelica, jasmine, tea tree, rosemary, sage, and citrus

The Science of Smell

Why does the fishy scent of a beach make one person retch while evoking feelings of expansiveness and joy in another? These variations in responses to scents tie into the special brain pathways of your olfactory system. Olfactory information is stored or encoded with all sorts of memories and associations in your brain. The neurological substrates of olfaction are especially geared for associative learning (in your hippocampus) and emotional processing (in your amygdala).11Kate Fox explains it well in “The Smell Report”:12

“Our olfactory receptors are directly connected to the limbic system, the most ancient and primitive part of the brain, which is thought to be the seat of emotion. Smell sensations are relayed to the cortex, where ‘cognitive’ recognition occurs, only after the deepest parts of our brains have been stimulated. Thus, by the time we correctly name a particular scent as, for example, ‘vanilla,’ the scent has already activated the limbic system, triggering more deep-seated emotional responses.”

A number of studies have shown that odor learning begins before birth. A fetus detects flavor/odor compounds in its amniotic fluid, from the mother’s diet. In studies where a mothers’ consumption of distinctive smelling substances such as garlic, alcohol, or cigarette smoke were monitored during pregnancy, their infants were found to prefer these scents more than infants who had not been exposed to them.13 After birth, newborns locate their mothers’ nipples by smell. Breastfeeding also influences scent preferences; babies will associate breastfeeding smells with maternal bonding and the comfort of their mothers’ arms.  According to a recent study14, babies can even smell their mothers’ fears and learn the dangers of the world, just days after birth. When mothers experience stress, their body releases a scent that their baby detects and responds to. 
Scent preferences change along with developmental stages. Studies show that three-year-olds have essentially the same likes and dislikes as adults. Children do not develop sensitivity to certain odors until they reach puberty. Researchers have also found that olfactory receptors differ by as much as 30 percent between any two individuals.15 On tests of smelling ability, women consistently score higher than men, and this gender difference holds true even for newborns!16
In summary, your responses to scents are largely “learned” as a function of the emotional context in which they were first experienced, and then the association influences your mood and behavior later in life. Naturally, there are genetic differences as well. Do you LOVE the smell of cilantro—or do you think it smells like soap? If the latter is true, you may be an olfactory mutant… literally.17

We Are MUCH Better Smellers Than We Thought

Since the 1920s, scientists have believed that the human nose was capable of detecting about 10,000 odors, but a new study published in the journal Science shows this estimate is way off the mark. In the first empirical study ever done, researchers at Rockefeller University discovered the human nose can discriminate more than one trillion olfactory stimuli!18 The least successful smeller is now thought to be capable of smelling about 80 million unique scents, but if you’re a super-sniffer, you can detect a spectacular one thousand trillion scents.19

This discovery begins to explain why studies are now finding that the human olfactory system is able to detect factors such as fear, disgust, age,20 and gender.21 Yes, studies show you can identify the age or gender of another person simply by his or her smell. A mother can identify an infant by smell alone after holding the child for just one hour, even others than her own.
It used to be thought that humans did not produce (or sense) pheromones, but many scent scientists are revising their beliefs about this. A study out of New York’s Stony Brook University found people who are scared do indeed give off “fear pheromones” in their sweat—hormones that trigger parts of your brain that are subconsciously associated with fear. This may explain why an individual with a fear of flying can trigger anxiety in other passengers who would not normally be afraid—the fear pheromone can trigger similar emotions in others who happen to catch a whiff.22 The same researchers also found that disgust can be “contagious.”23

Scents Can Alter Your Nervous System

Scents can actually change your nervous system biochemistry. A Japanese study found that inhaling essential oils can modulate your sympathetic nervous system activity. Certain oils were found to be stimulating, while others were found to be calming. For example:24

Black pepper, fennel, and grapefruit oil caused a 1.5-to 2.5-fold increase in sympathetic nervous system activity (as measured by an increase in systolic blood pressure)
Rose and patchouli oil resulted in a 40 percent decrease in sympathetic nervous system activity
Pepper oil induced a 1.7-fold increase in plasma adrenaline concentration, while rose oil caused adrenaline to drop by 30 percent
Other oils have been shown to measurably decrease stress hormones—inhaling lavender and rosemary were shown to reduce cortisol levels.25

As mentioned earlier, scents play a powerful role in memories, especially emotional memories. Olfactory input is routed through your amygdala and hippocampus (which process emotion), but bypasses your brain’s higher cortical areas, the “thinking parts.”26 This suggests aromatherapy might possibly be helpful to those with dementia, although research thus far has produced mixed results.

From Onions to Cow Manure: Smell Is in the Nose of the Beholder

As you might expect, cultural differences contribute to what smells enhance your feelings of happiness, versus making you want to flee to the nearest open window. Scent preferences differ dramatically across cultural lines. In many non-Western cultures, smell is regarded with much more importance and even reverence. For example, among the Ongee of the Andaman Islands, the universe and everything in it is defined by smell.
Their calendar is based on the aromas of flowers that bloom at different times of the year. When greeting someone, the Ongee do not ask, “How are you?” but rather, “Konyune onorange-tanka?” which translates to, “How is your nose?”27 For the cattle-raising Dassanetch of Ethiopia, no bouquet is more beautiful than a herd of cows. The men wash their hands in cattle urine and smear their bodies with manure to make themselves more attractive to the ladies. The Dogon of Mali rub fried onions all over their bodies, as it’s the most highly desirable perfume!
Although we have convincing evidence that pleasant fragrances can improve your sense of well-being, some recent studies suggest it’s your expectation about an odor, rather than the odor itself, that may be responsible for the mood and effects produced—essentially the placebo effect. Could merely thinking about lavender oil make you calm? In one experiment, researchers found that just telling subjects that a pleasant or unpleasant odor was being administered, which they might not be able to smell, affected their mood, symptoms, and sense of well-being.28

A Few Resources I’ve Sniffed Out for You

Aromatherapy can be a beneficial adjunct to your overall health plan. It’s not a replacement for wise lifestyle choices like good nutrition and exercise, but it is an excellent way to further enhance your physical and emotional health. Aromatherapy is also one more tool you can keep in your tool bag for managing everyday stress, balancing out mood swings, and improving your sleep. Your nose is probably an underappreciated resource, so perhaps it’s time to make some use of it! Whether you seek out a trained aromatherapist or adopt a DIY approach, the following are a few resources you might find useful.

National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy (NAHA): Everything about the medicinal use of aromatic plants and the holistic practice of aromatherapy
Aroma Web: A directory of aromatherapy information, tips, recipes, sources, including a regional aromatherapy business directory
American Botanical Council: Herbal medicine information that includes an herb library and clinical guide to herbs
Herb Med: Interactive electronic herb database (some information is free, but full access requires a fee)

By Dr. Mercola

“Stress is not a state of mind… it’s measurable and dangerous, and humans can’t seem to find their off-switch.” These words of warning come from renowned author and award-winning neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky in the documentary Stress: Portrait of a Killer.1
The film, jointly produced by National Geographic and Stanford University where Dr. Sapolsky is a professor and scholar, shows just how dangerous prolonged stress can be.
As we evolved, the stress response saved our lives by enabling us to run from predators or take down prey. But today, we are turning on the same “life-saving” reaction to cope with $4 per gallon gasoline, fear of public speaking, difficult bosses, and traffic jams—and have a hard time turning it off.
Constantly being in a stress response may have you marinating in corrosive hormones around the clock.
This film shows the impact stress has on your body, how it can shrink your brain, add fat to your belly, and even unravel your chromosomes. Understanding how stress works can help you figure out ways to combat it and reduce its negative impacts on your health.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Dr. Sapolsky has learned a great deal about the human stress response and its effects on your body by studying primates in Africa. Every year, he spends a few weeks in the Kenyan wilderness studying baboon societies that have intraspecies social and psychological tumult that mimics the stress of modern man.
He monitors their adrenal hormone levels, namely adrenalin (epinephrine) and glucocorticoids (such as cortisol). The fact that baboons live in communities with hierarchical structures led Dr. Sapolsky to one of his most profound discoveries: baboon stress is related to hierarchy, or social rank.
The higher a baboon’s rank, the less stress it experiences. The lower its rank, the higher its stress. More importantly, Dr. Sapolsky discovered that the low ranking “have-nots” of the baboon world experienced higher heart rates and blood pressure than the “haves.”
Arteries in the “have-not” monkeys filled up with plaque, restricting their blood flow and increasing their heart attack risk. This was the first time stress was scientifically linked to deteriorating health in wild primates. As it turns out, the same is true for other primates—for example, us!

Mortality Rates Follow a Social Gradient

Professor Sir Michael Marmot performed a 40-year long stress study in which he followed 18,000 men occupying various positions with the British Civil Service. His findings paralleled what Sapolsky found for the baboons: the higher your status, the lower your risk for stress-related diseases.2
Marmot found that men in the lowest employment grades were much more likely to die prematurely than men in the higher grades—there is in fact a “social gradient” for mortality. Subsequent studies involving women had similar findings. But why would this be—what does your status have to do with your stress?

It’s All About Your Locus of Control

Dr. Sapolsky explains how psychological distress may turn on your stress response in this short video clip. If the link does not work for you, you can access it on the Stanford University website (click on “Related to this Story” in right column, then the tab “More on Stress”). Sapolsky explains how you are more vulnerable to stress if the following factors are true:

You feel like you have no control
You’re not getting any predictive information (how bad the challenge is going to be, how long it will go on, etc.)
You feel you have no way out
You interpret things as getting worse
You have no “shoulder to cry on” (e.g., lack of social affiliation or support)

Like baboons, people at the top of the social pyramid feel a greater sense of control because they are the ones who call the shots, as well as typically having more social connections and resources at their disposal. This results in less stress, which over the long run translates to lower rates of disease. Stress is also closely related to the experience of pleasure, related to the binding of dopamine to pleasure receptors in your brain. The brains of “primate CEOs” light up brightly in PET scans, whereas the brains of subordinate monkeys do not, indicating that life is less pleasurable for the subordinates.
Like primates, people of lower socioeconomic status appear to derive less pleasure from their lives. Perhaps this is why laughter therapy is so effective!3, 4 Overall, men and women suffer from the same stress-related illnesses, but they differ in the types of situations they experience as most stressful. The genders also experience stress differently. For example, women suffer more stress-induced anxiety and depression than men.5 One thing is known to be true for both genders: higher stress equates to a shorter life expectancy.

Are You a Stress Junkie?

The paradox here is that humans have essentially become addicted to stress. There is “good stress” (eustress) and “bad stress” (distress)—meaning, you experience certain stressful experiences as unpleasant and seek to avoid them, but others you may actually seek out because they’re fun. For example, snowboarding, skydiving, rollercoasters, and scary movies are experiences that may flip your thrill-switch—and your body responds to those stresses in the same way as if a tiger were chasing you. Your muscles tense, your heart pounds, your respirations increase, and your body stops all of its non-essential processes.This can be pleasantly exhilarating, and for some rather addictive… you might know someone whom you could describe as an “adrenalin junkie.” A thrill is simply the relinquishing of a bit of control in a setting that feels safe. But when you’re in that heightened state of arousal 24/7, stress takes its toll on your body—whether you perceive the stress as “good” or “bad.”

Stress Takes a Toll on Your Brain and Adds Inches to Your Waistline

Science has established that stress can lead to cardiovascular disease, but did you know that it can also lead to weight gain—of the worst kind? Stress-induced weight gain typically involves an increase in belly fat, which is the most dangerous fat for your body to accumulate, and increases your cardiovascular risk. Stress alters the way fat is deposited because of the specific hormones and other chemicals your body produces when you’re stressed.
Prolonged stress can also damage your brain cells and make you lose the capacity to remember things. The brain cells of stressed rats are dramatically smaller, especially in the area of their hippocampus, which is the seat of learning and memory. Stress disrupts your neuroendocrine and immune systems and appears to trigger a degenerative process in your brain that can result in Alzheimer’s disease. Stress can also accelerate aging by shortening your telomeres, the protective genetic structures that regulate how your cells age. In the words of Dr. Lissa Rankin, author of Mind Over Medicine:6

“Our bodies know how to fix broken proteins, kill cancer cells, retard aging, and fight infection. They even know how to heal ulcers, make skin lesions disappear and knit together broken bones! But here’s the kicker—those natural self-repair mechanisms don’t work if you’re stressed!”

According to Dr. Sapolsky, the following are the most common health conditions that are caused by or worsened by stress:

Cardiovascular disease
Hypertension
Depression

Anxiety
Sexual dysfunction
Infertility and irregular cycles

Frequent colds
Insomnia and fatigue
Trouble concentrating

Memory loss
Appetite changes
Digestive problems and dysbiosis

The Dutch Famine Study

The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study (Hungerwinter Study) shows that stress in utero might be followed by a lifetime of poor health. Survivors of the Dutch famine are now in their 60s, and those conceived during the famine have higher rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes and are in poorer overall health than those conceived after the famine ended. Researchers postulate that stress hormones in the blood of those pregnant women triggered changes in their babies’ developing nervous systems as they battled against starvation. Decades later, their bodies still “remember” this prenatal stress.7
The Dutch Famine Study is not the only scientific research to show that your mental and physical health can be permanently affected by childhood stress and trauma. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study is an ongoing research project that analyzes the relationship between stressful childhood experiences and health outcomes later in life. There is a very strong correlation between childhood stress and many diseases, including cancer, depression, and heart disease.8

Cortisol Can Be an Important Health Challenge

The stress hormone cortisol, released by your adrenal glands as part of the “fight-or-flight” response, is the master hormone that regulates many aspects of your body’s stress response. However, cortisol levels are typically elevated across the board in today’s culture, to the detriment of mental and physical health. The impact stress is having on society as a whole is so profound that Psychology Today calls cortisol “Public Enemy Number One:”9

“The ripple effect of a fearful, isolated and stressed out society increases cortisol levels across the board for Americans of all ages. This creates a public health crisis and a huge drain on our economy.”

For example, elevated cortisol levels are a potential trigger for mental illness and reduced resilience, especially among adolescents. Evidence of the societal affects of unmanaged stress is disturbingly evident on the evening news, with seemingly ever-increasing episodes of bullying, suicides, and mass shootings, which are unfortunate, albeit extreme examples of what happens when people cannot cope. When you have effective stress reduction tools, you and your children are mentally and physically healthier, more resilient and less likely to be depressed, sick, or violent.

Is It Time to Send Yourself to Cortisol Rehab?

Sapolsky’s baboons prove that stress is not inevitable. You can change your environment and your responses. And as you learn how to effectively decrease your stress level, your cortisol will stabilize, your blood pressure will drop, and your health will improve in just about every way. It’s important to realize that stress management isn’t something you save up to do on the weekend—it needs to be done on a daily basis, because that’s how often stress rears its ugly head. There are many different stress reduction techniques, and what works for you may not work for another.
One may enjoy meditating, but another may feel calmer by cleaning house! Stress management is a highly individual thing, and the last thing you want to do is be stressed by your supposedly stress-busting activity. You’ll have to find what works best for you. Of course, making good food choices will support your overall health and increase your resiliency. Be sure to get adequate sleep as sleep deprivation dramatically impairs your body’s ability to handle stress. Several more stress management approaches are suggested in the following table.

Regular physical activity
Meditation: Taking even 10 minutes to sit quietly, such as during work breaks, can help decrease your feelings of stress and anxiety

Mindfulness training and breath work
Yoga: Health benefits from regular yoga practice have been shown to decrease stress, improve sleep and immune function, and reduce food cravings, among other things

Social connectedness
Laughter and levity

Spend time in nature
Music

Have more fun
EFT: Emotional Freedom Techniques

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT): Some of the Most Powerful Tools for Managing Stress

When it comes to managing stress, the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) deserves special mention. EFT is a group of energy psychology techniques that involve tapping on several of your body’s acupressure points while focusing on and making specific verbalizations about the issue at hand—in this case, stress. Like acupuncture, EFT is based on the fact that your body is an electrical system, and vital energy flows along invisible channels known as meridians. When you’re stressed, anxious, traumatized, or sick, your energy flow can become blocked, which EFT can help reverse—without the needles used in acupuncture!

EFT has been scientifically shown to calm your central nervous system and significantly reduce cortisol levels. In 2012, a triple blind study conducted by Dr. Dawson Church (who can be credited for the majority of current research on Clinical EFT), found EFT reduced cortisol levels and symptoms of psychological distress by 24 percent—more than any other intervention tested.10, 11
Tapping can help your body repair emotional “scarring” and reprogram the way it responds to stressors. Since these stressors are often connected to physical complaints, many people find that pain and other physical symptoms will improve or completely disappear. There are many styles of EFT, but Clinical EFT12 is the one I have the most experience with and is the best established and best supported by scientific research. If you are interested in experiencing EFT for yourself, please refer to the video demonstration of EFT for stress relief above.
Although the basics of EFT can be learned quite easily, for serious issues I recommend your seeking the help of a qualified EFT practitioner.13 There is an art to these techniques and having an expert guide you—someone who has spent years training in these skills—will accelerate your progress. Working with an expert will also prevent you from falsely concluding that EFT doesn’t work, when you simply need a little coaching and support, especially if you are working on deeper issues such as trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The beauty of EFT is that it can actually reprogram your body’s reactions to the unavoidable stressors of everyday life, providing a lasting effect.
As Sapolsky’s baboons have shown you, stress is an extremely significant player in your overall health. The better you get at managing stress on a daily basis, the better your health will be.

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

Melatonin is a hormone your body produces at night, and one of its primary roles is to help you sleep. But this benefit, for which it is arguably most widely known, is only one of many.
Did you know, for instance, that melatonin may help protect against heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and migraine headaches? Or that it may help with weight control and strengthening your immune system? It even appears to play a role in cancer prevention.
Yet, because artificial lighting disrupts your melatonin production, many Americans may be lacking in this veritable ‘wonder hormone.’

Melatonin Combats Inflammation, Offers Mood and Anti-Aging Brain Support

Melatonin is a powerful antioxidant and free radical scavenger that helps ‘cool down’ excess inflammation. In fact, melatonin is so integral to the health of your immune system that a lack of it causes your thymus gland, a key component of your immune system, to shrink in size.1

Because melatonin is a strong antioxidant and is able to cross the blood-brain barrier, it is thought to help protect against Alzheimer’s disease as well as brain aging.

In one study, artificially aged mice treated with melatonin had reduced oxidative stress and markers of cerebral aging and neurodegeneration, indicating the melatonin offered both neuroprotective and anti-aging effects.2

In another study, researchers revealed that combining daily exercise with the daily intake of melatonin appeared to have a synergistic effect against brain deterioration in mice with Alzheimer’s disease-associated mutations.3 Improvements in behavior, learning and memory were noted.

Melatonin’s immediate precursor is the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is a major player in regulating and giving a lift to your mood. And, like serotonin, melatonin plays important roles in your physical and mental health. Studies have shown that insufficient melatonin production can set you up for:

Decreased immune function
Accelerated cancer cell proliferation and tumor growth (including leukemia)

Blood pressure instability
Decreased free radical scavenging

Increased plaques in the brain, like those seen with Alzheimer’s disease
Increased risk of osteoporosis

Diabetic microangiopathy (capillary damage)
Depression and/or seasonal affective disorder (SAD)

Melatonin’s Impressive Role in Fighting Cancer

Peer-reviewed and published research has shown melatonin offers particularly strong protection against reproductive cancers. Cells throughout your body — even cancer cells — have melatonin receptors.

So when melatonin makes its nightly rounds (its production peaks during the night), cell division slows. When this hormone latches onto a breast cancer cell, it has been found to counteract estrogen’s tendency to stimulate cell growth.
In fact, melatonin has a calming effect on several reproductive hormones, which may explain why it seems to protect against sex hormone-driven cancers, including ovarian, endometrial, breast, prostate and testicular cancers. GreenMedInfo lists 20 studies demonstrating exactly how melatonin exerts its protective effects against breast cancer.4
But melatonin’s anti-cancer effects don’t stop there. While causing cancer cells to self-destruct, melatonin also boosts your production of immune-optimizing substances such as interleukin-2, which helps identify and attack the mutated cells that lead to malignant cancer.

Through these dual actions, melatonin delivers a one-two punch! The greatest area of melatonin research to date has to do with breast cancer. Some of the more impressive studies include the following:

The journal Epidemiology5 reported increased breast cancer risk among women who work predominantly night shifts
Women who live in neighborhoods with large amounts of nighttime illumination are more likely to get breast cancer than those who live in areas where nocturnal darkness prevails, according to an Israeli study6
From participants in the Nurses’ Health Study, it was found that nurses who work nights had 36 percent higher rates of breast cancer7
Blind women, whose eyes cannot detect light and so have robust production of melatonin, have lower-than-average breast cancer rates8
When the body of epidemiological studies are considered in their totality, women who work night shift are found to have breast cancer rates 60 percent above normal, even when other factors such as differences in diet are accounted for9

Can Melatonin Help You Fight Fat?

A new study by Spanish scientists suggests that reducing unhealthy weight gain can now be added to melatonin’s impressive roster of benefits. They found that consuming melatonin stimulates the appearance of ‘beige’ fat, which, similar to brown fat, is a heat-generating type of fat that helps your body to burn calories rather than store them. This, the researchers believe, may explain why melatonin helps control body weight, along with its metabolic benefits.
Science Daily reported:10

“The study… showed that chronic administration of melatonin sensitizes the thermogenic effect of exposure to cold, heightens the thermogenic effect of exercise and, therefore, constitutes excellent therapy against obesity.

The fact is that one of the key differences between ‘beige fat,’ which appears when administering melatonin, and ‘white fat,’ is that ‘beige fat’ cell mitochondria express levels of UCP1 protein, responsible for burning calories and generating heat.”

Though this wasn’t discussed in the study, it’s also well proven that lack of sleep is linked to obesity, while if you’re not getting enough sleep, there’s a good chance your melatonin production is not up to par either. The disturbance to your melatonin levels caused by lack of sleep may be one more reason why it leads to weight gain, and this could have far-reaching impacts on your health.

Help for Heart Disease, Headaches, Diabetes and Osteoporosis?

Newer areas of research surrounding melatonin include its role in heart and bone health. Specifically, research suggests it may have beneficial effects for heart disease, including reducing the severity of high blood pressure, limiting the frequency of heart failure and protecting against drug-related damage to the heart.11Also noteworthy, research has shown that taking melatonin before bed reduced the frequency of migraine headaches by half (or more) after three months,12 as well as may be useful for restoring imbalances in bone remodeling to prevent bone loss.13 Finally, recent research showed that people who secrete lower levels of melatonin have double the risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those with the highest levels,14 suggesting a protective role for the hormone with this disease as well.

If You Turn On a Light at Night, You’re Stopping Your Melatonin Production

Given its myriad of invaluable benefits, you certainly want to do all you can to protect your body’s natural production of this hormone. In humans as with all mammals, your biological clock resides in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of your brain (SCN), which is part of your hypothalamus. Based on signals of light and darkness, your SCN tells your pineal gland when it’s time to secrete melatonin. Light comes in through your eyes and travels up your optic nerves to the SCN, which is exquisitely sensitive to cycles of light and darkness.

When you turn on a light at night, you immediately send your brain misinformation about the light-dark cycle. The only thing your brain interprets light to be is day. Believing daytime has arrived, your biological clock instructs your pineal gland to immediately cease its production of melatonin. Whether you have the light on for an hour or for just a second, the effect is the same — and your melatonin pump doesn’t turn back on when you flip the light back off.

Since humans evolved in the glow of firelight, the yellow, orange and red wavelengths don’t suppress melatonin production the way white and blue wavelengths do. In fact, the range of light that inhibits melatonin is fairly narrow — 460 to 480 nm. If you want to protect your melatonin, when the sun goes down you would shift to a low-wattage bulb with yellow, orange or red light. Dr. Russel Reiter suggests using a salt lamp illuminated by a 5-watt bulb in this color range.

How to Improve and Protect Your Melatonin Production

If you’re wondering how to ensure that you’re getting enough melatonin, supplementation may be beneficial but it is FAR more beneficial and certainly less expensive to have your body produce its own melatonin. Small quantities are also found in foods like Goji berries, almonds, sunflower seeds, coriander and cherries, but, again, when you optimize your own production you will get the “perfect” dose of melatonin for you. The way to do this is to improve your sleep hygiene, which will in turn help you optimize your melatonin production. For a comprehensive sleep guide, please see my article “33 Secrets to a Good Night’s Sleep.”

Avoid watching TV or using your computer in the evening, at least an hour or so before going to bed. These devices emit blue light, which tricks your brain into thinking it’s still daytime. Normally, your brain starts secreting melatonin between 9 pm and 10 pm, and these devices emit light that may stifle that process.
Make sure you get BRIGHT sun exposure regularly. Your pineal gland produces melatonin roughly in approximation to the contrast of bright sun exposure in the day and complete darkness at night. If you are in darkness all day long, it can’t appreciate the difference and will not optimize your melatonin production.
Sleep in complete darkness, or as close to it as possible. Even the slightest bit of light in your bedroom can disrupt your biological clock and your pineal gland’s melatonin production. Even the tiniest glow from your clock radio could be interfering with your sleep, so cover your clock radio up at night or get rid of it altogether. Move all electrical devices at least three feet away from your bed. You may want to cover your windows with drapes or blackout shades, or wear an eye mask when you sleep.
Install a low-wattage yellow, orange or red light bulb if you need a source of light for navigation at night. Light in these bandwidths does not shut down melatonin production in the way that white and blue bandwidth light does. Salt lamps are handy for this purpose.
Keep the temperature in your bedroom no higher than 70 degrees F. Many people keep their homes too warm (particularly their upstairs bedrooms). Studies show that the optimal room temperature for sleep is between 60 to 68 degrees F.
Take a hot bath 90 to 120 minutes before bedtime. This increases your core body temperature, and when you get out of the bath it abruptly drops, signaling your body that you are ready to sleep.
Avoid using loud alarm clocks. Being jolted awake each morning can be very stressful. If you are regularly getting enough sleep, you might not even need an alarm.
Get some sun in the morning, if possible. Your circadian system needs bright light to reset itself. Ten to 15 minutes of morning sunlight will send a strong message to your internal clock that day has arrived, making it less likely to be confused by weaker light signals during the night. More sunlight exposure is required as you age.
Be mindful of electromagnetic fields in your bedroom. EMFs can disrupt your pineal gland and its melatonin production, and may have other negative biological effects as well. A gauss meter is required if you want to measure EMF levels in various areas of your home.

By Dr. Mercola

Statin cholesterol-lowering drugs are among the most widely prescribed drugs on the market, bringing in $20 billion a year.1 They are a top profit-maker for the pharmaceutical industry, in part due to relentless and highly successful direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns.
One in four Americans over the age of 45 now takes statins, typically for the primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes. Traditionally, primary prevention usually involves healthy lifestyle choices that support heart health, things like eating right and exercising, yet here we have millions of Americans taking pills instead.
Has anyone unbiased stopped to find out if these drugs are really the best method for heart attack prevention? After all, as researchers noted in the Open Journal of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases (OJEMD):2

“…naive indiscriminate acceptance of novel mainstream therapies is not always advisable and prudence is required in unearthing harmful, covert side effects.”

This is precisely the task that researchers from Ireland took on by completing an objective review of Pubmed, EM-BASE and Cochrane review databases.3 Their results speak volumes…

“It is beginning to dawn on some clinicians that contemporary treatments are not only failing to impact on our most prevalent diseases, but they may be causing more damage than good. A perfect example of such an issue is the statin saga.”

The Evidence Is In: Lifestyle Trumps Statins for Primary Heart Attack Prevention

For a drug therapy that appears to offer little by way of primary prevention, the risks were alarming. For every 10,000 people taking a statin, there were:

307 extra patients with cataracts
23 additional patients with acute kidney failure
74 extra patients with liver dysfunction

The landmark review revealed “a categorical lack of clinical evidence to support the use of statin therapy in primary prevention.” They also found that statins actually increase cardiovascular risk in women, the young and people with diabetes. The review also showed that statin therapy increased:

Muscle fatigabilty by 30% with more than 11% incidence of rhabdomyolysis (a life-threatening muscle condition) at high doses
Coronary artery and aortic calcification
Erectile dysfunction, which is 10 times more common in young men taking the lowest dose of statin.
Diabetes
Cancer

The researchers noted:

“There is increased risk of diabetes mellitus, cataract formation, and erectile dysfunction in young statin users, all of which are alarming. Furthermore there is a significant increase in the risk of cancer and neurodegenerative disorders in the elderly plus an enhanced risk of a myriad of infectious diseases. All side effects are dose dependent and persist during treatment.

Primary prevention clinical results provoke the possibility of not only the lack of primary cardiovascular protection by statin therapy, but highlight the very real possibility of augmented cardiovascular risk in women, patients with diabetes mellitus and the young. Statins are associated with triple the risk of coronary artery and aortic calcification.

These findings on statins’ major adverse effects had been under-reported and the way in which they [were] withheld from the public, and even concealed, is a scientific farce.

… Cardiovascular primary prevention and regeneration programmes, through life style changes and abstaining from tobacco use have enhanced clinical efficacy and quality of life over any pharmaceutical or other conventional intervention.”

If You Take Statins, Your Vision Could Be at Risk

The featured review found an increased risk of cataracts with statin use, and this was supported by a new JAMA study,4 which further revealed that the risk of cataracts is increased among statin users, compared with non-users. As a main cause of low vision among the elderly, cataract is a clouding of your eye lens.
It has previously been hypothesized that statin antioxidant effects may slow the aging process of the lens, but the current study revealed that they, instead, raise cataract risk, again calling into question the usefulness of statins for primary prevention of heart attacks. The researchers concluded:

“The risk-benefit ratio of statin use, specifically for primary prevention, should be carefully weighed, and further studies are warranted.”

Certain Statins May Impair Your Memory and May Even Lead to Amnesia

Still more research revealed that rats taking the statin Pravachol (pravastatin) had impaired learning, with lower abilities to perform simple learning and memory tasks.5 This isn’t exactly news, as in 2012, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would be requiring additional warning labels for statins, one of which warned that statins may increase the risk of memory loss and confusion. The warnings, particularly the one for memory loss, came as the result of anecdotal reports compiled over the previous year…
Interestingly, the animal study found no association between another statin drug, Lipitor, and impaired memory in the rats. But Dr. Duane Graveline, a medical doctor and former astronaut, has written an entire book on this very topic, titled Lipitor: Thief of Memory.
In my interview with him, Dr. Graveline shared his powerful story about how Lipitor caused him severe global transient amnesia, which is what brought him out of retirement to investigate statins. There have been thousands of cases of transient global amnesia and other types of cognitive damage associated with statin use, reported to the FDA’s MedWatch site. It is believed that statin drugs damage your brain by creating a cholesterol deficiency.
Insufficient cholesterol results in your brain not having the raw materials it needs to make biochemicals critical for memory and cognitive function, including coenzyme Q10 and dolichols, the latter of which carry the genetic instructions from your DNA to help create specific proteins in your body that are crucial for cognitive function, emotions and mood.

High Cholesterol Levels May Be Protective

Any discussion of statins would be incomplete without a discussion of cholesterol – the ‘villain’ that these drugs mercilessly lower. Many buy into the conventional belief that lower cholesterol equals a lower risk of heart disease, but this is not always the case. And, in fact, high cholesterol levels are indeed protective in some cases, whereas low cholesterol levels are very clearly linked to chronic disease. Writing in OJEMD, researchers explained:

“Cholesterol is crucial for energy, immunity, fat metabolism, leptin, thyroid hormone activity, liver related synthesis, stress intolerance, adrenal function, sex hormone syntheses and brain function. When prescribing HMGCoA reductase inhibitors [statins] one needs to be cognizant of the fact that the body had increased its’ cholesterol as a compensatory mechanism and investigate accordingly.

We seem to have fallen into the marketing trap and ignored the niggling side effects with regard to the HMGCoA reductase inhibitors. The only statin benefit that has actually been demonstrated is in middle-aged men with coronary heart disease. However, statins were not shown to best form of primary prevention.

… In actual fact, high cholesterol levels have been found to be protective in elderly and heart failure patients and hypo-cholestereamic [low cholesterol] patients had higher incidence of intra-cerebral bleeds, depression and cancer. … We are observing the revealing of the utmost medical tragedy of all time. It is unprecedented that the healthcare industry has inadvertently induced life-threatening nutrient deficiency in millions of otherwise healthy people. What is even more disparaging is that not only has there been a failure to report on these negative side-effects of statins, there has actually been active discouragement to publish any negative studies on statins.”

This is, in large part, why so many people are completely unaware that statin drugs have been directly linked to over 300 side effects,6 which include:

Cognitive loss
Neuropathy

Anemia

Acidosis

Frequent fevers

Cataracts

Sexual dysfunction

An increase in cancer risk

Pancreatic dysfunction

Immune system suppression

Muscle problems, polyneuropathy (nerve damage in the hands and feet), and rhabdomyolysis, a serious degenerative muscle tissue condition

Hepatic dysfunction. (Due to the potential increase in liver enzymes, patients must be monitored for normal liver function)

Ask Yourself – and Your informed Physician — if You Really Need to Be Taking Statins

I’ve long stated that the odds are very high — greater than 100 to 1 — that if you’re taking a statin, you may not even need it, as cholesterol is NOT the cause of heart disease. To further reinforce the importance of cholesterol, I want to remind you of the work of Dr. Stephanie Seneff, who works with the Weston A. Price Foundation.

One of her theories is that cholesterol combines with sulfur to form cholesterol sulfate, and that this cholesterol sulfate helps thin your blood by serving as a reservoir for the electron donations you receive when walking barefoot on the Earth (also called grounding). She believes that, via this blood-thinning mechanism, cholesterol sulfate may provide natural protection against heart disease.

In fact, she goes so far as to hypothesize that heart disease is likely the result of cholesterol deficiency — which of course is the complete opposite of the conventional view. So if your physician is urging you to check your total cholesterol, know that this test will tell you virtually nothing about your risk of heart disease, unless it is 330 or higher. HDL percentage is a far more potent indicator for heart disease risk. Here are the two ratios you should pay attention to:

HDL/Total Cholesterol Ratio: Should ideally be above 24 percent. If below 10 percent, you have a significantly elevated risk for heart disease.
Triglyceride/HDL Ratio: Should be below 2.

Additional risk factors for heart disease include:

Your fasting insulin level: Any meal or snack high in carbohydrates like fructose and refined grains generates a rapid rise in blood glucose and then insulin to compensate for the rise in blood sugar. The insulin released from eating too many carbs promotes fat production and makes it more difficult for your body to shed excess weight, and excess fat, particularly around your belly, is one of the major contributors to heart disease
Your fasting blood sugar level: Studies have shown that people with a fasting blood sugar level of 100-125 mg/dl had a nearly 300 percent increase higher risk of having coronary heart disease than people with a level below 79 mg/dl
Your iron level: Iron can be a very potent oxidative stress, so if you have excess iron levels you can damage your blood vessels and increase your risk of heart disease. Ideally, you should monitor your ferritin levels and make sure they are not much above 80 ng/ml. The simplest way to lower them if they are elevated is to donate your blood. If that is not possible you can have a therapeutic phlebotomy and that will effectively eliminate the excess iron from your body

Try This Instead for Primary Heart Attack Prevention

Make no mistake about it, statin drugs are some of the most side effect-ridden medications on the market, and they frequently do more harm than good. Of utmost importance, statins deplete your body of CoQ10, which accounts for many of its devastating results. Therefore, if you take a statin, you MUST take supplemental CoQ10, or better, the reduced form called ubiquinol. If you are interested in optimizing your cholesterol levels (which doesn’t necessarily mean lowering them) and lowering your risk of heart disease and heart attacks, there are natural strategies available for doing so.

Reduce, with the plan of eliminating, grains and sugars in your diet, replacing them with mostly whole, fresh vegetable carbs and healthy fats. Also try to consume a good portion of your food raw.
Make sure you are getting enough high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil.
Other heart-healthy foods include olive oil, coconut and coconut oil, organic raw dairy products and eggs, avocados, raw nuts and seeds, and organic grass-fed meats.
Optimize your vitamin D levels.
Exercise daily, especially with high-intensity interval training (HIIT) exercises.
Avoid smoking or drinking alcohol excessively.
Be sure to get plenty of good, restorative sleep.

By Dr. Mercola

In 2004, the US government’s National Cholesterol Education Program panel advised those at risk for heart disease to attempt to reduce their LDL cholesterol to less than 100, or even less than 70, if you’re very high risk. Prior to this, a 130-milligram LDL cholesterol level was considered healthy.

In order to obtain the incredibly low LDL levels now recommended, you typically have to take a cholesterol-lowering statin drug, and sometimes two or three of them in combination.

Now, a new class of cholesterol drugs known as PCSK9 inhibitors promises to reduce LDL cholesterol levels to previously unheard of lows. Indeed, this type of drug can drop your level below 50!

My prediction? These drugs will absolutely kill people—not just some, but MANY. I cannot warn you against this terrible idea enough. While many worry that their cholesterol is too high, few give any thought at all to the damage that can result if your cholesterol is too low.

This is a topic near and dear to my heart, as I drove (without drugs) my own total cholesterol levels down to a risky 75 when I was a naive young doctor. Alas, when it comes to cholesterol, lower is not always better. In fact, when your cholesterol levels go too low, a host of negative things happen in your body.

Unfortunately, lowering cholesterol levels has become so common in the US that nearly every American reading this either knows someone struggling to do so, or has struggled to do so themselves.

This despite the fact that there is no evidence to support the notion that having an extremely low cholesterol level is beneficial, and increasing numbers of studies point to significant risks associated with cholesterol-lowering drugs.

For example, a 2008 paper published in the American Journal of Cardiovascular Drugs1 cites nearly 900 studies on the adverse effects of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins), which run the gamut from muscle problems to increased cancer risk.

How Do PCSK9 Inhibitors Work?

Whereas statins (HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors) reduce your cholesterol by blocking an enzyme in your liver that is responsible for making cholesterol, these newer drugs, PCSK9 inhibitors, target and suppress a particular gene involved in the regulation of how much cholesterol your liver can actually filter out.

Researchers discovered that people with underactive PCSK9 genes had low levels of LDL. They also had low levels of cardiovascular disease. Since high cholesterol has long been mistaken as a primary cause of cardiovascular disease, these findings were akin to striking scientific gold… As reported in the featured article2:

“It’s this discovery that has Sanofi and two other major drug companies, Amgen and Pfizer, racing to develop a drug that mimics the gene’s effects. The best approach, experts say, will be through monoclonal antibodies: antibodies that are created in a lab and help your immune system fight a disease or, in this case, fight cholesterol…

‘This is not to replace statin therapy,’ said Joe Miletich, senior vice president of research and development at Amgen. ‘This is actually to get patients to (their) goal who can’t get there.’… ‘With a statin medication, you can often get somebody’s cholesterol between 70 and 100 mg/dL,’ said Dr. Elliott Antman, president-elect of the American Heart Association and a dean at Harvard Medical School. ‘If you use these monoclonal antibodies, you could see a number way less than 50.'”

I’ve told you before that the odds are very high— greater than 100 to 1—that if you’re taking a statin, you don’t really need it. From my review, the only subgroup that might benefit are those born with a genetic defect called familial hypercholesterolemia, as this makes them resistant to traditional measures of normalizing cholesterol.
In my view, this warning is just as applicable when it comes to PCSK9 inhibitors. Your body needs cholesterol and it doesn’t matter how you lower it: statins, PCSK inhibitors, or diet and exercise like I did. If your cholesterol drops too low, you will suffer health problems that I review in the next section.

The Health Hazards of Having Too Little Cholesterol

Your body needs cholesterol for the production of cell membranes, hormones, vitamin D, and bile acids that help you to digest fat. It’s not hard to see then why too little cholesterol can have such detrimental effects on your body—especially your brain, where it helps your brain form memories and is vital to your neurological function.

For example, research published in 20083 showed that low HDL is associated with poor memory and decline in memory in middle-aged adults. If you value your brain and want to keep it functioning into your senior years, you’d be well advised to pay attention to what it needs, and that includes cholesterol, along with healthful fats like omega-3. But impaired memory and dementia are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to low cholesterol’s impact on your brain. If your levels get too low, you also increase your risk of:

Violent behavior and aggression
Depression
Suicide
Cancer4
Parkinson’s disease

Even more importantly, heart disease may in fact be a sign of cholesterol deficiency, according to MIT researcher, Dr. Stephanie Seneff. Considering the fact that conventional medicine has been telling us that heart disease is due to elevated cholesterol and recommends lowering cholesterol levels as much as possible, Dr. Seneff’s claims may come as a complete shock to some.

“Heart disease, I think, is a cholesterol deficiency problem, and in particular a cholesterol sulfate deficiency problem…”

She points out that all of this information is available in the research literature, but it requires putting all the pieces together to see the full picture. Through her research, she believes that the mechanism we call “cardiovascular disease,” of which arterial plaque is a hallmark, is actually your body’s way to compensate for not having enough cholesterol sulfate. In a nutshell, high LDL appears to be a sign of cholesterol sulfate deficiency—it’s your body’s way of trying to maintain the correct balance by taking damaged LDL and turning it into plaque, within which the blood platelets produce the cholesterol sulfate your heart and brain needs for optimal function…

What this also means is that when you artificially lower your cholesterol with a statin drug, which effectively reduces that plaque but doesn’t address the root problem, your body is not able to compensate any longer, and as a result of lack of cholesterol sulfate you may end up with heart failure.

Have High Cholesterol? Address the Cause!

Contrary to popular belief, high cholesterol is not a disease in and of itself. It is actually a response to something gone awry in your body. Cholesterol is produced whenever your cells become damaged, as it’s a necessary component in making new, healthy cells, so if you have a lot of damaged cells, you’re also going to have a lot of cholesterol in your bloodstream. This is a sign that your cells need, and are, being repaired. While most conventional doctors do not recognize this sign for what it is and put you on toxic cholesterol-lowering drugs, a more knowledgeable doctor will address the root problem, which is typically related to chronic inflammation brought on by:

A diet too high in sugar/fructose and grains
Too many processed, overcooked foods
Lack of exercise
Emotional stress
Smoking

The remedy involves, of course, addressing these factors by making simple lifestyle changes that are outlined in my optimized nutrition and lifestyle plan. Whatever you do, don’t fall for the mistaken belief that the lower your cholesterol goes, the better. If you lower your cholesterol through artificial means without addressing the underlying causes for your elevated cholesterol levels, your body will continue to degenerate. Leave the decision of how much cholesterol your body needs up to your body, and make the right lifestyle choices to keep your cells in their top condition. This way you get the best of both worlds: the right amount of cholesterol and a body in tip-top shape.

The Many Well-Known Health Hazards of Statin Drugs

First, if you are a woman, it’s critical for you to know that statins are classified as a “pregnancy Category X medication” meaning, it causes serious birth defects, and should NEVER be used if you’re pregnant or planning a pregnancy. Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration5 (FDA) also announced it’s considering additional warning labels for statin drugs. Among them are warnings that statins may increase your risk of:

Liver damage
Memory loss and confusion
Type 2 diabetes
Muscle weakness (for certain statins)

In all, statin drugs have been directly linked to over 300 side effects6, including:

Cognitive loss
Neuropathy
Anemia

Acidosis
Frequent fevers
Cataracts

Sexual dysfunction
An increase in cancer risk
Pancreatic dysfunction

Immune system suppression
Muscle problems, polyneuropathy (nerve damage in the hands and feet), and rhabdomyolysis, a serious degenerative muscle tissue condition
Hepatic dysfunction (Due to the potential increase in liver enzymes, patients must be monitored for normal liver function)

Statins Cause Hallmark Symptoms of Heart Disease and Diabetes

Sadly, while millions of people are told to use statin drugs as a form of “preventive medicine” to protect their heart health, research shows that these drugs actually can have significantly detrimental effects on your heart! How is that preventive medicine? For example, a study published just last year in the journal Atherosclerosis7 showed that statin use is associated with a 52 percent increased prevalence and extent of calcified coronary plaque compared to non-users. And coronary artery calcification is the hallmark of potentially lethal heart disease!

Statins can also:

Deplete your body of CoQ10, which accounts for many of its devastating health effects. CoQ10 is used by every cell in your body, but especially your heart cells. Cardiac muscle cells have up to 200 times more mitochondria, and hence 200 times higher CoQ10 requirements than skeletal muscle. Therefore, if you take a statin, you must take supplemental CoQ10, or better, the reduced form called ubiquinol.

A recent study in the European Journal of Pharmacology8 showed that ubiquinol effectively rescued cells from the damage caused by the statin drug simvastatin, thereby protecting muscle cells from myopathies. Again demonstrating the necessity of CoQ10 supplementation during statin therapy, a recent study9 evaluating the benefits of CoQ10 and selenium supplementation for patients with statin-associated myopathy found that, compared to those given a placebo, the treatment group experienced significantly less pain, decreased muscle weakness and cramps, and less fatigue.
Interfere with the mevalonate pathway, which is the central pathway for the steroid management in your body. Products of this pathway that are negatively affected by statins include sex hormones, cortisone, the dolichols (which are involved in keeping the membranes inside your cells healthy), and all sterols, including cholesterol and vitamin D (which is similar to cholesterol and is produced from cholesterol in your skin).
Increase your insulin resistance, which contributes to chronic inflammation in your body. Increased insulin resistance can lead to heart disease, which, ironically, is the primary reason for taking a cholesterol-reducing drug in the first place. It can also promote belly fat, high blood pressure, heart attacks, chronic fatigue, thyroid disruption, and diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and cancer.
Increase your risk of diabetes by raising your blood sugar. When you eat a meal that contains starches and sugar, some of the excess sugar goes to your liver, which then stores it away as cholesterol and triglycerides. Statins work by preventing your liver from making cholesterol. As a result, your liver returns the sugar to your bloodstream, which raises your blood sugar levels.
Drug-induced diabetes and genuine type 2 diabetes are not necessarily identical. If you’re on a statin drug and find that your blood glucose is elevated, it’s possible that what you have is just hyperglycemia—a side effect, and the result of your medication. Unfortunately, many doctors will at that point mistakenly diagnose you with “type 2 diabetes,” and possibly prescribe another drug, when all you may need to do is simply discontinue the statin in order for your blood glucose levels to revert back to normal.

Beware: Statins Can Also Completely Negate Your Fitness Efforts

One of the major benefits of exercise is the beneficial impact it has on your heart health, and exercise is a primary strategy to naturally maintain healthy cholesterol levels. Alas, researchers recently discovered that if you take a statin drug, you’re likely to forfeit most if not all health benefits of your exercise. In fact, the study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology10, discovered that statin use led to dramatically reduced fitness benefits from exercise, in some cases actually making the volunteer LESS fit than before!

The key to understanding why statins prevent your body from reaping the normal benefits from exercise lies in understanding what these drugs do to your mitochondria—the energy chamber of your cells, responsible for the utilization of energy for all metabolic functions. As mentioned above, the primary fuel for your mitochondria is Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), and one of the primary mechanisms of harm from statins in general appears to be related to CoQ10 depletion.

A 2011 review published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism11 pointed out that exercise actually induces changes in mitochondrial enzyme content and activity, which can increase your cellular energy production and in so doing decrease your risk of chronic disease. The fact that statin drugs deplete your body of the primary fuel for your mitochondria helps explain why certain statin users in the trial ended up with worse aerobic fitness after a steady fitness regimen. There simply wasn’t enough mitochondrial fuel in their system.

To Evaluate Your Heart Disease Risk, Get the Right Tests Done

If your physician is urging you to check your total cholesterol, then you need to be aware that this test will tell you virtually nothing about your risk of heart disease, unless it is 330 or higher.

One of the most important tests you can get to determine your real heart disease risk is the NMR LipoProfile, which measures your LDL particle number. This test also has other markers that can help determine if you have insulin resistance, which is a primary cause of elevated LDL particle number and increased heart disease risk. The NMR LipoProfile test easy to get and all major labs offer it. Most insurance policies cover the test as well. Best of all, even if your doctor were to refuse to order it, you can order it yourself via third-party intermediaries like Direct Labs, or you can order the test online, and get blood drawn locally. Two other ratios you should pay attention to are your:

HDL/Total Cholesterol Ratio: (i.e. take your HDL number and divide it by your total cholesterol number.) This should ideally be above 24 percent. If below 10 percent, you have a significantly elevated risk for heart disease.
Triglyceride/HDL Ratio: Should be below 2.

I have seen a number of people with total cholesterol levels over 250 who were actually at low risk for heart disease due to their elevated HDL levels. Conversely, I have seen many people with cholesterol levels under 200 who had a very high risk of heart disease, based on their low HDL. For four additional risk factors for heart disease that do not involve your cholesterol levels, please see my recent article: Side Effects of Statins.

How to Optimize Your Cholesterol Levels Naturally

The most effective way to optimize your cholesterol profile and prevent heart disease is via diet and exercise. Seventy-five percent of your cholesterol is produced by your liver, which is influenced by your insulin levels. Therefore, if you optimize your insulin level, you will automatically optimize your cholesterol and reduce your risk of both diabetes and heart disease.

There is NO drug that can cure heart disease, as the underlying cause is insulin and leptin resistance and arterial wall damage—both of which are caused by eating excessive amounts of sugars, grains, and especially fructose. So, in addition to regular exercise, my primary recommendations for safely regulating your cholesterol and reducing your risk of heart disease include:

Reduce, with the plan of eliminating grains and fructose from your diet. This is one of the best ways to optimize your insulin levels, which will have a positive effect on not just your cholesterol, but also reduces your risk of diabetes and heart disease, and most other chronic diseases. Use my Nutrition Plan to help you determine the ideal diet for you, and consume a good portion of your food raw.
Start intermittent fasting, which will radically improve your ability to burn fat as your primary fuel and thus help improve your insulin and leptin signaling.
Get plenty of high-quality, animal-based omega 3 fats, such as krill oil, and reduce your consumption of damaged omega-6 fats (trans fats, vegetable oils) to balance out your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio.
Include heart-healthy foods in your diet, such as olive oil, coconut and coconut oil, organic raw dairy products and eggs, avocados, raw nuts and seeds, and organic grass-fed meats.
Optimize your vitamin D levels by getting proper sun exposure or using a safe tanning bed.
Optimize your gut flora, as recent research suggests the bacterial balance in your intestines may play a role in your susceptibility to heart disease as well.
Walk barefoot to ground yourself to the earth. Lack of grounding has a lot to do with the rise of modern diseases as it affects inflammatory processes in your body. Grounding thins your blood, making it less viscous. Virtually, every aspect of cardiovascular disease has been correlated with elevated blood viscosity.

When you ground to the earth, your zeta potential quickly rises, which means your red blood cells have more charge on their surface, which forces them apart from each other. This action causes your blood to thin and flow easier. By repelling each other, your red blood cells are also less inclined to stick together and form a clot.

Avoid smoking or drinking alcohol excessively.
Be sure to get plenty of good, restorative sleep.

Take Control of Your Health

The odds are very high that if you’re taking cholesterol-lowering medication, you’re wasting your money and taking unnecessary risks with your health. From my review, the ONLY subgroup that might benefit from statins are those born with a genetic defect called familial hypercholesterolemia, as this makes them resistant to traditional measures of normalizing cholesterol, which I reviewed above.

Remember, your body needs cholesterol for the production of cell membranes, hormones, and vitamin D, just to mention a few. Cholesterol is also vital to your neurological function. And there’s strong evidence that having too little cholesterol increases your risk for cancer, memory loss, Parkinson’s disease, hormonal imbalances, stroke, depression, suicide, and violent behavior.

Taking a drug that can reduce your cholesterol levels down to 50 or below is absolutely a recipe for disaster, when you consider all your biological functions that need cholesterol!

Also keep in mind that contrary to what you’ve been told by pharmaceutical PR firms, statins have nothing to do with reducing your heart disease risk. In fact, this class of drugs can increase your heart disease risk—especially if you do not take Ubiquinol (CoQ10) along with it to mitigate the depletion of CoQ10 caused by the drug. So please, carefully weigh the risks and benefits!

Poor lifestyle choices are primarily to blame for elevated cholesterol levels, such as too much sugar, too little exercise, lack of sun exposure and never grounding to the earth. These are all things that are within your control, and don’t cost much (if any) money to address. If you have a genetic defect, medication may be needed. If you don’t, you may be surprised at how quickly and easily your cholesterol levels will normalize when you start implementing the required lifestyle changes.

If you’re currently taking a statin drug and are worried about the excessive side effects they cause, please consult with a knowledgeable health care practitioner who can help you to optimize your heart health naturally, without the use of these dangerous drugs. To learn more about statins, please see my special report: “Do YOU Take Any of These 11 Dangerous Cholesterol Drugs”?

By Dr. Mercola

Green tea, prized for many generations in China, Japan and even Britain, has made a name for itself in the US, where many now drink it daily due to its many associated health benefits.
However, while green tea is recognized as an abundant source of epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), a catechin polyphenol, and other antioxidants, not all green teas are created equal.
If you’re drinking green tea hoping to increase your antioxidant levels, you should know that some green tea brands contain very little antioxidants, while others may contain significant amounts of lead.

One Variety of Tea Tested Contained Almost No EGCG

EGCG is easily the most talked-about green tea compound. As one of the most powerful antioxidants known, the health benefits of EGCG include a lower risk of heart attack and stroke, glaucoma, high cholesterol and more. Several studies have also found that EGCG can improve exercise performance, increase fat oxidation, and may help prevent obesity, as it’s known to have a regulatory effect on fat metabolism.

If you drink green tea, you probably assume you’re getting a healthful dose of EGCG with each cup, but new research shows that’s not necessarily the case. An analysis of the strength and purity of more than 20 green tea products by ConsumerLab.com found that EGCG levels in bottled green tea can range from just 4 milligrams (mg) per cup to 47 mg, while brewable green tea (from tea bags, loose tea or a K-cup) contained levels ranging from 25 mg to 86 mg per serving.1
One variety, bottled Diet Snapple Green Tea, reportedly contained almost no EGCG, while Honest Tea Green Tea with Honey contained only about 60 percent of the 190 mg of catechins claimed on the label.2 Added sugars or artificial sweeteners were also common in the bottled tea brands.

This Type of Green Tea Contained the Most Antioxidants

Green tea brewed from loose tea leaves appeared to offer the most potent source of antioxidants like EGCG. One variety, Teavana contained 250 mg of catechins per serving; green tea sold in bags from brands like Lipton and Bigelow contained lower levels, although represented a more cost-effective alternative.
The different tea brands also varied significantly in the amount of caffeine the products contained. While some contained virtually none, others contained 86 mg per serving, which is similar to the amount of caffeine in a regular cup of coffee.

One green tea supplement even contained 130 mg of caffeine in a single capsule, which is more than is found in a cup of coffee! But higher antioxidant levels is only one reason why you may want to choose loose tea over bags…

Some Tea Bags May Leach Hazardous Compounds Into Your Tea

Some tea bags are made with synthetic polymers, such as nylon, thermoplastic, PVC or polypropylene. While these compounds have high melting points, the temperature at which the molecules in polymers begin to break down is always lower than the melting point, which could allow the bags to leach compounds of unknown health hazards into your tea when steeped in boiling water.
Paper tea bags are also potentially problematic, as they are frequently treated with epichlorohydrin, which hydrolyzes to 3-MCPD when contact with water occurs. 3-MCPD is a carcinogen associated with food processing that has also been implicated in infertility and suppressed immune function. I recommend purchasing tea from manufacturers who can certify that their tea bags do not contain epichlorohydrin, and avoid plastic tea bags. Alternatively, you can opt for loose tea instead.

Why Your Green Tea Should Come From Japan, Not China

Green tea plants are known to be especially effective at absorbing lead from the soil, which is then taken up into the plant’s leaves. Areas with excessive industrial pollution, such as China (where nearly 90% of the world’s green tea is produced),3 may therefore contain substantial amounts of lead.4

According to the ConsumerLab.com analysis, tea from brands like Lipton and Bigelow contained up to 2.5 micrograms of lead per serving compared to no measurable amounts in Teavana brand, which gets its tea leaves from Japan.
While the lead in the tea leaves is not thought to leach very effectively into the tea you end up drinking, if you’re consuming Matcha green tea, one of my favorites, it’s especially important that it comes from Japan instead of China. Matcha tea contains the entire ground tea leaf, and can contain over 100 times the EGCG provided from regular brewed green tea.

That said, because you’re consuming the entire leaf, you want to be sure it comes from a non-polluted, high-quality source. The best Matcha green tea comes from Japan and is steamed, rather than roasted or pan-fried. As a result, Matcha green tea retains all the nutrient-rich value possible from the tea leaf, without additives or contaminants.

A Word of Warning About Fluoride in Tea

Both black and green teas are naturally high in fluoride, even if organically grown without pesticides. This is because the plant readily absorbs fluoride thorough its root system, including naturally-occurring fluoride in the soil. According to fluoride expert Jeff Green, there are reports of people who have developed crippling skeletal fluorosis from drinking high amounts of iced tea alone.5
If you live in an area with fluoridated drinking water, as the majority of Americans do, then you could be getting a double dose of fluoride when you drink tea. When selecting tea of any kind, it should preferably be organic (to avoid pesticides) and grown in a pristine environment because, as mentioned, tea is known to accumulate fluoride, heavy metals and other toxins from soil and water, so a clean growing environment is essential to producing a pure, high-quality tea.

What Does the Research Say About Drinking Tea?

Although I still believe pure water should make up the majority of your daily fluid intake, high-quality tea has numerous health benefits to offer, which vary by type. In addition to Matcha tea, I personally enjoy Tulsi tea (aka Holy Basil tea), which is a powerful adaptogenic herb that provides important therapeutic benefits. There is also growing evidence that the polyphenols in tea, including EGCG and many others, may be protective against cancer. Beyond this, the beneficial properties in tea have been known to:

Neutralize the effects to your body of harmful fats and oils
Inhibit bacteria and viruses
Improve digestion
Protect against oxidation in your brain and liver
Help promote healthy gums

Drinking tea has also been linked to:

Improved mental alertness and slowing of brain-cell degeneration
Reduced blood pressure
Protection against type 2 diabetes

Lower blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels
Lower risk of breast, colon, lung, ovarian and prostate cancers
Reduced risk of heart attack and stroke

How to Brew the Perfect Cup of Loose-Leaf Tea

Choosing high-quality tea is extremely important. As the ConsumerLab.com analysis showed, the type of tea you purchase can make all the difference in the amount of beneficial antioxidants it contains, with loose-leaf teas appearing to provide the most. There is an art to brewing tea using loose tea leaves, but once you find your “sweet spot” you may never go back to bagged tea again. Here are a few simple guidelines for making the “perfect” cup of tea:

Bring water to a boil in a tea kettle (avoid using a non-stick pot, as this can release harmful chemicals when heated)
Preheat your teapot or cup to prevent the water from cooling too quickly when transferred. Simply add a small amount of boiling water to the pot or tea up that you’re going to steep the tea in. Ceramic and porcelain retain heat well. Then cover the pot or cup with a lid. Add a tea cozy if you have one, or drape with a towel. Let stand until warm, then pour out the water
Put the tea into an infuser, strainer, or add loose into the tea pot. Steeping without an infuser or strainer will produce a more flavorful tea. Start with one heaped teaspoon per cup of tea, or follow the instructions on the tea package. The robustness of the flavor can be tweaked by using more or less tea
Add boiling water. Use the correct amount for the amount of tea you added (i.e. for four teaspoons of tea, add four cups of water). The ideal water temperature varies based on the type of tea being steeped:

White or green teas (full leaf): Well below boiling (170-185°F or 76-85°C). Once the water has been brought to a boil, remove from heat and let the water cool for about 30 seconds for white tea and 60 seconds for green tea before pouring it over the leaves

Oolongs (full leaf): 185-210°F or 85-98°C

Black teas (full leaf) and Pu-erhs: Full rolling boil (212°F or 100°C)

Cover the pot with a cozy or towel and let steep. Follow steeping instructions on the package. If there are none, here are some general steeping guidelines. Taste frequently as you want it to be flavorful but not bitter:

Oolong teas: 4-7 minutes
Black teas: 3-5 minutes
Green teas: 2-3 minutes

Once the desired flavor has been achieved you need to remove the strainer or infuser. If you’re using loose leaves, pour the tea through a strainer into your cup and any leftover into another vessel (cover with a cozy to retain the heat)

By Dr. Mercola

A tall, cool beverage goes hand-in-hand with a hot summer day, but many of the most popular “summer” drinks come with a hefty downside, like exorbitant amounts of sugar.
It’s alarmingly easy to sip and slurp your way through hundreds of grams of excess sugar just by enjoying a cool drink once or twice a day – and that’s only the start.
There are plenty of options to quench your thirst and even satisfy your sweet tooth that will actually support your health at the same time (I’ll get to those later), so there’s no reason to sabotage your health (and your waistline) with these dietary disasters.

8 Top Summer Beverages to Avoid

1. Soda (Regular or Diet)

Drinking soda is in many ways as bad as smoking. Most sodas contain far too much sugar, or even worse, artificial sweeteners.
For instance, the chemical aspartame, often used as a sugar substitute in diet soda, has over 92 different side effects associated with its consumption including brain tumors, birth defects, diabetes, emotional disorders and epilepsy/seizures. Plus, each sip of soda exposes you to:

Phosphoric acid, which can interfere with your body’s ability to use calcium, leading to osteoporosis or softening of your teeth and bones.
Benzene. While the federal limit for benzene in drinking water is 5 parts per billion (ppb), researchers have found benzene levels as high as 79 ppb in some soft drinks, and of 100 brands tested, most had at least some detectable level of benzene present. Benzene is a known carcinogen.
Artificial food colors, including caramel coloring, which has been identified as carcinogenic. The artificial brown coloring is made by reacting corn sugar with ammonia and sulfites under high pressures and at high temperatures.
Sodium benzoate, a common preservative found in many soft drinks, which can cause DNA damage. This could eventually lead to diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver and Parkinson’s.

2. Wine Coolers

Wine coolers are alcoholic beverages made to taste much more like fruit juice than alcohol, which is why they’re a popular drink of choice on a warm summer day. But in order to make them taste sweet, manufacturers typically add fruit juice and sugar to the wine, which is usually the cheapest available grade. Some “wine” coolers aren’t even made from wine but the far cheaper “malt” instead.
These coolers can also contain artificial food colors, artificial flavors and even artificial sweeteners like aspartame. And, of course, they also contain alcohol, which is very similar to fructose both in its addictive properties and the kind of damage it can do to your health.
While I don’t recommend drinking alcohol (it is a neurotoxin that can poison your brain as well as disrupt your hormonal balance), if you’re going to have an alcoholic beverage, a glass of red or white wine is far preferable to a heavily (or artificially) sweetened wine cooler.

3. Beer

The “usual” problems associated with beer – its alcohol content and hefty amount of empty calories – are only the tip of the iceberg for why you should limit your consumption. It turns out that the yeast and all that’s used to make beer work together to make beer another powerful uric acid trigger.

Uric acid is a normal waste product found in your blood. High levels of uric acid are normally associated with gout, but it has been known for a long time that people with high blood pressure or kidney disease, and those who are overweight, often have high uric acid levels as well. It used to be thought that the uric acid was secondary in these conditions, and not the cause.

But research by Dr. Richard Johnson indicates that it could be a lead player in the development of these conditions, rather than just a supporting actor, when its levels in your body reach 5.5 mg per dl or higher. At this level, uric acid is associated with an increased risk for developing high blood pressure, as well as diabetes, obesity and kidney disease.

The classic “beer belly syndrome” is actually quite similar to metabolic syndrome, and includes abdominal obesity, hypertriglyceridemia (high triglycerides), high blood pressure, and even insulin resistance, so minimizing or eliminating beer consumption is also something to definitely consider when you’re watching your weight and trying to improve your health.

4. Lemonade and Fruit Juices

For many, nothing says “summer” like a cold glass of lemonade, but this, and other fruit juices, is usually just another source of sugar you’re better off without.
Lemonade is typically a concoction of sugar or high fructose corn syrup, water, and flavorings. It may or may not contain small amounts of actual lemon juice. In terms of its impact on your health, lemonade and fruit juice will act much like soda, exposing you to excessive amounts of fructose that will increase your risk of weight gain and chronic degenerative diseases. Lemonade is simply soda’s evil twin in disguise! However, if you make fresh lemonade or limeade then it is fine because these are the lowest fruits in fructose. Just be sure if you use a sweetener that you stick to stevia and avoid sugar and artificial sweeteners.

5. Sweetened Teas

Sweet tea is another popular summer beverage, and one that’s often confused as “healthy” because of the tea. While tea can be a good source of antioxidants, sweetened tea is another source of extra sugar that will decimate your health. While the actual sugar content of sweetened teas obviously varies, it’s not unusual to find sweet tea recipes that contain 22 percent sugar, which is twice the amount in a can of soda.1
In the Southern US, sweet tea is not an occasional treat, it’s more of a daily staple, making the health risks even steeper.

6. Energy Drinks

The US energy drink market is expected to reach nearly $20 billion in 2013, which is close to a 160 percent increase from 2008.2 While many choose them for the quick energy boost they provide, consuming large quantities of caffeine in energy drinks can have serious health consequences, especially in children and teens, including caffeine toxicity, stroke, anxiety, arrhythmia, and in some rare cases death. Drinking energy drinks has also been compared to “bathing” teeth in acid because of their impact on your tooth enamel.3
If a lack of energy and fatigue state is compelling you to drink energy drinks, please realize that this is likely a result of certain lifestyle choices, such as not enough healthy food, processed foods and sugar, and not enough exercise and sleep, plus an overload of stress. Increasing your energy levels, then, is as easy as remedying these factors.

7. Sports Drinks

Sports drinks are especially popular in the summer months, when many believe they are necessary to restore your electrolyte balance during exercise or other outdoor activities. They basically “work” because they contain high amounts of sodium (processed salt), which is meant to replenish the electrolytes you lose while sweating. But only a very small portion of exercisers work out hard enough that a sports drink might be necessary; typically they aren’t even necessary during a marathon, let alone during most regular workouts.4

Additionally, the leading brands of sports drinks on the market typically contain as much as two-thirds the sugar of sodas and more sodium. They also often contain high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) or artificial sweeteners (they can lead to impaired kidney function, depression, headaches, infertility, brain tumors, and a long list of other serious health problems), artificial flavors and food coloring, which has been connected to a variety of health problems, including allergic reactions, hyperactivity, decreased IQ in children, and numerous forms of cancer.

Also, sports drinks are up to 30 times more erosive to your teeth than water. And brushing your teeth won’t help because the citric acid in the sports drink will soften your tooth enamel so much it could be damaged by brushing.

8. Frappes and Other Frozen/Iced Coffees

An iced coffee sounds innocent enough, until you start adding in the copious amounts of sweeteners (sugar, HFCS and artificial sweeteners may all apply) and flavorings that turn ordinary coffee into a treat that more closely resembles a hyped up milkshake. Some leading coffee drinks from restaurants like Dunkin’ Donuts and Seattle’s Best contain 100 grams of sugar or more, which is more than 2.5 times the amount of sugar an adult man should consume in a day!5

Delicious and Refreshing Summer Drinks That BOOST Your Health

I know what you’re thinking… you’re not going to give up the simple pleasure of enjoying a cool, tasty beverage on a hot summer day. And I should hope not! But you needn’t assume that sugar-laden soda, lemonade, sweet tea or frappes are your only options. By thinking outside the box, you can satisfy your craving for a delicious cool beverage in a way that will actually support instead of hinder your health.

Instead Of…
Choose…

Soda

Sparkling mineral water… spruce it up with fresh lemon or lime juice, a drop or two of natural peppermint extract, liquid stevia, cucumber slices or a few crushed mint leaves.

If you’re adventurous, there are mint-flavored chlorophyll drops on the market that can be added to a glass of water. Chlorophyll may help flush toxins out of your blood and improves your breath.

Wine Coolers

A small glass of white or red wine, ideally organic and biodynamic, on occasion.

Beer

Try adding whole gingerroot to chilled carbonated water for a spicy alternative.

Lemonade or Fruit Juice

Here’s a recipe for a refreshing homemade fruit drink that’s actually good for you. You can even throw in frozen berries instead of ice cubes.
Another tasty option is to blend some homemade kefir with frozen blueberries, raspberries or any fruit you enjoy. Kefir is a fermented milk beverage that contains beneficial bacteria that give your immune system a boost, among many other health benefits.

To make kefir all you need is one-half packet of kefir starter granules in a quart of raw milk, which you leave at room temperature overnight.

Sweetened Tea

Iced green tea is a great pick-me-up that’s high in antioxidants. Although green tea contains caffeine, it also contains a naturally calming amino acid called L-theanine, which balances out caffeine’s adverse effects.

If you want it sweet, you can add natural liquid stevia, which is an herb that has no downsides for your health.

Another option is Tulsi tea (aka Holy Basil), which has a naturally delicious taste – slightly sweet and a bit spicy.

Energy Drinks

For the ultimate refreshing vitamin-rich energy drink, make up some green juice from fresh, organic veggies like spinach, parsley, cucumbers and celery.

Add a pinch of sea salt and some lemon juice for a very refreshing beverage that is heavy on nutrition and virtually guaranteed to give you lasting energy.

Sports Drinks

Try coconut water, which is a powerhouse of natural electrolytes, vitamins, minerals, trace elements, amino acids, enzymes, antioxidants and phytonutrients, and is low in sugar but pleasantly sweet.

It’s great for post-exercise rehydration, but also has anti-inflammatory properties, protects your heart and urinary tract, is a digestive tonic, improves your skin and eyes, supports good immune function, and can even help balance your blood glucose and insulin levels.

Look for a brand that has no additives, or purchase a young coconut and drain the coconut water yourself.

Frappes and Frozen Coffee Drinks

Organic dark-roast coffee served over ice (without additives like milk or sugar) is refreshing and may even lower your risk for type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, stroke, and cancers of the liver, kidney and prostate.

When consumed in this healthful manner, coffee may even lower your blood glucose level and increase the metabolic activity and/or numbers of beneficial Bifidobacteria in your gastrointestinal tract.

By Dr. Mercola

Urine can reveal important information about your body’s waste elimination process, providing clues about your overall health status.

Your kidneys serve to filter excess water and water-soluble wastes out of your blood, getting rid of toxins and things that would otherwise build up and cause you to become ill. Many things — from excess protein and sugar to bacteria and yeast — may make their way into your urine.

Instead of ignoring your urine and dashing back to whatever important activity having to pee interrupted, take this golden opportunity to become familiar with your “normal.”

If you notice changes in the way your urine looks or smells, the cause might be something as benign as what you had for dinner last night, such as beets or asparagus. Or, your astuteness may potentially alert you to a serious condition.

If you suspect you have a urinary tract problem, you should consult your physician. One of the first things he or she is likely to do is a urine test. Urine tests have been around for more than 6,000 years1 and are easy, noninvasive tools for quickly assessing your health status2.

Minding Your Pees and Cues

In your lifetime, your kidneys filter more than one million gallons of water, enough to fill a small lake. Amazingly, one kidney can handle the task perfectly well. In fact, if you lose a kidney, your remaining kidney can increase in size by 50 percent within two months, to take over the job of both.3

Urine is 95 percent water and five percent urea, uric acid, minerals, salts, enzymes, and various substances that would cause problems if allowed to accumulate in your body4. Normal urine is clear and has a straw yellow color, caused by a bile pigment called urobilin.

As with your stool, your urine changes color depending on what foods you eat, what medications and supplements you take, how much water you drink, how active you are, and the time of the day.

But some diseases can also change the color and other characteristics of your urine, so it’s important to be alert and informed. With so many variables, you can’t always be sure of what’s causing any particular urine characteristic, short of laboratory testing. However, urine’s character gives you some clues to potential problems that may be developing, giving you time to do something about it.
The following chart outlines some of the most common color variations for urine and their possible origins. The majority of the time, color changes resulting from foods, medications, supplements, or simply dehydration. But there are certain signs that warrant concern.

Color
Possible Cause

Necessary Action

Yellow/Gold

The most typical urine color, indicative of a healthy urinary tract; yellow will intensify depending on hydration; some B vitamins cause bright yellow urine

None

Red/Pink

Hematuria (fresh blood in the urine) related to urinary tract infection (UTI), kidney stone, or rarely cancer; consumption of red foods such as beets, blueberries, red food dyes, rhubarb; iron supplements; Pepto-Bismol, Maalox, and a variety of other drugs5; classic “port wine” color may indicate porphyria (genetic disorder)

***Consult your physician immediately if you suspect you have blood in your urine

White/Colorless

Excessive hydration is most likely. (See Cloudy)

Consult your physician only if chronic

Orange

Typically a sign of dehydration, showing up earlier than thirst; “holding your bladder” for too long; post-exercise; consuming orange foods (carrots, squash, or food dyes); the drug Pyridium (phenazopyridine); liver or pituitary problem (ADH, or antidiuretic hormone)

Drink more water and don’t delay urination; consult physician if orange urine persists despite adequate hydration

Amber

More concentrated than orange so severe dehydration related to intense exercise or heat; excess caffeine or salt; hematuria; decreased urine production (oliguria or anuria); metabolic problem; pituitary problem (ADH, or antidiuretic hormone)

Consult your physician if problem persists despite adequate hydration

Brown

Very dense urine concentration, extreme dehydration; consumption of fava beans; melanuria (too many particles in urine); UTI; kidney stone; kidney tumor or blood clot; Addison’s disease; glycosuria; renal artery stenosis; proteinuria; pituitary problem (ADH, or antidiuretic hormone)

Consult your physician if problem persists despite adequate hydration, especially if accompanied by pale stools or yellow skin or eyes

Black

RARE: Alkaptonuria, a genetic disorder of phenylalanine and tyrosine metabolism marked by accumulation of homogentisic acid in the blood; poisoning

Consult your physician

Green

RARE: Unusual UTIs and certain foods (such as asparagus); excessive vitamins

Usually benign; consult your physician if it persists, especially if you have pain or burning (dysuria), and/or frequent urination (polyuria), which are symptoms of UTI

Blue

RARE: Artificial colors in foods or drugs; bilirubin; medications such as methylene blue; unusual UTIs

Usually benign; consult your physician if it persists, especially if you have pain or burning (dysuria), and/or frequent urination (polyuria), which are symptoms of UTI

Cloudy

Urinary tract infection, kidney problem, metabolic problem, or chyluria (lymph fluid in the urine), phosphaturia (phosphate crystals), pituitary problem (ADH, or antidiuretic hormone)

Consult physician, especially if you have pain or burning (dysuria), and/or frequent urination (polyuria), which are symptoms of UTI

Sediment

Proteinuria (protein particles) or albuminuria; UTI; kidney stones; see Cloudy

Consult your physician

Foamy

Turbulent urine stream; proteinuria (most common causes are diabetes and hypertension)

Consult physician if not due to “turbulence”

Does Your Urine Smell Like Roses?

If you’re a woman from ancient Rome and your urine smells like roses, you’ve probably been drinking turpentine. This is a high price to pay to woo your suitor with pleasant-smelling pee, as turpentine may kill you! Short of drinking turpentine, there are many common substances that may alter the way your urine smells, which is why it’s helpful to know what’s normal. Urine reflects all of the inner workings of your body and contains a wide variety of compounds and metabolic by-products. Some dogs can actually “smell cancer” in human urine6.

Urine doesn’t typically have a strong smell, but if yours smells pungent (like ammonia), you could have an infection or urinary stones, or you may simply be dehydrated. Dehydration causes your urine to be more concentrated and may have a stronger smell than normal, as do high-protein foods like meat and eggs. Menopause, some sexually transmitted diseases, and certain metabolic disorders may also increase the ammonia smell7. Here are some of the more common reasons your urine’s odor may change:

Medications or supplements
Certain genetic conditions, such as Maple Syrup Urine Disease, which causes urine to smell sickeningly sweet8
Certain foods — most notably asparagus. Asparagus is notorious for causing a foul, eggy or “cabbagy” stench that results from a sulfur compound called methyl mercaptan (also found in garlic and skunk secretions). Only 50 percent of people can smell asparagus pee because they have the required gene. Cutting off the tips of asparagus will reportedly prevent the pungent-smelling pee…but of course, this is the tastiest part!
Urinary tract infections
Uncontrolled diabetes is known to cause your urine to have a sweet or fruity or, less commonly, a yeasty smell. In the past, doctors diagnosed diabetes by pouring urine into sand to see if it was sweet enough to attract bugs. Other physicians just dipped a finger in and took a taste. Fortunately, today’s physicians have access to far more elegant diagnostic tools.

When You Feel the Urge to Go, GO

Urinary frequency is also important. Peeing six to eight times per day is “average.” You might go more or less often than that, depending on how much water you drink and how active you are. Increased frequency can be caused by an overactive bladder (involuntary contractions), caffeine, a urinary tract infection (UTI), interstitial cystitis, benign prostate enlargement, diabetes, or one of a handful of neurological diseases.9

It is important to pee when you feel the urge. Delaying urination can cause bladder overdistension — like overstretching a Slinky such that it can’t bounce back. You may habitually postpone urination if you find bathroom breaks inconvenient at work, or if you have Paruresis (also known as Shy Bladder Syndrome, Bashful Bladder, Tinkle Terror, or Pee Anxiety), the fear of urinating in the presence of others. Seven percent of the public suffers from this condition.10

How Much Water Should You Drink?

I don’t subscribe to the commonly quoted rule of drinking six to eight glasses of water every day. Your body is capable of telling you what it needs and when it needs it. Once your body has lost one to two percent of its total water, your thirst mechanism kicks in to let you know it’s time to drink — so thirst should be your guide. Or course, if you are outside on a hot, dry day or exercising vigorously, you’ll require more water than usual — but even then, drinking when you feel thirsty will allow you to remain hydrated.

As you age, your thirst mechanism tends to work less efficiently. Therefore, older adults will want to be sure to drink water regularly, in sufficient quantity to maintain pale yellow urine. As long as you aren’t taking riboflavin (vitamin B2, found in most multivitamins), which turns urine bright “fluorescent” yellow, then your urine should be quite pale. If you have kidney or bladder stones or a urinary tract infection, increase your water intake accordingly.

You and Your Urinary System

You should now have a pretty good idea of how important it is to familiarize yourself with what’s normal for your pee. Urine is a window into the inner workings of your body and can function as an “early warning system” for detecting health problems.

The most important factor in the overall health of your urinary tract is drinking plenty of pure, fresh water every day. Inadequate hydration is the number one risk factor for kidney stones, as well as being important for preventing UTIs. To avoid overly frequent bathroom breaks, stay hydrated but not overhydrated. Drink whenever you’re thirsty, but don’t feel you have to drink eight glasses of water per day, every day. If you’re getting up during the night to pee, stop drinking three to four hours before bedtime.

Limit your caffeine and alcohol intake, which can irritate the lining of your bladder. Make sure your diet has plenty of magnesium, and avoid sugar (including fructose and soda) and non-fermented soy products due to their oxalate content. Finally, don’t hold it. As soon as you feel the urge to go, go! Delaying urination is detrimental to the health of your bladder due to overdistension.

By Dr. Mercola

If you want to improve your nutrition and are itching to grow your own food, sprouts are an ideal choice.
Virtually all sprouted seeds and grains fall in the “superfood” category, and they’re really easy to grow, even if you don’t have a lot of space or an outdoor garden. But what about green grasses like wheatgrass?
Wheatgrass is grown from wheat seeds, and contains high amounts of chlorophyll. Most people juice it, but wheat grass is also available in supplement form.
My main objection to wheatgrass is I believe vegetable sprouts like sunflower, broccoli, and pea sprouts are far more beneficial as a food if you want to improve your nutrition.   If you’re going to grow sprouts, I wouldn’t put wheatgrass at the top of the list.
As reported in the featured article by the Chicago Tribune:1

“Its health benefits and curative powers were promoted in the 1940s by Ann Wigmore, a Lithuanian immigrant to Boston and holistic health practitioner.

Wigmore believed humans could benefit by following the practice of dogs and cats by eating grass and regurgitating to feel better.

She developed the wheatgrass diet, a program which, in addition to consuming wheat grass juice, avoids all meats, dairy products and cooked foods, and focuses on ‘live’ foods such as sprouts, raw produce, nuts and seeds.

The diet and its many touted health and curative claims — detoxification of the body, controlling diabetes, prevention of bacterial infections, the common cold and fever; and protection against ailments like skin problems, gout and even cancer — took off and continues to be alive and well today.”

Potential Benefits of Wheatgrass

As you can see, Wigmore’s inspiration for eating wheatgrass is not really based on its nutritional content but rather the idea that humans might benefit in the same manner as some animals which, upon eating grass, vomit and thereby feel better.
Many alternative health practitioners believe in wheatgrass as being highly beneficial. The Hippocrates Health Institute,2 for example, has a long list of purported benefits of wheatgrass, including the following (for the full list, please see the HHI web site):

Increases red blood-cell count; cleanses the blood, organs and gastrointestinal tract; simulates metabolism
Stimulates your thyroid gland

Reduces over-acidity in your blood and relieve peptic ulcers, ulcerative colitis, constipation, diarrhea, and other gastrointestinal complaints
Detoxifies your liver and blood and chemically neutralizes environmental pollutants
Its high chlorophyll content may help oxygenate your blood. Keeping a tray of live wheatgrass near your bed may also enhance the oxygen in the air and generate healthful negative ions to help improve your sleep
May help reduce damaging effects of radiation, courtesy of the enzyme SOD—an anti-inflammatory compound

They also claim there are a number of health benefits you can reap simply from topical exposure, such as rubbing some juice onto your skin or adding wheatgrass to your bath.

“[Wheatgrass] can double your red blood cell count just by soaking in it. Renowned nutritionist Dr. Bernard Jensen found that no other blood builders are superior to green juices and wheatgrass. In his book ‘Health Magic Through Chlorophyll’

He mentions several cases where he was able to double the red blood cell count in a matter of days merely by having patients soak in a chlorophyll-water bath. Blood building results occur even more rapidly when patients drink green juices and wheatgrass regularly.”

Others, like Mother Nature Network,3 point out that there are no medical studies to support Dr. Jensen’s findings. According to Dr. Chris Reynolds,4 who goes by the moniker “Dr. Wheatgrass,” the benefits of wheatgrass are primarily biological, not nutritional.

“Reynolds argues that there is plenty of evidence to support wheatgrass extract’s role in supporting biological functions, including one preliminary study in the Journal of Experimental and Clinical Cancer Research,5 which suggests that fermented wheatgrass extract ‘exerts significant antitumor activity.’

The study concludes that the extract requires further evaluation as a candidate for clinical combination drug regimens,” Mother Nature Network writes.

Important Details to Know BEFORE You Use Wheat Grass

Wheatgrass contains large amounts of chlorophyll, and is thought to have a wide variety of health promoting properties; however these benefits are largely related to the quality of how it is grown.  Like any food or supplement, quality is highly variable and if you chose to use it, this is important to pay attention to. It is far less expensive to grow your own, but more importantly you can typically grow a much higher quality grass.
Harvest time is crucial and that is typically around one week after you germinate the seeds at what is called the “jointing stage.”  Some stores that sell wheat grass will harvest it once and then let it grow again for a second harvest  Some also sell frozen wheat grass but this is far less effective than freshly harvested wheat grass.
Most wheat grass tastes very bitter  Many believe that they need to grow it in direct sunlight but this actually contributes to the bitterness. Expose the grass only to indirect sunlight, and harvest it right at the jointing stage when it is at its sweetest.
One of the complications of growing wheat grass is that it is very easy to be contaminated with mold due to it’s tightly bound roots in moist soil. If this occurs, the mold can make you sick. Mold typically grows at the bottom of the wheat grass near the soil. Keeping a gentle breeze blowing, keeping the humidity low, and reducing the quantity of seed so the growth is less dense are three approaches to help limit this. 
If you decide to use wheat grass you need to be very careful though, as excessive amounts of wheat grass can cause you to become very nauseous and catalyze a healing crisis that could make you very sick.  It is also not a food but a detoxifying herb and should not be consumed every day for long periods of time.
It is not uncommon for people who drink wheatgrass juice daily for several months or years to develop an aversion to the taste, or even become nauseated by it. Since it is such a highly detoxifying medicinal herb that can cause cleanse or “Herxheimer” reactions,  it’s a good idea to use wheatgrass juice judiciously. When first starting wheatgrass you should only use one ounce once or twice a day, gradually working up to two ounces.

The Benefits of Raw Juice

While I’m not convinced that wheatgrass is an ideal choice as a food, there’s no doubt that sprouts and green juice play a significant role in optimal nutrition. At the end of this article, I’ll review growing your own sprouts, but first, let’s look at juicing.

Virtually every health authority recommends that we get 6-8 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. 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. If you are a carb type, you should eat one pound of raw vegetables per 50 pounds of body weight per day. Some people may find eating that many vegetables difficult, but it can be easily accomplished with a quick glass of vegetable juice.
You can add a wider variety of vegetables in your diet. Many people eat the same vegetable salads every day. This violates the principle of regular food rotation and increases your chance of developing an allergy to a certain food. But with juicing, you can juice a wide variety of vegetables that you may not normally enjoy eating whole.

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. For more information about juicing, including detailed recommendations for the types of vegetables to use; different types of juicers, and other helpful tips, please see my three-part interview with Cherie Calbom, better known as The Juice Lady (Part 1, part 2, and part 3). Below, I give a quick overview of juicing, and how to find a juicer that doesn’t cost a fortune.

Sprouts—A DIY Superfood

Wheatgrass is not to be viewed as a food; it is a potent healing agent if used carefully and cautiously. There are other sprouts that fill the role of food very well.  Sprouts are important to optimize your health, as they are an oft-ignored powerhouse of nutrition. They can contain up to 30 times the nutrition of organic vegetables grown in your own garden, and allow your body to extract more vitamins, minerals, amino acids and essential fats from the foods you eat.
During sprouting, minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, bind to protein, making them more bioavailable. Furthermore, both the quality of the protein and the fiber content of beans, nuts, seeds and grains improves when sprouted. The content of vitamins and essential fatty acids also increase dramatically during the sprouting process. While you can sprout a variety of different beans, nuts, seeds and grains, sprouts in general have the following beneficial attributes:

Support for cell regeneration
Powerful sources of antioxidants, minerals, vitamins and enzymes that protect against free radical damage
Alkalinizing effect on your body, which is thought to protect against disease, including cancer (as many tumors are acidic)
Abundantly rich in oxygen, which can also help protect against abnormal cell growth, viruses and bacteria that cannot survive in an oxygen-rich environment

My two favorites are pea and sunflower sprouts. They provide some of the highest quality protein you can eat. Sprouted sunflower seeds also contain plenty of iron and chlorophyll, the latter of which will help detoxify your blood and liver. Of the seeds, sunflower seeds are among the best in terms of overall nutritional value, and sprouting them will augment their nutrient content by as much as 300 to 1,200 percent! Similarly, sprouting peas will improve the bioavailability of zinc and magnesium.

Planting and Harvesting Sprouts at Home

I used to grow sprouts in Ball jars over 10 years ago but stopped doing that. I am strongly convinced that actually growing them in soil is far easier and produces far more nutritious and abundant food. It is also less time consuming. With Ball jars you need to rinse them several times a day to prevent mold growth. Trays also take up less space. I am now consuming one whole tray you see below every 2-3 days and to produce that much food with Ball jars I would need dozens of jars. 
I am in the process of compiling more specific detailed videos for future articles but I thought I would whet your appetite and give you a preview with the photos below. For now you can get instructions on how to grow them by viewing a step-by-step guide at rawfoods-livingfoods.com.6 One of the important details that many fail to do is to cover the sprouting tray with a cover that not only puts the sprouts in darkness but has a heavy weight on it. The weight is necessary to produce a high quality sprout. It needs the exercise to simulate breaking through the soil.

About to plant wheat grass and sunflower seeds – 2 days after soaking

Wheat grass and sunflower seeds – 3 ½ days post germination

Sunflower seeds and pea sprouts – 3 days until ready for harvest

Sunflower seed sprouts and wheat grass – ready to harvest

Sprouts are a perfect complement to fermented vegetables. My current salad consists of about half a pound of sunflower sprouts, four ounces of fermented vegetables, half a large red pepper, several tablespoon of raw organic butter, some red onion, a whole avocado and about three ounces of salmon or chicken. It is my primary meal. In the late afternoon, I typically only have macadamia nuts and home made coconut candy in addition to drinking 16-32 ounces of green vegetable juice. I break it up occasionally by going to a restaurant with friends.

By Dr. Mercola

Gleevec, a drug used to treat leukemia, costs $70,000 a year in the US but only $2,500 in India. This costly gap exists thanks to US patents that prevent competitors from making and selling lower cost versions.

Such patents do not exist to the same extent in India, and, in fact, just this month India’s highest court again rejected an application to patent the cancer drug – a move that likely would have sent prices soaring.

Indian Government Takes Multiple Steps to Prevent Cancer Drug Patents

Along with rejecting patent applications, the Indian government has also granted (or has plans to grant) compulsory licenses for at least five drugs targeting leukemia, breast, kidney and liver cancers.
The licenses allow local drug companies to produce generic versions of the medications despite patents held by their original makers – and without the need for their permission.
Indonesia, China and the Philippines have adopted similar measures that allow them to circumvent patents and give their populations access to lower priced drugs.
Such moves are likely to increase as cancer rates continue to rise and, with it, the demand for what are deemed conventionally as the “best” treatments. It’s a firestorm in the making, as government enforced protected patents enable drug companies to charge exorbitant prices for their drugs – a measure they claim is necessary to fund the research and development needed to produce “life-saving” medications.
But with more countries circumventing patents — and the plain fact that, as The Atlantic reported, “U.S. patients will not indefinitely pay a 20-fold increase on the price of medicines that Indian consumers pay” – the flawed system is likely to be the source of increasing tensions and, ultimately, is likely to crumble. The Atlantic continued:1

“The fight over cancer drugs in India exposes a fundamental tension in the way we fund pharmaceutical R&D. Patents allow pharmaceutical firms to charge high prices for drugs for a limited period of time to recoup their investment in R&D.

This results in more of the drugs that we need, but makes them less accessible to those who need them. The tension becomes greater in the global context because the income disparities between developed and developing country patients are so vast.”

Patented Cancer Drugs: What are We Really Fighting Over?

Pharmaceutical companies spend nearly TWICE as much on marketing in the US as they do on R&D! This finding was published in the journal PloS Medicine five years ago in 2008.2 So the tune they keep singing – that they need drug patents and outrageous price tags on their drugs to keep making new medications – is growing quite tired.
Drug companies use patents because it allows them to make more money. On average, Americans pay TWICE the price for the identical drugs compared to other countries. But the fight over patentability and drug prices is really only distracting from the much bigger issue at hand, which is the value of the drugs themselves… or rather, the lack thereof.
If you were living in 1900, you very likely would have relied upon the “cutting-edge” treatments of the time, which had reassuring names like Hollister’s Golden Nugget Tablets and Dr. Sawen’s Magic Nerving Pills, and touted promises of curing all that ails you.
Yet, according to a new study that chemically analyzed dozens of patent medicines from the late 1800s and early 1900s, the treatments contained not only beneficial ingredients like calcium and zinc but also toxins like lead, mercury and arsenic.3 The study’s lead researcher told Smithsonian Magazine in an interview:4

“Back in the day, this was a very trial-and-error kind of field… The stuff that we think of as dangerous now, though it was dangerous, was as cutting-edge as they had at the time.”

Today, we look back and scoff at the therapies that our not-so-distant ancestors embraced, because we now know that the ingredients many contained were toxic and could, quite literally, kill you.

100 Years From Now, Will Many Common Prescription Drugs be Seen as Equally Barbaric?

If only we had a window into the future, you would likely see what is already glaring right before your eyes: that many of the “cutting-edge” treatments of the 21st century are no better than the Hollister’s Golden Nuggets of yesteryears. Mercury and other toxic metals like aluminum are still being used in various vaccinations, for instance. We even allow mercury to be implanted directly into our mouths via “silver” fillings!
Other medications may not contain buzz-worthy poisons like mercury or lead, yet they pose equally deadly consequences via other mechanisms. Take Gleevec, the cancer drug that’s at the root of the patent controversy, with patients vying to get their hands on this “life-saving” drug. Unfortunately, though it may help treat leukemia, it also kills heart muscle cells, which may cause fatal congestive heart failure.
So how can we laugh at people 100 years ago for taking deadly medications… when today’s medications – and the entire modern medical system — are still a leading cause of death? This is perhaps no more apparent than with drugs used to treat cancer…

Many Cancer Patients Die From Chemo

The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) study found that more than four in 10 patients who received chemotherapy toward the end of life experienced potentially fatal effects. And after reviewing data from over 600 cancer patients who died within 30 days of receiving treatment, it was found that chemotherapy hastened or caused death in 27 percent of those cases.

Chemotherapy drugs are, by their very nature, extremely toxic and typically do not work with your body to modulate and normalize its response to allow the cancer to resolve normally. Despite its reputation as the gold-standard in cancer treatment, chemotherapy has an average 5-year survival success rate of just over 2 percent for all cancers, according to a study published in the journal Clinical Oncology.5 Meanwhile, a typical, and potentially deadly, side effect of chemo is the destruction of the rapidly multiplying and dividing cells found in your:

Bone marrow, which produces blood
Digestive system
Reproductive system
Hair follicles

Chemo actually supports the more chemo resistant and malignant cell subpopulations within tumors (e.g. cancer stem cells), both killing the more benign cells and/or senescent cells within the tumor that keep it slow-growing, or even harmless. As a result, this unleashes a more aggressive, treatment-resistant type of cancer to wreak havoc on the body.

Another one of the biggest drawbacks to chemotherapy is the fact that it destroys healthy cells throughout your body right along with cancer cells, a “side effect” that often leads to accelerated death, not healing. Effectiveness is a shot in the dark, in many cases, not entirely different from the “miracle cures” popular at the turn of the 20th century.

Prevention is a Far Better Route Than Treatment

The bottom line here is that there’s a lot you can do to lower your chances of getting cancer — you and your family CAN take control of your health. Don’t wait for diagnosis and place your very life on the hopes of affording outrageously expensive chemotherapy drugs… take the reins and be a proactive participant in your own health care, before you end up in need for disease management. I believe you can virtually eliminate your risk of cancer and other chronic diseases, and radically improve your chances of recovering from cancer if you currently have it, by following these relatively simple risk-reduction strategies.

Reduce or eliminate your processed food, sugar/fructose and grain carbohydrate intake. This applies to whole unprocessed organic grains as well, as they tend to rapidly break down and drive your insulin and leptin levels up, which is the last thing you need to have happening if you are seeking to resolve or prevent cancer.
Normalize your vitamin D levels by getting appropriate sun exposure, and consider careful supplementation when this is not possible. However, if you’re taking oral vitamin D, you also need to make sure you’re taking vitamin K2 as well, as K2 deficiency is actually what produces the symptoms of vitamin D toxicity, which includes inappropriate soft tissue calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries. To learn more, please see my previous article: What You Need to Know About Vitamin K2, D and Calcium. If you take oral vitamin D and have cancer, it would be very prudent to monitor your vitamin D blood levels regularly.
Consider reducing your protein levels to one gram per kilogram of lean body weight. It would be unusual for most adults to need more than 100 grams of protein and most likely close to half that.
Control your fasting insulin and leptin levels. This is the end result you’ll get when you remove sugars and grains from your diet and start to exercise regularly. Your levels can be easily monitored with the use of simple and relatively inexpensive blood tests.
Normalize your ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats by taking a high-quality krill oil and reducing your intake of most processed vegetable oils.
Get regular exercise. One of the primary reasons exercise works is that it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.
The trick about exercise, though, is understanding how to use it as a precise tool. This ensures you are getting enough to achieve the benefit, not too much to cause injury, and the right variety to balance your entire physical structure and maintain strength and flexibility, and aerobic and anaerobic fitness levels. If you have limited time Peak Fitness exercises are your best bet but ideally you should have a good strength training program as well.
Get regular, good sleep.
Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.
Limit your exposure and provide protection for yourself from radiation produced by cell phones, towers, base stations, and WiFi stations.
Avoid frying or charbroiling your food. Boil, poach or steam your foods instead.
Have a tool to permanently reprogram the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. My particular favorite tool for resolving emotional challenges, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).
Eat at least one-third of your food raw.

Consider adding cancer-fighting whole foods, herbs, spices and supplements to your diet, such as broccoli, curcumin and resveratrol. To learn more about how these anti-angiogenetic foods, and many others, work to fight cancer, please see my previous article: Dramatically Effective New Natural Way to Starve Cancer and Obesity

By Dr. Mercola

The United States is one of only two countries, the other being New Zealand, that allows drugs to be advertised on TV, and it’s not difficult to understand why nearly every other country has given such ads the boot.

As with all commercials, the ads are intended to influence you to buy their products. In the case of prescription medications, the “product” is a potentially dangerous chemical drug that is loaded with side effects.

In a 2009 Harris Poll, 51 percent said that drug ads encourage them to ask questions when they go to their doctor, and a whopping 44 percent actually believe drug ads make them more knowledgeable about treatments for their ailments.

Now, a new study assessing the effect of direct-to-consumer drug advertising has concluded that TV ads for statins may be a driving factor of overdiagnosis of high cholesterol and overtreatment with the drugs.1

The reason is clear. People who dutifully ask their doctors about a drug advertised on TV usually end up receiving a prescription…

Is it any wonder then that one in four Americans over the age of 45 is now taking a statin drug, despite the fact that there are over 900 studies proving their adverse effects, which run the gamut from muscle problems to diabetes and increased cancer risk.

Odds are likely greater than 100 to 1 that if you’re taking a statin, you don’t really need it. The ONLY subgroup that might benefit are those born with a genetic defect called familial hypercholesterolemia, as this makes them resistant to traditional measures of normalizing cholesterol.

TV Ads for Statins Drive Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment

To determine the relationship between estimated exposure to direct-to-consumer advertising for statin drugs and two clinical variables: diagnosis with high cholesterol and statin use, the featured study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine,2 used logistic regression to analyze repeated cross-sectional surveys of more than 106,000 Americans, merged with data on the frequency of ads appearing on national, cable, and local television, between 2001 and 2007. Interestingly, those who reported seeing statin ads on TV were:

16-20 percent more likely to be diagnosed with high cholesterol
16-22 percent more likely to be using a statin drug

That’s quite a boost in diagnosis and treatment, and proof positive that advertising works, even when you’re selling something with greater potential harms than benefits, as is the case with statins.

Tellingly, both the diagnosis of high cholesterol and increased statin use was driven almost exclusively by those who were at LOW risk for future cardiac events, indicating that overdiagnosis and unnecessary drug treatment is quite real. Conversely, those at high risk of heart disease were not more likely to be taking a statin after seeing the commercials. According to the authors:

“Our findings raise questions about the extent to which direct-to-consumer advertising may promote over-diagnosis and over-treatment for populations where risks may outweigh potential benefits. In addition, we found no evidence of favorable associations between exposure to statins in television advertisements and statin use among those at high risk for future cardiac events.”

Turning People into Patients — At YOUR Expense

The 1997 change in direct-to-consumer advertising laws unleashed an avalanche of drug commercials. Two years later, the average American was exposed to nine prescription drug TV ads every day. Between 1994 and 2000, TV drug ads increased 40-fold.3

In 2005, two of the top four most heavily promoted drugs were cholesterol-lowering medications. In that year alone, Merck/Schering-Plough spent $161.5 million on ads for Vytorin, and AstraZeneca spent $158.6 million advertising Crestor — down from the $212 million4 they spent the year before.

In all, pharmaceutical companies spend an estimated $4 billion a year on these types of consumer marketing campaigns in the US, so you can bet they’re getting a hefty portion of this expense back in the form of increased profits.

No doubt you’ve heard that drugs cost so much because it’s expensive to perform research and development of new drugs. Yet pharmaceutical companies spend nearly TWICE as much on marketing in the US as they do on R&D! This finding was published in the journal PloS Medicine in 2008.5 According to the authors:

“From this new estimate, it appears that pharmaceutical companies spend almost twice as much on promotion as they do on R&D. These numbers clearly show how promotion predominates over R&D in the pharmaceutical industry, contrary to the industry’s claim.

While the amount spent on promotion is not in itself a confirmation of Kefauver’s depiction of the pharmaceutical industry, it confirms the public image of a marketing-driven industry and provides an important argument to petition in favor of transforming the workings of the industry in the direction of more research and less promotion.” [Emphasis mine]

The US is, by far, the largest market for pharmaceuticals in the world, representing around 43 percent of global sales. This is in part due to Americans being grossly overcharged. As I recently reported, Americans pay TWICE the price compared to other countries for the identical drugs.6

Well, here’s part of the answer to the question why: You’re paying for their direct-to-consumer advertising, which is illegal everywhere else (with the exception of New Zealand).

Aside from their inherently misleading nature, and the fact that they dramatically increase drug prices, direct-to-consumer drug ads like those on TV often plant a seed in your mind that you may be sick. Drug companies are masters at disease mongering — inventing non-existent diseases and exaggerating minor ones, with the end result making you rush to your doctor to request their drug solutions. It also misleads people into thinking drugs are the only option for every ill. If you think about it, a child who grows up seeing these ads is clearly going to be indoctrinated to turn to a drug when something goes wrong, unless he or she receives a different education from some other source.

Effective Statin Ads Place Millions of Americans at Risk of Serious Health Problems

Statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, that is, they act by blocking the enzyme in your liver that is responsible for making cholesterol (HMG-CoA reductase). The fact that statin drugs cause side effects is well established — there are now 900 studies proving their adverse effects, which run the gamut from muscle problems to increased cancer risk.

Please note that statins are classified as a “pregnancy Category X medication” meaning, it causes serious birth defects, and should NEVER be used by a woman who is pregnant or planning a pregnancy. If it is prescribed, it is simply gross negligence and malpractice.

Statins have also been shown to increase your risk of diabetes, via a number of different mechanisms. The most important one is that they increase insulin resistance, which can be extremely harmful to your health. Increased insulin resistance contributes to chronic inflammation in your body, and inflammation is the hallmark of most diseases.

In fact, increased insulin resistance can lead to heart disease, which, ironically, is the primary reason for taking a cholesterol-reducing drug in the first place. It can also promote belly fat, high blood pressure, heart attacks, chronic fatigue, thyroid disruption, and diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and cancer.

Secondly, statins increase your diabetes risk by actually raising your blood sugar. When you eat a meal that contains starches and sugar, some of the excess sugar goes to your liver, which then stores it away as cholesterol and triglycerides. Statins work by preventing your liver from making cholesterol. As a result, your liver returns the sugar to your bloodstream, which raises your blood sugar levels.

Drug-induced diabetes and genuine type 2 diabetes are not necessarily identical. If you’re on a statin drug and find that your blood glucose is elevated, it’s possible that what you have is just hyperglycemia — a side effect, and the result of your medication. Unfortunately, many doctors will at that point mistakenly diagnose you with “type 2 diabetes,” and possibly prescribe another drug, when all you may need to do is simply discontinue the statin in order for your blood glucose levels to revert back to normal.

Statin drugs also interfere with other biological functions. Of utmost importance, statins deplete your body of CoQ10, which accounts for many of its devastating results. Therefore, if you take a statin, you must take supplemental CoQ10, or better, the reduced form called ubiquinol. Statins also interfere with the mevalonate pathway, which is the central pathway for the steroid management in your body. Products of this pathway that are negatively affected by statins include:

All your sex hormones
Cortisone
The dolichols, which are involved in keeping the membranes inside your cells healthy
All sterols, including cholesterol and vitamin D (which is similar to cholesterol and is produced from cholesterol in your skin)

Ninety-Nine Out of 100 People Do Not Need Statin Drugs

That these drugs have proliferated the market the way they have is a testimony to the effectiveness of direct-to-consumer marketing, corruption and corporate greed, because the odds are very high — greater than 1000 to 1 — that if you’re taking a statin, you don’t really need it. From my review, the ONLY subgroup that might benefit are those born with a genetic defect called familial hypercholesterolemia, as this makes them resistant to traditional measures of normalizing cholesterol.

Even more importantly, cholesterol is NOT the cause of heart disease. If your physician is urging you to check your total cholesterol, then you should know that this test will tell you virtually nothing about your risk of heart disease, unless it is 330 or higher. HDL percentage is a far more potent indicator for heart disease risk. Here are the two ratios you should pay attention to:

HDL/Total Cholesterol Ratio: Should ideally be above 24 percent. If below 10 percent, you have a significantly elevated risk for heart disease.
Triglyceride/HDL Ratio: Should be below 2.

I have seen a number of people with total cholesterol levels over 250 who were actually at low risk for heart disease due to their elevated HDL levels. Conversely, I have seen many people with cholesterol levels under 200 who had a very high risk of heart disease, based on their low HDL. NMR testing is another important new lipid assessment you can now take to determine your risk for heart disease.

Remember, your body NEEDS cholesterol — it is important in the production of cell membranes, hormones, vitamin D and bile acids that help you to digest fat. Cholesterol also helps your brain form memories and is vital to your neurological function. There is also strong evidence that having too little cholesterol INCREASES your risk for cancer, memory loss, Parkinson’s disease, hormonal imbalances, stroke, depression, suicide, and violent behavior.

To learn more about statins, please see my special report: Do YOU Take Any of These 11 Dangerous Cholesterol Drugs?

Turn Off the Tube and Tune in to Your Body’s Innate Wisdom

These ads are now on your TV, in magazines and on the Internet, so it’s difficult to eliminate your exposure. What you can do, however, is keep a healthy air of skepticism about you whenever you do see a drug commercial. Really listen to the side effects and ask yourself if cancer is an acceptable risk for a drug to treat an embarrassing skin condition, for example.

If you think you might need the drug, first seek out an unbiased source of information to see if you truly do. The internet can frequently be a helpful tool here.

Also check for the truth about side effects. The average drug comes with a list of 70 potential reactions, according to researchers who used a computer program to analyze 5,600 drug labels. If you take one of the more commonly prescribed drugs, the potential drug reactions rise to about 100 — and some drugs even carry over 500. Given that, it’s not so surprising that more than 700,000 people visit U.S. emergency rooms each year as a result of adverse drug reactions. Not only that, but according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), adverse drug reactions from drugs that are properly prescribed and properly administered cause about 106,000 deaths per year, making prescription drugs the fourth-leading cause of death in the US.

Polypharmacy Raises Drug Side Effects Exponentially

According to the latest statistics from the Kaiser Health Foundation,7 the average American aged 19 to 64 now takes nearly 12 prescription drugs. The average senior is on 28. The word ‘polypharmacy’ means “many drugs,” and essentially refers to these instances where an individual is taking multiple drugs — often because more drugs are prescribed than are clinically indicated.

This is a significant problem, as the more drugs you mix together, the greater the chances of serious side effects. And, if the average American is taking a dozen different prescription drugs, and the average prescription drug carries 70 side effects… do the math! That’s an average of 770 potential individual side effects but the drug to drug interaction is far higher and is likely one to two orders of magnitude greater. To me, this is simply unacceptable, especially considering that most drugs people take are for conditions that can be better treated, and prevented, using natural methods.

Take Control of Your Health

Anytime you’re considering taking a drug, whether you’ve succumbed to a seductive drug ad or your doctor wants to prescribe one for an ailment you’ve presented, please do remember that you carry the ultimate responsibility here. Don’t trust blindly; ask questions about the drugs prescribed to you, such as:

Do I really need this drug?
Is it prescribed appropriately, or is it being prescribed for an off-label use?
What are the side effects?
Is it addictive?
What are the natural alternatives?

In the majority of cases, you’ll likely find that you can prevent or resolve the condition not by taking a drug, but by following these basic tenets of optimal health:

Eat a healthy diet focused on fresh, whole foods (ideally organic and/or locally-grown). Try to eat a large portion of your food raw.

You want to pay careful attention to keeping your insulin levels down, which means avoiding sugars and grains of all kinds, and replacing the lost carbs with healthful fats. Also be mindful of your protein sources, making sure they’re of high quality (ideally organically-raised and pasture-fed). A high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb diet is likely to improve the health of most people. My optimized Nutritional Plan can guide you, whether you’re at a beginner’s or advanced level.
Consume healthy fat. The science is loud and clear on this point: omega-3 fats are essential for optimal health. Unfortunately most fish commercially available today are polluted with mercury, PCBs and other toxic substances, which is why I recommend you take a supplement like krill oil instead of getting it from your food. Other healthy fats include coconut oil, avocados, olives, olive oil, butter and macadamia nuts. All these fats are low in protein and carbs and will not impair insulin, leptin or mTOR.
Make clean, pure water your primary beverage, and steer clear of all sweetened and/or flavored beverages, including those that contain artificial sweeteners.
Manage your stress.
Exercise regularly. Ideally, you want a comprehensive fitness regimen that includes stretching, high intensity interval training, core strengthening exercises and strength training.
Get plenty of appropriate sun exposure to optimize your vitamin D levels naturally. UV exposure also has additional health benefits beyond vitamin D production.

A robust and growing body of research clearly shows that vitamin D is absolutely critical for your health. The D*Action project has been initiated by GrassrootsHealth along with 42 leading vitamin D researchers to demonstrate how health can be achieved right now with what’s known about vitamin D with a combination of vitamin D measurement and health outcome tracking. To learn more, please see this recent article.

I encourage you to participate in the D*Action Project, which has multiple concurrent vitamin D programs going on. Not only will you be able to take control of your own health by participating, you’ll also become part of one of the most profound public health projects of the 21st Century. To participate, simply purchase the D*Action Measurement Kit and follow the registration instructions included. As a participant, you agree to test your vitamin D levels twice a year during a five year program, and share your health status to demonstrate the public health impact of this nutrient. There is a $65 fee each 6 months for your sponsorship of the project, which includes a test kit to be used at home, and electronic reports on your ongoing progress. You will get a follow up email every six months reminding you “it’s time for your next test and health survey.”

 
Limit your exposure to toxins of all kinds. The number of toxic chemicals and their sources is so large, addressing them all could easily require an entire library, but I believe you can help you keep your toxic load as low as possible by becoming an informed and vigilant consumer. This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives.
Get plenty of quality sleep. Scientists have discovered that your circadian rhythms regulate the energy levels in your cells. In addition, the proteins involved with your circadian rhythm and metabolism are intrinsically linked and dependent upon each other. Therefore, when your circadian rhythm is disrupted, it can have a profound influence on your physical health. For example, research has also linked disrupted sleep cycles to serious health problems like depression, coronary heart diseases, and even cancer.

If you have any kind of sleep problem, whether you’re having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, my article 33 Secrets to a Good Night’s Sleep is packed with great tips to help you finally get some good rest.

It Takes Personal Involvement to Stay Healthy in a Sick System

Ultimately, it’s your body, and the decision to medicate yourself for an ailment is yours alone. However, I urge you to research any drug your doctor prescribes before you take it. Do not just take your doctor’s word for its safety. Most physicians have little information to offer you aside from what they’ve been told by their drug reps.

Also remember that no drug is completely safe. Even under the BEST circumstances — such as with a drug that has gone through unbiased, stringent, long-term testing — anything can happen when a drug is released into the uncontrolled environment of your body. It may interact badly with another drug you’re taking, or perhaps a food you eat causes an unforeseen reaction, or maybe your genetic makeup, metabolism or the state of your immune system will cause it to have an unpredictable impact.

Ads are intended to make you want to buy a product — they are NOT public health announcements!

In the case of prescription medications, the “product” is a potentially dangerous chemical that may do more harm than good. This is certainly the case with statins. One in four Americans are now taking a statin, when the odds are greater than 100 to 1 that you don’t need it! Please understand that unless you have familial hypercholesterolemia, you do NOT need a drug to normalize your cholesterol. This can easily be achieved via diet and exercise.

By Dr. Mercola

It was once thought that any brain function lost was irretrievable. Today, research into what’s referred to as “brain plasticity” has proven that this is not the case. On the contrary, your brain continues to make new neurons throughout life in response to mental activity.

Aside from toxicity, our modern lifestyle plays a part in cognitive decline, as described by Dr. Michael Merzenich, professor emeritus at the University of California, who has pioneered research in brain plasticity for more than 30 years.

He founded the Scientific Learning Corporation in Oakland, California, and Posit Science in San Francisco; both specializing in science research into brain training software.

Dr. Merzenich’s career arose from an interest in philosophy, and a fascination with the nature and origin of the human persona and individuality, and how brain processes might account for the evolution of our individual abilities. He believed that in those who have learning disabilities, the natural progressions of these brain processes must have encountered errors.

Use It or Lose It — the Principles of Brain Plasticity

The inherent plasticity of the brain was discovered some 20 years ago, when animal models demonstrated that brain deterioration and aging was in fact reversible, provided the proper stimulus. Dr. Merzenich describes brain plasticity as follows:

“It’s simple in concept. The brain changes physically, functionally, and chemically, as you acquire an ability or as you improve an ability. You know this instinctively. Something must be changing as your brain advances, as it progresses.

Actually what it is doing is changing the local wiring, changing the details of how it’s connected. It’s also changing itself in other ways, physically, functionally, and those changes account for that improvement, or account for the acquisition of an ability.

You don’t realize it but as you acquire an ability – let’s say, the ability to read – you actually create a system in the brain that does not exist, or that’s not in place, in the non-reader. It [the ability] actually evolves in the brain.”

As Dr. Merzenich explains, your brain is designed and constructed to be stimulated and challenged, and to carefully examine, resolve and interpret your environment. During the early days of mankind’s development, keeping track of the details was imperative for survival.

Today however, we tend to try to remove ourselves from the details of life. For example, instead of keeping track of appointments and to-do lists in our head, we use electronic gadgets with reminder features. Our streets are paved and lit, requiring virtually no attention to navigate from one location to another. And if you don’t sufficiently challenge your brain with new, surprising information, it eventually begins to deteriorate.

“Generally, by the third or fourth decade in life, you’re in decline,” Dr. Merzenich says. “One of the things that happens across this period is that you go from a period of the acquisition of abilities to largely using those abilities that have been acquired earlier in life. By that I mean to say, the fundamental skills that you apply in your profession or in your everyday life are things you master, and you’re doing them without thought.

To a large extent, you’re operating most of your day without really being consciously engaged in the things you’re doing… I’ve gone without really thinking very much about the physical acts of driving. I’m substantially disengaged.

This has been contributed to substantially by modern culture. Modern culture is all about taking out surprises… to basically reduce the stimulation in a sense on one level, so that we could engage ourselves in sort of an abstract level of operations. We’re no longer interested in the details of things. We’re no longer interested in resolving the details of what we see or hear or feel, and our brains slowly deteriorate.”

Contributing Factors to Cognitive Decline, and How to Counteract it

With age, brain researchers have found that there’s an increase in “chatter” in your brain. Dr. Merzenich explains:

“Your brain becomes less precise in how it’s resolving information as you’re operating and listening in language, as you’re operating in vision, or as you’re operating in controlling your actions. And we actually see these other noise processes through the brain as you age. In fact, we can correlate those changes quite directly with the slowing down of your processing.

You know, every older person is slower in their actions, slower in their decisions, and less fluent in their operations than when they’re younger. They’re slower because the brain basically is dealing with information in a fuzzier and degraded form.”

What research into brain plasticity shows us is that by providing your brain with appropriate stimulus, you can counteract this degeneration. A key factor or ingredient necessary for improving brain function or reversing functional decline is the seriousness of purpose with which you engage in a task. In other words, the task must be important to you, or somehow meaningful or interesting — it must hold your attention. Rote memorization of nonsensical or unimportant items will not stimulate your brain to create new neurons.

Dr. Merzenich has been instrumental in the development of a kind of environment — a computer-based brain training program that can help you sharpen a range of skills, from reading and comprehension to improved memorization and more. The program is called Brain HQ1.

“There are some very useful exercises in there that are for free, and you can actually drive improvements, for example, in brain speed, in the accuracy, with which the brain represents information in detail,” he says.

“Basically, what you’re doing is reducing the chatter, the noisiness of the process of your brain. That impacts your capacity, for example, to record that information; to remember it. Because when the information is in its degraded form, when it’s fuzzy, when it’s imprecise, all of the uses of it – like your brain makes basically – are degraded.”

Who Can Benefit from This?

Everybody’s brain is plastic, including yours, so no matter what your age or current level of brain function, your brain can improve to some degree or other. Dr. Merzenich specializes in children, primarily those with learning disabilities or impairments. But seniors and adults of all ages are also starting to use the program, and all age groups have been found to reap significant rewards.

In children operating in the 10th percentile of academic performance are commonly able to improve their scores to the middle or average level with 20-30 hours of intensive computer-based training.

“Now, that’s a big difference for the child,” he says. “It carries the child from a position which is at the bottom of the class, on the average, to be somewhere in the middle of the class. And that gives a child a chance to excel in school.”

Careful control studies in seniors have also been done. After 40 hours of computer-based training, the average improvement in cognitive performance across the board was 11 years. Meaning, if you were 70 years old, after 40 hours of brain training, your cognitive abilities could operate like that of a 59-year old. The same, and in some cases greater, effect can be found in 40-50-year olds using the program.

How to Implement a Brain Training Program

So, how does such a training program work, and what’s the optimal way to implement it in order to maximize the benefits?

“One of the great advantages that we have is that there’s a very large body of scientific information that informs us about the optimum,” Dr. Merzenich says. “It comes from understanding, on a scientific level, the basis of what controls brain change. We know how the machine operates to control brain change. We know that you have to be engaged attentively, and in a sense that the more attentively focused you are, the more positively enabling machine the brain is when turned on.

We know that rewards have to occur, or information or feedback about how you’re doing have to occur, in a specific way to drive the optimum changes in the brain… the way difficulties change in the task are crucial for driving changes with highest proficiency.

One simple thing we do is to [continually] adjust the difficulty level of the task, so that the child is at a level in which they get most things correct but they’re capable of error. Because only when you’re in this demanding situation, only when it matters to the brain, does the machinery turn on to change the brain. We actually regulate this, and as a child progresses session by session, day by day, they notch up their performance to higher and higher and higher and higher and higher levels.”

Ideally, it would be wise to invest at least 20 minutes a day. But no more than five to seven minutes is to be spent on a specific task. When you spend longer amounts of time on a task, the benefits weaken. According to Dr. Merzenich, the primary benefits occur in the first five or six minutes of the task.

You can typically improve yourself to the highest practical or possible level in anywhere between five to a dozen brief sessions of seven or eight minutes each. Again, having a sense of purpose is crucial.

“When it matters to you, you are going to drive changes in your brain,” he explains. “That’s something always to keep in mind. If what you’re doing seems senseless, meaningless, if it does not matter to you, then you’re gaining less from it.”

Dr. Merzenich developed a website, Brain HQ, to help take advantage of the brain’s ability to repair.The Brain HQ website has many different exercises designed to improve brain function and it also allows you to track and monitor your progress over time. While there are many similar sites on the web, Brain HQ is one of the oldest and most widely used.

How Your Daily Lifestyle Can Improve Your Brain Function

Aside from engaging in a computer-based brain exercise program, Dr. Merzenich lists several things you can do on a daily basis, as part of your day-to-day lifestyle, to help maintain optimal brain fitness:

Get 15-30 minutes of physical exercise each day, when exercising, think about using your brain to control your actions. That means, skip the iPod and instead take in the details of your environment.

“Reconstruct it in your mind. Basically, we are constructed to take in the details of our physical environments, and to interpret and reconstruct them. That’s a critical form of exercise for us basically to refine our navigational skills and abilities in this sense – to basically look at the landmarks, to look at the details, to record them in detail,” he says.

Secondly, look for and take note of surprises in your environment. “If you walk across the landscape and are paying attention, you cannot take a walk for 15, 20, or 30 minutes without being surprised,” he says. “And the brain loves surprises, because surprises mean that they must be engaged to interpret what they mean.”

Lastly, pay attention to your physical body. “You should feel yourself again. When’s the last time you actually thought about the feelings of you movements?”

Spend about five minutes every day working on the refinement of a specific, small domain of your physical body. Dr. Merzenich explains:

“That is to say, move in a very variable and controlled way – variable in speed, variable to reach a target, for example, with your big toe or your little finger. Do that every day. I do that in a systematic way, because I’m trying to maintain the fidelity of the neurological control movement. I know that I’m very much thinking about the feeling in my movements as I do that.”

Find ways to engage yourself in new learning as a continuous aspect of your life, such as taking on new hobbies, learning new skills
Stay socially engaged
Practice “mindfulness,” in which you’re attentively focusing on the world around you again, as if you’re seeing it for the first time.

“Look at the wonder in the flower. Look with curiosity again at the movements of the lizard. Engage in the details of the world and in life. Associate what you hear with what you feel on your skin,” he suggests. “It’s incredibly important that you engage the brain and all of its details of how it’s drinking in information, because this again relates to the fidelity with which it will represent it for all of its operations.”

Nutrition and Brain Health

Another factor that cannot be overlooked is your diet. Foods have an immense impact on your brain, and eating whole foods as described in my nutrition plan will best support your mental and physical health. Just like exercise, avoiding sugar (particularly fructose) and grains will help normalize your insulin levels.

This is an important aspect, as sugar causes chronic inflammation that disrupts your body’s normal immune function and can wreak havoc on your brain. But sugar also suppresses BDNF, which is important for proper memory function, and appears to play a significant role in depression as well. At least we know that BDNF levels tend to be critically low in people with depression, and some animal models have suggested low BDNF levels may actually be causative.

The medical literature is also showing that coconut oil can be of particular benefit for brain health, and anecdotal evidence suggests it could be very beneficial in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Ketone bodies have been found to feed your brain and prevent brain atrophy. It may even restore and renew neuron and nerve function in your brain after damage has set in. Ketones are what your body produces when it converts fat (as opposed to glucose) into energy, and a primary source of ketone bodies are the medium chain triglycerides (MCT) found in coconut oil. Other dietary recommendations to preserve and improve your brain health include the following:

Optimize your vitamin D levels through safe sun exposure, a safe tanning bed and/or vitamin D3 supplements.
Take a high-quality animal-based omega-3 fat. I recommend consuming high quality krill oil to meet the optimal amount of omega-3 fats needed to achieve good health and fight cognitive decline
Avoid processed foods and sugars, especially fructose — Excessive sugar and grain consumption are the driving factors behind insulin resistance, and the strategies that protect your brain are very similar to those for avoiding diabetes. There is simply no question that insulin resistance is one of the most pervasive influences on brain damage, as it contributes massively to inflammation, which will prematurely degenerate your brain.
Ideally, you’ll want to restrict your total fructose consumption to below 25 grams a day. This includes refraining from eating too many fruits, if you normally eat a lot of them. If you consume more than 25 grams a day of fructose you can damage your cells by creating insulin and leptin resistance and raising your uric acid levels.
Avoid grains – Even whole, organic grains will convert to sugar in your body and spike your insulin levels.
Avoid artificial sweeteners – Aspartame, for example, is an excitotoxin that can literally destroy your brain cells. There are many studies showing the dangers of aspartame.For example, one study published in 20082 concluded that excessive aspartame ingestion might cause certain mental disorders, as well as compromised learning and emotional functioning.
Avoid soy — Unfermented soy products are another common food that should be avoided if you want to maintain healthy brain function.

One well-designed epidemiological study linked tofu consumption with exaggerated brain aging. Men who ate tofu at least twice weekly had more cognitive impairment, compared with those who rarely or never ate the soybean curd, and their cognitive test results were about equivalent to what they would have been if they were five years older than their current age. What’s more, higher midlife tofu consumption was also associated with low brain weight. Shrinkage does occur naturally with age, but for the men who had consumed more tofu showed an exaggeration of the usual patterns you typically see in aging.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel has written an excellent book, The Whole Soy Story, which covers the health dangers of soy in great depth and I highly recommend it to anyone still under the illusion that soy is a health food.