Total Health Breakthroughs: Free Natural Health Newsletter and Alternative Health Articles

You’ve heard the old saw that no chain is stronger than its weakest link.

For the health of your heart, the weakest link is CoQ10.

CoQ10 (pronounced “ko-cue-ten”) is one of the most powerful nutrients nature has given us. It is found in every organ and every cell in your body. And it is absolutely critical for the health of your heart.

You can be doing everything else right, but without CoQ10, your heart will still suffer.

We’ve known about it since the 1950s. So why hasn’t your doctor been telling you to take it?

The reason is money. Big Pharma has not been able to come up with a synthetic form of CoQ10 that works. And as we all know, if they can’t make money off of it, then they’re not going to sell it. And if they don’t sell it, most doctors don’t hear about it. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true.

In India, they call it madhumeha, or “sugar urine.”

In the U.S., we call it diabetes.

Either way, it’s a blood sugar nightmare that can lead to heart disease, kidney failure, nerve damage, blindness, and more.

Everyone knows someone with diabetes because it is epidemic in the United States. Over 20 million people suffer from it. And the cost of this disease? A whopping $132 billion per year – with $92 billion of that going for prescription drugs.

It’s a different story in rural India. There, in areas where natural medicine is still practiced, they serve up a special type of gourd when blood sugar problems arise.

Could that be why only 2-3% of India’s vast rural population – 750 million people – has diabetes? In contrast, in the big cities of India, where modern diet and modern medicine are more common, 12% of adults are diabetic – the largest diabetic population in the world.¹

Since the early 70’s, it has been politically correct to recommend a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet.   These recommendations are so firmly embedded in the consciousness of Americans that criticizing low-fat diets brings strong and adverse opinions.

Along with the demonization of saturated fats came cholesterol-lowering medications (statins). These drugs have been called “the most successful medicines in history”—but not for their success in curbing heart disease. In that regard, these drugs have been a royal flop.

Their “success” is for the manufacturers, who saw a staggering $33 Billion dollars in sales worldwide last year.   Pfizer’s Lipitor alone earned $13.6 million. 

Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), senior member of the United States Senate and Ranking Member of the Committee on Finance, has been relentlessly probing conflicts of interest in medicine, with the goal of transparency. 

While it may be known there are conflicting links between doctors and pharmaceutical companies, for the past quarter of a century it has been hidden from public view.

It’s 3pm and you still have a report to write before you can leave the office. You head to the coffee machine for a caffeine fix to help you focus.

This is your brain on low blood sugar.

And it’s dialing 911 for caffeine, or sugar, or both.

Where it all starts

Afternoon slumps don’t have to be a way of life. Keeping your blood sugar under control can eliminate those mid-day concentration crashes and lets you have a natural energy supply all day long.

And two nutrients play an important role in managing your glucose metabolism. Not only that, they can turn you into a fat- and carb-burning machine, helping you to burn off what you eat, instead of storing it on your belly, hips and thighs.

The nutrients I’m talking about are biotin and chromium. And they’re vital for controlling your blood sugar.

It’s important to look at glucose control from the cellular level because that’s where it all starts. Making sure you have the basic building blocks in place gives you a solid foundation for all that has to happen to keep your energy level on an even keel.

If you ever find yourself drowsy during the day, you need to know about adiponectin.

This little-known substance is a protein hormone you already have in your body and it is a key player in regulating blood sugar. When mid-afternoon brain fog hits, it usually means your blood sugar is taking a nose dive. And that could mean you don’t have enough adiponectin in your system.

Why haven’t you heard of this before?

Well, scientists have known for years that adiponectin helps to keep your blood sugar stable because it helps your body to utilize insulin better. But they didn’t know how to raise the levels of adiponectin in your body. And they didn’t know how important it would be to do that – until now.

The Mushroom Connection

For centuries, Asians have prized mushrooms for their healing properties. They have been cultivated as both food and medicine. They didn’t know how the mushrooms had such power, or what the chemical compounds in them might be – they just knew they worked.

Over the holidays in December, I stayed with my Mom for a few days. As we were cooking dinner one night, I opened the pantry to get some ingredients. Most of what was in there, I can only describe as a nutritional disaster. And after years of eating this way, it has certainly contributed to the poor health and weight issues she has experienced.

But I have learned from experience that it doesn’t do any good to preach to family members. My genuine concern has too often been viewed as overbearing and self-righteous. So I made a more subtle comment.

“You know there’s a new natural grocery store that just opened by the mall, Mom.”

“Yeah, and you’ve got to pay arm and a leg to get out of there too,” she said.

I left it at that and changed the subject. There was no sense in arguing.

Between elevated health insurance costs, annual deductibles, monthly drug prescriptions and missed work due to illness my mother and her husband spend thousands – probably tens of thousands – of dollars on health care each year. In fact, next month my Mom is having a hip replacement surgery due to carrying too much weight for too many years… but eating healthy is too expensive.

My brother recently told me a similar story about when his in-laws came to visit. He was making dinner for and ran out of a few key ingredients. His mother-in-law offered to make a run to the store. They asked her to stop at the natural grocery store, because they didn’t want to buy conventionally-raised meat.

Endurance exercise is a futile fitness disaster…

Endurance exercise – the universally touted “cardio” – is not the key to health and fitness. Quite the opposite. Cardio is a myth that is not only unhealthy and potentially dangerous, it is completely unnatural.

No doubt you’ve heard otherwise from countless health “experts” who urge you to pound the pavement or jump on the treadmill for hours at the gym. But your body wasn’t designed for long, repetitive exercise. Worse, it can make you more vulnerable to disease.

Many of us have come to think of cardio (short for cardiovascular endurance training) as a synonym for heart conditioning. Yet, according to Dr. Al Sears, author of P.A.C.E. – The 12-Minute Fitness Revolution, when you study the heart’s reaction to repeated sessions of cardio, the evidence refutes that theory.

Yesterday, Michael Masterson (the founder of our sister company, Early To Rise) sent me a video that he got a kick out of. Michael knew that I was planning to write about memory and cognition and he thought this would be a memorable and humorous way to begin.

If you have ever forgotten what you are about to say… can’t remember why you walked into a room… or called one of your children the dog’s name… I think you’ll get a laugh out of this too.

We all have “senior moments”…

No matter your age, we all experience times when we forget even the most recent event or idea. What did I walk in here for… where did I park my car… why did I just open the refrigerator?

For most of recorded history, fat was revered as a sign of health and prosperity. Plumpness was a status symbol. It showed that you did not have to engage in manual labor for your sustenance. And it meant that you could afford plentiful quantities of food.

For most people, however, being fat was simply not an option. The constant struggle to hunt and harvest ensured that we stayed active. And for those with little money, the supply of calories was meager. This ensured that most of the working class stayed slim.

Rich people were fat. Poor people were thin.

Today, the polar opposite is true. Numerous studies show that low-income children and adults are far more likely to be overweight than those of greater means. And the statistical distribution fits a nice, neat curve – as income falls, the rate of obesity rises.

The following graph from a population study in Utah puts this in perspective. The tallest bar on the left represents the lowest income group… and the highest rate of obesity.

An estimated 70 million Americans are affected by chronic pain.

If you are one of them, you know that it can interfere with every aspect of your life. It can cause you to become irritable and create trouble in your relationships. It saps your energy and steals productivity. And, even worse, chronic pain contributes to a host of secondary problems. Depression, insomnia and anxiety, can all result from pain and are health risks in their own right.

The unfortunate thing is that most people with pain don’t know about a simple ancient system that might be able to relieve it without drugs of any type.

I stumbled across this powerful system by accident.  What was so amazing to me is that I could do it almost anywhere anytime.  Let me explain how I got started.

Some years ago, I was someone that was in pain. I used to get terrible headaches and I had back and knee pain. In fact, my back problems were probably caused by favoring my painful knee (another example of those secondary problems).

For some unknown reason, I was drawn to martial arts. I began to train under a grandmaster. And while the physical exercise helped, it was when my teacher exposed me to another ancient art that my life really changed.