My friends are sick of my obsession with this, but it’s there dumb luck to have to put up with me and my concern for their health. Just this morning, a wonderful Christian publication promoted the (now ancient) myth that cholesterol is the driver for heart disease. I’ve sent an email to many friends and thought I would publish it here. The name is withheld to spare embarrassment to the publication.
Unfortunately, now we can’t even rely on peer reviewed studies. Richard Horton, editor of world renown medical journal The Lancet, admitted that “much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.” In his words, “science has taken a turn toward darkness.” Almost every journal is suspect. I think I sent this link the last time but the FDA is severely compromised. Almost ALL the money for medical schools come from the pharmaceutical industry who (literally) have veto power over much better solutions. It is pure mammon driven evil as in the case of oncology. (Watch Christian believer made TheTruthAboutCancer.com documentary). Truthfully – science is compromised and like politics – you have to go outside of mainstream media to get honest research.
WATCH: Whistleblowers reveal criminal practices of pharmaceutical industry in stunning interviews
Your last article on CHOLESTEROL however is about 50 years off in it’s accuracy. Leading scientists have established conclusively that cholesterol has NOTHING to do with heart disease. The Framingham study has once and for all established that lowering healthy fats may actually lead to MORE heart disease and worse complications.
In her book, the BIG FAT LIE, journalist Nina Teicholtz explains how Dr. Ansel Keys manipulated his own data (funded by the vegetable oil industry) to come to this a false conclusion and how crony capitalists and politicians literally bought off and threatened REAL medical scrutiny of this cholesterol theory that became public policy. At the end of his life Ansel was not allowed by ANY MEDICAL JOURNAL to publish an updated study disproving his original work. I’ve set a link below to a general article with multiple studies referenced, as well as the text of an email I sent to many 3 years ago when my friend/CPA and son-in-law both had heartattacks within a week of each other.
Ending the Cholesterol-Heart Disease Myth – NaturalNews.com
Ending the Cholesterol-Heart Disease Myth Tuesday, April 08, 2008 by: Andreas Moritz Tags: medical myths, cholesterol, health news Most Viewed Articles Today Week Month Year See the …
http://www.naturalnews.com/…medical_myths_cholesterol.html
It would be wonderful if you would at least publish some serious medical research on the topic if not retract your link to this specific article.
From: Jim B
Date: Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 1:02 PM
Subject: Concordance of Articles/Videos on Chelation, the Cholesterol/Fat Myth and the fraudulent original study adopted by the AHA and the FDA.
To: All My Friends and Family
Recently 2 very dear people to me have had heart attacks in the past 2 weeks. And it never should have happened. If ANYONE in your circle is a candidate for heart disease – PLEASE – at least investigate this fully so that you can say conclusively you have done all you could.
Many of you know that I suffered symptoms of a heart attack in 2008. I remembered my (then) 71 yr old friend – Walt Rice, whose wife Jean was an RN nurse, helped him permanently avoid heart surgery by a process that removes the plaque from your entire circulatory system through chelation therapy (chelation described at bottom of email). If it weren’t for Jean, Walt and I both would not only have suffered tens of thousands of dollars of hospital bills, but would never have continued to play tennis for years after his first heart attack scare. Shockingly, most doctors never treat the ROOT problem of plaque but merely hand out blood thinners and statin’s causing a HIGH RISK of repeating another attack. Below you’ll see videos of top cardiologists who USED TO prescribe Lipitor-like state that there is not one single study showing that people who take statins will actually live longer. Including Bill Clinton’s cardiologist, and doctors published in the British Medical and Journal of Internal Medicine.My skepticism of accepting medical community (and FDA) consensus as gospel began with my first hand experiences with Dr. Atida Karr. Karr’s completely healthy topical acne treatment business was shut down by the FDA to protect Roche Labs toxic drug – Accutane – and did so by planting a Roche scientist at the FDA for the FTC/FDA review, and then immediately rehiring him at Roche 1 week after the verdict. No longer did I give the medical “experts” the benefit of the doubt.
- Cardiologists revolt against cholesterol myth: Short video documentary of cardiologists – including those who formerly prescribed statins like Lipitor – explain that they saw NO correlation between cholesterol and heart disease in their own patients and why the medical community is currently caught in this fallacy. This article has both PART 1 and PART 2 of an Australian ABC documentary but if you are only going to watch one – watch Part 2. It is reported and moderated by Dr. MaryAnne Demasi.
- In the Framingham Heart Study, which is the longest-running and perhaps most significant study on heart disease done to date, it was demonstrated that intake of cholesterol in the diet had absolutely no correlation with heart disease. This article explains the data with major cardio researchers that even looking at diets of high cholesterol populations around the world – there is no correlation.
- Chelation. THIS is the best single article that compiles not only scientific studies of chelation since the 1950’s, but also compares the rates of heart attacks reoccurring with angioplasty/stinting and common medical treatment. The NIH recently did a study on chelation and concluded that it had some benefit. However, the (As mentioned in the videos above, the REAL statistics of success with statin drugs and conventional medicine are alarming.) Here is a background on how it began and a good overview of what it is and how it works.
- The (bad) study that started it all. This TED video (about 15 minutes) is from a reporter who began to research the granddaddy of all studies upon which the American Heart Association and the US Govt (NIH, CDC etc) derived the famous “food pyramid” we were taught as children that presumed animal fat (and cholesterol) was the cause of heart disease. Funny thing though, it turns out that the scientist – being paid by Crisco vegetable oil – selectively ignored 75% of the data that disproved his theory. The author begins wondering why heart disease was almost non-existent in America before 1920 and has only continued to get worse FOLLOWING the push to make grains about 40% or more of your diet. THIS IS A MUST WATCH and her NY Times best selling book – called The Big Fat Surprise is a must read.At the bottom of this email is a book review that recounts the basic story of how Dr. Benjamin Ancel Keys hoodwinked the scientific community and the government in the first place – and shows the ACTUAL data Keys ignored that undercut his theory.
- Here is an excerpt from an article that referenced the ABC videos citing some other key studies.
Just a few years ago, more than one in four Americans over the age of 45 were taking a statin drug, such as Lipitor or Crestor to reduce their cholesterol levels, thinking that would keep them safe from heart disease. Some doctors in the U.S and abroad were even advocating mandatory statins for everyone over the age of 50. Today it appears that the cholesterol myth is crumbling under a growing pile of evidence documenting that rather than preventing heart disease, taking statins can actually causes and accelerates it.
Dr. MarkHyman, the physican called in to treat President Clinton after his bypass, says patients who lower cholesterol with statins have higher levels of insulin, while those who lower it with diet have lower insulin levels. This is important because elevated insulin levels are the first sign of diabetes, and are what cause weight gain around the middle, high blood pressure, increased inflammation, and may cause stickiness of the blood. Each of these conditions contributes to heart attacks and heart disease.
- “Cereal Killers”. (http://www.cerealkillersmovie.com/) – This follows a 42 year old Irish man who went on an all fat/protein, near-ZERO carb diet for 30 days and to the amazement of his doctors – got healthier including indicators of heart disease. (Directly contrary to what our government/medical community has been teaching for 60+ years). The most educational part of the documentary (in my opinion) is watching the transformation of the opinions of the cardiologists going from horror to amazement at the actual medical results.
- (Also here are backup articles on the science of salt and an ECONOMIST article on the fallacy of cutting fat out of your diet
Ancel Benjamen Keys.
Ancel Keys came up with the diet-heart hypothesis and singlehandedly catalyzed the movement that led us where we are today. And he did it because he let his monstrous ego override whatever modicum of scientific integrity he had.
Here’s what happened.
In a 1952 presentation at Mt. Sinai in New York (later published in a paper that received enormous attention), Keys formally introduced this idea, which he called his “diet-heart hypothesis” [fat in the diet -> increased blood cholesterol -> heart disease]. His graph showed a close correlation between fat intake and death rates from heart disease in six countries.
It was a perfect upward curve, like a child’s growth chart. Key’s graph suggested that if you extended the curve back down to zero fat intake, your risk of hear disease would nearly disappear.
This connect-the-dot exercise in 1952 was the acorn that grew into the giant oak tree of our mistrust of fat today. All the ailments that have been ascribed to eating fat over the years—not just heart disease but also obesity, cancer, diabetes, and more—stem from the implantation of this idea in the nutrition establishment by Ancel Keys and his perseverance in promoting it. Now, as you eat a salad with a lean chicken breast for lunch and choose pasta over steak for dinner, those choices can be traced back to him. The influence of Keys on the world of nutrition has been unparalleled.
Keys traveled the world promoting his fat-causes-heart-disease theory using this famous six-countries chart. While presenting at a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, however, he ran into a serious scientist who was highly skeptical.
Jacob Yerushalmy, founder of the Biostatistics Department at Berkeley, realized Keys had cherry picked his data, and that had all the data been included, the graph showing the strong correlation between fat consumption and heart disease would have resolved into a bunch of dots scattered willy-nilly on the page.
Yerushalmy and his colleague Herman Hilleboe published a scathing rebuttal of Keys’ work. You can click on their paper, Fat in the Diet and Mortality from Heart Disease: A Methodologic Note, which I have put in my Dropbox, so you can see what a real scientific smack down looks like. Reading it almost makes me feel sorry for Keys.
How did Keys respond when this paper came out?
Nina interviewed Henry Blackburn, Key’s longtime associate who was there when Keys got the word.
“I remember the mood I the lab when that study came out,” he said.
“The mood…Not good”? Nina asked.
“Mmmmmm,” replied Blackburn, followed by a long pause.
His savaging at the hands of Yerushalmy and Hilleboe strengthened Keys’ resolve to forge ahead. Not to forge ahead and do good science, but to forge ahead to prove his point.
The skeptical response to his Geneva talk and the resultant paper
represented a humiliating but important moment for him: “*the* pivotal moment in Keys’ life,” remembers Blackburn. After the confrontation in Geneva, “[Keys] got up from being knocked around and said, ‘I’ll show those guys’ … and he designed the Seven Countries Study.”
What Keys did was spend the rest of his career wallowing in the confirmation bias. Instead of following the scientific method and trying to refute his diet-heart hypothesis, he made it his mission to look for anything and everything that confirmed it. And ignored or belittled any conflicting data.
Keys’ formidable powers of persuasion along with his academic credentials led over time to his diet-heart hypothesis being accepted by just about everyone. Anyone who dared to disagree was attacked with great vitriol in the pages of any journal in which the opposing argument appeared.
Thanks to his non-stop promotional abilities, Keys ran roughshod over his detractors, and in his annus mirabilis, 1961, scored three major triumphs. First, he graced the cover of Time, he wrangled the American Heart Association (AHA) into his low-fat corral, and he got the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to buy into his theory. The AHA and NIH coups were particularly important because the first was an enormous lobbying agency and the second was the largest source of funding. With these two aboard Keys could both promote his anti-fat ideas to doctors and the public and could get the funds to do studies to confirm his bias.
As the diet-heart juggernaut rolled on, Americans cut their fat intake, and what fat they did eat, they made sure was polyunsaturated.
Which posed an enormous problem for Big Food. Saturated fats have certain cooking properties that are difficult to reproduce with polyunsaturated fats. But Big Food had had already developed trans fats, so they switched to them. Trans fats had been around for a half century, so they were there for the taking. And take they did. Soon just about every processed food had replaced saturated fats with trans fats, which they didn’t call trans fats in those days. They called them polyunsaturated fats. And everyone thought of them as health foods.
Keys final triumph was when the United States Government itself tumbled to the diet-heart hypothesis.
A non-scientist named Nick Mottern ended up writing the final report that came out of Washington recommending a diet in which fat in general was slashed, saturated fat was reduced to 10 percent of calories and the recommended dose of carbohydrates was 55-60 percent. A huge change from the lard-eating years during which most doctors had never seen a heart attack.
The public was kind of blah, as the public usually is with government reports. But Big Food had a different take. They were ecstatic.
The promotion of carbohydrate-based foods, such as cereals, bread, crackers, and chips, was exactly the kind of dietary advice large food companies favored, since those were the products they sold. Recommending polyunsaturated oils over saturated fats also served them well because these oils were a major ingredient of their cookies and crackers and were the principal ingredient in their margarines and shortenings. The pro-carbohydrate, anti-animal-fat orientation of Mottern’s emerging report thus suited food manufacturers just perfectly.
First, the AHA and the cardiologists were the only physician groups buying into the low-fat diet. But sooner or later, they all toppled like dominoes. One of the last holdouts was the pediatricians. Kids didn’t get heart disease, so why should they cut their fat, drink skim milk, etc? But soon they fell into line, too.
In one of the more disturbing descriptions in BFS, Nina describes studies done by British researchers on African children. Gambian children were put on low-fat diets (most of their fat calories were polyunsaturated and came from nuts and vegetable oils) after weaning and were compared to English babes who got a majority of their calories from whole milk and meat. Both groups of growing toddlers got the same number of calories, but
by the age of three, the Gambian babies weighed 75 percent less than they should, according to standard growth charts, while the Cambridge babies were growing according to expectations and weighed, on average, 8 pounds more than the Gambians.
Writes Nina:
As an American parent, it’s hard to read this study without immediately running to see the fat content of one’s own “early weaning” foods—with unsettling results. While rice porridge, the first solid food fed to Gambian infants, was analyzed as containing 5 percent energy as fat, a jar of Earth’s Best Whole Grain Rice Cereal (an organic brand) that an American parent might feed a baby has zero grams fat. Later on, when Gambian babies were eating rice with groundnut sauce, at 18 percent fat, an American child might get barely 1 percent fat from a salubrious-sounding jar of Earth’s Best Vegetable Turkey Dinner (and this is one of the few dinner options with meat). Government data show that American children have reduced their intake of fat including saturated fat in recent decades.
If the results of the studies on Gambian children are any indication, American kids raised on the low-fat diet could be in for some health problems down the road. Already, children in other countries that haven’t stupidly encouraged reduced consumption of fat for children are passing US kids in height.
This is just one of many truths revealed in BFS that made me want to punch through a wall. Believe me, there are many, many more. Which is why it’s so important that this meticulously researched book reaches a wide audience. Only then will some changes be made and future generations spared the low-fat idiocy.
As with all things that bring about a nagging discomfort, the low-fat diet began to wear on people. And they began to yearn for something new. Some kind of regimen with maybe a little more fat. And who came to their rescue? Non other than our old friend Ancel Keys.
During the years Keys had been promoting his diet-heart hypothesis, he had been traveling the world and spending a lot of time in Italy at the palatial estate he built overlooking the sea south of Naples. (I’ve always wondered how he could afford such a place on an academician’s salary, but I guess that’s another story.) In his time in Italy and other countries bordering the Mediterranean, Key’s took note of the parts of the diet these different peoples ate that matched up with his own dietary philosophy and more or less combined all the disparate diets into one. And he published a study on the diet of the people from Crete that was to lay the foundation of what has now become the Mediterranean Diet with a capital D versus the Mediterranean diet with a small d that actually represents what the various peoples involved actually eat.
In 1975, Keys reissued his 1959 cookbook, Eat Well and Stay Well, with a few changes to Eat Well and Stay Well the Mediterranean Way, which was basically a repackaging of his low-fat diet under the term Mediterranean. This was the first time the Mediterranean Diet with a large D came into the lingo. Keys had pretty much retired by this time, so the banner was taken up by other scientists from Italy and Greece.
The story of how these scientists, using Keys’ bogus data from Crete (which in and of itself is a unbelievable story), teamed up with what amounted to a PR firm for the olive oil industry to seduce scores of American scientists and food writers is one of more fascinating parts of BFS. It was a perfect storm. The scientists and food writers were ripe to be lured into spending time on the Mediterranean coast, imbibing wine and eating the food. These all expense paid trips were ostensibly medical conferences, but in reality, they were marketing ploys. Food writers and journalists were looking for something new and exciting to write about. The masses, wearied of their tasteless low-fat fare, were ready to start adding fat back into their diets, even if it was in the form of olive oil. And the olive oil industry was more than ready to oblige. And to fund.
A handful of researchers started working on studies of the Mediterranean Diet, but there really wasn’t a Mediterranean Diet. There were a lot of people around the Mediterranean eating diverse diets, but no single Mediterranean Diet. So each research group basically created its own idea of the Mediterranean Diet and studied it.
To say you will be surprised to learn not only the structures of these various Mediterranean Diets but the outcome of the studies is a vast understatement.
I’m forever being accosted at parties and other events with questions about diet. When I explain what I do, I can’t tell you how many people then tell me they eat a Mediterranean Diet or that their doctor put them on a Mediterranean Diet. Even doctors believe the Mediterranean diet is the one diet that has stood the test of vigorous scientific investigation.
If only they knew.
Since the government got into the low-fat diet business, the health of the populace has gone to hell. We’re in the midst of an obesity epidemic the proportions of which now make the old TV star Jackie Gleason, who went by the moniker The Fat Man, look absolutely normal. Even worse, we’re in a diabetes epidemic that threatens to break the bank if it isn’t reversed.
As all this has been happening, the populace had been chewing through about 18 billion (billion with a B) pounds of soybean oil (through 2001), most of which had been partially hydrogenated. Partially hydrogenated fats are trans fats, of course, but few people knew what they were until recently. Which is just how Big Food wanted it.
By carefully grooming scientists and funding their research, Big Food had managed to keep the deleterious effects of trans fats from becoming public knowledge. Which was important because, as Nina writes, trans fats “were the backbone of Big Food.”
They had a scare early on by the Malaysian producers of naturally saturated tropical oils, which would have easily taken much of the market from trans fats had the public but known. But the American Soybean Association (ASA) was not about to let that happen, so they mounted an attack on tropical oils, branding them as dangerous saturated fats. Which, of course, they were. Saturated fats, that is, but certainly not dangerous.
One of the people Nina interviewed, David Drake, a top exec at the ASA, tells how one of their marketing people came up with the name “tree lard” for the tropical oils. Funny and clever. But devastating for the tropical oils.
Despite the work and outrage of a couple of scientists Big Food managed to keep marginalized, trans fats continued to quietly glide along under the surface of the consciousness of almost everyone. The masses thought they were eating polyunsaturated fats and Big Food kept them in the dark. How much in the dark?
..from the day hydrogenated oils were introduced in the form of Crisco in 1911 right up until the year 2005, nearly a century later, not one major scientific conference was devoted to the discussion of trans fats.
It really beggars belief.
Nina’s description of the Waterloo for trans fats is fascinating. They went from being unknown and in everything to being identified, vilified and banned in record time. And in a real twist of fate, their demise came about virtually overnight based on the same type of shoddy science that scared everyone off of saturated fats. Not that trans fats aren’t bad, because they are, but it is ironic that they were excoriated and killed off by the same kind of public-relations-driven schlock science that gave them their preeminence in the first place. I suppose it’s only fair.
The most frightening part of The Big Fat Surprise comes next. It is the absolute must read chapter. It details what has come after trans fats, and it’s not pretty. It’s a big step into the unknown, and those steps typically lead to an end that is not good.
Big Food finds itself in a real quandary. People read labels, and the great unwashed masses still think saturated fat is bad. So when they grab up a package and look at the label to see the saturated fat content
…any tick upwards in these fats by even 0.5 grams might alienate [Big Food’s] customers.
Says one Big Food exec Nina interviewed
Everyone is so sensitive to saturated fat content. That’s just our basic reality.
So Big Food can’t use saturated fats, even tropical oils, and now they can’t use trans fats, so what’s a packaged food manufacture to do? You don’t really want to know, but for your health’s sake, you better read about it to find out.
Nina ends her book with a redemption of saturated fats. She goes into great detail on why saturated fats are not just not bad for you, but are actually good for you. And they are. Trust me. Once you’ve read this final chapter, you’ll know why.
If you are a low-carb dieter, yet you’ve had this kind of nagging doubt about eating saturated fat, this last chapter is for you. What if all the experts are right?, you’ve probably asked yourself. Hell, I’ve asked it myself. I eat a ton of saturated fat, so I’m literally betting my life that saturated fat isn’t harmful. Reading The Big Fat Surprise will relieve you of a lot of angst. It will convert even the fiercest of skeptics, unless they’re so mired in their ideology that they can’t be budged. But just as we saturated fat eaters have suffered our angst, they will now suffer theirs.
As I wrote at the start, there are not enough superlatives to describe this book. It’s a life changer.
I predict that within a few years, one of two things will have happened as a result of this important book.
Either Nina will be burned at the stake. Or we will all be eating our food cooked in lard, butter, beef tallow and duck fat, just as we ate it back in the days before Ancel Keys came on the scene. We’ll eat the way we ate when a case of heart disease was an anomaly.
PLEASE SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY. With articles in the Wall Street Journal, TIME, NY Times and other mainstream outlets, this information is finally coming to light.
- Avocado’s and good fats
- Coconut Oil (your wife should not be cooking with ANY Canola, Vegetable, Soybean oils as outlined here.) Cold pressed olive oil is ok too.
- Ceylon Cinnamon (see below) [clinical studies shows it outperforms Lipitor and other drugs]
- Raw Whole Almonds
Coconut oil is a great fighter against cardiovascular disease
Diabetes isn’t the only blood-related illness that coconut oil fights. It has been shown in multiple clinical trials to combat a number of cardiovascular diseases, to limit heart attacks and strokes and help manage cholesterol.
Managing cholesterol is, alone, a huge improvement towards preventing heart disease. Coconut oil has a few other tricks up its sleeve though.
The nutritional profile of coconut oil helps the body form fewer blood clots, lowers the risk of developing free radicals, and keeps higher reserves of antioxidants in cells. Free radicals are ‘rogue’ atoms that are missing an electron in their outermost shell. These electrons compensate by stealing an electron from a neighbouring atom, and, when uncontrolled, create a chain reaction of electron-theft. Each stolen electron creates an unstable atom which can spread and lead to cancer.
Many heart diseases are caused by atherosclerosis – the hardening of the arteries. This is caused by excess of plaque in the arteries, which can be caused by a variety of things – toxins, viral or bacterial infections, free radicals.
Much like blood will clot to heal wounds on the outer layer of skin, it sends platelets to heal wounds affecting the cardiovascular system itself. Platelets are proteins that stick together, and stick to damaged tissue. They act similar to a bandaid for the cardiac system. The combination of platelets, minerals, cholesterol and scarred tissue build up in the body and can eventually harden, leading to potentially deadly disease.
Having effective systems to produce enough platelets is important. If your body cannot properly bandage an internal injury, your veins will produce too much scar tissue.
Conclusion: Coconut oil has a number of effective methods that can prevent heart disease. It helps prevent atherosclerosis by ensuring the cardiac system can repair itself properly, and helps prevent cholesterol buildup.
Coconut oil is great at lowering cholesterol
In one particular study on coconut oil’s effect on cholesterol, 40 subjects were given either two tablespoons of coconut oil or two tablespoons of soybean oil daily for twelve weeks. The group taking soybean oil saw an increase in LDL cholesterol – not the kind you want – and a decrease in HDL cholesterol, whereas the coconut oil group saw only an increase in HDL.
HDL cholesterol can help the body wipe out LDL cholesterol. Since HDL (high density lipoprotein) cholesterol, as its name indicates, is dense, it can sweep LDL cholesterol off the walls of veins and arteries. This prevents excess cholesterol from building up, which is one of the biggest causes of cardiovascular disease.
Conclusion: Coconut oil helps rid the body of LDL cholesterol, which can build up and cause a huge number of problems.
______________________________________________________________________________
The message that “cholesterol is bad and if you have high cholesterol you should take a statin to lower it” is out of date and not in sync with the most recent scientific evidence. Unfortunately, the latest findings have not trickled down to the average primary care doctor—or even the average cardiologist. Today I discuss the six underlying causes of high cholesterol and how addressing those issues can often alleviate the need to take statins.
______________________________________________________________
Cinnamon And Honey on Cholesterol
The traditional Chinese medicine has used the combination of honey and cinnamon for thousands of years, and this mixture has a long tradition of use as a homemade medicine.
RAW UNFILTERED HONEY is one of the healthiest foods on the planet, while cinnamon is one of the oldest spices known to people.
The cinnamon essential oil and the enzyme found in honey which produces hydrogen peroxide, are the two most powerful anti-microbial components of this combination that prevent the growth of fungi and bacteria.
Be sure to get Raw Unfilitered Honey (preferably Manuka honey) and organic Ceylon cinnamin – not the traditional grocery store items.
This potent mixture offers numerous health benefits, and is extremely helpful in the following cases:
CholesterolIn a cup of tea, add 2 tablespoons of honey and 3 teaspoons of cinnamon, and drink the mixture. It will reduce the cholesterol levels by 10% within two hours.
Boost the immune system
The regular consumption of this mixture will boost the immune system and prevents viruses and bacteria.
How to prepare it:
You should put some honey in a pot and heat it. Add cinnamon and wait until you get a thick, caramel-like mixture. You should take a teaspoon of this mixture 30 minutes before meals.
Source: www.mrhealthylife.com
______________________________________________________________
Fortunately, there are simple, basic strategies that can help you regulate your cholesterol.
First, please realize that simply lowering your dietary cholesterol intake is not an effective primary strategy.
Why?
Because 75 percent of your cholesterol is produced by your liver, which is influenced by your insulin levels. Therefore, if you optimize your insulin levels, you will also regulate your cholesterol levels.
One of the most powerful ways you can do that is by exercising, and paying attention to the foods you eat. Foods that increase your insulin levels will also contribute to high cholesterol by making your liver produce more of it.
Here are my primary recommendations for safely lowering and regulating your cholesterol levels:
I’ve treated between 20-30,000 patients, and I’ve only found about five people who were unable to respond to the recommendations I’ve given here. In these cases they likely had a condition called familial hypercholesterolemia.
It is extremely rare, affecting about one in 1,000 people who are on cholesterol lowering medication, but for those there may actually be some benefit to taking a statin drug.
Some have asked me about taking red rice extract, and there is some confusion on that issue. Please understand that red rice extract is also a statin drug, with the same exact mechanism of action as other statins, even though it’s available over the counter.
My Neighbor’s Cholesterol Challenge Nearly Killed Him
On June 5 my old next door neighbor gave me a call and asked me if we could play tennis. We used to play regularly before I moved two years ago. He used to beat me in straight sets even though he was 70 years old, he was very good in placing the ball.
Well when we played this time it was a bit different in that he was much slower and I could easily hit balls straight past him. This time I won in straight sets. Sure he was two years older and 72 now but that could not possibly account for his decreased playing level.
After our match he explained that he was tired all the time now because his doctors put him on Zocor. Foolishly they never put him on ubiquinol This should be medical malpractice. In his case the statin drug completely devastated my neighbor’s health. His energy level and quickness had been radically reduced.
Fortunately he was open to trying the ubiquinol and going on some vitamin D. I am hoping he will beat me in straight sets the next time we play.
What You Must Know if You Chose to Take Cholesterol Medication
If you chose to continue taking statin drugs, then it’s vital that you understand the mechanism of action of these drugs.
They typically work by reducing an enzyme in your liver, which not only reduces the production of cholesterol, but it also reduces the production of coenzyme Q10. When you lower the production of coQ10, you increase your risk of a variety of different health problems.
Premature aging is one primary side effect of having too little coQ10 because this essential vitamin recycles other antioxidants, such as vitamin C and E.
CoQ10 deficiency also accelerates DNA damage. Therefore, it is absolutely vital to supplement with coQ10 if you’re taking a statin drug. Unfortunately, many doctors fail to inform their patients of this fact.
If you’re over 40, I would highly recommend taking a reduced form of coenzyme Q10 called ubiquinol, because it’s far more effectively absorbed by your body.
Cholesterol is such an important issue, surrounded by so much confusion that I’m offering my Special Report on this topic FREE to all my readers. Simply click this link to download this in-depth report.
______________________________________________________________
Your Blood PressureResolution May Meet Success With Improved Gut Microbiome
The rather large community of bacteria residing in your gut also has a substantial influence on your ability to lose weight. For many people, weight loss may result in ultimately gaining the original amount of weight back, and then some. In the diet industry this is called the “yo-yo effect,” and has been replicated in mice.21
The bacteria living in your gut help to extract energy from the food you eat and are influenced by the type of foods you choose. Some changes happen to your gut quickly, while other changes to the type of bacteria happen more slowly. During the study, researchers fed mice high-fat chow for a month until they became obese.22 They then switched the food to normal chow for mice, which resulted in weight loss.
However, once the researchers returned the mice to the high-fat food, the mice gained even more weight than they had before. After dieting, the obese mice had returned to their normal baseline weight, including blood values such as cholesterol, blood sugar and insulin levels, but further examination revealed their gut microbiome had not fully reverted to their pre-obese state.
After gaining weight the gut microbiome became less diverse. Using this information, the researchers completed further experiments and were able to demonstrate this change in gut bacteria was the reason the animals experienced accelerated weight gain once they returned to a high-fat diet.
These findings are preliminary and still leave several questions unanswered, which is why the research team is now studying humans to determine if they experience the same microbial lag when dieting.
In the study’s work with animals, the researchers found it took mice 21 weeks to normalize their microbial community. If that span scales to humans it could take many years after dieting to normalize your gut microbiota. In this animal model, they were not supplemented with probiotics to assist in the recovery of their gut microbiome.
That said, previous research suggests the human gut microbiome may change rather quickly. Even a few days on a dramatically different diet may shift your microbial makeup according to some studies.23 It remains to be seen whether this holds true for microbial communities associated specifically with obesity.
Easiest, Cheapest and Best Way to Improve Your Gut Microbiome
Fermented foods are the easiest, best and cheapest way you can make a significant impact on your gut microbiome. Fermentation can be accomplished using a wild method, during which the food is allowed to ferment alone. However, the results are more time consuming and the end product is less certain. Inoculating the food with a starter culture will speed the process and ensure you’ll end up with a consistent, high-quality product that not only naturally preserves the food, allowing you to store it for several weeks, but also produces:
- Beneficial healthy bacteria that promote gut health. Fermented milk products also contain non-digestible carbohydrate galacto-oligosaccharide, which acts as a prebiotic,24 and essential amino acids25
- Beneficial enzymes
- Certain nutrients, including B vitamins, biotin and folic acid.26 Fermented milk products also contain higher amounts of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA)27
- Increased bioavailability of minerals28
- Short-chain fatty acids, which help improve your immune system function
Optimizing your gut health is a foundational step to good health, and an important step to take this New Year. Considering current disease statistics, you likely will benefit from eating fermented foods with a variety of bacteria to improve your microbial diversity. I believe it is the least expensive and most effective means of accomplishing this goal.
______________________________________________________________
A New Way of Looking at Heart Disease and Novel Treatment Options
By Dr. Mercola
We have an epidemic of heart disease in this country and the conventional treatments, such as the use of statin drugs and surgeries involving artery bypasses and stents, typically do not work well. So, what does?
Dr. Thomas Cowan is a family physician and a founding member of the Weston A. Price Foundation.
In his book, “Human Heart, Cosmic Heart: A Doctor’s Quest to Understand, Treat, and Prevent Cardiovascular Disease,” which is also available as an audiobook from Audible, he helps answer that question.
It’s a fascinating book, and not overly technical, making it an excellent addition to any layman’s health library.
“Basically, the book has three parts,” Cowan says. “For whatever reason, my destiny in my career is that I take on some of the biggest accepted wisdoms … [and] I try to figure out whether they’re actually true or not.
The first part is my [personal] story … [In] the second part, I examine the theory that the heart is a pump. I say that the heart is not a pump. Then I explain why the blood moves and what the heart is doing, and the interesting ramifications of that.
The third part is … [about] what causes heart attacks … Here is an interesting point: I learned in medical school there were four major coronary arteries. In some places, it says three. In some places, it says two.
Even the basics of how many major coronary arteries we have is actually in dispute. It’s a matter of semantics.”
Questioning the Role of Arterial Plaque in Heart Attacks
Regardless of the exact number, conventional wisdom states that the coronary arteries, i.e., major blood vessels, supply all of the blood flow to the heart. If one or more of them gets blocked with plaque, a bottleneck forms that prevents blood from getting through.
The area downstream from that blockage doesn’t get any blood, and hence no oxygen or nutrients. The first indication that this is occurring is pain, which we call angina. As the problem progresses, the pain worsens, which is called unstable angina. Eventually, if left untreated, you end up with a heart attack.
The field of cardiology is primarily focused on getting rid of the plaque, whether by using stents, doing bypasses, angioplasties, lowering cholesterol (since the plaque is supposedly caused by excess cholesterol), or putting the patient on a low-fat diet.
“[Conventionally], it’s all about the plaque,” Cowan says. “My point in the book is that it’s NOT about the plaque.”
The Problem With Viewing the Heart as a Pump
Cardiologists and doctors in general are taught that the walls of the heart create pressure, which causes propulsion of the blood through the body. In essence, the heart is viewed as a pump — a pressure propulsion system caused by the muscular contraction of the ventricles.
However, your body actually contains an enormous amount of blood vessels. Most of the blood vessels in your heart and body are capillaries, which are very thin-walled, very narrow tubes.
If you were to spread these blood vessels out, they would cover three football fields. If you were to place the blood vessels end to end, in a series, they would encircle the Earth between one and three times.
“The pump theory is you have a 1-pound, somewhat thin-walled organ, and it’s going to pump [blood] around the Earth every single day for 70 years; 60 to 70 times a minute. That 1-pound, thin-walled organ can [supposedly] generate enough pressure [to do that] by squeezing …
Frankly, that’s ridiculous. But it actually gets worse than that. If you do a flow velocity diagram, it turns out that the blood is moving the fastest at the heart, both before and after the heart.
As it goes into the arterioles and then the smaller arteries, it gets to the capillaries … [where] it actually stops and does a little shimmy, or it goes very slow, depending on who you believe … The analogy is, a narrow river goes fast and when it goes out into a wetland, it goes very slow.
It has to go slow — it has to stop almost — to exchange the gasses and the food. So not only are we pushing all the way around the Earth, but halfway around our travel, we stop and then we get going again. You’re expecting that to be all from the push from behind …
It even gets worse than that because we have an outflow tube of the left ventricle called the aortic arch … which is shaped like McDonald’s arch. The blood goes from the left ventricle, out the aortic valve, through the arch, then down to the body.
The analogy here is if you stick a similarly shaped arched garden hose off your spigot outside your house, and then turn it on really hard, which recreates the pumping … you would expect the garden hose to straighten out because if you put pressure, the arch would straighten.
In fact, you can look on any angiogram and catheterization and you can see that arch actually bends in a little bit during systole, which from a pressure propulsion model makes absolutely no sense at all.”
The Hydraulic Ram Model of the Heart
Clearly, if your heart stops beating, you won’t live very long, but if the heart isn’t actually pumping the blood, how does it work? In his book, Cowan describes the heart as a hydraulic ram, which he explains thus:
“What does the heart do? The blood is moving fast. It comes into the heart. The heart stops the blood, and like a hydraulic ram, it holds it back. The walls expand. The pressure differential happens, and then it opens the gate and comes out.
More so when the blood is in the heart, because of the unique shape of the heart … The heart is a vortex-creating machine … [I]t has these trabeculae (fibers) inside the heart. Each area of the trabeculae is connected with a certain part of the body.
[One] area of the heart is connected with the spleen, another area of the inner part of the heart is connected with the foot, and so on.
The blood comes in and these areas of the heart create their individual spirals, and package up certain parts of the blood, like the old red blood cells, into a vortex and send it to the spleen, whereas another part sends the fresh new red blood cells up to the brain.
If there’s a cut on your leg, it dissolves some of the inner fibers, puts that in a vortex and sends that to the cut on your leg. It’s so wild. Again, there’s an article about this on my website, as hard as it is to believe, that actually documents that in very clear terminology how this happens.”
What’s Water Got to Do With It?
Interestingly, the work of Gerald Pollack, author of “The Fourth Phase of Water,” was instrumental in helping Cowan understand the function of the heart and how blood flows if it isn’t being pushed or pumped by the heart.
First off, if any pumping action were to be involved, it would actually have to occur at the capillaries because that’s where the blood stops and needs to get moving again. However, the solution nature came up with is far simpler. As the blood moves up the venous tree, the blood vessels narrow and eventually coalesce to come back to the heart.
This narrowing of the vessels makes the blood flow faster, in and of itself. Valves and muscular contractions also play a role. However, the primary way blood moves has to do with water. As Pollack has described, water can exist in four phases, not just three. The fourth phase of water is formed by the interaction of water and a hydrophilic surface.
“What happens with that is you form a gel layer, or protective layer, on that hydrophilic surface, which is negatively charged. Therefore, the opposite of positive charge is dissolved into the bulk water in the middle of the tube (capillary or blood vessel) … All you need is a hydrophilic tube, which forms a gel layer, which is negatively charged, and then the bulk water is positively charged. The positive charges repel each other and that starts the flow going up the hill,” Cowan explains.
Sun, Earth and the Human Touch — Three Key Principles for Healthy Blood Flow
Pollack has also clearly demonstrated there are three natural energies that result in separation of charges that create flow:
1. Sunlight charges up your blood vessels, which increases the flow of blood. When the sun’s rays penetrate your skin, it causes a massive increase of nitric oxide that acts as a vasodilator. As much as 60 percent of your blood can be shunted to the surface of your skin through the action of nitric oxide. This helps absorb solar radiation, which then causes the water in your blood to capture the energy and become structured.
This is a key component for a healthy heart. The ideal is to be exposed to the sun while grounding, meaning walking barefoot. This forms a biological circuit that makes it work even better.
2. Negative ions from the Earth, also known as earthing or grounding. This also charges up your blood vessels, creates a separation of charges, creates more positive ions and allows the blood to flow upward, against gravity.
3. The field effect or touch from another living being, such as laying on of hands.
As noted by Cowan, “The best thing is to be, more or less, with shorts or naked on the beach, with the saltwater, which acts as an electrical conductor, holding hands with somebody you love. That’s how you structure the water.” Sun exposure, grounding, and skin-to-skin contact are three prevention strategies that, ideally, everyone should be doing. It doesn’t get a whole lot easier or less expensive than that.
“The water is a battery. Those inputs separate the charges, charge the battery, the battery does work and it starts flow. That flow, just through Bernoulli’s principle, which is the wider it is, the slower it goes, [when it] narrows, it goes faster. That is the reason the blood moves, in a nutshell.”
Does Plaque Really Cause Heart Attacks?
As mentioned, Cowan does not ascribe to the plaque theory of heart disease. Instead, he makes a strong case for heart disease being a problem rooted in mitochondrial dysfunction. What’s wrong with the plaque theory? For starters, if plaque were responsible, there would have to be something in the blood or blood vessels causing the plaque, such as cholesterol or inflammation.
And, since all blood vessels are identical — there’s no difference between the splenic artery, the femoral artery or the coronary artery, for example — if there’s plaque in one artery, there should be plaque everywhere, and an attack should theoretically occur just about anywhere in the body, depending on where the blockage is. Yet people do not have “spleen attacks,” or “foot attacks,” which would be the result of a bottleneck of plaque forming near these organs.
“There is such a thing as renal artery ischemia. But basically, there are only two organs that have attacks. The brain, we call that a stroke, and the heart, we call that a myocardial infraction (MI) or a heart attack,” Cowan says.
“Why not the other organs? Because that suggests there’s something different about those organs. It’s not the blood vessels because the blood vessels, they’re the same. There’s something different about the heart and the brain that’s causing the attacks. It’s not the blood flow.”
In the ’40s and ’50s when the plaque theory began to emerge, most cardiologists rejected it, noting there’s massive collateral circulation between the coronary arteries and this massive network of fine blood vessels. It doesn’t really matter whether one area gets blocked or not, because the whole thing is like the wetlands; it will simply compensate for a blockage in one area by increasing blood flow elsewhere.
What’s Wrong With the Plaque Theory?
Post-mortem autopsy studies — which are available on Cowan’s website, humanheartcosmicheart.com — looking at arterial blockages in the area leading to the part that had an attack showed that only 18 percent were actually blocked. That means that in 82 percent of cases, a blocked artery was NOT the cause of the heart attack.
So, what caused it? In another study, 66 percent of normal 50-year-olds who died in car accidents were found to have a one or more, greater than 90 percent stenosis or blockage of a coronary artery! Yet none of them had any symptoms.
“I’m not saying blockages are good. I’m not saying plaque is good. What I am saying is it’s nowhere near sufficient to explain why people have heart attacks,” Cowan says.
“Every week somebody comes in and says ‘I’m not feeling as well as I used to. I have some chest pain, a little shortness of breath walking up the hills. I went on a 5-mile walk yesterday and I’m not doing as well as I used to. I went to the cardiologist. He did tests and found I have a 95 percent blockage in one of my coronary arteries. He said if it blocks any more, I’ll have a heart attack and die… [and that I] better have a stent or an angioplasty.’
I think to myself, No. 1, if all of the blood flow comes through these coronary arteries and he’s got 95 percent blockage of this major vessel, how did he walk up this 5-mile hill? In fact, how is he even standing upright if he’s got less than 5 percent blood flow to a major part of his heart?
So, you mean to tell me if he blocks from 5 percent to 2 percent, that’s it? Curtains in, you die? The reality is 5 percent is 0 percent, and blocking to 2 percent is the same as 0 percent. It’s very clear that the theory that the blood squeezes through the bottle neck in the vessel is complete nonsense.
The blood does not squeeze through the bottleneck. It bypasses it. It goes through these collateral vessels and the flow is more or less normal, although there is some problem in the heart, but it’s not because of that blockage. That’s why the Mayo Clinic and other studies, when they unblock the blockage, it doesn’t do any good for the patient.”
In Cowan’s view, there is only a small subset of patients that might benefit from bypass intervention, specifically if you have a greater than 90 percent stenosis (blockage) of the proximal part (the early part) of the left anterior descending (the primary artery that supplies blood to your heart).
The Real Cause of Heart Attacks
If a blockage isn’t the cause of the heart attack, then what is? Cowan makes a strong case for three basic causes of heart attacks, in the following order of importance or likelihood:
1. Decreased parasympathetic tone followed by sympathetic nervous system activation. You have two nervous systems, a central and an autonomic. Your autonomic nervous system has two arms: the sympathetic fight-or-flight, and the parasympathetic, which governs rest and digestion.
Decreased parasympathetic tone results from stress, diabetes, high blood pressure and other factors, including emotional and psychological ones. That’s the first thing that happens. Then, while under the influence of a low parasympathetic tone, you experience some sort of emotional, psychological or physical stress that activates your sympathetic nervous system.
This shifts your cell metabolism from the mitochondria to the cytoplasm, meaning the cells in your heart shift from using fat for fuel, to generating fuel in a glycolytic way through the fermentation of sugar. Once that glycolytic shift occurs, you enter into glycolytic metabolism where you burn sugar for fuel and make lactic acid. As in other muscles, lactic acid in the heart muscle causes the telltale cramps and pain known as angina.
Since your heart cannot stop contracting to allow the blood flow to flush out the lactic acid, the lactic acid builds up, causing localized metabolic acidosis that necroses or destroys the cardiac tissue. Also, when the tissue becomes acidic, calcium cannot enter the tissue. As a result, the heart muscle cannot contract properly.
Next, pressure in the arteries embedded in the non-moving area of your heart builds, which then breaks off little pieces. These are the “clots” conventional cardiology believes are the cause of the heart attack.
But the clots are not due to plaque, they’re the result of pressure in the non-moving area of your heart, which is the result of not getting calcium into the cells, which is the result of lactic acid forming from the altered metabolism in the heart. This chain of events, Cowan believes, is the real cause of most heart attacks.
2. Collateral circulation failure. Diabetes, smoking and high-stress all affect collateral circulation, not major blood vessels, and all of these are known to raise your risk of a heart attack.
3. Particularly badly placed plaque formation. This is not the norm, but could occur.
Indeed, one of the problems with using carbohydrates as a primary fuel — which a majority of people in the West are doing — is that it generates more reactive oxygen species (ROS) and secondary free radicals. Chronically, this will cause mitochondrial damage. I like to simplify it by saying that carbs are dirty fuels — dirty in the sense that they generate excessive amounts of free radicals that poison the mitochondria.
It’s this dirty fuel — the net carbs — that creates fermentation metabolism and subsequent lactic acid production. The answer is not to take more antioxidants. The answer is to reduce the production of free radicals by reducing net carbs and increasing the amount of healthy dietary fats you eat.
This is a core tenet of a healthy diet, and if you understand Cowan’s explanation above, and how carbs act as a dirty fuel, you’ll have a good understanding of why a high-sugar diet causes heart disease and heart attacks.
______________________________________________________________
Study: A Mediterranean Diet Beats Statins for People with Heart Disease
In a new study looking at the effects of a Mediterranean diet on people with poor heart health, the popular diet appeared to help heart patients more than statin drugs.
What the Research has to Say
Researchers detailed the findings of the observational study at the European Society of Cardiology conference in Rome last weekend. [1]
For the study, leading heart disease expert Professor Giovanni de Gaetano and his colleagues followed 1,200 people with a history of heart attacks, strokes, and blocked arteries over 7 years. Over the duration of the study, 208 participants died. [2]
The researchers found that the more participants adhered to a Mediterranean diet, the less likely they were to die over the course of the study.
Specifically, patients who ate a mainly Mediterranean diet were 37% less likely to die during the study than those whose dietary patterns were furthest from the Omega-3 fatty acid-rich diet. That did not change, even after researchers adjusted for age, sex, class, exercise and other habits.
Earlier studies showed that statin drugs reduce the risk of heart problems by 24%.
A Little Info on the Popular Mediterranean Diet
Many people eat a Mediterranean diet because it’s a healthy eating pattern that isn’t overly restrictive. For example, it’s perfectly OK to have a beer a day while still adhering to the diet. [1]
And while a Mediterranean diet is known for being low-carb, some pretty sweet research emerged in July 2016 suggesting that eating small portions of pasta may be OK. In fact, it might actually help people lose weight.
Generally speaking, however, a Mediterranean diet emphasizes:
- Eating mostly plant-based foods, such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and nuts.
- Using “healthy” olive oil and canola oil in place of butter.
- Flavoring foods with herbs and spices, versus salt.
- Consuming red meat no more than a few times a month.
- Eating fish and poultry at least twice a week.
- Drinking red wine in moderation (optional). [3]
A recent study shows that, unlike other types of fats and cooking oils, it’s OK to consume high amounts of the healthy fats found in olive oil and canola oil.
So, a Mediterranean diet is a healthy diet for people with heart problems, but olive oil has also been shown to prevent heart disease. This eating pattern has been shown to have numerous other health benefits.
Statin Use in the U.S.
A quick look at Centers for Disease Control (CDC) statistics shows that the number of Americans using statins, which are intended to lower cholesterol, has been increasing. Here are a few key findings from CDC report released in December 2014:
- From 2003 to 2012, the use of statins increased from 18% to 26%.
- During that time period, statin use increased with age, from 17% of adults aged 40-59, to 48% of adults aged 75 and older.
- About 71% of adults with cardiovascular disease, and 54% of adults with hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol in the blood) used a cholesterol-lowering medication. [4]
The Dark Side of Statin Drugs
As you can see from the statistics above, the majority of people with high cholesterol will be prescribed a statin. Many patients with Type 2 diabetes will also be prescribed a statin drug as a preventative measure, as diabetes is a leading cause of heart disease.
But these medications have a dark side. They’re so common, however, that many people have no idea that statins are associated with over 300 adverse events, including thyroid cancer in women, and cataracts and other eye problems. Past research even suggests that statins may increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Every pharmaceutical drug comes with risks, many of which are pretty serious, so it’s encouraging whenever a natural alternative is shown to be just as effective as – or more effective than – pills.
Since the study was observational and relied on participants to self-report what they ate, more research is needed. However, with all the other health benefits that a Mediterranean diet provides, it might be a good idea to make the switch now. [1]
Sources:
[1] CNN
[2] The Guardian
[3] U.S. Centers for Disease Control
[4] Mayo Clinic
___________________________________________________________________________________
You may be familiar with turmeric as the bright yellow spice that is commonly found in curry powder. Turmeric has a long history as a healing herb and culinary spice in India. Interestingly, India has the highest per capita consumption of turmeric AND the lowest incidence of cognitive decline worldwide![2] 
|
Your Brain on Curcumin
|
|
The hallmark process associated with certain types of cognitive decline is the formation in the brain of abnormal protein structures. Normally when malformed proteins are formed with the brain, the immune system sends out cells known as macrophages, which engulf and destroy the proteins. If this ordinary function fails, defective proteins accumulate in the brain and cognitive decline can follow. That’s why I was excited to read that recent research is showing that curcumin encourages the immune system to send macrophages to the brain. A landmark clinical trial involving people with severe cognitive decline measured the effects of curcumin. Amazingly, the participants taking curcumin had significantly higher levels of dissolved abnormal proteins in their blood compared to those in the placebo group. This study showed that curcumin has the ability to effectively pass into the brain, bind to beta-amyloid plaques and assist the body in their breakdown.[3] Curcumin is one of the only substances known to have such a profound protective effect on the brain. |
|
Curcumin Combats Dangerous Inflammation
|
|||
|
You may have heard about the dangers of “silent” chronic inflammation. It’s been discussed by Dr. Oz and has made headlines in publications such as Newsweek and Time. It’s important for you to know that low-grade inflammation is rapidly becoming recognized as the root cause of the development of cognitive decline, as well as a wide range of serious health problems.[4]
|
|||
|
|||
|
Unfortunately, most people don’t do anything until the initial symptoms, such as muscle aches and joint discomfort, appear. When this happens, their gut reaction often is to go see a doctor, who is unlikely to correctly diagnose the problem, and more than likely will prescribe drugs that are far from safe and only provide short-term benefits. But the initial symptoms of pain are just the beginning. If left unchecked, chronic inflammation can damage your body in many ways. One of the worst examples of this is cognitive decline, which can ravage your memory and severely impact your quality of life in what should be your golden years. |
Although you may be able to find high quality turmeric powder at your local market, it’s very difficult to verify its purity and potency. Plus, it’s almost impossible to incorporate therapeutic amounts of curcumin into your diet on a daily basis as a spice. So, to put it simply, a high-quality curcumin supplement is your best bet!
However, not all curcumin supplements are created equal. Unfortunately, most supplements out there don’t have the necessary doses and components to get the job done. If you take the wrong supplement, you’ll end up not only wasting money, but missing out on an incredible opportunity to protect your brain and keep harmful inflammation at bay.
There are 3 major factors to consider when deciding on a curcumin supplement:
|
1.
|
Standardization and Dose: Standardization is the process by which the active ingredients in a plant are concentrated and brought to a consistent level. The active ingredients of turmeric are called curcuminoids, and there are actually three components: curcumin, demethoxycurcumin and bisdemethoxycurcumin. Any good curcumin supplement should include all 3 of these curcuminoids and be standardized to at least 75%. Otherwise, what you’re getting could be little more than a pill filled with powdered turmeric root. The minimum recommended daily dose is 1,000 mg per day.
|
|
|
|---|
____________________________________________________________________________________
The Right JB 