Meditation, Antibacterial Soaps and Vitamin K for Bone Health

MEDITATION IS FAR SUPERIOR TO DRUGS FOR HEART DISEASE

There are four or five different types of blood pressure drugs. They all carry a litany of paralyz­ing side effects, and none of them, even if taken for 20 to 30 years, statistically provide for fewer heart attacks, strokes, or deaths. Heart disease drugs are not much better. However, another study reveals that transcendental meditation provides a 50% reduction in heart attacks, strokes, and death compared to patients who do not meditate!

A study granted by the federal government and conducted at the Medical College of Wisconsin was presented at the American Heart Association's annual meeting (Nov 16, 2009). The results were so dramatic that medical experts said it was as if those practicing meditation were taking a new class of medications!

The amazing part of all this is simply that there are no medical treatments, surgeries, drugs or combination of drugs that can provide anything close to a 50% reduction in heart attacks, strokes, or heart disease deaths—none! And yet meditators accomplished this without any medical treatment whatsoever—simply by using the relaxing technique of meditation.

If you are backed into a corner with stubborn hypertension or heart disease that will not quit, be sure to start meditating, or at least practice deep breathing daily. To learn to meditate, simply go to http://www.tm.org/ and find out how to learn transcendental meditation. At the very minimum, practice deep breathing. If you need help, simply send me an email and I will send you information on deep breathing to get you started.

Meditation alone is better than all medical therapies—including drugs, combined drugs, heart surgeries, and more.


Antibacterial madness could be killing us

We're so clean we're filthy. In fact, we're washing our way towards illness and death. Triclosan, an antibacterial agent found in soaps, detergents and even clothing, has been sucking the human endocrine system dry. And as it goes to work on your body, it's also helping to kill off common bacteria... while allowing powerful new ones to rise.

What's truly amazing... what's really shocking... what should tell you everything you need to know about this chemical... is that it's actually a pesticide, not a soap. You've probably been washing with it for years, then eating with your "clean" hands.

The feds now say they're concerned about this chemical... but don't wait for them to save your skin. The FDA has been working on rules for the use of triclosan for 38 years -- so if they haven't figured it out by now, you're on your own.

Here's what you need to know -- what even the feds already admit to: This stuff is so dangerous it kills fish when it gets into the water. And it's in the water -- because it's literally everywhere. Triclosan can be found in everything from clothing to cutting boards. Pretty much anything with the word "antibacterial" screaming from the label has triclosan in it. It's so common it's in the urine of 75 percent of the population.

And yet people keep buying up that antibacterial soap in the mistaken belief that it must be better. After all, it costs more... so it must be good, right? Wrong! Studies have repeatedly proven that antibacterial soaps are no better than ordinary soaps. That shouldn't surprise anyone past a certain age. We grew up without this stuff, and didn't face anything like the bacterial threat running rampant today. So if you're looking to stay clean, just do what we did -- use warm water and plain old soap.

Bone health

Women, don't let anyone talk you into giving up your vitamin K. Your bones need that K more than you know. Prominent bone health researchers are refuting a new placebo-controlled trial from Norway that suggests vitamin K curbs bone loss no better than placebo in post-menopausal women. But the design of this trial has two big problems.

ONE: More than 340 post-menopausal women received either placebo or vitamin K2, 360 micrograms daily--a dose that can only be described as meager.

TWO: The trial lasted just one year. As one doctor told NutraIngredients-USA, "All vitamin K intervention trials lasting less than 2 years have unfortunately contributed to confusion regarding the effect of vitamin K supplement." Despite these problems, the trial produced one promising result. Your bones MUST have a protein called osteocalcin. Without it, bones can't utilize calcium to build strength. In this study, levels of osteocalcin were boosted in the K2 group, but not in the placebo group. Experts say that rising osteocalcin is an important bio- marker that shows up before bone strengthening begins.

Let's try this again..... Wonder what a K2 bone study might look like with a generous dosage and a lengthy intervention? I'm glad you asked. In a study from the Netherlands, researchers recruited 325 postmenopausal women without osteoporosis. Half the women received a placebo and half received vitamin K2, 45 milligrams per day. That dosage is 125 times larger than the Norwegian study! The intervention period: three years.

The Results: Bending strength, compression strength, and impact strength all improved in the K2 group, but not in the placebo group. Also, bone mineral content and femoral neck width increased in the K2 group, but not in the placebo group. The detail about the femoral neck is a key point. The femoral neck is a narrow section of the femur (thigh bone) located just below the ball-and-socket hip joint.

When the femoral neck is fractured, the femur is often disconnected from the ball. In an aging population, that's a common and very painful fracture. Dietary sources of K2 include meat, liver, egg yolk, and fermented products such as yogurt and cheese. Vitamin K1 is mostly found in dark, leafy green vegetables and is converted to K2 in the intestine.

New research: vitamin K protects against non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

Non-Hodgkin lymphomas belong to a large group of immune system cancers involving lymphocytes (white blood cells). In 2009, according the National Cancer Institute (NCI) about 65,980 Americans were diagnosed with this form of cancer and almost 20,000 died from the disease. But now scientists at the Mayo Comprehensive Cancer Center in Minnesota think they've found a way to prevent a huge number of these malignancies. The key is a nutrient found in many leafy, green vegetables -- vitamin K.

For their study, the first ever to investigate vitamin K and non-Hodgkin lymphoma risk, the Mayo researchers enrolled 603 patients who were newly diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma as well as 1,007 matched cancer-free research subjects who served as controls. The participants answered a food questionnaire about their usual intake of over 120 food items during the two years before they were diagnosed with cancer or they enrolled in the study as a member of the cancer-free control group. They were also asked about their use of vitamin and mineral supplements.

The findings of the study, which were recently announced in Washington, D.C., at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), showed that the risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma was slashed dramatically -- by 45 percent -- for the study participants who had the highest vitamin K levels compared to participants with the lowest levels of the vitamin. This association remained even after the Mayo research team investigated factors such as age, sex, education, obesity, smoking, alcohol use and consumption of foods with high amounts of antioxidants.

Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin found in certain plants or formed by bacterial synthesis. The Mayo study involved intake of the plant form of vitamin K from diet and/or supplement use. The most common food sources of vitamin K include leaf lettuce and spinach, with smaller amounts found in other vegetables such as onions, bell peppers, asparagus and alfalfa sprouts and some fruits, including strawberries.

Consuming a lot of vitamin K was associated with a lower risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma whether the vitamin came from natural food sources or from supplements. However, very high intakes of vitamin K from supplements did not cause a further reduction in risk. "These results are provocative, since they are the first work we have done on the connection between vitamin K and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and this is a fairly strong protective effect," the study's lead investigator, cancer epidemiologist James Cerhan, M.D., Ph.D., said in a media statement.

"Whether the protective effect we observed is due to vitamin K intake, or some other dietary or lifestyle exposure, cannot be definitely assessed in this study. But these findings add to a lot of other data that support a diet that includes plenty of green leafy vegetables in order to prevent many cancers as well as other diseases."

Well-known as essential for blood clotting (the name of the vitamin is derived from the German word "Koagulations"), vitamin K has also been found in recent years to be important for other functions in the body, including putting a damper on inflammation and regulating cell growth -- and this might explain its apparent ability to protect from non-Hodgkin lymphoma.


Grape season is here

Grapes are a favorite food in the summer. They are sweet and convenient to eat. But grapes are also high in sugar and carbohydrates. Try to eat the darker grapes instead of green grapes. The darker the color usually indicates it has better nutritional benefits.

Until next time, stay healthy and happy

JD Roma