Rather Be Healthy

How Turning the Food Pyramid on Its Head Can Help You “Slim Down Without Trying”

Presently, a full two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, and childhood obesity has tripled over the past 30 years.

While the American agricultural system may be the envy of many less affluent nations, it also has many unintended consequences, as Jennnings points out. One of them is a food system that promotes cheap food largely devoid of nutrients and chockfull of unhealthy ingredients that has caused obesity rates to skyrocket.

If you’re like most people, you probably do not know that there is NO link between agricultural subsidies and nutrition. This important fact is revealed in Jennings report, and this is a major part of the problem.

Directly related to this issue is the fact that the government’s nutritional guidelines are in large part mirrored by these same agricultural subsidies, rather than being built upon sound nutritional science.

The original food pyramid created and promoted by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), told you that the “base” of your diet should consist of grains, pasta and breads, despite the evidence showing that grains, which break down into sugar in your body, promotes fat accumulation and drives insulin resistance and related diseases, including diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

In short, the reason you’re told to make grains the cornerstone of your diet is because that’s what farmers are paid to grow in the US. There’s a lot of it, and it’s inexpensive compared to healthier foods like vegetables, for which few subsidies are offered.

Conventional Farming Promotes Consumption of Unhealthy Foods

There’s no denying the fact that modern agricultural practices promote the consumption of an unhealthy diet. Today’s sky-high rates of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease can be tied directly to changes in how our food has been grown and produced over the past 40 years.

According to the Environmental Working Group1 (EWG), between 1995 and 2010, a mere 10 percent of American farmers collected 74 percent of all subsidies, amounting to nearly $166 billion over 16 years.

These farm subsidies bring you high-fructose corn syrup, fast food, animal factories, monoculture, and a host of other contributors to our unhealthful contemporary diet.

A report comparing federal subsidies of fresh produce and junk food, prepared by US PIRG, a non-profit organization that takes on special interests on behalf of the public, revealed where your tax dollars are really going and it’s quite shocking: If you were to receive an annual federal subsidy directly, you would receive $7.36 to spend on junk food and just 11 cents to buy apples.

Equally astounding is the following statistic gleaned from a recent interview with Michael Pollan,2 in which he points out that according to USDA data, 92 cents of each food dollar now goes to someone other than the farmer—it’s actually spent on the various manufacturing and packaging processes associated with processed foods.

“We’re not going to undo that unless we buy more directly from farmers and buy unprocessed food,” he says.

And I think that’s a crucial point, really. Imagine if food growers could get most or all of each food dollar instead of it being spent on plastic wrappers and food processing! Then they might actually be able to afford growing something other than corn, soy and wheat, which are three of the unhealthiest staples of the processed food industry…

Following USDA Diet Recommendations Is a Recipe for Obesity

Some of you may be old enough to recall the 1992 Food Pyramid, which had grains as the largest bottom block of the pyramid, encouraging you to eat 6-11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta each day. This excess of carbohydrates, most of them refined, is precisely the opposite of what most people need to stay healthy. At the very top of the pyramid was fats and sugar, and while sugar clearly belongs there, healthy fats do not. In fact, most people would benefit from getting anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of their total calories from healthy fats!

The food pyramid was replaced with “MyPlate”3 in 2011, which slightly downplayed grains as the most important dietary ingredient, making vegetables the largest “slice,” but it still has a long way to go before it will offer a meal plan that will truly support your optimal health.

One of its most glaring faults is that MyPlate virtually removed all fats from the equation! In fact, except for a small portion of dairy, which is advised to be fat-free or low-fat, fats are missing entirely… There is no mention of the importance of dietary fats, even the “politically correct” ones like the monounsaturated fats in olive oil and nuts, such as pecans (canola oil is also in this category, but I advise avoiding it and using coconut oil instead).

Of course, one of the most important of the healthy fats is animal-based omega-3, which is also absent from the plate. Deficiency in this essential fat can cause or contribute to very serious health problems, both mental and physical, and may be a significant underlying factor of up to 96,000 premature deaths each year. For more information about omega-3’s and the best sources of this fat, please review this previous article.

Not surprisingly, the US government still has not acknowledged the ever mounting data showing that saturated fat is actually an incredibly healthy, nourishing, and all-natural fat that humans have been thriving on for generations. It provides the necessary building blocks for your cell membranes and a variety of hormones and hormone like substances that are critical to your health. Saturated fats from animal and vegetable sources (such as coconut oil, avocado, non-CAFO meat and dairy, also provide a concentrated source of energy in your diet.

When you eat fats as part of your meal, they also slow down absorption so that you can feel satiated longer, which helps curb overeating. In addition, they act as carriers for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, and are needed for mineral absorption and a host of other biological processes. To get these healthy saturated fats in your diet, you need to eat animal foods like butter and other full-fat raw dairy products and eggs, yet these foods are still demonized by the establishment.

What a Food Pyramid Based on Nutritional Science Really Looks Like

In an effort to remedy the situation, I’ve created my own food pyramid for optimal health (below), which you can print out and share with your friends and family. My pyramid, which is based on nutritional science opposed to agricultural subsidies and industry lobbying efforts, is almost the inverse of the original USDA food pyramid, featuring healthful fats and vegetables on the bottom. Again, most people would benefit from getting at least 50 percent of your daily calories from healthful fats such as avocados, coconut oil, nuts, and raw butter. In terms of bulk or quantity, vegetables should be the most prominent feature on your plate. Veggies provide countless critical nutrients, while being sparse on calories.

Next comes high quality proteins, followed by a moderate amount of fruits, and lastly, at the very top, you’ll find grains and sugars. This last top tier of sugars and grains can be eliminated entirely, and your health just might become the envy of everyone around you… While this may sound impossible to some, I can attest to the fact that quitting carbs is doable. In fact, once you’ve successfully switched over from burning carbs to burning fat as your body’s primary fuel, carb cravings actually disappear, as if by magic. There are two primary ways to achieve this metabolic switch, and these strategies support each other when combined:
•Intermittent fasting: I prefer daily intermittent fasting, but you could also fast a couple of days a week if you prefer, or every other day. There are many different variations. To be effective, in the case of daily intermittent fasting, the length of your fast must be at least eight hours long. This means eating only between the hours of 11am until 7pm, as an example. Essentially, this equates to simply skipping breakfast, and making lunch your first meal of the day instead
•A ketogenic diet: This type of diet, in which you replace carbs with low to moderate amounts of high quality protein and high amounts of beneficial fat, is what I recommend for everyone, and is exactly what you get if you focus on the bottom three tiers of my food pyramid

Other Atrocious Health Recommendations That Drive Obesity and Disease Rates

Make no mistake about it, obesity is the result of inappropriate lifestyle choices, and unfortunately, our government has spent decades disseminating astoundingly inaccurate information about diet and health. In many ways, the US government has become little more than a propagator of corporate-sponsored propaganda. The following is just a tiny sampling of the pervasive misleading information on weight and obesity disseminated by our government agencies:
•“All sugars are equal, and are okay in moderation:” The science is overwhelmingly clear on this point: fructose and glucose are NOT metabolized by your body in the same way. For example, while every cell in your body utilizes glucose, thereby burning up much of it, fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat. Furthermore, the entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on your liver, which creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which drives up blood pressure and causes gout. It also promotes visceral fat.4

When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat. As a standard recommendation, I advise keeping your total fructose consumption below 25 grams per day, or as little as 15 grams a day if you have insulin resistance, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease or are overweight
•“To lose weight, just expend more calories than you eat:” This outdated advice has been shown to be patently false, as not all calories are created equal. In a nutshell, counting calories will not help you lose weight if you’re consuming the wrong kind of calories
•“Choosing diet foods will help you lose weight:” Substances like Splenda (sucralose) and Equal or Nutrasweet (aspartame) may have zero calories, but your body isn’t fooled. When it gets a “sweet” taste, it expects calories to follow, and when this doesn’t occur it leads to distortions in your biochemistry that actually lead to weight gain
•“Avoid saturated fat to protect your heart:” The myth that saturated fat causes heart disease began as little more than a scientifically unsupported marketing strategy for Crisco cooking oil. Most people actually need about 50 to 70 percent of their diet as healthful fats from organic, pastured eggs, avocados, coconut oil, real butter and grass-fed beef in order to optimize their health
•“When it comes to cholesterol levels, the lower the better, to avoid heart disease:” Cholesterol is actually NOT the major culprit in heart disease or any disease, and the guidelines that dictate what number your cholesterol levels should be to keep you “healthy” are fraught with conflict of interest — and have never been proven to be good for your health. Meanwhile, bringing your cholesterol levels down too low can have significant health ramifications, from mood disorders and violence to, ironically, heart disease

Yes, You Can ‘Slim Down Without Even Trying…’

Once you realize the root of the problem, which begins with agricultural subsidies that are based on economics and have nothing to do with growing nutrient dense foods for the masses; which in turn has spawned dietary recommendations that are also based on industry profitability opposed to nutritional science, then it becomes easier to understand why a full two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. Even the education of registered dietitians is sponsored and taught by the junk food industry!

Sadly, these deeply flawed dietary recommendations fuel the nation’s poor health scores, and drive the now colossal health industry, which in turn is run by the pharmaceutical industry… It’s really one big vicious circle.

You CAN break free, however.

Perhaps one of the most powerful scientific discoveries to emerge in the past several years is that the old adage “a calorie is a calorie” is patently false. The research clearly demonstrates that even if you control the number of calories you eat, if those calories come primarily from fructose and grains, you are at increased risk of obesity and pre-diabetes, which includes both insulin- and leptin resistance, fatty liver, high blood pressure and high triglycerides. Insulin- and leptin resistance in turn form the foundation for virtually every chronic disease you can think of, including heart disease and cancer.

The answer, therefore, is to turn the conventional food pyramid on its proverbial head, and dramatically reduce or eliminate virtually all grains and sugars, especially fructose. This in and of itself will go a long way toward preventing accumulation of excess fat. However, to be truly effective, you want to make sure you’re replacing those refined carbs with vegetables and healthful fats.

Now you’re entering into a diet that will allow your body to shift from burning carbs to burning fat (or ketones) as its primary fuel. At this point, weight loss is not the only benefit you’ll reap. Compelling research shows that this type of diet, also referred to as a ketogenic diet, is an effective prevention and even treatment strategy for cancer.

Intermittent fasting is another powerful key that will help you transition your body from obtaining the majority of its fuel from glucose stored as glycogen in your muscles and liver, to the fat stored in your tissues. This is one of the most effective ways I know of to burn off excess body fat and eliminate sugar cravings. These are all things that are well within your power to do. Next, I urge you to become involved with changing the system that has brought us to this unfortunate point in our evolution. Growing sprouts in your home is a powerful way to eat very healthy and inexpensively.

Changing your shopping patterns by supporting local agriculture will not only help improve your health, it will also help improve the environment and bring back our rural communities. One way to get involved is to simply buy more food from your local farmers. It is important to understand the impact you have when you spend your money on processed factory food. For more information on how to find locally-grown foods and farmer’s markets, please see my Sustainable Agriculture page. I would also encourage you to support the Environmental Working Group in its current efforts to renew America’s food and farm policies through the farm bill.5

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Turmeric produces mind-blowing recovery from dementia symptoms, multiple case studies show

If you or a loved one suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease or some other form of dementia, there is hope and healing to be found in turmeric. Based on the recent findings of three independent case studies, turmeric, whose primary active ingredient is curcumin, has the power not only to heal both the behavior and psychological symptoms associated with dementia, but also help lead to full recovery of the disease in as little as just a few months.

A traditional cooking spice that has been used copiously throughout India and Southeast Asia for many millennia, turmeric has been the subject of myriad scientific studies in recent years. The circulatory, digestive, and neurological systems of the body, it turns out, are all positively impacted by turmeric, and the seemingly never-ending list of diseases for which the spice is known to provide healing is continually expanding all the time.

This is definitely the case with regards to turmeric’s impact on cognitive health, as evidenced by new research out of Japan. The chief physician at Kariya Toyota General Hospital in Kariya City and his colleagues evaluated three separate case studies involving turmeric and came to some fascinating conclusions about the herb’s therapeutic value. In each case, turmeric was shown to both relieve dementia symptoms and improve overall cognitive function.

“In a study involving three patients with Alzheimer’s Disease, whose cognitive decline and Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia were severe, exhibiting irritability, agitation, anxiety, and apathy, supplementation with turmeric powder capsules for over one year was found to be associated with improvement in symptoms,” wrote the authors of the study in their summary.

“Total score on the Neuro-Psychiatric Inventory-brief questionnaire decreased significantly in both acuity of symptoms and burden of caregivers after 12 weeks of treatment,” they added. “Score on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) went up five points (from 12/30 to 17/30) in one of the cases, and the other two cases were able to recognize their family within one year of treatment.”

Consuming a little as one gram of turmeric daily for three months can lead to ‘remarkable improvements’
So while the conventional disease industry continues to waste billions of dollars searching for a pharmaceutical-based silver bullet “cure” for dementia, a simple, inexpensive cooking spice made from a plant is already getting the job done. Taking as little as one gram, or roughly one-quarter of a teaspoon, of turmeric powder or extract daily, it turns out, is enough to produce mind-blowing improvements in dementia symptoms.

Earlier research published in the journal Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology back in 2008 corroborates this fact, having found that turmeric’s natural antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and detoxifying mechanisms help improve memory in patients with dementia. Simply consuming more of this flavorful spice as part of one’s normal diet, in other words, has the potential to completely transform brain health and alleviate even the worst dementia symptoms.

“Curcumin as an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and lipophilic action improves the cognitive functions in patients with AD (Alzheimer’s Disease),” wrote the authors of this earlier study in their Abstract. “Due to various effects of curcumin, such as decreased Beta-amyloid plaques, delayed degradation of neurons, metal-chelation, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and decreased microglia formation, the overall memory in patients with AD has improved.”

You can read this full paper here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781139/

Sources for this article include:

http://www.vitasearch.com/get-clp-summary/40704

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781139/

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Sometimes the best solutions are the most simple. This appears to be the case with walking, arguably the simplest form of exercise. Walking is gentle on the body and takes no special equipment to perform, making it also a very accessible way to exercise. There has been quite a bit of research done on the effectiveness of walking and the results are staggering.

Decreased pain and disability
Walking appears to make the body stronger and more resilient in addition to being therapeutic. When people suffering from knee arthritis walked for only three hours a week, their pain and disability went down by nearly half. Walking for only four hours per week decreased the risk of hip fracture in post-menopausal women by over 40 percent.

Walking and mental health
Though physical activity and mental health are not always put in the same breath, walking also appears to have a significant impact on our happiness levels. In one study, nearly a third of the depressed patients reported feeling better after only a small dose of walking. When that small dose was increased, the number of depressed patients who were feeling better jumped to about half. Similarly, walking has been shown to reduce anxiety in about half of all patients who implement it into their routine.

Decreased illness and disease
The risk of disease and illness also seems to be significantly cut down when walking is added to the picture. Some research has found that walking can decrease the risk of heart disease by as much as 50 percent. Older patients who started a walking routine were able to reduce their progression of dementia and Alzheimer’s by about half as well. In one study of patients at a high risk for diabetes, walking was combined with other lifestyle interventions and almost 60 percent of patients reduced the progression to frank diabetes.

Walking and lower mortality
All of these benefits point to a lower mortality rate as well. A Harvard alumni study followed graduates for a dozen years and found that people who walked had a 23 percent lower rate of death than those who did not walk. Cardiorespiratory fitness, something walking can influence, has also been pointed to as the best mortality predictor.

Though walking may never become a fitness fad, its benefits are undeniable. In fact, if a pill could produce effects similar to the statistics cited above, it would be the bestselling drug in the world. Until then the rest of us will be making strides naturally, one step at a time.

Sources for this article include

http://www.myfavouritemedicine.com/23-and-a-half-hours/

Home

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk

http://www.post-gazette.com

http://www.10000stepsusa.com/Why-get-involved/Walking-Research

About the author:
My name is Ben Hirshberg and I am a student from Seattle. I am very passionate about living healthfully and am constantly learning. Nutrition is a big part of my health philosophy so I am always experimenting in the kitchen with different foods. A result of this experimentation is my ebook “Paleo Ice Cream: 31 healthy recipes for the primal sweet tooth that are so easy even a modern caveman can do it” which can be found at www.paleoicecreamrecipes.com
Physical activity is also something that I believe strongly in, and I received my personal trainer certification from WITS. You can find more of my articles on nutrition, physical activity, recipes, and mental health at www.BenHirshberg.com

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Ignore the misinformation being spread by Big Pharma, Cholesterol is Good…yes good..75% of Cholesterol is formed naturally in the Liver. HDL, LDL and VLDL all have a specific role to play in the body, there is no such thing as bad cholesterol…

By Dr. Mercola

Statins are now among the most widely prescribed drugs on the market with one in four Americans over 45 taking them, and are the number one profit-maker for the pharmaceutical industry, largely due to relentless and highly successful direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns.

In fact, a recent study assessing the effect of direct-to-consumer drug advertising concluded that TV ads for statins may be a driving factor of overdiagnosis of high cholesterol and overtreatment with the drugs.1

Statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, that is, they act by blocking the enzyme in your liver that is responsible for making cholesterol (HMG-CoA reductase).

The fact that statin drugs cause side effects is well established—there are over 900 studies proving their adverse effects, which run the gamut from muscle problems to increased cancer risk.

The biggest “sham” of all is that statin drugs, which millions are taking as a form of “preventive medicine” to protect their heart health, can have detrimental effects on your heart.

For example, a study published just last year in the journal Atherosclerosis2, showed that statin use is associated with a 52 percent increased prevalence and extent of calcified coronary plaque compared to non-users. And coronary artery calcification is the hallmark of potentially lethal heart disease!

Now, researchers have uncovered yet another MAJOR problem associated with these drugs. One of the major benefits of exercise is the beneficial impact it has on your heart health, and exercise is a primary strategy to naturally maintain healthy cholesterol levels. Alas, if you take a statin drug, you’re likely to forfeit any and all health benefits of your exercise.

As reported by The New York Times3:

“The drugs routinely are prescribed for those with high cholesterol and other risk factors for heart disease, and some physicians believe that they should be used prophylactically by virtually everyone over 50.

… [P]eople who should benefit the most from exercise — those who are sedentary, overweight, at risk of heart disease or middle-aged — are also the people most likely to be put on statins, possibly undoing some of the good of their workouts.

… In past studies, researchers have shown that statins reduce the risk of a heart attack in people at high risk by 10 to 20 percent for every 1-millimole-per-liter reduction in blood cholesterol levels (millimoles measure the actual number of cholesterol molecules in the bloodstream), equivalent to about a 40-point drop in LDL levels.

Meanwhile, improving aerobic fitness by even a small percentage through exercise likewise has been found to lessen someone’s likelihood of dying prematurely by as much as 50 percent.

… But until the current study, no experiment scrupulously had explored the interactions of statin drugs and workouts in people. And the results, as it turns out, are worrisome.”

Statins Can Undo the Benefits of Exercise

The study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology4, discovered that statin use led to dramatically reduced fitness benefits from exercise, in some cases actually making the volunteer LESS fit than before!

The participants in the study included 37 overweight, sedentary men and women, all of whom had symptoms of metabolic problems, such as high blood pressure or excess abdominal fat. None of them had exercised regularly within the past 12 months, and most had slightly but not excessively elevated cholesterol levels.

Before the trial, muscle biopsies were taken from each participant to evaluate mitochondrial content, and their aerobic fitness was determined using treadmill testing. All participants were instructed to maintain their regular diet. The participants were then divided into two groups. One group was given a daily 40 mg dose of simvastatin (Zocor). The other group did not receive any medication. Both groups then began a supervised 12-week exercise program, walking or jogging on a treadmill for 45 minutes, five days a week. At the end of the three-month long trial, their aerobic fitness and muscles were retested. The results were astounding:
•On average, unmedicated volunteers improved their aerobic fitness by more than 10 percent. Mitochondrial content activity increased by 13 percent
•Volunteers taking 40mg of simvastatin improved their fitness by a mere 1.5 percent on average, and some had reduced their aerobic capacity at the end of the 12-week fitness program. Mitochondrial content activity decreased by an average of 4.5 percent

According to senior study author John P. Thyfault, a professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri5:

“Low aerobic fitness is one of the best predictors of premature death. And if statins prevent people from raising their fitness through exercise, then that is a concern.”

How Statins Might Undo Fitness Benefits and Make Your Heart Health Worse

The key to understanding why statins prevent your body from reaping the normal benefits from exercise lies in understanding what these drugs do to your mitochondria—the energy chamber of your cells, responsible for the utilization of energy for all metabolic functions.

The primary fuel for your mitochondria is Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), and one of the primary mechanisms of harm from statins in general appears to be related to CoQ10 depletion. This also explains why certain statin users in the featured trial ended up with worse aerobic fitness after a steady fitness regimen.

It’s been known for many decades that exercise helps to build and strengthen your muscles, but more recent research has revealed that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential role exercise can play in your health. A 2011 review published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism6 pointed out that exercise induces changes in mitochondrial enzyme content and activity (which is what they tested in the featured study), which can increase your cellular energy production and in so doing decrease your risk of chronic disease.

The researchers stated:

“Increasing evidence now suggests that exercise can induce mitochondrial biogenesis in a wide range of tissues not normally associated with the metabolic demands of exercise. Perturbations [changes] in mitochondrial content and (or) function have been linked to a wide variety of diseases, in multiple tissues, and exercise may serve as a potent approach by which to prevent and (or) treat these pathologies.”

Increasing mitochondrial activity is incredibly important because free radicals, which are toxic byproducts of metabolism as well as exposures to chemicals, pollutants and other toxins, can overwhelm your body’s defenses, leading to oxidative damage to cells and tissues that can destroy cellular proteins, lipids and DNA, as well as lead to the loss of mitochondrial function. In the long-term, irreversible damage in the mitochondria can occur, leading to:
•Lower threshold for physical exercise
•Impaired ability to utilize carbohydrates and fat for energy
•Insulin resistance
•Excessive weight gain
•Accelerated aging

If You’re on a Statin Drug, You MUST Take CoQ10…

If you take a statin drug without supplementing with CoQ10—or ideally, the reduced form, called ubiquinol, which is far more effective—your health is at serious risk. CoQ10 is used by every cell in your body, but especially your heart cells. Cardiac muscle cells have up to 200 times more mitochondria, and hence 200 times higher CoQ10 requirements than skeletal muscle.

Now imagine if you start straining your heart with exercise and not counteracting the CoQ10 depletion caused by the drug… it’s no wonder, really, that statin users couldn’t improve their fitness levels! There simply wasn’t enough mitochondrial fuel in their system. This is why supplementing with ubiquinol or CoQ10 is so critical when you’re taking a statin drug. A recent study in the European Journal of Pharmacology7 showed that ubiquinol effectively rescued cells from the damage caused by the statin drug simvastatin, thereby protecting muscle cells from myopathies.

Premature aging is yet another side effect of statin drugs, and it’s also a primary side effect of having too little CoQ10. Deficiency in this nutrient also accelerates DNA damage, and because CoQ10 is beneficial to heart health and muscle function this depletion leads to fatigue, muscle weakness, soreness and, ultimately, heart failure…

Again demonstrating the necessity of CoQ10 supplementation during statin therapy, a recent study8 evaluating the benefits of CoQ10 and selenium supplementation for patients with statin-associated myopathy found that, compared to those given a placebo, the treatment group experienced significantly less pain, decreased muscle weakness and cramps, and less fatigue.

Statins also interfere with the mevalonate pathway, which is the central pathway for the steroid management in your body. This too could be a contributing factor as to why statins have such a detrimental impact on your ability to reap health benefits from exercise. As previously explained by Dr. Ron Rosedale:

“First and foremost, cholesterol is a vital component of every cell membrane on Earth. In other words, there is no life on Earth that can live without cholesterol. That will automatically tell you that, in and of itself, it cannot be evil. In fact, it is one of our best friends. We would not be here without it. No wonder lowering cholesterol too much increases one’s risk of dying. Cholesterol is also a precursor to all of the steroid hormones. You cannot make estrogen, testosterone, cortisone, and a host of other vital hormones without cholesterol.”

Beware the Health Hazards of Statin Drugs!

First, if you are a woman, it’s critical for you to know that statins are classified as a “pregnancy Category X medication” meaning, it causes serious birth defects, and should NEVER be used if you’re pregnant or planning a pregnancy. Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration9 (FDA) also announced it’s considering additional warning labels for statin drugs. Among them are warnings that statins may increase your risk of:
•Liver damage
•Memory loss and confusion
•Type 2 diabetes
•Muscle weakness (for certain statins)

In all, statin drugs have been directly linked to over 300 side effects10, including:

Cognitive loss

Neuropathy

Anemia

Acidosis

Frequent fevers

Cataracts

Sexual dysfunction

An increase in cancer risk

Pancreatic dysfunction

Immune system suppression

Muscle problems, polyneuropathy (nerve damage in the hands and feet), and rhabdomyolysis, a serious degenerative muscle tissue condition

Hepatic dysfunction (Due to the potential increase in liver enzymes, patients must be monitored for normal liver function)

Exercise Is Important for Heart Health

As mentioned in the featured article, improving your aerobic fitness by even just a small amount can cut your risk of premature death in half. Clearly, taking a drug that decimates your CoQ10 stores, thereby contributing to worsening heart health in the long run, while simultaneously obliterating the benefits of exercise, is not a wise move for the vast majority of people.

Regular exercise is a cornerstone of healthy cholesterol management. I strongly recommend incorporating high intensity interval exercises, as this also helps optimize your human growth hormone (HGH) production.

When it comes to exercise, more is not always better. As I’ve learned in more recent years, the opposite is frequently true—especially if you’re seeking longevity and optimal health, opposed to winning athletic competitions. Granted, most people are not exercising enough, so this warning does not apply to most of you reading this. But it’s still important to understand that not only is it possible to over-exercise, but focusing on the wrong type of exercise to the exclusion of other important areas can actually do you more harm than good.

Research emerging over the past several years has given us a deeper understanding of what your body requires in terms of exercise, and many of our past notions have simply been incorrect.

For example, there’s compelling evidence showing that high-intensity interval training, which requires but a fraction of the time compared to conventional cardio, is FAR more efficient, and more effective. You can literally reap greater rewards in less time. The same can be said for the super-slow form of weight training, which mirrors many of the health benefits of high-intensity interval training. There’s compelling evidence that the best fitness regimen is one that mimics the movements of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, which included short bursts of high-intensity activities, but not long-distance running.

How to Optimize Your Cholesterol Levels Naturally

The most effective way to optimize your cholesterol profile and prevent heart disease is via diet and exercise. Seventy-five percent of your cholesterol is produced by your liver, which is influenced by your insulin levels. Therefore, if you optimize your insulin level, you will automatically optimize your cholesterol and reduce your risk of both diabetes and heart disease.

There is NO drug that can cure heart disease, as the underlying cause is insulin and leptin resistance and arterial wall damage—both of which are caused by eating excessive amounts of sugars, grains, and especially fructose. So, in addition to regular exercise, my primary recommendations for safely regulating your cholesterol and reducing your risk of heart disease include:
•Reduce, with the plan of eliminating grains and fructose from your diet. This is one of the best ways to optimize your insulin levels, which will have a positive effect on not just your cholesterol, but also reduces your risk of diabetes and heart disease, and most other chronic diseases. Use my Nutrition Plan to help you determine the ideal diet for you, and consume a good portion of your food raw.
•Start intermittent fasting, which will radically improve your ability to burn fat as your primary fuel and thus help improve your insulin and leptin signaling.
•Get plenty of high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil, and reduce your consumption of damaged omega-6 fats (trans fats, vegetable oils) to balance out your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio.
•Include heart-healthy foods in your diet, such as olive oil, coconut and coconut oil, organic raw dairy products and eggs, avocados, raw nuts and seeds, and organic grass-fed meats.
•Optimize your vitamin D levels by getting proper sun exposure or using a safe tanning bed.
•Optimize your gut flora, as recent research suggests the bacterial balance in your intestines may play a role in your susceptibility to heart disease as well
•Walk barefoot to ground yourself to the earth. Lack of grounding has a lot to do with the rise of modern diseases as it affects inflammatory processes in your body. Grounding thins your blood, making it less viscous. Virtually every aspect of cardiovascular disease has been correlated with elevated blood viscosity.

When you ground to the earth, your zeta potential quickly rises, which means your red blood cells have more charge on their surface, which forces them apart from each other. This action causes your blood to thin and flow easier. By repelling each other, your red blood cells are also less inclined to stick together and form a clot.
•Avoid smoking or drinking alcohol excessively.
•Be sure to get plenty of good, restorative sleep.

Do You REALLY Need a Statin Drug?

That these drugs have proliferated the market the way they have is a testimony to the effectiveness of direct-to-consumer marketing, corruption and corporate greed, because the odds are very high that if you’re taking a statin, you don’t really need it. From my review, the ONLY subgroup that could benefit would be those born with a genetic defect called familial hypercholesterolemia, as this makes them resistant to traditional measures of normalizing cholesterol.

Remember, your body needs cholesterol for the production of cell membranes, hormones, and vitamin D, just to mention a few. Cholesterol is also vital to your neurological function. And there’s strong evidence that having too little cholesterol increases your risk for cancer, memory loss, Parkinson’s disease, hormonal imbalances, stroke, depression, suicide, and violent behavior.

Contrary to what pharmaceutical PR firms will tell you, statins have nothing to do with reducing your heart disease risk. In fact, this class of drugs can increase your heart disease risk—especially if you do not take Ubiquinol (CoQ10) along with it to mitigate the depletion of CoQ10 caused by the drug. To learn more about statins, please see my special report: Do YOU Take Any of These 11 Dangerous Cholesterol Drugs?

Poor lifestyle choices are primarily to blame for elevated cholesterol levels, such as too much sugar, too little exercise, lack of sun exposure and never grounding to the earth. These are all things that are within your control, and don’t cost much (if any) money to address.

The fact that statins can effectively nullify the benefits of healthy lifestyle changes like exercise, which in and of itself is important to bolster heart health and maintain healthy cholesterol levels, is yet another reason to think twice before opting for such a drug.

Also remember that the BEST way to condition your heart and burn fat is NOT to jog steadily for an hour. Instead, it’s to alternate short bursts of high-intensity exercise with gentle recovery periods. This type of exercise, known as interval training, can dramatically improve your cardiovascular fitness and fat-burning capabilities. You can still incorporate some of the endurance cardio into your routine, but make sure you take advantage of interval training. The new evidence suggests that this may actually provide MORE protection against heart attacks than long durational aerobic-type exercises.

If you’re currently taking a statin drug and are worried about the excessive side effects they cause, please consult with a knowledgeable health care practitioner who can help you to optimize your heart health naturally, without the use of these dangerous drugs.

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Testosterone is an androgenic sex hormone produced by the testicles (and in smaller amounts in women’s ovaries) that is typically associated with “manhood.” Beginning around age 30, a man’s testosterone levels begin to decline, and continue to do so as the years go on. A wide range of chemical exposures, including prescription drugs like statins, can also have an adverse effect on your testosterone production. While primarily associated with male sexuality and reproduction, testosterone also plays a role in maintaining muscle mass, bone density, levels of red blood cells, and a general sense of vigor and well-being. Symptoms of declining testosterone levels include decreased sex drive, erectile dysfunction, depressed mood, and difficulties with concentration and memory. Men with low testosterone may also experience weight gain, breast enlargement, and problems urinating. According to recent research1, 2, 3 the number of testosterone prescriptions have tripled over the past decade, causing researchers to sound the alarm that men may be abusing the hormone. This should come as no surprise considering the many direct-to-consumer ads now promoting a testosterone prescription as the answer if you feel you’ve lost the spring in your step… In fact, in a related commentary medical ghostwriter Steven Braun says4 that the sales of testosterone are being driven by: “A sophisticated marketing effort to define low testosterone as a disease for which the treatment is [testosterone-replacement therapy]. I know this because, as a professional medical writer, I have helped craft that message for transmission in a range of media to both physicians and consumers.” While declining testosterone levels can certainly be problematic, I know first-hand that such a fate is not an automatic outcome of aging, provided you incorporate certain lifestyle strategies that can naturally boost your testosterone levels, which I’ll review in this article. Many Men Are Taking Testosterone Without Evidence of Deficiency According to the Endocrine Society, which is responsible for setting the clinical guidelines for testosterone replacement therapy, testosterone should only be given to men with persistent symptoms and “unequivocally low testosterone levels,” a condition known as hypogonadism. To determine this, you have to actually test your testosterone level, which is done with a blood test—ideally more than once, as your testosterone level can rise and fall during each day. The current findings indicate that 25 percent of men given a prescription for testosterone did not have their levels tested prior to receiving a prescription, and of the remaining 75 percent, it was unclear as to how many actually had a testosterone deficiency. In all, the study tracked 11 million men through a large health insurer, and found that: •Since 2001, testosterone prescriptions have tripled •More than two percent of men in their 40s and nearly four percent of men in their 60s were on testosterone therapy in 2011. Men in their 40s represent the fastest-growing group of users •About half of men prescribed testosterone had a diagnosis of hypogonadism •About 40 percent of men prescribed testosterone had erectile or sexual dysfunction •One-third of men prescribed testosterone had a diagnosis of “fatigue” Potential Side Effects and Benefits of Testosterone Therapy While your levels can rise and fall daily, the average testosterone levels for most men range from 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dl) of blood. Again, hypogonadism can be a bit tricky to diagnose based on total testosterone (total T) alone, and since your levels can rise and drop dramatically from day to day depending on factors like sleep and stress, you need to measure your levels more than once. That said, according to a 2012 study5 looking at the sensitivity and specificity of total testosterone (total T) as an indicator of biochemical hypogonadism found that a total T level below 150 ng/dl is indicative of hypogonadism, while levels above 350 ng/dl excludes the condition in most cases. If you fall within that range of 150-350 ng/dl, the authors advised measuring free or bioavailable T levels, which are thought to identify biochemical hypogonadism more accurately. There’s a fair amount of controversy on the subject of testosterone replacement therapy. Some of the evidence suggests it may cause worrisome side effects (especially if you’re not actually deficient), including: Thickening of the blood / blood clots Acne Reduced sperm count Increased risk of heart disease Increased risk of prostate cancer Male infertility6 Liver problems Male breast growth Increased male pattern baldness Worsening of urinary symptoms Others disagree. For example, according to Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, MD, a professor of urology at Harvard Medical School and the author of Testosterone for Life, men with low testosterone are the ones at greater risk for prostate cancer and other health problems, including heart disease and osteoporosis. For an interesting article that contains a lot more information about this, read Dr. Morgentaler’s report Destroying the Myth About Testosterone Replacement and Prostate Cancer.7 You Can Raise Your Testosterone Levels Naturally Through Exercise Personally, I do not recommend using testosterone hormone replacement to enhance your performance. If you indeed have low testosterone, you can consider trans rectal DHEA cream, which I’ll discuss below. But I believe many of you may not even need that, were you to take full advantage of your body’s natural ability to optimize hormones like testosterone and human growth hormone (HGH). Just like testosterone and ubiquinol levels, your HGH levels also sharply decline after the age of 30, as illustrated in the graph above. Both of these hormones are also boosted in response to short, intense exercise. As an example, I’ve been doing Peak Fitness exercises for just over three years now, and at the age of 59, my testosterone and HGH levels (listed below) are still well within the normal range for a young adult male without the aid of ANY prescriptions, hormones and hormone precursor supplements: •Total testosterone: 854 ng/dl (normal test range: 250-1,100 ng/dl) •Free testosterone: 117 pg/ml (normal test range: 35-155 pg/ml) •HGH: 14,000 pg, more than three times the normal test range of 1,000-4,000 pg/24 hours Below is a summary and video demonstration of what a typical high-intensity Peak Fitness routine might look like. As you can see, the entire workout is only 20 minutes, and 75 percent of that time is warming up, recovering or cooling down. You’re really only working out intensely for four minutes. It’s hard to believe if you have never done this, that you can actually get that much benefit from only four minutes of intense exercise, but that’s all you need! •Warm up for three minutes •Exercise as hard and fast as you can for 30 seconds. You should feel like you couldn’t possibly go on another few seconds •Recover at a slow to moderate pace for 90 seconds •Repeat the high-intensity exercise and recovery 7 more times How to Further Boost Testosterone and HGH Release… Interestingly, Whole Body Vibration Training (WBVT) using a Power Plate can also independently increase growth hormone levels. Like high-intensity exercise, WBVT also works all three types of muscle fibers, and it does so more effectively and efficiently than straight cardio or weight lifting. You can accomplish more from 15 minutes on the Power Plate than from an hour of traditional strength training. By stimulating your white muscle fiber, the Power Plate kick-starts your pituitary gland into making more growth hormone, which helps you build lean body mass and burn fat. Another effective strategy for enhancing both testosterone and HGH release is intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting helps boost testosterone by improving the expression of satiety hormones, like insulin, leptin, adiponectin, glucacgon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), cholecystokinin (CKK), and melanocortins, which are linked to healthy testosterone function, increased libido, and the prevention of age-induced testosterone decline. When it comes to an exercise plan that will complement testosterone function and production (along with overall health), I recommend including both high-intensity interval training and strength training. When you use strength training to raise your testosterone, you’ll want to increase the weight and lower your number of reps. Focus on doing exercises that work a wider number of muscles, such as squats or dead lifts. You can take your workout to the next level by learning the principles of Super-Slow Weight Training. For more information on how exercise can be used as a natural testosterone booster, read my article “Testosterone Surge After Exercise May Help Remodel the Mind.” Why I Recommend DHEA Over Testosterone Replacement I personally do not use any hormone treatments as I have been able to get my hormone levels within the healthy young adult range using the protocols described above. However, if you choose to use hormones it is really crucial to use bioidentical versions. There are synthetic and bioidentical hormone products out on the market, but I advise using bioidentical hormones like DHEA if you opt for this route. DHEA is a hormone secreted by your adrenal glands. This substance is one of the most abundant precursor hormones in your body. It is crucial for the creation of vital hormones, including testosterone and other sex hormones. Prior to puberty, your body produces very little DHEA. Production of this prohormone peaks during your late 20’s or early 30’s. With age, DHEA production begins to decline. The adrenal glands also manufacture the stress hormone cortisol, which is in direct competition with DHEA for production because they use the same hormonal substrate known as pregnenolone. Chronic stress basically causes excessive cortisol levels and impairs DHEA production, which is why stress is another factor for low testosterone levels. It’s important not to use any DHEA product without the supervision of a professional. Find a qualified health care provider who will monitor your hormone levels and determine if you actually require supplementation. Also, rather than using an oral hormone supplementation, I recommend trans-mucosal (vagina or rectum) application. Skin application may not be wise, as it makes it difficult to measure the dosage you receive. This may cause you to end up receiving more than what your body requires. Applying a trans-mucosal DHEA cream to your rectum (or if you are a woman, your vagina) will allow the mucous epithelial membranes that line your mucosa to perform effective absorption. These membranes regulate absorption and inhibit the production of unwanted metabolites of DHEA. That said, I do NOT recommend prolonged supplementation of hormones, even bioidentical ones. Doing so can trick your body into halting its own DHEA production and may cause your adrenals to become impaired. Three Additional Supplements That Can Be Beneficial for Symptoms of Low T Another supplement that can address certain symptoms commonly associated with low testosterone is saw palmetto. This herb may also help increase testosterone levels by inhibiting up-conversion to dihydrotestosterone.8 There are about 100 clinical studies on the benefits of saw palmetto, one of them being a contributed to decreased prostate cancer risk. When choosing a saw palmetto supplement, you should be wary of the brand, as there are those that use an inactive form of the plant. According to industry expert Dr. Moerck, what you want to look for is an organic supercritical CO2 extract of saw palmetto oil, which is dark green in color. Since saw palmetto is a fat-soluble supplement, taking it with eggs will enhance the absorption of its nutrients. There is also solid research indicating that if you take astaxanthin in combination with saw palmetto, you may experience significant synergistic benefits. A 2009 study published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition found that an optimal dose of saw palmetto and astaxanthin decreased both DHT and estrogen while simultaneously increasing testosterone.9 Also, in order to block the synthesis of excess estrogen (estradiol) from testosterone, there are excellent foods and plant extracts that may help to block the enzyme known as aromatase, which is responsible producing estrogen. Some of these include white button mushrooms, grape seed extract and nettles.10 Five More Ways to Naturally Increase Your Testosterone Levels In addition to what I’ve already covered above (high intensity exercise, intermittent fasting, saw palmetto, and DHEA in conjunction with astaxanthin), the following lifestyle strategies can also help you normalize your testosterone levels, without resorting to hormone replacement: 1.Lose Weight by Optimizing Your Diet. If you’re overweight, shedding the excess pounds may increase your testosterone levels, according to recent research.11 Testosterone levels decrease after you eat sugar, which is likely because the sugar leads to a high insulin level, which is another factor leading to low testosterone. The most efficient way to shed excess weight is to strictly limit the amount of sugar/fructose and grains in your diet, and replacing them with vegetables and healthy fats. Ideally, keep your total fructose consumption below 25 grams per day. If you have insulin resistance and are overweight, have high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol, you’d be well advised to keep it under 15 grams per day. In addition to eliminating or severely limiting fructose, it will be vital to eliminate all grains (including organic grains) and milk in your diet. Milk has a sugar called lactose, which has been shown to increase insulin resistance so it will be wise to avoid it if you are seeking to lose weight. Replace these dietary troublemakers with vegetables and healthy fats, such as organic pastured egg yolks, avocado, coconut oil, butter made from raw grass-fed organic milk, and nuts like almonds and pecans. Saturated fats are essential for building testosterone. Research shows that a diet with less than 40 percent of energy as fat (and that mainly from animal sources, i.e. saturated) lead to a decrease in testosterone levels.12 My personal diet is about 70-80 percent healthy fat, and other experts agree that the ideal diet includes somewhere between 50-70 percent fat. I’ve detailed a step-by-step guide to this type of healthy eating program in my comprehensive nutrition plan, and I urge you to consult this guide if you are trying to lose weight. 2.Consume Plenty of Zinc: The mineral zinc is important for testosterone production, and supplementing your diet for as little as six weeks has been shown to cause a marked improvement in testosterone among men with low levels.13 Likewise, research has shown that restricting dietary sources of zinc leads to a significant decrease in testosterone, while zinc supplementation increases it14 — and even protects men from exercised-induced reductions in testosterone levels.15 Your diet is the best source of zinc; along with protein-rich foods like meats and fish, other good dietary sources of zinc include raw milk, raw cheese, beans, and yogurt or kefir made from raw milk. If you decide to use a zinc supplement, stick to a dosage of less than 40 mg a day, as this is the recommended adult upper limit. Taking too much zinc can interfere with your body’s ability to absorb other minerals, especially copper, and may cause nausea as a side effect. 3.Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels: Vitamin D, a steroid hormone, is essential for the healthy development of the nucleus of the sperm cell, and helps maintain semen quality and sperm count. Vitamin D also increases levels of testosterone, which may boost libido. In one study,16 overweight men who were given vitamin D supplements had a significant increase in testosterone levels after one year. To get your levels into the healthy range of 50-70 ng/ml, appropriate sun exposure is your best bet. If sun exposure is not an option, a safe tanning bed (with electronic ballasts rather than magnetic ballasts, to avoid unnecessary exposure to EMF fields) can be used. As a last resort, a vitamin D3 supplement can be taken orally, but research suggests the average adult needs to take 8,000 IU’s of vitamin D per day in order to elevate their levels above 40 ng/ml, which is the absolute minimum for disease prevention. Furthermore, if you opt for a supplement, you also need to make sure you’re getting sufficient amounts of vitamin K2, as these two nutrients work together. In fact, vitamin K2 deficiency is frequently the cause of symptoms associated with vitamin D toxicity, which includes inappropriate calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries. 4.Have Effective Strategies to Address Stress: When you’re under a lot of stress, your body releases high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which actually blocks the effects of testosterone.17 Chronic stress, and subsequently elevated levels of cortisol, could mean that testosterone’s effects are blocked in the long term, which is what you want to avoid. My favorite overall tool to manage stress is EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). It’s a handy, free tool for unloading emotional baggage quickly and painlessly, and so easy that even children can learn it. Other common stress-reduction tools with a high success rate include prayer, meditation, laughter and yoga, for example. For more tips, see my article 10 Simple Steps to Help De-Stress. 5. Ancient Indian Herb, Ashwagandha, May Help: This perennial herb is known as an adaptogen, which can help boost stamina, endurance, and sexual energy. Research published in 201018 found that men taking the herb Ashwagandha experienced a significant increase in testosterone levels. Ashwagandha helps promote overall immune function, and can help increase your resistance to occasional stress.19 It also supports healthful levels of total lipids, cholesterol, and triglycerides already in the normal range. While some adaptogens are stimulants in disguise, this is not the case with Ashwagandha. It can give your morning exercise routine a boost, and when taken prior to bed, it can help you get a good night’s sleep as well. I recommend using only 100% organic Ashwagandha root, free of fillers, additives and excipients, to ensure quality. Take Advantage of Your Body’s Innate Ability to Self-Correct and Heal The fact that testosterone prescriptions have tripled over the past decade is a testament to the fact that men are increasingly suffering from feeling less than their best. Unfortunately, we still don’t know for sure whether hormone replacement therapy is entirely safe. Personally, I strongly recommend implementing lifestyle strategies that are known to optimize testosterone levels naturally before you do anything else. If you’re still deficient in testosterone after implementing high-intensity exercise and strength training, along with the dietary strategies detailed above and, ideally, intermittent fasting, then you could try trans-mucosal DHEA. Again, remember to confer with a qualified health care practitioner and get your levels tested before supplementing with DHEA or any other hormone, including testosterone. Personally, I’ve been able to maintain both testosterone and HGH levels comparable to that of men half my age, simply by implementing high intensity exercise and intermittent fasting, along with my standard dietary recommendations, which apply to everyone, regardless of age or gender. You have nothing to lose to give these strategies a try, and everything to gain. If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Fast food fluff: Why the McDonalds 400 calorie menu is a joke

What can you get at McDonald’s that has fewer than 400 calories? Practically anything on the menu, if you believe the hype surrounding McDonald’s Favorites Under 400 menu items. It includes a host of breakfast, lunch and dinner items, including hamburgers, cheeseburgers, most of their salads, Chicken McBites, Egg McMuffins, Sausage McMuffins, hash browns and a medium order of French fries. While some cost less than $1, most hover between $2 and $3.

What else do you get with these items other than fewer than 400 calories?
A whole lot of nothing, as it turns out. Three small breaded Chicken Selects may just have 380 calories, but 210 of these calories come from fat, which clocks in at a whopping 23 grams of fat for the trio (or a hair less than 8 grams of fat per piece of chicken). Dip them in a packet of honey mustard sauce and add 60 calories to the meal. Well, if three small pieces of breaded chicken is considered a meal. So how about the five-piece order? That’s 640 calories and has 38 grams of fat.

Forget lunch and dinner, how about breakfast?
It’s the most important meal of the day and all. The healthiest breakfast option at McDonald’s is the Fruit and Maple Oatmeal, which tops whole-grain oats with red and green apples, cranberries, two varieties of raisins and, if you want it, brown sugar (go for it, since brown sugar only adds 30 calories to the whole thing). All of this is yours for only 260 calories and 4.5 grams of fat, which is a healthy breakfast in most books.

Egg McMuffins are listed as having 300 calories and 12 grams of fat (skip the cheese and the popular breakfast sandwich weighs in at 250 calories and 8 grams of fat). Sausage McMuffins are listed as having 370 calories and 22 grams of fat (200 of those 370 calories are fat calories). A Sausage Burrito has 300 calories and 16 grams of fat. Order a hash brown and add 150 calories and 9 grams of fat to your breakfast.

That’s the real hidden ingredient in McDonald’s Favorites Under 400 program. You don’t go to McDonald’s to order one thing. Usually, by the time you’re done, you’ve likely eaten a day’s caloric intake (if not more) in one sitting. For example, order a hamburger, medium French fries, and medium non-diet soda and you’re probably near 1,200 calories. That’s the average minimum caloric intake recommended for a woman. Men who order another hamburger, a large fry, or a large soda have already topped their recommended 1,800 calories a day. Of course, baseline caloric recommendations don’t take into account activity level or health history. These numbers are used here as an illustration.

McDonald’s makes all of its nutrition information available online and in restaurant locations, but don’t caution against ordering more than one item from its Favorites Under 400 menu at a time. It does warn that the listed calories don’t always include sauces, salad dressings, custom orders or other condiments. Most of these items, like pickles and onions, have zero or close-to-zero calories anyway. Still, a salad with dressing would not make McDonald’s Favorites Under 400 menu board.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.prevention.com

http://weightloss.answers.com

http://lifehacker.com

About the author:
Sandeep is an avid rock climber, Mountaineer, runner, and fitness coach. He shares his tips for staying in shape and eating healthy on betterhealthblog. betterhealthblog provide tips on Healthy Living, Beauty and Fashion, Home & Gardening, Weight Loss .

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Mental Disorders Skyrocket: Try This to Avoid Becoming the Next Victim

Two years ago, Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, discussed how a shocking 46 percent of Americans fit a diagnosis for one form of mental illness or another.1

Now, a report2 released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals that nearly 20 percent of American children (aged 3 to 17) suffer from some form of mental disorder, loosely defined as “serious changes in the ways children handle their emotions, learn, or behave.”

Included in this category are use of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. The cost to society is estimated to be close to $247 billion per year for medical expenses, juvenile justice and special education—up from $8.9 billion in 2006.

The most prevalent mental health problem among three- to 17-year-olds is ADHD, affecting nearly seven percent of children and teens. Interestingly, there appears to be some fairly significant sex differences:
•Boys are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, Tourette syndrome, cigarette dependence, behavioral or conduct problems, and anxiety
•Girls have a higher prevalence of depression and alcohol misuse

Autism spectrum disorders are most prevalent among six- to 11-year olds, and the rise is nothing short of alarming. The latest statistics released by the CDC on March 20 show that one in 50 children in the US now fall within the autistic spectrum3, 4 with a 5:1 boy to girl ratio.

Just last year, the CDC reported a rate of one in 88, which represented a 23 percent increase since 2010, and 78 percent since 2007. Meanwhile, I remember when the incidence of autism in the US was only one in 100,000—just short of 30 years ago! So what’s causing this rapid rise in autism and other mental health problems?

Clearly, there is not one single cause. Rather it’s a conglomerate of factors, much like a “perfect storm” scenario, where too many harmful influences are now flooding children’s bodies at a very early age—likely while still in the womb.

In a normal, healthy environment, statistics such as these simply would not occur. And the fact that it IS happening demands our immediate attention. Something is going very wrong, very fast…

What’s Causing the Rise in Mental Health Disorders in Children and Teens?

The majority of autism cases do appear to result from the activation or “expression” of a number of different genes, along with multiple epigenetic and environmental factors that interact to produce the traits of autism.

But science is increasingly showing us just how malleable our genes are—they continuously alter their expression in response to their environment, meaning, your body and everything you put into and onto it.

Furthermore, there’s no shortage of evidence that toxins of different sorts can wreak havoc with brain function, which can lead to everything from depression to anxiety, learning disorders and more serious mental illnesses.

Add to this the more recent findings that your gut is profoundly influential for brain health, and a picture of toxic overload combined with inadequate nutrition comes into clear view. Some of the contributing factors, I believe, include the following broad categories:
•Toxic exposures: (Including agricultural chemicals; air and water pollutants; chemicals in personal care and household products; excessive vaccinations; heavy metals; prescription drugs, and more)

For example, research from 2009 discovered that infants who lived in homes with vinyl floors were twice as likely to have autism five years later, compared to those with wood or linoleum flooring. Vinyl floors can emit chemicals called phthalates, which are widely used plastic softeners found in much more than just vinyl flooring.

Hairsprays, perfumes, cosmetics, toys, shower curtains, wood finishers, lubricants, certain medical devices and more all contain phthalates. Researchers have suggested the chemicals may contribute to autism by disrupting hormones not only in small children but also in the womb.

A 2011 review5 of the peer-reviewed, published studies on autism (going all the way back to 1943) revealed numerous documented cases of autism caused by encephalitis following vaccination. There are many potential vaccine-related culprits, including the use of toxic adjuvants; the presence of human DNA in vaccines; and the increasing number of vaccines given in a short period of time.

Heavy metal exposures are also common and can wreak havoc with your brain function. It is already an established fact that exposure to mercury can cause immune, sensory, neurological, motor, and behavioral dysfunctions — all similar to traits defining, or associated with autism.

Mercury pollution is widespread from the burning of fossil fuels, but the use of thimerosal-containing vaccines and dental amalgams—both of which contain mercury—also cannot be overlooked as major sources of individual exposure to this neurotoxin.

Recent research6 has also shown that even low levels of lead are associated with lower reading-readiness scores in kindergarteners.7 In 2012, the CDC lowered the “safe” blood lead level from 10 mcg/dl to 5 mcg/dl. As a result, more children can now be diagnosed with lead toxicity, which has been linked to developmental problems and reduced IQ. Approximately half a million U.S. children between the ages of 1 and 5 have blood lead levels above 5 mcg/dl.

However, according to the latest findings, there does not appear to be ANY safe level of lead. Compared to children whose blood lead levels were below 0.5 mcg/dl, reading-readiness scores dropped four and a half points for children whose lead levels were between 5 and 9 mcg/dl, and 10 points for children whose levels were 10 mcg/dl.

Besides vaccines, certain drugs have also been implicated in autism. According to recent research,8 in utero exposure to antidepressants increases the risk of autism spectrum disorders in less than one percent of cases. This applied to both selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and non-selective monoamine reuptake inhibitors.
•Electromagnetic fields (EMF): These come not only from cell phones and cordless phones, but also from electrical outlets and Wi-Fi. According to some experts in the field, such as Dr. Klinghardt, EMF is “synergistically causal,” partly because it potentiates the production of toxic microbes and endotoxins that have also been implicated in autism.

In fact, Dr. Klinghardt performed a small study showing that autism can actually be predicted based on the EMF levels of your sleeping quarters while pregnant. He found that if you sleep in strong electromagnetic fields during pregnancy, your child will likely begin to exhibit neurological abnormalities within the first two years of life.
•Vitamin D deficiency: The vitamin D receptor appears in a wide variety of brain tissue early in the fetal development, and activated vitamin D receptors increase nerve growth in your brain. It is my personal belief that lack of appropriate sun exposure before and during pregnancy may be one of the largest contributing factors to autism. So one of the most important changes that could radically reduce autism is to make certain ALL pregnant women have their vitamin D levels normalized to 50-60 ng/ml.
•Poor gut health: While modern psychiatry still falsely claims that psychological problems such as depression are caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain, researchers keep finding that depression and a variety of behavioral problems actually appear to be linked to an imbalance of bacteria in your gut.

Certain species of gut bacteria have been found to influence gene activity in your brain,9 for example. Mice lacking gut bacteria have also been found to engage in “high-risk behavior.” Using gene profiling, the researchers showed that absence of gut bacteria altered genes and signaling pathways involved in learning, memory, and motor control. This suggests that gut bacteria is closely tied to early brain development and subsequent behavior.

Your lifestyle can and does influence your gut flora on a daily basis. For example, your gut bacteria are extremely sensitive to antibiotics, chlorinated water, antibacterial soap, agricultural chemicals such as glyphosate, pollution.

Cultured or fermented foods have always been highly prized for their health benefits, which we now understand is linked to their probiotics content. The advent of processed foods dramatically altered the human diet, and we’re now reaping the results in the form of rapidly rising chronic health problems.

I believe the shunning of traditionally fermented foods has a lot to do with the rise in mental and physical health problems. The culturing process produces beneficial microbes that are extremely important for your health as they help balance your intestinal flora. If you do not regularly consume traditionally fermented foods, a high-quality probiotic supplement will provide similar benefits.
•Hidden infections and Lyme Disease: Chronic infections like Lyme disease are extremely common in autistic children, and may even cause gene mutations or dysfunction. Typically, the child gets the disease not from a tick bite but from their mother, who may be a silent carrier of the illness. Major symptoms of Lyme disease in a child include hyperactivity, learning disorders, depression, early puberty, and slight delays in motor development.

How to Address Common Behavioral Problems in Children

As mentioned earlier, “mental disorders” are loosely defined as “serious changes in the ways children handle their emotions, learn, or behave,” and run the gamut from mood disorders and substance abuse to learning disorders and more serious mental illness. While there are no easy remedies for more problematic issues like autism, a wide variety of mood, learning and behavioral problems in children are related to improper diet, emotional upset or stress, and exposure to toxins.

I have successfully treated many hundreds of children with behavioral and mental disorders and have consistently seen them improve once the underlying toxicities and food changes were addressed, so parents let me assure you that there is hope! To address these underlying factors in your child, without resorting to drug treatment:

Dramatically reduce or eliminate grains and sugars from your child’s diet — yes, even healthy organic whole grains can cause problems. Try eliminating them first for 1-2 weeks and see if you don’t notice a radical and amazing improvement in your child’s behavior

Replace soft drinks, fruit juices, and pasteurized milk in your child’s diet with pure water

Give your child plenty of high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fats like krill oil. Also limit their intake of vegetable oils, as they are loaded with damaged omega-6 fats

Make sure your child gets plenty of exercise and outdoor playtime in the sunshine ideally walking on the earth barefoot

Avoid giving your child ANY processed foods, especially those containing artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. Instead, focus their diet on whole, ideally organic foods to avoid both pesticides and genetically engineered ingredients

Provide your child a way to address his or her emotional stressors. Even children can benefit from the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which you or an EFT practitioner10 can teach them how to use

What Can You Do to Reduce Unnecessary Chemical Exposure to Your Family?

With close to half of all Americans of all ages suffering from some form of mental health problem, I strongly recommend making a healthy lifestyle par the course for the entire family. While some people can handle a greater toxic burden, it’s only a matter of time before you reach your limit and side effects begin to rear their ugly head. Depression, for example, is widespread, yet can frequently be successfully treated with diet and exercise alone. Rather than compile an endless list of what you should avoid, it’s far easier to focus on what you should do to lead a healthy lifestyle with as minimal a chemical exposure as possible:
•As much as possible, buy and eat organic produce and free-range, organic foods to reduce your exposure to pesticides and fertilizers.
•Rather than eating conventional or farm-raised fish, which are often heavily contaminated with PCBs and mercury, supplement with a high-quality purified krill oil, or eat fish that is wild-caught and lab tested for purity.
•Eat mostly raw, fresh foods, steering clear of processed, prepackaged foods of all kinds. This way, you automatically avoid artificial food additives, including dangerous artificial sweeteners, food coloring and MSG. To help you get started on a healthy diet, please see my Optimized Nutrition Plan, which will guide you through the changes step by step.
•Store your food and beverages in glass rather than plastic, and avoid using plastic wrap and canned foods (which are often lined with BPA-containing liners).
•Have your tap water tested and, if contaminants are found, install an appropriate water filter on all your faucets (even those in your shower or bath).
•Only use natural cleaning products in your home.
•Switch over to natural brands of toiletries such as shampoo, toothpaste, antiperspirants and cosmetics. The Environmental Working Group has a great database11 to help you find personal care products that are free of phthalates and other potentially dangerous chemicals. I also offer one of the highest quality organic skin care lines, shampoo and conditioner, and body butter that are completely natural and safe.
•Avoid using artificial air fresheners, dryer sheets, fabric softeners or other synthetic fragrances.
•Replace nonstick pots and pans with ceramic or glass cookware.
•When redoing your home, look for “green,” toxin-free alternatives in lieu of regular paint and vinyl floor coverings.
•Replace your vinyl shower curtain with one made of fabric, or install a glass shower door. Most all flexible plastics, like shower curtains, contain dangerous plasticizers like phthalates.
•Limit your use of drugs (prescription and over-the-counter) as much as possible. Drugs are chemicals too, and they will leave residues and accumulate in your body over time.
•Avoid spraying pesticides around your home or insect repellants that contain DEET on your body. There are safe, effective and natural alternatives out there.

Limiting Chemical Exposure Is Important for Optimal Health

Clearly, the toxic overload now rampant in our children is in part due to the toxic burden of the mother (and perhaps the father as well). So, ideally, you really want to start considering and addressing the contributing factors listed above BEFORE you get pregnant.

Check your home and especially your sleeping quarters for EMFs, for example. Clean up your diet and complete a detox protocol if deemed necessary. Heavy metal testing can cost a couple of hundred dollars but may be well worth the investment if you’re planning a pregnancy down the road. Make sure your vitamin D levels and gut flora are optimized. All of these things are part and parcel of a healthy lifestyle, and I firmly believe you can make a major difference in your child’s life by addressing these factors beforehand.

Remember, a typical American comes in regular contact with some 6,000 chemicals and an untold number of potentially toxic substances on a less frequent basis. Many of them have never been fully tested for safety. To protect your physical and mental health, it’s important to make these positive and gradual steps toward decreasing your chemical exposure.

Environmental pollution is a massive problem, but for most there aren’t many immediate solutions to address it. Your time is better spent focusing on your immediate environment; your home, and all the products you use or come in contact with on a daily basis. Cleaning that up can go a long way to reduce your and your children’s toxic load, and hence decrease your family’s risk of chemical-induced health problems.

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Drink THIS to lose fat & fix your digestion
by Dr. Kareem, Author of 14-Day Fat Loss Plan

The longer I’ve been in the healthcare industry,
the more I realize that a ‘balanced body’ is the key
to just about any health goal you might have. Whether
you want to lose weight, reduce bodyfat, build muscle,
or increase athleticism, the faster you balance your body
the quicker you’ll see results.

The first step is to balance your ‘Macronutrient Ratio,’
which is just a fancy way of saying that you have to
balance the amount of carbs:proteins:fats you consume.

Here’s a simple rule that I like to follow, as a general theme
to healthy eating and high energy output:

9 grams of carbs: 7 grams protein: 4 grams fat

Assuming you’re eating a large amount of veggies, that means
a good portion of those carbs will be indigestible fiber, and the
caloric ratio will end up almost equally balanced between
slow carbs, protein, and healthy fats.

Next, consider the ‘Nutrient Density’ in everything you eat.
Not all calories were created equally, not even from the same
macronutrient classification or category. Eating animal fats
usually means more dietary cholesterol, but this isn’t
necessarily a problem like most people think…

Cholesterol is actually normal and healthy for your body — it’s
something your body naturally produces because it’s required to
sustain life. However, inflammation combined with high levels
of LDL cholesterol can result in a very dangerous situation.

‘Triglycerides’ are often a root cause of inflammation and heart
disease as a result of poor diet. High triglycerides are often
caused by eating too much sugar and refined carbs and poor insulin
sensitivity.

If you eat sugar, you’re inflaming. If you eat cookies, crackers,
bread, cereal, or estrogenic products like soy and non-organic
fruits and vegetables (pesticides are estrogenic), you’re inflaming.

Ultimately, this means that your body will have a harder time
processing the carbs it consumes. Your body’s relationship
with a normal macronutrient changes, and it will affect you
differently.

If you have a lot of inflammation in your body, fix this first, then
adjust your diet for increased nutrient density. Get rid of any
trans fats, most of the grains you consume, and any food category
that you’re particularly sensitive to. Alongside, take a careful look
at your environment — if you are in a stressed-out situation, take
time each day to calm your mind through meditation, positive self-talk,
and visualization of happier circumstances. I recommend at least
15-20 minutes, as this seems to be an accepted time by HeartMath.org,
which is the leading organization for battling depression through
natural means.

Once you address the inflammation in your body, you can hone in
on eating the “right” foods, even if they have things like cholesterol
in them that scares you. Now its time for the grass-fed beef, free range
organic chickens, and the eggs they produce (yolks included!)

Last, but certainly not least, it’s important you balance your micronutrients
and hydration. These are the ‘invisible’ aspects of your daily health rituals
that need to exist. Hydration is pretty easy, unless you have some extreme
reason for dehydration — just drink half your bodyweight (pounds) in ounces
of water each day.

Micronutrients, on the other hand, are an uphill battle. To derive all of the
micronutrients your body needs simply from the food you consume is
very difficult. For example, you’d have to eat a variety of about 25 different
fruits and vegetables, but just small pieces of each one. This is how you’d
get the proper mineral balance, natural vitamins (not artificial), and antioxidants
you need for optimal health.

In addition, the health of your digestive tract determines how well your
body will respond to any of the information above. Digestive enzymes that
target ease of digestion and enzyme release specifically designed to break
up acidic foods, or difficult to digest substances, can make a game-changing
difference in the balance of your overall health.

Again, you can do a lot for your gut by consuming ‘probiotics’ in the form of
plain (non-sweetened) kefir and yogurt, and strengthen your digestive tract
significantly. However, this is only part of the equation, and it would have
to be daily habit.

For the fastest and most reliable (daily) solution to micronutrients, digestive
enzymes, probiotics, and electrolyte balance, I simplify my life with a unique
smoothie each morning (actually, my wife makes it for me — she’s awesome!) –
here’s exactly what goes in this daily digestive system healing smoothie:

*2 heaping tablespoons Athletic Greens (essential ingredient teeming with every micronutrient you need, digestive enzymes, probiotics, and powerful antioxidants)
*1 tbsp chia seeds (healthy omega-3 fats, lots of fiber)
*1 scoop protein powder (this protein contains no deadly artificial sweeteners)
*Frozen wild blueberries (handful)
*8 to 10 ounces of water (or use half water and half kefir if you want extra probiotics)

Drink this superfood-smoothie daily and watch your body balance out. You’ll be losing
fat in no time, and you’ll watch your digestion and overall health improve substantially.

Grab Athletic Greens for your daily digestion-healing smoothie here <--- (travel packets also available) If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

Make no mistake, there is a well orchestrated campaign underway to take away your rights and access to vitamins and supplements.

You have likely witnessed the recent flurry of articles from doctors with scary headlines like “Don’t Take Your Vitamins” written by Paul Offit.

Senator Dick Durbin has taken a leading role as well.

Senator Durbin was also a sponsor for the SOPA / PIPA act, which would give the government even more power to censor and control the internet. You would think it would be impossible at this point to have MORE control, considering the recent leaks regarding the NSA.

There is no satiating the hunger for more power in our federal government. Politicians will scare you about sugary beverages loaded with caffeine as examples of the dangerous and ‘unregulated’ supplement industry.

Meanwhile, consumers load up at Starbucks and other coffee shops – where they can easily down cups and cups of this ‘dangerous’ substance. You don’t see Durbin beating down the door of Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, even though coffee is the primary source where most people get their caffeine fix.

When you notice this type of hypocrisy, you can usually bet there is a serious industry influence behind the scenes. There is a campaign push assaulting the supplement industry by those hoping to gain control of it. Essentially, if supplements become regulated like drugs – only the drug companies will be manufacturing them.

By setting new regulations and gaining control of the industry, big pharma can charge higher prices and make higher profits.

Surprisingly, a newly released GAO Dietary Supplements report has recently shown just how safe dietary supplements really are. There are always bad products in every industry, but overall, supplements appear to be one of the safest of all consumable products.

Senator Durbin has been on a mission that appears, at least superficially, to stem from concern over “your health.” However, when scrutinized more closely, Durbin’s proposed legislation would have precisely the opposite effect.

If Senator Durbin is genuinely concerned about “your health,” then his focus should be on making drugs and vaccines safer, which are the real danger — not dietary supplements.

Why Should Supplement Regulation Be More Stringent Than That for Drugs?

Durbin first introduced the Dietary Supplement Labeling Act (S 1310) in 2011, a bill that threatens the supplement industry by granting FDA more power to regulate supplements as if they were drugs, potentially putting supplement companies out of business.

In fact, under this bill, supplement regulation would be even more stringent than for pharmaceutical drugs! The bill specifies the following:1
•Requires regulators to compile a list of dietary supplement ingredients and proprietary blends of ingredients that are judged capable of causing serious adverse reactions
•Mandates manufacturers to submit a list of all the products they make at a given facility and their ingredients; new products or reformulations would require new registrations

Despite resorting to sneaky tactics and dispersing blatant misinformation to his legislative colleagues in attempts to garner support, Senator Durbin has had a difficult time obtaining any support for his bill.

Therefore, in May 2012, Durbin tried to slide his amendment (No. 2127) through by piggybacking it onto a senate bill that was slated for a vote the very next day (S 3187, the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act).

Because the natural health community so quickly and effectively sprung into action, Durbin’s amendment failed. Although his efforts to pass this ridiculous legislation have been unsuccessful thus far, his determination has not waned, misguided though it is. We must continue our efforts to thwart this bill, which if passed into law, could spell disastrous consequences for your health.

The Danger of Food Supplements Is VASTLY Overstated

Durbin and others would have you believe supplements are dangerous and need further regulation. But the truth is that supplements are already FDA-regulated and produce far fewer adverse reactions than either drugs or vaccines. The March 2013 GAO Dietary Supplements report,2 which Durbin hoped would paint supplements as dangerous, actually showed how incredibly safe they really are—particularly when compared to drugs and vaccines.

Since 2008, the supplement industry has been required to report adverse events to the FDA’s AER system, pursuant to the 2006 Act. Consider the following statistics comparing dietary supplement AERs with drug AERs (from the 2013 GAO report):
•From 2008 to 2011, FDA received 6,307 AERs for dietary supplements, not including 1,000 AERs that were submitted to poison control centers, rather than the FDA3
•In 2008, 1,080 dietary supplement AERs were reported to FDA
•In 2008, 526,527 prescription drug AERs were reported
•In 2008, 26,517 vaccine AERs were reported

When you do the math, there were 488 times as many adverse events reported from prescription drugs as from dietary supplements!

Supplement AERs increased from 400 in 2007 to 1,080 in 2008, but as the Alliance for Natural Health points out, that stems from an increase in the number of supplements on the market and more careful reporting of AERs to the FDA, especially since the implementation of required good manufacturing protocols. The number of AERs is miniscule compared to the hundreds of millions of supplement servings consumed.4 According to a 2007 National Health Interview Survey,5 more than half of Americans (157 million individuals) take nutritional supplements.

Senator Durbin and company are trying to claim AERs are underreported. However, according to the 2013 GAO report, there were only 20 AER compliance problems identified during supplement company inspections, suggesting most of these companies are compliant with mandatory AER guidelines. Adverse reactions aren’t being underreported—there just aren’t that many reactions to report. Even the GAO report itself states:

“The greatest challenge for identifying potential safety concerns from AERs is the small number of AERs that FDA receives related to dietary supplements.”

Poison Control Data Supports the Safety of Nutritional Supplements

Data from the U.S. National Poison Data System’s annual report, which tracked data from 57 U.S. poison centers, showed vitamin and mineral supplements caused zero deaths in 2010, whereas pharmaceuticals caused more than 1,100 of the total 1,366 reported fatalities. FDA-approved drugs cause 80 percent of poison control fatalities each year.6 Poison control centers report 100,000 calls, 56,000 emergency room visits, 2,600 hospitalizations and nearly 500 deaths each year from acetaminophen (Tylenol) alone.

Data from the European Union indicate that pharmaceutical drugs are 62,000 times as likely to kill you as dietary supplements. You’re actually more likely to be struck dead by lightning or drown in your bathtub than have a lethal reaction to a dietary supplement. These figures make it quite clear where the danger lies. If Senator Durbin really cared about your health, his efforts would be centered on doing something to make drugs safer, as they obviously pose a FAR greater risk to your health.

Laws Regulating Supplements Are Already in Place

According to the GAO report:

“FDA officials told us that the current regulatory framework is sufficient to identify and act on safety concerns regarding foods with added dietary ingredients.”

They are referring to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA).7 The only deficiency, to the extent it exists, lies in the enforcement of the current law, in terms of ensuring good manufacturing practices and mandatory reporting of adverse events by supplement companies. If the FDA is already well-equipped with legislative authority to do its job, then what is Senator Durbin really trying to accomplish?

The only answer that makes sense is that the ultimate goal of Durbin’s bill is to make sure every supplement is approved by the FDA before it is sold.

The hidden problem with this is that the FDA is heavily biased in favor of drugs, as the agency is primarily funded by the pharmaceutical industry. The FDA sees supplements as competition for drugs, so not many will be approved. Durbin’s bill attempts to get supplements into the clutches of our completely dysfunctional drug approval regime, where they can be subjected to every possible legal obstacle that will keep them off store shelves. Less competition from supplements would also soften the impact of decreased revenues from expiring drug patents.

Forcing Supplement Companies Out of Business Will Not Improve Your Health

If Durbin’s bill were to pass, the FDA would demand very expensive (on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars) supplement trials just like drug trials which would eliminate the vast majority of recent supplements as most manufacturers have revenues that are only a tiny fraction of drug companies and can’t afford these expenses. More importantly, they are simply unnecessary as they provide virtually no benefit to the consumer. The current reported adverse effects are simply too low to justify this unnecessary safety requirement from a nonexistent danger. Remember, supplements don’t kill tens to hundreds of thousands of people every year; drugs do. Supplements don’t kill anyone.

Unlike drugs, supplements generally cannot be patented, so manufacturers will never see the return on investment that pharmaceutical companies see. The cost of complying with the pre-approval process will likely put many supplement companies out of business, and those who survive may do so only by drastically increasing the price of their products, making them cost prohibitive for many… particularly low-income families who need them the most. Durbin’s bill would also impose a significant burden on federal regulators, diverting these resources away from where they should be focused—i.e., on the drug industry.8

Crafty Reclassification of Products Allows Manufacturers to Dodge Regulations

There is an additional problem that appears to be completely ignored by Senator Durbin. Dietary supplements are already more rigorously regulated than food products. Taking full advantage of this, some manufacturers are migrating products previously listed as “supplements” over to the “food products” category in order to sidestep regulation. Energy drinks are a prime example. Loren Israelson, executive director of the United Natural Products Alliance, is quoted as saying:

“I think he [Senator Durbin] misunderstands the dynamics of the energy drinks market. There has been a significant shift of brands going from dietary supplement labeling to food labeling. His bill would not capture some of the products he’s concerned about.”

Caffeine—A Ridiculous Case of Selective Regulation

In related news, the FDA is now going after caffeine to protect your and your children’s health, in response to Senator Durbin’s fervent outcries. Back in November 2012, Senators Durbin and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent a series of letters to the FDA9 asking for energy drinks to be reviewed and potentially regulated.

While caffeine can indeed have detrimental health effects, the irony of the situation is that no attention is going toward actual coffee, which clearly would impact major multinational corporations like Starbucks. No, they’re only concerned with supplement, food and beverage makers using caffeine in their products, while the primary source of caffeine is not even part of the discussion. Supplements are just a tiny portion of caffeine consumption, so why not go after coffee?

As reported by Forbes:10, 11

“FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods Michael Taylor spoke out against what he called the ‘unfortunate’ trend [of adding caffeine to processed foods]… Taylor specifically called out gum maker Wrigley on a new product, and stated that while formal regulation might be forthcoming, ‘we hope this can be a turning point for all to prevent the irresponsible addition of caffeine to food and beverages. Together, we should be immediately looking at what voluntary restraint can be used by industry.’

..Mr. Taylor expressed concern over the ‘cumulative amount’ of caffeine available, particularly for children.

…[A]s long as FDA’s actions aren’t tethered to standards or science, they threaten to sweep in products that don’t merit any concern or scrutiny. During FDA’s successful effort to drive some caffeine-infused alcoholic beverages, like Four Loko, off the market, it also sent warning letters to brewers whose product line featured beers brewed with coffee. The amount of caffeine in and serving sizes of the beer paled in comparison to Four Loko, which led the head of a craft-brewing association to feel such letters were ‘inadvertent.’ He did add, however, ‘brewers should be concerned. This could lead the FDA to question beverages that get their caffeine from natural products like coffee, chocolate or tea. Who’s to say where this will end?’”

Call to Action

Dick Durbin will be up for re-election in 2014. You can bet we will be focusing very specifically on this career politician. Durbin and others would have you believe supplements are dangerous and need further regulation. However, supplements have far fewer reported adverse reactions than either drugs or vaccines and are already FDA regulated.

Durbin is reintroducing his supplement bill in hopes of forcing dietary supplement manufacturers to pass regulations that are even stricter than those governing pharmaceutical drugs. Legislative tactics such as this represent part of a master plan by the drug industry, in partnership with its best friend FDA, to eliminate the competition by taking control of the supplement industry.

Durbin’s bill has failed miserably in the past due to lack of support and strong opposition by health-conscious consumers. We can do that again, but your help is needed. Please contact your representatives and urge them to vote NO on S 1310, Dietary Supplement Labeling Act. You can do this by signing the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) petition.

If you live in Illinois, as I do, I would encourage you to contact Senator Durbin directly. Tell him (or whomever your representative is) to stop this overreach of power, and that the proposed guidelines fly in the face of the congressional intent of DSHEA. Congress never intended for the FDA to control supplements, and giving them this control jeopardizes your access to the dietary supplements you rely on, as well as further damaging the US economy. Please be courteous and respectful, and thank them for their time.

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.

The evidence against Hepatitis B, HPV and other vaccines

While pro-vaccinators continue to urge the use of vaccines to prevent disease, research does not support the theory that vaccines protect against illness. In fact, the HPV and Hepatitis B vaccines have proven to be dangerous and fatal to health. Hepatitis B vaccines, routinely given to infants at birth, are associated with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and other debilitating injuries. In the case of the HPV vaccine, early evidence is pointing to HPV vaccines actually increasing young women’s risk of cervical cancers, long associated with older women and safely screened by pap smear exams. The number of serious injuries associated with the newer HPV vaccine continues to climb.

The evidence against Hepatitis B, HPV and other vaccines
Vaccines in general have been shown to increase antibodies for a particular disease, while severely compromising cellular immunity, which is considered more important by medical experts in fighting disease. Prominent neurologist Russell Blaylock has written extensively regarding compromised cellular immunity and serious brain injury resulting from vaccinations. There is no evidence that vaccines work to prevent disease. To the contrary, several disease outbreaks, in population groups who are heavily vaccinated, have shown vaccines are ineffective in protecting against illness. These outbreaks include pertussis (whooping cough), measles and chickenpox. Research has shown that between 90- 99 percent of those vaccinated against these diseases have contracted them, compared to 1-10 percent of those not vaccinated for these diseases.

Hepatitis B is a disease most common in young adults who are sexually promiscuous or share drug needles. Hepatitis B generally resolves on its own and rarely develops into liver disease. Likewise, the HPV virus is not generally associated with cervical cancer, but usually presents as a benign illness which heals itself. Cervical cancer can safely be screened by pap smears and is typically diagnosed in older women.

Children are not in high risk groups for either of these illnesses. Hepatitis B vaccines are routinely given to infants at birth. HPV vaccine protocols target children ages nine to 26. These vaccine schedules make no sense from a health perspective, even with the large assumption that these vaccines are effective at preventing disease. These vaccine recommendations do make sense from a corporate profit model. Vaccinations are known to be highly profitable for pharmaceutical companies.

Vaccine safety record
As of mid-2012, there were 119 reports of death, 894 incidents of disability and 9,889 documented emergency room visits resulting from the HPV vaccine. As of March 2012, there were 66,554 reports of serious adverse reactions to the Hepatitis B vaccine including 1,500 deaths, many officially reported as SIDS.

HPV vaccine increases risk of cervical cancer in young women
Previously healthy, young women are reporting cervical abnormalities and cancer after receiving the HPV vaccine. In March 2012, 669 women reported abnormal pap smears and cervical dysplasia to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. 50 women reported cancer as a result of the HPV vaccine. It is estimated that these reports are a very small percentage of the actual events. (http://sanevax.org/hpv-vaccine-vaers-reports-march-2012/)

Conclusions
Hepatitis B and HPV vaccines have not been proven safe or effective in preventing sexually transmitted diseases from infecting children. The targeted illnesses of liver disease and cervical cancer are not commonplace for infants, children and young adults. It is important that parents examine the facts prior to giving permission for these routine medical procedures. The real potential health risks need to be carefully weighed against the unproven protections against disease which these vaccines promise. Vaccine exemptions are available in every state. See (http://www.nvic.org/Vaccine-Laws/state-vaccine-requirements.aspx) for your state’s vaccine exemption laws.

Sources for this article include

http://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseases/HPV/gardasilaug82006.aspx

http://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseases/Hepatitis-B.aspx

HPV Vaccine VAERS Reports March 2012

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org

http://www.naturalnews.com

Blaylock, Russell. February 2011. “Do Vaccines Do More Harm Than Good?” The Blaylock Wellness Report, Volume 8, Number 2.

Blaylock, Russell. April 2012. “Outsmarting…And Beating…Infections.” The Blaylock Wellness Report, Volume 9, Number 4.

Blaylock, Russell. May 2012. “The Immune System: Your Personal Body Guard.” The Blaylock Wellness Report, Volume 9, Number 5.

http://www.nvic.org/Vaccine-Laws/state-vaccine-requirements.aspx

About the author:
Michelle Goldstein is a licensed clinical social worker working as a mental health therapist. She incorporates holistic approaches into her counseling practice. She is a mother who found a cure in the realm of alternative medicine for her 11 year old daughter diagnosed in 2008 with an “incurable disease”. Her two year search involved tremendous research, experimentation, and consultation with over 12 different holistic practitioners. Ms. Goldstein is now passionate about alternative health care and the politics which impact it. She has finished her first draft of a comprehensive book on holistic health. Her hobbies include short interval running, swimming and walking.

If you like what you read, please consider donating to help support my blog, even as little as $5 will help.