For decades, pioneer doctors have used vitamin C with spectacular results when nothing else was working to save patients’ lives during viral epidemics and pandemics. Not in the puny doses employed by researchers who sought to discredit Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling’s claim that he’d found the cure for the common cold, but in megadoses, up to 150 grams a day intravenously (IV). However their work, even when they painstakingly recorded it in medical journals, was summarily dismissed by the medical establishment.  In a desperate search to help patients dying of COVID-19 related respiratory failure, the Chinese began using high-dose IV vitamin C, and last month the Shanghai government announced its official recommendation that COVID-19 should be treated with intravenous vitamin C at dosages equal to about 4-16 grams depending on body weight and severity of disease. Since IV vitamin C is ten times more powerful than oral vitamin C, this dosage would equal 40-160 grams…

Ever since it saved his life, Raymond Francis has considered vitamin C—if it’s the right kind—to be the most miraculous molecule you can put into your body. Years ago, before Beyond Health was a gleam in Raymond’s eye, he wasn’t thinking much about the future. The truth is, he wasn’t sure he even had a future. Near death, he called his brother Bernie, who flew across the country, fearing the worst, to be by his side. What Bernie found was shocking. Raymond looked like a skeleton and was in a semi-comatose state. However, the stars must have been aligned that day, because Bernie had brought with him a book he’d heard about: it was "Norman Cousin’s Anatomy of an Illness." Although Cousins is known primarily as the man who cured himself of a devastating “incurable” illness with laughter, the other therapy Cousins used for his miracle cure was megadoses of intravenous (injectable) vitamin C. Too weak and discouraged to do much lau…

Calcium, once lauded as a superstar for preventing and curing osteoporosis, now seems to be a nutrient-non-grata among both conventional and alternative “experts.” Vitamin C researcher, Thomas E. Levy, has even entitled a book Death by Calcium! How did an important nutrient, in which most Americans especially the elderly are deficient, come to such a sorry pass? The calcium saga goes back several years to a time when it was anointed a “magic bullet” to solve the problem of osteoporosis. Need more bone? Just take lots of calcium! When that didn’t work as well as hoped, the experts said well you should probably take your calcium with vitamin D. This worked a little better, but was still less than ideal. In fact, calcium needs a whole “team” of nutrients for its absorption and proper utilization. Vitamins D and K (especially K2) and the mineral magnesium are star players on the team, but check the label on Beyond Health’s Bone Mineral Formul…

This is a good news/bad news story. First the good news. As reported by investigative journalist Lynne McTaggart, in The Optimist, there is a doctor in England, originally from India, named Joseph Chandy, who has become renowned over the past forty years for miraculously curing hundreds of patients of their depression, as well as multiple sclerosis and chronic fatigue. In 2006, a BBC segment on him featured grateful patients whose lives had been turned around. Multiple sclerosis patients said they were able to get up out of the wheelchairs. Dr. Chandy’s miraculous treatment? Vitamin B12 injections. It seems that Dr. Chandy discovered early on one of the two causes of disease: nutrient deficiency. As Raymond Francis wrote back in 2003: Proper nutrition is the single most important factor in preventing and reversing depression. Consider that the inventor of the anti-anxiety drug Valium later discovered that B vitamins could produce exactly the same benefits as Valium, without side…

Although experts agree that diet and lifestyle are the keys to preventing and reversing diabetes, the ballooning number of diabetics and pre-diabetics (estimated at over 10% and 1/3 of our population respectively) is too big a market for drug companies to ignore. With one toxic drug after another, they’re trying to convince the public that blood sugar regulation is a problem pills can solve. However an all-natural alternative approach is both safe and effective. Introduced last year, canagliflozin (Invokana) is the first in a new family of diabetes drugs called sodium glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors to be approved by the FDA. However, consumer advocate group Public Citizen has put it on their “do NOT use” drug list as having minimal benefit and dangerous side effects. Nonetheless, Forbes predicts it will reach $416 billion in sales by 2016. Although Invokana lowers blood sugar somewhat, it does so by doing what drugs always do—interfering with normal…

Question:  I noticed that the Multi-Vitamin does not contain iron. Why is this? H. B. – New York, NY Answer: There is a simple reason for not including iron. Iron is a prooxidant and will destroy antioxidants in a supplement formula (like vitamin C, D, E, selenium, zinc and others). Iron should always be taken separately. If you find iron in a multi, it is a good indication that the supplement manufacturer either doesn’t know what they’re doing or that they are pandering to consumer ignorance. At one time I worked as a consultant to supplement companies. One company I worked for asked me to evaluate their multi. Their multi contained iron, and I told them it should be removed as it was contaminating the pill. After checking with their marketing people, they decided not to remove it. Their marketing department told them that consumers are looking for a complete multi, including iron, and omitting it would affect sales. Most people in advanced countries don’t…

by Raymond Francis Deficiencies in vitamin B12 and its partner folate are extremely common, and these deficiencies can show up in a vast array of health issues. Too often people suffer for years with illnesses that might be alleviated simply by taking enough B12 and folate, or at least by addressing B12/folate deficiency as part of a more comprehensive treatment plan. Before a government-sponsored study that surprised everyone was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2000, it was assumed that most B12 deficiency occurred among the elderly. But this study, which spanned ages 26-83, found 40% deficiency across the board, regardless of age. Very severe deficiency was found in 17%. The situation with folic acid (or folate) is even worse. Most Americans get considerably less than half the RDA – a standard set to avoid severe symptoms and not to achieve optimal health or prevent chronic illness. Many authorities believe folic acid is tied with essential fatty acid…

. . . flu shots are ineffective and dangerous I’m not a doctor and can’t advise you not to get a flu shot, but I am a scientist, and after studying this subject in depth, I’ve concluded that flu shots are a fraud. They’re not effective and can do serious harm. A hundred and forty-nine different kinds of adverse reactions to vaccines have been reported to the government Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). These include seizures, anaphylaxis, onset of autoimmune illness, and death. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Vaccines cause permanent damage to everyone who is subjected to them. Vaccines over stimulate the immune system, causing excessive inflammation and, paradoxically, overall immune suppression. They also trigger brain inflammation, leading to short term and long term brain damage. Renowned immunologist, Dr. H. Hugh Fudenberg found that adults who took flu shots five years in a row increased their risk of Alzheimer’s Disease by 1,000%. M…

. . . can hair loss that often accompanies aging be prevented? Normal hair loss occurs daily as individual strands reach the end of their life cycle, die and show up on your brush or in your shower drain. If your hair starts coming out in clumps, it’s time to see your health practitioner to find out why. A more gradual increase in hair loss can accompany aging in both men and women; for about 2/3 of all men and 2/5 of women, genetic factors combine with aging to cause significant, noticeable hair loss. The men develop “patterned baldness.” Baldness is rare in the women; commonly their hair thins out uniformly over the entire scalp, and individual strands become finer. This can start as early as a woman’s twenties, but usually doesn’t become evident until her forties. Can it be prevented? Even reversed? While you can’t change your genes, if you give them different signals, they will behave differently. Nutrition and toxins will always have an effect on how genes express; many p…

. . .  minimize toxins coming in; maximize toxins going out You may ingest only small amounts of toxins when you use conventional toothpaste, drink tap water, or eat inorganic food, but at the end of the day, these small amounts can add up to an alarming total. The liver is our main organ for detoxification; it processes toxins for elimination. Once your liver’s capacity is exceeded, you begin storing toxins in your tissues. Some toxins can accumulate in fat cells for decades, doing more and more damage year after year, causing fatigue, diminishing resilience in dealing with stress, and causing, contributing to and exacerbating all types of disease. Scientists estimate that everyone alive today carries within their bodies at least 700 chemical contaminants, leading Doris J. Rapp, MD, past president of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, to observe, “We’ve all become toxic waste dumps!” You can learn about sources of environmental toxins and how to reduce or eli…

. . .  what they are and why you probably need more of them  One of the reasons fruits and vegetables are so healthy for us is that they supply lots of antioxidant chemicals. And these days, we can all use all the extra antioxidants we can get.  What exactly are antioxidants, and why do we need more of them now than ever? To understand antioxidants, it’s first necessary to understand free radicals. A free radical is an atom or molecule with one or more unpaired electrons.  Because electrons like to travel in pairs, unpaired electrons are chemically unstable.  They are apt to attack the nearest stable molecule and steal an electron from it, creating a new free radical from the previously stable molecule.  This process is called oxidation, and the best example of it outside the body is the formation of rust. Oxidation can initiate a chain reaction of molecules stealing electrons from each other that ends up damaging cells and body tissues, ultimately causing disease and aging. Whe…

. . .  a good diet makes all the difference!  By age 80, over half of all Americans will either have a cataract of have had cataract surgery to remove one. While these surgeries are relatively inexpensive (about $3,000 for a basic outpatient procedure before Medicare or insurance kicks in) and, according to the National Eye Institute, about 90% successful, wouldn’t you rather just avoid getting a cataract in the first place? Well diet may be the place to start. A recent study done at the University of Oxford in Great Britain found that by following a vegan diet, you can reduce your risk of getting a cataract by about 40%! But you don’t have to be a vegan to get the benefits, as I’ll explain later. The study tracked almost 28,000 people over the age of 40 for 15 years, collecting information about their diets and looking for any evidence of cataracts. They found that people eating more than 3.5 ounces of meat a day had the highest risk of developing cataracts; pescatarians (th…

. . .  augmented by a healthy lifestyle  The Ginkgo biloba tree is more than 200 million years old – the oldest tree on earth. Individual ginkgo trees sometimes live more than 1,000 years. No wonder the ancient Chinese looked to this tree in their quest for a long and healthy life. Today, hundreds of scientific studies have shown that ginkgo’s biological effects do, in fact, help to prolong life and especially to improve the quality of that life. Ginkgo is known first and foremost for improving blood flow to the brain and other tissues. It also enhances cellular metabolism, inhibits the activity of platelet-activating factor (which is involved in causing blood platelets to clump together and clot), and is a natural MAO-inhibitor, helping to alleviate depression.  And what are some of the problems of aging? Reduced circulation, less energy, a tendency for the blood to clot too readily, and depressed mood. Ginkgo also possesses antioxidant flavonoids that help to build and stre…

. . .  stay calm, cool and collected during the holidays!  Although some stress is beneficial, it’s all too easy to get too much. This is especially so at this time of year, when becoming burned out, overwhelmed and irritable is all too common. Not the way you want to celebrate the holidays! And what’s worse, excess stress can wreak havoc on endocrine, nervous, immune, gastrointestinal and other body systems, making you more vulnerable to disease and accelerating the aging process. Our November e-Zine offered tips on reducing stress, but what about the unavoidable stresses you can’t control? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to shield yourself from the negative effects of such stress simply by taking a magic pill? Well you can! There is a magic pill, called Rosavin™, that can protect you from the ravages of stress AND give you more energy, strength, stamina, better mental performance, and even a calmer, happier disposition!  It  may even help you lose excess weight, improve car…

. . . time to retire this old saw Although you’ll still hear the old saw about getting all the nutrition you need from food, in fact it’s virtually impossible today. (For the reasons why, see my report, The Roadmap to Choosing Supplements.) More and more establishment sources are calling a multivitamin a necessity. Case in point is the lead researcher in a new study from Harvard on multivitamins and cancer, J. Michael Gaziano, MD, MPH, who said in a recent news briefing, “Our main message is that the main reason to take a multivitamin is to prevent nutritional deficiency.” This study, by the way, which followed 15,000 men over the age of 50 for four years, found that taking a low-cost multivitamin reduced their risk of getting cancer by 8% (prostate cancer by 12%). Those are good results, but just imagine what that percentage could be on one of our high-quality multis plus the vitamin C and essential fatty acids found in the Basic Wellness Kit! In addition to a world-class…

. . . What's the difference? If you get the 25(OH)D test for vitamin D status that we urge everyone to get, you’re likely to find you’re deficient. It’s also likely your doctor will offer you a prescription for Drisdol, a synthetic form of vitamin D. Thank your doctor, but call us rather than fill that prescription. Drisdol is vitamin D2, a form of vitamin D that is less effective than vitamin D3 (the form of vitamin D we carry) and may even be harmful. There are two basic forms of vitamin D – vitamin D2 and vitamin D3. D3 (cholecalciferol) is the preferred form. It’s what’s made in our skin from sunlight; it’s also found in eggs, organ meats, animal fat and fish oil. Vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) is synthesized by irradiating yeast or fungi. It isn’t generally found in the human body. Because it’s easier and less expensive to manufacture, D2 is the form most often used for food fortification and in medications. But it’s more difficult for the body to utilize and may even be detrim…

. . . let's make the common cold rare! Although viral infections are considered normal, they’re actually quite unusual among cultures where people consume a healthy diet and follow a healthy way of life. Likewise, people I’ve worked with who follow the Beyond Health lifestyle rarely get colds, and I myself have had only two colds in 27 years. How do you eliminate colds and the flu from your life? By building and maintaining a superior level of health and immunity. Your diet should be 80% alkaline, with plenty of fresh, raw vegetables and fruits, as well as beans, legumes, nuts, seeds and healthy oils. Avoid allergens (every allergic reaction weakens your immunity) and omit the Big Four (sugar, wheat, processed oils and dairy/excessive animal protein). Eating sugar alone is enough to knock out your immune defenses for the next 6-8 hours, yet each American now consumes an average of 160 pounds a year (one big reason colds have become “normal”). Get on a high-quality basic sup…

. . . drinking it daily is good for you! Wine, especially red wine, is less problematic than chocolate. You can drink it every day, and it’s actually good for you! . . . as long as it’s in moderation. Alcohol is a toxin, and while we can tolerate small amounts in order to get its benefits, most women should limit their daily wine consumption to one 5-ounce glass; most men two. Actually any alcoholic drink is potentially beneficial. A 5-ounce glass of wine, a 12-ounce stein of beer, or a cocktail made with 1-1/4 ounces of 80 proof liquor daily – all have been variously connected with longer life, increased HDL (the “healthy” cholesterol), thinner blood (less clotting), improved insulin sensitivity, beneficial effects on bone mineral density, and significant reductions in the risk for both heart and Alzheimer’s disease, all because of their alcohol content. Wine is particularly healthy because of the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory phenols found in grapes. The “French Paradox”…