Recently we’ve been writing about an antioxidant plant flavonoid called quercetin as an essential component of an immune defense arsenal.  But there are many other reasons to include quercetin, which has been used for centuries as a component of healing herbs like St. John’s Wort and Ginkgo Biloba, in your supplement program, whether you want to get well or just stay well. Quercetin is a potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, and it stimulates the body to produce a wide range of additional antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and detoxifying chemicals. Quercetin has demonstrated anti-diabetic, antiviral, and antibacterial properties.  It supports cardiovascular, urinary, and nervous system health, and has been shown to protect against stress, cataracts, osteoporosis, and heavy metal toxicity.   Quercetin helps shed excess weight, it increases and sustains a high level of energy and endurance, maximizes physical and mental performance, and helps to redu…

Don’t look now, but we’ve all got a population of “zombie” cells living in our bodies!  Like us, cells are born, have a life and die. Ideally, when they lose their ability to divide and reproduce through damage or simple aging, they “commit suicide” in an orderly process called “apoptosis.”  But some cells, although no longer functional, refuse to die. Instead they linger on, generating chronic levels of inflammation and producing protein-digesting enzymes that cause accelerated aging to organs and tissues, increasing our susceptibility to chronic disease. Called “senescent” or “senile” cells, a robust immune system could destroy them, but as we age, our immune systems weaken, and these zombie cells accumulate. In 2011, researchers genetically modified mice so that their senescent cells could be triggered to self-destruct, which increased the mice’s lifespan by an amazing 2025% while greatly retarding development of chronic disease. This caught the attention of the…