Eating turmeric boosts memory another way!....

Thursday, 10-30-2014

New way found that turmeric boosts and protects memory! 

Other than regular exercise and developing a large cognitive reserve and avoiding high blood sugar, we already knew turmeric was a superb way to prevent Alzheimer’s disease and mental decline of other kinds.  So a whole different way it does this effectively in addition to what we already knew about is simply incredible!

1.  We already knew it did these things:

As you may know the value of turmeric and curcumin was originally found by the fact that in India, the people who ate foods liberally spiced with curries containing turmeric (which contains curcumin) had far less Alzheimer’s disease or other kinds of mental decline than people in the United States and Europe.

It turns out that this is both an unusually powerful effect and more complicated than was originally thought.

In fact, eating foods with curries containing turmeric and/or taking curcumin with black pepper is much like hiring an unusually skilled crew of several kinds of professionals who each contribute to the result you want!

One group of causes of the damage that causes Alzheimer’s disease is the several ways excessively high chronic inflammation causes that damage.  Eating turmeric with black pepper or taking curcumin supplements with black pepper is one of the most effective  ways known to cut that kind of inflammation.  So getting the turmeric prevents much of the damage that way.

In addition to cutting high chronic inflammation so well, eating turmeric with black pepper or taking curcumin supplements with black pepper also sharply reduces LDL.  There is even some evidence that turmeric mostly reduces the small particle LDL that causes heart disease. So, since the turmeric helps so much to keep your arteries and veins clear, your brain has more access to the things it needs and is more able to get rid of waste!

In addition to this, turmeric apparently enables your immune system to clean up any damage that still occurs!

2.  Yet another way to prevent mental decline is to grow new connecting nerves and brain cells on a regular basis so your brain can wire around any damage and continue to function anyway.

We already knew that regular exercises release BDNF, a growth hormone that does precisely this.  And, we’ve known that combining the omega 3 DHA with exercise increases this effect.  Apparently, taking the brain boosting supplement Bacopa also has this effect.  (Every morning I take DHA and Bacopa and exercise.)

Another study found that adding choline and the uridine found in apple peels to DHA also enhances this effect.  And, in that study, this 3 part combination reversed the symptoms of early Alzheimer’s disease!

What if another ingredient in turmeric dramatically increased this effect?

Wow!

They just discovered this IS the case!

A month ago, Medical News Today had that news:

“Regeneration of brain stem cells boosted by turmeric compound  

                                                                                          28 September 2014

A bioactive compound found in turmeric promotes stem cell proliferation and differentiation in the brain…”

This research was recently in the journal, Stem Cell Research & Therapy.

The research examined the effects a turmeric component called, “turmerone” on the stem cells found within adult brains. These stem cells called, “NSC”  “differentiate into neurons” or become brain nerves.

Clearly this is a normal function in the self-repair and recovery of brain function by the brain.

It was already known that turmerone blocks activation of microglia cells, which, when activated, cause neuroinflammation.

Researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine in Jülich, Germany, studied the effects of turmerone on this NSC stem cell proliferation and growth into neurons “both in vitro and in vivo.”

At the concentrations studied, turmerone increased NSC proliferation by up to 80% within 3 days.  And, it did so without causing any cell deaths.

In the live rats they used to study this, the rats which got the turmerone got

a widening of the “subventricular zone (SVZ).”

But of even more importance, the hippocampus in the treated rats expanded! 

Since the hippocampus is the key part of the brain for storing and retrieving memories, this is really important news!

 The article further noted that the “….SVZ and hippocampus are the two sites in adult mammalian brains where neurogenesis, the growth of neurons, is known to occur.”

Here’s the link to the original Medical News Today story:

Regeneration of brain stem cells boosted by turmeric compound

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

A bioactive compound found in turmeric promotes stem cell proliferation and 

differentiation in the brain, reveals new research published in the open access 

journal Stem Cell Research & Therapy.

The authors clearly hope that drugs based on turmerone will be even more effective.

But it seems clear to me that using turmeric regularly, particularly when combined with exercise and DHA and the other things is quite likely effective.

Best of all, it’s available now!  You can go buy turmeric in the spice section of most grocery stores. 

I find that turmeric by itself has a bit of a harsh taste. You might find it quite harsh.

But by combining it with extra virgin olive oil and sugar free pasta sauce also free of other oils and black pepper and garlic and other spices that contain uridine, such as oregano and basil you can get a great tasting, spicy sauce that has the co-factors needed to make the turmeric most effective!   

WHY statins are a horribly weak and harmful way to prevent heart attacks....

Tuesday, 10-28-2014

Statins are so weak and harmful in fact that it’s disgraceful that they are still used much.

Yet many of the doctors who still prescribe them to people they won’t help have been given the information that statins are protective; and these doctors do mean well.

Why this huge disconnect between the verifiable facts

                                               and the belief these doctors have?

1.  Here’s the brief history:

When deaths from communicable disease dropped sharply from public health measures such as ensuring bacteria free drinking water and antibiotics when they still worked reliably, deaths from heart disease from heart attacks and strokes took over as the number one killers.

Worse, these events do often kill or disable people younger than 70 years old or even younger when they are still economically productive or even have children dependent on them!

People who will have these heart attacks have other measurable ways to predict risk we know now.

But right away it was clear that having LDL, low density lipoprotein, scores of over 160 tended to indicate high risk while under a 100 was low and under 70 likely desirable, particularly if other risk factors existed.

So statins were developed to lower LDL cholesterol.  And they usually worked to lower LDL cholesterol.

Then it was found that for every 100 people who took statins fewer people got heart attacks.

This looks persuasive doesn’t it?

So, if that’s the case, why do I and many other informed people think statins belong on the scrap heap of medical history?

As you might imagine the evidence must be pretty strong to say so.  And, it is so persuasive it goes beyond strong. 

If it were a football game, the score would read other methods 63, statins zero!

Why is that? 

The three reasons are these. 

Statins in most people produce more harmful and productivity reducing harm per 100 people who take them than the heart attacks they prevent.

The alternative methods prevent something like ten times as many heart attacks as statins do.

But the reason for that score is simple. 

Even though statins reduce heart attacks a bit, they have enough side effects their net reduction of deaths is zero!

The effective methods ARE dramatically more effective at cutting deaths from any cause – including deaths from heart disease and both kinds of stroke.  They DO that well versus the zero effect of statins.

Imagine going to two mechanics. 

One says that there is a small chance the problem you brought your car in with will get better but will come back or cause other problems you’ll have to suffer with or pay more to get rid of and the car won’t go any more miles before you have to retire it from the repair in that shop.

The other says that you will have to do part of the work yourself; but your car will gradually improve, the problem very likely is gone for good, and your car will get dramatically more miles and perform well for years once the work is done and maintained.

For heart disease and related deaths what is the method that gets these better results?

It has two parts:

A.  STOP eating and drinking heart attack starters and exposing yourself to tobacco smoke and nicotine for very long or at all.  Why not turn off the causes!?

B. Add the lifestyle proven by itself to cut deaths from all causes, and deaths from heart attack and stroke in particular.  Then add the upgrades that improve the other indicators of heart disease or bad health that also cut the death rate from all causes. 

The statistics on doing all the parts of these methods show that they add decades of healthy life.  You don’t just avoid disease and live longer, your life and productivity stay good for decades longer!

At www.iehealth.blogspot.com last Thursday, 10-23-2014, I wrote an article following up research showing that these methods even doing each one moderately well cut heart attacks by at least seven to one,

“Simple ways if you do them all to slash heart risks….”

The studies of what happens when all of these methods are done well on deaths from all causes and from heart attacks and both kinds of stroke are astounding.  They literally can cut deaths from all causes by about 63%.  And most of that is from reducing deaths from heart attacks and strokes although they cut deaths from cancer too.

So that’s why to use the dramatically more effective methods instead of statin drugs.

But that’s only half the story.

Taking statin drugs is harmful too!

Am I saying that besides other methods being dramatically more effective, statins also do MORE harm than good?  YES!

That’s what the data and reports from people taking them show.  Some people avoid these problems because they take a lower dose or they take a statin their genetics handle better.

But here are three sources for that information with my comments:

Dr David Brownstein

"Most of your cholesterol is made in your liver. And the statin drug works by poisoning a natural enzyme in your liver that facilitates cholesterol production.

But this same enzyme also helps your body make the vitamin-like substance CoQ10. And CoQ10 is vital to the energy your heart needs to pump blood.

CoQ10 is also essential to the energy generated by the mitochondria in your cells. That’s literally your energy factory — for your heart and your whole body. And statin drugs are poisoning the enzyme that helps make it!

....That’s why people taking statin drugs suffer fatigue, feel lousy, lose their sex drive, and don’t think as clearly."

Dr Al Sears:

“....for every 60 people who take it, most only get the awful side effects and none of the supposed benefit. 60 people would have to take a statin drug for at least five years for the probability that just one person wouldn’t have a non-fatal heart attack.

And what about the other kind -- fatal heart attacks? Not a single heart attack death would be prevented.”

Research reported about a month ago in Medical News Today:

Besides causing type 2 diabetes, statins tend to make you fatter besides!

This paper suggests that to make room for these two effects patients should quit smoking, and eat better and still take statins.

If you know how to get patients to quit smoking, and eat better -- both stopping heart attack starters and adding protective foods, you no longer need the weak effect of the statins! 

If you do that, all the costs and side effects and harms of statins become NOT NEEDED and a horrible idea to expose patients to!

Modest effect of statins on diabetes risk and bodyweight related to mechanism of

action

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

The mechanism by which statins increase the risk of type 2 diabetes has been

investigated in a large-scale analysis from an international team led by

researchers from UCL and the University of...

The key question of course is how doctors who have been trained on drug use and medical devices and surgery and the like can help people make these lifestyle upgrades and succeed in doing it.

For quitting smoking, the research has been done for a first step. 

If every doctor with heart indicators who also smokes either regular or eCigarettes (as the nicotine also causes heart disease and can trigger heart attacks) actually writes a prescription to quit and gives it to the patient,  the data show some actually quit successfully.  When that’s not done, few patients make the effort.

When effective programs such as those we are working on to help people quit successfully without fat gain become available, it will of course work better.

But just writing the prescription now is far more effective than not doing so!

The same is true for not drinking soft drinks or EVER eating foods containing hydrogenated oils and effective but doable exercise and the other methods.

Why not write down a prescription with?

 “Hydrogenated oils build up in your body if you eat any amount every day and they cause the increase of the small particle LDL that causes heart disease. 

Your prescription is to read labels and stop eating the foods that contain them!”

Just writing those two prescriptions available now, will prevent more heart attacks and death than statins do AND have none of the side effects!  

Simple ways if you do them all to slash heart risks....

Thursday, 10-23-2014

A month ago Newsmax and others reported on a study that found that people who just did five good health practices were MUCH less likely to have heart attacks than people who did none of them. 

The study was done by Agneta Akesson, associate professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine in the Karolinska Institute in Solna, Sweden.

9.6 % of those who did none of the 5 good health habits had heart attacks during the study. About one in ten.

But only 1.4 % of those who did all five of the health habits had heart attacks. About one in 70!

The five good health practices were:

1.  Don’t smoke.   (We now know this is even more effective if you also make a strong special effort to avoid second hand smoke AND eCigarette vapors and avoid using nicotine itself as both the smoke and the nicotine are harmful to the heart AND can trigger heart attacks in people who would otherwise not had them.)

2.  Make a special effort to drink no more than 7 drinks a week or an average of one a day.   This is a light moderate intake.  (Closer to 10 or 11 drinks a week may be OK but only for younger men who are not overweight and have small waists and exercise regularly.  The extra 3 or 4 drinks a week tend to cause fat gain.  So if that occurs, 7 drinks a week or bit less is better.)

3.  Eat in a healthful way.  (They looked at those who ate more fruits, vegetables, nuts, and reduced-fat dairy and far less of less health OK foods and drinks. 

They didn’t look at those who ate 6 or more servings a day of organic vegetables, one or two servings of organic fruit a day,

AND who drank zero soft drinks, ate zero hydrogenated oils, no refined grains or very much whole grains, and who avoided packaged desserts and dinners and snacks made of mostly those things or oils high in omega 6.

Had they found people who followed that eating style the separate evidence suggests the rate of heart attack likely would have been as much as 10 times less as each of those foods and drinks  they avoid CAUSE heart attacks;

AND eating that much vegetables and fruit each day has been shown to cut the death rate of people who do both well over 43% including cutting the death rate from heart attacks and strokes nearly that much!

4.  They did some kind of regular exercise several days each week.  (We now know that one or two brief sessions of effective strength training such as 15 or 20 minutes of superslow strength training a week and three or four 10 to 20 minute sessions of gradually built up to very vigorous cardio for brief period separated by rests or easier activity each week plus some more moderate activity such as walking when you have the opportunity works well.  It is both more reliably doable for more people than lots of walking and more effective. 

The ideal if you have time for it is to do both.  But the shorter and more vigorous sessions are more effective and far easier for most people to do.)

5.  They were not badly overweight or obese. (This means they had been following these health protective practices for a while since eating badly and not exercising causes people to gain excess fat-- while people who do eat healthfully and exercise regularly escape the worst causes of gaining excess fat. 

But if you are too fat now and you do begin to do a good job with healthful eating, NOT eating or drinking the bad and harmful foods and drinks, and you cut back alcohol to low moderate if it has been more, you get two wonderful benefits, you get most of the protection right away and most of your excess fat will gradually go away. 

Making it all go away or making it go away faster takes a lot more work.  But many people have lost most of their excess fat and kept it off with just these lifestyle upgrades.) 

WHY diet soft drinks are more harmful than regular soft drinks....

Tuesday, 10-21-2014

From Newsmax & in their email of Thurs, 9-18-2014  "Artificial Sweeteners Risky for Diabetics: Study" reported on a story from the Wall Street Journal.

Eran Elinav, a doctor & immunologist at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, was lead author of the study which appeared in the journal Nature.

There already was another study that found that the main artificial sweeteners including sucralose, saccharin, and aspartame caused a die off of beneficial probiotic bacteria allowing more growth of pathogenic bacteria.  This is known to boost excessive chronic inflammation which helps cause or worsen heart disease and some cancers.

And, soft drinks have consistently tested to cause more diabetic changes and high blood sugar and more abdominal obesity than regular soft drinks.  Since regular soft drinks cause obesity by NOT reducing your appetite initially and then BOOSTING it from the blood sugar crash later, this means that diet soft drinks are more fattening than an almost perfect fattener!

What doctor Elinav reported was that this increase of harmful gut bacteria also was a direct cause of even more blood surges of sugar and high blood sugar.

In part because people have mistakenly thought that drinking diet soft drinks avoids these effects they actually have been tested to have, the average drinker of diet soft drinks --drinks about 20% more of them a day than the average drinker of regular soft drinks.

Since diet soft drinks are at least as harmful per drink as regular soft drinks because of these effects, that means people who drink diet soft drinks are harming themselves and fattening themselves MORE than people who drink regular soft drinks!

And, besides the bad effects of both kinds of soft drinks already listed, here are THREE more!

1.  The phosphoric acid in colas reliably removes calcium from the bones of people who drink them! People who drink many soft drinks per week times many years can literally cause or dramatically worsen osteoporosis by doing so.  And, phosphoric acid is in both regular and diet colas.

2. The high fructose corn syrup in regular soft drinks causes fatty liver which can and does kill people if it gets bad enough.  Many people who don’t know to avoid soft drinks and high fructose corn syrup don’t know to avoid the hydrogenated oils in microwave popcorn, commercial baked goods, fast food treats, and packaged dessert foods like cookies and snacks and chips.  This is tragic because ingesting both high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils at the same time is even more effective at causing fatty liver.

Do diet soft drinks do this too?  Because they do fatten and cause blood sugar surges as well or better than high fructose corn syrup due to this boost they give harmful bacteria, the answer is very likely to be yes.

3.  Could the news on regular and diet soft drinks get even worse?  Yes. That study was done and the news was really bad. 

People who drink soft drinks age faster in addition to being fatter and having diseases from high blood sugar!

Medical News Today had a recent story showing that drinking the regular soft drinks with their high fructose corn syrup also caused an increase in aging and an increase of all the diseases of older age by causing shortened telomeres.

Conclusion.

If you want to stay healthy and not be fat or become less fat, NEVER drink any soft drinks, period!

Don’t drink regular soft drinks.  Don’t drink diet soft drinks. 

And, if you want to avoid weak bones and osteoporosis, don’t drink either regular or diet colas.

My monthly fatloss progress report....

Monday, 10-20-2014

This month’s report is a mixed review with some positive and some negative.

I both gained some leverage and lost some. 

That status seems like where I’ve been stuck for some time!

My hope of course, is that I’ll gradually make progress by relentlessly continuing the things that have lost and kept off the fat I no longer have;

having the things I’ve added get traction and gradually help lose some more fat;

-- AND find things with more leverage that work well when I try them -- and then keep doing them!

1.  Here’s my immediate progress section first:

I gained a pound on the scale.  Not too bad and close to the same and close to the lower end of the range I’ve been in over the last year --- about 5 pounds over my goal weight.

BUT my waist measured a half inch LESS! 

Apparently, the progress in my new PACE or high intensity cardio session of 5 sets I added of abdominal exercises -- both toned my muscles and tightened them up or maybe added some of that pound as muscle.

I’m about half way done getting to the number of reps I plan for each of the 5 sets.  If doing it gradually burns more calories and removes more belly fat too when I get to that level, I could lose at least another inch on my waist. 

2.  I did manage to bring my weekly drink total to a reasonable level the last week.

But this is the area I’ve tabbed for a big upgrade.  I’ve been averaging about 9 and a half drinks a week.  I’ve looked at each day of the week and found a way I am already trying, to cut from a half glass to a whole glass of wine from each day.

This will cut at least 3 and a half drinks a week from what I’ve been drinking.  If I can maintain that minimum or even 3 drinks a week, that will cut about 4 or 5 pounds of fat from what I have now.

That would get me back to my goal weight or close to it!

To lose the other 3 or 4 inches I’d like from my waist at that point;

stop looking fat because of my big belly;

and drop to the % fat level I’d like -- closer to 10% than the about 20% I am now,

I’ll clearly need to add several pounds of muscle – more than currently looks likely – OR lose another 15 or 20 pounds of fat and actually weigh LESS than I’d prefer.

3. I have kept up the added vegetables.  I’m actually doing well with maintaining it each week!

Losing that much more fat will mean adding even more vegetables than I eat now as Vitamix drinks.

I do plan to get there; but it’s not looking good for that being any time soon right now.

4.  The continuing good news is on strength training.  The progress is still VERY slow but if I continue getting stronger every week or two AS I HAVE BEEN for the past several months and continue for another few years and am able to add back more safe to do leg exercises and make that progress with them, I will keep adding muscle when most people 15 years younger than I lose that much muscle or even more in the same time period!

I now do two sessions a week for upper body strength training.  At one, I am doing more reps at the slightly faster slow speed and fewer reps with a heavier weight than I was using. The progress is a bit slow; but it IS happening.  At the second session two days later, I use a couple of notches less weight BUT I do more reps and at the slower slow speed.  In that session, I just did 20 reps with each hand in an exercise that was MUCH harder for just 9 reps not long ago.  I’m at the point I can jump the weight for those sets!

At my last session, I made progress on two exercises.

THAT is encouraging!

My leg strength training is mostly better.  My ONE substitute for the leg press on the machine is gradually doing better. 

I dropped the one that was both too hard and tweaking my knee tendons.  The other is one at a time lunges several times with each leg while holding dumbbells to add to the effort.  I was adding five pounds twice a week.  Now I’m at 70 pounds, the equivalent of adding 140 pounds or more with two legs, I’ll have to add the weight more slowly. 

(I was at 50 pounds last month.)

But it IS working.  I believe I’ve added some muscle in my thighs and butt and definitely feel the pumped and exercised effect the next day.

I’m now at the point I can add weights to my hands while I do the lunge style one legged squats.  If increasing the weight is as easy as I expect it to be and I get no recurrence of my left leg injury limitation, that will be great! That’s because I’ll be working my legs harder with a heavier weight one leg a time than when I was doing both sides at once.

Once I can do 7 complete reps at a superslow speed all the way down and up with each leg while holding 89 pounds – like over 178 pounds with two legs., I think I’ll add enough muscle in my legs, lower back, and butt to cut my belly fat a bit.

My one leg at a time calf exercises are still making excellent progress on my right leg. 

I had to scale all the way back to zero and more on my injured left Achilles tendon.

I had to drop from holding a 35 or 37 pound dumbbell for 12 superslow reps to doing ONE with no dumbbell at all for my left leg.  BUT now that I do that and do 12 where I use both legs to go up and go down slow with just my left leg after reading that was a successful treatment, I can now exercise it without it hurting right then OR after the workout!

I’m still at square one in terms of adding weight back on my left calf since the Achilles seems to get some set back each week.  But it looked like I was over that twice during last month.  So I’m still hopeful.

I DID discontinue one way that may have been re-injuring it just a week ago. So let’s hope that addition will get me over the hump and back to healing and improving it;

So, I just keep my right leg exercises the same until I can gradually build back my left leg to do that weight again -- 35 to 37 pounds plus all my bodyweight for 12 superslow reps.

By doing the similar style with the lighter weight with my injured leg and doing the same weight with my right leg, the studies show that by doing those two things,  once the injury heals, the strength will build back just fine relatively quickly.  So even though it’s irritating to have to wait a few weeks for that to happen, my confidence in the method is as good as it was before.

And, now I’ve reached a point where the injury to my left Achilles is healing, I believe I’ll be able to do that in about another 3 or 4 months. 

I also added a supplement that tested to help for 30 days and am half done and another that will also speed healing and then help prevent re-injury, glucosamine.

Then if all keeps going well, I’ll need to buy a new 40 pound dumbbell as the 35 pound with the 2 pound wrist weight will not be enough to be challenging if this keeps up.

(I also have made enough gains in my arm exercises to go to the 40 pound dumbbell for one exercise!)

Overall, my muscles LOOK a bit bigger, particularly my arms and shoulders; and though my middle is still fat, my thighs have definition and are clearly hard and toned.

So even though I’ve not gained enough muscles in size or weight to increase how much they weigh and the calories they burn as I’d like to do ---  After another year or so, I may gain a pound or two of muscle at an age when most people lose 5 pounds of muscle instead!

4.  My progressive short sets of high intensity, interval cardio have been a mixed review. 

But the overall news is much better since last month!

(I kept my two weekly sessions of 4 sets of back to back abdominal exercises and my weekly 10 minute session of intense variable cardio on my Nordic track where I was already at a high level I’d worked up to gradually.)

BUT, instead of waiting to add back jump rope sessions, last month I made TWO upgrades NOW.  I added five new cardio exercises AND I went from two such sessions a week to three by removing my “easy” leg exercise session.

Before I did 4 sets of 98 of four different abdominal exercises back to back and then a rest break and shoulder looseners at the end.  Now I do 4 sets of 98 and the rest break AND FIVE sets of new abdominal exercises.  To make it progressive, I started at 14 and will be up to 50 this coming Wednesday for each of the five sets.  When I can really do 98 of each of the new five sets as proficiently as the first 4 now, the people who use such plans show fat loss in inches and pounds of fat lost on the scale.

I’m doing 27 sets a week and have been for a month instead of the 8 sets a week I was doing before that!

5.  It’s just a matter of time too to the day I can get and use the Vitamix to boost my vegetable intake enough to lose some fat that way.   

So the conclusion is that despite being hammered more than usual by outside negative influences, I’m still maintaining most of my efforts that lost fat for me to begin with.  AND, I’m still adding promising new things that are working already or might work.

AND, I plan to both continue doing that and have even more in the pipeline for as soon as I can manage to add them.

New ways to protect yourself from high blood sugar....

Thursday, 10-16-2014

There are three ways that high blood sugar damages your heart from what I’ve read. 

The first one is that the extra crystals of sugar attach themselves to your LDL particles in a way that makes them act like spikes to damage your blood vessels -- both the small ones that also cause heart disease and the large ones that normally are harmless.

Second, the sugars tend to glcycate or attach sugars to proteins which tend to prevent their normal functions.

Third, these two causes trigger inflammation from this damage and that excess inflammation in turn causes even more damage.  NOT a good thing!

Apparently that excessive inflammation causes damage that triggers the release of the heart damage indicator troponin.

These two Medical News Today articles have that information and how very heart damaging that is:

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

 Inflammation may be the reason high blood sugar levels damage blood vessels,

raising the possibility that anti-inflammatory medications might someday be used

to lower the risk of blood vessel...

In diabetes, blood test finds otherwise undetectable heart damage unrelated to

high cholesterol

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

People with diabetes who appear otherwise healthy may have a six-fold higher

risk of developing heart failure regardless of their cholesterol levels, new

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Publi….

“Diabetics with elevated troponin were six times more likely to develop heart failure and four times more likely to have a heart attack.

Those with pre-diabetes, a condition associated with a high risk of progressing to diabetes, were also at increased risk.”

“…. the findings underscore yet another reason to do what it takes to prevent diabetes, she says.

Since low levels of elevated blood sugar 5.4 to 5.9 HBA1C and fasting glucose from 87 to 99 ALSO cause Alzheimer's and vascular dementia and have been separately found to damage the heart,

it's clear that it's essential for people to avoid all refined grains and most whole grains and all high fructose corn syrup, agave nectar, fructose, and most fruit juices -- AND to minimize sugar intake -- AND to avoid cooking styles that boost AGE's.

(Slow cooking at lower temperatures keeps AGE’s low and if higher temperatures are used they are still not very high temperatures and are for short periods of time.)

It’s also clear that eliminating the use of oils high in omega 6 which are proinflammatory and are in grains, and the cheap oils – soy, corn, and canola, and minimizing or eliminating the omega 6 oils from animals, poultry, or farmed fish that are fed grains is a way to minimize this damage.  

Oils from wild caught fish, nuts and avocados and extra virgin olive oil and some dark chocolate, dairy fat from grass fed cows, and organic coconut oil instead is dramatically less inflammatory.

In fact, DHA and omega 3 oils from wild caught fish and seafood are directly anti-inflammatory.

And, taking DHA, and omega 3 and astaxanthin and ginger and turmeric with black pepper as supplements in addition or as spices in the case of ginger and turmeric also lowers inflammation considerably. 

Even better the ginger and turmeric lower LDL and may mostly lower the small particle LDL that causes heart disease.  

The antioxidant astaxanthin with its small molecules prevents some the damage that triggers the inflammation. 

And the DHA, and omega 3 in the wild caught fish &/or supplements lower inflammation and boost HDL and lower triglycerides which reduces the amount of the small particle LDL that causes heart disease.

In conclusion, you can fight high blood sugar and the higher high blood sugar identified as diabetes in three ways.

Stop eating (drinking) the foods and drinks that cause the high blood sugar.

Stop eating the foods and the oils high in omega 6 close to entirely.

And, do eat the foods, take the supplements, and follow the eating style that lowers inflammation.

Cutting back a good bit on real sugar and eliminating sources like high fructose corn syrup and agave nectar and fruit juices with no fiber that are high in fructose is protective.

And, since the omega 6 oils in grains cause excess inflammation -- AND the grains cause even higher blood sugar spikes than sugar, eliminating all refined grains and minimizing or eliminating whole grains does the double!

It prevents the blood sugar spikes AND lowers inflammation. 

Purpose driven people live longer....

Tuesday, 10-14-2014

In a ShareCare message from the Real Age email on 5 ways to live longer the number one recommendation was to live a purpose driven life.

This not the first time I've seen this.  As we'll see, people who do, have more to live for so they make more of an effort to stay alive.  And, they are also more effective and valued people so their efforts to achieve and stay alive work better.

Here's the key quote from the real age email:

"Want to live longer? Then you better have a really good idea of what you're living for.

In a study of older adults, those who lived a goal-driven life were 57 percent less likely to die during the 5-year study period -- compared with those who didn't have much direction or purpose.

How a Purpose Protects

Are you making plans for the future? Is there something that you're actively trying to achieve? Does your life have meaning? A resounding yes to these questions could mean you get more time on earth to accomplish things.

Having a purpose in life was so helpful in a study that it even appeared to improve the longevity of people with depression, disabilities, chronic medical conditions, or financial difficulties."

1.  It often takes focused effort or extra effort to achieve things or to do the things that keep you healthy and able to work to achieve things.

So, if you want very much to contribute to a purpose you care about and want to help achieve, you make that effort. 

Then you live longer; you overcome your problems well enough to work on the purpose you care about; and you do make at least some of the contributions you want to make.

2.  Long ago the famous management consultant, Peter Drucker, found that the most effective people were those who worked on the achieving the task that would enable them to make a contribution to the highest and best purposes of the group or company they were in.

One nurse he tells of made a whole hospital get almost all its patients get well faster and sooner.  How?  They emulated her focus on contribution.

The way she did it came to be called Nurse Bryan’s rule.  She did all the normal, expected, and assigned things for her patients. But she then asked, “Are we doing all we can for this patient?” 

If she came up with a way to do more that would help that patient feel better or recover better, she then added that on.

Patients she attended  stayed less time and went home sooner; got well more effectively, and had fewer complications than those on other floors.

Soon most nurses in the hospital came to adopt what was called Nurse Bryan’s rule and did as she did.

In business, he gives examples of CEO’s who picked the few areas where they could contribute to the success of the business, and then made that kind of effort to achieve them.

Their companies did well.

By and large that got them respect and support and help from the people in their company too.

That kind of focus on contribution is a skill people can use on their own issues to enable them to keep working on their purpose.

3.  An article I read more recently by James Altucher, focused on how to have a good life you did best if in addition to getting yourself the money you need, you also focused on mastery and meaning.

Having a purpose you care about and work to achieve adds meaning; and in making a special effort to achieve it you often do so by attaining mastery in the skills needed.

4.  How can you find a purpose you care about if you don’t yet have one?

Start with what you are interest in; what you do well  now; what you are curious about; or helping people who have a problem you have had or someone you care about has had.

Ask questions of yourself:  Who has this problem?  How can I use my skill or what I’m finding out to help people who need it or want it?

Then work to make good things happen in that area!

SSRI antidepressants HARM your bones....

Thursday, 10-9-2014

There are many things that cause weak bones and osteoporosis and some things that cause your bones to become stronger and less likely to fracture.

Similarly, there ARE things that cause depression and those that do successfully turn it off.

Would you knowingly pay money to take a drug that is supposed to turn off depression but doesn’t -- but DOES cause your bones to become weaker and more likely to fracture?

Unfortunately, millions of people do just that!

Part one:  Here’s why I think no one should take SSRI drugs at all, let alone to turn off depression which they seem NOT to do.  This post is because there is an even worse reason to not take them!  I just found out about it. That’s in part two.

1.  I already knew that the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, SSRI’s such as Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft were not significantly better than placebo in turning down depression.

Even, the people who feel they work don’t generally get any results at all for the first several weeks.   And, since the people who don’t find they work take them for several weeks in hopes that might happen for them, few people take them for a week to three weeks and toss them as ineffective.

So, it is common for people who do stop taking the SSRI’s to do so after taking them for many weeks.  For some people that’s nasty because while they are not that great at turning depression down or off, they ARE addictive and many people then feel even worse or get bad itching and the like as a withdrawal penalty.

2.  Since everyone gets a little down at times or has low energy and no one wants to be or stay depressed and these drugs clearly are NOT helpful, I’ve been keenly aware that there ARE things that turn off depression.  I watch avidly for them in fact!

From talk therapy that uses the work of people like Albert Ellis and Martin Seligman --

to things that rebuild damaged parts of your brain that can cause depression  --

to the several things that Stephen Ilardi found stopped depression when most of them were done, there are even two coming medical treatments that stop depression fast enough to empower people to do these other things!  One is a new drug that sounds like it will work in 24 hours and a special kind of magnetic stimulation that tested to work in more like ONE hour.

I posted on some of those things in my post: New and very doable way to stop depression....on Tuesday, 8-5-2014.

3.  One of the things on Stephen Ilardi’s list is to take 3,000 to 5,000 iu a day of vitamin D3.  For people who get SAD in dark, wintry weather and some other people who DID have low serotonin levels in their brains, taking that much D3 (the real optimum daily requirement for D3) along with early morning light therapy does the job.

That much D3 does help such people with depression.  But people with depression caused by personal disasters or horrible self talk or minimal brain damage are not.

But for the people it helps, taking that much vitamin D3 in part is because doing so does raise the brain level of serotonin.  Oddly, the SSRI drugs that are supposed to do this do not!

Conclusion of part one:  SSRI drugs don’t turn off depression and are nasty drugs otherwise.  There IS a way to turn up serotonin levels in the brain that works without those side effects.  And there ARE a whole set of things that are effective in turning off almost all kinds of depression.  Even better, there are two FAST ways in the pipeline to jump start turning off depression that DO test as working.

Part two:  Given the above information, I’ve long thought anyone who knows these things would never willingly take SSRI drugs.

But what if, in addition to that, taking SSRI drugs tended to harm bones enough to cause fractures and/or osteoporosis?!

The new information is that taking SSRI drugs DOES DO just that!  Worse it sounds like some people have been aware of this problem for quite some time.

The study I found about 3 weeks ago on Medical News Today reported this:

SSRI …."antidepressants, which are widely used around the world, are reported to increase the risk of bone fracture and reduce bone formation"

Here’s the link to that study:

Drugs for depression linked with failure of dental implants

http://mnt.to/l/4qG8

A team from McGill University has discovered that people who take the most

common antidepressants (such as Celexa, Paxil, Lexapro, Prozac, and Zoloft, the

Selective Serotonin Reuptake...

And here’s the key quote from it:

“A team from McGill University has discovered that people who take the most common antidepressants (such as Celexa, Paxil, Lexapro, Prozac, and Zoloft, the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors or SSRIs) are twice as likely to have dental implants fail as those who are not taking SSRIs.

"Because antidepressants, which are widely used around the world, are reported to increase the risk of bone fracture and reduce bone formation, we were curious to see how they might affect dental implants," says Prof. Faleh Tamimi, the lead author on the study and a professor in McGill's School of Dentistry.

"Even so, we were surprised to discover that the negative effect of SSRIs on dental implants was so strong, almost equal to that of smoking, a well-established hazard for oral health."”

THIS is front page news information! 

Now you know it too.

I already knew to avoid osteoporosis or turn it off has its own set of things that work and I knew it can make those afflicted by it suffer truly horrible broken bones and pain and cause the kind of broken hip injuries that have a death rate of something like 50% within a year.

So, I hope this post has helped make it far less likely people will have that happen from taking SSRI drugs!

(Here’s a quick overview of things that prevent or turn off osteoporosis otherwise.

NOT ever drinking any kind of soft drink, particularly colas, since they cause your bones to decalcify from their excessive phosphoric acid.

Definitely do whole body strength training superslow style twice a week, particularly for the legs.  Do as much walking as you have time for.

Take 3,000 to 5,000 iu of vitamin D3.

Get adequate calcium but through foods instead of supplements and if you take calcium supplement only take them AFTER eating.

Take magnesium supplements and eat foods high in magnesium.

Take 3 mg a day of boron.

And, if you are a menopausal woman, consider taking bioidentical estrogen replacement and follow the low inflammation lifestyle to help ensure it’s safe to do so.

(Medical News Today just reported on a new drug that may cause your bones to regrow that may prove to be worth taking.  The current drugs have very high side effects and seem to make harder but more easily broken bones.  My suggestion is if you possibly can do all the other things.  Do NOT take or continue SSRI drugs.  And wait to see if the new drug tests successfully. And take a pass on the existing osteoporosis drugs! 

Why pay to make your already weak bones more likely to fracture and suffer such side effects?  

Better ways to lower high blood sugar....

Tuesday, 10-7-2014

GLP-1 agonists, glucagon like peptide boosters, are drugs that boost glucagon and help cause fat loss and lower HBA1C that is too high according to the Medical News Today article below.

But they can have nasty side effects and are harsh in how they need to be taken.  

These drugs can be a bit too effective for safety as they can kill people by causing sudden drops in blood sugar below the level that can support life and knock out people so quickly they can't take the actions to reverse it in time.

But natural ways to boost glucagon that work may be a key to getting fat loss and lowering high blood sugar without the drugs or ANY drugs.   They also cut the death rate instead of increasing it!

A very low sugar, low to no grain diet with tons of vegetables and health OK proteins and moderate amounts of health OK oils apparently is the main key to doing this well.

(Drinking either regular or diet soft drinks or using the artificial sweeteners and eating most breads and packaged foods and snacks and desserts and commercial baked goods and most fast foods does the opposite. 

So the second main key is to 100% eliminate these and the ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils and GMO grains and MSG and oils made from high omega 6 GMO grains that they are made out of.)

Eating six or more servings of vegetables a day lowers the death rate from all causes including heart disease -- lowering both strokes and heart attacks -- and cancers.  

Adding some low glycemic, high nutrition, fruit, at least one a day that people eat mostly early in the day also lowers the death rate from all causes and heart attacks and is even better at reducing the risk of strokes.  

(Organic berries, organic cherries, kiwi fruit, and supplements such as bilberry, elderberry, cherry, cranberry, and grape seed extract can add to this effect without boosting fructose as the whole fruit or its juice does.)

Super slow strength training with heavier weights and high intensity cardio look to also boost glucagon.

So doing two or three such sessions of each even if brief each week is the third main way to do this.

This set of things boosts natural glucagon. 

The  Medical News Today study found that when glucagon is high from the drugs that boost  it, the problems of too little insulin is produced or it has too little effect on blood sugar are both overcome and blood sugar also goes down more with lower doses of added insulin in people where blood sugar was very high.

When I had allergy shots as a kid, you had to wait in the doctor’s office for a bit to be sure you didn’t get too severe a reaction.

These GLP-1 agonist drugs require an injection to deliver them; and to be safely given likely need that kind of extra wait in an area where other trained people can step in if the reaction is too extreme after they are used

So if your blood sugar is dangerously high and/or you are unwilling to make these lifestyle upgrades, these GLP-1 agonist drugs may be very helpful.

But since making all these lifestyle upgrades also is effective and has very desirable other health benefits, why not do those before you get to that point?

Here's the link to the Medical News Today story:

Combining gut hormone with insulin proves more effective at controlling type 2 

diabetes than other common treatments

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

Combined treatment with a drug that mimics the action of a gut hormone and basal 

insulin [1] is more effective at improving blood sugar control than other 

anti-diabetic treatments, with...

Ways to lower high systolic blood pressure....

Thursday, 10-2-2014

Medical News today had an article that had what things went with increasing or decreasing systolic blood pressure.

It’s quite common for older people to have either only systolic blood pressure be high or to have it be farther above 140 over 90 than their diastolic or second reading blood pressure.

In fact it’s considered a reasonable target to get older people with even higher high blood pressure down to a blood pressure of 150 over 80 or even 85.

Notice that the 150 is 30 above the 120 considered normal and 35 over the 115 considered ideal while the 80 to 85 is from the same exactly to only 10 over 75 to 80.

Also notice that the difference 65 to 70 at 150 over 80 to 85 is 25 to and the difference of 40 of the normal and ideal blood pressure – 120 over 80 and 115 over 75.  This bigger pulse pressure causes a kind of hammering effect from the higher systolic blood pressure.

So for all those reasons and to improve health protection, it would be extra valuable to lower systolic blood pressure when it’s high..

We did find and post on how improving your quick and short bursts of interval or variable cardio several times a week, ideally a least three, does seem to reduce systolic blood pressure and the pulse pressure, systolic minus diastolic.

So that is one method that works! 

It’s particularly good because it is also protective from the harms caused by high blood pressure enough that adding drugs to bring down the blood pressure added no further reduction in heart attacks in strokes when people did such exercise and ate right.  That can help people avoid those drugs and their dreadful side effects!

How else can we lower systolic blood pressure!

That’s where the more recent Medical News Today story comes in:

[SBP stands for Systolic Blood Pressure but takes way fewer keystrokes.]

“The negative relationship between consumption of fruits and vegetables and SBP was significant in both sexes.

Alcohol intake was positively associated with SBP in both sexes;

SBP was higher in participants with elevated body mass indices (BMIs).”

So to lower high systolic BP,

1.  Decrease alcohol intake;

2.  Sharply increase vegetable intake;

3.  Do 3 days a week of higher intensity variable or interval cardio;

4.  And do other effective things to lose fat.

Ten percent or more of your initial body weight or more that you keep off would help and is usually achievable.

5.  Using cold packs to spot reduce visceral fat around kidneys may help extra too!

One way that one study suggests extra fat produces high blood pressure is by overheating or interfering with the part of the kidney that controls blood pressure causing it to reset to too high a setting. So spot reducing that fat could be extra helpful!  Inexpensive cold packs you use at home have proven effective to do this.

6.  Note that drinking less alcohol, sharply increasing vegetable intake, and doing this effective kind of vigorous cardio three times a week each independently helps you lose fat and keep it off!

All you need to do further to achieve this much fat loss you keep off is to STOP ingesting the foods and drinks that are fattening AND harmful.  And if you allow exceptions for real sugar a few times a month or a week, keep the calories to less than five percent of your total.

Does that mean completely stopping ALL regular and diet soft drinks and almost all fast food and all foods made with refined grain wheat flour?  Yes.

Does that mean stopping ALL packaged snacks and desserts?  Yes.

7.  To cut back on alcohol keep a journal where each day you write down how many drinks you had that day.  Then make a strong special effort to minimize how often you have more than two drinks in one day.  And, for men, work to have the total drinks per week be 9 or less and 5 or less for women.

8.  Find a kind of variable or interval cardio you can do at home or otherwise manage to do for 10 to 20 minutes three days a week every week and gradually make it more and more vigorous until it’s hard for anyone but and young and trained athleted to match you.  At that point, just maintain it and build back after you get sick etc.

9.  To eat a lot more vegetables is hugely important and can give you a LOT of leverage on fat loss AND lowering high blood pressure AND lowering high systolic blood  pressure!

Here’s why:

The people who follow or mostly follow the advice of Dr Joel Fuhrman and make high nutrition low calorie vegetables and beans all or the vast majority of their food uniformly become very lean to so lean they look a little too thin. 

Celery which has a set of micronutrients that lower high blood pressure if you get a lot

-- every day!

-- and vegetables such as beets and arugula that have such high nitrate levels that they lower high blood pressure effectively another way -- again if you eat enough every day are so effective for either one, let alone both together they are very effective blood pressure reducers with other health benefits instead of side effects.

One man who managed to eat four stalks of celery a day was able to simply turn off his high blood pressure so well it was like turning it off with a light switch.

Others who have managed that much beet juice each day have had similar results AND improved their cardio fitness enough to get a significant advantage for those who were athletes who ran races.

These two would be so hard for most people to use that despite their effectiveness few people would do them.

But using the new, much quieter Vitamix juicing that much of celery and beets or arugula morning and evening at home is actually doable!

(So, you can see why I want so much to get and use one!)

10.  Cutting back on alcoholic drinks when you enjoy them and are under extra stress is not easy. 

But I have now set several days each week where I only have one or half a one and limit myself to one or one and a half the other days.  So far it’s working.  One glass of red wine after dinner seems more beneficial and causes fewer other health harms.  So with rare dark beer occasions, I stick to red wine.

And, I’m also working to cut my stress in other ways.

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

Factors related to increased blood pressure

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

Hypertension is the most prevalent chronic disease worldwide. Lifestyle

behaviors for its prevention and control are recommended within worldwide

guidelines.