Health 101: Six Things You Must Do to Stay Healthy

What do you need to live a long and healthy life? As we age it becomes that much harder for us to increase energy, lose weight, sleep right and perform at an optimal level.

The ABC's and 1, 2, 3's for Great Health.

First, understand that being healthy and fit is your natural state. Your body is equipped to prevent and fight most diseases. In the right environment and given the proper fuel, it will function perfectly: vital cells proliferate, foreign cells and mutated cells are recognized and destroyed, damaged cells are mended, and you are filled with energy.

When you give your body the wrong fuel or expose yourself to toxins, your natural defenses become disabled, leading to fatigue, pain, depression and other types of disease. There are some simple yet important actions that are critical to good health and vitality. Which of these could improve your health and wellbeing?

Here are the ABC's for achieving optimal health, vitality, and longevity:

What's New in Brain Research

Brain research is shedding new light on the many ways the brain changes with age and how these changes might be influenced. Though genes undoubtedly play some role, there are many things we can do throughout life to make a difference in brain health as we age.

Use Your Mind
“Exercising” your mind may forestall mental decline by strengthening connections between brain cells. Intellectual challenge seems to be crucial.

Exercise
Physical activity, especially aerobic exercise and moderately strenuous activity, seems to help preserve mental sharpness.

Make a Difference
Feeling in control and believing that what you do makes a difference in your day-to-day life, what scientists call “self-efficacy” is strongly associated with successful brain aging.

Stay in School
For reasons still unclear, how long you stayed in school is closely linked to lifelong brain health. Continued learning, even outside of formal education always helps to increase brain function.

Don’t Do Drugs
Excessive alcohol (more than three drinks a day) and illicit drug use are hazardous to your brain cells, possibly causing irreversible damage.

Stay Mentally Sharp at any Age.

Many of the scourges of aging might be prevented if we followed the old-fashioned advice of... Read entire article

The Hidden Dangers of Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs

Cholesterol-lowering drugs are the best-selling drugs in history, taken by tens of millions of people. And while the pharmaceutical and medical establishments proclaim them to be "perfectly safe", they are not.

Most of the clinical trials that "proved" their safety carefully excluded a wide range of subjects who might be more sensitive to their side effects. Even so, large numbers of subjects still dropped out of the trials in the first few weeks - often due to harmful side effects. These subjects were then labeled "non-compliant," allowing researchers to "scrub" them from the results.

So, what are some of the side effects that have been clearly associated with "the most popular drugs in history"? ... Read entire article

Homocysteine: a Critical Factor in Heart Health

Homocysteine is a naturally occurring amino acid that serves several important functions in the body. But too much of it irritates the lining of your blood vessels and prevents them from dilating. This increases your risk of heart attack and stroke.

Recently, there has been an effort by the big drug makers to play down the importance of Homocysteine as a critical health factor. They haven't figured out a way to make any money from it, so they're trying to convince you that it doesn't matter.

The evidence continues to pile up.
In Norway, a six-year study of men with heart disease showed that those with high levels of homocysteine suffered the highest number of heart attacks. The higher their levels were, the lower their chances of surviving. But the researchers' most startling discovery was that homocysteine levels are the strongest predictor of death - more so than any other measured factor, including cholesterol.

If you don't know your homocysteine level, I recommend that you have it checked with a simple blood test. A reading above 10.4 M/L is abnormally high. The basic guideline that many doctors follow is to shoot for a level at or below 7.0.

The easiest way to lower your homocysteine levels is with B vitamin supplements such as Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12 and Folic Acid. All three are included in our Stress B Complex and our highly popular Full Spectrum Daily.

Slash Your Blindness Risks by Changing Your Diet

The risk of macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness, can be significantly lowered with a vitamin-rich diet.

Macular degeneration is the result of abnormal blood cells growing in the eye, which then leak fluid that damages the center of the retina and blurs vision. It is the most common cause of severe vision loss in Americans age 60 and older.

The diets and vision quality of more than 4,000 seniors were examined over the course of an eight-year study. Patients whose diets included foods rich in zinc, beta carotene and vitamins C and E were 35 percent less likely to develop macular degeneration, compared to those whose diets lacked any one of the aforementioned nutrients.

Moreover, those whose diets were lacking in all of those nutrients increased their risk of macular degeneration by 20 percent.

Foods rich in vitamin E include whole grains, vegetable oil, eggs and nuts. Zinc is found in meat, poultry, fish, whole grains and dairy products, while carrots, kale and spinach are the best sources of beta carotene. Vitamin C can be obtained from citrus fruits, green peppers, broccoli and potatoes.

---Journal of the American Medical Association
December 28, 2005

Here is an Alternative for Those of You Who are Deficient in the Necessary Vitamins that Support Great Vision... Read entire article

COKE Facts and Some Practical Uses

Some Coke Facts:

Some Practical Uses:

As you can see coke has some useful applications. However the primary purpose of Coke, as a refreshing soft drink, is not one of them. Coke and most soft drinks including the diet variety are full of sugar and account in part for the weight and diabetes epidemics we face today in America. Stay away from them all, and if you have a couple of cans in the refrigerator, consider cleaning your garage floor or use it to get your toilet bowls pristine clean.