Watchman News

By Dr. Mercola

UV light from the sun and tanning beds is the main vitamin D source for humans, and researchers have identified an astonishing number of health benefits of vitamin D in the past decade.
But since UV exposure has been suspected of causing skin cancer, many conventional health authorities still warn against it.
A recent review of studies sought to review the health effects of solar radiation, tanning beds and vitamin D.
The researchers looked at data from different time periods for populations at different latitudes, with the aim at looking at the relative risk for cutaneous malignant melanoma associated with tanning bed use, vitamin D and UV effects.
They found that increased tanning bed use was NOT associated with melanoma.
According to the authors:

“Due to the fear of skin cancer, health authorities warn against sun and sunbed exposure.
This policy, as well as the recommended vitamin D doses, may need revision.”
And:
“… The overall health benefit of an improved vitamin D status may be more important than the possibly increased [cutaneous malignant melanoma] risk resulting from carefully increasing UV exposure.”

In fact, Ivan Oransky, the editor of Reuters Health, has previously noted that the real risk of getting skin cancer from a tanning bed is less than three-tenths of one percent—and even then, this is likely only from those who habitually overexpose themselves.

Sun Exposure and Skin Cancer

The authors of the featured review state that while sun exposure is commonly assumed to be the main cause of cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM hereafter referred to simply as melanoma, the most lethal form of skin cancer—the matter is actually NOT “settled.”
The theory is still under dispute, and in their analysis, they reviewed the arguments for and against causation.
With a hint of irony, the authors state that “several factors are probably involved, as exemplified by a relationship sometimes found between gross domestic product and melanoma incidence.” They also list a number of associations between sun exposure and melanoma found in the medical literature, such as:

Intermittent sun exposure and severe sunburn in childhood are associated with an increased risk of melanoma
Occupational exposure, such as farmers and fishermen, and regular weekend sun exposure are associated with decreased risk of melanoma
Sun exposure appears to protect against melanoma on skin sites not exposed to sun light, and melanoma occurring on skin with large UV exposure has the best prognosis
Patients with the highest blood levels of vitamin D have thinner melanoma and better survival prognosis than those with the lowest vitamin D levels.

So what about tanning beds—are they more dangerous than regular sun exposure? As you may recall, the Senate’s health-care overhaul bill now includes a 10 percent tax on tanning services to dissuade you from engaging in such “health-harming” activities; a move that is unquestionably short sighted and counterproductive considering the fact that vitamin D deficiency is rampant in the U.S.
Where tanning beds are concerned, the science is more conflicted, with some studies finding no detrimental impact from tanning beds on skin cancer rates while others have found that rates of skin cancer are higher in those using tanning beds than those who do not tan. The reason for these conflicting findings, the authors speculate, could very well be due to differences in UVA/UVB ratios and intensities between different types of tanning beds.

IF Sun Exposure Increases Your Risk of Cancer, Just How Great is that Risk?

Even when looking at the research showing an increased risk for skin cancer from sun exposure, just how great is that risk? Ivan Oransky, M.D., editor of Reuters Health wrote an excellent commentary on this last year.
Each year, during the month of May, as the sun slowly begins to thaw away those winter blues, you start getting bombarded with Skin Cancer Awareness ads; all of which pitch the idea that the sun is your enemy. Many will include the statistic issued by the World Health Organization, which states that “use of sunbeds before the age of 35 is associated with a 75 percent increase in the risk of melanoma.”
Sounds horrific, but how real is this threat?

“[W]hat does that really mean? Is it 75 percent greater than an already-high risk, or a tiny one?” Oransky writes.
“If you read the FDA’s “Indoor Tanning: The Risks of Ultraviolet Rays,” or a number of other documents from the WHO and skin cancer foundations, you won’t find your actual risk. That led AHCJ member Hiran Ratnayake to look into the issue in March for The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal, after Delaware passed laws limiting teens’ access to tanning salons. The 75 percent figure is based on a review of a number of studies, Ratnayake learned. The strongest such study was one that followed more than 100,000 women over eight years.
But as Ratnayake noted, that study “found that less than three-tenths of 1 percent who tanned frequently developed melanoma while less than two-tenths of 1 percent who didn’t tan developed melanoma.” That’s actually about a 55 percent increase, but when the study was pooled with others, the average was a 75 percent increase.
In other words, even if the risk of melanoma was 75 percent greater than two-tenths of one percent, rather than 55 percent greater, it would still be far below one percent.” [Emphasis mine.]

So, while statistically true, it’s really misleading, and incites undue fear. By only presenting the relative risk increase (the 75 percent increase) they make the risk sound rather unreasonable. Meanwhile, your absolute risk of developing skin cancer from sun exposure is still, AT WORST, below one percent! And please remember, these highly distorted scare tactics fail to mention the BENEFITS of the exposure, which radically reduce the dangers of the far more common, breast, prostate and colon cancers that are reduced.

Understanding the Difference between Relative Risk and Absolute Risk

Oransky explains the importance of understanding the difference between relative risk and absolute risk in his article:

“Absolute risk just tells you the chance of something happening, while relative risk tells you how that risk compares to another risk, as a ratio. If a risk doubles, for example, that’s a relative risk of 2, or 200 percent. If it halves, it’s 0.5, or 50 percent. Generally, when you’re dealing with small absolute risks, as we are with melanoma, the relative risk differences will seem much greater than the absolute risk differences.
You can see how if someone is lobbying to ban something – or, in the case of a new drug, trying to show a dramatic effect – they would probably want to use the relative risk. … So when you read a study that says something doubles the risk of some terrible disease, ask: Doubles from what to what?”

Tanning Beds Decrease Ten Times More Cancers than they Cause

Another important factor to keep in mind is that vitamin D, ideally from sun exposure, may decrease your risk of many other cancers and chronic diseases.
According to the featured review:

“… it can be estimated that increased sun exposure to the Norwegian population might at worst result in 200-300 more melanoma deaths per year, but it would elevate the vitamin D status by about 25 nmol/l and might result in 4,000 fewer internal cancers and about 3,000 fewer cancer deaths overall.
The lack of sunlight exposure leads to more health problems than bone disease and increased risk of cancer. Other benefits include protection against infectious diseases and non-cancerous diseases (diabetes, CVD, multiple sclerosis, and mental disorders).”

Overall, I believe the less than one percent risk of developing skin cancer from sun exposure or a tanning bed is well worth it, as increased vitamin D levels will protect you against so many other debilitating and lethal diseases and cancers… There’s also compelling research showing that sun exposure will indeed protect you against melanoma—the most dangerous form of skin cancer.

Sun Exposure is the BEST Way to Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels

In my view, a tanning bed comes in as a close second after natural sun exposure as the ideal way to optimize your vitamin D levels (as opposed to getting it from fortified food items or supplements). In a recent interview, Dr. Stephanie Seneff explained how vitamin D—specifically from sun exposure—is intricately tied to healthy cholesterol and sulfur levels, making the recommendation to get your vitamin D from the sun all the more important.
To review the details, please listen to the interview below.

Total Video Length: 1:29:57

Download Interview Transcript

The images used in this video belong to The United States Naval Observatory (USNO)
To find the information for your area, please visit the USNO site.
 
As a quick summary, when you expose your skin to sunshine or a tanning bed, your skin synthesizes vitamin D3 sulfate. This form of vitamin D is water soluble, unlike oral vitamin D3 supplements, which is unsulfated. The water soluble form can travel freely in your blood stream, whereas the unsulfated form needs LDL (the so-called “bad” cholesterol) as a vehicle of transport. Her suspicion is that the oral non-sulfated form of vitamin D may not provide all of the same benefits as the vitamin D created in your skin from sun exposure, because it cannot be converted to vitamin D sulfate.
I believe this is a very compelling reason to really make a concerted effort to get ALL your vitamin D requirements from exposure to sunshine, or by using a tanning bed. If neither of these are feasible options, then you should take an oral vitamin D3 supplement.
Carole agrees that sun exposure is ideal as it may also provide other health benefits. Lack of sun exposure now appears to be at the very root of many common health problems, which strict sun-avoidance has progressively made worse. Vitamin D deficiency is, after all, a fairly recent health concern, historically speaking.

“I think it is obvious that the reason we have this deficiency is because we have become an industrialized nation,” she says. “… What we’ve done is we’ve come inside. We cover up. Even in San Diego where I live, when they measured my level it was 18 ng/ml.
When we did a scientific test of what it’s going to take to get enough sun in San Diego… at my age – age is a factor in how much you absorb – we came to a test conclusion that it was going take 15 to 20 minutes a day in the prime time of UV, between 10 am and 2 pm, each and every day… with 40 percent of my body exposed. … I encourage people to take advantage of the sun. The only message I have about the sun is: don’t burn. That’s it.”

By Dr. Mercola

If you’re struggling with sleep deprivation, you may be tempted to try anything to get some quality sleep.
But you may want to think twice before filling a prescription for sleeping pills, as they not only fail to address the underlying reasons why you can’t sleep, but new research shows they’re linked to a nearly four-fold increase in the risk of death, along with increased cancer risks.

Would You Risk Your Life for a Good Night’s Sleep?

Most would not knowingly put their life on the line, but you may be doing just that if you take sleeping pills.
Research involving data from more than 10,500 people who received drugs for poor sleep (hypnotics) showed that “as predicted, patients prescribed any hypnotic had substantially elevated hazards of dying compared to those prescribed no hypnotics” and the association held true even when patients with poor health were taken into account — and even if the patients took fewer than 18 pills in a year.
The study suggested that those who take such medications are not only at higher risk for certain cancers, but are nearly four times more likely to die than people who don’t take them.
Sleeping pills linked to these risks included benzodiazepines (such as temazepam), non-benzodiazepines (such as Ambien, Lunesta, and Sonata), barbiturates, and sedative antihistamines.
The researchers concluded:

“Receiving hypnotic prescriptions was associated with greater than threefold increased hazards of death even when prescribed

By Dr. Mercola

Alzheimer’s disease is currently at epidemic proportions, with 5.4 million Americans — including one in eight people aged 65 and over — living with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2011 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figuresi.
By 2050, this is expected to jump to 16 million, and in the next 20 years it is projected that Alzheimer’s will affect one in four Americans.
You do not, however, have to feel powerless against this disease, as although there is no known cure as of yet, there are simple strategies available to significantly lower your risk.

The Alzheimer’s Risk Factor You Probably Haven’t Heard Of …

Do you heed the advice of public health officials who advise putting on sunscreen every time you go out in the sun?
This could very well be raising your risk of Alzheimer’s disease because it blocks not only your body’s ability to produce vitamin D, but also your production of cholesterol sulfate.
Unfortunately most of you reading this have probably only heard of cholesterol referred to in a negative way, but actually adequate cholesterol is essential for good health.
For example, 25 percent of the cholesterol in your body is in your brain, even though your brain is only 2 percent of your body’s weight. The cholesterol is absolutely essential for neuron transport, which is why lack of cholesterol can negatively affect your brain function. But impaired memory and dementia are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to low cholesterol’s impact on your brain. Having too little of this beneficial compound also:

Increases your risk of depression
Can cause you to commit suicide
May lead to violent behavior and aggression
Increase your risk of cancer and Parkinson’s disease

That’s a bit of background to get you warmed up to the idea that cholesterol is your friend, not your enemy. Now, getting back to sunscreen and Alzheimer’s, using these products will make it virtually impossible for your body to do what it was designed to do, which is produce important, disease-fighting substances like vitamin D and cholesterol sulfate when exposed to the sun. Dr. Stephanie Seneffii, a senior scientist at MIT who has a wealth of information about the importance of sulfur, explains:

” … depletion of sulfate supply to the brain is another important contributor to Alzheimer’s, and I further think that sulfate is supplied to the brain principally by sterol sulfates like cholesterol sulfate as well as their derivatives like vitamin D3 sulfate. Both cholesterol sulfate and vitamin D3 sulfate are synthesized in the skin upon exposure to sunlight, and it is theorized that the skin is the major supplier of these nutrients to the body. This is why I believe that excess sunscreen use and excess sun avoidance are another principal causative factor in Alzheimer’s disease.”

Why is Cholesterol Sulfate so Important?

Your skin produces large amounts of cholesterol sulfate, which is water-soluble and provides a healthy barrier against bacteria and other potentially disease-causing pathogens that might otherwise enter your body through your skin. And, due to its polarity, it can enter both fat cells and muscle cells with equal ease. Dr. Seneff proposes that, because of this, cholesterol sulfate may be able to protect fat and muscle cells from glucose and oxygen damage.
She also argues that when you’re deficient in cholesterol sulfate, your muscle and fat cells become more prone to damage, which subsequently can lead to glucose intolerance, a condition where your muscles cannot process glucose as a fuel. As a result, your fat cells have to store more fat in order to supply fuel to your muscles, and excess fat accumulates as damage increases.
Sulfur also plays an important role in glucose metabolism. She hypothesizesiii that if a sufficient amount of sulfur is available, it will act as a decoy to glucose, effectively diverting it to reduce the sulfur rather than glycating and causing damage. This would have the beneficial effect of reducing inflammation, as sugar (glucose) is highly inflammatory and wreaks havoc in your body.
What does this have to do with your brain? The process applies not only to fat and muscle cells, but also to cells in your brain (and, in fact, to all cells in your body). Dr. Seneff explains:

“Essentially all cells in the body are surrounded by an exterior coat made up of complex molecules called “GAGs” — glycosaminoglycans. These contain sugars, proteins, and a large population of attached ions, particularly sulfate anions. These serve, I believe, an important role in helping to safely break down sugar. Simply stated, the sulfur atom deflects the reducing actions of sugars away from the vulnerable proteins.
The sulfate anions also provide a negative field around the cell, which is very useful for keeping bacteria out, because bacteria are also negatively charged, and hence repelled by the cell’s negative electric field. So cells with lots of surrounding sulfate are afforded protection from invasive bacteria. If a bacterium does get in, the cell will have to release oxidizing agents to kill it, and the cell itself will suffer damage from exposure to its own defense system. The fats in the cell membrane are more vulnerable to oxidative damage when there is insufficient cholesterol to protect them.”

This means that depletion of the sulfate supply to your brain could leave your brain cells more susceptible to damage and may increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Seneff also points out to recent papers that have also linked insufficient cholesterol with Alzheimer’s and mental decline:

Serum levels of cholesterol as well as the ability to synthesize cholesterol are inversely associated with mental declineiv in the elderly
A study directly comparing Alzheimer’s patients with age-matched controls showed a reduced serum level of LDL in the Alzheimer’s patientsv, with the more severe cases showing further reduction in LDL

Vitamin D Deficiency Also Increase Alzheimer’s Risk

Sunscreen is a double-edged sword when it comes to your brain health, as aside from blocking your ability to produce cholesterol sulfate, it also blocks your production of vitamin D — and there is no shortage of research linking vitamin D to brain health. One such study was actually launched after family members of Alzheimer’s patients who were treated with large doses of prescription vitamin D reported they were acting and performing better than before.
Strong links between low levels of vitamin D in Alzheimer’s patientsvi and poor outcomes on cognitive tests were revealed. Researchers believe that optimal vitamin D levels may enhance the amount of important chemicals in your brain and protect brain cells. Vitamin D may also exert some of its beneficial effects on Alzheimer’s through its anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting properties. Sufficient vitamin D is imperative for proper functioning of your immune system to combat inflammation that is also associated with Alzheimer’s.

Safe Sun Exposure Without Sunscreen

If you work outdoors all day as part of your job, or if you need to protect sensitive areas of your face, like around your eyes, that are particularly susceptible to photoaging and not large enough a surface to impact vitamin D levels if blocked with sunscreen, certain sunscreens available in most health food stores, and my Healthy Skin Sunscreen, are safe to use when the need arises. However, I personally use and recommend wearing a hat when you are in the sun as this typically can shade the sensitive skin around your eyes.
I would avoid applying sunscreen regularly as most commercial ones have toxic chemicals that you should not be exposed to. If you do use a sunscreen make sure it is safe and natural. Remember once your skin turns the lightest shade of pink (if you’re Caucasian), it’s time to get out of the sun. Past this point of exposure your body will not produce any more vitamin D and you’ll begin to have sun damage. And sunburn anywhere on your body is not good for your health.
If sunshine outdoors is not an option for you because of the winter or your job, you can get many of the same benefits by using a safe tanning bed (one with electronic ballasts rather than magnetic ballasts, to avoid unnecessary exposure to electromagnetic fields). Safe tanning beds also have less of the dangerous UVA than sunlight, while unsafe ones have more UVA than sunlight.
In terms of vitamin D, it’s especially important to get it from sun exposure or a tanning bed, rather than a vitamin D3 supplement if at all possible, because when you expose your skin to sunshine, your body produces vitamin D3 sulfate. This form of vitamin D is water-soluble, unlike oral vitamin D3 supplements, which is unsulfated. The water-soluble form can travel freely in your bloodstream, whereas the unsulfated form needs LDL (the so-called “bad” cholesterol) as a vehicle of transport. Dr. Seneff believes that the oral non-sulfated form of vitamin D may not provide all of the same benefits as the vitamin D created in your skin from sun exposure, because it cannot be converted to vitamin D sulfate.

Coconut Oil Offers Profound Benefits for Your Brain

Coconut oil may help protect you from Alzheimer’s by providing your brain with an additional fuel supply. Your brain actually manufactures its own insulin to convert glucose into the fuel it needs, but recent discoveries indicate that your brain can essentially become “diabetic.” As you may know, diabetes is the condition where your body’s response to insulin is weakened due to “insulin resistance”—your body eventually stops producing the insulin necessary to regulate blood sugar.
Just like with diabetes, your brain can become insulin resistant. If this happens, your brain loses its ability to convert glucose into energy, leading to essentially a starvation state, and this can result in brain atrophy. This is what happens to Alzheimer’s patients—portions of their brain start to atrophy, or starve, leading to impaired functioning and eventual loss of memory, speech, movement and personality. Given this, you can now understand why diabetics have a 65 percent increased risk of also being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease—BOTH conditions are tied to insulin resistance.
This is where coconut oil may help.
Coconut oil provides ketones to your brain, and ketones appear to be the preferred source of brain food in patients with diabetes and/or Alzheimer’s. Coconut oil is a primary source of ketones, since it contains 66 percent medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), a type of fat your body can easily and quickly convert into ketones.
In effect, coconut oil is a fat that acts like a carbohydrate in your body, and carbs are your brain’s favorite food. For more about this, refer to this article, which discusses this in more detail. Therapeutic levels of MCTs can be achieved by taking just over two tablespoons of coconut oil daily (about 35ml or 7 level teaspoons), but I recommend working your way up to 4 tablespoons per day, gradually, beginning with just one teaspoon in the morning, WITH a meal to minimize the risk of stomach upset.

Other Important Tips for Alzheimer’s Prevention

In order to effectively prevent a disease, you must address its underlying causative factors. Although we do not have definitive “proof” of what, specifically, causes Alzheimer’s, a number of factors have been linked to an increased risk of dementia, and we know enough about those to in turn make educated recommendations for preventing this type of brain deterioration. Some of the best strategies for Alzheimer’s prevention, aside from adequate sunlight exposure, include:

Fructose. You simply MUST keep your level below 25 grams per day. This toxic influence is serving as the master regulator of brain toxicity. Since the average person is exceeding this recommendation by 300% this is a pervasive and serious issue. I view this as the MOST important step you can take.

Additionally, when your liver is busy processing fructose (which your liver turns into fat), it severely hampers its ability to make cholesterol. This is yet another important facet that explains how and why excessive fructose consumption is so detrimental to your health.
Keep your fasting insulin levels below 3. This is indirectly related to fructose, as it will clearly lead to insulin resistance. However other sugars, grains and lack of exercise are also factors here.
Vitamin B12: According to a small Finnish study recently published in the journal Neurologyvii, people who consume foods rich in B12 may reduce their risk of Alzheimer’s in their later years. For each unit increase in the marker of vitamin B12 (holotranscobalamin) the risk of developing Alzheimer’s was reduced by 2 percent. Very high doses of B vitamins have also been found to treat Alzheimer’s disease and reduce memory loss.
Eat a nutritious diet, rich in folate, such as the one described in my nutrition plan. Strict vegetarian dietsviii have been shown to increase your Alzheimer’s risk, whereas diets high in omega-3’s lower your riskix. However, vegetables, without question, are your best form of folate, and we should all eat plenty of fresh raw veggies every day.
High-quality animal based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil. (I recommend avoiding most fish because although fish is naturally high in omega-3, most fish are now severely contaminated with mercury.) High intake of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA helps by preventing cell damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease, thereby slowing down its progression, and lowering your risk of developing the disorder. Researchers have also said DHA “dramatically reduces the impact of the Alzheimer’s gene.”
Avoid and remove mercury from your body. Dental amalgam fillings are one of the major sources of mercury, however you should be healthy prior to having them removed. Once you have adjusted to following the diet described in my optimized nutrition plan, you can follow the mercury detox protocol and then find a biological dentist to have your amalgams removed.
Avoid aluminum, such as antiperspirants, non-stick cookware, vaccine adjuvants, etc.
Exercise regularly. It’s been suggested that exercise can trigger a change in the way the amyloid precursor protein is metabolizedx, thus, slowing down the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s. Exercise also increases levels of the protein PGC-1alpha. New research has shown that people with Alzheimer’s have less PGC-1alpha in their brainsxi, and cells that contain more of the protein produce less of the toxic amyloid protein associated with Alzheimer’s.

I would strongly recommend reviewing the Peak Fitness Technique for my specific recommendations.
Avoid flu vaccinations as most contain both mercury and aluminum!
Eat plenty of blueberries. Wild blueberries, which have high anthocyanin and antioxidant content, are known to guard against Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.
Challenge your mind daily. Mental stimulation, especially learning something new, such as learning to play an instrument or a new language, is associated with a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s. Researchers suspect that mental challenge helps to build up your brain, making it less susceptible to the lesions associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Avoid anticholinergic and statin drugs. Drugs that block acetylcholine, a nervous system neurotransmitter, have been shown to increase your risk of dementia. These drugs include certain night-time pain relievers, antihistamines, sleep aids, certain antidepressants, medications to control incontinence, and certain narcotic pain relievers.

A study found that those who took drugs classified as ‘definite anticholinergics’ had a four times higher incidence of cognitive impairmentxii. Regularly taking two of these drugs further increased the risk of cognitive impairment. Statin drugs are particularly problematic because they suppress the synthesis of cholesterol.

As Dr. Seneff reports:

“Statin drugs interfere with cholesterol synthesis in the liver, but the lipophilic statin drugs (like lovastatin and simvastatin) also interfere with the synthesis of cholesterol in the brain. This would then directly impact the neurons’ ability to maintain adequate cholesterol in their membranes. Indeed, a population-based study showed that people who had ever taken statins had an increased risk of Alzheimer’s diseasexiii, a hazard ratio of 1.21. More alarmingly, people who used to take statins had a hazard ratio of 2.54 (over two and a half times the risk to Alzheimer’s) compared to people who never took statins.”

For more information, read Dr. Seneff’s essay on statins and Alzheimer’s diseasexiv.

By Dr. Mercola

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are a complex group of compounds formed when sugar reacts with amino acids.
This can occur both in the food you eat, and inside your body.
It’s is a fitting acronym because – along with oxidation – it’s one of the major molecular mechanisms whereby damage accrues in your body, which leads to disease, aging, and eventually, death.
For example, there is mounting evidence that AGEs may be implicated in the development of the chronic degenerative diseases associated with aging, including but not limited to:

Cardiovascular disease
Alzheimer’s disease, and
Diabetes

Several studies have shown that restricting the consumption of AGEs can lead to an increased lifespan in animal models.
According to a paper that summarizes recent research on AGEsi:

“… [T]he data are supportive that endogenous AGEs are associated with declining organ functioning. It appears that dietary AGEs may also be related.
… As of today, restriction of dietary intake of AGEs and exercise has been shown to safely reduce circulating AGEs, with further reduction in oxidative stress and inflammatory markers.”

Why Limiting Sugar is Key for Longevity

Limiting sugar in your diet is a well-known key to longevity, because of all the molecules capable of inflicting damage in your body, sugar molecules are probably the most damaging of all. Fructose in particular is an extremely potent pro-inflammatory agent that creates AGEs and speeds up the aging process. It also promotes the kind of dangerous growth of fat cells around your vital organs that are the hallmark of diabetes and heart disease. In one study on fructose, 16 volunteers on a controlled diet including high levels of fructose produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs in just 10 weeks!
Sugar/fructose also increases your insulin and leptin levels and decreases receptor sensitivity for both of these vital hormones, and this is another major factor of premature aging and age-related chronic degenerative diseases such as heart disease. Keep in mind that while it’s perfectly normal for your blood sugar levels to rise slightly after every meal, it is not natural or healthy when your blood sugar levels become excessively elevated and stay that way.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what will happen if you’re eating like the stereotypical American, who consumes a staggering 2.5 pounds of sugar a week on average!
And when you add in other low-quality carb foods such as white bread, sugar, pasta, pastries, cookies, and candy, which also break down to sugar in your body, it’s not so difficult to see why so many Americans are in such poor health.
This type of high-sugar (high-carb) diet is also what’s driving the obesity epidemic—not diets high in fat. An infographic created by Column Five for Massive Health, based on Why We Get Fat by science writer Gary Taubes, explains why. In short, carbs, like fructose and other sugars, destroy your insulin and leptin sensitivity, which in turn causes your cells to accumulate more fat, and makes it more difficult to get rid of the extra weight as well. So, the bottom line is this: If you want to look and feel younger longer, avoid all forms of sugar (including grains) as much as possible!

IMAGE COURTESY OF MASSIVE HEALTH. READ ABOUT THIS INFOGRAPHIC

Glycation 101

Fructose adversely affects your body in a number of ways, but one of the mechanisms that causes significant damage is glycation. As already mentioned, glycation is the process in which sugar bonds with protein to form advanced glycation end products, or AGEs.
This process creates inflammation, which can activate your immune system.
Macrophages are scavenger cells that are part of your immune defense system, and as such they have special receptors for AGEs, aptly called RAGEs (think: raging inflammation). These RAGEs bind to the AGEs in your body and get rid of them. Unfortunately, this defensive process can also cause its fair share of damage. Inside your arteries, for example, the scar tissue created from this process is called plaque.
You really want to limit the AGEs in your body as much as possible, so your immune system won’t have to work so hard to defend against them. As a standard recommendation to limit glycation, I strongly advise keeping your TOTAL fructose consumption below 25 grams per day.
However, most people would be wise to limit their fructose to 15 grams or less, particularly if you have elevated uric acid levels, which can be used as a predictor for fructose toxicity. (For more information on this, please see this previous article.) This includes keeping track of your fructose intake from whole fruits. For additional information about the fructose content of common fruits, please see this helpful fructose chart. I recommend this lower level simply because if you consume processed foods or sweet beverages at all, you’re virtually guaranteed to consume “hidden” sources of fructose.

Fructose Metabolism Basics

Anyone who still insists that “sugar is sugar” is way behind the times… There are in fact major differences in how your body processes different sugars, and it’s important to understand that when you consume fructose, your body packs on pounds at a much higher rate than it does when you consume glucose. The following summary details the main metabolic differences between fructose and glucose to help you understand how fructose can wreak such havoc with your health, and why it’s considerably worse for you than glucose:

After eating fructose, nearly all of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. But with glucose, your liver has to break down only 20 percent.
Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is “burned up” immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is primarily converted into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.
The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.
Fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate. In other words, fructose converts to activated glycerol (g-3-p), which is directly used to turn FFAs into triglycerides. The more g-3-p you have, the more fat you store. Glucose does not do this.
When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat. Fructose is essentially largely converted into fat!
The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which triggers your “fat switch,” causing you to gain more weight.
Glucose does not do this, as it suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin, which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and interferes with your brain’s communication with leptin, resulting in overeating.

How to Tame Your Sugar Cravings

As mentioned earlier, I recommend that you avoid as much sugar as possible. Do your best to keep your fructose consumption below 15-25 grams a day. This is especially important if you are overweight or have diabetes, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure.
Sugar is highly addictive, so cutting down can be a real challenge for some, especially if you’re consuming very high amounts. If you’re struggling with sugar addiction, I highly recommend trying an energy psychology technique called Turbo Tapping, which has helped many “soda addicts” kick their sweet habit. If you still want to use a sweetener occasionally, here’s what I recommend in lieu of sugar:

Use the sweet herb stevia.
Use organic cane sugar in moderation.
Use organic raw honey in moderation.
Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, which can damage your health even more quickly than fructose.
Avoid agave syrup since it is a highly processed sap that is almost all fructose. Your blood sugar will spike just as it would if you were consuming regular sugar or HFCS. Agave’s meteoric rise in popularity is due to a great marketing campaign, but any health benefits present in the original agave plant are processed out.

The Anti-Aging Lifestyle

Of all the healthy lifestyle strategies I know of that can have a significant impact on your longevity, normalizing your insulin and leptin levels is probably the most important. Cutting out sugar and grains and increasing exercise are two effective ways to accomplish that.
But to truly optimize your longevity and slow down the clock, your entire lifestyle needs to be taken into account. So, here are the rest of my top “anti-aging” recommendations. Incorporating these healthy lifestyle guidelines will help set you squarely on the path to optimal health and give you the best shot at living a much longer life:

Learn how to effectively cope with stress – Stress has a direct impact on inflammation, which in turn underlies many of the chronic diseases that kill people prematurely every day, so developing effective coping mechanisms is a major longevity-promoting factor.
Meditation, prayer, physical activity and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional and mental equilibrium. I also strongly believe in using energy psychology tools such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to address deeper, oftentimes hidden emotional problems.

Eat a healthy diet focused on whole, ideally organic, foods – My nutrition plan, based on natural whole foods, is your first step toward increasing your chances of living a longer, healthier life.
Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels. This is another very powerful and inexpensive intervention that can have profound benefits on your health. In the summer you can do this for free by careful and safe sun exposure. In the winter a therapeutic level of oral vitamin D can be achieved with an oral supplement (around 8,000 units of vitamin D3 a day for most adults)
Animal based omega-3 fats – Correcting the ratio of omega-3 to healthful omega-6 fats is a strong factor in helping you live longer. This typically means increasing your intake of animal based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil, while decreasing your intake of damaged omega-6 fats (think trans fats).
I do not, however, recommend the new prescription strength fish oil medication, sold under the name Lovaza. Don’t be fooled by their “all-natural” PR campaign. This is actually a drug to treat very high triglyceride levels. However, as with most other drugs, Lovaza comes with potentially dangerous side effects that you would not experience with a natural fish oil or krill oil supplement. Side effects include flu-like symptoms, infections, back pain, skin rashes, upset stomach, taste changes, digestive issues, chest pain, migraines and respiratory problems!
Additionally, new research strongly suggests that 500 mg of krill oil is more potent and far less expensive.

Get your antioxidants from foods –Good sources include blueberries, cranberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, beans, and artichokes.
Use coconut oil – Another excellent anti-aging food is coconut oil, known to reduce your risk of heart disease and lower your cholesterol, among other things. In fact, it’s doubly beneficial because it can be both eaten and applied directly to your skin. Coconut oil can be used in place of other oils, margarine, butter, or shortening, and can be used for all your cooking needs.
Get your resveratrol naturally – Resveratrol is one of the forerunners in the anti-aging pill race, but more than likely, by the time they’ve manipulated it into a synthetic pill (like the fish oil discussed above), it won’t be healthy for you.
Although resveratrol is the antioxidant found in red wine, I can’t recommend drinking wine in the hopes of extending your life because alcohol is a neurotoxin that can poison your brain and harm your body’s delicate hormonal balance. Instead, get your resveratrol from natural sources, such as whole grape skins and seeds, raspberries, mulberries, and peanuts.

Exercise regularly and smartly — Studies repeatedly show that regular, moderate-to-vigorous exercise can help prevent or delay your onset of hypertension, obesity, heart disease, osteoporosis, and the falls that lead to hip fracture. Although a lifetime of regular exercise is ideal, it’s never too late to start. It’s been shown that even individuals in their 70’s can substantially increase both strength and endurance with exercise.
High-intensity, interval training can also increase longevity as this specific style of training promotes human growth hormone production – yet another aspect of the longevity puzzle.

Avoid as many chemicals, toxins, and pollutants as possible – 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.
Avoid pharmaceutical drugs – Pharmaceutical drugs kill thousands of people prematurely every year – as an expected side effect of the action of the drug. And, if you adhere to a healthy lifestyle, you most likely will never need any of them in the first place.

Reference:

i Dietary Advanced Glycation End Products and Aging,Nutrients. 2010 December; 2(12): 1247–1265

$29 Billion Introduction from 29billion on Vimeo.By Dr. Mercola

Millions of people around the world take medications known as statins to lower their cholesterol.
The current value of the cholesterol-lowering drug industry is estimated at around $29 billion — and this is clearly a conservative estimate considering spending on cholesterol drugs in the United States alone reached nearly $19 billion in 2010.
But have the facts about cholesterol and heart disease been distorted by drug companies eager to increase their profits? 
A new documentary film project is underway to look for answers, and get the truth out about cholesterol once and for all…

Why Haven’t You Heard the Truth About Cholesterol?

There may be $29 billion very good reasons why … and this is the premise behind the new documentary film $29 Billion Reasons to Lie About Cholesterol (based on a book by the same name, authored by Justin Smith). As the film’s synopsis explains:

“So many resources are currently directed at cholesterol-lowering, however, a huge body of evidence suggests that this cholesterol-lowering is having little or no effect on people’s health. In fact, it may even be doing more harm than good.
We want to present the facts about cholesterol to the general public. These facts are fully supported by published studies within the medical literature, but unfortunately they are hardly ever discussed.
The pharmaceutical industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year promoting the idea that high cholesterol causes heart disease. The other side of the story receives very little attention. As a result, even doctors may have been misled; since they have only been exposed to the pharmaceutical industry’s viewpoint.”

Could it be possible that nearly everything your doctor and the media is telling you about high cholesterol and how it relates to saturated fats, heart disease and strokes is wrong?
Absolutely!
Could it also be possible that the makers of statin drugs are generating massive ill-gotten profits of this completely misguided and patently incorrect medical dogma — while patients, maybe even you or someone you love, are risking poor health or even death as a result? Yes!  And it’s time the word got out.

Does Lower Cholesterol Really Lead to Better Health?

A major clue that something is very off with the notion that high cholesterol causes heart disease can be found in this: even as cholesterol levels have become lower, rates of heart disease deaths have not followed suit!
In a report by Smith, it’s noted:

” … between 1994 and 2006 the percentage of men aged 65 to 74 with ‘high’ cholesterol decreased from 87% to 54% … Despite this, the rate of coronary heart disease for this age group stayed about the same … Other age groups have experienced an increase in the rate of heart disease as the number of people with ‘high’ cholesterol has decreased.”

Now here’s something you might find surprising: it turns out evidence linking high cholesterol to heart disease is actually weak, including the results of the Framingham Heart Study, which is often cited as proof of the lipid hypothesis (the notion that dietary fat leads to high cholesterol and causes heart disease).
The Framingham Heart Study began in 1948 and involved some 6,000 people from the town of Framingham, Massachusetts who filled out detailed questionnaires about their lifestyle habits and diets. The study is credited with identifying heart disease risk factors, such as smoking, high blood pressure, lack of exercise and, yes, high cholesterol.
Despite being widely publicized, the cholesterol link was weak, as researchers noted those who weighed more and had abnormally high blood cholesterol levels were slightly more at risk for future heart disease. What you don’t hear about is the fact that the more cholesterol and saturated fat people ate, the lower their cholesterol levels. In a 1992 editorial published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr. William Castelli, a former director of the Framingham Heart study, stated:

“In Framingham, Mass., the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower the person’s serum cholesterol … We found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories, weighed the least and were the most physically active.”

Cholesterol is simply not the main perpetrator causing heart disease. Dr. Stephen Sinatra, a board certified cardiologist and a prominent expert in the field of natural cardiology, explained in a recent interview: 

“Let’s face it, cholesterol is something your body needs. If you look at the MRFIT study [Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial] where they looked at 180,000 men over a period of… 13 years (1973-80); men with cholesterol of 330 had less hemorrhagic stroke than men with cholesterol less than 180. If you look at cholesterol numbers, the higher cholesterol number would give you protection from hemorrhagic stroke. (I’m not talking about ischemic stroke now but hemorrhagic stroke.)
… [W]e need cholesterol in our skin to activate vitamin D3 from sunlight.  We need cholesterol to make our sex hormones… to make our adrenal hormones.  We need it for lubrication.  We need it for neurotransmitter function in the brain. When LDL is driven too low, it’s no wonder that a lot of patients develop memory problems or pre-Alzheimer’s, or even total global amnesia, which is really losing one’s memory.  It’s very frightful and I have seen several cases.… There are so many other aspects that in my mind play a much bigger role that I put cholesterol down at the low end of the spectrum.”

Most of Your Body’s Cholesterol is Made by Your Liver, Not “Ingested” Via Your Diet

If high cholesterol and high-fat diets are really NOT the cause of heart disease, then how did this massive misinformation campaign start? It actually started more than 100 years ago when the lipid hypothesis was developed by a German pathologist named Rudolph Virchow. After studying arterial plaques from corpses, he theorized that cholesterol in your blood led to the development of plaques in your arteries.
Meanwhile, in 1913 in St. Petersburg, Russia, Nikolaj Nikolajewitsch Anitschkow fed rabbits cholesterol and determined that it led to atherosclerotic changes (apparently no one questioned the fact that rabbits are herbivores and do not naturally consume cholesterol!).
This started the notion that eating cholesterol leads to plaque deposits in your arteries, and at that time it was believed that all cholesterol in your blood was due to dietary sources. This, however, is not true, as it’s now known that your liver makes about 75 percent of your body’s cholesterol. That’s right! Even if you didn’t eat any cholesterol, you would still have cholesterol in your body, which is a good thing considering it’s needed by every one of your cells to produce cell membranes.
Your diet is actually an afterthought when it comes to what your cholesterol levels will be, but this simple truth is largely ignored or unrealized even by many physicians. In fact, statins are actually HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, that is, they act by blocking the enzyme in your liver that is responsible for making cholesterol (HMG-CoA reductase).

How Low Should Your Cholesterol Go? Official Guidelines Unsupported by Research, Influenced by Drug Company Dollars

The other interesting point to the cholesterol myth has to do with how low your levels should actually go; this, too, is a product of misinformation. In 2004, the U.S. government’s National Cholesterol Education Program panel advised those at risk for heart disease to attempt to reduce their LDL cholesterol to new specific, very low, levels.
Before 2004, a 130-milligram LDL cholesterol level was considered healthy.
The updated guidelines, however, recommended levels of less than 100, or even less than 70 for patients at very high risk — levels that often require multiple cholesterol-lowering drugs to achieve. In 2006, a review in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that there is insufficient evidence to support the target numbers outlined by the panel. The authors of the review were unable to find research providing evidence that achieving a specific LDL target level was important in and of itself, and found that the studies attempting to do so suffered from major flaws.
Several of the scientists who helped develop the guidelines even admitted that the scientific evidence supporting the less-than-70 recommendation was not very strong! So how did these excessively low cholesterol guidelines come about?  Eight of the nine doctors on the panel that developed the new cholesterol guidelines had been making money from the drug companies that manufacture statin cholesterol-lowering drugs — wouldn’t you know it, the same drugs the new guidelines suddenly created a dramatically larger market for in the United States.
The Washington Post reported:

“The extent of the connections was stunning: Of the nine members of the panel that wrote the guidelines, six had each received research grants, speaking honoraria or consulting fees from at least three and in some cases all five of the manufacturers of statins; only one had no financial links at all. If all the members with conflicts had recused themselves, in fact, only two would have been left.”

Did You Know Statins Can Actually Harm Your Heart?

While statin drugs do lower cholesterol very effectively, if cholesterol is not the culprit in heart disease, what purpose does this serve?  A new look at statin cholesterol-lowering drugs from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology claims that no study has ever proven that statins improve all-cause mortality — in other words, they don’t prolong your life any longer than if you’d not taken them at all. And rather than improving your life, they actually contribute to a deterioration in the quality of your life, destroying muscles and endangering liver, kidney and even heart function.
According to Stephanie Seneff, author of this stunning revelation:

“Statin drugs inhibit the action of an enzyme, HMG coenzyme A reductase, that catalyses an early step in the 25-step process that produces cholesterol. This step is also an early step in the synthesis of a number of other powerful biological substances that are involved in cellular regulation processes and antioxidant effects.
One of these is coenzyme Q10, present in the greatest concentration in the heart, which plays an important role in mitochondrial energy production and acts as a potent antioxidant …
Statins also interfere with cell-signaling mechanisms mediated by so-called G-proteins, which orchestrate complex metabolic responses to stressed conditions. Another crucial substance whose synthesis is blocked is dolichol, which plays a crucial role in the endoplasmic reticulum. We can’t begin to imagine what diverse effects all of this disruption, due to interference with HMG coenzyme A reductase, might have on the cell’s ability to function … There can be no doubt that statins will make your remaining days on earth a lot less pleasant than they would otherwise be … ”

Take one study in Clinical Cardiology, which found heart muscle function was “significantly better” in the control group than in those taking statin drugs! The researchers concluded:

“Statin therapy is associated with decreased myocardial [heart muscle] function.”

What’s often the end result when your heart muscle function is weakened or decreased? Heart failure! The study did not address causes, but it’s widely known that statins lower your CoQ10 levels by blocking the pathway involved in cholesterol production — the same pathway by which Q10 is produced. Statins also reduce the blood cholesterol that transports CoQ10 and other fat-soluble antioxidants.
The loss of CoQ10 leads to loss of cell energy and increased free radicals which, in turn, can further damage your mitochondrial DNA, effectively setting into motion an evil circle of increasing free radicals and mitochondrial damage. As your body gets more and more depleted of CoQ10, you may suffer from fatigue, muscle weakness and soreness, and eventually heart failure, so it is imperative if you take statin drugs that you take CoQ10 or, if you are over the age of 40, the reduced version called ubiquinol.

Statins Increase Your Risk of Chronic Disease

Statins appear to provoke serious risks of chronic disease, including diabetes, through a few different mechanisms. One primary mechanism is by increasing your insulin levels, which can be extremely harmful to your health. Chronically elevated insulin levels cause inflammation in your body, which is the hallmark of most chronic disease. In fact, elevated insulin levels lead to heart disease, which, ironically, is the primary reason for taking a statin 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. These drugs have also been directly linked to over 300 side effects, 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)

Did You Know?

View the Infographic
Embed this infographic on your website:

Learn the better indicator of heart disease risk than just your total cholesterol – plus the dangers of statins and the need to supplement with CoQ10 if you’re taking these cholesterol-lowering drugs – through our infographic “How to Make Sense of Your Cholesterol Levels.” Use the embed code to share it on your website.
Learn the better indicator of heart disease risk than just your total cholesterol – plus the dangers of statins and the need to supplement with CoQ10 if you’re taking these cholesterol-lowering drugs – through our infographic “How to Make Sense of Your Cholesterol Levels.”

Click on the code area and press CTRL + C (for Windows) / CMD + C (for Macintosh) to copy the code.
Are You Ready to Stop Buying Into the Cholesterol Lie?

The bottom line is this: 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. Further, there’s no doubt that statin drugs can wreak havoc with your health, and there’s compelling evidence that most people who currently take them simply do not need them.
If your physician is urging you to check your total cholesterol, then you should also 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.

The fact is that 75 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! By modifying your diet and lifestyle in the following ways, you can safely optimize your cholesterol and lower your risk of heart disease at the same time:

Reduce, with the plan of eliminating, grains and sugars in your diet, replacing them with mostly whole, fresh vegetable carbs. 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.
Exercise daily.
Avoid smoking or drinking alcohol excessively.
Be sure to get plenty of good, restorative sleep.

One final point to chew on, Dr. Seneff actually believes it’s difficult to get “too much” cholesterol in your diet, particularly in the standard American diet. But you may very well be getting too little, and that can cause problems.
Foods that are very high in cholesterol, like caviar, liver, and the adrenal glands of bears, were highly valued in some cultures that also had very low rates of heart disease and other modern diseases. Likewise, many foods that are today shunned because they are high in saturated fat, such as grass-fed beef, egg yolks, coconut oil and butter, and therefore “bad” for your cholesterol are actually among the healthiest fats you can eat!

By Dr. Mercola

Calcium is one of the most popular dietary supplements on the market, largely because of the widely circulated mantra that mega-doses of this mineral are essential for building and maintaining healthy bones.
As a result, many people believe that taking a calcium supplement is a simple way to prevent bone fractures associated with osteoporosis.
What they have not been told is that while you can force increased bone mineral density with calcium supplements, you cannot be sure that this will result in greater bone strength.
Be Careful In Interpreting Bone Tests Results

Bone density, while an excellent measurement of compressive strength, does not reveal tensile strength, i.e. whether or not your bone will resist breaking from being pulled or stretched, as commonly occurs in a fall or similar trauma.
Moreover, “osteoporosis,” as presently defined by bone scans (DXA scan) using the T-score, inappropriately defines “normal bone density” according to the standard of a 25-year old, young adult.
In other words, if you are 40, 50, or even 100, the T-score-based system says your bones are not normal, or even diseased if they are not as dense as they were when you were a young adult.
If in fact they used the age-appropriate Z-score, most cases of “osteopenia,” and many cases of “osteoporosis,” would suddenly disappear because they were inappropriately classified from the start.
Do Calcium Supplements Predispose You to Breast Cancer?

Ultimately, the “calcium is good for your bones” mantra is yet another example of a good theory gone wrong, and represents how broadly deluded the mainstream medical community is about bone health and the nature of osteoporosis, and its highly fabricated twin condition “osteopenia.” 
There are actually a number of studies indicating that mass market calcium supplements increase your risk for cardiovascular incidents and other problems, while offering little benefit to your bones. Only because something can increase your bone density: eating what amounts to chalk or pulverized bone meal, or worse, chemicals like the drugs Fosamax and Evista, does not mean this will translate into improved health for your bones, or any of your other organ systems.
Indeed, before jumping off the lemming-like cliff of conventional medical wisdom, consider there is a solid body of research indicating that higher bone density may actually increase the risk of malignant breast cancer by 300% or more! Considering that close to 1 in 4 women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lives, with breast cancer top on the list, isn’t the neurotic fixation on increasing bone density with calcium supplements misplaced, especially when it may increase the overall risk of dying from cancer and, as we will see, cardiovascular disease (the #1 killer), as well?
Calcium Can be Beneficial or Deadly Depending on Where it Ends Up in Your Body

Calcium is the most abundant mineral in your body, necessary for not only bone health but also regulating your heartbeat, conducting nerve impulses, clotting blood and stimulating hormone secretions. Your body does not make calcium, and in fact loses calcium daily through your skin, nails, hair, sweat and elimination, which is why you must replace it via your diet.
It has been estimated, however, that your body excretes as little as 100 mg a day, making the current recommendations by the National Osteoporosis Foundation for women over 50 to take 1200 mg a day, a bit troubling.  When we compare our calcium-rich diet to the traditional calcium-poor Chinese peasant diet, which was free of cow’s milk and calcium supplements, approximately 250 mg a day of plant-based calcium was all that was needed to fulfill their bodily needs – and this is a culture with no word for “osteoporosis” in its 3,000+ year old language!
The truth is that taking any calcium in excess or isolation, without complementary nutrients like magnesium, vitamin D and vitamin K2, which help keep your body in balance, can have adverse effects, such as calcium building up in coronary arteries and causing heart attacks. Even taking calcium with vitamin D does not appear to be enough to prevent these types of adverse effects.
So when you take a biologically foreign form of calcium (such as limestone, oyster shell and bone meal (hydroxylapatite), or when your body’s ability to direct calcium to the right places becomes impaired (as when you are deficient in vitamin K2), calcium may be deposited where it shouldn’t be, which can lead to multiple health problems.
Often, much of the burden of removing the excess calcium falls on the kidneys, which is why it has been proven on numerous occasions that calcium carbonate rapidly calcifies arteries in those with compromised kidney function, especially hemodialysis patients.  Calcium deposits are, in fact, major contributors and even causative factors in many conditions, including the following:

Cellulite and scar tissue
Coronary artery disease and atherosclerosis
Dental plaque and gum disease
Hypothyroidism

Obesity and diabetes
Alzheimer’s disease
Breast cancer and cysts (fibrocystic breasts)
Gallstones, colon cancer and Crohn’s disease

Kidney stones
Ovarian cysts
Cataracts, glaucoma, and macular degeneration
Bone spurs, stiff joints, osteoarthritis, tendonitis and bone cancer
Too Much Calcium May Create Mineral Deficiencies that Promote Disease

Robert Thompson, M.D. wrote a book on this subject called The Calcium Lie, which explains that bone is comprised of at least a dozen minerals, and the exclusive focus on calcium supplementation is likely to worsen bone density and actually increase your risk for osteoporosis. Dr. Thompson believes overconsumption of calcium creates other mineral deficiencies and imbalances that will increase your risk of heart disease, kidney stones, gallstones, osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism, obesity and type 2 diabetes.
If your calcium supplement is being turned into “little rocks” that are being deposited in your soft tissues and arteries, you can begin to understand how this could be increasing your risk for a heart attack, stroke or other health condition.
Many believe that arterial plaque is simply a buildup of cholesterol. But in reality, more than 90 percent of these fatty plaques are calcified. Cholesterol is soft and waxy and does not impair the elasticity of your arteries. But calcium deposits are like concrete, “hardening” your arteries and impairing their ability to expand. It is calcium — not cholesterol — that induces arterial stiffness and makes the plaque less stable and more prone to chipping off and subsequently inducing a life-threatening clot.
This is particularly important for postmenopausal women because hormone balance is necessary for proper calcium signaling — directing your body to deposit calcium into your bones. When hormones fall out of balance, this signaling causes calcium to slowly exit your bones and become deposited in your arteries instead. Simply taking a calcium supplement will not solve the problem because if your body cannot direct the calcium to the right spot, it will cause far more harm than good.
Why Vitamin K2 is Crucial if You Take Vitamin D and Calcium …

Vitamin K2 engages in a delicate dance with vitamin D; whereas vitamin D provides improved bone development by helping you absorb calcium, there is new evidence that vitamin K2 directs the calcium to your skeleton, while preventing it from being deposited where you don’t want it — i.e., your organs, joint spaces, and arteries. As mentioned, a large part of arterial plaque consists of calcium deposits (atherosclerosis), hence the term “hardening of the arteries.”
Vitamin K2 has also actually been found to decalcify certain tissues undergoing pathological (also known as ectopic) calcification.
Vitamin K2 activates a protein hormone called osteocalcin, produced by osteoblasts, which is needed to bind calcium into the matrix of your bone. Osteocalcin also appears to help prevent calcium from depositing into your arteries. In other words, without the help of vitamin K2, the calcium that your vitamin D so effectively lets in might be working AGAINST you — by building up your coronary arteries rather than your bones. This is why if you take calcium and vitamin D but are deficient in vitamin K, you could be worse off than if you were not taking those supplements at all.
Food is the Best Source of Calcium

In order for calcium to do your body good, it must be in a bioavailable form and balanced out with vitamins D and K and other important trace minerals, as part of a total nutritional plan.
 Good sources include raw milk and cheese from pasture-raised cows (who eat the plants), leafy green vegetables, the pith of citrus fruits, carob, sesame seeds and wheatgrass, to name a few. It’s worth mentioning that the studies done about calcium from dairy products are all done with pasteurized dairy, rather than raw dairy products that have more of their nutrients intact, and this muddies the results of these studies.
Calcium from dietary sources is typically better absorbed and utilized than calcium from supplements, which is why studies involving calcium from natural food sources have shown favorable results, including a 25 percent lower risk of dying from all causes, and a 23 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease.
You also need sources of silica and magnesium, which some researchers say is actually enzymatically “transmuted” by your body into the kind of calcium your bones can use. This theory was first put forth by French scientist Louis Kevran, a Nobel Prize nominee who spent years studying how silica, calcium, magnesium, and other minerals are related and transmutable into one another through low-energy nuclear transformation only found within living systems.
His theory explains how cows and chickens produce far more calcium in their milk and eggs than is found in their diet, or why, workers exposed to extremely high temperatures (130 degrees F) in the Middle East are known to consume salt tablets, which their bodies convert to potassium (as measured by their excreta), resulting in a reduction in their bodily temperature.
Good sources of bone-strengthening silica are cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, and a number of herbs including horsetail, nettles, oat straw, alfalfa, and raw cacao, which is also extremely rich in highly bioavailable magnesium.
Dr. Thompson recommends the use of natural unprocessed salt as a far better alternative to calcium supplements because it provides the trace minerals you simply cannot get from food grown in today’s mineral-depleted soils. My favorite source of trace minerals is pure, unprocessed Himalayan salt, which contains 84 elements needed by your body.
The bottom line is, optimize your vitamin D levels through sun exposure and consume a variety of fresh, local organic whole foods, including vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, organic meats and eggs, unprocessed salt, and raw organic unpasteurized dairy, which will give you the bioavailable calcium your body needs along with the trace minerals and other cofactors it needs to be absorbed and properly utilized by your body.

By Dr. Mercola

Twenty-one weed species around the world are now resistant to glyphosate, up from zero in 1996 — the year Monsanto started marketing its genetically engineered Roundup Ready crops.
Glyphosate, now the world’s bestselling weed killer and the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, is emerging as one of the most dangerous Monsanto products to date, in part because super weeds are emerging at an alarming rate.
A briefing by GM Freeze noted that in the United States, the worst-affected country (which is not surprising since the U.S. also leads the world in GM crop acreage), 13 resistant weed species cover more than 11 million acres, mostly those planted with Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) soy, corn and cotton crops.
The weeds are not only making Monsanto’s promises that their GM crops would reduce pesticide use completely laughable — since farmers are being forced to use multiple, and more, pesticides to keep weeds in their GM crops under control — but also are turning out to be a very big thorn in Monsanto’s proverbial side; one that ironically might turn out to threaten the very GM crops that created them.

Investors Warned About Monsanto’s Super Weeds
As GM Freeze reported, one investment company is now advising its clients to sell Monsanto shares because of the company’s problems with weed resistance, which are arguably set to snowball even further out of control in the very near future. Monsanto’s competitors, biotech giants like Dow and Bayer CropScience, are chomping at the bit to take over where Monsanto has failed, and already have released GM seeds with tolerance to multiple herbicides designed to be used on their own or in rotation with Roundup Ready crops in a last-ditch attempt to delay resistance from developing.
(No word yet on how these companies intend to deal with the new generation of super weeds that will inevitably develop in response to the new herbicide cocktail … )
So this dark cloud’s silver lining is the fact that, with super weeds becoming an undeniable threat that can no longer be ignored, the powers that be may be forced to acknowledge that GM crops are not all they’ve been cracked up to be. And Monsanto is also being shaken to its core by the grand scope of this environmental catastrophe.
GM Freeze reported:

“Monsanto is taking the problem of the rapid development of glyphosate resistance very seriously, as it represents a threat to their main sources of income.

… Monsanto has embarked on major changes in weed management in RR crops, which still includes the use of glyphosate on its own, but also in combination with other herbicides. This is increasing herbicide usage on these crops. So instead of the promised decrease in pesticide use on GM crops, the arrival of resistant weeds has resulted in herbicide use increasing on RR crops. Analysis of USDA data has found increases in herbicide use in all the crops where RR maize, cotton and soyabeans varieties dominate.

… Previous attempts to control resistant weeds by increasing the rate at which glyphosate is applied have proved unsuccessful, yet Monsanto appears to have no intention of taking responsibility for the failure of their technology.”

GM Crops Have Failed to Deliver … and That’s an Extreme Understatement
Herbicide tolerant (Roundup Ready) GM crops were supposed to control weeds and GM Bt crops were intended to control pests. Instead of controlling weeds and pests, GM crops have led to the emergence of super weeds and super pests 
And despite claims that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will lower the levels of chemicals (pesticides and herbicides) used, this clearly has not been the case. This is of great concern both because of the negative impacts of these chemicals on ecosystems and humans, and because there is the danger that increased chemical use will cause increasing numbers of pests and weeds to develop resistance, requiring even more chemicals in order to attempt to manage them.
According to Jeffrey Smith with the Institute for Responsible Technology, by 2004 farmers used an estimated 86 percent more herbicides on GM soy fields compared to non-GM fields. Unfortunately, Monsanto’s plan to circumvent the inevitable development of more superweeds is to douse fields with more and more chemicals.
The Institute of Science in Society reported:

“As Einstein famously quoted, ‘no problem can be solved with the same consciousness that created it.’ That is precisely what Monsanto is doing: advocating more and more herbicides to be used. New guidance published by the company to manage resistance includes:

• The use of a cocktail of pesticides including 2,4-D, prior to sowing crop seeds
• The production of GM seeds expressing tolerance to more than one pesticide. DuPont has already commercialised seeds tolerant to glyphosate and glufosinate. Monsanto has recently announced an agreement with the German pesticide and biotechnology company BASF to develop crops stacked with glyphosate and dicamba tolerant genes
• The use of herbicides that remains active in the soil, killing any seedlings as they germinate, including sulfentrozone

The consequences of increasing herbicide use are likely to put the environment and people at further risk.”

Why Glyphosate is a Health and Environmental Disaster
Glyphosate is the world’s bestselling weed killer, and it’s found in more than 30 percent of all herbicides — an extremely disturbing scenario considering the data showing it to be an immense threat to human health and the environment.
GM expert Jeffrey Smith has reported that glyphosate promotes the formation of certain types of fungi that are dangerous to people and contaminate food and animal feed. One such fungi, the Fusarium fungus, has been linked to plague epidemics, cancer, infertility and animal diseases. Residues of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide found in GM food and feed have also been linked to cell damage and death, even at very low levels. Researchers have also found it causes membrane and DNA damage, and inhibits cell respiration.
And in one animal study, rats given 1,000 mg/kg of glyphosate resulted in a 50 percent mortality rate, and skeletal alterations were observed in over 57 percent of fetuses!
Research published last year shows that glyphosate causes birth defects in frogs and chicken embryos at far lower levels than used in agricultural and garden applications.
The malformations primarily affected the:

Skull
Face
Midline and developing brain
Spinal cord

Other independent scientific research has also found that glyphosate causes:

✓ Endocrine disruption
✓ DNA damage

✓ Developmental toxicity
✓ Neurotoxicity

✓ Reproductive toxicity
✓ Cancer

✓ Liver Damage
✓ Kidney Damage

Many of these effects were apparent at much lower doses than the typical levels of pesticide residues found in food … Yet despite the evidence of widespread human exposure, which strongly suggests that the precautionary principle should be applied, regulators are turning a blind eye. 
Additionally, researchers have now linked glyphosate to Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS), a serious plant disease, in many fields around the world. Numerous studies have also shown that glyphosate is contributing not only to the huge increase in SDS, but also to the outbreak of some 40 different plant and crop diseases! It weakens plants and promotes disease in a number of ways, including:

Acting as a chelator of vital nutrients, depriving plants of the nutrients necessary for healthy plant function
Destroying beneficial soil organisms that suppress disease-causing organisms and help plants absorb nutrients
Interfering with photosynthesis, reducing water use efficiency, shortening root systems and causing plants to release sugars, which changes soil pH
Stunting and weakening plant growth

The herbicide doesn’t destroy plants directly; instead, it creates a unique “perfect storm” of conditions that activates disease-causing organisms in the soil, while at the same time wiping out plant defenses against those diseases. So the glyphosate not only weakens plants, it actually changes the makeup of the soil and boosts the number of disease-causing organisms, which is becoming a deadly recipe for crops around the globe.
On a slightly brighter note, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finally looking into the damaging effects of glyphosate on humans and the environment and plans to make a decision regarding its future by 2015. At that time, Roundup could either continue to be used as it is now, be required to have some modifications to its use or be banned from use entirely in the United States.

How to Opt-Out of the GMO Experiment
It’s quite clear that genetically engineered foods are not only threatening the food supply with the creation of super weeds, but they can also pose potentially serious threats to animal and human health when consumed. Fortunately, now you, too, can let your opinion be heard on this issue. Several organizations, including Mercola.com, the Organic Consumers Association, the Institute for Responsible Technology, and the Environmental Working Group, are working to generate a tipping point of consumer rejection to make GMOs a thing of the past.
Here’s how you can get involved:

If you live in California and are willing to attend a short training session and then start collecting petition signatures (you will be part of a team of 2-4 people) for the California Ballot Initiative, sign up here. (For more information see: The California Ballot Initiative: Taking Down Monsanto.) Also remember to share this information with family and friends in California!
Whether you live in California or not, please donate money to this historic effort.
Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the California Ballot. It may be the only chance we have to require the proper labeling of genetically engineered foods.
Distribute WIDELY the Non-GMO Shopping Guide to help you identify and avoid foods with GMOs. Look for products (including organic products) that feature the Non-GMO Project Verified Seal to be sure that at-risk ingredients have been tested for GMO content. You can also download the free iPhone application that is available from the iTunes store. You can find it by searching for ShopNoGMO in the applications.
For timely updates, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter
Look for in-depth coverage of the issue at the Institute for Responsible Technology, subscribe to Spilling the Beans, and check out their Facebook or Twitter.
You can also join the Non-GMO Project on Facebook, or Twitter

In the meantime, the simplest way to avoid GM foods is to buy whole, certified organic foods. By definition, foods that are certified organic must never intentionally use GM organisms, must be produced without artificial pesticides and fertilizers and come from an animal reared without the routine use of antibiotics, growth promoters or other drugs. Additionally, grass-fed beef will not have been fed GM corn feed, although now that GM alfalfa is approved, grass-fed will not always mean GMO free.
You can also look for foods that are “non-GMO verified” by the Non-GMO Project.

By Dr. Mercola

Statins, drugs that lower your cholesterol levels, are one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world.
In the US, a staggering one in four over the age of 45 is now taking this unnecessary drug!
Statins act by blocking a crucial  enzyme in your liver responsible for making cholesterol.
But that’s not all this enzyme is responsible for.
This enzyme also makes CoQ10, which is essential for mitochondrial health.
Perhaps it’s not so surprising then that many potentially dangerous side effects go hand-in-hand with statin drug use.
To date, there are no less than 900 studies proving their adverse effects, which run the gamut from muscle problems to diabetes, to birth defects and increased cancer risk.

Statins May Increase Prostate Cancer Risk
One recent study sought to determine whether the use of statin drugs was associated with prostate cancer risk.
The researchers looked at close to 400 prostate cancer patients who had a first-time diagnosis during the period between 2005 and 2008.
They found that use of any statin drug, in any amount, was associated with a significantly increased risk for prostate cancer.
In addition, there was an increasing risk that came along with an increasing cumulative dose.
According to the study:

“The results of this case-control study suggest that statins may increase the risk of prostate cancer.”

Statins Have Been Linked to Increased Cancer Risk for More Than a Decade
While the evidence still appears a bit all over the map, with study results ranging from increased cancer risk to reduced risk, to no noticeable risk at all, what IS clear is that conventional medicine still does not understand the full ramifications of artificially lowering your cholesterol levels, and they simply don’t know whether or not the use of these drugs may be adding fuel to an already out of control cancer epidemic.
In short, with well over 30 million Americans now taking statin drugs, we’re witnessing a massive ongoing ‘live’ experiment.
Over 10 years ago, research indicated that besides lowering cholesterol, statins could also promote the growth of new blood vessels. And, although this effect may help to prevent heart attacks and other forms of heart disease, it may also promote cancer as well by increasing the growth of blood vessels in cancerous tumors. Meanwhile, other studies have indicated the complete opposite; that statins can inhibit angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels), so again, it’s virtually impossible to say that statin safety and effectiveness is based on hard science…
But the statin-cancer connection actually goes much farther back than that. A review published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1996 stated:

“All members of the two most popular classes of lipid-lowering drugs (the fibrates and the statins) cause cancer in rodents, in some cases at levels of animal exposure close to those prescribed to humans. …

Longer-term clinical trials and careful postmarketing surveillance during the next several decades are needed to determine whether cholesterol-lowering drugs cause cancer in humans.

In the meantime, the results of experiments in animals and humans suggest that lipid-lowering drug treatment, especially with the fibrates and statins, should be avoided except in patients at high short-term risk of coronary heart disease.”

Cholesterol Guidelines are a Health Disaster
Needless to say, such warnings were completely ignored. Instead, public health officials have gone the opposite way, happily following the trail littered with the most cash.
Over the past decade, cholesterol guidelines have been altered to create ever more ‘patients’ to be treated with cholesterol-lowering drugs. In 2004, the U.S. government’s National Cholesterol Education Program panel advised those at risk for heart disease to attempt to reduce their LDL (bad) cholesterol to extremely low levels, and it’s been a health disaster ever since.
Before 2004, a 130-milligram LDL cholesterol level was considered healthy. The updated guidelines, however, recommended levels of less than 100, or even less than 70 for patients at very high risk. These updated guidelines instantly increased the market for cholesterol-lowering drugs. The marked has further increased with the call to begin screening children prior to puberty, and prescribing statins to kids as young as eight.
Not surprisingly, eight of the nine doctors on the approval panel for these absurdly low guidelines had financial ties to the companies making these cholesterol-lowering drugs.

FDA Doesn’t “Believe” in Statin-Cancer Link
Back in 2008, troubling study findings were released showing a dramatically increased risk of cancer related deaths in those taking Inegy (also sold under the trade name Vytorin). The drug combines the widely-used statin drug simvastatin with another medication called ezetimibe, which blocks the absorption of cholesterol in your gut. The study also found no benefit whatsoever from the drug.
This despite the fact that it reduced LDL cholesterol levels by a respectable 61 percent, which “should have” had an effect on cardiovascular events, based on the prevailing hypothesis that high LDL equates to high risk of heart disease. So, in a nutshell, the drug had no beneficial impact on the primary outcome (meaning it did not reduce major cardiovascular adverse events), while more people developed cancer on the treatment (105 versus 70 patients taking a placebo), and more cancer related deaths (39 cancer deaths versus 23 in the control group).
A couple of months after the results were revealed, a panel assembled by the American Academy of Cardiology declared that:

“… the aggressively marketed drug combination should be used only as a last resort. There is currently no evidence that ezetimibe, which reduces levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, improves clinical outcomes such as myocardial infarction or death.”

In December 2009, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the completion of their review of the disturbing SEAS trial (above), as well as interim data from two other large-scale ongoing cardiovascular trials using Vytorin: the SHARP and IMPROVE-IT trials. (The SHARP trial was concluded in 2010, while the IMPROVE-IT trial is expected to be completed in 2012.)
Their conclusion?

“FDA believes it is unlikely that Vytorin or Zetia increase the risk of cancer or cancer-related death.”

I don’t know how much faith you have in the FDA’s beliefs, but mine is on pretty shaky ground… The FDA goes on to list a number of factors that were weighed to reach the conclusion that they believe cancer is unrelated to the drugs. You can review them for yourself here, and see if you would concur with their assessment.

Statins May Increase Your Risk of Heart Disease
Ironically, while reducing your risk of cardiovascular events and heart disease is the primary motivation for prescribing statins, these drugs can actually increase your risk of heart disease because they deplete your body of Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), which can lead to heart failure.  Statins have also been linked to:

✓ Weakness
✓ Serious degenerative muscle tissue condition (rhabdomyolysis)
✓ Pancreas or liver dysfunction, including a potential increase in liver enzymes

✓ Muscle problems, aches and pains
✓ Diabetes
✓ Polyneuropathy (nerve damage in the hands and feet)

✓ Immune system suppression
✓ Increased risk of food borne illness
✓ Anemia

✓ Sexual dysfunction (erectile dysfunction)
✓ Cataracts
✓ Cognitive impairment, including memory loss and transient global amnesia

The Importance of CoQ10 or, if You’re Over 40, Ubiquinol
As mentioned in the beginning, statin drugs also block the production of Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), and that in and of itself poses a very serious health risk. As your body gets more and more depleted of CoQ10, you may suffer from fatigue, muscle weakness and soreness, and eventually heart failure. Coenzyme Q10 plays a vital role in the process of neutralizing free radicals and the optimal production of cellular energy.
Unfortunately, the majority of people who take statins are unaware of their need for CoQ10, and physicians rarely advise their patients to take this supplement along with their statin—at least in the United States. It’s also important to supplement right from the start, to ward off irreversible mitochondrial damage.
Make no mistake about it, if you’re on a statin drug, you simply must take a CoQ10 supplement. If you’re over the age of 40, I strongly recommend using the reduced version, called ubiquinol. Ubiquinol is a far more effective form—I personally take it every day as it has far-ranging health benefits. There’s evidence that CoQ10/ubiquinol is beneficial for Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and even cancer, as well as staving off premature aging in general by preventing telomere shortening, which can slow or potentially even reverse the aging process.
Unlike prescription drugs that kill over 125,000 people every year in the U.S. alone, there are no reported side effects of CoQ10 supplementation and no one has ever died from taking it.

What Drug Companies Don’t Want You to Know About LDL
While statins drugs are very effective for lowering so-called “bad” cholesterol, the low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, it’s important to realize that there are different sizes of LDL cholesterol particles, and it’s the LDL particle size that is relevant, as small particles get stuck easily and causes more inflammation. Unfortunately, most people don’t hear about that part, and very rarely, if ever, get it tested.
Naturally, the drug companies really don’t want you to know about this, because statins do not modulate the size of the particles.
The only way to make sure your LDL particles are large enough to not get stuck and cause inflammation and damage is through your diet. In fact, modulating LDL particle size is one of the things that insulin does. If you eat properly and maintain normal insulin levels, then everything works as it should—the LDL particles are large and buoyant; they don’t get stuck, and don’t cause inflammation.
So rather than worry about your cholesterol numbers, you really want to work on reducing inflammation, which can be caused by numerous things, including:

Oxidized cholesterol (cholesterol that has gone rancid, such as that from overcooked, scrambled eggs)
Eating lots of sugar and grains
Eating foods cooked at high temperatures
Eating trans fats
A sedentary lifestyle
Smoking
Emotional stress

When you get to the bottom of it, the real “villain” of heart disease is typically an unhealthy lifestyle, characterized by a heavy reliance on sugars and grains, processed, highly cooked foods, and insufficient amounts of exercise – not “high cholesterol” per se.
For more information about cholesterol and how to properly evaluate your heart disease risk, please see my detailed special report on cholesterol.

By Dr. Mercola

In Europe genetically modified foods and ingredients have to be labeled.
In the United States, they do not.
But the truth is, if and when GM labeling is finally required in the United States, you’re going to see changes to the majority of food labels in your supermarket, as GM foods already widely appear in our food supply.
Most people are not aware that nearly EVERY processed food you encounter at your local supermarket that does not bear the “USDA Organic” label is filled with GM components.
This is due to the amount of GM crops now grown in the United States (over 90 percent of all corn is GM corn and over 95 percent all soy is GM soy).
As you might suspect, it’s in the interest of the industry to keep the prevalence of GM ingredients quiet and they won’t go down without a fight.

Biotech Industry Spends More Than Half a Billion to Influence Congress
In just over a decade, the food and agriculture biotechnology industry has spent more than $572 million in campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures, according to an analysis by Food & Water Watch.
Key among the goals of this intense lobbying effort is to prevent GM food labeling and keep Americans in the dark about the contents of their food.
The analysis states:

“The food and agriculture biotechnology industry has been flexing its financial political muscle to ease the regulatory oversight of genetically modified foods. Lobbying efforts for some of these firms and groups have included approval of cloned food and genetically engineered food, animals and livestock.

Companies are also fighting to eliminate or prevent labeling on genetically modified foods in the United States and preventing other countries from regulating genetically modified foods. These efforts have dovetailed with lobbying to tighten intellectual property law protections over patented seeds and animals in attempts to further benefit the biotech industry.”

Over 95 percent of Americans polled said they think GM foods should require a label, stating it’s an ethical issue and consumers should be able to make an informed choice. Like people in Europe, Americans are suspicious of GM foods, and a large part of why many continue to buy them is because they are unaware that they’re already in the food. A prominent GM food label would be a death sentence to U.S. GM crops, which are right now enjoying a free for all when it comes to entering the food market.
As Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association stated:

“Why are there basically no genetically engineered foods or crops anywhere in Europe, while 75 percent of U.S. supermarket foods—including many so-called “natural” foods—are GE tainted?

The answer is simple. In Europe genetically modified foods and ingredients have to be labeled. In the U.S. they do not. Up until now, in North America, Monsanto and the Biotechnocrats have enjoyed free reign to secretly lace non-organic foods with gene-spliced viruses, bacteria, antibiotic-resistant marker genes, and foreign DNA—mutant “Frankenfoods” shown to severely damage the health of animals, plants, and other living organisms in numerous scientific studies.

Monsanto and their allies understand the threat that truth-in-labeling poses for GMOs.

As soon as genetically modified foods start to be labeled in the U.S., millions of consumers will start to read these labels and react.

They’ll complain to grocery store managers and companies, they’ll talk to their family and friends. They’ll start switching to foods that are organic or at least GMO-free. Once enough consumers start complaining about GM foods and food ingredients; stores will eventually stop selling them; and farmers will stop planting them.

Genetically engineered foods have absolutely no benefit for consumers or the environment, only hazards. This is why Monsanto and their friends in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations have prevented consumer GMO truth-in-labeling laws from ever getting a public discussion, much less coming to a vote in Congress.”

Why the Approval of GM Alfalfa Could Mean the End of Organic
Industry lobbying is clearly working, as to date biotech companies have evaded mandatory labeling laws (although a new California initiative may change all of that). They also succeeded in getting GM alfalfa approved, which quite literally threatens the entire organic industry, including organic meat, as alfalfa is the fourth largest crop in the U.S., and is used to produce forage seed and hay to feed cows and other livestock.
Contamination would be disastrous for organic dairy- and cattle farmers as federal organic standards forbid them from using GM crops, and organic food manufacturers will reject a food ingredient if found to be contaminated with GM material — not to mention Monsanto’s history of suing both conventional and organic farmers for patent infringement should their crops be cross-contaminated.

Download Interview Transcript

Cummins noted in the above  interview that any alfalfa growing within a five-mile radius of GM alfalfa will immediately become contaminated, and it’s clearly evident that GM crops of all kinds cannot be contained. They absolutely WILL contaminate their conventional and organic counterparts, which will mean ultimately the entire food supply will contain GMOs.
Some, like Dr. Philip Bereano, professor emeritus at the University of Washington and an engaged activist concerning GM foods, believe contamination is actually an intentional strategy by both the government and the industry to weaken the organic industry to simply allow GM animal feed in organics. 
Indeed, while USDA chief Tom Vilsack acknowledged alfalfa contamination concerns in an “Open Letter to Stakeholders” on December 30, 2010, stating that the USDA’s environmental impact statement “acknowledges the potential of cross-fertilization to non-GE alfalfa from GE alfalfa,” adding that cross-fertilization is “a significant concern for farmers who produce for non-GE markets at home and abroad,” steps were not taken to address them.

Congress is the Puppet, Biotech is the Puppeteer

It takes only a flick of biotech’s wrist to move Congress’ regulatory arms, and the truth is the revolving door between the two is spinning so fast that the line between industry lobbyists and legislators is permanently blurred.
As the Food & Water Watch report noted:

“At least a baker’s dozen of former members of Congress represent food and agriculture biotechnology interests as lobbyists. Of the companies surveyed, seven spent over $8.5 million to hire the firms of at least 13 former senators and representatives to represent these biotechnology interests to their former colleagues in the Congress. Many of these former legislators-turned-lobbyists have formidable legislative pedigrees.

For example, Former House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Charles Stenholm (D-TX) is currently a registered lobbyist for Syngenta, a seller of genetically modified plants in the United States and abroad.”

Biotech giant Monsanto is a prime example of how the industry has infiltrated U.S. regulatory agencies like the FDA and the USDA with their previous employees who are still very loyal to Monsanto. Cummins pointed out the following connections as a start:

Clarence Thomas, who did not withdraw himself from a Supreme Court decision on genetically engineered alfalfa last year, used to be the general counsel for Monsanto.
Michael Taylor, who was formerly the vice president of Monsanto, is now the Food and Drug Administration Deputy Commissioner for Foods.
Roger Beachy, the former director of the Monsanto-funded Danforth Plant Science Center in Saint Louis, is now the director of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Islam Siddiqui was vice president of Monsanto and Dupont’s funded pesticide-promotion group CropLife. He is now the agricultural negotiator for the U.S. Trade Representative. In other words, he is the enforcer for U.S. foreign policy that countries have to accept our genetically engineered exports.
Rajiv Shah is the former Agricultural Development Director for the pro-biotech Gates Foundation, who are frequently partnering with Monsanto. He served as Obama’s USDA undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics.
Elena Kagan has served as President Obama’s Solicitor General. She took Monsanto’s side against organic farmers on the roundup ready alfalfa case.
Ramona Ramiro, corporate counsel to Dupont, another biotech bully, has been nominated by President Obama to serve as general counsel for the USDA.

This is not an issue of Republican versus Democrat. As Cummins noted, both parties are guilty:

“We must point that it’s not just the Obama Administration that has served as a revolving door for Monsanto. We saw the same situation under Bush Jr., Clinton and Bush Sr. We have a corporation Monsanto that is not only out of control, but that places its people in high positions; that donates large sums of money to members of congress; and that basically gets its way every time there is a policy decision made in Washington.”

It should not come as a surprise, then, that even the current secretary of the USDA, Tom Vilsack, is thoroughly entrenched in the industry. As the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) pointed out:

Vilsack has been a strong supporter of genetically engineered crops, including bio-pharmaceutical corn.
The biggest biotechnology industry group, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, named Vilsack Biotech Governor of the Year. He was also the founder and former chair of the Governor’s Biotechnology Partnership.
When Vilsack created the Iowa Values Fund, his first poster child of economic development potential was Trans Ova and their pursuit of cloning dairy cows.
The undemocratic and highly unpopular 2005 seed pre-emption bill was Vilsack’s brainchild. The law strips local government’s right to regulate genetically engineered seed (including where GE can be grown, maintaining GE-free buffers or banning GE corn locally).
Vilsack is an ardent supporter of corn and soy-based biofuels, which use as much or more fossil fuel energy to produce them as they generate, while driving up world food prices and literally starving the poor.
Overall, Vilsack’s record is one of aiding and abetting Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and promoting animal cloning.

I think this makes it a lot easier to understand why GM crops have proliferated the American landscape and food supply, despite public outcry and organized opposition.

GM Crops Failing Miserably, Threatening Public Health
Virtually all of the claims of benefit of GM crops – increased yields, more food production, controlled pests and weeds, reductions in chemical use in agriculture, drought-tolerant seeds – have not materialized. The Global Citizens’ Report on the State of GMOs states:

Contrary to the claim of feeding the world, genetic engineering has not increased the yield of a single crop.
Herbicide tolerant (Roundup Ready) crops were supposed to control weeds and Bt crops were intended to control pests. Instead of controlling weeds and pests, GE crops have led to the emergence of super weeds and super pests … Herbicide resistant crops such as Roundup Ready cotton can create the risk of herbicide resistant “superweeds” by transferring the herbicide resistance to weeds.
Despite claims that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will lower the levels of chemicals (pesticides and herbicides) used, this has not been the case. This is of great concern both because of the negative impacts of these chemicals on ecosystems and humans, and because there is the danger that increased chemical use will cause pests and weeds to develop resistance, requiring even more chemicals in order to manage them.
Monsanto has been claiming that through genetic engineering it can breed crops for drought tolerance and other climate-resilient traits. This is a false promise.
Among the false claims made by Monsanto and the Biotechnology industry is that GE foods are safe. However, there are enough independent studies to show that GE foods can cause health damage.

At the same time, earlier this year, Cry1Ab, a specific type of Bt toxin from certain GM crops, has for the first time been detected in human and fetal blood samples. It appears the toxin is quite prevalent, as upon testing 69 pregnant and non-pregnant women who were eating a typical Canadian diet (which included foods such as GM soy, corn and potatoes), researchers found Bt toxin in:

93 percent of blood samples of pregnant women
80 percent of fetal blood samples
69 percent of non-pregnant women blood samples

There’s now plenty of evidence that the Bt toxin may trigger an inflammatory response, and as you may know, chronic inflammation is at the root of many increasingly common diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease. Food allergies are also skyrocketing, as is infertility, which could also be a potential side effect of GM foods, based on results from animal studies. Monsanto insists that GM foods are no different from conventionally grown varieties, but the research does NOT support this claim. Here is just a sampling of the unsavory findings associated with GM foods:

✓
GM pea protein caused lung damage in mice

✓
Offspring of rats fed GM soy showed a five-fold increase in mortality, lower birth weights, and the inability to reproduce

✓
GM potatoes may cause cancer in rats

✓
Male mice fed GM soy had damaged young sperm cells

✓
Bacteria in your gut can take up DNA from GM food

✓
The embryo offspring of GM soy-fed mice had altered DNA functioning

✓
GM foods lead to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice, specifically the kidney, liver, heart and spleen

✓
Several US farmers reported sterility or fertility problems among pigs and cows fed on GM corn varieties

✓
Bt corn caused a wide variety of immune responses in mice, commonly associated with diseases such as arthritis, Lou Gehrig’s disease, osteoporosis, and inflammatory bowel disease

✓
Investigators in India have documented fertility problems, abortions, premature births, and other serious health issues, including deaths, among buffaloes fed GM cottonseed products

The Time is Ripe to Fight Back
All is not lost on the GM food front, as we now have a practical plan to end this disaster. By educating the public about the risks of GM foods through a massive education campaign, and launching a ballot initiative in California for 2012, which will require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods and food ingredients, our plan is to generate a tipping point of consumer rejection to make GMOs a thing of the past.
Several organizations, including Mercola.com, the Organic Consumers Association, the Institute for Responsible Technology, and even the Environmental Working Group are getting actively involved. But we do need your help.
Here’s how you can get involved:

If you live in California and are willing to attend a short training session and then start collecting petition signatures (you will be part of a team of 2-4 people) in early November for the California Ballot Initiative, sign up here. (For more information see: The California Ballot Initiative: Taking Down Monsanto.) Also remember to share this information with family and friends in California!
Whether you live in California or not, please donate money to this historic effort
Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the California Ballot. It may be the only chance we have to have to label genetically engineered foods.
Distribute WIDELY the Non-GMO Shopping Guide to help you identify and avoid foods with GMOs. Look for products (including organic products) that feature the Non-GMO Project Verified Seal to be sure that at-risk ingredients have been tested for GMO content. You can also download the free iPhone application that is available in the iTunes store. You can find it by searching for ShopNoGMO in the applications.
For timely updates, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
You can also join the Non-GMO Project on Facebook, or Twitter

In the meantime, the simplest way to avoid GM foods is to buy whole, certified organic foods. By definition, foods that are certified organic must never intentionally use GM organisms, produced without artificial pesticides and fertilizers and from an animal reared without the routine use of antibiotics, growth promoters or other drugs. Additionally, grass-fed beef will not have been fed GM corn feed.
You can also look for foods that are “non-GMO verified” by the Non-GMO Project.

By Dr. Mercola

Organic foods are required by U.S. federal law to be produced in ways that promote ecological sustainability, without common toxic and genetically engineered ingredients. 
But organic products are increasingly being forced to compete with products that are labeled as “natural.”
There are no restrictions on the term “natural”, and it often constitutes nothing more than meaningless marketing hype.
According to a recent report from the Cornucopia Institute:

“[There is a] vast differences between organic cereal and granola products and so-called natural products, which contain ingredients grown on conventional farms where the use of toxic pesticides and genetically engineered organisms is widespread.

… Our analysis reveals that “natural” products—using conventional ingredients—often are priced higher than equivalent organic products.

This suggests that some companies are taking advantage of consumer confusion.”

This is significant, because surveys have shown that more consumers pay attention to the “100% Natural” claim than the “100% Organic” label. In one such survey, 31 percent of respondents said the “100% Natural” label was the most desirable eco-friendly product claim, compared to just 14 percent who chose “100% Organic.” Food companies clearly know this, and they’re cashing in on your confusion.

Are You Being Misled by Your Favorite “All-Natural” Brand?
According to the Cornucopia report:

“Since breakfast cereals are popular with children, it is especially important for parents to be aware of the differences between “natural” products, with conventional ingredients, and certified organic ones. Children are especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of synthetic pesticides and other inputs that are commonly used in “natural” products but prohibited in organics.”

Indeed, it’s not enough to be an avid label reader these days, you also have to know how the “labeling game” is being played by the food manufacturers. The average shopper would probably agree that the term “natural” evokes the idea that the food in question will not contain any added synthetic ingredients or chemicals, but because there is no standard definition of the term, with the exception of meat, “natural” in many cases equates to “conventional.”
The misuse of the term “natural” by companies who simply pay lip service to sustainability and the organic movement undermines companies that are sincere in their efforts to bring you eco-friendly, unadulterated, safe foods.
The Cornucopia report clearly shows that the terms “natural” and “organic” are not interchangeable, and as a concerned shopper, you need to beware of the differences between the two, or risk paying more for what amounts to little more than a conventional product.
The report also unveils the real owners of many of your all-natural brands—a piece of information that is oftentimes not disclosed anywhere on the packaging, or even on the product’s website—which might give you a hint that the product may be produced in less than organic ways. For example, both Kashi and Bear Naked are actually owned by Kellogg Company… Synthetic ingredients and additives, toxic pesticides, fumigants and solvents frequently show up in products bearing the “natural” label, while these are strictly prohibited in organic production.
According to the report:

“On August 31, 2011, a class action lawsuit was filed against Kellogg/Kashi® for allegedly misleading consumers with its “natural” claims. One Kashi® product in particular, GoLean® Shakes, is composed almost entirely of synthetic and unnaturally processed ingredients, according to the plaintiff.”

What You Need to Know About Organic Labels
It’s important to realize that there are several different organic labels out there, but only one relates directly to foods: the USDA Organic seal. This seal is your best assurance of organic quality. Growers and manufacturers of organic products bearing the USDA seal have to meet the strictest standards of any of the currently available organic labels.

Products labeled “100% Organic” must contain only organically produced ingredients
Products labeled “Certified Organic” must contain at least 95 percent organic ingredients
The label “Made with Organic Ingredients” can contain anywhere between 70 to 95 percent organic ingredients

In order to ensure you’re actually getting your money’s worth, you need to make sure the food you buy bears the “100% USDA Organic” label.  The problem with the latter two labels is obvious. Anywhere from five to 30 percent of the ingredients may be conventionally-grown, so you’re still exposed to pesticide residues and other questionable ingredients. The “Made with Organic Ingredients” is often misused and misleading, just as the “natural” label, as it allows for plenty of conventionally-produced ingredients.
A “100% Organic” product on the other hand cannot be irradiated, and cannot contain preservatives or flavor enhancing chemicals, nor traces of heavy metals or other contaminants in excess of tolerances set by the FDA.
It must also be grown and processed using organic farming methods that recycle resources and promote biodiversity—so it encompasses organic in a holistic way, from start to finish. Crops must be grown without synthetic pesticides, bioengineered genes, petroleum-based fertilizers, or sewage sludge-based fertilizers, and livestock cannot be given growth hormones.
So, in terms of organic food, there’s really only one label that can provide you with any real measure of quality, and that’s the “100% USDA Organic” label. As the Cornucopia report clearly shows, the “natural” label can be close to worthless in terms of protecting you from harmful ingredients and informing you about the manner in which it was grown.

Bait and Switch…

The Cornucopia report also brings up the problem of bait and switch:

“Some companies that started out organic, and built consumer loyalty as organic brands, have switched to non-organic “natural” ingredients and labeling. Peace Cereal® is an example of “bait-and switch.”

In 2008, the company that owned the Peace Cereal® brand, Golden Temple, switched from organic to cheaper conventional ingredients, without lowering its prices. At the time of the switch, the company also did not change its package design, other than eliminating the USDA Organic seal and the word “organic” from its cereal boxes. Most egregiously, it did not change the barcode on the cereal boxes. Many retailers and shoppers were unaware of the switch until the Cornucopia Institute conducted an investigation in late 2010…

Today, Peace Cereal® is owned by Hearthside Food Solutions, which changed its logo to include “All Natural,” appearing right below the “Peace Cereal®” name. Hearthside/Peace Cereal® continues to charge customers as much as or more than many certified organic competitors.”

According to the report, other companies that performed similar bait and switch maneuvers include Annie’s Homegrown and Barbara’s Bakery. Cereal and granola companies that started out organic, and remain faithful to the organic label include:

Food for Life
Grandy Oats
Nature’s Path

Interestingly enough, when comparing wholesale prices for multigrain and specialty grain flakes, the two least expensive products are by committed organic companies, effectively shattering the myth that organic has to be more expensive than conventional. In other price comparisons, “natural” brands using conventionally-grown ingredients were priced exactly the same as 100 percent organic companies.

“Natural” Label Does NOT Prohibit Genetically Modified Ingredients
The USDA certified organic label is your best guarantee that the food was produced without:

Toxic pesticides
Genetically engineered (GM) ingredients
Carcinogenic fumigants
Chemical solvents

This peace of mind is something the “100% Natural” label will NOT give you. Genetically modified (GM) ingredients are of particular concern when it comes to food products like breakfast cereals and granola bars, because, in the US, the vast majority of the most common ingredients in these products—corn, soy, and canola—are genetically modified.
Unfortunately, more than 60 percent of consumers erroneously believe that the “natural” label implies or suggests the absence of GM ingredients, according to a 2010 Hartman Group poll. If you’re one of the 60 percent, please understand that at the current time, the ONLY label that can protect you against GM ingredients is the USDA 100% Organic label.

Shocking Finding: Many Natural Brands Contain up to 100 Percent GM Ingredients!
The most disturbing finding presented in the featured report relates to GM ingredients found in so-called all-natural foods:

“The Cornucopia Institute sent samples of breakfast cereal to an accredited and highly reputable GMO testing laboratory. Samples were tested for the exact percentage of genetically engineered corn or soybeans, using the most sophisticated and accurate tests commercially available.

The results were stunning. Several breakfast cereal manufacturers that market their foods as “natural,” even some that claim to avoid genetically engineered ingredients and are enrolled in the Non-GMO Project, contained high levels of genetically engineered ingredients.”

Natural products that contained 100 percent genetically modified grains included:

✓ Kashi®
✓ Mother’s®
✓ Nutritious Living®
✓ General Mills Kix®

✓ GoLean®
✓ Bumpers®
✓ Hi-Lo®

Two breakfast cereal products that are currently enrolled in the Non-GMO Project, Barbara’s Bakery’s Puffins and Whole Foods’ 365® Corn Flakes, contained more than 50 percent GM corn…   Meanwhile, the control, Nature’s Path® USDA certified organic corn flakes, contained only trace amounts of GM contamination (less than 0.5 percent).
Cornucopia writes:

“These test results underscore the importance of the organic label, which ensures consumers that the manufacturer uses only non-genetically engineered ingredients. More extensive testing is necessary to draw conclusions regarding the truthfulness of “non-GMO” claims, but these preliminary results point to several problems. First, manufacturers can claim that they avoid purchasing genetically engineered ingredients, but these claims may be meaningless unless they are verified by a third party, such as an organic certifying agent.

In addition, many of the most reputable organic companies have developed their own testing protocols to ensure the purity of their products. Furthermore, the Non-GMO Project, which “enrolls” products before it verifies them as being non-GMO, may give consumers a false sense of security. Our test results reveal that several “enrolled” products were in fact made with GE ingredients.”

How to Find Healthy Food—100 Percent Organic or Not
As deplorable as this situation is, it’s not surprising. Food companies, as any other primarily profit-driven company, simply cannot let such a swelling market niche go untapped. However, if you realize that much of the all-natural claims are hype, it becomes easier to navigate around the deception.
To find brands that are committed to sustainable organic agriculture and avoiding genetically engineered ingredients use Cornucopia’s Cereal Scorecard.
Another factor to consider is the fact that many small family farms actually adhere to fully organic practices even though they may not have gone through the expense of obtaining organic certification. So labels aren’t everything when it comes to healthful food. But if you’re going to shop by the label, make sure it’s the USDA certified 100% organic label.  Aside from that, to find the freshest, healthiest foods out there, here are a few other guidelines to live by:

Frequent farmer’s markets where you can find fresh locally-grown foods that are in season
Join a community-supported agriculture program if one is available near you (it allows you to buy produce, meats and other foods directly from the farm)
Take part in organic food co-ops in your area
Plant an organic garden; even a small space can produce a lot of fresh food and herbs
If you must shop in a supermarket, look for locally grown items, which are likely to be fresher than other foods

URGENT Action Items!
The Cornucopia Institute is now in URGENT need of your help, and joining the Institute and/or signing up for their newsletter will assure you get timely updates on these important issues.
At the end of November, the USDA’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) will vote on a number of important issues with regards to organics, including:

1. The approval of an organic egg regulation that would require organic chicken farmers to provide a mere two square feet per bird of outdoor space. This is a huge favor to industrial producers allowing their factory farmed eggs to fall under the designation of “organic.” Meanwhile, it will handicap family farms that are truly letting their birds out to pasture.
2. A vote will take place to decide whether to allow a food additive produced by Martek Biosciences in organic foods. The product is an omega 3/omega-6 oil synthesized from fermented algae and soil fungus. The oil is extracted from this biomass using hexane, a neurotoxic byproduct of gasoline refinement that is specifically banned in organics.
Cornucopia investigated Martek’s patent and safety filings at the FDA, and discovered that the product also contains synthetic chemicals, stabilizers, carriers, and some of the ingredients are also genetically modified. (As it turns out, some of their products were developed by Monsanto before Martek bought the technical rights.)
“They’ve already added this to almost all infant formula in the United States,” Kastel warns. “Algae and fungus have never been a part of the human diet, let alone children’s. And now we see it in organic infant formula, and companies like Dean Foods are adding it to organic milk… it’s in every single formula available on the market… except for one organic brand [Babies Only brand, which contains DHA from eggs. All other organic brands appear to contain Martek’s omega oil].
3. The NOSB is also considering approving the addition of sulfites (artificial preservatives) to organic wine.  This would be the first time artificial preservatives are allowed in organics

Organics has never been under such dire threats, so I urge you to please take a moment right now to print out, sign, and mail the proxy letter provided by Cornucopia back to them ASAP for hand delivery at the rapidly approaching NOSB meeting.
Corporate lobbyists will be present, and so will the Cornucopia Institute, to counter their claims and make sure your voice, in support of organic integrity, is heard.
So, please, print out this proxy letter right now. Sign it, and mail it, as soon as possible, to:

The Cornucopia Institute
PO Box 126
Cornucopia, Wisconsin 54827

Also consider including a donation check with your letter, to support the invaluable work the Cornucopia Institute performs to protect your and your family’s right to clean, wholesome, truly organic food.
As of right now, there does not appear to be any additional benefit to contacting your congressman, but if the need arises, Cornucopia will notify all their members and subscribers with the information.
I can’t encourage you enough to participate in this process. It’s important to recognize that you CAN make a difference! Always remember that collectively, we have the most effective power in the marketplace that can exceed the power of these multibillion dollar, multinational corporations. We can vote with our pocket books. But we also need to make our voices heard; we have to let these agencies know that we are watching, we’re paying attention, and we’re not going to allow this immoral, if not downright illegal, industrial favoritism to continue.

Congratulations! You have made some great changes to your life. The last step will be to implement a juicing plan. I am firmly convinced that the benefits of juicing are the keys to giving you a radiant, energetic life, and truly optimal health.
I’ve said this in the other levels of this nutrition plan, but it’s so important I’ll say it again – valuable and sensitive micronutrients become damaged when you heat foods.
Cooking and processing food destroys these micronutrients by altering their shape and chemical composition. In this advanced nutritional level, you avoid all processed foods and eat only organic vegetables and fruits, unless not otherwise possible.
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.
While you can certainly juice fruits, if you are overweight, have high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol, it is best to limit using fruits until you normalize these conditions.
The exception would be lemons and limes which have virtually none of the offending sugar, fructose, that causes most of the metabolic complications. Additionally lemons or limes are amazing at eliminating the bitter taste of the dark, deep green leafy vegetables that provide most of the benefits of juicing.
Benefits of Juicing

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 an optimal 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.

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 $2000 Norwalk juicers. Here is my current
favorite juicer. Many people initially think that juicing will be a real chore, but
the majority are pleasantly surprised to find that it is much easier
than they thought it would be.

Vegetable Juice is Not a Complete Meal

It is important to note that vegetable juice has very little protein
and virtually no fat, so by itself, it is not really a complete food. It
really should be used in addition to your regular meals not in place
of it.
So unless you are undergoing some special fasting or detoxification
program, it is probably unwise to use juicing as a meal replacement.
Ideally, it can be consumed with your meal or as a between meal snack.

Important to Listen to Your Body

This is partly because you should only start by juicing vegetables that you enjoy eating non-juiced. The juice should taste pleasant — not make you feel nauseous.
It is very important to listen to your body when juicing. Your
stomach should feel good all morning long. If it is churning or
growling or generally making its presence known, you probably juiced
something you should not be eating. Personally, I’ve noticed that I
can’t juice large amounts of cabbage, but if I spread it out, I do
fine.

Here are a few simple lessons to get you up and help you enjoy the benefits of juicing quickly:

The health benefits of juicing are immense for adults and children.

Lesson 1: Use pesticide free veggies.

It is wise to choose organic whenever possible. However, some
vegetables are worse than others. Below are the vegetables that are the
most pesticide-loaded ones according to the Environmental Working Group.
So it would be wise to only purchase these vegetables if they are organically grown. The worst ones are listed first.

Celery
Spinach
Kale
Collard Greens
Lettuce
Carrots
Cucumber (not as bad if you peel the skin)

Lesson 2: Get ready to juice!

Please note that the order listed below is only intended for those
that are new to juicing so you do have a pleasant experience with it.
However, if you use ¼ to ½ lemon or lime, you can start
experimenting with the more bitter greens early on as the lemon and
lime effectively counter their bitterness.
Please note that it would be FAR better to use lemon or limes than
carrots, beets or apples, which have far more fructose than lemons or
limes.
Step 1: If you are new to juicing, I recommend starting out with these vegetables, as they are the easiest to digest and tolerate:

Celery
Fennel (anise)
Cucumbers

These three aren’t as nutrient dense as the dark green leafy vegetables In the few days to weeks it takes you to adjust to the 3 vegetables listed above, you can start adding the more nutritionally valuable but less palatable vegetables into your juice.
Step 2: When you’ve acclimatized yourself to juicing, you can start adding these vegetables:

Red leaf lettuce
Green leaf lettuce
Romaine lettuce
Endive
Escarole
Spinach

An interesting side note: Cabbage juice is one of the most healing
nutrients for ulcer repair as it is a huge source of vitamin U.
Step 3: When you’re ready, move on to adding herbs
to your juicing. Herbs also make wonderful combinations, and here are
two that work exceptionally well:

Parsley
Cilantro

You need to be cautious with cilantro, as many cannot tolerate it well.So start off with a few sprigs and work your way up from there. You can use a few tablespoons if you have no side effects and enjoy the taste. If you are new to juicing, hold off on the cilantro. Herbs are more challenging to consume, but they are highly beneficial.
Step 4: The last step.The greens listed below are bitter:so start with smaller leaves at a time and be sure and balance it out with lime or lemon.

Kale
Collard Greens
Dandelion Greens
Mustard Greens (bitter)

When purchasing collard greens, find a store that sells the leaves
still attached to the main stalk. If they are cut off, the vegetable
rapidly loses many of its valuable nutrients.

Lesson 3: Make your juice taste great.

If you would like to make your juice taste a bit more palatable, especially in the beginning, you can add these elements:

Lemons and Limes: You can also 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
Cranberries: You can also add some cranberries if
you enjoy them. Researchers have discovered that cranberries have
five times the antioxidant content of broccoli, which means they may
protect against cancer, stroke and heart disease. In addition, they
are chock-full of phytonutrients, and can help women avoid urinary
tract infections. Limit the cranberries to about 4 ounces per pint of
juice.
Fresh ginger: This is an excellent addition if
you enjoy the taste. It gives your juice a little “kick”! And, as an
added boon, researchers have found that ginger can have dramatic
effects on cardiovascular health, including preventing
atherosclerosis, lowering cholesterol levels, and preventing the
oxidation of low density lipoprotein (LDL).

Lesson 4: Drink your vegetable juice right away, or store it very carefully.

Juicing is a time-consuming process, so you’ll probably be thinking
to yourself, “I wonder if I can juice first thing in the morning, and
then drink it later?” This is not a good idea. 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. How to 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.
Purchase a food vacuum pump like Food Saver with a Ball jar
attachment. You can pour your juice into a pint 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.

Lesson 5: Clean your juicer properly.

We all know that if a juicer takes longer than a few minutes to clean,
we’ll find excuses not to juice at all. I find that using an old
toothbrush works well to clean any metal grater. If you buy a
high-quality juicer, the whole process should only take about 5 minutes. I find that using an old toothbrush works well on the metal grater. Whatever you do, you need to clean your juicer immediately after you
juice to prevent any remnants from contaminating the juicer with mold
growth. 

NOTE: Nutritional Typing and Juicing

According to Nutritional Typing principles, if you are a carb type,
vegetable juicing is STRONGLY recommended. With patients in our clinic,
we strongly encourage it if they expect to regain their health. If you
are a mixed type, it is certainly useful to juice. However, protein
types need to follow some specific guidelines to make it work for them.

Protein Types and Juicing

If you are a protein type, juicing needs to be done cautiously.
Celery, spinach, asparagus, string beans, and cauliflower would be your
best vegetables to juice. You can add some of the dark deep leafy
greens like collards, kale, and dandelion greens but do so cautiously
and pay careful attention to how you feel. You may also want to initially limit your serving size of juice to
no more than 6 oz., and store it properly and drink smaller amounts
throughout the day.
Also, to make drinking vegetable juice compatible with protein type
metabolism (which needs high amounts of fat), it is important to blend a
source of raw fat into the juice. Raw cream, raw butter, raw eggs,
avocado, coconut butter, or freshly ground flax seed are the sources of
raw fat that we most recommend. In addition to adding a source of raw fat to your juice, you may
also find that adding some, or even all, of the vegetable pulp into
your juice helps to make drinking the juiced vegetables more
satisfying.

By Dr. Mercola

There are many reasons why breastfeeding is a superior option to formula feeding for babies, however, a new study provides one of the most compelling to date.
Infant formulas are typically processed under high heat, and this leads to the formation of advanced glycation end products (AGES).
AGES are sugar molecules that attach to and damage proteins in your body.
Not only do they build up in your body over time, leading to oxidation and speeding up the aging process, but they also lead to inflammation, which in turn is linked to a number of chronic diseases, including diabetes and heart disease.

AGES Double in Infants Switched From Breast milk to Formula

If you’re a breastfeeding mom who needs encouragement to continue nursing for one year or beyond, consider this fact: when infants were switched from breast milk to commercial formula within the first year of life, their levels of AGEs doubled to levels found in people with diabetes.
Many of the infants also had elevated insulin levels, which may be directly attributable to the AGEs in the infant formula.
While a woman’s blood level of AGEs does impact her newborn’s levels (the researchers found newborns’ blood levels of AGEs were nearly as high as that of their mother’s, which is yet another why pregnant women should cut back on their processed food intake), her breast milk is still a superior source of nutrition. Infant formulas processed with high heat may have 100 times more AGEs than breast milk.
As a result, formula-fed babies are being exposed to unacceptably high levels of these toxins, putting their health at risk — completely unbeknownst to most parents!

Why Exposing Your Baby to High Levels of AGEs Could be Tragic …

Glycation is a process in which the sugar in food bonds with proteins and forms so-called ‘advanced glycation end products’, or AGEs. It’s a fitting acronym because – along with oxidation – it’s one of the major molecular mechanisms whereby damage accrues in your body, which leads to disease, aging, and premature death.
When sugar is glycated, it contributes to inflammation, which activates your immune system defensively.  Macrophages are scavenger cells that are part of your immune defense system, and as such they have special receptors for AGEs, aptly called RAGEs (think: raging inflammation). These RAGEs bind to the AGEs and get rid of them.
Unfortunately, this process can leave its fair share of battle scars. Inside your arteries, for example, the scar tissue created from this process is called plaque. This also explains why there’s such a strong connection between diabetes and heart disease, and why infants exposed to high levels of AGEs in infant formula may have had elevated insulin levels.
To avoid AGEs in your diet, you need to pay attention to avoiding foods cooked at high heat, including processed and pasteurized foods like infant formula.
In July 2011, the first study in humans showing that AGEs promote insulin resistance and diabetes was published. People with diabetes who ate an AGE-restricted diet (this included foods that were poached or stewed instead of cooked at high heat, such as grilling, frying or broiling) had a 35 percent decrease in insulin levels, to give you an idea of just how great an impact appropriate dietary changes can have on your, or your child’s, health.

Many Infant Formulas are Loaded With Sugar

Tragically, many infant formulas are more than 50 percent sugar — 43 percent being corn syrup solids, which means they’re also high in fructose. Metabolically, consuming fructose is very similar to alcohol on a chronic basis, so there appears to be a surprising similarity between giving your infant a can of soda, or a bottle of most conventional infant formulas.
I’ve written numerous articles about the dangers of consuming fructose, including its ability to trigger glycation, disturb your metabolism, elevate blood pressure and triglycerides, cause weight gain, heart disease and liver damage, and even deplete your body of vitamins and minerals.
There is no way that a baby should be consuming any corn syrup whatsoever, and the fact that infant formulas are able to be marketed as nutritious for babies when they’re loaded with corn syrup is incredibly deceptive. If you currently have infant formula in your home, check the label for corn syrup or corn syrup solids, and in the interest of your baby, throw the can away if you find it.

Infant Formula is Also Inferior to Breast milk Because of What it Does NOT Contain …

Nearly all commercial infant formulas contain substances your infant is better off avoiding, like corn syrup and AGEs, but it also is lacking in other key components that breast milk naturally provides. Chief among these are probiotics, friendly bacteria that help your body to thrive. In Greek, the term pro means “for life,” and the large amount of careful research surrounding these healthful microorganisms suggests that they are an integral part of your, and your child’s, well-being.
Breast milk is a natural source of probiotics, so babies who are breastfed receive an ideal source of your first immune-building good bacteria, and as a result also tend to have intestinal microflora in which beneficial bifidobacteria predominate over potentially harmful bacteria.
Some infant formulas do contain added probiotics, but they are going to be inferior to those that are found naturally in breast milk. Others contain none at all. Ideally, you should be sure you are getting probiotics while you’re pregnant, from eating traditionally fermented foods like kefir, natto and sauerkraut, which are rich in probiotics, or taking a high-quality probiotic supplement, and then continue these probiotic-rich foods in your infant’s diet.

Make Sure You Baby is Also Getting This …

The omega-3 fat DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), an essential structural component of your brain and retina, is found naturally in breast milk and is missing entirely from many infant formulas. DHA is essential to your child’s development and if your child is deficient in it, their nervous  and immune system may never fully develop, leading to a lifetime of unexplained emotional, learning and immune system disorders.
DHA makes up 15 percent to 20 percent of the cerebral cortex and 30 percent to 60 percent of the retina so it is absolutely necessary for normal development of the fetus and baby.
Because a fetus depends on mother’s DHA sources, the constant drain on a mother’s DHA reserves can easily lead to a deficiency and some researchers believe that preeclampsia (pregnancy-related high blood pressure) and postpartum depression could be linked to a DHA deficiency — just one more reason why it’s so important to maintain your levels during pregnancy.
After your child is born, it’s essential that he or she continues to receive DHA either from breast milk or a high-quality animal-based supplement. In the past, the ideal way to receive these fats was from seafood. However in the last 50 years industrial pollution with chemicals and heavy metals has changed all that. In fact, babies exposed in the womb to higher levels of mercury, due to their mom’s fish-rich diet, scored lower on skills tests when they became infants and toddlers. To put it simply, the beneficial effects of the omega-3s were cancelled out by the mercury.
The best alternative to seafood is an animal-based omega-3 fat supplement, of which krill oil and fish oil are the two major players. But there is reason to believe that krill oil actually offers superior benefits.
Fish oil is certainly more widely known, and this is related to the fact that the bulk of the published studies are done with fish oil and not krill oil. That is changing, but it will take many decades before krill oil catches up to fish oil in terms of popularity. That said, it just doesn’t make sense that you and your family have to wait decades to get the benefits of krill oil, as it is, in my opinion, the preferred choice. You can read more about why that is here.
I believe all pregnant and breastfeeding women would be wise to supplement with a high-quality animal-based omega-3 fat like krill oil, and if your baby is formula-fed, you can give krill oil to them directly. Consult your holistic pediatrician for proper dosage.

Do You Need Help With Breastfeeding?

Unfortunately, the United States is not the most breastfeeding-friendly culture, so surrounding yourself with women who have experience in this area can be a great help. Whether you want to prepare beforehand, or find you’re having trouble breastfeeding once your baby is born, Le Leche League is a terrific resource to consider.
Keep in mind that while there are certain medical conditions that can prevent a woman from breastfeeding, the majority of women are able to produce adequate supplies of milk and breastfeed successfully. Often, those who believe they cannot may be misinformed, and believe they don’t have enough milk; this is a common misperception. However, in the vast majority of circumstances, all women have enough milk to breastfeed.
The more your baby nurses, the more milk you will produce. Mom needs to drink plenty of water and seek optimal nutrition while nursing, and the beginning weeks and months are critical in the process.
If you find you are unable to breastfeed, the next best alternative is donated breast milk from a healthy, trusted donor, which has been screened for hepatitis C and HIV. If that is not available, another option is to make a healthy homemade infant formula. There may be others, but here is one recipe for homemade formula created by the Weston Price Foundation, which I believe is sound.
As an aside, definitely avoid all soy infant formula, as it is loaded with toxic elements like high doses of manganese and aluminum, not to mention the hormone-disrupting potential of the soy itself.

By Dr. Mercola
Radiologists often rely on specialized “CAD” computer software to find suspicious areas in mammograms.
But a large new study showed that the technology has failed to improve breast cancer detection. In fact, it increases a woman’s risk of getting a “false positive” result and being told she had an abnormal mammogram when she’s actually cancer-free.
The study analyzed 1.6 million mammograms taken between 1998 and 2006. Some experts say that in light of the new evidence, radiologists should use more discretion in interpreting CAD results.
According to CNN:

“CAD is now used in roughly three of every four screening mammograms … The detection rate for noninvasive breast abnormalities improved at radiology facilities that adopted CAD technology, but, crucially, the rate did not improve for invasive breast cancers, the dangerous type that invade healthy tissue in the breast or other parts of the body.”

Updated Federal Advisory Board Recommendations
You have to wonder why–when science clearly confirms that a conventional recommendation is useless– it receives virtually no exposure in the media to inform the public of this change.
This is precisely what happened with the recommendation of routine mammography, which was conclusively shown to be useless in most women under the age of 50.
As of November 2009, routine mammograms are no longer recommended across the board for all women starting at the age of 40. Citing ineffectiveness and increased risk of harm in premenstrual women, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a federal advisory board, changed their recommendation from annual to bi-annual mammography screenings, and raised the recommended starting age to 50. Since then, the use of mammography has begun to drop.
However, not everyone agrees with the Preventive Services task force recommendation, and a few organizations have banded together to condemn the revised guidelines. Last month, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued their breast cancer screening guidelines, recommending:

Mammography every 1-2 years for women aged 40-49 years
Annual mammogram for women age 50 or older

Still, these squabbles aside, there are serious questions about whether
mammography should be the preferred screening method at all. I
personally do not recommend it. Dr. Virginia A. Moyer, chair of the Preventive Services task force, according to CNN, responded by saying:

“… the recommendation was based on a recognized modest benefit shown by studies in human subjects. Recommendations from other organizations are based on evidence of lower quality, and the task force is extremely strict about the level of evidence it can accept…”

Concerns about Lack of Safety and Effectiveness of Mammograms Continue
Time and again, studies published in prestigious medical journals have shown that mammography isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The federal task force indicated that this was their impression as well; hence the shift in their recommendation in 2009. For example:

Mammograms miss up to a third or more of all breast cancers, as reported by Medscape, depending on the composition of your breast tissue and the type of cancer. 
Mammography and its subsequent tests, such as MRIs and stereotactic biopsies, may actually cause cancer.
False positives (a diagnosis of cancer when it turns out to be non-cancerous) are notorious in the industry, causing women needless anxiety, pain and, often, invasive and disfiguring surgical procedures. This is the MAJOR danger of mammography, as it radically increases the number of women who will be misdiagnosed and plugged into a system designed to cut, poison, and burn them unnecessarily without addressing the underlying reasons of what caused the cancer.
CAD computer software used as an aid to locate suspicious areas in mammograms has been shown to be ineffectual for improving breast cancer detection, and increases your risk of getting a “false positive” result.

The final insult to injury is the latest in a long row of blows against the cancer detection industry. In the featured study above, 1.6 million mammograms from 90 radiology facilities across the US were analyzed. It was determined that the use of computer assisted software, which should be helpful in the detection of breast cancer, was not helpful after all.
As reported by CNN:

“The detection rate for noninvasive breast abnormalities improved at radiology facilities that adopted CAD technology, but, crucially, the rate did not improve for invasive breast cancers, the dangerous type that invade healthy tissue in the breast or other parts of the body. Moreover, in facilities that began using CAD the percentage of women with abnormal mammograms who were accurately diagnosed (a measure known as “positive predictive value”) dropped, from 4.3% to 3.6%. Rates of false-positives and “recalls” — being called back for further testing — increased slightly after facilities implemented CAD.”

These results echo those from a study published in 2007, which also concluded that:

“The use of computer-aided detection is associated with reduced accuracy of interpretation of screening mammograms. The increased rate of biopsy with the use of computer-aided detection is not clearly associated with improved detection of invasive breast cancer.”

Mammography Is a Source of Radiation-Induced Damage
Another recent study further fuels concerns about the use of mammography, especially in women predisposed to breast cancer, and strengthens the recommendation to avoid mammograms if you’re under the age of 50. The study assessed the radiation-induced DNA damage in epithelial breast cells in women with high- and low risk of breast cancer. The results showed that women with a family history of cancer, placing them at high risk, were at significantly greater risk to suffer irreparable double-strand DNA breaks from mammography, and the effect was exacerbated with dose repetition. 
The authors concluded that:

“This study highlights the existence of double-strand breaks induced by mammography and revealed by γH2AX assay with two major radiobiological effects occurring: a low-dose effect, and a Low and Repeated Dose (LORD) effect. All these effects were exacerbated in high-risk patients. These findings may lead us to re-evaluate the number of views performed in screening using a single view (oblique) in women whose mammographic benefit has not properly been proved such as the 40-49 and high risk patients.”

This isn’t the first time scientists have come to the conclusion that using mammography as a tool for early detection and “prevention” of lethal cancer may in fact, in many cases, do far more harm than good. Yet you don’t see major warning about the risks in the media, nor do any mammography centers provide information on these risks, so the women are not given full disclosure, making it impossible for them to give any type of valid informed consent for this procedure.
According to the Cancer Prevention Coalition, radiation from routine mammography poses a significant cumulative risk (over time) of causing breast cancer. And according to the BreastCancerFund.org, lower-energy X-rays provided by mammography result in substantially greater damage to DNA than would be predicted, and suggests that risk of breast cancer caused by exposure to mammography radiation may be greatly underestimated.
Dr. Samuel Epstein, probably the leading scientist in the world who truly understands this issue, has been warning people for years about the dangers of mammography, explains:

“The premenopausal breast is highly sensitive to radiation, each 1 rad exposure increasing breast cancer risk by about 1 percent, with a cumulative 10 percent increased risk for each breast over a decade’s screening…” “The high sensitivity of the breast, especially in young women, to radiation-induced cancer was known by 1970. Nevertheless, the establishment then screened some 300,000 women with X-ray dosages so high as to increase breast cancer risk by up to 20 percent in women aged 40 to 50 who were mammogramed annually.”

Does Mammography Save Lives?
The reason why women are urged to get regular mammograms is to catch the cancer early enough to deliver life-saving treatment. But research shows that mammography fails at this mission as well… A recent article in the prestigious British Medical Journal compared breast mortality rates in a variety of different countries before and after the introduction of routine mammography screening, demonstrating that the screening has had virtually nothing to do with the reductions in breast cancer mortality.
The authors write:

“From 1989 to 2006, deaths from breast cancer decreased by 29% in Northern Ireland and by 26% in the Republic of Ireland; by 25% in the Netherlands and by 20% in Belgium and 25% in Flanders; and by 16% in Sweden and by 24% in Norway. The time trend and year of downward inflexion were similar between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and between the Netherlands and Flanders. In Sweden, mortality rates have steadily decreased since 1972, with no downward inflexion until 2006.

Countries of each pair had similar healthcare services and prevalence of risk factors for breast cancer mortality but differing implementation of mammography screening, with a gap of about 10-15 years.

The contrast between the time differences in implementation of mammography screening and the similarity in reductions in mortality between the country pairs suggest that screening did not play a direct part in the reductions in breast cancer mortality.”

This is quite noteworthy!
Rather than falling for claims that mammography is responsible for reduced breast cancer mortality, one should begin to look around for the real cause behind this across-the-board drop—because teasing out whatever that is, would be quite helpful—as opposed to pushing mammography, which has been shown to have little or no impact on mortality rates.
Unfortunately, the industry is extremely reluctant to accept this fact. As a perfect example, CNN recently reported Apparently they did not review the above results, which completely
negate the claim that mammograms play a direct role in reducing
mortality…on this very issue, stating that:

“While breast care experts acknowledge that mammography is imprecise and can lead to false positives, undue anxiety and overtreatment, they say it is the best tool they have for detecting breast cancer and that the benefits far outweigh any potential harms. Mammography has helped reduce breast cancer mortality in the United States by nearly one-third since 1990, according to the American College of Radiology.”

The Profit-Driven Motives of Mammography Recommendations
In a previous article, published in the International Journal of Health Services in 2001, Dr. Samuel Epstein wrote:

“Mammography screening is a profit-driven technology posing risks compounded by unreliability… Mammography is not a technique for early diagnosis. In fact, a breast cancer has usually been present for about eight years before it can finally be detected. … In striking contrast, annual clinical breast examination (CBE) by a trained health professional, together with monthly breast self-examination (BSE), is safe, at least as effective, and low in cost.”

According to a 2008 report by market analysts Medtech Insight, breast cancer screening is a $2.1 billion-a-year business, centered around mammography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and ultrasound. Unfortunately, when something is this profitable, the concern and emphasis when evaluating safety and efficacy tends to center on loss of income rather than on what best serves the patient.  When it comes to business decisions, it seems the patient’s best interest nearly always is factored out of the equation, and this seems to be the case with mammography…

Mammography-Related Devices Approved Without Valid Scientific Evidence
You might be surprised to learn that many mammography-related devices have been approved without any scientific evidence to back up their safety and effectiveness.  In a 2009 article posted on HealthCentral.com, Terry Matlen reported that nine FDA scientists had raised the red flag and shared their concerns in a letter to the then president-elect Obama, alleging that “‘gross mishandling’ by FDA managers was putting the country at risk,” and asking for a restructuring of the agency.
Matlen writes:

“[T]he scientists cited a breakdown of the independent scientific review process at the FDA as far back as 1998, when Tom Daschle, Mr. Obama’s choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, wrote about the issue in his book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” In that book, Daschle described how mammography computer-aided detection devices were not appropriately approved, thus setting into motion a chronic breakdown of the FDA’s system. 

Daschle noted that these devices were not backed by clinical evidence showing they were effective in detecting breast cancer, thus causing undue biopsies for thousands and thousands of women. For the past three years, FDA scientists and physicians have recommended five times that these mammography devices not be approved without valid clinical, scientific evidence.”

This seems to fly in the face of an industry that prides itself on adhering to science-based medicine, doesn’t it?
Of course, many mammography proponents will argue that any drawbacks are “theoretical.” But the bottom line is they’re really just trying to protect their bottom lines by denying the truth as evidenced by the many studies indicating that mammography is both risky and ineffective. The price you pay for being misled is your health; perhaps even your life, if you’re one of the women whose mammograms miss the cancer, or if you end up being one of those whose cancer might be the result of the procedure itself.

Take Control with Regular Self-Exams
Breast self-exams have long been recommended as a simple way for women to keep track of anything unusual in their breasts. However, after studies indicated that this too, in and of itself, does not reduce breast cancer mortality rates, many experts began recommending a more relaxed approach known as “breast awareness.”
Breast awareness is really self-explanatory. It means you should regularly check your breasts for changes, but you can do so in a way that feels natural to you. In other words, you don’t have to do it on the same day each month, or using any particular pattern. Instead, simply be aware of what’s normal for you so you can recognize anything out of the ordinary.
Changes to keep an eye out for include:

✓ A new lump or hard knot found in your breast or armpit
✓ Change in the size, shape or symmetry of your breast
✓ Redness or scaliness of the nipple or breast skin
✓ Any suspicious changes in your breasts

✓ Dimpling, puckering or indention in your breast or nipple
✓ Swelling or thickening of the breast
✓ Nipple discharge, especially any that is bloody, clear and sticky, dark or occurs without squeezing your nipple
✓ Changes in your nipple such as tenderness, pain, turning or drawing inward, or pointing in a new direction

What Can You Do to Actually PREVENT Breast Cancer
While it is certainly helpful to identify cancers as soon as possible, even better would be to engage in lifestyle changes that would dramatically reduce or virtually eliminate your risk of developing breast cancer to begin with. This includes:

• Optimize your vitamin D levels. Vitamin D influences virtually every cell in your body and is one of nature’s most potent cancer fighters. Vitamin D is actually able to enter cancer cells and trigger apoptosis (cell death). When JoEllen Welsh, a researcher with the State University of New York at Albany, injected a potent form of vitamin D into human breast cancer cells, half of them shriveled up and died within days. It was as effective as the toxic breast cancer drug Tamoxifen, without any of the detrimental side effects and at a tiny fraction of the cost.

If you have cancer, your vitamin D level should be between 70 and 100 ng/ml. Vitamin D works synergistically with every cancer treatment I’m aware of, with no adverse effects.

• Normalize your insulin levels. A primary way to accomplish that is to avoid sugar, especially fructose, as well as grains (including organic ones). Aside from causing insulin resistance, all forms of sugar also promote cancer. Fructose, however, is clearly one of the most harmful and should be avoided as much as possible.

Also make sure to exercise regularly, especially with Peak Fitness, as exercise is one of the best ways to optimize your insulin levels.
• Get plenty of natural vitamin A. There is evidence that vitamin A also plays a roll in helping prevent breast cancer. It’s best to obtain it from vitamin A-rich foods, rather than a supplement. Your best sources are organic egg yolks, raw butter, raw whole milk, and beef or chicken liver.
Beware of using oral supplements as there’s some evidence that vitamin A can negate the benefits of vitamin D. Since appropriate vitamin D levels are crucial for your health in general, not to mention cancer prevention, this means that it’s essential to have the proper ratio of vitamin D to vitamin A in your body.
Ideally, you’ll want to provide all the vitamin A and vitamin D substrate your body needs in such a way that your body can regulate both systems naturally. This is best done by eating colorful vegetables (for vitamin A) and by exposing your skin to safe amounts sunshine every day (for vitamin D).
• Avoid exposure to xenoestrogens, such as phthalates and BPA. These chemicals mimic natural estrogen, which is a breast cancer promoter.
• Avoid charring your meats. Charcoal or flame broiled meat is linked with increased breast cancer risk. Acrylamide—a carcinogen created when starchy foods are baked, roasted or fried—has been found to increase breast cancer risk as well.
• Avoid unfermented soy products. Unfermented soy is high in plant estrogens, or phytoestrogens, also known as isoflavones. In some studies, soy appears to work in concert with human estrogen to increase breast cell proliferation, which increases the chances for mutations and cancerous cells.
• Maintain a healthy body weight. This will come naturally once you cut out sugar, fructose and grains, and start to exercise. It’s important to lose excess body weight because fat produces estrogen.
• Drink a quart of organic green vegetable juice daily. Please review my juicing instructions for more detailed information
• Get plenty of high quality animal-based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil. Omega-3 deficiency is a common underlying factor for cancer.
• Take curcumin. This is the active ingredient in turmeric and in high concentrations can be very useful in the treatment of breast cancer. It shows immense therapeutic potential in preventing breast cancer metastasis. It’s important to know that curcumin is generally not absorbed that well, so I’ve provided several absorption tips here.

By Dr. Mercola

One of the simplest and most enjoyable ways to up the health ante of your meals is by adding herbs and spices, and in the realm of spices, turmeric and its active ingredient curcumin may be king.
If you’re a fan of curry, you’re probably also a fan of turmeric, as this is the yellow-orange spice that makes the foundation of many curry dishes. It’s a great addition to your diet, but to get the full benefits curcumin has to offer, look for a turmeric extract that contains 100 percent certified organic ingredients and at least 95 percent curcuminoids.
Research is emerging showing that this potent spice may play a beneficial role in preventing and treating numerous chronic diseases, and may offer promise in helping people deal with obesity and obesity-related metabolic diseases.

Does Curcumin Boost Weight Loss?

Research in the European Journal of Nutrition suggests that curcumin may be useful for the treatment and prevention of obesity-related chronic diseases, as the interactions of curcumin with several signal transduction pathways — the process by which biological functions are recognized — also reverse insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and other inflammatory symptoms associated with obesity and metabolic disorders.
Curcumin is known for its potent anti-inflammatory properties, and chronic inflammation is the hallmark of most chronic disease, including diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease. But many people are not aware that obesity contributes to a state of low-grade, chronic inflammation in your body that can trigger metabolic disorders such as insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Curcumin appears to modulate several cellular transduction pathways that contribute to this damaging process.
As a result, researchers concluded:

“These findings might enable novel phytochemical treatment strategies as well as curcumin translation to the clinical practice for the treatment and prevention of obesity-related chronic diseases. Furthermore, the relatively low cost of curcumin, safety and proven efficacy make it advisable to include curcumin as part of a healthy diet.”

Past research has revealed similar findings, including that curcumin reduces the formation of fat tissue by suppressing the blood vessels needed to form it. As the researchers stated:

“Our results clearly demonstrate that curcumin at cellular and whole organism levels displays remarkable potential health benefits for prevention of obesity and associated metabolic disorders.”

Weight Loss is Just the Icing on the Cake

The benefits of curcumin go way beyond weight loss. The compound has been shown to influence more than 700 genes, and it can inhibit both the activity and the synthesis of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2) and 5-lipooxygenase (5-LOX), as well as other enzymes that have been implicated in inflammation.
But that’s not all. Curcumin currently has the most evidence-based literature supporting its use against cancer than any other nutrient. Interestingly this also includes the metabolite of curcumin and its derivatives, which are also anti-cancerous. Best of all, curcumin appears to be safe in the treatment of all cancers. Researchers have found that curcumin can affect more than 100 different pathways, once it gets into the cell.
More specifically, curcumin has been found to:

✓ Inhibit the proliferation of tumor cells
✓ Decrease inflammation

✓ Inhibit the transformation of cells from normal to tumor
✓ Inhibit the synthesis of a protein thought to be instrumental in tumor formation

✓ Help your body destroy mutated cancer cells so they cannot spread throughout your body
✓ Help prevent the development of additional blood supply necessary for cancer cell growth (angiogenesis)

However, much of curcumin’s power seems to lie in its ability to modulate genetic activity and expression — both by destroying cancer cells and by promoting healthy cell function. As such, evidence suggests curcumin may play a beneficial role in the following conditions:

✓ Cystic fibrosis
✓ Type 2 diabetes
✓ Inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease

✓ Psoriasis
✓ Rheumatoid arthritis
✓ Cataracts

✓ Gallstones
✓ Muscle regeneration and regenerate brain cells after stroke
✓ Alzheimer’s disease

✓ Reduce cholesterol levels
✓ Inhibit platelet aggregation
✓ Protect against liver damage

✓ Inhibit HIV replication
✓ Suppress tumor formation
✓ Suppress symptoms of multiple sclerosis

Tips for Using Curcumin Therapeutically

You can use turmeric in your cooking (choose a pure turmeric powder, rather than a curry powder, as at least one study has found that curry powders tend to contain very little curcumin), but you may also want to consider taking it in supplement form. For many this is a more convenient method to obtain the potential health benefits, especially if it is from a high-quality organic source, and also if you don’t particularly enjoy the taste of curry.
Unfortunately, at the present time there really are no formulations available for the use against cancer, as relatively high doses are required and curcumin is not absorbed that well.
According to Dr. William LaValley, one of the leading medicine cancer physicians I personally know, typical anticancer doses are up to three grams of good bioavailable curcumin extract, three to four times daily. One work-around is to use the curcumin powder and make a microemulsion of it by combining a tablespoon of the powder and mixing it into 1-2 egg yolks and a teaspoon or two of melted coconut oil. Then use a high-speed hand blender to emulsify the powder.
Another strategy that can help increase absorption is to put one tablespoon of the curcumin powder into a quart of boiling water. It must be boiling when you add the powder as it will not work as well if you put it in room temperature water and heat the water and curcumin. After boiling it for ten minutes you will have created a 12 percent solution that you can drink once it has cooled down. It will have a woody taste.
The curcumin will gradually fall out of solution however. In about six hours it will be a 6 percent solution, so it’s best to drink the water within four hours. Be aware that curcumin is a very potent yellow pigment and can permanently discolor surfaces if you aren’t careful.

Be Sure Your Weight Loss Strategy is Comprehensive

It can’t hurt to add curcumin to your comprehensive weight loss program, but it should not be your only strategy for weight loss if you’re currently overweight or obese.
You can read an in-depth explanation of the common factors that contribute to weight loss here, but the key is the quality of your calories and exercise. Typically you will need to replace grains and sugars, including fructose, with high-quality protein and fats AND add in high-intensity exercise training like Peak Fitness. I realize that this might conflict with your previous understanding of a healthy diet, but that is clearly what the bulk of the science and anecdotal evidence supports.
For more comprehensive details, please see my nutrition plan, which is divided into beginner, intermediary and advanced, so that you can slowly work your way toward achieving your weight loss goals.

By Dr. Mercola

It is not often that I advocate the use of prescription drugs, but low-dose naltrexone (LDN) is one of those rare exceptions that may hold the promise of helping millions of people with cancer and autoimmune disease.
As a pharmacologically active opioid antagonist, LDN works by blocking opioid receptors, which in turn helps activate your body’s immune system.

How LDN Harnesses Your Own Body’s Chemistry to Fight Disease

The latest research in Experimental Biology and Medicine just confirmed that LDN does in fact target the opioid growth factor (OGF)/opioid growth factor receptor (OGFr) pathway to inhibit cell proliferation. Previous research by professor Ian S. Zagon of The Pennsylvania State University, who also conducted the Experimental Biology and Medicine study, found that OGF regulates the growth of cancer cells, and all cancer cells use the OGF-OGFr pathway in growth regulation.
It is through this mechanism that LDN is thought to exert its profound inhibitory effect on cancer growth.
Further, LDN also works with your body’s immune system through its interactions with your body’s endorphins. Though most commonly referenced in relation to you mood, endorphins also play a role in pain relief, immune system regulation, growth of cells and angiogenesis (the growth of blood vessels that feed a tumor).
Typically, LDN is taken at bedtime, which blocks your opioid receptors, as well as the reception of endorphins, for a few hours in the middle of the night. This is believed to up-regulate vital elements of your immune system by increasing your body’s production of metenkephalin and endorphins (your natural opioids), hence improving your immune function.
In addition to cancer, LDN has shown promise for the treatment of the following diseases:

Hepatitis C
Diabetic neuropathies

Lupus
Dermatomyositis (an inflammatory muscle disease)

Ulcerative colitis
Multiple sclerosis

Autism
Crohn’s disease

Chronic fatigue syndrome
Alzheimer’s disease

HIV/AIDS
Hasimoto’s thyroiditis

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
Parkinson’s disease

How can one substance impact so many different diseases? As written on the non-profit Web site LowDoseNaltrexone.org, which is an excellent resource for more information:

“The disorders listed above all share a particular feature: in all of them, the immune system plays a central role. Low blood levels of endorphins are generally present, contributing to the disease-associated immune deficiencies.”

Impressive Results in Cancer Treatment

In 1985, Dr. Bernard Bihari discovered LDN enhanced patients’ response to infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Years later he found that his patients with cancer and autoimmune disease also benefited from LDN.
Dr. Bihari has reportedly treated more than 450 cancer patients with LDN with promising results, including cancers of the bladder, breast, liver, lung, lymph nodes, colon, and rectum. According to Dr. Bihari, nearly a quarter of his patients had at least a 75 percent reduction in tumor size, and nearly 60 percent of his patients demonstrated disease stability. He believes LDN’s anti-cancer mechanism is likely due to an increase in the:

Number and density of opiate receptors on the tumor cell membranes, making them more responsive to the growth-inhibiting effects of the already present levels of endorphins, which in turn induces apoptosis (cell death) in the cancer cells
Absolute numbers of circulating cytotoxic T cells and natural killer cells, as well as killer cell activity

An impressive study released earlier this year exemplifies LDN’s potential anti-cancer effects, in this case to treat ovarian cancer.
The study found:

LDN administered for six hours every two days reduced DNA synthesis and cell replication in tissue culture
Exposure to LDN in combination with cancer drugs had enhanced anti-cancer action
Mice with established ovarian tumors treated with LDN had repressed tumor progression by reducing DNA synthesis and angiogenesis — but not altering cell survival, indicating it is non-toxic
LDN combined with a chemotherapy drug, cisplatin, alleaviated the toxicity associated with cisplatin
LDN treatment upregulated the expression of the opioid growth factor, which is the only opioid peptide that tends to inhibit cell growth of ovarian cancer cells

Says Dr. Burton M. Berkson, MD, who has attested to achieving phenomenal results with low-dose naltrexone in both cancer patients and those with autoimmune diseases:

“It is difficult for many to believe that one drug can accomplish so many tasks. But LDN does not treat symptoms as most drugs do. It actually works way “upstream” to modulate the basic mechanisms that result in the disease state.”

Your Doctor Probably Doesn’t Know About Low-Dose Naltrexone

LDN has been an FDA-approved drug for over two decades, conventionally used to treat drug- and alcohol addiction at doses of 50mg to 300mg. Much lower doses (3 to 4.5 mg) are used for LDN’s immunomodulating properties as discussed above, but it has not yet been submitted for FDA approval at this low dose. None of the pharmaceutical giants back it, as at an average price of $15 to $40 for a month’s supply, the income potential isn’t very promising.
This means there are no friendly sales reps visiting your doctor talking about the potential benefits of this drug in very low doses, and as a result very few physicians are aware of LDN. So, if your physician is not familiar with LDN, you will need to bring it up to him or her, or, alternatively, seek a health care provider who is already knowledgeable at using LDN as a form of treatment. There are a number of pharmacies and compounding pharmacies in the United States and Canada that are reliable sources of the compound in low-dose form.

CAUTION: Important LDN Points to Consider if You Use It

Avoid slow-release (SR) or timed-release naltrexone. You want to be sure the LDN you receive is in unaltered form that allows you to receive the full dose quickly. Slow-release formulas may not give you the full therapeutic effects.
Be aware of inactive fillers. Part of the LDN capsule will contain a “neutral” filler material, however there is some evidence to suggest that calcium carbonate as a filler could interfere with the absorption of LDN. So to be on the safe side, avoid LDN capsules that contain calcium carbonate fillers.

Ideally, if you are interested in using LDN as a potential treatment consult with a knowledgeable health care practitioner who can guide your therapy and also help you find a reliable compounding pharmacy.

By Dr. Mercola

Curcumin – a derivative of turmeric, and the pigment that gives the curry spice turmeric its yellow-orange color — is a natural compound that has been extensively researched, and has been found to have numerous health applications. As a result, turmeric is becoming increasingly popular as a supplement. Each 100 grams of turmeric contains an estimated three to five grams of curcumin.
The ancient Chinese and Indian systems of medicine have recognized curcumin’s beneficial properties for thousands of years. Most notably, curcumin is known for its potent antia-inflammatory properties, and as you may know, chronic inflammation is an underlying factor in many, if not most, chronic diseases. The compound has been shown to influence more than 700 genes, which may in part explain its numerous health benefits.
To learn more about these, please review my special report on this healing spice.
Here, I will review one of curcumin’s most exciting properties, as researchers are increasingly recognizing its potential as an anti-cancer agent. At the end of this article, you’ll also find a list of my other common-sense cancer-prevention strategies.

Curcumin Effective against Fatal Type of Brain Tumor
In an exciting discovery announced in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry in July, researchers say curcumin could be the answer to stopping a fatal brain cancer known as glioblastoma (GBMs). This study strengthens previous findings. In this study, scientists showed that it decreased brain tumors in nine of 11 study animals (81 percent), with no evidence of toxicity.
Furthermore, curcumin did not affect healthy cells, suggesting curcumin selectively targets cancer cells. They also found that it worked synergistically with two different chemotherapy drugs, enhancing the elimination of cancer cells.
The authors state:

“In summary, data presented here suggest curcumin as a potential agent for therapy of GBMs.”

One of the BEST Supplements for Many Cancers
Several years ago, I learned about the anti-cancer potential of curcumin from Dr. William LaValley, one of the top natural medicine cancer physicians I know. He pointed out that curcumin has the most evidence-based literature backing its use as a cancer support among all nutrients. Not only does it affect more than 700 genes, curcumin also affects more than 100 different pathways once it gets into the cell. Best of all, it appears to be safe in the treatment of all cancers.
Here’s a sampling of some of the most recent studies:

A 2008 study in Cancer Prevention Research, found that curcumin inhibits breast cancer cell motility and invasion by directly inhibiting the function of alpha6beta4 integrin, which suggests it may serve as an effective therapeutic agent in tumors that overexpress alpha6beta4. (Alpha6beta4 is associated with cancer progression by contributing to apoptosis resistance and metastasis)
In 2009, a study in Molecular Pharmacology found that curcumin inhibits pancreatic cancer cell growth and acts as a chemosensitizing agent
Other research from 2009 found that curcumin induces programmed cell death in lung cancer cells
A 2010 study concluded that curcumin has the potential to target cancer stem cells

How Does Curcumin Fight Cancer?
In India, where turmeric is widely used in the diet, the prevalence of four common U.S. cancers — colon, breast, prostate and lung — is 10 times lower. In fact, prostate cancer, which is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in U.S. men, is rare in India and this is attributed, in part, to the curcumin in turmeric. It appears that curcumin combats cancer in a number of different ways.
For instance, curcumin has been found to:

✓ Inhibit the proliferation of tumor cells
✓ Help your body destroy mutated cancer cells so they cannot spread throughout your body
✓ Inhibit the synthesis of a protein thought to be instrumental in tumor formation

✓ Inhibit the transformation of cells from normal to tumor
✓ Decrease inflammation
✓ Prevent the development of additional blood supply necessary for cancer cell growth

Which Type of Turmeric is Best?
To get the full benefits that curcumin has to offer, look for a 100 percent certified organic turmeric extract with at least 95 percent curcuminoids. The formula should be free of fillers, additives and excipients (a substance added to the supplement as a processing or stability aid), and the manufacturer should use safe production practices at all stages: planting, cultivation, selective harvesting, and then producing and packaging the final product.
For use in cooking, choose a pure turmeric powder rather than a curry powder. Preferably organic. At least one study has found that curry powders tend to contain very little curcumin, compared to turmeric powder.

Guidelines for Using Curcumin
Right now, there are no formulations commercially available for use against cancer, and you should know that not only are relatively high doses required, curcumin is also not absorbed very well… A typical anti-cancer dose can be as high as three grams of good bioavailable curcumin extract, three to four times daily.
One work-around is to make a microemulsion from curcumin powder. To do that, mix one tablespoon of the powder into 1-2 egg yolks, along with a teaspoon or two of melted coconut oil. Then, use a high-speed hand blender to emulsify the mixture.
Another strategy that can help increase absorption is to add one tablespoon of curcumin powder to a quart of boiling water. (It must be boiling when you add the powder as it will not work as well if you put it in tepid water.) After boiling it for 10 minutes you will have created a 12 percent solution, which you can drink once cooled. It has a slightly woody taste. Keep in mind though that the curcumin will gradually fall out of solution. In about six hours it will be a six percent solution, so it is best to drink the water within four hours of boiling.
One drawback of doing this at home is that curcumin is a very potent yellow pigment and can permanently discolor surfaces if you’re not careful.

Preventing Cancer: 11 Tips to Live By
In the last 30 years the global cancer burden has doubled, and is estimated to nearly triple by 2030. Clearly, we must begin to take cancer prevention seriously.
While curcumin offers great potential in the fight against cancer, I believe a healthy lifestyle—as opposed to swallowing any number of supplements—is the BEST way to avoid becoming a cancer statistic. 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 the following risk reduction strategies.

1. Radically reduce your sugar consumption. Normalizing your insulin levels is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to lower your risk of cancer, and in order to do so, cutting sugars and grains out of your diet is a must. Eliminating fructose is one of the most important sugars to initially concentrate on. If you have cancer, you’ll want to reduce that to below 10 grams per day from all sources.
2. Optimize your vitamin D levels. There’s overwhelming evidence pointing to the fact that vitamin D deficiency plays a crucial role in cancer development. Researchers within this field have estimated that about 30 percent of cancer deaths might be prevented each year simply by optimizing the vitamin D levels in the general population. On a personal level, you can decrease your risk of cancer by MORE THAN HALF simply by getting optimal sun exposure year-round. Alternatively, you could use a safe tanning bed, or, as a last resort, an oral vitamin D3 supplement. Remember the BEST way to raise your vitamin D level is by sun exposure.
If you are being treated for cancer it is likely that higher blood levels—probably around 80-90 ng/ml—would be beneficial. To learn the details on how to use vitamin D therapeutically, please review my previous article, Test Values and Treatment for Vitamin D Deficiency.

3. Exercise regularly. There’s compelling evidence indicating that exercise can slash your risk of cancer, primarily by reducing elevated insulin levels and normalizing estrogen. For example, women who exercise regularly can reduce their breast cancer risk by 20 to 30 percent compared to those who are inactive. I prefer to view exercise like a drug that needs to be carefully prescribed to achieve its maximum benefit.

It’s important to include a large variety of techniques in your exercise routine. Additionally it is likely that integrating exercise with intermittent fasting will greatly catalyze the potential of exercise to reduce your risk of cancer and stimulate widespread healing and rejuvenation.

4. Get appropriate amounts of animal-based omega-3 fats.

5. Eat as many vegetables as you are comfortable with. Ideally, they should be fresh and organic. Cruciferous vegetables in particular have been identified as having potent anti-cancer properties.

6. Have a tool to permanently erase the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. There are a number of different energy psychology tools available that are particularly well-suited for this purpose; the Emotional Freedom Technique is one example.

7. Maintain an ideal body weight.

8. Get enough high-quality sleep.

9. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners, air pollution, and plastic toxins like BPA.

10. Reduce your use of cell phones and other wireless technologies, and implement as many safety strategies as possible if/when you cannot avoid their use.

11. Boil, poach or steam your foods, rather than frying or charbroiling them.

By Dr. Mercola

Sulfur is the third most abundant mineral in your body, after calcium and phosphorous. It’s an important mineral element that you get almost wholly through dietary proteins, yet it’s been over 20 years since the U.S. Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) issued its last update on recommended daily allowances (RDA) for it.
In a study examining critical elements about how sulfur works in the body, researchers say the importance of this mineral may be underestimated, and that it’s possible that we may not be getting enough of it.

The Importance of Sulfur
Close to half of the sulfur in your body can be found in your muscles, skin and bones, but it does much more than benefit just these three areas. It plays important roles in many bodily systems.
Sulfur bonds are required for proteins to maintain their shape, and these bonds determine the biological activity of the proteins. For example, as explained in the featured MSM newsletter, hair and nails consists of a tough protein called keratin, which is high in sulfur, whereas connective tissue and cartilage contain proteins with flexible sulfur bonds, giving the structure its flexibility. With age, the flexible tissues in your body tend to lose their elasticity, leading to sagging and wrinkling of skin, stiff muscles and painful joints.
A shortage of sulfur likely contributes to these age-related problems.
In addition to bonding proteins, sulfur is also required for the proper structure and biological activity of enzymes. If you don’t have sufficient amounts of sulfur in your body the enzymes cannot function properly, which can cascade into a number of health problems as without biologically active enzymes, your metabolic processes cannot function properly.
Sulfur also plays an important role in:

Your body’s electron transport system, as part of iron/sulfur proteins in mitochondria, the energy factories of your cells
Vitamin-B thiamine (B1) and biotin conversion, which in turn are essential for converting carbohydrates into energy
Synthesizing important metabolic intermediates, such as glutathione
Proper insulin function. The insulin molecule consists of two amino acid chains connected to each other by sulfur bridges, without which the insulin cannot perform its biological activity
Detoxification

The featured study looked at a broad scope of overlapping metabolic pathways in order to determine which ones may be affected by insufficient intake of dietary sulfur. They also evaluated the modes of action of a variety of sulfur-containing dietary supplements, including chondroitin and glucosamine, commonly used to improve joint health.
According to the authors:

“Sulfur amino acids contribute substantially to the maintenance and integrity of the cellular systems by influencing cellular redox state and the capacity to detoxify toxic compounds, free radicals and reactive oxygen species.

… Sulfur containing metabolites, of which glutathione is a key exponent, merge in their functioning with many other compounds that play a major role in mechanisms which are receiving tremendous interests as parts of conventional and complementary medical care. These include the n-3 and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, minerals such as Selenium, Zinc, Copper and Magnesium, vitamins E and C, antioxidants such as the proanthocyanidins and lipoic acid, many of which are involved in the synthesis of prostaglandins and in the antioxidant cascade.

More and more evidence is accumulating and focusing on the cooperative role that glutathione and other sulfur metabolites play in the homeostatic control of these fundamental mechanisms.”

Are You Getting Enough Sulfur in Your Diet?
As stated in the featured research, only two of the 20 amino acids normally present in foods contain sulfur:

Methionine, which cannot be synthesized by your body and must be supplied through diet, and
Cysteine, which is synthesized by your body but requires a steady supply of dietary sulfur in order to do so

Neither of these are stored in your body. Rather, “any dietary excess is readily oxidized to sulphate, excreted in the urine (or reabsorbed depending on dietary levels) or stored in the form of glutathione (GSH),” according to the researchers. (Glutathione is comprised of three amino acids: cysteine, glutamate, and glycine, and is your body’s most potent antioxidant, which also keeps all other antioxidants performing at peak levels.)
Furthermore:

“The availability of cysteine appears to be the rate limiting factor for synthesis of glutathione (GSH).

GSH values are subnormal in a large number of wasting diseases and following certain medications leading frequently to poor survival. By supplying sulfur amino acids (SAA) many of these changes can be reversed.

In the brain, which is usually the most spared organ during nutrient deficiencies, GSH concentration declines in order to maintain adequate levels of cysteine. This loss of GSH impairs antioxidant defences… Cartilage, less essential for survival, may not fare well under conditions of sulfur deprivation, explaining why dietary supplements containing sulfur (chondroitin sulfate, glucosamine sulfate, MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane), etc.) may be of benefit in the treatment of joint diseases.”

In conclusion, they state that:

“Out of this study came information that suggested that a significant proportion of the population that included disproportionally the aged, may not be receiving sufficient sulfur and that these dietary supplements, were very likely exhibiting their pharmacological actions by supplying inorganic sulfur.”

Dietary Sources of Sulfur
The best and most ideal way to obtain sulfur is through your diet. Sulfur is derived almost exclusively from dietary protein, such as fish and high-quality (organic and/or grass-fed/pastured) beef and poultry. Meat and fish are considered “complete” as they contain all the sulfur-containing amino acids you need to produce new protein. Needless to say, those who abstain from animal protein are placing themselves at far greater risk of sulfur deficiency.
Other dietary sources that contain small amounts of sulfur include:

✓ Organic pastured eggs
✓ Legumes
✓ Garlic
✓ Onion

✓ Brussel sprouts
✓ Asparagus
✓ Kale
✓ Wheat germ

MSM, an Organic Form of Sulfur
Methylsulfonylmethane, commonly known by its acronym, MSM, is not a drug. It’s an organic form of sulfur and a potent antioxidant, naturally found in many plants. While MSM is an important source of organic sulfur, it also has other unique properties.  Common health complaints associated with low concentrations of MSM in your body include:

Fatigue
Depression
High sensitivity to physical and psychological stress
Degenerative diseases

MSM’s ability to neutralize inflammation is one of the greatest, and one of the most inexpensive, discoveries in the health field, and is thought to be particularly beneficial in the prevention of heart disease.  It has been shown to break down the plaque in your arteries, which is associated with chronic inflammation.
Other health benefits associated with MSM include:

✓ Reducing chronic pain
✓ Improving cellular uptake of many nutrients including vitamins A, B, C, D, E, amino acids, selenium, calcium, magnesium, coenzyme Q10
✓ Preventing cancer
✓ Reducing or eliminating muscle soreness and cramps

✓ Detoxification
✓ Alleviating symptoms of allergies
✓ Anti-parasitic action against Giardia, Trichomonas, roundworms, nematodes, Enterobius and other intestinal worms
✓ Improving lung function by allowing your body to more effectively take up oxygen

✓ Preventing neurological disease by repairing oxidative damage and restoring cell membrane elasticity and permeability
✓ Preventing and reducing symptoms of autoimmune diseases by fighting chronic inflammation
✓ Preventing diabetes by promoting healthy insulin function
✓ Increasing strength and endurance, and reducing stress

Sources of MSM, and Dosages
MSM can be found in:

Raw grass-fed milk
Fresh vegetables, and
Fruits

The amounts of sulfur you can obtain from these sources range between one to five mg/kg. Raw pastured milk contains the highest amounts of MSM: between two to five mg/kg. However, it’s important to know that MSM is rapidly lost during heating, so pasteurized milk is not a good source. It contains less than 0.25 mg/kg MSM… Ditto for thoroughly cooked vegetables, and fruits and vegetables kept for a period of time. Hence, you’ll want to consume most of your veggies raw as soon as possible after harvesting. If you eat a diet consisting primarily of processed and thoroughly cooked foods, you can be virtually guaranteed that you’re not getting sufficient amounts of sulfur in your diet.
MSM is also highly concentrated in aloe vera, so you can use natural aloe vera products to increase your intake of MSM in its natural form.
Another alternative is to take MSM as a dietary supplement. In a previous interview, superfood expert David Wolfe recommended taking about 2,500 mg per day to start; slowly working your way up to about 5,000 to 7,500 mg per day. Keep in mind that there may be side effects because MSM can detoxify you, and that may initially aggravate any condition you have. So increase dosage slowly to allow your body to adjust. Avoid increasing the dose until all detox symptoms have disappeared. Also, avoid taking it at night, as it may increase your energy levels.
As with most supplements, quality is a concern when it comes to MSM as well.  It’s important to note that if you’re allergic to sulfa drugs, you may also have trouble with MSM.
Aside from that, MSM is extremely non-toxic. So far no one has found an upper limit at which point it causes toxic effects. This fact makes it an ideal form of sulfur supplementation, as the sulfur-containing amino acids methionine and cysteine can both cause toxic symptoms at large doses.

“Body by science” by Doug McGuff, MD from Ancestry on Vimeo.By Dr. Mercola

In the video above, Dr. Doug McGuff, author of the book Body by Science, explains how going back to a “Paleo” way of eating and using high-intensity exercise can help you optimize your health. In terms of lowering your body fat, it is absolutely essential that you take some tips from generations long since passed, as they hold the keys to developing the lean, strong body you were designed to have.

What is the Paleo Diet?
One of the most thorough looks into “Stone Age” nutrition was done by Dr. Loren Cordain, author of The Paleo Diet and considered to be one of the world’s leading experts on Paleolithic nutrition. Based upon scientific research examining the types and quantities of foods our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate, the foundation of “The Paleo Diet” is lean meat, including ostrich and bison as well as organ meats, seafood, fresh fruit and non-starchy vegetables — a far cry from the standard American diet.
During the Paleolithic period, which spans to 12,000 years ago, people ate primarily vegetables, fruit, nuts, roots and meat. As Dr. McGuff stated, if you went out to gather food during this time, the foodstuffs you would find the least of would be carbohydrates. As he said, there was a lot more “fauna” than “flora” in the environment.
Your body likely developed the signal to store energy based upon the food type that was least abundant, i.e. carbohydrates, and this has continued to this day. So when you eat carbs, your body hears “store energy” — and this situation is put on steroids with the Standard American Diet, as McGuff said.
While exercise is important and crucial for weight loss, the foods you choose to eat are multiple times more important for controlling your weight than your exercise. And if your diet relies on carbohydrates like sugar, fructose and grains, weight- and fat loss will be virtually impossible.

If You Want a Lean Body, Eat the Way of Your Ancestors
Our Stone-Age ancestors not only ate more natural foods than we do today, but they also ate an incredibly wide variety of them. Dr. Mark Berry, who is involved in the Paleolithic nutrition research, explained that back then humans ate 20-25 different plant foods a day.
Today, many Americans struggle to fit in five!
Meanwhile, modern-day man eats far more carbs — including grains, sugar and fructose — than your ancestors could have dreamed of. See, you don’t get fat simply because you overeat — on the contrary, you overeat because your fat tissue is accumulating excess fat. But why would your fat tissue continuously accumulate fat if you’re not simply “eating too much and exercising too little”? Because:

Dietary carbohydrates, especially fructose, are the primary source of a substance called glycerol-3-phosphate (g-3-p), which causes fat to become fixed in fat tissue
At the same time, high carb intake raises your insulin levels, which prevents fat from being released

The resulting equation is simple: fructose and dietary carbohydrates (grains, which break down into sugar) lead to excess body fat, obesity and related health issues. No amount of exercise can compensate for this damage because if you eat a lot of fructose (and there’s a good chance you are, considering it’s in virtually every processed food), it could be “programming” your body to become fat.
It’s not hard to understand the dietary roots of the American weight problem nowadays when you consider that the top 10 sources of calories in the American diet: Four of the top five sources of calories, and eight out of the full 10, are CARBS — sugars (primarily fructose) and grains! This is the opposite of what our ancestors ate, and is also counterproductive to what you need to lose body fat and stay healthy.

1. Grain-based desserts (cakes, cookies, donuts, pies, crisps, cobblers, and granola bars) 139 calories a day
2. Yeast breads, 129 calories a day

3. Chicken and chicken-mixed dishes, 121 calories a day
4. Soda, energy drinks, and sports drinks, 114 calories a day

5. Pizza, 98 calories a day
6. Alcoholic beverages

7. Pasta and pasta dishes
8. Mexican mixed dishes

9. Beef and beef-mixed dishes
10. Dairy desserts

So What Should You Eat to Mimic Your Stone-Age Ancestors?

Ironically, when U.S. News evaluated and ranked 20 diets with input from a panel of health experts, the Paleo diet ranked lowest of the 20! But this was not because it is a poor diet, but because the panelists didn’t believe it was possible to find the appropriate foods in the modern era. Nothing could be further from the truth, because food selection today is no longer dictated by your environment as it was so long ago, but rather by your choices at the supermarket or, better, the farmer’s market.
As written in AlterNet:

“The Paleo diet is less a prescription than a framework for considering one’s relationship with food, but several themes are common to most Paleo menus. Aversion to wheat and most grains is common, and processed carbs and sugar are especially avoided. Many Paleos are suspicious of modern fruit, engineered as it was by agriculture into the equivalent of candy bars hanging from trees.”

While you wouldn’t be able to find many of the wild varieties of plant foods eaten by cavemen even if you wanted to, because modern agriculture has largely taken over the food supply and tweaked and shrunk it to where only a few varieties of wheat, corn and other plant foods are left, you can certainly mold your diet around the principles of Paleo eating rather simply by following my nutrition plan.
I believe it to be one of the most profound interventions for the 21st century and, when properly applied, it can improve just about anyone’s health by basing your diet on fresh, whole, unprocessed, “real” food!
As Dr. Cordain stated:

“Simply put, human nutritional requirements for optimal health are determined by our genes, and our genes are shaped by the environment of our ancestors through natural selection. Many modern staples and processed foods were not present throughout most of the more than 2 million years hominin species have been present on earth.

The nutritional qualities of modern processed foods and foods introduced during the Neolithic period are discordant with our ancient and conservative genome. This genetic discordance ultimately manifests itself as various chronic illnesses, which have been dubbed “diseases of civilization.”

By severely reducing or eliminating these foods and replacing them with a more healthful cuisine, possessing nutrient qualities more in line with the foods our ancestors consumed, it is possible to improve health and reduce the risk of chronic disease.”

Where Does Exercise Fit In?
Much of Dr. Doug McGuff’s video above is focused on high-intensity exercise like Peak Fitness — and this, too, mimics the behavioral patterns of the Paleolithic people. During this era, people were not running long distances without any rest, the way so many people do on treadmills today. Rather, they would exert themselves in short bursts while hunting or evading threats, and then follow this up with a period of rest.
By following this strategy, you can really maximize your weight loss efforts, as long as it is combined with proper dietary changes.
The short intense training protocol that is used during Peak Fitness exercise improves muscle energy utilization and expenditure due to its positive effects on increasing muscle mass and improving muscle fiber quality. Muscle tissue burns three to five times more energy than fat tissues. This means that muscle gain increases your body’s metabolic rate and allows you to burn more calories, even when you’re sleeping.
Further, several studies have confirmed that exercising in shorter bursts with rest periods in between burns more fat than exercising continuously for an entire session. In fact, you can actually lose more weight by reducing the amount of time you spend on exercise, as with Peak Fitness you only need 20 minutes, two to three times a week. Remember proper dietary choices are your first and most important step to fat loss, but high-intensity exercise can boost your progress from there.

By Dr. Mercola

Juicing is a powerful tool that can accelerate your progress towards optimal health. Virtually every health authority, even conventional doctors, recommend 6-8 servings of vegetables and fruits per day but very few of us actually get that.
In my life I have found that juicing is a simple and easy way to virtually guarantee that you will reach your daily target for vegetables. I typically juice every day and consume from a pint to a quart of green juice daily.
Juicing also helps you absorb all those wonderful 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. Juicing will help to “pre-digest” the veggies, so you receive most of the nutrition rather than having it go down the toilet.
Another benefit of juicing is that it allows you to add a wider variety of vegetables to your diet that you might not normally enjoy eating whole.

How Much Juice Should You Consume?

Cherie recommends a minimum of 16 ounces of juice a day. Ideally, you’ll want to strive for a full quart of juice, split up between the morning and the afternoon.
My personal recommendation is to juice it all at once, to save time, then store it properly and drink it throughout the day.
Cherie says she’s got her juicing routine down to 10 minutes, but then again, she’s an expert. Pour your juice into a FoodSaver, or a glass Mason or Ball jar filled to the top so there is no oxygen, and put it in the fridge immediately. FoodSaver has an attachment for the jars that will vacuum seal it for you and suck out most of the oxygen. You’re probably going to retain well over 90 percent of the nutritional value if you do it in that way and consume it within 12 to 24 hours

What To Do with the Pulp?

Many are concerned about wasting the pulp and throwing it away. Well that can easily be solved by composting it into your vegetable or ornamental garden. However, an even better solution would be to eat it.
From a nutritional perspective it is far more useful to eat the whole vegetable as the fibers actually serve as a prebiotic and raw fuel for your good bacteria to grow, and as a weed killer that actually helps to eradicate harmful organisms like yeast and pathogenic bacteria.
You are probably thinking “how disgusting,” and “why would I ever want to do that?”
Well if you dress up the pulp with some Himalayan salt and other condiments that you may enjoy, like balsamic vinegar and crushed red peppers, it becomes far more palatable. What I have recently figured out though is if I put a few lightly poached eggs over the pulp with some melted fresh raw organic butter, it really is turns it into a delicious meal.
The butter and eggs provide fat and protein that actually balance out the meal.  I used to feel hungry after juicing but since I started eating the pulp with poached eggs I feel very full and satisfied.
Some might ask why I don’t  just use a powerful mixer like a Vita Mixer and have less mess to clean up and prepare it quicker. Well there are several problems doing it this way as the speed of the Vita Mixer is too high and can actually damage some of the nutrients in the vegetables.  More importantly is it is MUCH less palatable as it becomes a thick, virtually undrinkable slurry rather than a tasty meal and refreshing thin juice you can drink right down.
One of my newer developments is to take the pulp and put it in a dehydrator at 104 degrees for 6-12 hours, until it is dry and make vegetable pulp crisps. I put Himalayan salt and other seasonings on it like crushed red pepper, and I use it as a bread substitute, particularly for the four raw organic pastured chicken egg yolks I have almost every morning. The texture really makes it a very palatable breakfast. I also use one avocado and some red onions.

Juice According to Your Nutritional Type

Although vegetables are generally “healthful,” it’s still important to take your nutritional type into account when juicing, both in terms of the amount you consume, and the types of vegetables and add-ins you use.
According to Nutritional Typing principles, if you are a carb type, then vegetable juicing is highly recommended to help you regain your health. Juicing is also beneficial for mixed types.
Protein types, however, need to be a bit more cautious though and follow some specific guidelines to reap optimal results.
Celery, cucumber, spinach, asparagus, string beans and cauliflower are the best options for protein types because they’re lower in potassium.
You can also add some dark leafy greens like collards, kale, and dandelion greens, but do so cautiously and pay careful attention to how you feel, because these vegetables are very high in potassium and can cause biochemical imbalances in protein types.
Additionally, to make the juice compatible with protein type metabolism (which also needs higher amounts of fat), it is important to blend in some type of raw fat, such as raw cream, raw butter, raw eggs, avocado, coconut butter, or freshly ground organic flax or hemp seeds.  

Healing Through Juicing—The Juice Lady’s Story

Cherie Calbom earned her nickname “The Juice Lady” back in 1991, when she worked for the Juiceman company. But she’s been passionate about juicing far longer.

“[Y]ears ago, I had chronic fatigue syndrome; fibromyalgia in my late 20s; hypoglycemia; allergies; candidiasis—a long list of problems and no hope to get well,” Cherie says.
“I decided I was going to find a way; there had to be a way to get well. So I started going to health food stores and reading. I found an old Norman Walker book… I got my first juicer and I embarked on this five day vegetable juice cleanse, and continued that through three months of juicing. I changed my diet completely.
One morning, I woke up and thought somebody gave me a new body in the middle of the night. It was like WOW! I felt completely healed.”

However, it bears mentioning that it wasn’t an entirely smooth ride.

“Along the way, I felt worse before I felt better. No one had talked about the detox reactions. My dad kept saying, “I think you’re killing yourself with this juice program.”…I was definitely detoxing.”

In Cherie’s case, it took three months before she suddenly felt completely renewed.
Interestingly, three months is also the average lifespan of red blood cells. So in three months you should have renewed most all of your red blood cells. In Cherie’s experience, this is the typical time frame for most people before they see any dramatic improvement in their health.

The Healing Power of Wheatgrass

Although many don’t fancy the taste of wheatgrass, it’s a potent healing and detoxing ingredient. You’ll need a masticating juicer in order to use it however, as it’ll just shoot out of a centrifugal juicer.
Cherie buys flats of wheatgrass from her local co-op, but you can also order them from Whole Foods. Most local food stores only sell it in small containers, which you might get 2 oz. from, if you’re lucky. If you buy a flat of it, you’ll have enough to last you several days. To keep it fresh, place it in front of a window and spray some water on it daily.

“It’s so good!” Cherie says. “It’s a grass. It’s like a sprout. It’s new life; loaded with chlorophyll and all of these wonderful vitamins, minerals, enzymes, biophotons and some amino acids. It’s just powerful.
… They say that the chlorophyll molecule in there is similar to our hemoglobin molecule.”
… I’ve consulted at a center that uses wheatgrass juice for people who go through this program… I’ve seen amazing things happen for people drinking 5 oz. of wheatgrass juice a day: 2.5 oz. in the morning and 2.5 oz in the afternoon. Try it. That’s all I can say. Just give it a try.”

It is really bitter though, so you may want to add a small amount of lime or liquid stevia to improve the flavor. Limes are great as they are virtually fructose free.

Detoxing—An Important Part of Optimal Health

Juicing is one way to detox your system and is in fact one of the reasons why some people start juicing in the first place. Wheatgrass is particularly helpful in this respect. It provides nutrients that accelerate and facilitate detoxification, especially in your liver where most of your body’s detox occurs.
However, about 100-times more of the toxins are stored in your fat than in your blood. And although juicing may help you shed excess fat, which would reduce toxic stores, it will not in and of itself draw it out of your fat. More aggressive intervention is required for that.
I recently encountered a surgical oncologist who has a great detox program. He uses high dose niacin to cause lipolysis (breakdown of fat), in conjunction with exercise to raise your core body temperature. Then you spend 40 minutes in an infrared sauna. Doing this process daily for a month causes your body to excrete stored toxins from your fat.
However, this is not a detox cure to dabble with at home.
First of all, 20 to 25 percent of people cannot tolerate niacin. It causes massive flushing. Second, although it’s a vitamin, at the doses required for detox, it’s treated as a drug. He starts his patients out at about 100 mg and progresses all the way up to 5,000 mg, which is a massive dose. You’ll be beet red from the niacin flush! So it has to be used with extreme caution and only under a physician’s care.

Detoxing with Juicing

Juicing, however, is also a powerful way to lose body fat, and because the juice contains high amounts of antioxidants it can help bind toxins when they get released.

“You are going to be losing fat and when those fat cells are breaking down and all those toxins are getting released, you need a lot of antioxidants to get them out of your system and render them harmless. That’s where juicing is just powerful,” Cherie explains.
“The beta carotene and other carotenes are wonderful for the liver and a wonderful part of detox. I’ve worked with a lot of people on various cleansing programs that I’ve designed and juicing is a big part of that along with nutrients and herbs to help the liver detox. I wouldn’t be without it.
I don’t like just a straight water fast… When I did an internship with a nutritional medical doctor, he had some people coming in that had done just straight water fast and had gotten into major problems because of it.
So I think it’s very important to have hearty vegetable juices for cleansing or detoxing your body. People that do, even though you get symptoms (the Herxheimer reaction they call it), seem to do a whole lot better when they’ve got the fresh vegetable juices than when they don’t.”

What about Fasting?

Personally, I’ve been opposed to fasting. It works well for some people, but I believe it’s not entirely suitable for strong protein types like myself, simply because we need high amounts of protein. Obviously, if you’re doing a juice fast you’re getting some protein but it’s a rather minimal amount. My concern is that it might cause you to lose muscle as well as fat. Intermittent fasting can be used on occasion.
My concerns may be unwarranted however.
According to Cherie, short fasts, lasting no more than two or three days do not appear to have any impact on muscles. Juice fasts lasting longer than a week however, may lead to muscle loss.

“I’m a protein type and I did a five-day fast that one time to kind of kick off my program. It’s wonderful to give your system a rest where your body is not having to work to break down all of this stuff that we eat… It can then really begin to work on detox, on repair, on rejuvenation. I’ve done one about every year for three days and I always add in wheatgrass.”

When doing a juice fast, Cherie recommends consuming between one to two quarts of juice a day. Also remember to break your fast with very light foods, such as cold raw soup and maybe a dehydrated cracker.

“There are a lot of people who like to take one day a week to give their system a rest. A nice way to do that is to do an all liquid breakfast, lunch and dinner, so you don’t feel so deprived. You’ve slept through most of it and yet, you’ve given your system a real rest and a chance to do some cleansing. Then just have a really healthy dinner the next night,” Cherie recommends.

Cherie’s Vegetable Recommendations

With respect to specific vegetable recommendations, here’s Cherie’s top picks:

Dark greens, such as collard greens, Swiss chard and kale
Ginger root, for its anti-inflammatory properties
Lemons, which are high in vitamin C and bioflavanoids. If organic you can also juice the rind
Celery
Cucumbers (leave the skin on if organic)
Parsley, which is rich in vitamin C, bioflavanoids, iron, minerals and chlorophyll
Beet greens (the beets are good for your liver, but they’re high in sugar, so use them very sparingly)
Organic carrots (avoid conventionally grown carrots as they tend to be highly contaminated with pesticides). Use carrots sparingly, however, as they’re very high in sugar. Avoid them if you have candida, hypoglycemia, insulin resistance, diabetes, or cancer.

She also saves broccoli stems, the bottoms of cauliflower, and the stems from fresh asparagus and juices those. It’s a great way to reduce waste.

Special Concerns and Warnings

Please note you should never juice the peel from oranges or grape fruits as they contain toxic oils.
Limes do not contain these oils and are safe to juice. Only juice organic lime rinds however, to avoid contaminating your juice.
Additionally, you’ll want to rotate the vegetables you use, as consuming the same vegetables every day for an extended period of time can cause you to develop sensitivities or allergies. So switch things up regularly and try different recipes.
For more information, please see my juicing page.

Ever wonder why those last few pounds just won’t come off – or why you might even gain weight when you’re on a diet? Believe it or not, you may be sabotaging yourself with some bad diet habits without realizing it. In a 16-point list, Bodhifitonline talks about diet habits that can wreak havoc with a weight loss program.
For example, simply not eating enough could be the one thing that sets you up to fail. You may already have guessed that following celebrity diets isn’t always a good thing – but did you know that the government’s food guidelines not only can ruin a diet but make you gain weight? The good news is that once you know what you’re doing wrong, it’s easy to get back on track.
Click on the link below to read all 16 reasons why you can’t stick to your diet.

Evidence suggests that CT scans to measure lung tumors can be unreliable.  This could potentially lead patients and doctors to believe the cancer is growing when it’s not.
A new study found that changes of up to 10 percent can happen simply as a result of the inherent variability of CT imaging.
According to Reuters:

“[The study] … is the first to test how reliable lung cancer scans are — work that’s long overdue, experts say, because CT scans have already become the gold standard for measuring cancer growth and treatment response.”

Yahoo Health has assembled 10 expert tips to keep your stomach flat and lean. Here are a few of them. To read the rest of the tips, you can click on the link below:

Eat at the magic hour: Have a snack that contains protein between 3 PM and 4 PM. It will boost your metabolism and balance your blood sugar.
Beef up on a belly-zapping hormone: Eat as close to zero grams of sugar as possible. This will keep your insulin levels low, and also keep your glucagon levels high. Glucagon, a hormone, helps keep your belly flat
Chew on this: Chewing prevents bloating. Chew food until it is like applesauce in your mouth. Digestion begins in the mouth, and better-digested food means less gas and bloating.
Size matters: Eating portion-controlled meals will reduce your abdominal flab.

Building muscle, losing fat, and improving overall health are dependent on one very important hormone — insulin. The website Bodybuilding.com offers 6 tips to get your insulin sensitivity high and keep it there. Here are three of them:

Tighten the reins on refined carbs: One of the primary reasons people develop diabetes is their overconsumption of refined carbs and sugars, which causes their pancreas to continually pump out more and more insulin.
Have some healthy fats: Another way to increase your insulin sensitivity is by optimizing the rate at which your body processes carbohydrates by eating plenty of healthy fats.
Stay active all day: Most people hit the gym regularly, but they succumb to long periods of inactivity during the rest of their day. This is asking for trouble.

To read the rest of their tips, click on the link below.

The Monsanto Company spent $1.4 million to lobby the federal government just in the first quarter of 2011, according to a recent disclosure report.  That’s still less than the $2.5 million Monsanto spent in a single three month period only a year earlier.
The company primarily lobbied Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture concerning regulations that would affect genetically engineered crops such as the company’s Roundup Ready soybeans and alfalfa.
According to CNBC:

“The company also lobbied Congress and USDA on issues surrounding consolidation and antitrust law in agriculture … The company also lobbied the U.S. Trade Representative and Department of State on issues surrounding foreign regulation and trade of biotech seeds.”

Here, Cherie Calbom, also known as “The Juice Lady,” shares her insights on juicing and how it can help improve your health. She’s authored two books on the subject: Juicing for Life, and The Juice Lady’s Turbo Diet.