Raymond Francis is an internationally recognized leader in the field of optimal health maintenance. Chronic disease has become normal and is a runaway epidemic, he says. Only about one percent of us are in good health, and chronic disease is runaway.
Raymond Francis is an internationally recognized leader in the field of optimal health maintenance. Chronic disease has become normal and is a runaway epidemic, he says. Only about one percent of us are in good health, and chronic disease is runaway.
Raymond Francis is an internationally recognized leader in the field of optimal health maintenance. Chronic disease has become normal and is a runaway epidemic, he says. Only about one percent of us are in good health, and chronic disease is runaway.
Raymond Francis, DSc, MSc, RNC, is a doctor of naturopathy, a chemist, and a graduate of MIT, and a registered nutrition consultant. Raymond is an internationally recognized leader in the field of optimal health maintenance, chairman and CEO of Beyond Health Corporation, the publisher of Beyond Health News, host and producer of the Beyond Health Show, author of the highly-acclaimed book, Never Be Sick Again and of the Pathways to Health newspaper columns. An in-demand speaker, he has addressed health conferences all over the United States, as well as in Germany, Switzerland, Greece and Egypt. Raymond is also the founder and president of Health-e-America Foundation (HeAF), an educational non-profit. HeAF is dedicated to ending the epidemic of chronic disease in America by using revolutionary health technology to teach school children the basics of good health. Health-e-America is the sponsor of TPED (The Project to End Disease). Raymond Francis is an M.I.T.-trained scientist, a registered nutrition consultant, author of Never Be Sick Again, host of the Beyond Health Show and an internationally recognized leader in the emerging field of optimal health maintenance. Health is a Choice "Health is not a chance, it's a choice. But it's a choice only you can make." These are the words I use to sign off each of my radio shows. Unfortunately, most people believe that disease is something that just happens. It's a roll of the dice to determine who gets sick and who doesn't. Because of this erroneous belief, few people are choosing health and almost everyone is sick. According to the latest estimates, 75% of us have a diagnosable chronic disease. This includes 90% of the people over age 65 and 25% of the people under 18. Yet despite these numbers, two thirds of us think we are in good or excellent health. What's happened is that chronic disease has become normal. As long as people are able to function they think of themselves as being in good health. In truth, only about one percent of us are in good health, and chronic disease is a runaway epidemic. The economic effect of all this is budget-busting health-care costs. The result is more and more denial of health care, a medical establishment in chaos, and a lot of sick people running around with diminished quality of life. Preventing Disease It doesn't have to be this way. Disease can be prevented. If it does occur, it can be reversed. Too often we hear that disease is the result of genetic predisposition, but genes just make people susceptible to a particular disease. They rarely cause it. The most important influences are the fundamental parameters of human health, namely: diet, environment, and behavior. The problem is, in a relatively short period of time, we have radically changed these parameters. These changes are producing progressive breakdowns in cellular integrity and systemic processes, thus distorting our self-regulation and causing disease. To stay well or get well, we have to make new choices regarding diet, environment, and behavior. We have to prevent or reverse the distortions. Sounds simple doesn't it? In truth, it is simple. And best of all, it works! The human body is a self-repairing, self-regulating system that will maintain good health if we properly support its functions. Disease results when we distort our natural self-regulating processes. The distortions are the result of unwise choices because either we don't care or we don't know any better. Almost all chronic disease can be prevented or put into remission by making different choices. This is a far cry from our current perception where we are misled into thinking that everyone gets sick and only the doctor can make us well. But the doctor's treatments for chronic disease are seldom effective, and usually do more harm than the disease itself. Modern medicine doesn't cure disease; it suppresses the symptoms with toxic chemicals, radiation, and surgery. None of these address the causes of disease, and all of them damage health. This is why, according to statistics published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, medical doctors are one of the leading causes of disease and the third leading cause of death in America. Choosing Health What are some of the things all of us can do to choose health? First of all, eat a better diet and take high quality nutritional supplements. A recent study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture titled "What We Eat in America" found that almost half of us eat no fruit and that most of us eat minimal amounts of vegetables on a given day. The conclusion was that most American adults have insufficient intakes of zinc, magnesium, vitamin B6, calcium, and vitamin E. This is why high quality supplements are necessary. We managed for millennia without supplements, but we need them now because our intake of nutrients is down. Furthermore, coping with the toxins in our environment has increased our need. Very simply the need is up, the supply is down, and even when you eat a good diet, it's very difficult to get adequate nutrition. Our Diet Eating a good diet isn't all that difficult. It means avoiding processed food, the kind that goes through a factory before you get it. This means eliminating sugar, hydrogenated oils, processed oils, salt, dairy, white flour, and white rice. Don't buy foods in cans, jars, packages, etc., and don't eat foods cooked at high temperatures such as in toasting, frying, broiling, and barbecuing. The average American eats 150 pounds of sugar per year. Why eat almost a half-pound per day of a metabolic poison that is incredibly damaging to human health? And why are we feeding this poison to our children? Instead, choose a mostly raw diet rich in organic, whole, unprocessed foods. Choose fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains scooped out of bins, seeds, nuts, and sprouts. Choose organic flaxseed oil and extra-virgin olive oil. Choose fish instead of steak. Studies have shown that eating fish instead of steak for dinner will sharply cut the risk of heart attack the next morning. A high fat meal will within six or seven hours put the blood into a hypercoagulatin state increasing the risk of artery-clogging blood clots. Choose only high quality supplements such as Perque. Most supplements are useless, and many are dangerous. Our Environment During this century, we have introduced over 100,000 man-made chemicals into our environment. We have little information on how each of these act in the human body and almost no information on how they all act in combination. We do know that many of these chemicals are toxic and that some are carcinogenic. That's why another aspect of choosing health is learning how to avoid toxins. Toxins are things our cells don't need because they jam the machinery and interfere with normal cell function. It's not possible to completely avoid toxins because we have polluted the entire planet. However, it is possible to minimize our toxic exposures. Begin with the things you use on your body such as toothpaste, soap, shampoo, etc. Most of these products contain toxic ingredients. The toxins go through your skin, bioaccumulate in your tissues, and eventually cause cellular malfunction. Common chemicals such as sodium lauryl sulfate are known to bioaccumulate in liver, eye, and heart tissue, and when used in toothpaste to cause gum disease and tooth loss. Eating organically grown foods that have not been exposed to pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides is just common sense. Avoid meat and dairy for the same reason. Farm animals bioaccumulate toxins from the animal feed and pass them on to you in concentrated form. In fact about 80% of the average person's pesticide exposure comes from eating meat and dairy. Clean up your home environment. Don't purchase carpets make of synthetic polymers. Don't buy furniture made of particleboard. Purchase clothes, bed linens, and mattresses made from natural materials. Use environmentally safe household cleaners. Avoid solvents and toxic chemicals of all kinds including prescription and recreational drugs and local anesthetics. Our Behavior A major aspect of modern behavior is chronic stress. Even driving on the freeway is a very stresstoreul event. Chronic stress causes a distortion of the body's daily maintenance processes. Chronically deferred maintenance eventually results in major distortions in the body's self-regulation processes and the body literally falls apart for lack of daily repair. Developing new ways of dealing with stress is a must. There are many ways to do this, including exercise, meditation, Qigong, and therapy. The right way is what works for you. Lack of physical exercise is another behavioral change with huge negative results. The human body was designed to be physically active. It will not function properly without a high level of activity. Yet most people are couch potatoes and drive to places to which they can easily walk. Without movement, the heart/lung system does not get the stimulation it needs to deliver adequate amounts of oxygen to the body's tissues. This causes a gradual decline in health. Another impact on our behavior is brought about by our modern health care system that promotes disease by instilling feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness in the chronically ill. Modern medicine tells the chronically ill they are powerless to act on their own, that they cannot be cured, only treated, and that they have no options other than the medical system. This promotes feelings of helplessness that actually lead to a further breakdown in health. It is well established that our outlook on the future has a profound effect on health. Feelings of despair diminish the patient's ability to deal with the problem and lead to the patient becoming increasingly depressed. Knowing that health is a choice gives patients a sense of personal power, which enhances physical and emotional vitality. In Summary Disease is the result of long-term imbalances in the body's self- regulating systems. These imbalances are brought about by making inappropriate choices regarding our diets, environment, and behavior. Each of us has the power to choose health over disease. By knowing what our bad choices are, we can change these habits, choose new action, and effect changes in our biochemistry that will redirect our lives toward health and well being. No matter what your state of health, it is possible to make new choices, to improve, and to go beyond health as you know it. Aging is a Mistake "Aging is a mistake," said Dr. Deepak Chopra. Actually, aging is worse than a mistake, it is a catastrophe. Aging reduces quality of life and causes so-called "diseases of aging" such as cancer, Alzheimer's, and arthritis. Making yourself old and sick is not a sensible choiceit is a mistake. Each disease, even a cold, accelerates aging, makes you sicker, and causes more disease. Then our physicians manage these diseases with treatments that create still more aging and disease. It's a vicious cycle, and we have to learn how to break that cycle. To live a long disease-free life, it is essential to learn how to prevent and reverse aging and disease. Fortunately, this is not difficult to learn. With just a little bit of effort, any of us can become healthier and biologically younger. While we cannot control our chronological age, we do have control over our biological age. Recently, I had my arteries measured. I have the arteries of a thirty-year-old; I am sixty- six. The biological age of my arteries is less than half my chronological ageanyone can do this. Aging is a mistake you don't have to make. Historically, people such as the Hunzas lived well into their hundreds in robust, vigorous health without suffering as much as a cold, so we know this is possible. For you to accomplish something similar you must learn how to prevent aging and disease, and to do this, you must learn how to prevent and reverse inflammation. There is only one disease, malfunctioning cells, and a malfunction common to all chronic disease is a process called inflammation. No matter what so- called disease you have, inflammation is a major part of your problem. By learning how to prevent and reverse inflammation, you are learning how to stay young and never be sick again. Inflammation is a natural and healthy process. If you cut your finger, the body begins an inflammatory process immediately. This process neutralizes harmful microorganisms, helps to repair the wound, and cleans up the debris resulting from the injury. Inflammation is beneficial when needed, but it is disastrous when chronic. Chronic inflammation generates a constant supply of free radicals that overwhelm our antioxidant defenses and damage DNA, aging us and causing disease of every description, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis, allergies, Alzheimer's, autoimmune disease, and infections. Unfortunately, more than three out of four Americans suffer from chronic inflammation. This is why we are aging so rapidly and why more than three out of four of us have a diagnosable chronic disease. Even our children are increasingly suffering from "diseases of aging" in epidemic numbers. To put an end to this tragedy, as a society and as individuals, we must learn how to prevent and reverse chronic inflammation. What causes inflammation? The standard American diet causes inflammation! Most of us suffer from chronic inflammation and disease because the American diet is pro-inflammatory. Our diet lacks nutrients that help to prevent and control inflammation, while being rich in pro-inflammatory compounds. How do you reverse inflammation? In my book Never Be Sick Again, I advise people to avoid the Big Four: sugar, white flour, milk products, and processed oils. These so-called "foods" are pro-inflammatory they cause rapid aging and disease. Indeed, I have had numerous calls from people who have read my book, got off the Big Four, and were cured of terrible, chronic diseases. All it took was to stop promoting the inflammation in the first place. I have been off the Big Four for 17 years and I have been taking lots of antioxidant supplements, thus controlling inflammation and allowing my arteries and other tissues to repair and become those of a much younger person. Sugar and white flour are deadly poisons. They have an inflammatory effect on the body. Unaware of this hazard, the average American consumes more than 160 pounds of sugar and 200 pounds of white flour per year. Tragically, we expose children to these deadly poisons, accelerating aging and causing lifelong health problems. Both of these poisons in-crease blood sugar levels. Even a modest increase in blood sugar generates free radicals that cause inflammation, thereby causing disease of every description. Because most people eat these poisons every day (in the form of bread, pasta, breakfast cereal, cookies, cakes, soft drinks, candy, etc.), disease is a growth industry. Milk products also cause inflammation. Modern dairy cows eat grain- containing diets that change the proportions of fatty acids in the milk, leaving very little omega-3 fats and creating a pro-inflammatory imbalance. In addition, a substantial percentage of our population (some estimate fifty percent) is allergic to dairy, often unknowingly. Daily consumption causes chronic allergic reactions, creating chronic inflammation. The fats and oils in the American diet contain excessive omega-6 fatty acids, causing chronic inflammation. Omega-6 fatty acids promote inflammation, while omega-3s are anti-inflammatory. Historically, humans consumed roughly equal amounts of these oils, achieving a balance. Today, we consume 20 to 30 times as much omega-6 as omega-3. The modern processed-food industry fills our stores with pro-inflammatory oils, including safflower, sunflower, peanut, and even most commercially available olive oils; all of these contain excessive amounts of omega-6 and insufficient omega-3 fatty acids. Grain-fed beef, poultry, and farmed fish also contain excessive omega-6. These imbalances create a huge excess of pro- inflammatory compounds. Unable to turn the inflammation off, chronic inflammation and disease are the result. It is extremely important that only healthy fats and oils be consumed.
Hydrogenated oils are also pro-inflammatory. These oils find their way into a myriad of products including candy, baked goods, margarine, breakfast cereal, and peanut butter. These deadly oils disrupt body chemistry, causing many abnormalities-including inflammation. The trans fatty acids contained in hydrogenated oils inhibit the activity of enzymes that make anti-inflammatory compounds, but not those that create pro-inflammatory ones, chronic inflammation is the result. In addition to diet, infections also contribute to inflammation. Avoiding infections by keeping your immune system strong pays off in many ways. It is important to minimize the number of infections you suffer. Infections are inflammatory, triggering powerful inflammatory processes to destroy invading microorganisms. Unfortunately, the inflammation damages you as well as the invaders. Having one cold after another will do lasting damage, shortening your life and leaving you susceptible to every imaginable disease. Repeated infections, as well as chronic infections, lead to chronic inflammation that damages and ages the entire body. One way to help keep your immunity strong is to avoid eating sugar, which is known to damage immunity as well as causing inflammation. Physical injuries also create inflammation. Nature intended inflammation to subside once an injury is repaired. However, by consuming a pro-inflammatory diet, injuries are seldom fully healed and often result in chronic low-grade inflammation in the injured tissue. This is why athletes have problems with old injuries as they age. These incompletely healed tissues, by producing pro- inflammatory compounds, become sources of chronic inflammation for the entire body. Allergies and food sensitivities also create inflammatory responses. Chronic allergic reactions create chronic inflammation. This is why allergic reactions must be minimized by strengthening the immune system and avoiding allergens. Unfortunately, allergies have become epidemic. Contributing to this epidemic has been the irrational misuse of antibiotics, NSAIDS, and hormones by our obsolete disease-care system. These dangerous drugs disrupt gut tissue, causing leakage of undigested food molecules into the blood, thereby promoting food allergies. A good idea for almost anyone is to stay away from the most common allergens such as dairy and gluten (half the population may be allergic to gluten, found in wheat, rye, and barley). Yet another promoter of chronic, systemic inflammation is fat cells. Given that two out of three Americans are overweight, this is a huge source of inflammation. Pure and simple, if you are more than five pounds overweight, you have a serious chronic disease. The inflammatory process unleashed by being overweight accelerates the aging process and leads to every conceivable disease. Fat cells, especially those that form around the abdomen, produce large amounts of inflammatory compounds that affect the entire body. If you want to prevent disease, or if you are diseased and want to get well, what should you do? First and foremost, stop promoting inflammation. Get the Big Four out of your lifenow! Eat a diet low in pro-inflammatory foods and high in anti-inflammatory nutrients. Get rid of those excess pounds (exercise and get off the Big Four to lose weight). Take high quality anti-inflammatory supplements. If you take these principles to heart, you will be well on your way to a longer, higher quality, disease-free life. Consume a diet low in refined carbohydrates and high in a variety of fresh, organic vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. Eat high quality organic animal protein, such as eggs, fish, chicken, turkey, and grass-fed beef plus olive, coconut and flaxseed oil. Supplementing with antioxidant nutrients is critical to preventing and reversing inflammation. Supplement with omega-3 fish oil, vitamins A, B complex (including folic acid, B6 and B12), C, D, and E, plus quercitin, glucosamine, chrondroitin, beta-carotene, selenium, CoQ10, N-acetylcysteine, and alpha-lipoic acid. (Call Beyond Health to get the supplements I use.) The health of the American people is in a catastrophic, long-term downtrend. The result is pain, suffering, unnecessary loss of loved ones and an economic threat that is projected within a few decades to bankrupt our country and plunge it into third-world status. This is happening because, in a relatively short period of time, we have completely changed our diet. We now consume insufficient anti- inflammatory vitamins and minerals and an enormous surplus of pro- inflammatory "foods" in the form of the Big Four: sugar, white flour, dairy and processed oils (remember the oils we consume are 20 to 30 times more pro-inflammatory than our ancestor's). Inflammation is a common element in virtually all disease. By consuming the Big Four, the cumulative effect of the inflammation we are creating is aging us prematurely, causing us to look old, feel tired, and suffer every imaginable disease. By learning how to prevent and reverse inflammation, we can achieve power over aging and disease. What a wonderful goaland so easy to do. Immune Dysfunction and AIDS AIDS is only one small part of the largest epidemic in history, the epidemic of immune dysfunction disease that is sweeping the planet. This pandemic is affecting not only humans, but marine mammals, birds, fish, frogs, and virtually all living creatures. Because this epidemic doesn't yet have a name, I call it 20th Century Syndrome. The reason this epidemic is going unrecognized is that we give it a variety of conflicting and confusing names including: AIDS, allergies, asthma, arthritis, chronic fatigue, chemical sensitivities, chronic herpes, chronic hepatitis, eczema, Grave's Disease, lupus, migraine, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, Sjogren's Syndrome, and other immune dysfunction diseases.
Immune dysfunction syndromes are complex. They affect every system in the body, and have no single cause. They result from a combination of factors including poor nutrition, toxic overload, chronic distress, and antigenic overload. An antigen is something to which the immune system reacts by producing antibodies. Antigenic overload results from our excessive exposures to disease-causing organisms such as bacteria, viruses, yeasts, molds, and others. Overload also results from constant exposure to allergens, blood products like transfusions and clotting factor, and vaccinations. Conventional wisdom says that a virus causes AIDS. This is not possible. Viruses don't cause disease. There are "disease causing" viruses living in our bodies every day of our lives. If viruses were the cause of disease, we would all be dead. This is not saying that viruses don't participate in a disease process, but infections are an effect of disease not the cause. This is an important distinction. Infections occur when we become diseased and damage the natural balance between the microbes and us. Disease comes first, infections second. So, what causes AIDS? How are we upsetting that natural balance?
Here are some of the factors: Historically, man seldom ventured far from the place where he was born. People were exposed to a population of viruses within a small geographic area. Now, we can be exposed to viruses from around the world in a matter of weeks. This results in a viral load not experienced by our ancestors. Kary Mullis, the 1993 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, said that, "The immune system took twenty million years to develop. It was never developed to handle the extreme situation of bathhouse exposures." It is a fact that AIDS risk groups test positive for more different kinds of antibodies than the general population. Is this antigenic load meaningful? Studies published in Science and other journals show that our immune systems are able to regulate viruses whose number and diversity is below a certain value, but unable to stop the growth once this value is exceeded. Repeated chronic immune responses to foreign antigens can overload our immune systems to the point where we develop infections because the immune system is too overworked.
Toxins such as heavy metals, industrial chemicals, excessive alcohol, pesticides, prescription drugs, and recreational drugs can damage immune function, and make us more susceptible to infection. In AIDS, prescription and recreational drugs, including antibiotics, AZT, cocaine, heroin, and nitrite inhalants, are critical contributors to toxic overload.
Combine antigenic overload with toxic overload, poor nutrition, lack of exercise, erratic sleep patterns, and chronic stress, and you have a recipe for serious immune suppression. The combination of these factors compromises normal cell function. Once a significant number of cells have been impaired, this creates molecular havoc and systems feedback and control are lost. This precipitates a cascade of events resulting in failure of the body's self-regulating systems, including the immune system.
When immunity is compromised, infections develop. To treat these infections, doctors prescribe immune-damaging antibiotics. Most physicians still believe in the outmoded concept that germs cause disease, so they try to kill the germs. The need to rebuild immune competence never occurs to them. However, to prevent or reverse AIDS, it is necessary to maintain or to rebuild immune competence.
Rebuilding immune competence, requires rebuilding digestive competence. Numerous studies observe that the opportunistic infections we see in people with AIDS are very similar to those seen in nutritionally-deficient animals. This happens because, in people with AIDS and other immune dystoreunction diseases, there is a striking incidence of digestive malfunction. Digestion is impaired, and food doesn't get properly broken down into its elemental building blocksthe raw materials out of which the body builds, repairs, protects, and produces energy.
Treatment with antibiotics is a leading cause of digestive malfunction. Antibiotics do more than just kill "bad bugs," they also kill "good bugs." Even one treatment with antibiotics can initiate a cascade of events capable of enormous damage to immune function. The abnormal gut flora resulting from antibiotic treatment inhibits proper digestion and assimilation of food, causing malnutrition. Undigested food results in putrefaction, which produces toxins. These toxins damage the immune system. Once normal gut ecology is altered, this provides opportunity for yeast, fungal, bacterial, and parasitic infections. These do further damage to gut tissue, add to antigenic overload, and place new burdens on an already overtaxed immune system.
Partially digested food remnants, resulting from impaired digestion, are capable of functioning as antigens and causing immune reactions. When intestinal permeability is increased, due to damaged gut tissue, these food remnants can gain access to our blood system. In the blood, the remnants can precipitate food allergies, contributing to antigenic overload, and further increasing gut permeability. Increased permeability can precipitate autoimmune diseases by allowing gut bacteria access to the blood system and causing the formation of cross-reactive antibodies, thus further damaging the immune system. The resulting antigenic overload is capable of inhibiting antibody formation and proper functioning of our disease- fighting immune cells. When impaired digestion is significant, and remains uncorrected, people will waste away and become more susceptible to opportunistic infections. This is very common in people with AIDS.
Chronic stress is another contributor to digestive incompetence. The hormones produced when we put stress on ourselves can be very destructive to the body if the stress is chronic. Stress hormones inhibit daily repairs in our digestive system, ultimately causing this system to seriously malfunction. Chronic stress depletes the body's resources, reduces its ability to adapt, and suppresses immune function.
In conclusion, AIDS is a many-factored disease caused by a combination of inappropriate lifestyle, toxic overload, antigenic overload, poor diets, chronic stress, and common medical treatments with health-damaging drugs like antibiotics. All the above conspire in a cascade of events to cause what we call AIDS. The same factors that contribute to AIDS contribute to other immune dystoreunction diseases as well.
What to do? Limit exposure to disease-causing organisms. Don't volunteer for vaccinations. Learn how to eat a good whole-food diet. Eat lots of fresh, organic vegetables, beans, fruits, and grains. Avoid white flour, white rice, sugar, salt, and hydrogenated oils. People with AIDS must consume mega-amounts of nutrients. Minimize antigenic load by identifying allergens and avoiding allergic reactions as much as possible. Take superior nutritional supplements like the Perque brand. Exercise daily. Get as much exercise as possible. Avoid toxinsthis means avoiding meat, dairy, alcohol, recreational drugs, pesticides, prescription drugs, gasoline fumes, solvents, food additives, and so forth. Practice some stress reduction technique daily.
Rebuilding immune competence is much more difficult than maintaining it. That's why super-nutrition is essential. Studies published in Clinical Chemistry and other journals clearly link nutritional status to the prognosis and mortality of AIDS. Eat only fresh, organic foods. Keep a healthy attitude and avoid negative people and stimuli. It has been shown that just by watching an upbeat movie, a patient finds encouraging improved immune function from several days to several weeks. Digestive competence must be rebuilt. Eliminate parasites. Take digestive enzymes to improve digestion. Since there are only two causes of diseasedeficiency and toxicity if you provide your cells with all the nutrients they need while, at the same time, reducing their toxic load, you can't go wrong. This is the basis for preventing and reversing all disease, and the path taken by all the long-term AIDS survivors I know of. Optimizing Athletic Performance When we exercise it promotes our healing, boosts our immunity, improves circulation, and enhances overall health. But prolonged and intense exercise, like that of high-performance athletes, can actually reduce immune function and damage bodily tissues. Athletes push their bodies to the limit, and this creates special needs that go beyond what a typical person requires. To optimize performance, you must give the human machine all the raw materials it needs for proper function, while simultaneously preventing exposure to anything that interferes. Extraordinary physical activity produces a special situation: An increase in physical performance demands more raw materials than sedentary activity; this same increase in activity creates a multitude of toxins which require even more raw materials to detoxify. Those who provide for these specialized needs will improve their performance, while minimizing damage to their health. If you're chronically short even one single nutrient, you will get sick. That's a guarantee. Nutrients do not act individually, but in fact they all interact with each other. We need a precise daily mixture of at least 59 essential nutrients to maintain health. For the athlete, nutritional shortages lead to impaired physical function, performance below expectation, more injuries, and slower repair times. Unfortunately, numerous studies show that almost all Americans are short several essential nutrients. This has a catastrophic effect on health, causing today's epidemic of chronic degenerative disease and these nutritional concerns are especially important to athletes. An Athlete's Best Friend and Worst Enemy: Oxygen While exercising, a person uses 10 to 20 times as much oxygen as sedentary activity. Free radicals are produced during oxygen metabolism, which damage the body's cells. Exercise demands heavy oxygen input, and thus a large increase in free radical output. That's how it works. Antioxidant chemicals protect the body from free radical damage by neutralizing & minimizing these free radicals. Because of this heavy oxygen demand, the athlete's need for antioxidant chemicals is much greater than the needs of a less active person, and athletic activity in the absence of adequate antioxidants can cause significant damage. Free radical damage is a serious problem because the damage doesn't end when the exercise stops. Free radicals cascade into a chain reaction of cell damage lasting up to 20 hours after exercise. Much of the muscle soreness and inflammation after strenuous exercise results from out-of-control free radical damage. Be sure to get adequate vitamins A, C, E, carotenes, etc., as these antioxidants protect tissues from free radical damage during and after workouts. For athletes, this translates to less tissue injury and shortened recovery times. Antioxidants are important, while our diets are staggeringly deficient. For example: The RDA for vitamin C is 60 mg. The average American gets about 114 mg, but recent research shows that at least 200mg are required. The Linus Pauling Institute recommends 5000 mg per day for the average person. The RDA for vitamin E is 30 I.U. per day. The average person gets about 9 I.U., but recent studies show that 400 - 600 I.U. are necessary for good health, while athletes appear to need 800-1600 I.U. per day. Since athletes need substantially more antioxidants than does the average person, supplementation is essential to maintaining health and performance. Supplementation is Essential! Vitamins and Minerals - The importance of supplementation was demonstrated by a study of marathon runners in a 20 day, 312 mile run. The test involved hemoglobin levels, a measure of the blood's ability to carry oxygen to the body's cells. One supplemented group (given vitamin supplements including iron, zinc, vitamins B6, B12, C, and folic acid) actually increased their ability to carry oxygen with higher hemoglobin levels, and this coincided with improved performance over the same period. The control group (marathon runners without dietary supplementation) had declining hemoglobin levels as the race waned on, and their athletic performance also deteriorated from excellent to marginal. It seems obvious that a decreased ability to transport oxygen would impair performance, and it does. Essential nutrients were used up by this intense activity, creating deficiencies. By the time day 20 of race rolled around, damage from lack of supplementation (malnourishment) becomes very evident in such things as an athlete's hemoglobin levels. The greatest amount of free radical damage to DNA occurs in men who heavily exercise without any supplementation. CoQ10 - Muscle power is generated by conversion of the high-energy compound ATP (adenosine triphosphate) to the mechanical force of muscle contraction. Our bodies store very little ATP, so it must be generated continuously. You can't make sufficient ATP without CoQ10 (coenzyme Q10). CoQ10 supports every cell in the body by aiding in ATP production, as well as helping to prevent harmful lipid peroxidationthe harmful oxidation of fats including cholesterol. 60 to 100 mg of CoQ10/day is recommended. Ginseng - Certain herbs, such as Siberian ginseng, can be used to improve recovery time from exercise. Lactate is a by-product of anaerobic metabolism that causes muscles to function suboptimally. Expediting the clearance of lactate will shorten recovery time from exercise as well as allowing for more high-intensity work. A recent study at the Beijing Medical University Sports Research Institute found that athletes on an herbal formula with Siberian ginseng significantly improved their lactate clearance after two weeks of intense work. Phosphatidylserine (PS) - A recent study at California State University at Chico measured the effects of 800 mg of phosphatidylserine (PS) on muscle soreness during two intense two- week training sessions. Cortisol is a hormone, which breaks down muscle tissue and produces muscle soreness. The subjects taking the PS had significantly reduced cortisol in their blood, less muscle soreness, and reported a marked increase in their feelings of well being. The study concluded that PS attenuates muscle soreness and reduces cortisol levels during recovery from exercise. Another important nutrient is water. It is essential to keep well hydrated. Dehydrating a muscle a mere 3% causes a 10% reduction in performance. The quality of our tissues, their strength, performance, and resistance to injury, are all dependent on having an adequate supply of water. Lungs are 90% water, brains 76% and blood 82%. Since an athlete in heavy training can use over two gallons of water a day, dehydration an ongoing concern. Water is an extremely important nutrient, and it frequently gets forgotten. Injuries, Infections & Immunity Many athletes fail to reach their potential because of constant injuries. Healthy tissues tend to be more supple, stronger, and less susceptible to injury. People don't grasp the fact that immunity is linked both to the seriousness of an injury, and the time it takes to recover. Healthy tissues get injured less often, and recover more quickly. Athletic success requires not only good training, but also optimal nutrition and the resilience it provides. Intense exercise reduces levels of glutamine and glutathione, both of which are essential to immunity. Reduction in glutamine and glutathione suppresses natural immunity for hours after exercise. That's why athletes are more susceptible to infection than the general population. A study at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London found that top level athletes often had severely depressed immune systems, and that they were especially vulnerable to viral infections. In marathon runners, infections cause more days lost than injuries. A third of all marathon runners suffered an upper respiratory infection within two weeks of their race. One Soviet Olympic skier, whose team was studied, had six infections in the five months after the Olympics. This observation caused the Soviets to shorten the length of the competitive season since immunity decreases with increased duration of intense activity. The solution to the athlete's many special requirements is high quality supplementation: Vitamin E is an excellent antioxidant that can be used to minimize oxidative cell damage, thus helping to prevent injuries in athletes. Vitamin E can also help to protect the membranes of T-cells, thereby enhancing immunity. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that Olympic athletes who took 800 to 1600 I.U. of vitamin E per day, plus other antioxidants, during periods of training completed the three year study without a single infection. Most brands of vitamin E available today don't provide these heightened levels of antioxidant protection. Unique E is the only brand with high antioxidant activity. Vitamin C is another important antioxidant. Its concentration in certain immune cells is 150 times the concentration in the blood. When fighting an infection, these cells use enormous quantities of vitamin C. If the C is lacking, immunity declines. Caution While supplements are essential to enhancing athletic performance, not all supplements are safe or effective. Careful selection of supplements is imperative. For instance, I would highly discourage the use of steroids, which have proven dangerous. Another supplement that is becoming increasingly popular with athletes is creatine. Creatine is recommended for athletes who perform brief maximal exercise or repeated strenuous exercise. Creatine measurably enhances strength and increases repetitions. However, little is known about the long-term effects of creatine supplementation. There have already been reports of muscle cramping, tears and pulls, dehydration, gastrointestinal distress, and seizures. The FDA cautions that creatine should only be used under supervision by a physician. The best policy would be not to use it at all until more is known about its safety. Conclusion Superior athletic performance is the result of numerous mental, psychological, and physical factors. Purely looking at the human body as a machine, attention to diet, proper supplementation, and adequate hydration are absolute essentials. Athletes have special nutritional needs brought about by their own activities. Extra care must be taken in eating only those foods containing high concentrations of nutrients. This requires the athlete to be educated, and to make the consistent and deliberate choices that provide optimal performance. This means avoiding processed and prepared foods, which are low in nutrient content and high in toxic content. Even with a quality diet, a supplementation program is vital for optimal performance. This should include the basics of a high quality multiple vitamin/mineral formula: vitamin C, vitamin E, quercitin, extra calcium, magnesium, and zinc, beta carotene, essential fatty acids, and CoQ10. Proper diet and supplementation will allow athletes to have their cake and eat it too. Thorough training to exhibit superior performance without being slowed by the ill effectsway ahead of the competition. About Nutrition Malnutrition is the number one health problem in America. While it may seem incredible, there is a compelling need to teach everyone how to make better nutritional choices. The vast majority of Americans underestimate the degree to which almost all of us are malnourished. Few appear to appreciate the vast difference that better nutrition could make in their lives. Quite simply, we are what we eat. If you build a house out of low quality materials, you will end up with a poorly constructed house. That house will not age well. The same is true of your body. Abundant amounts of high quality nutrients are essential to build a healthy body and to maintain it, free of disease. Babies and children need extra amounts of nutrients because they are building rather than just maintaining their bodies. After fifteen years of researching health and disease, it is abundantly clear to me that malnutrition is the leading cause of disease and death in America. Numerous studies have concluded that almost all Americans are not getting the RDA of a number of essential nutrients on a daily basis. In 1971, the eminent biochemist, Dr. Roger Williams, wrote: "But the most basic weapons in the fight against disease are those most ignored by modern medicine: the numerous nutrients that the cells of our bodies need. If our body cells are ailingas they must in diseasethe chances are excellent that it is because they are being inadequately provisioned". If all your cells are functioning at optimal levels, you cannot be sick. Cells must malfunction for disease to manifest, and cells will malfunction when inadequately provisioned. When a large enough number of cells are no longer doing the jobs they were designed to do, the whole body begins to fail. If nutrition is so important, why are we not paying attention to it? One reason is the training our physicians receive. They learn little about nutrition, and end up assuming that almost all diseases have virtually no connection to nutrition. Their inadequate training leaves them completely unprepared to recognize and address our leading cause of diseasemalnutrition. This is why they are so ineffective in preventing or healing the chronic diseases that plague our society. Dr. Jay M. Hoffman, the author of Hunza said: "There is no reason in the world why over 75% of the American people should be suffering from degenerative and deficiency diseases...disease never comes without a cause. If a person is sick and ailing it is because he has been doing something wrong. He needs an education in how to live a healthy life. To educate yourself on how to live a healthy life, two things must be kept in mind. One is that a chronic shortage of even one nutrient will cause disease. This is why it is so critical to get all the nutrients we need on a regular basis. Second is that every person's need for nutrients is different from every other person. This is called biochemical individuality, and it is an extremely important concept for each of us to understand. While everyone needs nutrients, no two people need exactly the same amount of nutrients. One person may require five times as much calcium as another, twenty times as much vitamin C, or even forty times as much vitamin A. Given that a shortage of even one nutrient will cause disease, those with higher needs are more likely to get sick. Two people could live in the same house, eating the same diet, and one will be adequately provisioned and the other deficient. Yet we presently have no way of knowing who needs what. Any given individual can be vastly different than the hypothetical 'average person'. Because of biochemical individuality and our inability to know what we need, everyone must strive to maximize their nutritional intake at every stage of their life. We cannot afford to eat foods that are not rich in nutrients, yet this is what most people eat on a daily basis. One quarter of the average person's calories come from eating sugara toxic, empty-calorie food that is devoid of nutrients. It is only by eating nutrient rich foods that we can be assured of being disease free, especially in old age. We have all been misinformed about old age. We are told that disease is a natural part of the aging process. This is absolute nonsense. Disease does not come without a cause. It often takes decades of less than optimal nutrition to make it happen. Disease is not the result of aging. Inadequate nutrition, over a long period of time, is the major cause of disease. Historically healthy societies lived well into their hundreds, disease free. Health is what is natural, and it comes from eating a good diet. All living cells are remarkably similar in the way they function. There are certain parts of cell machinery that are the same regardless of the organism. All cells need raw materials to operate. It is because plant and animal cells have similar needs that we can obtain the raw materials we need when we eat them. If the plants and animals received all the raw materials they needed, then their cells will contain lots of nutrients. When we eat them, the chances are excellent that our cells will get all the things they need if we consume a variety of these foods. The problem today is the plants and animals we consume did not get what they needed. They were nutritionally deficient themselves. This makes it difficult for us to get what we need. Modern agricultural practices produce nutritionally inferior foods. Farming with artificial fertilizers depletes soils of essential minerals. Both the harvesting of crops before they are ripe to prevent spoilage and the time spent in transit before reaching the consumer, rob foods of their nutritional content. As a result, we eat foods that are inadequate to supply our cells with what they need. If you buy your food in a standard supermarket, you are almost guaranteed to get sick. There is no high quality food sold there. More than half of the average diet consists of processed foods. Processing substantially reduces the nutritional value of food. These foods cannot support healthy human life. Is it any wonder that more than 75% of us have a diagnosable chronic disease? Is there anything we can do? Yes. We can educate ourselves on what constitutes a healthy diet and then make that diet a normal part of our life. Given both the lower nutritional content of our foods plus our increased need for nutrients, due to our toxic environment, nutritional supplementation is a must. But here again, few know how to make an effective supplement or are willing to spend the money to do it. That is why after fifteen years of searching for the best vitamin supplements in the world I am still taking Perque. I have yet to find anything better and nothing that even comes close. Beyond supplements, real food is our best source of nutrition. The problem is finding any real food. Our first priority should be to eliminate all the unhealthy foods in our diet. This means eliminating sugar, white flour, white rice, processed oils and dairy. This is no easy task. These are the ingredients of most processed foods. That is why all processed food should be eliminated. A processed food is anything that comes out of a factory, including breakfast cereals, canned goods, frozen foods, margarine, milk, cheese, ice cream, pasta, and bread. Without growing your own food, the closest we can come to real food is to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables from organic farmers at a local farmer's market. Beyond that, buy organically produced food at a good health food store. Food needs to be grown in healthy, fertile soils without exposure to toxic agricultural chemicals. It should be harvested when it is ripe, not before, and quickly taken to market and consumed within a short period of time. Nutrients are rapidly lost with time. The key to better health is to consistently concentrate on healthy foods and to avoid unhealthy foods. Eating a large variety of foods is important because all foods have different kinds and amounts of nutrients. Only by eating a variety can we be assured of getting what we need. A variety is also a good idea from another perspective. All foods contain toxins. This is how they protect themselves from insects and other infections. Eating too much of one kind of food will not only be nutritionally inadequate, you may also be getting too much of a single toxin. Some foods are especially high in toxins, such as nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and bell peppers). These need to be consumed only in small quantities or not at all if you already have a chronic disease problem. It is important to remember that all nutrients act as a team. If even one team member is absent or in short supply, the entire team will not work well. Different individuals require widely different amounts of nutrients, especially vitamins A, C, and E. Since these are harmless in reasonable quantities, I supplement with generous amounts to assure getting enough. Yet another factor is exercise. Eating a good diet and taking supplements is a good start, but delivering those nutrients to cells that need them is quite another thing. Exercise helps to deliver nutrients to cells and remove metabolic waste products. That's why regular exercise is essential to good health. Almost anyone can improve the quality of their life by delivering better nutrition to their cells. Prescription Drugs Anyone? Prescription drugs are one of America's leading causes of disease and death. The problem with prescription drugs is very simple...they do nothing to cure disease. All they do is suppress the symptoms of disease by disrupting normal cellular functions. Abnormal cell function is the very definition of disease, and since prescription drugs cause our cells to malfunction, then... Yes, drugs cause disease, but we obscure this fact by calling these diseases "side effects." Ironically, the "side effects" are often more dangerous than the disease being treated in the first place. A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that in one year, over two million hospitalized patients suffered serious drug reactions, resulting in 106,000 deaths. Some side effects! But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Too many adverse reactions cause public concern and scrutiny, so just imagine a hospital's incentive to understate them. Another article in JAMA estimated that only 1 in 20 reactions are reported. In truth, tens of millions are injured and an estimated 400,000 are killed every year by these dangerous poisons. This makes it clear why data published in JAMA place medical doctors as the third leading cause of death. Anyone taking a prescription drug will be harmed to some degree by these drug-caused diseases. Consider that disrupting even one cell function will ultimately have a negative effect on the entire body. A single prescription drug can disrupt multiple cell functions causing thousands of biochemical changes. Introducing a second drug can cause tens of thousands of changes, and a third can produce hundreds of thousands. Since the average patient over 60 is on four drugs, you can begin to comprehend the extent of the biochemical chaos being created. This is not healthy! Very often a second drug is prescribed to suppress the problems caused by the first, and then a third drug to suppress the symptoms caused by the first two, and so on. Statistics show that prescriptions for antibiotics are still on the rise, despite warnings in medical journals for doctors to cut down on them. Excessive antibiotic use has bred "superbugs" that the strongest antibiotics cannot kill. Right, there are people sick with infections that are immune to all known antibiotics. Another commonly ignored "side effect" of antibiotics is that they also destroy normal gut flora, leading to maldigestion, malnutrition, and cellular toxicity. The damage antibiotics can do is scary, often permanent, and worsening as doctors continue to overprescribe them. Nobel Prize winning chemist Linus Pauling predicted that the use of toxic chemicals to suppress disease symptoms, which he called a toximolecular approach, was a blind alley that would lead nowhere. Where it has lead is to a catastrophically expensive and ineffective disease-care system, where people are killed and injured daily, where they remain chronically ill, and where the costs are projected to double in the next ten years. When someone is sick, they are already in toxic overload. Why compound their problems by giving them more toxins? Pauling proposed an orthomolecular approach where one provides molecules that are natural and helpful in supporting and restoring normal cell functions, allowing the body to heal and restore itself to health. If you are now on prescription drugs, recognize that you are choosing to take them, and that there are safer, more natural, and more effective alternatives. You may want to find yourself another doctor, one practicing orthomolecular medicine, which will address the causes of your problem and help you get well, rather than prescribing poison to suppress your symptoms. To make a sick person well, you have to give their cells all the things they need to function normally, and keep them away from the things that disrupt normal function. Prescription drugs disrupt normal cell function. When cell function is normalized, you cannot be sick. This is what the orthomolecular approach is all about. It's using vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and natural remedies to rebalance the body and make it well again. The obsolete approach of using toxic prescription drugs to suppress symptoms is guaranteed to make and keep people sick, yet pharmaceutical companies grow as sales go up every year. Go figure! Saunas To The Rescue! Modern living has created a problem the human body was never designed to handleexposure to excessive amounts of environmental toxins, especially heavy-metal and oil-soluble toxins. Toxicity is one of our leading causes of disease, and the overall chemical load to which we are now exposed is unprecedented in human history. Toxic chemicals are bioaccumulating in our tissues faster than we can get rid of them, creating an unprecedented epidemic of chronic disease. Since our bodies were not designed to deal with the amount and variety of toxins we are accumulating saunas to the rescue. Heat causes toxins to be released by cells, and hyperthermic (sweat) treatments have been used by cultures around the world for millennia (American Indians used sweat lodges). Hyperthermic practices are known to reduce levels of organic toxins such as pesticides and PCBs, as well as heavy metals like lead and mercury.
Our bodies were designed a hundred thousand years before the dawn of the petroleum age a century ago. Since then, our environment has become a sea of oil-soluble toxins. Never before exposed to them, nature did not design a way for us to get rid of them. As a result, the average person is bioaccumulating between 300 and 500 man-made chemicals, most of which did not exist at the time of my birth. Styrene (found in plastic drinking cups and food packaging) is now found in 100 percent of human tissue in America. PCBs, dioxins, para dichloro benzene (found in mothballs and deodorizers), sodium lauryl sulfate (found in soap, shampoo, and toothpaste), formaldehyde (found in plywood, particleboard, permanent-press clothing), triclosan (found in antibacterial soap and underarm deodorants), and many others are accumulating in our tissues and causing our cells to malfunction.
The effect of these hundreds of chemicals acting in combination is catastrophic to health. Eliminating as many of them as possible from our diet and environment is the first step to take. Careful selection of personal care products, clothing, household furnishings, and foods will substantially decrease exposure to these deadly toxins (read the Toxin Pathway chapter in my book Never Be Sick Again). Even so, driving our cars and just normal living in our polluted environment will put most of us into toxic overload. Avoidance is essential, but it is not the whole answer. Finding a way to rid ourselves of toxins is the other half of the equation. Fortunately there is a solution; it's called a sauna.
The skin is the body's largest organ and an important part of the body's detoxification system. Saunas melt the fat layer in the skin, allowing the oil to ooze out of the oil glands along with its cargo of accumulated fat-soluble toxins. Over time, it is possible to reduce one's toxic load substantially as well as to keep it low. In addition water-soluble toxins are lost in the sweat, including heavy metals like mercury.
Saunas are better than a steam room or wet heat because body temperature can be kept lower, enabling you to remain in the sauna longer. Longer is necessary because the oils take more time than sweat to ooze out onto the skin. After completing the sauna, it is essential to wash off with a good castile soap, such as Dr. Bronner's. This washes off the toxins so they do not reabsorb into the skin.
Saunas are available at gyms and health clubs. If you use one of these commercial saunas, lie prone on the lowest bench. This will expose your body to a manageable temperature, allowing you to spend more time. I recommend starting slowly and gradually working your way up to an hour or more. When I was recovering my own health, I would sauna four or five times a week. Saunas played a critical role in reducing my toxic overload and restoring my health. Many people sauna for 30 minutes five times a week as maintenance; I stay in for 60 minutes. You can use that same time to do other healthy things such as eye exercises or meditation.
For several years, I searched for a home sauna. I rightly believed that, absent the inconvenience of driving to the gym and competing for space in the sauna, having a home sauna would encourage more frequent use. I could not find a sauna that met my standards. Most home saunas are toxic. They are constructed of materials, such as cedar, redwood, poplar, plywood, particle board, and solvent-based adhesives, sealants, and lacquers, that offgas toxic chemicals. Since the purpose of the sauna is to get rid of toxic chemicals, sitting in a toxic sauna is counterproductive.
My years of searching have finally paid off. I have just approved and can now recommend a truly superior sauna that meets my standards for quality, safety, and effectiveness. This is an infrared sauna that is easy to assemble or disassemble. It comes in a variety of sizes from a 50 inch wide two-person unit up to an 85 inch wide six-person model. It is economical and works off 110 volt current. It takes only about 15 minutes to warm up. It can be kept indoors or outdoors. I keep mine in the garage.
Some of the features that make this particular sauna so special include its use of far-infrared as the heat source. Far-infrared has been extensively studied and has been found to have numerous health benefits. It is the same as the warming rays of the sun, and it helps the body to rid itself of toxins. Far-infrared easily penetrates human tissue, creating a natural resonance with water molecules having many beneficial effects. Infrared saunas require less electricity than a conventional hot rock sauna. They are more economical, they heat up faster, and the units will run on ordinary house current. The heating elements of this particular sauna are patented and unique. They are the largest in the industry and they spread heat more evenly. Their bigger size allows them to operate at a lower temperature, making it possible to emit more of their energy around the 9.4 micron rangethe frequency at which water molecules vibrate. Causing water molecules to vibrate facilitates the release of toxins held by the water, making this an excellent way to get rid of toxins such as mercury, a contributor to many disease problems. All these factors and much more contribute to the superior performance I was seeking.
As mentioned before, most home saunas are toxic. The one I have identified is made of the most nontoxic hypoallergenic wood available. There are no toxic adhesives, sealants, or lacquers used in its construction; it is made of solid wood. The electrical cables are shielded in steel conduits to reduce exposure to electromagnetic fields and its heaters, controls, and cabinetry are guaranteed for life. As an option, you can even add a wonderful am/fm/cd stereo. This high-quality unit is competitively priced, offering an extraordinary value. Since toxicity a major cause of disease, by reducing toxic load, saunas help to prevent and reverse diseases of every description. In addition to cellular detoxification, far-infrared saunas have been demonstrated to assist with:
In addition, some alternative physicians use far-infrared saunas to reduce biochemical cancer markers in their patients. Beneficial results, similar to expensive European hyperthermic cancer treatments, have been obtained.
It is important to keep hydrated when using a sauna. Drinking pure water before, during, and after is recommended. Excessive water loss can disturb normal heart rhythms and also cause dizziness, nausea, and fatigue.
Many people do not like saunas, and many with health problems cannot tolerate them. Their experience with conventional saunas is that the excessively hot air is too harsh and uncomfortable. Even under these harsh conditions, the heat penetration from conventional saunas is superficial, penetrating only a few millimeters. Infrared saunas are a completely different experience. The infrared heats you rather than the air so the penetration is over one and a half inches deep. This is desirable for healing tissue and releasing toxins. Meanwhile, the air temperature is kept at a comfortable and controllable level-110 to120 degrees versus 130 to 180 degrees in a conventional sauna. Much more user friendly!
Every American should sauna on a regular basis because the therapeutic value of this practice is absolutely enormous. Studies show that a combination of daily exercise, nutritional supplements, and a regular sauna has a powerful beneficial effect on health. With almost every American in toxic overload, a regular sauna is not a nicety, but a necessity for those who care about health. There is simply no other way to achieve the required detoxification. Weight loss is another issue. Most Americans are overweight and an infrared sauna can burn up to 600 calories in 30 minutes, without moving a muscle, providing an excellent weight-loss program. For those who can afford it, you should have one in your home, just as I do. If you hesitate at such an expensive purchase, consider this: toxic overload is one of our leading causes of disease and a sauna is cheap compared to the cost of having chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, heart disease, chemical sensitivity, cancer, chronic pain and so many other problems. For those who cannot afford one or do not have room for a sauna, then regular visits to a sauna facility is a must. For more information or to purchase one of the Sunlight Saunas home sauna models I have approved, call Beyond Health at 800-250- 3063. Sugar - A Poor Choice Health is a choice. If you choose health, sugar is not an option. Sugar is a dangerous metabolic poison and a leading contributor to our epidemic of chronic disease. If we want to vastly improve health, one single choice we can make is to stop, or at least minimize, sugar consumption. The less you eat and the less frequently you eat it, the better off you will be. History Our biologic ancestors did not have access to sugars in the refined forms that exist today. Sugar was a rare commodity, found in primarily in fresh fruits, or perhaps a batch of honey. Advents in technology brought forth the first sugar refineries during the Napoleonic period. At that time sugar was expensive, and average consumption was about 7 pounds per year. By the end of the 19th century, sugar was affordable, and available to almost everyone. Since 1909, sugar consumption has increased by 70%. Americans now eat an average of about 150 pounds of sugar per year, up 25 pounds (20%) since 1970! In terms of caloric content, sugar makes up more than 25% of the average American's diet and up to 50% of some children's diets! An empty calorie food with no nutritional value whatsoever, sugar is replacing valuable complex carbohydrates as a source of energy for humans. Historically we did not eat these refined sugars, and doing so throws the body into a chaotic state of disregulation. Overview Here's the problem: The human body was simply not designed to handle refined sugars. They bring about a deadly combination of malnutrition and toxicity. Refined sugar is new to the human diet, and people are eating an enormous amount of italmost half a pound per day! Feeding refined sugar to a human body is similar to burning high-octane aircraft fuel in an automobile engine. Impressive amounts of energy, but after a while, you damage the engine. Metabolizing refined sugar is quite a challenge, but if forced to, the body will struggle to cope with it. This struggle causes serious disturbances, and after time, disease is the guaranteed result. If sugar were introduced today as a new product, the FDA would not approve it. FDA approval requires that a product be safe. Evidence that sugar damages health is overwhelming. It has been associated with diabetes, tooth decay, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. In fact, the rise of chronic disease in modern societies has paralleled the rise in sugar consumption. When these facts are examined, one might consider feeding sugar to children a form of child abuse... Instead, we give children sweets as a "reward" for being good! Nutrient Deficiencies Food is supposed to support life. Sugar will not support the life of humans, animals, insects, or even bacteria. Sugar really isn't food! Sugar requires specific nutrients in order to metabolize in the body. The refining process strips these nutrients from the source materials like sugar cane, so that metabolism requires the body to deplete itself. The body uses up its reserves, causing deficiencies of various B vitamins, magnesium, chromium, and other nutrients. Here are some examples of clinically significant sugar-related deficiencies: 20 psychotic teenagers, being unsuccesstoreully treated with psychotherapy and tranquilizers, were completely cured by vitamin B1 supplementation. Sugar had depleted their B vitamin reserves making them deficient and causing abnormal behavior. One can be sure there are tens of thousands of teens out there right now with similar problems. Chromium deficiencies have been linked to both excessive sugar consumption and heart disease. Coronary disease patients average twice the sugar consumption of healthier people, and have significantly less chromium in their tissues. Sugar and vitamin C use the same transport mechanism. Excessive sugar intake overloads this transport system and may cause vitamin C deficiencies. Sugar promotes bone loss and causes osteoporosis. Sugar inhibits the release of omega 6 essential fatty acids from storage in fat tissues, thereby contributing to essential fatty acid deficiency. Metabolic Chaos: Heart Disease, Hypoglycemia & Immunosupression Sugar throws body chemistry into biochemical chaos lasting for six to eight hours after consumption. During this period, hormone, fat, carbohydrate, and protein metabolism are greatly disrupted. After consumption, refined sugar is rapidly absorbed by the body, which dangerously increases the sugar content of the blood. Excess sugar causes production of excess insulin, which signals cells to take up sugar. Cells then absorb sugar, to get it out of the bloodstream. This solves one problem but creates another: Now the body's cells have too much sugar. To correct this imbalance, cells turn the sugar into saturated fats and cholesterol. This brings us to heart disease. In terms of heart disease, eating sugar is similar to eating saturated fat, only much worse because sugar creates a lot of other problems. Increased insulin levels not only tell the body to store fat, but they also tell it not to release fat. This makes people get fat and stay fat. It causes fat to be deposited in our cells and organs, resulting in atherosclerosis, fatty liver and kidneys, and obesity. These fats cause blood cells to become sticky thereby increasing the chances of blood clots, strokes and heart attacks. Sugar increases "bad" LDL cholesterol, decreases "good" HDL cholesterol, and increases triglyceride levels in the blood. If antioxidant vitamins and minerals are deficient, these triglycerides can be oxidized causing serious health problems. In addition, red blood cells are choked by the saturated fats and this reduces their ability to carry oxygen to our tissues. Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) is another problem caused by sugar consumption. When insulin is secreted into the blood, it makes blood sugar levels fall rapidly. Insulin levels remain high however, so the body continues to take up sugar beyond the point where it needs to. The result is hypoglycemia. Symptoms include weakness, dizziness, crying spells, insomnia, aggression, and depression. Sugar in breakfasts or lunches can cause children to do poorly in school. They become hypoglycemic about 60 minutes after eating sugar and this affects brain function. Many teachers claim that their students are "brain dead" after lunch, and this is why. Sugar-induced hormone imbalances tax and weaken the immune system to the point where it can no longer defend the body. When insulin causes blood sugar to fall excessively low, the adrenal glands secret hormones that pump blood sugar back up. Daily consumption of sugar causes an overworked biochemical balancing act resulting in adrenal exhaustion, which in turn decreases the body's ability to respond to future stress. Adrenal exhaustion is now a common problem in the chronically ill. Sugar quadruples adrenaline levels, while increasing both cholesterol and cortisone. Cortisone is known to depress immune function. Studies show that the ability of white cells to destroy harmful bacteria is reduced as sugar consumption rises. This is why children, who eat lots of sugar, are more susceptible to colds, flu, and other infections. Fiber Deficiency Humans were designed to derive energy from complex carbohydrates, which are naturally high in fiber. By contrast, a high sugar diet provides calories without the fiber that is essential to human health. Insufficient fiber causes materials to move too slowly through the digestive tract. This can cause constipation, which is a big problem in our society. It also causes waste to remain too long in the colon where it can serve as food for harmful bacteria, thereby producing gas and toxins, and promoting intestinal inflammation and bloating. Fiber has been shown to remove toxic and carcinogenic substances from our bodies. Lack of fiber leads to toxic absorption and excessive stress on the liver. Fiber binds to hormones like estrogen and removes them from the body. Without fiber, the estrogen may be reabsorbed and excess estrogen is known to cause disease. Fiber slows down the rate of sugar entry into the blood stream, so foods like sweet fruits are suitable and healthy alternatives to refined sugar. Fiber has been shown to improve diabetes control because high fiber diets greatly reduce the need for insulin. Conclusive Research Human volunteers who were fed sugar experienced a rise in cholesterol levels plus a marked increase in blood pressure. Laboratory animals died sooner when sugar was added to their diet. Rats fed a high sugar diet did less physical work, were unable to reproduce as well, and had shortened life spans. Other animal experiments concluded that refined sugar "causes serious disturbances in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism," and caused diabetes in the animals. People who have little contact with refined sugar have virtually no tooth decay. The saturated fats produced by sugar metabolism cause pimples, acne, senility, and heart disease. A high sugar diet increases the severity of premenstrual syndromes in college girls. Sugar feeds cancer cells causing them to grow faster and has been linked to colon, kidney, prostate, breast, rectal, ovarian, uterine, and nervous system cancer. In our society, staying away from refined sugar is no easy task. Sugar is added to most processed foods and many food labels list sugar under more than one name. This can be confusing to the consumer. Look for sugar under names like sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose, maltodextrin, raw sugar, brown sugar, turbinado sugar, honey, rice syrup, corn syrup, maple syrup, concentrated fruit juice, and barley malt. Sugar in whole fruits is acceptable, but not so in fruit juices because the lack of fiber allows rapid absorption of the sugar. Deficiency and toxicity are the two causes of disease, and sugar is a leading contributor to both. This is why sugar is a major cause of our modern epidemic of chronic, degenerative diseases. Read labels carefully and avoid sugar as much as possible. Most especially, don't feed sugar to children. The dangers of eating sugar were even known to the ancient world. In the Bible, Proverbs 25:27 says, "It is not good to eat too much honey." We seem to have forgotten this ancient wisdom. The Waste in Toothpaste Ordinary toothpaste is more than a minor contributor to our modern epidemic of chronic and degenerative disease. Toxicity is one of the two causes of disease. We live in a polluted world with thousands of unnatural, man-made chemicals that our bodies have never seen before and don't know how to handle. Almost all of us are in some degree of toxic overload. That's why it's so important for each of us to minimize our exposure to the environmental toxins over which we do have some control. To be healthy, each of us has to make hundreds of choices on a daily basis to optimize our nutrition and minimize our toxic exposures. Remember, it's not one specific toxin that is making America sick, but many different toxins gradually accumulating in our tissues. Something as simple as toothpaste can be "the straw that breaks the camel's back." Are there toxins in toothpaste? You bet! And they are highly bioavailable. Just read the box on an ordinary tube of toothpaste. You will find a government required warning label that reads something like, "If you accidentally swallow more than the amount needed for brushing, seek professional help or contact a poison control center immediately." Why a poison control center? Immediately! Because ordinary toothpaste contains a list of highly toxic chemicals that are dangerous to health and can even kill a small child. The mucus membranes in the mouth are extremely permeable. This means that certain chemicals will go right through those membranes like there is nothing there. People who have accidentally taken some insecticide in their mouth, and instantly spit it out, have died of insecticide poisoning because it instantly went right through the mucus membranes. Likewise, toxins in toothpaste can go through these membranes and add to your toxic load. In addition, who can help but swallow a little bit of the toothpaste, especially small children who may swallow quite a bit. Most toothpaste contains fluoride. Fluoride is one of the most toxic chemicals in our environment. The almost insurmountable and very expensive task of disposing of extremely dangerous, fluoride toxic waste from the aluminum and phosphate fertilizer industries has been solved. These industries sell their toxic waste at a profit to water suppliers who dilute it into billions of gallons of water. The problem is the toxic effects of the fluoride from toothpaste, water, and elsewhere is cumulative. Current doses are clearly excessive. A significant percentage of the population have already had their health damaged by getting too much fluoride. One form of this damage is dental fluorosis. Fluorosis is a malformation of tooth enamel characterized by brittleness and slight to major discoloration. A recent national study found that 22% of U.S. children have some degree of dental fluorosis. More serious is that X-rays of children with dental fluorosis can also show bone structure abnormalities. At the same time, there is no credible scientific evidence indicating that fluoride has benefited anyone. Almost all toothpaste contains a toxin called sodium lauryl sulfate. This synthetic detergent and its chemical cousins will go through mucus membranes and bioaccumulate in eye, heart, and liver tissue. People who are having eye trouble never stop to think that their toothpaste may have contributed to their problem. Two years ago, a German study published in a British medical journal concluded that sodium lauryl sulfate caused gum disease. Do you really want this in your toothpaste? In addition there are many other toxic chemicals routinely found in toothpaste including artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. If these were the only toxins we were exposed to, perhaps it wouldn't matter. But this is not the case, and we are all in toxic overload. Fortunately, toothpaste toxins are easily avoided by using the right brand. A few years ago I spent eighteen months and considerable expense to find a toothpaste I could recommend. I sorted through over 200 products and was unable to find a single U.S. brand that met my standards. Finally, I selected a Swiss formula called Weleda. Weleda tastes good, cleans your teeth, and is non-toxic. Weleda is available at quality health food stores or at Beyond Health. Our Toxic Loads Regular readers of BHN are decades ahead of their doctors because they know there is only one disease: malfunctioning cells. While this may sound mundane, it is actually quite profound. Likewise there are only two causes of disease: deficiency and toxicity. When deficient, cells aren't getting everything they need to support normal cell function. When toxic, a cell is getting something it doesn't need, which damages normal function. Most people immediately think of toxins as things coming from outside the body, like pesticides and prescription drugs. But the truth is most of our toxic load comes from the body itself. Normal healthy metabolism produces lots of metabolic waste products, just as a factory will produce industrial waste. Abnormal metabolism produces even more toxins. In fact detoxification is the biggest single item in our biochemical budget, not only to handle outside toxins, but to get rid of metabolic products like used hormones and neurotransmitters. Otherwise, these can build up in the body and cause cellular malfunction and disease. At some point, we have to get rid of nearly every molecule that the body encounters. To do this, our detoxification system involves a complex process to render a molecule inactive. This system is entirely dependent on the foods we eat for the raw materials it needs. Our detoxification systems are designed to keep us in good health. Problems occur when we eat poor diets and fail to supply the system with what it needs, or if we overload the system beyond its capacity with too many toxins. In today's world, virtually every American is in some degree of toxic overload. To achieve optimal health we have to nutritionally support the detox systems, and reduce their load to a manageable level. The first step in learning how to reduce our toxic load is to recognize that the tens of thousands of man-made chemicals that make our every day living possible are not harmless. Many of these chemicals are invisible, odorless, and tasteless so we may not even be aware of their presence. We are exposed to toxic man-made chemicals come from everyday items like magazines, newspapers, carpets, pillows, mattresses, clothes, cosmetics, toothpaste, and processed foods. Toxic chemicals are responsible for many of our 20th century disease problems and especially the new syndromes that mystify our doctors. Fatigue, headaches, digestive upsets, flu-like symptoms, aching joints can all be caused by environmental chemicals. High blood pressure and even fatal cardiac arrhythmias can be caused by chemicals ranging from solvents to pesticides. People who wake up feeling sluggish may not realize that the cause is right under their nose, the polyester chemicals coming off their pillow. Short of going back to living in mud huts, what can we do to protect our health? The answer is a lot! We can minimize our toxic loads. We can supply our body's detoxification systems with the raw materials they need to operate efficiently. This means eating a varied diet of fresh, whole organic foods, avoiding processed foods, and foods with known high toxic contents like meat and dairy. We can supplement our diet with high quality nutrients like folic acid, vitamin B6, magnesium, essential fatty acids, vitamin B12, methionine, reduced glutathione, alpha ketoglutarate, dietary fiber, and vitamin C. Minimize toxic loads by avoiding pesticides, prescription drugs, tap water, and packaged foods with their additives and packaging chemicals. Don't breath the fumes when putting gasoline in the car. Buy clothes, furniture, carpets, bedding, and personal care products made from all natural materials. By getting adequate nutrition and avoiding toxins, the average person can reduce their toxic load to where their body can handle it, thereby pushing their personal equation toward health. To support you in this, Beyond Health spends an enormous amount of its resources constantly searching for the best and safest products including toothpaste, shampoo, and vitamins. We do this without any grants or donations and ask only that our customers buy from us the high quality products we identify and make available. Whenever you have a question about health or healthy products, subscribers are always welcome to write to our Question & Answer column. If the need is more urgent, you can always call our office with a question.
X-Ray Mutations Astonishing new information about the damaging health effects of medical x-rays is the subject of a new book, Radiation from Medical Procedures, by John Gofman, M.D., Ph.D. Both a medical doctor and a nuclear physicist, Dr. Gofman is one of the world's leading experts in radiation damage. Dr. Gofman's evidence suggests that: Medical x- rays are responsible for an estimated 60 percent of all cancer deaths and 70 percent of all deaths from Ischemic Heart Disease (blockage of blood vessels). To understand why x-rays are such a serious threat to our health, we must understand genes and mutations. Similar to the operating system of a computer, genes are the blueprints for the structure and function of our bodies. Just as a "glitch" in computer software can disable a computer, a glitch in a cell's genetic programming can cause serious problems, including cancer. Such a cellular "glitch" is referred to as a mutation (a change from the original genetic code). For many years, studies have linked radiation exposure with most varieties of human cancers. Coming as a big surprise, Dr. Gofman's findings show that x-rays contribute to heart disease. What happens is this: x-rays cause mutations in the smooth muscle cells of the arteries, which makes the cells dystoreunctional and unable to process lipoproteins correctly. This in turn causes chronic inflammation of the arterial tissue, resulting in the accumulation of atherosclerotic plaque. This plaque eventually blocks the artery, resulting in heart attacks and strokes. When one contemplates the implications of Dr. Gofman's conclusions, some alarming realities present themselves. First, medical radiation appears to be one of the principal causes of cancer and heart disease in America. Next, the amount of people who are affected is enormous. M.D.s order about 300 million x-rays per year and dentists order another 100 millionperhaps helping to explain our increasing rates of cancer and other chronic diseases. Next, if one combines America's annual deaths from medical errors and prescription drugs (about 425,000) with the projected deaths from medical x-rays (about 750,000), this adds up to well over one million deaths per year being caused by our modern medical establishment. Thus, modern medicine would become the single largest cause of death in America. Of course, diagnostic x-rays can be of benefit in certain situations, which is why they are still usedif overused. Dr. Gofman recommends that the total number of x-rays and the radiation dose of each be reduced. He believes that the number of x-rays could be cut by more than half without any loss of useful information. (Other researchers have estimated that up to 90 percent could be eliminated with no loss of useful data.) In addition, Dr. Gofman points out that x- rays are not the sole cause of cancer and heart disease. Rather, x- rays act as necessary co-factors in these diseases. That is, they are not the only factor involved in producing these diseases, but the disease will not happen without the x-ray. What to do? To minimize your risk from x-rays, you must optimize your DNA repair and minimize free radical oxidative damage. This is accomplished by optimizing your nutrition, minimizing your toxic exposures, minimizing stress, and getting adequate amounts of exercise, natural light, and sleep. You must also avoid x-rays as much as possible. Learn to say no to x-rays. Ask yourself and your doctor, "Is this particular x-ray absolutely necessary?" Keep in mind that up to 90 percent of x-rays are unnecessary and are done for legal and economic reasons. Remember that health is a choice. It is up to you to choose it. There is an appropriate time and place for using x-rays, so make informed choices. If nothing else will get you to avoid x-rays, then consider this: X-rays bombard the atoms that make up your cells, "kicking" electrons out of their normal orbits and sending them flying at high speeds through your body's cells. These high-speed electrons crash into molecules that make up the genetic material in human cells and subject them to a uniquely violent kind of damagemayhem that injures the genes so that they cannot be perfectly repaired (or even repaired at all). Put simply, exposure to x-rays can change the genetic coding of your cells, resulting in mutations that cause serious problems like cancer and heart disease. Do not expose yourself to x-rays unless absolutely necessary.