,

Price Points are Likely to Increase Very Soon!!!

Sadly, we just got a notice that several of our Raw Material costs are going to go up significantly in the extreme near future.

If you want to lock into the current pricing you can do so by ordering on subscription/continuity now as I have made a promise to all my friends and customers out there that once they are on, the price stays the same as long as they are on no matter what the raw costs increase too.

At least Two products are currently affected BIG TIME and one moderately so for the moment.

Sweet Sleep Z is going to undergo a significant price increase because of the Theanine supply.

Apparently, someone has invented a drug based on this raw material and the company would rather sell to the Pharmaceutical Industry than us. Go Figure!!!

So, if you need an all-natural sleep aid that is non-habit forming and contains no drugs this is it and now is the time to get it.

Next is Sugar Balance Formula. You may already know my penchant for the ketogenic diet and the many blogs I have written for years now about my experiences with it.

I have also said that I don’t care what diet you are on- I am done preaching diet to people because its like religion to too many- just reduce your calories and manage your insulin secretion. This is especially true if you are on hormonal therapy.

Simply put insulin/sugar management is one of the most critical things you can do to prevent pre-mature aging and death. And we are doing such a good job of it we are now in the middle of an incipient diabetes epidemic where people are taking drugs for “pre-diabetes” or to prevent pre and post diabetes.

If this sounds nonsensical to you it is. I don’t know what is driving up people’s blood sugars (other than the massive amounts of carbs in our diets) but I think there are toxins and environmental exposures that make watching, controlling and reducing insulin secretion and sugar in the diet a 100% absolute must

Right Now.

Big Pharma agrees with me and has begun producing their new darling (which is a very old old darling) metformin and hinting that it might even help prevent cancer. Can you imagine what would happen to me if I so much as vaguely mentioned the words “supplements” and “cancer” in the same sentence!

Anyway, Goat’s Rue is one of the raws in Sugar Balance  and as demand goes so does price so that product is going to incur a price increase any day now!

If you believe like I do- that sugar is a major cause of illness and aging, and you need some support with yours, get on subscription now and take advantage of locking into the current pricing while it’s still available.

Sleep and sugar management are 2 of the most potent anti-aging tools in my book!

 

Dr Dave

PS remember we have hugely discounted case prices on all of our products including these.  Case prices will also go up to reflect the increase in raw materials very soon. So consider your needs for the rest of the year!

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Diet and Gut Bacteria

Over the past several weeks I have attempted to decipher some of the research behind probiotics and several things that may affect the health of your gut’s bacteria known as the microbiome.

As a reminder this is still, contrary to what some people would have you believe, a new field with much to discover especially in real live people. Much of what we know comes from animal models and we know far more about the mouse microbiome than we do the human one.

This has not stopped people from making broad sweeping generalizations and exceeding the data sets by far in an effort to be what I call “the firstest with the mostest”.

This seems to be a prerequisite in the field of supplement marketing and leads to all kinds of wild but generally harmless (and often worthless) creations that allow companies to say they were first with a new radical discovery. There is also a disturbing trend among anti-aging and regenerative medicine followers to try seriously unproven approaches suggested by non-medical personal.

Today we need to take a quick look at how the gut bugs may be affected by diet choices.

A recent comparison between the Mediterranean Diet and a “typical Western diet” is instructive.
The pre-clinical study was designed as follows and is described in the quote below from Wake Forrest Medical Center:
“The Western diet consisted of lard, beef tallow, butter, eggs, cholesterol, high-fructose corn syrup and sucrose, while the Mediterranean diet consisted of fish oil, olive oil, fish meal, butter, eggs, black and garbanzo bean flour, wheat flour, vegetable juice, fruit puree and sucrose. The diets had the same number of calories.”

The outcomes suggested a 7% increase in “good bacteria” versus only a 0.5% increase by the typical Western Diet.

The inclusion of what sounds like a ton of sugar and HFCS is probably the tipping point, but notice the “bad” diet still had a small increase in “good” bacteria.

I mention this because the tendency of internet headlines is to use verbiage that implies that something “bad” happened which is a far cry from the reality of the above. A similar situation occurred in the JAMA article on fish oil published last month. Headlines stated “Throw Out Your Fish Oil” completely ignoring ridiculous study design and even the 7% improvement in the rate of heart disease compared to similar studies on statins that showed a slightly higher 12% and required other medications to achieve that as well.

I believe a good Probiotic to be the fastest most reliable way to improve the quantity and quantity of your gut bacteria.

A good diet can make it even better! I am not sure we have a clear understanding of what that is just yet.*

Doc

 

*No, no one has compared it to a Vegetarian, Paleo, or Keto diet but if I had to guess I would say the same thing I always do: reduce your total calories by 30% and avoid sugar and excess carbs to manage your insulin. I do not advocate metformin for this unless you are already diabetic or pre-diabetic.
Instead you might try this!

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Leaky Gut- The Cause or the Symptom?

It’s no surprise that a high-powered high monied marketing campaign has led to the resurgence of “leaky gut” as the cause of everything that ails you.

The original concept was helped along by the Paleo movement and by Paleo guru Dr Loren Cordain who is legendary in that community. Dr Cordain kindly took some time out of his busy schedule a few years back to talk to me. It was very enlightening and through him I met Dr. Stefan Lindberg another visionary.

The earlier work of Dr Cordain (once an exercise physiologist) focused on the immune system effects of certain dietary molecules found in grains and other standard food pyramid items. The concepts of anti-nutrients and auto immune diseases are among his contributions. Lately I see the good doctor’s name towards the end of most of the published studies suggesting that he is in a more supervisory role than a primary investigation role. Much of the work that comes out with his name on it now seems to beat up on the other non-Paleo food- milk and milk proteins.

I mention all this in the context of leaky gut because the more you read the more you see 3 things-

  1. There is a big difference between disease and health but often one is generalized to include the other. Examples of this include methylation patterns in diseases being applied to health and the behavior of things like the immune system and dietary molecules in people with Type 2 diabetes of inflammatory bowel diseases being generalized to heathy people.
  2. We really do not have a good definition of normal for many different things. As a corollary anyone interpreting results and trying to generalize them to non studied conditions should be really careful. I consider “healthy” a largely unstudied condition.
  3. Tracking the specific effects of individual nutrients is hard to do accurately and often yields disappointing results and more speculation.

Ok now you have the background of today’s point.

I think the laying of diseases and cures at the feet of “leaky gut” is far to premature to recommend the creation of an entire system of diets, nutrients and supplements. It has long been suggested that as we age our gut leaks because of “chronic low grade inflammation”. There is a well funded marketing machine out there that disagrees with me.

Personally, I have no doubt that the second thing is real- chronic low grade inflammation of the aged.

I am pretty sure I was the first to suggest that senescent cells created by telomere attrition were at least an important source of this progressive problem related to age, via the mechanism of the “senescent activated phenotype” or as DR Mike West calls it- Senstatic Activation. This coupled with other epigenetic events (not just methylation related!!!) probably results in the inflammatory phenotype and its resulted disease and repair-ability burdens we see in many people as they pass through middle age and beyond.

But I am less convinced that this inflammation automatically afflicts our gut as we age unless again UNLESS we have diseases like diabetes type 2 or inflammatory bowel disease which are by definition inflammatory (excess insulin in the early stages of Type 2 is not only unhealthy, it is inflammatory, globally in the body, and specifically at the source of insulin- the Beta islet cells).

This by the way, is the reason I now make a Sugar Balancing Formula. It is to give people a non drug (e.g. non metformin) alternative to the sugar problem that may await you if you ignore it.*

Its also worth mentioning that I cannot think of anything more anti-inflammatory than high potency fish oil especially when you are dealing with the whole body.

But there is one other thing I want to mention and that is the effect of probiotics.

While like so many things I have already mentioned the role of probiotics in the gut health is not fully expanded. But we know for sure that there is a healthy role for bacteria in the gut and we have some idea of what that requires: a pre-biotic, a probiotic and proper protections for both from stomach acid.

This is the main reason I waited so long to throw my hat in the probiotic ring. So much of what has come before was essentially worthless and I knew it.

Not so now!

Finally let me say that though I may change my mind if different or better evidence comes along, the hoopla and resurgence of leaky gut is just that-hype. At this moment I think it is a symptom of other inflammatory conditions that are best treated as I mentioned above not a cause of them (with the possible exception of inflammatory bowel disorders).

Doc

 

Here is a good review that is free to the public:
The gut microbiota and host health: a new clinical frontier

*Please note metformin is a drug that has use in diabetes. I am not suggesting you stop it or use my supplements in favor of it if you have that condition! Failure to specifically tell you this even if it seems obvious may constitute “failure to adequately disclose” information in the eyes of our dear friends at the alphabet agencies. Also note this a very open definition and as far as I know has not clearly defined legally anywhere. In similar fashion I suppose I should tell you that the products above are manufactured by me, otherwise you might not conclude what is obvious, and a “significant minority” of people (again not clearly defined what that means) might not make the painfully obvious conclusion and thus be deceived. If you think this is ridiculous so do I but yes, this is what it is coming to!!!

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Will Probiotics Cure Leaky Gut?!

Leaky gut is anatomically defined as unhealthy gaps in the absorptive surface of the intestine. Supposedly the major cause is lectins and “anti-nutrients”- things that inflame the gut and interfere with nutrient absorption.

If you want a little science here it is: the gut has immune cells sitting on its surface as well that are supposed to guard you from nasty things in the food- things that might make you sick. These cells are also supposed to “educate” your immune system on a continuous basis so it can deal with toxins, bacteria and other inflammatory agents that you might ingest.

Along the way a balance is struck between these cells. If that balance in perturbed then your gut and your entire system may be perturbed. You may un balance your immune system. So far, the evidence is sketchy but there is some reasonable thought processes that suggest that some people with auto immune diseases have this as a contributing factor.

Remember Leaky Gut is a “syndrome” which means there is no clearly definable way to diagnose it.

As a result, its has been a catch all for many different problems and some people claim miraculous results and entire body habitus changes (weight loss, muscle building) and personality changes (happier, more productive better sleep) as well as overall decrease of resolution of joint pains and the ubiquitous “brain fog” (try spending less time on Facebook and your cell phone browsing nonsense!)

So, we are left with a situation that often permeates (no pun intended) the world of alternative medicine which I often inhabit.

What to do!?

Personally, I think I would start with a good probiotic and an honest assessment of my life choices and whether they have brought me happiness. I would look at sleep patterns and lifestyle choices like diet and exercise and try to improve those areas as needed.

There is no question that some illness like the latest epidemic of liver disease based on non-alcoholic fatty liver can cause changes in the intestine that might qualify as leaky gut. Similarly, the expansive use of non-nutritive sweeteners, specifically saccharin and the sugar alcohols can change the microbiome (bugs in your gut).

This is why probiotics may be the answer or at least part of it. It makes total sense to do what is needed to have a healthy bunch of little buddies in the gut to help you out.

But remember the inflammatory responses of your body are not limited to your gut-they are mostly global in your body, e.g. everywhere!

I maintain and always have that the single most important thing you can do for inflammation is get your Omega 3 doses  up to a reasonable level.

The gut is part of the equation though and a Probiotic works wonderfully there.

So, if you think you might have leaky gut, start by fixing your microbiome!

Doc

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The Number One Body Transformation Secret

I have to admit I enjoy exercise a lot. I’ve enjoyed many different kinds of exercise and been exposed and even trained with some of the absolute visionaries of human performance. Even when I am traveling I can always find time for a good workout.

But exercise is not really as much of a transformation tool as the exercise industry would have you believe. Now before you start leveling criticism at me for this grand departure from the accepted dogma let me remind you I do have a CPT certificate and continue my education in the industry even though I don’t make a living that way.

I have written many blogs on the best kind of exercise  as well as diet which seem to be two inseparable topics for most people.

But for the moment I want you to separate them and digest these statements.

I view exercise as a fitness tool.  I diet as a weight loss tool.

If you ask me what would help the most people in the U.S. I would have to say diet at least at first.

While almost everyone who is overweight is also out of shape and it may seem artificial to separate the 2 ways of improving our bodies the truth is that each contributes to health in a very different fashion.

An average of 30 pounds weight loss for the typical overweight/obese American would go a lot farther than 3 hours a week in the gym in the first 12 to 18 months. Put another way, if I found a Genie in a bottle that would grant me one wish for the population of this country first, it would be weight loss.

Weight loss, especially significant weight loss revamps your body’s metabolism, resets your hormones, your sleep, your sex life and so on.  Exercise may do a lot of those things as well but it takes a lot longer.

Now with the American obsession with looking good..

I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you the 6 pack ab look is all about body fat, which in turn is linked to body weight. Again put another way, you will only see your 6 pack if you lose enough weight and fat to let it show, no matter how much exercise you do.

Now the corollary question of all this is can you be fat and fit?  That would depend on what you call fit. If you are looking for pure strength then you will find a lot of fat looking people who are very strong.  But they do not age well. Indeed the older we get the more being lean becomes super important.

And what about this common question: Can you do both together.  Again it depends.  If you are morbidly obese or seriously overweight I would stick with weight loss as the main focus and add in exercise slowly in increasing doses.

If you are already lean and strong and have endurance chances are you stopped reading this a long time ago.

You might, if you are a regular reader, even wonder why I am writing this. After all The Longevity Edge audience are probably among the fittest people in the world.

Two things: First we are getting a lot of notoriety out there in the big world and that means a lot of first timers are visiting looking for how to get started in an effective anti-aging program. Second I do a lot of traveling. I cannot help but notice how many of my fellow Americans are just plain fat.  I call it carb poisoning these days.  The bloated faces, waddling walks, giant bellies, etc there is far more of that amongst us than there are lean healthy specimens!

Worse TV has been taken over by reality shows! Part of that reality is preponderance of fat people. And that my friend is a real reality no matter how silly/phony the shows are!

If you want it all…

Is a 6 pack, leanness, power and strength then the ketogenic/Paleo diet has been a mainstay for me for a long time with great results.

I had someone ask me if I still look like I did when we introduced Energy X Maxx.  The truth is I am lighter and not quite as buff, but I am still OK with how everything looks and more than OK with how it feels to grow younger each year.

Stay tuned for a pic or two but remember this: I am anything but special and anything but an exception. I follow the same guidelines I give you and I do so with consistency including my supplementation, diet and exercise.

Trust me if it works for a genetically very average guy like me, YOU should have glorious results.

Here’s to you.

Doc

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Doctor versus Doctor

Funny doings on the internet where egos including my own are wounded, defended, and brutalized, But first the sales pitch in case you are one of those rare people who doesn’t read my long winded but heart felt stuff!

Don’t forget our Limited Time Special Offer

Buy 3 get one Free!

Ok since specials are popular here is today’s.  I am offering a one-time  free bottle of Sweet Sleep Z to anyone who signs up for 3 months of our Pro Life Ultra PB probiotic/prebiotic combo.

The probiotic is something you will want to stay on for a bunch of reasons including gut health “support”, and getting the most out of the nutrients and supplements you eat/consume.

Nothing supports healthy digestion and absorption better than a health microbiome!

Speaking of which, if you are trying to lose weight, no matter what diet you are on, I truly believe this will help.  But like so many things it might take a little longer than a day or a week.

As a matter of fact, the reason we are only doing this special based on 3 months subscription (which you can cancel!) is because it will take a minimum of 6 weeks of daily use to change over those little helpers in your gut.  That number is for ANY probiotic, not just mine which includes enteric absorption enhancement and a pre-biotic all rolled into one!

Ok on to today’s rant.

I have a confession to make.  You and I are in the minority.

I say this because you are reading what I am writing and pretty much very few people have ever heard of me! Right now, I have about 30,000 regular readers and that is it.  Its been that number for the past 10 years or so.  And pretty much it’s the same people as 10 years ago too thank goodness.

Loyalty is beyond value!

Next confession: I have learned far more about the business side of things than I ever wanted to.  I still don’t know very much mind you and its clear to me by the unending rash of “super docs” that come and go on the internet for a quick hit and gone that I should be very happy there is you and me for all these years!

Loyalty is beyond value!

One of the things the business side has taught me is how much nonsense and down right repetition is out there.  The “problem agitate solve” formula for copywriting never seems to get old and if people are aware of it they forget more or less immediately.

Speaking of forgetting- before you forget, I am running this limited time special of buy 3 Of our Wonderful and thank goodness great selling probiotic here and I will ship you a bottle of our equally wonderful Sweet Sleep Z free!  If you wonder what the connection is between the gut and sleep you missed this email.

Back to the “rant”.  I am as I said a bit sensitive to the newbie medical docs who appear out of nowhere usually manufactured by an ad or copywriting agency. Most recently I saw a long super well done (in other words costly!) video by a now retired pediatric heart surgeon who discovered “revolutionary new secrets about lectins”. Of course the obligatory book was released first.

I admit it I bit and watched some of the video, mainly because I wanted to see how it was done.

OMG as they say!

There was absolutely nothing new here at all! Those of you familiar with Paleo and Loren Cordain (whom I had the privilege of interviewing several years ago) are intimately familiar with the “anti-nutrients” known as lectins.  The video went on to talk about “leaky gut syndrome” in an almost comical way ending with “It’s not your Fault You’re Sick its because of the Ignorance of Your Doctors!” * Classic problem agitate solve!

Finally, there was some vague memory that it triggered and I remembered a blog I wrote, tongue in cheek of course called, “I want a Date With DR. Suzanne!”

Do you remember Suzanne Gundakust DC?**  She of the gut microbes are making you fat scenario!!!! Well Dr. Suzanne pretty much said what Dr pediatric heart surgeon said and she did it at least 8 years ago.  Cordain and company said it 10 years ago and the war between China Study author Colin Campbell still rages although frankly Cordain has won the debates in my book.

Well Dr Suzanne also did something very smart (or her handlers did). She bought up all the negatives like “fraud” and “scam” and so forth and erected a wall of positive sites and comments that would foil everyone looking to find out who she really was and what her credentials really are.

So does our pediatric heart surgeon friend!  Except he made the mistake of mentioning one Dr. T Colin Campbell (The China Study guy) who then wrote a pretty accurate scathing review of our retired friend’s stuff, even mentioning lectins as the “darlings of the Paleo crowd”.  Sour grapes Colin?

But then even Campbell (the China study guy) made some questionable remarks like citing foods that are grass fed and free range as “hard to find”.  Maybe in the market you shop at, but frankly this stuff is all over the place these days. Though I bet in China they are far more “free range” markets than here still.

Now I had an original observation which I will share with you before I make a dietary recommendation of sorts. Our pediatric surgeon friend made a hysterically funny statement about heart disease and its risks ending with “after all I am a cardiologist”.  Well, uh sort of.  I have not doubt he had basic cardiology training years ago when he started his practice and before he did surgery. But I question how many pediatric cases require bypass surgery the way adult’s do when they get heart disease.  I would guess probably correctly almost NONE, and the illustrious doctor’s career was fed by fixing patent ducti and aberrant valves that kids are born with.

The final interesting thing was how fat and out of shape he was.  70 pounds overweight in spite of going to the gym and running 30 miles a week.  Now again I wasn’t there to witness this but I have to cast aspersion on these claims.  The 70-pound overweight guy in the picture did not look like ANYONE I know who runs 30 miles a week and works out for an hour in the gym unless overeating is considered a workout.  I would bet the slim trim version we see now emerged AFTER he retired, not while he was in active practice simply because I have first hand knowledge of just how toxic medicine can be to its practitioners!

So here is my simple dietary advice: If you are gluten intolerant (or far more rarely allergic) avoid gluten and other lectins by processing those foods that have them appropriately. Are night shades like tomato and egg plant toxic. Maybe in large doses but they also have some health benefits. Personally, I do not eat a ton of either so I can’t comment!

Do you need to take a “lectin blocker” as sold by our buddy above?  Probably not- and by the way these have been around for a long time again making all of this old, outdated and redundant as a health pitch. Frankly if you really believe they are harmful its not that hard to avoid them completely. Try that first.

And of course since I make one and take one I am going to tell you that “Leaky Gut Syndrome” and other GI maladies may be better served by our special ProBiotic.

Now what kind of diet should you be on.  I have written much about Ketogenic Diets long before they became the rage they are now but I also say they may not be forever or for everyone!

I detail this in “THE Horrendous Diet” with my friend Matt Furey who has had similar experiences.

Bottom line: reduce your calories, reduce (not necessarily avoid completely carbs and especially sugars) simple carbs and thus manage your insulin.  I don’t care if you do it with bacon or broccoli.

But your gut might-hence today’s special which runs out at the end of today!

 

Dr Dave

*Prior to succumbing to what I can only guess is a group of people who understand marketing and the internet the Pediatric Heart Surgeon above did at least patent many useful devices in his field and held a prestigious position at a reputable med school. So, in life he’s no slouch.  I hope his internet endeavors greatly exceed my own and give him the freedom to pursue a wonderful life full of REAL discoveries for humanity. He would be blessed to have as many loyal customers as I do!

*this in and of itself is not necessarily a false statement!

** And where is she now?!

 

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Buy 3 get one Free!

Ok since specials are popular here is today’s.  I am offering a one-time free bottle of Sweet Sleep Z to anyone who signs up for 3 months of our Pro Life Ultra PB probiotic/prebiotic combo.
The probiotic is something you will want to stay on for a bunch of reasons including gut health “support”, and getting the most out of the nutrients and supplements you eat/consume.
Nothing supports healthy digestion and absorption better!
Now you may be thinking, “OK I get the probiotic, but I am not sure about the sleep thing!”
Think about the past year.  Odds are there were a bunch of occasions when you could have used an all-natural, non-habit forming, non-drug sleep support aid to get a restful night’s sleep. Now read on and learn a bit more about:
Sleep and the Gut- the Brain to Brain connection
And then click here to get your free bottle of Sweet Sleep Z along with your Probiotics.
As a male I have to be careful about talking about the “second brain” lest I be misinterpreted.  For our purposes today, we’ll call the first brain the one inside your skull and the second one your gut!
Now it may be a bit of a stretch to connect the two but you may be surprised at the relationship.
First there are a whole hose of holisticky terms for the aging dysfunction of the gut.
The one you are likely to hear about most goes by the term “leaky gut syndrome”.  The word syndrome is a tip off. It basically means there is not a clear single definition or a clear single treatment.  It also usually means a very wide spread and nonspecific batch of symptoms that are not usually useful to your doctor since they point in numerous different directions. 
Antibiotic use (and according to the leaky gut web sites this means any, ever, at any time for any reason justified or not).
Things like ADD, Carb Craving, fatigue, arthritis and or joint pain are typical of the protean symptoms of leaky gut. The prevalence of a batch of other symptoms actually related to the gut in the complete absence of any diagnosable abnormality often leads to physician/patient frustration and the all too common article on someone health blog stating that “finally I figured out what the doctors couldn’t- I have Leaky Gut!”.
Pathophysiologically leaky gut is caused by damage (and inflammation) to the intestinal cell adhesion points that then allows particles from gut bacteria (ingested and or already part of your microbiome) to get into the bloodstream and cause low grade chronic inflammation.  Said inflammation can then cause problems in the nervous resulting in “brain fog” and fatigue and sleep disturbances.
It’s also suggested that via hormonal mechanisms poor sleep habits can cause or exacerbate leaky gut.
So, this is our first brain gut connection.
The second is caused by neuro toxic microbiome metabolites.  That is a mouthful but here’s how it works.  If you’ve been reading my stuff for a while you know that the gut bacteria provide at least 20% of our calories by producing short chain fatty acids and other metabolites.  This is one of the reasons why calorie counting and different diets seem to yield different results.  Simply put it’s the REAL reason why what I said 12 years ago “Calories are Calories” is fundamentally incorrect.  The different types of bacteria yield different metabolites with different calorie content!
Now the next part of the story is NOT a stretch.  If you have the wrong kind of bacteria (or maybe even just disrupted sleep!) you can produce the wrong kind of metabolites or too much of one kind or another.
The result is toxicity to your brain and nervous system.  Now this is not the kind that will kill you, at least not right away.  But research suggests (see below) it is possible to have brain gut linked dysfunctions that impair your neuro cognitive (brain function!) ability.
I need all of that I can get on a daily basis and I suspect so do you!
So that is the reason I’ve decided to offer the special buy 3 get one free special as detailed above.
Remember this is a one time offer so take advantage now!
Doc

 

 

 

Suggested reading:

J Med Food. 2014 Dec;17(12):1261-72. doi: 10.1089/jmf.2014.7000.

The gut microbiome and the brain.

Galland L1.

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,

The Cause of this Epidemic May Surprise You!!

Recent research into what have become two separate age-related epidemics has suggested a surprising potential cause that heretofore has been pretty much ignored.

Those twin devils, obesity and diabetes seem to be running rampant through our society with no end in sight.

Just the other day someone I know well who is my age was just diagnosed with diabetes. This individual is probably 25 pounds overweight, sedentary and lives the typical American life that centers around work and family. There are 40+million people in this country alone that share this.

The government response is to create yet another new and useless food pyramid that mouth piece agencies and people echo with the certainty that it’s the “right” way to eat. It differs little from the previous decades of great dietary advice we have been given and in my opinion is yet another case of “The emperor has no cloths”-the continued propagation of health myths that can only worsen the situation.

Look around you and you will see the effects of Western Life Style. As a supplement designer, researcher and manufacturer I believe nutritional supplementation is essential but no way will it fix a bad diet, sedentary life style and slavish devotion to stressful situation.

Like so many of the epidemics we face (Cancer, Alzheimer’s etc.) we are supposed to accept them as normal and unavoidable. Billions of dollars of advertising are spend pointing the way to YOUR only alternative- More Drugs! The OPDIVO ad campaign was one that incredibly missed the ire of the FTC and FDA in spite of massive blow back from cancer sufferers and their families. Somehow that did not constitute a “consumer watch dog agency complaint” I guess and they skated free and still do.

But don’t even suggest a vitamin will help you live longer or better that will get you fined and in jail while Big Pharma wrings out every last dollar from your pension plan because “prevention doesn’t work”.
Excuse me for trying!

So that brings us to today’s potentially (note the weasel word made necessary by the agencies that protect you from yourself and making your own decisions) may interrupt the cycle of both diabetes and obesity- or at least give you a fighting chance against this dual epidemic.

The key is sleep my friend- a good night’s sleep!

I have droned on and on about sleep related hormone balance and all kinds of rhythms in your hypothalamus that control hormone secretion etc.

I will spare you that today and tell you in simple fashion about another link in the chain of obesity and diabetes.

Relative recent newcomers to the metabolic/sleep link are orexin A and B- both secreted by the hypothalamus, that time clock like organ in your brain that macro regulates most of your metabolic functions.
Disruption of these hormones is linked to obesity and metabolic perturbations like diabetes and metabolic syndrome (or whatever the latest round of name changers calls it!). Ironically its also intimately linked to what is poised to become yet another epidemic- Sleep Apnea and other disruptive sleep disorders.

As usual people like me (doctors) are focused on treating the symptoms and not the cause. I don’t personally non-medically think you can treat any of these disorders without first treating sleep.
If you need help with this I make an amazing “sleep support” agent called Sweet Sleep Z.

It may be the first step to getting your metabolism under control so the effects of diet and exercise yield you the results you want. You’d be amazed at how many people I have seen over the years that worked out hard and dieted, albeit following the pyramids, and never mastered their bodies or their metabolisms. Many are now on what I call the drug treadmill.

Disordered sleep may be the cause of more than you think.

Here’s how I fixed mine.

Doc

You may have also noticed the diet link above. That product is now celebrating its one-year anniversary. I am told that Kim Kardashian got her body back by going on something like this. Ah yes, celebrity weight loss! Ranks right up there with divorce, new boyfriend, new baby, checking into rehab and disastrous plastic surgery results to reignite a career. Man am I glad I’m not famous.

 

 

Reference: Ageing Res Rev. 2015 Mar;20:63-73. doi: 10.1016/j.arr.2014.11.001. Epub 2014 Nov 22.
Sleep disorders, obesity, and aging: the role of orexin.
Nixon JP1, Mavanji V2, Butterick TA3, Billington CJ4, Kotz CM5, Teske JA6.

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Food Myth

I really need to write to you about something nice, happy and fun. I promise I will but in the meantime there is a war going on. It’s not a new war but it’s been ratcheted up and the balance of power is temporarily shifting.

The main problem is that people have very short memories these days. There is a sound byte mentality where the “newest news” dominates for a few days until something else takes its place.

The war on supplements has been going on since 2000 when I started. It has just gotten more fierce primarily because more and more companies are making more and more supplements and there is more and more money being drained from Big Pharma’s pockets.

Or is there.

This war is not actually as clear cut as it seems. Big Pharma already makes at least 40 billion a year from selling supplements. They do it by volume and dominating the retail space. There is a reason Longevity Edge supplements will never be in GNC!

What is really desired is total ownership and dominance of the “alternate” income stream.

That would also make our friends at the alphabet agencies in government happy. Not that there are any lobbyists and money involved but…

I have seen it all before over and over again:

The Codex Alimentarius

Vitamins just give you expensive urine

We should all be taking statins- isn’t this getting closer and closer along with blood pressure and diabetic medicine. We should of course not look to our diets and the recommendations that are made as potential culprits for the epidemic of unhealthiness.

Genetics will save us from cancer- after 2 trillion dollars and the sequencing of the human genome we still are beating that drum of failed therapies.

Fish is better than fish oil because there is “some magical ingredient maybe vitamins or proteins” that makes it better than just taking essential fatty acids. That is not what population based data suggests and it makes absolutely no scientific biologic sense but it is what is being pushed yet again. God forbid we should do a study with a meaningful dose of fish oil and actually check and Omega6/3 ratio to see if we are there!

Don’t believe this? Check out the links here.

Now here is the thing. You are liable to get the same answer you get when you look into why cell phone service is so crappy in so many places: its not that we’re not spending on towers (the truth) it’s the government regulations ( the BS!)

Big Pharma has spend 60X its R and D budget on advertising for years now and its not because of regulations. It’s because the money that is made is greater than the GNP of many countries!
Where does this leave someone who is trying to care of themselves.

Well I can legally tell you where I start and that is all I can tell you.

I start with the basics

  1. Young Life Daily
  2. Ultra Potent Fish Oil

Now for the good, fun and happy news. Doing this has helped thousands of customers and me and my family stay younger and healthier than most of the other people we know including people 20 years younger.
I am not allowed to imply suggest or otherwise insinuate that anything I tell you actually works. But you may very likely be one of those healthy people who have been loyal for so long.

Observe how you feel, think and do, and then decide who is telling you the truth!

 

Doc

PS: If just eating healthy ala the recommendations were so friggin’ good for you why are we fat, sick and zombie like as a society. Break the chains!!!!!!!!

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The Skinny on Saturated Fat

With the recent announcement by Dr Oz that we should put butter in our coffee, and a TIME magazine cover saying we may have been wrong about fats, a subtle shift has begun to occur in mainstream dietary thinking.

The concept that saturated fats may not be the villainous life ending culprits we (doctors, dieticians, alphabet agencies etc) have been telling you has begun to get some traction.

Here is the actual skinny on this deal.

There has never been ANY solid evidence that saturated fats found in things like butter and red meat are bad for you. But there has been a 40 year “low fat diet” agenda that has rooted itself in the politics and bias of the American Medical System as well as Big Food.

It is ironic to me that my journey down this road has some very interesting parallels that I will get to in a minute but first a few stories.

1)      2 years ago I interviewed Dr. Staffan Lindeberg for the current telomere book I am working on.  Dr. Lindeberg lived and studied the last remaining true Paleo tribe on the planet, the Kitavans. His conclusions pointed solidly to our diet as the major cause of most of the diseases we associated with aging including heart disease and cancer. On page 177 of his book Food and Western Disease Dr Lindeberg correctly states that high consumption of lean meat including red meat does not increase heart disease. Similarly high cholesterol intake has a marginal effect on serum cholesterol and complete adherence to a low fat recommended diet can reduce serum cholesterol by about 3% at best. And yet for the past 40 years red meat has been vilified, saturated fats have been vilified and eating less cholesterol has been pounded into the medical and public consciousness. While all this was happening America and much of the Western world were getting fatter and fatter.  Dr. Steffan Lindeberg’s was written in 2010 long before Dr Oz or TIME magazine.

2)      I have written in great detail about my Paleo adventures 6 years back and my current ketogenic diet.  In both cases I was able to get very lean.  Maintaining a ketogenic diet or what you might call “ultra low carb” has far and away surpassed Paleo in fat loss. I should also add that while I was Paleo I was also running anywhere from 35 to 70 miles a week.  Now I am not bashing Paleo, I am just telling you what has happened in my life.  Keep in mind each of these diets has been far more sustainable than vegetarian or Vegan for me personally and has yielded much greater fat loss without concomitant loss of muscle mass.  Again not bashing any diet just telling you my own experience.

3)      The other day I was in line at the grocery store.  I watched a man and woman in front of me at check out. Both of them were less than 5 feet 5 inches and both HAD to be in excess of 250 pounds.  At least 70% of what they were buying said “low fat” on it.  Behind me was a mother with 3 children. They (mom and kids) were all morbidly obese.  Again they had carts full of “low fat” stuff.  The predominant theme for both sets of obese people was carbs, carbs and more carbs, punctuated by lots of “whole grain”. It was truly astounding.  Equally astounding was the fact that I had trouble finding high or normal fat content foods in this store.  Almost everything was “low fat”  I could not find  normal fat yogurt or any yogurt with less than 15 grams of carbs even the plain stuff.  The more fat they removed the more carbs they added.

 

My cart contained the following that day” extra virgin olive oil, no nitrate free range uncured bacon, free range ground chicken, a quart of heavy cream and 4% minimum milk fat cottage cheese, vanilla extract and cinnamon.  My few items towered over the lot of my neighbors in terms of fat content and yet I was by far the leanest person in the line, probably the whole store.  I will let you draw your own conclusions but one other thing: I have put 6 other people on the ketogenic diet. 5 of them have been able to adhere to it no problem and all 5 have lost a lot of weight in a short period of time.  The person who cannot or will not follow it cites inability to “eat all that fat” because of a decade of near vegetarianism.  She has not lost any weight on this diet!

4)       Ok I mentioned above that there were some parallels in the way I got started on this diet.  My initial and primary reason came after reading the book Cancer as a Metabolic Disease by Dr Tom Seyfreid.  I was not interested in weight loss.  I weighed 203 and looked “ok” in my own estimation, never having come close to my max chubby weight of 236.  But after a week on the diet Dr Seyfreid described I lost 11 pounds and concluded that a cancer prevention or treatment diet was indeed doable unless the person was far gone.  After that I found the work of Phinney and Voleck who basically advanced the Adkins theories and the rest is history. I am now under 10% body fat and have lost about 30 pounds.  I look and feel better than I have in a long long time even though I have always considered myself to be feeling really good and looking OK.

In each of these resources, Seyfried and Phinney and Voleck I found so much evidence that politics and personal agendas set what the American public believes. I won’t name names but it boils down to a few very influential researchers and doctors who had a major vested interest in defending their views. Bullying and riding over anyone who questioned them set up the past 4o years of nonsense.

I know that eating fat to burn fat sounds very counterintuitive but that is what happens.  I will also tell you I believe that Vegan and Vegetarian diets can work as well.  How can this be?  How can 2 so very different routines one consisting of dairy, animal and vegetable fat and the other of mostly fruits vegetables and nuts yield the same result?

The answer is calorie reduction and insulin management.

People eating both high fat (60% or more as fat) and Vegan/Vegetarian diets have lower calorie consumption and lower insulin levels.

How can high fat be low calorie?  Try eating this much fat and watch your appetite disappear.

In about 2 weeks I should have my latest lipid profile for you so stay tuned!

 

Doc

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