Paul Fagenel had an unusual problem on his hands. Paul was Vice President of a company called Diamond V Mills, and the workers in his production facility kept complaining to the human resources department.

They weren’t complaining about poor working conditions, long hours, or low pay. In fact, they were very happy working for the company. The complaint was that their annual sick days were going to waste every year.

You see, the workers in the factory were staying healthy year-round. Many of these employees had not missed a day of work for years, and they wanted to add their annual “sick days” to their vacation time.

When Diamond V executives reviewed the situation, they discovered something unusual…

So few factory employees were missing work or going to the doctor that the company’s health insurance premiums had not increased for years. This was at a time when most other companies were reporting double-digit increases.

Then they discovered something even more interesting…

The executives, accountants and salespeople who worked in the corporate building were using their sick days on a regular basis. Most of these employees used all of their allotted sick days each year.

The only major difference between the office employees and the factory workers was the factory workers were exposed to dust from the company’s products on a regular basis. Diamond V Mills produced nutritional additives for animal feed. Their products were meant to boost the health and immunity of farm animals. That is exactly what they did.

Customers of the company reported that their animals produced larger litters, had improved digestion, better milk production and greater survivability.

Apparently, these products were having a beneficial effect on people too…

The company decided to look into it. Paul hired a group of experts in natural medicine research – a company called AIBMR Life Sciences – to run some tests on the company’s products and their employees. They discovered that the employees who were regularly exposed to dust from the company’s animal nutrition products exhibited extraordinary immunity.

After additional research, the company developed an even more concentrated form of their product humans. It is called Epicor, and published clinical studies now support the anecdotal evidence that was discovered in Diamond V’s production facility.

The research shows that this product can:

• Increase the number of mucosal IgA antibodies in saliva. Most pathogens enter through the nose and mouth, so a healthy mucosal system is your first line of defense.
• Boost the number of CD4 cells. These cells help to coordinate the activity of the T and B killer cells of your immune system.
• Promote the activity and efficiency of Natural Killer (NK) cells. NK cells force infected cells and pathogens to “commit suicide” before they can spread throughout your body

The research group also discovered that Epicor has three times more antioxidant power than the highest value food – black raspberry.

This product is truly an immune-boosting powerhouse. I wanted to let you know about it, but there is even more to the story. Our friends at Northstar Nutritionals have combined Epicor with another powerful immune-booster. I believe the combination of these two ingredients is one of the best things you can do to support a healthy immune system.

If you’re interested in learning more, click here.

Feedback Friday: Were Our Ancestors Really Healthier than We Are?

Last week, I wrote that the healthiest diet for humans is one that closely matches what our Paleolithic ancestors ate. That is, a diet rich in plant foods, protein and healthy fats (and low in high-glycemic carbohydrates like sugar, grains and processed starches).

THB reader, Constance agrees with the diet. But she thinks I’m out to lunch to suggest that our Paleolithic ancestors enjoyed better health than we do today.

“I take issue with the discussion that our Paleolithic ancestors were so much healthier and did not have degenerative diseases,” Constance writes. “THEIR lifespan was only about 30-35 years!! Most of us live to be 80-100.”

She went on to say that I am overstating the issues and that if our ancestors had just lived a few decades longer, they “would have shown more signs of aging and degeneration too!!”

She does raise a common argument that often comes up. The last time this came up was when Dr. Loren Cordain, Ph.D., author of The Paleo Diet, contributed an essay to our sister publication, Early To Rise.

Dr. Cordain points out that there are two issues: (1) how we determine the average lifespan of a society and (2) how people die in westernized and non-westernized societies.

Let’s assume you have a man and woman who live until 80 years old. This couple has two children who died during childbirth. The average age of death of this group would be 40 years. On the surface, that would suggest that all of these people lived short, unhealthy lives, but that was not the case.

“To get a better picture of the health of the living,” Dr. Cordain writes, “We use life tables. And life tables of hunter gatherers show that a significant percentage of the population lived into the 6th and 7th decades and beyond.”

More importantly, he points out that the elderly in these populations rarely or never exhibited the diseases or symptoms that run rampant in elderly western populations, such as hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

“The primary causes of death in hunter gatherers resulted from accidents and trauma spent living their entire lives outdoors battling the environment, without the benefit of sanitation, clean water and the advances of modern medicine,” he concludes.

Clearly, we have much longer average lifespans than our ancient ancestors did. But most of us today are not very healthy during the last few decades of our life.

I believe that our healthspan is even more important than our lifespan. Who wants to spend the last 20 or 30 years in and out of doctors’ offices, living in pain and ill health… or worse, totally dependent on others.

If you want to add years to your life… and life to those years… follow the diet of our ancestors: rich in protein and healthy fats and full of high-fiber, low-sugar plant foods.

To Your Health,

Jon Herring
Editorial Director
Total Health Breakthroughs

It was never anything serious. I might feel miserable and miss a day or two of work, but with rest and fluids, I would feel fine again within a week. It was mainly an annoyance. Something I thought we all had to live with.

Then, with just a few changes to my diet and lifestyle, I stopped getting sick…

In the last eight years, I have had only one cold. That was the week after my wedding. The week before, I was up late every night getting ahead on work. And I was stressed out, making plans for our out-of-town wedding. Avoiding stress and getting a good night’s rest are vital to your immunity. In fact, one study showed that getting less than six hours of sleep per night can increase your risk of contracting a cold by 300 percent.

But apart from that single, self-inflicted bout with a cold, I haven’t been sick in years. So what measures do I credit with my enhanced immunity?

It certainly has nothing to do with the flu vaccine. If you ask me, most vaccinations are a lot of risk for no benefit. It would take a team of horses to drag me in for a jab. Besides, every person I know who gets the flu shot also seems to catch several colds each year.

The changes I made were natural, cheap and proven effective. Here they are:

• I optimized my vitamin D levels
• I cut out most of the sugar and refined carbohydrates from my diet
• I started taking a selenium supplement

The Miracle of Vitamin D

I used to think that the seasonality of cold and flu had something to do with “cold weather.” After all, that is when most of us catch a cold. What I have learned since then, is that the rate and severity of cold and flu infections is closely correlated with our vitamin D status.

About six years ago, I moved to Florida from Tennessee, where it was often cold, grey and rainy during the winter. Even if I did spend time outside, the sun was too low in the sky to produce vitamin D in my skin. In Florida, I was running on the beach during my lunch breaks and swimming in the ocean… in January. My vitamin D status has been optimal ever since. And it makes a big difference.

Vitamin D is actually a hormone, and it is essential for your immune system to function properly. In fact, the “activated” form of vitamin D is required to turn on the genes that produce the antimicrobial peptides of your innate immune system. Without vitamin D, there is no innate immunity.

This is just a very small part of the vitamin D story. It is one of the most vital substances in the human body. Yet, most of us are deficient for at least part of the year. There are no significant dietary sources of vitamin D. So unless you live in a sunny locale, you need to supplement during the winter… and be sure that you enjoy time in the sun when it is warm.

The government’s RDA is woefully inadequate. It will prevent only the most serious deficiency. Most adults should be taking a minimum of 2,000 IU of vitamin D every day. You should also be tested at least once a year, to ensure that your levels are optimal. If you want to learn more about the miracle of vitamin D, Dr. Al Sears and I wrote a book about it. You can learn more here.

Sugar Can Depress Your Immune System by 90 Percent

The next thing I did was to cut out the sugar and refined carbohydrates from my diet. I did not do this to boost my immunity. I did it to shed fat and improve my general health. Those are exactly the results that I achieved. As a bonus, my immunity became strong and responsive.

It is proven that sugar and high-glycemic carbohydrates depress your immune system. There are many mechanisms for why it happens. But one of the best measures is the leukocytic index (LI).

This is a measure of how many invading organisms one white blood cell can engulf in one hour. A leukocytic index of 10 means that one white blood cell consumed 10 microbes within that hour. The average person in the U.S. has an LI of 14. That is not necessarily optimal. It is the average. But get this…

Within 15 minutes of consuming the amount of refined carbohydrates that the average American ingests with his evening meal – about 100 grams – the LI drops to about 1.4. That means the average person loses more than 90 percent of their immune function within 15 minutes of consuming a meal containing sugar and high-glycemic carbohydrates!

And this deficiency in the ability of white blood cells to engulf invading organisms can last for anywhere from two to five hours. Of course, if you consistently eat these foods, your immune system will remain perpetually depressed.

The Remarkable Benefits of Selenium

The third thing that I did was to start taking a supplement containing selenium. I know that selenium has been depleted from our soils and it is deficient in most foods. I began to take it for its proven protection against cancer.

But selenium is also a potent immune stimulator and provides a powerful boost to our viral immunity. The National Library of Medicine lists 22 studies showing that selenium has preventive and protective properties against numerous viral agents. One of the most recent studies was reported in the FASEB Journal, published by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

In this study, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill looked at two groups of mice. The scientists fed one group of mice a selenium-rich diet. They fed the second group a selenium-deficient diet. Then both groups of mice were exposed to a mild strain of the human influenza virus.

While both groups were infected, the selenium-deficient animals experienced far more serious symptoms, including lung damage. Their symptoms also lasted much longer. The difference in how the illness expressed itself would be the difference between a benign case of pneumonia and severe pneumonia. In an immune-compromised person, this could be the difference between life and death.

What was even more remarkable though is that the researchers discovered that the virus mutated significantly within the animals that were selenium-deficient. This caused what was originally a harmless strain of the flu to transform into a far more serious and virulent pathogen – one that was able to infect and cause threatening symptoms in healthy subjects.

Rich sources of selenium include seafood, wild salmon, grass-fed butter and organ meats and especially Brazil nuts. In fact, these particular nuts are the richest food source of this mineral on the planet. You should seek to consume selenium in your diet by eating these foods. However, most of us would benefit from taking selenium as a supplement. The most bioavailable form of it is known as selenomethionine.

Why is it that two people can be exposed to the same virus, and one of them is laid up in bed for a week, while the other doesn’t feel even the slightest effect?

 And why is it that while nearly 50 million people died from the Spanish flu in 1918, the case fatality rate was less than five percent? That means 95 percent of those who contracted the flu recovered.

The difference is our individual immune systems. The bottom line is that you have a great deal of control over your immunity. And there are many things you can do to strengthen and protect it.

Reducing stress and getting enough rest are very important. You should also observe basic hygiene, like washing your hands. A high protein diet works wonders (proteins are the building blocks of many of your immune cells). And there are many herbs that have proven beneficial to the immune system. We’ll discuss all of these in future issues.

For now, my strongest recommendations are that you optimize your vitamin D status, reduce the sugar and high-glycemic carbohydrates in your diet and be sure that you are getting enough selenium in your diet.

To Your Immunity and Longevity,

To Your Health

Jon Herring
Editorial Director
Total Health Breakthroughs

The reasons are simple. Our genetics have evolved over many thousands of years to survive and thrive on a particular diet and way of life. Yet in the blink of an eye – at least in evolutionary terms – our diet and lifestyle have drastically changed. Our bodies are not equipped for these changes. The result has been an epidemic of obesity and degenerative disease.

By modeling the diet and lifestyle of our genetic ancestors, you have a very good chance of modeling their immunity to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia and more. These conditions did exist, but until the last century, they were exceedingly rare.

What about nutritional supplements?

The idea that we should mimic our ancestors prompted Rob in California to ask a question. “I understand why we should follow the diet we ate before modern food processing,” he writes. “But doesn’t that mean we should also avoid supplements and get our nutrients from food?”

It is a great question, Rob. The answer is yes… and no.

Without a doubt, the best sources of healing nutrients come from whole foods – fresh fruits and vegetables, herbs and spices, wild fish and seafood, and animals raised on their natural diet.

Many nutritional supplements contain the same healing nutrients found in food, but they are often delivered as isolated ingredients. Isolated nutrients simply do not work the same as when they are contained within a synergistic matrix of nutrients found in whole foods.

So clearly, the ideal situation is to get most of the vitamins, minerals and nutrients you need from a widely varied diet of whole foods – just like our ancestors did.

Unfortunately, that is not possible in today’s world…

It is true that our Paleolithic ancestors were virtually free of the degenerative diseases that plague modern man. And of course, they did not swill down a handful of supplements every day. However, their food and game was produced from soils that were much richer in vitamins, minerals and nutrients than our soils today.

Numerous studies have shown that our agricultural soils have been drastically depleted of nutrients. Not surprisingly, the nutrient content of our commercial crops has fallen precipitously. A study by the Nutrition Security Institute shows that in the United States, the average calcium, magnesium and iron content in cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes and spinach fell 81% between 1914 and 1997.

And do not think these important minerals are being replaced by fertilizer farming. Most plants grow just fine with nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium – so that is what Big Agriculture replaces. Never mind that humans require dozens of vitamins and minerals to remain healthy.

We have also found many new ways to destroy our health that did not exist hundreds or thousands of years ago…

Our genetic ancestors did not eat processed foods. They were not exposed to chemical toxins. They did not take pharmaceutical drugs. And they were not subjected to chronic stress.

The bottom line is that in today’s world, it makes perfect sense – in fact, it is critical – to “supplement” your diet with healing nutrients that have been proven effective.

This immune builder is virtually gone in most soils…

Selenium is a trace mineral that is essential for optimal health. And there is a good chance that you are deficient in it. In fact, most people are, because it has been depleted from most of the world’s soil.

This mineral makes such an impact on our immunity, that the incidence and mortality rates from several different types of cancer are closely correlated to the selenium content in the soil in those countries.

And the benefits are not just evident in population studies. Controlled trials show that low-selenium diets are associated with greater risk of just about every type of cancer. And selenium supplements have been shown to lower that risk.

You don’t want to be short on selenium…

Most doctors and nutritional experts recommend 100 – 200 micrograms per day. That is a small amount, but it is difficult to achieve in the diet.

• Good food sources of selenium include garlic, grass-fed butter, grass-fed organ meats and wild salmon. But the best food source, by far, comes from Brazil nuts, which contain about 70 to 90 micrograms per nut. If you want to optimize your intake of this vital nutrient, be sure to eat five or ten Brazil nuts each week.

This is one nutrient, that is so important (and so hard to get from most foods) that I also recommend it as a supplement…

But many people supplement with an inorganic form of selenium – like selenite or selenate – that is poorly bioavailable. The most effective form of selenium is one that is stored in your body’s proteins.

This allows your cells to easily access the mineral in times of stress – like when DNA is under free-radical attack or when an invading pathogen enters your body.

Look for a supplement that contains selenomethionine. This is the form your body can easily store and utilize. In fact, a placebo-controlled study in 120 selenium-deficient subjects found that the bioavailability of pure selenomethionine was almost twice that of selenite!

To Your Health

Jon Herring
Editorial Director
Total Health Breakthroughs

When I was in my early teens, my mother took my brother and me on a road trip up the East Coast of the United States. One of our stops was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania – the heart of Amish country.

I still remember the gently rolling fields, the agrarian lifestyle, and the juxtaposition of cars whizzing by on the highway as the Amish trotted into town in their horse-drawn wagons.

I was reminded of my experiences there when I read the responses to this week’s issue of Total Health Breakthroughs – Undercover. In this issue, I exposed the myth that a low-fat diet is the key to weight loss and the prevention of heart disease.

In recent years, numerous health researchers and authors have examined the dietary habits and the health record of the Amish. The results are quite telling. The Amish consume a high fat diet. They often cook their food in lard or bacon grease. And they consume a fair amount of meat and dairy.

Yet, the rates of obesity and heart disease in the Amish community are very low, compared to the general population.

Of course, the Amish are also quite active, working the land and traveling without cars. They eat many freshly grown vegetables too. These factors obviously improve their health and fitness. But it is clear that their high-fat diet is not packing on the pounds or clogging their arteries.

And it is not hurting their longevity either…

Total Health Breakthroughs subscriber Jim, who was raised in the Pennsylvania farm country, made this point in a comment on the website:

“I am 80 years old and grew up in NW Pennsylvania. We grew most of our own meat and vegetables. Lard was a staple since we butchered a pig and a cow each fall. We also had venison and our own chickens and eggs. Everyone was healthy and no one was overweight. One year, Father raised turkeys and I raised rabbits. I also raised goats one year so Father could have goat’s milk for his ulcers. Father lived to 94 and one uncle lived to 113.”

Two readers contributed similar stories from other parts of the world…

Penelope A. grew up in England in the 1950’s. Now she lives in a very rural part of Northwest Spain, called Galicia. “In this area, we have the oldest population in the whole of Spain,” she writes.

“Regularly, people live to 90 – and often well over 100. The diet is based on good food, naturally grown with (until recently) no thought to the amount of fat. The pig is king here, home grown and butchered at home, with homegrown fruits and vegetables, and hens for eggs and meat. I have been here nearly five years and my health is better than ever in my life.”

Elaine B. grew up on a dairy farm in Minnesota. She says, “It was obvious that high fat, even saturated fat as in fatty meats and dairy products, was contrary to the no-high-fat philosophy of the health industry.”

Yet, the healthiest people she has ever known “were these Minnesota farmers who ate large quantities of fat.” Of course, “they also ate lots of organically grown fruit and vegetables,” she writes.

“I am 73 and slightly overweight, but extremely healthy, and I follow the examples of those Minnesotans by eating as much fat as I choose, but making sure it is clean, unpolluted and a combination of dairy, meat, olive, flax, and fish oils.”

And how’s this for an endorsement?

THB reader Dave credits his low-glycemic, high-protein, healthy-fat diet with curing his “blood sugar issue.”

“All I eat now is lots of fresh vegetables, good grass-fed meat, wild-caught fish and nuts. I go moderate on the fruit, almost exclusively sticking to berries.” And get this. Dave says that he is pretty close to his high school weight, except with more lean muscle.

“I’m almost 50 now and I sometimes get some shocked looks when I get asked my age. I had a cardiac workup done and the nurse kept telling me ‘you sure don’t look almost 50.’ We dig our graves with our spoon.”

Thanks to everyone who commented. Your personal stories add to the considerable clinical and anecdotal proof that the amount of fat we eat is inconsequential, compared to the type of fats we eat.

But my article did lead several people to ask a very important question… Why is it important to avoid vegetable and seed oils?

Most vegetable and seed oils are very high in omega-6 fatty acids (as are most conventionally raised meats). These fats are “essential,” meaning we cannot make them on our own. We must get them from our food.

However, while essential in small amounts, they actually promote disease when consumed in unnaturally large amounts. A hundred years ago, the average American ate less than one pound of vegetable oil per year. It is difficult to consume these fats in large quantities in their native form.

But thanks to the modern food-processing industry and the unnatural diet we feed our livestock, Americans today eat more than 75 pounds of polyunsaturated omega-6 fats each year.

These fats are very unstable in the body. When we consume too much of them – as more than 95% of us do – they lead to free-radical damage and strongly promote chronic inflammation. This is a prescription for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cataracts, infertility, skin wrinkles, and much more.

That’s why you should strictly limit vegetable and seed oils in your diet (corn, soybean, safflower, sunflower oils and the like). You should also avoid fried and processed foods. Potato chips, baked goods, salad dressings, margarine, shortening, etc. all contain vegetable oils and high levels of omega-6 fats.

Replace any vegetable oils you currently use with extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, organic grass-fed butter, and organic unrefined coconut oil. All of these, except for the extra virgin olive oil, also have a high flash point. So they can also be used for cooking and sautéing.

To Your Health

Jon Herring
Editorial Director
Total Health Breakthroughs

The problem is that this is exactly the wrong advice for weight loss and your health. In fact, the “solution” has actually made our problems with obesity, heart disease and diabetes much worse.

The misplaced vilification of fat began in the 50’s and 60’s. But it was not until the late 1970s that the message was broadcast to the public. It began with a 1976 Senate report, titled Dietary Goals for the United States. It was written by a journalist with no background in health, who was advised by a Harvard nutritionist who viewed dietary fat as the nutritional equivalent of smoking cigarettes. Shortly after, countless health organizations (including the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association) and mobilized to spread the word that “eating fat makes you fat” and that a low-fat diet is the best way to prevent disease.

The food industry quickly joined the cause, but without the tasty fat, the food was bland. To compensate, they replaced the fat with sugar, producing thousands of new “low-fat” products. Americans had soon replaced a portion of the fat in our diet with refined carbohydrates.

And did we ever believe the propaganda. Millions of Americans came to associate “low-fat” on food label with “good for you.” This led people to overeat foods that were “low fat,” even though they had the same number of calories as the regular brand and often far more carbohydrates. Journalists even came up with a name for it – the Snackwell Effect – named after a brand of low-fat, high-sugar Nabisco cookies aimed at health-conscious consumers.

The problem is that while our percentage of calories from fat did go down, our collective weight began to go up… up… up.

According to National Health Examination surveys, the rate of obesity in the U.S. during the 60’s and 70’s was relatively stable – around 12 to 14% of the population. Starting around 1980, this number began to rise. By the end of the 80’s, over 20% of the population was obese. Today, more than 25% of the population is considered obese.

And not only has there been an explosion of obesity, but also of related diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.

Thankfully, it seems people are finally starting to wake up. However, it is not because the public health authorities or the medical profession have changed their tune. If you are overweight in the United States, and you go to see a hospital dietician, you will almost certainly be put on a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet.

No, people are starting to wake up because the studies are screaming that we have been going down the wrong path. And thankfully, the proliferation of new media has put this vital intelligence in people’s hands.

For example, the Women’s Health Initiative – a $450 million study involving 50,000 women – showed that an extremely low fat diet had no measurable impact on obesity. Neither did the diet show any measurable risk reduction (incidence or mortality) for cardiovascular disease, stroke, colorectal cancer, or breast cancer.

And as Gary Taubes pointed out in a New York Times article, at least four large trials between 1980 and 1984 comparing disease rates and diet “showed no evidence that men who ate less fat lived longer or had fewer heart attacks.”

These results of these studies led Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard – considered by many to be the dean of nutrition and health studies – to state that “the percentage of calories from fat in a diet has not been related to any important health outcome.”

The problems is that the low-fat message is far too simple. What is crucial is not necessarily how much fat you eat, but the type of fat.

Fat is a major component of your cell membranes. Your brain is mostly made of fat. Fat is also critical to help your body absorb certain vitamins and nutrients – such as CoQ10 and vitamins A, D, E, and K. These and other nutrients cannot be properly absorbed without dietary fat.

In fact, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that low-fat diets were associated with 20% less calcium absorption than higher-fat diets. In addition, the State University of New York at Buffalo found that people who eat low-fat diets develop weaker immune systems.

The message is clear. The conventional “low-fat” diet advice is counterproductive to your weight- loss efforts and to your health. If you want to reduce your risk of degenerative disease and maintain a healthy weight, it is far more important to limit your consumption of sugar and refined carbohydrates.  And you should pay more attention to the type of fats you eat, rather than the amounts.

Here is a simple plan for healthy eating and natural weight loss:

1. Eliminate bad fats from your diet, including vegetable and seed oils and hydrogenated oils. DO consume plenty of good fats, including avocados, olive oil, coconut oil, fish oil, nuts, eggs, wild salmon, sardines and naturally-raised meats.

2. Avoid processed carbohydrates, grains and sugars. DO consume a wide variety of herbs, leafy greens, and vegetables every day, and a moderate amount of fruit.

3. Engage in resistance exercise to build strength and muscle, and interval training to quickly shed fat.

Mimic the diet of your ancestors. Eat unprocessed, natural foods and you will have better health, better control over your weight and greater satisfaction from the foods you eat.

Physical hunger is the feeling you get at the end of a long day. It is how you feel after a vigorous workout. Your stomach growls. You become tired and weak and your thinking slows down. This is your body telling you that it needs nutrients and energy.

Hormonal hunger, on the other hand, has little to do with mealtime. In fact, it can often strike shortly after a big meal. Hormonal hunger can cause strong cravings and a near continual desire to eat.

This type of hunger is the result of various hormones and neurotransmitters rising and falling in response to the foods we eat. These hormones not only influence your hunger mechanism, they also play an important role in how your body stores and burns fat.

One of the most important “hunger hormones” is leptin…

A team of researchers at the Rockefeller University discovered leptin in 1994. They were studying a genetic line of mice that continually consumed food until they became morbidly obese. These mice just did not “know when to say when.” Their fat-burning metabolism was also dysfunctional. Once the fat was on their bodies, it was there to stay.

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.”

Further research has proven that leptin is a very powerful messenger hormone. It helps perform countless functions in the body. Two of these are very important when it comes to hunger and body fat:

1. Leptin sends a signal to your brain that you are full. This shuts down your hunger mechanism.
2. 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 the fat that is stored on your body is burned for fuel. This is a powerful combination for helping you to stay slim.

However, for many of us, leptin does not work as it should. It is blocked.

Are you resistant to leptin?

Leptin functions as a negative feedback loop. The hormone is produced by your fat cells. The more fat cells you have, the higher your levels of leptin. This helps to suppress your appetite and it stimulates your metabolism to burn fat. The result should be a return to a healthy weight.

However, when too many fat cells build up, a substance called C-reactive protein (CRP) sticks to the leptin. This blocks leptin’s ability to send your brain the “I’m full” signal. It also stifles your ability to burn fat.

This condition is called leptin resistance, and it is highly correlated with obesity (not to mention heart disease and diabetes). Leptin resistance can make losing weight nearly impossible – you are always hungry and your body is programmed to hold fat and not let go.

There are a number of things you can do to improve leptin “sensitivity.”  Here are four that are very important:

1. Avoid large, gluttonous meals
2. Reduce your consumption of high-glycemic carbohydrates
3. Never go to bed on a full stomach
4. Eat protein with breakfast

There is also an herbal supplement that can help…

Several years ago, Dr. Julius Oben was performing population studies on West African tribal cultures. He noted that one particular region had very low incidences of obesity and diabetes. Then he discovered that the populations in this region use a paste derived from the seed of a bush mango to thicken their soups. They use this substance an average of ten times per week.

The plant is irvingia gabonensis, and Dr. Oben’s discovery led to the development of a powerful extract. What Oben and a team of researchers later discovered is that this substance has an extraordinarily powerful effect on leptin sensitivity.

In a 10-week controlled clinical trial, published in the medical journal Lipids in Health and Disease, the researchers tested the effects of this substance on 120 men and women. Some were normal weight. Some were obese.

They split the groups in two. One group took 150 mg of the irvingia extract twice a day on an empty stomach – a half hour before lunch and a half hour before dinner. The other group received a placebo. The two groups made no other lifestyle or dietary changes.

By the end of the ten weeks, the placebo group lost a mere three pounds. The irvingia group lost an average of 28 lbs and six inches off their waist!

And that’s not all…

The group who took the extract also dramatically improved several markers for health, including a substantial 49% drop in leptin (indicating that their leptin sensitivity increased). They also saw a 52% decrease in C-reactive protein (CRP) – the protein which binds to leptin and disrupts its capacity to turn off the hunger switch.

For good measure, the Irvingia group also experienced and average 22% decrease in blood sugar and a 26% drop in total cholesterol.

Scientists still do not know exactly how the extract produces its effect on leptin and other health markers, but the results speak for themselves. And several other studies have confirmed it. Along with a low glycemic diet, the herbal supplement – irvingia gabonensis – can go a long way toward curbing your appetite and helping you achieve your optimal weight.

To Your Health

Jon Herring
Editorial Director
Total Health Breakthroughs

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.