Rather Be Healthy

Right now there’s a war raging inside your digestive tract.

Billions of “good guy” beneficial bacteria (called probiotics, which literally means “for life”) are defending you against an army of nasty pathogens.

Your total health depends upon the good guys winning the war.

But if you suffer frequent gas, bloating, constipation, and diarrhea, yo these are warning signs that your good guys are losing the war within. And fiber supplements, laxatives, acid-fighters—even common probiotics—aren’t the solution.

Recent research from the Mayo Clinic and Harvard Medical School suggests these temporary fixes could be putting your gut health at risk.

These new studies indicate these problems are being caused by a lack of enzymes in your digestive tract.

Let me explain…

Probiotics are good bacteria that live in your gut. You can get them from yogurt, pickles and even dark chocolate.

They keep Your pH levels conducive to digestion and absorption, and out of the acidic range that many less friendly bacteria and yeast thrive in. They also help ferment and absorb substances like fiber.

And they produce mucus that supports peristalsis, the muscular contraction that moves food and waste through your digestive system.

Medical evidence suggests Probiotics even help boost the immune system against illness.

But like all organisms, Probiotics don’t live forever. Taking antibiotics, drinking alcohol or eating processed foods can cause a massive probiotic die off.

As a result, you suffer gas, diarrhea, bloating and difficult digestion. That’s why it’s important to supplement with them the right way using 5 secrets I’ll tell you about in a minute.

But many people take Probiotics and still suffer…

Many people will tell you that you didn’t take enough Probiotics or the right kind. But this is not the whole story…

Here’s what’s really happening…

Research indicates that a probiotic deficiency isn’t the only deficiency causing you difficult digestion, making you fat, killing your energy, causing you pain and sending your blood sugar through the roof. In fact, you may know someone who has taken Probiotics with little or no result. Perhaps even you. Here’s the missing piece…

The Mayo Clinic: Digestive Enzymes Decrease with Age

If your favorite foods don’t agree with you anymore, your doctor may suggest ant-acids and laxatives. But that’s only treating the symptoms. If you want to get to the root of the problem, you need digestive enzymes.

Without digestive enzymes you can’t digest essential proteins, fats, carbohydrates and the minerals, vitamins or other nutrients in your food. Undigested food sits in your digestive tract leaving you bloated, gassy, constipated or suffering diarrhea and you grow weak, lose energy, age faster and grow ill.

Unfortunately, research published by the Mayo Clinic confirms enzyme production decreases with age.

Well-known enzyme researcher Dr. Edward Howell uncovered these alarming facts:

An 18-year-old naturally produces 30 times as much amylase as a 69-year-old. (Amylase is the enzyme that digests carbohydrates.)

Total enzyme production goes down about 13% with each decade.

Your enzyme production is lower still if you’re sometimes eating processed food like convenience foods at drive thru’s.

No wonder digestion keeps getting worse as you get older and health problems increase!

What’s more, enzymes are next to impossible to get from food because cooking destroys them. But you’ll never hear about any of this from your doctor.

Danica Collins

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Doctors walk out of national Obamacare implementation meeting

According to live tweets and images sent from ophthalmologist Dr. Kris Held, nearly all doctors had walked out in protest and disgust of Obamacare implementation talks at a prominent national health care meeting. Typically, The American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Government Relations session is a well attended, formal business conference where brilliant minds in medicine convene. This year was a different story. With talks of Obamacare implementation and compliance underway, doctors left and right had left the auditorium.

Dr. Kris Held tweeted during the meeting, “Doctors are literally walking out of this talk on implementing, complying with Obamacare. We are men and women of the mind not mindless drones.”

“In the past our government relations session was well attended. Government minion is droning on, as virtually all doctors have walked out.”

“I’m staying to the bitter end to make comment and ask how government plans to do all this with no doctors?”

The Obamacare penalty
Starting in 2014, consumers will be forced to purchase health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Naysayer’s noncompliance will be punished with an IRS tax penalty. The tax penalty in 2014 begins at the rate of $95 per individual or one percent of household income, whichever is greater.

When 2016 rolls around, the penalty grows to $695 per person or 2.5 percent of annual household income, whichever is greater.

Even worse, a new HealthPocket consumer survey is showing that most uninsured people will remain uninsured. Nearly two-thirds of consumers said that the $95 penalty wouldn’t motivate them to obtain health insurance. The reality is that the penalty isn’t going to motivate very many people to buy insurance in October of 2013. That being said, the Obamacare mandate is going to serve as just another tax increase, a large one at that, which will squeeze more life from the economy, driving away innovation.

Some people are completely uninformed or apathetic toward the new penalty. In the HealthPocket survey, nearly 30 percent said they were “not certain” whether the penalty will motivate them to buy health insurance. According to Kev Coleman, head of Research & Data at HealthPocket, “That uncertainty may stem from a lack of awareness that a tax penalty under Obamacare exists, or a lack of understanding of how that penalty amount will compare to the cost of a new Obamacare health plan.”

What doctors are saying about Obamacare
After practicing medicine for twenty-five years Dr. Tamzin Rosenwasser left her dermatology practice in 2011. “I have interrupted practicing medicine because of Obamacare,” said Dr. Rosenwasser. “I’ve read the bill. I was conversant with what had already happened with Medicaid, and I didn’t want to go down that road with Obamacare.”

Dr. Richard Armstrong, a Michigan-based surgeon and chief operating officer of Docs 4 Patient Care says, “Every single day, people are talking about retiring early, getting out of clinical medicine, or going into hospital administration, where you don’t have to think about patient care anymore.”

Still yet, some believe government managed health care will work, even though Medicaid is a good example of how government managed care bloats cost, herds ideas, stifles innovation, and is unsustainable for future generations.

“Some physicians are all for Obamacare,” said Dr. Rosenwasser, who had practices in Florida and Indiana. “They’ve been brought up in the government system. This is what they know.”

Most doctors are just waiting to see what happens. “About 90 percent of doctors are completely uninformed about what the government’s doing,” Dr. Armstrong said. “A lot of them are in this free-floating anxiety mode.”

The anxiety mounts
• Will doctors comply or will they walk out on this monstrous government managed system?

• Will consumers comply or will they find alternative answers?

• Will states comply or will they develop a new competitive model?

• Will naturopathic doctors be shut out of the new government controlled market place or will they rise to the occasion?

• What might the medical system look like in the United States in five years?

Sources for this article include:

http://genomega1.wordpress.com

http://www.bizpacreview.com

http://www.healthnewsdigest.com

http://www.washingtontimes.com

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Dairy Fat Found to PREVENT Artery Clogging? (Study Results)

You’ve been told that dairy fat from butter, cheese and cream CLOGS your arteries… WRONG! Studies show 3 super-nutrients in certain dairy fat found to PROTECT you from heart disease

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author of best-sellers: The Truth About Six Pack Abs & The Top 101 Foods that FIGHT Aging

For decades now, news reporters with zero nutrition education, government agencies using outdated information from the 1960’s, and well-meaning but misinformed dieticians have pounded into your head that dairy fat from butter, cream, cheese, and other full-fat dairy products is terrible for you and “CLOGS” your arteries… but what if they’ve been WRONG all along?

After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that the government, the media, and dieticians have been wrong about a nutrition topic… remember for years when everyone falsely believed that trans fat laden margarine was better for you than butter? Wow, were they ever wrong about that! And remember the years when everyone falsely believed that egg yolks were bad for you? Well, I think most of us are more educated now about that as well… At least I hope so!

Did you know that between the years 1910 to 2000, the average annual butter consumption per person in the US decreased from 18 lbs per year in 1910 to less than 4 lbs per year in 2000… Meanwhile heart disease rates between 1910 to 2000 QUADRUPLED.

Hmm… so let’s think about that for a minute…we ate almost 5x the amount of butter on average in 1910 and yet heart disease was RARE at the time. Clearly the argument that so many health “experts” make about dairy fat being “deadly” is not accurate and needs to be re-evaluated.

Let’s look at some more interesting examples…

With regards to dairy fat from butter, cheese, and cream, if you believed the media that dairy fat clogs your arteries, then why do the French stay leaner and have a much lower rate of heart disease despite a diet very high in full-fat cheese, butter, and cream compared to Americans that purposely try to reduce their butter intake and choose non-fat or reduced-fat dairy products most of the time?

Or why do the Swiss, known for their rich full-fat dairy products including lots of cheese display lower heart disease rates than Americans?

Or how about the natives of the Caucasus Mountains in Eastern Europe that routinely live to over 100 years old while drinking full-fat dairy almost daily throughout their lives in the form of Kefir?

We’ve also got the Maasai and Samburu tribes from Africa that eat a diet rich in full-fat dairy (4-5x the consumption of dairy fat on average than most Americans) and yet display robust health with a distinct lack of degenerative diseases like heart disease.

Hmm, what’s going on here?

We could go on and on with examples that show the opposite of what you’ve been told over the years about dairy fat, but the fact of the matter is that all of these “experts” that have told you to avoid dairy fat have been flat out WRONG for decades now!

The TRUTH is… studies are consistently showing that certain unique compounds in dairy fat actually PREVENT the clogging of arteries and reduce your risk of heart disease!

I’ll tell you in a second about the powerful compounds in some types of dairy fat that can help reduce your risk of heart disease, but first, please realize that if you eat a lot of inflammatory foods such as sugar, corn syrup, refined grains (wheat and corn cereals, breads, etc), artificial trans fats, refined vegetable oils (soybean oil, corn oil), etc, you will most likely still be clogging your arteries from the inflammation caused by what these foods do to your insides.

So aside from just simply observing certain cultures around the world and their dairy fat intake, what other evidence do we have that compounds found in dairy fat can actually protect you from heart disease and prevent clogging of your arteries? Well…

Studies involving 3 specific super-nutrients found in grass-fed dairy fat

Note that the 3 nutrients that I’m discussing here that help protect you from heart disease are found mostly in GRASS-FED dairy (pasture-raised) and not conventional grain-fed factory farm dairy that’s the majority of dairy found in the US. Also, realize that we’re talking about benefits from the fat portion of the dairy specifically here (yes, the cream and butterfat), so this means FULL-FAT grass-fed dairy is where the benefits will come from and NOT all of these silly skim, 0%, or 1% reduced-fat varieties of yogurts, cheeses, etc.

Note that most dairy from Europe and other parts of the world is typically grass-fed for the majority of their feed and only supplemented with smaller amounts of grain. For that reason, if you choose European cheeses, you’re generally going to get a healthier type of cheese. And if you can’t find butter or cream that’s labeled as grass-fed or pasture raised, realize that true Irish butter (Kerrygold is a good brand of Irish butter in the US) or any European butter is usually grass-fed and a better choice.

Although, as consumer awareness is increasing about the benefits of grass-fed dairy in the US, I’ve noticed that more and more US brands are offering grass-fed yogurt, cheeses, butter, cream, and kefir from small family farm operations that truly allow the cows to freely roam and forage on grass and herbs.

So let’s get to those super-nutrients found in the fat of grass-fed dairy:

Dairy Fat Super-Nutrient #1: Vitamin K2

Vitamin K1 is found in leafy greens and is definitely good for you. However, studies of vitamin K1 in relation to heart disease are neutral, meaning there’s no negative or positive response in comparing vitamin K1 and heart disease.

However, the story is quite different with vitamin K2! In one Dutch study reported in the Journal of Nutrition in 2004, people with the highest vitamin K2 consumption had a whopping 51% lower risk of heart attack mortality and a 26% lower risk of death from all causes compared to those eating the least vitamin K2! The study concluded that higher vitamin K2 consumption reduced arterial calcification.

The best sources of vitamin K2…

You guessed it: grass-fed dairy fat (butter, cream, certain cheeses), organ meats, egg yolks, and certain fermented foods that use a specific starter culture. In terms of cheeses, brie and gouda are apparently the highest in vitamin K2 due to the cultures that are used to ferment the cheese. And goose liver is extremely high in vitamin K2 as well.

Isn’t it ironic that so many health “experts” have been telling you for decades to avoid dairy fat, and yet dairy fat contains one of the most powerful compounds being studied that helps prevent arterial calcification and clogged arteries. As I always say, beware of who you trust when it comes to nutrition information!

One other important thing to note about vitamin K2…

Apparently, new research is proving what Weston Price knew all along many many years ago… in order for your body to properly utilize oral vitamin D, you need vitamin K2 as well. In many of Dr. Price’s experiments, he found that patients only had minor improvements in health parameters when given cod liver oil (a concentrated natural source of vitamin D), but when cod liver oil was combined with grass-fed butter for vitamin K2, the health improvements were significantly better, as the vitamin K2 and vitamin D worked together synergistically inside the body.

Also keep in mind that vitamin K2 is generally NOT found in multi-vitamins or other supplements, so you need to obtain it from grass-fed dairy fat or other animal foods such as egg yolks or organ meats.

For those choosing to go on a vegan diet, please realize that vitamin K2 deficiency is a very serious concern. Vitamin K2 deficiency can disrupt the balance and function that vitamin D and calcium play inside your body (causing inappropriate calcification in your body if you’re deficient in K2) and can lead to arterial calcification in vegans that ignore this important nutrient. Vitamin B12 is another important nutrient that vegans are typically extremely deficient in, and supplemental forms are not as well utilized by the body.

Dairy Fat Super-Nutrient #2: CLA (conjugated linoleic acid)

CLA is a unique type of healthy fat that’s found in the fat from grass-fed meat or dairy in ruminant animals such as sheep, goats, cows, deer, etc. In separate studies, CLA has been found to lower the risk for cancer and arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), in addition to improving fat loss.

Grass-fed dairy or meat has been found to contain 3-5x the amount of healthy CLA fats as grain-fed dairy or meat.

In one study in 2010, researchers studied the effects of consumption of a sheep’s milk pecorino cheese on atherosclerotic biomarkers (indicating risk for heart disease), and found that the dairy fat in this cheese improved the subjects markers! They concluded: “intake of the tested dairy product naturally rich in cis-9, trans-11 CLA appeared to cause favourable biochemical changes of atherosclerotic markers.”

A search of conjugated linoleic acid in relation to cancer and fat loss on pubmed also brought up dozens of positive studies showing relationship between CLA and reduced cancer risks and improved weight loss.

CLA is yet another example of an extremely healthy fat contained in dairy fat, and higher in grass-fed dairy compared to grain-fed. Yet another reason why I proclaim that most “experts” and dieticians out there telling you to choose skim or low-fat versions of yogurt, cheeses, or kefir are dead wrong. Enough with the fat-phobia! As we’re seeing, full-fat dairy can be healthier and taste better too!

Dairy Fat Super-Nutrient #3: Omega-3 Fats

I don’t think we need to go into great detail on this one, as most people are aware that omega-3 fatty acids are very important for heart health and almost every aspect of health related to inflammation with more benefits to your body than I could even list here.

And it’s no secret that pasture-raised dairy fat is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids. Just keep in mind that pasture raised dairy fat contains a MUCH better ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats than does conventional grain-fed dairy fat.

Most people already consume FAR too much omega-6 fats, and need to raise their levels of omega-3 fats. Grass-fed dairy fats can certainly help with that goal, just like fish oils do!

With everything in this article being about the health benefits of these 3 super-nutrients found in grass-fed dairy fats, are grain-fed dairy fats actually bad for you? Well, the way I see it is that the fats in grain-fed dairy are “neutral”, meaning I don’t believe they are terrible for you like hydrogenated oils are bad for you, but I wouldn’t call grain-fed dairy fats beneficial either.

Just be aware that pesticides and other harmful chemicals can accumulate in the fat portion of dairy, so if you choose to use grain-fed dairy, choosing organic is very important. On the other hand, if it’s grass-fed dairy you’re eating, it’s less important that it’s also labeled as organic since the cows will naturally be exposed to less chemicals in a pasture-raised environment.

Before we finish this article, let me also summarize my opinion of healthy vs unhealthy dairy products, since I know there’s so much confusion and misinformation about dairy out there…

Healthy Forms of Dairy with Super-Nutrients that Protect Your Health:
•Pasture-raised cream (aka, grass-fed)
•Pasture-raised butter
•Cheeses made from pasture-raised milk (European cheeses are generally grass-fed)
•Yogurt – only unsweetened, plain, or plain greek gets my vote (organic or grass-fed if possible)
•Kefir – fermented (cultured) milk with 2-10x more probiotics than yogurt. Kefir is the healthiest, most digestible form of dairy available and is known to heal many digestive problems (7 – 50 Billion probiotics per cup)
•Lassi – another form of fermented milk, Indian style, and similar to Kefir.

Unhealthy Forms of Dairy:
•Homogenized/pasteurized commercial milk – homogenized milk fat is thought to be harmful to health due to the microscopic fat particles that are formed from the homogenization processing.
•Yogurt that’s loaded with sugar or artificial sweeteners (which is most brands)
•Processed cheeses such as American cheese or cheese spreads

The bottom line…

Full-fat grass-fed dairy is NOT the “dangerous” fat that you’ve been led to believe by the media, the government, and some dieticians. As you can see in this article, there are at least 3 super-nutrients in the fat portion of dairy that are shown to PROTECT you from heart disease, as well as other health benefits.

Oh, and let’s not forget that dairy fat tastes great! I’ll take REAL cream in my coffee any day over fake coffee creamer laden with hydrogenated oil and corn syrup. I’ll take full-fat creamy yogurt over non-fat yogurt any day. I’ll enjoy a good full-fat aged cheese instead of some silly fat-free processed cheese any day too, knowing that the full-fat aged cheese actually does a body good.

I personally choose to cook with butter frequently (mixed with coconut oil many times), and I enjoy full-fat grass-fed cream whenever I drink coffee (Organic Valley has a good pasture-raised cream). I also drink full-fat Greek style Kefir most days of the week, and I enjoy all of these foods not just for their great taste, but also knowing that they only HELP protect my health.

And this daily ration of dairy fat is certainly not adding any body fat to my frame… I’m still as lean as ever. As you now know, the CLA in grass-fed dairy fat actually aids fat loss, and the healthy fats overall can help to reduce cravings, control appetite, and balance your hormones. So let’s all please stop being afraid of dairy fat, as long as you avoid that homogenized milk!

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6 Bodyweight Workout Apps for Your Phone and iPad

If you have a smartphone or tablet, you’ve probably already mastered how to use it for helping you stay organized, keep in touch with friends and work contacts, listen to music and watch videos… but have you harnessed its ability to help keep you fit?

Technology can, in fact, be a great ally in your quest for optimal health, and one area where it excels is in apps for fitness.

The great beauty of these apps is that they allow you to have personal trainers, exercise images and entire fitness programs right at your fingertips, so you can take control of your health.

Better still, the six apps that follow, highlighted in the featured article, involve using your bodyweight for strength training. This means you can strengthen and tone your muscles virtually anywhere, with no fancy exercise equipment or gym membership required.

6 Bodyweight Workout Apps

1.You are Your Own Gym ($2.99)

With over 200 video demonstrations and quick workout options, this app lets you craft a customized workout for your skill level. You can either build a workout from scratch or pick from their quick workouts, which have 81 different combinations per difficulty level.
2.500 Bodyweight Challenge (Free)

This app has videos with exercise demonstrations along with challenges designed to, well, challenge you. For instance, one challenge will have you complete 50 jump squats in seven minutes. The user interface is clean and simple, allowing you to focus clearly on your workouts.
3.Gorilla Workout ($0.99)

Gorilla Workout, which was named the iPad Health & Fitness app of the year by Apple, has 175 different bodyweight workouts with 40+ unique exercises. You can choose from four different fitness levels along with signature workouts to get fit. Every exercise also has real-life video and text descriptions.
4.Boot Camp Challenge ($3.99)

Get lean, strong and fit with Boot Camp Challenge. It features over 200 exercises and beginner to advanced routines. Plus, it has beat-sync technology, which means it will match the tempo of your music to your workout.
5.Fitness Trainer HD ($1.99)

With over 450 exercises (more than 10 of which are bodyweight or home-based), Fitness Trainer HD has a workout for everyone. Each exercise has video and photo instructions, along with how-to tips.
6.Sworkit Pro (Free)

This app provides randomized circuit training workouts that you can do anywhere. You choose the length of your workout and the area of your body you want to focus on (such as upper body, core, cardio, full body or stretching), and Sworkit designs a customized routine instantly.

Four More of My Favorite Fitness Apps

Many of you know that I have a passion for technology in addition to health, so health apps, which combine the two, are invaluable to a “gadget geek” like me. I have scanned many thousands of articles and downloaded several hundred applications, and the app suggestions that follow are among those I consider to be quite valuable.

1.MyFitnessPal

By far one of my favorite apps, this free app lets you track your activity and food/caloric intake using an activity log and food diary. The food calorie portion is one of the best pieces of software out there to record and keep track of your food macronutrients. I use this app nearly every day to record my food intake and help me keep track of my macronutrient ratios. It’s an incredibly easy way to monitor your food intake without a lot of fuss.

MyFitnessPal has an easy to use interface that allows you to access about 1 million food items in its database, plus you can also add your own foods and recipes at any time and access them from anywhere with an Internet connection. Once you enter new food nutritional information, it will be there for you the next time you need it.

I really love this app as it quickly and easily allows you to see the number of grams of carbs, fats and protein you’re eating. I consider myself fairly sophisticated nutritionally, but I was really shocked when I found out what the actual numbers were. This is a very powerful tool and best of all it is free.
2.Fitness Builder

For keeping track of your workouts this is my favorite app. I don’t use MyFitnessPal to record my workouts, I use this app. There are loads of exercise applications on the Net but Fitness Builder, in my experience, is the most comprehensive fitness database in the world.

It contains the largest library of exercise images and videos, the most challenging workouts across all disciplines, access to a live personal trainer and a complete set of every fitness tool, and a calculator and tracking features are available. Most all of the apps I have are free, but this one costs $10 for the base version and it is worth every penny if you use it, as it helps you keep incredible records for your workouts.
3.Nike+ Running and RunKeeper

If you love running or jogging, these apps let you map out runs, monitor your distance and speed, and even track calories burned. It will even track your location as you run using GPS, and lets you share goals and run information with those on your social networks. RunKeeper also lets you keep and compare activity stats, set goals and offers customizable training plans and voice coaching.
4.Endomondo Sports Tracker

Another free app, this one is like having your very own personal trainer available at your fingertips. Along with the “usual” ability to track your heart rate, calories, speed, and distance during a workout, a built in GPS tracks your route on a map. Plus, when you enter your goals, an audio coach will give you feedback while you exercising to keep you motivated, and you can also share your workouts with friends and even track the workouts of your friends in real time.

A Word About Cell Phone Safety

Some of you may be wondering why I’m writing an article about apps for a smartphone or tablet, when I’ve previously written about the dangers of wireless technology. Cell phone use has been found to alter your brain, contribute to tumor development and cause numerous other health problems, and for this reason I suggest you limit your use of these devices, especially when it involves holding the device near your head or storing it near any other bodily area.

That said, when using fitness apps, the phone or tablet can be kept in airplane mode to minimize any wireless EMF exposure and you can still access the amazing computer power. Remember your smartphone is more powerful than the fastest supercomputer in the world when I purchased my first computer in 1985.

Last year, for the first time ever, people in the US spent more time on mobile apps than they did on the Internet.1 The Internet is being progressively relegated to a background infrastructure that allows people to access data through apps with an elegant user interface. This is shockingly remarkable when you consider that mobile apps have only been around for several years, but it’s also indicative of a technology that’s likely here to stay.

You can certainly get fit without a smartphone. But many of you reading this already have and use smartphones and tablets. What you may not have access to is a gym, personal trainer or any type of exercise equipment. For little or no cost, you can access countless workouts via these apps, allowing you to get a fabulous workout you may not have otherwise had, which is one of the most productive, and least dangerous, uses for these devices.

So the purpose of sharing these apps is to help you harness technology (technology that most of you are likely already using) in a positive way that can change your health for the better when used in this manner. For more information, please see my guidelines for safe cell phone use.

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Provocative new research involving data from nearly 3 million adults suggests that a having an overweight body mass index (BMI) may be linked to a longer life than one that puts you within a “normal” weight range.

The research, which analyzed 97 studies in all, found that people with BMIs under 30 but above normal (the overweight range) had a 6 percent lower risk of dying from all causes than those who were normal weight, while those whose BMIs fell into the obese range were 18 percent more likely to die of any cause.1 The researchers wrote:

“Relative to normal weight … overweight was associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality.”

Do a Few Extra Pounds Make You Healthier?

The study results imply, at least superficially, that carrying some extra weight may help you live longer … or at the very least may not be as unhealthy as it’s made out to be. In a JAMA editorial, Steven Heymsfield, M.D. and William Cefalu, M.D. highlighted this notion:2

“The presence of a wasting disease, heart disease, diabetes, renal dialysis, or older age are all associated with an inverse relationship between BMI and mortality rate, an observation termed the obesity paradox or reverse epidemiology.

The optimal BMI linked with lowest mortality in patients with chronic disease may be within the overweight and obesity range.

Even in the absence of chronic disease, small excess amounts of adipose tissue may provide needed energy reserves during acute catabolic illnesses, have beneficial mechanical effects with some types of traumatic injuries, and convey other salutary effects that need to be investigated in light of the studies … ”

Indeed, it is quite possible to be overweight and healthy, just as it’s possible to be normal weight and unhealthy. But for the vast majority of those who carry around extra pounds, health problems will often result.

The study has been heavily criticized for painting an overly simplistic picture of a very complex situation. For instance, it doesn’t tell you whether those living longer were afflicted with more chronic disease or whether their quality of life was otherwise impacted. And even more importantly, it used only BMI as a measure of body composition, and this is a highly flawed technique.

Many studies, such as one published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology,3 have actually found that a high BMI was associated with a lower risk of death, a phenomenon known as the “obesity paradox.” But these findings are typically only examples of how BMI is such a flawed measurement tool …

Why BMI is a Flawed Measurement Tool

If you’d like to know how much body fat you have and whether or not your levels put you into a weight category that might lead to health problems, most public health agencies, and therefore most physicians, promote the use of the BMI, which gauges weight in relation to height. But this method is quite flawed, as research suggests it may underestimate obesity rates and misclassify up to one-quarter of men and nearly half of women.4 According to lead author Dr. Eric Braverman, president of the nonprofit Path Foundation in New York City:5

“Based on BMI, about one-third of Americans are considered obese, but when other methods of measuring obesity are used, that number may be closer to 60%.”

One of the primary reasons why BMI is such a flawed measurement tool is that it uses weight as a measure of risk, when it is actually a high percentage of body fat that makes a person have an increased disease risk. Your weight takes into account your bone structure, for instance, so a big-boned person may weigh more, but that certainly doesn’t mean they have more body fat.

Athletes and completely out-of-shape people can also have similar BMI scores, or a very muscular person could be classified as “obese” using BMI, when in reality it is mostly lean muscle accounting for their higher-than-average weight. BMI also tells you nothing about where fat is located in your body, and it appears that the location of the fat, particularly if it’s around your stomach, is more important than the absolute amount of fat when it comes to measuring certain health risks, especially heart disease.

Do You Know Your Body Fat Percentage?

This is another useful tool that is leaps and bounds ahead of BMI as far as gauging your weight-related health risks is concerned. It is FAR better to monitor your body fat percentage than it is your total weight, as the body fat percentage is what dictates metabolic health or dysfunction – not your total weight.

Too much body fat is linked to chronic health problems like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, while too little body fat is also problematic and can cause your body to enter a catabolic state, where muscle protein is used as fuel.

Body fat calipers are one of the most trusted and most accurate ways to measure body fat. A body fat or skinfold caliper is a lightweight, hand-held device that quickly and easily measures the thickness of a fold of your skin with its underlying layer of fat. Taken at three very specific locations on your body, these readings can help you estimate the total percent of body fat within your entire body.

You can also use a digital scale that determines body fat, which is what I use personally. I use an Eat Smart Precision GetFit Body Fat Scale that I picked up from Amazon for around $50. Although many body fat measurements can be inaccurate, they are nearly all more accurate than BMI, and are particularly useful to determine whether you are gaining or losing fat. Although the absolute value may be off, the direction you are going (whether your body fat is going up or down) will be very accurate, and this is an incredibly useful measure of whether you’re nearing your health goals or not. A general guideline from the American Council on Exercise is as follows:6

Classification

Women (percent fat)

Men (percent fat)

Essential Fat

10-13 percent

2-5 percent

Athletes

14-20 percent

6-13 percent

Fitness

21-24 percent

14-17 percent

Acceptable

25-31 percent

18-24 percent

Obese

32 percent and higher

25 percent and higher

Overweight Often Leads to Obesity…

It is quite clear that the more overweight you are, the greater the health risks become. So even if it were true that a few extra pounds are actually good for you, if you’re on a path of weight gain you’re on a slippery slope that could easily lead to obesity.

The most recent health report card issued for the United States predicts that half of all American adults will be obese by 2030. Obesity-related illness is predicted to raise national health care costs by $48 billion annually over the next two decades by adding another 7.9 million new cases of diabetes, 5 million cases of chronic heart disease and stroke, and 400,000 cancer cases…7 If you want to avoid becoming one of these statistics, I suggest you start to look at your weight as less a product of “calories in vs. calories out” and more the result of a faulty “fat switch.” According to Dr. Richard Johnson of the University of Colorado, author of The Fat Switch:

“Those of us who are obese eat more because of a faulty ‘switch’ and exercise less because of a low energy state. If you can learn how to control the specific ‘switch’ located in the powerhouse of each of your cells – the mitochondria – you hold the key to fighting obesity.”

Here are some highlights that Dr. Johnson explains in detail in his book:
•Large portions of food and too little exercise are the result of your fat switch being turned on
•Metabolic Syndrome is the normal condition that animals undertake to store fat
•Fructose-containing sugars cause obesity not by calories but by turning on the fat switch
•Effective treatment of obesity requires turning off your fat switch and improving the function of your cells’ mitochondria

I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book, which has been described as the “Holy Grail” for those struggling with their weight. Dietary sugar, especially fructose, is a significant “tripper of your fat switch,” which is why, if you are serious about losing weight, you’ll need a comprehensive plan that includes:
•Eliminating or strictly limiting fructose in your diet, and following the healthy eating program in my comprehensive nutrition plan. You can also use intermittent fasting strategically with this program to greatly boost your body’s fat-burning potential.
•Engaging in high-intensity Peak Fitness exercise to burn fat and increase muscle mass (a natural fat burner).
•Addressing the emotional component of eating. For this I highly recommend the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which helps eliminate your food cravings naturally.

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Top 10 most unhealthy, cancer-causing foods – never eat these again!

The statement “everything causes cancer” has become a popular hyperbole, and one that some people use as rhetorical fodder to excuse their own dietary and lifestyle failures, particularly as they pertain to cancer risk. But the truth of the matter is that many common food items have, indeed, been scientifically shown to increase cancer risk, and some of them substantially. Here are 10 of the most unhealthy, cancer-causing foods that you should never eat again:

1) Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). It goes without saying that GMOs have no legitimate place in any cancer-free diet, especially now that both GMOs and the chemicals used to grow them have been shown to cause rapid tumor growth. But GMOs are everywhere, including in most food derivatives made from conventional corn, soybeans, and canola. However, you can avoid them by sticking with certified organic, certified non-GMO verified, and locally-grown foods that are produced naturally without biotechnology (http://www.naturalnews.com).

2) Processed meats. Most processed meat products, including lunch meats, bacon, sausage, and hot dogs, contain chemical preservatives that make them appear fresh and appealing, but that can also cause cancer. Both sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate have been linked to significantly increasing the risk of colon and other forms of cancer, so be sure to choose only uncured meat products made without nitrates, and preferably from grass-fed sources (http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/processedmeat050305.cfm).

3) Microwave popcorn. They might be convenient, but those bags of microwave popcorn are lined with chemicals that are linked to causing not only infertility but also liver, testicular, and pancreatic cancers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognizes the perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in microwave popcorn bag linings as “likely” carcinogenic, and several independent studies have linked the chemical to causing tumors. Similarly, the diacetyl chemical used in the popcorn itself is linked to causing both lung damage and cancer (http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400701/Microwave-Popcorn-Threat.html).

4) Soda pop. Like processed meats, soda pop has been shown to cause cancer as well. Loaded with sugar, food chemicals, and colorings, soda pop acidifies the body and literally feeds cancer cells. Common soda pop chemicals like caramel color and its derivative 4-methylimidazole (4-MI) have also specifically been linked to causing cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/031383_caramel_coloring_cola.html).

5) ‘Diet’ foods, beverages. Even worse than conventional sugar-sweetened soda pop, though, is “diet” soda pop and various other diet beverages and foods. A recent scientific review issued by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) of more than 20 separate research studies found that aspartame, one of the most common artificial sweeteners, causes a range of illnesses including birth defects and cancer. Sucralose (Splenda), saccharin and various other artificial sweeteners have also been linked to causing cancer (http://www.dailymail.co.uk).

6) Refined ‘white’ flours. Refined flour is a common ingredient in processed foods, but its excess carbohydrate content is a serious cause for concern. A study published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Mile Markers, and Prevention found that regular consumption of refined carbohydrates was linked to a 220 percent increase in breast cancer among women. High-glycemic foods in general have also been shown to rapidly raise blood sugar levels in the body, which directly feeds cancer cell growth and spread (http://www.naturalnews.com/001812_cancer_prevention.html).

7) Refined sugars. The same goes for refined sugars, which tend to rapidly spike insulin levels and feed the growth of cancer cells. Fructose-rich sweeteners like high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) are particularly offensive, as cancer cells have been shown to quickly and easily metabolize them in order to proliferate. And since cookies, cakes, pies, sodas, juices, sauces, cereals, and many other popular, mostly processed, food items are loaded with HFCS and other refined sugars, this helps explain why cancer rates are on the rise these days (http://www.naturalnews.com/038071_cancer_sugar_sweets.html).

8) Conventional apples, grapes, and other ‘dirty’ fruits. Many people think they are eating healthy when they buy apples, grapes, or strawberries from the store. But unless these fruits are organic or verified to be pesticide-free, they could be a major cancer risk. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that up to 98 percent of all conventional produce, and particularly the type found on its “dirty” fruits list, is contaminated with cancer-causing pesticides (http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/list/).

9) Farmed salmon. Farmed salmon is another high-risk cancer food, according to Dr. David Carpenter, Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany. According to his assessment, farmed salmon not only lacks vitamin D, but it is often contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), flame retardants, pesticides, and antibiotics (http://www.albany.edu/ihe/salmonstudy/pressrelease.html).

10) Hydrogenated oils. They are commonly used to preserve processed foods and keep them shelf-stable. But hydrogenated oils alter the structure and flexibility of cell membranes throughout the body, which can lead to a host of debilitating diseases such as cancer. Some manufacturers are phasing out the use of hydrogenated oils and replacing them with palm oil and other safer alternatives, but trans fats are still widely used in processed foods (http://www.naturalnews.com/010095_hydrogenated_oils_unhealthy.html).

Sources for this article include:

http://www.care2.com

http://www.naturalnews.com/021808_cancer_prevention.html

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What you should know about cinnamon and how it can help you

Cinnamon, which is generally an appreciated spice for its good taste when added to certain foods, definitely seems to have much more going in its favor than simply pleasing your taste buds. It’s a potent anti-bacterial and anti-fungal medicinal herb offering many advantages to the human body.

Cinnamon is from the lauracae family and its popular name is laurus cinnamomum. We utilize the bark that grows in the evergreen trees which reach 20 to 30 feet on average and are located in remote areas such as Malabar, Cochin-China, Sumatra and the Eastern Islands, amongst other places. Cinnamon has been cultivated for a very long time and its therapeutic aid was no secret to many ancient civilizations, going far back in time.

The bark’s essential oils mainly have three active components which trigger specific healing abilities. These active components are called cinnamaldehyde, cinnamyl acetate and cinnamyl alcohol. These particular components directly account for cinnamon’s various health benefits, but more specifically, its anti-clotting actions in the blood, its anti-microbial activity in the body and also its stabilizing effect on blood sugar levels.

Cinnamon’s assistance to certain health conditions
We know that the clumping of blood platelets is a normal process in order to prevent continuous bleeding, but problems may arise if these platelets excessively clump together. The cinnamaldehyde found in cinnamon prevents the disproportionate clotting in the blood by restricting the delivery of an inflammatory fatty acid from platelet membranes, named arachidonic acid. Besides the anti-clotting action, the result of this chemical process shows that cinnamon has the ability to reduce inflammation therefore it can also be seen as an anti-inflammatory herb.

Cinnamon has shown to be a very potent anti-microbial spice. It has the capacity to inhibit the formation and proliferation of bacteria, yeast, fungi matter and mainly what is called candida albicans. Some tests have revealed that in many cases, cinnamon was more efficient at halting the spread of yeast, than the commonly used medical agent called fluconazole. Based on a study which was published in the August 2003 paper of the International Journal of Food Microbiology, there are valid reasons to believe that cinnamon may also be used as a legitimate alternative to food preservatives. The study showed that only a few drops of cinnamon’s essential oils, added to around 3 ounces of carrot broth, prevented the development of a pathogen called bacillus cereus for a period of at least 60 days. In comparison, when the broth was left in a cold environment but without adding cinnamon oils to it, the pathogens started expanding.

Cinnamon’s normalizing effect on blood sugar levels can help people with type 2 diabetes, as it enhances a positive response to insulin. A report presented by the US Agricultural Research Service, showed that with as little as half a teaspoon of cinnamon each day, participants in the study were able to show an average reduction of 20% in their blood sugar levels. The moment cinnamon doses stopped being administered on a daily basis, the sugar levels in their blood raised immediately.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.herbsguide.net/cinnamon.html

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=68

http://www.asianonlinerecipes.com/herbs-health/cinnamon.php

About the author:
After spending several years working in property management and being a web consultant for PS Communications, P. Simard is now on his way to becoming a naturopath in the province of Quebec. Always searching for the truth with an open mind, his innate passion for knowledge and overall health matters has finally led him to Natural News.

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The H7N9 bird flu strain is on the rise, having already killed 22 people in China while infecting 108. That’s a kill rate of 20% — among the highest ever witnessed in a bird flu strain. It has also spread outside of China, infecting a Taiwan national who brought the infection back to Taiwan and now rests in critical condition in a Taiwan hospital.

Health authorities in the region haven’t yet said this strain of bird flu has achieved human-to-human transmission, but it seems increasingly likely that such a trait either already exists or will develop very quickly. That’s because the virus has been spreading among chickens without any symptoms showing. It doesn’t make the chickens sick, in other words, allowing chickens to be “stealth carriers” of a virus that can easily leap to unsuspecting humans.

H7N9 is a “triple reassortment” virus that combines genetic code from three different flu virus strains. This makes it “…one of the most lethal influenza viruses that we’ve seen so far,” said Keiji Fukuda, the assistant director-general for health security with the World Health Organization. “This is an unusually dangerous virus for humans.”

Because the virus can quietly spread among non-symptomatic chickens, hundreds more people have almost certainly already been infected with it. In the coming weeks, we will likely see yet more victims hospitalized and killed by H7N9.

Human-to-human transmission already achieved?
As Yahoo News reports, WHO’s China representative Michael O’Leary has released figures showing that half the people infected with H7N9 had no contact with poultry.

If true, this would be strong evidence that H7N9 has already achieved “human-to-human transmission,” turning it into a “nightmare influenza” that might already be spreading across the population. That status is not proven yet, however, and more observation is needed before such a conclusion could be substantiated.

“If H7N9 were to stably adapt to humans, it would probably meet with little or no human immunity,” writes Peter Horby from Nature.com. “Detecting and tracking a partially human-adapted H7N9 virus in a city as vast as Shanghai or Beijing would be difficult; tracking a fully adapted virus would be impossible. And it could easily spread nationally and internationally. Eastern China is now one of the most ‘connected’ population centers in the world. Seventy per cent of the global population outside China lives within two hours of an airport linked to the outbreak regions by a direct flight or a single connection (see go.nature.com/tvfev8). Travel restrictions or border screening will not contain pandemic influenza for long.”

Beware of the vaccine hype
Of course, we all have a right to be skeptical about any bird flu fear mongering. We know that both the WHO and the CDC routinely hype infectious disease for the primary purpose of pushing vaccine sales.

The WHO famously declared a “stage six pandemic” in the last influenza outbreak, and only later did we learn that most of the decision makers at WHO were receiving financial kickbacks from vaccine manufacturers.

For all we know, in fact, it’s the vaccine companies that are actually developing and releasing these bioweapons in China in order to sell more vaccines. That exact scenario has already been described by a Chinese colonel…

Is H7N9 a U.S. government bioweapon?
Colonel Dai Xu of the People’s Liberation Army said in early April that H7N9 was a bio-psychological weapon engineered by western powers and released in China in order to destabilize the region. His comments were dismissed by the Chinese government, but behind the scenes many people think he may be correct.

We already know, for example, that the U.S. Army routinely works on developing deadly new strains of influenza as part of its bioweapons research. This is not disputed. It’s also true that bioweapons have gone missing from U.S. government laboratories, including the Galveston National Laboratory in Texas.

So the idea that a biological weapon developed by the U.S. government might find its way to China is not as far-fetched as it might first seem.

There’s also the fact that the U.S. and China are already at war in many covert ways. China routinely steals U.S. military secrets, for example, and the U.S. is openly engaged in an aggressive currency war that’s hurting China. Meanwhile, China is playing “debt war games” with America’s debt holdings, even while the U.S. is eroding the value of that debt through a process of currency creation via the Fed.

There’s a lot more going on behind the scenes than you’ll ever find reported on CNN, and the idea that this may have entered the realm of bioweapons isn’t unreasonable. Besides, a pandemic also serves the interests of the state, because any time there’s a panic, most people instinctively look to government to save them.

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Children today receive more than 12 times as many vaccine doses than in 1940

It is a fact that children today are far less able and free to develop their own natural immunity through proper nutrition and normal childhood development. This is due to the fact that the vast majority of them, at least in the industrialized world, are bombarded with an obscene onslaught of vaccines before they are even old enough to attend kindergarten. Data compiled by the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) reveals that children today receive as many as 49 doses of 14 vaccines before they reach age six, which is roughly 12 times higher than the number of vaccines administered to children back in 1940.

Since 1995, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued yearly revisions to its official childhood immunization schedule, typically adding an increasing amount of vaccines to every new revision. Prior to 1995, CDC issued only periodic updates to its official vaccine schedule, which were typically released every five or six years. But in recent years, the number and frequency of vaccines on the yearly-revised schedule has increased dramatically, as have the number of combination, or multivalent, vaccines being recommended for children.

“Our children are among the most highly vaccinated children in the world, and they are among the most chronically ill and disabled,” explains NVIC in a powerful infographic outlining the current vaccine schedule. “Today, the Centers for Disease Control admits that 1 child in 6 in America is developmentally delayed. During the past quarter century, the number of children with learning disabilities, ADHD, asthma and diabetes has more than tripled … (and) the number of doses of vaccines that pediatricians give babies and children under age 6 has more than doubled.”

Dramatic rise in brain injuries, neurological damage linked to uptick in vaccines
Interestingly, twice as many children today also suffer from chronic brain and immune system dysfunction compared to the number of children in the 1970s, when roughly half as many vaccines were administered to young children. And the overall percentage of brain-injured children in the 1940s was lower still, as only a few primary vaccines were administered to children at that time. The close connection between the rise in the number of vaccines on the vaccine schedule and the number of brain-injured and neurologically-impaired children, in other words, is difficult to deny, and represents a serious cause for concern.

“Vaccine excipients or ingredients in trace or larger amounts depending on specific vaccine (include) lab altered viruses and bacteria; aluminum; mercury; formaldehyde; phenoxyethanol; gluteraldehyde; sodium borate; sodium chloride; sodium acetate; monosodium glutamate (MSG); hydrochloric acid; hydrogen peroxide; lactose; gelatin; yeast protein; egg albumin; bovine and human serum albumin; antibiotics; (and other) unidentified contaminants,” adds the NVIC infographic.

Not only are these detrimental vaccine ingredients a cause for concern, but many of today’s vaccines are also given in multiple doses and all at the same time, which was never the case during the 1980s and prior. Children typically received only one, and maybe two, vaccinations during a single visit, and came back on subsequent days to receive the others. Today, however, children sometimes receive up to five vaccinations during a single doctor visit, which exposes them to exponentially higher levels of toxic vaccine components.

You can view the complete NVIC infographic covering the CDC childhood vaccine schedule here:

http://www.nvic.org/downloads/49-doses-posterb.aspx

You can also view an infographic created by the group Proud Parents of Unvaccinated Children here:

http://doublethink.us.com

Sources for this article include:

http://www.nvic.org/downloads/49-doses-posterb.aspx

http://doublethink.us.com

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/past.html

http://www.naturalnews.com

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Government-funded medical experiments on babies risked blindness and death, over 23 prestigious universities involved

In a sick experiment on humans that eerily resembles the horrors of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, which involved deliberately infecting hundreds of black men with sexually-transmitted diseases between 1932 and 1972, a cohort of researchers from at least 23 prestigious American universities is the center of a new controversy involving medical experimentation on premature babies. According to The New York Times (NYT), parents who allowed their children to participate in a recent oxygen study were not properly informed about the serious risks involved.

These risks included blindness and death, both of which are common particularly among premature babies when the oxygen levels they breathe are either too low or too high. But the orchestrators of taxpayer-funded research involving both the deprivation and over-administration of oxygen to premature babies failed to disclose the severity of these risks to the babies’ parents, which ended up coming as a surprise in the form of eye disease and early mortality. And a prominent government agency whose purpose it is to protect research participants from harm agrees.

“[T]here is significant evidence from past research indicating that the oxygen provided to an infant can have an important effect on many outcomes including whether the infant becomes blind, develops a serious brain injury or even possibly whether the infant dies,” explains the U.S. Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) in a recent letter. The risks associated with participating in the trial, the agency adds, “were not the same as those receiving standard care.”

Stanford, Duke, Yale and many others appear to have violated federal informed consent laws
The study in question took place between 2004 and 2009, and involved 1,300 infant participants, all of whom were born early at a time between 24 and 27 weeks of gestation. These high-risk participants were assigned to either high- or low-oxygen treatment groups, and were subjected to said treatments for observation purposes. The results of the study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) in 2010.

But after hundreds of babies died or developed eye disease, parents and others decided to take a closer look at the consent forms issued in conjunction with the study. It was determined, upon investigation, that the consent forms failed to mention either blindness or death as a possible outcome for infant participants, and instead only mentioned very minor risks such as abrasion to infants’ skin that may occur as a result of being hooked up to an oxygen monitoring device. Worse, the same consent forms actually alleged that infant participants could derive health benefits from the treatments, including a lowered risk of needing eye surgery in the future.

“[I]t [is] well recognized that changing a premature infant’s amount of exposure to oxygen could have an impact on a number of important health outcomes, including the development of severe eye disease (and possibly blindness); reduced neurologic[al] development, including brain damage; chronic lung disease; and could even lead to death,” adds the OHRP letter, noting that none of these risks were plainly disclosed in the study’s consent forms.

You can read the complete OHRP letter here:
http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/detrm_letrs/YR13/mar13a.pdf

As pointed out by many commenters on the NYT article, OHRP’s active response to this blatant violation of federal informed consent requirements contrasts with its complacency in addressing the nationwide experiment involving electronic medical records. Such devices are now being widely used despite having never received approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which means they are in clear violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C).

Sources for this article include:

http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/detrm_letrs/YR13/mar13a.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16322178

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