. . . probiotics -- essential to good health If you haven't been particularly interested in the bugs in your tummy, this study should catch your attention. Scientists have been able to predict the likelihood of a heart attack in lab rats by studying types and levels of bacteria found in their intestines. In addition, certain probiotics, specifically Lactobacillus plantarum 299y, were also found to decrease the size of a heart attack and lead to better recovery. According to John E. Baker, PhD, who led the study, the "discovery is a revolutionary milestone in the prevention and treatment of heart attacks." The editor of the FASEB Journal, where the study was published, commented, "We may soon evaluate our body's susceptibility to disease by looking at the microbes that inhabit the gut." Antibiotics use has been a disaster for human health by decimating healthy intestinal bacteria. If you've ever taken an antibiotic, build up your good bugs with Beyond Health's Probiotic Form…

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…

It’s flu season again, but you don’t need to get caught by a cold or the flu. The truth is, healthy people don’t get colds. Many people in traditional healthy cultures live well past a hundred without getting a single cold. Here’s what you need to do: Build your immunity daily with the Beyond Health Wellness Kit appropriate for you (call our office at 800-250-3063 if you don’t know which one to take), 8-10 glasses of pure water, exercise that produces a sweat (and/or take regular saunas), and a good, sugar-free, alkalinizing diet. Get your vitamin D levels tested; if they aren’t in the high-normal range, include 1-2 capsules of Beyond Health vitamin D3 in your daily supplement program and retest every 3 months until they are. Minimize stress, avoid allergens (they tax the immune system), and try to get a good night’s sleep every night. This should keep your immunity in tip-top shape—ready to throw off any viruses that come its way. However, because life isn’t perfect, and neit…

We each have a mighty force of trillions of tiny microorganisms—helpful bacteria and other microbes—living on our skin, in our digestive system, and in tissues throughout the body, that is constantly on guard to defend us against potentially invasive infectious disease-causing pathogens like viruses, yeasts, parasites and harmful bacteria. Discounted for many years by the medical establishment, scientists are now beginning to discover how much we depend on these “good bugs.” Not only do they synthesize vitamins and amino acids and help us to digest and absorb our food, they are also an indispensable part of our immune system. Before a pathogen—bacterial, viral, or fungal—can get into your bloodstream, where it can replicate and become increasingly virulent, it must first get past the formidable fortress created by your skin and mucus membranes. The skin isn’t just a physical barrier; it is an immune system organ, where immune cells and good bugs work together to conquer pot…

This month, it’s all about toxins. According to our founder, Raymond Francis, there is only one disease, malfunctioning cells, and only two reasons cells malfunction: either they don’t have the right materials to work with (deficiency) or they’re being disrupted with the wrong materials (toxins) that interfere with normal cell function.The barrage of manmade toxic chemicals we encounter today is unprecedented, and it’s taking a huge toll on our health.Though it’s still possible to be healthy for life, it takes knowledge and effort—avoiding as many toxins as you can, and using strategies to detoxify your body from those you can’t avoid.We’ve talked about detoxifying your home with air and water filters and recommended detoxing with frequent infrared saunas.But with all the fuss about environmental toxins, you might be surprised to learn that the most potent source of toxins for almost everyone today is digesting and metabolizing food!In making energy from food, the body produces loads o…

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…

Over the past weeks, we’ve told you why you’ve got to have adequate fiber if you want to achieve and maintain optimal health. Fiber is sorely lacking in the American diet, and even if you eat an exemplary diet it’s easy to fall short of the 40-100 grams per day recommended for a healthy colon.  To help fill the gap, we offer Beyond Health’s Dietary Fiber Formula , one of the most advanced combinations of health-promoting fibers on the market today. These fibers help propel the stool through the intestines by softening it and adding bulk, but that’s just the beginning. These same fibers are fermented by friendly colonic bacteria (probiotics) to create food for themselves AND food for the important cells lining the intestines. Thus, healthy probiotic populations are encouraged to thrive, and intestinal linings are strengthened and renewed. IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO TAKE PROBIOTICS BY THEMSELVES!  You must have fiber to feed these friendly bacteria or they w…

Our gut microbiomes—those 3-5 pound communities of bacteria and other bugs that live in our intestines—have recently been under siege by modern diets high in sugar and low in fiber, antibiotics and other drugs, and environmental toxins. But even when diets were much healthier and environments far cleaner, traditional cuisines included probiotic foods that bolstered gut health.Sauerkrauts, pickles, yogurt, kefir, miso, and many other fermented/cultured foods supplied our ancestors with healthy microflora (probiotics) at 10-20 billion live and healthy organisms daily. Indeed, our bodies evolved to live in a healthy, symbiotic relationship with microbes. These helpful bugs that we call probiotics have been with us since time immemorial, protecting and enhancing our resilience and resistance by competing for space inside our bodies with any harmful pathogens to which we might become exposed, thus preventing them from becoming established and proliferating. Revered physicians throughout hi…

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…

Bisphenol A (BPA) could be a poster child for the Precautionary Principle—the principle that synthetic chemicals should be proved safe before they are allowed to come into commercial use. Now that BPA is found just about everywhere and in everyone (see above article), it has been implicated in a host of dysfunctions and diseases.But there’s some good news. Scientists have been exploring various nutrients which may be able to limit BPA’s harmful biological effects and/or assist the body in breaking down and excreting this estrogenic compound. Fortunately these include many of the nutritional “good guys” Beyond Health has been recommending for years.Green and Black TeaOne way in which BPA harms body tissues is through oxidative stress—it reportedly has effects similar to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). However in two laboratory studies, extracts from both green tea and black tea were able to mitigate these effects and protect cells from oxidative damage. Green tea also stimulates glucuronidat…

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…

A friend of ours recently took an over-the-counter medication for intestinal gas. The results were amazing, and not in a good way. Although she got minor relief, it was followed by a splitting headache, and that night she had horrible, violent nightmares. While we were still musing about the power of what we ingest to affect the body-mind, we noticed the cover of the new issue of The Intelligent Optimist. It announcedan article within on “Why taking supplements leads to enlightenment.” While we’ve noticed being happier and more clear-minded since cleaning up our diet and adopting a program of high-quality supplements, we were especially intrigued that this article’s author is a modern-day shaman. While he has academic credentials, Alberto Villoldo, PhD, reports spending thirty years in the high Andes and the Amazon, training with master shamans. Yet, as we read his article, we found him recommending a similar diet and many of the same supplements Beyond Health recommends. Alth…