Rather Be Healthy

Could a ketogenic diet eventually be a “standard of care” drug-free treatment for cancer? Personally, I believe it’s absolutely crucial, for whatever type of cancer you’re trying to address, and hopefully some day it will be adopted as a first line of treatment.

A ketogenic diet calls for eliminating all but non-starchy vegetable carbohydrates, and replacing them with healthy fats and high quality protein.

The premise is that since cancer cells need glucose to thrive, and carbohydrates turn into glucose in your body, then lowering the glucose level in your blood though carb and protein restriction, literally starves the cancer cells into oblivion. Additionally, low protein intake tends to minimize the mTOR pathway that accelerates cell proliferation.

This type of diet, in which you restrict all but non-starchy vegetable carbs and replace them with low to moderate amounts of high quality protein and high amounts of beneficial fat, is what I recommend for everyone, whether you have cancer or not. It’s a diet that will help optimize your weight and all chronic degenerative disease. Eating this way will help you convert from carb burning mode to fat burning.

Dr. Thomas Seyfried is one of the leading pioneer academic researchers in promoting how to treat cancer nutritionally. He’s been teaching neurogenetics and neurochemistry as it relates to cancer treatment at Yale University and Boston College for the past 25 years.

He’s written over 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters, and has also published a book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer.

Ketogenic Diet Accepted as First Line Approach for Epilepsy; is Cancer Next?

The ketogenic diet has actually been used for managing seizures in children for quite some time. While Dr. Seyfried and his team worked on brain cancer and epilepsy in mice, one of his students suggested investigating whether or not a ketogenic diet might also be effective against tumors.

So, in the late ‘90s, they began dovetailing their work on ketogenic diets and epilepsy and cancer together, eventually bringing them to a better understanding of how changing your whole-body metabolic state can be effective in targeting and eliminating tumor cells.

Interestingly, clinical medicine has recognized the ketogenic diet as a valuable option in the treatment of epilepsy since the late 90’s.

“I served as the organizer for the Ketogenic Diet Special Interest Group at the American Epilepsy Society,” Dr. Seyfried says.

“We initially started as a small focus group with the folks from Johns Hopkins Medical School, where the diet has had its greatest use and impact. And then we started to grow and substantially increase interest mainly through the efforts of Jim Abrahams.

Jim started the Charlie Foundation for his son Charlie, who went through a near-death experience from seizures and was rescued using ketogenic diets. His colleague, Meryl Streep, the famous movie actress, became very involved in this.

Now the ketogenic diet is receiving considerable attention in the epilepsy community as a first line of approach. Although this is still not widely accepted, I have to admit that the ketogenic diet is now recognized as an important component for the management of refractory seizures in children.”

According to Dr. Seyfried, the mechanism by which the ketogenic diet manages seizures is not nearly as clear as the way the ketogenic diet manages cancer. This is ironic considering that it’s barely known, let alone applied, within oncology circles, while it’s already a first line of treatment for epilepsy. In the case of cancer, it’s well-established that it’s the glucose reduction that kills the cancer cells.

Cancer is a Mitochondrial Metabolic Disease

Dr. Seyfried has developed a process called metabolic control analysis, which essentially analyzes the metabolic flux through different pathways that occurs when you transition your body from one major fuel source to another major fuel source, to maintain energy homeostasis in your body. Many believe or are under the impression that cancer is primarily a genetic disease, but Dr. Seyfried dispels such notions.

“We’re not going to make major advances in the management of cancer until it becomes recognized as a metabolic disease. But in order to do that, you have to present a massive counterargument against the gene theory of cancer,” he says.

“One of the key issues here is that if you transplant the nucleus of a cancer cell into a normal cell, you don’t get cancer cells. You can actually get normal tissues and sometimes a whole normal organism from the nucleus of a cancer cell. Now, if the tumors are being driven by driver genes – all these kinds of mutations and things that we hear about – how is it possible that all of this is changed when you place this cancer nucleus into the cytoplasm of a cell with normal mitochondria?

The gene theory cannot address this. It clearly argues strongly against the concept that genes are driving this process. Actually, a very few people inherit genes that predispose them to cancer. Most people inherit genes that prevent cancer. And those few genes that are inherited – the germ line like the BRCA1 mutations, B53, and a few other very rare cancers – these inherited mutations appear to disrupt the function of the mitochondria.”

According to Dr. Seyfried, the mitochondria—the main power generators in your cells—are the central point in the origin of most cancers. Your mitochondria can be damaged not only by inherited mutations, thereby increasing your risk for a particular type of cancer, such as the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations that increase your risk of breast- and ovarian cancer. They can also be damaged by environmental factors, such as toxins and radiation, both ionizing and non-ionizing. Over time, damage to your mitochondria can lead to dysfunction and tumor formation.

“It’s ultimately a disease of the mitochondrial energy metabolism, which is the origin of the disease,” Dr. Seyfried says. “[O]nce the mitochondria become dysfunctional or insufficient in ability, mutations will occur. The drugs that have been developed based on the genome projects have been largely ineffective in providing long-term care and are associated with toxic effects. As long as the field continues to focus on that part of the disease, which is a downstream epiphenomenon, there will be no major advances in the field simply because that’s not the relevant aspect of the disease.”

Sugar is the Primary Fuel for Most Cancers

Controlling your blood-glucose leptin and insulin levels through diet, exercise and emotional stress relief can be one of the most crucial components to a cancer recovery program. These factors are also crucial in order to prevent cancer in the first place.In 1931 the Nobel Prize was awarded to German researcher Dr. Otto Warburg, who discovered that cancer cells have a fundamentally different energy metabolism compared to healthy cells, and that malignant tumors tend to feed on sugar. More recently, researchers discovered that while cancer cells feed on both glucose and fructose, pancreatic tumor cells use fructose specifically to divide and proliferate.

Dr. Seyfried’s work confirms that sugar is the primary fuel for cancer, and that by restricting sugar and providing an alternate fuel, namely fat, you can dramatically reduce the rate of growth of cancer. He explains:

“When we’re dealing with glucose and [cancer] management, we know from a large number of studies that if respiration of the tumor is ineffective, in order to survive, the cells must use an alternative source of energy, which is fermentation. We know that glucose is the primary fuel for fermentation. Fermentation becomes a primary energy-generating process in the tumor cell. By targeting the fuel for that process, we then have the capability of potentially managing the disease.”

The strategy Dr. Seyfried suggests is a low-carb, low to moderate protein, high-fat diet, which will effectively lower your blood sugar. This is an easily measurable parameter that you can check using a diabetic blood glucose meter. This type of diet, called a ketogenic diet, will also elevate ketone bodies, as fat is metabolized to ketones that your body can burn in the absence of food. When combined with calorie restriction, the end result will put your body in a metabolic state that is inhospitable to cancer cells.

“[Ketones] is a fat breakdown product that can replace glucose as a major fuel for many of the organs and especially our brain,” he says.

Tumor cells, however, cannot use ketone bodies because of their respiratory insufficiency. So the ketogenic diet represents an elegant, non-toxic way to target and marginalize tumor cells. It also allows you to dramatically lower your glucose levels, as the ketones will protect your body against any hypoglycemia that might otherwise be induced by carb restriction.

“All of the newer cells in your body will be transitioned to these effective ketones, thereby preventing them from damage from hypoglycemia. At the same time, the tumor cells are now marginalized and under tremendous metabolic stress. It’s a whole body therapy—you need to bring the whole body into this metabolic state,” he explains.

“We like to call it a new state of metabolic homeostasis: a state where ketones have reached the steady state level in your blood and glucose has reached a steady lower level in your blood… “If it’s done right and implemented right, it has powerful therapeutic benefits on the majority of people who suffer from various kinds of cancers. Because all cancers have primarily the same metabolic defect.”

For Cancer Protection, Reverse Your Glucose to Ketone Ratios

Dr. Seyfried uses ketones and glucose as the measures of this new metabolic state. The parameters associated with an ideal state are ketone levels equal to or higher than the glucose level in your blood.

“There’s a high ratio of glucose to ketones. But in a fasted or therapeutic state, this ratio is actually reversed. Ketones can actually become higher than glucose,” he says. “What they can do is they can get their blood sugars down to 2.5 to 3 millimolar [equivalent to about 55-65 mg/dl], and then their ketones to up to 3 or 4 millimolar, where the ratio is now reversed. It’s this state that now brings the body into this new physiology.”

You can easily check your glucose levels at home, you’d need to work with a doctor to measure ketone levels in your blood. Generally speaking, a fasting glucose under 100 mg/dl suggests that you’re not insulin resistant, while a level between 100-125 suggests you’re either mildly insulin resistant or pre-diabetic. Here, Dr. Seyfried recommends getting your glucose down to a steady level of about 55-65 mg/dl, which is about HALF of what’s conventionally considered “good” or “normal.”

Blood ketones can be easily measured using the Medisense Precision Xtra blood glucose and ketone monitor from Abbot Laboratory. As many pharmacies might not stock the meter (bar code #, 93815 80347), it might be necessary to call Abbott directly (1-800-527 3339) to obtain the meter. According to Dr. Seyfried, the Precision Xtra seems the most accurate of all the ones he’s used.

It is important to mention, however, that the blood ketone strips are more expensive than the blood glucose strips. Dr. Seyfried therefore recommends measuring your blood ketones every few days rather than 3x/day for blood glucose. Although urine ketone measurement is a cheap way to assess ketones, urine ketone levels are not always indicative of blood ketone levels. It is best if you can measure ketones from both blood and urine.

“I work with nutritionists and physicians,” Dr. Seyfried says. “The problem with cancer patients is that many of the practitioners are unfamiliar with this whole approach, so there’s this tremendous gap. We have knowledge of how to do this. We have patients willing to do it. But we lack professionals that are trained or even understand the concepts of how to implement these kinds of approaches.”

All of the guidelines are included in Dr. Seyfried’s book, Cancer as Metabolic Disease, which is available on Amazon. He’s also published a couple of papers 1,2 that outline the guidelines and treatment strategies for cancer patients. One caveat to consider is your use of medications, as you need to know what the adverse effects might be if you use a medication at a particular dosage along with this kind of metabolic therapy.

The Importance of Intermittent Fasting

In my experience, the vast majority of people are adapted to burning carbs as their primary fuel, as opposed to burning fat. One of the most effective strategies I know of to become a fat burner is to restrict your eating to within a six- to eight- hour window, which means you’re fasting for about 16-18 hours each day. This upregulates the enzymes that are designed to burn fat as a fuel, and downregulates the glucose enzymes. This kind of intermittent fasting plan can be a useful modality to help you make the transition to a ketogenic diet.

“That’s the way it started in the clinic for children with epilepsy. Basically, the child is given a 24-hour and sometimes 48-hour fast – water only. And then the ketogenic diet is introduced in relatively measured and small amounts,” Dr. Seyfried says.

“Your body transitions naturally that way. Intermittent fasting is actually a very strong component of the approach. A three-day fast is uncomfortable, but it’s certainly doable. It gets your body into a new metabolic state, and then you can apply these therapies. The hardest part, I think, of this fasting is the first three to four days, depending on the individual and how many times they’ve done this.

That’s basically trying to break your addiction to glucose. The removal of glucose from the brain elicits the same kind of problems or events as you would if you were addicted to drugs, alcohol, or something like this. You get malaise, headaches, nausea, lightheadedness. You get all the kinds of physiological effects that you would get from withdrawal of any addicting substance. I look at glucose as an addictive substance. It’s an addictive metabolite. Your brain is comforted by having glucose; your body is comforted. And when you break that glucose addiction, you have these particular feelings.

… Fasting certainly has remarkable health benefits to the body: strengthening the mitochondria network system within the cells of your body. As long as the mitochondria of your cells remain healthy and functional, it’s very unlikely that cancer can develop under these particular states.”

Unless you have a very serious disease, I believe it is best for most people to implement intermittent fasting slowly over six to eight weeks rather than a three day complete fast. You begin by not eating for three hours before you go to bed, and then gradually extend the time you eat breakfast until you have skipped breakfast entirely and your first meal of the day is at lunch time. Of course you are only consuming non-starchy vegetables for carbs, low to moderate protein and high quality fats. One of the things I’ve noticed is that once you’ve made the transition from burning carbs to burning fat as your primary fuel, the desire for junk foods and sugar just disappears like magic.

The Potential Role of Protein in Cancer Formation

Glutamine– one of the most common amino acids found in proteins—is another interesting aspect of cancer that Dr. Seyfried is still investigating. In his opinion, most oncologists who do cancer metabolism recognize that sugar (both glucose and fructose) is the prime fuel for driving tumor growth. However, mounting research also indicates that glucose and glutamine together act powerfully and synergistically on the growth of tumor cells.

“These two fuels work together in concert to provide a continual growth,” he says.

One of my early mentors was Dr. Ron Rosedale. He taught me, about 20 years ago, about the importance of insulin control and then, more recently, about the importance of reducing protein intake, for this very reason. Most Americans likely eat far more protein than they really need, and this excess could be a factor in cancer. The Paleo approach makes sense on many levels, especially with regards to intermittent fasting and lowering your glucose levels. The Paleo approach is very clear about reducing grains and any food that raises your blood sugar. But there are, of course, two other macronutrients left: fat and protein.

Many Paleo followers are overly concerned about getting high amounts of protein, which could increase your glutamine and branched chained amino acid levels, which in turn tend to activate mTOR. In some, that could be problematic. According to Dr. Rosedale’s research, the pathway known as the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), is controlled by lowering your protein intake. This pathway may be another metabolic pathway that helps control and prevent cancer growth.

Calorie Restriction is a Key Part of the Equation

Dr. Seyfried, however, is more cautious in his evaluation of mTOR and reducing protein for cancer prevention. In his view, the most important aspect of cancer prevention and treatment is the intermittent fasting, or overall calorie restriction, which includes eating less of everything, period. But while calories from carbohydrates should be virtually eliminated, calories from protein just need to be reduced, while most need to increase their intake of healthful fats to get a more ideal ratio of fat to protein. As far as the specific types of fats recommended, Dr. Seyfried uses medium-chain triglycerides, i.e. coconut oil, butter, macadamia nuts, and other types of saturated fats, which is what I’ve long recommended as well. “The saturated fats are converted to ketones much more readily than polyunsaturated fats,” he explains.

So, keep in mind that for cancer prevention and treatment, the actual calorie restriction is an important part of the equation:

“We did some studies on this with our model of glioma… The mTOR in our model was not dramatically changed by these metabolic therapies. But I know others have reported it, and this could be an important component for certain other kinds of cancers. But my limited work with this did not demonstrate this to be a major issue, at least in the glioma model that we looked at. We showed that you could give animals a high-fat, low-protein diet, as much as they want (zero carbs in this diet), and their blood glucose was just as high or higher than the mice that were eating the protein-carb diet.

It was more or less related to the total consumption of calories. Most calories boil down to glucose. Proteins will be metabolized to glucose. Carbs are metabolized to glucose; fats are not… We don’t get any therapeutic benefit either in epilepsy or cancer when we allow the animals or people to eat as much of these high-fat diets as they want. We get no therapeutic benefit.

Therapeutic benefit comes from the restriction of the calories in the diet. The ketogenic diet or a low-carb, low-protein diet is simply a way to take the sting out of a therapeutic fast. Because as long as the glucose and ketones can get into the metabolic range (and you can do it with eating small amounts of a high-fat diet rather than therapeutic fasting), then that just makes people feel a little better about how they’re doing this rather than feeling that I’m starving to death.”

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

I recently interviewed Dr. D’Agostino who is another cancer as a metabolic disease researcher. He published a recent paper3 that shows a phenomenal synergy with a ketogenic diet and the use of hyperbaric oxygen for cancers that have metastasized. These types of cancers are notoriously difficult to treat. I would strongly encourage anyone struggling with this challenge to consider this type of therapy.

More Information

From my perspective, it’s nothing short of medical malpractice and negligence to fail to integrate this type of dietary strategy into a patient’s cancer treatment plan (along with optimizing vitamin D). A ketogenic diet along with intermittent fasting can be easily integrated into whatever cancer treatment plan you decide to follow. Personally, I believe it’s absolutely crucial, no matter what type of cancer you’re trying to address.

That said, remember that a ketogenic diet, in which you replace carbs with low to moderate amounts of protein and high amounts of beneficial fat, like avocado, coconut oil, butter, olive oil and macadamia nuts is recommended for everyone, whether you have cancer or not. It’s a diet that will help optimize your weight and health overall, as eating this way will help you convert from carb burning mode, to fat burning.

To get more specifics about using a ketogenic diet and calorie restriction for the treatment of cancer, I highly recommend picking up Dr. Seyfried’s book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease. You can also review his papers,4,5 which outline the guidelines and treatment strategies for cancer patients. If you’re a cancer patient, I’d recommend printing them out for your oncologist.

He also has a Facebook page6 for his book, and a website connected to the Boston College Biology Department7 where you can get more information about his work.

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

Obesity—One Third of All Cancers are Directly Related to It

Killer at Large1, a documentary film by Steven Greenstreet, tackles the topic of obesity, a problem of truly epic proportions where misinformation is a major driver. According to former Surgeon General, Richard Carmona, quoted in the film:

“Obesity is a terror [threat] within; it’s destroying our society from within and unless we do something about it, the magnitude of the dilemma will dwarf 9/11 or any other terrorist event that you can point out.”

Presently, a full two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. Childhood obesity has also skyrocketed, tripling over the past 30 years. One in three children between the ages of 10 and 17 is now overweight or obese, and 27 percent of young adults, 17 to 24, are too heavy to join the military.

As a result, today’s children may be the first generation whose life expectancy is shorter than that of their parents….

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 110,000 Americans die as a result of obesity each year, and about one-third of all cancers are directly related to it.

Data collected from over 60,000 Canadians also shows that obesity now leads to more doctor visits than smoking. One-in-four Americans is also pre-diabetic or diabetic, and heart disease and cancer, both of which are associated with obesity, top the mortality charts.

Clearly, the issue of how to achieve good health has never been more pertinent to more people. Yet despite the enormity of this problem, very little is being done to effectively combat obesity.

The film examines the causes of obesity and suggests ways to reverse this deadly trend. Below, I sum up my own recommendations as well.

It’s quite clear that conventional diet and health recommendations are off the mark… Obesity and related health problems are directly attributable to flawed diet—a diet too high in carbs and poor-quality proteins, and too low in healthy fats.

Yet multinational food corporations and biotech companies have successfully manipulated the system to encourage an increase in the use of cheap foods that contribute to the obesity epidemic.

A recent report exposing the deep conflicts of interest between the processed food industry and the trade organization for food and nutrition professionals in the US also shatters any illusion you may have had that registered dieticians will provide you with well-researched, science-based nutrition advice that will improve your health…

Skyrocketing Obesity is Related to Misleading You on Health Issues

Obesity is the result of inappropriate lifestyle choices, and unfortunately, our government has done an abysmal job at disseminating accurate information about diet and health. It’s one thing for corporations to put out misleading ads – honesty is not in the self-interest of the processed food and beverage industry. It’s another when the government falls in line with for-profit deception and becomes a propagator of corporate propaganda. And this is exactly what has happened… For example, conventional advice that is driving public health in the wrong direction includes:
•Cutting calories: Not all calories are created equal, and 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 may actually lead to weight gain
•Avoiding saturated fat: The myth that saturated fat causes heart disease has undoubtedly harmed an incalculable number of lives over the past several decades, even though it all began as little more than a scientifically unsupported marketing strategy for Crisco cooking oil. Most people (myself included) actually need at least 50 to 70 percent of their diet as healthful fats such as organic, pastured eggs, avocados, coconut oil, real butter and grass-fed beef in order to optimize their health
•Reducing your cholesterol to extremely low levels: 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

This is just a tiny sampling of the pervasive misleading information on weight and obesity disseminated by our government agencies. A more complete list of conventional health myths could easily fill several books. The reason behind this sad state of affairs is the fact that the very industries that profit from these lies are the ones funding most of the research; infiltrating our regulatory agencies; and bribing our political officials to support their financially-driven agenda through any number of legal, and at times not so legal, means.

Why Eating Fructose Is More Dangerous than Other Sugars

Part of what makesfructose so unhealthy is that it is metabolized by your liver to fat far more rapidly than any other sugar. The entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on your liver, and it promotes visceral fat2. This is the type of fat that collects around your organs and in your abdominal region and is associated with a greater risk of heart disease.

Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, has been a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism, and his work reveals there are major differences in how different sugars are broken down and used. For example:
•After eating fructose, virtually all of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. With glucose or most other sugars, your liver has to break down only 20 percent. The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which drives up blood pressure and causes gout.
•Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is “burned up” immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.
•The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)3. Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.
•Fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate. In other words, fructose converts to glycerol 3 phosphate (g-3-p), which is directly used to turn FFAs into triglycerides. The more g-3-p you have, the more fat you store. Glucose does not do this.
•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.
•Glucose suppresses your hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin, which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and interferes with your brain’s communication with leptin, resulting in overeating. That fructose triggers changes in your brain that may lead to overeating and weight gain has also been confirmed through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tests.

The Evolutionary Link Between Fructose Consumption and Fat Accumulation

No doubt you’ve heard that consuming more calories than you burn off is the root of your weight problem. Alas, this “conventional wisdom” has been firmly debunked by modern science. The fact is this: Not all calories count equally. It is in fact FAR more important to look at the source of the calories than counting them.

In short, you do not get fat because you eat too many calories and don’t exercise enough. You get fat because you eat the wrong kind of calories.

As explained by Dr. Robert Lustig, fructose is ‘isocaloric but not isometabolic.’ This means you can have the same amount of calories from fructose or glucose, fructose and protein, or fructose and fat, but the metabolic effect will be entirely different despite the identical calorie count. This is a crucial point that must be understood.

The bottom line is that your consumption of carbohydrates, whether in the form of grains and sugars (especially fructose), will determine whether or not you’re able to manage your weight and maintain optimal health. This is because these types of carbs (fructose and grains) affect the hormone insulin, which is a very potent fat regulator. Fats and proteins affect insulin to a far lesser degree.

As long as you keep eating fructose and grains, you’re programming your body to create and store fat…

Research by another expert in this field, Dr. Richard Johnson, chief of the Division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension at the University of Colorado and author of The Sugar Fix and The Fat Switch, further confirms this. His work demonstrates that fructose-containing sugars cause obesity, again not by calories, but by turning on your “fat switch”—a powerful biological adaptation that causes cells to accumulate fat in anticipation of scarcity (or hibernation). His most recent book, The Fat Switch, is of major importance to anyone who has ever struggled with their weight and/or persistent health issues. Five basic truths detailed in his book include:
•Large portions of food and too little exercise are NOT solely responsible for why you are gaining weight
•Metabolic Syndrome is actually a healthy adaptive condition that animals undergo to store fat to help them survive periods of famine. The problem is that most of us are always “feasting” and rarely undergo fasting. As a result, this beneficial switch actually causes damage to contemporary man
•Uric acid is increased by specific foods and causally contributes to obesity and insulin resistance
•Fructose-containing sugars cause obesity not by calories but by turning on the fat switch
•Effective treatment of obesity requires turning off your fat switch and improving the function of your cells’ mitochondria

I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book, which is a useful tool for those struggling with their weight. Dietary sugar, and fructose in particular, is a significant “tripper of your fat switch,” so understanding how sugars of all kinds affect your weight and health is imperative.

What are the Sources of Your Daily Calories?

According to the 2010 Report by the Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans4, the top 10 sources of calories in the American diet are:

1. Grain-based desserts (cakes, cookies, donuts, pies, crisps, cobblers, and granola bars) 139 calories a day

6. Alcoholic beverages

2. Yeast breads, 129 calories a day

7. Pasta and pasta dishes

3. Chicken and chicken-mixed dishes, 121 calories a day

8. Mexican mixed dishes

4. Soda, energy drinks, and sports drinks, 114 calories a day

9. Beef and beef-mixed dishes

5. Pizza, 98 calories a day

10. Dairy desserts

As you can see, on the whole it’s easy to see that the dietary roots of the American weight problem is linked to carbs—sugars (primarily fructose) and grains—in the form of processed foods and sweet drinks. You’ve often heard me state that soda is the number one source of calories in the US diet, which it was, based on the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The updated NHANES survey above covers nutritional data from 2005-2006, placing grain-based foods in the top two slots.

Still, soda comes in at number four, and I still believe many people, particularly teenagers, probably still get a majority of their calories from fructose-rich drinks like soda.

I strongly recommend ditching all sodas as a first step to clean up your diet and help normalize your insulin levels. I believe it’s one of the most powerful actions you can take to improve your health and lower your risk of disease and long-term chronic health conditions. Especially when you consider that just one can of soda per day can add as much as 15 pounds to your weight over the course of a single year, and increases your risk of diabetes by 85 percent! If you struggle with an addiction to soda and other sweets, I strongly recommend you consider Turbo Tapping. It’s a simple and clever use of the Emotional Freedom Technique, designed to resolve many aspects of an issue in a concentrated period of time.

My Recommended Fructose Allowance

As a standard recommendation, I advise keeping your TOTAL fructose consumption below 25 grams per day. For most people it would also be wise to limit your fructose from fruit to 15 grams or less, as you’re virtually guaranteed to consume “hidden” sources of fructose through processed food and condiments.

There certainly are exceptions to this rule. People who are aggressively exercising can consume far more, especially if consuming the calories around the time of exercise, but generally, to optimize health, most will benefit from restricting their fructose input.

Fifteen grams of fructose is not much — it represents two bananas, one-third cup of raisins, or two Medjool dates. Remember, the average 12-ounce can of soda contains 40 grams of sugar, at least half of which is fructose, so one can of soda alone would exceed your daily allotment. If your insulin and leptin signaling is fine and you are normal body weight and don’t suffer from diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol, then consuming more fruit is reasonable.

In his book, The Sugar Fix, Dr. Richard Johnson includes detailed tables showing the content of fructose in different foods — an information base that isn’t readily available when you’re trying to find out exactly how much fructose is in various foods. You can also find an abbreviated listing of the fructose content of common fruits in this previous article.

Key Point: Replace Carbs with Healthful Fats!

Keep in mind that when we’re talking about harmful carbs, we’re only referring to grains and sugars, NOT vegetable carbs. When you cut grain/sugar carbs you then need to radically increase:
•The amount of vegetables you eat since, by volume, the grains you need to trade out are denser than vegetables, and
•Healthful fats such as avocados, coconut oil, organic pastured egg yolks, raw grass fed organic butter, olives, and nuts such as almonds and pecans.

Avoid highly processed and genetically engineered omega-6 oils like corn, canola and soy as they will upset your omega 6/3 ratio. Of course you want to avoid all trans fats, but contrary to popular advice, saturated fats are a key component of a healthy diet that will promote weight loss.

A reasonable goal will be to have as much as 50-70 percent of your diet as healthy fat, which will radically reduce your carbohydrate intake. It can be helpful to remember that fat is far more satiating than carbs, so if you have cut down on carbs and feel ravenous, this is a sign that you have not replaced them with sufficient amounts of healthy fat.

Most people will likely notice massive improvement in their health by following this approach as they are presently consuming FAR more grain and bean carbohydrates in their diet, and any reduction will be a step in the right direction. To help you get started on the right track, review my Nutritional Plan, which guides you through these dietary changes one step at a time.

You Can Avoid Becoming a Statistic

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. Furthermore, the idea that in order to lose weight all you have to do is expend more calories than you consume is equally false. The research clearly demonstrates that even if you control the number of calories you eat, if those calories come from fructose, you are at increased risk of obesity and pre-diabetes, which includes insulin and leptin resistance, fatty liver, high blood pressure and high triglycerides.

Conventional advice tells us that obesity is simply the result of eating too many calories and not exercising enough. However, Dr. Johnson’s research, discussed above, shows that a high fructose diet is one of the keys to trapping excess fat and developing metabolic disorders, and that as soon as you throw fructose into the mix, “calories in versus calories out” is no longer a functional equation.

In short, limiting fructose in all its forms, along with other sugars, is imperative in order to avoid “flipping the fat switch” that can trigger your body to accumulate excess fat. And replacing sugar and grain carbs with vegetables and healthful fats is the key to normalizing your weight, metabolic function, and overall health.

Intermittent fasting is another powerful tool 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 to burn your excess body fat, become lean, and eliminate sugar cravings.

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Research Shows Healthier Doctors Have Healthier Patients

If your physician is overweight or obese, does it make him or her less able to give you sound medical advice?

Logically you would say no, yet a new study published in the International Journal of Obesity1 found that excess body weight impacts patients’ views of their physician.

When a physician was perceived to be overweight or obese, patients viewed him or her as less credible and trustworthy, and they were less inclined to follow the given medical advice.

This bias may not be fair; as mentioned, body weight obviously has little bearing on a physician’s ability to practice medicine. However, are such reservations justifiable?

It is most unfortunate that the vast majority of physicians who finish medical school are not highly motivated to follow truly healthy lifestyles, but more or less succumb to the powerful brainwashing influence of Big Pharma in their curriculum.

Research Shows Healthier Doctors Have Healthier Patients

You probably wouldn’t knowingly take driving lessons from an instructor who had carelessly totaled his car. Likewise, you may be less inclined to accept health advice from someone you perceive to be unhealthy.

An overweight physician may still be healthy but is likely to be perceived as less so than a physician who is fit. According to the recent study, overweight physicians were less trusted by both normal weight and overweight patients alike. The study’s lead author told the New York Times:2

“The bias against overweight people is so socially accepted that despite all the doctor’s training and expertise, it can jeopardize the doctor’s ability to have a conversation about health care with the patient.”

It’s a harsh finding, but there may be some reason to seek out the healthiest physicians. Separate research has shown, in fact, that healthier physicians tend to have healthier patients.3

Unfortunately, that particular study used practices like mammography and annual vaccinations, which are poor measures of true health as the markers, finding that patients whose physicians were compliant with these practices were more likely to have undergone these procedures themselves.

This suggests that other preventive measures practiced by physicians, such as healthful eating and exercise, may also transfer over to patients as well.

So the secret to finding the best health care provider for you may lie in seeking someone who is like-minded, more inclined to use natural therapies and lifestyle strategies before medicine, if that is important to you, as well as someone who practices what they preach. The study’s author noted:4

“It’s human nature. People usually preach what they practice. Personal adoption of a practice suggests that the doctors are sufficiently convinced of the importance of the intervention that they are motivated enough to even do it themselves, and perhaps they’ve figured out how to overcome access barriers that can enable patients, as well.”

Healthy Personal Behaviors Improve Physicians’ Credibility

Research has shown not only that physicians with healthy lifestyles are more likely to discuss such practices with their patients, but also that talking about these healthful personal habits improves their credibility and ability to motivate their patients to do the same.5 The correlation was so strong that researchers concluded:

“Educational institutions should consider encouraging health professionals-in-training to practice and demonstrate healthy personal lifestyles.”

Another study similarly found that healthy physicians can help motivate positive change for entire communities, noting:6

“Physician-directed interventions that advance these [health] principles are most effective when directed by clinicians who regularly participate in such healthy behaviors themselves.”

What does this mean for you? Choosing a physician shouldn’t only be about credentials and educational background but also about their personal lifestyle choices. Does your physician exercise? Does he or she embrace healthy eating habits and stress-reduction techniques? If so there’s a good chance these positive habits will get passed on to you.

You Don’t Need a Doctor to Learn How to Take Control of Your Health

It may be especially motivating to have your physician tell you to eat more vegetables or get more exercise, but you don’t need a physician to learn some of the most important variables to reaching optimal health.

The vast majority of deaths in wealthier countries like our own are due to chronic, not acute, disease. And most chronic diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, are largely preventable with simple lifestyle changes. Even infectious diseases like the flu can often be warded off by a healthy way of life.

The added bonus to this is that the healthier you are, the less you will need to rely on conventional medical care, which is a leading cause of death. So while it’s a good idea to choose a doctor who leads a healthy lifestyle, it’s even better to lead one yourself! So what does a “healthy lifestyle” entail?
•Proper Food Choices

For a comprehensive guide on which foods to eat and which to avoid, see my nutrition plan. It’s available for free, and is perhaps one of the most comprehensive and all-inclusive guides on a healthy lifestyle out there. Generally speaking, you should be looking to focus your diet on whole, ideally organic, unprocessed foods that come from healthy, sustainable, ideally local, sources.

For the best nutrition and health benefits, you will want to eat the majority of your food raw. Nearly as important as knowing which foods to eat more of is knowing which foods to avoid, and topping the list is fructose. Sugar, and fructose in particular, can have a multitude of toxic effects when consumed in excess, not the least of which is insulin resistance, a major cause of accelerated aging and a crucial factor in driving virtually all chronic disease.

For most people (although there are clearly individual differences), a diet high in healthful fats (as high as 50-70 percent of the calories you eat), moderate amounts of high-quality protein, which is far less than the average amount most people eat, with the bulk of carbohydrates coming from high-nutrient, low-carbohydrate vegetables and very little carbohydrates from grains and sugars, will set you on the right track toward health.
•Comprehensive Exercise Program, including High-Intensity Exercise

Even if you’re eating the healthiest diet in the world, you still need to exercise to reach the highest levels of health, and you need to be exercising effectively, which means including not only core-strengthening exercises, strength training, and stretching but also high-intensity activities into your rotation. High-intensity interval-type training like Peak Fitness boosts human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential for optimal health, strength and vigor.
•Stress Reduction and Positive Thinking

You cannot be optimally healthy if you avoid addressing the emotional component of your health and longevity, as your emotional state plays a role in nearly every physical disease — from heart disease and depression to arthritis and cancer. Effective coping mechanisms are a major longevity-promoting factor in part because stress has a direct impact on inflammation, which in turn underlies many of the chronic diseases that kill people prematurely every day. Meditation, prayer, energy psychology tools such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), social support and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional and mental equilibrium.
•Optimize Vitamin D with Proper Sun Exposure

We have long known that it is best to get your vitamin D from appropriate sun exposure during times when UVB rays are present. Vitamin D plays an important role in preventing numerous illnesses ranging from cancer to the flu. The important factor when it comes to vitamin D is your serum level, which should ideally be between 50-70 ng/ml year-round.

Sun exposure, or failing that, a safe tanning bed is the preferred method for optimizing vitamin D levels, but a vitamin D3 supplement can be used when necessary. Most adults need about 8,000 IU’s of vitamin D a day to achieve serum levels above 40 ng/ml, which is still just below the minimum recommended serum level of 50 ng/ml. Be aware that if you take supplemental vitamin D, you also need to make sure you’re getting enough vitamin K2, as these two nutrients work in tandem to ensure calcium is distributed into the proper areas in your body.
•High Quality Animal-Based Omega-3 Fats

Animal-based omega-3 fat like krill oil is a strong factor in helping people live longer, and some experts believe that it may be one reason why the Japanese are the longest lived race on the planet.
•Avoid as Many Chemicals, Toxins, and Pollutants as Possible

This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives.

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Amazing healthy dessert or snack recipe (so delicious!)

A couple months ago, I sent you a really tasty new healthy dessert/snack recipe that we called Danette’s healthy balls. You can see the original recipe on that page. Super simple and tasty.

Well, after experimenting with this recipe a few times, I’ve made a few modifications to it that lower the overall carbs while increasing the healthy fats and fiber in order to lower the glycemic response from this recipe.

The existing recipe with the oats is okay for highly active people that workout hard and can utilize the carbs from the oats well. And oats are one of the more “neutral” grains that have less antinutrient problems compared to wheat or corn.

But I still wanted to modify these healthy cookie dough balls for our own batches to be lower in carbs for a lower blood sugar response since I use these mostly in the evenings for dessert each night.

So what I did was replace the oats in the recipe with hazelnut flour, although any nut flour will work well too. Since the basis of the recipe is a jar of almond butter, I chose to use hazelnut flour instead of using almond flour and almond butter. That way, you diversify the fatty acid profile and the vitamin/mineral profile from 2 types of nuts instead of only one type. You can also add chopped pecans and walnuts for more variety.

If you choose to use peanut butter as the base of the recipe, you can use almond flour (which is easier to find than hazelnut flour), and that way, you still get a more diverse nutrient profile from the 2 types of nuts instead of just one.

I also added some other bells and whistles to this modified version to add more healthy fats and fiber. Notably, I added coconut milk instead of water, and also added a 1/3 cup of chia seed for extra fiber and vitamins/minerals.

I also used 1/4 cup real maple syrup instead of the 1/4 cup honey. This was mainly because raw honey is generally solid and doesn’t mix well, so real maple syrup worked better for me in order to mix everything together.

Oh, and I also added some cocoa powder, dark choc chips, and some pure cacao nibs for the extra taste and nutrition benefits of the various forms of cocoa.

Here’s the new version below which I just made 2 days ago and is the BEST batch I’ve made yet. These things are deeee-lish! My dad even made a batch of these recently and said he looks forward to having a few of these little gems with a cup of tea every single day as a mid day snack or dessert.

The ratio of sugar in these is very low since the majority of the recipe consists of healthy fats, protein, and fiber. The only real carb source is the maple syrup and it’s only 1/4 cup in the whole recipe, but the amount of balls this makes will last you at least a week.

The New Modified Healthy Balls Dessert Recipe:

* 1 full jar (12 oz) of almond butter, cashew butter, or peanut butter
* 1/4 cup real maple syrup (grade B has more nutrients than grade A)
* 2 cups hazelnut flour or almond flour
* 1/2 cup organic canned coconut milk (canned is creamier than the watered down cartons)
* 1/3 cup chia seed
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 2-3 scoops vanilla or chocolate whey protein (Chocolate Biotrust protein tastes the best in this mixture!)
* 2 Tbsp of organic cocoa powder
* 1/3 cup of cacao nibs
* 1/3 cup of dark choc chips (70% cacao or higher)
* 1 Tbsp of cinnamon
* pinch of salt

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl and continue to mash together with a large spoon for a few minutes until everything seems well mixed together. Roll into 1 inch balls and lay out on plates or waxed paper to put in the freezer (they need to be separate so they don’t freeze together). Once frozen, you can transfer all the balls to a tupperware container to keep in the freezer until any time you want a healthy sweet treat!

Try these and you’ll be BLOWN AWAY at how good these are!

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer

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A small but growing body of research suggests that barefoot is the way to run. As a result, many runners have been shucking off their shoes in favor of naked feet or minimalist footwear.

Strong evidence shows that thickly cushioned running shoes have done nothing to prevent injury in the 30-odd years since Nike founder Bill Bowerman invented them. Some smaller, earlier studies suggest that running in shoes may increase the risk of ankle sprains, plantar fasciitis and other injuries. Injuries plague 20 to 80 percent of regular runners every year.

Going shoeless allows your foot to flex and absorb shock. With thick heels, people lengthen their strides, landing heel-first and letting the shoe absorb the impact of each footfall. You can’t do that barefoot, so your body naturally falls into a shorter stride, landing first on the outside middle or ball of your foot. As you advance your foot rolls inward; the arch flattens and helps absorb the impact; it then springs back up as you lift your foot and push off the ground.

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

If you enjoy running and want to take your workout to the next level, it may be time to ditch your running shoes … or at least switch to one of the more barefoot-oriented footwear options now available.

I first started running back in 1968 and this has been one of my preferred forms of exercise for over 40 years (although recently I’ve put running aside in favor of a more varied workout).

Although I almost always wear running shoes during my runs, if you’ve ever gone for a barefoot run on the beach, it becomes immediately apparent how good running barefoot feels. It’s liberating from a mental perspective, yes, but also from a physical one.

If you get the opportunity, watch a baby walking barefoot; they actually display the correct walking technique that we adults have lost touch with.

Why Might Running Barefoot be Beneficial?

To put it simply, your feet were designed to work best without shoes. So when you surround your feet with the extra padding and protection that most athletic shoes offer, your foot muscles are not being used appropriately.

There are obviously some concerns with running barefoot, namely stepping on a sharp object or rock and injuring your skin. But if done properly, barefoot running can be quite safe. Marathon runners in Kenya actually do it all the time.

In fact, research by Michael Warburton, a physical therapist in Australia, found that running barefoot decreases the likelihood of ankle sprains and chronic injuries, such as plantar fasciitis.

Further, he writes that wearing footwear actually increases the likelihood of ankle sprains, one of the most common sports injuries, because it either decreases your awareness of foot position or increases the twisting torque on your ankle during a stumble.

Also revealing is Warburton’s observation that foot and leg injuries are much lower in developing countries, where shoes are not the norm. He writes:

“Where barefoot and shod populations co-exist, as in Haiti, injury rates of the lower extremity are substantially higher in the shod population. Furthermore, running-related chronic injuries to bone and connective tissue in the legs are rare in developing countries, where most people are habitually barefooted.”

Physics NOT Biomechanics Might Offer the Answer

Interestingly, one of my friends, Tim Ferriss, did a blog posting on this earlier this year and he felt that Vibram Five Finger shoes provided a modern-day equivalent. I actually purchased a pair and occasionally wear them.

I do believe they are likely superior to most shoes, although you will be sartorially challenged with them. However, they are likely not as good as actually running barefoot (assuming you don’t step on any sharp object). The primary reason is not related to biomechanics but physics.

One of the primary reasons that walking or running barefoot might be helpful is that it allows free electrons from the earth to pass into your body and essentially provide you with loads of great antioxidant potential. Very few of us currently touch the earth’s surface as we are nearly always wearing shoes.

Doesn’t take much brain power to recognize that our ancestors for most of history did not wear shoes and had this type of regular contact with the earth, either by walking, running or sleeping on the ground. In other words, they were grounded through much of the day, and most of us are not.

To the best of my knowledge there are no carefully controlled studies on this but there are some companies that sell devices to help provide this grounding while one is sleeping.

More Reasons Why You Might Want to Spend More Time Barefoot …

If running barefoot sounds like too drastic a step, you can start out gradually just by spending more time without your shoes on.

One of the classic works on the topic of going barefoot is Take Off Your Shoes and Walk by Simon J. Wikler D.S.C. In it he explains that improperly shaped shoes — including high heels and pointed toes — are responsible for modern-day foot troubles.

In fact, the book describes a study from the late 1950s that found children who were allowed to go barefoot had:
•Greater agility
•Denser muscles on the bottom of their feet
•Less deformed toes
•Greater flexor strength
•More ability to spread their toes
•More flexibility of the gluteal and hamstring muscles

Meanwhile, it’s been suggested that shoes lead to what’s called “cow-walk.”

Cow-walk puts tremendous pressure on your joints. Starting with the squeezing of your foot inside the shoe, jarring the knees as they’re locked straight upon the pole-driving impact of the heel, which then travels straight up your spine, all the way up your neck.

In contrast, “fox-walking” is the walk of the natural hunter-gatherer — the graceful flow of your body in total synchronization. Your knees are bent, rather than locked, the ball of your foot touches the ground first, followed by your heel, in a virtually soundless step motion.

And as I said earlier, there have also been some very compelling studies suggesting that when you are “grounded” free electrons can easily come up from the earth and essentially nullify free radicals in your body. Ancient philosophies call this life-force energy Chi (also called Qi or Prana) and believe it can be absorbed through the soles of your feet automatically and unconsciously when walking barefoot.

Tips for Becoming a Barefoot Runner

If you decide to give barefoot running a try make sure you do it slowly, progressing gradually to more and more time spent without shoes. A good starting point is to first try walking barefoot and then begin with quarter-mile barefoot runs.

Keep in mind also that your gait will be different than it is with your shoes on. Listen to your body and try to tune in to your innate knowledge of how to run and walk barefoot.

Also, when you start going barefoot it is best to initiate on naturally softer ground like grass, dirt paths and sand, not cement, asphalt or hardwood. When the muscles and joints of your foot become more stable and the skin on the bottom of your feet thickens, you will be able to handle progressively more time barefoot and on a wider variety of surfaces.

You can also try out one of the several minimalist footwear options now on the market. These shoes are designed to give you many of the benefits of going barefoot but will protect your feet from abrasions, which is especially useful when you’ll be running on rough terrain or in hot or cold temperatures.

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Grounding: The Overlooked Benefit of Going Barefoot

While still in the vast minority, an increasing number of people are joining the barefoot running trend, throwing their shoes to the wind and letting their feet run free, literally.

In the modern world, it might sound “extreme” to give up your shoes, particularly when engaging in an activity as hard on your feet as running, but surrounding your feet with thick cushioning and stiff supports is actually the “new” trend, evolutionarily speaking.

Humans Went Without Running Shoes for Millions of Years

Writing in the journal Nature, Harvard researchers explained:1

“Humans have engaged in endurance running for millions of years, but the modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s.

For most of human evolutionary history, runners were either barefoot or wore minimal footwear such as sandals or moccasins with smaller heels and little cushioning relative to modern running shoes.”

Let’s face it, your feet were designed to work without shoes. And while running barefoot does pose certain unique hazards, such as stepping on a sharp object or injuring your skin on abrasive pavement, there are reports that barefoot running is actually quite beneficial.

While the research is still limited and many of the reports anecdotal, running barefoot may actually decrease the likelihood of ankle sprains and chronic injuries.

Shoes Alter Your Gait, but is This Good or Bad?

Walking or running with shoes is quite a different experience than doing so without them. This is evidenced perhaps no more clearly than among children, who in the developed world are virtually the only ones who have not yet grown accustomed to wearing shoes, and as such their gait should be more or less the way nature intended.

Indeed, research published in the Journal of Foot and Ankle Research revealed:2

“Shoes affect the gait of children. With shoes, children walk faster by taking longer steps with greater ankle and knee motion and increased tibialis anterior activity. Shoes reduce foot motion and increase the support phases of the gait cycle.

During running, shoes reduce swing phase leg speed, attenuate some shock and encourage a rearfoot strike pattern. The long-term effect of these changes on growth and development are currently unknown.”

And therein lies the question: is footwear a boon or a bust to mankind? Surprising as it may sound, emerging research suggests modern running shoes, with their heavily cushioned, elevated heels, may actually encourage runners to strike the ground with their heel first,

A move that generates a greater collision force with the ground, leading to an increased potential for injury. The Harvard researchers continued in Nature:

“Here we show that habitually barefoot endurance runners often land on the fore-foot (fore-foot strike) before bringing down the heel, but they sometimes land with a flat foot (mid-foot strike) or, less often, on the heel (rear-foot strike). In contrast, habitually shod runners mostly rear-foot strike, facilitated by the elevated and cushioned heel of the modern running shoe.

Kinematic and kinetic analyses show that even on hard surfaces, barefoot runners who fore-foot strike generate smaller collision forces than shod rear-foot strikers.

This difference results primarily from a more plantarflexed foot at landing and more ankle compliance during impact, decreasing the effective mass of the body that collides with the ground. Fore-foot- and mid-foot-strike gaits were probably more common when humans ran barefoot or in minimal shoes, and may protect the feet and lower limbs from some of the impact-related injuries now experienced by a high percentage of runners.”

This may explain how marathon runners in Kenya are able to run great distances barefoot with virtually no pain or injuries. Likewise, research reviewed by Michael Warburton, a physical therapist in Australia, revealed:3
•Running-related chronic injuries to bone and connective tissue in the legs are rare in developing countries, where most people are habitually barefooted
•Where barefoot and shod populations co-exist, as in Haiti, injury rates of the lower extremity are substantially higher in the shod population
•Wearing footwear actually increases the likelihood of ankle sprains, one of the most common sports injuries, because it either decreases your awareness of foot position or increases the twisting torque on your ankle during a stumble
•One of the most common chronic injuries in runners, planter fasciitis (an inflammation of the ligament running along the sole of your foot), is rare in barefoot populations
•Running in bare feet reduces oxygen consumption by a few percent

Grounding: The Overlooked Benefit of Going Barefoot

While much of the debate between the barefoot and the shoed-foot focuses on the potential for injury, another often overlooked aspect is grounding. The technique of grounding, also known as earthing, is simple: you walk barefoot to “ground” with the Earth. The scientific theory behind the health benefits seen from this simple practice is that your body absorbs negative electrons from the Earth through the soles of your feet.

The Earth is negatively charged, so when you ground, you’re connecting your body to a negatively charged supply of energy. And since the Earth has a greater negative charge than your body, you end up absorbing electrons from it. The grounding effect is, in my understanding, one of the most potent antioxidants we know of and may have an anti-inflammatory effect on your body. As written in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine:4

“It is well established, though not widely known, that the surface of the earth possesses a limitless and continuously renewed supply of free or mobile electrons as a consequence of a global atmospheric electron circuit. Wearing shoes with insulating soles and/or sleeping in beds that are isolated from the electrical ground plane of the earth have disconnected most people from the earth’s electrical rhythms and free electrons.

… A previous study demonstrated that connecting the human body to the earth during sleep (earthing) normalizes the daily cortisol rhythm and improves sleep. A variety of other benefits were reported, including reductions in pain and inflammation. Subsequent studies have confirmed these earlier findings and documented virtually immediate physiologic and clinical effects of grounding or earthing the body.”

Unfortunately, few people ever walk barefoot anymore to experience the benefits of grounding. But it is very plausible that some of the people who have converted to barefoot running are experiencing benefits not only from the lack of shoes, but also from the increased connection to the Earth.

Walking Barefoot Is a Valuable Aspect of a Healthy Lifestyle

Exercising barefoot outdoors is one of the most wonderful, inexpensive and powerful ways of incorporating Earthing into your daily life and will also help speed up tissue repair, as well as easing the muscle pain you sometimes get from strenuous exercise.

A review of the available research, published January 2012 in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health, agrees with the concept of reaping health benefits when connecting to the earth5. According to the authors:

“Mounting evidence suggests that the Earth’s negative potential can create a stable internal bioelectrical environment for the normal functioning of all body systems. Moreover, oscillations of the intensity of the Earth’s potential may be important for setting the biological clocks regulating diurnal body rhythms, such as cortisol secretion.

It is also well established that electrons from antioxidant molecules neutralize reactive oxygen species (ROS, or in popular terms, free radicals) involved in the body’s immune and inflammatory responses. The National Library of Medicine’s online resource PubMed lists 7021 studies and 522 review articles from a search of ‘antioxidant+electron+free radical.’ It is assumed that the influx of free electrons absorbed into the body through direct contact with the Earth likely neutralize ROS and thereby reduce acute and chronic inflammation.

Throughout history, humans mostly walked barefoot or with footwear made of animal skins. They slept on the ground or on skins. Through direct contact or through perspiration-moistened animal skins used as footwear or sleeping mats, the ground’s abundant free electrons were able to enter the body, which is electrically conductive. Through this mechanism, every part of the body could equilibrate with the electrical potential of the Earth, thereby stabilizing the electrical environment of all organs, tissues, and cells.

Modern lifestyle has increasingly separated humans from the primordial flow of Earth’s electrons. For example, since the 1960s, we have increasingly worn insulating rubber or plastic soled shoes, instead of the traditional leather fashioned from hides. Rossi has lamented that the use of insulating materials in post-World War II shoes has separated us from the Earth’s energy field. Obviously, we no longer sleep on the ground as we did in times past.

During recent decades, chronic illness, immune disorders, and inflammatory diseases have increased dramatically, and some researchers have cited environmental factors as the cause. However, the possibility of modern disconnection with the Earth’s surface as a cause has not been considered. Much of the research reviewed in this paper points in that direction.”

When indoors, using a grounding pad or sheet is an excellent way to lower your risk for cardiovascular disease and other problems, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis.

Before You Take Off Your Shoes…

Just taking off your shoes, if you’ve been wearing them all your life, does not mean you’ll immediately attain proper barefoot running form. Many new barefoot runners continue to land heavily on their heels — and the result can be injury. So if you decide to give barefoot running a try, make sure you do it slowly, progressing gradually to more and more time spent without shoes. A good starting point is to first try walking barefoot and then begin with quarter-mile barefoot runs.

Keep in mind also that your gait will be different than it is with your shoes on — this is expected. Listen to your body and try to tune in to your innate knowledge of how to run and walk barefoot, and allow your feet, ankles, knees and hips to naturally change position in response to the terrain.

When you start going barefoot it is best to initiate on naturally softer ground like grass, dirt paths and sand, not cement, asphalt or hardwood. When the muscles and joints of your foot become more stable and the skin on the bottom of your feet thickens, you will be able to handle progressively more time barefoot and on a wider variety of surfaces.

While there are a growing number of minimalist footwear options now on the market that are designed to simulate barefoot running, some argue that these shoes are merely marketing ploys, and in fact still change your gait from the way nature intended. Personally, I have tried one version that I liked very much and would recommend highly, although since I traded in running for Peak Fitness, I haven’t actually used them for runs.

One final note, barefoot running or walking doesn’t have to be an “all or nothing” decision. You can incorporate as much barefoot time into your life as you feel comfortable with. Quite possibly, you’ll enjoy it so much that you will naturally find yourself kicking off your shoes as much as possible.

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In a world where many are not only time-crunched but where their smartphones and tablets are virtually extensions of their own bodies, technology-infused fitness represents the latest innovation to help you stay fit.

Meanwhile, it’s becoming increasingly clear that challenging your body at the peak of your performance max for short periods, known as high-intensity interval type training (HIIT), is one of the best and most efficient ways to get in shape.

As a result, many are thinking “outside the treadmill” and trading in their hour-long jogs for quicker, more efficient workouts like Peak Fitness, CrossFit, plyometrics, kickboxing, and kettlebell workouts, for example.

One of the newcomers on the block is Fitwall, an innovative vertical training program that combines standard bodyweight exercises performed on a unique training apparatus, in a technology-savvy studio.

What Is Fitwall?

Fitwall is a vertical training modality that is essentially a 7-foot-tall tower attached to the wall, with four stationary rungs for your feet and four tiers for grip. Each Fitwall is attached to an iPad that allows you to monitor your heart rate and exertion level during your workout.

Available only at select fitness studios (and in a handful of private gyms run by professional football leagues, the US military and Olympic Training Centers), Fitwall allows you to perform over 900 different exercises.

The most common workout program involves 14 movements including squats, leg extensions, calf raises, pull-ups and hip rotations, performed while clinging to the wall. An average Fitwall session, which is 40 minutes long, is said to be more effective than regular gym workouts, typical group classes or even working with a personal trainer.

The fact that the workout is mostly done while you’re gripping a vertical wall is certain to add intensity and challenge your body and core muscles in unique and beneficial ways.

How Bodyweight Exercises Can Enhance Your Fitness Routine

However, you certainly don’t need a Fitwall to do the bulk of the Fitwall workout, as the majority of these exercises are bodyweight exercises that can be done either in your home or at your local gym (albeit on the ground instead of hanging onto the wall).

Exercises that use your bodyweight for strength training allow you to strengthen and tone your muscles virtually anywhere, with no fancy exercise equipment or gym membership required. Examples include:
•Jump squats
•Burpees
•Mountain climbers
•Push-ups
•Pull-ups

When performed on the Fitwall, the intensity is significantly increased, but you can also tweak the intensity by slowing down your movements (such as for push-ups and pull-ups) or performing the exercises on an unstable surface, such as a BOSU ball or exercise ball, which will force your core muscles to work harder to keep you in balance.

You can actually turn just about any bodyweight exercise into an extremely effective HIIT workout with a bit of creativity. For instance, you can turn ordinary push-ups into a high-intensity workout by performing:
•Plyometric push-ups: Once your sternum touches the floor, hold your position and breathe for about three seconds, then perform an explosive push upward.
•Three minutes of push-ups: It’s quite simply, how many push-ups can you do in three minutes? You need to have good technique, good form, and a strategy. If you go all out, you’ll lose your energy and likely won’t last for three minutes. So go at a pace of about 80 percent of your total ability, and when you can’t go any further, rest for 20-30 seconds; stretch, and then resume.
•The handstand push-up (highly advanced): Facing a wall, place your hands at a 45-degree angle about one to two hand-lengths from the wall. Kick your legs up. You can use the wall to stabilize you as you perform the push-up. Breathe in as you lower yourself to the floor, and breathe out as you push yourself up.

A 7-Minute High-Intensity Workout Using Just Your Bodyweight, a Chair and a Wall

While Fitwall does appear to be a novel and intriguing way to exercise, the best exercise program for you is one you’re going to stick with. Not only is Fitwall only available in very limited locations, but it can also be costly at $120 for just four sessions. Although this does compare favorably to the cost of a personal trainer, the take-home point to remember is that cost and lack of access to a gym or fitness class are not impediments to fitting in exercise to your regular routine; you can get in a good workout that doesn’t cost a dime and can be done in just minutes a day when you use HIIT.

A recent article in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal,1, for instance, shows how you can fulfill the requirements for high-intensity exercise using nothing more than your own bodyweight, a chair and a wall.

Best of all, this science-backed routine only requires a seven-minute investment, as the program calls for as little as 10 to 15 seconds of rest between each 30-second exercise, which should be performed in rapid succession. One of the added boons of this 7-minute program, shown in the video above, is that since you don’t need any equipment, you can easily take this routine with you when traveling.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a hotel room that doesn’t at least have a chair in it. When done at the appropriate intensity, which should hover around 8 on a scale of 1-10, the following 12 exercises equate to doing a long run and a weight-training session. The exercises are ideally done in the following order, as this allows for opposing muscle groups to alternate between resting and working in each subsequent exercise.

Harnessing Technology to Boost Your Exercise Performance

The other alluring aspect of Fitwall is that it’s technologically advanced, allowing participants to monitor their exertion levels, and even check in for class, via an iPad. If you have a smartphone or tablet, it’s actually very easy to access many top-quality workouts that you can do virtually anywhere. With tens of thousands of health apps already on the market, and more coming daily, this is one fitness trend that’s likely going to be around for a while.

The great beauty of these apps is that they’re inexpensive or free and allow you to have personal trainers, exercise images and entire fitness programs right at your fingertips, so you can take control of your health. If you want even more ideas for creating an excellent HIIT workout that, in many cases, you can do right at home, give any of these six bodyweight apps a try:
1.You are Your Own Gym ($2.99)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Over the counter pain remedies such as aspirin, acetaminophen, and ibuprofen have been the go-to choices for killing pain and/or inflammation fast. But they have their vast array of side effects.

Aspirin has been linked to gastrointestinal problems and ulcers as well hemorrhaging and strokes. Tylenol contains acetaminophen, which is toxic to the liver.

Ibuprofen is an NSAID (non-steroid anti-inflammatory drug). Advil and Motrin are common OTC ibuprofen drugs that create side effects such as nausea and dizziness, hypertension, DNA damage, hearing loss, and miscarriage.

Synthetic drugs may offer fast pain relief, but they are risky. There are many effective pain relieving and anti-inflammatory natural remedies that are effective after time, but below are some that offer fast pain relief.

Five natural and fast pain relief solutions
(1) Kratom an herb that is both fast and natural for pain relief is unknown to most of us. Natural News readers were only very recently introduced to it by Jonathan Benson’s article. (http://www.naturalnews.com/035480_kratom_pain_relief_herb.html)

Kratom has an interesting history from its early times as an herb to reduce pain, increase energy, and lift spirits among Indonesians. Many who were hooked on opium used kratom to help them endure opium withdrawal easily.

According to legend, that’s why it was banned there. It was interfering with the opium trade. Maybe so, maybe not.

The fact that it was banned in its country of origin, as well as the fact that kratom promotes a good feeling that helps overcome depression with a strong coffee buzz drew the attention of U.S. drug enforcement officials. It’s actually banned in the state of Indiana.

But it is available online in all other states and in most other countries. You can find out much more about it here: http://www.kratomassociation.org/

(2) Devil’s Claw is a South African herb that has been popular in Europe for couple hundred years. It has proven effective as an anti-inflammatory for arthritis, tendonitis, and muscle pain.

The German Commission E, Germany’s version of our FDA, has approved it as a non-prescription or OTC medicine. It’s not medically recognized by the FDA, but its legality is not an issue currently.

(3) Cannabis, unfortunately, has a legal issue. It has been clinically proven to relieve pain rapidly. It too has the side effect of altering mood if inhaled. But there are other methods of using cannabis, known to most as marijuana, that don’t get you high.

If you are fortunate to live in a state that permits medical marijuana and get approved for a medical marijuana card, you’ll have access to a pain remedy that works well immediately for even agonized chemo patients and glaucoma patients suffering severe eye pain and headaches.

(4) Turmeric/curcumin is without controversy or legal issues. Turmeric’s active ingredient, curcumin, taken properly will offer faster pain relief from inflammation than turmeric alone.

High dose curcumin enteric coated capsules with piperine, black pepper’s active ingredient that increases nutrient absorption, are excellent for getting past the stomach intact. Enteric coating protects capsules from deteriorating in the early stomach phase of digestion, allowing the ingredients to get into the lower intestines intact.

Or you can empty a regular capsule of curcumin with piperine into a spoonful of good coconut or olive oil and ingest that. If it lacks piperine, add black pepper.

(5) Arnica with DMSO combines a homeopathic topical cream with DMSO as an adjunct to give fast pain relief from injury, arthritis, or sciatica. Adding DMSO speeds and deepens arnica’s topically applied efficacy while adding some of its own pain and inflammatory relief. (http://www.naturalnews.com/037485_DMSO_inflammation_muscle_pain.html)

Sources for this article include:

http://www.raysahelian.com/acetaminophen.html

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Omega-3 fats from fish oil slash the risk of developing diabetes

New and undiagnosed cases of diabetes continue to rise at epidemic rates, with as many as one in three men, women and children projected to be affected by the metabolic disorder by 2025. The high circulating blood sugar levels associated with diabetes significantly raise the risk of developing a host of chronic illnesses including cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer and dementia. Fortunately, you can protect yourself by including any of a number of naturally occurring nutrients while eliminating excess sugar and refined carbohydrates from your diet.

Diabetes develops and progresses as a result of decreased cellular sensitivity to the effects of insulin, as the hormone slowly becomes less effective in its ability to usher sugar out of the bloodstream for use as energy. Over the past decade, researchers have identified a handful of natural compounds that are demonstrated to increase the sensitivity of insulin and lower the risk developing diabetes and related diabetic complications.

Fish oil supplements increase adiponectin levels to help fight diabetes progression
A research study team from the Harvard School of Public Health has published the findings of a meta-analysis in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism that explains how widely-used fish oil supplements modestly increase amounts of a hormone that is associated with lower risk of diabetes and heart disease. The scientists determined that omega-3 long-chain fats raise levels of adiponectin in the bloodstream. Adiponectin is an important hormone that assists metabolic processes like glucose regulation and the modulation of inflammation in the body.

To conduct this study, researchers developed a meta-analysis including 14 randomized, placebo-controlled studies that analyzed the consumption of fish oil of an omega-6 fat substitute (placebo). Six hundred and eighty-two participants were treated with fish oil and 641 were given placebos, consisting of olive and sunflower oils. Individuals taking fish oil increased their adiponectin levels by a statistically significant 0.37 ug/mL. This is the first study to analyze data from prior trials to determine that fish oil consumption increases adiponectin in humans, consequently lowering the risk of developing diabetes.

The lead study author, Dr. Jason Lu concluded “results from our study suggest that higher intake of fish oil may moderately increase blood level of adiponectin, and these results support potential benefits of fish oil consumption on glucose control and fat cell metabolism.” Many past studies have shown that fish oil supplementation can significantly lower the risk associated with cardiovascular disease and sudden death from a heart attack. This meta-analysis demonstrates that taking a standardized, distilled fish oil supplement (1,200 to 2,400 EPA/DHA daily) can help thwart development of diabetes and related complications.

Sources for this article include:

http://jcem.endojournals.org

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/260921.php

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130522130955.htm

About the author:
John Phillip is a Certified Nutritional Consultant and Health Researcher and Author who writes regularly on the cutting edge use of diet, lifestyle modifications and targeted supplementation to enhance and improve the quality and length of life. John is the author of ‘Your Healthy Weight Loss Plan’, a comprehensive EBook explaining how to use Diet, Exercise, Mind and Targeted Supplementation to achieve your weight loss goal. Visit My Optimal Health Resource to continue reading the latest health news updates, and to download your Free 48 page copy of ‘Your Healthy Weight Loss Plan’.

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The recent decision by Whole Foods Market to label all genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) sold in its stores by the long-off date of 2018 looks silly and almost meaningless compared to the right-now policy of fresh food chain Chipotle, which is officially the first and only major U.S. food supplier to voluntarily label GMOs. On its “Ingredients Statement” website, Chipotle clearly outlines which of its food products contain GMOs, and also states that it is working aggressively to source completely non-GMO ingredients for all of its products as it moves forward.

Chipotle has always marketed itself as a healthy alternative to fast food, having taken steps from the beginning to eliminate things like dairy products produced using the artificial growth hormone rBST, for instance, and replacing them with pasture-raised dairy products. Chipotle has also played a key role in propelling forward the local agriculture movement by sourcing as many locally-grown and organic ingredients as possible, and eliminating artificial additives and other toxins commonly used in fast food.

But now Chipotle has set the bar even higher, and by choice, delineating each and every ingredient used in its meats, beans, rice, and dressings, and clarifying which ones contain GMOs. The primary GMO offender, as you will notice on Chipotle’s “Ingredients Statement” page, is soybean oil, which is reluctantly used in several of the chain’s meat and rice products. In fact, this commercial frying and cooking oil appears to be one of the only, if not the only, GMO ingredient still used by Chipotle.

“Our goal is to eliminate GMOs from Chipotle’s ingredients, and we’re working hard to meet this challenge,” explains the page. “For example, we recently switched our fryers from soybean oil to sunflower oil. Soybean oil is almost always made from genetically modified soybeans, while there is no commercially available GMO sunflower oil. Where our food contains currently unavoidable GM ingredients, it is only in the form of corn or soy.”

You can view the Chipotle “Ingredients Statement” page at the following link. Note that all items containing a “G” in the pink box contain GMOs:
http://www.chipotle.com

Whole Foods’ track record on GMOs an embarrassment to the health freedom movement
While much of what Chipotle sells still admittedly contains GMOs in the form of corn and soybean oil, the company’s willingness to be forthcoming with its customers and the public about this fact is highly commendable. And it is a lot more than we can say for Whole Foods Market, which is still not being completely honest with its customers. The fact that Chipotle is already voluntarily labeling GMOs, and clearly indicating its intent to continue phasing them out right now, shows that Whole Foods’ 2018 labeling deadline is more of a political move to save face than a practical move to actually get the job done.

Other health food retailers like Trader Joe’s have already phased GMOs out of their private label brands (http://www.traderjoes.com/about/customer-updates-responses.asp?i=4), while health food stores like Natural Grocers source only organic produce and require that their packaged food suppliers fully disclose the source of any potential GMO ingredients. Natural Grocers even states directly on its website that, as a company, it does not consider GMOs to be at all safe for human consumption (http://www.naturalgrocers.com).

But Whole Foods, despite being a prominent leader in health food industry, has long taken the most ambiguous stance on GMOs. Besides its recent GMO labeling announcement and adoption of Non-GMO Project labeling back in 2009, both of which are commendable in their own rite, Whole Foods has not been nearly as forthcoming with its customers about GMOs, and yet continues to charge a premium for its products. While eventual labeling in 2018 may still be a positive step forward, it clearly lacks the proactive approach already being taken by companies like Chipotle.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.chipotle.com

http://fairfieldgreenfoodguide.com

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