Total Health Breakthroughs: Alternative Solutions for Mind, Body, and Spirit

If you are having difficulty losing weight even after dieting and exercising more, you are not alone. Over the years, I have helped probably thousands of people with the same problem, but I am finding this scenario to be much more common now than in the past. What I want you to know is that when you’ve tried everything and weight loss or lowering of blood sugar or lipids seems impossible, it could be that environmental toxins are disrupting your body.

Some pesticides, for instance, have been linked with suboptimal thyroid function and others to insulin resistance (IR). Certain pesticides that haven’t even been used for years, like DDT, are still a problem because they are so persistent in the environment, and from there can get into our bodies.

Researchers call these substances persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The insecticide, dieldrin, is an example. This organochlorine pesticide was used on cotton and corn from the 1950s until 1970. And although its use was banned on crops in 1974, it was still used for termite control until it was finally banned by the EPA completely in 1987. Because it is tightly bound to soil and it evaporates very slowly, dieldrin persists in the environment even though it’s no longer used.¹

So how does dieldrin affect us today? Plants absorb it from the soil, and water runoff carries the soil with the chemical into water supplies. When we eat plants grown in soil still contaminated with dieldrin, it enters our bodies. We can also get it from the flesh of animals eating contaminated plants or fish living in contaminated waters.¹

After being consumed, dieldrin is then stored in our body fat. And here’s the problem: dieldrin may be linked to disruption in the thyroid hormones, T4 and TSH. One study found that women with significantly high dieldrin in their blood had decreased T4 levels and increased TSH.

If you’re one of more than 20 million Americans struggling to control your blood sugar you may already know about the distressing health problems it can cause.

The pharmaceutical companies have plenty of drugs to help you deal with blood sugar imbalances. The trouble is… the side effects of some of these drugs can be WORSE than the disease they’re supposed to treat!

For example, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently mandated the use of a “black box” warning on the diabetes drug Avandia®. This strong warning label emphasizes that the drug, “may cause or worsen heart failure in certain patients.”

What if I told you there was a supplement available that could help control blood sugar, protect the liver and the brain, and just might turn out to be one of your most powerful weapons in the fight against unhealthy aging?

Meet alpha-lipoic acid.

First discovered about 50 years ago, alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) is one of the most potent antioxidants in the human body, where it’s normally synthesized in small amounts. In fact, Lester Packer, PhD, a senior researcher at the University of California for over 40 years has called it, “probably the most potent naturally occurring antioxidant known to man”.

When it comes to blood sugar, the closer you can keep it to the normal range of 80 to 89 mg/dL the better. For years I have been warning that blood sugars even in the 90 to 100 range show that you are becoming insulin resistant and on your way to diabetes. A recent study done on 47,000 Kaiser Permanente patients validated this observation.

The study, published in the American Journal of Medicine found that blood sugar, blood glucose (BG) levels in the 95-99 range more than doubled a person’s risk of becoming diabetic. In fact, for every point over 85 mg/dL the risk of becoming diabetic increased 6%, even when they controlled for other factors.¹

Great news for cinnamon lovers! New research presented at the Experimental Biology meeting in San Francisco found that cinnamon and cloves - spices high in nutrients called polyphenols - boost insulin function while lowering cholesterol.

It is hardly news that the world is more obese now than at any time in recent history. Nighttime binging, whether it is large meals or sugary treats, is one of the primary reasons for our obesity pandemic.