Watchman News

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

October is breast cancer awareness month and an ideal time to learn all you can about the steps you can take to prevent the most common cancer affecting women in the developed world.
The information that follows will be much different from what is often spouted from anti-cancer organizations like the American Cancer Society (ACS), as — unlike ACS — I have no financial ties to both makers of mammography equipment and cancer drugs.  
My advice for cancer prevention is much more straightforward, involving simple lifestyle strategies that virtually everyone has the power to make.
All you need to become empowered to make these cancer-preventive changes is knowledge, and that is what I seek to give you by the time you finish reading this comment … I suggest you not only learn this information for your own benefit, but also share it with other women in your life as well.

Using the Wrong Antiperspirant May Influence Your Breast Cancer Risk

Putting on antiperspirant is a routine part of most people’s day, and you may not think much about it. But here’s why you should: if you use one containing aluminum, you could be increasing your risk of breast cancer.
Antiperspirants work by clogging, closing, or blocking the pores that release sweat under your arms — with the active ingredient being aluminum. Not only does this block one of your body’s routes for detoxification (releasing toxins via your underarm sweat), but it raises concerns about where these metals are going once you roll them (or spray them) on.
Research, including one study published this year in the Journal of Applied Toxicology, has shown that the aluminum is not only absorbed by your body, but is deposited in your breast tissue and even can be found in nipple aspirate fluid a fluid present in the breast duct tree that mirrors the microenvironment in your breast. Researchers determined that the mean level of aluminum in nipple aspirate fluid was significantly higher in breast cancer-affected women compared to healthy women, which may suggest a role for raised levels of aluminum as a biomarker for identification of women at higher risk of developing breast cancer.

Cancer-Causing Aluminum From Antiperspirant May Collect in Your Breasts

In a 2007 study published in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, researchers tested breast samples from 17 breast-cancer patients who had undergone mastectomies. The women who used antiperspirants had deposits of aluminum in their outer breast tissue. Concentrations of aluminum were higher in the tissue closest to the underarm than in the central breast.
Why is this a glaring red flag?
Aluminum is not normally found in the human body, so this study was a pretty clear sign that the metal was being absorbed from antiperspirant sprays and roll-ons. Please note that aluminum is typically only found in antiperspirants. If you are using a deodorant-only product it is unlikely to contain aluminum but might contain other chemicals that could be a concern.
Aluminum salts can account for 25 percent of the volume of some antiperspirants, and a review of the common sources of aluminum exposure for humans found that antiperspirant use can significantly increase the amount of aluminum absorbed by your body. According to the review, after a single underarm application of antiperspirant, about .012 percent of the aluminum may be absorbed.
This may not sound like much until you multiply it by one or more times a day for a lifetime, which adds up to massive exposure to aluminum — a poison that is not supposed to be in your body, and may be more toxic than mercury. Aluminum salts can mimic the hormone estrogen, and chemicals that imitate that hormone are known to increase breast cancer risk. Animal studies have also found that aluminum can cause cancer. Aside from vaccinations, your antiperspirant may be your largest source of exposure to this poisonous metal!

You Need to be Careful with Natural Deodorants, Too

There are many brands of aluminum-free deodorants on the market, and many of these are safe alternatives. And as a general rule, deodorants tend to be less problematic than antiperspirants, as they work by neutralizing the smell of your sweat and by antiseptic action against bacteria, rather than by preventing sweating. As such, some deodorants do not contain any aluminum, but you’ve got to be careful about this. While many claim to be aluminum-free, they are referring to aluminum chlorohydrate, aluminum chloride, aluminum hydroxybromide or aluminum zirconium, which are the types most commonly used in antiperspirants and deodorants.
“Crystal” deodorant stones, which are a popular natural deodorant alternative often used by health-conscious shoppers looking to avoid aluminum, often claim to be aluminum-free, but some actually contain a different type of compound known as an alum, the most common form being potassium alum, also known as potassium aluminum sulfate.
Potassium Alum or Ammonium Alum are natural mineral salts made up of molecules that are too large to be absorbed by your skin. They form a protective layer on your skin that inhibits the growth of odor-causing bacteria. These deodorants are recommended by many cancer treatment centers, but while this may be a better alternative to most antiperspirants and deodorants on the market, it is not completely aluminum-free.
So be sure, when choosing a natural deodorant alternative, that it truly is made of toxin-free ingredients. Aluminum is just one of them — you can find other chemical toxins to avoid in your personal care products here.  Alternatively, just use plain soap and water. This is what I use, typically in the morning and after I exercise.
Additionally, last year I found an ever more effective strategy and that is to expose your armpits to sunshine. Essentially you tan your armpits. The UVB rays in the sunlight are highly effective germicidal agents and sterilize your armpits in addition to raising your levels of vitamin D sulfate to healthy levels.   

Do Bras Cause Breast Cancer?

You might be surprised to hear this, but wearing certain types of bras might not be in your best interest. In fact, if you’re in the habit of wearing the most popular styles, you may be setting yourself up for some potentially serious health problems. This includes:

Tight-Fitting Bras

Many physicians and researchers agree that wearing a tight-fitting bra can cut off lymph drainage, which may contribute to the development of breast cancer because your body will be less able to excrete all the toxins you’re exposed to on a daily basis. Aluminum from antiperspirants is one potentially dangerous source of toxins that can accumulate if your lymph drainage is impaired.

You can avoid some of the improper drainage issues if you wear a bra that is properly fitted, so I suggest you make an appointment with a bra-fitting specialist to help you get the proper fit.
Underwire Bras

Nearly all underwire bras contain metal underwires coated with plastic. It is the metal that could be problematic for your long-term health.

In his 1975 article, Chinese Lessons For Modern Chiropractors, Dr. George Goodheart – known as “the father of Applied Kinesiology” — explained what he calls the “Antenna Effect.” Essentially, he discovered that by taping a small metal ball over an acupuncture point, you could achieve longer-term stimulation to that point in question. This discovery led to what are now known as AcuAids — small magnetic patches that are used by thousands of doctors across the world.

However, just like a small metal ball, any metal constantly applied to any given energy channel or point on your body can have the same stimulating effect. Over time, the continued stimulation can cause a subsequent decrease in function of important neuro-lymphatic reflex points located below your breasts.

In addition, the metal wire may act as an antenna attracting electromagnetic fields, which may also increase your risk of breast cancer. Fortunately, you can easily remove the piece of metal wire and replace it with a plastic rod of comparable size, which will provide the support but not simulate the antenna effect.
Wearing a Bra in General…

There are few solid studies on bra wearing and breast cancer, but one of the most compelling was completed by medical anthropologists Sydney Singer and Soma Grismaijer — authors of Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras. The study of over 4,000 women found that women who do not wear bras have a much lower risk of breast cancer:

Their findings included:

Women who wore their bras 24 hours per day had a 3 out of 4 chance of developing breast cancer
Women who wore bras more than 12 hour per day, but not to bed, had a 1 out of 7 risk
Women who wore their bras less than 12 hours per day had a 1 out of 52 risk
Women who wore bras rarely or never had a 1 out of 168 chance of getting breast cancer

When comparing women who wore their bras 24 hours a day with those who did not wear bras at all, there was a 125-fold difference in risk. Based on the results of this study, the link between bras and breast cancer is about three times greater than the link between cigarette smoking and cancer.

Although this study did not control for other risk factors, which could have skewed their results, other studies have found similar compelling links. For example, a group of Japanese researchers found that wearing a girdle or bra can lower your levels of melatonin by 60 percent. The hormone melatonin is intimately involved with the regulation of your sleep cycles, and numerous studies have shown that melatonin has anti-cancer activities.

Setting the Record Straight About Mammograms

I wouldn’t be doing my job if I discussed breast cancer without addressing mammograms — but this isn’t because I want to remind you to get yours. On the contrary, I don’t recommend mammograms, despite what you may hear from other medical sources. There are a few major reasons for this:

There is no solid evidence that mammograms save lives. In fact, research demonstrates that adding an annual mammogram to a careful physical examination of the breasts does not improve breast cancer survival rates over getting the examination alone. This is ESPECIALLY true for women under 50 with no breast cancer risk factors as even conventional experts advise this.
A mammogram uses ionizing radiation at a relatively high dose, which in and of itself can contribute to the development of breast cancer. Mammograms expose your body to radiation that can be 1,000 times greater than that from a chest x-ray, which we know poses a cancer risk. In fact, research in the journal Radiology, reported that annual mammography screening of 100,000 women from age 40-55, and biennial screening after that to age 74, would cause 86 radiation-induced cancers, including 11 fatalities and 136 life years lost.
Mammograms carry a first-time false positive rate of up to 6 percent. False positives can lead to expensive repeat screenings, exposing you to even more radiation, and may result in unnecessary invasive procedures including biopsies, unnecessary surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and devastating false diagnoses.

So why does the American Cancer Society advise women age 40 and older to have a screening mammogram every year, and continue to do so for as long as they are in good health, even despite updated guidelines set forth by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which state that women in their 40s should NOT get routine mammograms for early detection of breast cancer?
ACS’ role in the promotion of mammography is far from altruistic, as they have numerous ties to the mammography industry itself:

Five radiologists have served as presidents of ACS
ACS commonly promotes the interests of mammogram machine and film manufacturers, including Siemens, DuPont, General Electric, Eastman Kodak and Piker

The close ties help explain why ACS commonly runs advertisements urging women to get mammograms, even going so far in one ad as to promise that early detection leads to a cure “nearly 100 percent of the time.” But mammograms do not prevent nor cure breast cancer any more than an x-ray of your arm prevents you from breaking it or helping a broken bone heal!
I do recommend breast cancer screening, however, just not mammography.

What Can you do to Prevent Breast Cancer?

Aside from skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer among U.S. women, and one in eight will develop it during her lifetime. Cancer rates are climbing uncontrollably, and costs are quickly becoming unsustainable, a panel of 37 experts recently reported in The Lancet Oncology.
Unfortunately, while the American Cancer Society widely encourages women to get mammograms, they do not do nearly enough to spread the word about the many ways women can help prevent breast cancer in the first place.
Along with the tips already mentioned above regarding deodorant and bras, a healthy diet, regular physical exercise, and an effective way to manage your emotional health are the cornerstones of just about any cancer prevention program, including breast cancer.
The following lifestyle strategies will also help to further lower your risk:

Radically reduce your sugar/fructose intake. Normalizing your insulin levels by avoiding sugar and fructose is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to lower your risk of cancer. Unfortunately, very few oncologists appreciate or apply this knowledge today. The Cancer Centers of America is one of the few exceptions, where strict dietary measures are included in their cancer treatment program. Fructose is especially dangerous, as research shows it actually speeds up cancer growth.
Optimize your vitamin D level. Ideally it should be over 50 ng/ml, but levels from 60-80 ng/ml will radically reduce your cancer risk. Safe sun exposure is the most effective way to increase your levels, followed by safe tanning beds and then oral vitamin D3 supplementation as a last resort if no other option is available.
Maintain a healthy body weight. This will come naturally when you begin eating right for your nutritional type and exercising using high-intensity burst-type activities like Peak Fitness. It’s important to lose excess weight because estrogen, a hormone produced in fat tissue, may trigger breast cancer.
Get plenty of high quality animal-based omega-3 fats, such as those from krill oil. Omega-3 deficiency is a common underlying factor for cancer.
Avoid drinking alcohol, or limit your drinks to one a day for women.
Breastfeed exclusively for up to six months. Research shows this will reduce your breast cancer risk.
Watch out for excessive iron levels. This is actually very common once women stop menstruating. The extra iron actually works as a powerful oxidant, increasing free radicals and raising your risk of cancer. So if you are a post-menopausal woman or have breast cancer you will certainly want to have your Ferritin level drawn. Ferritin is the iron transport protein and should not be above 80. If it is elevated you can simply donate your blood to reduce it.

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

The latest research out of the University of Missouri should be required reading for the 79 million Americans with pre-diabetes and the 26 million with the full-blown disease. Taken together, this amounts to one in four Americans struggling with diabetes and the vast majority of these cases are type 2.
When diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, many believe their fate has been sealed and all they can do now is “control” it. More than 50 percent of type 2 diabetics are also not even aware they have diabetes, while millions of others are living in a state of insulin resistance (pre-diabetes) that could progress into diabetes at any time.
If someone told you there was a “magic” trick you could do that would almost instantly improve the way your body regulates blood sugar, and also reduce the spikes in blood sugar that occur after a meal (elevations in these spikes, known as postprandial glucose, or PPG, are associated with type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and death), would you do it?
Well there is. It’s called exercise. And now that you know what it is, the next step is up to you …

Want to Prevent or Reverse Diabetes? Exercise!

The amazing thing about exercise is that it exerts its effects very quickly. Sure, you will definitely reap long-term benefits, and exercise is well known to impact chronic diseases, but you’ll also get acute, nearly instantaneous benefits as well. This should be excellent motivation to those of you who are procrastinating on your exercise program, as you don’t have to exercise for a year or six months to experience benefits! New research published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that one single session of moderate exercise can improve the way your body regulates glucose and reduce PPG.
It’s instant gratification!
However, the opposite also holds true, meaning slacking on your exercise program or being sedentary will disrupt your body’s ability to regulate blood sugar, and this happens within days. There’s simply no way around the fact that your body is meant to engage in regular physical activity. Try to buck this reality and you’re asking for a slew of health troubles.

Why is Exercise the “Silver Bullet” in Diabetes Treatment?

Without exercise you’re unlikely to get this devastating disease under control. It works so well because it is one of the fastest and most powerful ways to lower your insulin and leptin resistance. See, type 2 diabetics need to address the root of the problem, which is NOT your blood sugar levels, as most conventional physicians would have you believe.
As Dr. Ron Rosedale wrote in this classic article, if you follow the misguided belief that diabetes is a disease of blood sugar, you are likely destined for premature death. Taking insulin is one of the WORST things you can do, as it will actually make your insulin and leptin resistance worse over time. Dr. Rosedale, an expert on leptin physiology and one of my early mentors in this area, developed the appropriate acronym — D.I.E. — to illustrate what’s happening in conventional diabetic treatment.

Doctor Induced Exacerbation

Yes, most doctors make diabetes worse and accelerate the death process. I’ve explained the mechanics of insulin resistance and the role of leptin and insulin before, but let’s review it again.

Leptin is a hormone produced in your fat cells. One of leptin’s primary roles is regulating your appetite and body weight. It tells your brain when to eat, how much to eat, and most importantly, when to stop eating. And leptin tells your brain what to do with the energy it has. Leptin is largely responsible for the accuracy of insulin signaling and whether or not you become insulin resistant.
Insulin—Sugars and grains raise your blood sugar. When this happens, insulin is released to direct the extra energy into storage. A small amount is stored as a starch called glycogen, but the majority is stored as your main energy supply—fat. Insulin’s major role is not to lower your blood sugar, but rather to store the extra energy for future times of need. Insulin’s effect of lowering your blood sugar is merely a “side effect” of this energy storage process.
Insulin resistance: Insulin resistance occurs when your body becomes resistant to the hormone insulin. Any time a cell is exposed to insulin it is going to become more insulin resistant. If you eat too many sugars and grains, it provokes insulin surges and every time you provoke an insulin surge it exposes your body to more insulin. Just like walking in a dark room where it is difficult to see, after awhile your vision accommodates, your pupils dilate and you can see much better. Similarly, when your body is exposed to excess insulin soon it no longer responds to it properly and becomes insulin resistant.

Exercise is one of the most effective ways to regain insulin sensitivity and reverse insulin resistance — and studies show this benefit can be achieved even without weight loss.

How to Use Exercise for Diabetes Prevention

One of the keys to using exercise to normalize your insulin and leptin levels, and thereby drastically reduce your risk of diabetes, is to do enough of it. There are three important variables with exercise:

Intensity
Frequency
Length of time

Intensity is KEY for an effective exercise regimen, and the beauty of high-intensity, burst-type exercises such as Peak Fitness is that it also significantly cuts down on the amount of time you have to spend exercising. Full instructions on how to properly perform these exercises can be found in this previous article.
Peak Fitness exercises should be performed no more than three times per week, and only take a total of 20 minutes each session. Once you reach your fitness, health, and weight goals you can drop down to once or twice per week as that is all you really need, but most out-of-shape individuals will benefit from three times a week — if you do more it is actually counterproductive as there is not enough recovery time. Once you become very fit and are able to regularly reach your calculated maximum heart rate (220 minus your age) then it really is only necessary to do it once a week as long as you are pushing to your absolute max.
Here’s a summary of what a typical peak fitness routine might look like using a recumbent bike, elliptical machine or treadmill:

Warm up for three minutes
Exercise as hard and fast as you can for 30 seconds. You should feel like you couldn’t possibly go on another few seconds
Recover for 90 seconds by continuing to exercise but at a radically reduced comfortable pace
Repeat the high intensity exercise phase and recovery 7 more times

Be mindful of your current fitness level and don’t overdo it when you first start out. If you are not in great shape and just starting this, you may want to start with just two or three repetitions, and work your way up to eight. You may need to start with just walking and when you do your 30 second bursts your legs would be moving as fast as possible without running — and your arms would be pumping hard and fast.
If you are using cardio equipment like an elliptical or bike, you don’t need to reach any “magical” speed. It’s highly individual, based on your current level of fitness. You know you’re doing it right when you’re exerting yourself to the point of typically gasping for breath after a short burst of activity.
In addition to Peak Fitness, you’ll want to incorporate other types of exercise to round out your regimen. A truly comprehensive exercise plan would also include strength training, core exercises, flexibility and stretching.

Remember to Address this Other Diabetes Culprit …

Type 2 diabetes is a fully preventable, reversible condition that arises from faulty leptin signaling and insulin resistance. Therefore, diabetes can be controlled or reversed by recovering your insulin and leptin sensitivities. The only known way to reestablish proper leptin and insulin signaling is through a proper diet and exercise! There is NO drug that can accomplish this!
A new meta-analysis of 13 randomized controlled trials involving more than 33,000 people showed that drug treatment of type 2 diabetes is not only ineffective, it’s dangerous as well. Treatment with glucose-lowering drugs actually showed the potential to increase your risk of death from heart-related and all other causes.
So what is the other key to remember in diabetes prevention, aside from exercise?
Your diet!
Your diet can make or break you if you’re diabetic or pre-diabetic, but unfortunately for the last 50 years or so, Americans have followed the dietary recommendations of a high complex carbohydrate, low saturated fat diet—the exact opposite of what actually works! High complex carbohydrates include legumes, potatoes, corn, rice and grain products. Aside from legumes, you actually want to AVOID all the rest to prevent insulin resistance.
If you regularly consume sugars and grains, your blood sugar spikes will lead to increased insulin resistance, which leads to increased fat storage. The extra fat then produces more leptin. The problem arises when your leptin levels become chronically elevated. At this point, you become leptin resistant—your body can no longer “hear” the hormonal signals telling your brain you’re full and should stop eating.
As your fat stores increase, your weight goes up, and insulin resistance sets in. Now your body has become “deaf” to the signals from both hormones (leptin and insulin), and disease follows — one of which is diabetes. Nearly all type 2 diabetics need to swap out their grains and sugars for other foods, such as protein, green veggies and healthy sources of fat. You will want to take special care to eliminate fructose, which is far more detrimental than any other type of sugar. This is extremely important!
Drinking just one sweetened drink a day can raise your diabetes risk by 25 percent compared to drinking one sugary drink per month, so you really need to evaluate your diet and look for hidden sources of sugar and fructose.
This also means avoiding most processed foods of all kinds, as they are loaded with fructose. You may even need to avoid fruits until your blood sugar is under control. I strongly advise keeping your total fructose consumption below 25 grams per day. However, it would be wise for most people to limit fructose to 15 grams or less as it is virtually guaranteed you will be getting “hidden” sources of fructose from just about any processed food you eat.
Following my nutrition plan will help you do this without much fuss, as it walks you through the steps you need to get back on the road to optimal health.

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.

By Dr. Mercola

A vast amount of research has reported that breast-feeding plays an important role for the development of a newborn. Non-breast fed premature infants have higher risk of developing infantile diarrhea and necrotizing enterocolitis.
In a recent study, the content of brain cell growth factors and cytokines in human breast milk was analyzed.  Growth factors and cytokines were found in all breast milk samples at varying concentrations.
According to one study:

“It could be demonstrated that protein extracts of breast milk increased the amount of surviving enteric neurones as well as neurite outgrowth. Additionally it was shown, that the number of nestin and S100-expressing glial cells increased significantly after incubating in breast milk protein extracts. The data suggest that milk-born proteins support the development of the enteric nervous system.”

Breastfeeding offers a list of life-long health benefits for both mom and baby, making it the best food you can give to your baby by far.  Many are aware that breast milk contains antibodies, or immune molecules, that are transferred to the baby, giving her immunities to illnesses that the mother is immune to. The converse is also true — if your newborn is exposed to a germ, she will transfer it back to the mother while nursing. The mother’s body will then make antibodies to that particular germ and transfer them back to the baby at the next feeding.
So it’s not just a matter of vitamins, minerals, proteins and fats that makes breast milk far superior to formula. In fact, as a new study revealed, breast milk also contains substances that may significantly enhance your baby’s gut and brain development.

How Breast Milk Supports Baby’s Gut and Brain

Researchers recently analyzed human breast milk for brain cell growth factors (neurotrophic factors) and cytokines. Neurotrophic factors are proteins involved in the growth and survival of developing neurons — they are essential during the early development of your brain and also help maintain healthy neuronal function throughout your life. “Trophic” is actually derived from a Greek word meaning “to nourish,” so neurotrophic factors are substances that nourish your neurons, or nerve, cells. 
As for cytokines, they are substances secreted by immune system cells that play a role in cellular communication and behavior.
Not only were growth factors and cytokines found in all breast milk samples at varying concentrations, but researchers demonstrated that protein extracts of breast milk increased the amount of surviving enteric neurons as well as neurite outgrowth, which indicates it likely plays a beneficial role in enteric nervous system development.

Why it’s Important to Nourish Your Baby’s Enteric Nervous System

Your brain and gut are actually created out of the same type of tissue. During fetal development, one part turns into your central nervous system while the other develops into your enteric nervous system. These two systems are connected via the vagus nerve; the tenth cranial nerve that runs from your brain stem down to your abdomen.
This is what connects your two “brains” together.
Your gut is quite literally your second brain, and they work in tandem, each influencing the other. This is why your intestinal health can have such a profound influence on your mental health, and vice versa.
An important example of this is explained in my interview below with Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, a Russian neurologist who demonstrates that an impairment in a woman’s gut flora due to antibiotic and birth control exposure, along with a poor diet, is then transferred to the children she has. This impairment in gut flora then makes her children sitting ducks for autism and other brain injuries.

Total Video Length: 1:13:21
Dr. Campbell-McBride has developed an extensive recovery protocol that has helped many thousands of autistic children recover. It involves no drugs, but rather dietary changes and detoxification intended to heal and rebalance the child’s gut flora.
Breastfeeding can help your child’s gut flora to develop in a beneficial way right from the start, as it provides protective, nourishing factors for both the brain and the gut. Dr. Campbell-McBride is convinced that autistic children are in fact born with perfectly normal brains and perfectly normal sensory organs.
She explains:

“What happens in these children [is that] they do not develop normal gut flora from birth … Gut flora is a hugely important part of our human physiology. Recently research in Scandinavia has demonstrated that 90 percent of all cells and all genetic material in a human body is our own gut flora. We are just a shell… a habitat for this mass of microbes inside us. We ignore them at our own peril.
…As a result, their digestive system—instead of being a source of nourishment for these children—becomes a major source of toxicity. These pathogenic microbes inside their digestive tract damage the integrity of the gut wall. So all sort of toxins and microbes flood into the bloodstream of the child, and get into the brain of the child.
That usually happens in the second year of life in children who were breast fed because breastfeeding provides a protection against this abnormal gut flora. In children who were not breastfed, I see the symptoms of autism developing in the first year of life. So breastfeeding is crucial to protect these children.”

Breast milk is loaded with nutrient growth factors that will support the growth of beneficial bacteria. It also has components that will inhibit the growth of bad bacteria and yeast. So one of the most important foundational elements of building a healthy GI system for your child is to first eat a healthy, probiotic-rich diet while you’re pregnant, and then breastfeed after your child is born.

The Many Benefits of Breastfeeding

Studies have shown that breastfed babies gain added protection against:

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) Eczema Respiratory- and other types of infections

Heart disease Obesity Type 1 and type 2 diabetes

Bowel diseases such as Crohn’s disease Asthma and allergies Necrotizing enterocolitis among premature babies

Breastfeeding can also help promote cognitive development in your child. It also benefits the mother in several ways, including:

Enhancing maternal behavior through increased oxytocin release “Natural birth control,” as it suppresses ovulation, making pregnancy less likely Diabetic mothers typically require less insulin

Easier weight loss Reducing your risk of endometrial-, ovarian- and breast cancers Reducing your risk of metabolic syndrome

As you can see, breastfeeding is actually about so much more than just feeding. It may even have a direct impact on a mother’s brain, promoting ‘maternal behavior’ and increasing emotional bonding between the mother and child. This is not altogether surprising, since breastfeeding promotes the increased release of oxytocin, also known as the “love hormone” or “bonding hormone.”

Do You Need Help 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. In the vast majority of circumstances, most women have enough milk to breastfeed. The more your baby nurses, the more milk you will produce! This is why supplementing with formula can be detrimental to your milk supply.
Mom needs to drink plenty of water and seek optimal nutrition while nursing — and the beginning weeks and months are critical in the process.
You should begin nursing as soon after birth as possible, as your baby’s sucking instinct will be very strong at that time, giving you the best chance of success. In the beginning, the milk that is produced is called colostrum — a thick, golden-yellow fluid that is very gentle for your baby’s stomach and full of beneficial antibodies.
As your baby continues to nurse, your milk will gradually change in color and consistency from thick and yellow, to thinner with a bluish-white hue. Newborns need to nurse at least once every two hours, for about 15 minutes or so on each side, but most do not adhere to any kind of strict schedule and feedings can vary in length. It is this frequent nursing that stimulates your breasts to produce increasing amounts of milk to keep up with demand.
You may want to begin planning for successful breastfeeding before your baby is even born by taking a breastfeeding class while you’re pregnant. Le Leche League is a terrific resource to contact for help whether you want to prepare beforehand or find you’re having trouble breastfeeding once your baby is born. But even many hospitals offer breastfeeding classes and lactation consultants who can help you.
I do encourage you to do all you can to breastfeed your baby successfully, and exclusively, for at least the first six months, ideally longer. This is one of the best gifts you can give to your child and the health benefits will last a lifetime.

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.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has approved $20 million in new monies toward the development of “golden rice” — an untested, highly controversial GE (genetically engineered) crop that threatens biodiversity and risks bringing economic and ecological disaster to Asia’s farms.
The leader of the Golden Rice project is Gerald Barry, previously director of research at Monsanto.
Sarojeni V. Rengam, executive director of Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP), has called the rice a “Trojan horse.” According to Rengam, the rice is “… a public relations stunt pulled by the agri-business corporations to garner acceptance of GE crops and food. The whole idea of GE seeds is to make money.”
Food Freedom reports:

“Golden rice is a Trojan horse for pushing through GE-friendly biosafety regulations under the guise of humanitarian aid. Once in place, these regulations open the door for the biotech industry to bring in commercial, patented GE crops; USAID and Monsanto accomplished exactly this in Kenya with their sweet potato project.”

In Thailand at least, however, a little known and unpublicized agricultural policy protects Thai rice from the risks of GMO’s. The Thai Ministry of Agriculture’s “Rice Strategy” is a master plan committed to strengthening the nation’s rice production while promoting farmers’ livelihoods and consumer confidence — which includes keeping Thai rice GMO (genetically modified organism)-free.
Adding to the risks of GE crops is Monsanto’s Roundup, the world’s best-selling herbicide that is made to be partnered with GE Roundup Ready crops. According to a new report, regulators have known for years that Roundup causes birth defects.
Regulators were apparently aware as long ago as 1980 that glyphosate, the active chemical ingredient of Roundup, caused birth defects in lab animals. However, the information was not made public. Instead, regulators misled the public about glyphosate’s safety.
According to the Huffington Post:

“… [A]s recently as last year, the German Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety, the German government body dealing with the glyphosate review, told the European Commission that there was no evidence glyphosate causes birth defects …
Although glyphosate was originally due to be reviewed in 2012, the Commission decided late last year not to bring the review forward, instead delaying it until 2015. The chemical will not be reviewed under more stringent, up-to-date standards until 2030.”

A study has found that topical applications of moisturizers such as Dermabase, Dermovan, Eucerin Original Moisturizing Cream, or Vanicream could increase skin cancer risk.
Irradiated mice who were treated with the moisturizers exhibited a significant increase in their rate of tumor formation and increase in tumor size per mouse. Treatment of the mice with Dermabase, Dermovan, Eucerin, or Vanicream for 17 weeks increased the total number of histologically characterized tumors by 69 percent.
According to the study, as reported by Green Med Info:

“The results indicate that several commercially available moisturizing creams increase the rate of formation and number of tumors when applied topically to UVB-pretreated high-risk mice. Further studies are needed to determine the effects of topical applications of moisturizing creams … in humans.”

This also applies to tanning oils and lotions—which many of you may be using right now with summer in full swing—as well as the baby oil or lotion that many parents unwittingly slather on their babies.

Many foods that are advertised as being healthy are actually not healthy at all. MSNBC has collected a few examples:
Splenda (and other artificial sweeteners)

Artificial sweeteners may actually make people more prone to overindulge and crave sweet foods. They can also cause damage to beneficial bacteria in your gut.

Diet soda

Similarly, researchers found that with each can of diet soda consumed, an individual’s risk for being overweight increased by 41 percent.

Veggie chips

Often, these aren’t much healthier than regular potato chips. Most varieties of veggie chips contain mostly corn flour or potato.

To see the rest of their list, click on the link below.

Yahoo Shine notes that eating the wrong foods — or not eating the right foods — can result in symptoms that most people tend to assume are due to aging. Here are four tips they’ve assembled to steer you in the right direction:
Mistake #1: You avoid all animal protein
Vitamin B12, which is essential for energy, is found only in foods that are derived from animals. This nutrient helps regulate your metabolism, and it is an important part of maintaining a healthy brain and nervous system. Fatigue is a classic sign of B12 deficiency
Mistake #2: You’re not getting enough manganese and copper
Manganese and copper prevent joint pain, and are both essential for maintaining joint cartilage and flexibility. In many cases, getting enough of these nutrients reverses joint deterioration and eliminates joint pain.
Mistake #3: You avoid healthy fats
Omega-3 fats are part of your brain’s building blocks. If you’re not getting enough in your diet, the architecture of your brain becomes weak, and brain function, including memory, deteriorates.
Mistake #4: You favor packaged foods over whole
Most processed foods do not have enough potassium, which can result in high blood pressure. Eating better can correct the problem.

Monsanto may soon be allowed to conduct its own environmental studies. Currently, the USDA is responsible for assessing environmental impacts of new GMO crops, but the agency plans to at least temporarily hand over environmental impact reporting responsibilities to the biotech companies behind GMO crops.
If this isn’t the classic example of the fox guarding the henhouse I don’t know what is.
The two-year pilot program will allow the companies to conduct their own environmental assessments, or alternately outsource the work to contractors. The USDA will retain the final say in determining the safety of crops.
According to Fast Company:

“The USDA won’t actually admit that it’s bad at performing its duties — instead, the agency claims that the move will make the environmental reporting process more timely, efficient, and cost-effective … [But if Monsanto] has a vested interest in getting one of its crops deregulated, why wouldn’t it try to fudge the numbers on an environmental review? And why wouldn’t its hired contractors do the same?”

You might think that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) don’t affect you. But in fact, up to 90 percent of all major U.S. grown crops are grown with genetically engineered seed, and can be used in human and animal foods without any safety testing or labeling.
This includes GM corn, soybeans, canola, and sugar beets, which have made their way into approximately 80 percent of current U.S. grocery store items.

If you’re not buying organically produced foods (or growing your own food), then you’re probably eating genetically modified ingredients in most of the processed foods you’re consuming.
The UK Progressive reports:

“Scientific testing has not been done on what effects GMOs may have on humans. What has been shown is that GMO foods contain excessive amounts of certain toxins, the effects of which have not been determined. Genetically modified foods also negatively impact the environment by creating more toxins and potentially leading to the creation of mutated soil bacteria, which may lead to more harm regarding the future of food production.”

Most soybean, corn, cotton and canola crops in the U.S. are genetically altered. Some experts argue that these crops could pose serious health and environmental risks, but the scientific picture is currently incomplete — deliberately so.
Agricultural corporations such as Monsanto and Syngenta have restricted independent research on the crops. They have refused to provide independent scientists with seeds, or else have set restrictive conditions that severely limit research.  This is legal because under U.S. law, genetically engineered crops are patentable.
The Los Angeles Times reports:

“Agricultural companies defend their stonewalling by saying that unrestricted research could make them vulnerable to lawsuits if an experiment somehow leads to harm, or that it could give competitors unfair insight into their products. But it’s likely that the companies fear something else as well: An experiment could reveal that a genetically engineered product is hazardous or doesn’t perform as promised.”

Even if you don’t want to eat genetically engineered foods, you most likely already are doing so.  Corn and soy are two of the most common food ingredients, especially in processed foods, and over 90 percent of both these crops in the US are now from GM seeds.
Organic food companies and consumer groups are stepping up their efforts to get the government to exercise more oversight of engineered foods. Critics of current policy argue that the genetically modified (GM) seeds are often contaminating the nearby non-GM crops.
ABC News reports:

“The U.S. government has insisted there’s not enough difference between the genetically modified seeds its agencies have approved and natural seeds to cause concern. But Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, more so than his predecessors in previous administrations, has acknowledged the debate over the issue and a growing chorus of consumers concerned about what they are eating.”

Ori Hofmekler, author of The Warrior Diet, The Anti-Estrogenic Diet, Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat, and the upcoming book Unlocking the Muscle Gene, is an expert on how to build muscle and improve your health with foods.
In this interview, Ori shares his insights about the timing of your meals to optimize your health.