In our polarized country, anger is common.  Not that there aren’t legitimate reasons why many people are angry or ways that anger can be used constructively to make positive change. But often you can sense in people a kind of aimless anger, an angry mood just looking for a target. What if a lot of this anger had to do with diet?  It probably does.  Just like depression (which is described as anger turned towards the self), anger can be a mood disorder, and the Standard American Diet (SAD) fosters mood disorders. Omega-3 fatty acids—lacking in the SAD—are key to mental health and a feeling of well-being. One of the brain’s major components is docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 fat, and the association between low DHA brain levels and depression, suicide and violence is well established.  Receptors in the brain for the “reward” and “feel-good” neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin are made from DHA. If DHA isn’t available, the body will use inferio…

. . . plus, how skin is your body’s early warning system for recognizing diseaseBy now, you know skin is your body’s largest organ.And as you might expect, its size is a telling indicator of the important role it plays in our overall health. Because skin—all 22 square feet and 8 pounds of it—is made up of a complex system of cell layers, nerves, and glands that protects us, nourishes us, and helps us interact with the outside world.How your skin is a window to your overall healthScientists generally agree that the health of your skin is a reflection of your overall health. In other words, if you look healthy on the outside, you are likely healthy on the inside.In fact, there are many ways your skin provides clues that something is wrong internally. Inflammation, discoloration, swelling, numbness, wrinkles—to name a few—are “early warning signs” that can be used to identify hidden health risks, or the onset of serious disease conditions.Not surprisingly, such indicators of your body’s e…

Millions of Americans, especially older Americans, are on drugs called blood-thinners, usually the drug Coumadin (warfarin). Many more take a daily aspirin to thin their blood.Although these drugs are called blood thinners, what they actually do is make blood platelets less sticky and apt to form clots. Since sticky blood platelets and clots are a major factor in increasing blood viscosity, these drugs have the effect of thinning the blood.What’s wrong with thick, sticky blood? Is your blood too sticky? And if so, are drugs the answer, or are there more natural alternatives?Problems with Sticky BloodClotting is crucial to survival. Without good clotting ability, a small cut could lead to massive blood loss, and even death. However blood that clots too easily or fails to break down clots that are no longer useful is equally life-threatening: an undesirable clot that blocks an artery can cause a fatal heart attack or stroke. While some people suffer from genetic clotting defects that mak…

Do you eat to live or live to eat? Neither could be called a healthy relationship with food. Eating to live—using food simply as fuel—takes the joy out of one of life’s great pleasures. On the other hand, giving food too much importance, either by living only for our next meal or obsessing lest we eat too much or eat the wrong things, isn’t a joyful or healthy relationship either.In a healthy relationship, we would look forward to our encounters with food. We would respond appropriately to our hunger cues by supplying ourselves with nourishing and tasty food (in the words of nutrition expert Mark Hyman, MD, “foods we love that love us back”), and we would eat until satisfied and no more. We would trust our body cues to maintain a weight that is perfect for us (although it might not conform to the latest fashion). But according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD), almost 10% of our population is struggling with one or more of the thre…

Can supplementary calcium cause a heart attack? At one time the main question we got about calcium was from women who weren’t sure they were getting enough to prevent osteoporosis. Today, both men and women wonder if taking supplementary calcium is going to give them a heart attack or get into their brains or other soft tissues.Taking calcium in Beyond Health’s Bone Support will NOT do these things, and here’s why.First, although calcium supplements have been called into question, calcium in food has never been shown to be a problem. The calcium in our supplements is identical to the calcium found in food.This is not true of most calcium supplements!We use only organic calcium, while calcium found in most supplements is usually inorganic. Our calcium is reacted with organic acids in such a way that the resulting molecules are identical to calcium found in food – organic calcium. The body doesn’t know how to handle the inorganic form, and it can easily be deposited where it shouldn…

How do you get your family to adopt better health habits?  At Beyond Health we get this question a lot, especially from people who’ve read one of Raymond Francis’s books and have become convinced they want to make some major changes in their lifestyle.  Here are some ideas. First, make time to talk with your spouse or other adult members of the family about your family’s health and what you’ve been learning. They may be “ripe for the picking” and enthusiastic about your ideas. Or they may be ready to make some changes, and not others. You may be excited about going raw and vegan; they may want hot, cooked meals for dinner. You may want to refuse vaccinations for your children; they may want to do more research first before taking such an unpopular stance. Encourage them to empower themselves by reading Raymond Francis’s book The Great American Health Hoax, so it’s not just you who’s supplying information. The Maintenance List chapter alone is worth the price of the boo…

. . . 96% of extra virgin olive oils tested were adulterated with cheap, inferior oilsWhen I’m invited out for the holidays, one of my favorite gifts for my host or hostess is a bottle of Beyond Health Olive Oil. I’m extremely proud of our olive oil. Not only has it won taste tests, but our olive oil is uniquely healthy. You see, unlike most olive oils on the market, it’s the real deal. That's why a study at the University of California found our olive oil to have the highest antioxidant content of any oil tested. The same study ranked Whole Food's olive oil near the bottom.How it's madeMade the traditional way with care on a family-owned estate, Beyond Health olive oil is unrefined and unadulterated with inferior oils. It’s what you might expect any high-quality olive oil to be. But here is what the consumer is up against. A 1996 study by the FDA found that 96% of the extra virgin olive oils tested had been adulterated with cheap, inferior oils. This means that 96% of the “qualit…

. . . don't underestimate the importance of stress-reduction strategiesHere's an interesting study that bears witness to the role stress can play in making us more vulnerable to the bad effects of environmental pollution.Traffic pollutants like nitrogen oxides can damage lung tissue and make asthma worse. Researchers at the University of Southern California wanted to know how stress combined with higher nitrogen oxide levels would affect lung function in a group of almost 1,400 children. They assessed how stressful the children's living environments were, then measured nitrogen oxide levels in the air where the children lived as well as several indicators of lung function in the children. When nitrogen oxide levels went up by 22 parts per billion, lung function in the kids from high-stress homes got 5% worse. However, the same increase in air pollution had no affect at all on the kids living in low-stress homes!An earlier study by some of the same researchers found that when exposed to…

. . . the mind is far more powerful than most of us appreciateCan thoughts prolong life? Absolutely! In a 2002 study that followed more than 600 people for 23 years, researchers at Yale University found that having a positive attitude toward aging extended average lifespan for more than 7 years. This makes thoughts and expectations more powerful in extending life than other factors such as low blood pressure, low cholesterol, maintaining a healthy weight and regular exercise!It’s not that other factors aren’t important, but the mind is far more powerful than most of us appreciate. Every thought and every feeling has biochemical repercussions, some good and some bad. Not surprisingly, positive thoughts and emotions like joy, compassion, optimism, love, gratitude and a sense of purpose bolster both immunity and general health, while negative thoughts and feelings, like anger, envy, apathy, gloom and resentment do the opposite.But how can you maintain a positive and hopeful expectati…

Like everyone else, children need water.  For one thing, the immune system functions best when well-hydrated. Mild dehydration in children can also cause constipation and behavior changes, for example acting tired, dizzy or slow to respond.Most kids do get enough; the problem is they’re getting it in the form of fruit juice, soft drinks, energy drinks and sports drinks – all high in sugar, and most containing additional toxins as well.Sweetened drink consumption is on the rise. Soft drinks are the single largest contributor of calorie intake in the US today. About 50% of the added sugars in our diets come from sodas, sports and energy drinks, coffee beverages and fruit juice. A recent article in Pediatrics noted that energy and sports drinks are being heavily marketed to children; that energy drinks are inappropriate because they contain stimulants; and that sugary sports drinks should be avoided because they contribute to obesity.Acknowledging that many kids today are hooked on f…

. . . a completely safe solution to the problem of body odor!There are quite a few "alternative" deodorants on the market today, but they aren't a whole lot better than those you'd buy at your local drugstore. One example is the crystal deodorant stones that claim to be aluminum-free while containing a form of aluminum!It usually takes me a long time to find products that meet my exacting standards for safety, effectiveness and value. But wading through all the deodorants out there took years! When I finally found IndiuMagic I was ecstatic.This simple and completely safe product has only two ingredients: indium sulfate and water. It's safe enough to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for oral use!It's not an antiperspirant; I don't recommend clogging your pores to prevent perspiration. What it does do is prevent body odor. And it does this in a most ingenious way.Body odor is caused by bacterial growth on the skin. These bacteria need water to thrive and multiply. Th…

. . . rutin in apples is a better blood-thinner than any medicationWe have always maintained that food is our best medicine. There’s one catch, however: it has to be real food, not the phony “food-like substances” that pass for food in today’s supermarkets. A couple of weeks ago, we reported that an Ohio State University study found eating an apple a day reduced LDL oxidation by 40% in just four weeks.Now here’s another benefit from eating apples: they’re high in rutin. What’s rutin? It’s a polyphenol, a close cousin of quercetin (like the quercetin in Cell Repair Formula), with some of quercetin’s properties. Like quercetin, rutin is an antioxidant with anti-inflammatory and anti-allergy ability, and it increases intracellular levels of vitamin C. And now a new study published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation has found that rutin works better than any of the anti-clotting drugs (like Coumadin) at blood thinning. Unlike any known medication, it prevents clots in both arteries A…

The world was still dealing with radioactive waste from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster on March 11, 2011, when a 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Japan along with a massive tsunami decimated Japan's Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant. Both Chernobyl and now Fukushima have littered the earth's air and water with radioactive isotopes, increasing disease and death on a global scale. Health problems associated with radioactive fallout include cancer, heart attack, respiratory damage, bone and joint pain, immune suppression, reproductive and urogenital disorders, and chromosomal aberrations. Based on Center for Disease Control mortality data for 122 US cities, toxicologist Janette D. Sherman, MD, and Joseph J. Mangano, MPH, MBA, projected 13,983 extra deaths (including 822 infant deaths) in the US during the 14 weeks after the arrival of Japanese fallout. But unlike Chernobyl, which was brought under control within several months, more than a year later, damaged reactors at Fukushima ar…

. . . correcting a vitamin D deficiency may lift your winter depressionNewsclips readers already know that vitamin D is crucial to immunity and helps to prevent winter colds and the flu. You may also know that vitamin D deficiencies contribute to cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, neurological disease and many other health problems.But can vitamin D ward off winter blues?Also called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), the winter blues can make you feel lethargic, fatigued, unmotivated and depressed. You can crave carbohydrates and want to sleep all day.Clinical experience and preliminary scientific investigation have found that low levels of vitamin D correlate with a higher incidence of SAD, and that when patients with SAD and low blood levels supplement with vitamin D, their depressive symptoms improve.Since SAD is associated with lack of sunlight, our main source of vitamin D, and since vitamin D levels decline in the winter months, it is reasonable to hypothesize that vi…

. . . especially in the absence of omega-3 fatsDo you sometimes wonder how "people can be so stupid?" We now have a clue as to why. Some unfortunate California rats were taught to negotiate a complicated maze. They were then deprived of omega-3 fatty acids in their diet and given water laced with high fructose corn syrup to duplicate two prominent features of the standard American diet. After six weeks on this regime, when placed back into the maze, they had become bumbling idiots, unable to recall what they had previously learned.The UCLA researchers who devised this torture did it to prove a point -- that the standard American diet, which now includes 40 pounds a year of high fructose corn syrup (found in sodas and in almost all processed foods) -- causes brain dysfunction, and possibly permanent brain damage. Such a high-sugar diet produces "diabetes of the brain" -- too much insulin and consequent insulin resistance in the brain. This leads to "synaptic decline," or difficulti…

Imagine if there were a magic potion that was: nontoxic, inexpensive, had no side effects, and worked to prevent aging, colds, depression, diabetes, flu, multiple sclerosis, obesity, and osteoporosis and was proven to prevent four out of five cases of cancer.  Most of us would take such a potion daily if it existed. Vitamin D is that amazing magical potion.  -- Raymond Francis, Never Fear Cancer Again, pp. 311-312.Around this time of year, Newsclips is usually talking about vitamin D and immunity. Keeping you cold and flu-free throughout the winter months has been shown to be one of vitamin D’s most useful and remarkable abilities. But did you know that this antioxidant vitamin can also prevent cancer?According to scientific studies, vitamin D deficiency plays a role in causing at least 17 varieties of cancer as well as in causing many, many other diseases, while levels of vitamin D up to around 60-80 ng/ml have been shown to virtually eliminate breast cancer.Unfortunat…

As 2014 ends, we’re celebrating the three exceptional products in our Basic Wellness Kit: our Vitamin C (powder and tablets), Multi-Vitamin, and EFA (Essential Fatty Acids) Formula. All of these products are best-sellers with good reason. Each is critical to health, and each product stands head and shoulders above similar products in quality and results. Beyond Health Vitamin C We call vitamin C “the most miraculous molecule you can put into your body.” Of its more than 300 functions in the human body, perhaps most important is its role as a key antioxidant, able to interact with and regenerate most of the other antioxidants, including glutathione. C is critical for maintaining body tissues for younger looking skin, supple joints, healthy blood vessels, and strong bones. Our immune system cannot function without it, and vitamin C also supports the adrenal glands, especially during stress, and removes heavy metals and other toxins from the body. Yet most people get far less than…

A friend of ours recently took an over-the-counter medication for intestinal gas. The results were amazing, and not in a good way. Although she got minor relief, it was followed by a splitting headache, and that night she had horrible, violent nightmares. While we were still musing about the power of what we ingest to affect the body-mind, we noticed the cover of the new issue of The Intelligent Optimist. It announcedan article within on “Why taking supplements leads to enlightenment.” While we’ve noticed being happier and more clear-minded since cleaning up our diet and adopting a program of high-quality supplements, we were especially intrigued that this article’s author is a modern-day shaman. While he has academic credentials, Alberto Villoldo, PhD, reports spending thirty years in the high Andes and the Amazon, training with master shamans. Yet, as we read his article, we found him recommending a similar diet and many of the same supplements Beyond Health recommends. Alth…