Is Your Heart Drowning in Sugar?

In one of my encounters with a cardiologist, I told him about the effects of sugar on my nervous system. I told him that sugar affected arrhythmia of the heart. He insisted that sugar had no effect on the nervous system or the heart. Most doctors have little knowledge of the effects of sugar on the heart and nervous system.
If you’ve been diagnosed with heart disease, there’s absolutely astounding new hope for a complete and full recovery—without drugs and without surgery. At least, that is the opinion of one doctor. "One of the first things I tell my heart patients is to reduce the amount of sugar they consume every day," says Dr. Marx Laux. "Most people have almost no idea how toxic excess sugar can be." "It depletes your body’s essential B vitamins—which leads to increased inflammation and stress on your whole heart and circulatory system. Excess sugar leads to increased insulin resistance and diabetes. It elevates your triglyceride levels. And worst of all, most people never recognize the earliest symptoms of sugar overload—until the damage becomes serious."
Ron Rosedale, M.D. presented a seminar on the effects of insulin resistance. He compared it to walking into a smelly room. After a while you are no longer aware of the odor–you’re no longer sensitive to the smell until you go outside and come in again. Overload of sugar works similarly. When the body is overloaded with sugar, the mechanisms within the body begin to become confused and cannot deal with the sugar in a normal manner, and so it begins to become desensitized or insulin resistant. How sensitive are your cells to insulin? When they are not sensitive, the insulin goes up and that is because of insulin resistance. Modulating this one aspect of the disease works very quickly to open up the arteries. Insulin resistance is the basis of all chronic diseases of aging, because the disease itself is actually aging. Insulin doesn’t just store carbohydrates, it is an anabolic hormone. Body builders inject themselves with insulin because it builds muscle and stores protein. A less known fact is that insulin also stores magnesium. But if your cells become insulin resistant, you can’t store magnesium, so you lose it through urination. Intracellular magnesium relaxes muscles.
What happens when you can’t store magnesium because the cell is resistant? You lose magnesium and your blood vessels constrict. This causes an increase in blood pressure and a reduction in energy, producing reactions that take place in the cell. But most importantly, magnesium is also necessary for the action of insulin and the manufacture of insulin. When you raise your insulin, you lose magnesium and the cells become even more insulin resistant. Blood vessels constrict and glucose and insulin can’t get to the tissues, which makes them more insulin resistant, so the insulin levels go up and you lose more magnesium. This is a vicious cycle that begins even before you are born.
Insulin sensitivity starts to be determined the moment the sperm combines with the egg. If a pregnant woman eats a high-carbohydrate diet, which turns into sugar, animal studies have shown that the fetus will become more insulin resistant.
Worse yet, researchers have used sophisticated measurements and found that if that fetus happens to be a female, the eggs of that fetus are more insulin resistant. Does that mean it is genetic? No, you can be born with something and it doesn’t mean that it is genetic. Diabetes is not a genetic disease as such. You can have a genetic predisposition, but it should be an extremely rare disease.
That cardiologist was completely ignorant of one of the strongest stimulants to the sympathetic nervous system: a high level of insulin. What does all of this do to the heart? Not very good things. There was a solid study done a couple of years prior, that showed that heart attacks are two to three times more likely to happen after a high-carbohydrate meal and are specifically NOT likely after a high-fat meal.
There was an article in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) saying that the medical profession doesn’t know how to reduce triglycerides dietarily, that drugs still need to be used. This is so ridiculous, because you will find that it is the easiest thing to do. There is an almost direct correlation between triglyceride levels and insulin levels, though in some people more than others. The way you control blood lipids is by controlling insulin.
That insulin-resistance is associated with the hyperinsulinemia that produces all the so-called chronic diseases of aging, or at least contributes to them. As far as we know, in many venues of science, this is the main cause of aging in virtually all life. Insulin is that important.
Speaking of sugar, have you ever awakened to find your whole body racked with pain? Does an alcoholic know about a hangover? The same thing happens in both cases of an overdose of sugar.

Last night I went to see a performance at Niagara University and had a couple of slices of pizza (a no no). Then I ate a few ounces of dark chocoloate (with sugar). In the morning I was hurting big time. Is this the first time this has happened? No. So why did I do it again? Most humans end up making the same mistakes over and over again, all of their lives. lt usually takes a major event which occurs when they hit the wall. "So I see, said the blind man, when he hit the wall," was a favorite saying my father enjoyed using to make a point.
Test it out yourself - if you can. Do you have arthritis? Is the doctor getting the whole story, or just the part that calls for a prescription? When I stop the intake of sugar, aspirin works better and my deep-sleep quality-time is much more effective in rejuvinating my body and my immune system. Sugar is really a hog. It takes precedence over every other type of food intake. It insists on going straight to the front of the line. Try cutting out the sugar and then see if there’s a difference in the intensity of your pain in the morning. You may begin treating the cause.
Once you get the message, you may find life a lot more pleasurable. When I do away with the sugar, I find that my aspirin regimen works better and vitamin C works better to strengthen my immune system. I sleep longer and wake up with that great morning-urge to stretch like I did as a kid.
Dr. Rosedale really did hit the nail right on the head. Address the problem. Find out what foods agree with you, and those that do battle with your body, and you'll be well on your way to "Healthy Eating."

Aging is a Disease

"Aging is a Disease, not merely the passing of time"
Centenarians all have relatively low sugar for their age, and all have low triglycerides.
If there is a single marker for lifespan as they are finding in the centenarian studies, it is insulin, specifically insulin sensitivity. How sensitive are your cells to insulin? When they are not sensitive, the insulin levels go up. Who has heard of the term insulin resistance? Insulin resistance is the basis of all the chronic diseases of aging, because the disease itself is actually aging. We know that aging is a disease. The other case studies that I mentioned, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, obesity, diabetes, cancer, all of the so-called chronic diseases of aging and auto-immune diseases, those are symptoms.
"If you have a cold and you go to the doctor, you have a runny nose." Dr. Rosedale was an Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) physician for 10 years so he knew what the common treatment for that is: a decongestant. "I can’t tell you how many patients I saw who had been given Sudafed by their family doctors for a cold who then came to see me afterward because of a really bad sinus infection," he said.
What happens when you treat the symptom of a runny nose from a cold and you take a decongestant? Well, it certainly decongests you by shutting off the mucous, but why do you have the mucus? It is because your body is trying to clean and wash out the membranes. What else is in mucus? Secretory IgA, a very strong antibody to kill the virus. If there is no mucus, there is no secretory IgA.
Decongestants also constrict blood vessels, the little capillaries, or arterioles, that go to those capillaries, and the cilia, the little hair-like projections that flagellate to push mucus along to create a stream. They get paralyzed because they don’t have blood flow, so there is no more ciliary movement.
What happens if you dam a stream and create a pond?
In days, you’ve got larvae growing, but if the stream is moving, you are fine. You need a constant stream of mucus to rid and prevent an infection. Remember when we were kids, running up and down the hills and sledding, while our noses kept running? That’s normal and healthy. The problem is that in almost all cases, if you treat a symptom you are going to make the disease worse. The symptom is there as your body’s attempt to heal itself.
Now the medical profession is continually segregating more and more symptoms into diseases--they call the symptoms disease. Using ENT for example, a patient will walk out of the office with a diagnosis of Rhinitis, which is inflammation of the nose. Is there a reason why that patient has inflammation of the nose? I think so. Wouldn’t that underlying cause be the disease as opposed to the descriptive term of Rhinitis or Pharyngitis?
Someone can have the same virus and have Rhinitis, Pharyngitis or Sinusitis. They can have all sorts of "itis’s," which is a descriptive term for inflammation. That is what the code will be, and that is what the disease will be. So they treat what they think is the disease, but which actually is just a symptom.
The same thing happens with cholesterol. If you have high cholesterol it is called hypercholesterolemia. Hypercholesterolemia has become the code for the disease when it is only the symptom. So doctors treat that symptom, and what are they doing to the heart? Messing it up.
What you have to do if you are going to treat any disease is get to the root of the disease. If you keep pulling a dandelion out by its leaves, you are not going to get very far. But the problem is that we don’t know what the root is.
The root is known by many other areas of science, but the problem is that medicine really isn’t a science; it is a business. You really need to look at the root of what is causing the problem. We can use that cold as a further example.
Why does that person have a cold?
If he saw the doctor, the doctor might tell him to take an antibiotic along with the decongestant. You see this all the time because the doctor wants to get rid of the patient. In almost all cases of an upper respiratory infection, it is a virus, and taking the antibiotic is going to do worse than doing nothing, because it is going to kill the bacterial flora in the gut and impair the immune system, making the immune system worse.
The patient might see someone else who will say, "No, you caught a virus, don’t do anything, go home and sleep, let your body heal itself." That’s better. You might see someone else who would ask why you caught a virus without being out there trying to hunt for viruses with a net. We are breathing viruses every day; right now we are breathing viruses, cold viruses and rhino viruses.
So why doesn’t everybody catch a cold tomorrow?
The Chinese will tell you that it is because the milieu has to be right, if the Chinese were to quote the French. Your body has to be receptive to that virus–only if your immune system is depressed will it allow that virus to take hold.
So maybe a depressed immune system is the disease. A person can take a bunch of vitamin C because his immune system is depressed and it is likely that he has a vitamin C deficiency. That’s where most of us are right now, where we would recommend a bunch of vitamin C to try to pick up the immune system. In fact, in one case, I decided that instead of taking 500 mg of the highest dose of antibiotic 4 times a day that I would take 500 mg of vitamin C. I was over the serious cold in less that three days.
In some people the vitamin C will not work. Vitamin C is made in almost all living mammals except humans and a couple of species. Vitamin C is made directly from glucose and actually has a similar structure; they compete for one another.
It has been known for many decades that sugar depresses the immune system. It was only in the 70's that they found out that vitamin C was needed by the white blood cells so that they could phagocytize bacteria and viruses. White blood cells require a fifty times higher concentration at least, inside the cell as well as outside the cell, so they have to accumulate vitamin C.
There is something called a phagocytic index, which tells you how rapidly a particular macrophage or lymphocyte can gobble up a virus, bacteria or cancer cell. In the 70's Linus Pauling knew that white blood cells needed a high dose of vitamin C and that is when he came up with his theory that you need high doses of vitamin C to combat the common cold.
But if we know that vitamin C and glucose have similar chemical structures, what happens when sugar levels go up? They compete for one another upon entering the cells. And the one thing that mediates the entry of vitamin C into the cells is the same thing that mediates the entry of glucose into the cells. If there is more glucose around, then less vitamin C will be allowed into the cell, and it doesn’t take much glucose to have this effect. A blood sugar value of 120 reduces the phagocytic index 75%.
Why all the attention to the roots of disease? It doesn’t matter what disease you are talking about, whether you are talking about a common cold or cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis or cancer, the root is always going to be at the molecular and cellular level, and insulin is going to have its hand in it, if not totally in control of it.

Chocolate Has Healing Power

Chocolate Healing Power
You’ve read it before: Dark chocolate, the richer in coca (beans) the better, is not only a to-die-for treat, it’s actually good for you. And just 1 ounce of a very special chocolate packs more than twice the healthy antioxidant punch of red wine or other chocolates.
Dove Dark, made by Mars, Inc., contains Cocoapro cocoa, a proprietary, specially processed cocoa that contains super high levels of flavanols—so high that Dove Dark is used in medical research. "Cocoa is rich in antioxidant flavonoids called flavanols, which include procyanidins, epicatechins, and catechins," explains Harold Schmitz, PhD, director of science at Mars, Inc. By the way, I can’t pronounce these words, let alone, know what they are. Studies have shown, however, that people with high blood levels of flavonoids have lower risk of heart disease, lung cancer, prostate cancer, asthma, and type 2 diabetes. So that’s what they do, even if you can’t pronounce the scientific terms.
Several studies in animals and humans have shown the heart-healthy effects of chocolate’s antioxidants. One of these studies, led by Penny Kris Etherton, PhD, RD, distinguished professor of nutrition at Penn State University, found that people who ate a diet rich in cocoa powder and dark chocolate had lower oxidation levels of bad LDL cholesterol, higher blood antioxidant levels and 4% higher levels of good HDL cholesterol.
Here are the good things: Research shows that Cocoapro cocoa can act as an antioxidant. Researchers at the University of California, Davis compared the effects of 1-ounce of high flavanol Dove Dark chocolate with the same amount of low-flavanol dark chocolate on 10 healthy people. They found that only the Dove Dark had heart-healthy benefits: It reduced LDL oxidation and boosted antioxidant levels of HDL concentration in the blood. Other studies have shown that the higher the Cocoapro "dose," the higher the levels of antioxidants in the blood and the less LDL oxidation.
The Dark Dove chocolate kept blood platelets from clumping together. In the test tube, Cocoapro cocoa reduces blood clotting. It may also stabilize arterial plaque, making it less likely to travel and cause a stroke or heart attack. This effect is similar to that of aspirin. It also increases blood vessel flexibility. Unlike aspirin, some of the procyanidins in Cocoapro trigger the production of nitric oxide, which helps keep arteries flexible and increases bloodflow. This connection has potential implications for blood pressure control according to Schmitz.
Size does matter: "My research shows that a diet containing about an ounce of chocolate a day increases the good cholesterol and prevents bad cholesterol from oxidizing, a process that may lead to heart disease," says Kris Etherton. Does this mean you should run to the nearest supermarket and load you cart with Kit Kats and Milky Ways for "medicinal purposes"? You know better than that. "It’s okay to eat dark chocolate in small amounts, as long as you eat an otherwise healthy diet and can afford the calories."
Kris Etherton says, "Try eating it with nuts or fruit (volumizing with healthy ingredients) for more good fats and even more antioxidants."
But don’t use chocolate as a stand-in for fat-free fruits and vegetables. It just doesn’t work that way. An ounce of dark chocolate can contain a whopping 11 grams of fat, so you have to compromise elsewhere in your diet to make room for the calories. But if you eat only a 1-ounce piece of chocolate slowly and mindfully, it should satisfy your most serious chocolate cravings, which can help you stick to a healthy eating plan.
Joe Vinson, PhD, professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, found that pure cocoa powder (not the instant hot chocolate type) has the most antioxidants, followed by dark chocolate, then milk chocolate.
The three healthiest chocolate bars are:
El Rey Gran Saman Dark Chocolate (70%) cocoa (1.4 oz) and 190 calories with 15 g of fat. Scharffen Berger Bittersweet, 70% cocoa (1 oz. bar) with 170 calories and 11 g of fat.
Lake Champlain Dark Chocolate, 54% cocoa (1.5 oz) with 240 calories and 16 grams of fat.
Get a Taste of the World through Chocolate! Buying rich, delicious chocolate from all over the world has never been easier. Here are three of our favorite web sites.
1. Chocosphere, 5200 S.E. Harney Drive, Portland, OR 97206; Toll-free (877) 992-4626
http://www.chocosphere.com/ .
2. Lake Champlain Chocolates, 720 Pine Street, Burlington, VT 05401; (800) 465-5909
http://www.lakechamplainchocolate.com/
3. Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker; 914 Heinz Ave., Berkeley, CA 94710 (800) 930-4528
http://www.scharffenberger.com/
Now, remember that there is a bias here. The researcher from Mars, Inc. is obviously looking for the best results from eating chocolate. And consider that we are only talking about a 1-ounce serving per day. However, in comparing chocolate versus other antioxidants, Dove Dark Chocolate 1.3 oz. Contains 41 mg of catechins & epicatechins, while ordinary dark chocolate contains only 20 mg (1.3), and a small apple,(raw with skin) contains only 9 mg and 6 ounces of Black tea contains 5 mg.
Good chocolate does not come cheap.
El Rey Gran Saman costs about $2.50 per 2.8-ounce bar.
Lake Champlain Chocolate Bars cost $2.25 per 3-ounce bar
An 8-pack sampler of Scharffen Berger Chocolate (1-ounce bars) costs $16.
So there you have it, as spelled out in the latest issue of Prevention’s article on "Healing with Chocolate."
http://www.prevention.com/
Happy Valentine’s Day Stay healthy by watching what you eat and how much your eat and remember that you are what you eat. Looking healthy and vibrant has a lot to do with your food intake.

Phytochemicals For Health

PHYTOCHEMICALS:
The most recent issue of "Nutrition and Weight Control For Longevity" 2006, from John Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, makes one thing perfectly clear:

The vast number of compounds in fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes makes it nearly impossible for supplements to substitute for a healthy diet. Read that one once more. It’s an important finding that I have had to emphasize in my blog site over this past year. Now, we know the rest of the story. A handful of pills cannot duplicate the complex nutritional benefits of nature.

Since first I heard of this special ingredient in fruits, vegetables and other plant foods, I was curious about its role in eating healthy. Fruits, vegetables, and other plant foods are packed with ingredients in addition to vitamins, minerals and fiber. From anthocyanins (the red pigment in strawberries and cherries) to allylic sulfides (which are responsible for the pungent flavor of garlic and onions), these compounds, which are also known as phytochemicals, may be responsible for some of the disease-preventing effects of fruits and vegetables.

Phytochemicals have no traditional nutritive value—that is, they are not vitamins or minerals—but they may have positive effects on the body over the long term. Possible beneficial effects include inhibiting tumor formation, preventing blood clots, blocking the cancer-promoting effect of certain hormones, and lowering cholesterol levels.

Studies of supplements have failed to show that a high intake of isolated minerals reduces the risk of disease. These observations raise the possibility that other substances in plant foods, namely phytochemicals, may be important in disease prevention, either on their own or in combination with antioxidants. For example, many studies have found that people who eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables have half the risk of most types of cancer as people who eat a diet low in fruits and vegetables. By contrast, supplements of beta-carotene (present in green and yellow fruits and vegetables) do not protect against cancer in many studies. The researchers conclude that phytochemicals and other bioactive substances present in fruits and vegetables work together to protect against cancer and other diseases.

Phytochemicals are found in a wide variety of plant foods, and indeed many different phytochemicals are often present in a single food—for example, more than 170 have been identified in oranges. This vast number of compounds in fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes makes it nearly impossible for supplements to substitute for a healthy diet. While the beneficial phytochemicals have yet to be proven, the following show some promise for disease prevention.

Allylic sulfides. Found in onions and garlic, these substances may enhance immune function, help the body excrete cancer-causing compounds, and interfere with the development of tumors.

Flavonoids. These compounds function as antioxidants. They may extend the life of vitamin C, inhibit the tumor development, prevent the oxidation of LDL cholesterol, and control inflammation. Flavonoids are found in a host of fruits and vegetables as well as in red wine, red and purple grape juice and green and black tea.

Arthritis: Foods To Avoid

The Foods to Avoid if You Suffer from Arthritis
If you’re taking supplements for your arthritis but not getting the results you want, then you may want to consider this:
You could be making your arthritis worse by some of the foods you eat! Certain foods can cause flare-ups of arthritic pain. It’s common and it doesn’t matter which kind of arthritis you have (Rheumatoid or osteoarthritis). You can aggravate both, if you have a sensitivity to these popular trigger foods.
The most common trigger foods are the foods in the nightshade family, such as bell peppers, eggplant, potatoes, and tomatoes. These foods contain solanine, a substance that causes arthritis flare-ups in many people.
If you’re not sensitive to these foods, you still need to avoid them in every form, including juice, sauce, ketchup and even potato starch! Read labels carefully because nightshades can be in anything—salad dressings, gravies, or baked goods. And even a small amount can cause agonizing pain.
Try eliminating nightshades for 21 days. If you don’t see an improvement, start eating them again. But if you do see improvement, it means you’ve identified a major culprit. Listen to your body talk and avoid foods that disagree with you. If you’re like some people, you may find that your pain completely vanishes.
A medical doctor once told me that most of the problems of the heart and arthritis could be food allergies. He is in his 80's and has practiced in the ear, nose and throat field very actively. It is interesting to know that his office is now researching the natural approaches to dealing with the problems related to ENT. This doctor has a staff member, a young physician’s assistant, who confided in me: that the Northeastern United States is probably the most conservative area of the world when it comes to treatment of health problems. She also admitted to the perks and a room full of free drugs provided to them by pharmaceutical sales people (the ones with the black satchel who cut ahead of you in the waiting room). By the way these pills are not free, they are addictive and is the same appoach all drug pushers use to develop the market for their product.
We are making progress, as a friend of mine recently pointed out in his book, because there is no interest in going to a doctor who offers nothing in the way of resolution to major problems. If doctors researched conscientiously, the newest information available in their area of expertise, we wouldn’t be spending 17% of the gross national product on health care. Your taxes would be lower and you would have more money to spend on other important areas of concern.
Americans must learn more, become activists, take back their government and stop their dependence on magic pills and 15 minute HMO doctors.

If it doesn’t make you feel better; if it doesn’t cure the disease; if all you get are more side effects from a medicine that serves no purpose; what are you doing with your most precious possession–your life?