Dr. David Agus in promotion of his book “The End of Illness” misleads people by stating that supplements have a negative impact on your health. Twice I have heard him say that research shows that supplements can increase your risk of disease.

He even said that vitamin E supplements increase men’s risk of prostate cancer.

It is my opinion that this shows his lack of knowledge of nutrition or intellectual dishonesty in what he says  to sell his book.

Let me explain.

Cheap Shot at a vitally important issue.

Here is the problem. Research is most often done with the cheapest form of supplements. These supplements contain only few nutrients and they are isolates of the vitamins and minerals.

What is an isolate?

An isolate is a vitamin that has been separated from its natural occurring complex. (If amounts of vitamins are listed on the label they are isolates.)  The complex contains the associated co-factors necessary for the body to use the vitamin.  When the vitamin is taken in the isolate form the co-factors must come from other sources within the body. Stealing co-factors from other foods weakens the entire process. The vitamin can not be used or reacts in an incomplete or abnormal manner.

Dr Agus and other press reports of such research should be truthful and state that supplements of vitamin and mineral isolates may be harmful or increase disease risk.

When vitamins and minerals are taken in whole food form everything is present to give maximum use and function for the body. If whole food supplements are heated above 116 degrees Fahrenheit the enzymes and other co-factors will be damaged.  Liquid supplements must be pasteurized-heated to 185 degrees F for 15 seconds- for safety and therefore lose much of the good found in the whole food they may contain.

Ongoing assessments on over 17,000 people by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) show that when it comes to fruits and vegetables, over 75% of the US population does not meet the minimum recommended intake.

Health Awareness Foundation reported in study of 26,000 people, not one person consumed a full compliment of nutrients from their diets.  This supports the need for supplementing with whole food concentrates.

I have not found any research that reveals a negative impact for whole food supplements.

• I have been aware of the powerful benefits of cold processed whole food supplements for many years. I recently found a company that produces very high quality whole food products.

Vitamin E and prostate health.

Dr. Agus stated that research found vitamin E supplements can increase the risk of prostate cancer.  Is this ignorance or has a hidden agenda? Vitamin E has alpha, beta, gamma, and delta tocopherols in the vitamin E complex. The research done with vitamin E uses d-alpha tocopherol or dl-alpha tocopherol.  This is incomplete and cannot provide the benefit of the vitamin E complex.

The reports of this research should properly state that d- or dl-alpha tocopherol may increase your risk of prostate cancer.

It appears that Dr. Agus has assumed  the isolate forms of nutrients are the same as the complete complex forms that are found in whole food  supplements. In his promotional interviews he made no  attempt to distinguish isolate supplements from whole food supplements. There is a critical and major difference.

If you were to use this same standard, that is consider partial forms of a substance the same as the whole you could say that drinking water would increase the risk of sudden death.  The water molecule is made of 2 hydrogen and one oxygen atoms. If you only consumed a part of the substance such as  hydrogen you would be at risk .

Yes, that is ridiculous and so is the danger of research that assumes  isolates have the same value as nutrient complexes.

When you hear or read reports about nutritional supplements you need to ask a few basic questions. Taking action based on the face value of the reports in the media or in a health book promotion  may be dangerous to your health.

For Your Total Wellness,

Dr. Darrel Hestdalen

For the Dr. Inside

You Should Ask the Question: How will I benefit from the x-ray?

A recent published report stated that often medical tests are done excessively and dental x-rays should be included in this too.

Excessive tests  it pose increased risk for your health and drive up the cost of health care. We need to be educated health care consumers.

Consider this report discussed today.

(Reuters Health) – A new study suggests people who had certain kinds of dental X-rays in the past may be at an increased risk for meningioma, the most commonly diagnosed brain tumor in the U.S.

The findings cannot prove that radiation from the imaging caused the tumors, and the results are based on people who were likely exposed to higher levels of radiation during dental X-rays than most are today.

“It’s likely that the exposure association we’re seeing here is past exposure, and past exposure levels were much higher,” said Dr. Elizabeth Claus, the study’s lead author and a professor at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.

Claus and her colleagues write in the journal Cancer that dental X-rays are the most common source of exposure to ionizing radiation — which has been linked to meningiomas in the past — but most research on the connection is based on people who were exposed to atomic bombs or received radiation therapy.

There have been some studies that looked at dental X-rays, but they were from years ago and included fewer people than the current study, Claus noted. Still, they were generally in agreement with the new findings.

For her study, Claus’ team recruited 1,433 people diagnosed with intracranial meningioma — a tumor that forms in the tissues lining the brain — between May 2006 and April 2011. All of the participants were diagnosed when they were between 20 and 79 years old and they were all from Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina or the Houston or San Francisco Bay areas.

For comparison, the researchers also followed 1,350 people who were similar in age, sex and state of residence as the study group, but who had not been diagnosed with a tumor.

The study looked at how often people had three different types of dental X-rays. They included a focused image of one area, a number of images of the full mouth and a single panoramic view of the entire mouth. These are known in dentistry parlance as bitewing, full-mouth and panorex films, respectively.

Each person was interviewed by someone trained to administer a questionnaire that asked about demographic details, family history of cancer, pregnancy and medical history. The interviewers also asked — among other things — about the person’s history of dental work and the number of times they had the three types of dental x-rays taken throughout their life.

The researchers found that those diagnosed with meningiomas were more than twice as likely as the comparison group to report ever having had bitewing images taken.

And regardless of the age when the bitewings were taken, those who had them yearly or more frequently were at between 40 percent and 90 percent higher risk at all ages to be diagnosed with a brain tumor.

To put that in perspective, Dr. Paul Pharoah, a cancer researcher at the University of Cambridge said in a statement the results would mean an increase in lifetime risk of intracranial meningioma in the U.K. from 15 out of every 10,000 people to 22 in 10,000 people.

Panoramic X-rays taken at a young age, especially if done yearly or more often before age 10, also raised the risk of meningiomas by up to five times.

There was no association between full-mouth X-rays and the tumors, although the authors note they saw a trend similar to that seen for the bitewing X-rays.

The lack of association with full-mouth X-rays led one expert to question the connection.

“They found a small risk (from) a pair of bitewings, but not a full mouth series, which is multiple bitewings. That inconsistency is impossible to understand to me,” said Dr. Alan Lurie, president of the American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology.

Lurie also echoed Claus’ caution that radiation levels from dental X-rays when some of the participants were younger was much greater than is used now.

He does warn, however, patients shouldn’t assume it’s fine for the dentist to take X-rays.

“They should ask why are (dentists) taking this image and what is the benefit to me,” he said.

The American Dental Association put out a statement in response to the study noting that the interviews relied on participants’ memories of how often they had different types of X-rays years earlier.

The statement added, “The ADA’s long-standing position is that dentists should order dental X-rays for patients only when necessary for diagnosis and treatment. Since 1989, the ADA has published recommendations to help dentists ensure that radiation exposure is as low as reasonably achievable.”

Dr. Sanjay Mallya, an assistant professor the UCLA School of Dentistry in Los Angeles, said that patients should be concerned whenever they are exposed to radiation, but “it’s important to emphasize that this concern should not mean that we shouldn’t get X-rays at all.”

According to the researchers, “while dental X-rays are an important tool in well selected patients, efforts to moderate exposure to (ionizing radiation) to the head is likely to be of benefit to patients and health care providers alike.”

SOURCE: bit.ly/HwspDv Cancer, online April 10, 2012.

Cancer and reduced brain function can result from the toxic compounds found in fried foods.

The University of the Basque in Spain published research in the journal Food Chemistry revealing the first findings by researchers of compounds released from common cooking oils that significantly increase the risk of a variety of different cancers and neurologic degenerative diseases.

Eating fried or overcooked foods is unhealthy has been known by health-conscious individual to be a serious health risk due to the chemical transition of normally stable fats to trans fats. This has shown to to increase heart attack risk and also the inflammation the underlies the onset of cancer and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Aldehydes are the chemical compounds broken down in the cooking oils such as sunflower oil when heated to normal frying temperatures, and are also released into the air where they can be inhaled.

Roasting, steaming and broiling are safe methods of cooking foods to avoid the dangerous release of aldehydes and provide a shield against cancer-forming particles and neurodegenerative decline.

Aldehydes have been linked with several degenerative diseases as different types of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Researchers also know that these compounds remain in vegetable oils after they have been used to fry foods.  Research continues to determine how they interact with proteins, hormones and enzymes in the body to impede its correct functioning.

Many common vegetable oils produce dangerous aldehydes when heated.

Toxic Chemicals Cause Dysfunction in Hormone, Immune and Neurological Systems.

The study reported that the study team heated three types of oil (olive, sunflower and flaxseeds) in an industrial deep fryer at 190 degrees Celsius for a period of forty hours and twenty hours was used for the flaxseed oil.

This was used to approximately duplicate the length of time oils are heated in commercial fryers in restaurants. The oils were then analyzed using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry techniques.

The sunflower and flaxseed oils were found to degrade significantly and are the ones that create the most toxic aldehydes in the least amount of frying time. These oils are high in polyunsaturated fats (linoleic and linolenic) and breakdown quickly to form the health-demoting aldehyde compounds that permeate the air and penetrate into the food. Olive oil, known to be high in monounsaturated fat, generates aldehydes to a lesser degree and after cooking much longer.

The research team concluded “The fact that significant concentrations of these toxic compounds were found in some oils … is a cause of concern for human health.”

Coconut oil was not used in their tests. Other studies have shown that the medium-chain fatty acid does not rapidly convert to deadly trans fats when heated, and may be less likely to produce aldehydes when compared to other vegetable oils. Any healthy eat plan should avoid deep fried cooking and it is important to avoid cooking with low flash-point oils that produce aldehydes and increase the risk of neurologic disorders and cancer.

For Your Total Wellness,

Dr. Darrel Hestdalen

Monsanto may have caused the large organic food producers to accept some Round-up Ready crops.

The organic elite appear to have buckled to Monsanto. Read the report at the link below.

The White House is supporting Monsanto. I wonder if the White House serves GMO foods to their family, staff and foreign heads of state?

Interesting information to which we all need to pay attention. 

Stay informed or you will be eating what you don’t want to eat and wondering why your health is deteriorating.

Whole food supplements from organic sources are having a strong appeal to thousands of people.

For Your Total Wellness,

Dr. Darrel Hestdalen

Weight Loss Problems Linked to Common Chemicals  and  Pharmaceuticals

In a report in NaturalNews,  scientists today are finding  evidence that more and more chemicals in our bodies lead increase fat storage in various ways. The common thinking that obesity is linked to improper diets, too much food, and not enough exercise is accurate it also doesn’t tell us the whole story.

An obesity researcher at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences stated “There are between fifteen and twenty chemicals that have been shown to cause weight gain,” . And many of these chemicals, the average person already has in their blood. Research has also found that these chemicals affect developing fetuses, which means that if the mother has them in her blood or has them in high levels, her child will more likely become obese. Thus these chemicals create generational problems that may also have affected people who are already alive today.

I was a “fat kid” and experienced the social problems related to the excess weight such as childhood teasing.  I responded to a “talk” from an older brother and lost weight by cutting out candy. However the mental images can linger for decades.

The chemicals responsible often use different mechanisms which ultimately lead to easy gain and hard to get rid of weight. Some of the chemicals increase the number of fat cells you have, so you have more cells to store fat in. Others increase the size of your fat cells and make them larger so they can store more fat per cell. Still other chemicals alter our hormones which then affect our appetites, whether we feel full or not, our food preferences, and even our energy metabolism. Of course, by lowering your energy metabolism, you might feel it’s impossible to lose weight no matter what you do.

Reducing your bodies toxin burden of these chemical and heavy metals can have a very positive impact on your metabolism, energy and quality of life.  Most diseases of aging are related to functional heavy metal toxicity.  Reducing your toxic body burden therefore can greatly impact your quality of life.

How to reduce your bodies toxin burden. Pure Body is the highest functional zeolite and is even more helpful when combined with the whole food supplement Essentials.

Many of the VOC’s -volatile organic compounds found in pesticides can be remove or at least reduced by Pure Body with its large  surface area that is negatively charged.

It’s also interesting that the chemicals can affect your food preferences, which means they affect which foods sound good to eat. And it’s hard to imagine these weight gain chemicals would cause you to crave the healthy stuff.

Sources of these chemicals.

These “weight gain” chemicals are often found in: pesticides, pharmaceuticals and common plastics. Most of them are endocrine disruptors and they’ve also been found in products including handbags, wallpaper, blinds, tile, air fresheners, laundry products, and numerous personal care products. To some extent, they are all around us.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is another one, and it’s often in canned foods, baby bottles, and medical devices. Frederick vom Saal, a University of Missouri biology professor, tells us that, “BPA reduces the number of fat cells but programs them to incorporate more fat, so there are fewer but very large fat cells.” Vom Saal has studied BPA for the past 15 years.

When you realize how various and pervasive chemicals in your body may be related to your difficulties in losing weight, you may also come to the conclusion that detoxification is the answer. Because when you remove those chemicals, you can also diminish or eliminate the affects they are having on your body. At the very least, they will no longer continue to be there, causing the problem.

You can learn more about ways to support your health, improve your healing potential and reduce the risk of debilitating diseases.

For Your Total Wellness,

Dr. Darrel Hestdalen

Recently my daughter had our grandson in for a 3 weeks checkup. The doctor stated that mother’s milk doesn’t contain vitamin D and therefore it wasn’t necessary to supplement the baby with vitamin D.

Doctors should be taught about the critical importance of adequate amounts of vitamin D for infant development.

Unfortunately that is what too many doctors are taught. Read the follow note from an article on the www.VitaminDcouncil.org  site.

“For those who do not know, Professor Hollis is the scientist who provided the best reason to keep your vitamin D level around 50 ng/ml (125 nmol/L). Some scientists say 20 ng/ml (50 nmol/L) is good enough because parathyroid hormone (PTH) is pretty much suppressed with levels of 20, other scientists say levels should be 30 because calcium absorption is maximized with that level. That is, PTH suppression and calciumabsorption are biomarkers for adequate vitamin D blood levels.

Professor Hollis provided another biomarker, one every woman – and most men – can immediately accept as the best biomarker yet: how much vitamin D does a woman need to be sure that her breast milk has adequate vitamin D? When you think about it, that’s about as good as biomarkers get.

Professor Hollis answered that question in his research, finding that when a lactating woman has vitamin D blood levels of 40-50 ng/ml (100-125 nmol/L), her breast milk finally has enough vitamin D to support the vitamin D levels of her nursing infant. At levels below 40, the vitamin D content of breast milk becomes unpredictable. I’d say Bruce’s discovery is more important than PTH or calcium absorption. I also say the women (and men) on the recent vitamin D FNB panel should be ashamed of themselves for apparently not knowing this.

I always wondered how that could be, after first learning in medical school that human breast milk – unlike the breast milk of wild mammals – has little or no vitamin D. How could Nature’s perfect food be void of the pre-hormone needed for infant growth and development? Bruce answered the question, breast milk is not devoid of it, it is just that virtually all modern lactating women are.”

Vitamin D is very important for the development of a child’s brain, nervous system and immune system. Review information at the vitaminDcouncil.org website. Knowledge is your partner when talking with a pediatrician about the health of your child.

For Your Total Wellness,

Dr. Darrel Hestdalen

• 75% of the Deaths from Breast and Colorectal Cancer could be prevented.

Do you have the energy and the can do attitude you need. Be honest. Most will have to say no to some degree.

You can be a health “expert” greater than your doctor. Only you have the potential to be your best doctor.

How Can I be my own best Dr.?

The answer is simple. Getting the results take discipline and persistence.  The answer is:

get back to the basics.

I think the answer is much simpler than most people make it out to be. They never really learn the basics.Yes we know the basics to be healthy yet all of the medical shows and drug advertising has allowed us to think health comes from someone or some thing outside of our ourselves.

If you think that’s wrong, consider: Whenever a team that should have won a championship ends up losing, what is the most common thing said by their coach in the post-game interview?

• “We didn’t execute the basics.”

When a player from the winning team is interviewed, especially after a strong season, what is the most common explanation given for their success?

• “We focused on the basics.”

We’re talking world champions, here. Do you feel to be in “championship” form?

Sometimes they give a different reason, of course. Sometimes they say it was ‘the fundamentals.’

Think about most health problems that steal our future. Aging accelerates when we are missing key ingredients.

Yes, the basics of living well have been abused or ignored. If you were to be interviewed and asked “what happened in your life that allowed your health to be less than “championship quality”? Would you admit that you didn’t focus on the basics?

Watch for a new class of whole foods as a basis for your solution to fatigue and frequent illness, coming soon. This will be the grass roots effort to take back our health.

For Your Total Wellness,

Dr. Darrel Hestdalen.

Vitamin D3 keeps your immune system strong, your bones strong and reduces your risk of cancers.

According to the information  at VitaminDCouncil.org and my personal experience, taking 5,000 IUs of Vitamin D3 is better than a flu shot. D3 provides your body with the ability to produce 100′s of anti-microbial peptides- the building blocks of your body’s antibodies.

D3 is essential for the development of the brain and nervous system, especially in prenatal and infants.

Breast Milk

All mammals have vitamin D3 in the breast milk.  Tests of human mothers has shown the breast milk to be void of D3.

UNLESS the mother takes about 5,000 IUs per day. Then the breast milk has adequate vitamin D3.

Doctors at the VitaminDCouncil.org have used this fact to determine optimal levels for vitamin D3 supplementation. Sunshine is the best source for our bodies to produce D3, however most of the United States doesn’t have the sun power or the temperatures to allow us to get adequate sunshine for many months of the year.

D3 biomarkers - see this article by Dr. John Cannell.

Also work and our habits keeps us indoors during the peak sunshine times during the summer.  Supplementation is therefore a viable option.

You should have your blood tested to determine your vitamin D3. The best test measures 25(OH)D, also called 25-hydroxyvitamin D.  Studies now show optimal health at 50 to 65 ng/ml.

I take 6,000 to 7,000 IUs per day of a Mycelized liquid D3. Our family follows these recommendations. Of course infants and children take less- about 1,200 to 2500 for toddlers after nursing.  We seldom have illness.

More about D3 and cancer risk in the next post.

For Your Total Wellness,

Dr. Darrel Hestdalen

• A page to share or “like”

Stroke has a new indicator They say if you share this with ten people, you stand a chance of saving one life.

• Will you send this along?
• Blood Clots/Stroke – They Now Have a Fourth Indicator, the Tongue

STROKE: Remember the 1st Three Letters….. S. T. R.

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:

During a BBQ, a woman stumbled and took a little fall – she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) …she said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, Jane went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening.

Jane’s husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital – (at 6:00 PM Jane passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Jane would be with us today. Some don’t die. They end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.

It only takes a minute to read this.

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE:

Thank God for the sense to remember the ’3′ steps, STR. Read and

Learn!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

• S *Ask the individual to SMILE.
• T *Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently) (I.e. It is sunny out today.)
• R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call emergency number immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

• New Sign of a Stroke ——– Stick out Your Tongue

NOTE: Another ‘sign’ of a stroke is this: Ask the person to ‘stick’ out his tongue. If the tongue is ‘crooked’, if it goes to one side or the other that is also an indication of a stroke.

A cardiologist says if everyone who reads this page sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.

For Your Total Wellness,

Dr. Darrel Hestdalen