Two new ways to stop depression....

Today's Post: Friday, 4-29-2011

Last Tuesday a study was reported that revealed two important new ways to stop depression!

“Tuesday, April 26 (HealthDay News) -- Antidepressants may not improve all symptoms of depression, according to a new study.”

Researchers analyzed data from more than 4,000 people with major depression around the United States. The article said their study is the largest study on depression treatment to date. (The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health-sponsored this study of depression treatment.)

Even with taking the drugs, which are not that great in my opinion, the researchers found that many of these people still had other symptoms.

But the two of the three symptoms reported in the article ARE improvable and we know many ways to improve them! (These were two of the symptoms that most of the depressed people still had.)

To me, that means that whether the depression treatment is with or without drugs, if depressed people are also helped to improve these two symptoms they are more likely to get better or completely better!

These two symptoms were: “insomnia that occurs in the middle of the night (79 percent)” “….and problems with concentration and decision-making (nearly 70 percent.)” According to the researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas who apparently did the study.

We’ll list some of the 7 other ways to stop depression last. (Some of those ways also help improve these two symptoms. And doing all 7 has been found to work better than the drugs.)

1. Here are some ways to improve middle of the night insomnia.

a) If the person drinks alcoholic beverages, that sometimes produces this symptom. When the alcohol wears off you get a bit of extra alertness as your recovery overshoots a bit. And, the sleep you do get before waking makes this more likely as it restores your energy also.

So, drink less and do it earlier in the day than right before bed.

For many health reasons men should drink no more than 2 drinks a day and most women no more than one. Also, if a man drinks 1 or 1 & half drinks instead of two or more or a woman drinks one every other day or a half a drink instead of one, this effect is less. And, it’s far less if they have been drinking more heavily than the health guideline suggests.

Usually stop drinking by at least an hour before bedtime. (More than two hours is better.)

b) If you already have thought through how to lower the chances of whatever bad event is worrying you and how to recover at least some if the worst happens. You are less likely to stay awake if you do wake up in the middle of the night.

Then you can tell yourself, “The things I know to do and am doing make this less of a worry. They actually have a shot at doing the job.

I’ll deal with that tomorrow or when I have it on my schedule to do and leave it alone now.”

c) Another double technique that has worked for me and others is to say to yourself. I may feel wide awake now. But regardless of that, I can get some rest. And, I can rest my eyes. Then keep your eyes shut. If even you don’t fall asleep overall, recent research has found that this will rest parts of your brain. And you’ll feel better the next day from the rest and sleep you do get.

Loosen your muscles a bit. Then it often works to count slow deep breaths. Focus on breathing in a bit extra and doing it smoothly. Then focus on letting each breath out smoothly and a bit slowly. (You can count when you begin or when you finish.)

If you were physically tired to begin with and released your worry at least some, this does often work.

d) Here are the two most effective treatments to sleep better regardless of how many hours that is:

Get vigorous exercise each day even if for just 2 to 6 minutes.

And, get another half hour of moderate activity such as walking on every day you can fit it in. (Twenty minutes twice a week is better than none at all.)

Most people can fit in much of those two kinds of exercise somewhere in each week.)

e) Some supplements work. And supplements work better for some people. If you think they might work for you they likely will if you take one or more of the effective ones.

Melatonin in doses from .3 grams to 1.0 grams at bedtime or up to an hour and a half before often helps. Taking it later in the day or taking more can make you a bit groggy the next day.

(The drugs actually tend to give you ineffective sleep and almost always leave you groggy. They also can be dangerous. None of that is worth your money in my opinion.)

Also, Al Sears, MD sells a melatonin supplement as a spray that works within few minutes! I don’t yet know the dose. But you can adjust it from taking a single super-brief spray to taking two or three depending on how it works for you.

For anxiety or simply being a bit over-amped, valerian often works. (It does smell so bad that you need to put its container in a larger one that you can seal off in between uses. But it does work well for many people. You can take it at bedtime or a bit before to help fall asleep. Or you can take a bit less if you do wake up in the middle of the night.

There are other anti-anxiety supplements. But valerian and melatonin are the two most worth trying and to try first.

f) In World War II people in England and some parts of the United States put up, “blackout curtains” which covered window enough to not allow ANY light to escape to the outside.

You can sharply increase the melatonin your own body makes if you put such curtains in your bedroom and turn off all the lights. (You can put a flashlight where you can always find it even when it’s that dark.)

People who do that do tend to sleep better. And, I read of a study that found women who do that were less likely to get breast cancer.

g) Do what you can to make your bedroom slightly to very cool with blankets and close to completely quiet. Pay for air conditioning or heat proof your house or both. Use earplugs if you have to. Bedrooms that are too hot or loud noises at night both make your sleep less effective even when you stay asleep.

h) Even if you sleep bit less than 6 hours a day, always get up at exactly the same time with your alarm clock at least on weekdays. And, make a special effort to be in bed by 6 hours before that time.

2. There ARE ways to improve your concentration.

a) Use key questions when you work on something.

And do two things. Write down the questions and your answers.

And once that’s done, write down an outline or summary of what actions you will take and when.

Why am I doing this? Who will it enable me to help? How will it benefit me? How can I use this information? What kinds of feedback or new information will help if I can find them by doing this? What might work? What do I still need to know? Who can I ask who might be able to tell me? How can I test my ideas to see what works?

b) Block out chunks of time to work on the thing you want to concentrate on and do nothing else during that time. Routines like getting ready to go to work often are far more time efficient if you do more than one thing at times. But for the things concentration will really help you and are NOT routine. Simply insisting on only doing each thing can more than triple your ability to concentrate.

c) Get regular exercise as we describe above, particularly the vigorous exercise. And, to the extent you know them eat foods and take supplements that boost brain performance.

(Blueberries, B12, and DHA all work.)

It’s pretty simple. If your brain works better, you can concentrate better!

d) Learn Tai Chi and do at least a short session almost every day. This practice give you an enormously valuable double effect.

Your physical level of stress and perceived stress drops so much, if your blood pressure is too high, regular Tai Chi practice will drop it towards or into the desirable zone. (Decreases of 17 over 11 are typical in people who have high blood pressure & who do daily Tai Chi.)

Tai Chi is also surprisingly good exercise for such a slow and easy activity.

That can double or triple your ability to concentrate!

You’ll get less stressed and feel less stressed. So stress will stop messing up your concentration.

And the exercise part will help make your brain work better.

This is the one to go to early if you can if you are under a lot of stress – or have high blood pressure. And it’s the method to add if you do the other things and still need a bit more of a concentration boost.

3. Some of the other methods some of which we’ve covered already are these.

a. Work strategically to build a worthwhile life. Doing this can often double the effect of everything else you do to fight depression.

You think that things will get better and focus on what make life worthwhile for you. You focus on actions to take to achieve that life instead of thinking of why things are or were messed up.

b. If you find yourself thinking over and over about why things are messed up, force yourself to STOP. Why take poison when you want to feel better?!

Do even one thing useful or active instead.

Do something nice for someone even if they seem to not care or won’t know you did it. This may return good things to you or it may not. But doing it WILL make you feel better immediately.

Get some brief and vigorous exercise.

Try something you have time for to make things better or make progress in some way.

c. Do the vigorous and moderate exercise each week – particularly the exercise vigorous enough to get you breathing hard and where you have to concentrate to do it.

This gives you a stress break and makes your brain work better.

And, it has been shown to turn down depression about as well as one of the kinds of anti-depression drugs that actually works to some degree!

d. Slash your intake of refined grains, fat from grain fed animals, and oils such as corn, soy, safflower and canola that are high in omega 6 oils.

Eat neutral oils in nuts, avocados, and extra virgin olive oil instead.

Take DHA and purified fish oil omega 3 oils supplements daily. And eat wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils two or three times a week.

Doing this set of things reverses some of the harm of modern diets. It stops depression in many people. It helps prevent close to all cancers. And it is one of the two or three most effective ways to prevent heart disease.

People who eat this way either never get depressed. Or they get less depressed and recover faster. Their brains work better for several reasons! Then they get all these other health benefits too!

e. People used to be outside in the sun all day. Spend a bit of time outside when you can most weeks. Take at least 3,000 to 4,000 iu a day of vitamin D3. (Taking at least 1,000 mg a day of vitamin C also helps reduce depression according to a study I saw recently.) The sunlight and vitamin D3 are most effective for people who get depressed in the winter or during bad weather that sticks around.

f. Get enough good quality sleep. Your brain works better and you have more energy. Small wonder that helps you stop being depressed! (We covered some ideas how to do that above.)

g. Spend some time talking to friends and family and people you see or meet. Spend some time at group events and participate in some way. Your brain will work better. You will feel and be better supported in most cases. And, people who do this are reliably less depressed in part because this forces them to stop spending time alone just worrying.

The last 6 of the steps are my versions of Stephen Ilardi’s six step method to cure depression which has tested to stop depression for 75% of the people who do all 6 things. PhD Stephan Ilardi’s book is called The Depression Cure.

It’s available on Amazon. He found that early people were not depressed. His six step program was initially designed to mimic what early people did that people have too often stopped doing.

We now know it works. And each of the steps that you do well will help!

Selenium is far more beneficial than was once thought....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 4-26-2011

I’d read that the supplement selenium was a good antioxidant and that to some degree it had anticancer effects.

The standard stand-alone supplement is 200 mcg a day and many multi’s have 50 mcg.

If you eat wild caught fish a few times a week and nuts a few times a week you likely get about 15 to 50 mcg of selenium a day.

That’s enough. If you eat some and take some as a supplement, you’ll get about 250 mcg a day. The beneficial range is 50 to about 300 mcg a day.

In fact if you like Brazil nuts, you have to be careful not to eat too many. Each one has 100 mcg of selenium or more. So if you already take selenium, eating one Brazil nut occasionally is OK. But eating a handful several times a week will give you an overdose.

Selenium has great health benefits in the 50 to 300 mcg a day range. BUT taking more than that is NOT a good idea. In fact, at some point above that level of intake selenium is toxic.

So selenium is a supplement like vitamin B6 that has great health benefits but really has a level where more than the beneficial amount is a really BAD idea.

(B6 is great in the 25 to 75 mg a day range; but between 100 mg and 200 mg a day or more, you begin to get some nerve damage and numbness.)

Yesterday, Al Sears MD sent an email about selenium.

It seems that the right intake of selenium is even more beneficial than I had yet heard.

He first points out that single crop, factory style farms result in depleting the foods you eat from containing enough selenium. That means that most people who don’t take supplements or eat the foods high in selenium will be deficient and will NOT get its benefits.

1. He first said that this fact may be “one of the reasons why sperm counts are dropping everywhere.” ( A more recent reason is high cell phone use I’ve read.) The drop was already going on long before cell phones became heavily used. So Dr Sears is likely correct. (The pesticides used may also do some of the damage.)

“Selenium is essential for making sperm, and the male reproductive system depends on it. Your body has to have the right amount to stay fertile and potent.”

“In one study published a couple months ago, researchers took a group of infertile men and gave them 200 mcg of selenium and 400 IU of vitamin E every day. In just over three months, more than half the men made more sperm overall, and had more functioning and more mobile sperm.”

He goes on to say that this kind of farming grew at exactly the same time as this drop in sperm counts both in the United States and then in Europe. So it’s nice to have selenium supplements.

But men who want to father children need to find out they should take selenium! They might never have kids if they don’t take selenium.

2. If you dislike pain or restrictions on your mobility or you exercise regularly, selenium has another benefit that I’d never heard of. And it’s one you’ll value!

“A University of North Carolina study found that an increase of just one-tenth of a part per million of selenium in your body decreased their risk of osteoarthritis by 15 to 20 percent. The higher the amount of selenium, the more their risk dropped.”

That suggests that adding a 200 mcg a day selenium supplement may be a very important way to avoid osteoarthritis!

3. Another critical benefit I’d not heard of is this one:

“Have lots of energy and a strong metabolism – Selenium helps you make the critical thyroid hormones T3 and T4.”

If you hate feeling draggy all day or need lots of energy for your work, this could be a critical benefit.

Also, if you are trying to lose excess fat or would like to avoid gaining it, avoiding low thyroid is also a critical benefit to have. (This is especially true for women over 30 or 40.)

4. “Fight the effects of aging and live younger – Your body uses selenium to make glutathione peroxidase, a powerful antioxidant. “

Another supplement that boosts your level of glutathione is NAC, n-acetyl cysteine.

It’s not widely known; but a high level of glutathione tends to produce good health and a low level is found in people with poor health.

High levels of glutathione also help prevent mental decline.

So this benefit of selenium is also very important. And, until yesterday I’d not heard of it before.

5. Selenium also works well with vitamin D3 to keep your immune system able to protect you.

“Avoid illness and disease – More selenium helps your body make more of your strongest immune cells, killer T-cells.7 “

If you take selenium, you will have more of these front line troops against viruses and bacteria from the selenium. And we now know that enough vitamin D3 helps T-cells “see” invaders and triggers your T-cells to attack.

6. In fact, this increase in the effectiveness of your immune system from selenium and vitamin D3 may be why they tend to prevent cancers. Your T-cells kill off cancer cells as they appear and before they become established and become a cancer.

“Drop your risk of many kinds of cancer, including lung, liver, colon and most importantly for men, prostate cancer. “ was the last benefit of selenium that Dr Sears listed.

We now know why this is the case and that also taking 4,000 or more iu a day of vitamin D3 makes this more likely to occur.

I decided to list the research studies in his email for those interested.

(If you’d like to get his emails, see, http://www.alsearsmd.com .)

“[1] Greenwood-Robins, Maggie Ph.D. Foods That Combat Cancer, Avon Books, 2004, p 29-31
[2,4] Carlsen, E., Giwercman, A., Keiding, N. et al, "Evidence for decreasing quality of semen during past 50 years," BMJ Sept. 12, 1992;305(6854):609–613
[3] Moslemi, M.K., Tavanbakhsh, S.. "Selenium-vitamin E supplementation in infertile men: effects on semen parameters and pregnancy rate," Int. J. Gen. Med. Jan. 23, 2011;4:99-104
[5] Clark, L.C. et al, "Effects of selenium supplementation for cancer prevention in patients with carcinoma of the skin," JAMA Dec. 25, 1996;276(24):1957-63
[6] Williamson, David, “Study links low selenium levels with higher risk of osteoarthritis,” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Nov 18, 2005
[7] Reid, M.E., Duffield-Lillico, A.J., Sunga, A., et al, “Selenium supplementation and colorectal adenomas: an analysis of the nutritional prevention of cancer trial,” Int. J. Cancer 2006; 118:1777–1781”

Calories do count but you can lose weight without hunger....

Today's Post: Monday, 4-25-2011

This is actually a critical point. People who get extra hungry fail to lose weight and fat when they try to do so.

You can lose weight and fat without extra hunger. In fact, if you get extra hunger, you won’t lose any that you will keep off. Worse, if you have a lot to lose and get extra hungry trying, you won’t lose much!

In a new book about WHAT to eat and not eat to lose weight, I read in a review that author Gary Taubes said that exercise was ineffective in helping people lose weight. That reviewer also said Taubes said that reducing calories didn’t help people lose weight or fat.

If he did say that, he’s wrong!

However, his main point that he clearly DOES say is in three parts.:

1. When you eat protein foods and fats, it turns off your hunger.

2. When you eat sugar, refined grains, starches, and other high glycemic foods, it does a bad job of turning off your hunger.

3. Worse, when you eat or drink those things, your body releases insulin. And insulin tends to put the calories you eat into fat storage!

On those three things, he is quite correct!

If you eat enough protein to make your body work right and enough of the essential oils you actually need, you tend to not get hungry until you actually need more.

The calories do count. But you wind up not taking in enough of them to be or stay very fat. And, you tend to have normal blood sugar and low blood insulin levels so your body tends NOT to add to your fat stores.

(Al Sears, MD thinks of it this way. Since your body is getting what it needs every day, it does NOT think you are in a famine even if your calorie count is a bit lower than it was. Your metabolism stays high.

In fact, research shows this is correct. People who get enough protein even with fewer calories stay healthy and feel OK and do NOT get extremely hungry.

BUT, the same amount of calories and little or no protein is a disaster. Your mood and energy and metabolism all go into a nose dive. And, your health begins to get worse! You get extremely hungry too.)

So eating at least a minimum of protein foods and fats or oils each day DOES allow you to lose weight with extreme hunger.

2. When you eat sugar, refined grains, starches, and other high glycemic foods, it does a bad job of turning off your hunger.

When you drink a soft drink or even a glass of real fruit juice, it does little or nothing to make you feel less hungry. You did take in calories but still feel hungry! Oops!

But there’s worse to come. Once your body releases enough insulin to try cut your blood sugar back to normal so your cells stop getting more sugars than they can use, it goes too far. Then you get low blood sugar and feel hungry!

Sugar, high fructose corn syrup, refined grain foods, and starchy foods do the exact same thing. But since they do have some protein or a bit of fiber in some cases and are thought of as foods, at first you get less hungry. But they too produce that insulin surge and you return to being hungry.

So, in both cases, you wind up still hungry despite taking in a lot of calories.

This is the total reverse of what you need to lose fat and keep it off!

You eat way more calories! And, you have a great deal of trouble if you try not to while ingesting these “fast carbs.”

3. Worse, when you eat or drink those things, your body releases insulin. And insulin tends to put the calories you eat into fat storage!

So, his point is simple.

If you eat fast carbs, too little protein, and hardly any fat, you will be fat and easily made hungry.

If you eat plenty of protein and at least some fat or oils, you will get far less hungry and can lose fat and weight.

So, there is indeed a great deal he has right.

4. But, if you eat nonstarchy vegetables and cooked beans and lentils too, it becomes easier to eat fewer calories without feeling hungry. Both kinds of food are high in fiber which turns down hunger. And, cooked beans and lentils have protein too!

Eating those foods is essential too if you want to lose fat. They help you cut calories without hunger.

I’ve not yet read Gary Taubes book. But if he missed that or says it isn’t important, he’s incorrect.

5. Vigorous exercise even if it is relatively brief causes your body to burn calories for up to several hours after you do it. And, that’s in addition to the calories you burn doing the exercise. Also, strength training builds muscle mass. (I does build less in women; but it does add some.) Both of these effects mean that you can eat more total calories and still lose excess fat.

Similarly, getting in a lot of walking or other moderate exercise -- if you also have time for it, allows you to eat more food without gaining fat.

So exercise allows you eat more while burning less calories or burning only what you actually use. That makes it easier to get good nutrition and NOT feel hungry as well.

People who lose fat and keep it off virtually all exercise.

Exercise also helps with motivation. People who even start an exercise program feel better and their self esteem goes up.

And, there’s more. Even before most of the fat comes off, exercise begins to give you many of the health benefits you’ll get from the fat loss!

In short, calories do count. But if you know how, you can lose fat without hunger!

Calcium supplements are harmful and not needed to protect your bones....

Today's Post: Friday, 4-22-2011

This is quite newly discovered. Many doctors do not yet know of the new research that found this.

But the research looks quite solid.

Oddly, I remember posting on this subject. But it must have been inside a longer post on preventing heart disease.

So, given how important it is and how many people it affects – mostly women, I decided -- after a recent set of news articles on this topic reminded me of the research – to do a clear stand alone post warning women and some men to avoid calcium supplements.

Since most supplements are extremely safe and very beneficial to your health, to make sure these types of supplements are left alone and available to everyone, I believe it is extremely important to find out about the few exceptions and to let everyone know right away!

Recent research has found that taking calcium as a supplement is one of these.

Because calcium supplements surge calcium into your blood so fast compared to the much more gradual effect of calcium in foods, supplemental calcium winds up adding calcium to the plaque in your blood vessels. That makes your blood vessels harder, less healthy and responsive, and such calcium deposits have been found to be one of the most accurate predictors of future heart attacks.

The recent research DID find more heart attacks in women who took calcium supplements compared to women who did not. It also found more strokes in the women who took calcium supplements compared to women who did not.

For many years, it was thought that simply giving older women calcium supplements would help prevent osteoporosis or bone thinning.

The most important way to do that is to do regular weight bearing exercise and strength training. Another is to avoid excessive intake of cola soft drinks as their very high phosphorous content tends to remove calcium from your bones.

It’s also true that women who ate foods high in calcium in their youth, teens, and twenties were found to be less likely to get osteoporosis. That’s particularly true if they were also active and walked or exercised during those years.

It’s also true that eating foods high in calcium AND getting 4,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 plus strength training or weight bearing exercise such as walking can help older women maintain their bone strength.

Eating foods high in magnesium and taking magnesium supplements also tends to help.

Nonfat and very low fat dairy foods from cattle fed grains and even full fat dairy foods from cattle fed only grass such as milk, yogurt, and cheese are high in calcium. Goat cheese is also high in calcium.

Sardines, always wild caught, and wild caught salmon cooked with their bones are high in calcium. (Farmed fish are not as nutritious and are very heavily loaded with unsafe pollutants. Do NOT eat them.)

Beans and lentils and some vegetables such as broccoli are high in calcium.

Some seaweeds that are used for food are also high in calcium.

So, if you have been taking calcium and NOT eating these foods or very much of them, consider not taking the calcium and eating more of these foods.

That will cut your risk of heart attacks and strokes. And, it may work BETTER than the supplement to strengthen your bones.

It definitely will if you also do a lot of walking and do strength training every week and take 4,000 iu a day of vitamin D3.

Lastly, dairy foods are also high in an element, strontium, which is related to calcium. It’s little known -- but strontium is much more critical to and useful for bone density and strength than calcium.

If you do want to take calcium or your doctor wants you to continue to do so, consider doing all of the above to keep your bones strong. (More calcium—whether from food or supplements --- without exercise and adequate, over 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D3, is ineffective in strengthening bones.)

Consider taking 250 mg of the calcium once just after each of your two largest meals each day instead of taking 1,000 mg a day or more on an empty stomach each day.

By having the calcium supplements be digested slowly with your food, the calcium supplements may then be much safer to take. The smaller amount plus the increased Calcium in your foods will likely also help.

Also, do every lifestyle upgrade proven to prevent heart disease.

Completely avoid all tobacco smoke! (We posted a bit on that last time.)

Never eat shortening or any other food made from trans fats or hydrogenated oils.

Virtually eliminate eating foods made with refined grains and eating or drinking stuff containing high fructose corn syrup. Eat very little sugar and not every day in addition.

And, be totally sure to get moderate and vigorous exercise every week on most days each week. Walk as many days a week as you can even if the walks are short.

(Vigorous exercise can be safe. But avoid overdoing it, particularly at first, and build up from easy to challenging just a little bit each week over many weeks.)

Why do these things?

The foods and drinks to avoid lower your HDL and increase your triglycerides and increase your amount of small particle LDL that causes plaque.

And, regular exercise, particularly regular vigorous exercise – even in brief sessions each time does the reverse. It directly reduces the amount of small particle LDL that causes plaque in your blood -- which you can see by the increase in your HDL and drop in your triglycerides.

Onions and fish high in omega 3 oils and purified fish oil omega 3 supplements help lower triglycerides also.

And, moderate drinking tends to boost HDL. The red wines zinfandel, pinot noir, and burgundy also tend to lower your LDL. Red wine also has resveratrol which though not very much is very well absorbed due to ingesting it with alcohol. Resveratrol is also heart protective.

Second hand smoke kills almost as many people as car accidents....

Today's Post: Thursday, 4-21-2011

In one of the many online news stories about the recent CDC prediction that more and more places will have no smoking laws by 2010, I found a sentence that contains two huge implications.:

“According to the CDC, secondhand smoke causes an estimated 46,000 deaths from heart disease and 3,400 lung cancer deaths among U.S. nonsmoking adults each year.”

Note that 93.12% of these deaths are from heart disease & that total of nearly 50,000 a year is comparable to the number of people killed each year by deaths from car accidents.

Also note that this suggests some of the deaths of smokers are in part from the extra exposure they get to second hand smoke. That makes it quite likely that second hand smoke may kill MORE people currently each year than car accidents!

1. If you dislike the idea of dying in a car wreck, this very forcefully suggests you would also be well advised to avoid ALL tobacco smoke!

Even second hand smoke is likely to kill you as a car accident.

Vote in favor of smoking restrictions if offered the chance. If your local or state legislators are considering the passing of laws to ban smoking in any area you might be in, write or phone them to vote in favor! Print out this post or email it to them if needed to explain why!

Vote in favor of all increase of taxes on cigarettes or tobacco, particularly larger ones, if offered the chance. If your local or state legislators are considering the passing of such laws or enacting such taxes, write or phone them to vote in favor! Print out this post or email it to them if needed to explain why!

(Such taxes have been proven to reduce the number of new, younger smokers; induce some smokers to quit; and cause people who still smoke to smoke less. Each of those will reduce your exposure to second hand smoke.

In addition, their government will increase their revenue without harming anyone in the local economy who doesn’t make money from smoking! And, best of all their area will have lower costs for ambulance and hospitalization and treatment of heart disease and cancers! This is a true triple win for them to do.

In communities that banned smoking almost everywhere, within two years the heart attack rate and ambulance trips for heart attacks went down significantly. This shows that not only does tobacco smoke CAUSE heart disease initially, it TRIGGERS heart attacks in people who might have escaped them otherwise!)

If you are exposed to second hand smoke at your job, either get a job with a better, better informed, employer or see if you can talk your current one into banning smoking in their workplace and helping interested employees who smoke to quit entirely.

If you have friends who smoke, make an effort to phone or email them much more often than you meet in person or only meet them in a place where they can’t smoke.

If you encounter smoke in a public place, escape immediately if there is an OK way to do so.

2. Note that 93.12% of these deaths are from heart disease.

Tell that to every single smoker you know that you care anything about or who is considering quitting smoking or taking it up!

WE now know that tobacco smoke CAUSES heart disease initially; and it TRIGGERS heart attacks in people who might have escaped them otherwise.

We also now know that EVERY single exposure to tobacco smoke begins to cause heart disease which means that even beginning (often young) and light smokers are harmed. AND, it also means that EVERY smoker is harmed every time they are exposed to tobacco smoke. THIS is the most grave and serious health threat from smoking or second hand smoke exposure.

Guess how many smokers know this?

Even among smokers trying to quit, from what I’ve seen, it’s virtually zero!

Smokers have heard that smoking causes lung cancer. But most of them know other smokers who are older who haven’t gotten lung cancer. Then they assume they will be one of the lucky majority who also don’t get it and continue to smoke.

That’s about like not thinking having cobras around is dangerous because you know you can likely avoid tripping over them!

That isn’t the whole truth!

Smokers keep smoking since they assume they will avoid the danger that is rare and have no clue the danger that is vastly more likely to kill them is virtually certain to do so!

If you help get this better known, we will all be better off!

Bacopa enhances learning, cuts anxiety, and protects the brain from Aluminum damage....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 4-19-2011

1. I had heard that the herb Bacopa helped people learn new things both by cutting down on anxiety and by also making the new information easier to remember.

Since I was about to launch a project that would require (& still will require) me to learn many new things and do so with enough at stake to make me a bit anxious, I began taking it.

The anxiety reduction is of great value even if it is not a large effect. You can only remember what you register to begin with; and in learning new things, anxiety tends to interfere with inputting the information and getting it even to your short term memory.

People who like learning a particular subject or who already have learned similar kinds of things or who compare what they already know on that subject tend to have less anxiety and learn the new information more easily.

Similarly, on some subjects, reading the Wikipedia article, or for older information, going to a library and looking it up in a World Book encyclopedia, can help for the same reason. That gives you an initial outline or background as a foundation for learning the rest.

Lastly, many subjects have a relatively few key facts or functions and dozens that are nice to have or know but may not be necessary or only make sense once you know the relatively few key facts or functions. So, a coach, tutor, or mentor who knows those relatively few key facts or functions well can be dramatically helpful to you. This is particularly true for learning software!

But at any time, if you can add having the process of learning both make you less anxious and have it be physically easier to remember once you register the new information by taking a supplement, that would be very desirable.

So, I was quite pleased with the email I got today from Al Sears MD. In it, he lists research showing that indeed taking Bacopa DOES make you less anxious and for it to be easier to learn and remember things you register well.

2. But there was a bonus!

For some time there has been a controversy as to whether or not ingesting excess aluminum caused Alzheimer’s disease or not.

The third study reported in his email found that ingesting excess aluminum caused Alzheimer’s disease did cause Alzheimer’s disease or very similar damage to brain cells AND that taking Bacopa tended to prevent that from happening even when the excess aluminum was there!

Since much exposure to aluminum is unintentional, this last study is also extremely important.

It shows that in addition to lowering anxiety and making learning new things easier, taking Bacopa helps prevent Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of mental decline!

Here are some quotes from his email:

1. For anxiety and learning new things:

“In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study – the gold standard in research – they divided people into two groups. One group got 300 mg a day of bacopa and the other got a placebo. After 12 weeks, the people taking bacopa had:

Better word recall
Better attention
Better memory scores
A greater ability to ignore irrelevant information when learning
The bacopa group also had less anxiety and lower heart rates, while the stress and heart rates in the placebo group increased”

“Another double-blind placebo-controlled investigation gave 107 healthy people 300 mg of bacopa plant extract daily. After 90 days, the people had significantly improved their spatial memory, memory accuracy and their ability to process visual information”

2. For brain and brain function protection:

“Research also has discovered that bacopa can protect you from toxins that are harmful to your brain, especially aluminum. Long-term exposure to aluminum can increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 60 percent.”

“In a study from India, researchers gave animals aluminum chloride. The animals treated with bacopa extract were protected from damage to the lipids and proteins in the brain. Bacopa’s protection even showed up on a microscopic level. It prevented a buildup of toxins between neurons, and stopped damage to the hippocampus, an important seat of learning, memory and thinking power”

“Another animal study showed bacopa reduced cellular damage in the part of the brain that controls movement and attention, and reversed the symptoms of muscular problems originating in the brain.”

3. For both things: ”… bacopa also has two active components called bacosides A and B. They improve the transmission of impulses between nerve cells in the brain, they regenerate synapses and repair damaged neurons. It helps you to learn and remember new things much more easily.”

When I went to the health food store they carried two kinds of Bacopa. The extra concentrated kind smelled as if the chemicals used to extract it were still in the supplement. Yikes!

But the Paradise brand Bacopa smelled a bit like raisins! It seems the maker insists on using safe and clean extraction methods. In addition, the two capsules a day I take has 500 mg a day of bacopa leaf extract since each capsule has 250 mg.

That 500 mg is more than the 300 mg found effective in these studies.

www.iherb.com/Paradise-Herbs-Bacopa-60-?Veggie-Caps/4622?at=0

is an online store you can use to buy Paradise bacopa if your local health food store doesn’t carry it.

This information is on that site about Paradise bacopa:

“100% Pure 20:1 Concentrated Potency Dietary Supplement
100% Vegetarian, Non GMO

Paradise Bacopa is a True Full Spectrum 20:1 potent concentration.

It is naturally extracted without isolating, fractionizing or using toxic solvents, harsh chemicals or gases to ensure all the active and synergistic constituents are present in the balanced ratio nature intended.

According to Ayurveda, Bacopa is traditionally used as a nerve tonic and brain food. Also known as Brahmi, it is commonly used today to help support memory and concentration while easing stress and tension. Bacopa is thought to help nourish neurons while restoring depleted synaptic activity.

Serving Size: 1 Vegetarian Capsule which contains:

Bacopa leaf extract (Bacopa Monniera) 20:1 (Equivalent to 5,000 mg whole leaf) 250 mg & 50% Bacosides A & B (naturally occurring) 125 mg “

Information by the maker of Paradise bacopa is on this site: http://www.paradiseherbs.com/products/bacopa/ .

My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post: Monday, 4-18-2011

Since last month, I gained a half a pound but did NOT gain any at all on my waist.

Since I reached my goal weight in December—4 months ago--though, I’ve gained 3 pounds and a quarter inch on my waist.

So, I need to lose 3 pounds total for starters now.

Also, according to pictures I’ve seen, I’m now at about 18 to 20 % bodyfat. To remove my abdominal fat, according to those same pictures, I also need to add enough muscle to stay at or just slightly below my goal weight AND lose about 10% of my current bodyweight as fat.

Roughly, I need to lose 19 pounds of fat and gain 16 pounds of muscle to be at 8 to 10% fat and lose the inches off my waist.

The bad news last month was that I was under extra stress and averaged about a drink a week of wine too much which accounts for about half the extra pound a half. I also likely ate a bit too much almond butter for the same reason to explain the second reason and which likely added more than a pound a half since I was able to add more protein food and eat pumpkin puree instead of applesauce without sugar. I also successfully have traded drinking hot, spicy low sodium V8 for some of the fruit juice I’ve been drinking.

I also am almost back from my left arm injury and am close to adding some muscle and may have done so in the past month since I’ve been able to resume doing my kettlebell exercises. (My arm doesn’t feel any pain despite not yet feeling normal but despite my beginning to do as much or more exercise and weight with it also. If that keeps up and the healing continues, I may be OK.)

The things I’ve done right recently explain why I only gained a half a pound and no inches on my waist despite the extra drink a week and extra almond butter.

My plan is to work to add a pound or two of muscle and lose a pound or so from eating more pumpkin puree and less almond butter between now and next month.

I also plan to add some work to add more muscle on my legs as a new addition.

Wish me luck!

New research suggests ways to prevent Alzheimer's disease....

Today's Post: Friday, 4-15-2011

On Wednesday this week, a study was released that found that 10 years before symptoms of Alzheimer’s appeared, areas of the brain involved in thinking and memory had physically shrunk. I saw the story reported on two separate news services.

This is useful for two reasons:

This provides a way to see risk years in advance.

But of more use, it suggests that people who actively do the things that prevent brain cell loss or build new brain cells can prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

For example, people use language and memory skills to learn new things and those who do regular exercise sufficient to keep up good circulation to the brain and release the nerve and brain cell growth factor BDNF may either be able to prevent Alzheimer's disease or even halt it before it causes degenerative effects or becomes irreversible.

1. Learning new things and actively using your memory to do things with the information you learn has been shown to cause brains to add new cells and add inter-connections to the brain neurons in people from babies to older senior citizens. (It also helps that the more this creates internet-like networks in your brain the more sections of that network you can lose without losing function.)

So you get a double by doing things like following the news; reading more new things and in more depth in fields that interest you; meeting new people; learning new skills; going new places; learning new languages; and finding many new things of interest to learn. (Having frequent conversations with people you know also works, it’s been found.) You keep more of your brain intact or add to it; and you can lose more of it without it causing problems!

2. Research has shown that people who do regular exercise sufficient to keep up good circulation to the brain also release the nerve and brain cell growth factor BDNF.

And, we also have proof this builds new brain cells. People who do no exercise at all have been found to have brain shrinkage while people who exercise do not.

3. Vigorous exercise, particularly interval cardio, or regular moderate activity plus eating right have been shown to maintain blood circulation to your brain. The better blood circulation to your brain is the less of your nerve cells will die or fail to be replaced– and better blood circulation to your brain prevents “vascular dementia” also.

4. Vigorous exercise, particularly interval cardio & strength training, or regular moderate activity, plus eating right -- especially NOT ingesting many sugars or any refined grains, have been shown to prevent too high blood sugar which destroys circulation by harming the surface of your blood vessels and your capillaries. Not only does avoiding this avoid poor circulation to your brain, there is separate evidence that avoiding too high levels of blood sugar tends to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

5. There are two also ways that nerves are destroyed that are also preventable or partially preventable. If you avoid them, you avoid the brain shrinkage they can cause.

MS and some other autoimmune diseases destroy the Myelin sheaths around your nerves and B-12 deficiency damages them. When this damage happens, the nerve stops passing on messages and dies either from lack of use or from direct structural damage.

a) But even if you have digestive problems or tend not to eat the animal protein foods that have B12, you can take daily or twice daily 1,000 mcg sublingual B12 supplements to prevent this. In fact, some studies have found partial reversal of memory problems in older people from this B12 supplementation.

b) Also, we posted on the recent study that found that taking at least 4,000 to 8,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 prevented something like half of all cases of autoimmune disease (& cancers.)

In fact, there is some direct evidence getting a robust intake of vitamin D3 from this or moderate but daily sun exposure tends to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

6. That’s in addition, to the information that eating curries that contain turmeric on your food every week and taking curcumin supplements from turmeric daily tends to prevent the damage of the process that causes Alzheimer’s disease. It apparently prevents the damage or cleans it up before it harms nearby neurons or both.

Since doing this also lowers inflammation and helps prevent heart disease and cancer AND slows aging, eating curries that include turmeric and taking curcumin look to be very good things to do!

I think preventing Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of mental decline is more useful than trying to treat it after the fact. I like that this study suggests some methods to prevent mental decline and Alzheimer’s disease.

Two things most people think safe are actually deadly....

Today's Post: Thursday, 4-14-2011

Most Americans think that eating or drinking a lot of sugar or high fructose corn syrup and being totally sedentary are safe to do.

Oops !!

Is eating or drinking a lot of sugar or high fructose corn syrup totally safe to do if you aren’t too fat from doing it?

Is being totally sedentary while doing that safe?

Unfortunately, it is NOT safe and by a country mile. In fact, it’s extremely toxic to deadly to do this!

What’s allowed this to be missed is that it can take decades to work this harm; some people are affected less; and researchers and doctors looked at other causes for the diseases it causes. Worse, some of those other causes really do cause those problems. Until now, that’s hidden how dangerous sugar and high fructose corn syrup – and lack of exercise -- really are.

An innovative doctor I know posted this article from the NY times recently on his Facebook page. Luckily I saw it as I had “friended” him there as I remembered him favorably from when I met him initially.

"Is Sugar Toxic?" at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=1 .

The bad news is that the article makes it sound as if the information in it is less than proven. I disagree.

The good news is that this article does explain some of the reasons why eating excess sugar is so toxic and even deadly.

Eating or drinking a lot of sugar or high fructose corn syrup (and eating a lot of refined grain foods) not only fattens you, they also cause diabetes, and heart disease, AND cancer!

When you eat these foods, your body sends out insulin to cut down the excessive surge you get in your blood sugar.

If you do this seldom and not very much of it when you do and you eat real foods with protein and health OK fat or oils and fiber at that time, AND you exercise every week, that insulin surge is moderate and the response to it stays strong so not much is needed.

BUT, if you eat or drink a lot of sugar or high fructose corn syrup and don’t eat it with real foods often and never exercise, truly frightening and deadly things happen to you.

Your blood sugar spikes are quite high as are even the initial insulin surges. But if you keep doing it, it gets far worse, your blood sugar doesn’t fall enough to protect you AND you begin to need more and more insulin to do even that poor job!

If that process continues long enough and gets worse, it causes quite high blood sugar levels which start destroying your capillaries and things like your eyes and heart and brain and your doctor will tell you that you have type 2 diabetes.

Some people know that.

But the thing I recently discovered is that this process has been PROVEN to directly cause heart disease.

And, the article adds that this process acts as a super grow fertilizer to cancer cells. That means that instead of your immune system killing off the weak cancer cells that show up from time to time, they grow too fast and become too large for this protection to work. Then you get cancer or aggressive cancer which is quite hard to stop since it continues to get this super grow fertilizer effect and support.

Here’s why this process is proven to cause heart disease. (This was NOT in the New York Times article though some of the facts that proof is based on are there.)

Of the several causes of heart disease one of the most deadly, if not THE most deadly is to have a very high level of small particle LDL. The large particles of LDL roll over the surface of your blood vessels like nerf balls or tumbleweeds. But the small particles of LDL act like small bits of glue that stick into your blood vessel walls and gradually close them to circulation. That’s because these particles are literally so tiny that they are smaller than the molecular chinks in your blood vessel walls.

The more you eat or drink a lot of sugar or high fructose corn syrup, the lower your HDL gets and even more so, the higher your triglycerides get.

That is no longer in doubt. But what the article did not say is that the ratio of these two measures is a very accurate reading of how much small particle LDL you have. That research has been done.

What that means is that it is CERTAIN that the more you eat or drink a lot of sugar or high fructose corn syrup the more of these deadly small particles of LDL you have and, unfortunately, the more plaque and heart disease you have or will soon have!

We do NOT need to do specific research because of these separate facts to know this happens.

So, is eating or drinking a lot of sugar or high fructose corn syrup for years and years safe?

It is NOT safe and is one of the direct causes of death and suffering for individual people and our massively high health care costs that are harming our economy as much or more than rising gasoline prices!

How bad is it now?

For people who exercise vigorously every week with strength training and interval cardio or who get an hour a day of moderate exercise almost every day, such as walking 3 miles each day -- or both, a few teaspoons of sugar a few times a week is likely safe. That might total 6 to 15 teaspoons a week of sugar. (Those kinds of exercise prevent or tend to reverse insulin resistance. Such exercise also directly cuts down on your blood levels of small particle LDL!)

Meanwhile the average American, between eating or drinking a lot of sugar and high fructose corn syrup, is getting 22 teaspoons a DAY of sugar – about three to ten times that much!

And, the average American now thinks it safe to get no exercise of any kind; and something like 70 to 85 % of them do not.

(In addition to making it unsafe to have ANY sugar or high fructose corn syrup, not exercising also harms your blood circulation in other ways and causes your brain to shrink! There is some new evidence we may post on next time in fact that strongly suggests that shrinkage is one of the key causes of Alzheimer’s disease.)

The truly horrible news is that reversing this disaster for all these people who don’t know any better to save our economy and their health will likely take 30 years and the harm is already here!

The good news is that you as an individual CAN stop drinking soft drinks which by themselves cause over half the problem. (Regular soft drinks do it directly. But diet soft drinks are proven to cause people to eat more sugar from other sources and are proven to be just as bad.)

You can eat real sugar instead of the more harmful high fructose corn syrup and eat small amounts two or three times a week instead of large amounts two or three times a day.

And, you can get in a few minutes of interval cardio three times a week or more and a few minutes of strength training two times a week or more. Plus most people can find a way to get in a few walks each week.

Yes, more is better. But if you truly understand what this does FOR you and what NOT doing it does TO you, you’ll likely find a way to make just a bit of this happen.

If you also stop soft drinks, and cut way back on your consumption of even real sugar and of foods made with refined grains, even do some exercise of these kinds every week, that will give you surprisingly good protection.

You now are one of the people who know that eating or drinking tons of sugar and high fructose corn syrup and NOT doing any exercise is not only toxic but deadly.

Please do yourself a favor and use this information to protect yourself.

Useful heart risk tests to consider....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 4-12-2011

Prevention Magazine has some useful information from time to time.

I just discovered they have one of the most important pieces of information on preventing heart disease and heart attacks in very good article called, “7 Heart Tests That Can Save Your Life.” (Today, it was still available at www.prevention.com .)

Yesterday, we posted on the inexpensive test that can tell you and your doctor if you actually are in the minority of people who would get significant heart attack prevention. (Everyone else will do better with niacin or niacin plus taking sterols.)

And, of course everyone will get protection from properly done regular exercise and staying away from tobacco smoke and NOT eating foods with hydrogenated oils or trans fats.

The other tests in the Prevention article were of two kinds.

A. One kind was tests that can tell you if you need to upgrade your lifestyle to prevent heart disease since you might get it without those upgrades. This kind is mostly to guide your prevention efforts.

B. The second kind was tests to get an accurate picture of what your current risk is now. Reasons to get this kind of test include surviving a heart attack or two or heart related symptoms such as angina or shortness of breath not from asthma. This kind is to give you and your doctor the information to know whether or not you should get things like angioplasty or stenting and other medical procedures to keep you from harm from a probable heart attack or lack of blood flow now. Prevention got letters of thanks from women who had symptoms that might be heart related who got tested and found they did have advanced heart disease in time to take action.

The tests is this group cost more; but can be useful if you are in the group or wind up in the group of people who need them.

A. Tests that help with prevention.

They did not include the basic cholesterol panel with total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, and triglycerides.

HDL over 60 is good & 39 or less is quite risky.
LDL of 100 or less is good and over 130 it should be lowered and over 160 you need to take something to lower it in addition to lifestyle upgrades.
Triglyceride levels of well over 150 are quite dangerous and all the relevant lifestyle upgrades that lower them should be used. Taking niacin also helps. Levels under 100 are desirable and under 50 levels are even better.

Total cholesterol is much less important; but if it is high – over 240, usually so is LDL (over 160) which does make a difference.


But you should get that test. There are lifestyle upgrades and supplements that will improve the key sections of that test. For example eating foods with hydrogenated oils lowers HDL and increases LDL, boosts triglycerides and more. Eating too much starchy food, refined grains, and sugars (or drinking them) boosts triglycerides and tends to increase LDL and lower HDL.

Regular exercise every week, particularly vigorous exercise you have built up to, increases HDL and lowers triglycerides.

Exposure to tobacco smoke lowers HDL and makes what you do have less protective. It directly causes your body to deposit plaque in your blood vessels. Then on top of that it triggers heart attacks too! Not smoking and avoiding second hand smoke almost totally prevent this.

Eating onions and garlic and fish high in omega 3 oils or taking omega 3 supplements lower triglycerides.

HSCRP is another test in the Prevention article.

It measures chronic inflammation. If the result is 0.9 or less, your heart risk is low and lower is better. If the result is 1.0 to 3.0 ranges from low average risk to high average risk. Levels of 3.0 and up are high risk.

This one responds very well to lifestyle upgrades and some supplements and spices.

Use extra virgin olive oil instead of oils high in omega 6such as corn, soy, safflower, and canola. And, eat fish high in omega 3 oils or take omega 3 supplements. The spices ginger, turmeric, and curries that contain turmeric, and curcumin supplements from turmeric directly lower inflammation and do it safely. (Turmeric, and curries that contain turmeric, and curcumin supplements from turmeric also help prevent Alzheimer’s disease, many cancers, and even help slow aging!)

Eating foods high in antioxidants also helps in many ways as does taking the antioxidant supplements.

For example, people who exercise lower their chronic inflammation and do so more with antioxidant protection. Also, by helping your LDL avoid becoming oxidized, your LDL becomes safer for your heart and blood vessels no matter what your current level is.

HBA1C is another test to get. Average blood sugar levels that are too high directly damage your capillaries and other blood vessels. And, HBA1C measures the sugar on your red blood cells. Since they live about 60 to 90 days, the test gives you an excellent and accurate average of your blood sugar over that time. 5.7 and under are desirable readings on this test. 5.8 to 5.9 indicate a need to get more vigorous exercise and eat far less sugar, starches, and refined grains. (Those things also protect your heart in other ways too.)

Every tenth of a point on this test of 6.0 or more begins to cause damage. The drug metformin can help and is safe particularly if you take it in lower doses and supplement with B12. Getting insulin is not good for you and tends to fatten but is safer than the other drugs for reducing blood sugar a study found to keep your HBA1C at 7.0 or above since levels of 7.0 or more are quite harmful.

So, readings of 5.8 to a bit above 6.0 suggest a very strong effort to get more vigorous exercise and eat far less sugar, starches, and refined grains since that will keep you safe and can often help you avoid getting to 7.0 and up or taking insulin.

Advanced lipid profile and a test for Lp(a) can tell you if your LDL is the small size that causes heart disease. If your HDL is high and your triglycerides are low, researchers found your particle size is the larger kind that rolls along your blood vessels instead of the small size that’s dangerous and you can avoid this test. But if you are sedentary and eat excess sugars, starches, and refined grains or have low HDL and high triglycerides, you likely are in trouble on particle size. And it may pay you and your doctor to use this test to check how bad it is.

B. The second kind was tests to get an accurate picture of what your current risk is now. Reasons to get this kind of test include surviving a heart attack or two or heart related symptoms such as angina or shortness of breath not from asthma. This kind is to give you and your doctor the information to know whether or not you should get things like angioplasty or stenting and other medical procedures to keep you from harm from a probable heart attack or lack of blood flow now. Prevention got letters of thanks from women who had symptoms that might be heart related who got tested and found they did have advanced heart disease in time to take action.

The least expensive is an ultrasound measurement of the thickness of your carotid artery wall. If it is well under 1.0, you are OK for now. But if it is well over 1.06 you and your doctor might want to do the next two tests.

The most predictive of risk is the CT scan of the calcium deposits in your coronary and nearby arteries. If your Agatston score is under 200, that’s good news. If it’s between 200 & 400 you need to take several kinds of heart protective action right away. And, over 400, you may need medical procedures to protect you.

(I’ve read there is now a lower radiation version of this test that is pretty accurate. Since CT scans deliver, I’ve read, something like over 100 x-rays, you might want to explore that version.)

If you have symptoms and this test is much above 200, you might want to try stress echocardiography. This is far safer than using cardiac catheterization to inject a dye into your blood vessels and x-ray how open they are. (That procedure can cause strokes and heart attacks and has a death rate risk.) Stress echocardiography can show if you have blockages or partial blockages that significantly impair blood flow.

So, it’s a good test to do instead of cardiac catheterization and x-ray or to do first to see if cardiac catheterization and x-ray or medical procedures are needed and if so where.

How to avoid statin drugs if they won’t help YOU!....

Today's Post: Monday, 4-11-2011

Prevention Magazine has some useful information from time to time.

I just discovered they have one of the most important pieces of information on preventing heart disease and heart attacks in very good article called, “7 Heart Tests That Can Save Your Life.” (Today, it was still available at www.prevention.com .)

Next time we will cover the other advanced heart tests in the rest of that article.

Today, when far too many doctors only know to prescribe statin drugs if your total cholesterol is above 240 or your LDL is above 160 or you have other health risks such as type 2 diabetes, only SOME people actually get a benefit in heart protection by taking statin drugs.

Few doctors know this yet, unfortunately. And, if you are NOT someone who benefits from statins their risks and proven side effects and dollar cost mean you would do well to avoid them.

I learned this initially from a previous version of the website of the Berkeley Heart Lab. They found in fact that only a small minority benefitted from statins and that most of the subtypes of people they found did much better with niacin only.

But, although their test and their analysis of it will tell you if you are in that minority and much more besides, it COSTS something like $700.

Arthur Agatston, MD, the author of the South Beach Diet, turns out to be a first rate cardiologist too!

In the section on Genetic Testing in the Prevention article, , “7 Heart Tests That Can Save Your Life,” he says that these two genetic tests can be gotten for $130!

Dr. Agatston said that the KIF6 gene test predicts how effective statins are probably going to be for you in preventing a future heart attack.

He said that recent research found that those people with a certain variant of KIF6 got 41% drop in heart attack risk from taking statins. (This article suggests other people get a 6% drop in risk. I’ve read of other studies showing 1 to 3% reductions too!)

So, if you get that test and have that variant of KIF6, statins are much more likely to help you and would give you enough protection to be worth taking.

A drop in risk of 41 % is well worth having! (This is particularly the case if when you take the statin, you also take 100 mg twice a day of ubiquinol, the form of CoQ10 your body uses, to protect you from the depletion of CoQ10 from taking the statin. That prevents many of the worse side effects from taking the statin.)

But if you do NOT have that variant, niacin and lifestyle changes will protect you far better and spare you the risks, side effects, and costs of statin drugs.

My reading of the Berkeley Heart Lab information suggested that less than
10 % of the people are in the group that statins actually benefit enough to justify their use.

Everyone who is not in the group with that variant of KIF6 did better with niacin and got more heart attack prevention from it according to the Berkeley Heart Lab data.

The second genetic test is of less importance for what drugs to take but does help you know what kinds of foods to eat less of for heart attack prevention.

With the APOE gene, people with certain variants have a much greater response to a low-saturated-fat diet.

(Due to the effect of the excess omega 6 oils on chronic inflammation and the bioconcentrated herbicides, pesticides, etc in the fat of grain fed animals, anyone wanting to protect their health should eat less fatty meats and eat the leanest possible versions of poultry and meat and the least fat dairy products when they do eat the grain fed kind.

Since chronic inflammation as measured by the HSCRP test is associated with higher heart attack risk, this is important for everyone wanting heart attack protection.)

But what about eating butter or cheese or beef from animals eating only grass or their natural food from an unpolluted pasture?

Some people may have no problem with that for heart attack risk. This test can show you if you are someone who should minimize eating all saturated fat including the saturated fat from such animal protein sources too.

We will post on the other tests from that article tomorrow or next time. Some of those other tests are well worth knowing about too.

Women willing to live shorter lives to be trim but real fat loss ADDS years....

Today's Post: Friday, 4-8-2011

Last Tuesday, livescience.com reported that, "Almost one-third of young women would trade at least a year of their lives to have a perfect body, according to a new survey of British undergraduates."

(Sixteen percent of these young women would trade a year of life for their ideal body weight and shape. Thirteen percent were willing to trade two years or more.)

The odd thing is that real permanent fat loss ADDS years of life and adds even more years of healthy life to the men and women who do it.

And, with a few added health upgrades in addition, real permanent fat loss adds even more years of life and healthy life.

1. Taking stimulant drugs that cause people to use more energy and which reduce appetite can reduce excess fat.

And, they can kill people who use them and have done so.

But there are two problems with them.

a) They can kill you at an age where they cost you far more than half your life. They are like playing Russian Roulette with extra bullets in the gun. They also can cause permanent disability with things like heart attacks they trigger that damage the heart or strokes they trigger. And, even at lower levels in luckier people, they tend to harm health and have obnoxious side effects.

b) They aren’t permanent fat loss! Virtually everyone who tries them stops at some point. Since those people don’t actually know how to get permanent fat loss, the fat always comes back!

2. By contrast, virtually every part of real permanent fat loss has health and longevity benefits.

a) People who do strength training, interval cardio, and even some extra walking each week burn more calories, are less fat, and dramatically better able to keep off fat they lose by upgrading what they eat and drink and making small cuts in calories they can sustain without hunger.

But people who are active in those ways ALSO have higher self esteem, do better in all the rest of their lives, have better sex lives, and have less heart disease and problems with high blood sugar and high blood pressure than those who do not. They also stay mentally sharp and physically younger AND live longer than those who do not.

b) The same is true of upgrading what people eat and drink.

Giving up food and drink that is fattening AND harmful to your health often makes you LESS hungry instead of more! People who overdo these foods and drinks daily now can often lose 30 pounds a year or more with just this one step.

People who just do this one step do almost as much better on health and longevity as people who just exercise. They have less heart disease and problems with high blood sugar and high blood pressure than those who do not. They also stay mentally sharp AND live longer than those who do not.

Adding exercise and eating foods and drinks that make you less hungry without fattening you and have health benefits to that multiply all the good effects of this step, giving up food and drink that is fattening AND harmful to your health.

People who eat mostly health OK protein foods, nonstarchy vegetables, beans and lentils, spices, and health OK fats and oils can have good tasting and enjoyable foods and even eat some fruit, whole grain, and even sugary food on occasion AND they tend to get and stay trim and free of excess fat by doing so.

People who do THIS step also have less heart disease and problems with high blood sugar and high blood pressure than those who do not. They also stay mentally sharp AND live longer than those who do not.

Lastly, people who remove the junk from what they eat and drink, get regular exercise each week, and systematically learn to eat and enjoy the foods that keep them healthy and trim without hunger and persist in their efforts are learning and using the organized and conscientious skills that recent research has proved help people withstand stress and bounce back, succeed in their careers, and live long and healthy lives!

That last set of skills also enables people to do the systematic small calorie restrictions that enable people to lose even more fat without hunger or triggering their famine response. People who have those skills initially find that process easier. And people who learn to eat that way consistently and maintain it, learn those skills in doing so!

In short, virtually every single part of losing fat that stays off permanently tends to make you live LONGER and live those years healthier and more able to enjoy life than continuing to do the opposite and staying fat!

Honey kills even drug resistant bacteria....

Today's Post: Thursday, 4-7-2011

Every once in a while the email I get from Dr Al Sears has information I can use or even unusually important information.

(See www.alsearsmd.com .)

Today he had an article about the many ways that honey is good for your skin and can be applied to your skin.

But he included this too:

“Honey works well against bacteria for two reasons. The first is that its sugars bind to water molecules and deny bacteria the moisture they need to grow.

The second is a secret ingredient added by bees. It’s an enzyme called glucose oxidase. Researchers think it stops bacteria dead because it helps you produce hydrogen peroxide, a natural disinfectant.5

Honey is deadly to the so-called “superbug” bacteria that cause hospital infections. A study took bacteria strains resistant to antibiotics and exposed them to dilutions of honey. Formulas of only 40 percent honey killed all the harmful bacteria.

Even the newest bacterial threat, gram-negative bacteria, can’t stand up to honey. The researchers used only a 30 percent dilution on the five known gram-negative strains and killed all of those, too.6

And now plastic surgeons use honey to fix skin grafts in place and prevent complications, such as graft loss, infection and graft rejection .”

A. Modern medicine now depends on antibiotics that work.

MRSA and the new multiplier of antibiotic resistance found in India and likely spreading around the world and even found recently in India’s drinking water now threatens that.

In some applications, honey may turn out to be extremely valuable based on this research.

In addition to heavy use of checklists of ways to prevent infections in the first place being used 100 % of the time before and during surgery*, honey may be used to get effective infection protection in addition if this research is correct.

*(When checklists are not used and used consistently by each member of a medical team, surgeries and other medical treatments are subject to far more errors than was once thought, possibly over ten times as often, according to a recent study!)

For example, a room with a patient known to have a MRSA infection or carry it on their skin, might get a 3 part treatment.:

1. A complete and thorough cleaning with soap and water.

2. A complete and thorough treatment with a 40% honey solution which then sits undisturbed for a time. (The duration would need testing but the time may be as short as 5 minutes.)

3. Then the last step would be cleaning with a solution of chlorine bleach, soap, and water. The last step would be to clean off the “stickiness” of the honey treatment without adding back any bacteria.

Meanwhile, using a bit of dark honey on a cut instead of an “antibiotic” over the counter product at home might make excellent sense.

The bacteria in the cut might be already resistant to the antibiotic in the “antibiotic” over the counter product. And overuse of such products is one source of bacteria resistance to antibiotics.

Honey, by contrast, has a shot at killing even the bacteria already antibiotic resistant and looks far less likely to cause antibiotic resistance.

Dr Sears said that the darker honeys have extra antioxidant effects.

In cuts and wounds, that might help speed healing.

Dr Sears has found a source for a dark honey. Manuka honey from New Zealand is a dark honey which has these extra antioxidant effects. He keeps some on hand in case he needs it.

If you do get a cut that doesn’t need stitches or a trip to the Emergency Room due to heavy bleeding, wash the cut gently with soapy water first. That removes a lot of every kind of bacteria and does NOT increase antibiotic resistance.

Then gently apply enough honey to cover the injury and a bit of the surrounding skin and cover that with a bandage.

(Wounds covered by bandages, it’s true, do not scab over as fast as those only covered at first. But keep the bandage on until it heals. That helps prevent scarring. It prevents air borne bacteria from infecting the wound. And, best of all the overall healing is about 40 % faster!)

What to eat to lose weight and lose fat....

Today's Post: Monday, 4-4-2011

A. Eating to lose fat and fat weight permanently AND become healthier and live longer depend on doing all the basics needed.:

1. For example, exercising five to seven days a week prevents you from losing muscle and brain cells. It will protect you from heart problems and begin to do so even before you lose all your fat. Your self esteem will also go up even sooner than that, particularly if you do strength training and if you keep track of your exercise so you see yourself make gradual progress or even fast progress!

But, the benefits go even farther for the fatloss itself. You cannot eat more fattening foods totally more calories than the exercise and hope to lose fat. BUT, you can eat more total food and will be less hungry and less likely to trigger the famine response. That makes both losing all the fat and keeping it off doable!

The even better news is that although more is better as is adding several miles of walking each week, strength training, interval cardio, or even simple crunches or pushup or squats or heel raises done for 6 to 20 minutes a day at home can be quite effective. Doing these exercises first thing in the morning is the most reliable way to do this that avoids conflicting with the rest of your life. And, you get in the exercise before the varying demands of the day.

Another way to do it is to go to the gym or a circuit training place like CURVES for women two evenings a week instead of watching TV –OR – get a stationary bike and ride it while you watch TV.

2. Edit out as close to all the really health harmful and fattening only foods and drinks that you can.

3. Eat a bit less of the foods that are good for you but a bit fattening.

4. Eat far more of the foods that are both good for you and help you be less hungry while eating fewer calories.

B. Find a way to systematically remove a small amount of calories from what you eat that avoids the famine response.

Exercise is a huge help.

It turns out always eating breakfast also helps since people who do are less fat but eat usually more calories than people who never do. That also give you extra leverage.

I’ve seen four ways to do this.

Eat health OK food but with fewer restrictions on what kind or how much every other day and eat only foods that promote fat loss or a bit less food every other day. I like this one as the days you eat a bit more can be adaptations of what you already eat. So it’s better for people just getting started. And I find it much easier to keep doing.

Eat only foods that promote fat loss six days a week. And actually eat more and far less strictly one week-end day a week. I find the six days a week a of being strict a bit much and for it to be too easy for me to overdo the “cheat” day. But this works well for some people. One woman found having a “cheat” day once a week caused her to make no progress but was OK with the strict days since she could tell herself, “I can have that. I just can’t do it now. But I’ll have that on my monthly “cheat” day.” That worked for her very well.

Eat 6 half meals a day that total a bit less calories and only eat health OK foods AND eat them almost exactly 2 hours apart. That gives you a preemptive strike on hunger since you get to eat before you begin to get too hungry when you eat that often.

The last one splits up the day. Breakfast and lunch are very strict. But you eat normal if exclusively health OK dinners where you avoid stuffing yourself. I use this one myself a bit making my breakfasts and weekday lunches stricter and my dinners a bit less so.

C. Meal by meal.

Breakfast:

Soft drinks – both regular and diet -- and foods with sugar, high fructose corn syrup, refined grains, and even hydrogenated oils are in some people’s breakfast. Whole grains, fruit, nonfat and very lowfat milk and real fruit juice are health OK but somewhat fattening, so you have to be careful not to overdo them.

Step one is to eliminate any of the foods you have been eating for breakfast from the first sentence and step two is to systematically eat less of the health OK but somewhat fattening foods.

What are the best foods to eat more of?

Health OK or almost health OK proteins. Nonstarchy vegetables. Beans and lentils. And, moderate amounts of health OK fats and oils. That combination of foods provides excellent nutrition, turns off hunger well, has fewer calories than the less filling breakfasts most Americans eat now, and it produces virtually no blood sugar and insulin spikes. As a result it both cuts calories and stops you body from adding fat.

One simple breakfast is two boiled eggs; a small, medium serving compared to what is normal for you of precooked lentils; a single kind of fresh fruit; and tea or green tea and an 8 ounce glass of the new Low Sodium Spicy Hot V8. (I lost my most recent 15 pounds in large part by eating this breakfast every other day.)

Another is to scramble 2 eggs with a can of precooked and de-tailed shrimp and a very large serving of sprouts in cast iron frying pan with extra virgin olive oil with a cup of coffee to drink either black of with a tiny bit of half an half (light cream) or 1% lowfat milk.

Another is to have a 6 ounce piece of poached wild caught salmon with spices and a large medium bowl of coleslaw with a third the normal mayo and with diced onion and a medium serving of precooked pinto or black beans with either tea, green tea or coffee.

Lunch and Dinner are almost easier.

Taking raw walnut and pecan halves, pureed squash, sweet potato, or pumpkin with nothing else added plus a large serving of raw broccoli florets – organic if you can get them and tea or coffee works for a lunch to take to work. You can also add some skinless cooked chicken or a can of precooked and de-tailed shrimp to that or a salad with greens or cabbage and extra virgin olive oil in moderation and some diced onions and tomatoes for more protein or more vegetables.

You can also make one meal salads. Dice a boiled egg, add a can of precooked and de-tailed shrimp, a handful of raw walnut halves and a bit of extra virgin olive oil with greens or cabbage and some diced onions and tomatoes and some canned, precooked lentils, black beans, or pinto beans.

Chipotle Bar and Grill has beans, decent quality beef and chicken with great spices, and vegetables and guacamole. You can go there and eat that part of their food and leave the wheat or corn grain part out. What you do eat will keep you full and fortified. Plus it tastes good too! One man ate that kind of lunch and dinner there almost every day while losing over 20 pounds.

SUBWAY is a bit harder; but it also can work very well. You have to work harder NOT to allow yourself ANY of the soft drinks or desserts or bread. But they have relatively lowfat meat of several kinds and a veggie version with avocado. Simply order one or two of their “sandwiches” but insist they be served on a plate with no bread and add all the kinds of veggies you like to each one. They have tomatoes, mild pepper, diced onions, and more. You can eat really well and lose fat by doing this. And, SUBWAY locations are virtually everywhere.

All the lunch ideas can work for dinner.

Here are some others.

Add some canned wild caught salmon, some precooked pinto beans, your favorite tomato based pasta sauce with no soy or corn oil, some extra virgin olive oil, and some added chili powder, red pepper, black pepper, and garlic powder.

Or, have some but not too much! Almond butter as an appetizer and for the protein. And have some precooked pinto beans, your favorite tomato based pasta sauce with no soy or corn oil, some extra virgin olive oil, and some added turmeric, your favorite curry spice, black pepper, powdered paprika, and garlic powder.

Follow that with a glass or two of red wine.

If you like spicy, these two will work quite well.

Or you can go to an upscale restaurant and have a protein entrée such as wild caught salmon, chicken, or grass fed only beef and a salad and a vegetable dish and one or two drinks. But ask that the salad be served right away and pass on the bread.

(If they can’t do that and you have to sit with the bread for many minutes waiting for the food while you are very hungry, a fall back plan I’ve found to work is to get a single quarter piece of the bread and have that with a pat of the real butter or better a good bit of extra virgin olive oil. The result is low glycemic and not too high in total calories with just one. And, I get my glass of red wine right away. Once I eat that and have the wine, I can easily pass on stuffing with more bread.)

Or you can cook or have your significant other cook a similar meal at home.

The bottom line is that although there are some Spartan choices that work, you can eat surprisingly well for flavor and for good quality food and still eat mostly protein foods, vegetables, beans and lentils, health OK fats and oils, and nonstarchy vegetables and spices.

And, you can do it a little at a time.

Every other day, eat an upgraded version of what you eat now; and every other day try a stricter more fat reducing version to see how it goes. If that version works for you at a cost you can afford, great! If part of it tastes horrible or costs too much, make substitutions until you get versions you are OK with continuing to eat.

For example, I tried eating thawed frozen chopped spinach instead of applesauce with no sugar added to eat less fruit and more vegetables. The spinach by itself tasted horrible, it was hard and messy to serve, and it gunked up my teeth!

Yikes! But when I went to an upscale grocery store where people who really cook buy food, I found that Libby’s makes a totally unsweetened pumpkin puree. That tasted OK and MUCH better than the spinach. And it is easy to serve and eat without gunking up my teeth. So that worked and it continues to.

(I found a recipe with egg and cheese and mushrooms to use up the remaining spinach. That worked MUCH better!)

The key is to try things within the guidelines until you find foods you can keep eating at worst and actually enjoy at best.

Slow or reverse aging 3 ways and new information....

Today's Post: Friday, 4-1-2011

1. People are like cars and other machinery. If you fail to maintain their basic systems, they wear out or stop working long before they should or could have.

We know two ways to do that and new research on the method already known to work suggests strongly that the second one works also despite it having been less tested.

2. The processes in your cells work best when the cellular components are not clumped up and tangled. A recent study found a chemical that increased the longevity of a fast living worm by 50%. We have no clue if this will work or is safe to take in humans. BUT, we do have a safe alternative that has been proven to work in humans.

3. Telomeres are like shoe lace caps on the ends of your DNA. When they are relatively long, your cells can make perfect copies when you grow new cells. But the telomeres tend do get shorter and when they get too short, your body makes imperfect copies or none at all. We now know several ways to keep them from getting shorter as fast. And, Dr Al Sears has tested a way to actually make them longer. His tests show that it works.

Here are the details.

1. People are like cars and other machinery. If you fail to maintain their basic systems they wear out or stop working long before they should or could have.

We know two ways to do that and new research on the method already known to work suggests strongly that the second one works also despite it having been less tested.

Regular physical activity such as walking, gardening, and tai chi plus regular and vigorous exercises such as strength training and interval cardio each have multiple health benefits.

It’s been proven that people who do vigorous exercise and stay active every week live longer and live longer parts of their years in good health than people who are completely sedentary.

Their lungs are stronger, their hearts are stronger, their blood vessels are less blocked and they experience extra blood circulation many times each week. Their bodies are triggered to make growth hormone and a special kind, BDNF, of growth hormone that grows new brain and nerve cells.

But a recent and rather spectacular experiment in mice found something even beyond those things.

The mice who were run on a treadmill for 45 minutes, three times each week looked and acted young and active at ages where their littermates who did not do this moved less, looked far more aged, and began to have systems failures of various kinds.

The researchers also found that exercise allowed the mitochondria in each cell of the mice to stay as healthy and capable as they were when the mice were younger. Since the mitochondria are the power centers of each cell and provide the energy for cellular repair and movement, that’s quite significant.

But, there was a similar experiment done that Dr Al Sears reports on. The compound CoQ10 is specifically known to keep mitochondria healthy and to even restore them to good health to some degree. When the form of CoQ10, ubiquinol, was developed in a way people could take as a supplement, the researchers who knew that the far less effective version CoQ10 had some age slowing effects and some mitochondria strengthening effects, they decided to test with mice if ubiquinol would slow aging better than C0Q10.

Their results were very similar to those of the researchers who tested exercise. The mice that were given neither CoQ10 nor ubiquinol aged as they normally do. The mice given CoQ10 aged more slowly and moved better but were clearly slowing down. The mice given ubiquinol showed virtually no signs of aging at all in the same time period!

Since your body provides you with this substance while you are younger but begins not to do so when you pass age 40 and to almost stop once you pass about 65, taking ubiquinol clearly makes sense at least once you are over 40.

Based on what I’ve read in Dr Sears emails, it sounds like taking 50 mg of ubiquinol at breakfast once a day once you pass 40; 50 mg at breakfast and at lunch after age 50; & 100 mg at breakfast and 50 mg at lunch once you pass age 60 is about right.

(Taking ubiquinol in this way also lowers high blood pressure about as much as one of the more effective blood pressure drugs but with no side effects. And, it tends to prevent heart failure; and larger doses have even tended to reverse heart failure or its symptoms.)

2. The processes in your cells work best when the cellular components and proteins are not clumped up and tangled. A recent study found a chemical that increased the longevity of a fast living worm by 50%. We have no clue if this will work or is safe to take in humans. BUT, we do have a safe alternative that has been proven to work in humans.

The researchers were able to show that this effect was due to this chemical preventing cellular components and proteins from getting clumped up and tangled.

But the write up I saw of that research said that, in people, there was evidence that those who ate turmeric as a spice or took turmeric or its main ingredient curcumin as a supplement tended to age more slowly and that this anti clumping effect provided both that benefit and the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease that turmeric is better known for!

Since eating turmeric as a spice or taking turmeric or its main ingredient curcumin as a supplement also helps prevent chronic inflammation, heart disease, and cancer, that makes these practices a very useful way to slow aging and stay in good health during your longer lifespan!

Eating sugar tends to cause glycation in your cells which is a kind of breakdown that results in such tangles and clumps. So eating sugar a few times a week and usually in relatively small amounts is far safer for your health and ability to live a long time than eating a lot of it several times a day as a majority of Americans now do.

There are three ways to minimize this effect of the sugar you do eat. Get the exercise in the first method and/or take 200 or 400 mcg a day of chromium polynicotinate since these two things help your body process the sugar and minimize glycation.

I’ve also read that the supplements DMAE and carnosine tend prevent glycation. Since DMAE is inexpensive and carnosine is quite pricey and DMAE also helps make the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and boost your HDL, I take DMAE.

3. Telomeres are like shoe lace caps on the ends of your DNA. When they are relatively long, your cells can make perfect copies when you grow new cells. But the telomeres tend do get shorter and when they get too short, your body makes imperfect copies or none at all. We now know several ways to keep them from getting shorter as fast. And, Dr Al Sears has tested a way to actually make them longer. His tests show that it works.

Virtually every way you effectively keep yourself healthy keeps your telomeres from shortening or shortening as fast.

So, work every way you can to stay healthy.

But in addition to that these have been found extra effective:

a) Take antioxidant supplements such as vitamin C, natural vitamin E complex, selenium, vitamin A, and alpha lipoic acid.

And eat foods and drink drinks high in these or other antioxidants. Blueberries, coffee, tea, green tea, dark chocolate, and most spices are quite effective antioxidants. Nuts and avocados are high in all parts of the vitamin E complex. Vegetables with carotenes or high levels of vitamin C and fruits with lots of vitamin C all have effective antioxidants and other health protective chemicals. And virtually all fruits and vegetables have some of these antioxidants.

These practices keep your telomeres long.

b) Avoid or escape severe stress when you can and get effective rest breaks when you can from more moderate but chronic stress.

Be prudent enough and careful enough to not get into avoidable severe stress when you can and escape it as soon as possible if you get into severely stressful situations.

Use exercise or tai chi or meditation or a drink or two of red wine at the end of the day to give yourself a stress break when you need it. Most people need this several days a week.

c) Be reasonable, kind, forgiving most of the time, and easy to live with, and nice to people. Develop good social skills such as saying things that make people feel noticed and appreciated; asking good questions; and negotiating fairly with people. Keep a sane sense of humor and laugh with people when you can. (People you treat this way will relieve your stress; people you treat the reverse way will CAUSE you stress.)

These practices help avoid the shortening effects of excessive stress on your telomeres.

Your body has an enzyme that protects your telomeres or even makes them longer called telomerase. When I last checked, the substance that Dr Sears has been testing and now sells, TA65, that causes your body to increase telomerase enough for antiaging effects, runs $4,000 a year.

That’s out of my price range. I do most of the other things in this post.

But, if you might want to try it, Dr Sears’ website is www.alsearsmd.com .