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

Before THB launched its paid newsletter, The Healing Prescription last year, we had several opportunities to meet with Jim LaValle, the Executive Editor, and learn more about his alternative health institute and the approach he takes to treat people that mainstream medical practitioners often cannot help.

While Jim had countless examples of how his integrative approach gave a new lease on life to people that had struggled for years with traditional treatments, one story was especially memorable.

Several years ago, a 10-year-old boy named Ryan came to Jim’s institute for treatment. He had recurring bone cancer that had spread to his lungs. Ryan’s doctor had basically given up on him, telling his parents he had less than a year to live. Jim immediately began alternative treatments that included nutritional support and detoxification supplements. The treatment saved Ryan’s life and he is now a healthy teenager whose lung tumors disappeared and never returned.

I recently found out while editing The Healing Prescription about the key nutrient that was able to put Ryan’s lung tumors into remission. It’s called Avemar (Avé in the US) and was developed by Hungarian scientist, Dr. Albert Szent-Györgyi , winner of the 1937 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering the essential role of vitamin C in cellular metabolism.¹

As Jim explains in this issue, glucose (sugar) fuels the growth of cancer cells —a fact that is often ignored in mainstream medicine. But the damaging effects don’t stop there. The cancer cells then convert the glucose into lactate which causes acidic stress in the body and rob normal cells of the glucose they need for healthy metabolism.

This is where Avé comes to the rescue. It effectively decreases glucose uptake by cancer cells and helps glucose metabolism return to normal. In the process, cancer cells begin to die, tumor growth slows, and healthy cells can begin to better absorb glucose and other nutrients. Because healthy cells can get more of the nourishment they need, weight loss and muscle wasting, common side effects in cancer patients, begin to slow or even reverse.

At the risk of sounding redundant, I am making folic acid the topic of yet another article. Why? Because making sure you are getting enough folate is one of the most important things you can do for your health. Yet if you read the headlines lately, you may be running scared from folate. Should you take folate or shouldn’t you, and if so, how much should you take? Let’s clear up some of the confusion.

You may remember my article from back in December discussing the good and bad effects of alcohol. In it I warned women to stick to the one-glass-a-day rule to reduce risks from alcohol. However, a recent study called the Million Women Study found that even one glass a day increased the risk of cancers in women. The study, which came out of the United Kingdom, found that in middle-aged women who drank anywhere from one to three drinks per day — the risk of breast, liver, rectum, and in smokers, mouth and throat cancers, increased for each drink consumed.¹

One drink increased cancer rate by 15 cancers per 1000 women and this risk continued to double for each daily drink. This study was significant because it involved a very big study population, most of whom drank wine, a form of alcohol that other studies have found has certain health benefits.

I know many women will look at that study and say, “Well, I am going to take my chances. I am not giving up my one glass of wine!” And that decision is probably OK because there may be a way to protect yourself.

You see the idea that even moderate alcohol consumption may increase cancer risks is not a new one. Studies clear back into the early 1990s found the same thing. However, other studies from back in the 1990s found that the increased cancer risk from alcohol may be largely because alcohol depletes folate.

Breast Cancer. The very words strike fear into women everywhere. And for good reason — according to the National Cancer Institute’s factsheet, the 2008 estimates indicated that 182,460 women were diagnosed with and 40,480 women died of breast cancer.¹ That translates into 1 out of 8 women who will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their life time.

With such alarming statistics, it’s even more tragic that most women just wait until a self exam or mammogram shows an unusual lump in the breast. By then the cancer has taken hold and it becomes a life or death battle for survival.

That’s why I did a double take when I read Jim La Valle’s article, Breast Cancer — Real Prevention that appeared in the November 4 issue of Total Health Breakthroughs. Jim’s advice can save countless lives if it is read and understood by women everywhere.

As Jim explains in his article, most breast cancer is determined by how estrogen is metabolized in the body and whether it is balanced by adequate levels of progesterone. Knowing this and taking the appropriate steps means that you may never be involved in this fight for your life, because with the proper testing and nutrition the cancer will never have the opportunity to develop in the first place.

By now we are all familiar with the class of cholesterol lowering drugs called statins. A recent study, which was actually looking to see if statins cause liver toxicity, found that not only were statins clearly correlated with increased liver enzymes, they were also associated with increased cancer risk.¹

Another trial was looking to find out if a newer combination drug for cholesterol lowering, called Vytorin, could prevent the progression of aortic heart-valve disease– they found out it did not. Other findings from the study were a mixed bag of good and bad, but of great concern was that more people taking the drug ended up getting cancer, compared to those on placebo — 40% more.²

A re-analysis of the data from some of these trials was done to see if the cholesterol lowering drugs really did increase cancer risk or if that occurred by chance — the authors came away convinced the increased cancer risk was a fluke. Interestingly though, a group of editors of the New England Journal of Medicine said in effect, “Not so fast,” because they calculated that the odds that this finding was just by chance could be as low as 7 in 1000.³

In the meantime, another study has suggested that it may not be the drugs that are increasing the cancer risk, but the low LDL levels (LDL is considered the “bad” type of cholesterol). This study followed Chinese patients with type II diabetes who had no previous history of cancer. Those with an LDL level of 107 had a 33% increased risk of cancer and death, and those with an LDL level of 87 had a 50% increased risk.⁴As the LDL decreased, cancer risk increased. It will be awhile before the issue is completely sorted out, and I am glad to see that at least some experts are concerned by these results.

But even with the increased risks, most of these researchers and medical organizations such as the American College of Cardiology are not suggesting that people who are on statins to manage heart disease stop taking them.⁵ Why? Because heart disease is a more immediate threat.

If you’re a man in this country, you’ve probably heard a lot about skyrocketing rates of prostate cancer. With good reason: it’s the second leading cause of cancer death in American men.

Today I’ll tell you about a little-known weapon in the battle against this man killer. It’s a basic, plentiful mineral, but few doctors know much about it — or its health benefits. It’s called boron.

Boron is one of nutritional science’s ugly stepchildren. It’s a “trace element,” meaning it’s toxic in high doses, but vital to health in small amounts. It’s also toxic to animals and insects, which is why it’s still used as a commercial pesticide in the form of boric acid.

That’s one reason people don’t know about boron. Another is that researchers didn’t even recognize its role as an essential nutrient until the late 1980s. They stumbled on it by chance while conducting animal studies.

The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) has just completed a detailed review of more than 7,000 clinical studies covering links between diet and cancer. Its conclusion is rocking the health world with startling bluntness: Processed meats are too dangerous for human consumption. Consumers should stop buying and eating all processed meat products for the rest of their lives.

Processed meats include bacon, sausage, hot dogs, sandwich meat, packaged ham, pepperoni, salami and virtually all red meat used in frozen prepared meals. They are usually manufactured with a carcinogenic ingredient known as sodium nitrite. This is used as a color fixer by meat companies to turn packaged meats a bright red color so they look fresh. Unfortunately, sodium nitrite also results in the formation of cancer-causing nitrosamines in the human body. And this leads to a sharp increase in cancer risk for those who eat them.

The evidence keeps mounting that the sun is good for you. In the latest study, high levels of sun exposure were associated with a 47-percent reduced risk of advanced breast cancer in women with light skin pigmentation.

Diet headlines sell newspapers and magazines. Because of that, diet and nutrition articles are everywhere. The American public needs this information. But BEWARE! You can’t always believe what you read in the mainstream media.

Researchers have uncovered an extremely potent cancer fighter in the form of a naturally occurring fat: conjugated linoleic acid (CLA).