. . . almost all disease can be prevented and reversed. Because I maintain that almost all disease can be prevented and reversed, I'm sometimes asked if type 1 diabetes can be reversed. Most type 1 diabetes results from an autoimmune illness in which the body destroys insulin-producing cells (beta cells) in the pancreas. Once these cells are gone, I don't know anyone who has grown new ones. However, if caught early, it may be possible to reverse or at least mitigate the autoimmune process causing the damage. To do this, you would need to give strong support to your immune system with good diet (get rid of The Big Four!), minimize toxins in your life, identify and address food sensitivities and allergies, and get onto a comprehensive, high-quality supplement program. Vitamin D is particularly helpful with autoimmune issues. Even when irreversible damage has been done to the beta cells, there is much you can do to optimize your health. Many studies, for example, have found th…

. . . tips for better health Easy Does It. Don't increase fiber intake too fast, or you'll get gas and bloating, even cramping and/or constipation. It's best to add about 5 grams a day for a week. So if you're starting at 10 grams a day, take 15 grams for a week before adding more. Keep going up 5 grams a day, a week at a time, until you reach your target amount. Even with gradual change, you may experience some transition symptoms. It takes a while for the bacteria in your gut to adjust to more fiber. Drink Plenty of Water. Make sure you get your 6-8 glasses a day, and drink a glass whenever you take a fiber supplement. Additional water will help optimize fiber's actions in the body and will prevent constipation. How Much Fiber? Aim for 35-40 grams a day; more if you're dealing with diabetes or trying to lose weight. There are roughly 3 grams of fiber (a mix of soluble and insoluble) in a typical piece of fruit; 4 in a cup of vegetables, and 7 in a half cup of beans. Juici…

The major keys to supporting healthy blood sugar regulation are diet and exercise. Our primitive ancestors who were physically active and ate diets high in fiber and low in carbohydrates didn’t have to worry about blood-sugar problems. If we emulated them, neither would we. Refined sugar is the main dietary culprit. Many people think that they don’t eat much sugar because they don’t dip into the sugar bowl frequently. What they fail to appreciate is the enormous amount of sugar they get from desserts, baked goods and other treats, as well as from the 85 different forms of sugar found in processed foods, where sugar acts as a preservative, as well as to lure consumers with a sweet taste. Sugary soft drinks account for about 1/3 of sugar consumption in the US. Simply avoiding processed foods and soft drinks will go a long way towards eliminating added sugar in your diet and normalizing blood-sugar balance. If you must eat processed foods, check the label for the number of grams of…

There’s a hefty price to pay for using antibiotics. They kill pathogens, but they also kill beneficial intestinal bacteria and allow harmful microbes to proliferate. Even one course of antibiotics can alter the unique community of microbes living in your intestines (your “biome”) and do permanent damage. Herbal antimicrobials may be a better choice, but even these have not been proved to be totally benign. But what if you need to take an antibiotic? Are you doomed to suffer the hundreds of diseases that have been associated with a deranged biome? Not if you take the right precautions. Many studies have shown that taking probiotics (beneficial bacteria) along with antibiotics helps to preserve your biome’s integrity. Antibiotics are prescribed to be taken once, twice, or three times daily. A probiotic product, such as Beyond Health’s Probiotic Formula, can be taken 2-3 hours after each antibiotic dose. It is critical that you choose an effective probiotic product—one that deliv…

Who wants to bet that a thick, juicy steak would satisfy your appetite more completely than a bowl of beans and peas? If you bet on the steak, you would be wrong. A recent study proved it. The reason beans and peas were more satisfying?  Fiber! Researchers fed 43 healthy, normal-weight young men a pork/veal dinner. The meal was 19% protein, 53% carbohydrate and 28% fat, and supplied 6 grams of fiber. The men’s appetites were then scored every half hour for the next three hours. At that point, they were given a second meal and told to eat as much as they wanted. The next day, the same men were fed the same meal, except that the meat was replaced by beans and peas. Although the percentages of protein, carbohydrate and fat were the same as in the first meal, the fiber content was now 25 grams.  The men’s appetites were again monitored, and after three hours they were given a second meal and told to eat as much as they wanted. The results? The men reported being less h…

You can feel the excitement in our office. This is the product we’ve all been waiting for! We’re getting super-charged with energy, losing weight if we need to, and feeling better than ever due to our amazing new meal and snack replacement, Berry Meal Blast!  The Solution to the Need for Grab-and-Go Healthy Meals There’s been a crying need for a meal replacement product that’s quick and easy to prepare, tastes great, contains no questionable artificial ingredients, and infuses your day with spectacular nutrition. Well, Beyond Health exists to solve such problems, and for months now our product engineers have been hard at work to create a product that exceeds our high standards for effectiveness, safety and value in every detail, to maximize your health. Berry Meal Blast is finally here! A vegan superfood powder made from berries and other nutrition-packed foods, healing herbs, high-quality vitamins and minerals, and state-of-the-art RNA technology, Berry Meal B…

Would you believe there was a time when human beings didn’t get constipated?  That’s what Dr. Denis Burkitt found in the 1970s when he studied healthy Africans eating traditional high-fiber diets. Nor did they get conditions associated with constipation like diverticulitis, gallstones, hemorrhoids, polyps, colon cancer, diabetes, obesity, varicose veins, high cholesterol, blood clots, and other cardiovascular issues.    While these Africans got 40-100 grams of fiber daily, the average American gets about 15. Could this explain why so many of us are constipated?  Absolutely! Fiber deficiency is a major factor in our constipation epidemic!  Transit time is the time it takes for food to go from mouth to anus and out. An ideal transit time is 12-18 hours.  Faster isn’t good because time is needed to absorb nutrients from food.  But most people have the opposite problem: a sluggish bowel. This means toxic wastes don’t get eliminated fast eno…

If you’re reading this, you probably care about your health and try to eat a good diet. But more than 95 percent of the US population isn’t getting enough of this often neglected nutrient: fiber, and that very likely includes you! The indigestible portion of plant foods, fiber goes far beyond improving digestion and elimination. Fiber is responsible for creating a healthy environment in your gut so that healthy bacteria (probiotics) can flourish and pathogenic bacteria and other bad guys like yeasts and parasites are held in check.  The conglomeration of good and bad bugs in your gut is called your microbiome. Without enough fiber, you get a sick microbiome; without a healthy microbiome, you get a sick body. It’s that simple. Without adequate fiber all types of disease thrive, including constipation, diverticulitis, gallstones, hemorrhoids, polyps, cancer, diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, varicose veins, high cholesterol, heart disease, obesity, depression and…

By the age of 45, one-third of all Americans have a potentially hazardous condition called diverticulosis in their colons. Half of Americans aged 60-80 develop this condition and almost everyone over the age of 90. In diverticulosis, the wall of the colon balloons out forming a pouch, or a pocket called a diverticulum (plural diverticula).  Diverticula range in size from a pea to a thimble. By themselves, diverticula aren’t a problem, but up to 25% of the time they progress to diverticulitis, a very painful and even potentially life-threatening situation.  Diverticulitis occurs when fecal matter and pathogenic bacteria get stuck in the diverticula leading to infection and inflammation.  It causes severe pain, fever, cramping, muscle spasms, bloating and nausea. Although it’s rare, sometimes the pressure inflamed diverticula exert on the colon wall cause perforation of the bowel, a life-threatening situation as bowel contents spill out infecting the whole abdo…

We’ve been telling you how important it is to get 40-100 grams of dietary fiber in your diet daily to support a healthy gut population of good bacteria (probiotics), which in turn probably does more to ensure the health of your whole body than any other single factor. And we’ve told you that at least 95 percent of the US population doesn’t get enough fiber, and challenged you to calculate how much fiber you get on a daily basis. Odds are you came up short.  We did when we took the Fiber Challenge ourselves!  It takes a lot of consciousness to include 40-100 grams of fiber in a day’s diet! We’ve found a few simple ways to include more fiber that we’d like to share with you. But first, don’t start bombarding your intestines with a huge quantity of fiber all at once! This could lead to constipation and bad flatulence. Instead, measure your average fiber intake and add more gradually, a maximum of 5 grams a day, interspersed throughout the day, un…

About one in 23 men and one in 25 women in the US will develop colon cancer during their lifetimes.  Although using colonoscopies to find and remove cancerous polyps has reduced the overall death rate from colon cancer, among people younger than age 55, deaths from colon cancer have increased 2 percent per year from 2007 and 2016. Could there be a relationship between colon cancer and the observation that almost all Americans are deficient in fiber?  We think so. So did a group of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, who joined forces with the University of KwaZulu in rural Africa to compare the diets of African Americans and rural Africans.  African Americans have especially high rates of colon cancer, 13 times higher than rural Africans; and the researchers hypothesized that the rural Africans’ high-fiber, low-fat diets had something to do with this. To test their ideas, the researchers compared the diets and also the microbiota (gut bugs) of a…

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…

It only makes sense to do whatever we can to strengthen our immune systems during the continuing COVID pandemic, and one of the best ways to do that is by supporting a thriving and varied population of beneficial bacteria in our intestines.More than 2/3 of immune cells are located in the gut, where they work synergistically with up to trillions of beneficial bacteria to support immunity.Beneficial gut bacteria activate and support almost every aspect of both innate and adaptive immunity. They increase production of and activate macrophages (the first responder immune cells that literally have pathogens for breakfast—they engulf and devour them) natural killer cells, messenger cells (cytokines), B-cells and T-cells; and they strengthen the gut lining; modify the immune system so it doesn’t overreact and cause too much inflammation; improve absorption of many nutrients; and produce their own natural antimicrobial substances. One of these, acidophilin, is more powerful than pharmaceutica…

Heavy metals, like lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic, are one of our biggest health problems. Used to manufacture many common products, they’re now found throughout our air, water and food. Virtually all of us harbor toxic heavy metals in our bodies.Heavy metals bioaccumulate, so even small exposures add up over time, triggering problems like heart disease, thyroid disease, dementia, neurological disease and birth defects. Tiny amounts of mercury have been shown to damage the brain of a developing fetus or child.Heavy metals cause problems by displacing other minerals needed for essential body functions. For example, cadmium can replace zinc in key enzymes, causing those enzymes to malfunction so critical biological functions can’t be performed.Many physicians use chelation to remove heavy metals—a “chelating agent” is ingested that binds with heavy metals and carries them out of the body through urine and/or feces. Chelation therapy is especially recommended, and has often been a “m…

"Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food." - Hippocrates Do your meals leave you feeling light and full of vitality, or do they weigh you down, making you feel sleepy and dull? Although all food supplies calories, how well your body utilizes those calories to provide you with energy depends on the "life force" in the foods you eat. And foods vary widely along a continuum in this respect, from producing vitality, rejuvenation and healing to sapping your energy, adding unwanted weight and contributing to premature aging and disease.Food also influences mood and mental abilities, from raising your spirits, making you optimistic and heightening your awareness and mental function to bringing you down and dulling your brain.A number of factors determine a food's vibration or life force. Overall, foods are most energizing and health-promoting when they're consumed raw, or as close as possible to their natural state. This gives pride of place to the multicolored fruits and vegetable…

How much thought do you give to dietary fiber? If you’re like most of us, it’s not a priority—but it should be! Dietary fiber is one of the most important determinants of your health! Almost everyone today does not get enough fiber in their diet. Our lack of fiber awareness has created a health crisis. Lack of fiber is a major contributor to our epidemic of chronic disease and can be a significant factor in causing diabetes, cancer, heart disease, obesity, depression and other mental illness, allergies, autoimmune syndromes, and infections.   Why is fiber so important? Dietary fiber, plant material that can’t be digested, is essential to our health because it nourishes the healthy flora in our guts known as the microbiome and helps to maintain the health of our gut tissue. Your health is completely dependent on the health of your gut flora. Healthy flora helps to digest our food and enhance the absorption of nutrients. They produce certain essential vitam…

You probably associate getting enough fiber—the non-digestible “roughage” we get from plant foods—with good elimination. You may also know that fiber helps maintain a healthy weight by filling you up so you eat fewer calories, or even that fiber helps to maintain good cholesterol levels. But how can eating fiber strengthen your immunity?The answer is that fiber nourishes the trillions of beneficial bacteria (probiotics) that live in our intestines, where they are a crucial part of our immune systems. Anywhere from 60-80% of immune system activity takes place in the intestines, where probiotics attack pathogens with powerful antimicrobial substances. These substances are often as powerful as the strongest antibiotic medications, but they don’t kill off good gut bacteria as is done by antibiotic drugs.According to Rachel Begun, MS, RDN, quoted in a recent issue of Environmental Nutrition, various aspects of modern life have altered gut microflora, damaging immunity and leading to signifi…

You know that fresh fruits and vegetables are good for you, but when you feed yourself you’re also feeding trillions of guests. These “guests” are the bacteria (aka microbiota, or tummy bugs) that inhabit your intestines. And according to Justin Sonnenburg, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford School of Medicine, diet is one of the most powerful impacts on gut microbiota, who feed on fiber-rich carbohydrates found in whole plant foods. Why would you want to treat your tummy bugs as honored guests? Because we have an age-old deal with these guys. We provide them with food and a warm place to live; they help us to digest and absorb food, to synthesize vitamins, to produce amino acids, to secrete mucus, to prevent constipation by increasing motility, to create food for intestinal cells, and, perhaps most importantly, to partner with our immune system (more than 2/3 of which is located in the intestines) by degrading toxins and competing with and killi…