The secret to erasing arthritic pain is reducing inflammation. This is because inflammation does two things: it produces the swelling and sensitivity that causes pain, and it releases chemicals that break down protective cartilage around your joints, which causes even more pain over time. So if you can reduce inflammation, you can both alleviate pain and disability now AND prevent further deterioration of your joints.  Anti-inflammatory drugs like Advil and Tylenol are generally recommended for this purpose, however every one of them has serious harmful side effects, one of them being long-term destruction of joint cartilage ! As the drugs cause your joints to continue to deteriorate, you will of course need more and more of the drug to manage your pain, and this will cause even more deterioration. The good news is that it’s possible to live a pain-free life even with advanced osteoarthritis! In fact, patients with no cartilage left to cushion one or m…

Researched extensively since the 1990s, more than 120 clinical trials and thousands of research papers have focused on curcumin’s remarkable health benefits. What is curcumin?  Curcumin is the principal active ingredient of turmeric, the spice that gives Indian curries their golden color. In India, turmeric is revered as “holy powder,” and it has played a major role in traditional Ayurvedic (Indian) medicine for centuries. Curcumin is now being studied in search of possible remedies for some of the major epidemics of our time. Curcumin beneficially affects the expression of more than 700 genes and influences numerous biochemical pathways at the same time. Its unique and powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects make it extraordinarily beneficial for every system in the body.  Arthritis and any other "itis."  If you've got any of the "itis" diseases, your symptoms are caused by chronic inflammation. Studies have shown that curc…

As studies on its remarkable benefits continue to accumulate, supplemental curcumin is becoming increasingly popular, with a host of different products and formulations, at a wide range of prices, each claiming to be the best.  As a consumer, how can you evaluate the different products out there?  There are certain things you can look for on a product label, but all too often the information you really need isn’t on the label, and sometimes what’s on the label isn’t even in the product!  For example, a report from Consumer Lab, which tests various supplements and makes this information known to the public, found that 20% of the turmeric/curcumin supplements they tested delivered less than 15% of the amount of curcumin claimed on the product label! Also, contaminants, like lead, which was recently found in curcumin coming from Bangladesh, would hardly be listed on any label. A major question when it comes to curcumin is bioavailability. There are various…

While many factors determine whether or not you will get a coronavirus infection, how bad the infection will be, and how long it will take to recover, there is one all-important factor—the state of your immunity.  Beyond Health’s protocol for building and maintaining a strong immune system includes having your vitamin D blood levels tested with a 25(OH)D test, and getting them up to 40-60 ng/mL (100-150 nmol/L) or more depending on your medical situation. Your immune system requires adequate amounts of vitamin D to function the way it’s supposed to. If you’re low on D, it’s like fighting the coronavirus with one hand tied behind your back. You can raise your vitamin D levels with sun, food and supplements. SUN Sunlight is an inexhaustible source of free vitamin D! The sun’s UVB rays convert cholesterol in the skin into vitamin D. However, since these same UVB rays cause sunburn, light-skinned people need to build up a protective tan gradually. The best approach is…

Certain populations have borne the brunt of COVID-19 illness and deaths; and they all are especially likely to be deficiency in vitamin D.  Older folks don’t fare well with the virus. Adults over 65 years of age represent 80% of hospitalizations & have a 23-fold greater risk of death than younger people. The elderly are likely to be vitamin D deficient due to inadequate diet and also because as we age we become less able to manufacture vitamin D in our skin from sunshine. Almost everyone who has died of COVID disease had co-morbidities, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, high blood pressure, cancer, lung disease, neurological disease, kidney disease or obesity. Scientific studies have associated all of these conditions with vitamin D deficiency.  Now it has become apparent that significantly more people of color are contracting and dying from COVID-19 than their white counterparts.  Although black Americans repre…

While the world’s attention is riveted by COVID-19, pervasive magnesium deficiency has been an ongoing health crisis for at least sixty years, causing death, disease, and reduced quality of life. Magnesium plays many important roles in heart health, and a deficiency of this important mineral is a major risk factor for having a sudden, fatal heart attack! As one of the body’s most significant anti-inflammatory compounds, magnesium also helps to prevent the chronic diseases that plague our time, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other “co-morbidities” that increase chances of being hospitalized with and dying from COVID-19. In fact, virtually every known illness can be associated with magnesium deficiency.  Magnesium plays many essential roles in the immune system. It contributes significantly to anti-viral immunity, and has other properties that may make it especially useful for COVID-19. Meanwhile, low magnesium levels can seri…

Insulin resistance has become a major problem in our overweight, sedentary, stressed out, sleep-deprived, refined sugar-eating society, and is a probable co-morbid complication in COVID-19. What is insulin resistance, and how does it lead to diabetes?  Excessive sugar in the blood is a dangerous, inflammatory situation.  It is the hormone insulin’s job to keep blood sugar levels from getting too high by escorting sugar into the cells where it can be either burned to make energy or stored.  However when cells are constantly asked to take on excessive amounts of sugar they become “insulin resistant.”    The body responds by making more insulin, forcing more sugar into the unwilling cells. But over time, the cells become increasingly resistant. Eventually sugar builds up to unhealthy levels, a condition called pre-diabetes.   According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1/3 of our population has prediabetes. …

. . . In my experience, depression is relatively easy to cure with diet, supplementation and detoxification. Common causes of depression include deficiencies of essential fatty acids, B vitamins, magnesium, zinc and vitamin D. Mercury toxicity and food allergies are two other common causes. Antidepressant drugs do not address these causes.  Raymond Francis, Beyond Health News, May-June 2007 Do you need to spend years on a psychiatrist’s couch to overcome anxiety or depression, or could you just pop a few magnesium tablets and save the time and money?  A 2006 paper reported reversing major, long-standing depression in four individuals in less than a week by supplementing with 125-300 milligrams of magnesium at each meal and at bedtime!  One of these subjects, who had been addicted to tobacco, alcohol and cocaine, announced that his cravings for all these substances had disappeared!  George and Karen Eby, the study’s authors, argue for the” ... poss…

When you think about immune-building nutrients, vitamin E probably isn’t among the first that come to mind.  But it should be.  Vitamin E is one of the most effective nutrients known for supporting immune function—especially when it comes to fighting off viral infections, and even a marginal deficiency will throw a monkey wrench into your immune system’s response to a challenge. Laboratory, animal and human studies have shown that vitamin E has a variety of effects on immune cell production, differentiation, proliferation and activity; that vitamin E insufficiency diminishes these effects; and that supplementing with vitamin E at higher than government recommended levels enhances them. Yet as we confront the current viral pandemic, approximately 90% of the US population isn’t getting enough vitamin E from their diets to meet even minimal government standards. The average American diet supplies less than half the government’s Recommended Dietary Intake (RD…

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…

At Beyond Health, we pride ourselves on presenting nutrients in their purest and most bioavailable forms. It’s costlier to do things this way, but the result is that our supplements are often many times more effective not to mention safer than their cheaper counterparts. Not only will our nutrients get absorbed and go where they’re needed in your body; they won’t be carrying a lot of toxic “baggage” with them that the body will have to spend energy to unload. The other day a customer asked why our quercetin didn’t contain bromelain. She had read in literature from another product that bromelain activates quercetin for better absorption. The product she brought to our attention is a perfect example of how marketers of low-quality products use hype to make the customer think they’re getting something special. The particular product had low bioactivity and potentially harmful contaminants. Its manufacturer was trying to take a sow’s ear and turn it into a silk purse by claiming that…

Oxidation in our bodies is a major cause of aging and disease. If you want to feel your best, avoid diseases down the line and maximize your healing potential, you need to keep oxidation under control. Fortunately antioxidants do just that.  Antioxidants are compounds made by our bodies and derived from our diets or supplements that curtail oxidation and its damaging effects. Unfortunately, however, the oxidizing effects of stress, environmental pollution and other toxins, chronic illness and excess body fat that characterize modern life have multiplied our need for antioxidants, so that most of us are suffering from “oxidative stress”—meaning we don’t have enough antioxidants to manage our level of oxidation.  For the vast majority antioxidant supplementation has become necessary.  Taking an array of different antioxidant supplements is the best approach since they work somewhat differently, complement and synergize with each other, and regenerate each…

The human microbiome—that 3½ to 4 pounds of bacteria, bacteriophage, fungi, protozoa, and viruses that live on and in us, primarily in our intestines, is finally getting the attention it deserves, and it’s now recognized how much these microbes, which number in the trillions, contribute to our health.They help us digest and absorb food, synthesize vitamins, produce amino acids, secrete mucus, prevent constipation by increasing motility, create food for intestinal cells, and, perhaps most importantly, partner with our immune system—60-80% of which is located in the intestines—by degrading toxins and competing with and killing off infectious bacteria and yeasts.However most of our microbiomes are in pretty bad shape, and in a recent article in the Townsend Letter, pharmacist Ross Pelton, who is also a nutritionist with a Ph.D. in psychology and holistic health, explains why.He compares the situation to a “perfect storm” of factors that have conspired to assault and damage…

The Alliance for Natural Health is challenging the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other government agencies to fulfill their obligation to the public to tell them the truth about the role vitamin D can play in preventing the flu and many other health problems.Over the past decade, a huge amount of research has shown that the role of vitamin D in health goes far beyond helping calcium to build bone (the only benefit government agencies acknowledge). In fact it’s hard to think of a chronic disease that isn’t powerfully affected by vitamin D. Your immune system cannot work without sufficient vitamin D, and some experts even consider winter flu a vitamin D deficiency disease. Yet the CDC continues to push flu shots, which are toxic to the human body, when non-toxic and even more effective natural alternatives are readily available.Because vitamin D impacts so many body functions, including immunity, at Beyond Health we strongly urge everyone to find out what their blo…

The Opioid Epidemic is big news these days. Committees are meeting to discuss ways to get Americans off these dangerous drugs, while scientists look for new drugs with less destructive side effects than our current choices. Too bad Dr. Stanley W. Jacob, MD, one of the great innovative scientists of our time, was never given the attention he deserved. Dr. Jacob helped to develop two sulfur-based natural supplements—DMSO and its derivative, MSM—and spent his life advocating for them and using them to help thousands of patients alleviate pain. But he died in 2015, at age 91, without having managed to convince conventional medicine in the US of the value of these two compounds. However, that didn’t stop people from coming to his DMSO Clinic at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland from all over the world for treatment. This clinic-of-last-resort for pain problems that nothing else had helped had an estimated success rate of about 70%. Jacob became interested in using DMSO…

Do you seem to catch every cold or flu going around? Do you have an ongoing infection, like the yeast infection candida, that you can’t get rid of?  Or do you have the opposite problem—an overactive immune system leading to allergies or to an autoimmune disease? Do you have, or have you had cancer?  These are all indications that your immune system isn’t protecting you as it should, and it’s likely that a primary reason for that is that you don’t have enough glutathione. Glutathione is a critical protein that your body produces. It can also be obtained from food and supplements.  Glutathione has been called “the mother antioxidant” because our antioxidant system can’t function without it. Neither can our detoxification system. And neither can our immune system. Glutathione has the following six essential roles in immune function: Glutathione patrols the bloodstream directly killing many pathogens before they can begin…

Millions of Americans take fish oil supplements for their numerous benefits, including cardiovascular health benefits, improved mental clarity, increased energy, healthier circulation, and much more. Why does fish oil work so many miracles?  Because Omega-3 deficiency is widespread; perhaps as many as 90% of our population is deficient.  And because Omega-3s have important roles in our bodies. Deficiency and toxicity are the two causes of disease, and if we’re deficient in Omega-3s, it’s impossible to be healthy. Omega-3s are essential for building healthy cell membranes.  If they’re not available when needed, the body uses other fats, like saturated fat and transfat, to make these membranes.  This means our cell membranes will be improperly constructed; they won’t let in nutrients they’re supposed to admit, or release metabolic wastes that are polluting the insides of our cells. Omega-3s are also anti-inflammatory, and it’s critical to have a good rat…

Widespread magnesium deficiency has been implicated in a host of chronic diseases, including obesity. How would healthy levels of magnesium in our cells help us to attain and maintain a healthy weight, and how does magnesium deficiency sabotage those goals? Fatigue. The number one complaint patients bring to doctors is “feeling tired.” Being unable to lose weight probably ranks a close second.  The two concerns are related: It’s hard to eat less and exercise more when you’re already feeling tired all the time. Fatigue is one of the first signs of magnesium deficiency. Magnesium and the B vitamins are our main energy nutrients, involved in almost every step of energy creation in the cells’ energy factories, the mitochondria. Nutrient Deficiency. Magnesium and the B's activate enzymes that control digestion, absorption and utilization of all three macronutrients—fats, proteins, and carbohydrates—making the vitamins and minerals they contain available for our bodies to use.…