The strongest and most hard-working muscle in your body, your heart is also associated with vulnerability . . . and for good reason.  Powerhouse though it may be, the heart is living tissue that requires proper nourishment. A nutrient called coenzyme Q10, or CoQ10, is essential for keeping your heart strong and healthy. Yet it’s quite possible your CoQ10 levels are suboptimal, leading to a condition that underlies many heart problems called “energy-starved heart.” Every cell in your body contains hundreds of little energy factories called mitochondria. CoQ10 facilitates various chemical reactions in the mitochondria’s energy-producing process. Simply put, when you lack CoQ10, you lack energy. Your muscles, including your heart, may be ready, willing and able, but there’s just not enough fuel in the tank. Even minor deficiencies in CoQ10 can impair heart function and eventually damage the heart itself. CoQ10 plays yet another crucial role in cardiovascular health: Keeping…

Deficiency of vitamin E is more predictive of heart disease and cardiac death than any other single factorOne of the most important nutrients to protect the heart is vitamin E. Yet according to a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, only 8% of adult men and 2.4% of adult women in the US met the Estimated Average Requirements (EARs) for alpha-tocopherol intake. Even worse, EARs are about 20% lower than the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs).Although many factors are involved in creating heart disease low levels of vitamin E are more predictive of heart disease and cardiac death than any other single factor. Vitamin E inhibits the oxidation of LDL cholesterol, preventing atherosclerosis. When you prevent atherosclerotic plaque, you automatically help to lower blood pressure.In 1910, when heart disease was relatively rare, most people got at least 100 IU a day from freshly milled and baked stone ground whole wheat bread. Yet almost all Americans today…

Worth its weight in goldA good olive oil has fantastic health benefits that make it unique and worth its weight in gold.The story begins in 1957, when scientist Ancel Keys discovered that people living on the island of Crete, in the Mediterranean Sea, had longer lives than any other European population. Even more exciting, their lives were relatively free from chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, age-related cognitive decline, arthritis, and osteoporosis. Keys believed the secret to this robust health lay in what he called "the Mediterranean Diet." A diet high in fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and omega 3 fats from fish, the Mediterranean Diet's centerpiece was pure, unrefined olive oil -- lots of it! In fact 35-40% of the calories in this diet came from healthy olive oil! As valuable as the rest of the Mediterranean diet was, it's since been determined that olive oil accounted for the lion's share of the diet's health benefits.Thousands of studie…

As we age, our blood tends to become thicker, stickier and more viscous. When your blood is thick and flows more slowly, oxygen and other nutrients aren’t delivered as efficiently. But worse, viscous blood forms deadly clots more readily and has an abrasive quality that damages blood vessel linings, setting the stage for inflammation, plaque formation and eventual atherosclerosis. It also contributes to high blood pressure and is implicated in age-related cognitive decline and dementias like Alzheimer’s disease.  So keeping the blood thin (as in “blood thinners”) is a good idea, and to this end, doctors often recommend aspirin for its blood-thinning abilities. But aspirin has a big downside: by slowing tissue repair it increases the risk of internal bleeding—usually gastrointestinal bleeding, but also the kind of retinal bleeding or leaking that causes macular degeneration. Even the supposedly safer low doses have been found over time to do the same kind of se…

Want to age slower and live longer? Back in 1976, Dr. Benjamin S. Frank, a medical doctor and PhD molecular biologist, published a best-selling book, Dr. Frank’s No-Aging Diet.  This book proposed a revolutionary way of looking at aging. Dr. Frank was a miracle worker.  It was reported that he could take anyone over the age of fifty and, in 3-4 weeks, have them looking 10-15 years younger, with much more energy, endurance, and aerobic capacity.  Over twenty years of meticulous research and record-keeping, Dr. Frank documented achieving many health building and rejuvenating effects in his patients, including significant increases in energy and oxygenation, enhanced immunity and cognitive performance, improved capacity to tolerate low and high temperatures, smoother skin and thicker hair. Although his intent was to build general health rather than to treat specific diseases, his approach improved acne, ALS, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, emphysema, glaucoma and po…

“Virtually every human being on earth can now be considered physiologically and biochemically polluted by human-made chemicals.” — Toxicologist James Siow, MD, PhD, of the Australian National Institute of Integrative Medicine. We’re all in toxic overload, and this is having a disastrous effect on our health! The body has wonderful detoxification systems, but they’re being overwhelmed by the unprecedented number of man-made chemicals they’re forced to deal with.  According to toxicologist James Siow , with our current exposure to toxins, the average individual can process and excrete only about 40-60% of the toxins they’re exposed to. The remainder bio-accumulates in tissues and organs, doing more and more damage over time. According to a 2016 report commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO ), about one quarter of the global disease burden and more than one third of the burden among children is due to modifiable environmental factors.…