Tuesday, July 31, 2012


Eating excessive salt causes bone loss....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 7-31-2012

Many people in the United States today eat a lot of packaged snacks and bread and other foods that come with a high salt content.   Some of these foods such as salted nuts and chips do taste salty.  But others like different kinds of breads and prepared foods such as TV dinners do not.

Some people, I used to be one!, put extra salt on some kinds of foods BEFORE they taste them.

And, some people by habit add a good bit of salt to some kinds of foods.

Until recently, the only widely known reason NOT to do these things was that some people who do get high blood pressure.

(We did also know that people who take in close to 1500 to 2,000 mg of salt and eat a lot of vegetables have somewhat lower blood pressure than those who do not.  And in people who have high blood pressure, it usually goes down somewhat by eating this low moderate amount of salt.  The studies on this DASH II diet have shown these things.

Note that this is NOT a close to zero salt or sodium diet.  It’s just low moderate intake.  Much lower to zero intake of salt causes other health problems.)

But in the last few weeks, new research is showing that excessive salt intake is dramatically more harmful than most people knew until now!

We posted recently on the discovery that excessively high salt intake, over 5,000 grams a day, was found to cause internal blood vessel damage directly.  Then this damage causes high blood pressure, heart disease, and gout!

The news for such excessive salt intake just got even worse!

Understandably when you eat 3 times too much salt, your body tries to get rid of it.  The recently announced research found that when that happens, it takes calcium out of your bones along with the excess salt.

Medical News today had this:  “Depleting Calcium Stores In The Body

The scientific community has always wanted to know why people who eat high-salt diets are prone to developing medical problems such as kidney stones and osteoporosis.

Medical researchers at the University of Alberta may have solved this puzzle through their work with animal lab models and cells.”

They found this effect.  When there is excess sodium and your body gets rid of it, it pulls calcium to go with it.

We now know that eating excessive salt is extremely harmful and in multiple ways including bone loss.

How to avoid excess salt.

1.  Eat more foods that salt has NOT been added to.  Raw broccoli florets and unsalted, raw or dry roasted nuts, whole fresh fruit, and many other foods work just fine with no salt added. 

2.  Either stop eating high salt foods or where salt has been added for you or eat them far less often.

The other ingredients in many of these foods such as packaged snacks, refined grain breads, and commercial baked goods, and fast food are as bad for you as the excess salt because they contain things like oils high in omega 6, refined grains, partially saturated oils high in omega 6, high fructose corn syrup, and excessive sugars.

So, you benefit in multiple ways when you slash your intake of such foods to zero to or near zero.  You’ll not only avoid the excess salt in them and be and stay healthier by avoiding these other ingredients, you’ll be far less fat too!

3.  Always taste your food first!  Then add other spices you like and as little salt as possible.

(One piece of good news is after a week or so of no longer eating excessive salt, you taste salty tastes better and you’ll find you enjoy foods as much as you did before with far less salt.

You do NOT need to eat zero salt.  If the food would taste better with some salt or you have been sweating a lot, adding some salt to taste is completely OK.  Just avoid using five times that much!)

Only spicing foods with salt is like painting with only white paint!  

Eating spices such as basil, oregano, turmeric, curry blends, black pepper, minced garlic, and chopped onion or chives – or ginger or red pepper or cinnamon and more is like painting with all the colors.

These foods also often taste better and mellower and blend better when eaten with some extra virgin olive oil.

Best of all each and every one of these spices and the olive oil has health BENEFITS instead of health harms.

Foods you used just dump salt on can taste BETTER with well chosen spices and no or far less salt.

II.  Quick list of other tips to keep your bones strong

1.  We now know that taking calcium supplements increases heart disease risk; and it doesn’t build bone if you are low in vitamin D.

Conversely, if you eat FOODS high in calcium and take 3,000 iu a day or more of vitamin D3, that DOES build your bones without boosting your heart attack risk.

2.  Vigorous or weight bearing exercise builds bone.  The ideal is to do at least a few minutes of interval cardio and strength training every week in sessions of at least a few minutes most days or every day each week.  Then doing as much walking or moderate leg exercise each week as you can fit in also helps.

3.  Eating foods high in magnesium and taking magnesium supplements has also been found to build bone.  So has taking boron supplements.  Nuts and dark leafy greens are high in magnesium and have other health benefits.  (The people who are allergic to nuts can at least eat the greens.)

4. Avoid the other things that REMOVE bone. 

a) Never or hardly ever drink soft drinks either regular or diet!

The phosphoric acid added to make them taste “crisp” leaches calcium out of your bones.

Avoiding soft drinks is also a very effective way to lose fat and actually be LESS hungry!

b)  We just posted here on why to avoid excessive salt intake because one of its harms is that eating excessive salt leaches calcium out of your bones.

c)  And, completely avoid tobacco smoke.  Another recent research study found that exposure to tobacco smoke causes the bone breakdown process needed for continuous repair of your bones to go into overdrive enough that it causes more bone loss than your body can add back.

That’s a direct cause of net bone loss!  

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Thursday, July 26, 2012


Why avoid OTC painkillers....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 7-26-2012

Many people in the United States today make heavy use of OTC painkillers. 

In fact, a recent article in the new San Francisco Chronicle Health section had this;  “The average American takes 17 ibuprofen tablets a month.

People with arthritis take that many in a single week.”

But there are two significant problems with doing this.

1.  People think of OTC painkillers as extremely safe; but in such high amounts for long periods of time they are not quite that safe.

Heavy use of NSAID’s such as ibuprofen has been linked to increased rates of heart problems.  And, I saw an article recently that said they can sometimes cause liver damage.

Because acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol has been in so many cold and pain combination OTC drugs people who have overdosed on it without intending to do so.  Worse, people who drink moderately or more can get an acetaminophen overdose at even lower intakes. 

And, an overdose of n acetaminophen is not just something that makes you feel bad.  The liver damage it causes has killed people in less than a week.

Aspirin is a somewhat better in lower and infrequent amounts.  But taking it every day can cause hemorrhagic strokes and fatal but painless stomach bleeding and it sometimes does!

Simply put, these things are drugs and have a death rate attached to them.

The good news is that taking a few Advil’s, ibuprofen, for a few days for a strained muscle or a nondrinker taking a couple of Tylenols for a headache a few times a year or taking a few aspirin for a suspected heart attack ARE usually safe for most people.

But the average American and people who take these drugs for arthritis and take so much every month are running far more of a risk than they know.

2.  There is an alternative that is far safer and has extremely desirable health benefits that most of the people taking OTC painkillers have never heard of.

a)  People who use this alternative for osteoarthritis have gotten relief. But even more exciting is that using this alternative tends to prevent, stop or even reverse the underlying damage to their joints.

b)  People who use this alternative are far less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease.

c)  People who use this alternative tend to become less likely to get cancer.

d)  People who use this alternative may get better heart attack protection than by reducing high LDL cholesterol.  And one part of this set of things lowers high LDL cholesterol too!

What is this alternative?

1.  The pain from excessive short term or chronic inflammation can be reduced or even turned off by taking the supplement curcumin derived from the spice turmeric once a day.  And taking it with black pepper helps it work better to do ALL the things listed above.

(Eating curried foods with the characteristic yellow color from the turmeric in them with black pepper has similar effects.)

One man who actually had hip joint damage that stiffened up his walking enough he had to get hip replacements was totally pain free because he took turmeric.

Recent studies show one of the key causes of the damage that becomes Alzheimer’s disease is excessive brain inflammation.  Using Curcumin or turmeric or both turns that off as well or better than the drugs being developed for it.  (An article on just that as an Alzheimer’s cause was in the Medical News Today for Thursday, 7-26, today!)

And, not only does doing this protect your blood vessels and heart from excessive chronic inflammation, it lowers LDL cholesterol too!  When I began doing these two things my LDL went from 106 to 73!

2.  Ginger is a cousin of turmeric.  You can use it in many foods.  And, each morning, I like to put a couple of teaspoons of powdered ginger in glass of water, mix it in and drink it.  I don’t drink soft drinks; but this ginger drink gives me the mouth refreshing effect that some people drink soft drinks to get.

This may not be as effective as turmeric; but I think ginger tastes better both straight like this and in foods.

Both turmeric and ginger protect your heart.  They do so better and more safely than aspirin and they protect your heart instead of risking it as ibuprofen can do.

3.  Omega 3 oils have been tested as effective in relieving joint pain and likely also help prevent mental decline and heart disease.  Taking them helps lower triglycerides which helps keep the circulation to your heart and brain working well besides lowering excessive inflammation.

4.  The last step takes a lot more work if you don’t already do it.  But some simple changes will help you get started.  It may be as effective as the first 3 steps together.   And it certainly works well when combined with them!

People are adapted by what our ancestors ate until 10,000 years ago or even 100 years ago to get the SAME amount of omega 3 oils and omega 6 oils in their diet.

But omega 3 oils lower inflammation.  We get a third of what our ancestors got.  So if we add omega 3 we lower inflammation.

But the news on omega 6 oils is dramatically worse!  Most people get 15 to 20 times too much omega 6 oils.  And, in amounts higher than what our bodies are evolved to get, omega 6 oils CAUSE inflammation.

Before 10,000 years ago people didn’t eat grain; but they do now and far too often.  Grain is high in omega 6.  Most people today also eat tons of refined grain foods which also boost blood sugar so much it tends to cause obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.  That’s in addition to the effects of their excess omega 6 oils.

Worse, most people eat a lot of animal foods from animals fed grain exclusively instead of their natural diets.  The fat from these animals has up to 20 times too much omega 6 oils as the fat from naturally fed animals.

Eating lean and fat trimmed versions of these foods occasionally instead of full fat versions a few times a day DOES help prevent heart disease and high blood pressure.  But the reason is more because of the extremely high amount of omega 6 oil in their fat than it is because of the excess saturated fat that you also avoid.

Then too, corn oil and soy oil from corn and soy grown in huge farms and heavily sprayed with pesticides and herbicides and using genetically modified version have excessive omega 6. 

But extra virgin olive oil has monosaturated fat, omega 9 oil, that is neutral in your omega 3 to omega 6 balance and is NOT inflammatory.  Using olive oil instead of corn oil and soy oil and fat from grain fed animals is a major reason, maybe the most effective reason, why the Mediterranean diet is so health protective.

If you eat as many Americans eat now, ---

You can stop eating virtually all refined grain foods.  (This IS doable I’ve found.)

You can occasionally eat fat trimmed versions of meat and poultry from animals fed grain instead of full fat versions a few times a day.  And you can eat beans and wild caught fish more often or eggs from pasture fed hens. You can even eat beef and lamb from 100 % grass fed animals some days and be OK.

You can read labels and stop buying or eating foods that contain soy or corn oil and use extra virgin olive oil instead.  This one is possibly the easiest to do I think if you are new to all this.

And you can eat more nonstarchy vegetables to make up for the refined grains you ate before.  This gives you far better nutrition more safely and fills you up better with fewer calories.

If you do each of these steps, you likely will only occasionally have need of OTC painkillers, you will be less fat, your health will be dramatically better, and you may even reverse some of your arthritis or stop it from getting worse if you have it now.

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Tuesday, July 24, 2012


How and why to try workout partners....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 7-24-2012

1.  Exercising is extremely good FOR you in a dozen ways and not exercising tends to do the reverse of that TO you.

So, anything that makes exercising more enjoyable for you or makes you doing exercise more likely or reliable is as valuable as the exercise itself!

Having a workout partner or partners can do exactly that. 

2. Regularly socializing with other people in a positive way is also good for you.  It’s often enjoyable, we now know it gives your brain quite a workout, and it often can relieve stress.  So, having a workout partner or socializing in a way that doesn’t trash your workout at the gym has a direct value too.

3.  There are dozens of ways to do this:

Here are a few.

1.  You can get a pro and hire a fitness coach or personal trainer!  You get extra instruction and problem solving help and a built in cheerleader along with the company

2.  You can go to an exercise class or a class teaching an exercise.  Group Aerobic Dancing or taking a Yoga class or group Tai Chi class all do this.  Similarly, some personal trainers will do a group class at the same gym where they offer their personal training individual sessions.  Dancing classes also work.  Retired football star, Jerry Rice was already fit from exercising on his own.  Then he took dancing lessons for his TV appearance and not only did well but lost about 12 pounds!

You often not only learn more in such groups but you begin to miss regular members or be missed if you skip a session which helps you go regularly.

3.  You may have a friend who already goes to the gym and begin to go also when he or she goes.

This one worked very well for me when I was in college.  A good friend did powerlifting at the local YMCA gym two nights a week.  He and a third friend were joining an experienced group of powerlifters on those nights.  My friend Tom invited me to go too.

Back then, I had done weight lifting by myself but I’d do it for a few weeks, try too hard to use more weight, get too stressed, and get too frustrated and stop going.

I hadn’t then learned to go regularly for a long time and to periodically but not every single time make the effort to do more.  I hadn’t learned that doing this was a key to getting a lot stronger.  (I also didn’t know then how incredibly important the regular exercise every week was for my health!)

But, if I felt like skipping because I felt too tired or I didn’t do well at the last session, I WENT ANYWAY!

Why?  Because I wanted even more to see my friends!  Then I’d often find that somehow, I’d actually do well when I got there much of the time.

Then because I went for months without a break, I finally began to get significantly stronger without overstressing by building up gradually.

Once I learned those lessons, I’ve been able to do exercise consistently on my own.  But that experience with my workout buddies taught me what I needed to know.

4.  Another experience I had is something some of you might be able to do.  You can be a friendly workout buddy informally to the people who you begin to see regularly at the gym on the days or evenings you usually go.

Smile, learn their name, cheer them on, and chat a bit.  When I did this, it sometimes meant leaving 10 minutes later than just my workout itself would have needed.  But I also had times when I exchanged several friendly greetings with people and I left on time anyway.

5.  Sometimes, particularly when working out is part of a fat loss effort, you can do it with a family member.  I’ve read of many successful mother daughter teams for example.  And, sometimes working out with your wife or husband works.  (My wife and I went to the gym together a few times.  Each time lasted several months by the way.)  Another way is to take your younger son or daughter to show them how to do the exercises and then just keep going.

In the email I got that sparked my doing this post, “The Benefits of Exercising with a Workout Partner”  “By Mehmet C. Oz, MD, and Michael F. Roizen, MD”,  they also suggest:

6.  “Post a notice at your gym with your schedule to get others to make a “see-you-there” pact.”

7.  “Put an ad in your favorite organization’s e-mail or paper and start your own walking group.”

The most important thing no matter what -- is that you do some exercise and ideally some vigorous exercise including both interval cardio AND strength training each week and exercise for a few minutes most days of every week.  If you can fit in walking and other moderate exercise too that also helps.

But it can be easier to get started; easier for some people to keep doing, and more fun to do with workout partners

My NEW POLICY on Comments: 

Almost all the time comments entered here as Anonymous or no name listed are spam for websites having no relevance or very little relevance for the post topic.  I'm getting ads for drugs from questionable sources, handbags oddly enough, software, and even porn sometimes.  I also get stuff with links in languages other than English.  So instead of taking half an hour a day or more to mark each one separately as spam, my new policy is to do a "pocket veto" and just delete them all instead.

Even the ones close to the topic are bids for free ads for products most of which I'd not buy or recommend.

SO, if you have a real comment on the post of that day, email me the date & topic from a copy cut and paste from the post and your comment to me at davideller7@yahoo.com .  Those I'd be happy to post and even do a comment myself as a reply or add similar information.

Enter your comment too in the comment form on the same day as your email.  That can be critical to my being able to find the post to get your comment into it since I've been writing several posts each week for six years!  But list your name or a code name you thought up.  Do NOT do it as an anonymous post!

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Monday, July 23, 2012


My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 7-23-2012

A.  This month’s report is a mixed review as well.

(Except for my first few months where almost every month was a loss of half a pound to one & a half pounds, the news has been bad or just OK since then.)

Simply put, that bad news is that the things I began to help me re-lose the 7 pounds I now am over my goal weight (and begin to lose the 10 to 20 pounds additional excess belly fat I have on top of that while adding that much muscle) have stalled. 

Last month I lost the half pound and the bit on my waist I gained the month before and am now the same as I was two months ago.

The much better news is my several new efforts that I’ve kept doing are working!  (And, I’m still doing all the things that helped me lose almost 20 pounds initially.)

I lost 3 pounds a few months ago from the calories burned by many days of bad coughing from one of my rare chest colds.

But instead of gaining that back and more, I’ve kept it off and have now done so for many weeks.  That means the things I added and kept up HAVE kept me from gaining.

The related and better news is that I DID do three of the five new things consistently over the month since last time that I’d hoped would help me lose a pound or two, etc.

One. I ate no almond butter in my after dinner snack after eating nearly enough of it to make a pound per month difference in my fat level, about 3500 calories a month when I was gaining each month instead of losing.

Two.  I did successfully keep doing a second vegetable-only for lunch semi-fast each week without any noticeable problems or too much hunger. 

Three.  I did eat a bit of raw broccoli florets almost every evening at my after dinner snack and did not overdo the nonfat cottage cheese or Irish cheese or no sugar apple sauce.  So my record doesn’t show I ate too many calories to compensate for not eating almond butter.  (Eating the raw broccoli florets almost every evening instead of just sometimes, helped do that.)

Of the five things I began, the two that I’ve not maintained are a) using a small pedal exerciser while reading at home in the evening and b) adding more muscle.  They are stalled.

a) I found I kept falling asleep while reading in the evening which stopped my pedal exerciser so often I just gave up on using it.  (I will make more of an effort to resume that and an even stronger effort to resume it on weekends however from now to next month.)  Even enough total use during the month for half a pound of fat removed from me and my scale reading from then on would help. 

b)  I am stronger and likely have gained a pound or two more muscle from my recent efforts to do more with heavier dumbbells.  But I have stopped making gains.  With a couple of exceptions, I may have reached a point where using heavier weights might injure me and doing more repetitions would over-run my time available.  The better news is that once the summer heat leaves in the mid to late fall, I may make more progress.  I’ll overheat less and my testosterone is higher in the fall as well.

B.  But what more do I need to do to add muscle and lose fat enough to restart losing a pound or so each month on the scale until I lose the 7 pounds I am over my goal weight and 10 to 20 pounds more fat than that too off my belly?

The four strategies I’ve come up with are these:

The most important two are the two that I believe will make the most difference.  I’ll describe those two first.  The third one may help but my main motivation for adding it is to see how well the Weight Watchers people teach what I already know.  The fourth one I’ll try but don’t now have high expectations for it.

1. Once I get a bit more control over my schedule, I’ve a plan to go to the gym one night a week for access to heavier weights which may help, particularly with adding muscle to my legs.

(Using a light moderate weight for two thirds of the way down squats every other week and for deadlifts every week will likely add at least 10 pounds to my legs, buttocks, and lower back muscles.)  (Doing heavier bench press and lat pulldowns in a similar style every other week with the deadlifts may also help.)

One set a week of two normal speed repetitions and then five slow speed both up and down repetitions with a light moderate weight will likely avoid hernias and knee problems using a heavier weight might cause.  But if I build up to what I think I’m still capable of, I think it will do the job.

I can’t do the 335 pounds for reps in the full squat or the 415 pounds in the deadlift that I once did in my twenties.  But if I can build up to two thirds squats with 275 and deadlifts with 315 for such slow repetitions I may regain a good bit of the muscle mass I had then.

Tim Ferris found that doing such intense exercise takes a week to recover from.  But that also means I can be effective for muscle building going once a week.  That’s far more doable than going two or three evenings a week.

If I even add 5 pounds of muscle, that may well burn enough extra calories to lose 15 pounds of fat and 10 pounds on the scale. 

And, I think that is likely doable.  I just need to get myself into a position where I can do it.

2.  If I once get to where I can work at home and either afford the new recumbent bike plus desk or get an at my desk exerciser I can retrofit to my existing desks at home and work that I can afford, that will help enormously!

At worst, by using this most of each workday, I’ll burn enough calories to remove something like 10 pounds of fat and add perhaps 3 pounds of muscle. (I posted on this a few days ago.  The creator of the desk plus recumbent bike, the ActivOffice Exercise Desk, Bryan Wassom, although already a runner, lost 18 pounds in 9 months by using it.)

If I do these two things well, the worst case is that I’ll reach my goal weight, lose 7 pounds on the scale, and lose likely at least 3 inches from my waist.

The best case is that I’ll be more muscular than now but 14 pounds lighter and 7 pounds LESS than my goal weight and will have lost all 6 inches from my waist.

3)  Because I may be able to access it sooner, it may help me lose a pound or two of fat, and it WILL help me know who best to refer to Weight Watchers to, I plan to join the Weight Watchers online program.  (I know enough that if I could make a weekly meeting one evening a week, I’d use it for the one day a week strength training instead.  But I may be able to try the online version soon.)

4.  If and only if I’ve got these first 3 things successfully in place while continuing to do the things I already am doing, I plan to try the two supplements that I posted on recently that seem to help people lose belly fat. 

Taking them may help; and losing an extra inch or more off my waist would be great!  But since they are a bit pricey, I think their effectiveness may be minimal, and KNOW the first two things work and the third one might add some extra results, those 3 are my priority.

C.  I’ll keep up the efforts I’m already making. 

I have lost about 18 pounds since I was at my fattest and before my first fat loss effort and 10 pounds this time that I have kept off.

I firmly intend to keep that fat off!  So I will keep up the things I do to keep it off!

PS:  I’ve not yet found an at your desk exerciser I can use at my current work that would NOT require a different desk at all and that would cost a third or a fifth of what the recumbent bike plus desk costs.

So, since I’ve not been able to find what I need, I may have to find a company to make it.  (I know a design that will work and recently found out it wasn’t patentable even when it first was put into volume use.)

The version that for sure would retrofit to existing desks and be smooth enough to ensure you could use it and work without using it distracting you from work, might well be patentable however.

In addition to its proven fat loss benefits, I found out that having such an exerciser at work would improve my memory and mental sharpness on the days I used it!  I posted that news several weeks ago.

At my new job I do have enough more knee room under my desk, I'd known I might be able to get one of the tiny bicycle style exercisers and begin using that a few hours a day.  (They are just pedals and a support stand available online for about $150.  Not fancy; but an extra 200 calories a day on it will trim off some fat.)

And, it seemed silly not to try it already for that extra fat loss. But when I got the news it would improve me mentally too, I decided to try to implement it soon.

Then I realized I could go to the local sporting goods store to see if they had such an exerciser.  That way if I tried it and it didn't work out right away, I could return it.  The news then got better.  I asked and they would refund my money if the exerciser turned out right away not to be usable.  But even better, instead of $150, it only cost $50!

I did set that up and found that at work even with the extra knee room it was a bit too hard to stay on it and it took double the knee room I’d have needed at my last job and fifty percent more than I have now.  I do now use it at home.

But the big payoff and results will be when I can get one that I can use at work.  Even 20 hours a week for 150 calories per hour is about 3 and a half pounds of fat loss per month until my excess fat is mostly gone.  Even 100 calories an hour for 15 hours a week would make a huge difference!

I'll let you know how I do on what I can already do and when and if I can add these other things.  

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Friday, July 20, 2012


How and why to boost growth hormone....

Today's Post:  Friday, 7-20-2012

Everything else being equal, people who have ample amounts of growth hormone are stronger, have less excess fat, and are in enough better repair they heal when injured and age more slowly.

In the email from Jillian Michaels on 7-17 earlier this week, “The Hormone You Always Want More Of” that sparked the idea to do this post, she also says that ample growth hormone helps protect your heart and keep your bones strong.

The ideal in life as Dr Jack Farquhar from Stanford said earlier this year is not a long life where the extra years are limited with poor health many but extra years of good health. 

Having an ample supply of growth hormone is a key to doing that.

Some people pay thousands of dollars a year to get shots of human growth hormone or HGH. 

But this is dreadfully expensive.  Some studies show some side effects likely due to overdose.  Some people with cancer or cancer they didn’t know about find this artificial way to get growth hormone boosts their cancer’s growth too.  

Another very important reason for not doing it this way is that the natural ways to boost growth hormone have OTHER health benefits that taking the shots do NOT give you.

 Last but far from least, if the people who do this have to stop for any reason, doing this may stunt their ability to make growth hormone on their own.

That said, what are some of the ways to boost growth hormone naturally?

The overall theme is that a lifestyle that helps you stay healthy and lean boosts growth hormone release too in almost every part of it.

1.  Vigorous exercises where you periodically exert extra effort done most days of every week release growth hormone. 

(Doing such exercises slows aging in other ways, also helps prevent insulin resistance and high blood sugar; protects your heart; promotes good circulation; releases BDNF, the kind of growth hormone that grows new brain cells; it releases testosterone which is both a growth hormone and helps you enjoy sex – in both men and women.  And, possibly unlike HGH shots, such exercise REDUCES your risk of cancer.)

Exercises you do fast and then stop and rest and then repeat are one example.  Interval cardio is specifically that kind of exercise.  Dr Al Sears in his PACE program teaches doing such exercise AND gradually building up to do more or do it faster as you progressively add just a little more than last time.

The other one is strength training.  You can be progressive by gradually using more weight up to a point.  The other ways to do it include doing a set until you get to enough repetitions you find you can’t quite do the last one even with extra effort.  You can also do the exercises with a weight just light enough you can do 5 repetitions where you move the weight up slowly over a few seconds and then lower it that slowly for each of the 5 repetitions.  I’ve found that doing this few seconds up and a few seconds down on the last repetition but doing the first repetitions fast also works.  I think that allows you to build speed and power and get some interval cardio all in one set.

2.  Eating abundant health OK protein foods and almost completely avoiding high glycemic foods also boosts growth hormone in addition to preventing diseases and helping you avoid or stop being fat. 

a) Protein foods like boiled eggs from pasture fed hens and nuts if you aren’t allergic and wild caught fish and beans and lentils and some meat from animals fed only grass and even some meat and poultry  or dairy foods from animals fed grains but where almost all the fat is removed work.  You tend not to get extra hungry or too quickly or get the famine response when you eat lightly if you eat enough of these protein foods.  The protein also gives your growth hormone the building blocks to use to build you or rebuild you.

b) This means drinking no soft drinks or ingesting any high fructose corn syrup and virtually eliminating refined grains and eating even 100% whole grains in moderation if at all.  It also means to cut back even on real sugar to a seventh or less of what many people eat today. 

Sugar loaded foods a few times a week in small servings can be OK for people who exercise and are in good health.  But eating them several times every day will make anyone who does so fat and sick if done long enough.  Jillian Michaels says eating these things also cuts growth hormone release.

3.  Doing a partial fast two or three days a week may also boost growth hormone besides studies showing it helps people lose more fat than cutting back on calories every day.  (I’ve been eating a vegetable only lunch two days a week for fat loss and was delighted to hear it may also help me release growth hormone.)

4.  Jillian Michaels also notes that you release growth hormone during sleep about 5 times a night.  That means that reliably getting good sleep most days each month helps you release adequate growth hormone.  (It also means that if you cut the amount of sleep too much you may cut this back to 3 or 4 times a night.  That will reliably reduce growth hormone.)

There are five solutions to this that I’ve learned.

a) On weekdays at least work towards getting up at the same exact time and going to bed at the same exact time every day.  The more you do this, the better your sleep will be, the more time efficient it will be, and likely your growth hormone release will be better.

b)  For most people it helps to get at least 6 hours of sleep each night and no more than about 8 and a half hours.  The ideal seems to be 7 to 7 and a half.

c)   Make your bedroom conducive to sleep.  Have curtains and blinds and use as little light as possible.  Avoid having any TV’s or video devices in your bedroom.  Keep it reasonably cool and warm enough to the extent you can do so.  Have it be quiet or wear ear plugs if necessary.

d)  Avoid foods and drugs that cause poor sleep.  Much more than 300 mg a day of caffeine causes you to not sleep as well at night so you need more the next day.  But about that or a bit less mostly before 3 PM avoids this effect.  If you drink alcoholic drinks, stick to one or two and to the extent you can drink them early in the evening.  Avoid binge drinking. Excess alcohol causes poor sleep quality and even can cause early wakening.  Use niacin and sterols and foods high in soluble fiber instead of statins unless you have tested to be one of the few people for which statins are effective and you recently had a heart attack.  Statins deplete your energy and Lipitor particularly apparently quite often causes severe insomnia.

e)   A recent study found that morning exercise causes the people who do it to go through more sleep cycles at night and do so more thoroughly.  That means you boost growth hormone twice with morning exercise – both by the exercise causing growth hormones to be released and by giving your body more chances a night to release them!

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Thursday, July 19, 2012


Do fat loss supplements work?....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 7-19-2012

There are several answers to this.

1.  First and foremost is that the best results and health protection come from lifestyle upgrades.

 Delete fattening foods and drinks, learn to enjoy and always eat health supporting and far less fattening foods, find a few ways to cut back on calories in a way that avoids triggering your fail safe famine response and avoids making you too hungry; do both strength training and interval cardio every week and do such vigorous exercise most days of every week; and, if you can manage it, also get several hundred calories of mild to moderate activity every week.

If you do each of these well, it may take longer than you’d like; but you will lose most of your excess fat and become far healthier and safer.

Getting that done and maintaining it does take effort.  But it IS both doable and sustainable.

2.  If you possibly can, avoid both supplements and drugs that are basically some form of concentrated “speed.”

The supplement ephedra was in this category but caused some strokes and triggered some heart attacks – and some people died. Similar substitute supplements have tended to have the same problems. 

Phentermine and the newly approved drug Qsymia that contains it also have similar problems and others.  Some of those problems can and sometimes do cause death.

These drugs aren’t THAT effective either and are usually not needed if you do the right things we list above and persist in doing them.

You are MUCH safer if you avoid potential solutions that don’t lose that much extra fat but harm your health and may even kill you.

Moderate or low power stimulants normally used to help people wake up and stay alert help do alertness etc but I’ve not found them to help my fat loss much if at all. 

I used to drink coffee before I got acid reflux.  I drink black tea and green tea and take green tea extracts and I’m trying guarana. On weekends I drink double strength unsweetened cocoa.  I find I’m mentally sharper by doing this and less sleepy while I’m working.  And, all of these except guarana have documented health benefits. 

The green tea extract may help prevent cancer and does have some caffeine.  But I’ve not experienced any noticeable fat loss effect from taking it.

The better news is that these in reasonable amounts are safe to use!

3.  There IS now a fat loss multiplier that does what people want in a fat loss supplement. 

It works to lose fat in addition to or in spite of what you eat or don’t eat.

And, it takes no net time from your busy life to use.

It’s a new category of product; it does take some getting used to; and the current versions are more expensive than I’d like.  But it does exist now.

And, it DOES work.

See my last post, Exercise at your desk to lose fat and keep your health….Tuesday, 7-17-2012.

4.  There are some safe drugs and supplements that help protect you from the health problems caused by being fat or the lifestyle that makes people fat.  Some even help lose fat a bit.

For elevated blood sugar safe choices include: alpha lipoic acid, chromium polynicotinate, berberine, and the drug Metformin if you take it with sublingual B12 daily.  All help lower elevated blood sugar and/or protect you from its harm.  Metformin even has some fat loss and belly fat loss effects.   This can multiply your efforts to solve this problem and lose fat by using the key lifestyle upgrades that protect your health and help you lose fat.

Similarly, for heart disease prevention, here is a long list of foods and supplements that help:

Drink moderate amounts of alcoholic drinks – notably red wine, resveratrol.

Take real niacin, inositol hexaniacinate, sterol supplements such as beta sitosterol.

Eat the spice ginger, the spice turmeric – the yellow component in curries – taken with black pepper or the active ingredient curcumin taken as a supplement with black pepper, AND minimizing fats from grain fed animals and deleting oils such as corn and soy high in omega 6 and sharply minimizing grains including all refined grains and using extra virgin olive oil instead plus eating wild caught fish and seafood and taking omega 3 supplements.

Combined with the lifestyle upgrades, these increase the beneficial form of HDL, minimize and lower the harmful form of LDL, lower triglycerides, and lower or prevent chronic inflammation.  That prevents or partly reverses heart disease.  And, I’ve seen one source make a case that the inflammation lowering helps fat loss a bit by helping you stop eating when you are full a bit better.

But the most important two reasons to use these for fat loss is that it gives you an extra reason for doing and maintaining the lifestyle upgrades that produce fat loss. And you realize as you do those things that you are not only helping lose fat and keep it off; but you are staying healthy and staying healthy for more years too.

(As an example, I no longer eat commercial baked goods over 99% of the time I have the chance. 

Yes that helps me avoid the fat gain eating them would cause me. 

But I easily avoid eating them by reviewing the fat that they almost always contain hydrogenated oils or high omega 6 oils or both, high fructose corn syrup or excessive sugar or both; and they always contain refined grains. 

Each of these ingredients helps cause heart disease in addition to adding fat to me.

Why would I spend money and take heart protective supplements and then eat heart attack starter? 

I don’t!  So these kinds of foods don’t make me fatter either!

5.  But what about the 3 supplements now talked of for fat loss?

Each one may work.  But each one may not work or do very little.  They are a bit of pain to take as suggested.  And each of the 3 is pricey.

Last, none of them will lose fat for you if you don’t do and keep doing the lifestyle upgrades too. 

That said, each of the three currently shows enough promise that I emailed a friend who found a link to a site promoting one of them noting both their potential value and likely drawbacks.

(He had found a link saying:  “Check out Health Lifestyles - Health News - National News - African Mango” .  Entering that exact phrase in Google yesterday found the link and a good bit of related commentary.) (The supplement of African Mango is called Irvingia.)

“The story is certainly interesting.  Fat loss and inches off your waist with no diet or exercise needed or doing different from what you are already doing.

There are 3 supplements I’ve thought of trying for fat loss.  This is one of them.  

A.  The downside and unknowns:

1.  One way they each seem to get part of their effect is the pain in the ass requirement of how to take them.  They each require you to take them with water half an hour before you begin eating at every meal.  The thought occurs to me that even taking a completely inert placebo pill that carefully every time certainly tends to make you mindful of what & how much you eat at the meal following.  I’ve not heard of any of the 3 passing that test with 100 or 200 people over a 4 month or longer trial by comparing them in people who were consistent at taking them right where some got placebo and some got the supplement.

2.  Secondly, since they do have such compelling stories, they tend to be a bit pricey.  I’ve not been rich enough to afford extra supplements at $60 a month or more just yet.  Taking all three, this one –Irvingia; one I think may work, Fucoxanthin from Wakame seaweed; and green coffee bean extract that sounds like it might be real -- would run nearly $200 a month!  Worse, if they do work, you wouldn’t want to stop taking them.

Third, the more extensive studies of supplements that once had similar stories such as Hoodia, and others found less effectiveness than claimed or none or side effects or both.  This does tend to throw cold water on things pending more research.

4.  I like food and enjoy eating.  My goal is to have fat loss and continue to enjoy eating.  Even if they are effective, I’m less interested in appetite reducers.  So that’s a consideration too.

B.  The possible promise and best uses.

1.  However, it does interest me that Irvingia and Fucoxanthin have tested in small studies to remove belly fat.  Since most of the fat I want most to lose is in my belly and just losing fat overall hasn’t been very effective, when I can afford it later I might consider them. I may pass on green coffee bean extract; but I do plan to do other things first, increase my income, and then test Irvingia and fucoxanthin.  Fucoxanthin too is said to help you lose belly fat. 

(When I lost on the scale down to my goal weight, my belly was still at least 2 to 4 inches too fat; and it & I still looked fat!)

2.  Also, for people who have money and want to start losing fat, there is a conflict with cutting back on overall calories too much at first causing the famine response and guaranteed failure and needing to get enough results at first that they feel the program is working and then keep going.

So this quote from a doctor who tried the Irvingia is of interest:

“While test subjects did find initial improvements, more research needs to be done to see if continuous supplementation would yield any additional benefits. In fact, Tanya Edwards, MD, M.Ed. (one of Dr. Oz's correspondents) wrote on her blog that when she tried the supplement herself, she lost an initial seven pounds, but did not keep losing with continued use (and noticed the same with her patients).”

That way a program that loses 2 or 3 pounds a month with small diet cut backs and some added exercise would lose 5 pounds the first two months which might disappoint some people but would lose them more like 12 to 15 pounds with some visible fat loss on their belly instead.  That could make a truly important difference.

That way people could begin a long term program and lifestyle upgrade that will lose them well over 7 pounds of fat in a year and maybe over 100 pounds in two years in some people.  But instead of dropping out when they didn’t lose much at first, they would succeed since they would lose that initial 7 to 10 extra pounds too."

If and when I get more information or news on these three supplements I’ll do a post on the news of information.  


 My NEW POLICY on Comments.  

Almost all the time comments entered here as anonymous or no name listed are spam for websites having no relevance or very little relevance for the post topic.  I'm getting ads for drugs from questionable sources, handbags oddly enough, software, and even porn sometimes.  I also get stuff with links in languages other than English.  So instead of taking half an hour a day or more to mark each one separately as spam, my new policy is to do a "pocket veto" and just delete them instead.

Even the ones close to the topic are bids for free ads for products most of which I'd not buy or recommend.

SO, if you have a real comment on the post of that day, email me the date & topic from a copy cut and paste from the post and your comment to me at davideller7@yahoo.com .  Those I'd be happy to post and even do a comment myself as a reply or add similar information.

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Tuesday, July 17, 2012


Exercise at your desk to lose fat and keep your health....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 7-17-2012

It’s not widely known yet but there are now two ways to exercise at your desk while you work so you get the moderate exercise without taking time from your work.

One of them is new and can be used more of the time you are at your desk than the first one to come out.  It also costs less than half as much!

 This is extremely important news for two reasons.

1.  Doing nondistracting exercise at your desk has the potential to double or triple the amount of fat you can lose and keep off and to cut the time necessary nearly in half!

(I manage to squeeze in a bit less than half an hour a day of interval cardio and strength training each day.  But that much exercise leaves me about 1800 calories a week short of the 2900 calories a week people who have lost over 30 pounds and kept it off get on the average.  I don’t have more time.  But if I can arrange to get that added 1800 calories a week while I’m working at my desk, I CAN do that!

I lost 20 pounds recently and then regained 9.  I’ve kept off the 11 pounds because I’ve continued the eating upgrades since I began.

But had I lost 6 pounds too in the first part when I lost so well by using an at your desk exerciser I would have lost 26 pounds.  And had I lost another 6 pounds during the time when I regained, I’d have only gained back 3 instead of 9.  That means I’d be 23 pounds less fat than when I began now instead of 11!  That’s a BIG difference. )

This means that everyone who would like to be less fat or who is working to do so but sits at work now has access to this solution too!

2.  People today, between sitting at work and sitting at home, often sit for well over 8 hours a day.  This causes many health problems and literally billions of dollars a year in potentially. avoidable health care costs.

(I sit at work over 9 hours a day and about 2 hours at home each workday myself.) 

But research shows that this is a very powerful risk factor for heart disease and stroke and other diseases. 

Worse, exercising with interval cardio and strength training for an average of a bit less than 30 minutes each day while protective against this problem is only partly effective.

But if 80 to 90 % of the time you are sitting at work you are getting constant mild exercise by keeping your feet moving with such an exerciser, that problem is gone completely.  The health problem of sitting is virtually wiped out!

There are now two solutions to this problem and I’m working on a third one.

1.  The first one is the Steelcase walking desk or “Walkstation.”  See http:// http://store.steelcase.com/brochures/walkstation/

This works partly but has two significant problems. 

It’s not usable for enough of the hours in the day you work for the best fat loss results and health results.  Even two hours a day of working while walking on the treadmill that it comes will burn 300 to 400 calories a day.  But few people will want to stand more than that a day while working. 

(At its set speed of 2 miles an hour, that’s mild enough to not detract from your work and equal walking 4 miles a day.  So it is better than sitting the whole time particularly for fat loss.)

Secondly, it’s much more expensive than I’d initially heard and starts at $4399.  OUCH!

2.  The second one is new and solves one of those two problems and partly solves the second one.

A man in Pleasanton, California has begun selling a desk plus recumbent bike combination for closer to $1800 to $2,000.  At a health show last Saturday, the people trying it praised it for having ample and usable desk space.  And, it costs thousands less than the walking desk!

That’s a lot better price wise than over $4,000!

(I think it’s still about five to ten times higher than what I think the market needs. It also isn’t easily retrofittable to the existing desks people already have. That’s important because I think everyone should work at an exerciser of this kind! I hope to help create that solution too.)

However, the active desk recumbent bike plus desk DOES do a great job on the health and fat loss side!  You can use it almost all the time you would otherwise sit at your desk instead of just part of the time.  So the exercise can be even more gentle and nondistracting than walking yet easily help you burn 2,000 calories per five day week or more.

As an example, Bryan, the man making them, is a regular runner.  But he needed to burn more calories a week to stop being fat as much as he needed and wanted to do. 

He’s used his active desk for 9 months.  AND, he lost 18 pounds!

The best news is that it’s available now directly through Bryan at bryan@activoffice.net .

He is also possibly going to sell it on Amazon soon.

If the price is something you can afford at all, and you have the bit of extra space where you work, I strongly recommend you consider getting one.

PS:  I got a much less expensive exerciser at my local BIG 5 sporting goods store.  Much to my great irritation, it raised my knees too much to fit at my desks either at work or at home.

But the key thing for this post is this: 

I’ve found I can use it while sitting on our couch at home and reading.  And, even though it’s not nearly as smooth to use as Bryan’s recumbent bike, I am easily able to start going and keep going on automatic pilot yet read with no noticeable effort or distraction for an hour or two at a time.  

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Friday, July 13, 2012


Ways to prevent, slow, or stop prostate cancer....

Today's Post:  Friday, 7-13-2012

It’s not widely known yet but:  

1.  Most cancers can be prevented.  If you use all the methods that prevent cancers and don’t get any cancer, you won’t get prostate cancer.

2.  There are several specific ways now known to prevent prostate cancer specifically. You can also use those.

3.  Then too, there are two kinds of prostate cancer, the slow growing kind and the aggressive kind that will metastasize and start trying to kill you in multiple places. 

If you only get the slow growing kind and stop it from growing much and you avoid getting the aggressive kind too, you can even get prostate cancer without it being that harmful or needing treatment.  

There is a way I just found out about to stop slow growing prostate cancer from growing much.

And, there are also several known ways to prevent aggressive prostate cancer or make it far less likely.

The even better news is that almost all of these ways have abundant other health benefits too.

Since my Dad and both my Grandfathers got prostate cancer, I do my best to use all these methods and now use them all except the one I just found out about and don’t yet know for sure I need.  (That’s the method that stops prostate cancer from growing.)

This post covers those methods in reverse order.

The new information that caused me to do this post was in an article I got from Newsmax on Wednesday this week, “Ancient Remedy Stops Prostate Cancer”   by Sylvia Booth Hubbard.

I.  It seems that research done at the Ben May Department for Cancer Research and Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology in Chicago found that taking Caffeic acid phenethyl ester from bee propolis stopped prostate cancer from growing as long as it was continued.  (It didn’t kill the cancer. It just prevented it from growing any more.  So in this research when the propolis compound was discontinued the prostate cancer resumed growing.)

It’s not yet been studied to see if taking bee propolis as a supplement would have this effect.  And some people develop allergies to propolis since it contains flower pollens collected by the bees who make it.

But the rest of the news on Caffeic acid phenethyl ester is actually even better.  So it may go into use as an anticancer drug at some point.

Wikipedia has this:  "Propolis' use in inhibiting tumorigenesis has been studied in mice in Japan.[30]In pre-clinical models of human breast cancer, propolis induces cell cycle arrest, apoptosis and reduces expression of growth and transcription factors, including NF-?B. Notably, caffeic acid phenethyl ester down-regulates mdr-1 gene, considered responsible for the resistance of cancer cells to chemotherapeutic agents.”

That could be huge news. 

a) If caffeic acid phenethyl ester plus the right chemotherapy can kill prostate cancer, it may well mean that it will become possible to treat aggressive prostate cancer more successfully. 

b) And, it may also mean that aggressive prostate cancer can be effectively treated WITHOUT the radiation and surgery that often ruins the sex lives and quality of life otherwise in people who get it!

So there is new hope for both people with slow growing and with aggressive prostate cancer.

II. Also, on stopping or slowing the growth of slow growing prostate cancer, there was some research a few years ago showing that taking 30 mg a day of a lycopene supplement tended to slow existing prostate cancer and lower the PSA readings of people who took it.  That research made the cover of TIME Magazine shortly after it was announced.

(Lycopene is a carotene in tomatoes and some other red or red orange fruits and vegetables.  Research found that men who ate cooked tomato products often were far less likely to get prostate cancer. 

Since then, other research found that both eating cooked foods with carotenes and eating foods with carotenes along with an oil, ideally extra virgin olive oil, caused more of the carotenes to become absorbed and used in the body.

Does that mean that it’s protective for men to eat pasta sauce with extra virgin olive oil a few times a week?  That’s exactly what it means. 

(Since I learned all this, I’ve taken 30 mg a day of lycopene and eaten pasta sauce with extra virgin olive oil several times a week.)

The Newsmax article also had that mice fed walnuts every day at an amount equal in humans to 3 ounces a day got prostate cancer that was half as big and grew 30 percent more slowly than mice fed no walnuts.  This research was done at the University of California though the article didn’t say which campus. 

Walnuts are a superfood and eating them also helps prevent heart disease. They make a much less fattening snack than cookies or potato chips too!   The only bad news is that some people are allergic to them and can‘t eat walnuts or other tree nuts safely.

III. Wouldn’t it be nice to slash the risk that any prostate cancer you get be the dangerous and aggressive kind too?

It turns out there is a whole list of things you can do that tested out as doing that.

One study found that men who ate either raw broccoli florets or raw cauliflower florets at least once a week, cut their risk of getting aggressive prostate cancer in half. 

(I’ve eaten raw, organic broccoli florets at least 5 times every week ever since I learned that!)

What’s nice is that for people who dislike the taste or broccoli, is that raw cauliflower also works.

I’d been taking 3 mg a day of boron  for a few years ever since I read that doing so helped people be more alert when I read that Dr Al Sears had found research that had tested doing so and found that this too cut the risk of getting aggressive prostate cancer in half!  (Needless to say, I still take boron!)

The recent Newsmax article also had that researchers at UCSF found that men who eat one or two servings of fatty fish each week have a 63 percent lower risk of getting aggressive prostate cancer. 

(I eat 3 large servings of canned wild caught salmon a week and take omega 3 oil supplements every day for other reasons.  So I found that very good news indeed!) 

The Newsmax article also had that a Harvard study found that men who ate 3 servings of fish a week wound up with a 40% less chance of getting late stage and advanced prostate cancer.

But note that doing this set of things while completely avoiding oils high in omega 6 such as corn and soy and eating refined grains or much fat from animals fed grains ALSO lowers chronic inflammation. 

Lowering chronic inflammation or preventing it from getting high also has been found to help prevent ALL cancers AND heart disease.

(What do you eat instead of oils high in omega 6?  Extra virgin olive oil has by far the best health promoting track record.  But small amounts of real butter from cows fed only grass are likely OK.  And some research supports using coconut oil on occasion.)

Doing all 3 of these things: eating raw broccoli or cauliflower plus taking boron plus the high omega 3 intake clearly cuts your risk of getting aggressive prostate cancer a lot. 

My guess is that it likely tests at about 80 % less and that it is well over 63%.  But if these effects are independent and these effects multiply – which is possible – doing all 3 cuts your risk of aggressive prostate cancer by 97.7 percent!

IV. There are also more things you can do that are known to make getting any prostate cancer more likely.

We’ve covered tomatoes and lycopene.

Here are some more:

The Newsmax article had that researchers at Stanford University found eating just two Brazil nuts each day decreased the odds of developing prostate cancer up to from what it would other wise be to a fifth as much.  So if the risk is normally 30 to 60%, doing this drops it to the 6 to 12% range.  That’s a truly huge difference. 

Tim Ferris, in his Four Hour Body book said that he found that eating about that many Brazil nuts was a more effective delivery system for selenium than taking the supplement and that in his case it also enhanced his libido!

(I take 200 mcg a day of selenium.  But it’s a supplement that it is unwise to overdose on by very much.  So I eat two or three Brazil nuts on some days since I read Tim Ferris’s book. But I only do it about 3 times a week.  From what I’ve read eating more would be a bit dangerous.)

The Newsmax article had that researchers in China found that men who at the most garlic and onions and similar foods cut their risk of getting prostate cancer in half. The men who ate the most scallions, green onions, cut their risk by 70%!

(Green onions are a common ingredient in Chinese cooking and foods.)

This one is even more important because eating these foods cuts your risk of getting ANY cancer AND eating these foods or taking deodorized garlic supplements also boosts your beneficial HDL and cuts your risk of heart disease!

V.  Why not also do the things that prevent ALL cancers?

Besides eating in a way that minimizes omega 6 intake and taking in ample omega 3 oils and eating onions and garlic and related foods or deodorized garlic supplements, there is a large list of these.

And several of them are dramatically effective.

The big ones are zero tobacco exposure, taking ample vitamin D3, regular exercise, and eating and/or taking turmeric with black pepper.

How big is doing all of these?

From what I’ve read, just doing those four things cuts your risk of getting ANY cancer by up top 90 percent.

a)  The biggest and worst risk of tobacco smoke is its dramatic effectiveness in producing heart disease, heart attacks, ED, and strokes.  (Hardly any smokers know this; but doctors do.)

That said the cancer risk of tobacco smoke and using other tobacco products is HUGE.

Some studies find that 30 % of ALL cancers are caused by tobacco use.  And that may be an estimate that’s too low!  One oncologist told me that half the cancer patients in his hospital were smokers.

We now know why. 

If you put tobacco in your mouth or breathe the smoke, the radioactive element, polonium, goes into your blood stream.  That can cause any kind of cancer anywhere in your body your blood goes to.  Unfortunately, it often does.  (Polonium is in tobacco because it’s in the fertilizer used to grow tobacco.) 

Does that mean you can get prostate cancer from smoking or second hand smoke or taking snuff?  That’s exactly what that means!

In addition, lighting cigarettes and cigars and pipes with a lighter produces even more carcinogenic compounds than are usually in tobacco smoke.  And few people today use matches.

b)  One study found that 60% of people who have cancer were deficient in vitamin D.  Other studies have found that taking 4,000 to 8,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 cuts the risk of many kinds of cancer.  (Taking that much D3 also helps prevent Alzheimer’s disease.) 

Vitamin D3 is critical to the optimum functioning of your immune system. That’s likely why it has such an anticancer effect. And, it makes vaccines more effective and helps stop infections too.

It also helps prevent osteoporosis.

Taking that much vitamin D3 is extremely cheap compared to the cost of treating the diseases it prevents.

I’ve not yet seen a study on the effect of taking that much vitamin D3 for 10 years on the risk of getting prostate cancer.  But I’d bet good money the effect would be quite large!

You can take that much D3 for something like $15 a month today.

c)  Besides slowing aging and protecting your heart and helping you be less fat, regular exercise also helps prevent all cancers.  Regular exercise even has been found to help people with cancer become cancer free with fewer people getting their cancer back later.

Dr Jack Farquhar of Stanford said research found regular exercise down regulates a gene, P53, that apparently acts as a cancer promoter. 


d)  Eating and/or taking turmeric with black pepper most days of every week makes getting Alzheimer’s disease less likely.  Doing this set of things also may help reverse Alzheimer’s disease in its early stages. 

(Curcumin is thought to be the active ingredient in turmeric that has these effects.)

Doing this boosts your immune system, sharply lowers chronic inflammation, and reduces your level of LDL the more potentially harmful cholesterol.

No surprise then that doing this also is a strong preventive for all cancers.

In fact, in a talk I heard him give, Dr Jack Farquhar of Stanford said research has also found taking turmeric down regulates the same gene, P53, that exercise does with the same anticancer effect.

To sum up if you follow these health protective lifestyle practices, you become much less likely to get any cancer, you become even less likely to get prostate cancer, and you become even less likely to get prostate cancer that can harm you.

The combination effect is dramatic in my opinion.

It was nice to have all these new things listed in the Newsmax article to add to what I already knew.  Now you know them too.

The really nice thing was that except for taking propolis I have already been doing them all for some time for other health benefits!  

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