What’s old is new again! It looks like Apple Cider Vinegar is making a comeback for weight loss.
In fact, it’s one of the most versatile remedies we have in our natural medicine chest. And it’s particularly good for curbing cravings, speeding weight loss and enhancing your overall health.
Apple cider vinegar contains so many exceptional benefits that I’ve long included it as a legal ingredient in all of my weight loss plans.
Apple cider vinegar contains potassium, which helps transfer nutrients to your cells and give toxic waste substances the boot. It also consists of beta-carotene to help cleanse the body by getting rid of free radicals.
One of its main components – pectin – is a fiber that “scrapes” the cholesterol off blood vessel walls. Studies in Japan have demonstrated that apple cider vinegar reduces cholesterol and slows down the aging process by destroying free radicals in the body.
As if that isn’t enough, apple cider vinegar also helps cleanse and tone the digestive tract, increases circulation, soothes achy joints and muscles, and gives your skin a healthy glow. It’s full of enzymes and amino acids that assist in the development of healthy protein in the body.
Much of my latest research has unearthed the forgotten importance and necessity of optimal bile flow as a key component for detox and weight loss. Bitter foods to the rescue!
Apple cider vinegar is a champion in this category. Bitter foods including apple cider vinegar set off a chain reaction in the body that gets your digestive juices flowing – saliva, pepsin, gastrin and pancreatic enzymes – for better digestion and absorption of nutrients.
Apple cider vinegar helps to regulate stomach acid levels and relieve acid reflux while stimulating your liver to release more bile. It also feeds the “skinny bugs” in your gut while reducing the population of “bad bugs” by balancing intestinal pH.
Turn to apple cider vinegar to suppress sugar cravings, regulate your appetite, relieve constipation and boost your thyroid and immune function. Apple cider vinegar also contains acetic acid, a powerful nutrient that has been proven to stimulate the metabolism, helps to lower blood sugar and contains dozens of other nutrients that work to eliminate fat by creating the ideal chemical balance in the body.
When it comes to choosing which apple cider vinegar to buy, consider that Mother Nature always knows best. The cobweb-like strands floating in a bottle of natural apple cider vinegar called, “The Mother”, are actually edible protein substances indicating an organic, unfiltered, unpasteurized virtual miracle in a bottle. Bragg’s is the brand I trust most.
You can fast track results even more by adding UNI KEY’s Weight Loss Formula along with apple cider vinegar. This powerful duo can work synergistically to help melt away unwanted pounds. With its powerful key ingredients of chromium and Oregon grape root, Weight Loss Formula helps optimize detox of your major fat burning organ, the liver. When taken as directed, it also provides a respectable dose (500 mg) of the metabolic manipulator L-carnitine.
L-carnitine was the most popular “secret” weight loss supplement that Dr. Atkins used for decades in his internationally acclaimed clinic, and for good reason. It plays a vital role in both the normalization of liver enzymes in the blood and the liver’s use and metabolism of fatty acids.
This nutrient carries fat to the mitochondria in your cells, where the fat is converted to energy. It also helps clear waste products from the mitochondria to avoid free-radical accumulation and damage, supports balanced blood sugar and enhances energy levels for healthy fat metabolism.
The post Apple Cider Vinegar: The Fat Flushing Powers of Nature’s Remarkable Remedy appeared first on Ann Louise Gittleman.
]]>For many people, it can be truly overwhelming. Our team fields lots of questions every day, and one of the most common is the difference between “GLA” and “CLA.” What's the difference between GLA and CLA supplements?
And, with only one letter apart, the confusion is understandable! So, should you take one or both of them? How are they similar and how are they different?
GLA (gamma linolenic acid) and CLA (conjugated linolenic acid) are omega-6 fatty acids which help burn fat, promoting weight loss. Both are good for preventing weight gain after you’ve lost weight, and both help to control appetite. However, they accomplish these goals differently.
GLA raises your metabolism by making brown fat (adipose tissue) in the body burn calories for energy and to keep your body warm. Usually, brown fat is not as active in overweight people and that’s where GLA comes in. It can help activate brown fat and burn off the ugly “white” fat that accumulates under your skin all over your body. GLA is also a good appetite suppressant since it raises the levels of serotonin so you feel full and eat less. A study at the Welsh National School of Medicine in Cardiff, found that participants lost between 9 to 11 pounds in 6 weeks while taking GLA.
In addition to its “interior” affects, GLA also has exterior benefits! The prostaglandin it produces is an anti-inflammatory and diuretic, and helps the skin maintain tone and stay moisturized so it’s not saggy after and during weight loss.
Our favorite GLA supplement for weight loss is the GLA-90 formula which contains 90 mg of gamma linolenic acid from cold pressed black currant seed oil.
What is CLA? CLA is especially good at burning visceral fat, the kind hiding in between muscles and organs, and especially helpful for belly fat. Research published in the International Journal of Obesity (August 2001) found that a group of overweight men taking CLA lost mostly belly fat and reduced their waistlines by 1 inch without making any diet or lifestyle changes. In a similar study, women lost mostly belly and thigh fat with CLA and reduced their waistlines by 1.2 inches.
While CLA helps burn fat, it helps gain lean muscles at the same time. A year-long research study performed by the Scandinavian Clinical Research Group found that overweight people lost 9% of their body fat and increased their lean muscle mass by 2% just by taking CLA with no changes in their diet or lifestyle. And, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study concluded that CLA helped to prevent weight gain in people who previously lost weight. When the group gained weight while taking CLA, half of them gained weight back it was lean muscle! How does it work? CLA inhibits an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase which is involved in the storage of fat into fat cells. It keeps little fat cells from getting big, according to Michael Pariza, director of the Food Research Institute who conducted the University of Wisconsin Study.
CLA also helps reduce your appetite, especially when you are not getting enough sleep. It lowers levels of leptin when is raised with sleep deficiency and makes you hungrier. Another study showed the leptin levels dropped 20-35% in 24 months in those taking CLA.
Available at the study-backed dose of 1000 mg per softgel, our CLA-1000 formula is derived from safflower oil.
So, should you take one or both of these amazing omega-6s? You decide.
I’ve taken both of them for years to help maintain my weight and have a flat stomach at 70! They work!
The post GLA vs. CLA – What’s the Difference? appeared first on Your Health Keys.
]]>What does wheatgrass do? The label may be understated, but the nutritional benefits of wheatgrass are absolutely overwhelming, and this is especially true when you consider that wheatgrass is one of UNI KEY Daily Greens’ superstar ingredients.
It’s an exceptional healer that I learned about decades ago at the Hippocrates Institute founded by Dr. Ann Wigmore. Wheatgrass delivers all 20 amino acids, at least 13 vitamins, many key minerals and micronutrients, and over 30 enzymes including SOD. At the Hippocrates Institute, we grew it, we drank it, we gargled and sniffed it! Its ability to purify every cell, tissue and organ in the body is legendary.
For those concerned about the gluten issue, although it is related to wheat, it does not contain gluten. Gluten is found only in the seed kernel (endosperm), and not in the stem or grass leaves. When wheatgrass is harvested, the seed kernel has not formed so it does not come into contact with the gluten-containing portions of the plant. (Note: While it may not appear on the label, testing has confirmed that UNI KEY Daily Greens does not contain gluten.)
The transformational benefits of wheatgrass would be enough in and of itself, but that’s not all of the incredible healing elements that the Daily Greens Formula contains.
Take Barley grass. This foundational fountain of youth contains every single one of the vitamins and minerals every body needs on a daily basis. It’s one of the only rich sources of vegetable B12 and protein with five times the amount of iron than even spinach and 10 times more calcium than a glass of milk! And, it’s the top alkalizing food on the planet…wow! The form used in the UNI KEY Daily Greens is instantly absorbed and immediately provides virtually thousands of living enzymes down to the cellular level to support optimum health.
In addition to these miracle greens that mother nature has generously provided, in Daily Greens, you’ll also get 9 other vegetable miracle workers! UNI KEY Health's Daily Greens Formula is an acid zapper and helps to neutralize debilitating acid buildup in your organs so that you can restore health and healing.
I guarantee it will assist you in regularity, energy, immunity, mental acuity, pain-free muscles and joints, better sleep and a smoother digestion.I take a daily scoop to make sure that I have a day’s worth of veggies in my diet–it’s best insurance that money can buy! I also believe it’s my BFF when it comes to keeping my immune system boosted.
So what’s stopping you from flooding YOUR body with phytochemical rich nutrients to supercharge YOUR energy? Get the full scoop here>>
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Their antioxidant value alone makes these yummy little nuggets a stellar standout above other high-ranking foods like blueberries and raisins. The health benefits of prunes are huge, with their large amount of phenolics, they are particularly effective against free radicals that destroy your cells. But did you know they can slow down and reverse bone loss due to their high level of one important trace element – boron?
Women over 40 lose one percent of bone density every… single… year. And this loss becomes significant, especially in the years after menopause. It’s a concern for all women as we age, so minimizing the risk of fractures by increasing bone density is a top priority. The simple suggestion that eating a few prunes a day to decrease our chances of fractures might be hard to believe. Studies, however, show they work!
It is possible to stop bone loss from further increasing as we get older and this boron rich fruit can actually reverse bone loss back to normal density. In a study conducted on postmenopausal women who ate 4-6 prunes a day, the findings were impressive, showing significant increases in bone density in their hips and arms just one year later. Prunes may be especially helpful in combating radiation bone loss by reducing radiation’s effect on bone marrow. Boron is associated with the prevention of osteoporosis (bones that are brittle and fragile due to loss of bone tissue) and to osteopenia (reduced bone mass). And the beauty of it is, prunes are also rich in potassium and magnesium, other minerals that help support bone health, and they contain key vitamins like Vitamin K that helps to support our bones.
My friend Dr. Janet Zand shared an extraordinary testimonial from one of her fans about the power of prunes with their high source of bone-building boron: “I am now eighty-two and have had four bone density tests, which have told me I have the bones of a thirty-year-old. I’m told this is very unusual. One clinician told me that at the normal rate of bone loss, I will be a hundred and ten before I have osteopenia. Now I know why. For thirty-five years, I had a house with a plum tree and made prunes. I have continued daily use of four to six prunes for fifty years, thinking I was doing it for constipation. What a wonderful side effect to get these solid bones!”
I do recommend that you choose only organic, non-GMO brands, as always. There are plenty of good quality brands available today. And keep in mind, that the Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (TMA) available at Uni Key Health is a great way to get a glimpse at what is going on with our bones and the minerals that we need to keep our bone health strong. The TMA tests for 29 major minerals and 8 heavy metals, providing a complete analysis of your mineral levels and mineral ratios, as well as associated health and disease tendencies, including bone health.
Do you eat prunes every day? Have you been tested lately for osteoporosis?
The post Pruning Up Your Bones appeared first on Ann Louise Gittleman.
]]>Back in June, I wrote about how inflammation – not cholesterol – is the main predictor of heart disease. (read the article here) Cholesterol is essential for the health of every cell in your body and is vital to the protective membrane that surrounds each cell. Beyond that, your immune system relies on cholesterol, as does your brain, vitamin D production, and your sex and stress hormones.
When cholesterol is elevated in your blood stream and accumulating in your blood vessels, there has to be a good reason for it. Cholesterol is the band-aid sent to protect blood vessels that have been injured. That injury is caused by the presence of inflammation. There are many causes of inflammation in the body, including high blood sugar, high insulin, Advance Glycation End products (AGEs), excess metals, hormone imbalances, nutrient deficiencies, and more.
Finding the root cause of the inflammation is essential for your heart health. The number one test I look at for inflammation specific to the cardiovascular system is the cardio-CRP (C-Reactive Protein), also known as the hs-CRP, which I’ve written about before. More than 30 studies have shown a direct correlation between elevated hs-CRP and heart attack. While the lab’s normal range is usually 0-3mg/dL, the optimal range is less than 1.0 mg/dL for women and less than 0.55 mg/dL for men.
When the hs-CRP is elevated, I like to boost nitric oxide levels to reduce this inflammation. Citrulline and arginine are two amino acids that are known to increase nitric oxide production and can be easily supplemented. In addition, I recommend UNI KEY Health’s Daily Greens Formula as a good oxygenating, anti-inflammatory greens formula for daily use.
This protein gained fame when the MTHFR gene mutations came to the forefront of functional medicine. When you have one or more MTHFR gene mutations, as up to 50 percent of the population does, your homocysteine levels can rise. Elevated homocysteine by itself has been shown in studies to be a risk factor for early heart disease. You may feel weak, fatigued, and dizzy when levels are high, and have renal disease. Your blood tests may show that you are low in vitamins B6, B12, and folate.
High homocysteine is one of the few health issues treated exclusively by supplementing with vitamins. Because it is most commonly caused by the MTHFR gene mutations, supplementing with the methylated forms of vitamins B6, B12, and folate are the fix for this risk factor. UNI KEY Health’s Male and Female Multiple iron-free multivitamins both have the B vitamins you need to restore healthy levels of these vitamins and lower homocysteine.
Another factor that is just as harmful as inflammation in the body is oxidation. Oxidation is what happens to excess iron in the body, which basically “rusts” us on the inside and leads to heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, and more. Iron overload is most common in men and postmenopausal women. It comes from the water we drink, foods we eat, cookware, we use, and the supplements we take.
The symptoms of iron overload are very similar to those of anemia, so you can’t go by what you feel as an indicator of your iron status. Included in your yearly blood work should be a Complete Blood Count (CBC), which includes your Hemoglobin and Hematocrit levels, and also a Ferritin level, which is a measure of how much iron is stored in your body. If your hemoglobin is elevated and you have a Ferritin level above 70 ng/mL, then you have excess iron and it’s time to reduce the amount you’re taking in. Filter your water, reduce your alcohol and iron-rich food intake, and make sure your multivitamin does not contain iron.
Iron is not the only mineral or metal that can be out of balance in your body and contribute to heart disease. Electrolytes like calcium, magnesium, sodium, chloride, and potassium help regulate everything from muscle relaxation to fluid balance and can put stress on the heart when they are either deficient or in excess. While blood tests will pick up the life threatening highs or lows, it’s a hair Tissue Mineral Analysis that will help you find your optimal levels of these important minerals, along with heavy metals that aren’t being efficiently detoxed. This simple test that you do in the privacy of your own home with just a small hair sample could be the missing piece of your heart health puzzle.
We are all familiar with insulin as a key player in blood sugar control, but did you also know it’s a marker of inflammation in the body and tied to heart disease? Once you start overproducing insulin as a response to chronic stress or a high carb sugary diet, then it isn’t long before inflammation and weight gain follow. Fasting insulin is also an earlier and more sensitive marker for insulin resistance than the Hemoglobin A1c is. Insulin resistance and diabetes are known risk factors for developing heart disease.
The lab range is set specifically for people with diabetes and is much higher than the optimal range. Any value over 5 mIU/L means inflammation and insulin resistance are setting in and lifestyle changes are needed. My New Fat Flush Plan is ideal for combating insulin resistance and its associated weight gain. And my Weight Loss Formula was formulated with berberine from Oregon Grape Root, which is my go-to supplement for elevated insulin or blood sugar levels.
The Hemoglobin A1c blood test is typically only done as a measure of how well a diabetic is controlling their blood sugar, but it’s also a measure of another very important heart disease risk – the process of glycation. Several studies show that glycation alone is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease – and this process starts with how you cook your food.
When you cook your food over high heat, the proteins or fats in those foods react with even small amounts of sugars and form inflammatory molecules through a process called glycation. These toxic, sticky, complex molecules are called Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs). Once formed, they clump together and accumulate in your tissues. They can travel anywhere, and create plaque-filled blockages and blood clots when it’s your blood vessels they target.
The Hemoglobin A1c test is a measure of glycosylated – or glycated – hemoglobin molecules in your blood. So, while this is a measure of your blood sugar control, it’s also a measure of the AGEs you have in your body, and also a good indicator of your risk of heart disease from them. For optimal health, your Hemoglobin A1c should be 5.6% or less.
We have heard for years about the importance of Omega 3 essential fats for your heart health, but did you know there’s a blood test that measures both Omega 3 and Omega 6 fat levels and calculates the ratio of them for you? This test is a must-have in my book. Not only is it a good way to find out if your diet and supplement protocol is working well for you, but also gives you a good idea of your fat metabolism and fat balance. Make sure you ask for your essential fat levels to be drawn at your next physical, and supplement with UNI KEY Health’s Super-EPA for Omega 3s and GLA-90 for anti-inflammatory Omega 6s.
Not all cholesterol is bad. When your body sends it to help repair injured tissues, your total blood cholesterol may look elevated, when in fact, that cholesterol is sorely needed for healing. A typical cholesterol test only looks at HDL, LDL, and Triglycerides, but more in-depth testing is needed to understand whether the cholesterol you have circulating is actually associated with an increased risk of heart disease.
In my article, Super Heart Health Today, I talked about the VAP test, the most accurate cholesterol test available today. It measures 15 different components of blood cholesterol and identifies the patterns associated with an increased risk of heart disease. If you have high levels of LDL-B or Lp(a) fractions, then your risk of heart disease is higher. Mag-Key, CoQ10, D-Ribose, and L-Carnitine are the “Awesome Foursome” of supplements that my friend and esteemed integrative cardiologist Dr. Stephen Sinatra recommends to his patients.
There are many different hormone imbalances that are risk factors for heart disease. Low testosterone in men, estrogen dominance in both men and women, low thyroid hormones, high cortisol levels, and high insulin levels are all risk factors for heart disease. It’s so important that if you have symptoms of any of these hormone imbalances that you get the testing and support healthy hormone levels with supplements like Thyro-Key, Adrenal Formula, and ProgestaKey when needed.
If one or more of the above tests comes back with concerning levels, and you have a personal history, family history or genetic predisposition to heart disease, then I recommend getting a Coronary Calcium Score done. This inexpensive and very quick CT scan of your heart measures the amount of calcium deposition that’s in each of the main arteries to your heart. The total of all the calcium built up is then your calcium score, and the higher the number is, the higher your risk is of heart disease. Follow up with a good sweat in the sauna or a salt and soda detox bath for the small radiation exposure from the test.
For more information on heart disease, please see these related articles, videos, and podcasts:
The post My TOP 10 Tests for Heart Disease appeared first on Ann Louise Gittleman.
]]>When you address and correct seemingly unrelated factors such as your body’s microbes, you can drop those pounds for good. You’ll restore your body’s natural ability to regulate metabolism and detoxify. Controlling what is really weighing you down might just change your total outlook as well as your outfit.
Let’s take a more careful look at the new scientific research that has enhanced many of my weight loss protocols.
For years, beneficial bacteria have been known to fight yeast, combat disease-causing bacteria, help clean out parasites, and break down toxins in the body. Conversely, a lack of the beneficial bacteria has been connected to many health problems, including ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), chronic fatigue, eczema and psoriasis, asthma, and more. And now there is a connection to weight.
In a groundbreaking landmark study published in Nature (December 2006), researchers found that without the right amounts of friendly bacteria, animals got “twice as fat” and utilized more calories from the same amount of food than those with the more normal bacteria ratio.
Taking supplemental probiotics (beneficial bacteria or friendly flora) may be the real deal when it comes to losing weight. I developed Flora-Key in response to game changing findings suggesting a strong connection between obesity and the levels of certain types of bacteria in the gut.
Probiotic means “for life”. Probiotics play an important role in the digestion of foods and help to produce B vitamins, vitamin K, as well as digesting fiber – the short-chain fatty acids upon which your colon desperately relies. In the right balance of power, a ratio of 85 to 15 in favor of the “good guy” bacteria, probiotics are so vital to good health that they are considered an “organ” by many experts. In reality, these friendly flora also make up most of your immune system, because 60 percent of your immune system’s receptor cells are in your large intestine and another 15 percent reside in the small intestine.
This groundbreaking research, conducted at Washington University’s Center of Genome Sciences, initiated a whole science called “infectobesity” that looks at obesity from the microbial and viral standpoint. Simply put – viruses and bacteria may impact the absorption of food and influence gut hormones that regulate appetite and metabolic rate.
For years, probiotics have been an integral part of my dietary protocols in such books as The Fast Track Detox Diet, The Gut Flush Plan, Fat Flush, and Radical Metabolism. For basic weight loss and cleansing purposes, I am recommending Flora-Key, a powdered probiotic supplement that I have been using in private practice for over fifteen years. It can do double duty as an immune booster and natural sweetener because we are cutting out sugar, sugar alcohols, and artificial sweeteners.
Flora-Key contains a basic combination of lactobacillus, bificobacterium, and frucooligosaccharides (FOS) from complex sugars that function as a prebiotic. A prebiotic is a food that feeds the beneficial bacteria while discouraging pathogens. FOS is a naturally occurring sweetener in fruits and some vegetables. It tastes sweet but the molecules are too big to be digested by the body as sugar, so it doesn’t affect blood sugar levels. It also can’t be utilized by Candida and other yeasts.
The best news about FOS, though, is that it provides a benefit that none of the other sweeteners do: It nourishes and promotes the growth of friendly intestinal bacteria such as bifidobacteria in your large intestine without feeding pathogenic bacteria.
This makes it a potentially good-for-you sweetener for people struggling with weight, yeast infections, and other gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. With Flora-Key, you get the best of both worlds: a probiotic fed by a prebiotic. You can take two to three teaspoons per day. For a special treat with all the Flora-Key benefits, try my recipe taken from my original Fat Flush Plan:
Makes 1 serving.
Place all ingredients in a food processor or blender and puree until smooth.
Freeze until firm (about 3-4 hours only). Enjoy!
Be sure to check my other gut-related blogs and podcast here:
https://annlouise.com/articles/diet-detox/cleaning-up-your-messy-microbiome/
https://annlouise.com/articles/digestion/3-things-that-wreak-havoc-on-your-digestion/
https://annlouise.com/podcasts/the-fungus-connection-episode-23-doug-kaufmann/
The post Skinny Gut – How Gut Bacteria is Tied to Weight Loss appeared first on Ann Louise Gittleman.
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Nearly 90% of women and only 10% of men will experience cellulite in their lifetime. And despite our best efforts, cellulite treatments like brushing, blasting and massaging only provide temporary respite from this dimpled, lumpy skin. As we know, beauty is more than skin deep, and digging deeper into fat metabolism for this amazing nutrient is exactly what’s needed to rid the body of cellulite for good! Continue reading to find out how to melt away fat and cellulite.
Fat cells in women are usually arranged vertically under the skin. Fat cells store toxins the body is unable to process and eliminate, and once the toxins are inside the fat cell, the cell swells with fluid to dilute the toxicity. As these cells grow, the tops bulge and poke up through the connective tissue layer, creating the dimpled appearance of cellulite. Fat cells in men are typically arranged horizontally under the skin, but hormone imbalances can change this and cause cellulite for them, too.
High levels of insulin, an increase in stress hormones, and decreased levels of estrogen all contribute to the formation of cellulite. But it’s the liver that’s intimately involved in the entire process of fat metabolism, and natural medicine practitioners will tell you cellulite is the sign of a congested liver. This makes sense, and to explain it we need to delve into the subject of bile.
Bile is made in the liver and stored in the gallbladder. Its main job is to break down fats for digestion, and once those fats are broken down and toxins released, the bile binds those fats and toxins to eliminate them from the body through the bowel. But when you become constipated, even temporarily, your body recycles this bile because it’s a precious commodity.
Once this toxin-loaded bile cycles back to the liver, the liver can’t use it to effectively bind the next round of toxins ready to eliminate, so these toxins are shuttled off and stored in your body’s fat cells. This vicious cycle keeps happening, and these accumulating toxins thicken the normally thin, free-flowing bile into a toxic sludge that can’t move as easily. This creates liver congestion and slows down the whole detoxification process. And your fat cells continue to load up with toxins, swell to dilute them, and poke through the tissue, creating cellulite.
You can break this vicious cycle with one key nutrient.
But the best sources of this nutrient are blacklisted foods you’ve been told to stay away from, so you are likely to be deficient. And just a few weeks of a diet deficient in this nutrient will cause abnormal liver function.
This nutrient superstar is choline. It’s most abundant in the egg yolks you’ve been told to avoid, and is present in smaller amounts in peanuts, liver, and lecithin from soy or sunflowers. In 1998, the National Academy of Sciences classified choline as an essential nutrient, meaning we need to get it in our diets to have enough to be healthy. Without it, we can develop fatty liver, cirrhosis, plaque in the arteries, high blood pressure, memory and mood issues, and more. This news transforms those egg yolks to more of a super food than a super villain.
The magic of choline is in its metabolic effects on fat cells. Choline makes sure that fat and cholesterol are properly transported throughout the body to be used for energy rather than stored to build up over time. The compound phosphatidylcholine makes sure that fat and cholesterol don’t accumulate in the liver, and this is where the magic happens. Once the liver is properly handling fats, the bile becomes thinner and less toxic, fat cells are able to safely detox and be removed in the bile, and the vicious cycle that leads to cellulite is stopped in its tracks. Once choline is at optimal levels, fat and cellulite start to melt away. How’s that for a natural cellulite treatment?!
If you can’t wrap your head around enjoying egg yolks again and liver makes you nauseous just to think about, then it’s time to supplement choline for optimal levels. The recommended daily value for adults is at least 550 mg of choline per day in food and supplements. UNI KEY Health's Bile Builder Supplements for no gallbladder are a great source of choline at 500 mg per serving. Some experts recommend up to 1000mg as an optimal dose, but don’t go any higher because too much of this good thing will cause digestive upset and diarrhea.
References
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/other-nutrients/choline
Nutr. Rev., 1994; 52(10): 327-9
Crit. Rev. Biochem. Mol. Biol., 1995; 30(4): 263-273
Nutr. Biochem., 1990; 7(1): 332-348
Let’s get real. Not all of us can go for an extended period of time without eating, especially if you suffer from low blood sugar or reactive hypoglycemia. I am definitely one of those individuals. Yet, I am very intrigued with the concept of autophagy that is a primary result of intermittent fasting.
What is autophagy? Autophagy is a process which allows the body to break down weakened, damaged, and old cells and their components to recycle them for energy. This process makes room for the production of newer, healthier cells. Think of autophagy as an evolutionary self-preservation by recycling dysfunctional cells and restoring smooth cellular function, which enhances your lifespan.
What is intermittent fasting? Intermittent fasting is a way of eating (and not eating) which has become popular over the past few years. That’s because when done correctly, fasting is incredibly effective for weight loss, and improving immune health. The benefits of fasting also include better digestion, longevity, stress resistance, and increased glutathione levels. Regular intermittent fasting can also lower the incidence of diseases, including cancer and obesity. And intermittent fasting flushes accumulated toxins from your body on a cellular level, which helps combat the effects of aging.
Studies show that eating within 6 hours and fasting for 18 hours can trigger a metabolic switch from glucose-based to ketone-based energy. Even during a short-term fast, your body turns to fats for fuel, boosting your intestinal stem cell function because of the strong connection between your intestines and your immune system. According to MIT researchers, this one dietary change is enough to reverse age-related stem cell decline!
So how do I make intermittent fasting work for me, a lifelong hypoglycemic?
It’s simple. I supercharge the intermittent fasting non-eating times by adding a scoop of the purest, most bioavailable protein on the planet, Fat Flush Whey Protein, which is a premier detox powerhouse.
It has all the necessary precursors to making the master antioxidant glutathione, which assists in the body’s detoxification pathways and helps reduce oxidative stress and cell damage. Not only does it help with my detoxification, it also increases my metabolism by a whopping 25%!
During the fasting hours, I simply take a scoop of the protein powder in water (I don’t make it into a smoothie), which gets me through an additional four hours without any hunger or blood sugar dips. And it also allows me to go for a longer period of time without eating because it stabilizes my blood sugar levels which is one of the downfalls of intermittent fasting.
Another reason I like to include whey protein in my intermittent fasting protocol is because after the age of forty, we can lose up to 6 pounds of muscle every ten years. Sarcopenia, or age-related muscle loss, is a common, reversible condition. Lack of adequate protein (as well as lack of exercise) is primarily the reason our muscle mass decreases. So it is critically important to make protein a priority as we age and adding a scoop of 20 grams of Fat Flush Whey Protein makes it easy to ensure we are getting the protein we need on a daily basis.
This simple intermittent fasting hack has worked very well for me. And I know it will work for you if you want all the benefits of fasting without the blood sugar lows and hunger pangs setting in. Intermittent fasting with the inclusion of whey protein also allows our body to repair and regenerate itself from a cellular level. So what’s not to love about that?
What I also really appreciate about intermittent fasting is that it is quite adaptable because it doesn’t have to be done every day to see positive results. Doing it for just 2-3 times per week will show improvement, but obviously, if you can do more, you will find healthy results more quickly. Fat Flush Whey Protein makes that possible and oh, so much more palatable.
]]>Thanksgiving and the winter holidays bring the seasonal beauty of nature, creative offerings from friends, festive celebrations and the comfort of family. We are best suited to deeply enjoy the good things of the season when we feel our best and can maintain good energy and a consistent state of wellness.
Life experience has taught us that holiday stress can also mean financial worries, emotional challenges and crushing fatigue. Despite unexpected events beyond our control, with good information and thoughtful planning, we can successfully navigate this most “wonderful time of the year” for a healthy holiday!
So, let’s start with the food and calorie challenges that pervade the holiday party season with tantalizing temptations. Non-stop revelry from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve is a psychological inducement to break every rule for healthy holiday eating and weight management. But that doesn’t have to be the case. Here are our healthy holiday eating tips to help you stay on track and avoid holiday weight gain:
Overindulging during the holidays isn’t hard to do. But, the morning-after hangover is only the beginning of the drink-induced holiday stress every organ and system in the body endures. Fermented alcohol turns to sugar in the blood and systemic imbalance follows, especially after overindulgence. Women metabolize alcohol at half the rate that men do. Here are important tips to drink responsibly amidst holiday stress:
The holiday season coincides with the winter cold and flu season. The physical and emotional stress so prevalent this time of year can lower immunity when you need it most. An overabundance of the major stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline eventually take a toll on the body. Follow these guidelines to reduce holiday stress and its toxic ramifications, which include heart abnormalities, skin conditions, digestive disorders and viruses:
Staying hydrated can easily be overlooked, especially during lengthy holiday shopping excursions and airplane travel. Every cell, tissue and organ in the body depends upon water to function properly. Water keeps the heart beating, maintains body temperature, lubricates the joints and removes waste. Water is especially vital for the brain which is comprised of 75% water. Studies show that even 2% dehydration can degrade cognitive functions, motor skills, alertness, memory and mood. Adequate water is also critical for avoiding fatigue and unwanted weight gain, especially during the holidays! Use these hydration tips to maintain energy and keep your skin looking radiant all season long:
Holiday shopping, entertaining, traveling, hosting visitors, along with regular chores add up to a hectic pace. Many people become dangerously sleep-deprived during the holidays. A truly well-rested and refreshed body in the morning is a key to having more fun, motivation and energy to combast holiday stress. Try these simple tips to stack more ZZZs:
Many people report emotional numbness, loneliness or depression during the holidays. A percentage of these complaints may be due to seasonal affective disorder (SAD) which stems from lack of sunlight during short winter days. SAD can be treated by long walks during daylight hours or exposure to a light box for about 30 minutes a day. Supplementing with 1000-2000 IUs of Vitamin D3 daily is also crucial when sunlight is minimal.
Depression is a common symptom of low thyroid and other hormonal imbalances. If your low moods are accompanied by fatigue, insomnia, brain fog, unexplained weight gain, migraines, muscle and joint pain, PMS or hot flashes, it could be time to search for underlying hormonal causes. Here are other time-honored techniques for staving off the holiday blues:
Holiday season imperatives can seem overwhelming, but small changes in how we handle challenges can make a big difference in handling holiday stress. Taking time each day to relax and meditate will soothe and nurture the soul. Heeding our inner voice can calm us and affirm our birthright to spiritual, emotional and mental well-being, no matter how frantic the world around us. Balancing the way we care for our bodies and the way we organize our minds towards the positive and hopeful can ensure that we thrive during the holidays as well as all other seasons of the year.
The post Healthy Holiday Tips for a Stress-Less Season appeared first on Your Health Keys.
]]>Super-GI Cleanse also contains an enzyme blend to help with proper digestion, healthy flora essential for restoring nutrient absorption and proper elimination, and cranberry powder to help with pH balance – critical in protecting us from becoming a breeding ground for parasites, yeast, and other toxins that commonly affect our immune systems.
Here’s a summary of the ingredients that I have incorporated in the Super-GI Cleanse:
With the holiday season fast approaching, let’s get a jumpstart on our New Year’s resolutions to lose those excess pounds and feel lighter, cleaner, healthier and more vital as we head into 2021!
And remember… The best of health is paid with good intestines.
The post Deep Clean Your Gut to Get Rid of Toxins That Make You Sick, Tired, and Bloated appeared first on Ann Louise Gittleman.
]]>What does hydrochloric acid do? HCl is your body’s front line of defense against hostile gas-producing bacteria and parasites, so low levels of HCl make us more susceptible to infection from Salmonella and other bugs in food and water. In addition, a lowered level of HCl leads to malabsorption, poor assimilation, and ineffective distribution of essential nutrients, such as sodium, iron, calcium, and magnesium. Fifteen minerals, eight essential amino acids, and numerous vitamins depend on HCl for absorption. For example, no matter how much calcium you take in supplement form, if your stomach acid drops too low, those supplements won’t help you prevent osteoporosis. Similarly, supplements with iron won’t help strengthen your blood without stomach acid to help you absorb this crucial mineral. Lowered levels of HCl can also lead to an under-functioning liver and pancreas, a deficit of potassium (essential for the heart), and the formation of boils, abscesses, and puss. Not good!
Sadly, because of several factors in our environment, our levels of HCl may be declining at the very moment when we need HCl most. Medical professionals have long believed that stomach acid production declines by half after you reach age forty. But based on the work I’ve done with thousands of people; I think we need to revise that thinking. A lack of stomach acid has become much more widespread, and these days, almost everyone, at every age, suffers from this condition.
One overriding factor in our national HCl shortage is stress. We are all gulping down our food, eating much too quickly, eating irregularly, drinking large amounts of fluids with meals, swallowing air when we are eating, and crowding in way too much food at one time. These kinds of stressors conspire to slow down our secretion of stomach acid. The popularity of low-carbohydrate Keto diets has also made the stomach acid problem much worse. That’s because the large amount of protein in such a diet overwhelms your HCl production. Your body can’t produce enough HCl to break down the protein. Consequently, you end up with undigested food, indigestion, and constipation.
In addition, if you drink too much water, especially cold water, while you eat or within two hours of eating, you disrupt your stomach acid function. Or if you don’t chew your food enough. Or if your diet lacks A and B vitamins or zinc or iodine or salt. Or if you have medical X-rays, drink chlorinated water … the list goes on and on. Dozens of factors in our environment steal your valuable stomach acid and can leave you with gas, bloating, acid reflux, heartburn, constipation, and diarrhea – and sometimes even worse.
Are you experiencing any of the following signs of low HCl?
If you’re curious about the level of HCl in your system, you can try the HCL Stomach Acid Test:
To find out if you have adequate stomach acid, try this home test. (Do not do this test if you have ulcers or a pre-ulcerative condition.)
While many if not most of us suffer from a lack of stomach acid, certain people are more susceptible to declining HCl. Your stomach acid may be low if you’ve been told you have:
Following a healthy diet like The New Fat Flush Plan or Radical Metabolism is a huge step toward buttressing your lagging HCl production and helping ban your gut grief. To help your system get the HCl it desperately needs, I recommend a HCL +2 Supplement as part of your basic daily protocol.
The post Hydrochloric Acid – The GOOD Stomach Acid appeared first on Ann Louise Gittleman.
]]>You’re trying to lose weight, so you’ve gone to the next level with high intensity exercise. But your weight won’t budge, you catch a cold easier, and digestion isn’t as good as it used to be. Is over-exercise to blame? Believe it or not, you can actually get too much of a good thing. Exercise has a “sweet spot” – an amount and intensity that’s healthy for your body. When exercise leaves you feeling exhausted, unable to get good quality sleep, sore for several days, irritable and depressed, easily catching every cold that comes your way, then you are either exercising too often or with too much intensity. Read the effects of too much exercise below.
One of the benefits of high intensity exercise is it stimulates production of Human Growth Hormone (HGH). When HGH levels are low, this stimulates the aging process – the last thing we want! Once you’re fit and healthy, HGH levels stay high, and you don’t need frequent spurts of it being produced. When you’re fit, recovery is more important, and recovery from some forms of high intensity exercise can be as long as a week. But when your body isn’t allowed to recover before hitting the gym again, it goes from a healthy growth hormone burst to a cortisol burst, and fight-or-flight kicks in. Basically, your body has gone from building up to breaking down. Once cortisol is high, it triggers a cascade of dysregulation, which affects mineral and electrolyte balance, blood sugar and insulin, sex hormones, sleep, digestion, immunity and more. And this means you hold on to that weight you are trying to lose.
Endurance athletes are all too familiar with a condition known as runner’s diarrhea. This is explained by a new study from the journal Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics. It showed the intense physiological stress from over-exercising increased intestinal permeability, a conclusion reached by similar studies going back 20 years or more. This condition is commonly referred to as Leaky Gut Syndrome. The intestinal lining is fenestrated, which is the Latin word for “windows.” Over-exercise triggers the gut to basically open its windows (also known as tight junctions), which causes inflammation by allowing whole proteins into areas of the body they don’t normally go. This inflammation triggers everything from allergies and the common cold, to inflammatory bowel disease and autoimmune conditions.
From a young age, we’re taught the key to a long and healthy life is to exercise and eat right. We’re even given presidential awards in grade school for physical fitness. And while fad diets come and go, the push to be more active stays the same. But when we push too hard, we need help recovering. It’s time to recharge through a nutrient dense diet, healthy exercise, and supporting adrenals. Below, we discuss a few over exercising recovery tips.
Diet. Because we love our comfort foods, we turn to more intense, longer duration physical activity to fight the battle of the bulge. But physical activity is only responsible for 20% of your health, the other 80% is your diet. An anti-inflammatory, low glycemic, nutrient-rich diet high in healthy fats is key to supporting healthy cortisol and blood sugar levels and bringing the body back into balance. Addressing leaky gut and restoring healthy flora are also important. Taking a probiotic supplement before workouts has been shown to help prevent leaky gut issues. If all of this sounds like a foreign language to you, Super Nutrition for Women is a great handbook for a healthy diet and The Gut Flush Plan can help you get your digestion back on track.
Exercise. Have you ever seen a wild animal jogging? It’s not likely. Wild animals walk long distances then sprint as they chase their prey, or run from being eaten. And they rest after the run. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a form of exercise our bodies respond well to, because it closely mimics exercise patterns found in nature and promotes healthy cortisol levels. Whatever exercise you choose, the higher intensity you exercise, the greater your need for recovery. Muscles have fast, intermediate and slow twitch fibers. The fast twitch fibers are activated during high intensity workouts, and can take 48 hours or more to heal and recover. The slow twitch fibers are activated during low intensity and slow exercise, and take half as long to recover. Adequate rest and recovery periods are as important as the exercise itself.
Adrenals. If you have adrenal issues, listening to your body is paramount to healing. This is how you develop healthy exercise patterns. While healing, intense or long workouts are to be avoided. Restorative yoga, rebounding and walking in moderate temperatures are the best forms of exercise while adrenals heal. Supplements to support adrenals are helpful when cortisol remains high or you feel like you’ve crashed. Healthy sleep patterns are essential, but may need support while circadian rhythms restore. Your body will tell you when it’s ready for you to return to more intense exercise – you’ll have more energy, sleep better, feel uplifted, have healthy digestion, and a desire for more activity.
]]>Histamine intolerance and allergies have a lot in common, and it’s even possible to have both at the same time. Both are inflammatory responses mediated by histamine. Histamine is a neurotransmitter that causes inflammation, which is a sign the immune system has been activated. Because histamine is mainly found in the skin, lungs, stomach, brain and heart, most symptoms are centered in these areas.
Symptoms of both can include: rashes, nasal congestion, red eyes, throat swelling, heart racing, low blood pressure, migraine, insomnia, fatigue, anxiety, acid reflux, irritable bowel, and adrenal fatigue. In the case of an allergy, histamine is released in response to contact with a specific allergen. Usually the cause of the allergic response can be identified with skin or blood allergy testing. When you have both allergies and histamine intolerance, the histamine intolerance can worsen allergies, which is thought to be the reason for anaphylaxis, the life threatening allergies.
Histamine intolerance follows what environmental medicine calls “the bucket theory.” Think of your body’s tolerance for histamine like a bucket. Every exposure to histamine is like putting a drop in the bucket, and eventually the bucket overflows and causes symptoms. When you are exposed to more histamine than your body can tolerate, your “bucket” overflows, and this is histamine intolerance.
Experts don’t agree on definitive testing, and type and severity of symptoms can change, making it frustrating to chase down what exactly is causing your symptoms. Following a low histamine diet for 3 months and keeping track of daily symptoms during the diet is the best way to determine if histamine intolerance is a problem for you.
Histamine can come from inside the body (endogenous) and outside the body (exogenous). Histamine defends the body from bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites and other foreign disease-causing organisms. So you can have endogenous histamine intolerance from:
Excess histamine is broken down in the body by the DAO (Diamine Oxidase) and HMT (Histamine N-Methyltransferase) enzymes. You can have a deficiency of these enzymes, or you can be ingesting foods and medications that block DAO. These medications include: NSAIDs, antihistamines, antidepressants, histamine H2 blockers, immune modulators, antiarrhythmics, diuretics (“water pills”), and some antibiotics.
Diet is the main exogenous source of histamine. A diet high in inflammatory foods or histamine rich foods can lead to histamine intolerance. A low histamine diet is the first line of defense against histamine intolerance.
Hormone changes during menstrual cycles and menopause can cause increased sensitivity to histamine. This means your histamine bucket gets smaller, so foods and medications which never had a negative effect before can fill your smaller bucket to overflowing and cause new symptoms.
1. Eat Right with a Low Histamine Diet
Controlling how much histamine goes into your body while keeping foods healthy is the first line of defense against histamine intolerance. The list of foods to avoid is long, and can be intimidating.
A good approach is to tailor Ann Louise Gittleman’s Gut Flush Plan to your low histamine needs, and extend it to 3 months. This will give you an organized plan of action to determine if histamine intolerance is at the root of your symptoms and get you well on your way to healing.
Foods to Avoid:
2. Support Digestion: Cleanse the Colon
Strengthening digestion through cleansing is key to managing histamine intolerance. Unwanted microorganisms in the intestines can produce excessive amounts of histamine, and be the cause of your histamine problems. In addition, the intestines have to work hard to break down all the histamine being produced in the body and ingested through the diet and medications.
Think of colon cleansing like the broom that sweeps the unwanted microorganisms and waste products away, relieving inflamed intestines and facilitating healing. An effective colon cleanse, such as My Colon Cleansing Kit, should contain gentle cleansing herbs and probiotics to help restore balance to your GI tract.
If parasites and other harmful microorganisms seem like only a third world problem to you, Ann Louise Gittleman’s book Guess What Came to Dinner? will introduce you to this unseen epidemic, and teach you the role these organisms play in allergies and fatigue, as well as many other diseases. UNI KEY has GI testing available to help you better identify what’s eating you, and what you need to get rid of them.
3. Nourish the Liver
The liver is key in breaking down excess histamine, and supporting the liver in this process can speed healing time. Glutathione is the antioxidant superstar in this process. A tired, overworked liver doesn’t have enough glutathione available for this important detox process, and over time, these waste products accumulate. As waste products accumulate, bile becomes thicker, not flowing as easily, which slows down detox even more, creating a vicious cycle.
A diet rich in dark, leafy greens, sprouts, and sulfur-rich foods is a good source of glutathione. It is also helpful to give your liver a nourishing and cleansing boost with healing artichoke, chlorophyll and taurine. If your gallbladder has been removed, or you’ve had health issues for a long time, you may also benefit from supplementation to encourage healthy bile production.
4. Support Adrenals and Fight Fatigue
Your body fights high levels of inflammatory histamine by putting the adrenal glands to work producing high amounts of anti-inflammatory cortisol. Over time, the adrenals can get tired and stressed, causing fatigue. Avoiding caffeine and sugar is the dietary key to taking stress off these important organs.
Adequate restful sleep and managing stress will also help keep adrenals healthy. Sometimes, extra supplementation is needed while healing the adrenal glands. Look for an Adrenal Formula that contains bovine adrenal glandulars to provide the building blocks to rebuild healthy adrenal function.
]]>Vacation is all about letting loose and having fun, leaving all your cares behind. For many people, it also means leaving your healthy diet behind. It can be hard to pass up sugary cocktails with cute umbrellas, smores over the campfire, or deep-fried anything. Once you leave the ease and routine of preparing healthy meals at home for hotels, campgrounds, or condos, it’s more convenient to eat out and frankly more fun to play tourist and leave diet restrictions behind.
There’s nothing wrong with a little indulgence now and then, and there’s no better time than vacation. Unfortunately, throwing all nutrition-savvy caution to the wind and eating what everyone else is eating gives you the same results as everyone else – bloating, weight gain, and even uninvited guests like parasites with their unpleasant symptoms. Discover how to eat healthy on vacation with these 10 diet tips below.
Have you ever heard “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail?” This is true as true on vacation as it is at home. Menu planning apps make it so easy to plan your meals and snacks before you even leave, and keep track on your phone or computer while you’re gone. You can plan to include local cuisine and your favorite indulgences, and the best thing about it is you don’t have to feel guilty when treats are in your plan and accounted for!
With menu planning, you’ll only buy exactly what you need so you’re not stuck with leftovers or food you have to discard before the trip home. If you are driving to your destination and will be able to cook where you’re going, you can bring meal prep packs already assembled with spices included and just add meat when you get there (or bring frozen if going a short distance), which saves time and budget. And if you’re the chief cook, these pre-made meals save you time while on vacation so you actually get a vacation, too!
Whether you have a short car ride or long flight, chances are you’ll need a snack. Save yourself from questionable gas station fare or pricey airport fare and bring your own healthy snacks. If you’re driving, insulated reuseable water bottles are great for smoothies, iced herbal teas, and cran-water. Healthy crackers, raw grassfed cheese cut into bite-sized pieces, homemade granola or energy bars, and small containers of unsweetened almond butter to dip celery or apples in, or even organic tortilla chips and no sugar added organic salsa are all great alternatives to what you’ll find on the road.
Start your day off right with a protein-packed breakfast to keep hunger and cravings at bay. Studies show that people lose more weight (and keep it off) when most of their calories come in the first half of the day. Continental breakfasts at hotels are full of processed foods and sugary treats, but if you look carefully, you can usually find hard-boiled eggs and fresh fruit. If they have unsweetened oatmeal, add your favorite whey protein to it. If you can, bring a small immersion blender, your favorite protein powder, and pre-made smoothie packs and make protein-packed morning smoothies to start your day.
To avoid the vacation bloat, keep sugar low and choose gluten free options for bread and alcohol whenever possible. Many people don’t realize alcohol acts like sugar in the body and causes bloating much like eating dessert does. Also, many forms of alcohol, especially beer, are fermented grains containing gluten and cause water retention, inflammation, gas, and belly bloat.
Don’t leave your good judgment behind when ordering food and drinks in a restaurant while on vacation. Choose wisely. For instance, if the local seafood is famous, forego the fried versions and choose steamed or grilled. If portions are large, share a meal with a friend, or if you have refrigeration, have them bag up half the meal to take with for later. If you can’t resist your favorite childhood treat at a family gathering, set yourself up for success and have a protein-packed smoothie to fill you up before you go so you can keep portion sizes small and not overindulge.
Make sure you have a game plan for what you’ll do if you’re travelling with friends who like to party or are on a cruise where sugary cocktails and decadent desserts seem almost too good to pass up. When you swim up to that bar, for instance, and really want to have a drink, choose gluten free, non-GMO vodka like Tito’s or a potato vodka, with sparkling water and lime instead of wine or cocktails. Replace sweet drinks with sparkling water and unsweetened cranberry juice with a touch of stevia for sweetness. Sprinkle Flora-Key on fresh berries for a lightly sweet “dessert” after meals. Or pour a little coconut cream over frozen berries for an ice cream-like dessert.
Clean water is an issue whether you travel high into the mountains or to the heart of the city. Our lakes and rivers aren’t as pristine as they seem and our municipal water supplies are tainted even in the best cities. Travelling can dehydrate you because of heat, increased activity, and dry, climate-controlled air. Drinking enough water is key to staying healthy and active while on vacation. Many styles of portable water filters like straws and water bottles are on the market to provide you with clean water as you travel. Bottled water is another alternative, as long as the bottles don’t overheat and leach plastic into the water and you know the brand you’ve chosen isn’t just filtered tap water.
Vacation is often a time for sightseeing, and you can use that extra exercise to your advantage when the urge to splurge is irresistible. Take that evening stroll along the beach, swim in the hotel pool with your kids, and find reasons to be more active and burn off the extra calories you’ve consumed. Your waistline, your stress level, and your health in general will thank you.
Traveling to remote areas and vacations out of the country are the places where we think of parasites being a risk. The truth is parasites are a fact of life everywhere. That restaurant salad you just ate or the local water you just drank could be contaminated with parasites. Any raw food or inadequately filtered water (or ice) puts you at risk for parasite exposure, even in the nicest towns.
Anytime you travel, take Para-Key and Verma-Plus with you and take half the regular dose while you’re on vacation, especially if you’re out in the wilderness or out of the country. Take 40 billion CFUs of probiotics in divided doses at least 2 hours away from the Para-Key to keep your healthy bacteria populations high and fend off uninvited guests. And avoid constipation at all costs – take magnesium to bowel tolerance and get things moving if travel has you bound up.
Let’s face it – life happens. You’re having such a good time on vacation you just want to forget about eating healthy and cut loose this one time. Or maybe you’re at a camp or retreat where there’s only one option for meals and you can’t opt out. If that bottle of wine or decadent dessert caught your eye or you’re just eating too many carbs, Y-C Cleanse and a good probiotic can help. Bring them with you on vacation and start them as soon as you can after you splurge to avoid the bloat and yeast overgrowth.
]]>May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month, and as concerns for skin cancer rise, more and more people are following the advice to liberally apply sunscreen several times a day and avoid the sun as much as possible. But as I learned the hard way, sunscreen isn’t without its own risks. A new study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) revealed that it only takes one day of sunscreen application for blood levels of 4 commonly used sunscreen chemicals to rise high enough to trigger an FDA safety investigation. Continue reading to find out how sunscreen gets absorbed into the bloodstream.
Sunscreens work by blocking the absorption of UV radiation into the skin. The active ingredients either reflect, absorb, or scatter these rays to prevent skin damage, and the FDA currently regulates these chemical as over-the-counter (OTC) drug products. These sunscreen chemicals were initially approved for use in small quantities on an occasional basis to prevent sunburn – not for frequent daily use as a preventative.
The concern is that even modest applications a few times a day add up to multiple grams of sunscreen being used per day, including on infants as young as 6 months old. And what you put on your skin is ultimately absorbed into your systemic circulation.
The FDA study looked at the absorption of 4 commonly used sunscreen chemicals: oxybenzone, avobenzone, octocrylene, and ecamsule. By the end of the first day, all but one study participant had statistically significant blood levels of the chemicals. Particularly concerning was the amount of oxybenzone that was absorbed, which was 50 to 100 times higher than any of the other chemicals tested. The Environmental Working Group estimates that at least two-thirds of all chemical based sunscreens sold in the US use oxybenzone as their active ingredient.
This isn’t the first time oxybenzone has raised a red flag. Back in 2008, the CDC analyzed urine samples from a government study and detected the chemical in 97 percent of the samples. Since then, researchers have further studied and found oxybenzone is an endocrine disruptor, with links to lower testosterone levels in adolescent males, hormone changes in men, and pregnancy disruptions. The European Union has phased out oxybenzone in its sunscreens, and Hawaii and some Pacific nations have banned its use because it is dangerous to coral and marine ecosystems.
As a more than thirty year survivor of Stage IV Melanoma cancer, I have done a lot of research into the topic of sun exposure, sunscreen, and their relationship to cancer, and I believe the sunscreen chemicals and lack of UVB rays getting to my skin did more to cause my melanoma than sun exposure ever did. Back when I was in my twenties, I had a basal cell skin cancer removed from the top of my head. The dermatologist told me to wear sunscreen 24/7 and stay out of the sun. I followed his advice religiously, putting sunscreen on as soon as I woke up and treating the sun like it was my kryptonite, avoiding it at all costs. I found myself with a diagnosis of melanoma ten years later.
Melanoma is a systemic cancer that spreads through your whole body and shows up on the skin – often in places that aren’t exposed to the sun. Think about it –when you go for a skin exam, the areas they are careful to check include behind the ears, on your scalp, and even in the groin area. After I was diagnosed, I did my research and learned the hard way that the chemicals in the sunscreen I slathered on were harmful, and I actually needed the vitamin D from the sun exposure I was so diligently avoiding.
I walked away from sunscreen and started enjoying the outdoors again – in the sun – and I haven’t had melanoma cancer for more than 30 years now. I am living proof you can heal naturally from terminal melanoma cancer, and I share my story in my new book, I Used to Have Cancer. If you or a loved one are looking for hope and healing from cancer, I encourage you to pick up a copy today.
Most sunscreens on the market today are a chemical soup of ingredients that do more harm than good. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) and reputable scientists have written extensively about the dangerous and cancer-causing effects of many of the chemicals found in sunscreens – not just the 4 that the FDA is calling for studies on. So what do you do when you know you’ll be spending all day on the lake, at the beach, or at the ball field and your skin needs protection from sunburn?
The post New Study Shows Sunscreen Seeps Into Your Bloodstream appeared first on Your Health Keys.
]]>When I was in my early thirties, I was in the prime of my life, living the American dream. I had a beautiful wife and baby daughter, a nice home on a small ranch, and a number of successful businesses in my East Texas hometown. I started each day with a long run and ate a vegetarian diet full of salads, determined to do everything I could to prevent the heart disease that runs in my family. But a suspicious looking mole at a routine physical brought my entire life to a screeching halt.
Cancer can bring you to the lowest – and highest – points you’ve ever been in your life. Hearing the words “You have cancer” just knocks the wind out of you and drops you to your knees. My entire world crumbled around me as I fought for my life. It took my mind and body through the darkest and most difficult times I’ve ever had.
On the flip side, there is no greater joy than saying the words “I used to have cancer” while looking in the eyes of someone fighting their battle and giving them the hope they desperately need.
I feel like I’ve been given a second chance at life and want to get my cancer story out there to as many people as I can, and teach them what I’ve learned about how to fight cancer and win. This is why I wrote my book, I Used to Have Cancer.
Thanks to all of you, since it came out last week, it climbed to the top of the Amazon rankings in its category!
Here are just a few of the wonderful reviews that have been written:
"Inspiring well-written book! Full of useful, practical tools and information. James Templeton’s new book, “I Used to Have Cancer – How I Found My Own Way Back to Health”, is a well-written, entertaining and informative tool that will arm anyone with the information they need to increase the odds of beating cancer. He offers deep wisdom and insight into how to live a healthy lifestyle that will help anyone achieve optimum health and wellbeing. James shares his incredible journey to regain control over his health after the diagnosis of Stage IV melanoma over 30 years ago, and he offers practical advice and recommendations to follow so that you will gain the knowledge needed to overcome cancer and experience one of God’s greatest gifts – good health. I highly recommend reading this book to anyone with – or without cancer."
- Dr. Margo Parker, OMD, L.Ac.
"Inspiring, Enlightening, and Endearing – and it could save your life! James most certainly walks his talk. Cancer-free from what is generally considered a death sentence, he shares his personal health journey, step by step, to help others overcome or prevent this dread disease, explaining how to redirect and heal the body by natural means. A must read!"
- Hyla Cass, MD, author of 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health
"Informative, Uplifting & Empowering. I just finished reading the book “I Used to Have Cancer: How I Found My Own Way Back to Health” by James Templeton. I loved it… I’m in awe of his sheer determination to fight this dreaded disease. It is so informative, uplifting, and empowering. I now feel I have the tools for prevention and a better understanding that YOU are in charge of your health. The power of positive thinking along with the right foods and supplements help you navigate your way to good health. Kudos to James for sharing your story!"
-Sharon Brekke
"Excellent resource in the “war against cancer.” I received this book one day ago and have not been able to put it down. I know there are alternative treatments for cancer because I have been studying them for a decade and natural medicine actually saved my life as well. I have been an ardent follower of The Truth About Cancer, Chris Beat Cancer, Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Cancer and lots more, and I plan to recommend this insightful and inspiring cancer journey and recovery with others. I think this book is scientifically sound and provides the reader with time tested treatments for all sorts of cancers. I love that he mentioned one of my all time favorite books, Curing The Incurable by Dr. Thomas Levy. Intravenous vitamin C is so effective in most cases. The world is very lucky to have this book and the great information it provides. Cancer definitely does not have to be a death sentence, but one must educate themselves and not fall for the Nocebo effect and fear mongering of allopathic medicine. A positive attitude and mindset is critical! Highly recommend this book!"
- Marianne K. Wohl
"What a tribute to the fighting spirit! James Templeton tells his important story in a heartfelt, entertaining way. His colloquial style and casual manner make reading a joy – it is both memoir and cancer healing guide, masterfully woven into one. I particularly enjoyed his discussion of the macrobiotic diet, which I don’t hear much about these days since the onset of the keto-craze. I have never read a health book that felt like reading a novel – until now! I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book if you are struggling with cancer or any other serious disease, or you simply need to feel inspired, encouraged, empowered. Great job, James Templeton!"
- Grateful One
I’m vibrantly healthy and blessed beyond measure today. What seemed like the end of the world over thirty years ago turned out to be an amazing journey with twists and turns I never could’ve imagined. I’ve traveled the country – and the world – and met some of the most inspiring and fascinating teachers I’ve ever known. I’ve been privileged to share the past 28 years of my life with one of them…Ann Louise Gittleman.
If you or a loved one are struggling with an illness of any kind and need hope and encouragement, I would love for you to read my book, I Used to Have Cancer. People call me a born storyteller and I think that’s one of the things too often missing in this modern day. Our stories and those of our ancestors let us know where we came from and reassure us that we have the ability to survive and thrive despite life’s greatest challenges. We can learn from others so we don’t have to repeat the same mistakes.
It has not only been my purpose in life, but my greatest honor to help others. I plan on spending many years to come – as long as I can – continuing to help people through UNI KEY Health, by teaching and developing quality products that can get to the root causes of health problems.
The post I Used to Have Cancer appeared first on Your Health Keys.
]]>Spring is a time of new growth, rebirth and renewal, when we can look back on where we’ve been and plant seeds to change where we’re going.
This Spring is special for me because my new book, I Used to Have Cancer, was just released this past Monday and already climbed to the top of the Amazon rankings. This book is a seed I’d like to plant in each of your lives, to grow hope in you that you can overcome anything if you set your mind and heart to fight for it.
As I look back, I marvel at how a diagnosis can change everything. More than thirty years ago, I beat terminal Stage IV Melanoma cancer – when doctors said I couldn’t. My perfect world – my wife, our baby daughter, our home and the businesses we had built, everything I was looking forward to in life – came to a sudden and painful halt. I hoped with all my being that doctor was wrong – but he wasn’t – and my whole world crumbled before my eyes.
I learned that when conventional medicine gives up on you, seeds of hope can come from unexpected places, change you into a health warrior and help you grow the strength to fight for your life. I’ll never forget lying in the hospital bed, feeling as though I’d been thrown in the ring with the heavyweight champion of the world – and I didn’t even know how to box. But I prayed like I have never prayed before, with every cell of my being, and it wasn’t long at all before three knocks on my door changed everything.
Each person who knocked on my door brought an unconventional tool I needed to change that devastating diagnosis into a miracle mindset. I knew the fight for my life wasn’t over, but it wasn’t in that hospital, either. At two o’clock in the morning, still weak from the experimental chemotherapy treatments I had endured, I crawled out of my hospital bed, stumbled into the parking lot, and managed to get into my Jeep. Driving up to the gatekeeper, I paid my parking fee and left – never to return. And while it may not have been exactly a dashing escape, it was a successful one.
I wouldn’t wish cancer on my worst enemy – beating it was the hardest battle I’ve ever fought. And the truth is, there’s still no “magic bullet” for killing cancer – it’s a complicated disease. Each person’s battle is unique, and there is more than one pathway back to health. Navigating the maze of information that’s out there can be confusing, so let’s roll up our sleeves together and go to work fighting this sneaky enemy. I want to share with you 5 things I would do today if I had to do it all over again.
It’s time for you to take control of whatever battle you are facing and rewrite your own story. Start with hope and believing in what you’re doing. I’d like to help. I know each of us is unique and has struggles no one else has faced, but we’re all in this together and can support each other during the dark times.
Today, over thirty years after my devastating diagnosis, I’m still vibrantly healthy and happy, and I want that for you, too. The reason I share my story and the tools I used to regain my life in I Used to Have Canceris because I want you to know – without a doubt – that no matter what you are facing, there is hope. You can win any fight – even cancer – with the right weapons. That's what having cancer has taught me.
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]]>If your energy is lagging and you find yourself needing a catnap mid-afternoon, then turn to healthy fats to put some pep in your step and keep you going for the long haul! It’s time to train your body to burn fat for fuel.
The low fat craze that started in the nineties left most of us tired and obese, with a side of diabetes and heart disease. Fortunately for all of us, the voices of nutrition pioneers like Ann Louise Gittleman and Mary Enig have been heard and fats are being featured as the superheroes they are in such popular diets as Keto, Paleo, and Radical Metabolism.
People are shedding pounds and inches, energy levels are skyrocketing, and blood sugar and cholesterol levels are being brought back into balance – and we owe a lot of this success to healthy fats!
Now that fats have come out of hiding and are being recognized as nutrition superstars, it’s important to learn the right way to fuel up with them and reap their many health benefits. It starts with understanding how your metabolism works and which fats are the right fats to fuel your fire.
Your metabolism is like a fire – you want to have a steady fuel source to keep it burning hot enough to melt the fat off. That fire dies down as it burns through fuel and, as a result, your metabolism slows down to a halt and you pack on the pounds. This is why it’s important to understand how fats, proteins, and carbohydrates fuel your body and how to use them for their maximum fat-burning efficiency.
Continuing with the fire analogy, think of these macronutrients like logs. Because fats contain 9 calories per gram, they’ll burn longer and slower than carbs and proteins, which contain only 4 calories per gram. You can think of carbs and proteins like kindling – they’re the fire starters that burn quickly and wake up your metabolism.
Once the fire is started, you add the logs, which are the healthy fats that give you a long, slow burn to fuel your metabolism for the long-term. Fats may be the slowest to burn but they are also the most efficient, and that means consistent energy for you throughout the day.
Each macronutrient has its role in firing up your metabolism, so a healthy diet must contain all three to keep your fires going and the fat burning. Without fats, you have to feed your metabolism more often to keep it going and to keep from having those mid-afternoon crashes. This is why you crave those quick pick-me-ups like candy bars to stay awake when the calories from a low fat lunch have been burned.
At the same time, you need proteins to activate muscle tissue and fire up your mitochondria, the energy “power plants” of your cells, and you need fiber-rich vegetables and fruits to feed your hormones the carbs they need to stay balanced and boost metabolism.
Not all fats are created equal. Just like processed sugar does more harm than good when it comes to carbs, there are fats that should be avoided for their inflammatory effects on your body. And that’s not all – as with all the food you eat, quality matters when it comes to choosing the right fats.
The fats you can’t live without and need for your body to heal itself and make healthy cells are the essential Omega 3 and Omega 6 fats, and these fats have an ideal proportion they should be eaten in. Four times as many Omega 6 fats should be consumed as compared to Omega 3, and the best sources for these anti-inflammatory, hormone-balancing, fat-burning, energy-boosting oils is found in nuts, seeds, and their cold-pressed oils. While processed vegetable oils like corn, canola, soy and vegetable blends are touted as sources of Omega 6 fats, these oils are as bad as processed sugar – altered, refined, and highly inflammatory and should be avoided.
Healthy sources of Omega 3 fats include flax and chia seeds, and wild caught fatty fish and their oils from the most pristine waters. If you choose to take a fish oil supplement, make sure it’s been tested for levels of toxic contaminants, like our Super-EPA is. It’s unfortunate, but our oceans have been contaminated with heavy metals and chemicals and the fish store these in their fat tissues, much like we do.
When it comes to animal fats, it matters how the animals are raised and what they are fed. Meat from animals raised in a Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) doesn’t contain the right proportion of fats your body needs and is inflammatory. In contrast, the meat, eggs, and dairy from grass fed and free-range animals is rich in Omega 3 and Omega 6 fats and is anti-inflammatory and health-promoting. Grass fed meats are often more lean than CAFO meats, so make sure you are also getting enough of the healthy plant-based fats in your diet.
If eating fats makes you feel sleepy after meals, or you end up with bloating and digestive discomfort, then your fat digestion may need some support. Your liver makes bile, the soap-like substance that’s essential for proper fat digestion. Your gallbladder stores the bile and regulates its flow into your small intestine, so if you’ve had your gallbladder removed or are having gallbladder issues, then issues with fat digestion are likely to follow.
The root cause behind many gallbladder issues is either thick, sludgy bile or insufficient bile, and both of these impair fat digestion and lead to bloating, indigestion, constipation, and diarrhea. Many people have quit the keto and paleo diets because their fat digestion wasn’t optimal and it left them with weight gain, bloating and discomfort. Healthy fat digestion begins with building better bile, and our Bile Builder can help. It contains a combination of herbs and nutrients known to support fat digestion and liver and gallbladder health.
To fix your fat digestion, the first key is to eliminate the inflammatory altered, refined, and processed vegetable fats and greasy, fried foods. Next, gradually add in the plant-based Omega-rich fats like nuts, seeds, and their cold-pressed oils while transitioning to eating grass fed meats. Make sure you eat bitter foods with every meal, because bitters build better bile. For a comprehensive primer on healing your fat digestion, getting essential fats into your diet, and losing weight with healthy fats, get Radical with Ann Louise Gittleman’s Radical Metabolism plan.
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]]>Candida has garnered plenty of attention in the natural healing world for decades as a contributor to many chronic conditions, but a new strain is proving to be a killer – and is resistant to medical treatment.
A recent outbreak of a deadly new superbug is gaining media attention – and for good reason. What is Candida auris? Candida auris is a multidrug-resistant fungus that claims the lives of more than one-third of people who catch it, and it stays alive on surfaces, resisting most commonly used cleaners. People who do live through the infection become lifelong carriers and it can be passed on or become active again if their immune system becomes suppressed or compromised.
Candida infections are nothing new. We’ve been dealing with a variety of strains of this highly adaptive, microscopic fungus for longer than anti-fungal medications have been around. Candida auris, however, is much more aggressive and virulent than the strains we’re used to dealing with, and is targeting people who are already struggling with immune system issues. Fortunately, holistic healing approaches have been successfully addressing Candida for more than a century, and can offer hope for those who may be at risk.
Candida is an opportunistic infection, which means it can be in your body for years but not cause a problem until your immune system becomes suppressed. Once conditions are right for it to take hold, it changes its form from a simple yeast cell to a hyphal form that embeds itself into mucus membranes and forms a biofilm that creates the perfect environment for it to thrive and grow. This biofilm is the biggest challenge antifungals have had to face – until the fungus itself became drug resistant.
Drug resistance in a bacteria or fungus like Candida doesn’t happen overnight. Just like overuse of antibiotics in our livestock contributed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, agricultural fungicides sprayed on our produce is believed to be a causative factor in Candida auris becoming drug resistant and even resistant to most cleaning products. In addition to that, widespread use of antifungal medicines for everything from toenail infections to skin rashes and more has led to antifungal resistance from what is probably overuse.
Candida auris has also managed something extremely difficult – it has adapted to become resistant to even the strongest of hospital cleaning products. Even after thorough cleaning, hospital rooms of patients who were infected with Candida auris test positive for the fungus on everything from door handles to testing equipment and even the windows. However, one hospital’s unorthodox use of natural remedies has them testing clean from the superbug, and this gives us insight as to where to go with a natural approach.
When Candida was first identified under the microscope as a causative agent of vaginal yeast infections, we didn’t have anti-fungal medications. Instead, two different approaches were commonly used.
First, a pharmacist would make up capsules or vaginal suppositories of pharmaceutical-grade boric acid, to be inserted vaginally at bedtime. The boric acid would raise the pH of the surrounding tissues enough to make the environment inhospitable for the Candida and the infection would resolve.
If the infection didn’t respond to the pH change, spread beyond a local area, or was internal, then homeopathy was used. Homeopathy was the “Standard of Care” in medicine before antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals were discovered. Homeopathy operates off the principle that “like cures like” and uses minute doses of natural substances that, if given full strength, could cause the same symptoms you’re currently having.
Once antibiotics came on the scene, homeopathy slowly fell out of favor and lost its prominent place in medical therapeutics. This doesn’t mean that homeopathy isn’t effective – it just isn’t as bright and shiny of a star as antibiotics seem to be.
Fast forward almost a century to today, and specific probiotics are used as first-line agents alongside antibiotics to stave off Candida overgrowth while the immune system is vulnerable. Not only are these probiotics taken during antibiotic treatment, but they are also continued for several months afterward, along with a high fiber and low sugar diet, to recolonize healthy bacteria into the microbiome and out-compete any remaining Candida that may try to take a foothold.
We have also become a global community, with herbs from around the world having earned their place alongside homeopathy as effective immune system stimulators that allow the body to rise up and fight infections like Candida on its own.
But what is probably the most interesting use of natural remedies is one hospital’s discovery of reactive oxygen species like ozone and hydrogen peroxide along with UV radiation to completely eradicate any trace of Candida left behind, even in the smallest nooks and crannies.
This hospital, which is currently anonymous because of their ongoing research, sprayed a hydrogen peroxide mist in the rooms that had been contaminated with Candida auris, and used localized UV radiation on equipment that couldn’t tolerate moisture.
The testing afterward revealed no Candida auris was present on any surface in the previously contaminated rooms. Even hospitals using the strongest chlorine-based cleaners still tested positive for significant amounts of Candida auris.
Right after I read about the latest outbreak of Candida auris, I had to seek medical attention for an injury. The belt broke on the ski machine I was exercising on and the impact caused a pretty large connective tissue wound on my shin that required both deep and superficial stitches.
As I sat there watching the doctor prepare that sterile field, I knew that even despite his careful attention, I could still be getting exposure to that superbug right in that moment. The fact is, despite the CDC alerting medical establishments of their concern over this silent killer, the proper testing isn’t being done to detect it and they’re concerned it’s being spread even further.
When I got home, I decided to take matters into my own hands and do what I know works well to support my body and get rid of Candida auris. Our homeopathic Y-C Cleanse is designed to help support your immune health so your body can fight a fungal infection on its own, so I started taking that right away, especially because I was given antibiotics for the wound.
I doubled up on my usual dose of Flora-Key, our broad-spectrum probiotic. I took what little sugar I had in my diet completely out and opted instead for more high-fiber vegetables to feed the healthy bacteria that I want to colonize in my microbiome.
Finally, I started taking Para-Key, which is what I use to support my immune system when I’ve been traveling and I think I may have been exposed to any bugs. Hospitals and clinics are full of sick people and I’m not willing to take any chances!
For cleaning, I already have on-hand a hydrogen peroxide spray that I use on produce, so I’ve been spraying that liberally on door handles and any surface I come in contact with, especially before and after I change my bandages. I also used an oxygen-based laundry additive when I washed the clothes I was wearing while I was receiving medical care. My home already has air purifiers stationed strategically around so I’m confident I’m breathing the cleanest air possible.
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]]>Your body may need them more than you think…
It seems like there’s always a villain in the nutrition world. It used to be fats that were our mortal enemy, but now carbs have taken their place. The truth is, carbs aren’t the “bad guys” they’ve been made out to be.
We can’t live without any of the macronutrients – fats, proteins, or carbs – so why are carbs under attack? Much like fats, it’s about getting and eating the right carbs, in moderation..
During the low fat craze, we overdid it with carbs, trying to make our food taste better, and we loaded everything with sugar. That much sugar made us diabetic and overweight, with a side of heart disease.
Once we took the sugar out and replaced it with healthy fats, we started losing weight, and carbs as a whole now have a collective target on their back. The problem is, if we shun this food group entirely, we lose out on some great health benefits we really can’t live without.
If your metabolism is sluggish, you feel like you can’t handle any more stress, and you’re tired and cranky, then your body may be crying out for the right carbs! Here’s why:
All those benefits listed above don’t come from drinking sodas and fruit juices all day, nor do they come from eating bread, cereal, pasta, tortillas, and chips. The key to building a healthy body with carbs is to use nutrient-dense, high quality carbs. Because grains trigger inflammation and hidden allergies for so many, they are best avoided until you have reached your health and healing goals and can clearly identify how they affect you.
The best carbs are the low glycemic complex carbs. This includes most vegetables and fruits, nuts, seeds, and beans. You can recreate some of your favorite not-so-good-for-you comfort foods by using healthier substitutions:
Carbs are not your enemy. With a little creativity, you can incorporate healthy carbs into your diet and reap the benefits of increased energy, better hormone balance, great digestion, optimal metabolism, and good health all the way to the cellular level.
If you’re looking for a plan to guide you into healthy eating that focuses on smart carbs, healthy fats, and the right proteins, then it’s time to get Radical! Ann Louise Gittleman’s new Radical Metabolism plan is not just to help you lose those stubborn pounds once and for all, it’s also to get you on track to a healthy lifestyle you can thrive with – and have your daily dessert too!
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]]>Whether you’re looking to lose weight, recharge your immune system, boost your nutrient stores, increase your healthy fat intake, or even stave off cancer, these super seeds may be small but they pack a mighty punch! In our hectic, fast-paced lifestyles, it can be hard to find the time to prepare healthy snacks to take with us on the go. And, when we face an illness that zaps all the energy we have, we need something quick and easy to grab that helps us on the journey to building better health.
Full of healthy fats and packed with vitamins and minerals, these 5 immune boosting, health promoting, and weight loss stimulating super seeds have all you’re looking for – and so much more. Continue reading to find out the 5 must-have super seeds for health.
At the center of this stone fruit lies an important anti-cancer tool – the apricot seed, also known as the kernel. This bitter super seed contains a powerful plant compound called amygdalin, which is toxic to cancer cells but harmless to our own healthy cells.
Cancer cells contain a substance called beta-glucosidase, an enzyme that “unlocks” the amygdalin in the apricot kernels and releases 2 powerful plant compounds that target and destroy the cancer cells. These same two toxic compounds stay locked in our own cells because of an enzyme we produce that won’t let the amygdalin be broken down.
But cancer isn’t the only disease that apricot kernels fight against. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, they are used to detox the digestive system and reduce inflammation, which in turn supports overall digestion and relieves joint pain. As part of this detox process, it sets off a chain reaction of enzymes that lowers blood pressure. Apricot kernels also stimulate the immune system to fight infections, and cause a cascade of enzymes that interact with your microbiome and help with detox.
Apricot kernels should be bitter for the best health benefits, and should not be eaten while taking high dose Vitamin C. Experts recommend starting with 3 raw kernels daily and increasing gradually. Nausea, fever, lethargy, confusion, headaches, rash, insomnia and increased thirst may happen when an excessive amount of apricot kernels are being eaten and are signs to watch for that indicate your body may be experiencing symptoms of poisoning.
You might be surprised to learn that the small white seeds that dot the tops of fast food buns pack quite a nutritional punch. And when the black hulls are left on, they become even more nutrient-rich. High in fiber, Omega 6 essential fats, B vitamins, calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc, black sesame seeds have anti-aging and anti-cancer properties, stabilize blood pressure, boost energy, relieve constipation and indigestion, and keep bones strong.
How do you eat black sesame seeds? Black sesame seeds are best eaten either when they’ve been soaked overnight or the hulls have been cracked. One delicious way to do this is to lightly toast the seeds, then mix with a coarse, natural salt in a grinder to enhance the flavor of all your savory foods.
With more than 25 percent of their calorie count coming from complete protein and 30 percent essential fats, hemp seeds – commonly known as hemp hearts – are a mainstay of many vegetarian diets. Their Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio is 3:1, which is considered the ideal ratio to consume. They are rich in GLA, a healthy fat that stimulates your fat-burning metabolism, calms skin conditions, helps balance hormones, and reduces your risk of heart disease.
These potent super seeds contain not only significant amounts of the amino acids cysteine, methionine, arginine and glutamate, but also vitamin E and a wide variety of minerals, including sodium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, calcium, iron, zinc and sulfur. The health benefits of hemp hearts are preserved whether eaten raw, roasted, or cooked. Hempseed oil has the same health benefits as the whole hearts do.
These beautiful little red gems are rich in a variety of polyphenols and antioxidants, vitamin K, vitamin C, folate, potassium and fiber. Pomegranate seeds also have anti-tumor properties and are particularly effective against breast and prostate cancers. They are heart protective, boost immunity, enhance memory, reduce arthritis pain, lower blood pressure, and increase blood flow to reduce erectile dysfunction issues.
Pomegranate seeds are a delicious sweet treat by themselves, but also add flavor to salads and make a beautiful garnish. The juice can be added to smoothies for both color and flavor.
Packed with fiber and protein, and rich in riboflavin, folate, magnesium, manganese, potassium, and phosphorus, these tasty little green pepitas are rich in antioxidants and protect against a variety of diseases – especially in men. Pumpkin seeds support healthy testosterone levels, prostate health, and fertility in men. They also have been shown to lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels and blood pressure while increasing nitric oxide levels, which is heart protective.
A diet rich in pumpkin seeds reduces the risk of breast, lung, stomach, colon and prostate cancers. If you have trouble with insomnia, the tryptophan in pumpkin seeds may help improve your sleep. These antioxidant and anti-inflammatory little powerhouses are also anti-parasitic and excellent colon cleansers.
Pumpkin seeds can be eaten raw, roasted, soaked and sprouted. They are tasty on their own as a snack, but are also delicious mixed into soups and smoothies.
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]]>Researchers keep finding more reasons your mom was right – eating those green vegetables every day really is good for you! Whether you are looking to boost your energy, trying to lose weight, or fighting something as serious as cancer, you need green superfoods as your allies in your daily battles against what’s keeping you from living your best life.
And choosing organic is more important now than ever – whether you eat your greens whole, juice them, or use a greens powder.
The Environmental Working Group just released this year’s Dirty Dozen – the list of the 12 fruits and vegetables with the highest amounts of pesticide residues – and it’s not good news for greens lovers. Ranking number 2 on the list is spinach, while kale is new to the list at the number 3 spot. These foods are ranked in order, which means only strawberries are more contaminated with pesticides than these popular greens.
Some of the most humble vegetables have been promoted in recent years to superfood status because of their tremendous health benefits. A handful of those green superfood superstars include these previously unsung heroes:
Whether you are trying to lose weight, need support while battling a disease, or simply want to see how healthy your body can get, you can reap tremendous health benefits by choosing to “go green” with superfood greens.
Here are 25 Ways Green Superfoods Can Recharge You:
Truth be told, getting enough dark, leafy greens in your every day diet can be a challenge – especially if you’re not in love with the taste. You can mask the taste while still getting their health benefits by adding powdered or juiced greens to your soups and daily smoothies.
Greens powders are a great solution to boost your vegetable intake – they’re easy to add to water, soups, or smoothies – and have the same health benefits as eating or juicing greens does.
Just make sure your greens powder really is good for you and ask these 5 questions when you look at the label:
Our Daily Greens Formula contains an optimal blend of 11 greens that are organic and non-GMO, with no added sugars or fillers. These superfood greens include wheat grass, barley grass, kale, spinach, broccoli sprouts, parsley, chlorella, celery, collard greens, oat, and alfalfa and were chosen based on their research-backed outstanding health benefits.
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]]>Much like your fingerprints, you have a unique set of genes that make up your biochemical identity. And in each person’s genetic code, there are mutations – some are normal, while some are a sign of a potential problem.
The MTHFR gene mutations have been studied for more than 20 years now and are linked to some of the most troubling diseases we face. At the same time, some researchers pass it off as a mere vitamin deficiency and dismiss it as simply a myth.
So why is there so much confusion? The answer may surprise you as much as it surprised the researchers. Our whole understanding of genetics has been turned upside down in recent years, thanks to an emerging science known as epigenetics.
We used to think whatever genetic hand we were dealt we were destined to express, but it turns out our genes are not our destiny – they can be turned on and off by factors we can control in our environment. Read on to learn more information about methylation and MTHFR mutation.
Methylation is a big deal – every cell in your body uses it. It’s how we repair our damaged cells, process toxins and hormones, keep our DNA healthy, break down and use B vitamins, help the liver to process fats, activate and regulate our immune systems, reduce inflammation, and balance our neurotransmitter levels – which are the chemicals that control everything from mental health to sleep and even digestion.
Methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase – or MTHFR for short – is an enzyme that is critical for proper methylation. The MTHFR gene tells MTHFR how to do its job.
When the MTHFR gene is mutated and switched on, it affects how well every cell in your body is able to get rid of toxins, repair itself, and whether or not each cell is able to fight off disease. The more MTHFR mutations you have, the less the MTHFR enzyme is able to do its job, and the more this can negatively impact your health.
Depending on how many MTHFR gene mutations you have, your body’s ability to detoxify can be impaired by as much as 90%.
This means, for example, if a person with no MTHFR gene mutations could detoxify and remove 10 molecules of a toxin from their cells, you could only detoxify and remove one, leaving 9 behind to cause inflammation and even disease within your cells.
We know MTHFR methylation gene defects impair the body’s ability to detoxify itself, but they also have been linked to more than 60 different chronic health conditions, including heart disease, Alzheimers, depression, blood clotting disorders, birth defects, thyroid diseases, and certain cancers.
In the past 2 decades, the MTHFR gene mutations have been studied for their role in more than 600 medical disorders. But, jut because you’ve been tested and found to have these gene mutations, it doesn’t mean you’ll get these diseases.
When we have a disease that “runs in the family” we tend to assume it’s genetic, based on our past understanding of how genetics work. But did you know only 10 percent of cancers have a genetic component?
It turns out that your environment plays a far bigger role in your health than genetics ever will. So even if you have multiple MTHFR gene mutations, your health may never show it.
Genes aren’t always switched on, or expressing themselves. Much like you need a switch to turn a light off and on, you also need a switch to activate or deactivate your genes. If you’ve heard the phrase, “Genes load the gun but Environment pulls the trigger,” then you know the switch for your genes is the environment they’re in.
What you surround yourself and your cells with is what determines your overall health. The air you breathe (in your home, your car, and outdoors), the water you drink and bathe in, and the food you eat are the outside environmental factors that affect your gene health.
The environment your cells are in is affected by your total toxin load, nutrient deficiencies, cellular pH, how much you exercise, how negative or positive your thoughts are, how much stress you are under (and for how long), how much sugar is circulating, how much you sleep, how much inflammation you have, your digestion, and your mental health.
Simply having the gene doesn’t mean you’re in hot water with your health. However, just supplementing with missing vitamins used in methylation doesn’t keep you from having the MTHFR gene mutations switched on, and by themselves they don’t necessarily switch those genes off. There’s no magic pill for gene expression, it’s more complicated than that.
As MTHFR knowledge has grown, so has misinformation. Countless articles have been published saying it’s just folate, vitamin B12, vitamin B6, or riboflavin deficiency (vitamin B2), and getting your levels of these vitamins back to normal will solve the whole problem.
While it’s true methylation defects are associated with deficiencies in these vitamins, it doesn’t address the underlying reasons for those deficiencies.
If your diet is the reason for the vitamin deficiencies, then you’ll also be low in zinc, magnesium, and other minerals essential for proper methylation, not to mention the essential fats needed to rebuild healthy cells.
You may also have a high enough toxic load from not being able to detoxify that a cleanse is needed to relieve the toxic burden from your liver and your cells before methylation can take place normally. And you may have a low-grade infection like candida that releases toxins that impair methylation.
When you consider all the factors that go into building and maintaining healthy cells, it can seem overwhelming, especially with all the science being discovered around methylation and MTHFR genes.
We’ve broken it down into 5 easy hacks you can use to restore your health and get your methylation back on track:
The post Methylation and MTHFR Mutation: Myth or Missing Link? appeared first on Your Health Keys.
]]>It all starts with fatigue. Then comes the fever and upper respiratory symptoms. The chest x-ray shows it’s walking pneumonia, so you’re prescribed a course of antibiotics. It isn’t long before your digestion is upset, but you figure it’s just the antibiotics. Then the joint pains start, and they only get more painful and more inflamed until eventually you’re diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis – an autoimmune condition.
What started as a simple cold led to pneumonia, then spread downstream to your digestive system, and finally settled into your joints and led to an autoimmune disease. This is the typical story told by someone infected with mycoplasma, a stealth parasitic bacterial infection that hides in vulnerable tissues in the body then hijacks the immune system to create the conditions it needs to thrive – at the cost of your health.
If you’ve ever been bitten by a mosquito, biting fly, tick, or flea, then chances are you’ve been exposed to mycoplasma. What is mycoplasma? Mycoplasma is the smallest and stealthiest of all known bacteria, and is a major culprit in the development of chronic and autoimmune diseases. Most people – including doctors – have limited knowledge of just how much it’s responsible for the chronic degenerative diseases we seem to have no long term answers for.
Mycoplasma is different from all other bacteria because of its size – 4000 of them could fit inside one of your red blood cells – and its lack of a protective cell wall, which allows it to change its shape and slip inside your cells. Because it lacks a cell wall and lives inside your cells, it is resistant to most antibiotics.
Mycoplasma is parasitic and can’t live without a host cell, but it’s highly adaptable and can jump from host to host and adapt to its new environment easily. This means it is transmitted from plants (contaminated foods), animals (bites and airborne droplets), and other people (sexual contact, sharing foods, airborne droplets).
Mycoplasma needs your vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fats, and carbohydrates to survive. It gains access by manipulating your immune system into generating inflammation. Once that inflammation starts breaking down your tissues, mycoplasma invades and gets the nutrients it needs to survive.
While different strains of mycoplasma have different tissues they prefer, they all can live inside of any tissue or organ in your body. Favorite sites include lungs, blood cells, brain, nasal passages, sinuses, intestinal lining, genitals, and the synovial lining of joints. If you have healthy cells with strong membranes, mycoplasma will have a difficult time getting into those cells and will migrate to another area where cells may not be as impenetrable.
When your immune system is healthy, mycoplasma is contained and becomes part of your microbiome. This can turn it into an opportunistic infection that turns chronic whenever the immune system is suppressed for any reason. It can travel anywhere through blood cells and infect any area of the body, creating symptoms entirely different from the initial infection. It can also travel with other stealth infections like Lyme, going along for the ride and reaping the nutrient benefits.
Because mycoplasma stimulates our own immune system to work against us by creating inflammation that damages our cells, it is linked to many autoimmune diseases and even cancers. It lives inside of our cells and tricks the immune system so it doesn’t see those cells as abnormal. All the time it’s living there it’s attacking mitochondria and making you tired, while ramping up inflammation that creates the autoimmune symptoms. Your body knows something is wrong but can’t find it, so your immune system starts attacking healthy cells in its confusion.
Mycoplasma can start out as pneumonia or a genital infection, but once it gains access to your body it travels to where it has a consistent source of the nutrients it needs to live on. One of mycoplasma’s preferred places to live is in the lining of your joints, so it comes as no surprise that 90 percent of rheumatoid arthritis patients have tested positive for it in their synovial fluid in affected joints. And since it likes to settle in the lining of your intestines, several studies have found mycoplasma as a culprit in Crohn’s Disease.
There’s another way it causes autoimmunity. Mycoplasma cells are so similar to our own nerve cells that when our bodies mount an immune response to the bacteria, we also attack our own nerve cells in the process. It also feeds off the fats in the myelin sheath that insulate our nerve tissue. Studies as far back as 1979 have associated mycoplasma with multiple sclerosis, and it has also been linked to other neurodegenerative diseases like ALS and Parkinson’s Disease.
Since stealth infections like mycoplasma are resistant to most antibiotics and know where to hide from your immune system, there is no “magic pill” that eradicates them. You have to stay one step ahead and outsmart them. Once under control, you should see an increase in your energy levels and a decrease in autoimmune symptoms. Here are 3 ways you can defend yourself from this hidden invader:
1. Strengthen Your Cell Membranes. Mycoplasma is a parasite as well as a bacteria, so it needs to invade your cells to live. It relies on a weak cell membrane that makes it easy for it to gain access. Your diet is the key to making healthy cells.
Your cell membrane is made primarily of fats, cholesterol, and proteins. The fats you eat either make or break your cellular health. Your body can’t tell the difference between trans fats and healthy cholesterol, so if you eat deep-fried foods and packaged foods known to contain trans fats, then your body will make cell membranes using those trans fats instead of the protective cholesterol it should be using, and the result is a cell that’s vulnerable to infection and disease.
Your cell membranes also need the right Omega 6 fats. These fats are found in nuts, seeds, and their oils, with hempseed oil being the best source, according to Ann Louise Gittleman’s bestselling book, Radical Metabolism. If you are deficient in these healthy Omega 6 fats – NOT the unhealthy processed canola and soybean oil sources – then not only will you make weak cell membranes, but you will have inflammation that also weakens the tissues and makes them prone to infection and invasion by mycoplasma.
2. Manage Your Microbiome. Even a healthy immune system will allow mycoplasma to stay as part of the microbiome, which may allow it to become opportunistic and strike when the immune system is weak. Studies show diversity in the microbiome is the key to lowering inflammation, managing your weight, and staying healthy, but that diversity needs to center around healthy strains of bacteria, not freeloading parasites looking to feed off of your health and create autoimmune diseases when the opportunity arises.
A healthy microbiome starts with a good colon cleanse, one that contains gentle but effective herbs that clean out unwanted hitchhikers, while repopulating with health-promoting probiotics. A diet rich in vegetables that contain the fiber that feeds these probiotic populations is key to continuing the health and strength of your microbiome.
3. Boost Your Immunity. A strong immune system not only wards off potential invaders, but is also less susceptible to being hijacked and manipulated by stealth infections like mycoplasma. Vitamin C is a tried and true ally in the fight against infections and is currently being studied to use in the fight against sepsis, which is the deadliest of infections. Not only does it shore up immunity, but it also strengthens collagen, which is the “glue” that holds your cells together. When this important connective tissue is strong, it keeps infections and diseases – even cancer – from spreading to other cells.
Your diet also plays a key role in boosting your immunity. Vegetables and fruits rich in antioxidants and essential nutrients, nuts and seeds rich in essential Omega-6 anti-inflammatory fats, grass-fed meats and eggs full of amino acids and high in essential Omega-3 fats, and wild-caught fish rich in essential fats, not only strengthen you at the cellular level to build health from the ground up, but they also reduce the inflammation associated with autoimmune diseases that allows stealth infections to spread.
The post The Autoimmune Connection to a Hidden Pathogen appeared first on Your Health Keys.
]]>There are a blessed few women these days who experience menopause without troublesome symptoms. And while you may recognize “the Change” easily when it starts with menstrual cycle changes and hot flashes, if your menopause starts with insomnia and mood swings you are far more likely to end up on sleeping pills and antidepressants than you are to receive hormone help.
You may not have any control over how your menopause starts but you surely have a say in how it progresses. To help you make this natural transition as smooth as possible, we’ve sought the advice of Ann Louise Gittleman, author of the New York Times Bestseller, Before the Change, for her Top Ten out-of-the-box ways to manage your menopause.
If you want to stop storing fat, boost your immune system, and reduce the risk of osteoporosis, then it’s time to get to know flax. Flax is rich in Omega 3 and Omega 6 essential fats and helps balance estrogen and support healthy cholesterol. It can also help you fight the blues, fatigue, and skin conditions.
Toast your flaxseeds lightly before grinding, and sprinkle them on salads or mix into healthy muffins. Flaxseed oil can be drizzled over popcorn or steamed veggies but should never be heated. It needs to be stored in a cool, dark place because it goes rancid easily.
Your hormone balance affects your skin – it can go from smooth and supple to dry and wrinkled practically overnight when hormones are out of balance. Black currant seed oil is not only rich in Omega 3 and Omega 6 essential fats, but also has gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), a potent fatty acid that supports your hormone functions.
GLA not only soothes skin irritation, cramping, headaches, mood changes, and breast tenderness, but also calms nerves and helps the body stimulate fat burning. Ann Louise Gittleman recommends 2 capsules of our GLA-90 twice daily with food.
Some women reach perimenopause – the years leading up to menopause – and don’t recognize who they’ve become. Sadly, the hormone havoc brings with it mood swings, stress and irritability strong enough they no longer feel like themselves anymore. Fibromyalgia, panic attacks, insomnia, tissue dryness, and water retention may all be part of this perfect storm causing you to feel less than your best.
If this is you, you may need magnesium and a combination of vitamins to help support your hormones to balance themselves. The combination of Mag-Key plus the Advanced Daily Multivitamin contains a powerful mix of Magnesium, Vitamin B Complex, Vitamin C, and Vitamin E is what Ann Louise Gittleman recommends to bring hormones back into harmony again.
If you need more than magnesium and multivitamins for your moods, think zinc. Zinc helps balance hormones by lowering estrogen and increasing progesterone, while helping to build strong bones and boost immunity. Zinc also helps balance your copper levels, which may help with moods and boost your energy. The main source of zinc in our diets is animal products, so zinc supplementation is a must for vegans and vegetarians.
Many of the symptoms you start to experience in perimenopause can be caused by low progesterone, the first hormone to decline during this transition. Progesterone is used up rapidly during stressful times, and the hectic schedules so common during midlife are enough to zap progesterone levels and leave you coming up short.
If you are experiencing depression, fatigue, insomnia, foggy thinking, low libido, water retention, bone loss, abnormal blood sugars, weight gain, thyroid issues, or low adrenal function, low progesterone may be to blame.
Synthetic progesterones come with symptoms of their own, so Ann Louise Gittleman recommends supplementing with ProgestaKey, a non-prescription, natural progesterone topical cream you apply daily. It may take 6 weeks or more to experience relief from your symptoms.
If you experience blood sugar imbalance, weight gain, insulin resistance, or a decreased ability to handle stress, and you sit for most of the day, then you need to get moving to get your hormones back in balance.
Exercise lowers cortisol levels – our stress hormone – and raises levels of endorphins – our “feel good” hormones, all while helping to bring our sex hormones back in balance.
Dance, swim, bicycle, walk briskly, garden, and do what you love that gets you moving for at least 30 minutes every day. Even a good housecleaning counts! Just don’t spend more than 2 hours exercising daily, or you run the risk of overstressing your body and increasing cortisol levels, which brings hormones even more out of balance.
Say bye-bye to belly fat by lowering your cortisol levels naturally and stress less. While stress is an essential survival response for the short-term, in the long-term it raises cortisol levels, which leads to fatigue, depression, anxiety, digestive woes, and excess belly fat – aka the “menopot.”
Change your relationship to stress with daily deep breathing, meditating, using visualization, or going for a walk. Lowering stress and cortisol can also turn back the clock on aging and bring back energy you thought you had lost for good!
Your adrenal glands make your stress hormones, and their health is essential for a healthy menopause. These small glands sitting on top of your kidneys are the backup system for your declining sex hormones.
So as your busy, stressful lifestyle is burning up your progesterone, your adrenals kick into high gear to make up the difference. You need your adrenals in top shape, so as you lower your stress levels, you also need to nourish your adrenals with a full supply of vitamins, minerals and glandular support.
In addition to a healthy diet and a good multivitamin, you may need to supplement with a good Adrenal Formula. Signs your adrenals are under stress may include constant fatigue, trouble making it through the day without feeling sleepy or exhausted, insomnia, waking up at night, excess belly fat, carb and caffeine cravings, easily overwhelmed by stress, dark circles or bags under your eyes, and that “wired but tired” feeling that keeps you alert late at night.
Right now, your liver is hard at work breaking down fats and getting rid of excess hormones to keep your body functioning at its best. But when your liver can’t make enough bile, your bile becomes thick and congested and can’t do its job anymore. Excess estrogen accumulates and you start to experience fatigue, weight gain, estrogen dominance, low thyroid, indigestion, and constipation. It turns into a vicious cycle that only leads to more menopause symptoms.
Love your liver and build better bile with beets and bitter foods like arugula and dark chocolate, while making sure you’re getting essential nutrients your liver needs like choline and taurine. If you have a history of gallbladder problems or have had your gallbladder removed, consider supplementing with Bile Builder to help your body process fats more efficiently and stimulate bile production.
The dangers of synthetic estrogens have been broadcast far and wide, and are of great concern to women, especially during menopause and beyond. You can, however, supplement with natural plant-based phytoestrogens to bring low estrogen back into balance. Because estrogen dominance is so common, it’s best to start with a Saliva Hormone Test to make sure you truly have an estrogen deficiency.
Once your test comes back confirming your estrogen needs a boost, don’t turn to soy-based products, because of the potential for them to contain goitrogens, compounds known to impair thyroid function. Instead, Ann Louise Gittleman recommends pomegranate seed oil, maca, and turmeric or curcumin as the herbs to bring estrogen back into balance.
For more hormone help, get your copy of Before the Change, the New York Times Bestselling step-by-step, symptom-by-symptom guide that helps you navigate gracefully through the perimenopause and menopause years.
The post Menopause SOS: 10 Ways to Change the Way You Experience “The Change” appeared first on Your Health Keys.
]]>Every year, people flood their healthcare providers’ offices looking for preventative health testing to show their diet, exercise regimens, and supplements are keeping them healthy. They are often rewarded with a letter saying their lab tests are all “normal” and to come back in a year. But what does “normal” really mean? It turns out, not as much as you’d like it to.
Most healthcare providers interpret lab results based on the lab’s “normal” range. But did you know there is an abundance of evidence-based literature available that shows these normal ranges are NOT the optimal reference range, and there’s a better set of data that predicts the risk of underlying disease more accurately? And more importantly, does your healthcare provider know this and use it when interpreting your tests?
Let’s look at 3 of the most important tests you can get to determine your underlying health and risk of disease, and what the optimal results for these tests are.
These two tests not only tell you a lot about your health, but also will point to the need for more testing when values are abnormal. The first thing to take into consideration when looking at any blood test is how hydrated were you when you had the blood drawn?
People with chronic anemia are often overjoyed when they see a normal lab test, but it could be that they were in the middle of a heat wave and not drinking enough water to keep up with the body’s demands. When you are even slightly dehydrated, your blood becomes more concentrated, which means your lab tests will come back higher than they actually are.
Even though these lab tests are routine and commonly done, they are complex and can be difficult to interpret. Some simple things you can look for include a white blood cell count (WBC) that is low normal or slightly lower than normal, which can indicate an underlying chronic viral infection like Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is putting a strain on the immune system.
The normal range is typically 4 to 11, but anything under 5 can indicate a virus. And according to studies, when eosinophils – a type of white blood cell – are above 0.5, this is an indicator of parasites, allergies, and even leaky gut syndrome. All of these are signs you may benefit from a comprehensive colon cleanse that includes anti-inflammatory and anti-parasitic herbs.
When looking at the CMP, the first thing you should look at is the fasting glucose level. If you were fasting at least 8 hours, the optimal range is very narrow, 82-88 mg/dL, according to several studies that have been done. The laboratory normal range is usually 70-100 mg/dL.
If you are outside the optimal range, then a low glycemic diet combined with moderate exercise help to lower blood sugar and bring it back in range. And for an extra boost, consider a supplement like our Weight Loss Formula that helps curb cravings and balance blood sugar.
The next values to look at on a CMP are AST and ALT, which are markers for liver function. These proteins are usually found inside a liver cell, but when there is damage, then they are released into the bloodstream. The laboratory normal ranges are usually 10-40 for AST and 7-56 for ALT.
The medical literature shows the optimal ranges are 10-15 for AST and 12-15 for ALT, and a ratio can be calculated based off the values. When ALT is significantly higher than AST, the ratio is less than 1, which is a sign of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
If this is the case for you, I strongly recommend researching the Fatty Liver Index and calculating your score, to get a more accurate idea of your risk of NAFLD, and add choline to your diet and supplement regimen.
There’s so much more that can be said about these valuable blood chemistry panels, but it also can get very complicated. Fortunately, this is where the Intermountain Risk Score comes in, and unfortunately, many healthcare providers aren’t even aware that this valuable evidence-based tool exists.
The Intermountain Risk Score calculator uses specific values from your CBC and CMP to determine your all-cause mortality (which is your risk of dying from any disease) for 30 days, 1 year, and 5 years, and is based on data from tens of thousands of research participants.
Your blood tests may look pretty good, and you may exercise, eat the foods you think are healthy, and take all the supplements you’ve been recommended, yet you may be shocked to find you have a higher than normal 5-year mortality rate.
You’re familiar with fasting blood glucose, but have you heard of fasting insulin? When your sugar metabolism is functioning normally, you eat a meal and your blood sugar rises, then insulin rises to escort glucose into your cells to be used as energy. Once the job is done, within 2 hours insulin and blood sugar should go back down to normal, fasting levels.
When you are taking in more sugar and carbs than you need, your body will store the excess in fat cells and you gain weight. The first tissue that becomes insulin resistant is your muscles, which is why exercise improves insulin sensitivity. When you become insulin resistant, more insulin is needed to get sugar into your cells, and it stays high for longer periods of time.
Insulin resistance is the precursor to many chronic diseases, including metabolic syndrome, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even cancer. The laboratory normal range for a fasting insulin test is 2.6-24.9, but the true optimal range is less than 5.
The lab gets it’s normal range from research done on diabetics, not on the population as a whole. Anything over 5 is an indication your cells are becoming resistant and when combined with triglyceride testing, BMI (Body Mass Index), and blood pressure, a diagnosis of metabolic syndrome can be made, which means you are headed for chronic disease.
There are multiple types of C-Reactive Protein tests being done, and the high sensitivity CRP is an early marker of systemic inflammation that alerts you to looming health issues like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, macular degeneration, and declining cognitive ability faster than other CRP tests can. According to several studies, by itself, the hsCRP is an accurate predictor of cardiovascular disease – even in someone with no history of it.
Even if you feel like you are the picture of perfect health, be sure to have the hsCRP test done to make sure you don’t have underlying inflammation waiting to develop into disease. The laboratory normal range is 0-3mg/dL, and is the same for men and women. However, according to research, the optimal range for men should be less than 0.55mg/dL and less than 1.5mg/dL for women.
Your first line of protection is to increase nitric oxide to improve circulation, reduce inflammation, and lower your hsCRP. Foods that help your body make more nitric oxide include beets, leafy greens, grass-fed meats, garlic, citrus fruits, nuts and seeds (and their oils), pomegranate, and dark chocolate. To make it easy for you, Ann Louise Gittleman has incorporated all of these powerful foods into her best-selling new Radical Metabolism plan.
The post When Normal Isn’t Normal – What Your Lab Test Results Really Mean appeared first on Your Health Keys.
]]>Celebrities caught up in the keto craze are all over social media. Halle Berry claims it not only controls her diabetes, but is also slowing down the aging process. Megan Fox claims keto keeps her slim after having 3 kids. And athletes like Lebron James and Tim Tebow credit keto with helping them lose fat, retain lean muscle mass, and even improve their sports performance.
There’s no question keto can help you lose weight, and the results can be pretty dramatic. But what’s the cost? What does keto mean? Is keto safe? Can you do it long term? To answer these questions, we have to first understand how the keto diet works.
The magic of the keto diet happens because of the severe carb restriction. The diet is 70-80 percent fats, 20-30 percent proteins, and only 5 percent carbs. There is no calorie restriction – you can eat until you feel full, as long as you stay within the rules. Keeping the carbs very low puts your body into a state of ketosis, where you burn fats as your primary fuel.
When your body doesn’t have enough carbohydrates (“carbs”) from food for your cells to burn for quick energy, it turns to fats instead. Fats are actually the preferred fuel for your metabolism and organs like your brain. Your liver breaks down fats into ketones to use as energy. Exercising for long periods of time, or drastically cutting calories (think: fasting) or carbs (think: keto) are ways to switch your body into ketosis.
When you burn fat as your primary fuel, your hunger hormones change – for the better. But on a calorie-restricting diet, your levels of ghrelin
– the hunger hormone – increase and cause you to feel hungrier and have more cravings. A low calorie diet also causes levels of satiety hormones to decrease in concentration, making you feel hungrier more often.
In contrast, during ketosis, ghrelin does not increase, even as you lose more weight. Also, within the first week of going keto, the satiety hormones that make you feel full and satisfied level out and the result is feeling full faster and for a longer period of time. Your metabolism even gets a boost and causes you to burn extra calories while in ketosis. But, even with all its advantages, keto isn’t for everyone and can be hard to maintain for the long-term.
Keto is not a one-size-fits-all diet. For many people, ketosis is safe, effective, and even anti-inflammatory. But, keto has a dark side – it can stress your kidneys and heart, and lead to dehydration or changes in your blood chemistry – both short-term and long-term. And there are people who shouldn’t do keto because of chronic health conditions or difficulty breaking down fats.
Even for people who experience dramatic, successful weight loss, low carb keto can be hard to stick to for the long term. Carbs are everywhere – even in vegetables like cauliflower, which is a staple for many who are transitioning to keto.
Keeping to 50 grams of carbs or less daily is more difficult than it sounds, especially if you travel and eat out. Going over that 50 gram amount means your body can go out of ketosis and your weight loss will come to a halt. Severely low carb also means you aren’t feeding all your body’s hormones the fuel they need to stay in balance. Even though your brain may thrive on fats, your hormones need carbs to stay healthy and in balance.
The high fat keto diet is not a high protein diet. In fact, if you eat too much protein that will also kick you out of ketosis, and your body will convert that extra protein into sugar. Your body has a protein “sweet spot” – the amount you need to maintain lean muscle mass and feel full, without overdoing or underdoing it.
If you have issues with stomach acid production, or your gallbladder isn’t functioning optimally or has been removed, then keto may not be the right diet for you. You need the right amount of stomach acid to digest protein, and a healthy gallbladder is essential to break down fats. You may need to supplement with HCl+2 for healthy stomach acid production, and UNI KEY Health's Bile Builder Supplements for gallbladder support and proper fat digestion before you transition to a higher fat diet like keto.
Keto isn’t for everybody, especially long-term. And anytime you go off of a diet – especially one as strict and limited as keto – you run the risk of gaining back all of the weight you lost and then some. If you can’t see yourself shunning carbs for the rest of your life to stay in ketosis, there are time-tested and groundbreaking alternatives that give you the metabolism reboot you need to lose the weight for good, while still enjoying the foods you love.
Here at UNI KEY Health, we believe a healthy diet includes all nutrients – high quality fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and filtered water – and you can fuel your body with fats and lose weight while maintaining adequate amounts of all essential nutrients.
We have seen firsthand success with thousands of dieters losing inches and pounds with both the Fat Flush plan and new Radical Metabolism plan from Ann Louise Gittleman. Both of these diets not only switch you into fat-burning mode and rev up your metabolism to lose weight faster, but they also cleanse, nourish, detox, and support your health – from your organs to your hormones, and all the way down to the cellular level.
The post Keto – Craze or Cure? appeared first on Your Health Keys.
]]>Angelik was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and always felt tired after work. With thyroid medication, she had just enough energy to get through her workday, but once she got home it was hard to make dinner or do anything else. Because of her tired thyroid, she struggled with metabolism problems and weight gain, too.
There is nothing normal about feeling tired all the time. If you struggle with:
A tired thyroid burdened with toxins may be to blame – even if your thyroid tests look normal or you’re already on thyroid medication.
Your thyroid is a small, butterfly-shaped gland that sits above your collarbone, at the base of your neck. Don’t let its size fool you – this little gland has a big job – it produces hormones that affect every cell in your body. Your thyroid controls how fast or slow you turn the food you eat into energy (known as metabolism), it regulates your body temperature (which turns on or off thousands of enzymes), and it supports your digestive, nervous, and immune systems.
Your thyroid is extremely sensitive to environmental toxins and soaks them up like a sponge. Over 21 billion pounds of toxic chemicals are being released into our environment each year, with over 4.5 billion pounds of this being known cancer-causing chemicals. These thyroid toxins make their way into the air we breathe, the food we eat, water we drink, and eventually into your thyroid gland.
By the time you feel sluggish and start packing on the pounds, your thyroid has been struggling enough to send SOS signals to your brain – specifically the hypothalamus and pituitary – and they haven’t been able to keep up with the demand.
This often shows up as an elevated TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone) level on your blood tests, and a diagnosis of hypothyroidism is made as a result. Depending on the toxins you come in contact with, further testing may reveal you have an autoimmune thyroid condition, like Hashimoto’s or Graves Disease.
You may feel like once you’ve been diagnosed with a thyroid condition, your thyroid is a “lost cause” and all you can do is take medications the rest of your life. Or perhaps you feel frustrated because you have all the symptoms of a thyroid problem but your tests look normal, so you can’t get the medication that has helped so many of your friends.
The good news is you can nourish and support your thyroid to better health, no matter the diagnosis you have – or don’t have. Here’s how:
1. Mind Your Minerals. One reason your thyroid is so sensitive to toxins is because of its need for minerals. Iodine is essential for your thyroid to make its hormones, and Dr. David Brownstein estimates 90 percent of Americans are iodine deficient. This is because our soils are iodine depleted and our diets are low in iodine, but there’s also another reason.
We encounter high amounts of chlorine, fluoride, and bromine in our daily lives, which are all in the same family as iodine. These are in such abundance in our water and food that they out-compete any iodine that we have, and as a result, hormones are made that aren’t biologically active. This means you have all the symptoms of a thyroid problem, but your thyroid blood tests may look completely normal.
There are also heavy metals that can displace iodine and disrupt thyroid function. The worst offender is mercury, which is also neurotoxic and wreaks enough havoc to double the risk of developing autoimmune thyroid diseases. Other heavy metals that are toxic to the thyroid include aluminum, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, lead, tin, and uranium.
We offer Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (known as HTMA or TMA) to measure levels of both heavy metals and helpful minerals that you may have too much or too little of. This test comes with a detailed report of which metals you have in toxic levels and where you may have been exposed to them, plus which minerals you are deficient in and how to restore healthy levels.
We also keep Iodoral in stock, an iodine supplement that can help you build your iodine levels back up and make healthy thyroid hormones once again. Iodine is also essential for stomach acid production and estrogen balance. Avoid iodine disruptors like fluoride and chlorine in your water by installing filters on your drinking water, showers, and bathtubs.
2. Get Rid of Gluten. Gluten is a protein found in grains like wheat, rye, and barley, and is hidden in many processed foods. Gluten intolerance isn’t just a digestive issue, and isn’t limited to only Celiac disease. The science isn’t completely settled on why gluten is such an inflammatory food for so many people, but new research points to glyphosate and other chemicals used on these grains while they’re growing.
Gluten contains a structure so similar to thyroid tissue, that once your body is sensitive to gluten and starts mounting an immune response to it, it will also cause you to attack your own thyroid. To stop this reaction, ALL sources of gluten must be eliminated for your body to begin healing.
3. Support Your Glands. Your glands and organs work together synergistically to support each other for optimal functioning. Thyro-Key was created specifically to enhance the synergy and support thyroid function:
Because Thyro-Keycontains no thyroid hormones, it won’t interfere with any medications or natural thyroid support you’re already taking.
If you’ve been struggling with a sluggish thyroid and still gain weight and feel tired despite all the hard work you’ve put in, then you need the comprehensive new Radical Metabolism plan from Ann Louise Gittleman. It’s designed as a detoxifying lifestyle to rebuild your health at the cellular level, detox your overworked thyroid, restore your energy levels, and finally lose those inches and pounds that have been hanging on for far too long.
The post Are Hidden Thyroid Toxins Making You Tired? appeared first on Your Health Keys.
]]>No time for lengthy meal prep? No problem!
It’s a new year and you have new goals – for your health and your weight. Are you tired of feeling tired and don’t like what you see in the mirror? Let us help!
If you:
Our popular, time-tested Smoothie Shakedown can super-charge your energy level, break through that weight plateau, and jump-start your weight loss goals, just like it has for thousands before you!
It’s so simple – a filling, satisfying smoothie for 2 meals each day, plus a complete meal with lean protein and unlimited vegetables. You won’t be tied to the kitchen, a slave to your cravings, or feel hungry while you’re on this plan. Check out these success stories:
“I’m so proud of how far I’ve come. I could NOT have done this without the Smoothie Shakedown. This plan has changed my life! I lost 17 pounds and 17 inches in two weeks on the Smoothie Shakedown alone.”– Chris P., Sanford, NC
“The Smoothie Shakedown has left me nothing short of amazed. It is the first time I have lost weight and felt great while doing it. While I was skeptical of smoothies having the ability to keep me energized and not leave me hungry, that is exactly what they do. I don’t feel deprived of food or like I’m starving. My energy level is higher than ever! I wake up before my alarm clock feeling rested and refreshed.”– Casey S., Nashville, TN
“Staying fit and eating healthy is always a challenge, but even more so when you’re traveling and eating foods at airports or hotels. I’m a pilot for a major airline and travel every week. The smoothies are easy to pack in a travel cooler bag and give me energy for several hours until I can get a healthy salad or meal, which can be hard to find at airports. I lost 10 lbs on the 2-week Smoothie Shakedown, and lost the recent 20 lbs (going from a size 12 to a size 8) with my “modified” program during my 3 to 4-day trips.”– Cindee G.
“I highly recommend the 2-week Smoothie Shakedown kit. As a 58 year old woman I was able to lose 10 pounds by following the program. The shakes taste good and I wasn’t hungry during the day. Thanks for developing a healthy protein shake/supplements to get me back to feeling good about myself again!”– Susan H.
Smoothie diets are more popular than ever to lose weight fast. On Smoothie Shakedown, you swap 2 of your regular meals for 2 delicious smoothies, plus eat one healthy, satisfying meal.
For the best boost to your metabolism, the ideal plan is to have your smoothies for breakfast and your evening meal, and make lunch your big meal of the day.
If that doesn’t fit your hectic lifestyle, it’s not a problem – the beauty of Smoothie Shakedown is it’s flexibility – you can shake it up and schedule it the way that suits your lifestyle the best and you’ll still lose the weight. Don’t worry, we have recipes for every taste and lifestyle, whether you grab your smoothies on the go or enjoy making meals from scratch, we’ve got you covered.
Our Smoothie Shakedown Bundle includes the centerpiece of the plan – plant-based Body Protein, plus stimulant-free Weight Loss Formula, Dieter’s Multivitamin & Mineral, and GLA-90 essential fats; all are crucial nutrients designed to work together to boost your fat-burning metabolism, support your body through cleansing and detox, and help balance blood sugar and insulin levels to curb cravings and reduce inflammation.
It also comes with a complete Smoothie Shakedown Guide to the program that walks you through it step-by-step, and includes delicious recipes, an optional workbook, a guide to eating out smart while on the plan, and so much more!
Lose weight in 2 weeks with our Smoothie Shakedown and get ready to love what you see in the mirror!
The post 2 Weeks to a Fit and Fabulous YOU! appeared first on Your Health Keys.
]]>Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in women worldwide, and is the leading cause of death for women age 40 to 55. Approximately 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime, and more than 90 percent of those women have no family history of the disease. Mammography is the current recommended screening tool, but with it’s high rate of false positives and increased risk of cancer just from its ionizing radiation, experts are recommending against it.
A promising new screening that uses only a drop of blood detected more than 95 percent of breast cancers in recent worldwide studies, and shed groundbreaking new light on how it develops. Breast cancer, much like diabetes, is a metabolic disorder.
The scenario goes like this – you go for your routine mammogram and are told an area of concern has been found. There’s a lump that needs to be biopsied and you are referred to a surgeon. While you wait days or even weeks for your appointment, the stress, worry, and even panic begin to build. You research everything you can and lean on your support network.
You have the surgery and are sore and scared. You can’t think of anything else and lose sleep waiting for the biopsy results. In the meantime, you continue researching and find concerns over biopsies – their accuracy is controversial and they’ve been shown to spread cancer that was previously contained in a lump. But you trust your doctors so you don’t give it another thought.
The results come and it’s not cancer – what a relief, right? Wrong! You’ve just experienced what it’s like to be a “false positive” in mammography screening. Your quality of life has been affected and you received unnecessary, invasive treatment associated with the screening. In some cases, this unnecessary treatment extends into more surgery, plus radiation and/or chemotherapy, because of the inaccuracy of the biopsy and its interpretation.
While the statistics vary wildly between studies, depending on your age group, up to 56.7 percent of women experience a false positive result from a mammogram in a 4-year period. This means as many as 1 in 2 women will be told they may have cancer when they actually don’t.
Some might see this as acceptable risk when so many lives are saved by mammograms, but actually, this isn’t the case. In a study published in the September 2010 New England Journal of Medicine, mammograms reduced cancer death rates by only 0.4 deaths per 1000 women. This means 2500 women have to be screened over 10 years for a single breast cancer death to be avoided. And the worst part? All that targeted, ionizing radiation may actually cause breast cancer.
We started screening for breast cancer using radiography in the 1960s and mammogram came into more routine use in the 1980s. Since we started, breast cancer rates have increased from 1 in 20 women to 1 in 8 women today. While a number of factors are involved in that increased incidence, one that has to be taken into consideration is the exposure to radiation from the mammograms themselves.
Studies over the years have shown that between 1 and 10 percent of all breast cancers are caused by the radiation from repeated mammograms. The increased rates are seen in women under 40, women with larger breasts, and women with more than 35 screenings in her lifetime. Despite being advertised as “low dose” radiation, the average mammogram has the equivalent radiation of 1000 chest x-rays, and is being targeted to a smaller, more sensitive tissue in the body.
As more experts become aware of the risks of mammography, recommendations are being changed to less frequent screening. Just the change from yearly mammograms to every other year cut the rate of radiation-induced breast cancer in half for women age 40-74. If you are looking for more reliable ways to detect breast cancer, 70 percent of breast cancers are found through breast self-exam, so that’s a good place to start. But, a new, promising screening test is on the horizon, with more than 95% accuracy, and it only requires a drop of your blood.
In a groundbreaking study done by an international team of 35 researchers from 17 sites spanning 3 continents, breast cancer was found to be a metabolic disorder, with similarities to diabetes.
“This suggests that cancer is not a genetic disease arising solely from mutations as we have all been taught, but instead a metabolic condition that develops under the stress of cellular nutrient deprivation,” said Robert Nagourney, MD, senior author of the study. “Cells that cannot generate enough energy due to lack of oxygen, sugars or proteins, common to many cancers, use altered metabolic pathways to ensure their survival. Unfortunately these cancer cells’ success comes at the expense of the host patient.”
What this means is cancer cells “talk” to each other and all the surrounding cells by using chemical signals like byproducts of metabolism. They trick blood vessels, immune cells, and connective tissues into participating and even contributing to the development of cancer. Breast cancer patients have specific changes to their metabolism that not only set them up for the cancer, but can be detected in their blood with more than 95 percent accuracy.
The researchers examined and tested more than 200 different chemicals in the blood to prove that there are distinct metabolic differences between cancer patients and people without cancer that can be detected in a single drop of blood. This is in sharp contrast to the current cancer model that says cancer is caused by genetic mutations. Instead, this research shows that cancer cells borrow mutated and non-mutated cellular pathways to overcome any limitations in their nutrient supply. It explains how obesity, lifestyle, and diet all contribute to the formation of cancer.
This research provides an entirely new approach to early detection and diagnosis, and gives researchers a whole new direction to turn when looking for new prevention and treatment strategies. Right now, this detection method is limited to breast cancer and is not in mainstream use, but studies are underway looking to extend this technique into detection of other types of cancers.
Once again, the science of epigenetics, which looks at the environment our cells are in, is proving that when it comes to cancer, it’s more about your diet, your lifestyle, and the toxins you come in contact with and eliminate, than it is about your genes. Less than 10 percent of breast cancers are genetic. If you’re ready to cancer-proof your diet and lifestyle, then you need my new book, I Used to Have Cancer. In it, I share my story of overcoming cancer naturally and staying cancer-free and healthy for more than 30 years.
The post Groundbreaking in Cancer News: Early Breast Cancer Detection appeared first on Your Health Keys.
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