Why exercise protects your heart….

Today's Post: Monday, 8-31-2009

In an article titled, “Exercise beats angioplasty for some heart patients” that I read today that was posted yesterday, AP Medical Writer, Maria Cheng, describes research published in 2004 by Rainer Hambrecht that found that “nearly 90 percent of heart patients who rode bikes regularly were free of heart problems one year after they started” doing so while for patients who only “had an angioplasty instead, only 70 percent were problem-free after a year.”

Hambrecht is now doing another study to confirm that for some heart patients they might do better to exercise than get an angioplasty.

Other experts were quoted as saying they expect he will succeed.

One expert points out that angioplasty only helps the treated blood vessel while exercise may open up several blood vessels.

Then this summary of other known benefits of exercise to the heart jumped out at me.:

“Among other benefits, exercise lowers bad cholesterol while raising good cholesterol, helps the body process sugar better, improves the lining of the blood vessels and gets rid of waste material faster. Exercise also lowers blood pressure and prevents plaque buildup in the arteries.”

Exercise literally and directly reduces the small sized particles of LDL cholesterol that tend to build up as plaque which shows up in an increased HDL reading and a decreased triglyceride reading. And, exercise also tends to lower inflammation which also has been found to reduce heart attack risks.

Exercise also reduces depression so people who do it are more likely to continue to take action to protect their health.

And, exercise, particularly vigorous exercise such as brisk walking, interval cardio, and strength training, tends to lower excess blood sugar and insulin and prevent or help reverse insulin resistance.

These benefits are powerful enough that previous research suggests that two and a half hours total of brisk walking every week would eliminate a third of all heart attacks and strokes.

A Swedish professor said that two thirds of people who get angioplasties now would likely get better results from exercise alone.

He also points out that since exercise removes the cause while angioplasties just temporarily remove the damage, people who exercise not only tend to get better results, they are much more likely to stay well.

The article quotes doctors as saying that they have found exercise a tough sell because it may take several months of exercise to get to good symptom relief while the angioplasty takes one day. Plus some people are either unwilling or feel too time pressured to make time for exercise.

However, this article misses five extremely important points.

1. The death rate from undergoing an angioplasty is not high. BUT, there IS a death rate.

2. Angioplasties cost a LOT of money to do.

3. For someone who has symptoms they want to get rid of NOW because their symptoms are painful or limiting, while it may make good sense for such people to get an angioplasty, based on these findings, they would be very well advised to exercise too.

4. Eating enough better to begin to assist exercise in healing your heart also works and would enable both people who get angioplasties and those who don’t get better results.

(Trans fats and any hydrogenated vegetable oils literally and directly increases the small sized particles of LDL cholesterol that tend to build up as plaque. Putting a screeching halt to ingesting this stuff can help a lot. Slashing amounts of corn oil and other high omega 6 oils while adding omega 3 oils, through supplements if necessary helps. Slashing amounts of sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and refined grain foods helps. Slashing amounts and frequencies for eating fatty meats from grain fed animals by eating them less often and trimming all the fat or eating meat from animals fed only grass can help. Consuming nonfat and lowfat dairy while slashing the amount of butter, cream, and full fat cheese and milk can help. Using olive oil almost exclusively to replace oils high in omega 6 and butter can help.

Eating a lot of nonstarchy vegetables each day also works by protecting your health generally and helping to remove or prevent excess body fat. In addition, the soluble fiber and sterols in vegetables tend to clear excess LDL cholesterol out of your blood.)

5. Taking the right supplements and for some people, taking the right drugs, can assist in healing your heart also and would enable both people who get angioplasties and those who don’t get better results.

(Niacin is almost as valuable as exercise since it increases HDL, lowers LDL, and lowers triglycerides. Unlike taking statin drugs, taking niacin has been found to lower death rates significantly. However, in amounts over 1,000 mg a day, niacin can cause liver problems similar to those statins cause. So 600 to 900 mg a day of niacin is safer for most people than higher amounts and, for higher amounts, you would be very well advised to work with your doctor and get regular liver function tests. Whole foods carries real niacin in 300 mg tablets at very reasonable prices.

Sterol supplements are quite effective in lowering LDL and have no side effects whatever that I’ve heard of. Beta sitosterol is one common sterol. And Natrol makes a very inexpensive beta sitosterol supplement called Cholesterol Balance.

Omega 3 supplements from purified fish oils lower inflammation and triglycerides.

Vitamin K2 supplements may cut the rate of calcium build up in the plaque in your arteries by up to 50% I just read. Since the amount of calcium in your artery plaque has been found to be unusually predictive of heart attack risk that’s quite important. Even 100 mcg a day of supplementation with K2 may do the job.

And, I’ve also read that taking deodorized garlic, taking 1500 mg a day or more of vitamin C, and taking 1500 mg a day or more of vitamin C plus 500 mg of lysine and 500 mg a day of proline each tend to both prevent build up of artery plaque and may help reverse it.)

So, the bottom line is that if you have modest heart symptoms you may recover just fine by doing regular exercise, eating right, and taking the right supplements even without getting an angioplasty. That will save the cost and death rate risk of getting an angioplasty.

And, if you have more severe blockage or painful or limiting symptoms and get an angioplasty, you’ll get MUCH better and more permanent results if you also begin by doing regular exercise, eating right, and taking the right supplements.

Prevent Alzheimer’s; survive the swine flu; & protect your heart....

Today's Post: Friday, 8-28-2009

This post was going to be titled, Why vitamin D protects your heart. That’s because it does and we now know why.

But today I learned that a very similar effect to the one that prevents heart disease means that vitamin D also directly prevents and might even help reverse early stage Alzheimer’s disease.

And, today, I got some information that shows that vitamin D protects your brain and heart in another way. And, in that article was a hint that whether or not you die or have to be hospitalized for Swine flu may depend in part on whether or not you have a high enough blood level of vitamin D.

As you may know, most people before 100 years ago rarely had a deficiency of vitamin D. Your body will make upwards of 10,000 iu of vitamin D3 a day if you are outside when the sun is shining. When most people worked on farms and those who worked off the farm walked all or big chunk of the way to their workplace, most people not only got a lot more exercise, they also got lots of vitamin D each summer & even tended to get some vitamin D even in the winter.

1. Why vitamin D protects your heart

The online supplement sales company at www.vitacost.com periodically sends out a free informational email. The one yesterday had this:

“For Your Health eNewsletter

Dr. Allen S. Josephs Co-Founder & Chairman, Vitacost.com
8/27/2009”

" ....vitamin D is in the news again. It has been well known that low levels of vitamin D increased the risk of poor cardiovascular health in individuals with known elevated blood sugar. The underlying mechanism for this until recently was unknown. However, a report in the August 25, 2009 issue of the journal Circulation found that vitamin D appears to inhibit the uptake of cholesterol in cells called macrophages. Dr. Leon Bernel-Mizrachi, the lead researcher in this study, indicated that when people are deficient in vitamin D, their macrophage cells eat more cholesterol and can't get rid of it. The macrophages get clogged with cholesterol and become what scientists call foam cells which are the earliest markers of the declining health of the circulatory system."

In plain language, if you lack adequate vitamin D, we now know that’s 2,000 to 3,000 iu a day at least, your immune system’s macrophages don’t work correctly. They tend to convert the cholesterol in your blood vessels to plaque that builds up enough to narrow or even close them.
(This may also explain why people who get adequate vitamin D get sick less often and are less likely to get most cancers. When your macrophages aren’t stuffed up with cholesterol they can’t get rid of, they literally eat up bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells and get rid of them for you.)

2. Vitamin D also directly prevents and might even help reverse early stage Alzheimer’s disease.

So, after reading that article yesterday, I found the article in today’s Total Health Breakthroughs issue extremely interesting.

We already know that taking turmeric or the curcumin that is one of its active ingredients tends to prevent the build up of the amyloid plaques that cause Alzheimer’s disease and may even remove them in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Now we know that vitamin D has much the same effect. And, it looks like taking both vitamin D3 AND turmeric may work better than either one by itself!

In the article from Total Health Breakthroughs, you’ll see the overlap of the explanation of the way this happens and the story on preventing heart disease. It’s the macrophages again.

Here’s the article.:

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise’s Total Health Breakthroughs which offers alternative health solutions for mind, body and soul."

You can get a free subscription to their email at http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com -- at the upper right hand corner of their home page.)

Is This Why Some Cultures Have Less Alzheimer’s?

by Joseph F. McCaffrey

08/28/2009

Did you know that only 25% of people with Alzheimer’s have a genetic tendency to the disease? Genetics don’t appear to play a role in the other 75% of victims — the cause is uncertain. That means the vast majority of people who develop Alzheimer’s are most affected by lifestyle and environmental factors.

While that statistic may be alarming, the good news is that we can reduce our risk of AD by making some simple changes — especially to our diet. A recent study suggests that two readily available and safe supplements may help prevent Alzheimer’s. I’ll tell you about them in a moment, but first a little background…

While we don’t know the cause of Alzheimer’s, the final effect on the brain is the buildup of a protein called amyloid. The amyloid forms plaques which cause cognitive decline that worsens steadily as the build up progresses.

Researchers have found that in some people macrophages (specialized white blood cells that we think of more often as fighting bacteria) “attack” and remove amyloid as it forms. As you might expect, this finding raised the possibility of somehow using these cells to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s. That led to the following experiment.

Researchers collected white blood cells that transformed into macrophages from nine patients with Alzheimer’s, as well as from controls. They incubated these white blood cells in the presence of amyloid and then added vitamin D3 and curcumin to the mix, both individually and together.1

The results were impressive. Both vitamin D and curcumin improved how macrophages remove amyloid plaque from the brain. In some patients the effect was enhanced by using the two substances together.

The researchers were quick to point out that this is a laboratory study and that the research is still in its early stages. They’re making no clinical recommendations at this time.

On the other hand, we already know the importance of having healthy levels of vitamin D to support the immune system. This research suggests one more important reason to make sure we’re getting enough vitamin D every day.

And curcumin is the main biologically active phytochemical in turmeric. Populations who traditionally use turmeric in their cooking, such as those of India and Southeast Asia, have lower rates of Alzheimer’s then we see in the West. This may be the reason.

So even though there’s no definitive clinical trial as yet, it makes sense to check your vitamin D levels and get more sun or take a supplement if you need to. You can also add curcumin for a spicy twist to your cooking. And consider taking it as a supplement, as well.

Reference:

1. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. 17(3):703-717, 2009

[Ed. Note: Joseph F. McCaffrey, MD, FACS is a board-certified surgeon with extensive experience in alternative medicine, including certification as a HeartMath Trainer. His areas of expertise include mind-body interaction and cognitive restructuring. Dr. McCaffrey strives to help people attain their optimum level of vitality through attention to all aspects of wellness.....]"

3. Whether or not you die or have to be hospitalized for Swine flu may depend in part on whether or not you have a high enough blood level of vitamin D.

We already know that vitamin D3 helps to keep your immune system strong. That means that if you have an adequate blood level of D3, you are less likely to get swine flu and may be more likely to have a milder case if you do. And, I saw an article that I already posted about that found that people who have enough vitamin D3 also tend to not have their immune systems cause excess inflammation when fighting disease agents.

Since the people who die from the swine flu die from that kind of immune system driven over-reaction, I wrote that it looks likely that taking vitamin D3 of 2,000 to 5,000 iu a day may protect you from dying from swine flu.

Today, I discovered there may be direct evidence of that, I found a story that was in AP online health news dated yesterday with this title.: “Swine flu sends more blacks, Hispanics to hospital”

This was the key information.: "Blacks with swine flu were hospitalized at a rate of 9 per 100,000, and Hispanics at a rate of 8 per 100,000. For whites, the rate was 2 per 100,000, the study found."

Then separately, I saw a story that low levels of vitamin D tended to cause kidney disease and that this problem was more prevalent in dark skinned people since their skins were darker they got less vitamin D from sunlight.

Any one of these 3 items, let alone getting less of all kinds of cancers, would be a compelling reason to take 2,000 to 5,000 iu of vitamin D3.

All 3 together are incredibly compelling.

The even better news is that vitamin D3 is quite inexpensive. You can get 100 capsules each having 1,000 iu of vitamin D3 for just $6 or $7. And, 2,000 iu capsules and 5,000 iu capsules are just a little bit more.

New information on why exercise improves your sex life....

Today's Post: Thursday, 8-27-2009

Exercise has long been known to improve the sex lives of men who do it. One reason for that is that regular exercise, particularly strength training and/or interval cardio, releases testosterone.

What’s far less known is that regular exercise improves the sex lives of women who do it. The effect may even be greater in women; and it’s true for women of all ages.

Other reasons that regular exercise tends to improve sex for the people who do it include.:

People who exercise have better circulation to MUCH better circulation than in people who don’t exercise. Since sexual arousal depends in part on good circulation – in both sexes, that’s very important, particularly for people over 40.

(Exercise helps keep your blood vessels pliable and healthy; and exercise increases your protective HDL while directly decreasing the amount of small particle LDL that causes heart disease and blood vessel narrowing or blocking. This not only helps prevent heart attacks, strokes, etc, it also helps prevent full or partial impotence or ED.)

Exercise tends to improve people’s sense of control and self-esteem; & people who exercise tend to become more proactive in other areas of their lives. Exercise also tends to prevent or improve depression. That means that people who exercise feel enough better and enough better about themselves to be more likely to be in a mood for sex. And, they are more likely to proactively initiate it.

People who exercise have more muscle mass and are less fat; & they are stronger. So their power to weight ratio is much more favorable and they move better and can move more vigorously.

And, because of those things, virtually all the people who lose fat and keep it off do regular exercise. Since being fat tends to make sex less enjoyable and less likely to happen, exercise also helps improve the sex lives of people who lose excess fat and are able to keep it off; and the permanent fat loss helps make sex more enjoyable and more likely to happen

That also means people who exercise tend to look better.

The new information I didn’t know until just today -- AND is also a likely reason why exercise, particularly vigorous exercise, tends to prevent or turn off depression -- is that exercise not only causes your body to release endorphins that over-ride pain to a large degree, it causes your body to release dopamine!

When you feel good or experience pleasure that is truly rewarding, it’s often largely because that experience or thought caused you to release dopamine. That means that when you already have decent or high dopamine levels from regular exercise, you quite literally enjoy every part of your life more; AND sex feels better and more rewarding too!

So, it’s hardly an accident that people who exercise have better sex lives. They become more likely to have it, to better at it; & we now know they enjoy it more too!

Sugar and a sedentary lifestyle may shrink your brain….

Today's Post: Tuesday, 8-25-2009

There were two online stories today that I think belong together.

1. In one, the American Heart Association was reported to have announced a new set of guidelines for sugar intake and noted that the average intake in the United States is now far above their suggested guidelines. They state the average American eats 22 teaspoons of sugar for 355 direct extra calories each day with much of that coming from soft drinks. (That’s a bit over 88 grams a day of sugar.)

2. In the other, a study was done showing that in obese people virtually every part of their brain was 8% smaller; and comparable to people who were lean but 16 years older. And, even in overweight people, their brains were 4% smaller; and were comparable to people who were lean but 8 years older.

That article that was at Livescience.com today, & titled,

“Obese People Have 'Severe Brain Degeneration.' “

They suggest that this shrinkage may directly contribute to the risk of Alzheimer’s disease or other mental decline by literally shrinking your “cognitive reserves.”

(And, in it, they also note that obesity has “….many negative health effects, including increased risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and some cancers. It's also been shown to reduce sexual activity.” – in addition to this excess brain shrinkage.)

Both eating too much sugar and getting too little exercise tend to make people fat -- each doing so independently. Doing both almost guarantees it.

Sugar and related sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup have no fiber or other nutrition. So they tend not to make you as much less hungry as foods that do have fiber and other nutrition even when those foods have some natural sugar. They also create strong rebound hunger that causes you to overeat other foods in addition to the calories in the sugar. Artificial sweeteners tend to fatten also because they usually create more of this rebound hunger along with a strong craving for real sugar or foods containing it.

One analysis I read suggests that this excess sugar intake and the overeating it helps cause are most of the reason for the explosion in obesity in people who eat the excess sugar and are so far more than the more sedentary population.

I think that the increase in sedentary lifestyles and decrease in average amounts of exercise have been understated enough that this analysis may be partially incorrect.

Since exercise has been found to literally grow new brain cells -- and people who exercise have been found to have less brain shrinkage, it’s clear to me that a solution to obesity, whether for everyone or an individual person wanting to stay lean or lose excess fat, needs to include both very little sugar intake and enough regular exercise.

One of the reports on the new American Heart Association guidelines said that some of the soft drink manufacturers had gone on record as saying their products were not part of this problem.

Busted !!

Unfortunately for them, the data show the reverse. It is true that someone who exercises regularly can probably drink a regular or diet soft drink once or twice a week without harm or a lot of fat gain.

But according to a new book on fat loss I’m reading, a Harvard study found that people who drink one soft drink a day tend to be an average of 15 pounds fatter than people who don’t.

And, since the average American drinks 2 soft drinks a day; and obese Americans tend to drink 3 or more a day, the data show otherwise.

The best policy for anyone who wants to avoid being too fat and its associated health problems for themselves is to virtually never drink soft drinks.

Since the soft drink makers have a lot of money to lobby with and a very strong incentive to do so; and most Americans still think of soft drinks as a normal and harmless pleasure that is moderately inexpensive, it may well take far too long to tax sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners and impose an additional and separate tax on all soft drinks.

But, there ARE two strong forces pushing in the opposite direction.

1. The genie has been released from the bottle and cannot be put back. It’s now becoming public knowledge that excess sugar causes obesity and diseases that otherwise would be avoidable, particularly in people who are sedentary; and most of the dramatic run up in obesity is closely linked to increased soft drink consumption.

2. The dramatic increases in health care costs in the United States due to this increased obesity to treat the resulting diseases are becoming a severe drain on the economy. To end this, soft drinks will be heavily taxed or even outlawed outright. Given the way cigarettes have been handled, I suspect heavy taxes and regulations are more likely than an outright ban.

The informed policy makers now know these heavy taxes should be imposed. Our economy would be much better off it that happened within a year. But I think it will take at least 10 years to get adequate taxes in place.

So, whatever you pay in medical expenses and insurance, get ready for it to cover less and cost more soon -- about doubling those trends from the last few years before that solution is in place.

By the way, the soft drink manufacturers should be grateful for one thing. The level of sugar intake for men and for women the American Heart Association suggested is OK is about a third of current consumption. But those guidelines are too high! Given the relatively sedentary American population, their guidelines, if driven by health and obesity prevention considerations, should be half or a third as high.

CoQ10 may also help prevent or treat cancer....

Today's Post: Monday, 8-24-2009

CoQ10, & the active form that our bodies make from CoQ10, ubiquinol, have been shown to lower high blood pressure; restore some of their youthful energy to older people; make it safer to take statin drugs because they lower CoQ10 levels; and they support heart function. CoQ10 has also been shown to help reverse earlier or milder stages of heart failure or improve cases of more severe heart failure.

This is because the energy generating part of our cells, the mitochondria, apparently need adequate levels of CoQ10 to work properly -- while aging and taking statin drugs each independently lower blood levels of CoQ10 enough to potentially have the reverse effects.

Taking ubiquinol increases blood levels a good bit more than taking CoQ10 and, according to Al Sears, MD, while taking CoQ10 increases blood levels for a short time, taking ubiquinol increases blood levels for 8 hours.

In fact, taking 50 mg of ubiquinol seems to be as effective as taking 400 mg of CoQ10.

This suggests that while taking 100 or 200 mg a day of CoQ10 may be helpful for protecting your heart and giving you a bit more energy if you are an older person in good health, for things like treating heart failure and lowering high blood pressure, it may make sense to take 50 mg of ubiquinol every 8 hours instead or in addition to the CoQ10.

He also said he has seen research showing that taking 200 mg of ubiquinol every 8 hours has significantly improved symptoms and patient outcomes in more severe cases of heart failure.

Secondly, I had heard anecdotally that high intakes of CoQ10 had helped with cancer. And, I’d read that CoQ10 had been found to inhibit the growth of new blood vessels to cancer cells just like the drug, Avastin, that has this effect on some cancers. But unlike the drug, CoQ10 did NOT inhibit the growth of new blood vessels due to the effects of exercise or other normal body functions.

So, I was quite pleased to read the Total Health Breakthroughs article last Friday.

They report research that strongly suggests CoQ10 or its stronger ubiquinol form actually was effective in slowing or reversing cancer.

Here’s that article.:

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com ."

"Can This Supplement Cure Cancer?

By Al Sears, MD

CoQ10 is the one supplement I take every day, without fail.

New evidence of an even greater benefit is pouring in. And over the next couple of weeks, I’ll tell you about some of the amazing discoveries happening in CoQ10 research.

CoQ10 is a powerful cancer fighter.

Researchers in Tokyo gave rats a carcinogen that promotes colon cancer. The rats were divided into three groups. One group was fed a regular diet. The second group got a low dose of CoQ10. The third got a medium dose.

The results were amazing.

Both of the groups that received CoQ10 had reductions in abnormal crypts (an early sign of colon cancer) of up to 77%. Ultimately, the results of this study suggested that CoQ10 held cancer in check even when exposed to this carcinogen.1

Another study done at the University of Texas at Austin documented 10 cases of cancer patients who unexpectedly survived when treated with CoQ10.2

It works by blocking the free radicals that can ultimately damage the DNA in your cells. It also helps re-energize the immune system cells that get suppressed by cancer. It restores their ability to fight back and attack the cancer cells.

Researchers in Denmark studied a group of breast cancer patients. They gave them CoQ10 plus a combination of other antioxidants and essential fatty acids. The result?

The entire group had a partial remission of the cancer. But here’s where things get very interesting…

Two of the patients received larger doses of CoQ10 (390 mg). Their tumors disappeared. Here’s what the researchers said regarding one of the patients:

“After three months, the patient was in excellent clinical condition and there was no residual tumor tissue.”3

Remarkable isn’t it?

Yet CoQ10 is one of the most overlooked nutrients. The government doesn’t even have a recommended daily intake for it. And in my practice, I’ve found that most of my new patients are deficient.

The only natural source of CoQ10 is red meat, especially organ meat. But today’s commercially-raised, grain-fed beef is a poor source.

Even worse, many popular drugs — especially cholesterol-lowering drugs like statins — cause your levels of CoQ10 to plunge.

I recommend getting 50 mg of the new form of CoQ10 daily.
It’s called ubiquinol CoQ10. That’s equivalent to 400 mg of regular CoQ10.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, M.D.

References

1. Sakano K, et al. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev. 2006 Oct; 7 (4): 599-603.

2. Folkers K, et al. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1993 Apr 15;192(1): 241-5.

3. Lockwood K, et al. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1994 Mar 30;199 (3):1504-8.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears is Chairman of the Board of Total Health Breakthroughs. He has written over 500 articles and 7 books in the fields of alternative medicine, anti-aging, and nutritional supplementation.]”

8 ways to end depression -- proven to work better than drugs….

Today's Post: Friday, 8-21-2009

Drugs help about 25 % of people who have depression who take the drugs. But they have side effects, cost money, often cause problematic withdrawal symptoms if you quit taking them, and do NOT help 75 % of people who have depression who take the drugs!

So the market for effective nondrug approaches is quite large.

There are 8 things that do not involve drugs that help improve or end depression and have been shown to work.

In recent years, a psychologist in Kansas decided to do a study combining the 6 of these factors that the hunter gather peoples we are all descended from would have had in their lives -- and evolved to do well when they had those 6 factors as a result.

He then did a study of depressed people who got help engaging each of these 6 factors at least moderately well.

Did it work better than drugs? Yes. A little better or a lot better?

His 6 step method did three times better than drugs! 75% of the people improved.

If you want direct info on his methods written by him, it’s available in his new book.:

The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs
by Stephen S. Ilardi PhD

We’ve posted often on three of the six as helping prevent or stop depression.

1. Get enough omega 3 oils and cut back on omega 6 oils enough you have close to as much omega 3 oils in your diet as you do omega 6 oils. Eating wild caught fish once to three times a week that are low in mercury and other pollution works well. (Eating farmed fish not only does not, it tends to be high in pollutants.) Taking omega 3 oils that have been purified as a supplement also works.

Cutting out oils high in omega 6 such as corn oil, soy oil, canola oil, and safflower oil and switching to extra virgin olive oil helps. Stop eating virtually all refined grain foods. And, eat meat from animals fed only grass or eat a bit less of the leanest most fat trimmed kind of meat you can that has been fed by stuffing the animals with grain.

This not only helps prevent depression, it makes you less irritable, cuts your risk of mental decline, and by lowering inflammation and triglycerides and excessive blood clotting, doing this set of things also strongly protects your heart & tends to prevent heart attacks.

Lastly, this method tends to improve depression sooner after you begin it than taking the drugs – even when they work.

2. Get more time outside when its sunny or at lunch time even if it’s overcast or rainy and/or take at least 2,000 iu extra a day of vitamin D3 or both. Walking in parks or forests may even work better. People who live near such parks with trees or large lawn areas or both have a lower death rate than people who don’t. And this was found to be true even in really awful, lower income areas.

Some people who are deficient in vitamin D and spend hardly any time outside may need to take 5,000 or 10,000 iu a day of D3 to get back to desirable blood levels of vitamin D. If you are depressed in fact, this may be quite likely.

Mercifully vitamin D3 supplements are quite inexpensive even for the 5,000 iu & 10,000 iu capsules.

Taking this much vitamin D3 also has been shown to prevent many cancers and to help prevent autoimmune diseases. It may also prevent your immune system from overdoing its inflammatory response thus preventing a life threatening condition called sepsis that some swine flu victims have died from. So with that flu around, this may be an unusually prudent time to start taking vitamin D3!

In the winter, you can also try “light box therapy” where you expose yourself to light comparable to noonday sun when you first get up in the morning and for 20 to 45 minutes each day.

3. Regular exercise, by itself, has been shown to improve depression about as well as several kinds of antidepressant drugs against which it was tested.

Exercising outside during the day also has the extra benefit of sun exposure and vitamin D. Taking a 10 minute walk at lunch time or doing Tai Chi in a part before going to work in the morning are two ways to get this double effect.

Also, vigorous exercise not only seems more effective than less vigorous exercise in combating depression, it can have a positive effect that is almost immediate for even a 60 second burst of vigorous exercise.

To those 3 methods, Dr Ilardi’s protocol or set of areas he works on with his patients include these 3 others.

4. Social interaction.

People who have good relationships with their family and talk with them often, people who have a few close friends they talk with regularly, people who are married, people who volunteer, people who play team sports, and people who attend religious services regularly where they interact with others each independently has been shown to have better mental and physical health than people who don’t.

Some of the reasons why include the emotional support or seeing that others have problems, not just you.

But it’s recently been shown that conversation is far more mentally demanding and engaging than is at all common knowledge. It actually beats things like solving cross word puzzles or chess problems. The reason people don’t perceive that is they are so skilled at conversing.

5. Decent sleep also has been shown to make a big positive difference. It not only combats depression, it helps prevent type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity.

It can be hard to find more time to sleep. But here are some ideas to help you.

People who get regular exercise sleep dramatically better than people who don’t. People get more out of their sleep if they get up at exactly the same time each day or at least each weekday day and tend to go to bed at about the same time on most nights. If you can manage black out curtains or do other things to have your bedroom be really dark when you sleep, not only is your sleep quality better, because you release more melatonin, you may age more slowly and are less likely to get many kinds of cancer, specifically including breast cancer in women and possibly prostate cancer in men. Having your bedroom be cool and quiet also helps if you can manage it. (Heat proofing your house, air conditioning, noise cancellation devices, &/or earplugs can help.)

Do NOT have a TV in your bedroom or watch it from your bed. You’ll not only get more sleep of better quality, you’ll be less likely to get fat, & your sex life has been shown to be dramatically better compared to people with TV’s in their bedrooms.

And, instead of watching the late night TV news, go to sleep instead! (You can get faster and better access to news from scanning a newspaper or going to Yahoo news online earlier in the day. In addition, instead of being hooked by visual portrayals of bad news that you sit through passively on the TV news, you can scan over the ones quickly that are important to you and skip the rest entirely by using newspapers and online news.)

So instead of losing an extra half hour of sleep and getting stuffed with bad news you have no control over, you can sleep during that half an hour and be in a much better frame of mind.

Some people do better if they take a half a gram of melatonin at bedtime or about half an hour before. (Taking more melatonin than that costs more, doesn’t work that much better, and tend to leave you groggy the morning after or even the day after.)

Do NOT use prescription sleeping pills. They have resulted in deaths from people driving or walking in unsafe ways while not really awake. They are not necessary to get a good night’s sleep. They are expensive. And they tend to have dreadful withdrawal symptoms.

6. Avoid ruminating. Stewing and mentally reviewing your problems or worries while not actually doing anything to end them tends to produce depression and does so quite reliably.

Instead put up a BIG mental STOP sign if you catch yourself doing it.

Here are the two things to do instead.

a) If you need to solve the problems involved and are willing to WRTE DOWN potential solutions, research potential solution, and/or try some solutions, by all means do that. It will make you feel empowered and less depressed even before you actually solve the problems

b) Or, do something that is totally mentally engaging to take your mind off of the problems or worries. Call up your favorite relative or best buddy on the phone. Read an exciting novel or watch a favorite movie you really get into. Have sex. Drink one or two drinks while talking to people or watching a favorite sport on TV. Go play basketball – or ping pong. Do your strength training or interval cardio or at least the most vigorous parts. Do some gardening or weeding.

One extremely successful sales executive in a very high stress industry described his system to combine these methods.

His motto was: “I ONLY worry about things once a week!”

He literally had a time each week where he set aside time from half an hour to two hours to actually force himself to write down what he was worried about AND what he would do about it.

If he found himself beginning to worry at other times, he either ignored it totally once he realized he was doing it or wrote a note to look at during his weekly session and filed it where he’d easily find it then.

If necessary, he’d forcefully remind himself, “I feel better than most people because “I ONLY worry about things once a week!” and it’s NOT that time of the week now.”

Guess what? If you do all 6 of these things, we now know you have 75% chance of ending your depression or preventing depression.

But you can do more still.

7. There are other supplements that for many people turn down depression effectively.

a) Enough caffeine to give you a boost without ingesting so much you sabotage your sleep at night has been proven to improve mood.

Two or three cups of coffee a day can work. But more than three tends to waste your money and backfire by disrupting your sleep the following night.

Drinking tea or green tea is easier to without overdoing it since each cup has less caffeine you can drink far more cups without getting wired or anxious or having it ruin your sleep the night after.

Dr Al Sears also has a supplement that combines a low, moderate dose of Guranine from Guarana fruit combined with choline to restore the choline the caffeine tends to deplete. It seems that Guranine due to its fat content is like a time release pill for caffeine so you avoid getting too hyper but tend to stay alert and feeling good without and crashes or letdowns. (I did find out that it can be dangerous to take some Guranine supplements because they use massive doses that can put you into overdrive for hours.)

b) St John’s Wort of 300 mg a day to 900 mg a day has been found to be as effective as some antidepressant drugs for mild depression.

But it does have one drawback. If you are taking a medication for other conditions, it can cause your body to process the medication out of your system enough to lower the effectiveness of the drug.

c) Panax ginseng also tends to improve your mood an perceived quality of life. But small amounts are far better than larger amounts. 100 mg taken once a day is enough to be effective. Taking more adds very little to the positive effect but can cause your blood pressure to go up more than is desirable.

8. The talk therapy for depression that works makes use of the discoveries of Dr Martin Seligman. (His initial book is called Learned Optimism.)

People who are optimistic by his definition are far less depressed, have more friends, have better health, and tend to make more money than people who are not.

(It’s been separately found that such optimists who are also prudent, take responsibility when needed, and share credit with others even when they know what they themselves did to achieve good results, do even better and remain optimists while people who do not, often get bad enough results they stop being optimistic.

It’s pretty basic what he found.

Optimistic people expect good things to happen. They work to make them happen. They expect their efforts to work most of the time or at least eventually. They notice that some good things keep happening or tend to do so. They notice when good things happen. They know their assets and tend to use them well since they do. (Since optimists can overdo this and tend to believe them MORE than the facts support, the good news is they take action to solve their problems and make good things happen, the bad news is that they need to be quite careful to reduce avoidable risks and make prudent, safe decisions.)

Conversely, when bad things happen, optimists get very, very analytical and scientific in their approach. The look for specific causes and tend to see bad things as temporary, specific, and to have limited effects. They virtually never expect bad things to continue because the causes are often temporary or can be overcome.

They do NOT expect bad things to continue when the facts either don’t support that or never were checked to begin with.

They say, I tried 12 things that I found didn’t work if that is actually what happened. They may even be able to say they know why some of the 12 things didn’t work.

They do NOT call themselves a failure or expect the bad results to continue when there is no evidence to support that. They know they may find a new solution or figure out how to use what they learned from the 12 failed attempts to create a solution.


In conclusion, for as many as 95% of the people who are depressed and who don’t have a physical cause such as brain damage or something that prevents it, it’s possible to end or prevent depression by using these 8 methods together.

This is because the last two methods can help some of the 25% who didn’t quite respond to the first six. The first six methods will have had some positive effects that adding the last two can enable to work enough better to stop the depression.

Prevent or reverse thinning bones....

Today's Post: Thursday, 8-20-2009

Since I've had to take the proton pump inhibitors for my reflux disease, I've paid some attention to what things I might do to prevent or dramatically slow any bone thinning or increased fracture risk in order to compensate for the effects of those drugs.

In case you have an interest, here are some things I found out.

Drinking any soft drinks tends to thin bones; but drinking a lot of any colas is worse. The excessively high phosphorous intake tends to pull calcium from your bones. (Drinking tea and green tea gives you a lift similar to colas while making your bones stronger instead of weaker.)

The thinking now is that beyond the modest amount in a vitamin mineral daily supplement, calcium is best gotten from food sources. Cooked, wild caught, canned, salmon because of the included bones and nonfat, low fat, and very low fat dairy foods seem to be the best sources.

Weight bearing exercises every week, even if only a daily walk, seem to help.

Low impact aerobics also work, such as elliptical trainers, stair steppers, and using a mini trampoline. (The mini trampoline at www.urbanrebounder.com is less than $190 including taxes and shipping while the others usually require a gym membership. And, you can use the mini trampoline at home.)

Strength training also works. You can do strength training in a gym.

You can also do strength training at home. Push ups work well (start with pushups from the knees instead of toes can work well at first.)

You can do quarter or one third squats with no added weight or holding dumbbells or on one leg at a time when you get stronger (full to one half squats can be a bit too hard on the knees ).

Sitting against a wall legs parallel to the ground as if you are sitting but with no chair also works. The trick with those is to count while you do it. Suppose you feel it’s time to stand back up after a count of 40. That’s fine. Just keep doing more each time until you get over 300. I do 300 in the one third squat position as a warm up and am now up to 356 in the legs parallel position that I do immediately after the 300 warmup. It takes 4 or 5 minutes each time and definitely has made my legs stronger.

We now know that taking at least 2,000 iu extra a day of vitamin D3 is important for your health and among other things will help prevent depression, particularly in the winter, and will help prevent most cancers and even autoimmune diseases. In addition, getting that much D3 each day plus adequate calcium works best to maintain bone strength and density; & it works MUCH better than calcium alone.

(Up to 10,000 iu a day is safe. And, since D3 is very inexpensive, you might even consider 5,000 iu a day if you've not been taking it, to get you to an adequate blood level.)

At least 200 mg a day of magnesium and 3 mg a day of boron may also help maintain bone strength and density. And, they both have other health benefits. (I take 600 mg a day of magnesium as it helps lower blood pressure to health OK levels. I take the boron for its help in increasing alertness and helping prevent prostate cancer. It’s nice to know it helps bone strength too.)

And, for bone strength, they've found that taking a strontium supplement makes bones both harder and stronger within a relatively short time. (I take the other things; & plan to add strontium myself soon.)

Strontium, 3 other supplements, and several of the ones I list above are in a multiple supplement combo for increasing bone density and strength.

I prefer to take supplements separately and get each one from companies I think put the stated amount of the supplement in their supplements.

So, this kind of private label, multiple-ingredient supplement, no matter how well researched, doesn't appeal to me.

However, the ad for this multiple supplement combo for increasing bone density and strength had such strong evidence for strontium, I saved the ad.

Here's a cut & paste from the ad.: (I included the toll free number for those interested -- and, as a compensation to them for providing the information on strontium. I already take most of the other components in their supplement for other reasons.)

"The little-known mineral that cuts your risk of fracture in half — and even reverses 7 years’ worth of bone loss!

This little-known mineral is chemically similar to calcium, but much better absorbed. And it stays in your bones longer than calcium, too.

Multiple studies show that it can help fragile bones weakened by age, heredity, and other risk factors become stronger and more flexible. In fact, studies show that it can reduce your risk of suffering a debilitating or even deadly fracture in half and increase your bone density by a whopping 14%. That corresponds to about 7 years’ worth of bone loss.

Best of all, this mineral is safe, fast-acting, inexpensive — and seems to get results for just about everyone who tries it, no matter what their age.

What is this exciting new bone-building mineral? It’s called Strontium.

If you haven't heard of strontium before, I'm not surprised. Though it’s been around for quite a while, the news about its remarkable benefits for bone health has only recently come to light.

Strontium has been used as a medicinal remedy for over 100 years. But its effects on bone health were first tested back in 1959, when researchers at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic treated a group of patients suffering severe bone loss with strontium. Much to their shock, every patient in the study experienced some level of improvement.

As impressive as this news was, it didn't receive much attention. Why? When the drug companies found their patented form of strontium used in the studies, called Strontium ranelate, was no more safe and effective as the non-patented natural forms, they decided not to sell it. They couldn't profit from it, so it wasn't worth their time.

So this remarkable news remained buried for nearly 50 years.

But strontium is finally getting the attention it deserves, thanks to a wave of exciting clinical studies conducted over the last two years. The results make it clear that strontium could be the key to making your bones virtually unbreakable — and keep them that way for decades to come. Consider this:

• It cuts risk of fracture nearly 60%: In one study of elderly women over the age of 80, those who took strontium alone slashed their risk of fracture by 59% in the first 12 months of treatment. These findings prove strontium can drastically reduce fracture risk and improve overall bone health no matter what your age. Imagine what this can do to help you remain active and independent for the rest of your life!

• It’s more effective for building healthy bones than calcium and vitamin D combined: In another study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, women who added strontium to their bone-building program cut their risk of fracture by 49% in the first year. That’s practically in half! Plus, they increased bone density in their backs by 14.4% and in their necks by 8.3%. Meanwhile, the group who took only calcium and Vitamin D saw NO increase in bone density whatsoever.

• It can help you stand taller and stay pain free: Other studies show strontium slows the rate of height loss by an amazing 20%. It also helps 20% more patients experience relief from back pain. That’s important, because the vertebras in your spine become more fragile over time and more prone to collapsing. Strontium can help slow down, even reverse this process — while helping to soothe your aching back, too.

So exactly why does strontium work so much better than calcium to make your bones practically unbreakable? Because unlike calcium....

Strontium performs double-duty action for boosting your bone health

Strontium not only slows down the breakdown of bone, it actually stimulates new bone growth. That’s unheard of. No other nutrient can work so well at doing both.

Strontium: The Remarkable Bone-Building Superstar Your Doctor Doesn't Know About

If you’re at high risk for osteoporosis, strontium may help. But whatever you do, please don't confuse it with strontium-90, the man-made, radioactive compound that has nothing to do with bone health!

I’m talking about natural strontium. This is a non-toxic trace mineral that studies show can help fragile bones weakened by age, race, heredity, or other factors become stronger and more flexible. Natural strontium is safe, even in high doses.

Ultimate Bone Support delivers 500 mg of strontium, the level shown in studies to provide the most benefits. It’s also provided in a form that’s easy for the body to absorb, citrate, the same form that’s best for calcium.

Strontium is chemically similar to calcium, but it’s stronger and less dense. Your body absorbs strontium just like calcium, so it can replace lost calcium in your joints and teeth and even increase bone density.

But you should not take a calcium supplement at the same time as strontium. When that happens, strontium and calcium compete for absorption in the body—and in that tug of war, calcium always wins because your body uses calcium in other ways. Which means you'll miss out on strontium’s bone-building benefits completely, even if your bones are fragile.

So if you want to take a calcium supplement, make sure you take it a minimum of 4 hours prior to taking Ultimate Bone Support.

Just two capsules of Ultimate Bone Support daily gives you ‘extra’ insurance for making sure you stay healthy, remain independent, and live each and every day doing the things you love to do. After all, isn't that what life is all about?

Ready to get started? Click here or call toll-free 1-800-791-3395 to order Ultimate Bone Support today.

How does strontium do this? It attracts important minerals like calcium, magnesium, boron and zinc to absorb directly into your bones. As a result, your entire skeleton becomes thicker and stronger in a relatively short time — less than a year, in most cases.

In one study conducted at the prestigious McGill University in Montreal, patients who took strontium for only six months showed a remarkable 172% increase in the rate of bone formation. They felt less bone pain, too.

Since strontium is stronger and denser than calcium, it’s also more resistant to the action of osteoclasts — the cells in your body that cause your bones to weaken and break down. So it slows down the cycle of bone destruction, too.


People ask me all the time: “If strontium works so well, why hasn't my doctor recommended it?”

Good question. With doctors having to squeeze in as many patients as possible in a single day, they're more pressed for time than ever. As a result, they don't have time to keep up with all the latest studies. And whatever news they do get is either through drug company sales reps, or in medical journals subsidized by the drug companies.

Strontium’s benefits for bone health flew under the radar until recently. I first heard about it two years ago and researched it extensively. I ended up with a four-inch-thick pile of studies on the subject. At last count, I found over 220 published articles on strontium and its effects on bone health.

Judging from the research I’ve seen, strontium seems to get results no matter how old you are, or how weak your bones may be. Plus other studies suggest strontium is more effective than calcium for supporting the health of your teeth and joints.

There are more than enough studies on strontium’s benefits for building up bones and avoiding fractures. I suggest you consider it. It’s completely non-toxic, even when taken in large doses over a long period of time.

In fact, a two-year, double-blind study found strontium to be safer than a placebo! Not only did the women taking it significantly improve their bone mineral density, but they experienced fewer side effects than those taking the placebo.

Where can you get strontium? It’s not widely available in supplement form — unless you know where to look. That’s why I got together with the research team at Advanced Bionutritionals.

Together, we created an exclusive formula called Ultimate Bone Support. It combines the bone-building power of Strontium with 9 additional nutrients to keep your bones strong and fracture-free for life. Nutrients like..."

X* X* X* X*X*

This is very persuasive information. I have, however, found that most supplements are available from other companies even when one company claims this is not the case.

I've not yet added strontium to my supplements as I can only afford so many, & I'm giving priority to those that support general good health and those that prevent cancer, heart disease, and mental decline.

However, by April 1st, I'll have more income & likely will begin taking strontium then.

Unfortunately, since I've not yet researched a good brand for stand alone strontium supplements, I can't yet recommend one. But a knowledgeable health food store owner who carries several brands might know of one. Or you can enter strontium at www.vitacost.com in their search box as they carry most brands of supplements.

Three other supplements are included in that multiple bone strength supplement that are worth mentioning.

Silicon & l-lysine.

Here's their info on Silicon: "Silicon: When doctors back in Ancient Greece treated bone discomfort, one of their standby remedies was an herb called horsetail. We now know horsetail is a rich source of silicon, a nutrient that helps form collagen and connective tissue. It also helps stimulate the activity of osteoblasts — the bone-building cells.

In the recent study of the offspring of more than 2,800 participants in the Framingham Heart Study, researchers found that those who supplemented with silicon experienced higher bone density.

Ultimate Bone Support contains 4 mg of Silicon from horsetail extract."

The ad also noted that l-lysine helps the body form new connective tissue -- including in bones. (And, if you take it with 1500 mg a day of vitamin C, it may help prevent heart disease.) Whole Foods Markets has a Whole Foods brand of l-lysine that is quite inexpensive. For the heart protection, I take two 500 mg capsules a day. So, for bone health, I already have that base covered.

The third supplement is their version of hops extract. They say that this makes your body continue to build as much bone as the natural process tends to break down. And they note that in younger people these two processes are in balance; but in older people for some reason the breakdown part continues fine while the build back process slows down – which results in decreasing bone density and strength.


So, since hops extract also tends to lower anxiety levels, taking a hops extract may also make sense as a bone strengthening supplement.

(Since beer tends to contain some silicon and definitely contains hops, that may mean that an occasional dark beer also might be helpful.

Unfortunately, drinking enough to provide as much silicon and hops as the supplements will likely make you fat and may cause other problems.)

Lower high blood pressure without drug side effects....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 8-18-2009

Though it remains unpublished, I wrote an eBook about this subject.

Here’s a few of the conclusions I reached and facts I learned.

Blood pressures of 160 over 100 are dangerous if not brought below about 150 over
80. And, if someone cannot do that quickly without drugs, blood pressure reducing drugs, when used to do so, lower the rate of stroke, heart attack, and death.

Below that level, the drug side effects tend to be hard enough on your body, the advantage of using drugs to lower your blood pressure tends to disappear.

But as you go from about 115 over 75 to over 140 over 90, your risk of dementia, other forms of mental decline, stroke, heart attack, and death tend to rise. These risks begin to be even higher between 140 over 90 and 159 0ver 99. Even worse, once someone gets to over 140 over 90, they often get worse if they do nothing until it’s over 160 over 100.

So, using nondrug methods to keep your blood pressure well below 140 over 90 and keeping it there are very desirable.

Eating right, or switching from eating a horrible diet to eating right, plus slight additional salt restriction lowers blood pressure reliably. See the research on the DASH diet plus salt restriction. This same way of eating is quite similar to the Mediterranean Diet with more emphasis on lots of vegetables and less starchy pastas plus avoiding most full fat diary, fatty meats, and heavily salted foods.

Regular exercise on almost every day of the week also lowers blood pressure. People who exercise only a few days a week in fact, have lower blood pressure on the days they exercise.

Combining eating right and regular exercise tends to prevent getting fat or obese. And, obesity tends to cause high blood pressure.

Combining eating right and regular exercise plus very modest but sustained calorie restriction will tend to help people lose excess fat. And, in fatter people, losing excess fat has often simply turned off high blood pressure.

Avoiding severe or chronic excessive stress if you can and using a method of physical stress relief reliably lowers high blood pressure. Tai Chi, if you once learn it and do it every day for a few minutes, both provides exercise AND physical stress relief and has lowered high blood pressure by 17 systolic and 11 diastolic.

Taking several kinds of vitamins along with a basic multivitamin plus minerals and adding 400 to 600 mg a day of extra magnesium helps lower high blood pressure.

If you do have blood pressure over 160 over 100, most doctors tend to give you one or more of their favorite drugs and in high doses. Then if that fails to lower your high blood pressure, they tend to increase the doses of the drug they know best.

That often causes such harsh side effects that the person treated goes from feeling healthy to feeling like hell.

Needless to say, doctors find many patients who refuse to stay on these drugs and the rest wish they didn’t have to.

There are two solutions.

Do all of the methods listed here and the one in the Total Health Breakthroughs article I include below first if your blood pressure is below 160 over 100.

That will protect your health, lower your blood pressure, and avoid ever needing the drugs in most cases.

And if you add all the methods in today’s post while monitoring your blood pressure, you can likely discontinue the drugs eventually even if you start out at over 160 over 100 and taking the drugs.

If not, a low dose ARB, a low dose calcium channel blocker, and if necessary, a low dose of a third drug that you tend not to get side effects from can often be enough to do the job with very few if any side effects. (Exforge is a drug that combines an ARB with a calcium channel blocker in one pill. If you don’t have problems with either of its components tried one at a time to check first, the lowest dose of Exforge can be a decent choice.) ARB’s tend to have fewer side effects than most blood pressure drugs and are what the doctor’s call, “well tolerated” even in slightly higher doses. And, in most drugs, lower doses tend to have far fewer side effects.

But many people can add a single supplement to lower their blood pressure enough to avoid drugs. Taking 200 mg a day of CoQ10, once early in the day & once at lunch time has often helped people lower their blood pressure by about 16 systolic and 9 diastolic within just a few weeks. (4 to 8 weeks in the studies I saw.)

For example, blood pressure of 158 over 96 is close to needing drugs to bring it down. Taking CoQ10 can lower that to 142 over 87 which is a level at which it’s very probably safe to use the other methods in this post to get lower blood pressure and thus avoid the drugs permanently.

AND, there is now a way to get even faster and possibly better results with this supplement!

It seems that in your body, CoQ10 is turned into the active form, Ubiquinol. For more on that and its effect on lowering high blood pressure, here is the article from THB from Friday last week.

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com ."

“Blood Pressure Meds for All?

By Al Sears, MD

I just finished reading the British Medical Journal ... there was an article by a group of researchers telling doctors they should put everyone over 40 on blood pressure drugs -- even if they don't have high blood pressure!1

According to the study's authors, “Guidelines on the use of blood pressure lowering drugs can be simplified so that drugs are offered to people with all levels of blood pressure. Our results indicate the importance of lowering blood pressure in everyone over a certain age, rather than measuring it in everyone and treating it in some.”

Can you imagine? Taking drugs every day when you're in perfect health? This is a sign of things to come. Drug companies aren't satisfied with controlling medical schools, the media and the FDA... now they want all of us to take a drug every day whether you need it or not.

Are they kidding?

Why You Need Ubiquinol CoQ10

Traditionally, all CoQ10 supplements use the active ingredient ubiquinone. But once this gets into your system, your body must convert ubiquinone into another substance called ubiquinol.

Ubiquinol is the form of CoQ10 that works miracles. But there's a problem... Your body's ability to convert ubiquinone into ubiquinol starts to decline after age 45. As a result, your body doesn't get the full effect. And in many cases -- if you're 50 or older -- traditional CoQ10 won't give you the same disease protection it gives to younger people.

But Japanese researchers have discovered a reliable way to skip the conversion process and take ubiquinol straight on its own. The idea has been around for some time. But until now, no one could figure out how to make ubiquinol stable enough to take on its own.

This new option provides 8 times higher absorption of CoQ10 and keeps your blood levels high over an extended period.

Just 150 mg of ubiquinol CoQ10 elevates blood levels to almost 4 mcg/mL. You would need 1,200 mg of the traditional form to match that effect.

What may be even more important is how long ubiquinol stays in your body compared to the old ubiquinone. In one study using mice, the new ubiquinol was present in the blood at a 3.75-fold greater concentration after 8 hours. (A blood level of 4.5 mcg/mL after 8 hours of taking 100 mg.)6

This high concentration staying in your system for 8 hours is one of the keys to its blood pressure-lowering potential. The same amount of traditional ubiquinone dropped to a low level (just 1.2 mcg/mL) after 8 hours -- too low to have a powerful effect.

The truth is that you may not need blood pressure drugs -- even if you have high blood pressure. I see this all the time. Patients come into my office looking wrecked and demoralized, drugged up on blood pressure meds like beta blockers and ACE inhibitors.

Most folks don't realize these things make you fat... you blow up like a balloon. They can even cause heart failure.

Worried about high blood pressure? Today I'll show you what I've been using with my patients for years and the results are amazing. Here's what you do: check your blood pressure; start the simple strategy I mention below and then test again a few months later. You'll see what I mean.

Steer Clear of Dangerous Pills

Case in point: One of my patients, Roxanne, had been on an ACE inhibitor for 4 years. She had gained 10 lbs. and was tired all the time. And at 140/85, her blood pressure was still on the high side, even on the drugs.

I told her to stop taking the blood pressure pills immediately. They weren't working anyway. And I put her on a simple nutrient. After 9 months, her blood pressure was back to a healthy 118/80.

Plus, she told me she had more energy and was already working on losing the weight she had gained.

Roxanne's story isn't unique. Blood pressure pills typically make you weak and tired. Some patients have nasty side effects like depression, impotence, joint pain, and even kidney and liver damage.

What's worse is that blood pressure meds don't even work for the majority who take them. Only 42.9% of patients ever see acceptable blood pressure levels.2

Another study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine reveals just how worthless they are. In the group given the placebo, 30% lowered their blood pressure below the set goal. Apparently, just doing nothing will help close to a third of those with high blood pressure.3

Of course, I wouldn't advocate that you do nothing if you have high blood pressure -- it does raise your chances of heart disease, heart attack, and stroke. But you can treat your high blood pressure effectively without exposing yourself to the side effects that come with these drugs.

Get the One Nutrient That Eliminates Hypertension

The first thing I instruct my patients with high blood pressure to do is take 50 mg of ubiquinol CoQ10 every day. It's the only thing I told Roxanne to take. She made no other changes and watched her blood pressure return to healthy levels.

You'll probably never hear it mentioned by the medical establishment, but it's highly effective at reducing blood pressure without any dangerous side effects.

Over 50% of patients coming to my office with high blood pressure taking blood pressure drugs have been able to stop those drugs with CoQ10. Several double-blind clinical trials have corroborated CoQ10's blood pressure-lowering effects. For example, a team at the University of Texas found that CoQ10 is so effective, it enabled them to safely take patients off blood pressure medications.4

A double blind, placebo-controlled study published in the Journal of Human Hypertension followed two groups of people with high blood pressure. One group took CoQ10 for eight weeks while the other took a placebo. The CoQ10 group showed a significant reduction in blood pressure.5

A meta-analysis of studies that looked at CoQ10 and hypertension revealed that CoQ10 can lower systolic blood pressure by up to 17 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure by up to 10 mmHg without side effects.7

No matter what your blood pressure, insist on blood testing for CoQ10. If your levels are low, start with 50 mg of ubiquinol CoQ10 a day. After that, monitor your levels after three months.

If you only do one thing for healthy blood pressure, take CoQ10.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

References

1. Law MR, et al. BMJ. 2009; 338: b1665.

2. Meeting of the American Society of Hypertension, May 2000; www.mercola.com/2000/may/28/blood_pressure.htm.

3. Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:1449-1454.

4. Langsjoena, P et. al. Molecular Aspects of Medicine. Volume 15, Supplement 1, 1994, Pages s265-s272.

5. Singh, et al. Journal of Human Hypertension, 13(1999):203-208.

6. CoQ10 reducing activity in rats. Unpublished data provided by Dr. Mae.

7. Rosenfeldt FL, et al. J Human Hypertension. 21: 297-306, 2007.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears is Chairman of the Board of Total Health Breakthroughs. He has written over 500 articles and 7 books in the fields of alternative medicine, anti-aging, and nutritional supplementation.]”

X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X*

If you’ve begun to use much of the information in this post, you may already be doing several things that help you keep your blood pressure low.

So, a good way to keep yourself informed and motivated to follow this lifestyle is to read our blog.

New reason to quit smoking....

Today's Post: Monday, 8-17-2009

It’s already known that few smokers have a clue how effective smoking is at causing heart disease. It does cause 30% or more of ALL cancers. But stroke or heart attack caused by cardiovascular disease kills way more smokers than the cancers cause by smoking. This is a much more certain effect of smoking. Virtually all smokers get some cardiovascular disease from smoking. This is why virtually all smokers test as showing excess plaque build up in their carotid arteries to their brains. More recently, it’s been found that smoking and second hand smoke trigger heart attacks in people who had some cardiovascular disease but might have gone several more years before having one.

In addition to that, you can test even younger smokers and show they are already being affected. Their homocysteine goes up which tends to cause cardiovascular disease and which increases their rate of aging. (This is even visible as older smokers get much more wrinkled at younger ages.) You can also show them that their breathing is reduced to the levels of nonsmokers who are MUCH older.

Smoking hardly needs and more bad press or reasons to quit, avoid second hand smoke, and ban smoking in public places, etc.

Today smoking got more bad press! It’s hardly a surprise; but we now have another way you can test smokers & younger smokers so that they can see that they ARE being affected right now by their smoking. And, it may be in part the reason why smoking and second hand smoke tend to trigger heart attacks.

Reuters Health has a story today titled, “Quitting smoking causes quick drop in inflammation.”

The medical journal Chest, for July 2009 was the source.

The new research found that several markers for inflammation, including C Reactive Protein or CRP high levels of which predict increased risk of heart attack, went down quite a bit within just a few weeks in a group of women who quit smoking & did so in just a few weeks. Even better, the decrease in inflammation began almost immediately and kept falling for about the 7 weeks of the study.

The findings point the way to a strategy for encouraging people at risk of heart disease to kick the habit, the study's authors say.

One of the researchers, Dr. Christine N. Metz of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York noted that showing people about the "age and health" of their lungs is known to help people quit smoking.

She specifically suggested that tests for inflammation can now be added for further proof.

She is definitely on the right track. Doctors can now show smokers that they are being harmed NOW and for sure with an even larger number of tests. And they can do this with young smokers as well as older ones.

In a related story, in HealthDay News today had a story saying “Tobacco users who think it's safer to dip snuff or chew tobacco than smoke are dead wrong, researchers say.”

The study found that one pinch of smokeless tobacco delivered the same amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as smoking five cigarettes. These are known to be carcinogenic. And, even before their study it was already known that 28 carcinogens had been found in smokeless tobacco.

They found much the same results with snuff.

Until this study was done, even scientists wrongly believed that, because the tobacco was not burned when used, only trace amounts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were in smokeless tobacco.

One possible explanation they mentioned is that even “smokeless tobacco is treated with a "fire-curing" process.

So, this set of information suggests that when smokers need a safer intermediate step once they quit smoking, smokeless tobacco is NOT a good choice for the ex-smoker. Both because it is more precisely dosed and because it is a medicine rather than a recreational use, nicotine replacement is far better than smokeless tobacco.

More on staying mentally sharp....

Today's Post: Friday, 8-14-2009

This week has also been filled with news about ways to stay mentally sharp.

1. “Do high-fat diets make us stupid and lazy?”

-- was the headline on a story about research that found that rats overfed fat in their diet were significantly less mentally sharp and had far less stamina and were less inclined to exercise. The report also said the researches found that the cause for both things was that the rats that overfed fat had a compound in their blood that caused a drop in efficiency in getting sufficient oxygen to the mitochondria.

"....research published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) showed that in less than 10 days of eating a high-fat diet, rats had a decreased ability to exercise and experienced significant short-term memory loss...."

The researchers compared rats fed 7.5 % of calories as fat and rats fed a high-fat diet 55 % of calories as fat. The researchers found that within 4 days the muscles of the rats eating the high-fat diet were less able to use oxygen to support exercise. And within nine days the rats fed the high-fat diet “took longer to complete a maze and made more mistakes in the process than their low-fat-diet counterparts.”

Researchers then found increased levels of a protein called uncoupling protein 3 in the rats fed the high fat diet, which made the mitochondria of the rats less efficient at using oxygen needed to make energy within their cells. This made the rats less able to exercise and actually caused changes in the hearts of the rats similar to those causing heart failure. This likely also meant that the circulation to the rat’s brains was impaired. It also would directly impair the mitochondria in the nerve cells in the rat’s brains.

The news story neglected to say what kind of fat the researchers fed the rats.

And, study subjects WERE rats and not people.

However, given the low levels of excess LDL needed to cause mental decline in people, which we covered in our post last Friday, 8-14, I strongly suspect that eating excess saturated fat, omega 6 oils, and any hydrogenated vegetable oils very probably would duplicate this effect.

(Fatty cuts of grain fed meat, butter, cream, and full fat cheese can taste great. And oils high in omega 6 such as corn, soy, and canola may work OK in cooking. But you clearly would be well advised to avoid eating fatty cuts of grain fed meat, butter, cream, and full fat cheese at all often. Wild caught fish, nuts, lean poultry, and beans can replace fatty meat. And, nonfat and lowfat dairy products can replace higher fat versions and provide nonmeat protein. Lastly, beef fed only grass is leaner, has less saturated fat, and MUCH less omega 6 oils than fatty, grain fed beef. Grass fed lamb has similar benefits. So, if you like meat but only eat grass fed and don’t overdo how often you eat it, that also works.)

That means that eating in a way that causes a person to eat excess saturated fat, omega 6 oils, and any hydrogenated vegetable oils not only will lead to mental decline over many years, it will also make you less mentally able NOW. In addition, you will be less inclined to exercise or to benefit from it much if you do exercise. That means that you’ll be more likely to find it easy to put on excess fat and hard to lose it.

(It also means that employers might do well to both only hire people who don’t eat such stuff; but actually give people discounts on their health insurance, similar to those now given to people who don’t smoke or quit and those who successfully lose excess fat by many companies, to NOT eat these foods.)

Another study found that the people who ate the most meat tended to be the most likely to experience mental decline.

Lastly, this research strongly suggests that older people who supplement with CoQ10 or directly with the ubiquinol that your body makes from CoQ10, will be more mentally capable and able to exercise and benefit from the exercise they do. It also suggests that older people who are trying to lose excess fat would do well to supplement with CoQ10 or ubiquinol.

2. Two other studies found that eating the opposite way, specifically eating mostly a Mediterranean diet or eating fish at least twice a week or both, each independently lowered the incidence of mental decline.

The study that looked at the effects of the Mediterranean diet also found that the people who both followed it AND exercised regularly had the lowest rat of mental decline.

The Mediterranean diet minimizes the intake of dairy fats that are high in saturated fat, it minimizes heavy eating of fatty meats and it uses extra virgin olive oil instead of dairy fats or oils that are high in omega 6 oils. It also includes lots of vegetables. And, it includes garlic, onion, many savory spices, and red wine. The fiber and sterols from the vegetables lower excess LDL as does the olive oil. And, NOT eating junk carbohydrates plus eating garlic, onions, and drinking red wine each tend to increase your protective HDL.

And, the Mediterranean diet also tends to include more fish, seafood, and nuts.

In the email I get from www.vitacost.com , Allen S. Josephs, MD, their chairman & founder wrote this:

The people ”….who exercised at the highest level and whose diet was closest to that of a Mediterranean style…. reduced their risk of developing progressive cognitive loss by a whopping 60% compared to those who do not exercise or did not follow this type of diet.”

And, recently Reuters online health new had a story titled:

“More evidence that fish is brain food.”

In a newly reported study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers found that ....each increase in participants' reported fish intake -- from never, to some days of the week, to most or all days of the week -- the prevalence of dementia dipped by 19 percent.

The Reuter’s story also had this.: “Lab studies show that omega-3 fats have a number of properties that could help stave off dementia -- including actions that protect nerve cells, limit inflammation and help prevent the build-up of the amyloid proteins seen in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.

In short, eating fish works 3 ways to prevent mental decline.

a) It gives you high quality protein you do NOT have to eat fatty meat to get. So eating it allows you to get solid nutrition while eating less fatty meat, which as we’ve seen prevents mental decline.

b) The omega 3 oils in many kinds of wild caught fish lowers inflammation, lowers triglycerides, and prevents excess blood clotting which in turn helps keep your blood vessels and heart health and free of plaque. That insures your brain gets proper circulation.

c) The omega 3 oils also are said to have been found to “….help prevent the build-up of the amyloid proteins seen in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.” So, eating fish high in these oils or taking purified fish oil supplements high in omega 3 oils apparently also directly prevents Alzheimer’s disease to some degree –IN ADDITION to the other two effects!

3. Dr Dharma Khalsa sells brain protective supplements including PS, phosphatidyl serine.

He says that research has found that taking this supplement preserves the physical flexibility and integrity of the surfaces in brain cells and protects them from becoming stiff and dysfunctional from oxidation, like a very old tire, in the phase he uses in describing the effect.

It’s been found that having older people begin taking 100 mg a day of PS can restore the brain function they had up to 10 or 12 years earlier.

Recently, he sent an email that I saw that said that research also found that people who take 100 mg a day of PS are 20 % less likely to get mental decline of any kind.

4. We’ve also posted several times on the research that shows that taking 500 to 600 mg a day of turmeric or the curcumin compounds in it very likely prevents the build-up of the amyloid plaques that apparently cause Alzheimer's disease. It may even partially reverse the build up of amyloid plaques for people who begin taking it. (I include that for readers of this post who may not have seen those other posts.)

This set of things strongly suggests that if you eat mostly a Mediterranean diet, eat wild caught fish &/or take omega 3 supplements, get regular exercise, sharply minimize eating excess saturated fat &omega 6 oils, eat no hydrogenated vegetable oils, and take CoQ10 or ubiquinol, take PS, and take turmeric, your chances of getting Alzheimer's disease or age related mental decline may approach zero.

Lose more fat & build more muscle....

Today's Post: Thursday, 8-13-2009

Last week TIME posted an essay by a man who was doing a LOT of exercise and who still had more fat on his belly than he wanted. He raised the question whether exercise really helped fat loss.

And, on Monday this week, I posted on this: The truth about exercise & fat loss....Monday, 8-10-2009

I listed quite a number of things we know about why this might be so and, of much greater importance, what you might be able to do to make the exercises you do to lose fat more effective.

But there are 3 things I could have covered better: How to succeed with fat loss if what works for other people hasn’t worked so far for you; How exercise that builds muscle effectively makes fat loss work dramatically better, particularly in losing belly fat; & How to succeed in using exercise to build muscle when what seems to work for others had not yet worked for you.

Then, the very next day, virtually the whole issue of Total Health Breakthroughs covered those exact points. And, I thought they did an excellent job.

So, here it is!:

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com ."

"A Fitness Trainer Who Can't Build Muscle?

By James LaValle, R.Ph, ND, CCN

Are you a person that works out but still has trouble losing body fat and/or gaining muscle?

If you search the web for how to build muscle, you are likely to find a lot of talk about eating plenty of protein. But I have found that while boosting protein intake may be needed and is sometimes helpful, if you do not respond well to exercise, very often there is a metabolic imbalance somewhere.

One factor that people almost never think about when it comes to building and maintaining muscle is SLEEP.

A few months ago, I had a fitness instructor ask me if I might know why he wasn't able to build muscle. Despite the fact that he used protein shakes, had a very regular workout routine and had worked out for years using the best of equipment, he just couldn't build muscle. He was also a little overweight with too high a percentage of body fat. A 30-something male fitness instructor can't put on muscle? Something is desperately wrong!

The first question I asked him was "Do you sleep well?" His answer was no; in fact he told me had sleep apnea. Strike one! When you lose sleep, you lose growth hormone production. In childhood, growth hormone makes you grow in every way. In adulthood, it's most important function is to make you build and maintain your muscle.

If you aren't sleeping well as an adult, your growth hormone production will be reduced and your ability to gain muscle from exercise will be greatly compromised. So make no mistake, getting your zzzzzz's is very important for your fitness.

If taking simple measures like reducing your caffeine intake and trying a natural sleep aid like melatonin or Seditol (an herbal extract we really like) are not effective, the most likely suspect is elevated evening cortisol, which most often occurs from chronic stress. To get the full benefit of a sleep aid, you also need to down regulate your daytime stress response, or address any other potential sleep confounders.

For sleep apnea, food allergies can be involved. So, we find switching to an elimination diet (low in common food allergens, especially wheat and dairy) is helpful. And it was for this trainer. So, first things first to improve his muscle mass -- we got him sleeping better.

The next thing we did for this trainer was look at his fasting blood glucose. It was on the high end of normal indicating he had some insulin resistance. Insulin is an anabolic hormone, so it can help muscle building. But if it elevates too high for too long after meals, it also builds fat stores.

To address that we advised changing to a low glycemic index/glycemic load diet. We also recommended blood sugar supportive nutrients like alpha-lipoic acid, chromium and magnesium (which also helps sleep).

It wasn't very long at all and he was losing body fat like crazy and building lean mass.

Had these measures still not worked very well, I would have dug deeper. Other problems I might typically find in a person who doesn't respond like they should to exercise are things like sex hormone imbalances and suboptimal thyroid hormone levels.
For instance, this trainer could have been low in testosterone. Testosterone is not only supremely important for muscle building, it also influences insulin and glucose regulation. Thyroid hormones drive the rate at which cells burn fat and glucose for fuel, so they profoundly affect a person's ability to burn fat.

We also evaluate GI health because it can be a source of inflammation and very disruptive to metabolism. In some instances, when people are just not responding well to anything we do, we test for heavy metal levels, which can affect thyroid function and insulin resistance.

So you see we have a whole host of things that could be involved in the inability to lose fat and gain muscle:

Thyroid levels
Sex hormone levels
Food allergies
Neurotransmitter levels
Chronic stress
Blood sugar and insulin regulation
GI health
And possibly heavy metals

Why is this important to understand? We are told that to lose weight and become fit, we need to eat less and exercise more. But it is not that infrequently that I see people doing just that, but it doesn't work like it should for them. They struggle in vain, exercising hard and often, and still they don't respond appropriately to the exercise.

These people need to realize it's a sign that something is wrong. If this is you, get to a practitioner that can help you evaluate possible underlying causes. It may take some digging, but you can get to the root of the problem, and not only help your fitness, but improve your overall health and vitality.

[Ed. Note: James LaValle is the founding Director of the LaValle Metabolic Institute, one of the largest integrative medicine practices in the country. Dr. LaValle is the author of 14 Days to Less Stress and Better Sleep, a revolutionary program to improve your sleep and banish stress for good….]”

The same issue had this article also:

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com ."

“Weight Loss: The Real Secret to Weight Loss and Optimum Fitness

By Laura LaValle, RD, LD

Just as there are many "miracle" exercise products which deceptively promise an Atlas-like body in just a few minutes a day, in the food world there are promises of weight loss from super foods or "miracle" juices (think acai berry).

Unfortunately, there is no one food that will magically melt away unwanted pounds. However, the overall quality of our diet IS crucial to our success with weight management, and can make or break our fitness level.

So what dietary measures should you to take to support weight loss and overall fitness?

1. Reduce calories, especially from carbs. Studies continue to show that when it comes to losing weight, diet is by far the most important factor. To put it another way, studies have found that physical activity produces only minimal weight loss when calories are not also reduced.1

If you are a regular THB reader, you know that when it comes to calorie reduction, we believe that the most important calories to reduce are from carbohydrates. When compared head to head, diets that are lower in carbs and higher in fat and protein, outperform every time on weight loss.2,3

And it's especially critical to reduce your intake of sweets. Studies have indeed shown that calorie for calorie, high glycemic index foods (sweets and refined carbs) lead to less appetite control, greater calorie intake, and even reduced metabolic rate.4

The simple sugar fructose, which comes from fruit and fruit juices, is also associated with weight gain and increased appetite.5 The studies show that good weight loss and metabolic health are achieved with about 25 to 35% of your calories from carbs. That's about 110 grams of carbs on 1800 calories per day and 75 grams on 1200 calories per day.

2. Take in plenty of potassium. Believe it or not, potassium helps us preserve muscle. A recent study found that people who ate 3,540 mg of potassium per day or more preserved almost 4 pounds of muscle over a 3-year period compared to people who took in half that much potassium.6 This is enough to offset the natural losses of muscle that tend to occur as we age (called sarcopenia). It should also help us retain the muscle we work so hard to build with workouts!

Foods are highly variable in their potassium content, but the best sources are fruits and vegetables -- a ½ cup serving of beans averages about 500 mg of potassium. A 1 cup serving of fruit and vegetables averages about 400 to 500 mg. So ½ cup of beans, 1 cup of fruit, and 5 cups of vegetables per day will get your intake where it needs to be.

3. Take in enough protein. As long as you don't have any metabolic disruptions like lack of sleep, protein really helps support a healthy metabolism. For one, it provides the amino acids necessary to build and repair muscle. Resistance training in particular causes micro-tears in your muscle fibers, and the more you do, the more protein you probably need to build and maintain muscle.7

But even for people who don't work out as intensely, there's another reason to eat a diet that's higher in protein -- hunger control. Studies have shown that diets that are higher in protein lead to reduced appetite, reduced calorie intake and more weight loss than lower protein diets.8 The amount that achieved those goals was 30% of the calories as protein or 90 to 135 grams per day on 1200 or 1800 calorie diets, respectively.*

Having some protein for each meal and snack is a good goal. And if you exercise strenuously, you may want to add a post-workout snack such as a whey protein shake.

As several THB articles have pointed out, it's also important to choose organic protein foods as often as possible to reduce your intake of pesticides that can interfere with thyroid hormones and induce insulin resistance.

As you can see, it's not just the amount of food you eat, but the types of foods you eat that can have a huge impact on weight loss, muscle retention, and your overall fitness. This can take some planning, but the benefits are well worth it!

For help on implementing a diet that is lower in carbs, but still high enough in potassium and protein, I recommend our recent e-book, The Metabolic Code Diet: Unleashing the Power of Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss and Vitality.

* Caution: Anyone who has failing kidneys should consult their doctor before increasing protein intake.

References

1. Fabricatore A and Wadden T. Clin Diab. 2003. 21(2): 67-72.

2. McCauley KA, et al. Diabetalogia. Jan 2005. 48(1):8-16.

3. Gardner C, et al. JAMA. 2007. 297(9):969-77.

4. Agus M, et al. AJCN. Apr 200. 71(4):901-07.

5. Teff KL, et al. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2004. 89:2963-72.

6. Dawson-Hughes, B, et al. AJCN. Mar 2008. 87(3): 662.665.

7. Lemon P. J Am Col Nutr. 2000. 19(90005):513S-521S.

8. Weigle DS, et al. AJCN. Jul 2005. 82(1):41-48.

[Ed. Note: Laura B. LaValle, RD, LD is presently the director of dietetics nutrition at LaValle Metabolic Institute. Laura and her husband, Jim LaValle, R.Ph, CCN, ND have developed the powerful and life-changing Metabolic Code Diet – containing step-by-step, easy to follow recommendations for harnessing optimal metabolic energy and turning your body's chemical make up into a fat-burning furnace….] “


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So, if your exercise routine hasn’t helped you to lose fat or build muscle yet, here are some ideas and strategies that can help in addition to those we listed on Monday.