HEALTH IS A CHOICE

By: Raymond Francis

2006 Beyond Health

Raymond Francis, DSc, MSc, RNC, is a doctor of naturopathy, a
chemist, and a graduate of MIT, and a registered nutrition consultant.
Raymond is an internationally recognized leader in the field of optimal
health maintenance, chairman and CEO of Beyond Health
Corporation, the publisher of Beyond Health News, host and
producer of the Beyond Health Show, author of the highly-acclaimed
book, Never Be Sick Again and of the Pathways to Health newspaper
columns.
An in-demand speaker, he has addressed health conferences all over
the United States, as well as in Germany, Switzerland, Greece and
Egypt.
Raymond is also the founder and president of Health-e-America
Foundation (HeAF), an educational non-profit. HeAF is dedicated to
ending the epidemic of chronic disease in America by using
revolutionary health technology to teach school children the basics of
good health. Health-e-America is the sponsor of TPED (The Project
to End Disease).
Raymond Francis is an M.I.T.-trained scientist, a
registered nutrition consultant, author of Never
Be Sick Again, host of the Beyond Health Show
and an internationally recognized leader in the
emerging field of optimal health maintenance.
Health is a Choice
"Health is not a chance, it's a choice. But it's a choice only you can
make." These are the words I use to sign off each of my radio shows.
Unfortunately, most people believe that disease is something that just
happens. It's a roll of the dice to determine who gets sick and who
doesn't.
Because of this erroneous belief, few people are choosing health and
almost everyone is sick. According to the latest estimates, 75% of us
have a diagnosable chronic disease. This includes 90% of the people
over age 65 and 25% of the people under 18. Yet despite these
numbers, two thirds of us think we are in good or excellent health.
What's happened is that chronic disease has become normal. As
long as people are able to function they think of themselves as being
in good health. In truth, only about one percent of us are in good
health, and chronic disease is a runaway epidemic. The economic
effect of all this is budget-busting health-care costs. The result is
more and more denial of health care, a medical establishment in
chaos, and a lot of sick people running around with diminished quality
of life.
Preventing Disease
It doesn't have to be this way. Disease can be prevented. If it does
occur, it can be reversed. Too often we hear that disease is the result
of genetic predisposition, but genes just make people susceptible to a
particular disease. They rarely cause it. The most important
influences are the fundamental parameters of human health, namely:
diet, environment, and behavior. The problem is, in a relatively short
period of time, we have radically changed these parameters. These
changes are producing progressive breakdowns in cellular integrity
and systemic processes, thus distorting our self-regulation and
causing disease. To stay well or get well, we have to make new
choices regarding diet, environment, and behavior. We have to
prevent or reverse the distortions. Sounds simple doesn't it? In truth,
it is simple. And best of all, it works!
The human body is a self-repairing, self-regulating system that will
maintain good health if we properly support its functions. Disease
results when we distort our natural self-regulating processes. The
distortions are the result of unwise choices because either we don't
care or we don't know any better.
Almost all chronic disease can be prevented or put into remission by
making different choices. This is a far cry from our current perception
where we are misled into thinking that everyone gets sick and only
the doctor can make us well. But the doctor's treatments for chronic
disease are seldom effective, and usually do more harm than the
disease itself. Modern medicine doesn't cure disease; it suppresses
the symptoms with toxic chemicals, radiation, and surgery. None of
these address the causes of disease, and all of them damage health.
This is why, according to statistics published in the Journal of the
American Medical Association, medical doctors are one of the leading
causes of disease and the third leading cause of death in America.
Choosing Health
What are some of the things all of us can do to choose health? First
of all, eat a better diet and take high quality nutritional supplements. A
recent study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture titled "What We
Eat in America" found that almost half of us eat no fruit and that most
of us eat minimal amounts of vegetables on a given day. The
conclusion was that most American adults have insufficient intakes of
zinc, magnesium, vitamin B6, calcium, and vitamin E. This is why
high quality supplements are necessary. We managed for millennia
without supplements, but we need them now because our intake of
nutrients is down. Furthermore, coping with the toxins in our
environment has increased our need. Very simply the need is up, the
supply is down, and even when you eat a good diet, it's very difficult
to get adequate nutrition.
Our Diet
Eating a good diet isn't all that difficult. It means avoiding processed
food, the kind that goes through a factory before you get it. This
means eliminating sugar, hydrogenated oils, processed oils, salt,
dairy, white flour, and white rice. Don't buy foods in cans, jars,
packages, etc., and don't eat foods cooked at high temperatures such
as in toasting, frying, broiling, and barbecuing. The average American
eats 150 pounds of sugar per year. Why eat almost a half-pound per
day of a metabolic poison that is incredibly damaging to human
health? And why are we feeding this poison to our children?
Instead, choose a mostly raw diet rich in organic, whole, unprocessed
foods. Choose fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains scooped out of
bins, seeds, nuts, and sprouts. Choose organic flaxseed oil and
extra-virgin olive oil. Choose fish instead of steak. Studies have
shown that eating fish instead of steak for dinner will sharply cut the
risk of heart attack the next morning. A high fat meal will within six or
seven hours put the blood into a hypercoagulatin state increasing the
risk of artery-clogging blood clots. Choose only high quality
supplements such as Perque. Most supplements are useless, and
many are dangerous.
Our Environment
During this century, we have introduced over 100,000 man-made
chemicals into our environment. We have little information on how
each of these act in the human body and almost no information on
how they all act in combination. We do know that many of these
chemicals are toxic and that some are carcinogenic. That's why
another aspect of choosing health is learning how to avoid toxins.
Toxins are things our cells don't need because they jam the
machinery and interfere with normal cell function. It's not possible to
completely avoid toxins because we have polluted the entire planet.
However, it is possible to minimize our toxic exposures. Begin with
the things you use on your body such as toothpaste, soap, shampoo,
etc. Most of these products contain toxic ingredients. The toxins go
through your skin, bioaccumulate in your tissues, and eventually
cause cellular malfunction. Common chemicals such as sodium lauryl
sulfate are known to bioaccumulate in liver, eye, and heart tissue,
and when used in toothpaste to cause gum disease and tooth loss.
Eating organically grown foods that have not been exposed to
pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides is just common sense. Avoid
meat and dairy for the same reason. Farm animals bioaccumulate
toxins from the animal feed and pass them on to you in concentrated
form. In fact about 80% of the average person's pesticide exposure
comes from eating meat and dairy.
Clean up your home environment. Don't purchase carpets make of
synthetic polymers. Don't buy furniture made of particleboard.
Purchase clothes, bed linens, and mattresses made from natural
materials. Use environmentally safe household cleaners. Avoid
solvents and toxic chemicals of all kinds including prescription and
recreational drugs and local anesthetics.
Our Behavior
A major aspect of modern behavior is chronic stress. Even driving on
the freeway is a very stresstoreul event. Chronic stress causes a
distortion of the body's daily maintenance processes. Chronically
deferred maintenance eventually results in major distortions in the
body's self-regulation processes and the body literally falls apart for
lack of daily repair. Developing new ways of dealing with stress is a
must. There are many ways to do this, including exercise, meditation,
Qigong, and therapy. The right way is what works for you.
Lack of physical exercise is another behavioral change with huge
negative results. The human body was designed to be physically
active. It will not function properly without a high level of activity. Yet
most people are couch potatoes and drive to places to which they
can easily walk. Without movement, the heart/lung system does not
get the stimulation it needs to deliver adequate amounts of oxygen to
the body's tissues. This causes a gradual decline in health.
Another impact on our behavior is brought about by our modern
health care system that promotes disease by instilling feelings of
powerlessness and hopelessness in the chronically ill. Modern
medicine tells the chronically ill they are powerless to act on their
own, that they cannot be cured, only treated, and that they have no
options other than the medical system. This promotes feelings of
helplessness that actually lead to a further breakdown in health. It is
well established that our outlook on the future has a profound effect
on health. Feelings of despair diminish the patient's ability to deal
with the problem and lead to the patient becoming increasingly
depressed. Knowing that health is a choice gives patients a sense of
personal power, which enhances physical and emotional vitality.
In Summary
Disease is the result of long-term imbalances in the body's self-
regulating systems. These imbalances are brought about by making
inappropriate choices regarding our diets, environment, and behavior.
Each of us has the power to choose health over disease. By knowing
what our bad choices are, we can change these habits, choose new
action, and effect changes in our biochemistry that will redirect our
lives toward health and well being. No matter what your state of
health, it is possible to make new choices, to improve, and to go
beyond health as you know it.
Aging is a Mistake
"Aging is a mistake," said Dr. Deepak Chopra. Actually, aging is
worse than a mistake, it is a catastrophe. Aging reduces quality of life
and causes so-called "diseases of aging" such as cancer,
Alzheimer's, and arthritis. Making yourself old and sick is not a
sensible choiceit is a mistake. Each disease, even a cold,
accelerates aging, makes you sicker, and causes more disease.
Then our physicians manage these diseases with treatments that
create still more aging and disease. It's a vicious cycle, and we have
to learn how to break that cycle.
To live a long disease-free life, it is essential to learn how to prevent
and reverse aging and disease. Fortunately, this is not difficult to
learn. With just a little bit of effort, any of us can become healthier
and biologically younger. While we cannot control our chronological
age, we do have control over our biological age. Recently, I had my
arteries measured. I have the arteries of a thirty-year-old; I am sixty-
six. The biological age of my arteries is less than half my
chronological ageanyone can do this. Aging is a mistake you don't
have to make.
Historically, people such as the Hunzas lived well into their hundreds
in robust, vigorous health without suffering as much as a cold, so we
know this is possible. For you to accomplish something similar you
must learn how to prevent aging and disease, and to do this, you
must learn how to prevent and reverse inflammation. There is only
one disease, malfunctioning cells, and a malfunction common to all
chronic disease is a process called inflammation. No matter what so-
called disease you have, inflammation is a major part of your
problem. By learning how to prevent and reverse inflammation, you
are learning how to stay young and never be sick again.
Inflammation is a natural and healthy process. If you cut your finger,
the body begins an inflammatory process immediately. This process
neutralizes harmful microorganisms, helps to repair the wound, and
cleans up the debris resulting from the injury. Inflammation is
beneficial when needed, but it is disastrous when chronic. Chronic
inflammation generates a constant supply of free radicals that
overwhelm our antioxidant defenses and damage DNA, aging us and
causing disease of every description, including heart disease, cancer,
diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis, allergies, Alzheimer's, autoimmune
disease, and infections.
Unfortunately, more than three out of four Americans suffer from
chronic inflammation. This is why we are aging so rapidly and why
more than three out of four of us have a diagnosable chronic disease.
Even our children are increasingly suffering from "diseases of aging"
in epidemic numbers. To put an end to this tragedy, as a society and
as individuals, we must learn how to prevent and reverse chronic
inflammation.
What causes inflammation? The standard American diet causes
inflammation! Most of us suffer from chronic inflammation and
disease because the American diet is pro-inflammatory. Our diet
lacks nutrients that help to prevent and control inflammation, while
being rich in pro-inflammatory compounds.
How do you reverse inflammation? In my book Never Be Sick Again, I
advise people to avoid the Big Four: sugar, white flour, milk products,
and processed oils. These so-called "foods" are pro-inflammatory
they cause rapid aging and disease. Indeed, I have had numerous
calls from people who have read my book, got off the Big Four, and
were cured of terrible, chronic diseases. All it took was to stop
promoting the inflammation in the first place. I have been off the Big
Four for 17 years and I have been taking lots of antioxidant
supplements, thus controlling inflammation and allowing my arteries
and other tissues to repair and become those of a much younger
person.
Sugar and white flour are deadly poisons. They have an inflammatory
effect on the body. Unaware of this hazard, the average American
consumes more than 160 pounds of sugar and 200 pounds of white
flour per year. Tragically, we expose children to these deadly
poisons, accelerating aging and causing lifelong health problems.
Both of these poisons in-crease blood sugar levels. Even a modest
increase in blood sugar generates free radicals that cause
inflammation, thereby causing disease of every description. Because
most people eat these poisons every day (in the form of bread, pasta,
breakfast cereal, cookies, cakes, soft drinks, candy, etc.), disease is
a growth industry.
Milk products also cause inflammation. Modern dairy cows eat grain-
containing diets that change the proportions of fatty acids in the milk,
leaving very little omega-3 fats and creating a pro-inflammatory
imbalance. In addition, a substantial percentage of our population
(some estimate fifty percent) is allergic to dairy, often unknowingly.
Daily consumption causes chronic allergic reactions, creating chronic
inflammation.
The fats and oils in the American diet contain excessive omega-6
fatty acids, causing chronic inflammation. Omega-6 fatty acids
promote inflammation, while omega-3s are anti-inflammatory.
Historically, humans consumed roughly equal amounts of these oils,
achieving a balance. Today, we consume 20 to 30 times as much
omega-6 as omega-3. The modern processed-food industry fills our
stores with pro-inflammatory oils, including safflower, sunflower,
peanut, and even most commercially available olive oils; all of these
contain excessive amounts of omega-6 and insufficient omega-3 fatty
acids. Grain-fed beef, poultry, and farmed fish also contain excessive
omega-6. These imbalances create a huge excess of pro-
inflammatory compounds. Unable to turn the inflammation off, chronic
inflammation and disease are the result. It is extremely important that
only healthy fats and oils be consumed.

Hydrogenated oils are also pro-inflammatory. These oils find their
way into a myriad of products including candy, baked goods,
margarine, breakfast cereal, and peanut butter. These deadly oils
disrupt body chemistry, causing many abnormalities-including
inflammation. The trans fatty acids contained in hydrogenated oils
inhibit the activity of enzymes that make anti-inflammatory
compounds, but not those that create pro-inflammatory ones, chronic
inflammation is the result.
In addition to diet, infections also contribute to inflammation. Avoiding
infections by keeping your immune system strong pays off in many
ways. It is important to minimize the number of infections you suffer.
Infections are inflammatory, triggering powerful inflammatory
processes to destroy invading microorganisms. Unfortunately, the
inflammation damages you as well as the invaders. Having one cold
after another will do lasting damage, shortening your life and leaving
you susceptible to every imaginable disease. Repeated infections, as
well as chronic infections, lead to chronic inflammation that damages
and ages the entire body. One way to help keep your immunity strong
is to avoid eating sugar, which is known to damage immunity as well
as causing inflammation.
Physical injuries also create inflammation. Nature intended
inflammation to subside once an injury is repaired. However, by
consuming a pro-inflammatory diet, injuries are seldom fully healed
and often result in chronic low-grade inflammation in the injured
tissue. This is why athletes have problems with old injuries as they
age. These incompletely healed tissues, by producing pro-
inflammatory compounds, become sources of chronic inflammation
for the entire body.
Allergies and food sensitivities also create inflammatory responses.
Chronic allergic reactions create chronic inflammation. This is why
allergic reactions must be minimized by strengthening the immune
system and avoiding allergens. Unfortunately, allergies have become
epidemic. Contributing to this epidemic has been the irrational misuse
of antibiotics, NSAIDS, and hormones by our obsolete disease-care
system. These dangerous drugs disrupt gut tissue, causing leakage
of undigested food molecules into the blood, thereby promoting food
allergies. A good idea for almost anyone is to stay away from the
most common allergens such as dairy and gluten (half the population
may be allergic to gluten, found in wheat, rye, and barley).
Yet another promoter of chronic, systemic inflammation is fat cells.
Given that two out of three Americans are overweight, this is a huge
source of inflammation. Pure and simple, if you are more than five
pounds overweight, you have a serious chronic disease. The
inflammatory process unleashed by being overweight accelerates the
aging process and leads to every conceivable disease. Fat cells,
especially those that form around the abdomen, produce large
amounts of inflammatory compounds that affect the entire body.
If you want to prevent disease, or if you are diseased and want to get
well, what should you do? First and foremost, stop promoting
inflammation. Get the Big Four out of your lifenow! Eat a diet low in
pro-inflammatory foods and high in anti-inflammatory nutrients. Get
rid of those excess pounds (exercise and get off the Big Four to lose
weight). Take high quality anti-inflammatory supplements. If you take
these principles to heart, you will be well on your way to a longer,
higher quality, disease-free life.
Consume a diet low in refined carbohydrates and high in a variety of
fresh, organic vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. Eat high quality
organic animal protein, such as eggs, fish, chicken, turkey, and
grass-fed beef plus olive, coconut and flaxseed oil. Supplementing
with antioxidant nutrients is critical to preventing and reversing
inflammation. Supplement with omega-3 fish oil, vitamins A, B
complex (including folic acid, B6 and B12), C, D, and E, plus
quercitin, glucosamine, chrondroitin, beta-carotene, selenium,
CoQ10, N-acetylcysteine, and alpha-lipoic acid. (Call Beyond Health
to get the supplements I use.)
The health of the American people is in a catastrophic, long-term
downtrend. The result is pain, suffering, unnecessary loss of loved
ones and an economic threat that is projected within a few decades
to bankrupt our country and plunge it into third-world status. This is
happening because, in a relatively short period of time, we have
completely changed our diet. We now consume insufficient anti-
inflammatory vitamins and minerals and an enormous surplus of pro-
inflammatory "foods" in the form of the Big Four: sugar, white flour,
dairy and processed oils (remember the oils we consume are 20 to
30 times more pro-inflammatory than our ancestor's).
Inflammation is a common element in virtually all disease. By
consuming the Big Four, the cumulative effect of the inflammation we
are creating is aging us prematurely, causing us to look old, feel tired,
and suffer every imaginable disease. By learning how to prevent and
reverse inflammation, we can achieve power over aging and disease.
What a wonderful goaland so easy to do.
Immune Dysfunction and AIDS
AIDS is only one small part of the largest epidemic in history, the
epidemic of immune dysfunction disease that is sweeping the planet.
This pandemic is affecting not only humans, but marine mammals,
birds, fish, frogs, and virtually all living creatures. Because this
epidemic doesn't yet have a name, I call it 20th Century Syndrome.
The reason this epidemic is going unrecognized is that we give it a
variety of conflicting and confusing names including: AIDS, allergies,
asthma, arthritis, chronic fatigue, chemical sensitivities, chronic
herpes, chronic hepatitis, eczema, Grave's Disease, lupus, migraine,
multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, Sjogren's Syndrome, and other
immune dysfunction diseases.

Immune dysfunction syndromes are complex. They affect every
system in the body, and have no single cause. They result from a
combination of factors including poor nutrition, toxic overload, chronic
distress, and antigenic overload. An antigen is something to which
the immune system reacts by producing antibodies. Antigenic
overload results from our excessive exposures to disease-causing
organisms such as bacteria, viruses, yeasts, molds, and others.
Overload also results from constant exposure to allergens, blood
products like transfusions and clotting factor, and vaccinations.
Conventional wisdom says that a virus causes AIDS. This is not
possible. Viruses don't cause disease. There are "disease causing"
viruses living in our bodies every day of our lives. If viruses were the
cause of disease, we would all be dead. This is not saying that
viruses don't participate in a disease process, but infections are an
effect of disease not the cause. This is an important distinction.
Infections occur when we become diseased and damage the natural
balance between the microbes and us. Disease comes first,
infections second. So, what causes AIDS? How are we upsetting that
natural balance?

Here are some of the factors: Historically, man seldom ventured far
from the place where he was born. People were exposed to a
population of viruses within a small geographic area. Now, we can be
exposed to viruses from around the world in a matter of weeks. This
results in a viral load not experienced by our ancestors. Kary Mullis,
the 1993 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, said that, "The immune
system took twenty million years to develop. It was never developed
to handle the extreme situation of bathhouse exposures." It is a fact
that AIDS risk groups test positive for more different kinds of
antibodies than the general population.
Is this antigenic load meaningful? Studies published in Science and
other journals show that our immune systems are able to regulate
viruses whose number and diversity is below a certain value, but
unable to stop the growth once this value is exceeded. Repeated
chronic immune responses to foreign antigens can overload our
immune systems to the point where we develop infections because
the immune system is too overworked.

Toxins such as heavy metals, industrial chemicals, excessive alcohol,
pesticides, prescription drugs, and recreational drugs can damage
immune function, and make us more susceptible to infection. In AIDS,
prescription and recreational drugs, including antibiotics, AZT,
cocaine, heroin, and nitrite inhalants, are critical contributors to toxic
overload.

Combine antigenic overload with toxic overload, poor nutrition, lack of
exercise, erratic sleep patterns, and chronic stress, and you have a
recipe for serious immune suppression. The combination of these
factors compromises normal cell function. Once a significant number
of cells have been impaired, this creates molecular havoc and
systems feedback and control are lost. This precipitates a cascade of
events resulting in failure of the body's self-regulating systems,
including the immune system.

When immunity is compromised, infections develop. To treat these
infections, doctors prescribe immune-damaging antibiotics. Most
physicians still believe in the outmoded concept that germs cause
disease, so they try to kill the germs. The need to rebuild immune
competence never occurs to them. However, to prevent or reverse
AIDS, it is necessary to maintain or to rebuild immune competence.

Rebuilding immune competence, requires rebuilding digestive
competence. Numerous studies observe that the opportunistic
infections we see in people with AIDS are very similar to those seen
in nutritionally-deficient animals. This happens because, in people
with AIDS and other immune dystoreunction diseases, there is a
striking incidence of digestive malfunction. Digestion is impaired, and
food doesn't get properly broken down into its elemental building
blocksthe raw materials out of which the body builds, repairs,
protects, and produces energy.

Treatment with antibiotics is a leading cause of digestive malfunction.
Antibiotics do more than just kill "bad bugs," they also kill "good
bugs." Even one treatment with antibiotics can initiate a cascade of
events capable of enormous damage to immune function. The
abnormal gut flora resulting from antibiotic treatment inhibits proper
digestion and assimilation of food, causing malnutrition. Undigested
food results in putrefaction, which produces toxins. These toxins
damage the immune system. Once normal gut ecology is altered, this
provides opportunity for yeast, fungal, bacterial, and parasitic
infections. These do further damage to gut tissue, add to antigenic
overload, and place new burdens on an already overtaxed immune
system.

Partially digested food remnants, resulting from impaired digestion,
are capable of functioning as antigens and causing immune
reactions. When intestinal permeability is increased, due to damaged
gut tissue, these food remnants can gain access to our blood system.
In the blood, the remnants can precipitate food allergies, contributing
to antigenic overload, and further increasing gut permeability.
Increased permeability can precipitate autoimmune diseases by
allowing gut bacteria access to the blood system and causing the
formation of cross-reactive antibodies, thus further damaging the
immune system. The resulting antigenic overload is capable of
inhibiting antibody formation and proper functioning of our disease-
fighting immune cells. When impaired digestion is significant, and
remains uncorrected, people will waste away and become more
susceptible to opportunistic infections. This is very common in people
with AIDS.

Chronic stress is another contributor to digestive incompetence. The
hormones produced when we put stress on ourselves can be very
destructive to the body if the stress is chronic. Stress hormones
inhibit daily repairs in our digestive system, ultimately causing this
system to seriously malfunction. Chronic stress depletes the body's
resources, reduces its ability to adapt, and suppresses immune
function.

In conclusion, AIDS is a many-factored disease caused by a
combination of inappropriate lifestyle, toxic overload, antigenic
overload, poor diets, chronic stress, and common medical treatments
with health-damaging drugs like antibiotics. All the above conspire in
a cascade of events to cause what we call AIDS. The same factors
that contribute to AIDS contribute to other immune dystoreunction
diseases as well.

What to do? Limit exposure to disease-causing organisms. Don't
volunteer for vaccinations. Learn how to eat a good whole-food diet.
Eat lots of fresh, organic vegetables, beans, fruits, and grains. Avoid
white flour, white rice, sugar, salt, and hydrogenated oils. People with
AIDS must consume mega-amounts of nutrients. Minimize antigenic
load by identifying allergens and avoiding allergic reactions as much
as possible. Take superior nutritional supplements like the Perque
brand. Exercise daily. Get as much exercise as possible. Avoid
toxinsthis means avoiding meat, dairy, alcohol, recreational drugs,
pesticides, prescription drugs, gasoline fumes, solvents, food
additives, and so forth. Practice some stress reduction technique
daily.

Rebuilding immune competence is much more difficult than
maintaining it. That's why super-nutrition is essential. Studies
published in Clinical Chemistry and other journals clearly link
nutritional status to the prognosis and mortality of AIDS. Eat only
fresh, organic foods. Keep a healthy attitude and avoid negative
people and stimuli. It has been shown that just by watching an upbeat
movie, a patient finds encouraging improved immune function from
several days to several weeks. Digestive competence must be rebuilt.
Eliminate parasites. Take digestive enzymes to improve digestion.
Since there are only two causes of diseasedeficiency and toxicity
if you provide your cells with all the nutrients they need while, at the
same time, reducing their toxic load, you can't go wrong. This is the
basis for preventing and reversing all disease, and the path taken by
all the long-term AIDS survivors I know of.
Optimizing Athletic Performance
When we exercise it promotes our healing, boosts our immunity,
improves circulation, and enhances overall health. But prolonged and
intense exercise, like that of high-performance athletes, can actually
reduce immune function and damage bodily tissues. Athletes push
their bodies to the limit, and this creates special needs that go
beyond what a typical person requires. To optimize performance, you
must give the human machine all the raw materials it needs for
proper function, while simultaneously preventing exposure to
anything that interferes. Extraordinary physical activity produces a
special situation: An increase in physical performance demands more
raw materials than sedentary activity; this same increase in activity
creates a multitude of toxins which require even more raw materials
to detoxify. Those who provide for these specialized needs will
improve their performance, while minimizing damage to their health.
If you're chronically short even one single nutrient, you will get sick.
That's a guarantee. Nutrients do not act individually, but in fact they
all interact with each other. We need a precise daily mixture of at
least 59 essential nutrients to maintain health. For the athlete,
nutritional shortages lead to impaired physical function, performance
below expectation, more injuries, and slower repair times.
Unfortunately, numerous studies show that almost all Americans are
short several essential nutrients. This has a catastrophic effect on
health, causing today's epidemic of chronic degenerative disease and
these nutritional concerns are especially important to athletes.
An Athlete's Best Friend and Worst Enemy: Oxygen
While exercising, a person uses 10 to 20 times as much oxygen as
sedentary activity. Free radicals are produced during oxygen
metabolism, which damage the body's cells. Exercise demands
heavy oxygen input, and thus a large increase in free radical output.
That's how it works. Antioxidant chemicals protect the body from free
radical damage by neutralizing & minimizing these free radicals.
Because of this heavy oxygen demand, the athlete's need for
antioxidant chemicals is much greater than the needs of a less active
person, and athletic activity in the absence of adequate antioxidants
can cause significant damage. Free radical damage is a serious
problem because the damage doesn't end when the exercise stops.
Free radicals cascade into a chain reaction of cell damage lasting up
to 20 hours after exercise. Much of the muscle soreness and
inflammation after strenuous exercise results from out-of-control free
radical damage. Be sure to get adequate vitamins A, C, E, carotenes,
etc., as these antioxidants protect tissues from free radical damage
during and after workouts. For athletes, this translates to less tissue
injury and shortened recovery times.
Antioxidants are important, while our diets are staggeringly deficient.
For example: The RDA for vitamin C is 60 mg. The average American
gets about 114 mg, but recent research shows that at least 200mg
are required. The Linus Pauling Institute recommends 5000 mg per
day for the average person. The RDA for vitamin E is 30 I.U. per day.
The average person gets about 9 I.U., but recent studies show that
400 - 600 I.U. are necessary for good health, while athletes appear to
need 800-1600 I.U. per day. Since athletes need substantially more
antioxidants than does the average person, supplementation is
essential to maintaining health and performance.
Supplementation is Essential!
Vitamins and Minerals - The importance of supplementation was
demonstrated by a study of marathon runners in a 20 day, 312 mile
run. The test involved hemoglobin levels, a measure of the blood's
ability to carry oxygen to the body's cells. One supplemented group
(given vitamin supplements including iron, zinc, vitamins B6, B12, C,
and folic acid) actually increased their ability to carry oxygen with
higher hemoglobin levels, and this coincided with improved
performance over the same period. The control group (marathon
runners without dietary supplementation) had declining hemoglobin
levels as the race waned on, and their athletic performance also
deteriorated from excellent to marginal. It seems obvious that a
decreased ability to transport oxygen would impair performance, and
it does. Essential nutrients were used up by this intense activity,
creating deficiencies. By the time day 20 of race rolled around,
damage from lack of supplementation (malnourishment) becomes
very evident in such things as an athlete's hemoglobin levels. The
greatest amount of free radical damage to DNA occurs in men who
heavily exercise without any supplementation.
CoQ10 - Muscle power is generated by conversion of the high-energy
compound ATP (adenosine triphosphate) to the mechanical force of
muscle contraction. Our bodies store very little ATP, so it must be
generated continuously. You can't make sufficient ATP without
CoQ10 (coenzyme Q10). CoQ10 supports every cell in the body by
aiding in ATP production, as well as helping to prevent harmful lipid
peroxidationthe harmful oxidation of fats including cholesterol. 60
to 100 mg of CoQ10/day is recommended.
Ginseng - Certain herbs, such as Siberian ginseng, can be used to
improve recovery time from exercise. Lactate is a by-product of
anaerobic metabolism that causes muscles to function suboptimally.
Expediting the clearance of lactate will shorten recovery time from
exercise as well as allowing for more high-intensity work. A recent
study at the Beijing Medical University Sports Research Institute
found that athletes on an herbal formula with Siberian ginseng
significantly improved their lactate clearance after two weeks of
intense work.
Phosphatidylserine (PS) - A recent study at California State
University at Chico measured the effects of 800 mg of
phosphatidylserine (PS) on muscle soreness during two intense two-
week training sessions. Cortisol is a hormone, which breaks down
muscle tissue and produces muscle soreness. The subjects taking
the PS had significantly reduced cortisol in their blood, less muscle
soreness, and reported a marked increase in their feelings of well
being. The study concluded that PS attenuates muscle soreness and
reduces cortisol levels during recovery from exercise.
Another important nutrient is water. It is essential to keep well
hydrated. Dehydrating a muscle a mere 3% causes a 10% reduction
in performance. The quality of our tissues, their strength,
performance, and resistance to injury, are all dependent on having an
adequate supply of water. Lungs are 90% water, brains 76% and
blood 82%. Since an athlete in heavy training can use over two
gallons of water a day, dehydration an ongoing concern. Water is an
extremely important nutrient, and it frequently gets forgotten.
Injuries, Infections & Immunity
Many athletes fail to reach their potential because of constant
injuries. Healthy tissues tend to be more supple, stronger, and less
susceptible to injury. People don't grasp the fact that immunity is
linked both to the seriousness of an injury, and the time it takes to
recover. Healthy tissues get injured less often, and recover more
quickly. Athletic success requires not only good training, but also
optimal nutrition and the resilience it provides.
Intense exercise reduces levels of glutamine and glutathione, both of
which are essential to immunity. Reduction in glutamine and
glutathione suppresses natural immunity for hours after exercise.
That's why athletes are more susceptible to infection than the general
population. A study at St. George's Hospital Medical School in
London found that top level athletes often had severely depressed
immune systems, and that they were especially vulnerable to viral
infections. In marathon runners, infections cause more days lost than
injuries. A third of all marathon runners suffered an upper respiratory
infection within two weeks of their race. One Soviet Olympic skier,
whose team was studied, had six infections in the five months after
the Olympics. This observation caused the Soviets to shorten the
length of the competitive season since immunity decreases with
increased duration of intense activity.
The solution to the athlete's many special requirements is high quality
supplementation: Vitamin E is an excellent antioxidant that can be
used to minimize oxidative cell damage, thus helping to prevent
injuries in athletes. Vitamin E can also help to protect the membranes
of T-cells, thereby enhancing immunity. A study in the American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that Olympic athletes who took 800
to 1600 I.U. of vitamin E per day, plus other antioxidants, during
periods of training completed the three year study without a single
infection. Most brands of vitamin E available today don't provide
these heightened levels of antioxidant protection. Unique E is the only
brand with high antioxidant activity.
Vitamin C is another important antioxidant. Its concentration in certain
immune cells is 150 times the concentration in the blood. When
fighting an infection, these cells use enormous quantities of vitamin
C. If the C is lacking, immunity declines.
Caution
While supplements are essential to enhancing athletic performance,
not all supplements are safe or effective. Careful selection of
supplements is imperative. For instance, I would highly discourage
the use of steroids, which have proven dangerous. Another
supplement that is becoming increasingly popular with athletes is
creatine. Creatine is recommended for athletes who perform brief
maximal exercise or repeated strenuous exercise. Creatine
measurably enhances strength and increases repetitions. However,
little is known about the long-term effects of creatine
supplementation. There have already been reports of muscle
cramping, tears and pulls, dehydration, gastrointestinal distress, and
seizures. The FDA cautions that creatine should only be used under
supervision by a physician. The best policy would be not to use it at
all until more is known about its safety.
Conclusion
Superior athletic performance is the result of numerous mental,
psychological, and physical factors. Purely looking at the human body
as a machine, attention to diet, proper supplementation, and
adequate hydration are absolute essentials. Athletes have special
nutritional needs brought about by their own activities. Extra care
must be taken in eating only those foods containing high
concentrations of nutrients. This requires the athlete to be educated,
and to make the consistent and deliberate choices that provide
optimal performance. This means avoiding processed and prepared
foods, which are low in nutrient content and high in toxic content.
Even with a quality diet, a supplementation program is vital for
optimal performance. This should include the basics of a high quality
multiple vitamin/mineral formula: vitamin C, vitamin E, quercitin, extra
calcium, magnesium, and zinc, beta carotene, essential fatty acids,
and CoQ10. Proper diet and supplementation will allow athletes to
have their cake and eat it too. Thorough training to exhibit superior
performance without being slowed by the ill effectsway ahead of
the competition.
About Nutrition
Malnutrition is the number one health problem in America. While it
may seem incredible, there is a compelling need to teach everyone
how to make better nutritional choices. The vast majority of
Americans underestimate the degree to which almost all of us are
malnourished. Few appear to appreciate the vast difference that
better nutrition could make in their lives.
Quite simply, we are what we eat. If you build a house out of low
quality materials, you will end up with a poorly constructed house.
That house will not age well. The same is true of your body.
Abundant amounts of high quality nutrients are essential to build a
healthy body and to maintain it, free of disease. Babies and children
need extra amounts of nutrients because they are building rather than
just maintaining their bodies.
After fifteen years of researching health and disease, it is abundantly
clear to me that malnutrition is the leading cause of disease and
death in America. Numerous studies have concluded that almost all
Americans are not getting the RDA of a number of essential nutrients
on a daily basis. In 1971, the eminent biochemist, Dr. Roger Williams,
wrote: "But the most basic weapons in the fight against disease are
those most ignored by modern medicine: the numerous nutrients that
the cells of our bodies need. If our body cells are ailingas they must
in diseasethe chances are excellent that it is because they are
being inadequately provisioned". If all your cells are functioning at
optimal levels, you cannot be sick. Cells must malfunction for disease
to manifest, and cells will malfunction when inadequately provisioned.
When a large enough number of cells are no longer doing the jobs
they were designed to do, the whole body begins to fail.
If nutrition is so important, why are we not paying attention to it? One
reason is the training our physicians receive. They learn little about
nutrition, and end up assuming that almost all diseases have virtually
no connection to nutrition. Their inadequate training leaves them
completely unprepared to recognize and address our leading cause
of diseasemalnutrition. This is why they are so ineffective in
preventing or healing the chronic diseases that plague our society.
Dr. Jay M. Hoffman, the author of Hunza said: "There is no reason in
the world why over 75% of the American people should be suffering
from degenerative and deficiency diseases...disease never comes
without a cause. If a person is sick and ailing it is because he has
been doing something wrong. He needs an education in how to live a
healthy life. To educate yourself on how to live a healthy life, two
things must be kept in mind. One is that a chronic shortage of even
one nutrient will cause disease. This is why it is so critical to get all
the nutrients we need on a regular basis. Second is that every
person's need for nutrients is different from every other person. This
is called biochemical individuality, and it is an extremely important
concept for each of us to understand.
While everyone needs nutrients, no two people need exactly the
same amount of nutrients. One person may require five times as
much calcium as another, twenty times as much vitamin C, or even
forty times as much vitamin A. Given that a shortage of even one
nutrient will cause disease, those with higher needs are more likely to
get sick. Two people could live in the same house, eating the same
diet, and one will be adequately provisioned and the other deficient.
Yet we presently have no way of knowing who needs what. Any given
individual can be vastly different than the hypothetical 'average
person'.
Because of biochemical individuality and our inability to know what
we need, everyone must strive to maximize their nutritional intake at
every stage of their life. We cannot afford to eat foods that are not
rich in nutrients, yet this is what most people eat on a daily basis.
One quarter of the average person's calories come from eating
sugara toxic, empty-calorie food that is devoid of nutrients. It is only
by eating nutrient rich foods that we can be assured of being disease
free, especially in old age. We have all been misinformed about old
age. We are told that disease is a natural part of the aging process.
This is absolute nonsense. Disease does not come without a cause.
It often takes decades of less than optimal nutrition to make it
happen. Disease is not the result of aging. Inadequate nutrition, over
a long period of time, is the major cause of disease. Historically
healthy societies lived well into their hundreds, disease free. Health is
what is natural, and it comes from eating a good diet.
All living cells are remarkably similar in the way they function. There
are certain parts of cell machinery that are the same regardless of the
organism. All cells need raw materials to operate. It is because plant
and animal cells have similar needs that we can obtain the raw
materials we need when we eat them. If the plants and animals
received all the raw materials they needed, then their cells will
contain lots of nutrients. When we eat them, the chances are
excellent that our cells will get all the things they need if we consume
a variety of these foods. The problem today is the plants and animals
we consume did not get what they needed. They were nutritionally
deficient themselves. This makes it difficult for us to get what we
need.
Modern agricultural practices produce nutritionally inferior foods.
Farming with artificial fertilizers depletes soils of essential minerals.
Both the harvesting of crops before they are ripe to prevent spoilage
and the time spent in transit before reaching the consumer, rob foods
of their nutritional content. As a result, we eat foods that are
inadequate to supply our cells with what they need. If you buy your
food in a standard supermarket, you are almost guaranteed to get
sick. There is no high quality food sold there. More than half of the
average diet consists of processed foods. Processing substantially
reduces the nutritional value of food. These foods cannot support
healthy human life. Is it any wonder that more than 75% of us have a
diagnosable chronic disease?
Is there anything we can do? Yes. We can educate ourselves on
what constitutes a healthy diet and then make that diet a normal part
of our life. Given both the lower nutritional content of our foods plus
our increased need for nutrients, due to our toxic environment,
nutritional supplementation is a must. But here again, few know how
to make an effective supplement or are willing to spend the money to
do it. That is why after fifteen years of searching for the best vitamin
supplements in the world I am still taking Perque. I have yet to find
anything better and nothing that even comes close.
Beyond supplements, real food is our best source of nutrition. The
problem is finding any real food. Our first priority should be to
eliminate all the unhealthy foods in our diet. This means eliminating
sugar, white flour, white rice, processed oils and dairy. This is no
easy task. These are the ingredients of most processed foods. That is
why all processed food should be eliminated. A processed food is
anything that comes out of a factory, including breakfast cereals,
canned goods, frozen foods, margarine, milk, cheese, ice cream,
pasta, and bread.
Without growing your own food, the closest we can come to real food
is to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables from organic farmers at a
local farmer's market. Beyond that, buy organically produced food at
a good health food store. Food needs to be grown in healthy, fertile
soils without exposure to toxic agricultural chemicals. It should be
harvested when it is ripe, not before, and quickly taken to market and
consumed within a short period of time. Nutrients are rapidly lost with
time.
The key to better health is to consistently concentrate on healthy
foods and to avoid unhealthy foods. Eating a large variety of foods is
important because all foods have different kinds and amounts of
nutrients. Only by eating a variety can we be assured of getting what
we need. A variety is also a good idea from another perspective. All
foods contain toxins. This is how they protect themselves from
insects and other infections. Eating too much of one kind of food will
not only be nutritionally inadequate, you may also be getting too
much of a single toxin. Some foods are especially high in toxins, such
as nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and bell peppers).
These need to be consumed only in small quantities or not at all if
you already have a chronic disease problem.
It is important to remember that all nutrients act as a team. If even
one team member is absent or in short supply, the entire team will not
work well. Different individuals require widely different amounts of
nutrients, especially vitamins A, C, and E. Since these are harmless
in reasonable quantities, I supplement with generous amounts to
assure getting enough. Yet another factor is exercise. Eating a good
diet and taking supplements is a good start, but delivering those
nutrients to cells that need them is quite another thing. Exercise helps
to deliver nutrients to cells and remove metabolic waste products.
That's why regular exercise is essential to good health. Almost
anyone can improve the quality of their life by delivering better
nutrition to their cells.
Prescription Drugs Anyone?
Prescription drugs are one of America's leading causes of disease
and death. The problem with prescription drugs is very simple...they
do nothing to cure disease. All they do is suppress the symptoms of
disease by disrupting normal cellular functions. Abnormal cell function
is the very definition of disease, and since prescription drugs cause
our cells to malfunction, then...
Yes, drugs cause disease, but we obscure this fact by calling these
diseases "side effects." Ironically, the "side effects" are often more
dangerous than the disease being treated in the first place. A recent
study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
found that in one year, over two million hospitalized patients suffered
serious drug reactions, resulting in 106,000 deaths. Some side
effects! But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Too many adverse
reactions cause public concern and scrutiny, so just imagine a
hospital's incentive to understate them. Another article in JAMA
estimated that only 1 in 20 reactions are reported. In truth, tens of
millions are injured and an estimated 400,000 are killed every year by
these dangerous poisons. This makes it clear why data published in
JAMA place medical doctors as the third leading cause of death.
Anyone taking a prescription drug will be harmed to some degree by
these drug-caused diseases.
Consider that disrupting even one cell function will ultimately have a
negative effect on the entire body. A single prescription drug can
disrupt multiple cell functions causing thousands of biochemical
changes. Introducing a second drug can cause tens of thousands of
changes, and a third can produce hundreds of thousands. Since the
average patient over 60 is on four drugs, you can begin to
comprehend the extent of the biochemical chaos being created. This
is not healthy! Very often a second drug is prescribed to suppress the
problems caused by the first, and then a third drug to suppress the
symptoms caused by the first two, and so on.
Statistics show that prescriptions for antibiotics are still on the rise,
despite warnings in medical journals for doctors to cut down on them.
Excessive antibiotic use has bred "superbugs" that the strongest
antibiotics cannot kill. Right, there are people sick with infections that
are immune to all known antibiotics. Another commonly ignored "side
effect" of antibiotics is that they also destroy normal gut flora, leading
to maldigestion, malnutrition, and cellular toxicity. The damage
antibiotics can do is scary, often permanent, and worsening as
doctors continue to overprescribe them.
Nobel Prize winning chemist Linus Pauling predicted that the use of
toxic chemicals to suppress disease symptoms, which he called a
toximolecular approach, was a blind alley that would lead nowhere.
Where it has lead is to a catastrophically expensive and ineffective
disease-care system, where people are killed and injured daily, where
they remain chronically ill, and where the costs are projected to
double in the next ten years. When someone is sick, they are already
in toxic overload. Why compound their problems by giving them more
toxins? Pauling proposed an orthomolecular approach where one
provides molecules that are natural and helpful in supporting and
restoring normal cell functions, allowing the body to heal and restore
itself to health.
If you are now on prescription drugs, recognize that you are choosing
to take them, and that there are safer, more natural, and more
effective alternatives. You may want to find yourself another doctor,
one practicing orthomolecular medicine, which will address the
causes of your problem and help you get well, rather than prescribing
poison to suppress your symptoms.
To make a sick person well, you have to give their cells all the things
they need to function normally, and keep them away from the things
that disrupt normal function. Prescription drugs disrupt normal cell
function. When cell function is normalized, you cannot be sick. This is
what the orthomolecular approach is all about. It's using vitamins,
minerals, phytochemicals, and natural remedies to rebalance the
body and make it well again. The obsolete approach of using toxic
prescription drugs to suppress symptoms is guaranteed to make and
keep people sick, yet pharmaceutical companies grow as sales go up
every year. Go figure!
Saunas To The Rescue!
Modern living has created a problem the human body was never
designed to handleexposure to excessive amounts of
environmental toxins, especially heavy-metal and oil-soluble toxins.
Toxicity is one of our leading causes of disease, and the overall
chemical load to which we are now exposed is unprecedented in
human history. Toxic chemicals are bioaccumulating in our tissues
faster than we can get rid of them, creating an unprecedented
epidemic of chronic disease. Since our bodies were not designed to
deal with the amount and variety of toxins we are accumulating
saunas to the rescue. Heat causes toxins to be released by cells, and
hyperthermic (sweat) treatments have been used by cultures around
the world for millennia (American Indians used sweat lodges).
Hyperthermic practices are known to reduce levels of organic toxins
such as pesticides and PCBs, as well as heavy metals like lead and
mercury.

Our bodies were designed a hundred thousand years before the
dawn of the petroleum age a century ago. Since then, our
environment has become a sea of oil-soluble toxins. Never before
exposed to them, nature did not design a way for us to get rid of
them. As a result, the average person is bioaccumulating between
300 and 500 man-made chemicals, most of which did not exist at the
time of my birth. Styrene (found in plastic drinking cups and food
packaging) is now found in 100 percent of human tissue in America.
PCBs, dioxins, para dichloro benzene (found in mothballs and
deodorizers), sodium lauryl sulfate (found in soap, shampoo, and
toothpaste), formaldehyde (found in plywood, particleboard,
permanent-press clothing), triclosan (found in antibacterial soap and
underarm deodorants), and many others are accumulating in our
tissues and causing our cells to malfunction.

The effect of these hundreds of chemicals acting in combination is
catastrophic to health. Eliminating as many of them as possible from
our diet and environment is the first step to take. Careful selection of
personal care products, clothing, household furnishings, and foods
will substantially decrease exposure to these deadly toxins (read the
Toxin Pathway chapter in my book Never Be Sick Again). Even so,
driving our cars and just normal living in our polluted environment will
put most of us into toxic overload. Avoidance is essential, but it is not
the whole answer. Finding a way to rid ourselves of toxins is the other
half of the equation. Fortunately there is a solution; it's called a
sauna.

The skin is the body's largest organ and an important part of the
body's detoxification system. Saunas melt the fat layer in the skin,
allowing the oil to ooze out of the oil glands along with its cargo of
accumulated fat-soluble toxins. Over time, it is possible to reduce
one's toxic load substantially as well as to keep it low. In addition
water-soluble toxins are lost in the sweat, including heavy metals like
mercury.

Saunas are better than a steam room or wet heat because body
temperature can be kept lower, enabling you to remain in the sauna
longer. Longer is necessary because the oils take more time than
sweat to ooze out onto the skin. After completing the sauna, it is
essential to wash off with a good castile soap, such as Dr. Bronner's.
This washes off the toxins so they do not reabsorb into the skin.

Saunas are available at gyms and health clubs. If you use one of
these commercial saunas, lie prone on the lowest bench. This will
expose your body to a manageable temperature, allowing you to
spend more time. I recommend starting slowly and gradually working
your way up to an hour or more. When I was recovering my own
health, I would sauna four or five times a week. Saunas played a
critical role in reducing my toxic overload and restoring my health.
Many people sauna for 30 minutes five times a week as
maintenance; I stay in for 60 minutes. You can use that same time to
do other healthy things such as eye exercises or meditation.

For several years, I searched for a home sauna. I rightly believed
that, absent the inconvenience of driving to the gym and competing
for space in the sauna, having a home sauna would encourage more
frequent use. I could not find a sauna that met my standards. Most
home saunas are toxic. They are constructed of materials, such as
cedar, redwood, poplar, plywood, particle board, and solvent-based
adhesives, sealants, and lacquers, that offgas toxic chemicals. Since
the purpose of the sauna is to get rid of toxic chemicals, sitting in a
toxic sauna is counterproductive.

My years of searching have finally paid off. I have just approved and
can now recommend a truly superior sauna that meets my standards
for quality, safety, and effectiveness. This is an infrared sauna that is
easy to assemble or disassemble. It comes in a variety of sizes from
a 50 inch wide two-person unit up to an 85 inch wide six-person
model. It is economical and works off 110 volt current. It takes only
about 15 minutes to warm up. It can be kept indoors or outdoors. I
keep mine in the garage.

Some of the features that make this particular sauna so special
include its use of far-infrared as the heat source. Far-infrared has
been extensively studied and has been found to have numerous
health benefits. It is the same as the warming rays of the sun, and it
helps the body to rid itself of toxins. Far-infrared easily penetrates
human tissue, creating a natural resonance with water molecules
having many beneficial effects. Infrared saunas require less electricity
than a conventional hot rock sauna. They are more economical, they
heat up faster, and the units will run on ordinary house current. The
heating elements of this particular sauna are patented and unique.
They are the largest in the industry and they spread heat more
evenly. Their bigger size allows them to operate at a lower
temperature, making it possible to emit more of their energy around
the 9.4 micron rangethe frequency at which water molecules
vibrate. Causing water molecules to vibrate facilitates the release of
toxins held by the water, making this an excellent way to get rid of
toxins such as mercury, a contributor to many disease problems. All
these factors and much more contribute to the superior performance I
was seeking.

As mentioned before, most home saunas are toxic. The one I have
identified is made of the most nontoxic hypoallergenic wood
available. There are no toxic adhesives, sealants, or lacquers used in
its construction; it is made of solid wood. The electrical cables are
shielded in steel conduits to reduce exposure to electromagnetic
fields and its heaters, controls, and cabinetry are guaranteed for life.
As an option, you can even add a wonderful am/fm/cd stereo. This
high-quality unit is competitively priced, offering an extraordinary
value.
Since toxicity a major cause of disease, by reducing toxic load,
saunas help to prevent and reverse diseases of every description. In
addition to cellular detoxification, far-infrared saunas have been
demonstrated to assist with:

Pain Relief
Weight Loss
Cardiovascular Conditioning
Increasing Circulation
Lowering Blood Pressure
Lowering Cholesterol
Stimulating Immune Response
Reducing Stress
Speeding Injury Repair
Joint Stiffness
Skin Cleansing
Reducing Cellulite

In addition, some alternative physicians use far-infrared saunas to
reduce biochemical cancer markers in their patients. Beneficial
results, similar to expensive European hyperthermic cancer
treatments, have been obtained.

It is important to keep hydrated when using a sauna. Drinking pure
water before, during, and after is recommended. Excessive water
loss can disturb normal heart rhythms and also cause dizziness,
nausea, and fatigue.

Many people do not like saunas, and many with health problems
cannot tolerate them. Their experience with conventional saunas is
that the excessively hot air is too harsh and uncomfortable. Even
under these harsh conditions, the heat penetration from conventional
saunas is superficial, penetrating only a few millimeters. Infrared
saunas are a completely different experience. The infrared heats you
rather than the air so the penetration is over one and a half inches
deep. This is desirable for healing tissue and releasing toxins.
Meanwhile, the air temperature is kept at a comfortable and
controllable level-110 to120 degrees versus 130 to 180 degrees in a
conventional sauna. Much more user friendly!

Every American should sauna on a regular basis because the
therapeutic value of this practice is absolutely enormous. Studies
show that a combination of daily exercise, nutritional supplements,
and a regular sauna has a powerful beneficial effect on health. With
almost every American in toxic overload, a regular sauna is not a
nicety, but a necessity for those who care about health. There is
simply no other way to achieve the required detoxification. Weight
loss is another issue. Most Americans are overweight and an infrared
sauna can burn up to 600 calories in 30 minutes, without moving a
muscle, providing an excellent weight-loss program. For those who
can afford it, you should have one in your home, just as I do. If you
hesitate at such an expensive purchase, consider this: toxic overload
is one of our leading causes of disease and a sauna is cheap
compared to the cost of having chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, heart
disease, chemical sensitivity, cancer, chronic pain and so many other
problems. For those who cannot afford one or do not have room for a
sauna, then regular visits to a sauna facility is a must.
For more information or to purchase one of the Sunlight Saunas
home sauna models I have approved, call Beyond Health at 800-250-
3063.
Sugar - A Poor Choice
Health is a choice. If you choose health, sugar is not an option. Sugar
is a dangerous metabolic poison and a leading contributor to our
epidemic of chronic disease. If we want to vastly improve health, one
single choice we can make is to stop, or at least minimize, sugar
consumption. The less you eat and the less frequently you eat it, the
better off you will be.
History
Our biologic ancestors did not have access to sugars in the refined
forms that exist today. Sugar was a rare commodity, found in
primarily in fresh fruits, or perhaps a batch of honey. Advents in
technology brought forth the first sugar refineries during the
Napoleonic period. At that time sugar was expensive, and average
consumption was about 7 pounds per year. By the end of the 19th
century, sugar was affordable, and available to almost everyone.
Since 1909, sugar consumption has increased by 70%. Americans
now eat an average of about 150 pounds of sugar per year, up 25
pounds (20%) since 1970! In terms of caloric content, sugar makes
up more than 25% of the average American's diet and up to 50% of
some children's diets! An empty calorie food with no nutritional value
whatsoever, sugar is replacing valuable complex carbohydrates as a
source of energy for humans. Historically we did not eat these refined
sugars, and doing so throws the body into a chaotic state of
disregulation.
Overview
Here's the problem: The human body was simply not designed to
handle refined sugars. They bring about a deadly combination of
malnutrition and toxicity. Refined sugar is new to the human diet, and
people are eating an enormous amount of italmost half a pound per
day! Feeding refined sugar to a human body is similar to burning
high-octane aircraft fuel in an automobile engine. Impressive amounts
of energy, but after a while, you damage the engine. Metabolizing
refined sugar is quite a challenge, but if forced to, the body will
struggle to cope with it. This struggle causes serious disturbances,
and after time, disease is the guaranteed result. If sugar were
introduced today as a new product, the FDA would not approve it.
FDA approval requires that a product be safe. Evidence that sugar
damages health is overwhelming. It has been associated with
diabetes, tooth decay, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. In
fact, the rise of chronic disease in modern societies has paralleled the
rise in sugar consumption. When these facts are examined, one
might consider feeding sugar to children a form of child abuse...
Instead, we give children sweets as a "reward" for being good!
Nutrient Deficiencies
Food is supposed to support life. Sugar will not support the life of
humans, animals, insects, or even bacteria. Sugar really isn't food!
Sugar requires specific nutrients in order to metabolize in the body.
The refining process strips these nutrients from the source materials
like sugar cane, so that metabolism requires the body to deplete
itself. The body uses up its reserves, causing deficiencies of various
B vitamins, magnesium, chromium, and other nutrients. Here are
some examples of clinically significant sugar-related deficiencies:
20 psychotic teenagers, being unsuccesstoreully treated with
psychotherapy and tranquilizers, were completely cured by
vitamin B1 supplementation. Sugar had depleted their B vitamin
reserves making them deficient and causing abnormal
behavior. One can be sure there are tens of thousands of teens
out there right now with similar problems.
Chromium deficiencies have been linked to both excessive
sugar consumption and heart disease. Coronary disease
patients average twice the sugar consumption of healthier
people, and have significantly less chromium in their tissues.
Sugar and vitamin C use the same transport mechanism.
Excessive sugar intake overloads this transport system and
may cause vitamin C deficiencies.
Sugar promotes bone loss and causes osteoporosis.
Sugar inhibits the release of omega 6 essential fatty acids from
storage in fat tissues, thereby contributing to essential fatty acid
deficiency.
Metabolic Chaos: Heart Disease, Hypoglycemia &
Immunosupression
Sugar throws body chemistry into biochemical chaos lasting for six to
eight hours after consumption. During this period, hormone, fat,
carbohydrate, and protein metabolism are greatly disrupted. After
consumption, refined sugar is rapidly absorbed by the body, which
dangerously increases the sugar content of the blood. Excess sugar
causes production of excess insulin, which signals cells to take up
sugar. Cells then absorb sugar, to get it out of the bloodstream. This
solves one problem but creates another: Now the body's cells have
too much sugar. To correct this imbalance, cells turn the sugar into
saturated fats and cholesterol. This brings us to heart disease.
In terms of heart disease, eating sugar is similar to eating saturated
fat, only much worse because sugar creates a lot of other problems.
Increased insulin levels not only tell the body to store fat, but they
also tell it not to release fat. This makes people get fat and stay fat. It
causes fat to be deposited in our cells and organs, resulting in
atherosclerosis, fatty liver and kidneys, and obesity. These fats cause
blood cells to become sticky thereby increasing the chances of blood
clots, strokes and heart attacks. Sugar increases "bad" LDL
cholesterol, decreases "good" HDL cholesterol, and increases
triglyceride levels in the blood. If antioxidant vitamins and minerals
are deficient, these triglycerides can be oxidized causing serious
health problems. In addition, red blood cells are choked by the
saturated fats and this reduces their ability to carry oxygen to our
tissues.
Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) is another problem caused by sugar
consumption. When insulin is secreted into the blood, it makes blood
sugar levels fall rapidly. Insulin levels remain high however, so the
body continues to take up sugar beyond the point where it needs to.
The result is hypoglycemia. Symptoms include weakness, dizziness,
crying spells, insomnia, aggression, and depression. Sugar in
breakfasts or lunches can cause children to do poorly in school. They
become hypoglycemic about 60 minutes after eating sugar and this
affects brain function. Many teachers claim that their students are
"brain dead" after lunch, and this is why.
Sugar-induced hormone imbalances tax and weaken the immune
system to the point where it can no longer defend the body. When
insulin causes blood sugar to fall excessively low, the adrenal glands
secret hormones that pump blood sugar back up. Daily consumption
of sugar causes an overworked biochemical balancing act resulting in
adrenal exhaustion, which in turn decreases the body's ability to
respond to future stress. Adrenal exhaustion is now a common
problem in the chronically ill. Sugar quadruples adrenaline levels,
while increasing both cholesterol and cortisone. Cortisone is known to
depress immune function. Studies show that the ability of white cells
to destroy harmful bacteria is reduced as sugar consumption rises.
This is why children, who eat lots of sugar, are more susceptible to
colds, flu, and other infections.
Fiber Deficiency
Humans were designed to derive energy from complex
carbohydrates, which are naturally high in fiber. By contrast, a high
sugar diet provides calories without the fiber that is essential to
human health. Insufficient fiber causes materials to move too slowly
through the digestive tract. This can cause constipation, which is a
big problem in our society. It also causes waste to remain too long in
the colon where it can serve as food for harmful bacteria, thereby
producing gas and toxins, and promoting intestinal inflammation and
bloating.
Fiber has been shown to remove toxic and carcinogenic
substances from our bodies.
Lack of fiber leads to toxic absorption and excessive stress on
the liver.
Fiber binds to hormones like estrogen and removes them from
the body. Without fiber, the estrogen may be reabsorbed and
excess estrogen is known to cause disease.
Fiber slows down the rate of sugar entry into the blood stream,
so foods like sweet fruits are suitable and healthy alternatives
to refined sugar.
Fiber has been shown to improve diabetes control because
high fiber diets greatly reduce the need for insulin.
Conclusive Research
Human volunteers who were fed sugar experienced a rise in
cholesterol levels plus a marked increase in blood pressure.
Laboratory animals died sooner when sugar was added to their
diet.
Rats fed a high sugar diet did less physical work, were unable
to reproduce as well, and had shortened life spans.
Other animal experiments concluded that refined sugar "causes
serious disturbances in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism,"
and caused diabetes in the animals.
People who have little contact with refined sugar have virtually
no tooth decay.
The saturated fats produced by sugar metabolism cause
pimples, acne, senility, and heart disease.
A high sugar diet increases the severity of premenstrual
syndromes in college girls.
Sugar feeds cancer cells causing them to grow faster and has
been linked to colon, kidney, prostate, breast, rectal, ovarian,
uterine, and nervous system cancer.
In our society, staying away from refined sugar is no easy task. Sugar
is added to most processed foods and many food labels list sugar
under more than one name. This can be confusing to the consumer.
Look for sugar under names like sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose,
maltodextrin, raw sugar, brown sugar, turbinado sugar, honey, rice
syrup, corn syrup, maple syrup, concentrated fruit juice, and barley
malt. Sugar in whole fruits is acceptable, but not so in fruit juices
because the lack of fiber allows rapid absorption of the sugar.
Deficiency and toxicity are the two causes of disease, and sugar is a
leading contributor to both. This is why sugar is a major cause of our
modern epidemic of chronic, degenerative diseases. Read labels
carefully and avoid sugar as much as possible. Most especially, don't
feed sugar to children. The dangers of eating sugar were even known
to the ancient world. In the Bible, Proverbs 25:27 says, "It is not good
to eat too much honey." We seem to have forgotten this ancient
wisdom.
The Waste in Toothpaste
Ordinary toothpaste is more than a minor contributor to our modern
epidemic of chronic and degenerative disease. Toxicity is one of the
two causes of disease. We live in a polluted world with thousands of
unnatural, man-made chemicals that our bodies have never seen
before and don't know how to handle. Almost all of us are in some
degree of toxic overload. That's why it's so important for each of us to
minimize our exposure to the environmental toxins over which we do
have some control. To be healthy, each of us has to make hundreds
of choices on a daily basis to optimize our nutrition and minimize our
toxic exposures. Remember, it's not one specific toxin that is making
America sick, but many different toxins gradually accumulating in our
tissues. Something as simple as toothpaste can be "the straw that
breaks the camel's back."
Are there toxins in toothpaste? You bet! And they are highly
bioavailable. Just read the box on an ordinary tube of toothpaste. You
will find a government required warning label that reads something
like, "If you accidentally swallow more than the amount needed for
brushing, seek professional help or contact a poison control center
immediately." Why a poison control center? Immediately! Because
ordinary toothpaste contains a list of highly toxic chemicals that are
dangerous to health and can even kill a small child.
The mucus membranes in the mouth are extremely permeable. This
means that certain chemicals will go right through those membranes
like there is nothing there. People who have accidentally taken some
insecticide in their mouth, and instantly spit it out, have died of
insecticide poisoning because it instantly went right through the
mucus membranes. Likewise, toxins in toothpaste can go through
these membranes and add to your toxic load. In addition, who can
help but swallow a little bit of the toothpaste, especially small children
who may swallow quite a bit.
Most toothpaste contains fluoride. Fluoride is one of the most toxic
chemicals in our environment. The almost insurmountable and very
expensive task of disposing of extremely dangerous, fluoride toxic
waste from the aluminum and phosphate fertilizer industries has been
solved. These industries sell their toxic waste at a profit to water
suppliers who dilute it into billions of gallons of water. The problem is
the toxic effects of the fluoride from toothpaste, water, and elsewhere
is cumulative. Current doses are clearly excessive. A significant
percentage of the population have already had their health damaged
by getting too much fluoride. One form of this damage is dental
fluorosis. Fluorosis is a malformation of tooth enamel characterized
by brittleness and slight to major discoloration. A recent national
study found that 22% of U.S. children have some degree of dental
fluorosis. More serious is that X-rays of children with dental fluorosis
can also show bone structure abnormalities. At the same time, there
is no credible scientific evidence indicating that fluoride has benefited
anyone.
Almost all toothpaste contains a toxin called sodium lauryl sulfate.
This synthetic detergent and its chemical cousins will go through
mucus membranes and bioaccumulate in eye, heart, and liver tissue.
People who are having eye trouble never stop to think that their
toothpaste may have contributed to their problem. Two years ago, a
German study published in a British medical journal concluded that
sodium lauryl sulfate caused gum disease. Do you really want this in
your toothpaste?
In addition there are many other toxic chemicals routinely found in
toothpaste including artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. If
these were the only toxins we were exposed to, perhaps it wouldn't
matter. But this is not the case, and we are all in toxic overload.
Fortunately, toothpaste toxins are easily avoided by using the right
brand.
A few years ago I spent eighteen months and considerable expense
to find a toothpaste I could recommend. I sorted through over 200
products and was unable to find a single U.S. brand that met my
standards. Finally, I selected a Swiss formula called Weleda. Weleda
tastes good, cleans your teeth, and is non-toxic. Weleda is available
at quality health food stores or at Beyond Health.
Our Toxic Loads
Regular readers of BHN are decades ahead of their doctors because
they know there is only one disease: malfunctioning cells. While this
may sound mundane, it is actually quite profound. Likewise there are
only two causes of disease: deficiency and toxicity. When deficient,
cells aren't getting everything they need to support normal cell
function. When toxic, a cell is getting something it doesn't need,
which damages normal function.
Most people immediately think of toxins as things coming from
outside the body, like pesticides and prescription drugs. But the truth
is most of our toxic load comes from the body itself. Normal healthy
metabolism produces lots of metabolic waste products, just as a
factory will produce industrial waste. Abnormal metabolism produces
even more toxins. In fact detoxification is the biggest single item in
our biochemical budget, not only to handle outside toxins, but to get
rid of metabolic products like used hormones and neurotransmitters.
Otherwise, these can build up in the body and cause cellular
malfunction and disease.
At some point, we have to get rid of nearly every molecule that the
body encounters. To do this, our detoxification system involves a
complex process to render a molecule inactive. This system is
entirely dependent on the foods we eat for the raw materials it needs.
Our detoxification systems are designed to keep us in good health.
Problems occur when we eat poor diets and fail to supply the system
with what it needs, or if we overload the system beyond its capacity
with too many toxins. In today's world, virtually every American is in
some degree of toxic overload.
To achieve optimal health we have to nutritionally support the detox
systems, and reduce their load to a manageable level. The first step
in learning how to reduce our toxic load is to recognize that the tens
of thousands of man-made chemicals that make our every day living
possible are not harmless. Many of these chemicals are invisible,
odorless, and tasteless so we may not even be aware of their
presence. We are exposed to toxic man-made chemicals come from
everyday items like magazines, newspapers, carpets, pillows,
mattresses, clothes, cosmetics, toothpaste, and processed foods.
Toxic chemicals are responsible for many of our 20th century disease
problems and especially the new syndromes that mystify our doctors.
Fatigue, headaches, digestive upsets, flu-like symptoms, aching
joints can all be caused by environmental chemicals. High blood
pressure and even fatal cardiac arrhythmias can be caused by
chemicals ranging from solvents to pesticides. People who wake up
feeling sluggish may not realize that the cause is right under their
nose, the polyester chemicals coming off their pillow.
Short of going back to living in mud huts, what can we do to protect
our health? The answer is a lot! We can minimize our toxic loads. We
can supply our body's detoxification systems with the raw materials
they need to operate efficiently. This means eating a varied diet of
fresh, whole organic foods, avoiding processed foods, and foods with
known high toxic contents like meat and dairy. We can supplement
our diet with high quality nutrients like folic acid, vitamin B6,
magnesium, essential fatty acids, vitamin B12, methionine, reduced
glutathione, alpha ketoglutarate, dietary fiber, and vitamin C.
Minimize toxic loads by avoiding pesticides, prescription drugs, tap
water, and packaged foods with their additives and packaging
chemicals. Don't breath the fumes when putting gasoline in the car.
Buy clothes, furniture, carpets, bedding, and personal care products
made from all natural materials.
By getting adequate nutrition and avoiding toxins, the average person
can reduce their toxic load to where their body can handle it, thereby
pushing their personal equation toward health. To support you in this,
Beyond Health spends an enormous amount of its resources
constantly searching for the best and safest products including
toothpaste, shampoo, and vitamins. We do this without any grants or
donations and ask only that our customers buy from us the high
quality products we identify and make available. Whenever you have
a question about health or healthy products, subscribers are always
welcome to write to our Question & Answer column. If the need is
more urgent, you can always call our office with a question.

X-Ray Mutations
Astonishing new information about the damaging health effects of
medical x-rays is the subject of a new book, Radiation from Medical
Procedures, by John Gofman, M.D., Ph.D. Both a medical doctor and
a nuclear physicist, Dr. Gofman is one of the world's leading experts
in radiation damage. Dr. Gofman's evidence suggests that: Medical x-
rays are responsible for an estimated 60 percent of all cancer deaths
and 70 percent of all deaths from Ischemic Heart Disease (blockage
of blood vessels).
To understand why x-rays are such a serious threat to our health, we
must understand genes and mutations. Similar to the operating
system of a computer, genes are the blueprints for the structure and
function of our bodies. Just as a "glitch" in computer software can
disable a computer, a glitch in a cell's genetic programming can
cause serious problems, including cancer. Such a cellular "glitch" is
referred to as a mutation (a change from the original genetic code).
For many years, studies have linked radiation exposure with most
varieties of human cancers. Coming as a big surprise, Dr. Gofman's
findings show that x-rays contribute to heart disease. What happens
is this: x-rays cause mutations in the smooth muscle cells of the
arteries, which makes the cells dystoreunctional and unable to
process lipoproteins correctly. This in turn causes chronic
inflammation of the arterial tissue, resulting in the accumulation of
atherosclerotic plaque. This plaque eventually blocks the artery,
resulting in heart attacks and strokes.
When one contemplates the implications of Dr. Gofman's
conclusions, some alarming realities present themselves. First,
medical radiation appears to be one of the principal causes of cancer
and heart disease in America. Next, the amount of people who are
affected is enormous. M.D.s order about 300 million x-rays per year
and dentists order another 100 millionperhaps helping to explain
our increasing rates of cancer and other chronic diseases. Next, if
one combines America's annual deaths from medical errors and
prescription drugs (about 425,000) with the projected deaths from
medical x-rays (about 750,000), this adds up to well over one million
deaths per year being caused by our modern medical establishment.
Thus, modern medicine would become the single largest cause of
death in America.
Of course, diagnostic x-rays can be of benefit in certain situations,
which is why they are still usedif overused. Dr. Gofman
recommends that the total number of x-rays and the radiation dose of
each be reduced. He believes that the number of x-rays could be cut
by more than half without any loss of useful information. (Other
researchers have estimated that up to 90 percent could be eliminated
with no loss of useful data.) In addition, Dr. Gofman points out that x-
rays are not the sole cause of cancer and heart disease. Rather, x-
rays act as necessary co-factors in these diseases. That is, they are
not the only factor involved in producing these diseases, but the
disease will not happen without the x-ray.
What to do? To minimize your risk from x-rays, you must optimize
your DNA repair and minimize free radical oxidative damage. This is
accomplished by optimizing your nutrition, minimizing your toxic
exposures, minimizing stress, and getting adequate amounts of
exercise, natural light, and sleep. You must also avoid x-rays as
much as possible. Learn to say no to x-rays. Ask yourself and your
doctor, "Is this particular x-ray absolutely necessary?" Keep in mind
that up to 90 percent of x-rays are unnecessary and are done for
legal and economic reasons. Remember that health is a choice. It is
up to you to choose it. There is an appropriate time and place for
using x-rays, so make informed choices.
If nothing else will get you to avoid x-rays, then consider this: X-rays
bombard the atoms that make up your cells, "kicking" electrons out of
their normal orbits and sending them flying at high speeds through
your body's cells. These high-speed electrons crash into molecules
that make up the genetic material in human cells and subject them to
a uniquely violent kind of damagemayhem that injures the genes so
that they cannot be perfectly repaired (or even repaired at all). Put
simply, exposure to x-rays can change the genetic coding of your
cells, resulting in mutations that cause serious problems like cancer
and heart disease. Do not expose yourself to x-rays unless absolutely
necessary.