Boron helps you be alert, have strong bones, & avoid prostate cancer....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 11-1-2012

1.  Many years ago, I read of a study that found that people who took or ate enough of the mineral boron tested as reliably more alert than people who did not.

I seem to remember that the subjects for the study were air traffic controllers or pilots in the US military.

Clearly for those people, staying alert can be life saving. 

But I do so many things for which I want to be alert -- from driving to work, to doing my work, to writing these posts and more – and I did then too, that I immediately found that Twinlab makes a 3 mg supplement they call Triboron.

And, I’ve taken it ever since.

2.  Then, a couple of years ago, I read in a Dr Al Sears email that people who took boron had half the chances of getting prostate cancer of people who didn’t!

I already was doing things to avoid prostate cancer such as completely avoiding tobacco smoke, taking lycopene, and eating tomato sauce -- plus eating raw broccoli florets to cut my chances of aggressive prostate cancer in half..  And I was getting regular exercise. (Since then I’ve added taking curcumin with black pepper and eating foods with turmeric containing curry with black pepper because that cuts the risk of all cancers.)

With all that I was delighted find that I’d already been doing something for years that also would cut my risk of prostate cancer in half!

If avoiding prostate cancer or other sex-linked cancers in men or women is important to you, you might want to consider  taking 2 or 3 mg a day of  boron too.

3.  Then day before yesterday Dr Sears sent out an email about several supplements and included this:  “….boron can reduce joint pain and inflammation by inhibiting the production of inflammatory enzymes.* But because farming and ranching practices have depleted boron from the soil, you don’t get enough of it in your diet.”

Lowering or preventing chronic excessive inflammation is likely how boron prevents cancer and prostate cancer since such inflammation is a known cause or booster of cancer.

BUT, recent research has also found that chronic excessive inflammation CAUSES the joint damage of osteoarthritis and then makes it hurt more.

Similarly, chronic excessive inflammation helps cause cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, strokes, and more.

That begins to make boron into a super supplement!

4.  But taking boron does one other thing too!

I’ve read that if you follow the protocol that prevents osteoporosis or possibly makes it better in the early stages, taking boron too helps it work even better!

To avoid or help get rid of osteoporosis:

NEVER drink any soft drinks.  They fatten you and cause heart disease and type 2 diabetes too.  But the acid in them leaches the calcium out of your bones and helps CAUSE osteoporosis.  (Men who drink many soft drinks each week and don’t exercise often get osteoporosis.)

Take the real minimum daily requirement of vitamin D3 of at least 3,000 iu.  Apparently your body can’t use calcium to rebuild your bones well without it the research indicates.

Eat foods high in calcium daily.  Avoid taking calcium supplements as they recently were found to help calcify your arteries and boost heart attack risk.  The vitamin D3 plus calcium in foods is enough for most people to do the job.  (If you want to take calcium supplements, only take them right after your meals -- ideally 500 mg a day or less after your largest meal of the day.)

Do weight bearing exercise most days of every week and do at least 2 nonconsecutive days of strength training too.  That releases growth hormone and causes your body to strengthen your bones.  Without that exercise, your body tends to do the opposite.  So like taking vitamin D3, exercise is ESSENTIAL for preventing osteoporosis.

Take vitamin K2.  By doing so your body tends to avoid putting excess calcium into your blood vessels and to put calcium into your bones instead!

And, like so many things, it helps to totally avoid tobacco smoke.

Lastly, getting enough magnesium may be more essential than getting enough calcium to keep

your bones strong!  Take 200 mg of magnesium once to three times a day.  (However, don’t overdo Milk of Magnesia AND take 400 or more mg a day of magnesium.  People doing this have taken too much.)

Also, if you take acid reducing medications like proton pump inhibitors, be SURE to do these things and take the higher levels of magnesium.  People who don’t have gotten hip fractures by not getting enough magnesium.

By the way, the best source of boron is from pitted fruits such as cherries, plums, nectarines, peaches etc.  But these fruits are essential to get from organic sources as I’ve read the conventionally grown ones are quite heavily sprayed with pesticides.  Whole Foods has them or has them often if you want to get boron in foods too.  Cherries and possibly plums are also anti-inflammatory and all of them are low glycemic for fruit.  So you can eat these daily if you want.  In fact, along with berries these fruits are just about the healthiest and best for you that you can eat.  The bonus is that they taste great too!