Plant Based Organic Diet Cure for Cancer - Don Porter

Healing Outside The Box - Show# - 91 - "You Can Beat Cancer, This Ma...

2022-12-18T04:08:00.001-08:00

15 Years and Healthy

2022-06-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

Don Porter 9-14-2014 - Intro to Telomere lengthening for health/extended longevity with THERACURMIN® Drs. in India call it the “all in one solution.” Their “all in one solution” is curcumin. Why would medical professionals describe curcumin with such a powerful statement? Could it really be so powerful that it truly is the “all in one solution”? I have researched herbs and nutrition for 30+ years. Last 8 years have gotten serious, developed good knowledge of many of the top medicinal plants in the world. However, several years ago came across a number of studies on curcumin from different scien¬tific institutions in various parts of the world - especially in Japan. In all, identified 2,000+ studies conducted on Curcumin over the last several years, and as many as a dozen new studies every month - a first in my experiences ! My curiosity went into overdrive - why has this plant intrigued so many scientists? This large amount of research is a clue that scientists are seeing a tremendous medici¬nal benefit of curcumin. This really intrigued me, and while not having a specific technical background, I have a passion for R&D combined with Due Diligence of high quality Healing/Curing medicinal products. Initiated serious searching with healers scientists around the world to inquire as to what they were discovering and why there was this huge influx of scientific research. Eventually, my internet digging identified scientists @ a conference in India on curcumin. What I discovered was amazing. 30+ years looking @ health food industry - alternative medicine, I never thought I would have the opportunity to see a plant with such medicinal benefits, even extending Telemere length Enhacing the Benefits of Curcumin - Many studies show curcumin has serious benefits, major issue limiting its clinical use has been that it is not very well absorbed. Several types of curcumin products have now been developed (BCM -95 + others) to more effectively raise blood and tissue levels of curcumin. THERACURMIN®, by THERAVALUES Corp. is by far the most advanced of these techniques. This all-natural preparation reduces the particle size of curcumin, while dramatically increasing its solubility. The average particle size of typical curcumin is 22.75 μm. In Theracurmin, the particle size has been reduced to 0.19 to 0.3 μm—a reduction of over 100X This reduced particle size curcumin is then mixed with natural emulsifiers to suspend it in a highly bioavailable mixture that is then dried. This Photo showing the IMPRESSIVE dissolution of Theracurmin in water compared to regular curcumin powder.on left. This dramatic dispersion in water translates to the dramatic increases in bioavailability seen with THERACURMIN®, by THERAVALUES Corp. -2- THERACURMIN® Increases “Free” Curcumin - In addition to being poorly absorbed, regular curcumin is rapidly metabolized in the liver. When measuring levels of curcumin in the blood during absorption studies, the value of curcumin is based upon total curcuminoids, including metabolites. The only product form that has shown to actually increase the free curcumin form is Theracurmin. Since free curcumin is significantly more active than the metabolites, it appears highly likely that Theracurmin is not only better absorbed, but it also produces additional benefits as compared to other supplemental forms of curcumin. Health Benefits of Theracurmin - Because Theracurmin enhances the absorption of curcumin, all of the benefits associated with curcumin are also enhanced. Theracurmin has been the subject of Many impressive clinical studies that have shown Theracurmin possesses an ability to reduce tissue damage caused by inflammation, improve liver function, increase the ability of the heart to function more efficiently, and increase the flexibility of the arteries. Currently, Theracurmin is being investigated for additional properties at some of the major universities and research centers in the world. The dosage recommendation of Theracurmin, based upon the existing clinical evaluation, is 300 to 600 mg per day. THERACURMIN® is the Most Bioavailable Form of Curcumin - Having now reviewed many graphs, charts, videos, medical school results: Clinical Research Institute-National Hospital, Organization Kyoto Medical Center, Columbia-Dept of System Chemotherapy and Molecular Sciences, Division of Bioinformatics and Chemical Genomics, Alzheimer’s prevention at the UCLA Longevity Ctr, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences-Kyoto Univ, including data from, Div. of Molecular Medicine, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Univ of Shizuoka, Outpatient Oncology Unit, Kyoto Univ Hospital, Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, Univ of Tsukuba, The Univ. of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and THERAVALUES Corp this demonstrates Theracurmin is by far the most bioavailable form of curcumin. Theracurmin is the only curcumin preparation currently available that produces a clear dose response. What that means is that even small dosages of Theracurmin increase blood measurements of curcumin, and, as the dosage increases, so does the blood level. This increase is linear, meaning that it increases in the blood in a parallel fashion to the dosage. This absorption profile is extremely important; as the effectiveness of curcumin within the body requires achieving effective concentrations. Theracurmin is able to achieve necessary concentrations within the body that are not likely to be easily achieved, if at all, with other curcumin preparations. A Few Key Bullet points of. THERACURMIN® : • 2,000 studies conducted on curcumin last several years, a dozen new studies every month • Curcumin effective any kind of inflam¬mation cause of 80% of diseases – heart disease, obesity, arthritis osteo-rheumatoid, bursitis, bronchitis, lupus, sinusitis, asthma, fibromyalgia-migraine headaches, hypertension, gall stones, MS, asthma, Indicates THERACURMIN® heal¬ing benefits top of plant medicines-Organic - unheated Aloe also • Major Studies - THERACURMIN is the 1st nanoparticle formulation of curcumin that demonstrates improved bioavailability in human subjects. This compound could be a promising tool when testing the potential anticancer effects of curcumin in clinical trials. THERACURMIN absorption found to be more than 40X higher than that of curcumin powder in rats. Healthy human volunteers were administered orally 30 mg of THERACURMIN or curcumin powder. The Absorption of THERACURMIN was 27X higher than that of curcumin powder. In addition, THERACURMIN exhibited an inhibitory action against alcohol intoxication after drinking in humans, as evidenced by the reduced acetaldehyde concentration of the blood. These findings demonstrate that THERACURMIN shows a much higher bioavailability than currently available preparations -3- Pharmacy News March 25, 2012 by Rx Times Leave a Comment Theravalues: Extensive Clinical Trials Affirms the Benefits of Theracurmin™ on Diastolic Function in Hypertensive Patients CHICAGO–(BUS. WIRE)–Theracurmin, an absorption-enhanced form of curcumin, developed by Theravalues Corp., a Japanese bio-venture, is affirmed to be beneficial on diastolic function in hypertensive patients. American College of Cardiology Poster Abstract Shows Standard Lipid Profile Inaccurate for LDL Cholesterol Below 70 mg/dL CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Science presented today at the American College of Cardiology’s 61st Annual Scientific Sessions in Chicago reveals the importance of directly measured lipoprotein cholesterol levels. New Data Suggests Results of PLATO Genetic Sub-Study Outcomes for BRILINTA® (Ticagrelor) Not Driven by Poor Metabolizers of Clopidogrel CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) today announced results from a sub-analysis of the PLATO genetic sub-study that evaluated the impact of poor metabolizers of clopidogrel. Data suggests results were consistent with the overall outcome of the PLATO study, with BRILINTA (ticagrelor) compared to clopidogrel, even after poor clopidogrel metabolizers were excluded. Results of this sub-analysis were presented today at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions (ACC), in Chi New Data Suggests BRILINTA® (ticagrelor) Reduced First and Recurrent Cardiovascular and Ischemic Events CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) today announced new data from a sub-analysis of the PLATO study that suggests that BRILINTA® (ticagrelor) tablets resulted in a reduction in hazard for time to first events, recurrent cardiovascular (CV) and ischemic events, when compared to clopidogrel. These data were presented today by Dr. Payal Kohli of the TIMI Study Group and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions (ACC), in Chicago, Ill. “The - See more at: http://www.rxtimes.com/pharmacy-news-10/#sthash.UxUy2cg1.dpuf -4- Are Telomeres The Key To Aging And Cancer? Inside the nucleus of a cell, our genes are arranged along twisted, double-stranded molecules of DNA called chromosomes. At the ends of the chromosomes are stretches of DNA called telomeres, which protect our genetic data, make it possible for cells to divide, and hold some secrets to how we age and get cancer.Telomeres have been compared with the plastic tips on shoelaces, because they keep chromosome ends from fraying and sticking to each other, which would destroy or scramble an organism's genetic information. Yet, each time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter. When they get too short, the cell can no longer divide; it becomes inactive or "senescent" or it dies. This shortening process is associated with aging, cancer, and a higher risk of death. So telomeres also have been compared with a bomb fuse. I never thought I would have the opportunity to see a plant with such medicinal benefits, even extending Telemere length as THERACURMIN® apparently can ! ------------------------ JETRO RIT Programme: Hokkaido BioIndustrial Exchange The Hokkaido Ministry of Economy Trade & Industry (METI) together with the Hokkaido Bio Industrial Cluster Forum, are engaging with Natural Products New Zealand, in a program of Industrial Exchange.On 15th Oct 2009, 13 Hokkaido companies and 9 New Zealand companies participated in the Health Ingredients Japan Trade Show (Tokyo Big Sight). Business talks were held (20 meetings). Following this, 5 New Zealand participants were invited to Sapporo, from 22nd - 24th February 2010, in order to promote long-term market enlargement, the formation of new alliances and technology exchange. Participating enterprises had the opportunity to introduce their respective companies through poster presentations and pamphlets showcasing their products and technologies. In addition, companies delivered presentations highlighting their key technologies and selling points and to indicate desired areas of collaboration and partnering opportunities. After the reception, further networking over dinner provided opportunity to deepen business relationships. Companies involved in the programme are listed below: Theravalues -Contract research provider for researchers and industry, including Analysis Service for Nuclear Receptors Nuclear receptors (intracellular proteins, that migrate into the nucleus to regulate the transcription of survival-related genes when bound to vitamins, hormones, fatty acids, etc.) 48 kinds of nuclear receptors are known to exist in humans and are reported to be involved in diabetes, arteriosclerosis, obesity, osteoporosis, insomnia, and carcinogenesis. They are also known to be the drug targets for hyperglycemia and hyperlipemia. Theravalues offer services for reporter gene assays to test the activation of nuclear receptors. They are developing a range of functional materials in collaboration with leading universities and research institutes, developing formulation techniques, and focusing on the development of new value chains for functional materials. Research interests include: Curucmin DDS, Nuclear receptor activation materials, Thioredoxin, Xanthines, and activation of human transcription factors involved anti-cancer, antiviral, detoxification and immunoactivation, by Bamboo grass extract. Carol Greider, molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins University, says understanding the caps on the ends of chromosomes may soon translate to understanding cancer, lung diseases, and even normal aging,

Healing Outside The Box - Show# - 91 - "You Can Beat Cancer, This Ma...

2022-01-03T04:02:00.003-08:00

15 years later still fine NO CHEMO or Radiation - Build your immune system and elevate, temporarily, your pH !

Healing Outside The Box - Show# - 91 - "You Can Beat Cancer, This Ma...

2021-12-27T04:22:00.001-08:00

Attacking Ourselves: Top Doctors Reveal Vaccines Turn Our Immune System Against Us

2020-12-30T06:58:00.001-08:00

Attacking Ourselves: Top Doctors Reveal Vaccines Turn Our Immune System Against Us: The research is hard to ignore, vaccines can trigger autoimmunity with a laundry list of diseases to follow. With harmful and toxic metals as some vaccine ingredients, who is susceptible and which individuals are more at risk?

Garlic Beats Conventional Antibiotic

2018-09-05T14:38:00.001-07:00

Popular Kitchen Remedy Puts

Antibiotic To Shame, Research Reveals

Posted on: Tuesday, August 28th 2018 Written By: Sayer Ji, Founder This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2018 Visit our Re-post guidelines

Fighting infection with conventional antibiotics is becoming an increasingly hopeless affair. The CDC recently warned these drugs are useless in combatting deadly 'super germs.' So what can one do? Your kitchen holds the key.

Every day in this country, all day long, patients and doctors reach for conventional antibiotics when opportunistic infections present themselves. The fact that most infections are self-limiting (the body has an immune system, we often forget), and that antibacterial antibiotics are often administered for viral infections, against which they are useless and even infection-promoting, is rarely if ever acknowledged.

There is also the problem that antibiotics themselves drive the growth of antibiotic resistant subpopulations of bacteria, and as a result creating “super germs" against which the conventional antibiotics are useless. This effect can adversely alter the microbial substrate for our health for months, years, and perhaps for our entire lifetime (and our progeny’s lifetimes).

The good news is that doctors and their patients are starting to wake up. The concept of taking a probiotic to promote health, for instance, is practically mainstream knowledge now. There is even compelling research that viruses in our body are essential to fight bacterial infections and cancer, and that viruses are so important that we should consider taking proviriotics (substances that feed their growth) to support our virally-base immunity. Watch Dr. Virgin’s amazing NIH lecture below to learn about the health-promoting role of viruses as members of the virome (the viral component of the microbiome) in the video below:

To gain a greater appreciation for the ongoing paradigm shift concerning "germs,"you can read my article on how the discovery of the microbiome has demolished a key tenet of Germ Theory, namely, that viruses and bacteria are primarily pathogenic in nature: How The Microbiome Destroyed the Ego, Vaccine Policy, and Patriarchy. Or, take a peak a my more recent article discussing how human influenza is comprised of proteins and lipids derived from our own bodies, precluding them from being classified fully as "other": Why The Only Thing Influenza May Kill Is Germ Theory.

The Rise of Natural Medicine for Treating Infections

And so, in the past few years, interest in evidence-based, natural alternatives, which provide safer and more effective relief, have increasingly expanded. Together, we are re-learning and remembering the wisdom of the ancients: let food be your medicine.

At GreenMedInfo.com, we have indexed a broad range of natural substances that have potent anti-microbial activity, including commonly available and inexpensive ‘kitchen remedies’ like honey, garlic, lemon, to name but a few. In actuality, thousands of natural substances have antimicrobial activity, which unlike conventional drugs, are far more capable of restoring balance within the microbiome. We have indexed hundreds of studies on this topic, all of which can be found on our Research Dashboard dedicated to Antibiotic Resistant Infection.

Garlic Versus First-Line Antibiotic for Vaginal Infection

A relatively recent study adds to the already impressive body of research in this field. Titled “Comparing the Therapeutic Effects of Garlic Tablet and Oral Metronidazole on Bacterial Vaginosis: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial,” medical researchers demonstrated the power of garlic in treating bacterial vaginosis, one of the most common gynecological infections afflicting women of reproductive age today.

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) affects 29.2% of women aged 14-49, and 25% of pregnant women in the US, according to CDC statistics. According to the study,

“This infection is asymptomatic in 50% to 75% of cases and symptomatic cases present with homogeneous gray-white vaginal discharge with fishy odor, especially after intercourse or during menstruation”

It is believed that BV results from reduced quantities of hydrogen peroxide producing lactobacillus and increased anaerobic organisms such as Gardnerella vaginalis, Mycoplasma hominis, and Prevotella species. Antibiotics are notorious for lacking specificity in inhibiting only those opportunistic strains that can cause harm, which is why it is no wonder that the standard of care treatment of BV with metronidazole has a notoriously poor success rate.[1]

Moreover, antibiotics like metronidazole come with a wide range of side effects, including nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, headache, dizziness weight loss, and abdominal pain.

Even more concerning is the fact that the drug has been identified as a potential carcinogen both by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP)[2] and the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer.[3]

The new study tested whether garlic could compete with metronidazole in treating BV. Garlic was a logical choice, since it has been used as an anti-infective agent for millennia, and has seen a tremendous amount of clinical validation in the past ten years, as evidenced by the literature on our Garlic Research Dashboard. You can also read previous reporting we have done on the topic of garlic’s immense value in addressing infections, such as Judy Cohain’s article on “How to Treat a Vaginal Infection with a Clove of Garlic.” Much of this research also demonstrates the potent anti-cancer properties of this powerfully medicinal food. The design of the new study involved giving two groups of 60 married women (aged 18 to 44 years) either 500 mg garlic tablets comprised of 85.42% garlic powder, or metradizole. Each dose of garlic powder contained the equivalent of 8.9-mg allein, a potent antimicrobial compound. Both drugs were taken with meals at the dose of two tablets each 12 hours for seven days. The two different treatments were evaluated using a diagnostic criteria showing active infection known as Amsel’s criteria. Not surprisingly, garlic was found superior to metronidazole at reducing infection at 70% and 48.3%, respectively. Additionally, garlic was found to have far lower side effects.

The researchers concluded:

“This study reveals that garlic could be a suitable alternative for metronidazole in treatment of BV in those interested in herbal medicines or those affected by side effects of metronidazole.”

Isn’t that amazing?

Before the advent of modern, conventional medicine, the world over used natural substances – spices, foods, herbs – to prevent and reverse disease. In fact, so important and valued were these that they were sometimes traded for their weight in gold. Now we know that the ancients were not as “primitive, superstitious, or pre-scientific,” as widely believed, we can appreciate science that honors their wisdom. In fact, it was their use of these substances that enabled them to survive thousands of years without modern medicine, and it is the use of these substances that will now allow us to survive modern medicine itself, which has become a primary cause of death.

For more information on natural healing alternatives to common drugs view our database sections titled, “The Superiority of Natural Substances versus Drugs,” and “Natural Substances Equipotent To Drugs,” to see research comparing natural versus synthetic approaches to prevent and treat disease.

And of course, please use our Research Dashboard, which contains research on over 3,000 ailments that can prevented or treated naturally, as evidenced by published, peer-reviewed research culled from the National Library of Medicine’s database MEDLINE (accessible via pubmed.gov)

Also, learn more about natural interventions for Bacterial Vaginosis here.

Looking for more in-depth information on natural remedies used since ancient times? Watch the upcoming docuseries on the topic by registering here.

References

[1] Review Bacterial vaginosis: a review on clinical trials with probiotics. Mastromarino P, Vitali B, Mosca L New Microbiol. 2013 Jul; 36(3):229-38.

[2] "Metronidazole CAS No. 443-48-1" (PDF). Report on Carcinogens, Twelfth Edition (2011). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Toxicology Program. Retrieved 2011-10-28.

[3] International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) (May 2010). "Agents Classified by the IARC Monographs, Volumes 1–100" (PHP). World Health Organization. Retrieved 2010-06-06.

Sayer Ji is founder of Greenmedinfo.com, a reviewer at the International Journal of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine, Co-founder and CEO of Systome Biomed, Vice Chairman of the Board of the National Health Federation, Steering Committee Member of the Global Non-GMO Foundation.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of GreenMedInfo or its staff. Internal Site Commenting is limited to members.
Disqus commenting is available to everyone.

Six Best doctor's - that REALLY Heal and Cure

2018-08-31T05:21:00.003-07:00

STEVE JOBS:THE WORLD'S SIX BEST DOCTORS

The World's six best doctors ..worth reading twice

Steve Jobs Died a billionaire at age 56. This is his final essay:

I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In some

others' eyes, my life is the epitome of success. However, aside from

work, I have little joy. In the end, my wealth is only a fact of life

that I am accustomed to. At this moment, lying on my bed and

recalling my life, I realize that all the recognition and wealth that

I took so much pride in have paled and become meaningless in the face

of my death.

You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you

but you cannot have someone bear your sickness for you. Material

things lost can be found or replaced. But there is one thing that can

never be found when it's lost - Life. Whichever stage in life you are

in right now, with time, you will face the day when the curtain comes

down.

Treasure love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your

friends. Treat yourself well and cherish others. As we grow older,

and hopefully wiser, we realize that a $300 or a $30 watch both tell

the same time. You will realize that your true inner happiness does

not come from the material things of this world. Whether you fly

first class or economy, if the plane goes down - you go down with it.

Therefore, I hope you realize, when you have mates, buddies and old

friends, brothers and sisters, who you chat with, laugh with, talk

with, have sing songs with, talk about north-south-east-west or heaven

and earth, that is true happiness! Don't educate your children to be

rich. Educate them to be happy. So when they grow up they will know

the value of things and not the price. Eat your food as your

medicine, otherwise you have to eat medicine as your food.

The One who loves you will never leave you for another because, even

if there are 100 reasons to give up, he or she will find a reason to

hold on. There is a big difference between a human being and being

human. Only a few really understand it. You are loved when you are

born. You will be loved when you die. In between, you have to

manage!

The six best doctors in the world are sunlight, rest, exercise, diet,

self-confidence and friends. Maintain them in all stages and enjoy a

healthy life."

Eat Nuts to Beat Inflammation

2016-09-15T14:50:00.001-07:00

Go Nuts to Beat Inflammation

Posted on Sept. 9, 2016, 6 a.m. in Inflammation Cardio-Vascular Diabetes Functional Foods

Consuming nuts five times per week may reduce inflammation, a condition that contributes to heart disease, type 2 diabetes and many other disorders.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital have discovered that eating more nuts correlates to lower levels of inflammatory biomarkers, which are certain telltale proteins. The team performed a data cross-sectional analysis from the Nurses' Health Study of over 120,000 female registered nurses and from a Health Professionals Follow-Up Study of over 50,000 male health professionals. A particular study of over 5,000 people used diet questionnaires and studied the biomarkers in blood samples of the participants. Those included interleukin 6 (IL6), tumor necrosis factor receptor 2 (TNFR2), and C-reactive protein (CRP).

Adjustments were made for medical history, age, lifestyle and additional variables. It was found that participants who ate five or more servings of nuts each week had a lower level of IL6 and CRP, compared to those people who almost never or hardly ever ate nuts. Those who ate three servings each week of nuts instead of processed meat, red meat, refined grains, or eggs had a significantly lower level of CRP and IL6. Tree nuts and peanuts contain healthy components that include fiber, magnesium, antioxidants, L-arginine, and unsaturated fatty acids.

Other studies have continually supported nuts and their protective role against such disorders astype 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Inflammation is a key in the development of such diseases, and nuts exert beneficial effects by reducing systemic inflammation. These facts are according to Ying Bao, MD, ScD, a noted epidemiologist in the BWH Channing Division of Network Medicine. Bao stated that much remains unknown about how diet influences inflammation and the risk of disease, but their study supports the overall healthful role of nuts. She suggests that nuts are beneficial to reducing inflammation and protecting against cardiometabolic disorders.

Some of the Best Inflammation Busting Foods There Are

2016-09-02T06:01:00.004-07:00

18 Foods That Promote Muscle Growth and Definition

September 02, 2016

By Dr. Mercola

If you're looking for muscle growth and definition, there's no getting around exercise. However, you cannot exercise your way out of a poor diet, and when it comes to muscle definition, one of the keys is to lose body fat, or else you will not be able to see the muscles in the first place.

The common belief is that if you want to build muscle, you need to eat lots of protein and carbohydrates because carbs fuel your muscles and protein builds them up. However, the evidence that has emerged over the past several years shows us it's not that simple.

One particularly intriguing finding is that your body has a mechanism that allows it to build muscle even when deprived of food. As it turns out, amino acids and protein serve not just as building blocks for tissues and muscle.

Certain amino acids — most notably branched chain amino acids like leucine — also signal muscle genes to grow and to build protein, and they do that even during times of food deprivation as long as these amino acids are circulating through your blood stream.

Moreover, research reveals that high-carbohydrate diets are a disaster for most people, as they promote insulin and leptin resistance, which actually in turn promotes muscle wasting.

Similarly, eating more protein than your body actually needs — which is usually far less than most people are eating, whether they're athletes or not — may promote elevated blood sugar, weight gain and kidney stress, and may even stimulate cancer growth. I'll discuss suggested dosage recommendations further below.

Foods That Promote Muscle Definition

Nutritionist, fitness trainer and author of "The Sugar Impact Diet," JJ Virgin, recently published an article listing seven foods that can help you get lean and toned.1

Chef and three-time bodybuilding champ, Carlo Filippone, founder and CEO of Elite Lifestyle Cuisine, has also compiled a list of 20 foods that help build and tone muscle.2

Known as "The Muscle Chef," Filippone recommends including these foods in your cooking as often as possible. Below I will summarize a number of their suggestions, along with some of my own.

1.Wild-Caught Alaskan Salmon

Rich in high-quality protein and the anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), wild salmon helps combat the chronic inflammation that plagues most people in poor health. Animal-based omega-3 fats also helps build muscle.3 As noted by Filippone:

"These [fats] go a long way in inhibiting muscle breakdown and supporting strong blood circulation."

Besides healthy fat and protein, salmon also contains leucine. Granted, with 100 grams of salmon providing you with about 1.6 grams of leucine, there's no way you could get the recommended 8 grams of leucine from salmon, but it does contain higher amounts than most other foods.

Wild Alaskan salmon also tends to be low in mercury, which is a serious concern when you're trying to improve your health. Canned wild Alaskan salmon is a less expensive option than salmon steaks.

2.Avocado

Avocados are high in potassium, important for water balance regulation and recuperation after physical exertion, and healthy monounsaturated fat that your body can easily burn for energy.

As with olive oil, the fat in avocados can help with weight management. One study found that eating just one-half of a fresh avocado with lunch helped boost satiation and curb snacking.

The fat in avocados also helps your body absorb fat-soluble vitamins and minerals from other foods (and/or supplements).

Research4 has shown that consuming a whole fresh avocado with tomato sauce or raw carrots significantly enhanced absorption of the carotenoids and conversion of them into an active form of vitamin A.5

Avocados also provide nearly 20 essential nutrients, including vitamins B, E and folic acid.

The greatest concentration of beneficial carotenoids is in the dark green flesh of the avocado, closest to the peel, so you're best off peeling your avocado with your hands, like a banana.

3.Spinach

Spinach is high in niacin, zinc, protein, fiber, vitamins A, B6, C, E and K, thiamin, folate, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, copper and manganese. In other words, it's loaded with nutrition for every part of your body.

Abundant flavonoids in spinach also help keep cholesterol from oxidizing and protect your body from free radical damage. The folate in spinach helps promote a healthy cardiovascular system, and magnesium helps lower high blood pressure.

Moreover, research suggests there may have been something to Popeye's ability to turbo-charge his muscles with spinach after all, as the dietary nitrate found in spinach actually helps increase production of proteins that boost muscle strength.6

Studies also have shown that spinach helps maintain your brain function, memory and mental clarity. To retain the rich iron content of spinach, lightly cook it and add a splash of lemon juice or vinegar on top.

4.Coconut Oil

Coconut oil provides a mix of medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), including caproic acid (C6), caprylic acid (C8), capric acid (C10) and lauric acid (C12). MCTs are an ideal fuel for your body.

However, since nearly 50 percent of coconut oil is lauric acid, which has a longer carbon chain, coconut oil is not necessarily an ideal source of MCTs.

MCT oil is a better alternative if you're looking for ketone production specifically, although you could opt for FRACTIONATED coconut oil, which contains primarily C8 and C10, the former of which readily converts to ketones.7

That said, coconut oil has many tremendous health benefits. For example, your body converts lauric acid into monolaurin, a monoglyceride that can destroy viruses and gram-negative bacteria. This is undoubtedly part of what makes it so medicinally useful.

5.MCT Oil

I recently wrote an extensive article on MCT oil that you can read for further information. Remember that your body processes MCTs differently from the long-chain fats in your diet. Normally, a fat taken into your body must be mixed with bile released from your gallbladder and acted on by pancreatic enzymes to break it down in your digestive system. MCTs don't need bile or pancreatic enzymes.

Once they reach your intestine, they diffuse through your intestinal membrane into your bloodstream and are transported directly to your liver, which naturally converts the oil into ketones. Your liver then releases the ketones back into your bloodstream, where they are transported throughout your body. They can even pass the blood-brain barrier to supply your brain with energy. MCTs also have a thermogenic effect, which has a positive effect on your metabolism.8

For these reasons, MCTs are readily used by your body for energy rather than being stored as fat. Most commercial brands of MCT oil contain a combination of C8 and C10 fats. My personal preference is straight C8 (caprylic acid), as it converts to ketones far more rapidly than do C10 fats.

6.Kale

Kale has many things going for it, including very high amounts of protein and lots of highly bioavailable calcium. One cup of raw kale contains 2 grams of protein, 7 grams of carbs and 1 gram of fiber (for a net carb value of 6 grams). Like meat, kale contains all nine essential amino acids needed to form the proteins your body needs, plus nine other non-essential ones for a total of 18.

The vitamins offered by just 1 cup of kale can also trump a whole week's worth of other foods: 684 percent of the daily value of vitamin K, 206 percent of the suggested daily amount of vitamin A and 134 percent of vitamin C.

7.Broccoli

Sulforaphane, a naturally occurring organic sulfur compound found in broccoli is probably most well-known for its anti-cancer activity. However, as Filippone points out, sulforaphane also "increases testosterone levels and staves off the retention of body fat."

It also "blocks certain enzymes that have been linked to joint destruction, so broccoli is a must have in an active person's diet." Research has also shown sulforaphane helps protect your muscles against exercise-induced damage.9

8.Sprouts

Sprouts are a concentrated source of nutrition, allowing you to get more nutrients with less bulk. If you're looking for high-quality protein, look no further than sprouts. These little powerhouses are also up to 30 times more nutrient-dense than homegrown organic vegetables.

Sprouting also makes most of the nutrients more bioavailable. Some of the most common sprouts include alfalfa, mung bean, wheatgrass, peas, broccoli and lentils. My personal favorites are sunflower and watercress.

9.Berries

Berries contain concentrated amounts of the disease-fighting phytochemicals that boost your immunity and protect your heart. For a sweet treat, berries are a good choice as they're high in fiber and lower in sugar than many fruits, making them less likely to destabilize your insulin levels.

In particular, blueberries have several known health benefits. They exert positive effects upon your lipid profile, reducing your risk for type 2 diabetes. And because of their bountiful antioxidants, blueberries are one of the best fruits to protect you from premature aging.

10.Bananas

Being high in glucose and digestible sugars, bananas are best avoided if you struggle with insulin resistance or excessive weight. Barring that, bananas are a popular pre- or post-workout food, thanks to their potassium content. Potassium is a mineral that tends to be exhausted by intense exercise, so potassium-rich foods are highly recommended. One banana contains 467 milligrams (mg) of potassium, which is also important for controlling your heart rate and blood pressure.

11.Watermelon

According to Filippone: "Eating watermelon has been shown to improve lipid profiles and lowers fat accumulation, because of its concentration of anthocyanin, a compound that mollifies fat-storage genes. It's refreshing, aides in hydration and can also help reduce muscle soreness after a strenuous workout. I usually melon ball them into a small container and use them as a pick-me up between reps."

That said, be careful when eating any melon, including watermelon, as they do not digest well with other foods. Melon frequently causes digestive problems unless consumed by itself, so ideally, do not eat any other food 30 minutes before or after eating watermelon.

12.Grapefruit

Filippone recommends eating a grapefruit before your workout to aid rehydration (which in turn also aids weight loss), as grapefruit is 90 percent water. Pink grapefruit is also a good source of vitamins A and C (providing 53 percent and 120 percent of the recommended daily value respectively) as well as fiber and potassium.

Red grapefruit contains a bit more flavonoids and anthocyanins than white or pink grapefruit. It also contains lycopene, which helps lower triglycerides, help fight free radical damage and protect your skin from UV damage from the sun.

I recommend consuming grapefruit in moderation due to its fructose content, which may be harmful to your health in excessive amounts. Also beware that grapefruit may, in rare cases, interfere with certain medications, so if you're on meds, be sure to discuss it with your doctor.

13.Papaya

Papaya and other vitamin C-rich foods may help lower your cortisol level after intense exercise. In one study, men who consumed 1,000 mg of vitamin C per day for two weeks had significantly lower cortisol following a 2.5-hour run compared to the placebo group.10

Unripened papaya has yet another advantage. In its unripened state, papaya contains higher amounts of digestive-resistant starch, which is important for optimal gut health. The same goes for unripened bananas and mangos. Resistant starches, which are indigestible, also do not result in blood sugar spikes.

While both ripe and green (unripe) papaya are rich in antioxidants, fiber and papain (an enzyme that helps with protein digestion and dampens inflammation), green papaya contain higher amounts of papain and potassium.

14.Raw Nuts

Magnesium is important for muscle growth and strength, and raw nuts are an excellent source. Nuts such as macadamias and pecans are also excellent choices because they're high in healthy fats while being lower in net carbs. Macadamia nuts have the highest fat and lowest protein and carb content of any nut, and they also happen to be one of my favorites.

Raw macadamia nuts also contain high amounts of vitamin B1, magnesium and manganese. Just one serving of macadamia nuts provide 58 percent of what you need in manganese and 23 percent of the recommended daily value of thiamin. Moreover, about 60 percent of the fatty acid in macadamia is the monounsaturated fat oleic acid. This is about the level found in olives, which are well known for their health benefits.

Pecans are a close second to macadamia nuts on the fat and protein scale, and they also contain anti-inflammatory magnesium, heart healthy oleic acid, phenolic antioxidants and immune-boosting manganese.

15.Grass-Fed Beef

As noted by Virgin: "Beef that's been raised conscientiously is a perfect source of protein, healthy fats and nutrients. Grass-fed beef also comes loaded with the multi-tasking amino acid L-glutamine to help build muscle while preventing muscle breakdown."

Grass-fed beef is also an excellent source of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which has potent anti-inflammatory activity. Just be mindful of the amount of protein you eat (all protein, not just that from beef). Most Americans consume three to five times more protein than they need. For most people, a more ideal protein intake is likely around one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body mass, which for most amounts to 40 to 70 grams per day.

If you eat more protein than your body requires, most of those calories will simply be converted to sugar and then fat. Excessive protein can also have a stimulating effect on an important biochemical pathway called the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), which plays an important role in many cancers.

When you reduce protein to just what your body needs and no more, mTOR remains inhibited, which helps minimize your chances of cancer growth. Additionally, when you consume too much protein, your body must remove more nitrogen waste products from your blood, which stresses your kidneys. Chronic dehydration can result, as was found in a study involving endurance athletes.11

16.Mushrooms

Mushrooms are a natural source of vitamin D, which is critically important for muscle function. Muscle weakness is a classic symptom associated with vitamin D deficiency. Besides that, many mushrooms also have other medicinal qualities, including improved immune function.

It's important to eat organically grown mushrooms because they absorb and concentrate whatever they grow in — good or bad. Mushrooms are known to concentrate heavy metals, as well as air and water pollutants, so healthy growing conditions is a critical factor.

17.Olive Oil

While many recommend cooking with olive oil, this is not recommended as high temperatures will cause the olive oil to oxidize and go rancid. Coconut oil, raw grass-fed butter or even lard are better options for cooking. That said, olive oil, used COLD, drizzled on salads, is a healthy fat with many health benefits. As noted by Filippone:

"Olive oil contains … monounsaturated fat, which has been shown to raise serotonin, a hormone associated with satiety, in your blood levels. You'll feel fuller after a meal prepared with olive oil, which will help keep you from indulging in extra calories at mealtime."

However, be aware that olive oil is a common target of food fraud. Even "extra virgin" olive oil is often diluted with other less expensive oils, such as hazelnut, soybean, corn, sunflower, palm, sesame, grape seed or walnut. These other oils will not be listed on the label, nor will most people be able to discern that their olive oil is not pure.

If you live in an area where olive oil is made, buying from a local producer is the ideal solution as it allows you to know exactly what's in your oil. If not, try an independent olive oil shop that can tell you about the growers, or do your research and seek out a brand name you trust.

18.Whey Protein

Whey protein is the perfect "fitness food" as it contains not only high-quality protein, but also extremely high amounts of leucine. Leucine serves multiple functions in your body, one of which is signaling the mTOR mechanism to increase protein synthesis and build muscle. The highest concentrations of leucine are found in dairy products; particularly quality cheese and whey protein.

The typical requirement for leucine to maintain body protein is 1 to 3 grams daily. However, to optimize its anabolic pathway, you need an estimated 8 to 16 grams of leucine per day. While you'd have to eat an enormous amount of leucine-containing foods to reach this amount, you only need 3 ounces of high-quality whey to reach 8 grams of leucine. This makes whey an obvious choice.

Ideally you'll want to consume the whey about 30 minutes before your workout to help increase both fat burning and muscle building. The whey meal will stop the catabolic process in your muscle and promote protein synthesis towards recovery and growth.

On strength training days you could add a serving after your workout. Keep in mind there's only a two-hour window after exercise during which your body will fully use the proteins you ingest for optimizing muscle repair and growth, so your timing is important.

One of the reasons whey works so well is that it is a protein that assimilates very quickly, and will get to your muscles within 10 to 15 minutes of swallowing it. This makes it easier to supply your muscles with the right food at the right time.

A study12 published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports & Exercise showed the amino acids found in high-quality whey protein activate certain cellular mechanisms, including mTOR, which in turn promote muscle protein synthesis, boost thyroid function and protect against declining testosterone levels after exercise. You just need to be careful that you are not chronically stimulating mTOR on a daily basis, as most studies suggest it will decrease your lifespan.

2016-08-20T03:13:00.000-07:00

Here's how scientists are going to save the world from annihilation

Move over, superheroes.

FIONA MACDONALD

19 AUG 2016

It’s no secret that the planet is in serious trouble. By August 8 this year, we’d already used up an entire year’s worth of resources - leaving us in the planetary red five days earlier than we were last year.

But while it can often feel like we’re powerless to stop the climate getting warmer or the oceans rising to the point where Earth is no longer habitable, scientists aren’t anywhere near giving up on our planet.

In fact, scientists are constantly coming up with some pretty ingenious ways to fix humankind’s biggest problems.

Here are just a few of the Marvel-worthy breakthroughs that happen when science and the environment collide:

1. Sucking CO2 out of the air and turning it into fuel

Researchers in Canada have developed a device that can suck CO2 pollution straight out of the air and convert it into fuel.

Developed by a start-up called Carbon Engineering, partly funded by Bill Gates, the system works by sucking CO2 out of the air, and then combining it with hydrogen split from water to form hydrocarbon fuel.

Carbon Engineering

The process is totally powered by renewable energy sources, but so far the prototype can only remove about 450 tonnes of CO2 each year – which doesn’t make much of a dent in the roughly 40 billion tonnes of carbon pumped into the atmosphere by humans annually.

But the system could easily be scaled up, and an extended version launching in 2017 is expected to produce 400 litres of gasoline or diesel per day – all from the carbon in our air, rather than fossil fuels.

2. Getting worms to eat our plastic waste

By 2050, it’s predicted that there’ll be more plastic in than fish in the oceans, and a lot of it gets there after we throw out things like plastic bags and coffee cups, or when plastic waste blows off of landfill.

But at the end of last year, for the first time, researchers found bacteria inside the gut of mealworms that can safely degrade plastic.

In fact, the team showed that these mealworm can happily live on a diet of Styrofoam and polystyrene, which means that they could be used to break the waste down safely before it ends up in landfill or the ocean.

Right now, it would take a whole lot of mealworms to eat all the waste we produce, but the team is looking into which enzyme is responsible for breaking down the plastic, and hopefully enhancing it to make it more efficient.

3. Cleaning up the ocean garbage patch with a giant net

For the plastic that’s already in the ocean, 22-year-old Boyan Slat has come up with a different plan.

Two years ago, he proposed creating a giant v-shaped filter, and attaching it to the seafloor, so natural wind patterns and ocean currents would collect the trash for us.

TheOceanCleanup

It seemed like a pretty crazy idea at the time, but he’s now built a prototype and has the backing of 15 universities and a successful crowd-funding campaign. If anyone can make it happen…

4. Creating diamond clouds

Using geoengineering to create artificial clouds has been proposed as an extreme measure for cooling the planet down.

In the past, scientists have suggested pumping huge amounts of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere - the same substance that’s released during volcanic eruptions, which in the past have been shown to cool the planet down.

But sulphur dioxide also doesn’t have the best effect on planet and animal life, and isn’t the healthiest thing to breathe in, so Harvard scientists have come up with another idea – flinging tonnes of powdered alumina and diamond dust into the atmosphere.

The idea is that this dust, just like sulphur dioxide, will reflect sunlight, keeping Earth cooler for longer - without the toxic side effects. The research is still in its early phases, but it’s good to know that if the situation gets dire enough for geoengineering to step in, at least we’ll have something nice to look at.

5. Using drones to replant trees

With Earth’s forests being bulldozed faster than they can regenerate, former NASA engineer Lauren Fletcher has come up with an ingenious solution – usingdrones to plant trees at a rate of 1 billion per year.

The idea behind the company, BioCarbon Engineering, is that humans on our own are no longer enough to be able to replace all the trees we clear for housing, farmland, and paper every single year.

But developments in technology brought us this problem, so why not use technology to fix it?

BioCarbon Engineering

Thanks to the latest developments in drones, it’s now possible to have the aerial vehicles not only drop seed capsules, but also water and monitor new trees, all without humans having to leave their homes.

"Destruction of global forests from lumber, mining, agriculture, and urban expansion destroys 26 billion trees each year. We believe that this industrial scale deforestation is best combated using the latest automation technologies,"says the BioCarbon Engineering website.

2016-08-17T04:19:00.001-07:00

Sugar has a stronger effect on our brains than we even realised, study finds

The complete opposite of what scientists thought.

BEC CREW

16 AUG 2016

German scientists have discovered that our brains are actively taking in sugar from the blood stream, overturning the long-held assumption that this was a purely passive process.

Even more surprising, they also found that it’s not our neurons that are responsible for absorbing all that sugar - it’s our glial cells, which make up 90 percent of the brain’s total cells, and until very recently, have been shrouded in mystery.

Not only does the find go against conventional wisdom on how our brains respond to sugar intake, it also shows how cells other than our neurons can actively play a role in controlling our behaviour.

Astrocytes - which are a specialised form of glial cell that outnumber neuronsmore than fivefold - have long been thought of as little more than ‘support cells’, helping to maintain the blood-brain barrier, carry nutrients to the nervous tissue, and play a role in brain and spinal cord repair.

But we now have evidence that they also play a role in human feeding behaviours, with researchers finding that their ability to sense and actively take in sugar is regulating the kinds of appetite-related signals that our neurons send out to the rest of the body.

And we’re not talking about a little bit of sugar here: the human brain experiences the highest level of sugar consumption out of every organ in the body.

"Our results showed for the first time that essential metabolic and behavioural processes are not regulated via neuronal cells alone, and that other cell types in the brain, such as astrocytes, play a crucial role," explains study leader Matthias Tschöp from the Technical University of Munich.

"This represents a paradigm shift and could help explain why it has been so difficult to find sufficiently efficient and safe medicines for diabetes and obesity until now."

Tschöp and his team decided to investigate how the brain decides to take in sugar from the blood - and how much - because this is directly related to our feelings of hunger.

A better understanding of why we get hungry could quite literally change modern society, with recent estimates putting the number of obese people in the world above those of underweight people.

"We ... suspected that a process as important as providing the brain with sufficient sugar was unlikely to be completely random," says one of the team, neurobiologist Cristina García-Cáceres.

"We were misled by the fact that nerve cells apparently did not control this process, and therefore first thought it to occur passively. Then we had the idea that glia cells such as astrocytes, which had long been misunderstood as less important 'support cells', might have something to do with transporting sugar into the brain."

The team used positron emission tomography (PET) scans to observe how insulin receptors act on the surface of the brain’s astrocytes. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas to allow the body to use or store sugar (in the form of glucose) from carbohydrates in the food we eat.

They found that if these receptors were missing on certain astrocytes, it would result in less activity in the neurons that are responsible for curbing food uptake, called proopiomelanocortin neurons.

Not only that, but they found that astrocytes missing insulin receptors actually became less efficient over time in transporting glucose into the brain - particularly in a region of the hypothalamus that sends out signals that you're full, or satiated.

So it looks like glial cells, not the neurons, are the true 'gate-keepers' for how much sugar our brains absorb, and we now know that sugar has such a powerful influence on them, they're seeking out sugar, rather than just passively absorbing it.

A better understanding of how this works could change everything about how we treat obesity in the future.

The team says that a lot more research is now needed to adjust the old model that assumed the neurons alone were regulating our food intake and metabolism, and suggest that maybe even our immune cells are playing a role in it as well.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us," says García-Cáceres, "but at least now we have a better idea where to look."

The research has been published in Cell.

WHY EATING RED MEAT CAUSES CANCER

2016-07-28T12:31:00.002-07:00

SCIENTIST FINALLY DISCOVER WHY EATING RED MEAT CAUSES CANCER

A new study out of the University of California, San Diego has discovered the culprit behind why eating red meat leads to higher instances of cancer -and it all has to do with a sugar.

Humans are the only animals that have a higher risk of cancer when it comes to eating red meat, as other carnivores eat red meat naturally with no ill side effects. The study, which was published December 29 in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” discovered that a unique sugar named Neu5Gc, found in most mammals but not in humans, triggers an immune response that in turn causes inflammation.

Ajit Varki, who led the study, explained the effect Neu5Gc had in mice: “Until now, all of our evidence linking Neu5Gc to cancer was circumstantial or indirectly predicted from somewhat artificial experimental setups … This is the first time we have directly shown that mimicking the exact situation in humans – feeding non-human Neu5Gc and inducing anti-Neu5Gc antibodies -increases spontaneous cancers in mice.”

This particular sugar can be found in red meats (using the nutritional definition of red meat, which includes pork and other livestock), cow’s milk and certain cheeses. Unfortunately for humans, our bodies can’t produce this sugar naturally, so when it is absorbed into our tissues, it is seen as a foreign invader. This then leads to the activation of our immune systems.

The result is inflammation.

And, while inflammation is not a great thing, in and of itself, it gets worse. If the immune system is subject to Neu5GC frequently, chronic inflammation will result. This inflammation can then lead to cancer. Those who regularly consume red meat will definitely suffer a stronger reaction than those who ingest red meat on an occasional basis.

Other animals, strict carnivores, who can make the Neu5GC sugar can eat red meats. Humans, not being strict carnivores, can’t. Therefore it seems clear that humans must avoid red meat consumption or face inflammation and possible cancer. At the minimum, reducing red meat ingestion will boost health.

If for some reason you believe eating red meat every day (even if it is grass-fed) isn’t a bad thing, well now you have proof. Sorry, meat eaters, humans just aren’t built to be true carnivores.

2016-07-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

'Caviar of protein': Old Mill Creek store stocks exotic

meat

Angelica LaVitoNews-Sun

Old Mill Creek Country Store's meat counter looks like a normal meat counter. It displays ground beef and beef steaks, but unlike most others, it also displays ground bison, elk steak, venison striploin and wild boar Italian sausage.

The products shown are just a few of the offerings from its sister company, Blackwing Meats. When husband and wife owners Roger Gerber and Beth Kaplan say they offer everything from tongue to tail, they really mean it.

"When people ask us if we have tongue, we say, 'Don't give us any lip,"' Gerber said.

As Americans grow increasingly health-conscious, alternatives to unhealthy foods have become more popular. Some people who love beef but not the calories and saturated fats have turned to exotic meats for a substitute.

Bison has become a common alternative to beef. It tastes nearly identical but contains less fat and calories. Demand for it has grown in the double digits for the past six years, according to the National Bison Association. Blackwing distributes between 10,000 and 15,000 pounds of it per week.

"I do tell people that bison is a much better alternative than higher-fat beef products," said Colleen DeBoer, a clinical dietitian at Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital and Northwestern Medicine Grayslake Outpatient Center.

Gerber and Kaplan live and encourage healthy lifestyles. They began distributing ostrich meat in 1997 from a kosher farm in South Dakota. The farmer convinced them to get into the bison business, and they continued to expand. They now offer beef, bison, elk, venison, antelope, lamb, pork, wild boar, chevon goat, ostrich, emu, chicken, turkey, pheasant, guinea and Cornish hen, goose and quail, and Muscovy, Pekin and Rouen duck.

Blackwing's supplies more than 3,600 retailers and restaurants including the Signature Room on the 95th floor of the John Hancock Building. The company also fills online orders nationwide, and it opened Old Mill Creek Country Store in April so local customers could buy their meats in person. Gerber and Kaplan ran the business out of their garage and caretaker's home at their Antioch house before they opened the 24,000 square foot retail store, processing center and office.

"People come from Chicago. People come from Deerfield, and Deerfield has a magnificent Whole Foods right on Deerfield Road," Kaplan said. "They all come because the pricing and they can't find the meats we have at Whole Foods."

New customers who come into the physical store may have never tried or even heard of some of the products and are sometimes afraid to try them.

"Fear is the unknown. And part of the problem is because they've never either eaten or prepared bison, elk, venison, antelope, wild boar, it's gotta be mystical and mysterious," Gerber said. "The fact of the matter is they're part of the venison family or they're part of the bovine or they're a hog. There's not much difference, beside maybe you cook it a little faster."

Mikki Markowicz drove past the store all the time on her way from her Lake Geneva home to her clients in the Chicago suburbs. She decided to stop in one day to see what was going on inside.

Since that first visit, Markowicz has tried all of the exotic meats. Her favorite is bison, though she loves them all.

"I'm in here every week," Markowicz said.

She loves to cook and has prepared the different meats for her friends and relatives. So far, "everybody loves it."

The only exotic meat that flopped at Blackwing is alligator, according to Gerber.

"It's garbage," Gerber said. "It tastes like rubber."

Bison is the most popular of Blackwing's exotic meats. Though the company got its start selling ostrich meat, ostrich farms have dwindled over the years, causing the price to skyrocket.

"Ostrich is the caviar of protein," Kaplan said. "We used to sell it to restaurants, but we can't supply it."

Blackwing still sells ostrich, but elk has replaced it as an accessible high-protein, low-calorie red meat option. Some elk can taste gamey, but Kaplan said the elk Blackwing sells "flies out the door."

"If it didn't have a label on it, you would think it's beef," Kaplan said.

For now, Gerber and Kaplan are focused on making the new store successful. They are interested in expanding in the future, Kaplan said, and they already have offers on property in Chicago.

14 Cancer-Causing Foods You Should NEVER Put In Your Mouth Again

2016-07-16T04:09:00.000-07:00

14 Cancer-Causing Foods You Should NEVER Put In Your Mouth Again

More than 50% of cancers can be prevent by changes in the diet and lifestyle. This was stated by The American Institute For Cancer.

That is why we should be really aware of the food we are consuming and the habits we have in our life. The following foods must be eliminated from your diet in order to prevent cancer:

1. White flour – What increase your toxic load is the seeds because they are treated with fungicide and afterwards the plants are sprayed with pesticides. And then they will be harvested and stored in bins coated with insecticides.2. Sugar – There is no reason why we should explain why sugar is bad for the human health, and it can be the reason for cancer too. Make sure you avoid or eliminate completely sugar from your diet (pastas, carbs, breads, many fruits, grains).

3. Soda/Sports drinks – They contain high amounts of sugar, fructose corn syrup, dyes, brominated vegetable oil and many other chemicals.

4. Soy protein isolate – They contain many anti-nutrients that can cause trouble in the process of digesting food and absorbing nutrients into the blood stream. The worst part is that goes through highly industrial manufacturing process of acid washing in aluminum tanks and we know how much aluminum can be dangerous for the human health.

5. Refined sugars – The cause of many serious health diseases such as heart disease, blood triglyceride levels, obesity, immune suppression, arthritis, high level of unhealthy blood fats and many more. It can be the cause for cancer also.

6. Processed foods – Another good reason to avoid eating processed foods. They contain high amount of white flours, sugars, oils, colors, flavorings and many other ingredients that can do harm to the body.

7. Non organic fruits and veggies – If the fruits and veggies have been grown with pesticides, herbicides and GMO seeds you should avoid them. They will do more harm than good to your body.

8. Microwave popcorn – Many chemicals leach into the popcorn when heated and afterwards you consume them all in your body. They can cause many health problems and they can be the reason for cancer.

9. Hydrogenated oils – Not a product that comes from the nature – that means it is a product that man has invented. It contains many chemicals that can cause heart disease, stroke and diabetes. It can cause cancer as well.

10. Grilled meat – PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) can be produced while burning of coal or wood. To make things worse when there is a smoke that allows the PAHs to ‘stack’ on the food you are cooking and that is increasing your chance of getting cancer.

11. GMOs – These GMO foods should be eliminated from your diet. That means that your diet should have GMO free foods.

12. Farmed fish – It is no wonder why farm fish can be unhealthier than wild fish. They are treated in the unnatural way.

13. Cured and smoked foods – N-nitroso compounds are associated with increased risk of cancer. And nitrites and nitrates can change into N-nitroso compounds when cooked. Nitrites and nitrates are used to prevent food from spoiling.

14. BPA lined cans – Food that is in hard plastic or metal cans can increase your chance of getting cancer. Consume food from can if is only labeled as BPA free.

Coenzyme Q10 and ubiquinol are two vitally important supplements that many are still unaware of.

2016-06-26T05:31:00.001-07:00

The Many Health Benefits of Coenzyme Q10 and Ubiquinol

June 26, 2016 |By Dr. Mercola

Coenzyme Q10 and ubiquinol are two vitally important supplements that many are still unaware of.

Risa Schulman, Ph.D., is a biologist and functional food expert who has spent the last two decades researching these and other supplements.

"I kind of pulled together my love of human physiology, plant physiology and the environment into a lifelong career, looking at how compounds in plants and various natural products can help us to keep our bodies working optimally," she says.

"My mission is to dig into the science and separate the wheat from the chaff ... and then to get the word out to the public as to what the health benefits are, how they can be used, and what things are useful."

Coenzyme Q10 Versus Ubiquinol

Ubiquinol is the reduced version of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10, aka ubiquinone). They're actually the same molecule, but when CoQ10 is reduced it takes on two electrons, which turns it into what we call ubiquinol.

In your body, this conversion occurs thousands of times every second inside your mitochondria — the "engine" of each cell in which energy is produced

"The reason it does this flipping back and forth between these two forms of the molecule is that this is part of the process that helps us to change our food into energy," Schulman explains.

"This is very important to healthy functioning, and obviously important for all muscles, in particular your heart muscle, which works hardest of all the muscles."

In addition to converting food into energy, ubiquinol also has a number of additional functions. For starters, ubiquinol is a lipid-soluble (fat-soluble) antioxidant, meaning it works in the lipid portions of your body, such as your cell membranes. It's one of the very few antioxidants that are fat-soluble.

"Vitamin E is one of the other ones that is very well known. But ubiquinol is actually more powerful than vitamin E, because vitamin E cannot completely lodge itself inside the membrane where all the oxidative activity is happening whereas ubiquinol can."

The second thing that sets ubiquinol apart from other antioxidants is that it can regenerate itself. Vitamin E, for example, cannot. In fact, vitamin E is regenerated by ubiquinol. Ubiquinol is also the only fat-soluble antioxidant that's actually generated within your body and doesn't have to be ingested from your food.

Why Ubiquinol Is a Better Choice for Many

Ubiquinol production ramps up from early childhood up until your mid- to late 20s. By the time you hit the age of 30, it begins to decline. Young people are able to use CoQ10 supplements quite well, but older people do better with ubiquinol as it's more readily absorbed.

According to Schulman, some people cannot convert CoQ10 to ubiquinol at all in their bodies, and they definitely need to use ubiquinol or they won't get any of the benefits.

"If someone takes a CoQ10 supplement, the body very quickly will convert it to ubiquinol, because that's the preferred form. It will transport that CoQ10 through the blood, as ubiquinol, into the tissues and eventually into the mitochondria,"she explains.

“But there are some people who lack the enzyme that helps to convert the CoQ10 to ubiquinol. That could be partly due to aging, but it’s also genetic. There’s something called a single nucleotide polymorphism SNP).

There's a particular SNP that's called NQO1. When a person has either one or two copies of this SNP, their ability to convert CoQ10 is either slightly or severely compromised.

What that means, practically, is that if this person takes a CoQ10 supplement ... their body can't convert it in a way that makes it usable. Those people in particular can benefit very much from taking ubiquinol, instead of ubiquinone."

Research has shown that Hispanic and Chinese populations are especially prone to having this single nucleotide polymorphism. There are also genetic tests you can get that can identify whether you have it.

How to Regenerate CoQ10 Naturally

Interestingly, recent research shows you can improve your body's conversion of CoQ10 to ubiquinol by eating lots of green leafy vegetables, which are loaded with chlorophyll, in combination with sun exposure.

Once chlorophyll is consumed it gets transported into your blood. Then when you expose significant amounts of skin to sunshine, that chlorophyll absorbs the solar radiation and facilitates the conversion of CoQ10 to ubiquinol.

You can also improve absorption of CoQ10 by taking it with a small amount of healthy fat, such as some olive oil, coconut oil, or avocado.

Ubiquinol Combats Free Radicals in Your Mitochondria

About 90 percent or more of the reactive oxygen species (ROS) in your body are produced in your mitochondria. Using the analogy of the mitochondria as an engine, the combustion (metabolism) that takes place in there creates exhaust fumes — damaging byproducts.

One of the functions of ubiquinol is to mop up those byproducts. When ubiquinol is lacking, the byproducts remain and begin damaging the cell. Ubiquinol is particularly beneficial for your heart health, a marker for which is C-reactive protein. When C-reactive protein is elevated it suggests you have a heightened risk for heart disease, as it's a marker for inflammation.

Two other markers for inflammation are gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), which is an early marker of heart failure, and NT-proBNP. There's an association between the levels of these two markers and ubiquinol as well. When ubiquinol is supplemented, both these markers go down and genes associated with them are downregulated.

The Case for a Healthy High-Fat Diet

Over the past 15 years, scientists have begun to recognize that ROS are not 100 percent bad. They're also important signaling molecules. If you indiscriminately suppress them you can actually run into complications with the Law of Unintended Consequences. In my view, a wise strategy is to simply feed your body a cleaner fuel to suppress excess ROS generation.

To continue the analogy of your mitochondria being an engine, to prevent pollution you want to use a cleaner-burning fuel. Glucose is an inherently "dirty" fuel that generates lots of ROS, whereas healthy dietary fats, including saturated fats, burn much cleaner and more efficiently.

In fact, burning carbohydrates is associated with a 30 to 40 percent increased production of ROS compared to burning fat. It makes a lot of sense that if you produce fewer ROS to begin with, then you don't have to be as careful about supplying your body with antioxidants. (Personally, I have some concern over indiscriminate use of antioxidants, but not necessarily ubiquinol.)

“Counter to how we’ve all been trained to think in the last years, regarding the free radical theory of aging, you don’t want to suppress it all the time,” Schulman says. “In fact, free radicals actually play a very critical positive role in the body because they turn on various very important functions.

Nitric oxide, for example, has free radical properties. It's a critical signaling molecule and is also critical for the health of your arteries. I haven't read anything in the literature regarding whether there's a discriminating or non-discriminating suppression of reactive oxygen species by ubiquinol in the mitochondria.

But my understanding of the biochemistry and the bioenergetics that are happening there leads me to believe that it's more of a random process."

Another strategy you could use to reduce the production of excess ROS involves the timing of your last meal of the day. Many make the mistake of eating a large meal before they go to bed.

By supplying your body fuel at a time when very little is needed leads to the generation of excess ROS that then must be countered with antioxidants. Avoiding food for at least three hours or more before bedtime can take the load off your body by preventing excess ROS production in the first place.

Finally, making sure you are not overloaded with iron is another powerful strategy. Believe me, iron overload is every bit as dangerous as vitamin D deficiency. If you are an adult male or non-menstruating woman then you are at high risk.

Please make sure you get your ferritin level checked and confirm that the level is below 80 nanograms (ng)/milliliters (ml), preferably between 40 and 60 ng/ml. If it is higher than that then it is imperative that you regularly donate your blood or have therapeutic phlebotomies to get it in that range.

Statin Users Are in Dire Need of CoQ10

At least 1 in 4 American adults over the age of 40 are currently taking a statin drug to lower their cholesterol. Soon that number is expected to reach 1 in 3. Statins work by inhibiting the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase, which is one of the facilitators of your body's production of cholesterol. But statins also impair production of CoQ10, and the resulting depletion can have very severe consequences.

"This is a very important topic," Schulman says. "Many who take statins have the side effects of muscle pain, fatigue and memory loss — to such a point that compliance becomes an issue; people don't want to be on statins anymore. It's been documented and recognized medically that these are real effects and that they're due to the statins. What's actually happening? The way a statin works is that it blocks your body's production of cholesterol.

We're always thinking about cholesterol from the diet ... Most people don't realize that cholesterol in the body comes from two places: from the diet and from your internal production of cholesterol. Cholesterol is quite important to your body, because cholesterol is one of the major components of cell membranes. It's also the precursor for all the sex hormones. It's not all bad. It's just bad when there's too much and that depends on what kind as well."

Besides shutting down your body's ability to produce ubiquinol, statin drugs also shut down the conversion of vitamin K1 to vitamin K2, which is critically important in many body functions, including heart health.

Impairing these three pathways — the production of cholesterol and CoQ10, and the vitamin K1 to K2 conversion — has adverse effects on the production of energy and on cardiovascular health, and here's why: when you reduce your ubiquinol levels, the conversion of your food to energy becomes less efficient, which leads to lower energy, fatigue and muscle pains.

And the longer you're on a statin drug, the more ubiquinol-starved your body becomes and the more severe the side effects become. Recently published papers have also detailed the cardiovascular repercussions of statins. As it turns out, they actually end up causing many of the disease endpoints the drugs promised to prevent. But that's not all!

Statins Severely Compromise Your Metabolism

As mentioned, one of the most rational strategies to reduce ROS production is to burn clean fuel. Ultimately, that results from eating a diet high in healthy high-quality fats. When fat is metabolized, ketones are created — a fat-soluble molecule that is readily burned in the mitochondria without causing the production of excess ROS.

Ketones are produced in the liver, and the enzyme that produces ketones is the same that produces cholesterol, namely HMG-CoA reductase. So when you're taking a statin drug, you also severely diminish your liver's ability to make ketones, thereby compromising your ability to benefit from a clean fuel (fat). In short, your metabolism becomes severely compromised.

Even if you're taking vitamin K2 and ubiquinol, you still have to address the fact that you cannot make ketones, because you cannot take a ketone supplement. Ultimately, this has cardiovascular consequences as well, because your heart is the most mitochondrial-dense tissue in your body. If you deprive your cardiac tissue of fuel, by definition you impair your cardiovascular health.

Ubiquinol Benefits Heart Failure Patients

Heart failure is nearly at epidemic levels. There's a specific physiological condition called diastolic dysfunction where your ventricle hardens. As a result, your heart cannot properly refill with blood during diastole. This can eventually progress to heart failure. Unfortunately, many who have this condition don't even know it. There are markers that can be used to screen for it though, including NT-proBNP and GGT.

"There are a couple of papers out there now that talk about actual physician experience with patients with heart failure. They had some of these patients on CoQ10, and then they ended up switching to ubiquinol because of the better absorption. But the bottom line is that they saw a reversal in the New York Heart Association class.

That's the New York Heart Association's way of rating the severity of the disease. They see reductions in the severity of the disease. They see improvement in the ejection fraction, which is a measure of how well the heart is working in patients ... This is one of the other fantastic benefits of ubiquinol and something that both doctors and patients should know about,"Schulman says.

I personally think all heart failure patients should be on ubiquinol. To me, failure to do so is medical negligence. When it comes to heart health, a more general benefit is that ubiquinol also acts as an antioxidant in your blood, where it prevents the oxidation of LDL cholesterol, thereby helping prevent atherosclerosis. This is another important heart health function of ubiquinol.

Suggested Dosing Recommendations

Dosing requirements will vary depending on your individual situation and needs, but some general guidelines can still be made. As a general rule, the sicker you are, the more you need. According to Schulman, the highest amount she's seen used in a research setting was 600 milligrams (mg) per day, and that was for severely ill people.

If you're just starting out with ubiquinol, start with 200 to 300 mg per day. Within three weeks, your plasma levels will typically plateau to its optimum level. After that, you can go down to a 100 mg/day maintenance dose. This dose is typically sufficient for healthy people. If you have an active lifestyle, exercise a lot, or are under a lot of stress due to your job or "life" in general, you may want to increase your dose to 200 to 300 mg/day.

Remember, if you're on a statin drug you MUST take at least 100 to 200 mg of ubiquinol or CoQ10 per day, or more. To address heart failure and/or other significant heart problems you may need around 350 mg per day or more. Ideally, you'll want to work with your physician to ascertain your ideal dose. Your doctor can do a blood test to measure your CoQ10 levels, which would tell you whether your dose is high enough to keep you within a healthy range.

CoQ10 (or ubiquinol) is also appropriate for those with other chronic diseases besides heart problems, such as diabetes, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), chronic fatigue and autism for example. Ideally, you'll want to split the dose up to two or three times a day, rather than taking it all at once, as this will result in higher blood levels.

Other dosing guidelines, as presented by Dr. Stephen Sinatra (a board-certified cardiologist, and a prominent expert in the field of natural cardiology) include:

Hypertension, 200 mg/day	World class athletes who need extra ATP turnover, 300 to 600 mg/day	Heart transplant or severe congestive heart failure (CHF), 300 to 600 mg/day in divided doses
Arrhythmia, 200 mg/day	Typical athletes, 100 to 300 mg/day	Mitral valve prolapse, a combination of 400 mg magnesium and 100 to 200 mg of ubiquinol

How Nutrition Influences Cancer

2016-06-11T04:37:00.003-07:00

How Nutrition Influences Cancer

June 11, 2016

By Dr. Mercola

Is it possible that chromosomal damage is simply a marker for cancer and not the actual cause of the disease? Compelling evidence suggests this is the case, and in the featured lecture, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Gary Fettke reviews some of this evidence.

Having battled cancer himself, Fettke came to realize the influence of NUTRITION on cancer, and the importance of eating a diet high in healthy fats and low in net carbohydrates (total carbs minus fiber, i.e. non-fiber carbs). Fettke is not the only one promoting the metabolic model of cancer.

Earlier this year I interviewed Travis Christofferson, author of a phenomenal book called "Tripping Over the Truth: The Return of the Metabolic Theory of CancerIlluminates a New and Hopeful Path to a Cure," on this topic.

The Metabolic Model of Cancer

The Cancer Genome Atlas project that began in 2006 set out to sequence the genomes of cancer cells. It was the largest government project ever conceived, involving 10,000 times the amount of genetic sequencing done by the Human Genome Project. Alas, the results didn't conform to their original expectations.

The evidence clearly showed that something other than mere gene mutation was at play. The mutations found in cancer cells were simply too random. Some cancers didn't even have any genetic mutations driving them. So what then could the driving factor be?

In a nutshell, the nuclear genetic defects typically thought to be responsible for cancer actually occur further downstream. Mitochondrial damage happens first, which then triggers nuclear genetic mutations that may lead to cancer.

Moreover, scientists are now finding that mitochondrial dysfunction is at the core of virtually ALL diseases, placing mitochondrial function at the very center of just about any wellness or disease prevention program.

As Fettke notes, one of the primary considerations is glucose metabolism within your mitochondria — a theory initially brought forth by Dr. Otto Warburg in the 1920s.

In 1931, Warburg won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery that cancer cells have a fundamentally different energy metabolism compared to healthy cells. As it turns out, cancer cells do not have the same metabolic flexibility as healthy ones.

Cancer Cells Are Metabolically Limited to Feed on Sugar

A cell can produce energy either aerobically, in the mitochondria, or anaerobically, in the cytoplasm. Anaerobic metabolism generates excessive levels of lactic acid, which can be toxic.

Warburg discovered that in the presence of oxygen, cancer cells overproduce lactic acid, and this became known as the Warburg Effect. So what does this tell us about the nutritional origins of cancer? In a nutshell, Warburg's findings tell us that sugar "feeds" cancer while fats "starve" it.

Healthy cells can use either glucose or ketone bodies from fat as an energy source, but cancer is metabolically restricted to using glucose only. Cancer cells for the most part lack metabolic flexibility and simply cannot metabolize ketones, and this is whynutritional ketosis appears to be so effective against cancer.

Cancer could actually be more accurately classified as a mitochondrial metabolic disease. Few people inherit genes that predispose them to cancer. Most inherit genes that prevent cancer. Inherited mutations typically disrupt the function of the mitochondria, and the heightened risk for cancer is a result of that weakness.

The good news is you can optimize your mitochondrial function by addressing certain lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise, and this knowledge opens up a whole new way of looking at and treating cancer.

As explained by Fettke, the metabolic model of cancer is "based around energy and growth; random chromosomal mutations are secondary." Furthermore:

"All cells require an energy source of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). They also require building materials that are either sourced locally or transported in normal cells convert glucose primarily into ATP and a little into maintenance.

Cancer cells do the opposite. There's a diversion of glucose away from ATP production to the building materials required for cell growth ... The other building materials require protein and fatty acids and cancer steals those from its surroundings.

That invasion of surrounding tissue accounts for how cancer spreads and metastasizes ... The driving force behind all of this is oxygen-free radical production.

I believe the free radical production then causes the DNA damage in a random fashion, and account for the chromosomal abnormalities. So, if we can find the source of the oxygen free radicals, we might be onto something."

Processed Food Diet Is a Major Cancer Promoter

What drives free radical production? Inflammation is a major driver, and our modernprocessed food diet is highly inflammatory.

Key culprits include polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs), trans fats and added sugar in all its forms, especially processed fructose (such as high-fructose corn syrup), as well as refined grains. Artificial ingredients can also promote inflammation.

By reducing the amount of net carbs you eat, you will accomplish four things that will result in lowered inflammation and reduced stimulation of cancer growth. You will:

Lower your serum glucose level
Reduce your mTOR level
Reduce your insulin level
Lower insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1, a potent hormone that acts on your pituitary gland to induce metabolic and endocrine effects, including cell growth and replication. Elevated IGF-1 levels are associated with breast and other cancers)

Indeed, one of the basic reasons why a high-fat, low-net carb diet (nutritional ketosis) works so well is because it drives your inflammation down to almost nothing. And when inflammation disappears, your body can heal.

What Cancer Requires for Growth

In order to thrive and grow, cancer cells need fuel in the form of glucose, plus building materials in the form of protein, fatty acids, phosphate and acetate. These building materials are not readily available in your bloodstream, so cancer cells "steal" them from surrounding cells.

The process that allows the cancer cells to invade surrounding tissue is known as the Reverse Warburg Effect. This effect is based on hydrogen peroxide generation caused by the interaction between oxygen free radicals and water.

So invasive or metastasizing cancer, in essence, is the result of the Warburg Effect and the Reverse Warburg Effect. I highly recommend viewing the featured video to get a better grasp on these processes, and how they contribute to cancer formation and spread. As noted by Fettke, knowing all of this presents us with a whole new set of cancer prevention and treatment options, including the following:

Limit or eliminate sugar and net carbohydrates (non-fiber carbs) to avoid feeding cancer cells
Limit or eliminate PUFA oils and trans fats to prevent the formation of harmful free radicals and damaging small, dense LDL particles
Limit protein (I recommend using a formula of one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body mass) to avoid stimulating mTOR pathway
Increase antioxidant intake (via whole food and/or supplements) to counteract free radical damage
Increase healthy fat intake to feed healthy cells while starving cancer cells

The Importance of Diet for Successful Cancer Treatment

Remember, the foundational aspect that must be addressed is the metabolic mitochondrial defect, and this involves radically reducing the non-fiber carbohydrates in your diet and increasing high-quality fats. This does not mean a low total carbohydrate diet. You need to have plenty of fresh, organic and fiber-filled vegetables (low net carbs).

You can actually have several hundred grams of vegetables per day as the fibers will be converted to short-chain fatty acids, which will improve your ability to burn fat for fuel and also nourish your microbiome.

You can replace the non-fiber carbs with up to 70 to 85 percent healthy fats, along with a moderate amount of high-quality protein, as excessive protein can also trigger cancer growth by stimulating mTOR, which accelerates cancer growth. That's really the solution. If you don't do that, other treatments may not work.

According to Fettke, studies have shown that nutritional ketosis, i.e. eating a high-fat, low-net carb diet significantly improves health outcomes in patients undergoing conventional cancer treatment such as chemotherapy.

It's also important to remember that glucose is an inherently "dirty" fuel as it generates far more reactive oxygen species and secondary free radicals than burning fat. But to burn fat, your cells must be healthy and normal. Cancer cells lack the metabolic flexibility to burn fat and this why a healthy high-fat diet appears to be such an effective anti-cancer strategy.

When you switch from burning glucose as your primary fuel to burning fat for fuel, cancer cells really have to struggle to stay alive, as most of their mitochondria are dysfunctional and can't use oxygen effectively to burn fuel. At the same time, healthy cells are given an ideal and preferred fuel, which lowers oxidative damage and optimizes mitochondrial function. The sum effect is that healthy cells begin to thrive while cancer cells are starved.

General Nutrient Ratio Guidelines for Mitochondrial Health and Cancer Prevention

For optimal health, you need sufficient amounts of carbohydrates, fats, and protein. However, ever since the advent of processed foods and industrial farming, it's become increasingly important to be specific when discussing these nutrients. There are healthy fats and unhealthy ones. Ditto for carbohydrates and protein. Much of the benefits or risks are related to how the food was grown, raised, and/or processed.

To achieve nutritional ketosis, it is important to keep track of your net carbs and total protein intake. Net carbs are calculated by taking the total number of carbohydrates in grams and subtracting the amount of fiber contained in the food. The resulting number is your net carbs. For optimal health and disease prevention, I recommend keeping your net carbs below 40 or 50 grams per day.

Translating Ideal Protein Requirements Into Foods

Substantial amounts of protein can be found in meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, legumes, nuts, and seeds. Some vegetables also contain generous amounts of protein — for example, broccoli. To determine whether or not you're getting too much protein, simply calculate your body's requirement based on your lean body mass by subtracting your percentage of body fat from 100, and write down everything you eat for a few days.

Then, calculate the amount of daily protein you've consumed from all sources. Again, you're aiming for one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. If you're currently averaging a lot more than what is optimal, adjust downward accordingly. You could use the chart below or simply Google the food you want to know and you will quickly find the grams of protein in that food.

Red meat, pork, poultry, and seafood average 6 to 9 grams of protein per ounce. An ideal amount for most people would be a 3-ounce serving of meat or seafood (not 9- or 12-ounce steaks!), which will provide about 18 to 27 grams of protein	Eggs contain about 6 to 8 grams of protein per egg. So an omelet made from two eggs would give you about 12 to 16 grams of protein If you add cheese, you need to calculate that protein in as well (check the label of your cheese)
Seeds and nuts contain on average 4 to 8 grams of protein per quarter cup	Cooked beans average about 7 to 8 grams per half cup
Cooked grains average 5 to 7 grams per cup	Most vegetables contain about 1 to 2 grams of protein per ounce

Beware of Unhealthy Fats

When it comes to fat, it's really crucial to distinguish healthy from the unhealthy ones. The vast majority of fats people eat are actually very unhealthy. As a general rule, avoid all processed and bottled vegetable oils, which are typically high in damaged omega-6 fats. (Also be careful with olive oil. While healthy, up to 80 percent of commercial olive oils are actually adulterated with oxidized omega-6 vegetable oils, so make sure it's third party-certified as genuine.)

Another general rule: do not be afraid of naturally saturated fats! They're among the healthy ones. Sources of healthy fats you want to include more of in your diet include:

Olives and olive oil (third party-certified authentic)	Coconuts and coconut oil	Butter made from raw grass-fed organic milk, and cacao butter
Raw nuts, such as, macadamia and pecans, and seeds like black sesame, cumin, pumpkin, and hemp seeds	Organic-pastured egg yolks	Avocados
Grass-fed meats	Lard, tallow and ghee	Animal-based omega-3 fat such as krill oil

Nutritional Ketosis Can Offer Hope and Health

Fettke finishes his lecture listing a number of known benefits of nutritional ketosis in the treatment of cancer, including the following:

It's safe	It's well-tolerated
It can be used with other cancer treatments (and may actually improve the effectiveness of conventional cancer treatments)	Ketones are protective to surrounding cells, reducing the power of the cancer to spread
It gives patients a sense of control, which has been shown to improve survival rates	If useful as a treatment, it should certainly be considered for prevention
It gives patients hope, which also improves survival	It's the least expensive cancer treatment available

A Radical Experiment in Nutritional Ketosis

To give you an idea of how nutritional ketosis can benefit your health beyond cancer prevention, consider the case of Dr. Peter Attia. His experiment is a very clear example of the effects diet can have on overall health markers. Attia is a Stanford University-trained physician with a passion for metabolic science, who decided to use himself as a lab rat — with incredible results. He describes his experiment in the video below.

Although he's always been active and fit, he did not have genetics on his side. His natural tendency was toward metabolic syndrome, in spite of being very diligent about his diet and exercise. So he decided to experiment with nutritional ketosis to see if he could improve his overall health status.

For a period of 10 years, he consumed 80 percent of his calories from healthy fat and continuously monitored his metabolic markers, such as blood sugar levels, body fat percentage, blood pressure, lipid levels and others.

He experienced improvement in every measure of health, as you can see in the table below. An MRI confirmed that he had lost not only subcutaneous fat but also visceral fat, which is the most detrimental type. His experiment demonstrates how diet can produce major changes in your body, even if you are starting out relatively fit. And if you're starting out with a low level of fitness, then the changes you experience may be even more pronounced.

	BEFORE	AFTER
Fasting blood sugar	100	75 to 95
Percentage body fat	25	10
Waist circumference in inches	40	31
Blood pressure	130/85	110/70
LDL	113	88
HDL	31	67
Triglycerides	152	22
Insulin sensitivity	Increased by more than 400 percent	Increased by more than 400 percent

STOP the NO HEAL NO CURE Never Look @ Causes , DRUG PUSHING, Brainwashed Drs.

2016-06-05T04:17:00.005-07:00

Great Britain’s Most Outspoken Cardiologist Sets the Record Straight on Saturated Fats

June 05, 2016 |

By Dr. Mercola

Is saturated fat really the health hazard it’s been made out to be? Dr. Aseem Malhotra is an interventional cardiologist consultant in London, U.K., who gained quite a bit of publicity after the publication of his peer-reviewed editorial1 in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in 2013.

In it, he seriously challenges the conventional view on saturated fats, and reviews how recent studies have failed to find any significant association between saturated fat and cardiovascular risk.

In fact, Malhotra reports that two-thirds of people admitted to hospitals with acute myocardial infarction have completely normal cholesterol levels. Malhotra, founder of Action on Sugar, also works as an adviser to the U.K.’s National Obesity Forum.

“My focus has been, ‘what can we do as individuals collectively (the medical profession) to help curb demand on the health system?’” he says. “A lot of that is being driven by diet-related diseases.

According to the Lancet Global Burden of Disease Reports, poor diets now contribute to more disease and death than physical activities — smoking and alcohol combined ..

As an interventional cardiologist, we can do life-saving procedures with people who have heart attacks through heart surgery. But to be honest, rather than saving them from drowning, I’d rather they wouldn’t be thrown into the river in the first place. This is really where my focus has shifted.

I think for many of us, as clinicians moving more towards intervention, I think the realization that what we can do in medicine is really quite limited at the treatment end and actually the whole ‘prevention is better than cure’ phrase is very true.”

Hospitals and Medical Personnel Are Far From Paragons of Health

Malhotra’s epiphany that something was wrong with the system came rather early. While working as a resident in cardiology, he performed an emergency stenting procedure on a man in his 50s who’d recently suffered a heart attack. The following morning, Malhotra spoke to the man, giving him the usual advice about quitting smoking and improving his diet.

“Just when I was telling about healthy diet, how important that was, he was actually served burger and fries by the hospital. He said to me, ‘Doctor, how do you expect me to change my lifestyle when you’re serving me the same crap that brought me in here in the first place?’”

Looking around, he realized that a lot of healthcare professionals are overweight or obese, and hospitals serve sick patients junk food. He believes one of the first things that really needs to happen is to set a good example in hospitals. “The hospital environment should be one that promotes good health, not exacerbates bad health,” he says. His journey began with an email to celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who did a lot of work campaigning for improved food in school canteens. Malhotra asked Oliver for ideas on how to improve hospital food.

“A couple of years later, I ended up going to the British Medical Association Annual Conference. I put a motion forward saying there should be a policy from the BMA to ban the selling of junk food in hospitals. It got an overwhelming majority vote.”

Diet and lifestyle changes are particularly important in light of the fact that medical errors and properly prescribed medications are the third most common cause of death after heart disease and cancer. Over medication is a particularly serious problem among the elderly, who tend to suffer more side effects.

“Part of that is because there are very powerful vested interests that push drugs,” Malhotra says. “They even coax academic institutions and guideline bodies. People aren’t getting all the information to make decisions, whether or not they should take medications ...

This is a major problem, especially [since] we’ve neglected or detracted from lifestyle changes, which are going to be much more impactful on your health and without side effects.”

For Past 60 Years, the Wrong Fats Have Been Vilified

For the past 60 years, the conventional wisdom has dictated that saturated fat is dangerous and should be avoided. This flawed notion was originally promoted by Dr. Ancel Keys, whose Seven Countries Study laid the groundwork for the myth that saturated fat caused heart disease. It’s true that heart disease rates began spiking in the beginning of the 20th century, and for 50 years, heart disease has been progressively increasing. It really wasn’t an issue prior to the 20th century. But were saturated fats really to blame?

My belief is that it was in fact due to fats, but contrary to popular belief, saturated fat wasn’t the problem. It was all the other harmful fats people were eating.

In the 20th century, the average person probably had less than 1 pound a year of refined, processed omega-6 vegetable oils. By the 1950s, probably about 50 pounds a year, and by year 2000, it increased at about 75 pounds a year. It seems “fat” in itself isn’t the issue; it’s the type of fat that’s crucial. This massive amount of highly refined polyunsaturated fat is far in excess of what we were designed to eat for optimal health. And I suspect that’s what catalyzed Keys to devise his research to come up with a justification for his recommendation to lower fat intake.

“What’s interesting is if you look in the USA, between 1961 and 2011, 90% of the calorie intake has been carbohydrates and refined industrial vegetable oils,” Malhotra says. “I think you’re absolutely correct.

The heart disease epidemic peaked between 1960 and 1970. It started to rise about 1920. When we look at our data, it’s quite clear that the so-called fats responsible for that are trans fats and very likely polyunsaturated vegetable oils high in omega-6 fatty acids.

We know now that they oxidize LDL and are pro-inflammatory. The other issue was smoking. Smoking was very high. When smoking reduction occurred from regulatory efforts, heart attack admissions dropped very rapidly. That’s because just 30 minutes after smoking, platelet activity increases.

A quick example: Helena, Montana 2002 brought in a public smoking ban. Within six months, there was a 40% reduction in hospital admissions for heart attack. When the law was rescinded, the hospital admissions came back to preceding levels.

When you combine all those things, it’s very clear. The dietary factors — trans fats, refined polyunsaturated vegetable oils, and smoking — are probably the three most important factors.”

What Are the Real Risk Factors for Heart Disease?

By failing to differentiate between trans fats and saturated fats, massive confusion has arisen. There’s also confusion about the relationship between saturated fat and cholesterol. Adding to the complexity, there are also different types of saturated fats, which may have different biological effects.

Many saturated fats will raise LDL, the so-called “bad” cholesterol. But LDLs come in various sizes. Large type A particles are less atherogenic and are influenced by saturated fat. Saturated fat also increases HDL, the “good” cholesterol.

“What’s interesting is the saturated fat, even though it may raise LDL, your lipid profile may actually improve [when you eat more saturated fat], especially when you cut the carbs. On top of that, LDL has been grossly exaggerated as a risk factor for heart disease, with the exception of people who have a genetic abnormality (familial hypercholesterolemia),” Malhotra says.

“Certainly when you get over the age of 60, the cardiovascular association between LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular mortality diminishes. It becomes almost negligible. For overall mortality, there is an inverse association with LDL. The higher your LDL, if you’re over 60, the less likely you are to die.

So what is the major issue when you look at heart disease and heart attacks? Insulin resistance ... The reason it’s being neglected is partly this flawed science on cholesterol. But also because there’s never been any effective drugs that target insulin resistance.

Therefore, because [there isn’t a] big market around something to sell, there aren’t many people that know about it. As you and I know, if you target insulin resistance through the right kind of diet and lifestyle changes, stress reduction, right kind of exercise, that’s going to have the biggest impacts on your health.”

Gauging Your Heart Disease Risk

Factors that can help gauge your heart disease risk include:

A fasting insulin level above 3
A triglyceride to HDL ratio above 2
A waist circumference indicating overweight or obesity
High blood pressure

If you have 3 out of the following 5 indications of metabolic syndrome: insulin resistance, high triglycerides, low HDL, hypertension and increased waist circumference, then you are at high risk for heart disease. Another major risk factor for heart disease that receives virtually no attention is high iron levels.

In menstruating women, this is not an issue since they lose blood on a monthly basis. This is actually part of why premenopausal women have a decreased risk of heart disease.

In men, iron levels can rise to dangerously high levels. In my experience, the majority of adult males and postmenopausal women have elevated levels that put their health at risk. Checking your iron levels is easy and can be done with a simple blood test called a serum ferritin test.

I believe this is one of the most important tests that everyone should have done on a regular basis as part of a preventive, proactive health screen. If your levels are high, all you have to do is donate blood a few times a year.

The Connection Between Saturated Fats and Diabetes

Malhotra cites a 2014 Lancet study looking at the association between dietary saturated fat, plasma saturated fat and type 2 diabetes. Interestingly, while dietary saturated fats found in dairy products were strongly inversely associated with the development of type 2 diabetes (meaning it was protective), endogenously-synthesized plasma-saturated fat was strongly associated with an increased risk.

Endogenously-synthesized plasma-saturated fats are fatty acids produced by your liver in response to net carbohydrates, sugar and alcohol. These findings suggest eating full-fat dairy products may protect you against type 2 diabetes, whereas consuming too many net carbs (total carbs minus fiber) will increase your risk of type 2 diabetes — in part by raising the saturated fat levels in your bloodstream.

That said, I believe a caution may be warranted. Milk, even raw milk, is actually high in net carbs, which your body converts to glucose. So as a general rule, I recommend avoiding milk. Butter is an exception, as it’s almost pure fat and has virtually no net carbs.

Healthy Fat Tips

Here are a few tips to help ensure you're eating the right fats for your health:

Use organic butter made from raw grass-fed milk instead of margarines and vegetable oil spreads.
Use coconut oil for cooking. It is primarily a saturated fat and more resistant to heat damage than other cooking oils. It will also help improve your ability to burn fat and serve as a great source of energy to help you make the transition to burning fat for fuel.
Sardines and anchovies are an excellent source of beneficial omega-3 fats and are also very low in toxins that are present in most other fish.
To round out your healthy fat intake, be sure to eat raw fats, such as those from avocados, raw dairy products, and olive oil, and also take a high-quality source of animal-based omega-3 fat, such as krill oil.

Why Statins Are a Bad Idea for Most People

In addition to the recommendation to follow a low-fat diet, many doctors are still avid prescribers of statins, which help lower your cholesterol. In fact, 1 in 4 Americans over the age of 40 are on these drugs; soon to be 1 in 3. Malhotra is greatly troubled by these kinds of statistics.

“This is a drug that was marketed over the last three decades as being a wonder drug. It’s driven a multi-trillion dollar industry. We’re only now realizing that the benefits of statins have been grossly exaggerated and the side effects underplayed. One of the reasons for that is that most if not all of the studies that drove the guidelines, and the information around statin prescription, were industry-sponsored studies.

One of the things we have neglected in medicine is this issue around absolute risk and relative risk. The reality is if you look at the published data ... if you have heart disease and you've had a heart attack, then taking a statin every day for five years, there’s a 1 in 83 chance that [statin] will save your life.

That means in 82 of 83 cases, it’s not going to save your life. That information isn’t given to patients, but it’s really important. Actually that’s a much more informative and transparent way to understand the benefit they’re going to get.

On top of that when you look at people with lower risk, otherwise healthy people, there is no mortality benefit. People should know that if they haven’t had a heart attack, according to the published literature, they are not high risk and they’re going to live one day longer from taking statins.”

Statins Are Associated With Serious Side Effects

Then there’s the issue of side effects. According to Malhotra, between 1 in 3 and 1 in 5 patients suffer unacceptable side effects (which he qualifies as side effects that interfere with or diminish the quality of your life). Muscle pain is the most significant side effect reported followed by fatigue (mostly in women). This isn’t very surprising, considering the fact that statins are essentially a metabolic blocker and mitochondrial poison.

They inhibit an enzyme called HMG-CoA reductase. This is how they lower cholesterol. But that same enzyme is also responsible for a number of other things like making coenzyme Q10, which is why muscle pain and fatigue are so common. This is in fact a sign that your CoQ10 is being depleted, and you don’t have enough cellular energy.

Statins also block the formation of ketones, which are an essential part of mitochondrial nutrition and overall health. If you can’t make ketones, you impair the metabolism in your entire body, including your heart, thereby raising your risk for heart problems and a variety of other diseases. It’s also recently been established that within a few years of taking statins, the drug causes type 2 diabetes in one out of 100 patients.

That too can be a significant tradeoff that needs to be taken into account, as diabetes is a risk factor for heart disease and other chronic diseases. Dr. Michel De Lorgeril, a well-respected French cardiologist at Grenoble University recently reopened the debate about statins after publishing a review in which he questions whether statins actually have any benefit at all.

“He pointed out several discrepancies in the original trials ... statistical manipulation, conflict of interest ... ” Malhotra says.”He’s actually suggested that maybe nobody benefits from statins; even people on statins for prevention.

He says that unless we get access to the raw data, independent analysis, the actual claims about the benefits of statins are not evidence-based. Now, I’m not personally saying that. I’m saying this is really intriguing and certainly raises as many questions ... This is something that people need to know about. Even if we use the published literature at face value properly, people would be better informed. That’s the way forward in my view.”

More Information

Malhotra is currently finalizing a film called “The Big Fat Fix,” which will present a dietary protocol that incorporates many of the components of the Mediterranean lifestyle to help you reduce your risk of obesity, reverse type 2 diabetes and improve your cardiovascular health.

“We went to visit the village where Ancel Keys spent six months each year for 30 years doing his research. They had very high longevity. We try and find out what the secrets were and how things got misinterpreted,” Malhotra says. “This is really what the film will show. Where did things go wrong and where do we go from here?”

This Way of Eating Doubled a Mouse's Lifespan

2016-05-07T03:45:00.002-07:00

How and Why Too Much Protein Triggers Aging and Cancer

May 07, 2016 |

By Dr. Mercola

Anti-aging expert Ron Rosedale, M.D., was among the first to warn people about thedangers of eating too much protein — a stance that has received a fair share of criticism over the years, although mounting research now offers strong support for this notion.

He was the first to help me understand the importance of insulin in 1995 and more recently the importance of protein and mTOR as discussed in the above video. I consider him my most important nutritional mentor. The featured lecture was given in February of this year at Vail. In it Dr. Rosedale details the ancestral connection between protein, mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), the aging process, and cancer formation. He starts out by offering an absolutely simple yet profound piece of wisdom in that “your health and likely your lifespan will be determined by the proportion of fat versus sugar you burn over a lifetime.”

In essence, he proposes that any food that helps you burn fat is likely beneficial for health, and any that makes you burn sugar is likely not. This is largely because sugar is a “dirty” fuel and fats and ketones burn far cleaner causing far less oxidative damage. Hormones and the communication between them play an important role here, and those hormones are determined by the foods you eat. According to Rosedale, “you should eat today to control the hormones that will tell you what you will need to eat tomorrow.”

In a nutshell, this hypothesis completely ignores the “calories in, calories out” dogma, and instead focuses on foods that support hormones and growth factors that make your body burn fat rather than sugar.

Protein Restriction — An Important Dietary Strategy for Optimal Health

The low-carb diet made its initial appearance some 40+ years ago. In particular, it was found that low carb diets facilitated weight loss. At the time, most people recommended replacing carbs with high amounts of protein, and these low-carb, high-protein diets (such as Atkins') worked quite well for the purpose of shedding weight. Dietary fat was almost universally avoided, as most experts embraced the “low fat myth" and fat was thought to promote obesity and heart disease. Rosedale, however, wanted to treat diabetics, and was one of the few who promoted a high-fat diet for that purpose.

One of the primary problems with excess protein or amino acids is that it stimulates mTOR, which stimulates growth rather than regeneration. Fat calories did not stimulate mTOR, leptin or insulin. They were essentially metabolically free calories. Rosedale found a diet high in healthy fats worked quite well for diabetes and heart disease patients. Over time, he discovered that restricting protein was another important factor that could affect health, and even more specifically the aging process.

Why Paleo Diets Don’t Promote Longevity

Dr. Rosedale is of the opinion that while the Paleo diet may help mimic a diet that will optimize reproductive success, it will not necessarily help you live longer, because life extension and reproductive capacity do not go hand in hand.

“We can’t use nature, in general, to tell us how to live a long happy life,” he says, “because nature doesn’t care [about life extension]. Nature’s purpose is to get genes passed along [to the next generation].”

From an evolutionary perspective, nutrients had to be allocated by an organism either for a) growth, replication, and reproduction, or b) maintenance and repair, which helps you stay alive longer.

As a rule, nature will keep an organism alive long enough to replicate and reproduce; it doesn’t care much about staying alive post reproduction, and that’s why we age and die. “What we want to do is apply that science post reproductively,” Rosedale says.

Life Extension Depends on Upregulating Repair Mechanisms

At any given moment, there’s competition in your body between cellular damage and repair. As the damage becomes greater than your body’s ability to repair and regenerate, deterioration sets in. “If we could repair damage as fast as it occurs, we could live forever,” he says.

The reason we cannot keep up with this maintenance is because our repair mechanisms become damaged over time as well. So your best chance of living longer is to upregulate your repair mechanisms, because you simply cannot stop damage from occurring. Simply breathing creates oxidation and damage.

Fortunately, all organisms, including humans, are equipped with a mechanism by which cells can outlast nutrient deprivation (famine), and that’s part of the answer.

Remember, the foods you eat will influence either a) repair, which will help you live longer, or b) reproduction, and your body is ingeniously equipped with “nutrient sensors” that help determine how the nutrition will be used.

Insulin, leptin, and insulin-like growth factor (IGF) are examples of nutrient sensing hormones that in turn regulate metabolism, growth, cell differentiation, and cellular survival. Organizing all of these nutrient sensors is the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR).

According to Rosedale, mTOR is the most important signaling pathway in your body. It’s an ancient pathway found in virtually all organisms, including bacteria.

Why mTOR Is So Important for Longevity

Your mTOR pathway orchestrates all the available nutrient sensors in your body, and decides whether cells should replicate now or stay alive to replicate at a more opportune time in the future when nutrients are more plentiful.

The latter is part of the mechanism that allows for life extension, and this is whycalorie restriction appears to be so effective at making organisms live longer. In one experiment, the lifespan of a mouse was extended from two to four years by inhibiting IGF receptors through a calorie restrictive diet.

Other research cited in Rosedale’s lecture has demonstrated that by using a drug compound that inhibits growth hormone, they were able to reverse signs of aging, noting this may seem counterintuitive as some older people take growth hormone for revitalizing purposes.

As noted by Rosedale, “there’s a dichotomy, apparently, between growth, reproduction, and longevity.” He also points out that there’s a cross-reaction between insulin and IGF. High insulin is detrimental to health in part by stimulating IGF receptors, which is a growth hormone.

High insulin also causes insulin resistance of course, which has an adverse effect on your metabolism. But by promoting growth hormone, high insulin effectively decreases longevity, as growth and longevity cannot be promoted simultaneously. You’re choosing one or the other.

Calorie Restriction, Longevity and Thyroid Function

On a side note, since we’re talking about hormones, a 2005 study noted that “some of the common and consistent effects of calorie restriction... include lower fat mass, particularly visceral fat, lower circulating insulin and IGF-1 concentrations, increased insulin sensitivity, lower body temperature, lower fat-free mass, decreased levels of thyroid hormones and decreased oxidative stress.”

According to Rosedale, this is an important piece of information, because if you embark on a ketogenic, high-fat, low net carb diet you may notice your thyroid hormone levels going down, which may raise concerns about thyroid disease. Such concerns are unwarranted (as long as your TSH level is normal). In fact, this is a much healthier state, Rosedale says.

“You’re running cooler, allocating more resources toward maintenance, repair, and longevity,” he says. “It’s not thyroid disease ... because TSH did not go up, which is how you define hypothyroidism.”

Protein Intake Determines Your IGF Concentration

So IGF is a key player when it comes to longevity. It appears that by inhibiting IGF you can boost lifespan and reduce your risk of cancer (remember, cancer is an out of control proliferation of malignant cells. By redirecting energy from proliferation to repair and maintenance, cancer growth is impeded). And what nutrient determines your level of IGF? Protein. Higher protein intake elevates IGF, and lower intake decreases it.

As noted by Rosedale, there’s a major difference between a low-carb/high protein diet and a low-carb/high-fat diet. The former raises IGF, and the latter does not. In the early days of the low-carb revolution, no distinction was made between high protein or high fat, and since fat was so vilified, most people replaced the carbs with protein. It worked well for weight loss, but drawbacks also became apparent.

Since then, researchers have discovered that low-protein diets extend lifespan in flies, and the underlying reason for that is improved mitochondrial function and mTOR inhibition. According to the authors, “the molecular mechanisms responsible for the lifespan extension in the flies have important implications for human aging and diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cancer.”

Rapamycin, mTOR and Cancer Risk

Rapamycin, which is an mTOR inhibitor, is an antifungal agent that also inhibits cancer. Interestingly, it’s also an immune suppressant, and in medicine it’s used to suppress immune function during organ transplantation to avoid organ rejection.

Research shows that kidney transplant patients actually have a lower incidence of cancer — despite having lowered immune function — and this effect is thought to be due to the protective effects of rapamycin. It seems counterintuitive, since strong immune function is typically considered to be foundational for cancer suppression, so these findings suggest something else, and something quite powerful, is at play.

That “something,” is mTOR. By inhibiting mTOR, rapamycin powerfully inhibits cancer, despite lowered immune function. So what else affects mTOR? Amino acids and glucose both affect TOR directly, which is why carbs and protein have such a detrimental effect on health and aging. Insulin and other growth factors all upregulate TOR, which is why it’s so important to keep your insulin and IGF low.

Remember, TOR regulates growth and repair. Either growth is promoted or maintenance and repair, depending on whether TOR is up- or downregulated. When TOR is suppressed, maintenance and repair is upregulated and that results in increased longevity, which is what you want.

Exercise and Fasting Upregulates Genetic Expression of Maintenance and Repair

Again, mTOR senses nutrient availability, and directs energy accordingly. Hence your diet can have a tremendous influence on your lifespan. Glucose and amino acids are the nutrients and fuel necessary for replication and reproduction. If you keep glucose, amino acids, insulin, and growth factors like IGF low, you will suppress mTOR, thereby allowing the upregulation of the genetic expression of maintenance and repair.

TOR also plays an important role in autophagy, the process by which your body cleans out debris, including toxins, and recycles damaged cell components. A similar process is known as mitophagy, where damaged mitochondria are cleaned out and replaced with new, healthy ones, and this process is also largely regulated by mTOR.

By boosting your body’s autophagy processes, you dampen inflammation, slow down the aging process, and optimize biological function. Autophagy occurs in response to stress. Exercise is one way by which you boost autophagy. Fasting is another. As noted in a 2011 study published in Molecular Cell Biology:1

“In all eukaryotes [incl. humans], the TOR signaling pathway couples energy and nutrient abundance to the execution of cell growth and division, owing to the ability of TOR protein kinase to simultaneously sense energy, nutrients and stress and, in metazoans [incl. humans], growth factors. In the past few years, a significant advance in our understanding of the regulation and functions of mTOR has revealed the crucial involvement of this signaling pathway in the onset and progression of diabetes, cancer and aging.”

Excessive Protein Shuts Down Autophagy and Increases Cancer Risk by Stimulating mTOR

Of all the components that stimulate mTOR, amino acids are the most potent stimulators. Hence, eating large amounts of protein is also one of the quickest ways to shut down autophagy, which prevents your body from effectively cleaning out debris and damaged cells. According to Rosedale, even if you do everything else right to keep glucose and insulin low, your mTOR would still be elevated if you eat too much protein.

He also notes that virtually all cancers are associated with mTOR activation, so activating mTOR is something you’ll definitely want to avoid. This is why I recommend limiting protein to about 40 to 70 grams per day, depending on your lean body mass.

The specific formula is one gram of protein for every kilogram of lean body mass, or one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. To determine your lean body mass, subtract your percent body fat from 100. For example, if you have 30 percent body fat, then you have 70 percent lean body mass. Then multiply that percentage (in this case, 0.7) by your current weight to get your lean body mass in pounds or kilos.

In the past, Rosedale used to recommend cutting that down to 0.75 grams per kilo of lean body mass if you were diabetic. Today, he believes this may actually be a more ideal amount for everyone, and you could even go below that because your body will conserve protein when you suppress mTOR and increase maintenance and repair. That said, protein is important for muscle maintenance and growth, so there’s definitely a fine balance that needs to be struck.

Protein Sources

Substantial amounts of protein can be found in meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, legumes, nuts, and seeds. Some vegetables also contain generous amounts of protein — for example, broccoli. Forty grams of protein is not a large amount of food — it's the equivalent of one 6-ounce chicken breast.

To determine whether or not you're getting too much protein, simply calculate your body's requirement based on your lean body mass, and write down everything you eat for a few days. Then calculate the amount of daily protein you've consumed from all sources. If you're currently averaging a lot more than what is optimal, adjust downward accordingly. The following chart provides a quick overview of how much protein is in various foods.

Red meat, pork, poultry, and seafood average 6 to 9 grams of protein per ounce. An ideal amount for most people would be a 3-ounce serving of meat or seafood (not 9- or 12-ounce steaks!), which will provide about 18 to 27 grams of protein	Eggs contain about 6 to 8 grams of protein per egg. So an omelet made from two eggs would give you about 12 to 16 grams of protein If you add cheese, you need to calculate that protein in as well (check the label of your cheese)
Seeds and nuts contain on average 4 to 8 grams of protein per quarter cup	Cooked beans average about 7 to 8 grams per half cup
Cooked grains average 5 to 7 grams per cup	Most vegetables contain about 1 to 2 grams of protein per ounce

Is Protein Restriction Even More Important Than Net Carbohydrate Restriction?

Since mTOR can be elevated even if your glucose and insulin levels are low, and since mTOR regulates energy distribution, growth, and repair, Rosedale now believes protein restriction may be even more important than the restriction of net carbohydrates (total carbs minus fiber). This theory has in fact been tested, and found to hold true. As noted in a 2014 study in Cell Metabolism:2

“Longevity and health were optimized when protein was replaced with carbohydrate to limit compensatory feeding for protein and suppress protein intake ... The results suggest that longevity can be extended in ad libitum-fed animals by manipulating the ratio of macronutrients to inhibit mTOR activation.”

It’s worth noting they didn’t test a high-fat diet. They were only looking at carbs versus protein, and if those were your only choices, protein restriction may in fact be more important than carb restriction. However, there are many drawbacks with eating lots of non-fiber carbs too, so it’s far from an ideal solution. Your best alternative is to replace net carbs with high quality healthy fats, and restrict protein to just what your body needs (as described above).

Beware: Ketogenic Diets Can Be High-Protein or High-Fat, But Only the Latter Is of True Benefit

Now, here’s where things might get confusing, because research3 has also shown that ketone body utilization drives tumor growth and metastasis. (Ketones are acids made by your body when it burns fat rather than carbohydrates as its primary fuel.) This finding appears to be completely contradictory to so many other studies that show a ketogenic diet effectively “starves” cancer. But there is an answer to this apparent contradiction, which Rosedale explains in his lecture.

“It isn’t ketogenesis, really, that we’re after,” he says. “It’s fat burning. They’re not the same. You can have a ketogenic diet by eating protein. It isn’t the ketones, necessarily, that give you the benefit, it’s the fact that you’re burning fat, and the ketones are a byproduct. So you have to specify if you’re going to [promote a] ketogenic diet that it’s a high fat ketogenic diet.

It’s really the burning of fat that’s of benefit. As a result, you’ll get ketones that your brain needs. They do good things too ... So a ketogenic diet is a good diet, but not because it’s ketogenic. It’s [good] because it’s an indication that you’re burning fat.”

The Ideal Diet? Think Low-Carb, Moderate-Protein, High-Fat

I believe it's absolutely crucial, no matter what type of cancer you're trying to address, to incorporate a high-fat ketogenic diet, meaning a diet high in healthy fats like avocado, coconut oil, butter, olive oil and macadamia nuts, low in net carbs (total carbs minus fiber), and moderate amounts of high quality protein, ideally no more than about 1 gram per kilo of lean body mass.

Such a diet, along with Peak Fasting can be easily integrated into whatever cancer treatment plan you decide to follow. More importantly, this kind of diet may be key for preventing cancer and other chronic diseases in the first place. It also appears to be key for longevity, and will help optimize your weight as well, since eating this way will help you convert from burning sugar to burning fat as your primary fuel.

Farmed Salmon — One of the Most Toxic Foods in the World?

2016-04-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

An Inside Look Into the Fish Industry Reveals Disturbing Facts That Could Threaten Your Health

April 30, 2016 |

By Dr. Mercola

Nicolas Daniel’s documentary “Fillet-Oh-Fish” takes a critical look at the fish industry, featuring exclusive footage from fish farms and factories across the globe. Many still have a rather romanticized view of fishing, but when it comes to large-scale food production, the picture is actually rather grim.

Today’s fisheries are faced with a range of severe problems, from overfishing to chemical pollution and genetic mutation from toxic exposures. As noted by the producers of the film, “through intensive farming and global pollution, the flesh of the fish we eat has turned into a deadly chemical cocktail.”1

Despite that, the fish business is booming, in part due to efforts to keep the dirty underbelly of modern fisheries from public sight.Aquaculture promotes itself as a sustainable solution to overfishing. But in reality, fish farms actually cause more problems than they solve. There’s really little difference, in terms of environmental pollution, between land-based feedlots and water-based ones.

Farmed Salmon — One of the Most Toxic Foods in the World?

The film starts off in Norway, looking at the chemicals used in fish farms. Kurt Oddekalv is a respected Norwegian environmental activist, and he believes salmon farming is a disaster both for the environment and for human health.

Below the salmon farms dotted across the Norwegian fjords, there’s a layer of waste some 15 meters high, teeming with bacteria, drugs, and pesticides. In short, the entire sea floor has been destroyed, and since the farms are located in open water, the pollution from these farms is in no way contained.

A salmon farm can hold upwards of 2 million salmon in a relatively small amount of space. These crowded conditions result in disease, which spreads rapidly among the stressed salmon.

According to Oddekalv, sea lice, Pancreas Disease(PD)2 and Infectious Salmon Anemia Virus (ISA) have spread all across Norway, yet consumers are not informed of these fish pandemics, and sale of these diseased fish continue unabated.

A number of dangerous pesticides are used in an effort to stave off disease-causing pests, one of which is known to have neurotoxic effects. Fish has always been considered a health food, but according to Oddekalv, today’s farmed salmon is one of the most toxic foods in the world!

Toxicology researcher Jerome Ruzzin has confirmed Oddekalv’s claims. He’s tested a number of different food groups sold in Norway for toxins, and indeed, farmed salmon contains the greatest amount of toxins of them all, and by an incredibly large margin.

Overall, farmed salmon is five times more toxic than any other food product tested. In animal feeding studies, mice fed farmed salmon grew obese, with thick layers of fat around their internal organs. They also developed diabetes.

Ruzzin notes that a theory gaining traction is that rising rates of obesity is related to the increasing number of toxins and pollutants we’re exposed to through our environment and food. In light of his own studies, Ruzzin has stopped eating farmed salmon.

Genetic Mutations and Other Crazy Facts

Besides keeping pests like sea lice in check, the pesticides used also affect the fish’s DNA, causing genetic mutations. Disturbing examples of deformed cod are shown in the film.

What’s even more disturbing is that, according to Oddekalv, about 50 percent of farmed cod are deformed in this fashion, and female cod that escape from farms are known to mate with wild cod, spreading the genetic mutations and deformities into the wild population.

Farmed salmon suffer less visible but equally disturbing mutations. The flesh of the farmed salmon is “brittle,” and breaks apart when bent — a highly abnormal feature.

The nutritional content is also wildly abnormal. Wild salmon contains about 5 to 7 percent fat, whereas the farmed variety can contain anywhere from 14.5 to 34 percent.

Many toxins accumulate most readily in fat, which means even when raised in similarly contaminated conditions, farmed salmon will contain far more toxins than wild.

Shockingly, research reveals that the most significant source of toxic exposure is not actually the pesticides or the antibiotics, but the dry pellet feed! Pollutants found in the fish feed include dioxins, PCBs, and a number of different drugs and chemicals.

What Makes the Fish Feed so Toxic?

So what’s wrong with the fish feed? Why is it so toxic? In one Norwegian fish pellet plant, the main ingredient turns out to be eel, used for their high protein and fat content, and other fatty fish from the Baltic Sea.

That’s where the problem begins, as the Baltic is highly polluted. Some of the fish used have toxic levels of pollutants, which then simply get incorporated into the feed pellets.

In Sweden, fish mongers are now required to warn patrons about the potential toxicity of Baltic fish. According to government recommendations, you should not eat fatty fish like herring more than once a week, and if you’re pregnant, fish from the Baltic should be avoided altogether.

Swedish Greenpeace activist Jan Isakson reveals some of the sources of all this pollution. Just outside of Stockholm, there’s a massive paper mill on the bank of the Baltic that generates toxic dioxins.

Nine other industrialized countries surrounding the Baltic Sea also dump their toxic waste into this closed body of water. Dioxins bind to fat, which is why herring, eel, and salmon are particularly vulnerable, and end up accumulating higher amounts than other fish.

As a result of being deemed unfit for human consumption, some of these fatty fish are now primarily used as fish food. In this way, toxicity in the farmed salmon is allowed to build up even higher than in the wild.

One of the Best Kept and Most Dangerous Secrets of the Fish Industry

But there’s yet another problem, and it stems from the manufacturing process of the pellets. The fatty fish are first cooked, resulting in two separate products: protein meal and oil. While the oil has high levels of dioxins and PCBs, the protein powder further adds to the toxicity of the end product.

To the protein powder, they add an “antioxidant” called ethoxyquin. According to the filmmaker, this is one of the best kept secrets of the fish food industry. Ethoxyquin was developed by Monsanto in the 1950s — as a pesticide. Its use is strictly regulated, so why is it being added to fish pellets?

A couple of years ago, a Swiss anti-fraud laboratory was surprised to find extremely high levels of ethoxyquin in farmed fish — some 10 to 20 times higher than the 50 mcg per kilo allowed in food in the European Union — and that discovery began to unravel the secret. Ethoxyquin was designed for use on fruits and vegetables, but the fish feed industry discovered another novel use for it — they add it to the feed to prevent the fats from oxidizing and going rancid.

However, the fish feed manufacturers never informed health authorities of their use of the chemical. As a result, the EU strictly regulates ethoxyquin levels in fruits, vegetables, and meat — there are even standards for kangaroos and reptiles — but not for the fish people consume. What’s more, the effects of this chemical on human health have never been established.

The one and only study ever done on ethoxyquin and human health was a thesis by Victoria Bohne, Ph.D. a former researcher in Norway who made a number of disturbing discoveries, including the fact that ethoxyquin can cross the blood brain barrier, and may have carcinogenic effects. Bohne, as many other researchers who have made unpopular findings, was pressured to leave her research job after attempts were made to falsify and downplay her findings.

Others have linked the secret use of ethoxyquin in Norwegian fish farming, and the lack of scientific investigation into its effects, to the Norwegian Minister of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, Lisbeth Berg-Hansen, who also happens to be a major shareholder in a commercial salmon farm, and has held many high-ranking positions within the fishing industry.

The Rise of Panga Exploited Fish Consumption

In France, fish consumption has more than doubled in the past five decades, now surpassing consumption of both beef and chicken. To meet demand, fish is being imported from around the globe. Rarely will you find a fish caught off the coast of France. Nearly half of all fish sold in France is raised in fish farms. Lesser known and less expensive species have also been brought to market.

Panga, which is now one of the 10 most consumed fish in France, was relatively unknown a decade ago. Its low price has also made panga a top seller in the school system. The questions asked in the film are, how can this farmed fish be sold at such low prices, and what’s actually in these fish that children are now eating on a regular basis?

The investigation begins in southern Vietnam, where panga is part of the culinary tradition. However, behind this cultural image, there’s a more disturbing reality. Over the past 15 years, panga exports have become a major source of income for the region. In fact, 95 percent of the global production of panga comes from southern Vietnam, and this success has resulted in both environmental and human exploitation.

Farmed panga grow twice to four times as fast compared to those in the wild, allowing them to reach adult size in about six months. The fish are then harvested and processed, which includes washing the fillets in big vats filled with water and polyphosphates — chemical additives that facilitate freezing.

The chemical also allows the fish to soak up water, which artificially increases their weight. After this process, the fish lack both taste and odor, and will take on the flavor of whatever spices you add to it during cooking.

Environmental Pollution Poses Risks

Many panga farms are plagued with disease, courtesy of the polluted waters in which they’re raised. Mekong River, where many panga farms are located, is one of the most heavily polluted rivers in the world. In 2009, the World Wide Fund for Nature placed panga on their “red” list of products that pose a danger to environmental and human health.

Millions of Vietnamese households dump their waste directly into the Mekong River each day. Pesticides used in rice cultivation also migrate into this waterway. Green algae and bacteria release toxins into the water and reduce oxygen levels in the water, which adds further stress on the fish’s immune systems, making them more prone to disease.

To address disease, farmers add industrial quantities of drugs into their fish ponds, including a wide array of antibiotics. The side effect is drug resistance, which forces the farmers to keep increasing the dosages. The panga are not the only thing affected by this strategy, of course. Antibiotics spread through the river systems, are absorbed into the fish’s tissues and excreted through feces, which redistributes the drugs into the environment — and to those who eat the fish.

Are You Eating Fish, or Fish Waste?

Fish can be one of the healthiest foods you can eat, but in the industrial age you have to be ultra careful about choosing the right type of fish. If you needed another reason to avoid processed foods, watch this film to the end, where it describes how fish waste has become a “highly valued commodity” used in processed foods. At less than 15 cents per kilo, these fish heads and tails, and what little meat is left over after filleting, is a real profit maker.

Virtually nothing actually goes to waste anymore. Fish skins are recycled for use in the cosmetics industry. The remainder of the fish waste is washed and ground into a pulp, which is then used in prepared meals and pet food.

Since food manufacturers are not required to tell you their products contain fish pulp rather than actual fish fillet meat, this product offers a high profit margin for food manufacturers. One tipoff: if the product’s list of ingredients includes a fish without specifyingthat it’s made with fillet of fish, it’s usually made with fish waste pulp.

Fish fraud is also commonplace. Investigations have shown that 1 in 3 fish labels are false or misleading. Typically, an inexpensive fish is mislabeled as a more expensive one. Some farmed fish are also passed off as wild. Since traceability is more complex in the processed food industry, due to the mixing of ingredients, that’s where most of the fish fraud occurs. It’s somewhat more difficult to pass off fillets of fish as another species, although that also occurs.

Best Seafood Options: Wild Alaskan Salmon, Sardines and Anchovies

It’s become quite clear that fish farms are not a viable solution to overfishing. If anything, they’re making matters worse, destroying the marine ecosystem at a far more rapid clip to boot ... So what’s the answer? Unfortunately, the vast majority of fish — even when wild caught — is too contaminated to eat on a frequent basis. Most major waterways in the world are contaminated with mercury, heavy metals, and chemicals like dioxins, PCBs, and other agricultural chemicals that wind up in the environment.

This is why, as a general rule, I no longer recommend getting your omega-3 requirements from fish. However, I do make two exceptions. One is authentic, wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon; the nutritional benefits of which I believe still outweigh any potential contamination.

The risk of sockeye accumulating high amounts of mercury and other toxins is reduced because of its short life cycle, which is only about three years. Additionally, bioaccumulation of toxins is also reduced by the fact that it doesn't feed on other, already contaminated, fish.

Alaskan salmon is not allowed to be farmed, and is therefore always wild-caught. My favorite brand is Vital Choice Wild Seafood and Organics, which offers a nice variety of high-quality salmon products that test high for omega-3 fats and low for contaminants. Canned salmon labeled "Alaskan salmon" is a less expensive alternative to salmon fillets.

The second exception is smaller fish with short life cycles, which also tend to be better alternatives in terms of fat content, such as sardines and anchovies, so it's a win-win situation — lower contamination risk and higher nutritional value. A general guideline is that the closer to the bottom of the food chain the fish is, the less contamination it will have accumulated. Just make sure they’re not from the Baltic Sea.

Other good choices include herring and fish roe (caviar), which is full of important phospholipids that nourish mitochondrial membranes.

Sugar can cause brain damage, claim scientists (but salmon reverses it)

2016-04-27T09:15:00.003-07:00

Sugar can cause brain damage, claim scientists (but salmon reverses it)

Fructose is found in high quantities in soft drinks

Bad news for people with a sweet tooth - a new study suggests that sugar can damage the brain.

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Researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles found that fructose - a type of sugar naturally found in fruits and vegetables, but also present in soft drinks and sweets - damages brain cells and can lead to a wide range of diseases, from diabetes and heart disease to Alzheimer's and ADH.

The scientists fed a group of rats for six weeks with fructose-spiked water (the equivalent to about a litre of soft drinks a day for humans). Then they put them in a maze, alongside rats which had drank only water. The rats which had consumed fructose took twice as long to navigate the maze as the water-only group, despite the same level of training - suggesting that their memories had been impaired.

The study suggests that fructose damages brain cells and can lead to a wide variety of diseases CREDIT: ALAMY

There was however one positive outcome of the experiment: an omega-3 fatty acid called docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, appeared to reverse the dangerous changes produced by fructose.

A third group of rats which were fed a flaxseed-oil extract rich in omega-3s as well as the fructose water managed to navigate the maze almost as quickly as the water-only group.

Salmon is very high in DHA CREDIT: ALAMY

DHa is found naturally in fish (especially salmon), nuts, and certain vegetables.

"DHA changes not just one or two genes; it seems to push the entire gene pattern back to normal, which is remarkable," said Xia Yang, a senior author of the study.

Japan's high life expectancy linked to diet, study finds

2016-03-29T06:47:00.001-07:00

Ramen is a popular food in Japan Getty Images

New Studies Prove ORGANIC and GRASS-FED Are WORTH the PRICE

2016-02-29T04:26:00.002-08:00

New Studies Prove Organic and Grass-Fed Are Worth the Price

February 29, 2016 |

By Dr. Mercola

According to a Consumer Reports cost analysis,1 some organic foods can cost as much as 47 percent more than conventional varieties. The question is, do the benefits of organics outweigh the added expense?

A number of studies2 have confirmed that eating organic reduces your toxic load, as synthetic pesticides are not permitted in organic farming, and it’s a well-established fact that toxic chemicals have the capacity to harm your health.

A 2014 analysis3,4,5,6,7 of 343 studies also found that, in addition to having fewer pesticide residues, organic food crops also have about half the amount of cadmium,8 a toxic metal and a known carcinogen. More recent research again highlights the benefits of organic foods — such as fewer pesticides and higher amounts of nutrients — confirming there is indeed a difference, and that this difference may very well be worth the added expense if you’re concerned about your health, and the health of our environment.

Organics Have Fewer Pesticides, Higher Amounts of Valuable Nutrients

While conventional and organic fruits and vegetables contain similar levels of many nutrients, there are a few key differences.

Previous research, such as the meta-analysis studies cited above, have shown that organic fruits and vegetables contain anywhere from 18 to 69 percent more antioxidants than conventionally-grown varieties — many of which have been linked to health benefits and disease prevention in clinical studies.

Antioxidants are a very important part of optimal health, as they can control how fast you age by fighting free radicals. So the fact that organic foods contain far higher levels vouches for the stance that organic foods are healthier in terms of nutrition, in addition to being much lower or free of pesticides. Organic foods also frequently contain higher amounts of vitamins and minerals, and in the case of meat and dairy, higher levels of healthy fatty acids as well. For example:

A 2010 PLOS ONE study,9 which was partially funded by the USDA, found that organic strawberries were more nutrient-rich than non-organic strawberries

True organic free-range eggs are more nutritious than commercially raised eggs, typically containing about two-thirds more vitamin A, two times moreomega-3, three times more vitamin E, and as much as seven times more beta carotene10

Organic milk and meat from cows raised primarily on pasture have also been repeatedly shown to be higher in many nutrients, including vitamin E, beta-carotene, and CLA

Organic milk also contains about 25 percent less omega-6 fats and 62 percent more omega-3 fats than conventional milk11,12

New Research Confirms Clear Health Benefits of Organic Milk and Meat

Most recently, research13,14,15 published in the British Journal of Nutrition found clear differences between organic versus conventional milk16 and meat.17 Said to be the largest study of its kind, the researchers analyzed 196 and 67 studies on milk and meat respectively.

Echoing previous studies, the largest difference in nutritional content was its fatty acid composition, certain essential minerals, and antioxidants. According to Chris Seal, Ph.D. professor of Food and Human Nutrition at Newcastle University:18

“Omega-3s are linked to reductions in cardiovascular disease, improved neurological development and function, and better immune function.

Western European diets are recognized as being too low in these fatty acids and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recommends we should double our intake.

But getting enough in our diet is difficult. Our study suggests thatswitching to organic would go some way towards improving intakes of these important nutrients.” [Emphasis mine]

Grass-Fed Versus Conventional Meat and Milk

According to the review on milk, half a liter (16.9 ounces) of organic full fat milk will provide you with an estimated 39 milligrams (mg) or 16 percent of the recommended daily intake (RDI) of very long-chain (VLC) omega-3 (EPA, DPA, and DHA), compared to 25 mg (11 percent) from conventional milk.

As noted in the study,19 VLC omega-3s have been linked to a number of health benefits, including “improved fetal brain development and function, delayed decline in cognitive function in elderly men and reduced risk of dementia (especially Alzheimer’s disease).”

Organic milk also contains lower levels of omega-6, providing a healthier ratio between the two fatty acids. Compared to conventional milk, organic milk was also found to contain:

Higher levels of vitamin E

Higher concentrations of iron

Higher levels of antioxidant carotenoids

40 percent more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which has been found to have a wide array of important health benefits, from fighting cancer to decreasing insulin resistance and improving body composition

Other Factors to Consider With Drinking Milk

While these differences in omega-3 content are indeed significant, the absolute value of mg is relatively low considering there are only about 10 mg long-chain VLC omega 3 per glass of milk.

It is unwise for most to drink much more milk than that due to the non-fiber carbs, like galactose, that it is in milk. Each cup of milk has 12 grams of non-fiber carbs. While one or two glasses would be fine, drinking four would exceed the recommended amount of non-fiber carbs for most people. Conventional milk was also found to contain 74% more iodine than organic milk, which may be detrimental or beneficial depending on how much iodine you get from other sources.

One-half liter, or just over two cups, of conventional milk provides as much as 88 percent of the RDI of iodine, compared to 53 percent from organic milk. As noted by co-author Gillian Butler:20

“There is a relatively narrow margin between dietary Iodine deficiency (<140 and="" day="" excessive="" g="" intakes=""> 500 µg/day) from our diet which can lead to thyrotoxicoxis … Optimising iodine intake is therefore challenging, since globally there seems to be as much concern about excessive rather than inadequate intake.”

How Your Food Is Grown Matters

Studies such as these drive home the point that HOW food is raised does make a difference. You simply cannot cut corners during production without impacting the quality of the food — and by extension, human health. As noted by co-author Professor Carlo Leifert, who participated in both the 2014 analysis of food crops and the current review of milk and meats:

“People choose organic milk and meat for three main reasons: improved animal welfare, the positive impacts of organic farming on the environment, and the perceived health benefits ...

Several of these differences stem from organic livestock production and are brought about by differences in production intensity, with outdoor-reared, grass-fed animals producing milk and meat that is consistently higher in desirable fatty acids such as the omega-3s, and lower in fatty acids that can promote heart disease and other chronic diseases ....

We have shown without doubt there are composition differences between organic and conventional food. Taken together, the three studies on crops, meat and milk suggest that a switch to organic fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy products would provide significantly higher amounts of dietary antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids ...

[T]he fact that there are now several mother and child cohort studies linking organic food consumption to positive health impacts shows why it is important to further investigate the impact of the way we produce our food on human health.”

Research Gives Thumbs Up to Organic Farming

A related study21 published in Nature Plants looked at the benefits of organics versus conventional in terms of four key sustainability metrics. As noted by Time Magazine,22 they found that “organic offers a lot of good that outweighs its sticker shock.”

Co-author John Reganold, Ph.D. a professor of Soil Science and Agroecology at Washington State University, notes that in the 1980s when organic farming first began, very little research existed and many claimed it was too inefficient to feed a growing population.

Today, at least 1,000 studies have looked at the benefits and differences between organic and conventional farming, and the current study analyzed data that have emerged in the past 40 years, with a focus on how organic farming impacts sustainability in terms of:

Productivity

Environmental impact

Economic viability

Social well-being

Overall, the study found that organic farms are more profitable,23,24 earning farmers anywhere from 22 to 35 percent more than their conventional counterparts, and more environmentally friendly. They also produce equally or more nutritious foods with fewer or no pesticide residues. Organic agriculture also provides unique benefits to the ecosystem, as well as social benefits.

According to Reganold:

“If I had to put it in one sentence, organic agriculture has been able to provide jobs, be profitable, benefit the soil and environment and support social interactions between farmers and consumers. In some ways, there are practices in organic agriculture that really are ideal blueprints for us to look at feeding the world in the future. Organic may even be our best bet to help feed the world in an increasingly volatile climate.”

Organic Farms Fare Better During Droughts, and Use Less Energy

Results vary when it comes to yield. Some farmers report dramatic yield increases after switching to an organic biodynamic system that builds the soil, but in this particular study, they found organic yields tend to be on average 10 to 20 percent lower than conventional. However, organic farms were found to be at a distinct advantage during droughts. As reported by Time:

“Reganold found one scenario where the research shows that organic yields are consistently greater than conventional: during periods of drought. Organic soil is built up with organic material, which can hold onto water, he says. That means that by the time a farmer plants and grows a crop, the plant has access to more water, so yields increase.

For every inch of rainwater soaked up by soil, a plant can produce another 7 to 8 bushels of wheat, Reganold says.

Organic farming typically uses less energy, too. ‘When you look at ecosystem services, organic agriculture really shines,’ he says. ‘The value they bring in areas like biodiversity, pollination, soil quality — if you were to put an economic value on those, and some researchers have, then it more than makes up for the higher price or price premium of organic food.”

Conventional Farming Has Led to Dramatic Decline in Nutrient Content

It’s important to remember that the nutrient content of foods has dramatically declined across the board since the introduction of mechanized farming in 1925. For example, as explained by August Dunning, chief science officer and co-owner of Eco Organics, in order to receive the same amount of iron you used to get from one apple in 1950, by 1998 you had to eat 26 apples.

Other data25 reveal that between 1950 and 1999, levels of protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin (vitamin B2) and vitamin C levels in 43 different vegetables and fruits significantly declined. Another analysis of nutrient data from 1975 to 1997 found that, on average:

Calcium levels in 12 fresh vegetables dropped 27 percent

Iron levels dropped 37 percent

Vitamin A levels dropped 21 percent

Vitamin C levels declined by 30 percent

Taste has also diminished, although you’d have to be middle-aged to recall that foods used to taste differently. One of the primary reasons food doesn’t taste as good as it used to is related to the deterioration of mineral content. The minerals actually form the compounds that give the fruit or vegetable its flavor. All of these issues go back to the health of the soil in which the food is grown.26

Healthy soils contain a large diversity of microorganisms, and it is these organisms that are responsible for the plant’s nutrient uptake, health, and the stability of the entire ecosystem. The wide-scale adoption of industrial farming practices has decimated soil microbes responsible for transferring these minerals to the plants.

In 2009, the American Association for the Advancement of Science featured a presentation on soil health and its impact on food quality,27,28 concluding that healthy soil indeed leads to higher levels of nutrients in crops. Agricultural chemicals destroy the soil by killing off its microbial inhabitants, and this destructive trend is perhaps one of the most important factors when considering the value and necessity of organic farming.

If we do not change, we will eventually reach a point of no return, where soils will be too depleted to grow food. And then what will we do? Conventional may be more efficient, and may provide somewhat greater yields in some cases, but in the long term it’s unsustainable. Estimates suggest we have only about 55 to 60 years’ worth of productive topsoil left!29

Other Benefits of Organic Pastured Meat and Eggs

Your best bet for finding healthy food is to grow your own. If that is not possible then connect with a local farmer that raises crops and animals according to organic standards. In the case of eggs, what you’re looking for is eggs from pastured, free-range hens. The Cornucopia Institute’s egg report and organic egg scorecard ranks 136 egg producers according to 28 organic criteria.

Regarding meat, keep in mind that organic grass-fed and grass-finished meats have other nutritional benefits beyond being higher in healthy fats; they’re also free of antibiotics and other drugs used in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). With antibiotic-resistant disease being a major public health hazard, buying organic meats is an important consideration in more ways than one.

Unless labeled as grass-fed, virtually all the meat you buy in the grocery store is CAFO beef, and tests have revealed that nearly half of the meat sold in U.S. stores is contaminated with pathogenic bacteria — including antibiotic-resistant strains. Grass-fed beef is not associated with this high frequency of contamination, and their living conditions have everything to do with this improved safety.

Sustainable Food Sources

In the U.S., the following organizations can help you locate farm-fresh foods, including grass-fed meat, dairy, free-range eggs, and fresh organic produce:

Weston A. Price Foundation Weston A. Price has local chapters in most states, and many of them are connected with buying clubs in which you can easily purchase organic foods, including grass fed raw dairy products like milk and butter.

Grassfed Exchange The Grassfed Exchange has a listing of producers selling organic and grass-fed meats across the U.S.

Local Harvest This website will help you find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies.

Farmers' Markets A national listing of farmers' markets.

Eat Well Guide: Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, inns, and hotels, and online outlets in the United States and Canada.

Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) CISA is dedicated to sustaining agriculture and promoting the products of small farms.

FoodRoutes The FoodRoutes "Find Good Food" map can help you connect with local farmers to find the freshest, tastiest food possible. On their interactive map, you can find a listing for local farmers, CSAs, and markets near you.

The Cornucopia Institute The Cornucopia Institute maintains web-based tools rating all certified organic brands of eggs, dairy products, and other commodities, based on their ethical sourcing and authentic farming practices separating CAFO "organic" production from authentic organic practices.

All About Aloe

2016-01-27T13:03:00.004-08:00

All About Aloe

The ins and outs of how and why to use aloe

Written By:
Kennia Joseph

View more articles in:

Features

These days, you can find aloe vera in everything from lotions to shampoos. But, there are more applications for aloe than just topical use. Studies have shown that aloe can be used to benefit many aspects of one’s health, including detoxification, blood glucose support and digestive health.
In fact, aloe is said to contain 200 active components such as polysaccharides, vitamins, enzymes and minerals that “work harmoniously together to support overall health,” according to one industry company (1).

Digestive Health

The idea that aloe supports “digestive health” sounds broad, but shoppers may be interested to know that there are very specific reasons people buy aloe, including support for occasional constipation and overall digestive balance (2).

It should be noted that one reason for the laxative effect may be aloe’s aloin content, which can be harmful when consumed in large doses. Therefore, responsible companies filter it out and only include very low, safe levels of aloin that help support digestive regularity (1).

Studies have pointed to other benefits for gastrointestinal health thanks to its polysaccharides. These components may support a healthy pH in the stomach, and create an ideal environment for the growth of normal, healthy bacteria (1). Some say aloe’s ability to help maintain normal pH balance may also benefit those with occasional heartburn and indigestion (1).

While aloe cannot cure, treat or prevent any disease, some studies link aloe to support for gastrointestinal conditions and inflammation balance. One seminal study from 1963 suggested that when given to patients with peptide ulcers, aloe was helpful (3). More recently, a 2014 study combined aloe with ellagic acid (found in many fruits and nuts) and showed a positive effect on patients with ulcers.

Ranade et al., state: “In vivo studies showed that a combination of ellagic acid and Aloe vera gave 75% ulcer inhibition in comparison to 57% ulcer inhibition in the group which was administered with ellagic acid alone” (4).

In addition to its gastrointestinal use, aloe has been known to aid in detoxification and encourage the absorption of certain vitamins. A 2010 study, for instance, found that aloe promotes the absorption of vitamins E and C. The study included 18 patients that took either 500 mg of ascorbic acid or 420 mg of vitamin E alone or with 2 oz of aloe (whole leaf extract or inner fillet gel). After consumption, several blood samples were taken and the groups then switched regimens (5).

In the end, “Only Aloe Gel caused a significant increase in plasma ascorbate after 8 and 24 h….Only the aloes produced a significant increase in plasma tocopherol after 6 and 8 hours” (5). The authors add, “The results indicate that the Aloes improve the absorption of both vitamins C and E. The absorption is slower and the vitamins last longer in the plasma with the Aloes” (5).

Aloe’s support of nutrient absorption is one reason why some people believe in aloe for immune health.

Blood Glucose

Moving beyond digestive heath, preliminary research suggests that aloe vera intake can help support balanced, normal blood glucose levels.

In a 2009 study involving 15 type-2 diabetics, high molecular-weight fractions of aloe vera offered a “significant decrease in blood glucose level sustained for six weeks [from] the start of the study” (6).

A 2015 double-blind, randomized, controlled trial explored the effects of aloe on 72 prediabetic patients. Patients were administered capsules of aloe vera twice a day (doses of 300 mg or 500 mg) or a placebo. Fasting blood glucose (no food after eight hours) and hemoglobin plasma and lipid levels in the blood were assessed at baseline, four weeks and eight weeks (7).

Those taking 300 mg of aloe vera had a significant decrease in fasting blood glucose levels after four weeks, whereas the placebo group did not. This 300-mg group also experienced decreased HbA1C, total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels after eight weeks, plus an increase in HDL cholesterol levels.

Make sure to tell shoppers interested in taking aloe, especially those under a physician’s care for blood sugar-related issues, to discuss the option with their doctor before adding aloe to their supplement regimens. WF

References
1. Lily of the Desert, www.lilyofthedesert.com, accessed 11/20/15.
2. Mayo Clinic, “Aloe (Aloe vera),” www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/aloe/background/hrb-20058665, accessed 11/20/15.
3. J.J. Blitz, J.W. Smith and J.R. Gerard, “Aloe Vera Gel In Peptic Ulcer Therapy: Preliminary Report,”
J. Am. Osteopath. Assoc. 62: 731–735 (1963).
4. A.N. Ranade, N.S. Ranpise and C. Ramesh, “Exploring the Potential of Gastro Retentive Dosage Form in Delivery of Ellagic Acid and Aloe Vera Gel Powder for Treatment of Gastric Ulcers,” Curr. Drug Deliv. 11 (2), 287–297 (2014).
5. J.A. Vinson, H. Al Kharrat and L. Andreoli, “Effect of Aloe vera Preparations on the Human Bioavailability of Vitamins C and E,” Phytomedicine 12 (10), 760–765 (2005).
6. A. Yagi, “Possible Hypoglycemic Effect of Aloe Vera L. High Molecular Weight Fractions on Type 2 Diabetic Patients,” Saudi Pharm J. 17 (3), 209–215 (2009).
7. S. Alinejad-Mofrad et al., “Improvement of Glucose and Lipid Profile Status with Aloe Vera in Pre-Diabetic Subjects: A Randomized Controlled-Trial,” J. Diabetes Metab. Disord. 14, 22 (2015).

Published in WholeFoods Magazine January 2016

Top 10 Cholesterol Lowering Foods AND WHAT to AVOID !

2016-01-04T07:23:00.002-08:00

Top 10 Cholesterol Lowering Foods

Cholesterol is a steroid lipid (fat) found in the blood and is necessary for proper functioning of cell membranes. Our bodies already manufacture all the cholesterol we need, so it is not necessary to consume more. High levels of cholesterol have been shown to increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. Cholesterol lowering foods should be incorporated into everyone's diet for optimal health. The percentages by which these foods lower cholesterol reflect people who have high levels of cholesterol greater than 200 mg/dL, and therefore have been diagnosed with hypercholesterolemia. Different diets, lifestyles, and foods will work differently for different people. Cholesterol lowering foods include oat bran, flax seeds, garlic, almonds, walnuts, whole barley, and green tea. Below is a detailed list of foods which lower "bad" LDL cholesterol, while leaving the good HDL cholesterol largely unaffected.

#1: Monounsaturated and Polyunsaturated Fats (Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Peanut Oil, Peanuts, Olives, Avocados)
Cholesterol Reduction:18%^1,2,37
Substituting saturated animal fats and other high cholesterol foods with healthier fats like olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, and avocados is the most powerful thing you can do to achieve a drastic reduction in your LDL cholesterol. Specifically a diet high in olive and sunflower oil, that contains 12.9% saturated fat, 15.1% monounsaturated fat, and 7.9% polyunsaturated fat can achieve an 18% reduction in LDL cholesterol vs people on a diet higher in saturated fat.¹

#2: Bran (Oat, Rice)
Cholesterol Reduction:7-14%^3-5
Bran, particularly oat bran, has been proven effective in lowering LDL cholesterol levels. Add bran to hot cereals and bread. Also, eating whole oatmeal every morning, or switching to whole products like brown rice, can help you get more bran in your diet and lower your cholesterol numbers

#3: Flax Seeds
Cholesterol Reduction:8-14%^6,7
Up to 50 grams of flax seeds a day has been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol in healthy young adults by up to 8%,⁶and 38 grams of flax seeds per day reduced LDL cholesterol by 14% in people with high cholesterol (hypercholesterolemia).⁷ In both studies the flax seeds where consumed in a muffin or other bread product. Flax seeds are easily incorporated in baked goods, as well as added to hot cereals like oatmeal.

#4: Garlic
Cholesterol Reduction:9-12%^8,9
Studies have shown that less than half a clove (900mg) of raw garlic a day can lower cholesterol by 9-12%.^8,9 Raw garlic is best and can be added to olive oil salad dressings, or as a garnish on soups and sandwiches. Click to see complete nutrition facts for Raw Garlic.

#5: Almonds
Cholesterol Reduction:7-10%^10-12
Several studes report that eating up to half a cup of almonds can reduce cholesterol levels by up to 10%. In a dose response study it was found that a quarter cup of almonds reduces cholesterol by 5% and half a cup causes the full 10% reduction.¹¹ As almonds are a high calorie food, it is not recommended that you eat more than half a cup. Almonds are great as a snack, or as an addition to breakfast cereals like oatmeal.

#6: Lycopene Foods
Cholesterol Reduction:0-17%^13,14
Lycopene is a carotenoid pigment responsible for giving fruits and vegetables their red color and is found in tomatoes, watermelon, and various other high lycopene foods. Studies are conflicting as to whether lycopene reduces LDL cholesterol or not. Some studies report a 10-17% reduction^13,14 while other studies find no difference.^15,16 Despite this difference, lycopene is thought to generally promote heart health whether it lowers LDL cholesterol or not.

#7: Walnuts and Pistachios
Cholesterol Reduction:10%^17-21
Numerous studies report a reduction in cholesterol with consumption of walnuts or pistachios. This is esepcially true when the fats from the nuts replace consumption of other high cholesterol fats. Consuming around 30 grams of walnuts, or having the nuts be about 20-30% of total caloric intake is necessary to achieve the cholesterol lowering benefits.¹⁹

#8: Whole Barley
Cholesterol Reduction:7-10%^22,23
Like the bran from oats and rice, barley reduces cholesterol, particularly when it is used as a substitute for wheat products.²² Barley can easily substitute for wheat in the form of barley noodles, barley flour, or whole pearl barley.

#9: Dark Chocolate and Plant Sterols
Cholesterol Reduction:2-5%^24,25
The plant sterols and cocoa flavanols in dark non-milkchocolate have been shown to reduce cholesterol by 2-5%. Further, plant sterols (phytosterols), found in all plants, and particularly plant oils like corn oil and soybean oil have been shown to lower LDL cholesterol by up to 16%.²⁵ However, this reduction is largley due to inhibiting absorption of cholesterol, and would not have a large effect if you consumed little or no cholesterol.

#10: Green Tea
Cholesterol Reduction:2-5%²⁶
Green tea has long been a staple in East Asia where it is believed to wash oil (fat) out of the body. Studies suggest this may be true as green tea can lower cholesterol by 2-5%.²⁶Green tea without sugar also has few calories (typically less than 10) and can make a great substitute for a variety of beverages.

Carbohydrates are found in almost all living things and play a critical role in the proper functioning of the immune system, fertilization, blood clotting, and human development. A deficiency of carbohydrates can lead to impaired functioning of all these systems, however, in the Western world, deficiency is rare. Excessive consumption of carbohydrates, especially refined carbohydrates like sugar or corn syrup, can lead to obesity, type II diabetes, and cancer. Unhealthy high carbohydrate foods include dried fruit, cereals, crackers, cakes, flours, jams, preserves, bread products, and potato products. Healthy high carbohydrate foods include vegetables, legumes (beans), whole grains, fruits, nuts, and yogurt.

Below is a list of foods highest in carbohydrates, for more see the extended list of carb rich foods to AVOID. For more healthy high carbohydrate choices see the list of healthy high carb foods.

AVOID !

#1: Sugars, Syrups & Sweeteners (Granulated Sugar)

Carbohydrate 100g	Per teaspoon (4g)	Percent Carbohydrate
100g	4g	100%

Other Sugars, Syrups & Sweeteners High in Carbohydrate (Grams per teaspoon): Fructose (4g), Aspartame (3.6g), Honey (3.3g), Powdered Sugar (3g), Brown Sugar (2.9g), and Maple Syrup (2.7g).

#2: Candies (Jelly Gumdrops)

Carbohydrate 100g	Per 10 candies (36g)	Percent Carbohydrate
98.9g	35.6g	99%

Other Candies High in Carbohydrate (Grams per 10 candies): Almond Nougat (129g), Chocolate Tootsie Rolls (61g), Hard Candies (59g), Low Calorie Gum Drops (44g), Butterscotch (43.5g), Low Calorie Candies (30g), Chewing Gum (29g), Jellybeans (26.2g), Sugarless Chewing Gum (19g), and Skittles (10g).

#3: Dried Fruit (Dried Apples)

Carbohydrate 100g	Per cup (60g)	Percent Carbohydrate
93.5g	56.1g	94%

Other Dried Fruit High in Carbohydrate (Grams per cup):Dried Cherries (128.8g), Dried Blueberries, sweetened (128g), Prunes (117.6g), Raisins (115.3g), Dates (110.3g), Cranberries (98.7g), Dried Apricots (98.6), Dried Peaches (96.5g), Figs (95.2g), and Dried Bananas (88.3g).

#4: Cereals (Frosted Rice Crispies)

Carbohydrate 100g	In a 3/4 cup (30g)	Percent Carbohydrate
91.3g	27.4g	91%

Other Cereals High in Carbohydrate (Grams per 3/4 cup (NLEA Serving)): Crispy Rice (28.5g), Cocoa Crispies (27.2g), Corn Pops (26.9g), Frosted Flakes (26.8g), Reduced-Sugar Frosted Flakes (26.3g), Honey Crunch Corn Flakes (26.1g), Marshmallow Froot Loops & Cocoa Dyno-Bites (25.9g), Apple Jacks with Marshmallow (25.1g), Golden Crisp & Fruity Dyno-Bites (24.3g), Golden Puffs (24.2g), Honey Smacks (23.9g), Bran Flakes (23.8g), and Fruit & Nut Muesli (23.3g). .

#5: Snacks (Fat-Free Potato Chips)

Carbohydrate 100g	Per ounce (28g)	Percent Carbohydrate
83.8g	23.5g	84%

Other Snacks High in Carbohydrate (Grams per 2 cakes/crackers): Rye Wafers (17.6g), Rye Crispbreads (16.4g), Corn Cakes (15g), Brown Rice Cakes (14.7g), Multigrain Rice Cakes & Buckwheat Rice Cakes (14.4g), Fat-Free Saltines (8.2g). Grams per ounce: Pretzels (22.8g), Unsalted & Low-Fat Tortilla Chips (22.4g), Popcorn (21.8g).

#6: Cookies & Cakes (Fortune Cookes)

Carbohydrate 100g	Per cookie (8g)	Percent Carbohydrate
84g	6.7g	84%

Other Cookies & Cakes High in Carbohydrate (Grams per ounce): Fudge Cake Cookies (21.9g), Gingerbread Men & Plain or Low-Fat Graham Crackers (21.8g), Gingersnaps (21.5g), Sugar-Free Chocolate Cookies & Animal Crackers (21g), Butter Cookies (20.8g), Vanilla Cream Sandwich (20.7g), and Low-Fat Vanilla Wafers (20.6g). (Grams per piece or slice): Coffee Cake (29.6g), Fruit Cake (26.5g), Sponge Cake (23.2g), Low-Fat Cake Snacks (19.6g), and Fat-Free Devil’s Food Cake (11.9g).

#7: Flour (Rice Flour)

Carbohydrate 100g	Per cup (158g)	Percent Carbohydrate
80.1g	126.6g	80%

Other Types of Flour High in Carbohydrate (Grams per cup): Potato Flour (133g), Barley Malt Flour (126.8g), Brown Rice Flour (120.8g), Barley Flour (110.3g), Wheat Flour (95.4g), Yellow Corn Flour (89.9g), Dark Rye (87.8g), Millet Flour (86.9g), Whole-Grain Wheat Flour (86.4g), Buckwheat Flour (84.7g), Light Rye (78.2g), Medium Rye (76.9g), Oat Flour (68.3g), and Chickpea Flour (53.2g).

#8: Jams & Preserves

Carbohydrate 100g	Per tablespoon (20g)	Percent Carbohydrate
68.9g	13.8g	69%

Other Jams & Preserves High in Carbohydrate (Grams per tablespoon):Marmalade (13.3g), Apricot Jam (12.9g), and Dietetic Jam (7.5g). Click to see complete nutrition facts.

#9: Bread, Toast, Bagels, Pizza (Cinnamon-Raisin Bagel, toasted)

Carbohydrate 100g	Per bagel (99g)	Percent Carbohydrate
59.3g	58.7g	59%

Other Breads, Toast, Bagels & Pizzas High in Carbohydrate (Grams per slice/piece): Deep Dish Cheese Pizza (39.5g), Pan-Dulce (35.5g), Whole-Wheat Pita (35.2g), Pita Bread (33.4g), Thin-Crust Cheese Pizza (27g), Whole-Wheat English Muffin, toasted (26.9g), English Muffin (26.2g), Raisin Bread (16.5g), Flour Tortilla (15.4g), White Bread, toasted (14.7g), Wheat Bread (14.3g), Wheat Germ Bread (13.5g), Whole-Wheat Bread, toasted (12.8g), .

#10: Potatoes (Hash Browns)

Carbohydrate 100g	Per cup (156g)	Percent Carbohydrate
35.1g	54.8g	35%

Other Potato Products High in Carbohydrate (Grams per serving): Whole Baked Potato (36.6g), One 3.5oz (100g) piece of Candied Sweet Potato (33.7g), 10 French Fries (21.2g), 1 Medium Potato Pancake

10 Food-Medicines That Could Save Your Life

2015-11-19T07:03:00.000-08:00

Guest Interview: Sayer Ji, founder of Greenmedinfo.com.

Dr. Axe: Welcome to The Natural Cures Summit. I am your host, Dr. Josh Axe, along with one of my co-hosts and partners here in putting on this summit. And that is Sayer Ji from GreenMedInfo. And we have an absolutely incredible segment here for you today. We're going to be talking about the five herbs that could save your life, as well as Sayer going through all of the evidence-based material on why herbs are superior to pharmaceuticals.

And one of the things that I've loved about Sayer over the years, he's really been a pioneer in our industry and really going through and laying out, "Hey, here's the true evidence of what we're looking at." Sayer's also the founder of one of the largest and fastest growing health websites in the world today with greenmedinfo.com.

By the way, if you've never been to Green Med Info, you're missing out. You need to check it out. They've got the best evidence-based articles on nutrition, herbal remedies, and natural medicine that I've ever seen. Also he has been a lecturer. And he's a member of The Global GMO-free Coalition so he's been really fighting GMOs on the forefront of that. And just has an incredible background. I think you're going to learn a lot from him today.

Sayer, welcome here to our Natural Cures Summit!

Sayer Ji: It's a great honor, Josh. You've done such an incredible job with this awareness-raising project. The natural cures movement is truly a global movement. And I'm honored to be part of this Summit. So thank you for having me.

Dr. Axe: Hey, no problem. Well, let's talk about first, I'm really interested into why Green Med Info and why you're in this natural cures movement?

Sayer Ji: Thank you so much. I mean the reality is that I was honored and very grateful to be exposed to the vast database available today on natural medicine, which most people are not aware of. So, GreenMedInfo, my website was dedicated to the cause of bringing to the people the resource that's already available supporting natural and integrative interventions for prevention of disease, as well as for treatment.

Most people don't know that billions of dollars of their own taxpayer money goes through the National Institutes of Health to support a database which you can access through PubMed.gov, which contains 23,000,000 citations that they can basically search like Google. You type like "osteoarthritis" or type in "turmeric," and you'll get thousands of results.

So what I spent many years doing was just sitting there in front of the computer amazed and really kind of methodically indexing the research that supports using what you and I know is the most ancient form of medicine on the planet, which is natural medicine.

Dr. Axe: Yeah, absolutely. And again this is one of the reasons why you've grown so much. You know, I was reading an article today on and someone was making this claim that this does this. And, of course, there's nothing to back it. And not to say that that doesn't mean it doesn't work. But that's the thing that's so great about your site is you really go through the medical journals and proving here's what the actual literature says from a unbiased standpoint.

Let's talk about this. What are some of the roadblocks today in natural healing? You know, chemical poisoning, misconceptions. I will say this. I'm sure you've seen this. Over the last ten years, there's definitely been a better shift. We're definitely going into the right direction in certain areas.

Like if I would have told my dad to do a cleanse ten years ago, he would have just been like, "What are you talking about?" And now he's taking turmeric and milk thistle and a few other of these super herbs on a regular basis. But still today, what are some of these mental roadblocks that are blocking people from connecting with this movement?

Sayer Ji: Great question, Josh. I appreciate it. Really people don't seem to recognize sufficiently that the primary medical model that dominates today is based on using patented chemicals in order to suppress symptoms that are often associated with chemical poisoning. So it's a very oxymoronic almost Orwellian situation.

What I mean by that is if you look any pharmaceutical that's received FDA drug approval beyond what are called biological, which themselves have problems because a lot of them are based on recombinant DNA manipulation of things like recombinant antibodies or different things that are not really natural. But if you look at most of the drugs on the market from COX-2 inhibitors to antibiotics and chemotherapy, they're actually chemicals.

And the reason why they exist as medicines today is because they've gone through a very elaborate process of receiving FDA drug approval. And what most people don't realize is that there's a huge gauntlet that has to be run in order to get a chemical to be approved as an FDA-approved drug. So what I mean is there's about $800,000,000 on average that goes into phase one, two, three clinical trials to get that drug to be accepted as legal and viable to treat disease. And the problem with that, of course, is that those compounds are not, unfortunately, available to traditional approaches.

A traditional approach is you take food. You take plants. And they're growing in your backyard. They don't require all this investment of capital. So the drug approval process today actually attracts multinational corporations whose vested interest is to make a profit on their products. And therefore they actually have a legal fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders.

And so what that means is that even if they wanted to just do good and point to turmeric in our backyard or maybe cannabis for treating some type of neurological issue, they're not able to do that because they have to make a profit. And that is not consistent with a fundamentally ethical approach to medicine, which is to just alleviate suffering.

So what GreenMedInfo was based on was this concept well, okay, there's all this research supporting traditional medicine: plants, herbs, nutrients, minerals. Let's just get the research out to the people so they can see that despite the dominant medical model, you can get things from your grocery store or your produce case that do at least as well as the pharmacies out there.

Dr. Axe: Wow. You said a quote there, several quotes, that I think should be etched in stone. I'll probably quote you on some articles I'm going to be writing coming up. But the thing about medications is you look at the track you've set is pretty much a medication is a patented chemical used to block symptoms that usually causes another symptom because it causes toxic poisoning in the body. You actually look at the track that we go on.

And again this isn't us making stuff up. This is thinking very rationally about what is happening today with our FDA, with the drug industry. For people if they can actually think about it without bias and connect the dots, it's obvious that our pharmaceutical industry today, it's dangerous. It's not safe the way it's set up from a business standpoint, obviously from a health standpoint. There's so many issues there.

Let's talk about pharmaceutical drugs. They are so popular today. Why do you think, also on the other end though, why is there so much misinformation today about natural cures? I know in the past people referred to it as things like—I'm trying to think of the popular term—like what do they call it? Like snake oil or something like that? But why is there so much information out there about natural cures?

Sayer Ji: Well, that's a great question. If you look at the reality, the problem is that our body is composed basically of food and things that we eat and the things that have been in our environment for literally millions of years. So when you start introducing what are primarily petrochemical derivatives into the body, they're actually defined as xenobiotics, which is basically a foreign substance that our body has no evolutionary pre-history in dealing with.

So despite that, thankfully, we have the cytochrome P450 enzymes in the liver that almost anticipated the industrial revolution. They kind of non-specifically often are capable of detoxifying chemicals that really just came about after the 1880s, which is in the Industrial Revolution globally.

So chemicals that are patented as drugs are technically alien to our physiology and have to have effects by definition that are toxic. And so when we look at natural approaches, we're basically just using things that our body has had many millions of years of time to adjust to and adapt to. So when you look at the difference, it's very clear. Chemicals, patented drugs, are not consistent with a model of healing which I think we all are starting to recognize is fundamental, meaning we cannot look at disease as a deficiency of drugs. But we can certainly look at disease as a deficiency of nutrients. And that's, I think, the model that we're all moving towards.

Dr. Axe: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. What are you thoughts on this term "natural cures" because I know it's actually something that people are very careful in using often times when it comes to not making claims. And, obviously, with this summit, we're not claiming any of these things. We're just saying a lot of these herbs today have been proven in the medical literature to support healing the body from certain conditions. But what do you think about that term? And I know it's something that the FDA doesn't like people to use.

Sayer Ji: Yeah, great question, Josh. It really is. The reality is the FTC and FDA presently define any substance that prevents, treats, diagnoses, or cures a disease as a drug. And what that means is if you're taking basically cherries for osteoarthritis—which Michigan State University actually proved is as effective as taking an NSAID like ibuprofen or naproxen—that actually violates the law. And in Florida, it's a class D felony for someone at a health food store to tell someone, Okay, you have arthritis? Well, take turmeric or take cherry juice to reduce your inflammation.

So the challenge is that when you come to the FDA/FDC's definition, it's a really Napoleonic version of truth which is if the FDA/FTC doesn't explicitly acknowledge something as being therapeutic, then by implication, it's not legal. And it's not considered relevant for healing. So the natural cures movement is very powerful because people are basically able to take back control of their health. And so here we have in this present day medical system a model where medicine is really not so much focused on trying to heal which is to empower you to live a healthy, balanced well being saturated life. It's to control the body.

And so what people don't seem to acknowledge, I think, well enough is that we have a political system that depends on making the body sick. Look at the FDA. In many ways, they represent the food and drug manufacturer's interest. You know the Food and Drug Administration. So the food gets you sick, and the drugs then suppress symptoms of the illness. And, of course, there's chemicals that also make you sick so it's more complex than that. But the idea here is the natural cures movement is empowering millions and millions around the planet just to kind of disengage from the system that is a system of control so they can, again, attain wellness and balance and healing without having to depend on having, for example, lots of money in your account.Some of the treatments...I think there's a new drug that a was approved for cystic fibrosis just a few months ago and it's $600,000 a year for these folks with a specific type to benefit from this "pharmaceutical intervention." At Green Med Info, we've basically indexed hundreds of studies on natural compounds from N-acetyl cysteine to turmeric to basic vitamin Ethat have been proven to be effective.

So I think people are waking up and realizing okay, there are things we can use in our diet and even from your supplement store that are going to basically benefit them in a way that drugs cannot.

Dr. Axe: Yeah, there's no doubt about it as we were mentioning earlier is that the tides are changing. And so much of it's due to social media today and the Internet. It's like you can go online where before these media channels, they were able to keep stuff from us. It's scary. I know that you've researched this when you start looking into who owns what from the media companies to the pharmaceuticals, how much the pharmaceutical companies own television today. But the great thing is they don't own the Internet. We have freedom here. And that's why your health website and so many of the others we have on here.

Sayer Ji: Yours, too.

Dr. Axe: Yeah, mine too. We're growing rapidly, which is fun. And it's great.

Sayer Ji: I love this point. This is the beauty of where we are today is that if you have a mobile device. If you have an iPhone or an Android, you can access the global brain. And you have access to research that just ten years ago was not really available to the public. So you go to the World Health Organization's website. You go to your website,DrJoshAxe.com, Food Is Medicine. And it's an equal playing field.

If you are a consumer of information, you have a choice. And you can go vet information as you please. And you can have access to whatever you want. So there's a lot of change that's occurred. And a lot of it's good. And I think primarily it's based on what Thomas Jefferson said, which is that information is the currency of democracy. And we have that now. So it's just about people coming the summit, realizing, yes, natural cures, natural solutions exist. And here's the research.

Dr. Axe: Couldn't agree more. Let's actually jump into some meat here and talk about some of these cures that we've alluding to. And I was actually reading through your website, reading some great articles here just this week. And one of them I came across that I'd love to hear from and then I'd love to hear some more.

But one of those was you wrote an article titled "Coconut Oil: Better Than Thirteen Drugs." So, it's been proven to be more beneficial than thirteen medications that are out there today. So what are some of the most amazing examples you have of natural remedies that are out there that are beating drugs for healing? So maybe you can offer a couple here.

And then I know we have five specific ones we're going to talk about later. And there's five herbs that could save your life. But what are a few others here that beat conventional medicine?

Sayer Ji: Well, what's amazing is if you actually go to Medline and you go through the search engine PubMed.gov, which again is what GreenMedInfo is based on is literally I took five years of my time. I sat there and I basically indexed and researched all these different natural interventions. I was shocked, Josh, to find all these comparison studies where they looked at a drug versus a natural compound. And they often found the natural compound was more effective.

So one of the substances that came to the fore was coconut oil. And it's so ironic because for many years the nutritional powers that be here in this country with their food pyramid, so to speak, put fats in a place that made it seem like it causes heart disease and it makes you fat. What we're learning today is quite the opposite.

So in the article you're referring to, "Thirteen Evidence-Based Medicinal Properties of Coconut Oil," we looked at its fat burning properties, number one. There were actually two studies: one in a male and one in a female cohort that saw that it was actually reducing belly fat, which completely explodes the myth that somehow coconut oil causes you to become fat.

Now, qualification, yes, you consume too much of it beyond your energy needs, yes, it can contribute to weight gain. But, generally those who use it do not see that effect. And because it's saturated, it doesn't oxidize, which means that, unlike vegetable oils, which have been promoted as the ultimate beneficial fat for us, they don't oxidize and therefore cause a lot of inflammation.

So some of the other benefits that have been described just with coconut oil is that it's effective as an anti-inflammatory, analgesic, fever-reducing compound as sort of a drug when it comes to its ability just to kill pain, as well as it's brain-boosting effects. And most people don't realize this. But when it comes to the brain's energy needs, it's constantly dependent on sugar. You can go maybe two or three minute without steady glucose in your blood. And you won't necessarily freak out.

But if you take away glucose after three minutes, your brain is going to freak out. It's going to release adrenaline, cortisol, and try to get the blood sugar back up. And that's because it's so dependent on sugar and "complex carbohydrates," which are themselves hidden sugar. What coconut does is it has these medium-chain triglycerides that the liver breaks down into ketone bodies, which provides the brain a steady source of fuel that gives it the ability to just basically stay focused and satisfied. And so that's one of the things that coconut oil's been found to do.

So there are a lot of benefits. We went over thirteen of them- antifungal, anti-ulcer, helps with blood lipids. Many people think that, "Oh, coconut oil is full of saturated fat therefore it raises your bad cholesterol." It actually raises your good cholesterol and keeps your LDL within range, as well as it has benefits for bone health, healing wounds when applied topically. It's even been used for head lice. It was even superior to some of the chemicals out there like permethrin.

So the beauty of it is if you look at any of the natural compounds out there today and you go to Medline, you search for the research, you're probably going to find a significant body of evidence showing that, yes, traditionally what we were doing was the right approach. And chemicals don't do as good.

Dr. Axe: Yeah, you are right. It is incredible when you look at the number of studies out there that say and they've compared some of these things head-to-head. And the natural remedies that we were referring to in these herbs will perform much better than a lot of these conventional medications.

One other thing...And this is a side note. I wasn't planning on asking you this. But this just kind of jumped in my head. I'd love to hear your thoughts behind—and you kind of alluded to it earlier—but the way that herbs work with your body.

I was reading a study recently on adaptogenic herbs like ashwagandha. And they did a study on how that could affect your thyroid health. But it could actually in some people it could raise their thyroid hormones, in others it could reduce it. So explain a little bit or let me hear your thoughts on how these herbs actually work with the body versus medications working either with it or against it or how does that work?

Sayer Ji: That's a great question, Josh. The reality is that people seem to not comprehend fully how an herb could have "intelligence." And that's what we're talking about because adaptogens exhibit properties that are completely opposite depending on the needs of the individual. And that's the basis for functional medicine, of course, which is this burgeoning movement, which is looking at bio-individuality.

So, for example, like ginseng has the ability in those with high blood pressure to lower their blood pressure, but in those with low blood pressure can raise their blood pressure. There's not a single sort of hypotensive agent out there within the drug model like beta-blockers, ace inhibitors, diuretics, calcium channel blockers that have the ability to work with individual constitution. So the adaptogens like ashwagandha, ginseng, and there are many others out there seem to have a "intelligence," meaning it's almost like in quantum mechanics where depending on the observer, the observed is going to act differently so meaning the subject and object are intertwined.

When it comes to an herb's activity and its awareness of our needs, it actually is able to adjust to accommodate what our body needs. And that's something that really the pharmaceutical model doesn't allow for. Many people think, "This is magical thinking. There's no explanation." But a new study that came out this year showed that plants actually exude these "nanoparticles" called exosomes that contain within them regulatory RNAs, which are non-coding, meaning they don't produce proteins. But they are information-containing sequences that modulate the DNA within those who consume them.

So if you're eating ginger, grapefruit, for example, grapes, those RNAs go into our body and actually start to modulate the expression of our DNA. And that's almost like the plant is talking to our body and enabling our body to kind of come back into balance.

So what I understand about adaptogens is that they probably gear into an ancient relationship we had with certain types of foods. There's even a concept out there calledxenohormesis, which acknowledges that for many millions of years, we were in an environment where the plants actually communicated to us what the future environmental circumstances would be.

Resveratrol, for example, everyone's heard of it. It's great. They actually believe it basically prolongs our longevity. It kills obesity and overweight. That plant produces resveretrol under times of stress. And resveretrol's actually produced by other things like peanuts. So when there's stress, they produce this compound and communicate to our body a signal that says, "Hey, listen. Things are getting tough. You might want to calm down with accumulating extra calories and basically over replicating your cells. Let's just start focusing on longevity."

So just consuming these compounds actually communicates to our body okay, let's get ready to live longer. Let's actually activate pathways in our body that help us survive. So there's this growing awareness that in the science itself that what we eat is going to directly affect our health outcomes. And that's a good example of it.

Dr. Axe: Wow. It is incredible when you think about it. I think it is hard for people to gain that concept that a plant does have intelligence. But if you think about it, plants are always growing. They're protecting themselves on a regular basis. So it makes sense.

So let's jump into and talk about some of these healing herbs we've talked about. I know I want to go through several including black seed, which, by the way, the title of this article is amazing: "Black Seed the Remedy for Everything But Death". So we'll talk about black seed. Let's also go through one of the things that I know your specialty is. And that's turmeric and curcumin. Let's hit on garlic and then maybe raw honey and Manuka honey. And then also this is one that might surprise people is frankincense. There's some fantastic research you'll share with us. And then maybe we'll do a bonus remedy after that. But let's talk about black seed. This is an article you have on your site, has 33,000 shares.

Sayer Ji: Surprise!

Dr. Axe: Yeah, it's an amazing article. Let's talk about what is black seed exactly?And what's it good for?

Sayer Ji: Well, it's an amazing thing. I had no idea this article would be so popular. Probably the title, actually, was responsible: "Black Seed the Remedy for Everything but Death" does sound rather sensationalistic. But when it comes down to it, the Islamic prophet Muhammad said of it that it is a remedy for all diseases except death. And I always found that to be, okay, that's poetic. That's beautiful. But where's the research?

And in fact what happens was that since 1964, there have been almost 500 studies on its benefits and many of them confirm the traditional use because this was found in Tutankhamen's tomb. This goes back to 3,300 years ago. I mean it was considered a very sacred herb. In fact, in Arabic cultures it was considered the seed of the blessing, meaning it just gave you a beautiful healing effect. And so far there are over twenty different "pharmacological" actions that have been identified—analgesic pain killing, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-ulcer, antifungal, antispasmodic, antioxidant, antiviral. And it just goes on and on. This is not unique necessarily.

One of the things, Josh, that I found in my project was...Because we have over 1,500 substances that are now indexed. Turmeric has 1,500 studies...And it goes over 600 different benefits. So black seed isn't necessarily the "best" thing on the planet for us to take. But it is interesting because when you look at pharmaceuticals, they on average have seventy-five adverse health effects. And these are actually identified pre-market approval. So there are many more that often emerge afterwards. And yet they're approved.

My understanding is let's say you have a drug that has an adverse effect like it makes you sleepy. Well, they just take that symptom. And they say, "Hey, this is a great sleep medication." You can look at like the drugs out there like Lunestra, which actually increase your risk of death, and say there's a good example.

So whereas natural compounds have the opposite meaning they have side benefits. So you take side effects with drugs. You take natural compounds, side benefits. Now, this is not always true. There are some natural compounds that will have adverse effects that are severe. And, of course, if you're on a medication and you take a natural compound, you could compound the adverse effects of the medication. And often the natural compound is blamed for those adverse effects. So I'm not trying to present the image that natural substances are always beneficial and that you should take as many of them as possible because I'm more of a food is medicine person.

But we have to look at the literature. And it's very clearly showing things like black seed have profound benefits. It's very interesting because with drugs, Lipitor (atorvastatin), for example for cholesterol. There's not precedent. It's basically a synthetic chemical that the body has never been exposed to before. There's no 3,000- or 10,000-year history behind taking a pharmaceutical compound. So when you have the research confirming at least in pre-clinical studies that black seed is beneficial, it's really encouraging.

One of the things too, Josh, I would say is that this is one of the few compounds that's been studied to regenerate the beta cells, which die in type I diabetes. Whereas you have this elaborate pharmaceutical enterprise convincing type I diabetics that if you have type I, you have to take lifelong recombinant basic GMO insulin for the rest of your life and all these oral anti-diabetic drugs, which actually have been found recently to increase the risk of dying from diabetes.

This is one substance that's been shown to stimulate the regeneration of the very cells in the pancreas that produce insulin and therefore may provide a "cure." So for me and for those interested in the natural cures movement, this is a very profound finding. And I think that people really need to start looking at this research.

And if it were me, if I had type I diabetes, would I wait until there's $800,000,000 available to fund a trial? Probably not because this is actually used as food. One of ourrecent videos on GreenMedInfo was using watermelon and sesame seed oil and black seed as just a summer salad just to eat. And you're always doing amazing recipes showing food as medicine. So I would encourage those to start basically use common sense. Use traditional recipes and start looking at the research. But also start realizing that, yes, food is medicine. And we don't necessarily need to wait around for some future drug cure.

Dr. Axe: Love it. Couldn't agree more. And black seed here reading up on here. This is a form of cumin, of black cumin. I cook with cumin all the time. Some of these things are in our kitchen cabinets, which is just amazing.

So let's talk about another one of my favorites. You have not just one article, but probably ten to twenty phenomenal articles on turmeric and curcumin. Let's talk about that as a super herb.

Sayer Ji: I love it. Turmeric is sort of a gift from the heavens in so far as since ancient times, you can go back to the Ayurvedic tradition in India, which is really the oldest medical system that was very science and what I would call phenomenologically based, looking at empirical effects of different interventions.

What they found, this was actually considered a goddess of compassion. And it was considered to heal many different diseases. And what's happened in the past twenty years is that the biomedical establishment in the West has looked at it as an answer to many solutions that they were looking for.

Literally on Medline, you have 7,000 articles on turmeric. And about 1,500 of them right now on our site show the benefits of this herb at least in pre-clinical research for 600 different diseases. And that's a lot because in our site, which is extensive, we have 3,000 ailments indexed. That's pretty much one fourth of all the disease that affects humankind. And so if turmeric, which is simpler—it's affordable. It's safe. It's wonderful. You can use it in foods. You can take it by the teaspoon—has all these benefits then what are we waiting for? So to me, turmeric is really most amazing.

Our most popular blog on the topic was titled 600 reasons turmeric may be the world's most important herb. And was shared like 80,000 times because people are looking for these natural solutions. They've even compared turmeric to thirteen different drugs. The Fluoxetine study which Prozac, it was found at least as effective as Prozac for depression. It's been found to be as effective as hydrocortisone in the animal model. It's been found to be as effective as ibuprofen in the human model. It's even been found superior pre-clinically to chemotherapy agents, which unfortunately often, as I understand, cause the death of the patient. So to me it's definitely one of the best herbs on the planet. And people really need to know more about it.

Dr. Axe: Yeah, it's incredible. And you've got so many articles here on some of the treatments with it. One of the things I've seen some research on it with is cancer. I know that this is another touchy thing that I would just love to hear your thoughts on, but I know that the cancer industry today is one of those industries that doesn't seem to like the word "natural cures." Or I don't even know how they feel about turmeric. What are your thoughts on our cancer system today and the way that they're treating cancer, versus what place do you think herbs like turmeric have in this?

Sayer Ji: That's a great question, Josh. Thank you. I mean, to me, because this has been a primary advocacy of mine is really first people need to understand that what weunderstand about cancer today is absolutely false. Meaning the way that they envisioned it for at least half a century was that it's just a bi-product of genetic mutation in the nucleus of the cell. The cell gets all deranged and goes rogue and starts replicating clonally, just making a big mess without any kind of logic.

But what we know today is that cancer is a very organized phenomenon. And it's actually something the body does in response to conditions within the cell that are natural, meaning if you introduce radiation, if we introduce chemicals that are carcinogens or you deprive the body of its optimal nutrition then the cell goes through a change in the way it behaves which is called a phenotypal change consistent with cancer.

So most people don't realize that cancer is really not so much something that just happens in the genes like some kind of genetic time bomb you inherited from bad genes from your parents. Rather it's a byproduct of the post-industrial revolution. And those cells are trying to survive.

What's most ironic about the situation is that these are cells that go through immortalization. So the cells are actually causing harm in your body because they won't die which is a very interesting fact. There are many explanations for why this happens, one of which is that it's a survival instinct. The default state of the cell is to replicate and not die. It's only later in the development of multicellular organisms that the cell decided, "Okay, well, my hair, my skin, my pancreatic cells are going to basically die at some point and be replaced by stem cells, while my germ cells, which are my sperm and if you're a woman an egg cell will live on forever."

Well, cancer basically takes back that immortality, and I think the reason is because it's being whacked by all of these factors that are so unnatural to it, that are so preventable, meaning don't ingest aspartame. Don't saturate your body with sunscreen full of petrochemicals, which are carcinogens. Don't expose yourself to unnecessary medical radiation. And guess what? Cancer probably won't emerge in your body.

So given that circumstance and that context, I think what's happening today is people are not realizing fully it's not just about trying to find natural substances to prevent cancer. It's about removing the cause. And once you remove the cause of cancer by getting back into an optimal nutrition, focusing on things like raw juices and getting rid of all the sugar, which is known to be carcinogenic, focusing on eating foods that are consistent with your own bio-individuality, your genetic background, what happens is that cancer doesn't have an environment within which it thrives. And that's really the cure is you remove the cause.

Now, given that I said that, there's always another level, which is that today there's no cognizance of this at all. And if you go into a hospital today, they literally have McDonald's set up within the hospital complex. And what they're doing is they're exposing "people with cancer" with radiation and chemotherapy, which is an intrinsically carcinogenic. And they're being faced with taking a highly toxic chemo therapeutic agent like 5-fluorouracil, which is so deadly. It's so bad that arguably the drug is actually causing the death of the cancer patient. Statistically they write it off as, "Oh, the cancer took the patient." But the chemo agents are so toxic that I think they're actually killing most of the people with cancer.

So in that circumstance, we have research on Green Med Info showing even things like pineapple core extract, which is bromelain, is more effective than 5-fluorouracil for killing and dissolving tumors. Turmeric has been shown in a number of studies to kill multi-drug resistant cancer cells. So the idea is that as we move towards a natural cure movement is people are going to start understanding that they don't need to use the conventional approaches. They have choices.

In the medical system you have a choice. You have every right to stand up and say, "You know what, doctor? I don't want to take this particular intervention." I have a right to try a natural approach." And that would include things like Gerson Therapy, using juices all day long, natural interventions, detoxification. That's certainly where I would like to see the future of medicine go.

Dr. Axe: Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. And I know one of the other things I want to mention to everybody is Sayer here has a fantastic book. In fact, what I believe to be probably the simplest but most thorough book on the natural cancer killers that are out there today. And the book is called The Cancer Killers. He co- authored that book with Dr. Ben Lerner and Dr. Charles Majors. Check it out. If you go to Amazon.com, check out The Cancer Killers.

If you or anyone you know has cancer, I couldn't recommend a book more. In fact, any time anybody is diagnosed with cancer asks me, "Hey, what do I need to do?" I just tell them, "Hey, go get the book The Cancer Killers." And so again check it out there, Amazon.com, great place to find it.

Let's talk about another herb that is in that family along with turmeric as a cancer killer along with many other health benefits. Let's talk garlic.

Sayer Ji: Yes! I love garlic! Garlic is really one of the oldest remedies known to man that has been shown to have powerful healing properties. At GreenMedInfo, I think we have 100 different diseases that have been shown to benefit from garlic. Some of the most therapeutic of all diseases that it's good for are cancer, interestingly enough. Garlic is certainly considered more of an antiseptic. But when it comes to the research itself, I think it's pretty clear that garlic is one of the biggest anti-cancer agents on the planet.

When it comes to infection, because that's what most people think about when they think of garlic—against vampires, which is a metaphor for an evil germ pathogen trying to kill us from the outside in—studies on amoeba, cholera, Clostridium, Cytomegalovirus, Helicobacter pylori, which is basically responsible for ulcers, herpes simplex, Klebsiella, MRSA, which everyone is so afraid of because it's the drug that the CDC claims is a nightmare bacteria they have no way to actually defend you from. Well, guess what?Garlic has been clinically proven to kill MRSA.

Parainfluenza virus, periodontal infection, pneumococcal infection, streptococcus mutans which causes cavities, even group B strep, which the CDC now requires all pregnant women to receive intrapartum antibiotics. This means at the moment of birth when the microbiome is being transferred over to the infant, they want to give the mother these antibiotics that prevents that implantation in the infant because they're concerned that group B strep is causing problems. Well, garlic actually kills that strain.

Then you have streptococcus pyogenes, thrush. It really goes on and on. And this is only the surface of what they've already studied. My understanding is that garlic has these essential oils that pretty much produces almost like a force field. So if you're concerned about Ebola, if you're concerned about a new type of influenza, why not just use good ole grandma's chicken soup and use the garlic? And just saturate yourself in the beautiful medicine that has been provided by our ancestors. I think the research really does support that today, Josh.

Dr. Axe: Yeah, I totally agree. I know for myself, any time over the years where I've traveled too much, not slept enough, felt like I was coming down with a cold, I'll make this mixture with garlic and apple cider vinegar. And it works. It's powerful.

Sayer Ji: Beautiful. Beautiful.

Dr. Axe: Yeah, so let's talk. We got a couple more here. One is honey. I think raw honey or Manuka honey, both forms, there are so many researched benefits. But also it's kind of used as a sweetener. But I think it's gotten this bad rap as well because it contains fructose. What are your thoughts on using honey as a form of medicine and then just as a food in general?

Sayer Ji: It's a great question. I think you're right. I think there's a misconception about honey, although it is definitely a precious commodity. And we are seeing globally the bee colony collapse phenomena, thanks in part to agrochemical corporations like Dow andMonsanto basically trading insecticidal sort of herbicides, which a side effect is that it'skilling all the bees. A lot of vegans, for example, say don't eat honey because you're taking their food from them.

There's something unique about honey. It's like milk. It's like there's two substances we know of on the planet that were produced just for food. Not for us necessarily, but for other species. And honey is one of them. But honey, when it comes to the research, just blows my mind. Like if you go on Medline, you type in the word "bee," type in the word "honey," you will get tens of thousands of studies now showing the benefits of thedifferent compounds that the hive produces.

And it extends beyond honey. Propolis, which is the mortar for the hive. You have bee venom, which interestingly enough is an incredible anti-inflammatory. It's like the homeopathic 'like cures like' concept. If it causes pain in someone who's healthy well then someone who has pain, it might help them. Royal jelly, which is actually produced exclusively for the queen bee and helps her differentiate into one, but has been shown to have powerful therapeutic effects. And then bee pollen, which has a lot of effects. Some people know it for energy and allergy.

So honey is really a complex food. And although it contains fructose, it's actually chock full with all these other oligosaccharides. And what we're learning about, which is true for milk as well especially breast milk, is these oligosaccharides contain information which literally call in different types of bacteria to populate our gut. So when you're eating honey, it actually brings in certain strains of beneficial bacteria, like lactobacillus which are coded in the information of the food to say, "Hey, come on and live within us."

And, in fact, in terms of the bee, if this midgut that's been found to be populated by beneficial bacteria that are over 60,000,000 years old in terms of their lineage. And when you eat raw honey, you sometimes actually get some of the same bacteria from those honey bees that will then populate your gut and provide benefits that go so far back in time that it really roots you back into the essence of health.

When it comes to honey's benefits, one of the interesting things is if you take aspirin—which hopefully you do not out there because turmeric, for example, is a good alternative; aspirin is very gastro ulcerative—honey actually protects against that. So if you are taking it, one integrative approach you can take is to take honey with your aspirin or even your ibuprofen.

It heals bacterial infections very effectively. You mentioned Manuka honey, which is from New Zealand. And it has a specific compound that's extracted from the Manuka flower that's been found to be extremely effective against MRSA. That's methicillin-resistant staph, the so-called flesh-eating super bug that the CDC is freaking out about. Well, hello, CDC. Please tell the public about the reality of natural flower- based remedies.

Candida, which is interesting. Most people think, "Oh, sugar feeds yeast." Well, it turns out that it has antifungal, anti-candida properties. Dental plague, a lot of new research shows actually is more effective than the chemical use in most dentistry offices, which is chloroxedine. Dermatitis, interestingly enough, if you have this flaky scalp, a new study this is human, showed that just applying honey daily basically killed and reduced the inflammation associated with that flaky scalp phenomena. A lot of people use chemicals to do that. And it doesn't always help.

Diabetic ulcer, herpes-related ulcers, meaning if you have in the corner of your mouth this weird ulcer, you can actually use honey. It goes on and on. So, honey is true medicine on the highest order possible. And I think people need to understand too, if you're getting honey, make sure it's not necessarily adultered because a lot of it they put corn syrup in today. You really want to ultimately know your local bee farmer. And get in touch with your community-supported agriculture in order to obtain a form that's not hurting the environment.

Dr. Axe: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Sayer. And I just wanted to make a few side notes here. It's amazing when you look at it and even the way you elaborated on these oligosaccharides and really supporting the growth of good bacteria in the gut.

I saw some good research on Manuka honey and the treatment of ulcers and even SIBO—small intestinal bacterial overgrowth—which was just really, really incredible. Because a lot of people think oh well, if you're doing sugar, like you said, it's going to cause candida, but not with raw honey. One of the studies you were referring to out of Texas A&M, they said seventy-seven percent of the honey that you buy in your grocery store has zero pollen.

Sayer Ji: Wow, really?

Dr. Axe: Pretty much it's been turned into corn syrup almost in terms of how bad it is.

Sayer Ji: That's terrible.

Dr. Axe: But the good news is, as you're saying, if everybody listening if you do what Sayer's suggesting, go to your local farmer's market. Meet your local Beekeepers. And get your honey there. You're going to be able to get some really good quality raw honey that's absolutely fantastic. And let's talk here one of, I think, a surprising thing for somebody, for many people, they may not have heard of this, but frankincense oil. Frankincense obviously I'm sure dated back a very long period of time. You've got a great article on your site on this. Let's talk about the number five food here, or herb that could save your life. Let's talk about some of the benefits of frankincense especially with cancer.

Sayer Ji: Yeah, it's amazing. You think of the magi who went to visit Baby Christ and obviously who were ahead of the curve. They were trying to bring gifts of healing to Jesus. And it turns out that there's a lot of research actually today on boswellia, which is one of the compounds in frankincense. People don't realize that, but when you go to your health food store and you buy boswellian capsules, that's frankincense. It's an incredible aroma. If you put it on, and you smell it and you kind of get into the olfactory dimensions of this herb, you start to recognize, wow, this is really healing and beautiful.

Well, a lot of research has accumulated. There was actually a recent study that found that it kills ovarian cancer in a way that a lot of the chemo agents don't do. It's very selective. It's able to kill just the cancer cells, whereas a lot of chemo agents out there, they basically broad spectrum kill any cell that replicates rapidly. So this is one of many compounds out there today that actually has benefit for cancer.

But the thing about frankincense is a lot of the research is actually on this broad spectrum lipooxygenase inhibitor property. So it's a LOX-2 inhibitor. And therefore is able to reduce inflammation that a lot of associate with just common aches and pains, whereas it's not a patented chemical like ibuprofen.

Which, by the way, if you take ibuprofen, there's two compounds in there. One of them is oppositely angled so that it actually contributes to cardiovascular mortality. There was aLancet study that showed the ibuprofen maybe as toxic as Vioxx, which kills more people every year than were killed in the whole duration of our conflict in Vietnam, over 50,000 a year. And the reason is because that ghost molecule was not identified until later.

So Naproxen, for example, if you're going to take a pharmaceutical, doesn't have that ghost molecule. But, hey, why even mess with the whole pharmaceutical chemist pot? Why not use a natural compound? So boswellia is one of the few things that is actually quasi-marketed for this. I mean, there's certain FTC rules that prevent you from saying this is basically an alternative. But if you go out there and you look at boswellia supplements, you'll find that it actually is marketed for inflammation and arthritis.

Dr. Axe: Wow.

Sayer Ji: And, oh, by the way, cancer is an inflammatory state, which is consistent with the concept that boswellia or frankincense would be really good for inflammation and/or cancer.

Dr. Axe: Love it, Sayer. Well, great information. I want to encourage everybody here, as well. If you want to get more information about some of the things that Sayer's talking about, check out his website: GreenMedInfo.com, amazing evidence- based research. One of the last questions I have for you here, Sayer, is do you think times are changing? Are we going to see natural cures offered in the future even as part of our medical system? What do you think?

Sayer Ji: That's a great question, Josh. Thank you. I would say absolutely because of necessity. When we look at the present pharmaceutical model, we're talking about markups of cost that are over 100,000 times, which means that it's almost like the federal reserve. They basically can still coin capital by fiat. They can just generate value from nothing because that's the basis for the global currency.

In the drug markets, the same thing applies. They take a poison. They patent it. They make all these outlandish claims. And they say basically this is worth 500,000 times what we invested into the production of it. And, of course, they have a billion dollars of clinical trials to pay off. So in some way it's justified. But the idea is that natural substances are consistent with our biological inheritance, our physiology.

And certainly the future of medicine will be acknowledging that grandma was right. If you're sick, take chicken soup. Okay, Ebola virus is hitting your neighborhood? Well, guess what? It's doubtful that a pharmaceutical intervention or vaccine is going to do anything but cause more harm. Let's start using natural compounds.

And I will encourage everyone out there to please visit Medline. You don't even have to go to GreenMedInfo. Go to the actual mother site, PubMed.gov, 23,000,000 studies that you have paid for with your taxpayer money and start doing your own little googling, your own little spelunking. If you find some good studies, email us. We'll put them on our database. But the idea is that people need to realize that the science supports the tradition. And it doesn't involve patented chemicals.

Dr. Axe: Amen. Well, I couldn't agree more. Well, guys, you've been hearing Sayer Jiand myself here talking about some of the natural cures that are out there that a lot of people aren't aware with. And if you want to go to the site that has I believe to be has the best research and evidence to support what we're talking about, something that has literally hundreds of thousands of medical references, check out GreenMedInfo.com.

And, by the way, Sayer on there has a great health newsletter. I would check out his popular articles section. He's got so many articles on there that are just surprisingly very well written, but yet meat and potatoes in terms of really going through the best overall ways to also implement some of these herbs into your health. And so again check out GreenMedInfo.com. Also his co-authored book, The Cancer Killers. You can find that there on Amazon.com.

Any last words of advice here, Sayer, for somebody who is just getting involved into this natural cures movement on ways that they can start? What are some of the first action steps you'd say for people who are saying, "Okay, I want to start using these. But I haven't done this before."

Sayer Ji: Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. I would say the number one thing I advocate for is please remove grains from your diet. And I know you do the same, Josh, which is again why we're such close colleagues and admirers of one another. And exercise. Like that's the whole point. Nutrition's great. But if you really put in the effort and you bring yourself to a peak level where you feel like you're going to die—but you're not—you're going to start experiencing regenerative phenomena in your body that will truly bring you back to the basis of your power and your ability to heal.

So I would say eliminate grains. Incorporate high-nutrient low-carb hydrated vegetables. Start getting high-quality protein sources in. In fact, a lot of the recommendations you make, Josh, I am completely in agreement with. Start incorporating more fats into your diet. Don't be afraid of them. It's really excess protein actually and excess carbohydrate that I think causes the most problem.

And also open your mind. Like start being aware that your body is a miracle. Every moment that you're alive is not being caused by the foods you're eating or not eating. It's because you're like a miracle in existence. And the body heals when you let it. And half of that at least is your mindset, just being aware that we are destined to be healthy. And we just have to stop interfering with that with negative thoughts and thinking there's some cure outside of us in pill form.

Dr. Axe: Awesome. Well, thanks, Sayer. Well, again, everybody, check out GreenMedInfo.com, the world's number one source for evidence-based natural cures, at least in my book. This has been Sayer Ji and Dr. Josh Axe here with The Natural Cures Movement. Hey, thanks, guys.

[Important Qualification: The purpose of this presentation is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure your condition. These interviews are not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult with your medical professional if you have questions. ]

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Eat Well Guide: Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals	The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, inns, and hotels, and online outlets in the United States and Canada.
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