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…

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…

. . . 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…

REPRINTED FROM BEYOND HEALTH® Newsby Raymond FrancisSeveral years ago our nation mourned the loss of former president Ronald Reagan. Reagan died of a tragic disease called Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s progressively damages brain cells leading to impaired memory, thinking, and behavior. A tragic, costly, and growing disease among our elderly, Alzheimer’s is now affecting younger people in their 30s, 40s and 50s. It is time to think about how to prevent and mitigate Alzheimer’s.In my book Never Be Sick Again, I related how Dr. Morton Walker questioned members of a long-lived native population about dementia. These healthy people typically lived well into their hundreds; yet they didn’t know what dementia was. They had never experienced anything like dementia and did not have a word in their language to describe it. These people lived almost a half century longer than we do, yet we are told that Alzheimer’s is a disease of aging and the price we must pay for living so long.Alzheimer’s is no d…

. . . 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…

According to Tylenol manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, is used by 50 million Americans each week to treat pain, fever, and the aches and pains associated with cold and flu. It’s become as common as aspirin.And like aspirin, this over-the-counter drug is assumed to be quite safe. In fact, it gained its reputation as being safer than aspirin and the other non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) because it was, as a famous actress told us in a TV ad, “gentle on the stomach.” Translation: it doesn’t cause gastrointestinal bleeding, while NSAIDs do. Then why would neurologist and pain management specialist Aric Hausknecht, M.D., call it “by far the most dangerous drug ever made?”Perhaps because, although when used in low doses its side effects are generally mild, it is notoriously over-dosed when used to address pain. According to the National Institutes of Health, acetaminophen overdose poisons the liver and leads…

“Hello all...I will be answering your questions regarding health and supplements. Please feel free to send any questions you may have to [email protected]. Over the upcoming months, I will try to answer as many of these as possible.”  Question: I am taking St. John’s Wort for depression. Are there any downsides to doing this?M.P. — Delray Beach, FLAnswer: St. John’s Wort has been well studied and it is effective in treating depression. Regarding downsides, the one you should be most concerned with, especially living in Florida, is it makes your skin more sensitive to the sun. So be careful of getting more than a little sun. It is also not good to take this herb with prescription drugs as it can interfere with their metabolism and make them even more toxic.Your best bet is to stop being depressed by getting on a good diet, getting off of sugar, taking our Basic Wellness Kit, getting adequate sunlight, and exercising. This will take care of most depression.…

For years, we’ve repeatedly warned that you can no longer get all the required nutrients your body needs from food, and we’re not alone. Researchers from four reputable institutions recently took issue with the latest claims that vitamin supplements are a waste of money.In a commentary published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers from the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, Tufts University, and the Harvard School of Public Health asserted that while a proper diet is the preferred way to get nutrients required by your cells and necessary for optimal health, it’s no longer possible for most Americans. Current lifestyle and dietary choices create “nutritional gaps” that simply cannot be overcome by food alone.What are these nutritional gaps?Most Americans eat a typical diet of overly processed foods containing white flour, sugar, red meat, dairy, and processed vegetable oils. Yet, you may remember us mention…

. . . when it comes to bones, its quality, not density, that matters mostMany women are scared into taking toxic drugs when their Bone Mineral Density (BMD) tests show a thinning of bones after menopause. This bone-loss is a natural process caused by loss of estrogen. It's estimated to affect more than half of white, postmenopausal women in the US and generally plateaus in a few years as the body adjusts to lower estrogen levels. Yet it's been pathologized as "osteopenia," a supposedly pre-osteoporotic condition that increases risk of fractures.     In fact, the actual increased fracture risk associated with osteopenia is negligible. Even the conservative British Medical Journal has published articles questioning the validity of treating osteopenia as if it were a disease diagnosis. Although for avoiding fractures it's better to have thick bones than thin bones, quality of bone is much more important than quantity (density). Japanese women, for example, have thinner bo…