During the winter season, we have all heard the stories of a neighbor, family member or friend that goes out to shovel snow and BOOM, heart attack! What really just happened? Read on, to see where leading experts are now evolving their thoughts to understand how heart attacks happen and what to do before they strike YOU. Also, what you can do to fend off this issue before it takes root in your body and wreaks havoc on one of your most vital organs.

All along the conventional “wisdom” has been to think that cholesterol and other forms of arterial plaques are the real reason behind both heart attack and stroke. According to Dr. Thomas Cowan, MD this theory has been disproven time after time but has yet to become fully accepted throughout expert communities worldwide.

Understanding how heart attacks truly happen has been a crucial and critical pursuit over the last five decades. The steadfast belief in the coronary artery theory has cost our nation billions of dollars in unnecessary sur...

Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin that serves as an aid to vision, immune system and cell growth.

Vitamin A is available in the human diet in two forms: a preformed vitamin A which includes retinol and a provitamin A carotenoid ⁽¹⁾.  Typically preformed vitamin A is found in animal products which include dairy and meat.  Provitamin A is derived from beta-carotene, which is a part of the carotenoid family and is responsible for the red, orange or yellow color of fruit, oil, grains and vegetables ⁽³⁾.  Both forms of vitamin A must be converted to retinal and retinoic acid in order to support the body’s biological functions ^(1-2).

Are you at Risk for Vitamin A Deficiency?

Vitamin A deficiency is more common in developing countries then in the United States. One of the first signs of Vitamin A deficiency is night blindness.  There are four kinds of photopigments located in the eye that store vitamin A. One is called, Rhodopsin, which is located in the rod cells of the retina. Rhodop...

The children are back to school and flu season is right around the corner. Although your household may be a clean environment, the germs children are exposed to at school, daycare, and other public places are unavoidable. The average American child has six to 10 colds a year. In fact, children’s colds cause more doctor visits and missed school days than any other illness¹. Although most childhood infections happen only once, the protection due to antibody production lasts much longer than any potential protection stimulated by a vaccine. What’s interesting is that a mother can pass along antibodies through breastmilk to protect her infant when she was infected 30 years ago. However, a mother who avoided a certain childhood infections does not produce the antibodies that could be transferred to her child.

The immune system we are born with

Our innate immune system, the one we are born with, changes into an adaptive immune system after we are born and is exposed to an environment fu...

History and Initial Applications:

In 1957, Professor Frederick Crane and colleagues discovered CoQ10 from beef heart mitochondria at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Enzyme Institute.¹⁵ R.A. Morton, from the United Kingdom, isolated the compound in rat liver just after Dr. Crane’s discovery. It was Morton who named the compound ubiquinone, meaning ubiquitous quinone or one that “exists everywhere.” ^3,6 Scientists at Merck synthesized CoQ10 in 1958. In 1962, Peter D. Mitchell, PhD from University of Edinburgh determined how CoQ10 produces energy at the cellular level and in 1978 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry based on his discovery.⁶

Are there established safe intake levels?

The safety of escalated doses of CoQ10 has been evaluated in a randomized, placebo-controlled trials in patients with early Parkinson’s disease.⁹ A total of 80 patients received doses of 300 mg to 1200 mg per day of CoQ10 for up to 16 months, and there was no difference in the incidence of drug-r...

Vitamin B12 is a water soluble vitamin that serves as an aid to the nervous system and plays a vital role in red blood cell formation and DNA synthesis. Ultimately it is responsible for normal neurological functions and beneficial for overall health.
Vitamin B12 is considered a unique vitamin based off of its structure and absorption into the body. It’s structure is unique because it’s the only vitamin that contains a metal- cobalt part. This is why cobalamin is the term used to express B12 activity. The most common type of cobalamin is found in most dietary supplements of B12, cyanocobalamin, and is quickly transformed into an active form of B12 in the body ⁽⁸⁾.

The other unique trait to vitamin B12 is its multi-step process needed for absorption into the body. B12 is found in animal protein. After consuming the animal protein with B12 bound to it, it heads down towards the stomach where hydrochloric acid is needed to release B12 from the protein. Once B12 is released, it attaches its...

Is yeast overgrowth contributing to a more important underlying illness? Candida, a normal part of your natural microflora, is the most common cause of fungal infections worldwide¹. Although it may be a contributing factor in some illnesses, it may be the cause of others. However, it almost always accompanies intestinal, immune, degenerative, or toxicity related illnesses. Recovery from Candida overgrowth requires a whole lifestyle healing approach and once it is diagnosed, the very first step is to detect the underlying cause. So the first question is, how is yeast overgrowth diagnosed?

The truth is, everybody has Candida in their bodies and it lives in your mucous membranes. Yeast overgrowth is something of a controversial illness, and many medical professionals have not yet recognized it. There are a few tests that are recognized to determine the levels of possible Candida overgrowth. The culture test is for skin and genital yeast infections where a small skin sample is cultured to...

It’s the middle of summer now and prime time for backyard BBQ’s and pool parties. But be aware with the rain and heat comes ripe conditions for mosquito breeding. Fears of a Zika virus outbreak of epidemic proportions are being barraged upon us from the daily headlines. Are such fears really necessary here in the United States?

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would provide $622 million to fight Zika virus. Yet even by White House estimates, they claim this sum will fall well short of the necessary amount. Public health agencies and government experts have recommended $1.9 billion to fight this most recent public health emergency.

According to Chris Barker, Ph.D., a mosquito-borne virus expert from UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine: “I think the risk for Zika actually setting up transmission cycles that become established in the continental U.S. is near zero,” he recently told WebMD.¹

Even in specific U.S. regions that are hot spots for mosquito pop...

High blood pressure is often referred to as the “Silent Killer”, because it virtually has no symptoms but is one of the greatest risk factors for stroke, heart attack and death. About one in three American adults have high blood pressure (hypertension), and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)⁶,⁸, high blood pressure is “the second greatest public health threat” in the United States.

Just What is Blood Pressure?

Blood pressure is the result of the heart muscle contracting, which produces the force needed to move blood through the arteries. ¹¹ Blood pressure is usually diagnosed based on consecutive elevated readings. Readings are given in fraction of systolic blood pressure over a diastolic blood pressure. The systolic pressure indicates the blood pressure when the heart contracts. Diastolic pressure is the pressure put on the heart/arteries between heartbeats.10 Normal blood pressure is considered to 120/80 mmHg or lower, while high blood pressure is ...

In case you missed last month’s issue, we talked about Vitamin D 
deficiency and its relationship with pregnancy complications and 
hormonal imbalances. We’ll continue this month talking about Vitamin D and its relationship to cancer, heart disease and cognitive function.

Cancer

The high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency, combined with the discovery of increased risks of certain types of cancer in those who are deficient, suggest that vitamin D deficiency may account for several thousand premature deaths from colon, breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer annually.⁵
A study designed in Norway involving over 115,000 diagnosed cases of breast, colon, and prostate cancers concluded that a high level of vitamin D3 at the time of diagnosis, and thus, during cancer treatment, may improve prognosis of the three cancer types.6 Another interesting part of the study suggested that diagnoses during summer and fall, the seasons with the highest level of vitamin D3, revealed the lowest risk of ca...

“Vitamin D deficiency and its consequences are extremely subtle, but have enormous implications for human health and disease. It is for this reason that vitamin D deficiency continues to go unrecognized by a majority of health care professionals.” —Dr. Michael Holick, University of Boston

Vitamin D is a hormone that needs sunlight in order for the body to produce it. There are many factors that can affect the body’s ability to make and absorb vitamin D. Such variables include where you live, the different seasons, time spent outside, skin pigmentation, age, and absorption capacity.

Vitamin D’s benefits have been widely studied. However, most Americans are deficient in vitamin D and daily multivitamins don’t provide enough. Compelling research has demonstrated that vitamin D blood levels in the range of 50 to 80 ng/mL are associated with reduced mortality and a lower risk of common diseases.¹

For the next 2 issues, we’ll take a look at some of the research with vitamin D and how it b...