Most people who get their annual physical nervously await the result of their cholesterol levels. We have been conditioned by the mass media that high cholesterol is the gold standard for predicting risk for cardiovascular events such as a heart attack or a stroke. However, most people would be surprised that50% of people who have a heart attack have normal cholesterol levels. Conversely, there are many who have high cholesterol who live out their lives without any cardiac episode.
Many cardiologists also use EKG’s, stress tests and angiograms to assess overall risk. These are useful, and we shouldn’t ignore the cholesterol markers either, but a coronary artery must narrow by 60% to show as a problem on a stress test and angiograms are invasive and very expensive (4,000.00). Here are some newer techniques and tests that someone should consider if they or someone they love is concerned with their heart health or if a doctor has recommended taking a statin drug.
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It is thought that wild fowl were domesticated a few thousand years ago according to Egyptian and Chinese records leading to what is now, about 200 breeds and varieties of chickens worldwide. Not surprisingly in the past century, just like a lot of other industries, the business of egg production has turned from a mostly small farm system to a highly industrialized system that has increased production of the hens and decreased their mortality rate substantially. There are roughly 300 million laying birds in the U.S. that produces about 75 billion eggs a year, about 10% of the world supply.
There has been evidence that the highly industrialized process of producing eggs isn’t a healthy environment for the chicken, due to the lack exercise, exposure to fresh air, and a diet higher in a broader range of nutrients from grazing. The result being a chicken producing an egg that might not have all the nutrients we would get from a chicken with a diet that was more “wild” and spending time outside. In response to this information, smaller scale industrial farms are attempting to produce higher quality eggs.
When shopping you will often see multitudes of choices with catch phrases emblazoned on the packaging such as
If I were to pick a vitamin that “gets no respect” the award would go to vitamin K2. Talk about no respect, there isn’t even a blood test for vitamin K2 and most physicians are probably unaware that vitamin K is not a single vitamin. Similarly, to a previous newsletter on vitamin E,
http://naturalhealthchiropractic.com/who_knew/view/995/the_vitamin__e_ight_story, vitamin K is made up of a family of vitamins: K1, K2, and K3 vitamins. Interestingly, like some siblings, they couldn’t be more different in how they function in the body. For this newsletter we will ignore K3 (menadione) which is a synthetic form of K3 used mainly in pet foods and instead focus a little on K1, and mostly on K2 and the subsets within that clearly make K2 the most gifted sibling in the family.
Vitamin K or more specifically K1 (phylloquinone) has historically been known as the clotting factor vitamin. It got its name from the German spelling of Koagulation and it’s found in green leafy vegetables and oils. Without K1, a simple cut to our skin could be a life-threatening event.... keep reading
Silver has been used medicinally for more than 2000 years. Hippocrates, the “father of medicine” wrote in his medical texts that silver had beneficial healing and anti-disease properties. He praised silver for its tissue repair and wound healing abilities. It is reported that Cyrus the Great, king of Persia stayed healthy by drinking only boiled water stored in silver vessels. According to Herodotus, mule-drawn carts laden with silver urns followed King Cyrus wherever he went....
... The benefits of silver are immense and when using a high-quality silver such as Argentyn 23 it can be tremendously effective at preventing and even treating infections. This is important information especially during flu season.
The definition of a banana republic is often depicted as a politically unstable nation usually in Central America, with an economy dependent on one crop. There is a reason why we use the word banana to describe this reality. Even though the banana is perhaps the world’s oldest cultivated plant, originating and being bred in Southeast Asia about 7000-10000 years ago, it wasn’t until some Spanish missionaries introduced bananas to the Americas in the early 1500’s that it began to move into fourth place of the world’s staple foods behind rice, wheat and corn. The rapid rise in interest of bananas began in the latter part of the 19th century when two companies United Fruit Company (later to be Chiquita) and Standard Fruit Company (later to be called Dole), began importing bananas to the United States. As the popularity of bananas grew these companies were able to pay countries like Guatemala and Honduras money for huge tracts of land to grow bananas. These companies generated dollar revenues that exceeded these countries gross national product and gave these small countries an economic foundation, and the companies involved political influence that neither had before.
Probiotics have become an accepted protocol in the treatment of many health problems. In an age when antibiotic overexposure has become commonplace, we often turn to probiotics to replace the good bacteria that most certainly has been lost for this reason and to help with a variety of gastrointestinal, skin or other problems. Usually we rely upon yogurt or lactobacillus supplements towards that goal. However, not all lactobacillus is the same. Since the discovery of the first lactobacillus in early part of the 20th century, there have been dozens of species discovered within the genus of lactobacillus and over 180 different strains identified within those species. Here is a timeline on the discovery of the different species of Lactobacillus.
In the past few decades it has become commonplace to hear that you or someone you know has a gluten allergy. Celiac disease is the most severe form of gluten allergy but there is also a more commonly found subset of people who don’t have Celiac disease but are still “gluten sensitive”. These people are also called non-celiac gluten sensitive. This subset has been linked to a variety of chronic degenerative diseases including some autoimmune diseases, most of which have nothing to do with the gastrointestinal area symptomatically. Many of these people faithfully adhere to a gluten free diet (GFD) but still exhibit symptoms and feel frustrated in their lack of recovery to the health challenges that they face.
Dr. Aristo Vojdani Ph.D is the chief scientific advisor for Cyrex Laboratory. He has published over 120 articles in peer reviewed scientific journals and is a multiple US patent holder for laboratory assays. In 2013 he wrote a research article in Food and Nutritional Sciences Journal about the cross reaction between Gliadin (gluten) and different food and tissue antigens. What he discovered was that there are foods that have proteins other than gluten that are so similar structurally to gluten that the immune system reacts to those proteins in the same way it does gluten.
It may surprise you that there is a mostly symptomless condition that 20-33% of all Americans have of their liver that ultimately could result in them needing a liver transplant. I am referring to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease or NAFLD. NAFLD is predicted to replace hepatitis C and alcohol abuse as the most frequent indication for liver transplantation in the next 10-15 years! NAFLD is defined as deposition of fat in the liver cells with minimal or no alcohol intake. It is linked to a group of progressive conditions closely associated with being overweight and obesity, insulin resistance, certain medications, and metabolic syndrome*. NAFLD can eventually lead to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis or NASH and about 20% of those patients will go on to liver cirrhosis (irreversible result of fibrous scarring) with its accompanying risk of liver failure or liver cancer. Overall, people with NAFLD stand a 12% risk of liver related death over ten years. In short it is a silent epidemic that few people talk about.
Symptoms, Causes and Diagnosis of NAFLD
Symptomatically a patient may have fatigue and pain in the upper right abdomen....
The first element in the periodic table in chemistry is Hydrogen (H). It is the smallest, lightest, and most common element in the universe. You would think that this is one element would be easy to get in our daily life. However, the useable form of hydrogen is molecular hydrogen and that isn’t so easy to get.
Molecular hydrogen (H2) is a gas and composes only 1 ppm of Earth’s atmosphere. Over 500 research studies in the past six years show that H2 because of its small size, can cross the blood brain barrier, and go within cell structures to address neuro-oxidative stress with high efficacy and safety. While it is true that bacteria in our intestines generate H2 as they ferment unabsorbed carbohydrates, and we do absorb some of that hydrogen, most of the H2 produced in your intestines is either exhaled via your breath or flatulence and is usually produced in such small amounts that no noticeable therapeutic benefits can be noticed. This diagram shows the size of various antioxidants and you can see why H2 would have the ability to cross barriers that other antioxidants cannot.
Unlike typical carbohydrates which are digested and turned into glucose within a certain time frame depending on the type of carbohydrate that it is, resistant starch doesn’t behave that way. Instead it acts like an indigestible fiber and “resists digestion”. Resistant starches are made of amylose and don’t get digested in the stomach or small intestine and reach the large intestine (colon) intact. And since they are digested more slowly, they are less likely to spike glucose or insulin. Once in the colon, resistant starch is turned into energy boosting, inflammation fighting short chain fatty acids such as butyrate by intestinal bacteria. Butyrate is a preferred energy source for colonic cells and increases our metabolism and decreases colon permeability so that toxins don’t enter your bloodstream. Increasing other short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) such as acetate, and propionate in addition to butyrate, also stimulate blood flow to the colon, increase nutrient circulation, inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacteria, promote the growth of good bacteria, and help us absorb minerals.
Examples of resistant starches
Corn, beans and legumes, tubers, white and sweet potatoes, carrots, un-ripened bananas and plantains, winter squashes, rice, and grains. Technically it could be divided into four groups.
