Surprising new ways to stop depression fast....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 7-30-2015

There are several ways to stop depression that are proven to work but that take time to work.

This can take a few weeks at least.

Talk therapy or self-guided practice to learn optimistic thinking skills which enable you to see that many problems are temporary and limited in scope and that you very well might be able to turn off the causes has proven quite effective.

But if you haven’t learned them, it can take a few weeks to become proficient – and to become skilled at catching the reverse thoughts and making them STOP before you practice the new skill.

Similarly doing regular vigorous exercise plus taking omega 3 oils and supplements of the omega 3 oil DHA has been shown to release enough nerve and brain cell growth hormone, BDNF, to repair some kinds of minimal brain damage that can cause depression or PTSD.

Doing both things well whacks depression!  You repair both your brain’s software and its hardware and the depression is gone!

But learning those thinking skills take extra effort and time.  And, if you have been sedentary, even with help, it can take extra effort and time and time to build up to doing vigorous exercise regularly – and then the repairs take some time too.

The problem is that if you feel horrible now, it can block you from taking those actions to stop it!

There are two things in the pipeline that can turn off even severe depression fast to solve that problem:

A drug Ketamine with unacceptably bad side effect also turns off severe depression in hours; but is impractical to use and definitely can’t be used every day.  But a metabolite of Ketamine slams the severe depression to a stop just as well but does NOT have the side effects preventing its use.  If that becomes a drug which is then approved, this might be a viable solution.

The other one is much more promising.  A special multiple electromagnetic fast pulse device was tested and found to stop severe depression in about a half hour!

If that is approved and becomes widely available, that looks likely to be a viable solution.

Aren’t there things that you can go do right away even before these become available?

And, even if those two things do become available, it would be great to have things you can access faster and for less expense.  Are there such things?

Yes there are!

That’s what this post is about.  There ARE two things you can do that you can do right away!

1.  Studies have found that people who list things to be grateful for each day even if it’s just one thing become dramatically less depressed over time.

But that isn’t fast to work either and I’ve found it virtually undoable to start it as a habit.  Unlike going on a run or doing a set of pushups, it’s a bit vague and hard to fit into a busy schedule.  I’ve tried it and found it only lasts a day or two at best.

Then I read this:

“Researchers at UC San Diego asked 186 individuals who’d had Stage B heart failure for at least three months to fill out questionnaires measuring indicators like spiritual and emotional well-being (including how thankful subjects generally felt), depressive symptoms, sleep quality, fatigue, and inflammatory markers.

Results showed that those who felt and expressed the most gratitude also experienced happier moods, slept better, were less tired, and had less cellular inflammation—all of which improved their prognosis for dealing with heart disease.

“Gratitude supports our well-being by shifting our attention from endless self-focused rumination to connecting with the world around us,” 

   says lead author Paul J. Mills, Ph.D. “

And, then I realized that any time I have sat down and listed things I’m grateful for I generally can come up with a few.  And then those make me think of a few more.  And if I keep at it, I can list even more.

If I have trouble getting started, I use Tony Robbins’ technique of listing one or two things I might be grateful for.

When I read that study, it finally hit me.  I do get depressed at times but not all the time.  Why not get something to write with and on and list things to be thankful for at those times!

I’ve tried it and found it to work!

2.  But what if you feel so rotten and low in energy even taking that time is too much?

What if you could force that feeling to stop and feel energetic right away?

Sometimes that might be all you need to feel better.  And if not, at least you’d have enough energy to list things that you are thankful for or might work to turn off your problems.

It’s new but there is now a way to do just that!

You can use it while you work for just a few minutes and then you have more mental energy for an hour or more after that.

It’s called the Thync device:  www.thync.com .

And the news gets even better from there!  Do you sometimes have no energy and feel rotten because you can’t turn off the mental stress you are under or can’t get to sleep well and your energy reserves are really depleted?

The Thync device has a second setting that does just that!

Use it when you first get home from work to unwind.  Use it just before bed to ensure better and restful sleep.

One woman who had tried OTC sleep aids with virtually no effect, now uses the Thync device instead and actually gets enough better sleep to feel refreshed and recharged the next day! 

New perspective on GMO foods....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 7-28-2015

Now that the DARK act has passed the house, it’s likely the Senate will consider it next.

It’s truly frightening that a bill that is so harmful to the environment and turning off information consumers now have labeling foods that are NOT GMO could pass.

Depending on the survey, 93 to 94% of Americans would like their food to all be labeled as such if it contains GMO foods.

So it mocks the idea of a representative government to pass laws that ignore this.

That information more health oriented consumers have now labeling goods that are NOT GMO will become illegal is clearly against individual liberty enough that in my opinion is simply un-American by the values I was brought up holding. 

This is the sort of thing the dictatorships we sent armies to defeat did to their people during World War II and the Cold War. 

Countries outside the United States simply ban GMO foods due to lack of long term testing or frightening results from the testing that has been done.  If the DARK act passes, many of these countries may stop agricultural imports from the United States.  Who can blame them?

Conceptually it’s frightening that the pesticides and genetic changes are INSIDE the foods where they cannot be washed off. 

And, for those people who want descendants, the tests showing infertility in offspring from animals fed GMO foods are truly concerning!

Growing GMO foods ensures that enormous amounts of pesticides and herbicides will be used and poison our land and water over time. Their whole reason for being is to allow this harm.

The proponents think the GMO foods are safe or are taking money to say so. 

But their other reason for hiding GMO foods is the theme of today’s post.  Food would cost more money if people could stop buying the cheap GMO foods they are eating now.

These are the same extra profitable foods that get subsidies now.  So yes they are cheap.

But what are they?  Hybrid wheat to feed people: soy and corn to feed food animals; corn to make high fructose corn syrup; the grains, soy, corn, and canola to make oils high in omega 6 oils; and sugar beets to make cheap sugar.

What are the effects of these foods in people who consume them even if they are NOT GMO? 

NOT good effects!  Obesity, cancer, heart disease, mental decline, type 2 diabetes, faster aging, and increased medical care costs for these avoidable diseases are now known to result.

Studies show that if such foods do cost more, people will consume less of them and buy and eat more health supporting foods instead.

THAT means that having them cost more would be a GOOD thing!

The health care savings from that would be MORE than the increased costs if the ones that are GMO were labeled.

So in every direction, any member of the United States congress who votes for the DARK act is badly informed, willing to disregard the public health and the wishes of the vast majority of their constituents, and happy to make the United States more totalitarian and LESS free than other countries.

To do so in my view is simply unethical and incompetent.

That said, these politicians have to pay for their election campaigns and though the herbicides, pesticides, and GMO foods are harmful, so far they are quite profitable. So the companies involved are throwing huge amounts of funds at these politicians.

So, yes publicize the facts and if the DARK act comes to the Senate, do everything you can to defeat it and ensure President Obama vetoes it if it passes.

But on this issue I’m cynical enough to think it may become law anyway. It just passed our House of Representatives for example.

What then?

If the DARK act does become law --

Do your health a favor and never buy or eat any food that could be GMO again! 

They won’t let you know.  OK.  So just assume it all is GMO!

Why give these unethical profiteers another penny of your money to make you sick and force you to not know what’s in your food?

Join me in as close to a total boycott as you can. And let’s make it a huge movement!

Let’s see if we can STOP their cash flow entirely!  

Strength and muscle gain without steroids....

Today's Post:  Friday, 7-24-2015

*Muscle gain is desirable for many reasons.  And, strength certainly is! 

This ranges from:

Enabling older people to maintain their ability to live independently due to maintaining or increasing their strength and older women to prevent or even reverse early osteoporosis --

To helping people of all ages to lose and keep off excess fat --

To looking better and being able to handle physical emergencies to higher self esteem and better athletic performance.

*Strength training works to do these things when you do it effectively.

Taking steroids in addition to strength training enables your body to recover well and easily from lots of challenging strength training.  But taking anabolic steroids to do this has so many serious drawbacks that it’s illegal.

That makes taking steroids expensive and reduces your ability to be sure of the purity and identity and safety of the anabolic steroid drugs you take if you do.

It can cause heart problems and reduce your normal sex hormones that you make without it.

And, while regular strength training makes women look good tending towards looking athletic and trim but without massive muscles, steroids give women a more large muscle masculine look.

Plus, between the very high boost to testosterone like compounds and the increased muscle strength taking steroids can cause, people who do so often get into fights they’d otherwise have sense enough to avoid.  Worse, the out of control increased strength can then cause death or serious injury to the people the steroid taker attacks.

And, most important, since taking anabolic steroids does have these problems, it’s important to know that they also boost mood so much that they are incredibly addictive.

What if you want the positive results of greater strength and increased muscle mass and stronger bones very nearly as good as you can get with steroids but never using them?

Are there ways to do that which have been found to work?

YES!  And that’s what this post is about.

Here are the several I’ve recently found that have been tested to work!

1.  Surprisingly, studies show that slow repetitions cause the fastest strength and muscle gains.

Yes you do have to use lighter weights at first than you would if you just lifted the weight up and down at close to the speed you’d use with no weight.

The Perfect Workout uses this method to some degree. They definitely promote its benefits.  And it’s effective enough the way they do it that it has literally doubled the initial strength and more of many of their clients from young people to 80 year olds.  And it works for women as well as men! 

Plus it has medically beneficial effects for older people.  A woman who went to The Perfect Workout in her 80’s was having trouble maintaining her balance and was falling down occasionally plus she had the early stages of osteoporosis. After a few months of slow rep training at The Perfect Workout, she never had balance problems or falls AND her bone density went to completely normal!

Also, the way most injuries happen in strength training from snapping the weight into motion at the start of each repetition. By using super slow reps where you smoothly and under control start the weight moving slowly each time, the chances of injury almost vanish!

When I went to The Perfect Workout, the trainer had me do repetitions that were about 3 seconds up and 3 seconds down.

But in their recent news letter, they reported that instead of doing 20 repetitions of 3 up and down in 2 minutes as I was doing there, if you do 5 to 7 repetitions where you go 10 seconds up and 10 seconds down, you will make much faster progress according to the research on it.

I had been doing slow rep strength training at home and found an interesting effect when I began the 10 seconds up and down style.  It was less wearing to do than the faster reps but more of them.  But my muscles were more pumped and sore afterwards.

2.  I recently found out that when you can manage to get to a gym once or better twice a week and do deadlifts and keep adding the weight that this will add the most muscle mass to you because you are using the heavy muscles of your legs, buttocks, and lower back. 

(Squats with heavy weights also work well.  But to be safe you need to use a special rack or capable spotters.)  So, for squats you really need to go to a gym.  But for just deadlifts it may be doable for you to get an Olympic bar and enough plates and do them at home.)

Note that when you add 10 or 20 or even 30 pounds of muscle to your back and butt and legs it forces off excess fat from your body because that muscle burns more calories per pound than the fat you were feeding before!

I read separately that these heavyweight lifts using your largest muscles causes the most growth hormone release compared with exercises with less weight for smaller muscles.

And, that means that if you do leg press, or deadlifts, or squats first and then exercise smaller muscles later in your workout, you’ll get faster recovery for those muscles too.

3.  I recently read a study that found that when people who were working out with weights were given a placebo and told it was an anabolic steroid, they added much more weight to their lifts than people who didn’t get it. 

Those were real gains despite the fake steroids!

I then realized that if I used heavier weights than I had been, although I would have to do fewer repetitions, I would get stronger sooner from the extra work my muscles were doing.

Much to my great surprise it worked!  I have been getting stronger and using heavier weights by doing this sooner than I expected.  And I’ve not been taking steroids.

4.  Although I’m not taking steroids I am taking several supplements known to speed recovery from strength training workouts:

Creatine and astaxanthin are two supplements known to have this effect and I take them both.

5.  There is some evidence that taking supplements that boost nitric oxide at bedtime boosts circulation and increases growth hormone release.  This is also thought to happen if you take them just before you work out.  So I’ve been taking both l-arginine and l-citrulline before my exercises and just before bedtime.

6.  It’s also known that more deep sleep each night increases growth hormone release.  So I’ve forced my usual schedule to allow me to go to bed at least half an hour earlier each night than I was.   And, since I always get up at the same time exactly, I’ve gotten more sleep. In men this also increases testosterone release, which is also a growth hormone for muscle growth.

7.  The herbal supplement Valerian stinks.  Not only that, but it’s the component that has that smell that is able to calm you down even if you are very severely stressed. (It does work and was used in World War II in countries with night-time bombing and other life threatening problems by people who used it to enable them to sleep anyway.)

I’ve had some valerian on hand in case of emergencies so dire I’d need to take some to get to sleep.  And, I’ve kept it in a larger glass jar with a lid I can seal to keep its smell from escaping.

Then just Weds this week, I found there is a study showing that the deepest sleep slow wave sleep causes the most growth hormone release AND that taking valerian before bed even if you aren’t that stressed, significantly increases your slow wave sleep! 

And the effect is strong enough to do this even if your sleep conditions are not good!

So I immediately added it and took some last night.  Much to my delight I found that I felt better rested and my energy and mood improved today.

8.  Boosting testosterone in men also boosts muscle recovery and muscle growth.

Lifting heavy weights does this.  So does more slow wave sleep.

Getting enough protein does this.  (See the point after next.)

Taking these 3 inexpensive supplements each day boosts testosterone:

The real optimum intake of vitamin D3, 7,000 to 10,000 iu a day.

30 mg a day of zinc but not more than 45 plus 2 or 3 mg a day of copper to balance the zinc.

Two capsules a day of fenugreek which also helps prevent high blood sugar.

These next two supplements cost more but also boost testosterone more:

Tribulus and Tongkat Ali (also called “Long Jack.”)  One recent report said that within 2 to 4 weeks taking Tongkat Ali just about doubled testosterone levels.  And, I think tribulus is that effective also.

9.  Did you know there is a non-steroidal anabolic compound?  Did you know there is a moderately priced supplement that is high in it AND boosts free testosterone too!

Yes there is!  The non-steroidal anabolic compound is called ursolic acid and is in apple peels and in most spices based on leaves such as basil and oregano. 

The supplement that has enough ursolic acid to give you anabolic effects if you take two capsules a day is holy basil.  And, this supplement boosts testosterone too!

10.  The Perfect Workout newsletter quotes a study that for adequate recovery and strength increases from strength training, you need to eat 3/4 of a gram of protein for each pound of lean body mass.

They had a woman client who was working hard but not getting results. Then they found out she was only getting a third or a fourth that much protein.  They had her jump her intake to that level and she began making regular progress and strength gains.

Mike Mathews and others say that power lifters and body builders add more strength and muscle by getting a gram of protein for each pound of body weight.

Above that is not needed; but less than that produces less than optimum results.

10.  Did you know there is one kind of protein that gives you the best results and that adding it will improve your results?

There is!

Years ago I read a study that found that a study had been done that showed clearly if you fed people doing strength training a complete set of amino acids that had the same ratio as the muscle in that person that it increased their progress, strength, and muscle growth.

But in order to use that, I’d have to be able to pay to have that test done.  Then I’d have to have a way get that amino acid mix each day and pay for that.

Without thousands of dollars and the time to set it up, it was completely unusable information despite its very promising potential.  I didn’t have that; but I DID remember the study conclusion.

Then a few months ago, I happened on the information that the protein in whey has the same ratio of amino acids that people do.

HOORAY! 

So for about $30, the balanced amino acid protein mix that maximizes muscle gains is available.  And you can buy it online or just go to the store for it!

THAT is doable!  And, I’ve added 18 grams of whey each morning at breakfast ever since.

Whole Foods and virtually all health food stores carry whey.

Not only that; but Jarrow now sells whey from grass fed cows.

Similarly, some people have reported better muscle gains by supplementing heavily with branched chain amino acids.  But to take that many is pricey and a lot of extra work.

Whey has that many branched chain amino acids and at no extra charge!  So if you eat or drink whey every day you get them and that effect; but you do so without those far more expensive supplements!

Right now I’m focused on other things too and plan to stick with one serving a day of whey.

But I suspect it may make sense at some point to go to one or more additional servings.

Mike Matthews teaches people how to add muscle and suggests taking whey four times a day to help get the grams of protein per day up to the level that gets the best results.

You can build more muscle with steroids according to Mike’s article on it. 

But unless you are a competition body builder or other kind of strength athlete, you can build enough muscle using these methods here to look muscular, add enough pounds of muscle to remove extra fat, and to be quite strong.  

My monthly fatloss report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 7-20-2015

[This month’s report is a mixed review with some positive and some negative events to report. I both gained some leverage and lost some. That status seems like AND IS 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 also!]

Note:  Be sure to read the last section even if you skip the first ones. There is significant good news in fat loss for everyone, not just me, listed there!

Here’s the key news. 

1.  Last month, I lost a pound.

Because my chest measurement went up and my hips did too BUT my weight went down and my waist remained the same, I might well have gained some muscle! 

2.  The foods and supplements that I had hoped would help with increasing my muscle and strength may be working.  I did get measurably stronger since last month.

3.  I also did two things that may have been as important or more so than the foods and supplements. 

The Perfect Workout information was that optimum progress came with slow repetitions of 10 seconds up and 10 seconds down.  I had been doing much faster although slow reps; but when I re-read that 10 seconds each way is best, in one of my two weekly strength training sessions I have been doing just that.  It does seem to be working.

And, I read a study that people doing strength training who were given a placebo they thought was anabolic steroids increased the weight they used right away to levels the people not given anything were doing!

So, I thought, what if I just boosted the weight in a comparable way?  I did so.  And it seems to be working!

There is also better news.  I’ve discovered that when I can get to a gym with heavy barbells and resume doing the deadlifts I did when I was last lean at my goal weight and increase the weight to what I did then or close to it, there is strong evidence I’ll gain enough muscle in my lower back, buttocks, and legs to remove at least half and maybe a good bit more of my excess fat!

(My recovery from my Achilles tendon injury on my left leg is 100%; and the repair of the stress fracture in my lower left leg seems to be standing up still to the very slow building back program I’ve been on.  And, I’m getting close to a level where I may be able to speed my progress a bit.)

4.  My blood pressure medication the doctor gave me seemed to have no effect for the first 4 weeks I took it.  But a few days ago, it may have begun doing some good as my blood pressure readings have improved.  (This was a low dose of an ace inhibitor.)

Even better, I likely have some water weight to lose.  I have some accumulated water and swelling in my ankles.  If I lose that retained water, it may cut my weight from just over my goal weight by 6.5 pounds to a pound or two closer at least!

I just added the low dose diuretic she, my woman doctor, suggested for my blood pressure.

If it does remove a pound or two on the scale that would be nice!  (I still am short muscle and have too much fat, but it will still be nice and improve my mood and power to weight ratio if that happens.)

(When my blood pressure was in the 145 over 80 to 155 over 85 range, I think I likely did the right thing to do other protective things and not take the blood pressure drugs. 

But some recent stress drove it up well above 160 over 100 long enough that it may have caused some mild heart and kidney distress -- and the ankle swelling. 

And, I long ago read that once your blood pressure goes above 160 over 100 and stays there, the studies show that it IS protective to take drugs to bring it down and dangerous to not do so.

So when I went to the doctor last time, five days ago, expecting my blood pressure to be what it had been, 155 over 85 and it was over 160 over 100 instead, I consented to try a blood pressure drug or two.

So far, the low dose of the first one has low enough side effects I can stay on it as long as I need to.

I’ll likely need to double the dose of that one, an ace inhibitor, and add a diuretic.  It remains to be seen if I’ll find that doable or not.

**The news this month is good so far!

Admittedly today is only the very first day.  But the side effects are barely noticeable for taking the diuretic. 

If that keeps up, I’ll be able to stay on it while stress and too much belly fat and not enough vegetables were pushing it above 160 over 100 too often.

And, the even better news is that the typical reduction for people about where I am on blood pressure AND FOR THE EXACT DOSE I’M TAKING is 14 over 8!

So the 158 over 88 to 175 over 101 range I have been in, may well fall to 144 over 80 and 161 over 93 a MUCH better range to be in and below 160 most of the time and always below 100.

It remains to be seen how I do on getting that much effect and having the side effects be manageable.  But the low seeming side effects and the promise of that much blood pressure reduction look quite good so far.

*Last but far from least, my blood pressure is likely to go down because I’ve successfully switched away from the proton pump inhibitor I was taking to an H2 blocker for my reflux. 

Stanford just did a study proving proton pump inhibitors prevent normal nitric oxide release that relaxes your blood vessels and this directly causes high blood pressure from this effect.

So, stopping the proton pump inhibitor will cut my blood pressure for sure over the next few weeks.  What I don’t yet know is whether it will be by 5 points or 20.  It depends on how reversible this damage turns out to be and what percentage of my high blood pressure it was causing. 

5.  The GOOD news is that my ability to lose at least 10 to 20 pounds of belly fat may be on its way to me now! 

A significant amount of this fat loss may well show up for me this year. And, even more next year!

In fact, part of it may show up by my September report or even a bit by my August report.

Here’s why:

a) I already knew and had posted on how, sometime in the future, by getting a girdle and two cold packs – one on my belly and one on my lower back, I might lose an inch or two from my waist.

But that kind of project takes a lot of work and some funding; and I just have had too much on my plate for that low an expected return -- and one not tested to work for sure in advance.

NOW I just found out that someone else has pioneered just exactly such a device; but with several significant and dramatic upsides.

Best of all, some of a recent commission check was available AND sometime in later July or early August , I’ll have one to use!

His group has created what I envisioned AND built that and a similar wearable cold pack for your upper back and upper chest.

They have tested this two part combo and have shown that wearing it for two or three hours several days or evenings a week, burns calories and removes fat with ZERO changes in what you eat or the exercise you do.

In fact, this effect is so robust you may be able to eat MORE and still lose fat.

This apparently turns on your brown fat and removes some fat by that metabolic increase even when you aren’t wearing it. 

But the big effect is the direct burning of calories to stay warm while you are wearing it.

This is doable because you can wear a hat and gloves to minimize how cold you feel: AND you can read or work on your computer while you are wearing it!

It’s even possible that wearing the cold packs after a hard workout earlier in the day may enable you to recover better and make faster progress at building muscle.

Some people who had 25 or 30 pounds of fat to lose lost it in two months. One even lost it in one month.

I doubt seriously if I’ll be able to wear the packs enough to do that each week. 

But it does sound very much as if I’ll be able, FINALLY, to lose five pounds of fat each month for a few months in a row.

That may well be the best potential news that has ever been in my fatloss reports or in my blog at all for that matter.

*That’s because I may become quite well do to do personally by selling a fat loss set of products guaranteed to work – because they always do.

*And, it may give doctors a safe way AND totally effective way to help obese patients lose their excess fat.  

Ways to prevent strokes….

Today's Post:  Friday, 7-17-2015

By 90 years old my Mom had lost my Dad who was her “rock,” her sane, tough, prudent, and problem solver so she mostly hadn’t needed to develop those skills.  And something or a few things failed in her eyesight, so by that time or soon after, she could no longer see well enough to go on hikes or daily exercise walks.

But she was spirited enough and had enough friends and family that she was mostly still all there when she wasn’t too tired.

Then, recently at age 92, she found a kind and bright boyfriend who was a great fit for her; and she became much sharper and had something to live for.

Way to go Mom!

It looked like this might give her another few good years. She really had gotten so much sharper this looked quite likely to me in fact.

Then just a few weeks later, she had some kind of stroke.  Unlike those that seem to shut down one side, it seemed to shut down her executive ability and her remaining mobility and her ability to access most of her memories.  In some ways she was no longer home or there.

(A recent study found that strokes age the brain by 8 to 10 years and she was 92.)

Then instead of gradually recovering she stopped eating and drinking and died.

So, since strokes are largely preventable, it motivated me to do this post.

1.  You can prevent strokes directly in several ways!:

a) A UK study found that people who eat 6 servings a day of vegetables have a death rate from all causes that is 43% less than people who don’t.  (And we know that if the vegetables are all organic and there is a variety including many cruciferous vegetables, the results will be even better.)

But that’s a LOT of vegetables.  (One effective work around is to put them into a Vitamix drink so you can drink them in a few minutes instead of having to chew them for ten.)

However, the fantastically good news for preventing stroke from the same study was that eating ONE serving of whole fresh fruit a day not only was almost that protective for stopping strokes, it was that protective for stopping BOTH the blood clot caused obstructive or ischemic strokes but was ALSO even more protective from the bleeding in the brain or hemorrhagic strokes!

(Fruit, particularly organic berries, seems to make the collagen in your blood vessels both healthier and stronger to cause these two effects.  Some studies showing that wild organic blueberries do this best and reduce stroke  the most also found a reduction in aging and an improvement in brain functioning equal to becoming mentally 12 years younger.)

Currently berries are in season and we have been eating some extra organic strawberries.

But for many years I’ve eaten some kind of fruit each day with breakfast.  Considering how protective that tested to be that’s great good luck! 

Besides the strawberries I eat thawed frozen wild blueberries three times a week and two bananas a week and vary the other two days.  Currently I’ve been eating kiwi fruit and no sugar applesauce.

Considering how easy and powerful this ONE thing is, be SURE to do it even if you don’t’ do any of these other things to remove the rest of the risk!

b) Keep your highest blood pressure readings below 159 over 99 even if you have to use drugs.

Long ago research found that blood pressure that high makes strokes more likely.  And as buggy and high on side effects as they are it was found that reducing blood pressures that high with drugs cuts the overall death rate and the deaths from strokes.

But if your blood pressure gets that high, the nondrug methods are much safer and it’s also imperative to find some that work for you.  The good news is that some new ones may work!

*  People who eat 6 to 10 servings a day of organic vegetables or drink them in a Vitamix drink get enough vegetable based nitrates and potassium to lower blood pressure as much or more than drugs.  (It can be quite challenging to do this without using a Vitamix.  I know more than most people to eat many vegetables each day and get 4700 mg a day of potassium; but I only manage about half that much!)

One man who ate 4 stalks of celery a day dropped his blood pressure by 40 over 18. 

And the DASH diets recommend a high vegetable intake that are about half way between where I am and optimum tend to cut blood pressure also.

I’m planning to get the Vitamix and hope to drop my blood pressure by close to half that much with that man’s approach.

*Obesity literally causes high blood pressure directly.  So if you begin to eat right and exercise and lose over 20 pounds your blood pressure will be less.  (There is a new way to lose fat we are testing that looks likely to enable people to lose another 20 or more pounds of fat – thus driving down blood pressure even more!  If it works for me, it should drop my blood pressure by at least 10 points.)

*There are many ways to get stress relief enough to lower high blood pressure driven by stress.  The Resparate device must be used something like 15 minutes almost every day to work.  But Tai Chi and yoga can do this in shorter session and give you exercise effects too.

And, there are now two high tech stress relief devices that seem to work and may be even more time efficient!

c) Prevent the blood vessel damage in you that causes heart attacks, ED, vascular dementia, and PAD.  The reduction in blood flow to your brain increases the damage if you have a stroke and the narrowing of your blood vessels in your brain makes them easier to block.

*Many food and drink ingredients are heart attack starters comparable to tobacco smoke in how effective they are in causing the blood vessel diseases that cause both heart attacks and strokes.

It is doable to NOT eat or drink ANY of these things or come very, very close.

High fructose corn syrup, agave nectar, fruit juice concentrates, artificial sweeteners, MSG, refined GMO hybrid wheat, soy and corn and canola oils, and protein foods from animals fed those grains which are also usually GMO and any amount of hydrogenated fat or oils.

Each and every one of those things are heart attack starters.  And the closer your intake of any and all of them is to zero the less likely you are to get strokes and heart attacks.

*Nicotine and tobacco smoke on every single exposure also add to cardiovascular disease.  So zero exposure to them prevents strokes.

But it’s even worse than that for tobacco smoke!  Within minutes of ANY exposure your blood pressure goes up!  This effect is known to trigger heart attacks because when second hand smoke is stopped by laws against smoking in public places the incidence of heart attacks and related trips to the Emergency Room is cut in half!

**Not doing any or all of those things enables you to slash your risk of heart attacks and strokes.

* Lower small particle LDL tends to prevent heart attacks and strokes is one effect from stopping heart attack starters.  Taking 300 to 600 mg a day of real niacin does this.  So does eating wild caught fish high in omega 3.  So does taking the omega 3 and the omega 3 DHA as supplements.  So does getting at least some vigorous exercise most days of every week.  So does taking sterols like beta sitosterol. AND so does taking turmeric or curcumin with black pepper and ginger every day. 

(This results in high HDL readings, low triglyceride readings, and low LDL readings. 

Note that this set of things gets BETTER readings than taking high dose statin drugs; is far more protective; and has massively fewer side effects!)

* Lower HSCRP inflammation is one effect from stopping heart attack starters. Eating wild caught fish high in omega 3 does this.  So does taking the omega 3 and the omega 3 DHA as supplements. AND so does taking turmeric or curcumin with black pepper and ginger every day.

* Avoid MSG, proton pump inhibitors, nicotine and tobacco smoke, and excessive salt intake.

MSG boosts HSCRP inflammation, causes obesity, and can cause thyroid damage that then causes obesity.  And, obesity causes high blood pressure and TIA’s which both cause strokes!

Proton pump inhibitor drugs it was just found out cause blood vessel damage and high blood pressure which both tend to cause strokes.  (Mercifully H2 blockers, a replacement drug for heartburn and reflux, don’t seem to do this.)

Lastly excessive salt intake causes strokes by increasing blood pressure and harming the lining of your blood vessels and this damage also causes gout!  There is some question if very low salt intakes are helpful but intakes of over 3500 mg a day are clearly super harmful.

* Remove excess fat if more than moderate.

We already covered that above.  But losing 40 pounds or more can turn off high blood pressure and its stroke risks as much as 100%.

 AND the stopping of the heart attack starters, eating more vegetables and regular vigorous exercise that help cause fat loss and are essential to keeping it off each help prevent strokes!

* Keep your heart fit but avoid over-stressing it.  Long unvarying cardio such as marathon races is now known to harm your heart and blood vessels.  The much better news is that if you build up to even more intense but MUCH SHORTER bursts of cardio, you can be fit in 10 to 20 minutes just 3 times a week.  This strengthens your heart without over-stressing it!  The key is to rest it before it gets over-stressed.  But over time it can do more and more as long as you keep the bursts to seconds or minutes instead of more than 2 or 3 minutes and build in rest breaks.

d) Avoid daily aspirin and gum disease and TIA’s.

*Aspirin prevents blood clots; but people doing the things above get better heart and stroke protection and don’t need that effect.  What’s far less known is that aspirin can cause low clotting enough to cause hemorrhagic strokes!

*TIAs are a kind of fluttery heart beat can cause strokes too either directly by causing blood clots or hemorrhagic strokes from the drugs to prevent the clots.  It’s caused by obesity and excessive alcohol intake.  So turn those off or avoid them for stroke protection!

*Gum disease releases bacteria that cause heart disease and infections that more than double stroke risks.  So take over 7,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 to protect you from the bacteria an infections and learn to brush and floss in a way that prevents these things; do it daily; and every six months have your teeth cleaned to protect your gums from this and you from getting strokes caused by this!

2.  Prevent disability and minimize the damage if you have a stroke.

a) Increase your brain’s network and plasticity so your brain has more ways to recover.

Socialize often, keep learning, and try new ways of doing things occasionally!

The bigger and more interconnected your brain’s networks are the easier it is to keep functions and recover them when sections of them go down!

b) Take ginkgo biloba! That’s because studies show that when people who have already been taking it for several weeks or more before a stroke sustain less far less damage!

(The effects of it giving the brain better circulation apparently reduce the damage or get blood flow going more quickly if there is a stroke.)

Ways to prevent prostate cancer….

Today's Post:  Friday, 7-10-2015

1.  Several weeks ago, a study was reported on Medical News Today saying that there is indeed support for the position that things that prevent prostate cancer ALSO prevent breast cancer.

Of course, anything that prevents all cancers prevents both prostate and breast cancer!

2.  Though tobacco use and smoke “only” have been thought to cause 30% of all cancers, if you look at cancers that result in death or have the chance of causing death it’s 50%.

A. The first thing to do is to take the steps that prevent all cancers when you want to prevent prostate cancer.

1.  The biggest and most effective one is to avoid using tobacco products of any kind and any exposure to tobacco smoke AND nicotine for anything but temporary use as a stop smoking aid.

a) Tobacco is grown today using fertilizers containing polonium, a radioactive element.  If you touch a tobacco product to your mucous membranes in your mouth, throat, or nose – or if you breathe tobacco smoke, this polonium goes into your blood stream.  And, because your blood goes everywhere in your body, guess what that means? 

It means that tobacco use can and does cause cancer of every single kind in each part of your body.  This of course includes prostate cancer, breast cancer, and ovarian cancer.

b) Medical News Today in the last few month also reported that nicotine by itself BOTH causes cancer AND heart disease. 

(That’s doubly significant because although some people who smoke do escape cancer or die before the cancer shows up, EVERY SINGLE EXPOSURE TO TOBACCO SMOKE CAUSES A BIT OF THE PLAQUE BUILD UP THAT EVENTUALLY WILL RESULT IN HEART DISEASE, STROKES, ED, AND OTHER PROBLEMS WITH CIRCULATION—INCLUDING  VASCULAR DEMENTIA.

That means that teens just trying smoking and people who “only smoke one or two a day are giving themselves heart disease.  NO ONE escapes because this happens every single time.)

Since nicotine by itself also causes both heart disease and cancer, this also means that eCigarettes should be banned, taxed, and considered as smoking in every place where smoking is banned or prohibited.

c)  The hotter the flame used to start a cigarette, the more carcinogenic tobacco smoke is created due to the short lived and very reactive hydrocarbons produced.

The editor of Analog Science Fiction also followed science and found and published a study that found that although there was some lung cancer when people lit cigarettes with matches, the curve of increasing use of lighters with their much hotter flame and the incidence of lung cancer was virtually identical.

If you know smokers, guess how many use matches today and how many use lighters?  Since they almost always use lighters, you not only want to NOT be around their smoke in general, it’s very important not to be around them when they light up.

(Last bit about smoking.  Tobacco also includes cadmium; and since that is brain toxic along with the circulation impairment caused by smoking, nearly two thirds of smokers will develop Alzheimer’s disease according to one study.) 

This is a bit of a heavy emphasis I realize; but we’re talking about how to avoid the killing forms of prostate and breast cancer here.

The evidence is that if you avoid tobacco products, nicotine, and tobacco smoke, 100 % of the time,

             you just cut your risk of that AND any other cancers in HALF!

2.  The second way to cut the risk of all cancers is to avoid high chronic inflammation.

Mercifully this is becoming better and better known and most of the better health writers now know it and promote it.

Simply put, people are genetically adapted to thrive on a diet with omega 6 oils and omega 3 oils in balance.  Before 10,000 years ago people didn’t eat grain and the seafood and even other animals they ate which ate their natural diets were high in omega 3 oils.

As a result our bodies are genetically set to do well with an equal amount of omega 6 oils and omega 3 oils.  Omega 6 oils in this low moderate intake allow our bodies to use inflammation on a temporary basis when it’s beneficial and omega 3 oils with their anti-inflammatory effects keep inflammation temporary and low the rest of the time.

But in the last 100 years our diet has made massive changes for the worse.  People eat grains directly which have omega six oils.  They eat animals fed grains instead of their natural diet which causes their fat to be extremely high in omega 6 oils.  Worse, they eat grain oils such as soy, corn, and canola. On top of that over 90% of each of these grains are GMO grains which I strongly suspect are even more pro-inflammatory.

The first major pioneer in publishing this nutritional train wreck and how it helps cause or worsen cancers was in the book:

Anticancer: A New Way of Life Dec 31, 2009   by David Servan-Schreiber

He lived a lot longer with his brain cancer but did eventually die of it.

But the anti-inflammatory lifestyle he teaches and explains is a HUGE lever to use for good health besides its effect on preventing and slowing cancer. 

Keeping chronic inflammation very low also prevents and even may treat autoimmune disease; it not only reduces the pain and limitation of osteoarthritis, it prevents it from forming!; it is a major lever besides lowering small particle LDL in preventing heart disease and strokes; and it also strongly prevents Alzheimer's disease and other kinds of mental decline.

By the way, NOT eating wheat and rarely eating other grains and never eating soy or corn or canola oil using extra virgin olive oil only AND virtually never eating farmed fish, or meat from animals or poultry fed grain works. 

People likely to have cancer and heart disease et al have HSCRP inflammation readings of 3.0 and up.  1.0 and less is desirable.  Mine recently tested as being .02. 

3.  What if you could slash your chronic inflammation AND prevent cancer and Alzheimer’s disease another level by adding something else to the very low inflammation eating style?

It’s closer to two or three levels!  And, yes you can!

The research Dr Servan-Schreiber found was that eating turmeric with black pepper or taking the curcumin supplements made from and including some turmeric with black pepper slashes chronic inflammation.

I’d started taking curcumin supplements by the time I read about curcumin helping to stop cancer because they have been shown to strongly prevent Alzheimer’s disease.  So I just began taking my curcumin with black pepper.

(Turmeric and curcumin not only keep inflammation from causing the damage that leads to Alzheimer’s disease, they apparently ALSO speed up the repairs of any damage that forms!)

Unbelievably there is more!

I began taking curcumin; and began taking ginger as an anti-inflammatory and bracing morning tonic each day in chilled water.  (Ginger is a better tasting botanic cousin of turmeric and is also a safe and quite effective anti-inflammatory.)

Then my LDL cholesterol on my next test dropped from about 106 decently low, to 73!

I realized it might be due to the turmeric and ginger but wasn’t sure.  Then I read in Dr Dean Ornish’s book, Spectrum that yes research verifies that they do lower LDL cholesterol.

4.  And, there is still more, if you also do the things like take omega 3 oils and the DHA omega 3 oil and real niacin and do regular vigorous exercise each day, your HDL goes up and they have shown that your triglycerides go down AND the small particle LDL that causes heart disease goes down!

(Doing all that is what dropped my HSCRP inflammation so low.)

But here’s the incredibly good news for fighting cancer here:  Separate research found that a very low level of small particle LDL has the effect of preventing cancer from metastasizing and spreading all over and becoming deadly!

5.  You can also eat, take, and drink many things with an anti-cancer effect on all cancers:

According to a UK study people who eat 6 or more servings of vegetables a day have a fantastically high 43% lower chance of dying from any cause than people who do not.

24% of the 43% was the drop in heart disease and strokes; but close to 19% was the reduction in cancers.

Moreover, you can do much better than a 19% drop with some vegetables.

a)  Eating some cruciferous vegetables raw prevents or kills off cancer.  The micronutrients involved are killed off by heat. 

So raw broccoli florets or cauliflower by themselves or diced into a salad work. 

[I’ll repeat this later:  Eating raw broccoli florets or raw cauliflower florets at least once a week was found to cut the incidence of aggressive prostate cancer about in HALF. 

With my family history, I began and have continued to eat broccoli florets four to seven days a week ever since!]

Using raw kale or chard or collard greens or even water cress in a Vitamix drink also work!

Coleslaw made with either green or red cabbage or both works.  (Note that virtually all commercial pre-made mayo really uses cancer boosting oils like soy or canola and NOT 100% olive oil as real mayo does.  So, if you don’t make your own mayo, just using extra virgin olive oil and cabbage with maybe some diced onion or carrots or organic raisins works.)

b)  Since many pesticides and herbicides are carcinogenic and organic vegetables have close to zero instead of enough to matter, although many vegetables do prevent cancer, making a strong and consistent effort to eat almost only organic vegetables also helps prevent cancer.

The good news is that Whole Foods Market carries many vegetables and fruit that is organic and at relatively reasonable prices.  I’ve not seem them carry organic fresh spinach which was reported as having multiple kinds of pesticides.  But they have been carrying organic red and green cabbage and onions and carrots and raisins and broccoli florets.

c)  Some cancer preventing compounds are released when cruciferous vegetables are gently steamed.  And if the steaming is brief enough some of the heat sensitive cancer preventers may survive the process.

d)  Beta carotene by itself has been tested to be a mixed review in terms of cancer protection. 

However, mixed carotenes from dark green and yellow and orange vegetables are strongly health protective AND cancer protective.

In addition, eating these vegetables with extra virgin olive oil in a salad or cooked with extra virgin olive oil makes the carotenes many times more available to your body.

So, while cooking or boiling broccoli but not so long it gets a bitter taste may turn off the cancer preventive compounds that are heat sensitive it IMPROVES your body’s access to its cancer preventing carotenes!

The best way to get carotenes is NOT in supplements but in real organic vegetables.  We now know that vegetables like carrots and broccoli and yams don’t just have beta carotene, they have HUNDREDS of carotenes!  And it may be the combination of those that is so health protective – not just some of them!

In fact, alpha carotene, not beta may be the most powerful single carotene for good health.  A study found that if you knew the level of alpha carotene in someone was high or low, you could predict their overall health so well by that it was amazing.

(When I read that I looked up which vegetable was highest in alpha carotene and found that it’s carrots!

By the way, after I read that, I added diced organic carrots to the broccoli florets I had been eating for lunch each day.)

e)  Carotenes are so potent for good health that an interesting study was done that found that people who eat a lot of them have a kind of ruddy glow to their skin.  When people see people with that glow, they perceive them as healthy.  When they don’t see that glow, they perceive the people as much less healthy.

But what was astounding about that study was that the people tested did NOT know why they saw people with that glow as healthy, they just were aware they “looked” healthy!

e)  People get DNA damage and other things that cause carcinogenic cells.  In younger people with strong immune systems and low chronic inflammation, their immune system kills them off and cancer as a disease caused by such cells growing out of control never happens at all.

A study was published making the case that the real optimum daily intake of vitamin D3 is about7,000 iu. 

(The manmade vitamin D2 IS undesirable in amounts that high; but the natural form is made by the body from summer sun in amounts over 20,000 iu a day with no ill effects.)

What has that to do with your immune system killing off potentially cancerous cells?

A huge amount it turns out!  People who get 5,000 to 10,000 iu day or a bit more of vitamin D3 get an astounding double benefit! 

The amount of killer T cells your body makes go up several fold!  Instead of single shot rifles and sparse ammunition, it’s like that much vitamin D3 provides multiple barrel machine guns and a fleet of ammo trucks to your immune system!

The other effect is nearly or even more astonishing!  Your T cells accuracy goes way up too!

They are then dramatically less likely to cause an autoimmune disease by thinking your healthy cells need to be attacked.

AND if similar but cancerous cells show up, your immune system recognizes that and kills them!

f)  A quite well done study of the cheap manmade form of vitamin E found that high doses of it slightly INCREASED the amount of prostate cancer.

The headlines said “Vitamin E found to cause prostate cancer.”

Oops!

The studies of real alpha tocopherol, vitamin E, and other tocopherols in their natural form consistently show the reverse!

Not only that, but just like carotenes, vitamin E is a whole set of related compounds if you get it in foods.  There are at least 8 variants that we know of.

And gamma tocopherol is many times more potent and preventing prostate cancer than the alpha tocopherol known as vitamin E.

How do you get that?  You can do it easily with good health benefits by eating unprocessed raw tree nuts and avocadoes and extra virgin olive oil.

Not only that but pecans are unusually high in gamma tocopherol and they taste good too!

g)  Different studies show varying degrees of cancer prevention from green tea.  But it’s clear that people who drink a cup or more a day of organic green tea or take green tea extract or both will have far fewer cancers than people who do not. 

(I like coffee and Earl Grey and Oolong tea better and drink some of each.

But I drink a double bag cup of Choice organic green tea and take two Now green tea extract supplements when I first get up each morning.  Then I take two Now green tea extract supplements when I first get to work and drink another double bag organic green tea with my lunch.

The wake up effect is far gentler and less anxiety boosting than coffee.  And, I suspect the anticancer effect is quite strong.  It’s at least equal to drinking 8 cups of green tea a day.

People who simply drink 5 or more cups of green tea a day get less of all cancers and of prostate cancers than people who don’t.)

h) People who get a bio-effective 200 mcg a day of selenium but not over 400 get fewer cancers than people who don’t.  I take that much as a supplement but I found out its bioavailability may be as low 25%.  So when I found out that eating a Brazil nut delivers about 100 mcg of bioavailable selenium, I also eat an average of one a day.

(An interesting note is that while doing this helps prevent prostate cancer, it may also boost testosterone to do this!)

B.  Besides these things what prevents prostate cancer?

1.  Taking up to but NOT more than 45 mg a day of zinc and the 3 mg a day of copper needed to balance it is similar to taking selenium.

Doing so boosts your immune system and seems to be most effective in preventing prostate cancer.

And, like selenium it boosts your testosterone a bit.

Also, like selenium taking way more has harmful effects. The depresses your immune system instead!

It’s in meat and nuts.  So a vegan vegetarian who doesn’t eat nuts is likely to be deficient in it.

2.  But the real grand slam winner is lycopene.  Lycopene is the primary carotene in tomatoes.

It was found that men who ate a lot of cooked tomato and pasta sauce had a much lower rate of prostate cancer than men who didn’t.

Then someone though to test having men take 3 10mg capsules of lycopene with and oil to make it bioavailable and both found that it prevented prostate cancer and tended to slow it down if it was already present.

THAT study made the front page of TIME magazine at the time.  And, with my family history, I’ve taken 30 mg a day of lycopene AND have tomato based pasta sauce with extra virgin olive oil three to five days a week as part of my dinner.

More recently, a study was done that gave men with slow growing prostate cancer both the lycopene and just 4,000 iu a day of vitamin D3.

Some of the cancers vanished and almost none of them got any bigger!

C. What prevents the aggressive form of prostate cancer?

Note that just the lycopene and vitamin D3 combination comes close.

I now take a bit over 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D3.

And, as we wrote earlier in this post, people who do the things that boost HDL and lower triglycerides have far fewer particles of small particle LDL.  And studies have found this make aggressive cancers far less successful in leaving where they began.

But there are at least two others:

a) Eating raw broccoli florets or raw cauliflower florets at least once a week was found to cut the incidence of aggressive prostate cancer about in HALF. 

With my family history, I began and have continued to eat broccoli florets four to seven days a week ever since!

(I did note this earlier in this post also.)

b)  An interesting thing happened. Long ago I read that people who took the mineral supplement boron were slightly but very consistently more alert than people who didn’t.

I’ve taken 3 mg a day of boron ever since.

Wow! Has that been lucky!

It seems that taking boron plus strength training plus taking vitamin D3 plus never drinking colas and taking vitamin K2 plus getting enough magnesium creates strong very hard to break  bones.  And adding the boron apparently about doubles the effect of the other things because the bones of people who take boron are so tough to cut surgeons found they had to use specials saws to cut bones in people who get enough boron.

Then I read that Dr Al Sears found that men who take boron ALSO get half the aggressive prostate cancer of men who don’t.  But when I read that I didn’t need to go buy some because I’d already been taking it for over TEN years!

Conclusion:

How well does this work?

Both my grandfathers died of prostate cancer.  My Dad might have if he had not had his prostate cancer treated.  And, one of my younger brothers developed the slow growing kind of prostate cancer.

About 15 years ago my PSA tested at 4.6 a few times in a row and my doctor said not to worry since it wasn’t going up.

I’ve since learned that 4.6 is actually moderately high and NOT a good sign.

Since adopting virtually all these methods for several years I simply presumed it was working.

But my other younger brother challenged me to check.

My PSA went DOWN to 1.68 a level low enough it’s usually considered safe enough to not need a lot of checking as it’s below 2.0.

With my family history, I find that impressive and convincing!  

Ways to avoid antibiotic resistant bacteria….

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 7-7-2015

You likely have other things to worry about.  I know I do.

But if you are like me, you’ve grown up in a world where short of violence and accidents most people reliably live to be at least 60 years old.  And people who are educated and employed most of their lives tend to live to be at least 80.

But before antibiotics, life and bringing up kids was a lot more risky and chaotic. 

People knew friends and family and colleagues and famous people who died suddenly of infections.  People went to funerals a lot too.

Just as two examples, President Abraham Lincoln and Leland Stanford, Senior had sons who died of diseases we have since then been able to stop with antibiotics.

Since the advent of public health measures and antibiotics that world left us. 

But thanks to antibiotic overuse in medicine and massive antibiotic overuse by factory farms, it is coming back.

The good news is that you can minimize the amount of antibiotic resistant bacteria in you.

You can help boost the pressure on politicians to actually cause factory farms to be cleaner and more humane instead of covering the bad results of doing the opposite by using antibiotics routinely.  If that kind of antibiotic use became illegal and the laws had teeth and were very well enforced, that would stop the main cause of the spread of antibiotic resistance.

And, you can hope the researchers into new antibiotics and ways to use old ones with boosters we didn’t need to use before such as IV megadoses of vitamin C AND the old antibiotics get effective replacements into mainstream use in time.

I don’t always agree with the positions of Jenny Thompson who writes the HSI eAlert email I get.  But sometimes she clearly gets it right.

Today I got this:   [I’ll put some of her comments in bold.]

"..antibiotic-resistant superbugs are going to kill nearly 40,000 Americans…young and old… this year alone.

Before long, experts are warning that superbugs could kill one out of every six people who undergo a hip transplant and could turn even a simple infected cut or abrasion into a death sentence.

Just think about that for a moment. Twenty five years ago, superbug infections were practically unheard of. Ten years ago, you rarely saw them outside of hospital settings.

And now, superbugs are only a couple years from becoming one of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States -- right alongside heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

It's a problem that even Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, saw coming 70 years ago. He watched as certain bacteria became resistant to penicillin, and warned about the coming "evil" of superbugs if antibiotics were overused.

But now that evil is here, and our government isn't doing much to stop it.

A few months ago, President Obama released his big strategy to fight these superbugs. But even though the plan will cost us taxpayers $1.2 billion, it's still a day late and a dollar short.

And the biggest place it fell short was down on the farm. Obama had the chance to stop the rampant, unnecessary use of antibiotics in farm animals -- a major source of our exposure to the drugs. Only he didn't.

Believe it or not, 80 percent of all the antibiotics sold in the U.S. are given to livestock. The drugs make animals gain weight quickly so they can be sold for more money at slaughter. But all those antibiotics head straight for the food supply and our stomachs, and they're a major contributor to the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

And while Obama claimed he had developed a "comprehensive plan" to fight antibiotic resistance, all he proposed was a voluntary policy that lets the beef and poultry industries police themselves.

I'll give you one guess how that's going. Antibiotic use in livestock is actually increasing, not decreasing.

As Congresswoman Louise Slaughter put it, "your government is not going to protect you" from antibiotic overexposure and superbugs.

Which is why we have to learn how to protect ourselves.

Here are a few simple… but potentially life-saving… steps that can get you started:

Don't take antibiotics unless absolutely necessary. Doctors and dentists will often zip off an Rx when it's not needed, and many patients will even ask for antibiotics on their own.

If you really do need an antibiotic, ask your doctor for one that targets your specific infection, not a broad spectrum one. That may require a bacterial culture be done, but it's well worth it.

Antibiotic creams like Neosporin should also be used sparingly. In fact, a study published in the CDC's monthly journal said that Neosporin is likely contributing to a new, antimicrobial resistant strain of MRSA.

When buying beef and chicken, either go the organic route, or look for a label that says "No antibiotics." Steer clear of meaningless claims such as "All Natural."”

Here are my comments:

Here are some other things to do:

A. To avoid infection with antibiotic resistant bacteria:

1.  When injured and cut, cleaning the cut and safely covering it prevents infection. 

Wash gently with soap and rinse gently. Allow the cut to bleed a bit first if you can and the cut isn’t too large since the blood flow helps with cleaning. 

Put on liquid hand soap first and wash, THEN rinse after the soap has removed the oils the bacteria are in. When you do your last rinse use hot but not too hot water since this will help with clotting a bit.

Then keep covered with a bandage until it’s completely healed.  (Besides less infections this speeds healing compared with leaving the injury uncovered.)

If you need something to cover a raw area beside the bandage, use something like A & D cream that besides the vitamins A & D3 provides a physical barrier to germs but no antibiotics.

2.  Take the new recommended intake of 7,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 or a bit more!  One of the things that much D3 does is to greatly increase the power of your immune system. 

And, if antibiotic resistant bacteria get killed by your immune system, the fact that most antibiotics won’t kill it no longer matters!

3.  To the extent you can, try not to visit hospitals or be a patient in them.  If you do visit one, wash your hands just before you leave and just after you get home!

B.  Take probiotics daily.

And NEVER eat or drink things with artificial sweeteners. 

Sucrose and the other artificial sweeteners do the worst possible double, they kill your protective probiotic bacteria and tend to increase harmful bacteria in your gut! 

Unbelievably, they test to be MORE fattening than even high fructose corn syrup too!

C.  Use as many of these ways as you can to minimize or eliminate eating meat and poultry grown with antibiotics:

1.  Get a lot of your protein from organic vegetables, tree nuts if you aren’t allergic, and beans and lentils if you aren’t allergic to them.  But avoid soy and its byproducts. 

2.  Get a lot of your protein from wild caught fish either fresh or canned such as canned Alaskan salmon that’s wild caught.

3.  Eat only eggs from pastured chickens and dairy from cows fed only grass.  Many of those also say they are antibiotic free.

4.  Eat meat of any kind only rarely.  And when you do, make a special effort to eat only 100% grass fed meats. 

(If it just says grass fed instead of 100% grass fed, it may be grass fed but grain finished which is about 90% as bad as always fed grain.  And the penning up process to “finish” the meat can create a need for antibiotics or include them to speed the fattening process.)

5.  I recently went to a Pizza event.  Because I could eat the meat and leave the cheese that might be fake cheese with trans fats and leave the wheat crust which I knew to be harmful, I decided since I was hungry to do that.  I ate ham and pineapple and pepperoni.

True I did avoid some fatteners and harmful ingredients by doing this.  But it took nearly 6 weeks before most of the effects of the possibly antibiotic resistant bacteria in the meat were driven out of my gut by the probiotics I take.  Yeeg!

Needless to say, if I’m invited to a Pizza place again, I’ll eat before and after at home and just have beer at the Pizza place!

6.  Notice that each and every strategy  I list here would send close to zero purchases to the companies that stuff beef cattle and poultry full of antibiotics.

They may be too unethical to stop.  But if enough of us stop buying, companies like that who don’t pay attention will stop selling and go out of business.