Our ancestors believed that the stars rotated around the Earth. From our perspective, it made perfect sense. Of course, the idea was completely wrong. In fact, throughout history, people have believed ridiculous things. And we believed them so strongly you would have been persecuted for suggesting otherwise.

So little has changed…

Today’s gospel truth is that excess saturated fat in the diet clogs the arteries and causes heart disease. The only problem with this medical “fact” is that it isn’t a fact at all. It is a fraudulent and faulty hypothesis from the 1950s that has never been proven.

I didn’t plan to write about this topic today. But I had to speak up when I saw the same article in four major publications this week. The headline: “Leading Surgeon Wants to Ban Butter.”

Dr. Shyam Kolvekar, a heart surgeon at University College London Hospital, says that by the time he sees many of his patients, it is too late. Their hearts and cardiovascular system are too damaged for repair. He wants to stop heart disease before it starts by getting people to limit saturated fat in the diet. And to get the ball rolling, he suggests “banning butter.”

Kolvekar is particularly worried that heart disease is growing rapidly in the younger population. “It’s because most kids start the day with some toast and butter,” he says. “Porridge is a much better alternative.”

Why the butter and not the toast? Two slices of bread contain the equivalent carbohydrates of five teaspoons of sugar. And elevated blood sugar has been directly associated with heart disease. But more on that later…

Dr. Kolvekar also suggests replacing natural butter with the industrially-processed, chemically-modified yellow-colored substance known as margarine. Great idea, doc! In the interest of disclosure, the Daily Mail notes that, “Dr. Kolvekar’s comments were issued by KTB, a public relations company that works for Unilever, the maker of Flora margarine.”

Well, that might explain his motivations. But what about the veracity of his argument? And what can explain the last fifty years of propaganda against saturated fat? Is it really the villain it has been made out to be?

I asked our own heart-health expert, Dr. Dwight Lundell, for his thoughts. Dr. Lundell knows the heart and cardiovascular system as well as anyone on the planet. During his 25-year career in medicine, he performed more than 5,000 open heart surgeries. And for much of that time, he toed the party line on saturated fat and cholesterol. But his own experience – and a closer review of the literature – caused him to reject the premise. He later wrote a book on the REAL causes of heart disease, which you can learn more about here.

Dr. Lundell writes, “One wants their heart surgeon to be exacting. But, in the case of Dr. Shyam Kolvekar, who called for the banning of butter to prevent the epidemic of heart disease, he is exactly wrong!”

According to Dr. Lundell, “The theory that saturated fat causes heart disease fails on many accounts.”  First, it is said that saturated fats raise cholesterol levels in the blood, and elevated cholesterol levels cause heart disease.

Lundell points out that an article published in the American Heart Journal last year, showed that in an examination of 137,000 people admitted to the hospital with heart attack, 70% of them had normal blood cholesterol levels!

It should also be noted that the long-running Framingham Heart Study showed that after the age of 50 (when 90% of all heart attacks occur), lower cholesterol levels are clearly associated with a shorter life expectancy.

But let’s put cholesterol aside for a moment and discuss the purported mass killer, saturated fat. Certainly there must have been conclusive studies and solid evidence that kicked off the campaign against animal fat. Not quite.

One of the first studies to implicate animal fat in heart disease came in the early 1900s. See if you can spot the flaws in this one. In 1908, Russian scientist, M.A. Ignatovsky fed protein-rich animal foods to a group of rabbits. He soon discovered that the rabbits developed arterial plaques and cardiovascular disease.  Researchers discovered that the same thing happens when chickens, guinea pigs and goats eat a high-fat diet.

Later these studies were cited as evidence of a high-fat diet causing heart disease in humans. Hmm… let’s see. All of these animals are obligate herbivores. They evolved eating nothing but plants. They are clearly not designed to eat meat. When we feed them meat and fat it makes them sick. That makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make sense is why researchers extrapolated these results to omnivorous humans.

The Fraud of Ancel Keys Kicks off the Lipid Hypothesis

But the “lipid hypothesis” really gained traction in the 1950s, when physiologist Ancel Keys, Ph.D., published what became known as the Seven Countries Study.

Keys presented a comparison of heart disease mortality and fat intake across seven different countries. His comparison showed a “remarkable relationship.” The countries with the highest fat intake had the highest levels of heart disease. The countries with the lowest fat intake had the lowest levels of heart disease. Those in the middle fell conveniently in between.

At the time, Jacob Yerushalmy, a PhD statistician, at the University of California at Berkeley pointed out that we had data on the amount of fat consumed in 22 countries. So why wasn’t it called the 22 Country Study?

It wasn’t called that, because Ancel Keys started with the conclusion. Then he cherry-picked the countries that matched his pre-conceived notion and threw out the ones that contradicted it. And most of them did! When all 22 countries were analyzed, the “remarkable relationship” remarkably disappeared.

Furthermore, Keys established no causative basis. And he based his conclusions on only two phenomena – dietary fat and heart disease. This did not account for the possibility that something else could have caused the heart disease.

It might seem hard to believe that this flawed and fraudulent study was the genesis of the entire animal-fat-causes-heart-disease movement. Certainly, in the last sixty years, there must be hundreds of controlled studies that prove the link, right?

Not quite… there are NONE!

What about the societies that consume a very high percentage of saturated fat in the diet – groups like the Maasai in Africa or the Inuits in the Arctic North? Do they show signs of heart disease? No, and in fact, quite the opposite is true.

In the 1960s, Vanderbilt University scientist, George Mann, MD, studied the nomadic Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania. These populations consumed a very high saturated fat diet, including drinking the blood of their cattle. Yet they were not only lean and virtually free of heart disease, they also had some of the lowest cholesterol levels ever measured!

Skeptical scientists argued that they must have some sort of hereditary protection. However, British researchers found that when Maasai men moved to the city and began to consume a modern diet, their cholesterol levels skyrocketed!

In an editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1977, Dr. Mann called the cholesterol theory of heart disease “the greatest scam in the history of medicine.”

But let’s get back to those studies… or, more accurately, the lack of studies proving a link between saturated fat and heart disease.

There have been about 30 long-term population studies that have attempted to link saturated fat to heart disease. Of those, only four have shown even the weakest association. And all four had major disqualifications: they were either too small to be significant, they did not isolate the variables properly, or they showed a slight decrease in heart deaths but an increase in death due to cancer.

But population studies are notoriously unreliable anyway. The gold standard among health studies are controlled, randomized trials. And not a single study of this nature has ever shown definitive evidence that saturated-fat consumption leads to heart disease. In fact, many have shown the exact opposite!

Authors of the MR-FIT trial were determined to prove the case. They enrolled 350,000 men, all of whom were considered at high risk of heart disease. In one set of participants, cholesterol consumption was reduced by 42%, saturated fat by 28%, and total calories by 21%.

What happened? Nothing. The authors referred to the results as “disappointing,” stating that “The overall results do not show a beneficial effect on Coronary Heart Disease or total mortality from this multifactor intervention.”

The Women’s Health Initiative was a huge government study, costing almost three quarters of a billion dollars. Among 20,000 women in the study who adhered to a diet low saturated fat diet for eight years, there was no reduction in the rates of heart-disease or stroke.

Then there was the Cochrane Collaboration, in 2000. This group rigorously selected 27 low-fat and cholesterol-lowering trials to review (more than 200 trials were rejected). Their conclusion was that diets low in saturated fat have “no significant effect” on heart attack mortality. Lead researcher Lee Hooper, PhD, said “I was disappointed that we didn’t find something more definitive.”

Or how about something more recent?

This month, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a review of 21 studies. The studies ranged from 5 to 23 years in length and encompassed 347,747 subjects. In the authors’ own words: “Intake of saturated fat was not associated with an increased risk of CHD, stroke, or CVD.”

I could go on… and on… and on… but I’ll conclude with this.

In 1988, U.S. Surgeon General’s office decided to end the confusion. They set out to finally prove the causal link between saturated fat and heart disease. After 11 years, the project was abandoned. The Surgeon General’s office stated that they, “did not anticipate fully the magnitude of the additional external expertise and staff resources that would be needed.” Sure! After more than a decade of trying, the government just “just didn’t have the resources.”

Scientists and researchers are supposed to have an open mind. They are not supposed to be dogmatic and swayed by politics and peer pressure. But that is exactly what the majority of scientists and doctors have proven of themselves. It is not terribly surprising. Massive industries and shining scientific careers have been built on this faulty theory.

If it were not so tragic, it would be funny to listen to them explain away contradictory findings and make excuses for why their studies don’t match their hoped-for conclusions. The most common excuses are that the “trial didn’t last long enough” or they “didn’t lower the saturated-fat intake enough.” It seems that option number three never crosses their mind… perhaps the entire hypothesis is wrong!

Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD has called the saturated fat theory of heart disease “one of the greatest and most harmful misconceptions in the history of medicine.” Dr. George Mann called it the “public health diversion of the century.”

And the problem is not just the wasted time and billions of dollars dedicated to an unscientific myth. The bigger problem is that undue focus on the saturated fat bugaboo has stolen attention from the REAL causes of heart disease. And perhaps even worse, is that many of the dietary recommendations to reduce heart disease have actually been shown to CAUSE heart disease (not to mention cancer, diabetes and obesity).

If you truly want to protect yourself from the nation’s number one killer, don’t smoke and reduce your stress levels. At least the medical authorities have gotten those two right. And when it comes to your diet, forget about saturated fat and cholesterol. Here is what you should do instead:

• Consume more monounsaturated fats from sources like olive oil, nuts, avocados and avocado oil

• Cut out the sugar and refined carbohydrates

• Consume more omega-3 fatty acids, from wild game, grass-fed beef and bison, sardines and wild (not farm-raised) salmon. And take an omega-3 fish oil supplement.

• And reduce as much as possible omega-6 fatty acids in your diet. These come primarily from conventionally raised meats, processed foods, fried foods and vegetable and seed oils (corn, soybean, sunflower, cottonseed, etc.)

To your health,

Jon Herring
Contributing Editor, Total Health Breakthroughs

Who Ever Heard of Burning Cancer Out Of Your Body?

Can the cure for cancer really be as simple as heat?  You’ll be amazed by these simple but powerful health solutions:

• A simple cure for heart disease that could eliminate the need for anyone to ever have bypass surgery again.
• An amazing breakthrough that can make you look and feel up to 20 years younger
• A way to eliminate your “emotional” cravings for food.

But read on because the craziest part is where our health research team found them…

As you age, you have a good chance of being affected by changes in blood sugar levels. Why? One in four Americans over 60 struggles with this problem. But here’s something you need to know before you begin treatment.

The American Diabetes Association’s (ADA’s) recommended diet is like pouring gas on a wild fire. It’s ironic how it sets out to help people with blood sugar issues, yet it just ends up hurting them.

Take a look…

The cornerstone of the ADA’s diet program is to lower fat intake.

But the notion that eating fats will make you fat is a fundamental mistake. For most people, excess insulin makes them fat and not the fat itself.

The ADA also recommends high fiber foods, yet it doesn’t stress caution about starches like whole grains. You might be surprised to know that whole grains spike your blood sugar more than sugary foods.

To top it off, studies even show that low fat and high carb diets like the one recommended by the ADA just don’t work.

For example, in a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 210 patients with blood sugar concerns followed either a low carb/low glycemic diet or a high cereal/high fiber diet. Those on the low glycemic/low carb diet saw a larger reduction in blood glucose levels and even cholesterol levels compared to those who were on the high cereal/high carb diet.

Here’s something else…

Of the three types of macronutrients used by the body – protein, carbohydrates, and fats – carbohydrates is the only one that affects insulin levels. Fat and protein don’t. However, the ADA continues to tell you to stop eating fat. In fact, your body needs fat to help slow the conversion of carbs into sugar.

The ADA also provides tips and guidelines for reducing your protein intake. But proteins are a crucial component to sustaining your body and breaking the cycle caused by insulin resistance. And the chemical reactions that take place in your body when you are insulin resistant raise cortisol. Cortisol speeds the breakdown of proteins.

Fat and protein are not the bad guys. The key is to eat the right kinds of fat and the right kinds of protein.

The last thing you want to do is follow the diet advice of the ADA for a low fat diet full of whole grains, or you’ll surely suffer with diabetes for the rest of your life.

The best thing you can do is to eat the right fats and proteins and kick out the starchy carbs. Here are some tips to help you make the right choices.

• Don’t be afraid of fat. Avoid trans fats (partially or fully hydrogenated oils) which are found in processed foods. Get healthy fat from lean proteins (grass-fed beef), wild fish, olives/oil, Sacha Inchi oil, avocados, and nuts.

• Avoid starches like grains including corn, potatoes, and rice.

• Choose good quality protein – it’s “guilt-free” food. It won’t raise your blood sugar and helps handle insulin better, build muscle and repair tissue – all essential for staying lean and preventing diabetes. Grass-fed beef, free-range poultry, cage-free eggs, and wild salmon are all good choices.

• Choose vegetables that don’t spike your blood sugar (low glycemic). Those that grow above ground are good choices – cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, mushrooms, green beans, leafy green vegetables, and tomatoes.

• Eat fruits such as berries and those you can eat with the skin on. Skip dried fruit and fruit juices (they have added sugar).

• Avoid processed foods. They are loaded with bad fats and carbs, artificial sweeteners, and preservatives.

• Avoid high fructose corn syrup. It contributes to insulin resistance. Fructose is converted to fat more than other sweeteners. In fact, HFCS has been linked to obesity. And limit natural sweeteners like sugar and honey.

[Ed. Note: For more information on Dr. Sears visit here: http://www.alsearsmd.com .

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You will discover invaluable natural healing methods that make a real difference in your life and the lives of those you love. This month’s issue offers a solution for a disease that affects millions of people worldwide today. It is the sixth leading cause of death – and the shocking news is that a large percentage of people who have it, don’t even know it!

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A Million Year Old Volcanic Rock That Out Smarts Heart Disease…

One of the doctors featured in this report had such a weak heart that for the first part of his life that he couldn’t even walk up a flight of stairs.

Now, thanks partially to this million year old volcanic rock, he can bike straight up a mountain… in the middle of a desert.

Plus other amazing stories of health breakthroughs that are saving lives today.

Click here to read the full story…

A recent article about Alzheimer’s in a major health publication stated that “Age is the biggest risk factor for the disease.” The author was referring to the fact that the prevalence of Alzheimer’s doubles every five years in people over 65.

I believe this is a big mistake. And it’s one that is too common. “Age” is widely claimed to be the “biggest risk factor” for macular degeneration. And it is listed among the major risk factors for stroke, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

The problem with equating the risk of these diseases with a meaningless number – our age – is that it allows us to abdicate responsibility. It takes the focus off the true causes of disease and puts it on something that we can do nothing about – the hands of time. Oh, well… that’s just what happens when you get older.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. The degenerative diseases we associate with aging have little to do with our chronological “age.” Rather, they are the long-term ramifications of unhealthy choices that turned into lifelong habits! These diseases do not magically appear at a certain age. They are the end-result of poor nutrition, stress and toxic overload over a long period of time.

Obviously, the longer these risk factors have continued, the greater the chances they will manifest as disease. But the focus should not be on our age. It should be on removing the causes of illness and disease – no matter what magic number we turned on our last birthday.

Is Alzheimer’s really another form of diabetes?

Speaking of the true causes of disease, let’s get back to Alzheimer’s…

Scientists recently discovered that insulin is not only produced in the pancreas. It is also produced in the brain. When the brain no longer secretes enough insulin, its cells deteriorate and the receptors begin to malfunction.

In a recent study of brain tissue from 45 Alzheimer’s patients, researchers found insulin abnormalities quite similar to those associated with advanced stages of diabetes. The brains of those with Alzheimer’s also had abnormal protein deposits similar to deposits in the pancreas of diabetics.

The Brown Medical School researchers who performed the study concluded that Alzheimer’s is a new form of diabetes. They called it “Type 3.” Others characterize the discovery differently. But one thing is certain. Abnormal blood sugar metabolism clearly leads to diabetes AND neurodegeneration. This would explain why diabetics have about a 65 percent increased risk of Alzheimer’s.

Just another bit of news to remind you to watch your blood sugar to preserve your brainpower. Avoid added sugars, fruit juices and refined carbohydrates… and workout vigorously three to four times per week. You will have greater mental energy, your mood will be elevated, and your risk of ALL degenerative diseases will be greatly diminished.

The truth about grains…

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear or read something about the “health benefits” of whole-grain products. Our food pyramid is built on a base of grains. And I have even seen advice to eat “low-glycemic whole-grain” foods. If someone has found a low-glycemic whole-grain food, I’d like to see it.

Dr. Al Sears’ research foundation put together an extensive glycemic index. They categorized foods that contain carbohydrates by category, from those that raise blood sugar levels the most to those that raise blood sugar levels the least. Please notice the top four categories:

1.Cereals
2. Breads
3. Other grain products
4. Pastas
5. Desserts
6. Fruits

In other words, cereals, breads and pasta generally produce a bigger rise in blood sugar than desserts or fruits. “Wholesome” whole-wheat bread has a glycemic score of 80. That is twice the score of ice cream, apples, or peaches!

The bottom line: Whole-grain bread spikes your blood sugar the same as white bread does. And high-glycemic foods make you fat and accelerate aging.

Another way to improve your (and your kids’) brainpower… healthy fats!

When you repeat an activity over and over, it creates neural pathways between different parts of your brain. The more you practice, the stronger those neural pathways become. These structural changes are the physical mechanisms of learning.

This is the foundation for the concept “practice makes perfect.” And the good news is that you can enhance this process even further by supplementing your diet with omega-3 fatty acids.

The BBC recently reported on a small but remarkable study of children who were given fish oil supplements. The children took tests before they started taking the fish oil and again at the end of the three-month study. During the study, researchers found that the children’s reading age increased by a year. Their handwriting became more legible and accurate, and they paid more attention in class.

The kids also had brain scans which revealed drastic increases in their levels of a chemical called N-Acetylaspartate (NAA). This chemical is linked to the growth of those nerve fibers that are created by repetition of an activity. Commenting on the results, the lead researcher said, “In three months you might expect to see a small NAA increase. But we saw as much growth as you would normally see in three years. It was as if these were the brains of children three years older.”

Omega-3 fatty acids are absolutely essential for all of us, young and old. But they are especially important for children, whose brains are still developing. To ensure that you (and your children) are getting enough omega-3, consider taking a fish oil supplement. And be sure to include wild Alaskan salmon, sardines, grass-fed beef, omega-3 eggs, walnuts, and flax in your diet.

To Your Health,

Jon Herring
Contributing Editor
Total Health Breakthroughs

I was eating and drinking a full menu of high-density carbohydrates back then. Pizza, cereal, bagels, sandwiches, chips and soda were all on the list. I consumed plenty of calories. Yet, I was still hungry.

And not only was I frequently hungry, but my mood and energy levels would swing wildly. I would become irritable… sometimes depressed. And I always felt like I needed a nap about two in the afternoon. But there was one thing that always seemed to boost my mood and energy – more carbs!

Then, about 10 years ago, I began to study the diet of our Paleolithic genetic ancestors…

Before that, I had not thought much about what I should eat to remain healthy and lean. But I didn’t like the fact that I was gaining weight.

I quickly learned that high-glycemic carbohydrates are foreign to our metabolism. Especially when we consume them in large quantities – as we have since the dawn of the food processing revolution. This is a drastic departure from the diet on which we evolved.

Therefore, I decided to make my own drastic departure. I didn’t go on a “diet” or start counting calories. I didn’t buy meals from Weight Watchers. And I didn’t join the Atkins revolution, with all of their artificial sweeteners and fake, processed foods.

I just decided to start eating real, organic, whole foods. I ate lots of leafy green salads and a variety of colorful vegetables. I made my own vegetable juices. I snacked on fruit, nuts and seeds. I ate eggs (The whole egg, of course. You don’t think our ancestors would have thrown the yolk away, do you?). Grass-fed beef, pastured poultry, raw cheese and dairy. And lots of wild salmon.

My hunger and cravings simply vanished (along with the spare tire around my belly)…

Within about two weeks, my cravings for food were almost completely gone. I had energy that lasted all day. I didn’t need a nap in the afternoons. My moods were stable and upbeat. My mind was sharper and more alert.

And my excess body fat simply melted away. Within about eight weeks, I lost more than 20 pounds. I reached my ideal weight and have remained within three or four pounds of that target ever since. My experience taught me first hand that hunger is about a lot more than just an empty stomach.

There are two types of hunger…

• Physical hunger builds slowly and occurs several hours after a meal. This is how you feel after exercise or a long period of work, when you have depleted your energy stores. You feel discomfort. Your stomach growls. You might feel tired and your brain doesn’t work as it should. This is your physiological need for nutrients and energy. Food provides relief from this feeling almost instantly.

• Hormonal hunger comes on suddenly. It often has nothing to do with mealtime. In fact, hormonal hunger can strike right after you have had a meal. Have you ever wondered where that “extra room” for dessert comes from? Hormonal hunger can cause strong emotional cravings for specific foods – especially carbohydrates. It can also cause mood swings and low energy. And it creates a near continual desire to eat.

I don’t take credit for the term, “hormonal hunger.” Fitness and nutrition author, Rob Faigin, coined it in his superb book, Natural Hormonal Enhancement. He points out that hormonal hunger has nothing to do with a real need for food. It is the result of the interplay of various hormones in the body.

To avoid physical hunger, eat before you become hungry. To avoid hormonal hunger, you have to know what to eat.

Foods that are high on the glycemic index (60 and above) are those that convert to blood sugar very rapidly. That’s what you want to avoid. When your blood sugar spikes, the hormone insulin spikes too. This can provide a burst of energy, but it is fleeting and followed by a crash.
The whole process puts us on a hormonal roller coaster that causes us to become hungry and consume food, even when our body does not physically need it.

That’s why most of the foods we eat should score low (20 and below) on the glycemic index. These foods take longer to break down and they contain fewer carbohydrates, so the secretion of insulin is lower. Eating these foods will get you off the hunger cycle and curtail the constant cravings.

The chairman of our advisory board, Dr. Al Sears has a glycemic index and glycemic load chart on his website, if you would like to learn which foods score the lowest and highest.

To Your Health,

Jon Herring
Contributing Editor
Total Health Breakthroughs

A mechanic must perform separate maintenance on each system. His checklist is specific for the parts that he’s working on.

If there’s a problem with one part, that problem can usually be fixed without affecting any other parts.

But maintaining your body isn’t like maintaining a car or an airplane. That’s because your body is an intelligent, adaptive machine.

A problem with one part of your body usually affects several others as well. That’s the downfall. It’s because all of your body systems are interconnected.

The flip side of that argument is that because all of your body systems are interconnected, there are no specific checklists for maintenance work on different parts.

You can’t really do anything good for your bones, for example, without doing some good for your brain while you’re at it.

Taking care of your body is taking care of your body. Your whole body.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Well, over the last few articles (which you can find here and here) we’ve been talking about the most promising advances in the field of anti-aging. The future is bright, indeed.

But I’m afraid that highlighting those advances might have made anti-aging sound awfully specialized — and, for the average person, inaccessible. And that’s just not true.

If you have tens of thousands of dollars burning a hole in your pocket, TA-65 will probably do you a lot of good. But even if you don’t, all is not lost.

That’s because when you come right down to it, anti-aging is just about maintaining good health for longer. And good health is good health, no matter how old you are.

I’ve given you strong evidence that your telomeres are the biological clock that controls your aging. And even though you may never have heard of a telomere until last week, almost everything you do affects your clock.

That means you can start to work on anti-aging right here, right now.

In today’s article, I’ll tell you some of the simplest and easiest ways to slow the rate of telomere shortening. Many of these will look very familiar. That’s because all of them have been recommended in previous THB articles. That just goes to show that good health is interconnected.

Taking care of your body is easier than you think.

You have the power to change your own health for the better.

The road to a longer, healthier life begins right here.

Eat Your Greens

Envious of Popeye’s brawny build? According to a 2009 study, his predilection for leafy greens may keep him young, too.

As we’ve discussed, telomeres shorten naturally with age. They are also shortened by an amino acid called homocysteine.

Homocysteine is not consumed in the diet. Rather, it is produced by the body in an important metabolic pathway. Problems arise when homocysteine levels get too high. Not only does it accelerate aging, but it also affects cardiovascular health.

To keep homocysteine levels in check, up your intake of folic acid (also known as vitamin B9). The New York Times recently proclaimed folic acid the world’s healthiest food because of its myriad benefits. It helps the body make new cells and is especially important for pregnant women.

So where can you find it? The word “folic” is derived from the Latin for “leaf.” It makes sense, then, that it comes from leafy green vegetables like spinach.

Maybe Popeye knew more than he was letting on.

Go Fish

A study published in JAMA this year reported an inverse association between omega-3 fatty acid intake and the rate of telomere shortening.

The study followed 608 patients over a five-year period. During that time, those who ate more omega-3s had less telomere shortening.

Granted, we’d like to see something more than an association. But I have no qualms about recommending that you eat omega-3s on the basis of this evidence because they’re good for you for so many other reasons as well.

Omega-3s are important for your brain, your heart, and your immune system. They may help to prevent cancer and several other diseases. They’re also anti-inflammatory, which means that they help with conditions like rheumatoid arthritis.

The JAMA study only looked at intake of marine omega-3s. That means that you should look for wild-caught, cold-water fish like Alaskan salmon, herring, and mackerel.

And for longtime THB readers, that’s a recommendation I know you’ve heard before.

Take Your Antioxidants and Multivitamins

As Dr. Sears explained last week, oxidative damage doesn’t explain aging. But that doesn’t mean you can ignore it, either.

Eating antioxidants is important to counteract free radical damage. Most berries, nuts, and beans are excellent sources of antioxidants.

Ideally you would get all the nutrients you need from your diet. However, for one reason or another, most of us don’t.

That’s where multivitamins come in. They help to fill in the gaps in your nutrition. Simply taking a multivitamin is associated with having longer telomeres.

What’s more, many supplements combine vitamins and antioxidants. (Technically, both vitamins C and E are antioxidants, but there are better ones out there.) Look for a combined supplement to make sure that you’re getting everything you need.

Skimp on Sugar

Bad news for your sweet tooth: eating too much sugar actually speeds up the aging process.

A partial list of the aging-related problems caused by sugar:

• It can shorten telomeres.
• It can directly inhibit telomerase, the enzyme that rejuvenates aging telomeres.
• It can damage DNA directly.
• It can lead to high blood pressure and obesity, both of which are known to shorten telomeres.

There is a good deal of evidence that links excess sugar intake with inflammatory disease. The body simply isn’t designed to handle large quantities of processed, refined sugar.

You wouldn’t put sugar in the gas tank of your car. It’s not designed to handle it.

If you wouldn’t do it to your car, why do it to your body?

Skip the sweet stuff for dessert tonight. Reach for a piece of fresh fruit instead.

Want to Feel Like a Kid Again? Go Play Outside

Though Americans spend billions of dollars every year trying to recapture their lost youth, one of the most effective ways to slow the aging process is simply to go play outside.

If that sounds like second-rate psychobabble, it isn’t.

Sun exposure is the body’s leading source of vitamin D. Vitamin D, in turn, may help to slow the shortening of telomeres.

In a 2007 study, women with higher levels of vitamin D were found to be at less risk of aging-related disease.

Vitamin D has many other important functions in the body. For example, it is also important to maintain bone strength and immune function.

However, most people do not get nearly enough. The current government recommendation is only 400 IU per day. But studies have shown that the body will use between 3,000 and 5,000 IU per day if it is available.

And you need more as you get older. That means that vitamin D is especially important for anti-aging.

The best dietary source of vitamin D is wild-caught fatty fish — which you should be eating anyway for the omega-3s.

Like I said, this is easier than you think.

But when it comes to vitamin D, there is simply no replacing the sun. Remarkably, the leading cause of vitamin D deficiency is insufficient sun exposure. The cure for that is simple: go outside already!

Get a Move On

Exercise is by far one of the most effective ways to slow the rate of telomere shortening.

It builds muscle, burns fat, and improves your metabolism.

It counteracts high blood pressure, high lipid levels, and obesity, all three of which have been associated with telomere shortening.

It will get you outside where your body can make vitamin D.

It’s good for your brain. Your heart. Your lungs. Your immune system. In fact, there’s really no part of your body that it’s not good for.

It even works to manage and prevent stress and depression.

Why does that matter?

Mind Matters

Many times we overlook the role of good mental health. That’s unfortunate, because mind and body are just as interconnected as any two other body parts you might care to name.

Have you heard people say that stress aged them 20 years overnight? It’s an exaggeration, but stress really can age you by shortening your telomeres.

It’s not possible to eliminate stress anymore than it would be possible to eliminate your body’s stress response. Emergencies happen, and the fight-or-flight system allows you to deal with them effectively.

But chronic stress is a problem. The fight-or-flight system is designed for emergencies. It shouldn’t always be on.

Fortunately, studies have shown that there are several good ways to manage stress that will improve your health at the same time. Things like getting exercise…eating omega-3s… getting enough vitamin D…

Like I said, your body is interconnected. You can’t really do any good for one part without helping the others, too.

Tying It All Together

The points we have discussed above do not make up an exhaustive anti-aging to-do list. But they are all generally good for you. Nothing is specific to anti-aging.

There are other factors that affect your telomeres. But they are all generally good for you, too.

I am sure that over time research will uncover even more factors relevant to anti-aging. But I have no doubt that they will be generally good for you as well.

It’s because good health is easier than you think.

And as I said, anti-aging is just a matter of maintaining good health for longer.

Take care of your body and your body will take care of you. It’s as simple as that.

To Your Health,

Michael Noltemeyer
Managing Editor
Total Health Breakthroughs

It’s free. It’s easy. And you can do it right now, completely on your own.

Ready?

“First, look in the mirror. Second, while assessing your image, factor in the premise that other people see you as 20 percent better-looking than you see yourself. It’s true.”

Those words came from Dr. Eva C. Ritvo, coauthor of The Beauty Prescription: The Complete Formula for Looking and Feeling Beautiful.

I tried hard to remember them while looking at the picture of the ape in the navy blazer.

Twenty percent more attractive? That’s two whole points on a 1-10 scale. I can live with that.

The cover of Dr. Ritvo’s book beckons with the promise, “A Beverly Hills dermatologist and a South Beach psychiatrist share their secrets.”

Dr. Ritvo is the South Beach psychiatrist. She has impressive credentials as a doctor and as an author.

So when I was trying to find the latest breakthroughs in health and beauty, her name kept popping up.

And when I asked her if she would be willing to share some of her secrets with the THB readership, she was only too happy to help.

Read on for all of the best undercover beauty secrets from a certifiable beauty expert.

Really? Twenty Percent More Beautiful?

Before we go any further, let’s go back to this idea of becoming 20 percent more beautiful in seconds. I was a bit skeptical at first. How is that possible?

As Dr. Ritvo explained, “Combining what we have noted in our clinical experience with information from psychological studies, we find that women view themselves as approximately 20 percent less attractive than others perceive them.

“Your brain is a tougher critic of your looks than Simon Cowell, of American Idol, could ever be.”

Fortunately, there is good news.

“You can make your brain your greatest beauty ally. By giving yourself permission to look in the mirror in a more positive way, you’ll see yourself looking better already.”

Dr. Ritvo’s book starts with a quote from Salma Hayek — a certifiable beauty — that I think makes this point especially well.

“People often say that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder,” Hayek said.

“This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.”

Beauty Buddies

That’s all well and good. But what happens when you’re not feeling very empowered? What happens when you start to get down on yourself? Sooner or later it happens to everyone.

That, says Dr. Ritvo, is why you get a “beauty buddy.”

A beauty buddy, she explained, is simply a friend who shares your beauty regimen and supports you as you work toward your inner and outer goals.

Beauty buddies are friends who are “there for each other at the gym or the hair salon, and in times when they might not be at their most beautiful.

“Having beauty buddies isn’t just about being social. Being with other women actually makes us feel better.

“A UCLA study conducted in 2002 suggests that friendships between women release more of the hormone oxytocin, which counters stress hormones and promotes relaxation.

“So, that wonderful belonging, loved feeling you get from going to the spa with your best friend isn’t all in your head.

“It’s caused by chemicals sent throughout your body that support your mental and physical health and make you look better in the process.”

Sounds like a win-win to me. I guess us guys are just out of luck.

Give Yourself a Faith Lift

Beauty in the modern world is a tricky business.

“The good news,” says Dr. Ritvo, “is the rapidly shifting landscape — including new scientific and medical research — gives women more ways than ever to be healthier and look and feel better than at any time in the past.

“But the flow of new information and opportunity is a little dizzying.

“So even if you’re a woman determined to improve yourself and be attractive and magnetic on your own terms, it can be tough to know where to start.

“Start with what you’re doing right now,” she said. You’re reading this article.

“You’re taking the time to listen to physicians who know the truth: that if you try to emulate the women you see in magazines in order to chase some ephemeral standard of beauty, you’ll always lose.

“But when you bring out the gifts you already possess, you’ll always win.

“Think of it as pulling yourself up by your bra straps.

“That takes faith — faith in who you are and who you can become, faith in your ability to change things that may seem impossible, and faith in the idea that other people can see you differently than they do today.

“We know you already have some of that faith, because you’re here. So … brava to you for taking this big step.”

The Beauty-Brain Loop

We’ve already spent a lot of time talking about things that people don’t usually associate with beauty. Friendship, faith — when are we going to start talking about real health and beauty?

Actually, we already are.

Says Dr. Ritvo, “Your emotional health, self-esteem, and self-confidence shape your physical beauty.

“At the same time, your health, appearance, and physical well-being affect your state of mind.

“It’s a two-way feedback loop that we call the Beauty-Brain Loop.

“The Beauty-Brain Loop embodies the fundamental physics of magnetism. It is a holistic cycle with four interwoven states.”

1. Inner Beauty

Inner beauty is “your mental and emotional wellness: self-awareness, self-esteem, and confidence.

“Inner beauty means constantly taking an honest personal inventory of how you look and how you feel about yourself.

“It means loving your strengths and accepting your weaknesses, changing what you can and accepting what you cannot.

“It’s your attitude toward the world, your cognitive skills in handling stress, and your ability to see beauty around you.”

2. Health

“This part of the loop is about taking care of your body from head to toes and from gut to skin.

“Physical health is shaped by your workout habits, your nutrition, and the amount of nightly sleep you get. It’s certainly about how you care for and protect your skin and hair and, without question, how stress impacts your body.

“Good health is beautiful.”

3. Outer Beauty

“Your appearance is your outer beauty: skin, hair, fitness, clothes, nails, makeup, and more.

“This is the surface beauty that truly does influence our health, happiness, social station, and success.

“It’s the packaging that both conceals and advertises the woman within.”

4. Environment

“Nowhere is the power of the Beauty-Brain Loop more obvious than in how your environment responds to you.

“You can see it all around you: people who feel good not only look good but also are magnetic.

“They receive the job offers, get out of traffic tickets, and score the hot table at the restaurant nobody else can even get into.

“Luck seems to break their way, but it’s not luck. It’s the power some women and men have to make other people feel good and want to return the favor.

“Your environment is the reward channel of the loop, and when it’s giving you positive feedback you feel fantastic mentally and physically.

“We also advocate building a beautiful environment — surrounding yourself with beauty in nature, in your home, and in your relationships.”

Working the Loop

“The Beauty-Brain Loop,” Dr. Ritvo told me, “has no beginning and no end.

“Each stage affects all the others; everything you do shapes how you feel about yourself and therefore how attractive you are.

“The interactions are profound and inescapable.”

That means that anything you do to improve one stage will improve all the others. And the best news is that you can improve your body.

“Your body is the hand of cards you’re dealt by your genetic heritage, and that’s something you don’t have any say in.

“But just because you’re dealt this hand doesn’t mean you have to fold. You can play smart and improve your cards. A lot.

“We know women whose bodies are hardly perfect, but hook them up to a cardiac stress test machine and they’re ready to run a 10K. They work out regularly and eat great, and they’re very fit because of it.

“Know what?

“They’re happy. They’re magnetic. They feel like a million bucks and it’s obvious.

“Exercise is a great mood booster, but that’s not the only reason. They have megawatts of energy and the peace of mind that comes with knowing they’re taking care of themselves.

“They know they’ve made the most of the hand of cards their DNA dealt them.

“Forget about weight. Think fit. Think healthy. Think strong and flexible and lean and energetic.

“Bring out the peak of what your genetics will allow by committing to healthful habits, and you’ll feel like those ladies do. If you end up with a body that has people mistaking you for an aerobics teacher, that’s a bonus.”

What Have We Learned?

“Why do you think you judge yourself to be 20 percent less attractive than others find you?” Dr. Ritvo asked me.

I shrugged. I hadn’t realized there was going to be a pop quiz.

“Because in the mirror, you’re just your looks,” she said. “Many people stand before the glass as though they’re having a mug shot taken. There’s none of the personality, fire, or swagger that they exhibit in the real world.

“Your reflection is simply not the whole you. Others also see your charisma, wit, kindness, empathy, intellect, talent — whatever makes you special. You’re far more than the sum of your parts.

“That’s what the world sees.”

And “that, in a nutshell, is The Beauty Prescription.

“There are many definitions of beauty and many ways to be beautiful. You’ve always known this, but in a culture filled with overpowering images of one kind of female beauty, it’s easy to forget, making you feel inadequate.

“Our mission in [the] book is to remind you that though you can’t change your genetic makeup, many of the most compelling aspects of beauty are completely within your power to change, bringing you benefits that are both more rewarding and more enduring,” including:

• Greater confidence.

• Stronger self-esteem.

• Better health.

• More joy from life.

• And lasting beauty that shines for everyone to see.

Now that’s a prescription you’ll want to fill. Doctor’s orders.

To Your Health,

Michael Noltemeyer
Managing Editor
Total Health Breakthroughs

[ED. NOTE: Eva C. Ritvo, M.D., a board-certified psychiatrist, is vice chair and associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami, where she has a unique joint appointment in the Department of Dermatology. She is the former chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida. A published author, Dr. Ritvo has appeared as an expert on Today and Extra, speaks internationally, and has been quoted in many national publications.]

Every year as the calendar thaws away the last of the winter chill and the crocuses come into bloom, exercisers emerge once again into the open air.

They run. They walk. They jog.

From the weight-loss walkers to the weekend warriors, everyone comes to chase down the elusive prospect of good health, one step at a time.

They have something else in common, too.

Before they take a single step, almost every last one has made the same mistake. It’s a mistake that, at best, will hinder their workouts. At worst, it could set them up for serious injury.

Talk about getting off on the wrong foot.

So what are they doing wrong?

Would you believe that it’s something as simple as stretching?

Warming Up to the Subject

Nowadays stretching comes before exercise as predictably and reliably as “A” before “B,” one before two, two before three. We are told to stretch first in order to prevent injuries.

Truth is, stretching — at least, stretching the way most people do it — can actually cause injuries. It’s one of the great myths of modern exercise science.

Last time I told you all about how to treat sprains and strains. One of the leading causes of those injuries is warming up improperly.

You see, warming up isn’t just a figure of speech. It literally raises the temperature of your body. That’s important because a relatively small increase in body temperature produces many significant physiological changes. For example:

• Increased blood flow. Warming up brings more blood to your muscles, tendons, and ligaments. More blood means more oxygen, more nutrients, and more regular trash service. That means you can work harder and longer after warming up.

• Better flexibility. You’ve seen this difference in real life. Imagine a rubber band: warm bands stretch, cold ones snap. That’s no less true of muscles, tendons, and ligaments. All of them become more flexible (and less injury-prone) after warming up.

• More energy. As a general rule, chemical reactions go faster at higher temperatures. Metabolism is nothing more than a sequence of chemical reactions. Warming up speeds up your metabolism to provide more energy for exercise.

• Better information. Nerve signals travel faster when you’re warmer. (That’s why you use ice to dull pain.) Not only that, but your nervous system receptors actually become more sensitive when they’re warm, fine-tuning your senses.

Collectively, these changes serve to prepare the body for exercise. They also greatly reduce your risk of injury.

So what’s the problem?

Stretching: The Truth

Since grade-school P.E., we’ve all been taught to associate stretching and warming up. Warming up is good for you. It does prevent injuries. But stretching and warming up are not the same thing.

There are three basic types of stretching:

• Static stretching. This is what most people do. You stretch to the point of slight discomfort and you hold it for 20 to 30 seconds.

• Ballistic stretching. This is what you sometimes see athletes do when they warm up with repetitive bouncing movements. It’s very dangerous and can easily cause injury. You should avoid this one like the plague.

• Dynamic stretching. This is what you should be doing. We’ll come back to this one.

Static stretching before exercise does not increase blood flow. It doesn’t improve flexibility. It doesn’t speed up metabolism. And it doesn’t jump-start the nervous system.

In fact, it may actually work against you. Studies have shown that athletes who engage in static stretching before exercise generate up to 30% less force from their leg muscles. That effect persists for up to half an hour. You’d be better off doing no stretching at all.

But how can that be?

It’s because your body is an intelligent, adaptive machine. It pretty much knows where its elastic limits are. And it has no interest in letting you hurt yourself.

So if you start to strain your muscles, tendons, and ligaments the way you do by static stretching, those fibers respond by actually becoming less flexible. Your body tries to make it harder for you to reach those limits.

Ordinarily that’d be great. But right before you exercise, that’s a recipe for disaster.

You have to find a way to work with your body instead.

Prevent Injuries by Stretching the Right Way

So how do you do that? With dynamic stretching.

Dynamic stretching usually involves movements that simulate whatever you’re about to do. For example, if you’re about to go for a run, then you might start with a slow, exaggerated stride.

What you want to do is activate the muscles, tendons, and ligaments you’re about to use. The way you do that is by using them — slowly at first, then steadily increasing your pace. You ease into your exercise to give your body a chance to catch up.

You never hold any position. Stasis does not lead naturally to motion.

Instead, start at about 40% of your capacity and work your way up from there. By alternating stretches and contractions in a normal sequence, you cue your body to get ready to work.

And by imitating the exercise you are about to do, you let your body know what kind of work it needs to get ready for. That means the best preparation for sprinting is jogging. The best preparation for jogging is walking. The best preparation for walking is slow walking.

It kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?

It follows that the worst preparation you can do is standing still, holding an unnatural stretch. You don’t increase your flexibility that way. All you do is increase your tolerance for the discomfort of the stretch.

Research supports this idea of dynamic stretching before exercise. It makes weight lifters stronger. It makes sprinters faster. It makes soccer players more agile.

In short, dynamic stretching improves sport-specific performance because it teaches your body to work with you rather than against you.

Right Place, Wrong Time

The best way to warm up is with dynamic stretching. However, that doesn’t mean that static stretching is worthless. It just means it’s the wrong way to warm up.

After you finish working out, static stretching is great. Once your muscles are already warm, static stretching can challenge them in a new way. Regular stretching will improve your flexibility over time.

That added flexibility will serve you well in your workouts and in your everyday life.

Static stretching is valuable. It’s just not the right way to warm up.

The moral of the story is this: To improve flexibility, stretch after exercising. To prevent injuries, warm up before exercising. Everything in its right place, at the right time.

To Your Health,

Michael Noltemeyer
Managing Editor
Total Health Breakthroughs

Exercise can certainly benefit your weight-loss efforts. But it only accounts for about 20% of the equation. The foods and nutrients you put in your body are far more important. Exercise is simply no match for a bad diet.

However, exercise is a powerful and effective way to prevent disease. It can improve your immunity. It helps to lower stress. It can even improve your memory and cognition. And an active life most certainly helps to maintain your youth and increase longevity.

And on that note…

Doctors have discovered that regular exercise keeps your DNA young…

Every time your cells divide, a small portion of your DNA is lost. This is the section at the end of the chromosome, called the telomere. As you age, the telomere gets shorter and shorter. Finally, it disappears and the cell stops dividing and dies.

Physical aging occurs as more and more cells reach the end of their telomeres and die. As the process accelerates, your muscles get weaker, wrinkles appear and eyesight fades. Eventually the organs begin to fail and death occurs. Such is the nature of life.

You cannot avoid your telomeres getting shorter and shorter as time goes by. But the good news is that your habits and lifestyle can dramatically influence the speed at which it occurs. And one way to slow down the process is to exercise.

Several studies have shown a clear association between activity levels and the length of your telomeres. Those who exercise regularly, literally have “younger” DNA in their cells.

One study looked at middle-aged German track and field athletes compared to sedentary subjects of the same age. The researchers discovered not only longer telomeres in the athletes, but also increased levels of telomerase (an enzyme that inhibits cell division).

Another study of 2,401 twins showed a similar relationship between telomere length and how much exercise the subjects got over a 10-year period.

The subjects who exercised moderately – about one to two hours a week – had telomeres that were five to six years “younger” (meaning they were longer) than the subjects who were mostly sedentary. Those who did even more exercise – about three hours per week – had telomeres that were about a decade younger than their sedentary counterparts.

And it is never too late to start…

If you have ever thought to yourself, “I’ve been inactive for so long, what good will exercise do me now?” The answer is: a lot! It is never too late to get in shape, and even if you have been inactive for decades.

A 2007 study revealed that those who start exercising after 40 reduce their risk of heart disease by more than half, compared to those who remain inactive. The German researchers who conducted the trial discovered that people who were inactive between the ages of 20 and 39, but started exercise at 40 cut their chances of heart disease by 55%. Not surprisingly, the benefit was greatest for those who became “very active.”

Another study, published in Circulation looked at the mortality rates in men with varying levels of activity. The men who were most active had a 32% reduction in mortality rate compared to those that were sedentary.

And here is an even more interesting finding. A subset of the “active” men only began exercising around the age of 50, but kept it up for ten years. The researchers discovered that these men had the same mortality rate as men that were highly active for most of their life.

The results are clear: Exercise will make you younger. It will make you healthier. And it is never too late to start!

Guidelines to live by…

So you want to build a strong heart and powerful lungs, reduce your body fat, increase your energy, and improve your overall health in the shortest amount of time? Here are some general guidelines when choosing an exercise routine:

• Do things that you enjoy. You’re more likely to stick with it if you don’t dread the activity.  It also helps to find a partner you can work out with.

• Focus on activities that challenge your heart and lungs, while building muscle at the same time. This would include sprinting, cycling with resistance, bodyweight calisthenics, weight training, martial arts and other sporting activities.

• If you lift weights, select functional exercises that work multiple muscle groups and call on your stabilizing muscles. Exercises that isolate the muscles and joints invite injury and detract from your functional strength.

• Focus on the intensity of your exercise more than the duration. Engage in intervals of intense activity followed by brief periods of recovery. As you become accustomed to the activity, gradually increase the intensity.

• Cross-train. No matter how good an exercise is, you shouldn’t do the same thing every day. Vary your routine.  This will not only keep your workouts interesting, it will ensure that you continue to progress.

If you are not currently active, make a commitment to get moving. It will reduce your stress. Improve your creativity and productivity. And it will do wonders for your healthy longevity.

To Your Health,

Jon Herring
Editorial Director
Total Health Breakthroughs

References

Until recently, it has been assumed that whatever changes occurred in the brain as a result of chronic back pain were only temporary and that the brain would revert to a normal state once the pain stopped.

Recent findings by researchers from Northwestern University have turned this assumption on its head. What they found was that chronic back pain — defined as pain lasting six months or longer — can cause significant and long-lasting damage to the brain, aging it up to 20 times faster than normal.¹

The Northwestern study is consistent with other research on chronic pain and cognitive ability.

Evidence of a link between chronic pain and brain function comes from a study done at Keele University in the United Kingdom. Scientists compared the “prospective” memory — such as remembering to pick up groceries or keep a doctor’s appointment — of 50 subjects with chronic back pain to the memory of 50 subjects who were pain-free.

Investigators used something called the Prospective Memory Questionnaire, a self-rating scale that requires users to record the number of times their prospective memory fails in a given period of time. The scale measures three types of prospective memory: long-term habitual, short-term episodic, and internally cued.

Those with chronic pain had significantly impaired short-term memory compared with subjects who were pain-free. No differences were observed in the other types of prospective memory.

Researchers believe that when pain kicks in, it triggers a region of the brain known as the lateral occipital complex (LOC). When this happens, it overrides a person’s ability to concentrate and accurately recognize images.

You can help preserve your short-term memory — even if you do live with chronic pain — by following these easy tips.

Read out loud

If you want to remember something, saying the words out loud will help burn the information into your brain. If you can turn it into a rhyme, it’s even better.

Write things down

Mental clutter makes it hard to recall data. Use address books, datebooks, and calendars. Jot down notes on more complicated material and reorganize your notes as soon as possible. The physical act of rewriting can help imprint facts into your memory.

Rehearse and review

Go over what you’ve learned the day you learn it, and review it periodically. Researchers call this “spaced rehearsal.” It has proven to be more effective than cramming.

Get your vitamins

Nutrients such as vitamins B, C, and E can nurture brain function. Dietary sources of vitamin B include spinach and other dark leafy greens, strawberries, melons, and black beans. Vitamins C and E improve the flow of oxygen through the brain. Good natural sources are berries, sweet potatoes, red tomatoes, green tea, nuts, citrus fruits, and liver. Omega-3 fatty acids found in cold-water fish such as salmon and tuna are also associated with improved cognitive function.

Surprise your brain

Another way to help your brain perform better is to stimulate it through novelty. For example, brushing your teeth with your left hand (if you’re right-handed) will fire up seldom-used connections on the non-dominant side of your brain. Or try “neurobic” exercise, which forces you to use your faculties in unusual ways — say, getting dressed with your eyes closed, taking a course in a subject you know nothing about, or cooking a recipe in an unfamiliar cuisine.

Reference

1. The Journal of Neuroscience, November 17, 2004; 24(46):10410-10415.

[Ed. Note: Jesse Cannone is a certified fitness trainer, rehabilitation specialist and co-founder of the Healthy Back Institute. For more information on how you can reduce or completely eliminate your pain naturally, click here.]

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Bipolar disorder
• ADD
• Autism
• Dementia
• Alzheimer’s disease
• More subtle symptoms like mood swings, sleep problems, poor concentration, and brain fog

If you have been coping with conditions like these, you are not alone. We are seeing a rising tide of “broken brains,” and conventional medicine cannot cure it.

But you don’t have to suffer needlessly. Today, I’m going to share the key to good mental and emotional health — an “UltraMind”— one that’s calm, confident, and happy. But first I want to share some really big news with you…

“Diseases” like depression, Alzheimer’s, and the rest, do not exist. At least not the way we think they do. Let me explain.

Let’s say you have chronic feelings of sadness and despair. Conventional doctors might say you have a disease called “depression.” But depression is not the cause of your sadness and despair. It’s just a name we use to group people together for the purpose of giving them all the same drug therapy. You feel sad and despairing? You have “depression” and need an “antidepressant!”

But do we know the causes for these symptoms? Are they even the same from one person to another?

Consider this: You and the person sitting next to you both have chronic symptoms we call a “headache,” but your pain is caused by drinking too much wine, while his pain is the result of being hit on the head with the empty bottle.

These two headaches can’t be cured the same way, because their root causes are different. Nonetheless, that’s the way conventional medicine treats most chronic disease! They give the same treatment for illnesses with the same name, even though the cause of those illnesses may be radically different from person to person.

Drugs like antidepressants don’t cure diseases, they just mask symptoms. We don’t need to continue using these same drug treatments that don’t work, have severe side effects, or, at best, give partial relief. There is a proven, medical alternative, and it is called The UltraMind Solution.

The key to this new paradigm is simply this…

Your mood and memory problems, trouble focusing, ADD, depression, and dementia are not all in your head! They are in your body. And it is ONLY when you treat your body that you will heal your broken brain.

You can’t treat mental illness effectively by only using drugs or psychotherapy. You need to treat the body, because the body and brain are one interconnected system. If you truly want to cure your broken brain, the answer lies in rebalancing the seven core systems in your body — what I have come to call The 7 Keys to UltraWellness. They are:

1. Optimize nutrition

1. Balance your hormones

1. Cool off inflammation

1. Fix your digestion

1. Enhance detoxification

1. Boost energy metabolism

1. Calm your mind

Imbalances in these keys are the underlying causes of all illness — including broken brains. Understanding illness this way provides us with a new road map to disease — one that allows us to see how everything is connected so we can treat the root causes of illness, not just the symptoms.

The first step on this new road to healing is to optimize your nutrition. You may not realize it, but the most powerful tool you have to fix your broken brain is your FORK! What you put on it can help — or harm — your brain. So here are 3 tips you can start using today to eat right for a healthy brain.

3 Tips for Optimizing Your Brain Function with Nutrition

• Become a Fat Head. Your brain contains 100 billion cells, each of which has 40,000 connections! Every one of these cells and cellular connections are —o r SHOULD be —made of omega-3 fats. To get enough of these important fats, eliminate trans-fats and avoid animal fats from grain-fed beef. Instead eat plenty of wild, coldwater fish like salmon, grass-fed meats high in omega-3’s, walnuts, and flaxseeds. And be sure to take 1000 mg of an omega-3 supplement that is toxin- and mercury-free.

• Balance Your Serotonin with Food. Serotonin is the feel-good neurotransmitter. If you don’t have enough, you spiral down into darkness and depression. The typical treatment given is Prozac. But depression is NOT a Prozac deficiency. One of the contributing factors to the epidemic of serotonin deficiency is the amount and quality of protein in the standard American diet. Want more serotonin? Eat high-quality protein with each meal like grass-fed beef and free-range chicken. These foods are high in tryptophan, the primary amino acid out of which serotonin is created. No tryptophan equals no serotonin, equals a very unhappy mood. Studies show that if you feed a group of people a mixture of amino acids without tryptophan you can induce depression in hours!1

• Boost Your Brain Chemistry with Vitamins and Minerals. I have tested thousands of patients for nutrient deficiencies and have found that most are deficient in MANY vitamins and minerals. I have also found that by correcting these deficiencies, people feel better, their moods improve, and their broken brains (and other chronic illnesses) heal almost overnight. To acquire the vitamins and minerals you need, supplement your diet with a multivitamin and mineral (be sure it contains B complex vitamins) calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and probiotics every day.

Follow these three steps and you will be well on your way to healing your broken brain. For all the details, see my book, The UltraMind Solution, in which I outline a complete 4-step, 6-week program to rebalance all 7 keys to UltraWellness so you can achieve an UltraMind.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, MD

Delgado, P.L., et al. 1990. Arch Gen Psychiatry 47 (5):411–18.

[Ed. Note: Mark Hyman, MD, is the editor in chief of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine and author of the New York Times bestsellers UltraMetabolism and The UltraSimple Diet.]