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

The first time my patients ask me about their prostate health is when they notice they are getting up more than once in the night to urinate. If I discover that it’s not their evening liquid intake of large amounts of coffee, alcohol or soft drinks (all very good diuretics) that produce these symptoms, I will proceed with a digital rectal exam (DRE). Many times this routine examination will indicate some prostate enlargement and a PSA blood test will be necessary.

A high PSA score isn’t always bad news. It simply means that your prostate is enlarged for some reason. You could have an infection, inflammation, or a noncancerous enlargement.

Dr. Sears has developed a revolutionary system to optimize male sexual health. Learn the details of his cutting-edge products and how to use them in this special feature.”

When doctors offer a pill as a solution for sexual problems, they have the right idea. You see, today’s pills increase your blood flow, helping you get oxygen-rich blood to your sex organ at a moment’s notice.

But they make a big mistake. A mistake that goes unnoticed by all of mainstreammedicine. Even most of the “alternative” doctors aren’t aware of this.

They don’t realize your body has a built-in defense mechanism that sabotages its effectiveness.

If you give your body outside help, you’ll get decent short-term results. But the effects will start to wear off. And after a few months you’re right back where you started.

Think of it as the “coffee effect.” The first time you had coffee it probably knocked your socks off. For me, I was in college. I remember thinking, “Wow, this stuff is great!” I started drinking it every morning and whenever I needed that extra boost when I was studying.

Do you consider yourself a perfectionist? I must admit, I have a bit of a perfectionist streak in me. It’s something I’m learning to resist. In fact, Dr. Mollie Marti, founder of BestLifeDesign.com, recently suggested that I “strive for excellence, not perfection.”¹ I let that sink in and realized we don’t have to be perfect. Perfection is totally unattainable anyway, so why not be the most “excellent” we can be in all areas, including the way we look and feel?

People ask me all the time, “What is Aging Backwards? It sounds like a great idea, but too much work.” The reality is, you can look and feel younger with minimal effort if you break it down into small, manageable daily habits, striving for excellence rather than perfection. Here are just a few practical and realistic tips for looking and feeling younger and healthier, excellently:

1) Free hormone balancing. They don’t call it “beauty rest” for nothing! Our bodies seem to tune up while we’re sleeping. Sleep deprivation has actually been shown to alter the production and action of hormones.

According to a recent research presented at the 22nd annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, teeth grinding in preschoolers has been linked to withdrawn behaviors.¹

I was recently made aware of huge news on statin drugs from the labs at Iowa State University, where a researcher has confirmed something I have long suspected regarding cholesterol-lowering drugs — that they could seriously harm brain health.

The concern comes from simply knowing that brain cells, like liver cells, also manufacture cholesterol. Brain cells need cholesterol for a variety of functions. For instance, cholesterol is a primary component of the protective nerve coating called myelin. If your brain cells didn’t need cholesterol, they wouldn’t make it.

In the past it was assumed that statins primarily affect the production of cholesterol in the liver. However, as a pharmacist I have always thought it was naïve to think that a drug (statins) that circulates throughout the whole body would not affect other cholesterol-producing cells at all. My fears have now been proven correct.

Yeon-Kyun Shin, a biophysics professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at Iowa State, says his research shows that statins do indeed slow the production of cholesterol in the brain which then interferes with efficient brain function.¹ His study will soon be published in the Journal of the National Academy of Sciences.

Shin found that too little cholesterol in brain cells significantly affected a protein that is needed for the release of neurotransmitters. Cholesterol is needed to change the shape of this critical protein, and in his words, “to stimulate thinking and memory.”

I cannot overstate how important this information is, and how big a ripple this news will cause as it is more widely reported. At least, I hope it will be widely reported.

Did you know that you can help reduce stress on your body just by making sure that most of the carbohydrates (carbs) you eat are they type that keep your blood sugar from rising too fast?

You don’t have to go through life constantly drained and fatigued — or rely on artificial stimulants to get you through the day. Very often simple lifestyle changes can break long-standing negative habits that will recharge your batteries. Here are some tips from my fatigue-busting program, Triple Your Endurance, to help you get started.

A good friend of mine loves spicy food. A few years ago, though, he noticed that whenever he ate anything too spicy, he spent the rest of the evening with miserable indigestion. He asked me if there was any way he could enjoy the foods he loved without the unpleasant after-effects. Fortunately, I was able to give him several recommendations that helped prevent his indigestion.

As you get older, indigestion becomes a more common problem. Six million Americans suffer with frequent indigestion. Whether you suffer from gas, frequent heartburn, or bloating, these are all signs that something is not working quite right in your digestive system. The gas, bloating, and pain are early signs of what can turn into a bigger problem.

It’s your gut’s job to process the food you eat. It pulls the nutrients out of the food you eat to be absorbed and used by your body, and then it moves what can’t be used right on through. You can imagine what might happen when things aren’t working the way they should… it can lead to all sorts of problems.

Fortunately, there are natural, safe, healthy solutions to solve your digestion woes. But first, let’s take a look at the most common causes of indigestion.

Common Causes of Indigestion
Indigestion can be caused by a number of different factors. Some are serious, some are less so. All will cause you pain and discomfort.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome: This is one of the most common digestive disorders that people suffer from. It leads to pain, cramping, bloating, constipation, and diarrhea. The symptoms vary from person to person, and the cause isn’t well understood, although food sensitivities and stress both tend to aggravate symptoms.

I work in a small rural ER. I should have been a dentist! Many of our patient visits are for facial soft tissue infections related to dental caries (cavities) that are sometimes very severe. We also see a fair amount of dental abscesses, gum disease and related conditions. Unfortunately, there is not much for us to do.

Most of these people don’t realize that aside from their pain and discomfort, dental caries and periodontal disease (chronic gum infection and swelling leading to tooth loss) can cause coronary artery disease, heart attack, serious infection of the heart valves, pneumonia, stroke, low birth weight in newborns and diabetes.

An interesting fact is that dental caries are the most common chronic disease in the world. While there have been amazing advances in dentistry, many people do not receive prophylactic (preventative) cleanings and exams. Their visit to the dentist comes when a cavity is causing facial pain and swelling, a sign of serious infection spread from the involved tooth to the surrounding soft tissues. Most likely, that tooth needs to be removed to drain the infection or needs a root canal.

Extractions, root canals and even routine fillings are painful, expensive and time consuming. But preventive care for your teeth will help you avoid these “dental disasters.”

Even if your teeth need some “work” or are in perfect shape, it’s never too late to start preventive dental care. You can prevent progression of existing problems and also help prevent the serious diseases listed above.

If you are over the age of 50, you may have seriously clogged arteries as a result of poor diet, genetics or a lack of adequate vitamin and mineral supplementation. That means all 75,000 miles of your arteries, veins and capillaries may be full of plaque that can cause a blockage.

But new research indicates that two key nutrients can help you combat the causes of heart problems, toxic build-up and decreasing energy levels.

As a medical professional, I agree with modern science that consuming a high-fat diet can lead to heart disease, but new evidence has surfaced to explain the process.

Research from the University of Cincinnati¹ examined high-fat diets and the effect they can have on the adipose — or fatty — tissue surrounding the coronary arteries. Neil Weintraub, M.D. and colleagues found that the fat cells were highly inflamed, which suggests that the blood vessels could become inflamed. This is one of the first indicators of clogged arteries, or atherosclerosis.

Another startling discovery showed that rats on a high-fat diet for only two weeks already showed the effects of inflammation in the tissue around the arteries! “These new findings suggest a direct link between poor dietary habits and inflammation of blood vessels, mediated by the fat cells surrounding the blood vessel wall,” said lead author Weintraub.