Make the best health and fatloss method doable....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 3-27-2014

Successfully being healthy and staying that way for decades of healthy years and achieving fat loss that is truly permanent is simple but NOT always easy.

We’ve posted often that exercise has massive health benefits.  We’ve posted often that some kinds of exercise force fat loss.  And, we’ve posted that the exercises that force fatloss tend to produce the best health effects.  AND, that set of exercises is time efficient enough most people can do them in the time they have.  Every bit of that is true and well researched.

But as enormously powerful as exercise is, it is still the number two recommendation for living many healthy years and for achieving permanent fat loss!

The number one way to have many healthy years and to achieve permanent fat loss is to stop eating and drinking things that harm you and eat LOTS of vegetables each day.

There are many ways to eat or “diets” that get great results for many people who follow them.  Those include the DASH II diet and the Mediterranean diet and the best diet that combines the best of those two and adds our new information on harmful and beneficial foods.

But both the DASH II diet and the Mediterranean diet, and the Ornish diet, the Paleo diet and all the other health oriented diets work best to produce good health if you remove or cut way back on all grains AND if you eat LOTS of vegetables each day.

(In that kind of daily volume it’s essential to eat only organic produce by the way.)

Such high vegetable intake diets have been tested to force fat loss and help you lose belly fat the best.  And, the health benefits of eating that way are comparable to that good or even better. 

It’s actually common in people who have fat to lose, to drop 25 pounds of fat or more after beginning to eat this way and do so without making ANY extra effort to eat less or exercise more.

One woman doctor had MS to the point she was unable to leave home or keep working.  She ate almost only lots of vegetables and her MS vanished for all practical purposes. Other people with MS who have followed her eating style have had similar results.  We posted about that woman last time since her style of diet with only organic vegetables might also help reverse Parkinson’s disease.

Many people who begin eating a LOT of vegetables have reflux disease and high blood pressure disappear or get radically better.  So have people with type 2 diabetes.

Such high vegetable intake diets have helped people slash their risks of heart disease and stroke.  And, their blood tests reflect this too.

Onions and garlic and kale and cabbage and cauliflower and Brussels Sprouts and carrots and pumpkin and many more kinds of cruciferous vegetables and vegetables high in carotenes all help prevent cancer too!

As you can see, a lot of the drugs people take often become unnecessary when people switch to eating such high vegetable intake diets.

They also become a LOT more likely to have decades more of healthy life.

But for many people, eating a lot of vegetables is close to undoable in practice!

THIS post is about the new solution to that problem.

Some of the best for health vegetables are a bit on the bitter side. 

As busy as most people are, it can be challenging to eat vegetables that take a LOT of chewing and do so at every meal. 

And, although there are many ethnic recipes for almost every kind of vegetable known that make it taste good, the work and cleanup needed make this logistically impossible for many busy people to do several times every single day.

Early on it was discovered that using blenders and juicers could make vegetables taste good and quite easy to eat.

You can add a bit of ginger or cinnamon or carrots or a piece of fruit to a harsher tasting vegetable and have the juice be quite drinkable.

I tasted the drink a man I met had for lunch each day with kiwifruit and ginger and kale for example and found it quite palatable although I’d have used a bit less ginger than he did.

But this solution, though it makes it possible to actually enjoy eating vegetables you might not have otherwise been able to eat at all, still has 3 problems:

Two of them are that you don’t get most of the fiber and any other nutrients in the fiber AND you then have to dispose of the fiber for an extra clean up step.

(If you use a blender and just have it blend the whole thing to avoid missing the fiber or having that cleanup, for some things the fiber makes the juice too thick or gritty to want to drink it often.)

The third one is that the cleanup of juicers takes forever.  You have to take the parts apart and clean them being careful not to lose or break any.  Then you have to rinse and dry them and re-assemble them.

For many years the Vitamix has solved those problems.

Its power and high speed make even navel organges or raw celery blend to a smooth and drinkable drink.

And, the cleanup is close to instant.  You don’t take anything apart.  All you do is add dish soap and water; run the Vitamix a bit; pour that out and then repeat the process with rinse water; and then set the top aside to dry.

The Vitamix did have two drawbacks. 

Most blenders and juicers are loud enough you likely should have ear protection like the crew who land jetliners have to protect your hearing.  And, the Vitamix though faster to do the juicing was even louder.

Secondly, like many blenders and juicers, the top was too tall and easy to tip over to make storing a drink in the refrigerator in the top container very doable.

But what if they engineered out 95% of the noise and made the top a bit wider and shorter so it fit in most refrigerator shelves and was very tip resistant?

Vitamix has done just that!

The best retailer right now to buy one of these new quiet Vitamix super blenders  is Williams Sonoma.  They have stores in most upscale shopping centers and sell online.

This new Vitamix, I’m told by the company, has two model numbers.

The one I saw demonstrated at Whole Foods recently with just one speed costs a bit less and is the model 300.  There is also one with five different programs you can run to do different kinds of blending jobs that is called the 750 and which costs a bit more.

I haven’t got ours yet.  But we will.

In my case, I have three problems I think it will help me solve.

a) There is a good bit of evidence that if I drink two Vitamix drinks a day I’ll lose at least two inches off my waist and lose as much as ten pounds of fat.  Even better, I’ll be less hungry than I am now while this happens instead of hungrier! 

I really want that result. So I look forward to trying the new Vitamix!

b)  A man had blood pressure of 158 over 82 had heard that celery could lower his blood pressure.  (You can be relatively safe with that reading if you eat right and exercise even without taking drugs.  But it’s high enough to want to lower it too and uncomfortably close to the higher readings that make taking the blood pressure drugs mandatory for protection of your health.)

He ate 4 stalks of celery a day for several weeks.  Did it work?  Wow did it ever work!  After doing this, his blood pressure was 118 over 68!

I HATE celery.  The taste isn’t too bad but it’s like eating canvas twine.  Yechh!

But with a Vitamix, having the juice of two stalks of celery before breakfast and right after I get up and another two stalks of celery right after I get home from work would be quite doable.

I’d be hugely pleased to have my blood pressure drop half that much!

So I want a Vitamix for that reason too!

c)  In part because of my big belly and love of food and my schedule that has me eating only two hours before bedtime, I have acid reflux which tends to be pretty bad at night.

The Prilosec I take keeps it from making me feel like I just drank an industrial strength acid drink or harming my esophagus enough to make cancer likely.

But taking the Prilosec proton pump inhibitor drug also turns out to be at least half the reason I have high blood pressure and it also helps ensure my reflux problem continues!

However, drinking fresh cabbage juice has enough healing properties that if I lose enough belly fat to cut my reflux way back, I may be able to safely stop the Prilosec and then have the rest of the reflux go way.

And, if I manage that, my blood pressure will go down and my already good heart protection will get even better.

I really want those results.

So I want a Vitamix for that reason too!

What about you?

Would you like those kinds of health results now and not develop the several kinds of diseases that this kind of Vitamix use will prevent?   

Avoid Parkinson’s disease – maybe stop it....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 3-25-2014

Parkinson’s disease causes limited mobility and even death in its later stages and makes your fine controlled movements shaky even in its early stages.

Moreover it can and has done this to notably vital people who are otherwise just as sharp as they were before they got it.

Michael Fox has long been one of my favorite actors.  His vitality and his massive success as someone shorter than his huge internal and mental size would indicate, I really, really like him.  I find him inspiring.

And, in his early movies he could move like a high level black belt at virtually everything he wanted to do.

He got Parkinson’s disease.  As you’d expect with his personality, he’s fighting it and has almost avoided having it limit him!

Amazing man.  But it’s a huge shame it happened to him.

Believe me it would be a huge shame if it happened to you.

The better news is we now know some ways to prevent it.  Extending some of them even has some evidence we may be able to stop it or reverse it.

Part I:

I had heard that Parkinson’s disease was much more common in farm workers who worked on farms that used pesticides and herbicides on the crops.

It seems that’s the tip of the iceberg.  A new study finds that if you get too much exposure to the wrong kinds of pesticides or herbicides at the wrong time or if you have a heredity that makes it harm you more easily, even far smaller exposures can cause you to get Parkinson’s disease.

The article on this research I found in Medical News Today said that if there is enough pesticide to work, even quite low contact with it by people, tends to produce Parkinson's disease.

This means that spending time on Golf courses or parks with lawns that have been sprayed, particularly when sprayed recently, is a VERY BAD idea.

It also means that being near farming fields where pesticides are being sprayed is a BAD idea as is drinking the water in those areas that tastes of pesticides.  And working on such a farm is a HORRIBLE idea.

When our daughter went to a local elementary school, one day when I drove her there it was quite windy.  Within half a block away, some fool was spraying insecticide or weed killer on a lawn.  About three fourths of it was blowing towards the school and its play yard.  I went ballistic and pointed out to him what he was doing.  I made it clear to him that if he didn't stop immediately and never spray again near a school on such a windy day, I'd call the cops and have him arrested!

Glad I did now.  I may have saved our daughter or some of her classmates from getting Parkinson's disease this research shows very clearly.

It also means that making a large special effort to eat only organic produce and minimizing your exposure to fats from animals fed grains that have been sprayed AND never using insecticides in your house or yard is also high desirable.

Organic produce is often but not always more nutritious than produce that was raised using pesticides and herbicides.  And, the sprayed produce does have relatively low amounts of residue left on it. 

Oops!  It seems that even at the low level you get from sprayed produce, if you have the wrong heredity or get a bit unlucky and eat something with a bit more residue than normal at a bad time, this strongly suggests eating sprayed produce might give you Parkinson’s disease.

So, the best policy is to go ahead and eat lots of produce.  But only eat the kinds that are organic to the very best of your ability.

Secondly, according to health writer John Robbins, most people get far more exposure to pesticides and herbicides from the fat of animals fed grains and other feed from plants that have been sprayed than they do from produce that is not organic.

It seems when the animals eat that feed, they bioconcentrate days or weeks of intake of herbicides and pesticides in their fat.

This is one of the reasons that the DASH II and Mediterranean diets or eating styles get such good health results.  Both of them slash the intake of fat from animals fed grain. Those fats are also horribly high in pro-inflammatory omega 6 oils from the grain that is not in their natural diets.

So, eat beans and nuts and organically grown mushrooms and wild caught fish and some meat or eggs or poultry or dairy from animals fed only grass or their natural diets.  Stop eating the fats of animals fed grains or feed from plants sprayed with pesticides or herbicides.

(Bonus, this also sharply reduces your exposure to GMO food because the grains fed animals that are sprayed with pesticides are almost all GMO grains!)

The only good news is that taking the supplement DMAE may be protective if you have done or do otherwise or get accidentally exposed.  I once saw a study that found a strong intake of DMAE prevented harm to the part of the brain that if harmed causes Parkinson’s disease.

I’m so glad I did!  That’s because DMAE is a precursor to choline.  And, choline has other nerve protective benefits AND increases HDL and so taking DMAE helps protect your heart too!

AND every effort you CAN make to avoid pesticides and herbicides near you or in your food will help.

Here’s the link to the Medical News Today article:

Low-level pesticide exposure linked to Parkinson's disease

http://mnt.to/l/4km2

Researchers say that exposure to pesticides, even at low levels, increases the

risk of Parkinson's disease. Individuals with a specific genetic variant may be

more susceptible.

II. Part two:

What might stop or reverse Parkinson’s disease?

First, follow the implications of the research and do as well as you can using the information in Part I to stop CAUSING Parkinson’s disease.

Second, take the supplement DMAE and take choline and consider eating whole eggs but only from chickens that are truly pasture fed.

Take DHA and get regular exercise.

Those things tend to cause the release of the brain cell and nerve growth and repair hormone BDNF.

Take 15 to 45 mg a day of zinc but NOT more with 2 mg of copper to balance it if you haven’t a disease causing you to never ingest copper.  It seems that zinc tends to prevent misfolding of brain and nerve proteins which has been shown to be how nerves and brain cells are damaged.

Then there is another step that HAS tested in some cases to reverse MS.  It might do the same for Parkinson’s disease.

(I think I found the original article in NewsMax.)

Stopping MS Through Diet has worked.

This is a combination of the Paleo diet and the massive amounts of vegetables diet.

She did not continue the related supplements.  Her idea was that the foods that they came from had the co-factors needed to make the nutrients most effective.

In her experience it was effective to do it all with food only.  But the supplements DID initially help.

And, many people will only approach her eating style and not have her massive motivation.  So keeping the supplements is likely sound for most people.

That said, it is clear that the closer people can eat to her recommendations, the better off they will be.

(Clearly making sure that all the produce is organic will make this protocol far more effective.)

There are so many bad things in what most people eat that are NOT in this eating style, and it reversed damage to motor nerves.  In addition, the health value of these vegetables is severely underrated. 

This may well mean that combining this diet with exercise and choline and DHA to repair and grow new nerve cells might also reverse Parkinson’s disease.

Diet That Stops Multiple Sclerosis      Wednesday, 05 Mar 2014 04:55 PM     By Vera Tweed

In 2000, Terry Wahls, M.D., a professor of medicine at the University of Iowa, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Using her natural determination and medical knowledge, she fought the crippling disease in every conceivable way, and eventually won – regaining her health. She now helps others do the same.

“I’m incredibly blessed to have had my illness,” she tells Newsmax Health. “It motivated me to relearn basic science and nutrition.” As a result, she developed a groundbreaking diet that has virtually cured her and is helping others who suffer from MS, other neurological diseases, and traumatic brain injuries.

Immediately after her MS diagnosis, Dr. Wahls sought out the best medical treatments available, including all the latest drugs – but they didn’t work. After seven years with the disease, she was nearly bedridden, no longer able to sit up unaided and confined to a wheelchair.

Despite such severe disability, she continued working and relentlessly studied the available research about nutrition and her disease. And she found the mechanism underlying MS and other neurological diseases, such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and Alzheimer’s: malfunction in mitochondria. These are tiny components in every cell that manage energy production, and are especially important for brain and heart function, as well as overall health.

Digging deeper, Dr. Wahls identified 31 nutrients critical to mitochondria and to nourishing neurotransmitters. With this knowledge, she designed and adopted a very specific diet. Less than six months later, she was walking unaided and began riding her bike. A few months after that, she completed an 18-mile bike ride.

“It’s a very structured hunter-gatherer diet to maximize vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients per forkful,” she says. Grains and dairy products are not on the menu, but each day’s food includes the following items into three meals:

·         Plate of leafy greens, such as kale

·         Plate of sulfur-rich vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, and onions

·         Plate of at least three different-colored non-starchy vegetables (not corn or potatoes)

·         Fish or grass-fed meat

·         Berries

·         Organ meats, at least once a week

·         Seaweed, at least once a week

·         Bone broth (recipe below)

Many of Dr.  Wahls’ patients have had the same type of dramatic recovery she experienced by using this diet. “In the last two years I have gone from being in a bed, to a wheelchair, to a walker, to a cane, and now nothing,” said Jake Nelson, a mechanical engineer. “In fact, you can hardly tell I even have MS.”

Dr. Wahls continues to be in remission, leading a very active life. She trains doctors, carries out clinical research, treats patients, and travels nationwide to give lectures. She provides menus and many recipes in her book, Minding My Mitochondria, and more insights at terrywahls.com.

Dr. Wahls’ Broth for Neurological Health

Drink a cup of this homemade bone broth once a day, recommends Dr. Wahls, and use it in place of fat for sautéing and stir frying – 3 tablespoons per pan. It’s very rich in nutrients, good for your joints and neurotransmitters, and adds flavor with less fat and calories than oils or butter. The vinegar helps draw minerals out of the bones. The seaweed is an excellent source of iodine and other trace minerals.

Ingredients:

Any type of meat bones, saved from previous cooking, or mussel and clam shells

Vegetables, such as celery, parsley, or carrots

Large stock pot or soup pot half full of water

2 to 4 tablespoons of vinegar

1 tablespoon dried powdered kelp or dulse, or part of a whole leaf

1 packet plain gelatin

Combine all ingredients except gelatin and simmer for at least 2 hours (ideally 24 hours). Add water if needed. Strain and discard vegetables and bones. Dissolve gelatin in the broth.

Onions & garlic also help stop arthritis....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 3-20-2014

We just posted that eating onions and garlic help prevent heart disease.  And, we posted earlier that niacin caused your immune system to lower inflammation.

What I didn’t post it seems is that eating onions and garlic when you have enough probiotics and fiber causes that same immune system message to lower inflammation.

This appears to be a big part of how a high fiber diet helps prevent colon cancer.

Also, I’ve posted on the discovery that not only does inflammation make osteoarthritis hurt more, chronic inflammation that’s too high causes osteoarthritis to begin with.

At that time, I posted about how stopping grains and oils like corn and soy oil made from grains that are too high in omega 6 oils, using olive oil instead -- & combined with getting more omega 3 oils from supplements and wild caught fish lowered inflammation.

Now a new study that was in the Real Age email recently has evidence that the inflammation reduction from onions and garlic is substantial enough that it prevents the development of cartilage damage and osteoarthritis of the hips!

“About 15 percent of older adults regularly deal with hip pain. But in a recent study of women, those who tended to eat lots of produce -- particularly herbs from the allium family, such as onions and garlic -- showed fewer signs of hip osteoarthritis in x-ray tests.

Arthritis-Fighting Allium

The study analyzed the diets of a large group of middle-aged adult twins, most of whom did not have symptoms of arthritis when the study started. Eating lots of allium herbs correlated with less arthritis in the hip. And in a separate lab analysis, researchers also found that diallyl disulphide -- a substance found in the allium family -- appeared to help inhibit enzymes that can cause damage to joint-protective cartilage.

Culinary Cartilage Protection

Garlic and onions are probably the widest known allium produce. But there are also leeks, shallots, scallions, and chives to consider. Each adds its own unique flavor to savory dishes. Try topping baked potatoes with chives, slip some roasted garlic on top of that pizza, put some onions on your sandwiches, and give vegetable dishes extra herb flare with roasted leeks and shallots.”

The sulfur compound MSM is sold as a joint protective supplement but the evidence is mixed and MSM stresses the liver if you take it.

It seems that the sulfur IS protective both against osteoarthritis and heart disease as we have posted about H2S release.

But you get better results for more things if you get your sulfur from the “alliums” instead -- these studies suggest.

What if you do the triple of:  

getting more omega 3 and MUCH less omega 6 oil;

eating more garlic and onions and other alliums and taking deodorized garlic;

and, eating or taking the herbal anti-inflammatory foods ginger and turmeric?

1.  It looks as if you may avoid osteoarthritis and possibly heart disease and more!

If you have osteoarthritis now, it may get better or at least stop getting worse. 

2.  And, you will have less pain AND no need or far less need to take the over the counter anti-inflammatory drugs.

That’s very important because all of the over the counter anti-inflammatory drugs have side effects, some of them serious or life threatening.  And, taking them often over a long period of time apparently helps CAUSE osteoarthritis or make it worse!

Heart protection triple good news....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 3-18-2014

1.  Garlic has tested to be dramatically more heart protective than once thought.  And, the even better news is that the odor free aged garlic supplement tested to deliver them!  So, if you want to avoid garlic breath and get garlic’s heart protection, it IS doable.

2.  If you or someone you know has very risky heart health indicators, there IS a fast way to improve them that does not need drugs.

3.  Getting pneumonia can cause damage that makes heart disease more likely.  But there are now two ways to make that dramatically less likely.

Each of those is in this post:

1.  Garlic has tested to be dramatically more heart protective than once thought.  And, the even better news is that the odor free aged garlic supplement tested to deliver them!  So, if you want to avoid garlic breath and get garlic’s heart protection, it IS doable.

Initially garlic was thought to not be that protective.  But that was back in the day when the only measure was LDL and total cholesterol.  Garlic didn’t lower those much.

Since then it has tested to increase the pliability and responsiveness of your blood vessels which is heart protective.  And, it was found to increase HDL.  Even better, a study found that enough garlic plus well over 500 mg a day of vitamin C helped REDUCE plaque inside blood vessels while the group not getting those got increased plaque instead as is typical.

But the most effective form of garlic is freshly minced garlic cloves in a salad or other dish that is not heated and is eaten immediately.

With the right other ingredients this can be delicious.  But it’s not always convenient and there is clean up needed in the kitchen if you do it at home.  Worse, you get garlic breath big time.  So you may only want to do this for dinner some days a week normally.

I’ve taken the deodorized garlic supplements for years in hopes they had some of these effects; but I was never really sure they did as much as I would like. 

The good news is that tests have now found out that the deodorized garlic supplements DO deliver that much protection:

It DOES slow the deposit of plaques inside your blood vessels and DOES make excess clotting far less likely. Because it lowers triglycerides it may cut the plaque deposits in part by lowering small particle LDL!

In addition, it sounds like it lowers HBA1C!! 

(Since high HBA1C is what makes your LDL cholesterol have spikes of sugar crystals and harm your blood vessels causing heart disease, that is heart protective too.)

And, higher doses during cold and flu season may help cut average sick days in companies!

In addition to its lowering HBA1C & blood flow problems it may also lower inflammation and by doing all 3 it also helps prevent Alzheimer's disease.

It helps prevent colon cancer and may have already protected me from it!

Here’s the story that I think I saw in my Newsmax email.

Garlic: Ancient Cure Backed by Science   Tuesday, 28 Jan 2014 03:31 PM   By Vera Tweed

For more than 4,000 years, garlic has been used as medicine. Athletes at the first Olympics in ancient Greece ate it to enhance performance, and both Greek and Roman soldiers believed it boosted strength and courage. More recently, scientists have been finding that the odiferous bulb can keep us in good health, and more than 3,800 scientific articles have been published about garlic since 1945.

Eating one or two cloves each day is one option, but it may not appeal to your taste buds – or to those within smelling distance.

Odorless Alternative

Supplements are a simple alternative. One particular type of supplement — aged garlic extract — has been studied more than any other. Made from organically grown garlic and aged without the use of heat, it’s odorless and proven to help the heart, improve resistance to colds, reduce damage to blood vessels from elevated blood sugar or diabetes, and reduce risk for colorectal cancers and Alzheimer’s disease.

Heart Help

Studies have shown that aged garlic extract lowers blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides. But its greatest benefit may be reducing arterial plaque, also called calcification of arteries, which many integrative physicians believe to be the most reliable predictor of ill health and death from heart disease.

Dr. Matthew Budoff, a cardiologist, researcher, and associate professor of medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine, is an expert in scanning technology that measures plaque in arteries. In a study published in the Journal of Nutrition, he examined the effects of aged garlic extract on people with heart disease who were taking statins.

“I found that the amount of calcification in the arteries of a person with elevated cholesterol can increase by 40 percent in one year,” he says. “Yet, when my team and I gave patients 1,200 mg of aged garlic extract a day, they slowed the growth of their plaque by 66 percent in one year.”

There were no adverse interactions between the statin medications and the garlic supplement. However, statins taken alone without garlic supplementation did not stop growth of arterial plaque.

Other research shows these benefits:

Reducing colds and flu: In a study at the University of Florida, compared to a placebo, people who took 2,500 mg of aged garlic extract daily for 90 days suffered 61 percent fewer days with a cold or flu. Tests showed that the supplement boosted resistance by making immune cells work more efficiently.

 Preventing Alzheimer’s disease: Researchers at several leading universities, including Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, have concluded that aged garlic extract counteracts development of Alzheimer’s disease by improving circulation, reducing inflammation, and helping to prevent the formation of brain plaques.

Protecting against colorectal cancers: Animal and human studies show that eating garlic or taking aged garlic extract reduces risk for colon and rectal cancers, and the supplement may help to reduce colon cancer progression.

Helping diabetics: Elevated blood sugar, with or without diabetes, produces harmful substances known as advanced glycation endproducts, a combination of protein and sugar molecules that damages blood vessels and, among diabetics, leads to complications. Aged garlic extract inhibits the formation of these substances. “I think aged garlic extract should be right alongside your multivitamins every day. It’s that important,” says Dr. Budoff. “It could save your life.”

A widely recommended dosage is 1,200 mg a day. Many experts believe it is best to take garlic in two or three doses with meals spread out through the day.

Aged Garlic Benefits in Clinical Studies

Studies have shown that aged garlic supplements improve crucial markers for good health. Below are some of the benefits found by researchers in recent years.

Health Marker

Improvement

• Platelets sticking to artery walls

34-58 percent

• Platelet clumping

10-25 percent

• Triglycerides

10-19 percent

So, the aged garlic supplements DO protect you from heart disease.

2.  If you or someone you know has very risky heart health indicators, there IS a fast way to improve them that does not need drugs.

There are 3 measures that doctors look at to assess heart disease risk.

The initial guidelines were LDL cholesterol over 160 was risky and WAY over 160 as in 200 or 300 + was very high risk.  Desirable is 100 or below with below 80 a bit better.

This is accurate.  BUT more recent research has found is it far LESS important than your triglycerides and HDL and the ratio between them.

The ratio between HDL and triglycerides Harvard researchers found is an accurate measure of how many small particles of LDL is in your blood.  And, since a high number of those is just about the most important direct cause of heart disease, that means that low HDL and high triglycerides is a MUCH more important measure than just total LDL.

But what if you or someone you care about has HDL below 50 or even below 40 and worse, triglycerides of 200 or 300 or more?

How do you make real improvements fast to slash the risk quickly?

Statins won’t do it because they are not well targeted to do so and not that protective anyway.

What improvements they deliver are not fast either.

What will work?

These two steps will.  First, turn off the flame throwers causing the fire.  Turning them down a bit is too little and may be too late.

High triglerides are cause by ingesting high fructose corn syrup, excess sugars, refined grains, and more whole grains than zero to very low.

The readings reflect the amount of small particle LDL.  ANY intake of hydrogenated oils and trans fats DIRECTLY increase these particles.  That shows up when your HDL falls and your trigylerides go up. 

Cutting back on these is useless.  If you keep eating them regularly because your body can’t get rid of them at all quickly and a small regular intake builds up to a lot in your body.

You may not think of these things as heart attack starters let alone VERY effective ones.  But they are.  If you do totally stop them and eat real health supporting foods instead, your triglycerides will fall quickly and your HDL will gradually increase.

Second, Dr Al Sears had a patient who had high triglycerides and low HDL who he had take the omega 3 oil DHA and Krill oil which is not that high in omega 3 but boosts the ability of your body to take up DHA if you also take it -- with this result, his patient was :

“surprised by the sudden changes to his HDL and triglyceride levels. I haven’t seen changes this far-reaching—or this FAST—with ANY other therapy I’ve used in my practice.”

So if you take both steps, you can slash your heart attack risk and the biomarkers for it within days or weeks at most.

If you keep doing it and add exercise which directly reduces the number of small particles of LDL too, after a few years you can have HDL that is HIGHER than your triglycerides.

As a young man, I had HDL of about 50 and triglycerides of 150.  Not good but not too bad either. 

Now I eat far better – much less sugar and even less grains -- and have done regular exercise for longer and take DHA, I’m at 100 HDL and 37 for triglycerides.

So over time you can get an even bigger effect.  But it’s nice to know you can bring down really high risk readings quickly too.

3.  Getting pneumonia can cause damage that makes heart disease more likely.  But there are now two ways to make that dramatically less likely.

You may have seen our previous posts with this:

a) IF you take 3,000 to 5,000 iu a day of vitamin D3, you are far less likely to get pneumonia or to be harmed by flu or pneumonia:

People who die or are severely harmed from flu or pneumonia have been tested to be severely deficient in vitamin D3.

Conversely, if take 3,000 to 5,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 you get these protections.

You are less likely to get a case of flu that could develop pneumonia as a complication or have it be that bad if you get it.

If you take that much D3 and get the flu shot, it’s MUCH more likely to protect you from getting the flu.

And, if you take that much D3 and get the pneumonia vaccine, it’s also more likely to protect you and the harm you will sustain if you get pneumonia will be far less.

b) The other good news is that you now have access to the new pneumonia vaccine that is nearly twice as likely to prevent pneumonia than the original one:

  "Prevnar 13® is a vaccine approved for adults 50 years of age and older" 

There is also a 23 version.

I saved the news article I saw that announced that it is now available to more people but mislabeled it or lost it.

But if you have had the older version, the story I saw had that the new version was also available to adults now.  

My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 3-17-2014

This report is another mixed review.

Since last month, I was under more extra stress AND had a last minute birthday present I likely should have re-gifted or tossed after just one taste that I ate all of instead.   (It was a small bag of milk chocolate with almonds.)

So, I gained a second pound since two months ago and my waist went up about a quarter of an inch.

 Now I’m at FIVE and a half pounds over my goal weight.  And most of the 12 pounds I gained since I was 6 and a half pounds under my goal weight has been fat.  I can tell when I look in the mirror.  

So I do still need to add muscle and reduce fat enough to remove 12 to 20 pounds of fat.

(There is one other bit of good news.  While other men my age typically gain a pound or more each year, my efforts HAVE resulting in my weight this year being almost exactly the same as it was last year at this time.)

A.  The adding muscle section is next. 

More progress on the added muscle side is beginning to happen!  

(And, I have another plan to make more progress on the eating to lose fat side.

I'll cover my food upgrade plan after my good news on exercise.)

1.  My exercise program IS still getting better!  

I used the wrist weights to begin to force progress at home on my dumbbell exercises and it is working so far.  I've been able to work enough harder to make my muscles feel better exercised.  And, my ability with the 2 pound heavier dumbbells has managed to return to what I was able to do before without them.

So, I have gotten stronger.  And, I’ll soon be able to jump to the next heavier dumbbell.

After that, I can add the wrist weights to that dumbbell.

At that point I’ll be ready to get a new dumbbell 10 pounds heavier than the one I was using.  Neat!

Some sets on some sessions are better.  Often I’ll have a better set followed by a just OK set that day and a less good, “recovery” set the following week.

This is at home.

At my The Perfect Workout sessions, I am less able to increase the weight when I think it’s justified.  But I tend to beat my previous time or do just a bit less well so my down sessions are less severe to equal what I did before than what happens at home. 

It tends to vary where if I work really hard on a set and do better.  I tend to not do that well on the set following.  So in their case, it’s nice they vary the order of the exercises.

So, the likely results I’m headed for are more promising!  

After being stuck at 25 pound weights on my key dumbbell exercises for years, I'm now at 32 pounds on arms and about to go to 37 pounds on calves.  

I wrote that last month or the month before.  I’m now about to be able to go to 35 pounds for arms and could use a 40 pound dumbbell for calves.

Once I get to 52 pounds for arms and 62 pounds for calves and get that much stronger at my machine exercises at The Perfect Workout, I'll add at least 5 pounds of muscle.  And, I've read that will reduce my fat by 15 pounds.  That would begin to do it as I'd lose 10 pounds on the scale.  And, my waist will be at least an inch or two smaller.

Even adding 1 & a half pounds of muscle will lose 4 & a half pounds of fat and 3 pounds on the scale.  That will cut my waist by half  an inch to an inch I think.

2.  In addition, my shoulder exercises have worked well enough that my left shoulder is beginning to heal and my right shoulder is beginning to heal too.  Plus, I'm now finally beginning to make progress on my jump rope without making my shoulders worse.

RECENT NEWS:  My shoulders have been slowed by the minor injuries from my jump rope sessions.  One of the other trainers other than the one who trains me  at The Perfect Workout noted that I was not keeping my elbows in tight at my sides when I described and modeled my efforts  which helped cause excessive use of my shoulders in starting and doing the jumps. 

It DID help but mostly for my left shoulder which healed.  But I was still terrible at it and my right shoulder has continued to stay somewhat injured and weaker.

Plus I think I needed to do more interval cardio work. 

So until my right shoulder is better and I can get coaching and maybe a better jump rope, I’ve already started jumping without the rope for same amount of jumps and time.  That way I can add more time and burn more calories and get fitter without it messing up my right shoulder.

3.  I’ve also now used 35 pounds in one hand and 34 pounds in the other (both 2 lb wrist weight on that hand plus the 30 pound dumbbell in my at home superslow full squats.

That way the hard fight with holding the fifty pound dumbbell in front of me doesn’t keep me from using more weight that my legs are more than strong enough to lift.

The other way to use more weight at home is using a backpack for added dumbbells or plates.  I still plan to find a way to get to a gym once or twice a month.

I've still not had time to add the yoga sessions I'd hoped.  But I did at least make a starting effort last month.  

B.  My food results and upgrade plan:

1.  Last month I again followed Dr Perlmutter's advice and cut out 90 % of one fructose source and half of another.   I was mildly disappointed because I lost no weight.  But I did add a few grams a week of lentil and bean protein and ate well volume wise AND I did NOT gain weight beyond what I expected from my unfortunate indulgence and the stress I was under.

2.  I’m also still taking a cranberry extract with cold water every other day and only drinking cranberry juice every other day.  That will cut my calories from fructose by 280 calories a week.  That will help cut my weight by at least a quarter pound and maybe more.  (I’d already cut my juice calories in half by switching from grape juice at 160 calories a day to cranberry juice at 80 calories a day.)

3.  I had cut my usual wheat intake to once every two weeks as wheat germ with my oatmeal on every other Weds morning.  But I just read that a component of the wheat germ from hybrid wheat  specifically may cause inflammation and fattening. 

So, I have gone to zero wheat on a regular basis and tossed the remaining wheat germ. I now use the bottle the wheat germ came in and its refrigerator space for a second bottle of chilled water.

4.  Until I have more money to spend on them and a bit more time to implement them, my previous plan to add Wakame seaweed and my NEW plan to add several kinds of juiced vegetables made in one of the new MUCH quieter VitaMix blenders will be on hold.

However eating steel cut oats with a lower glycemic index than rolled oats or cooked quinoa with an even lower glycemic index instead of rolled oats.  Or eating those for 4 ounces and 2 ounces by volume or mushrooms may well help.

Adding Wakame will likely help even done only every other day.

And, drinking several kinds of VitaMix juices instead of chilled water is already proven to help with fat loss!

So when I can add those, it will help a LOT I think.

5.  Because the VitaMix makes eating more vegetables so much more doable it IS common for people who use them well to lose several pounds of fat from where they were before they began using a VitaMix -- and with no further effort needed!

They are that much easier to use for several reasons:

Instead of having to chow down a large plate of vegetables in 25 minutes, you can drink them all in 2 or 3 minutes without rushing. 

Instead of having a gritty juice or having a thin juice with none of the fiber as is true in regular blenders, the VitaMix produces a SMOOTH, easy to drink juice with all the fiber.  You do NOT need to trim off the fibrous parts first or filter them out to get a smooth and drinkable juice if you use the VitaMix.

AND, instead of losing the fiber and the nutrients in it and also having to clean up and toss the trimmings or filtered out fiber, you simply drink it.  This makes the VitaMix juice far more effective for fat loss.  It also often makes the nutrients more pre-digested and bioavailable.  And, it slashes downs the time it takes to use compared to a regular blender or juicer.

Best of all, instead of a ten minute job or more to disassemble, clean and rinse and dry, and re-assemble the blender or juicer with every use, with a VitaMix, you put in water and soap and run the VitaMix for just a few seconds and rinse the top twice in about 2 minutes and set aside to dry. 

So to use a VitaMix twice a day takes maybe four minutes most people can fit in to their lives instead of half an hour a day most people do NOT have.

For all these reasons VitaMix blenders were always a great product.  And people who once began using them well often have used them virtually every day for 10 years or more.

VitaMixes DID have a major drawback.

They were loud enough to sound like a lawn mower on steroids.

The incredible good news is that their new quietened version is so quiet you can talk easily while it’s running.

I plan to get one soon and use it daily!

React fast and think better and much more – with tyrosine....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 3-13-2014

I.  Most of us drive and, in doing that activity alone, fast reactions are often critical for safety.

(Researchers discovered an easy way to have fast reactions.  And, we describe it below.)

A.  You can of course do several things to stay safe while driving besides fast reaction time.:

* You can almost always avoid getting too close to the car etc in front of you by staying back enough distance to go around them if they suddenly have to stop.   

Unless you are watching like a hawk and trying to time getting around them etc, never ever get closer than that.

And, if traffic is not so thick that leaving a bit more distance than that won’t cause someone to take the room in front of you, staying back a car length or so more than that gives you even more reaction time.

To get that right away after you and the traffic stop, if you are packed in like sardines, when the light changes, wait just a tiny bit or go very slowly but only just until you get that room to go around and THEN speed up quickly exactly as fast as the car in front of you. 

(People do stop for dogs and the like right after they start out.  By doing this procedure, you avoid crashing into them due to zero reaction time available – AND, you don’t wind up holding up cars behind you by doing the second part of it.)

(A man who bought a taxi company cut accidents enough to make it profitable by just teaching this and how to do the proper multiple stops at stop signs: – real stop at the line just before pedestrians might cross and look to see if there are any; pause just before entering traffic a bit after the cross walk to look for cars approaching -- & THEN go ahead.)

B.  Be mentally present and watching the road and other cars while your car is moving. Otherwise, you  often have ZERO reaction time. 

*Don’t drink over a drink or so before driving or have someone who has had none drive.

*If you talk on your phone while watching the road like a hawk, that’s OK. And in my experience, watching people who have to do it for work and who don’t have accidents it’s relatively OK.  But if you find you get distracted too much either don’t do it all or say: I’ll call right back and hang up if you need to.

* People who are talking on their phones and do NOT pay any attention such that they run stop signs or don’t notice when the light turns green or drive into a different lane or even drive into oncoming traffic ARE guilty of reckless driving and gross negligence.  They may not be ticketable as such; but they have died and killed other people while doing so.  Please do NOT join them!

*  Simply do NOT text and drive.  And, despite recent court decisions, do detailed looking at maps BEFORE you let your car move.  (In some cars, the next turn is easy to read quickly from GPS which can be OK if you are quick and careful enough.  But if it takes too long, stop to look at it in a safe place or have someone else look -- even if you have to go more distance or be late.  Never arriving is worse!)

People who do this ARE guilty of reckless driving and gross negligence.  They may not be ticketable as such; but they have died and killed other people while doing so.  Please do NOT join them!

* Watch for signs other drivers are doing these things and do your best to stay well clear of these fools and give them LOTS of extra room.  You may be very glad you did. (For this reason people who look like they may not stop at a light or stop sign may very well NOT stop!)

II.  Here’s the info from the article and the link to the original.

Taking the amino acid tyrosine as a supplement was found to effective at increasing reaction speed and reducing the time needed -- AND this faster processing time ALSO boosted mental performance for thinking and problem solving too!

“The positive effect of tyrosine on our reaction speed can have benefits for road safety. For example, if a queue suddenly forms (the traffic ahead of you suddenly stops), fast reflexes can prevent an accident. 

But there are many more examples. 'Tyrosine food supplements and tyrosine-rich food are a healthy and inexpensive way of improving our intellectual capabilities. This makes them preferable to Ritalin and Modafinil, products that students often reach for to improve their academic performance. Tyrosine is safe and doesn't need a doctor's prescription.”

(Egg yolks from pasture fed chicken eggs are a great source of tyrosine. I eat those.

I also take two 500 mg capsules of tyrosine right after I first get up as part of waking up and for its other benefits—which I list next!)

Tyrosine helps you stop faster

http://mnt.to/l/4kwc

A child suddenly runs out into the road. Brake!! A driver who has recently eaten 

spinach or eggs will stop faster, thanks to the amino acid tyrosine found in 

these and other food products.

III. Does this study mean that getting enough tyrosine gives you more short term 

bandwidth to juggle parts of a problem and ability to think quickly 

and effectively and to concentrate well?  Yes it does. And it’s 

apparently proven to work.

IV. Taking tyrosine and getting iodine in your multi and maybe in 

what little salt you add helps keep your thyroid working well. 

(Hain makes a sea salt that is in a standard container and is

 iodized.)  Thyroid boosts your energy and; apparently your 

reaction and thinking speeds!

Ingesting MSG or its cousins does the reverse!  Ingesting MSG 

causes thyroid problems and even dysfunction if you do it long 

enough.  And this effect is worse in women past menopause or 

getting close to it.  

THAT reliably fattens too.  OUCH!  As I’ve posted before and 

will again it is very important to know what names they hide MSG 

behind such as “spices” and 

even “natural spices”  -- AND to never buy or eat those items.

Always read labels to check; never eat in fast food places unless it’s 

an emergency  rarely repeated; and mostly eat at restaurants where 

they know if they use MSG

 and do not.

V.  The other way tyrosine boosts thinking and reaction speed is 

that tyrosine is a precursor to dopamine.

That’s how I began taking it because that extra dopamine 

release increases your resilience under stress too!

The US armed forces discovered this -- and uses tyrosine to 

do this.  

When I found this out, I knew I needed extra resilience under stress 

and have taken tyrosine ever since.  

Protect your heart and lower your blood pressure in a new way....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 3-11-2014

I.  In tiny quantities, when your body releases nitric oxide in your blood vessels they relax and become more flexible.  Your blood pressure goes down and your blood which now flows more freely and your circulation improves as a result. 

We already know that taking the amino acid l-arginine helps your body do this and to release growth hormone for repairs.  And, it’s been found that taking the amino acid l-citrulline does also AND works as a catalyst to make l-arginine more effective in doing so.

A new article in Medical News Today recently had three additional pieces of information.

1.  Very small quantities of H2S, hydrogen sulfide when released, also cause the release of NO, nitric oxide.   They do this more in the presence of a specific enzyme. 

2.  There are two ways that a heart attack causes damage.  It cuts off circulation to parts of the heart with a clot blocking the blood vessel.  And, when the circulation is restored, the sudden restart also causes damage.  Having high NO is protective in both cases they found.  (Of course if NO is high and the blood vessel is flexible, the clot is less likely to get caught up or stay long too which prevents some heart attacks and makes others far milder.)

So having high NO both prevents damage from high blood pressure and makes heart attacks less likely; and it helps minimize the damage in two ways also when there is a heart attack.

3.  We don’t yet know what causes that enzyme to be high or how to boost it with a drug or genetic treatment.  But it’s clear I think that having a robust intake of foods high in sulfur likely helps. 

Garlic not only does help this effect, it may help release this enzyme, because it has been tested to increase blood vessel flexibility and lower high blood pressure. Eating garlic also lowers high triglycerides.  So it likely also reduces the small particles of LDL that build up and block your blood vessels.

Eating onions also lowers high triglycerides.  So it likely helps with lowering the small particles of LDL.  And, onions may be even higher in sulfur than garlic.

Eating egg yolks from pasture fed --naturally fed chickens also delivers a lot of sulfur AND it boosts HDL due to its high supply of choline.  So egg yolks also likely cut down on the small particles of LDL that build up and block your blood vessels.  And, the choline and other B vitamins in egg yolks also have brain and nerve growth supporting effects.

Raw cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, and many more are also high in sulfur.

In these vegetables, when eaten raw, their sulfur compounds help prevent or kill cancer cells.

II. Regular, vigorous exercises, done most days of every week have been shown to boost HDL, reduce triglycerides, and directly lower your small particle LDL.

Exercise also tends to increase blood flow and relax blood vessels.  And people test as having lower blood pressure on the days they exercise.  So regular exercise too helps increase the protective effects of any NO release.

III. This also suggests that besides taking aspirin early in a likely heart attack, it may also help

if you have a likely heart attack and are still conscious and at home near  your supplements and already take the amino acids arginine and citrulline to help boost your NO production, taking extra might help. 

And eating garlic or taking garlic supplements may also help.

IV.  Here’s the info from the article and the link to the original.

"We found that hydrogen sulfide regulates the body's production of nitric oxide which, in turn, protects the heart muscle against cell death," notes Dr. Lefer.

Working in a mouse model, the researchers discovered the interdependence between the two molecules. When an enzyme that produces hydrogen sulfide was absent, they found that the production and action of nitric oxide were greatly reduced, resulting in increased oxidative stress and more severe injury to the heart and liver from blocked blood flow as well as from the eventual restoration of blood flow.

New treatment target discovered by heart attack researchers

http://mnt.to/l/4kvW

Research led by David Lefer, PhD, Professor and Director of the Cardiovascular 

Center of Excellence at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of 

Medicine, demonstrates for the first time...