Life is hard enough without making losing weight more difficult than it needs to be.  Some helpful scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School proved that you don’t need to restrict calories or saturated fat to lose weight as long as you’re getting adequate dietary fiber! These scientists found 240 pre-diabetic patients and assigned them to one of two groups. The first group followed a weight-loss diet that restricted calories and saturated fat. The second group was simply asked to get at least 30 grams of fiber daily from a high-fiber diet, including plenty of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Neither group was asked to change their exercise habits. At the end of one year, both groups had lost the same amount of weight.  In addition, both groups had had similar drops in cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and inflammation.  In other words, both groups reduced their risk factors similarly for diabetes…

Would you believe there was a time when human beings didn’t get constipated?  That’s what Dr. Denis Burkitt found in the 1970s when he studied healthy Africans eating traditional high-fiber diets. Nor did they get conditions associated with constipation like diverticulitis, gallstones, hemorrhoids, polyps, colon cancer, diabetes, obesity, varicose veins, high cholesterol, blood clots, and other cardiovascular issues.    While these Africans got 40-100 grams of fiber daily, the average American gets about 15. Could this explain why so many of us are constipated?  Absolutely! Fiber deficiency is a major factor in our constipation epidemic!  Transit time is the time it takes for food to go from mouth to anus and out. An ideal transit time is 12-18 hours.  Faster isn’t good because time is needed to absorb nutrients from food.  But most people have the opposite problem: a sluggish bowel. This means toxic wastes don’t get eliminated fast eno…

If you’re between the ages of 23 and 38, you’re one of the nearly 73 million people in the US classified as “millennial.”  And chances are you think, like 83% of millennials, that you’re in excellent health. Think again! A 2019 report from Blue Cross Blue Shield indicates trouble is brewing beneath the surface. It found that millennials had far worse health than the previous Gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1980). In fact, millennials are experiencing an unprecedented decline in their health when they reach their late 20s—sharply declining at age 27. This is alarming and unprecedented! The report showed that from 2014 to 2017 millennials, in just three years, experienced double-digit increases of eight of the top ten medical conditions. Millennials had 21% more cardiovascular problems, 18% more major depression, 37% more hyperactivity, 19% more diabetes, 15% more endocrine problems, 11% more “tobacco use disorder” and 11% more disease overall. Mill…

New kinds of burgers made from plants, with the look, taste, smell and “mouth-feel” of real meat, are showing up in mainstream restaurants and grocery stores. They reportedly pass taste tests, even among die-hard carnivores, but are they healthy? Current levels of meat consumption are unhealthy as well as environmentally unsustainable. An international commission of leading scientists assembled by the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, concluded that, “The current global food system is unsustainable and requires an agricultural revolution …” if we hope to feed all ten billion people projected to inhabit the earth by 2050.  According to the Commission, cutting back on red meat production is an essential part of this revolution.  A major consumer of land and water, and a major producer of greenhouse gas emissions, red meat, they say, should be limited to half an ounce per person per day, and other animal proteins should be reduced in our diets as well. Ente…

Why Supplement Access Depends on Public Action Right Now From time to time, legislation appears that has the potential to significantly reshape the supplement industry not by banning products outright, but by changing the rules in ways that only the largest corporations can afford to navigate. In mid-2011, such a moment emerged. What Happened On July 1, 2011, Dick Durbin introduced S.1310, titled the Dietary Supplement Labeling Act of 2011. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released a draft guidance document addressing dietary supplement ingredient approval processes. Individually, each action was presented as a consumer-safety initiative.Taken together, they raised serious concerns across the natural health community. Why This Matters The proposed changes would have required additional, costly safety substantiation for ingredients that have long histories of safe use. The concern was not safety itself responsible supplement companies already prioritize quality…

It comes in a small roll of litmus paper that you keep in your bathroom. Just tear off a piece and pass it through your first urine each morning before eating or drinking anything. Then compare the color of the wet litmus paper to the accompanying chart to find your magic number! This number measures the acidity/alkalinity (also called pH) of your urine, which is a good indicator of the acidity/alkalinity inside your cells. The number 7 indicates neutral (neither acid nor alkaline); the numbers less than 7 indicate increasing levels of acidity; the numbers above 7, increasing levels of alkalinity.  If you’re familiar with Beyond Health, you know that we believe that all the many diseases are really only one disease called MALFUNCTIONING CELLS.  If we can keep our cells healthy, it’s impossible to get sick! So knowing the condition of our cells is invaluable information, and this simple test allows you to get a glimpse inside your cells to s…

diet is by far the most important factor in keeping your skin hydrated, smooth and supple In winter, we may go from icy cold winds outside to dry, forced air heat inside. Extreme temperatures – both hot and cold – dry the skin. Add age to the mix (as we age, our skin becomes less efficient at producing lubricating oils), and it’s not surprising that many people suffer from dry skin during the winter months. Dryness intensifies fine lines on your face, making you look older; the skin can feel rough and appear dull and flaky. In some people, skin dryness gets so bad that the outer skin layer becomes leathery and cracks, especially on hands and feet. Apart from being quite painful, these lesions compromise the skin’s barrier function, permitting entry to germs and other irritating substances, often leading to infections. Here are 8 ways to keep your skin soft, supple and well-hydrated, even during winter: 1.  First and foremost, consume enough healthy fat, esp…

If you’re reading this, you probably care about your health and try to eat a good diet. But more than 95 percent of the US population isn’t getting enough of this often neglected nutrient: fiber, and that very likely includes you! The indigestible portion of plant foods, fiber goes far beyond improving digestion and elimination. Fiber is responsible for creating a healthy environment in your gut so that healthy bacteria (probiotics) can flourish and pathogenic bacteria and other bad guys like yeasts and parasites are held in check.  The conglomeration of good and bad bugs in your gut is called your microbiome. Without enough fiber, you get a sick microbiome; without a healthy microbiome, you get a sick body. It’s that simple. Without adequate fiber all types of disease thrive, including constipation, diverticulitis, gallstones, hemorrhoids, polyps, cancer, diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, varicose veins, high cholesterol, heart disease, obesity, depression and…

How Much Vitamin C Do You Really Need? There isn’t a single “correct” dose of vitamin C that works for everyone. An individual’s vitamin C needs vary based on: Genetics Environmental stressors (pollution, toxins, lifestyle) Current health status (stress, inflammation, illness) Because vitamin C is rapidly used and excreted, blood levels alone don’t always reflect functional need—especially during periods of increased demand. Why Needs Can Be Higher Than Minimum Recommendations Vitamin C is involved in hundreds of biological processes, including: Antioxidant protection Immune defense Collagen formation Adrenal and stress response Detoxification support During times of stress or illness, the body uses vitamin C much more quickly, which is why requirements may increase temporarily. The Concept of “Bowel Tolerance” (Used With Caution) One method sometimes used to estimate personal vitamin C needs is called bowel toleranc…

Most of us know about “silent killers,” like high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and certain cancers that we can have for years without being aware of it.  But while conventional medicine has expensive tests for (and drugs to treat) these silent killers, a more fundamental silent killer, acidosis, is largely ignored.  What is acidosis?  It’s simply having too much acid in the trillions of body cells that make up our bodies. Most of our population in the US suffer from one degree or another of acidosis, usually unwittingly. And it’s killing us! pH is a measure along a continuum that runs from highly acidic to highly alkaline. The pH of our body fluids, especially the fluids in and around our cells, needs to be slightly alkaline in order for cells to function normally. Acidosis causes cells to malfunction, resulting in a host of other diseases and dysfunctions, including high blood pressure, insulin resistance and cancer. What other problems are a…

By the age of 45, one-third of all Americans have a potentially hazardous condition called diverticulosis in their colons. Half of Americans aged 60-80 develop this condition and almost everyone over the age of 90. In diverticulosis, the wall of the colon balloons out forming a pouch, or a pocket called a diverticulum (plural diverticula).  Diverticula range in size from a pea to a thimble. By themselves, diverticula aren’t a problem, but up to 25% of the time they progress to diverticulitis, a very painful and even potentially life-threatening situation.  Diverticulitis occurs when fecal matter and pathogenic bacteria get stuck in the diverticula leading to infection and inflammation.  It causes severe pain, fever, cramping, muscle spasms, bloating and nausea. Although it’s rare, sometimes the pressure inflamed diverticula exert on the colon wall cause perforation of the bowel, a life-threatening situation as bowel contents spill out infecting the whole abdo…

We’ve been telling you how important it is to get 40-100 grams of dietary fiber in your diet daily to support a healthy gut population of good bacteria (probiotics), which in turn probably does more to ensure the health of your whole body than any other single factor. And we’ve told you that at least 95 percent of the US population doesn’t get enough fiber, and challenged you to calculate how much fiber you get on a daily basis. Odds are you came up short.  We did when we took the Fiber Challenge ourselves!  It takes a lot of consciousness to include 40-100 grams of fiber in a day’s diet! We’ve found a few simple ways to include more fiber that we’d like to share with you. But first, don’t start bombarding your intestines with a huge quantity of fiber all at once! This could lead to constipation and bad flatulence. Instead, measure your average fiber intake and add more gradually, a maximum of 5 grams a day, interspersed throughout the day, un…

Over the past weeks, we’ve told you why you’ve got to have adequate fiber if you want to achieve and maintain optimal health. Fiber is sorely lacking in the American diet, and even if you eat an exemplary diet it’s easy to fall short of the 40-100 grams per day recommended for a healthy colon.  To help fill the gap, we offer Beyond Health’s Dietary Fiber Formula , one of the most advanced combinations of health-promoting fibers on the market today. These fibers help propel the stool through the intestines by softening it and adding bulk, but that’s just the beginning. These same fibers are fermented by friendly colonic bacteria (probiotics) to create food for themselves AND food for the important cells lining the intestines. Thus, healthy probiotic populations are encouraged to thrive, and intestinal linings are strengthened and renewed. IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO TAKE PROBIOTICS BY THEMSELVES!  You must have fiber to feed these friendly bacteria or they w…

About one in 23 men and one in 25 women in the US will develop colon cancer during their lifetimes.  Although using colonoscopies to find and remove cancerous polyps has reduced the overall death rate from colon cancer, among people younger than age 55, deaths from colon cancer have increased 2 percent per year from 2007 and 2016. Could there be a relationship between colon cancer and the observation that almost all Americans are deficient in fiber?  We think so. So did a group of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, who joined forces with the University of KwaZulu in rural Africa to compare the diets of African Americans and rural Africans.  African Americans have especially high rates of colon cancer, 13 times higher than rural Africans; and the researchers hypothesized that the rural Africans’ high-fiber, low-fat diets had something to do with this. To test their ideas, the researchers compared the diets and also the microbiota (gut bugs) of a…

There’s a good reason why Asians who consume lots of curries retain sharp mental function and little cognitive decline with age. It’s turmeric, the spice that gives curries their golden color. More specifically, it’s the curcumin found in turmeric. The best way to maintain a healthy, highly functional brain is to prevent out-of-control brain oxidation (“brain rust”) and its partner in crime, brain inflammation (“brain on fire”). And one of the best supplements you can take to do this is curcumin, an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory that is uniquely beneficial to the brain. A recent double-blind, placebo-controlled trial done at UCLA found that when older adults with mild memory complaints were given just 180 milligrams of curcumin a day for a year and a half, they significantly improved their performance on memory and attention tests, enhanced their mood, and had less amyloid and tau (associated with Alzheimer’s disease) in the parts of their brains that control memory and…

“Controlling the triggers of age-related inflammation could extend healthspan.”–Yale School of Medicine. Allergies, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, atherosclerosis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease—almost every American today is already suffering or will suffer at some point in their lifetimes from an inflammatory-related disease like these. But it doesn’t need to be that way! You can spot inflammation and subdue it before it gets out of control and leads to a chronic disease! What exactly is inflammation? Inflammation is the body’s healing response to injury, illness or infection. It brings heat and extra blood supplies where repairs are needed. After the job has been done, the inflammatory process should shut down.  But sometimes it doesn’t.  Instead, it smolders on, becoming chronic inflammation. Nutrient deficiencies and toxicities encourage chronic inflammatory fires that smolder and build until one day they flare up and burn out of control, producing disease. I…

. . . more centenarians per capita than anywhere else on earth In making decisions about our own diet and lifestyle, it would probably be wise to take some hints from a culture that boasts more centenarians per capita than anywhere else on earth. Many people on the island of Okinawa, off the coast of Japan, follow a traditional diet and way of life that makes them among the happiest, healthiest, and longest-lived people alive today. There’s a very worthwhile documentary called “Happy.” It interviews social scientists who’ve been studying happiness and travels the earth to find examples of truly happy cultures, trying to answer the question “what makes human beings happy?” (Hint: the common assumptions that lots of money, beautiful appearance and status can make us happy turn out to be wrong!)  One group that brims over with joy in the film are the Okinawans, both young and old, who have a strong sense of community and a simple diet and way of li…

The Real Problem Isn’t One Toxin It’s the Total Load Most people worry about a single exposure: a chemical in food, something in tap water, or an ingredient in toothpaste. But the real issue is cumulative toxic load. Small exposures add up. And when they exceed your body’s detox capacity, the excess must be stored somewhere usually in tissues and fat cells. Over time, this buildup can affect: energy levels resilience to stress immune efficiency metabolic balance long-term health outcomes Why Toxins Accumulate in the Body Your body is designed to detoxify. The liver processes compounds so they can be eliminated through urine, stool, sweat, and breath. However, detox systems can become overwhelmed when: exposure is constant nutrition is insufficient stress is high sleep is poor physical activity is low When detox pathways are overloaded, toxins are temporarily stored instead of eliminated. The Liver: Your Primary Detox Organ The liver is the body…