. . . 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…

. . . 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…

“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…

. . . many are contaminated and/or rancidMost fish and fish oil today are just too toxic to be beneficial. In addition, many fish oils on the market are rancid (oxidized). Omega 3 fats are extremely perishable, and great care and extra expense are needed to provide a fish oil product free of rancidity.Our seas and oceans are increasingly contaminated, and these contaminants find their way into many fish oil supplements. Several years ago, a report by the American Chemical Society found increasingly high levels of flame retardants, as well as pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in several brands of cod liver oil.It pays to be selective when choosing a fish oil supplement. You can trust Beyond Health to supply clean fish oil supplements. Our Fish Oil Formula is purified of contaminants and handled carefully so as to protect them from rancidity.Also, often overlooked, fish oil can also oxidize after it is ingested. Anyone taking fish oil should also be taking vitamin E to…

. . . a misleading new study from CanadaAmericans keep getting fatter. In the past 15 years adult obesity has approximately doubled in 17 states according to a survey sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Twenty years ago, not one state had an obesity rate of more than 15%. Now, only Colorado, with 19.8% obese, has an obesity rate of less than 20%. In twelve states, the obesity rate is above 30%.As obesity becomes more normal, it's become more socially acceptable and less cause for concern. In the same way that many people consider themselves healthy even though they're taking several different medications, the overweight and even the obese now tend to see themselves as fundamentally healthy. A new study from Canada feeds this misperception.Published last August in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, this study used a new rating system called the Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS) to categorize the obese. It puts them into five categories according to the prese…

. . . understanding the science puts you in control!Most people attribute food cravings and binges to emotional eating. But although strong emotions can certainly be a factor in uncontrolled or compulsive eating, cravings have a biochemical basis. The more you know about what's happening to your biochemistry when you experience an "uncontrollable" craving, the more freedom you have to get back into the driver's seat. This week, we'll look at the connection between food allergies and food addiction.Is there a particular food you eat just about every day, and, when it comes right down to it, you wouldn't give up without a fight? Sorry, but you're probably addicted to it.You may wake up in the morning with a headache or feeling grouchy "until you've had a good breakfast" of cereal with milk and sugar, or bagel or croissant and coffee, or eggs, toast and orange juice. What are the most common food allergens? Wheat (and especially the gluten in wheat, also found in barley and rye), oats, co…

. . . 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…

What is Diabetes?Decades ago, type 2 diabetes used to be called "sugar diabetes." There was a reason for this. Eating sugar causes diabetes. Too bad we have moved away from that accurate description of this disease. However, sugar causes another form of diabetes—diabetes of the brain. We call it Alzheimer’s disease. Diabetes is the condition where your body’s response to insulin is weakened, and sugar is no longer adequately transported into cells. Insulin resistance is the result of constantly assaulting your body with the dangerous toxin known as sugar. Excessive sugar, especially fructose, and grain consumption are the driving factors behind insulin resistance. Grains, even whole grains, will flood the body with too much sugar and cause insulin resistance. Insulin resistance contributes massively to inflammation, and inflammation will damage and degenerate your brain.Your brain is almost totally dependent on sugar to make the energy it needs to function. Constantly assaulting t…

With statistics showing their risk of heart disease increases with age, seniors are constantly reminded to go easy on their heart. So it may seem counter-intuitive, even dangerous, to get more active in retirement.But can adding in a bit of daily activity or exercise lower that risk and improve overall heart health in aging seniors? That’s what a team of researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and the University of Porto in Portugal recently set out to determine.As part of a larger community-based study on heart disease risk factors called the Cardiovascular Health Study, 985 adults aged 65 and older wore heart monitors 24 hours a day for 5 years. In the new study, researchers analyzed recordings of their heart rate variability, those time differences between one heartbeat and the next during normal daily activity.According to researcher and lead author of the study Dr. Luisa Soares-Miranda, when monitoring changes in heart rate variability, scientists can predict…

. . . is vitamin D deficiency the primary cause of winter colds and flu?Some vitamin D experts believe vitamin D deficiency may be the root cause of winter colds and flu. They point out that we get far less sunlight in the winter (our skin makes vitamin D from UV rays from the sun), and that although vitamin D can be stored in the body for long periods of time, most people don’t make enough during the summer months to last through the winter. The result is that low blood levels of vitamin D are almost universal during the winter months, coinciding with the flu season.While we need all the vitamins and minerals to build a healthy immune system, and some in particular (vitamins A, C, E, and many of the B vitamins, in addition to zinc and selenium), there is evidence that vitamin D is critical to immune function.A 2012 study in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology showed that vitamin D levels are lowest in those of us over sixty (the ability to convert the sun’s rays into vitamin D decreases…

. . . vitamin D beats depression year-roundIt’s not just in the winter that sufficient vitamin D beats the blues. Large amounts of vitamin D are found in areas in the brain (the hippocampus, amygdala and cerebellum) involved in emotion and cognition, so a deficiency could be expected to impact both emotional and cognitive function. A 2006 study in older adults found that it did just that. Those with vitamin D levels below 20 ng/DL were 11 times more likely to be depressed, and they also suffered from more cognitive impairments.This past June, Dr. Sonal Pathak, an endocrinologist, reported successfully treating three chronically depressed women, all on antidepressant medications, with high dose vitamin D. She had previously observed that many of her patients with depression were also deficient in vitamin D, and that when she corrected the deficiency, they “unanimously experienced an improvement in mood and energy.” So she decided to do a small formal study in hopes of winning financing…

. . . and more nutrition in our very special traditionally made olive oilIn this study, volunteers were fed salads with three different types of fat-based dressings made from saturated, monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fat. Their blood was then tested for absorption of fat-soluble vitamins.Monounsaturated fat-based dressings won hands down at promoting absorption of carotenoids (like beta-carotene, lycopene, lutein and zeaxanthin) in fruits and vegetables.All of the fat-soluble vitamins -- A, D, E and K, and the carotenoids -- need to be taken with fat in order to be well-absorbed.  You might as well make it a healthy fat AND a delicious fat like our olive oil, high in monounsaturated fat.Although canola oil is also touted for being high in monounsaturates, it is just one more toxic oil and best avoided.Our very special Beyond Health olive oil is grown, harvested and milled with traditional methods that preserve all of olive oil's inherent nutrients (and health be…