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

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?

It is bad enough that mainstream doctors and dieticians erroneously focus on saturated fat and dietary cholesterol as the cause of heart disease – something which has never been proven. Perhaps even worse is that the alternatives they suggest HAVE been proven to cause heart disease… among a range of other chronic diseases.

In his recent calls to “ban butter,” Dr. Shyam Kolvekar suggests that it will make a “world of difference” to replace it with polyunsaturated fats like margarine or sunflower oil. He is correct. It will make a world of difference. It will dramatically increase your risk of heart disease, cancer, asthma and macular degeneration, to name just a few degenerative conditions associated with these fats.

And since Dr. Kolvekar’s concerns are “for the children”… let’s start there.

The journal Intelligence published a report last year that what children eat can have a significant impact on their intelligence. The researchers stated that they “found a number of dietary factors to be significantly associated with intelligence measures.”

So, what was their most consistent finding? It was the association between margarine consumption and lower IQ scores. The children who ate margarine every day had IQs that were up to six points lower than children who did not.

Most dieticians will disagree with me on this one… the government is certainly not a proponent of it, and it’s possible you will question my methods — but there is much evidence to support what I am about to tell you.

Forget about calorie counting. Eat fat, eat more protein than veggies, and don’t eat too much grain — even if it is whole and unprocessed!!

Avoid sodas… even if they are diet.

Sodas will make you fat. And they lead to other health problems. That “innocent” low-cal diet soda is really danger in a can.

I really did a double take when I read the following headline: Omega-3 deficiency causes 96,000 US deaths per year, say researchers. The study which was funded by the CDC used a mathematical model to determine how many lives could have been saved with better lifestyle choices.

Avocado has gotten a bum rap for years. It’s been shunned and put down because of its high fat content. But according to THB’s brain aging expert, Dr. Dharma, avocados are one of the best vegetables you can eat for your brain.
Avocado contains the “good” kind of fat found [...]

As a dietitian I am often asked, “What is the best diet?” Is there one perfect diet that all humans should follow? A film that is expected out later this summer also asked that question. The film, called “In Search of the Perfect Human Diet” was made by C.J. Hunt, who nearly died at age 24.

As a result of his health issues, he set out to find the secrets of optimal health and became a broadcast journalist in the process. Though I haven’t seen his film yet, I can tell by the list of people it interviewed as experts, it is likely to advocate what is called the Paleolithic Diet.

For millions of years, our ancestors hunted for meat and gathered fruits, nuts and other plant foods. They followed the food supply, so there was no kitchen sink to wash it in. Instead, they brushed the dirt off the foods they gathered. Or rinsed it in a nearby stream.

Today, factory farms add thousands of tons of pesticides and herbicides to our food. Even if we wash our fruits and vegetables thoroughly, we run the risk of slowly poisoning ourselves.

This modern dilemma means that our ancestors received a benefit from their food that we don’t. I think of that benefit as “living foods” — the good bacteria that inhabit our guts.

Living foods aid digestion. They hold dangerous bacteria in check. And recent research has revealed an amazing variety of other benefits. Here are just a few of the health benefits connected to these living foods:

Consider these staggering statistics: according to the American Diabetes Association, about 24 million people suffer from diabetes and a whopping 5 million people are undiagnosed and don’t even know they have the disease!¹ Overall, 54 million Americans suffer from some degree of blood sugar imbalance and insulin resistance.¹ Most of these people have type II diabetes, which is largely preventable with a healthy diet low-carb, low-sugar diet.

As a practicing physician, I was never taught any primary preventative measures for my patients. At most, I was given some detective tools, such as screening blood sugar in “at risk” patients. It baffles me, as I look back, that I couldn’t see the huge gap in my medical school and residency training. We did nothing to prevent diabetes and did very little to address the underlying mechanisms that stimulate abnormal sugar metabolism!

The main focus of conventional medicine today is still all about using prescription drugs to lower blood sugar, which is too late if you want to reverse the disease itself. There is no question that people with diabetes experience an elevated risk for a variety of other illnesses including heart disease and stroke, blindness, peripheral nerve disease and pain, kidney damage and failure, impotency and skin disorders.

Most people today view soybeans as a health food extraordinaire.  But lately you may have seen conflicting opinions as to whether it is healthy or not.  As a common food allergen that is high in goitrogens1 (substances that interfere with thyroid hormones), there are some valid concerns.
So, should you eat tofu [...]