I was hungry when I woke up. I was very hungry before I went to bed. And I was even hungry not long after a big meal. Thankfully, I was not obese. I was younger then and I liked to exercise. But I did carry about 20 pounds too many. And I had a round face and a soft belly.

I was eating and drinking a full menu of high-density carbohydrates back then. Pizza, cereal, bagels, sandwiches, chips and soda were all on the list. I consumed plenty of calories. Yet, I was still hungry.

And not only was I frequently hungry, but my mood and energy levels would swing wildly. I would become irritable… sometimes depressed. And I always felt like I needed a nap about two in the afternoon. But there was one thing that always seemed to boost my mood and energy – more carbs!

Then, about 10 years ago, I began to study the diet of our Paleolithic genetic ancestors…

Before that, I had not thought much about what I should eat to remain healthy and lean. But I didn’t like the fact that I was gaining weight.

I quickly learned that high-glycemic carbohydrates are foreign to our metabolism. Especially when we consume them in large quantities – as we have since the dawn of the food processing revolution. This is a drastic departure from the diet on which we evolved.

Therefore, I decided to make my own drastic departure. I didn’t go on a “diet” or start counting calories. I didn’t buy meals from Weight Watchers. And I didn’t join the Atkins revolution, with all of their artificial sweeteners and fake, processed foods.

I just decided to start eating real, organic, whole foods. I ate lots of leafy green salads and a variety of colorful vegetables. I made my own vegetable juices. I snacked on fruit, nuts and seeds. I ate eggs (The whole egg, of course. You don’t think our ancestors would have thrown the yolk away, do you?). Grass-fed beef, pastured poultry, raw cheese and dairy. And lots of wild salmon.

My hunger and cravings simply vanished (along with the spare tire around my belly)…

Within about two weeks, my cravings for food were almost completely gone. I had energy that lasted all day. I didn’t need a nap in the afternoons. My moods were stable and upbeat. My mind was sharper and more alert.

And my excess body fat simply melted away. Within about eight weeks, I lost more than 20 pounds. I reached my ideal weight and have remained within three or four pounds of that target ever since. My experience taught me first hand that hunger is about a lot more than just an empty stomach.

There are two types of hunger…

• Physical hunger builds slowly and occurs several hours after a meal. This is how you feel after exercise or a long period of work, when you have depleted your energy stores. You feel discomfort. Your stomach growls. You might feel tired and your brain doesn’t work as it should. This is your physiological need for nutrients and energy. Food provides relief from this feeling almost instantly.

• Hormonal hunger comes on suddenly. It often has nothing to do with mealtime. In fact, hormonal hunger can strike right after you have had a meal. Have you ever wondered where that “extra room” for dessert comes from? Hormonal hunger can cause strong emotional cravings for specific foods – especially carbohydrates. It can also cause mood swings and low energy. And it creates a near continual desire to eat.

I don’t take credit for the term, “hormonal hunger.” Fitness and nutrition author, Rob Faigin, coined it in his superb book, Natural Hormonal Enhancement. He points out that hormonal hunger has nothing to do with a real need for food. It is the result of the interplay of various hormones in the body.

To avoid physical hunger, eat before you become hungry. To avoid hormonal hunger, you have to know what to eat.

Foods that are high on the glycemic index (60 and above) are those that convert to blood sugar very rapidly. That’s what you want to avoid. When your blood sugar spikes, the hormone insulin spikes too. This can provide a burst of energy, but it is fleeting and followed by a crash.
The whole process puts us on a hormonal roller coaster that causes us to become hungry and consume food, even when our body does not physically need it.

That’s why most of the foods we eat should score low (20 and below) on the glycemic index. These foods take longer to break down and they contain fewer carbohydrates, so the secretion of insulin is lower. Eating these foods will get you off the hunger cycle and curtail the constant cravings.

The chairman of our advisory board, Dr. Al Sears has a glycemic index and glycemic load chart on his website, if you would like to learn which foods score the lowest and highest.

Leptin – The Hunger Hormone

Insulin is just one of the hormones that affects our hunger mechanism and fat storage. Leptin is another. It was discovered in 1994 by researchers who were studying a genetic line of mice that continually consumed food until they became morbidly obese.

The scientists discovered that these mice were missing a particular hormone. When the researchers injected this hormone into the animals, it curbed their appetite, stimulated their fat-burning metabolism and restored them to a normal body weight.

They called the hormone leptin, derived from the Greek word for “thin.”

We have now come to understand that leptin is a powerful messenger hormone. It helps perform countless functions in the body, two of which are extremely beneficial when it comes to hunger and body fat:

• It sends a signal to your brain that you are full. This shuts down your hunger mechanism.

• It also signals the fat inside your cells to break down into a usable form for energy.

When these signals are working, you stay feeling full for longer. And your fat is burned for fuel, helping you to stay slim.

To Your Health

Jon Herring
Editorial Director
Total Health Breakthroughs

Logically, it makes sense that the earlier you discover a cancer, the more likely you will be alive in five years. This has driven millions of people to their doctors’ offices for screening and it has poured billions of dollars into the coffers of the cancer industry.

But does it save lives? And do the risks outweigh the benefits? Apparently, the answer to both of those questions is no.

The studies show that people are not living longer after they get cancer. While they might live longer after their diagnosis, that is because we are diagnosing the disease much earlier. In fact, the age-adjusted mortality rates for all forms of cancer combined have steadily increased over several decades. Orthodox medicine is losing the war on cancer.

In the last month, the British government’s National Health Service (NHS) and the American Cancer Society (ACS) both have stated that they are updating their public health messages regarding cancer screening.

For decades, these organizations were among the staunchest defenders of screening. The organizations now admit that they overstated the benefits of screening. Even worse, they intentionally downplayed the risks.

In a New York Times article, Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society states that, “American medicine has overpromised when it comes to screening. The advantages to screening have been exaggerated.”

In the U.K., Dr. Joan Austoker is the person who writes the advice the National Health Service provides to women about breast cancer screening. She recently told The Sunday Times that it was “a mistake to withhold information from women” that treatment for a particular type of cancer might be unnecessary. You think?

These organizations are softening their stance because the facts have become too blatant to ignore. The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published an analysis showing that early stage breast cancer diagnoses have doubled. Yet, the number of cancers that have spread elsewhere in the body has barely budged.

The cancer organizations are also finally beginning to acknowledge the risks of cancer screening. You might wonder the “risks” could be. After all, isn’t it a good idea to know if there is a health concern you should worry about?

First, there is the risk of “false positives.” Take breast cancer, for example. For every 1,000 healthy women who undergo annual mammograms for 10 years, half of them will receive a false positive result.

Being told that you could have only months or a few years to live can be devastating. It can cause family distress and deep depression. Desperate for a solution, many women opt for treatment. Conventional treatment – like chemotherapy and radiation – is costly and debilitating. In the case of mastectomies, it can be also be painful and disfiguring – and all of that for a problem which did not exist in the first place.

The other major risk is over-diagnosis. This is when doctors treat small lesions or innocuous tumors as if they could be imminently deadly. We now know that in most cases, these “cancers” would not spread or cause harm.

Breast cancer screening is rife with over-diagnosis. Research shows that for every one life saved by breast cancer screening, 10 healthy women receive unnecessary treatment.

And while the American Cancer Society continues to states that a mammogram is “one of the best things a woman can do to protect her health,” the facts suggest otherwise. To avert just one death from breast cancer, doctors must screen 1,000 women ages 50 and older for 10 years.

The statistics are similar for prostate cancer. For every 100 men that are diagnosed with the disease, as many as 70 have cancers that would never have harmed them, if left untreated. The Agency for Healthcare Policy Research produced evidence showing that men who had their prostate gland removed had an average survival of 14 years after surgery. That sounds great – until you consider that the men who elected “watchful waiting” instead of surgery, also lived an average of 14 years after diagnosis.

Despite these statistics, hundreds of thousands of men each year are subjected to aggressive treatments that often leave them with impotence, urinary incontinence and depression.

The same trends are evident with skin cancer. According to a Dartmouth Medical School study, skin biopsies have risen by 250 percent since 1986. However, during the same period, there was no change in the melanoma death rate or the incidence of advanced stage melanoma.

Renowned dermatologist, Dr. A. Bernard Ackerman, emeritus director of the Ackerman Academy of Dermatopathology in New York believes dermatologists have gone too far. “There has been a mania for taking off these moles that are of no consequence,” he said. “We’re talking about billions and billions of dollars, based on hype.”

The over-diagnosis and over-treatment of early stage cancers clearly leads to a huge number of unnecessary procedures. However, it also leads to a false sense progress in the war on cancer.

We are now diagnosing cancer at a much earlier stage. And by adding these very early cancers to the data pool, the number of “five year cancer survivors” grows. That makes it appear that cancer patients are living longer. However, it is a delusion to equate longer survival rates after diagnosis to progress. What matters is the number of actual deaths. And most forms of early-detection and treatment have not reduced that number.

It is clear that early detection, combined with conventional cancer treatments just are not working. And this has been clear for quite some time. In May of 1986, the New England Journal of Medicine commented on the state of modern cancer treatment, stating, “The main conclusion we draw is that some 35 years of intense effort focused on improving treatment must be judged a qualified failure.”

Their report concluded, “we are losing the war against cancer” and argued for an emphasis on prevention. Here we are, nearly 25 years later and that emphasis is still not there.

According to the International Agency for Research in Cancer, our lifestyle and environment is the cause of up to 90% of human cancer. That clearly means that we can avoid it. Yet, less than 10% of the National Cancer Institute budget is set aside to study the environmental causes of cancer. Less than 1% is budgeted for nutrition studies.

Why?

Because treating disease is enormously profitable. Preventing it is not. And whether the “screening” involves cancer, cholesterol, diabetes, or any number of other markers and diseases, the objective is the same. The goal is not to “prevent” disease. The goal of orthodox medicine is to detect the symptoms earlier so that more “treatments” can be given.

This does not mean that screening and early detection cannot be useful. It can be. However, it should be a serious wake up call to change your lifestyle, your environment and your diet. It should be a stark reminder to avoid the causes of illness and disease and do more of the things proven to prevent and successfully treat that disease. We must accept responsibility for our own health.

To Your Great Health,

Editor
Total Health Breakthroughs

Editor’s Note: Contrary to what we have been told, we are NOT winning the war on cancer. In fact, rates of this terrible disease are rising at a frightening rate across the globe. Even worse, the long-standing, conventional anti-cancer methods (cut, poison, and burn) are “holding actions” at best – and signify the failure of mainstream medicine to really address our health needs and heal cancer.

In future issues of Total Health Breakthroughs, we will talk about the real causes of cancer. We will show you how to avoid them. And we will introduce you to the many nutrients and natural medicines that have been shown to effectively prevent and treat this dreaded disease.

In the meantime, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Tomorrow’s Cancer Cures TODAY, by Allen Spreen, M.D., expert panelist for the Health Sciences Institute.

Besides the fact that it simply hasn’t been shown to increase the survival rate from cancer, a major drawback of chemotherapy is the horrific side effects.  Many chemotherapy drugs work by stopping all cell division in the body. That includes healthy cells.  That’s why people lose their hair and become nauseated during treatment.  Healthy new cells aren’t replacing the old ones.  It’s also the reason people say, “If the cancer doesn’t kill you, the treatment will.”

But there is a natural substance called graviola that has shown tremendous promise in the treatment of cancer. Graviola is derived from a tree that grows in the tropical areas of South America. And researchers have found that extracts from graviola seeds are able to selectively kill cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells intact. This is known as “selective cytotoxicity.” It is the holy grail of cancer research. These findings alone offer amazing potential for the use of graviola in cancer therapy.

But there are even more remarkable findings regarding this natural substance. Researchers have also found that in lab testing, it rivals and even outperforms the chemo drug adriamycin. This is a drug that is commonly used for breast and colon cancers.  One study showed that a natural substance found in graviola selectively killed colon cancer cells at “10,000 times the potency of adriamycin.”

Other research has shown that extracts from graviola leaves were effective against prostate, pancreatic, and lung cancer cells.  With these impressive results, you might be asking if Big Pharma is jumping all over graviola as the next breakthrough cancer therapy. The answer to that question is yes… and then no.

Rogue Pharma Employee Spills the Beans on Herbal Life Saver

The National Cancer Institute and many leading universities have been interested in graviola for years.  So has at least one major drug company in the US.  Their testing showed that graviola was indeed a cancer-fighting wonder.

But they had a big problem.  After years of trying to isolate and duplicate graviola’s most powerful chemicals in a synthetic version, they were unable to do so.  They shelved the project and brought the research to a halt.  And then to prevent another company from succeeding where they failed, they refused to publish their findings in an independent journal.  So much for trying to help mankind…

But here’s something this drug giant didn’t count on.  One of their employees wanted the world to know about the life-saving properties of graviola. So they tipped off a nutraceutical company that specializes in Amazon herbs.  The company, Raintree Nutrition, followed up on all the research it could find and then formulated an oral graviola supplement that’s available to the public.

The Surprising Link Between Pain and Your Mind

Living with chronic back pain can stop you from enjoying the simplest activities that most people take for granted.  But it doesn’t stop with physical limitations.  Startling evidence shows that chronic back pain can even affect your memory and cognitive functioning — aging your brain 20 times faster than normal.

Jesse Cannone from the Healthy Back Institute explains the findings and tells you how to fight back with five easy tips for boosting your memory power.  Plus, a resource to help you reduce or completely eliminate your pain naturally. You can read his article by clicking here.

Until recently, it has been assumed that whatever changes occurred in the brain as a result of chronic back pain were only temporary and that the brain would revert to a normal state once the pain stopped.

Recent findings by researchers from Northwestern University have turned this assumption on its head. What they found was that chronic back pain — defined as pain lasting six months or longer — can cause significant and long-lasting damage to the brain, aging it up to 20 times faster than normal.¹

The Northwestern study is consistent with other research on chronic pain and cognitive ability.

Evidence of a link between chronic pain and brain function comes from a study done at Keele University in the United Kingdom. Scientists compared the “prospective” memory — such as remembering to pick up groceries or keep a doctor’s appointment — of 50 subjects with chronic back pain to the memory of 50 subjects who were pain-free.

Investigators used something called the Prospective Memory Questionnaire, a self-rating scale that requires users to record the number of times their prospective memory fails in a given period of time. The scale measures three types of prospective memory: long-term habitual, short-term episodic, and internally cued.

Those with chronic pain had significantly impaired short-term memory compared with subjects who were pain-free. No differences were observed in the other types of prospective memory.

Researchers believe that when pain kicks in, it triggers a region of the brain known as the lateral occipital complex (LOC). When this happens, it overrides a person’s ability to concentrate and accurately recognize images.

You can help preserve your short-term memory — even if you do live with chronic pain — by following these easy tips.

Read out loud

If you want to remember something, saying the words out loud will help burn the information into your brain. If you can turn it into a rhyme, it’s even better.

Write things down

Mental clutter makes it hard to recall data. Use address books, datebooks, and calendars. Jot down notes on more complicated material and reorganize your notes as soon as possible. The physical act of rewriting can help imprint facts into your memory.

Rehearse and review

Go over what you’ve learned the day you learn it, and review it periodically. Researchers call this “spaced rehearsal.” It has proven to be more effective than cramming.

Get your vitamins

Nutrients such as vitamins B, C, and E can nurture brain function. Dietary sources of vitamin B include spinach and other dark leafy greens, strawberries, melons, and black beans. Vitamins C and E improve the flow of oxygen through the brain. Good natural sources are berries, sweet potatoes, red tomatoes, green tea, nuts, citrus fruits, and liver. Omega-3 fatty acids found in cold-water fish such as salmon and tuna are also associated with improved cognitive function.

Surprise your brain

Another way to help your brain perform better is to stimulate it through novelty. For example, brushing your teeth with your left hand (if you’re right-handed) will fire up seldom-used connections on the non-dominant side of your brain. Or try “neurobic” exercise, which forces you to use your faculties in unusual ways — say, getting dressed with your eyes closed, taking a course in a subject you know nothing about, or cooking a recipe in an unfamiliar cuisine.

Reference

1. The Journal of Neuroscience, November 17, 2004; 24(46):10410-10415.

[Ed. Note: Jesse Cannone is a certified fitness trainer, rehabilitation specialist and co-founder of the Healthy Back Institute. For more information on how you can reduce or completely eliminate your pain naturally, click here.]

In the 1920s, Dr. Gerson pioneered a revolutionary diet that proved to be a potent nutritional and metabolic therapy for tuberculosis, diabetes, and even migraine headaches.  Then amazingly, he started curing his patients’ cancer with it.  The Gerson therapy blends a diet of organic fruits and vegetables and fresh juices with special detoxification methods.  For decades — both during and after Gerson’s lifetime — his therapy has helped thousands of people recover from cancer — despite the fact that the FDA and AMA did everything they could to discredit him.

Dr. Gerson understood the connection between diet and cancer.  He knew that poor nutrition, exposure to chemicals, and cooking that destroys vital nutrients are big reasons our bodies get sick.  When we add to these factors a poorly functioning liver, pancreas, and immune system, cancer can flourish.  But importantly, Gerson also believed cancer could be controlled with a healthy liver and a proper balance of sodium and potassium in the body.

His theory was that a sick body quickly becomes overtaken by sodium.  But with his dietary therapy, potassium could be built up and sodium could be excreted, returning a sick body to its natural balance.  His findings show that a low-sodium metabolic therapy that includes detoxification and nutritional replacement can stimulate the immune system to naturally dissolve tumors.

The diet is rich in whole, natural and organic foods.  It does not allow coffee or foods with additives or preservatives like white flour and sugar.  The vitamins, minerals, and enzymes that are added to the therapy help the immune system to properly deal with toxins produced by tumors.  Enemas, gallbladder flushes, herbal teas and lots of fresh juices also contribute to detoxification.

By 1946, Dr. Gerson had so many successes with his natural therapy, that he presented his findings and many of his recovered patients to the US Senate.  Soon after, the medical director of New York’s Gotham Hospital called his recoveries “miraculous.” An independent doctor who reviewed Gerson’s records for Congress stated that “relief of severe pain was achieved in about 90 percent of cases.”

With this kind of recognition and success, why didn’t the Gerson therapy become the gold standard of cancer care? Enter the AMA Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Here’s why Gerson became an enemy of the AMA.  First, he had the sense to take a stand against tobacco.  This upset Fishbein because Phillip Morris was JAMA’s biggest source of advertising revenue at the time. (Can you believe it?!)  Second, by presenting his dietary findings to the Senate, Gerson ignored the formal stance of the AMA that [incorrectly] stated there is no connection between cancer and diet.

As a result of his honesty, Dr. Gerson was openly attacked in writing in JAMA, expelled from the New York medical society, and deprived of all hospital affiliations.  He even lost his malpractice insurance.  In 1959, Dr. Gerson, one of the great minds of modern medicine, died.  This after years of harassment from the AMA who pressured hospitals, labs, and other doctors not to work with him.

It’s outrageous at how badly this brilliant doctor was treated by the medical establishment.  It’s even worse when you consider how many millions of lives might have been saved if his therapy was accepted by mainstream medicine.  But the medical establishment did not defeat Dr. Gerson.  His legacy lives on with forward-thinking health professionals who continue to save lives based on his findings.

In next week’s Undercover we’ll take a closer look at the Gerson therapy and the latest research that supports his work.

Telomeres were big, big news last week thanks to three pioneering scientists at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.  The researchers won the Nobel Prize in science for discovering that telomeres can be lengthened — a finding that holds promise for increasing the healthy lifespan and even fighting cancer.

Here’s why.  A telomere is the cap at the end of a chromosome that holds it together.  What researchers have found over several decades is that telomeres actually function as your biological clock.  Each time your cells divide, a small end portion of the telomere is not copied, making them get shorter and shorter over time.  This process eventually signals to your cells to “grow old” and stop dividing.   That’s why we age and finally die.

But here’s what’s so exciting…

The Nobel winners found that the key to anti-aging lies in an enzyme your body makes called “telomerase.” It can take control of the aging process by rebuilding the end of your telomeres to remain the same length with each new cell division.

But here’s the challenge:  telomerase — the enzyme that can keep us young — is turned off in our bodies preventing it from keeping your telomeres young.  So, what’s the solution? Modern science and Mother Nature.

Research has found that an ancient Chinese herb called astralagus contains small amounts of a molecule named TA-65.  This molecule throws the switch on the gene that makes telomerase.  THB’s own Dr. Al Sears is on the forefront of testing a TA-65 extract at his Wellness Research Institute.  He has created a 12-month course of therapy with the life-extending supplement in a system he calls the Patton Protocol.  You can find out more about it by clicking here.

We first reported on this breakthrough anti-aging therapy last year.  This year, the researchers that discovered telomerase were honored by the Nobel Prize Committee.  It’s definitely worth paying attention to in the near future.

1,500 People Die from It Every Day. Here’s Why…

It’s time we start thinking for ourselves about the dreaded “C” word.  I mean cancer.  In 2007, 7.9 million people died from some form of cancer.  In the US alone, 1,500 people die of cancer every day —and one in three people are living with it.  The 5-year survival rate for all cancers diagnosed between 1996 and 2003 was only 66%.

Even with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on research every year in the US alone, survival rates for people between the ages of 15 and 40 have not improved in decades.  Clearly, something is wrong with the current model of mainstream cancer treatment in the US —the “Lethal Triad” of Chemotherapy, Radiation, and Surgery.  Research shows that these treatments often make a cancer patient sicker rather than better.

So where can we turn?

What You Need to Know About So-Called Cancer “Cures”

The solution for cancer can often be found outside the matrix in alternative therapies that are covered up or killed by government agencies and Big Pharma.  I’ll be filling you in on several of these hushed-up cures in the next few issues of THB.  But before we talk about what works, let’s look at what doesn’t.

With modern diagnostics, cancer can be detected far earlier than it was in the past.  You would think this would be a boon to curing the biggest killer in the US.  Not so.  That’s because of fatal shortcomings in traditional cancer therapies.  Let’s briefly take a look at each member of the Lethal Triad.

Chemotherapy: Chemo is really the use of chemical agents to stop cancer cells from growing, with the hope of killing the cancer before killing the patient herself.  One of the main problems with chemo drugs is that they are designed to kill all of your fast growing cells, whether they are cancerous or not.  Meaning, all of your healthy new cells caught in the middle of cell division are poisoned along with the cancerous ones.  You might not know that included in all of the violent side effects of chemo are immune system destruction and even death.

Radiation: It’s surprising, isn’t it, that a therapy which causes cancer is also used on a regular basis to treat it?  The objective of radiation is to remove a tumor by burning it away.  But, as with chemo, it is mainly non-cancer cells that are killed.  While radiation does reduce tumor size, research shows that in the process, the tumor becomes more deadly and more resistant to treatment.  Even if radiation does kill cancer cells, it leaves the immune system so damaged, that the cancer often quickly returns and quickly spreads.

Surgery: It seems to make sense that the best way to eliminate cancer is simply to surgically remove it from the body.  Unfortunately, there’s a major drawback with cancer surgery.  While it may appear that the surgery was successful, it isn’t until after surgery that the cancer spreads.  That’s because surgery disturbs the tumor and causes cells to break away and infect other organs.  Once the cancer has spread, surgery does no good except to relieve symptoms caused by a large mass pressing against a nerve or organ.

Stay tuned for some natural therapies that get to the heart of cancer.

After years of typing on a keyboard for most of the day, your hands can really feel it — as in joint and knuckle pain and swelling in the fingers.  If you want to avoid the daily use of prescription and OTC drugs, try the down-home remedy of folks in the Appalachian Mountains.  They’ve been making tea from alfalfa leaves and seeds for generations. Due to its high content of plant steroids, alfalfa has anti-inflammatory properties that help people with pain and swelling in their fingers and hands.

Here’s a simple alfalfa tea you can make at home and sip on at work.  Bring a quart of water and two or three alfalfa leaves to a boil.  Add a small amount of mint or lemongrass to enhance the taste.  Steep for 30 minutes and enjoy!

While your weary hands are being soothed, you’ll also be treated to a rich source of healthy trace minerals.  Drinking two to three cups can provide the anti-inflammatory action your tired hands and fingers need.

Alfalfa leaves can be found in most health food stores.  Look for a product that is certified organic to ensure that it does not contain pesticides.

But don’t stop there…

3 Simple Steps to Prevent the “Typist’s Malady”

Typing all day or any repetitive arm and wrist motion puts a lot of continuous stress on your hands, wrists and arms.  This can lead to numbness and tingling in the fingers along with pain, stiffness and swelling –or what we know as carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS).

These symptoms can become severe, even spreading to the elbows and shoulders.  In extreme cases, the entire arm becomes so weak that weight cannot be supported.  But the good news is, there are a few easy steps you can take to reduce the pain, prevent it from getting worse, and even lower your risk of getting carpal tunnel in the first place.

• Naturopath Douglas C. Lewis recommends contrast hydrotherapy to increase circulation to your wrists.  First, dip your hands and wrists into hot water for 3 minutes and then cold for 30 seconds.  Repeat 3 to 5 times, once or twice daily.  Dr. Lewis says this will improve nutrition, eliminate wastes, and help decrease pain.
• Make sure your diet is rich in vitamin B6.  Several studies have shown a link between CTS and vitamin B6 deficiency.  Good food sources are sweet potatoes, avocados, brown rice, sunflower seeds, chick peas, salmon, pork, chicken, turkey, potatoes, bok choy, barley, bananas, and mangoes.
• Put your sleep hours to good use by wearing a splint for added support.  This will relieve pressure on the median nerve in your wrist and help with your activities the next day.  Splints are available at most drug stores.

Why You Shouldn’t Blame Your Brain for So-Called “Brain Diseases”

I’m reading a fascinating book right now by Dr. Mark Hyman.  It’s called The UltraMind Solution.  In it, he challenges us to put aside everything we think we know about brain disorders like depression, anxiety, dementia, autism and ADHD.  Instead, he says look to the body for the cures to “brain breakdown.”  Dr. Hyman should know.  It happened to him.

He went from being a brilliant medical student and doctor to a shell of his former self — trying to get through each day while suffering from depression, anxiety, memory loss and an inability to concentrate.

How did this happen?

Piece by piece, cell by cell, body system by body system, he searched for answers by combing through research, consulting with doctors and scientists, and experimenting on himself.  What he found is a revelation.  The problem didn’t start in his brain at all.  It started where most “brain doctors” don’t even look –his body.

In the process of healing himself, Dr. Hyman made another remarkable discovery.  Most brain diseases have their root cause in the rest of the body –in treatable imbalances in the body’s key systems.

Does that mean that tens of millions of people who thought they were doomed to a lifetime of prescription drugs for a broken brain can be set free? YES! In an enlightening article, Dr. Hyman shares one of his 7 keys to help you on your journey back to health and wellness.  You can read it by clicking here.

Your Opinion Matters

In Wednesday’s Undercover, I recommended a topical product called Soothanol X2 for back and arthritis pain.  I was so impressed with the list of ingredients it contained and the testimonials I read, I couldn’t wait to tell you about.  But as I learned after reading comments on our website yesterday, Soothanol X2 isn’t for everyone.

Here’s what Henry F. had to say:

Hi; I have used 1 bottle of Soothanol X2 {DMSO}. It may have given some pain relief for possibly an hour, but then ice does that to. I can say it is not worth the monetary contribution plus a burning side effect. Sorry but that is may expirience.

And from reader Roy Y., RMT:

I tried this on myself and on many of my clients, but I got none of the relief you advertised from anyone I tried it on. Is it on certain ethnic groups or something I’m missing. I understand the ingredients and it should work, but it didn’t. You [manufacturers of Soothanol X2] should offer a lower price for health care practitioners like some other companies do.

To Henry, Roy and others who had no luck with Soothanol X2:

I’m sorry this product didn’t offer you relief and if you were not satisfied, you certainly should have asked for a refund.  The money-back guarantee is a big incentive for you to try it.

When I contacted the manufacturer (NorthStar) to ask about customer satisfaction, I was told Soothanol’s satisfaction rate is overwhelmingly positive with a high rate of reorders.  They sent me a long list of testimonials to prove it.  Here are just a couple:

From Debbie P.

It [Soothanol X2] arrived a couple of days ago, and I’ve been using two drops each morning on my left hip, the one causing me all the pain; one drop on the appropriate spot in the small of my back, a second drop on the side of my hip where the bone’s closest to the surface.

The first day I applied the drops, then went about doing my chores, which involve feeding and watering my indoor animals, cleaning their litter pan, sweeping up a little bit, feeding and watering the feral cats that live in my garage, and taking care of the wild bird feeders.  These activities usually involve quite a lot of moaning and groaning and swearing, but at some point that first day, I realized that I wasn’t moaning or groaning or swearing.

Then, later on, I went to the grocery store.  I didn’t end up supporting my weight by leaning on the shopping cart the way I usually do. Wow!

From Adam P.

I bought from you Soothanol X2.  That is really fantastic, like magic.   A painful shoulder problem I have had for years, which meant I could not move my arm above my head or rotate my shoulder without severe pain, was reduced to the extent that both these movements were possible after just one application.   I also had a swelling on my achilles tendon, again it just wouldn’t go away and was painful.  Again just one application and the pain went away and the swelling went down.  Infrequent applications to these problems have seen vast and steady improvement.  I have also used the product on a sports injury my son suffered and rapid healing was the result. This product seems not to be just a pain killer but a cure as the improvements stay without re-application.

Soothanol X2 comes with a massive recommendation from me.

The manufacturer did tell me however, that one of the primary complaints from users is that Soothanol X2 burns too much.  However, they explained that this can happen with any product containing cayenne/capsaicin.  The effect varies widely based on the individual’s sensitivity — this sensitivity can diminish over time with continued use.

And in answer to Roy’s question about discounts, NorthStar does offer a discounted rate for practitioners who want to sell it through their practice.  You can call 1-800-913-2592, Monday-Friday, 9-5, EST for information.

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Bipolar disorder
• ADD
• Autism
• Dementia
• Alzheimer’s disease
• More subtle symptoms like mood swings, sleep problems, poor concentration, and brain fog

If you have been coping with conditions like these, you are not alone. We are seeing a rising tide of “broken brains,” and conventional medicine cannot cure it.

But you don’t have to suffer needlessly. Today, I’m going to share the key to good mental and emotional health — an “UltraMind”— one that’s calm, confident, and happy. But first I want to share some really big news with you…

“Diseases” like depression, Alzheimer’s, and the rest, do not exist. At least not the way we think they do. Let me explain.

Let’s say you have chronic feelings of sadness and despair. Conventional doctors might say you have a disease called “depression.” But depression is not the cause of your sadness and despair. It’s just a name we use to group people together for the purpose of giving them all the same drug therapy. You feel sad and despairing? You have “depression” and need an “antidepressant!”

But do we know the causes for these symptoms? Are they even the same from one person to another?

Consider this: You and the person sitting next to you both have chronic symptoms we call a “headache,” but your pain is caused by drinking too much wine, while his pain is the result of being hit on the head with the empty bottle.

These two headaches can’t be cured the same way, because their root causes are different. Nonetheless, that’s the way conventional medicine treats most chronic disease! They give the same treatment for illnesses with the same name, even though the cause of those illnesses may be radically different from person to person.

Drugs like antidepressants don’t cure diseases, they just mask symptoms. We don’t need to continue using these same drug treatments that don’t work, have severe side effects, or, at best, give partial relief. There is a proven, medical alternative, and it is called The UltraMind Solution.

The key to this new paradigm is simply this…

Your mood and memory problems, trouble focusing, ADD, depression, and dementia are not all in your head! They are in your body. And it is ONLY when you treat your body that you will heal your broken brain.

You can’t treat mental illness effectively by only using drugs or psychotherapy. You need to treat the body, because the body and brain are one interconnected system. If you truly want to cure your broken brain, the answer lies in rebalancing the seven core systems in your body — what I have come to call The 7 Keys to UltraWellness. They are:

1. Optimize nutrition

1. Balance your hormones

1. Cool off inflammation

1. Fix your digestion

1. Enhance detoxification

1. Boost energy metabolism

1. Calm your mind

Imbalances in these keys are the underlying causes of all illness — including broken brains. Understanding illness this way provides us with a new road map to disease — one that allows us to see how everything is connected so we can treat the root causes of illness, not just the symptoms.

The first step on this new road to healing is to optimize your nutrition. You may not realize it, but the most powerful tool you have to fix your broken brain is your FORK! What you put on it can help — or harm — your brain. So here are 3 tips you can start using today to eat right for a healthy brain.

3 Tips for Optimizing Your Brain Function with Nutrition

• Become a Fat Head. Your brain contains 100 billion cells, each of which has 40,000 connections! Every one of these cells and cellular connections are —o r SHOULD be —made of omega-3 fats. To get enough of these important fats, eliminate trans-fats and avoid animal fats from grain-fed beef. Instead eat plenty of wild, coldwater fish like salmon, grass-fed meats high in omega-3’s, walnuts, and flaxseeds. And be sure to take 1000 mg of an omega-3 supplement that is toxin- and mercury-free.

• Balance Your Serotonin with Food. Serotonin is the feel-good neurotransmitter. If you don’t have enough, you spiral down into darkness and depression. The typical treatment given is Prozac. But depression is NOT a Prozac deficiency. One of the contributing factors to the epidemic of serotonin deficiency is the amount and quality of protein in the standard American diet. Want more serotonin? Eat high-quality protein with each meal like grass-fed beef and free-range chicken. These foods are high in tryptophan, the primary amino acid out of which serotonin is created. No tryptophan equals no serotonin, equals a very unhappy mood. Studies show that if you feed a group of people a mixture of amino acids without tryptophan you can induce depression in hours!1

• Boost Your Brain Chemistry with Vitamins and Minerals. I have tested thousands of patients for nutrient deficiencies and have found that most are deficient in MANY vitamins and minerals. I have also found that by correcting these deficiencies, people feel better, their moods improve, and their broken brains (and other chronic illnesses) heal almost overnight. To acquire the vitamins and minerals you need, supplement your diet with a multivitamin and mineral (be sure it contains B complex vitamins) calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and probiotics every day.

Follow these three steps and you will be well on your way to healing your broken brain. For all the details, see my book, The UltraMind Solution, in which I outline a complete 4-step, 6-week program to rebalance all 7 keys to UltraWellness so you can achieve an UltraMind.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, MD

Delgado, P.L., et al. 1990. Arch Gen Psychiatry 47 (5):411–18.

[Ed. Note: Mark Hyman, MD, is the editor in chief of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine and author of the New York Times bestsellers UltraMetabolism and The UltraSimple Diet.]

How do they cope? Mainly by popping prescription or OTC drugs.  And that causes another serious list of health problems they may not even be aware of — like over-burdened liver and kidneys, an irritated stomach lining, and depletion of vital nutrients their body needs to function.  The sad fact is, the so-called solution to their pain is creating problems for them that are even worse…

And that brings me to a pain remedy I read about recently.  The first plus is that it’s all natural.  The second plus –and this is a big one — is that it’s applied topically, so it goes right to the source of the pain.

It contains a substance called DMSO. Vets and trainers have been using it for years on lame racehorses.  So have sports trainers who must get athletes who are banged-up ready for their next game.  They’ve reported amazing results with DMSO.

It was actually discovered over 100 years ago by a Russian researcher.  DMSO is a sulfur-rich substance found in the woody part of trees.  But it didn’t make a name for itself until the 1960s when American scientists discovered its incredible ability to deliver pain relief to where it’s needed.

In 1980, Mike Wallace featured it on 60 Minutes. He interviewed people who used DMSO to bring relief to their joints, and their testimonials overwhelmingly showed that it worked.  You’d think that DMSO would have become a household name after 60 minutes.  But it didn’t.  That’s because an ugly smear campaign was started by third parties who for financial reasons did not want DMSO to compete with other pain relievers.

So for years the message of DMSO never reached millions of people in the US that might have been helped.  Then a few years ago, health researcher Jon Barron resurrected it again.  Barron is the author of the bestselling book, Lessons from the Miracle Doctors.

For years, he had been researching various topical formulas that could eliminate any kind of pain on contact.  He isolated 11 different botanical and organic compounds that offered great promise for pain relief.  But he was lacking one vital ingredient –a delivery system — a substance that would blend all the other compounds together and deliver them to the pain site.

That’s when he hit on DMSO.   He found that it was a near-perfect solvent and transporter, something that Dr. H. Harry Szmant said 40 years earlier: DMSO can speed up important chemical reactions &”a billionfold.”

It’s so effective in fact, that in Barron’s formula, which is called Soothanol X2, only one or two drops are needed to reduce pain and swelling on contact.

Testimonials I have read on the product say that it relieves arthritis pain, restless legs, neuropathy, sprains, sore muscles and even varicose veins –something that the manufacturer, NorthStar Nutritionals stands behind.

Their guarantee says you can try Soothanol X2 on your painful area and if you’re not totally satisfied with the results, return it within 60 days for a full refund.  That’s something you can’t do with drug store or prescription brands.

If you or a loved one is living with pain, click on the link below to learn more about Soothanol X2.  You have nothing to lose by giving it a try –except maybe your pain.  If it helps, drop me a line.  I’d love to hear your story.