Uterine fibroids (UFs) are non-cancerous tumors that grow in the uterus. About 70% of the female population will get one or more during their reproductive years. Sometimes, but not always, they shrink after menopause. Many women don’t even realize they have them, but about a third of women with UFs seek medical help for problems they cause.If UFs grow too big, and/or are in the wrong place, they can interfere with urinary or gastrointestinal systems, putting pressure on the bladder or rectum and causing frequent urination, constipation and/or rectal pain. They can also cause reproductive problems: infertility, miscarriage, difficult deliveries, irregular periods, mild tosevere menstrual cramping and pain, heavy bleeding sometimes leading to anemia and pain during sex. UFs can cause lower back or abdominal pain. Finally, a large fibroid can just be uncomfortable and make you look pregnant.It isn’t known exactly why UFs develop and grow—estrogen, progesterone, stress, diet and toxins se…

For many women, menopause is both a blessing and a curse. The end of bleeding and cramps, but also the end of fertility. It's not an easy time as the body changes and its nutritional needs change with them. Vitamins for menopause and post-menopause are vital to maintaining a healthy life after "the change."What is Menopause? Menopause occurs in women usually in their 40's or 50's and is when the body stops menstruating and produces less estrogen. It includes symptoms such as hot flashes, insomnia, night sweats, weight gain and mood swings. Some women have severe symptoms and other mild, but the result is the same. The body no longer menstruates. As estrogen levels decrease, the chances of heart disease, osteoporosis and other health issues increase. There are vitamins and other supplements that help alleviate the symptoms of menopause and help the body post-menopause.Vitamins that Help Menopause: Bone Health One of the biggest concerns of menopause is bone degradation ca…

Uncontrolled diabetes increases risk for severe illness with COVID-19. If you are diabetic, or pre-diabetic, your doctor may have recommended taking metformin to lower your blood sugar.There is almost always a better natural alternative to pharmaceutical medications, and metformin is no exception. According to renowned alternative doctor Jonathan W. Wright, MD, berberine, a botanical found in plants like goldenseal, barberry and Oregon grape, can do everything metformin can do with far fewer side effects.Like many pharmaceuticals, metformin has its origins in botanical medicine; it is derived from goat’s rue, also known as French lilac. Like berberine, metformin activates AMPk (5' adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase), an extremely powerful enzyme in every cell in the body that’s been called the “youthinizing enzyme.” AMPk is a “master regulating switch” for energy metabolism. Want more energy? Boost your AMPk! Want to reduce body fat, especially belly fat? Boost your…

BHN has received many emails and phone calls from people concerned about the radiation leaking from the Japanese nuclear reactors. There is no question that dangerous amounts of radioactive particles have been released and have been carried in the prevailing jet stream winds impacting the west coast from Los Angeles to Alaska and the rest of the world as well. While government officials try to play down the danger, radiation researchers say there is no such thing as a safe level of radiation.Radiation generates massive amounts of free radicals, which do oxidative damage to DNA and cause cancer years later. This is why it is a good idea to maximize your overall antioxidant defenses. The problems with radioactive iodine are well known. Japanese health authorities are passing out iodine tablets to those in the vicinity of these reactors. Because most Americans are deficient in iodine, absorbing the radioactive iodine isotopes can be a real problem. The body will absorb the isotopes when i…

Can This Cellular Nutrient Rival Hypertension Drugs? What If Blood Pressure Support Didn’t Work Like a Drug But Worked Better? Most people assume that controlling blood pressure requires lifelong medication. But clinical research has explored another pathway one that works not by forcing the body, but by supporting it at the cellular level. In multiple clinical studies, a naturally occurring compound called Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) has demonstrated blood pressure reductions comparable to and in some cases exceeding typical pharmaceutical outcomes. Let’s examine what the science actually shows. Understanding Blood Pressure Basics (Quick Refresher) A reading like 120/80 mmHg includes two values: Measurement Meaning When It’s Measured Systolic (top number) Pressure during heart contraction When heart pumps Diastolic (bottom number) Pressure between beats When heart relaxes Managing both numbers matters for cardiovascular longevity. What Conventional Drugs…

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…

Is your liver taking a beating? Are you an artist, painter or printer, or do you work in a dry cleaning establishment or photocopy shop? If so, you’re exposed to liver-damaging volatile organic solvents daily. Other types of jobs involve different unavoidable and heavy toxic exposures. Bicycle commuting in traffic exposes you to an unhealthy dose of air pollutants. Or do you have a liver disease like hepatitis, cirrhosis, alcohol or drug-induced liver disease, or elevated liver enzymes? (a test your doctor can give you to see if your liver is breaking down) Liver damage/disease are no fun. Fatigue, digestive problems, allergies and frequent colds, flu and other infections; rashes; various aches, pains and other discomforts; mood swings and an inability to deal with stress are just some of the unpleasant consequences of liver overload and disease. Liver Care is a carefully formulated blend of synergistic nutrients in their purest, most bioavailable forms, and includes the liv…

. . . 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…

Yes, If It’s the Wrong Kind Vitamin E has long been studied for its antioxidant and protective roles in human health. However, not all forms of vitamin E are the same—and research outcomes can vary dramatically depending on which form is used. A prominent example highlights why understanding vitamin E chemistry is essential. The Study That Sparked Confusion A large clinical trial conducted under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health evaluated vitamin E and selenium for prostate cancer prevention. The trial was halted after researchers observed that participants taking 400 IU of vitamin E daily had a higher incidence of prostate cancer. The finding received widespread attention—but an important detail was largely overlooked: The study used a synthetic form of vitamin E: alpha-tocopherol acetate. Klein EA et al., Journal of the American Medical Association, 2011. Why the Form of Vitamin E Matters Vitamin E is not a single compound. It is a family of rela…

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…

Phytosterols, also called plant sterols, are plant fats that are the counterpart of sterols found in animals, including humans. The most important animal sterol is cholesterol. Due to a similar, but slightly different, chemical structure, plant sterols compete with cholesterol for absorption in the intestine. Thus, they reduce the amount of cholesterol absorbed from the diet. They also appear to reduce cholesterol levels in other ways.Phytosterols do a lot more than lower cholesterol levels. They reduce inflammation, improve immunity, and control blood sugar in diabetes, among other things. So it's highly beneficial to include a lot of them in your diet.However, if you're eating a healthy diet -- 10-12 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, mostly raw, along with plenty of nuts, seeds, legumes, and healthy oils from avocados, flax oil, olive oil, coconut oil and Udo's Choice -- you will be getting plenty of phytosterols. In fact, each one of these foods is known as an excellent sou…

. . .  Upping our need for antioxidantsWe now know that Fukushima is by far the worst nuclear accident in history. After Chernobyl, there was a related worldwide decline in health. How are we being affected by Fukushima? Although there have been no government warnings of excessive radiation levels, there is credible scientific evidence that there is no safe level of radiation.Suffice it to say that our health is under additional assault, and that it has never been more important to (1) make sure you are not deficient in iodine (most Americans are! call our office to find out how to test your iodine status) and (2) take antioxidant supplements. The more toxic our environment becomes, and this includes radiation, the more antioxidants we need to render the toxins harmless. For example, if you ingest more of the antioxidant vitamin C than your body needs, you get diarrhea. Someone who can normally take 6 grams a day may catch a cold and need 30, 40, even 50 grams a day before ge…

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…