Make your bones AND heart much stronger....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 5-3-2016

Almost 100 years ago, a doctor, Weston Price, somehow saw a native people still eating their traditional diet as they had been for hundreds if not thousands of years

Dr Price was a dentist, his doctorate was DDS.  And, he noticed, much to his shock, that the people had no cavities or need of orthodontia to have perfect, well-aligned teeth!

These people clearly didn’t eat like his patients at home who did have these problems.

It turned out that Dr Price was one of the best researchers of all time.  He asked very perceptive questions and studied the data relentlessly until he answered them.

The first thing he asked himself after finding out what these people ate and what of the modern diet they did NOT eat, was what if these people are genetically lucky and their isolation kept that going?  What if their food had something in it not available elsewhere?

To be sure he knew those answers, he found and studied something like 2 or 3 dozen such peoples.  (That was still possible then as it is not now.)

There were striking regional differences.  But the common factors were these:  Generally they mostly ate lots of organic vegetables and fruits and almost no sugar and no grains.  And, although they were mostly vegetarian by volume, ALL of the groups ate some form of animal protein.

In fact, he was able to show that, besides NOT eating sugar or grains, the factor that enabled these peoples to have such perfect teeth was something in the animal protein foods.

There are two vitamins that help your blood to clot when it should.  Since the German spelling of the word coagulate starts with a K these became the K vitamins. 

K1, the water soluble one, which besides folate and natural vitamin C and cofactors and hundreds of carotenoids and potassium and nitrates most people get too little of today because they eat too little vegetables, is most abundant in greens and green vegetables.

K2, the fat soluble one, turned out to be the magic mystery factor that Dr Price was able to show provided the benefits he was so excited about.

It seems that vitamin K2, besides its role in your blood clotting when it should, acts as a director ensuring your body makes proper use of Calcium and vitamin D3. 

1.  Vitamin K2 ensures that any excess calcium in your blood vessels is removed and rarely goes there in the first place.

So if you want to have less hardening of your arteries and more responsive blood vessels, you want to ensure you get enough K2! 

AND, it has been found that the amount of calcium deposited in your blood vessels and in any plaque buildup you have is one of the most accurate predictors of future heart attacks and stroke.  So, if you’d rather avoid those, you want to ensure you get enough vitamin K2!

2.  And, vitamin K2 also ensures that enough calcium goes into your bones and teeth to make them grow into their proper shape and be as strong as you body needs them to be.  (This was the thing that dazzled Dr Price because of how well this happened in the peoples he studied.)

So if you want to have fewer dental cavities and broken bones and be unlikely to get osteoporosis later in life, eating the foods high in vitamin K2 and/or taking it as a supplement will help you do that.

Wild caught fish; milk, yogurt, cheese, whey, butter; and bone broth from cows fed only grass or organic sprouts; eggs, poultry meat, and bone broth from pastured chickens fed outside on unpolluted pasture; and liver from animals fed their natural diet using organic foods -- are all high in vitamin K2.

And you can take vitamin K2 as a supplement.  The most effective of the nine forms is number 7.  Jarrow sells a 90 mcg K2 supplement labeled MK7.  Form # 4 your body converts into form 7 at about 10 to one.  Carlson sells a 5,000 mcg capsule (5 mg).  So one of those converts into about 50 mcg of form 7 in your body.

(To be sure I get enough K2 I take one of each besides eating many of the foods high in it.

In my case, I eat mostly grass fed dairy foods and wild caught, canned, Alaskan Salmon.)

3.  I post often on the several dozen or so ways to reduce strokes and heart attacks besides getting enough K2.  So I’ll not add more on that here other than to say to be sure to add vitamin K2 to the other things you are doing to do that yourself!

4.  Osteoporosis though is different.

It causes early death, pain, and mobility restrictions that can make the end of your life less worth living.

Women often get osteoporosis partly because the estrogen they lose at menopause helps prevent it.

The drugs for osteoporosis are both harmful and ineffective.

Because of these things, knowing how to prevent osteoporosis and doing it is essential to living a long life worth living free of pain and being able to go places and do things as you get older.

So besides doing the things that ensure you get enough vitamin K2, here are the other things to do.

Here are the essential ones:

If you are female and passed menopause it may be worth doing to get a low dose, bioidentical estrogen replacement.  (I believe there is an FDA approved bioidentical estrogen patch your doctor can get you.)

But the other things on this list apply to everyone:

a) Drink zero soft drinks! 

Both regular and diet soft drinks make those who drink them fat and sick.  But soft drinks may be most effective at causing osteoporosis!  The carbonic acid that provides the fizz leaches calcium from your bones.  And, colas are even worse because the phosphoric acid in cola soft drinks leaches calcium from your bones even more effectively!

b) Do vigorous exercise for at least a few minutes most days of every week.

For osteoporosis prevention, brisk walking and effective strength training are most useful.

Doing some of each is ideal!

One form of effective strength training was created when a research team decided to see if when women who had osteopenia, early stage osteoporosis, did slow rep leg presses with weights that were heavy enough they had to work hard to do the reps and kept using more each month would strengthen their bones.  It worked!

(When you do vigorous exercise, your body repairs your muscles or even builds them up a bit to ensure you can continue over time.

And, your body repairs and builds up the bones those muscles attach to every time too!)

(Because women need this protection most and most women know the least about strength training and rarely use enough weight to challenge their muscle and bones enough, coaching can be essential to do this well enough to get the protection it offers!

If you have one you can go to and can afford to go even one of the two weekly session for 6 months, the Perfect Workout is the ideal way to go.  The sessions only take a half an hour and you only exercise for 20 minutes of that.  And, if you can afford two sessions a week and keep doing it, it’s a very time efficient way to do it.

And, at each session, you get a skilled personal trainer and coach to help you do it.  Many of their women customers rave about the results and also say they could never have managed it on their own.)

At the very least, do 4 or 5 brisk 7 minute walks each week.  Walk briskly until you get a bit out of breath and then slow down until you recover and repeat for the 7 minutes.

c) Take 7,000 to 10,000 iu of vitamin D3 because vitamin D3 also helps vitamin K2 and your body build up your bones with calcium. (The calcium you eat when you get enough K2 and D3 builds your bones.  If you take extra calcium but don’t take K2 and D3, studies show you get little bone building effects!)

d)  It’s been found that magnesium, NOT calcium is deficient in those who get osteoporosis.

With dairy foods and calcium in multi-vitamin + mineral tablets, most people get plenty of calcium without needing more.

So eat foods high in magnesium, greens and nuts work best; and take 400 to 600 mg a day of magnesium as a supplement.

e)  As I posted on recently, adding 3 mg a day of boron as a supplement when added to these other things makes your bones MUCH stronger. 

It used to be that osteoporosis surprised people with its horrible consequences.

That’s no longer necessary to endure or to have that nasty surprise.

Use these methods to prevent it totally instead!