Tweaked Bulletproof Coffee

25 May
Friday, 25 May 2012 16:15 Written by admin 0 Comments

Frequently, I am asked what I eat in a typical day. One topic that generates a great deal of interest is my daily consumption of Tweaked Bulletproof Coffee, the concept of which I learned from Dave Asprey on his site, http://www.bulletproofexec.com/coffee/. I call my version the Tweaked version because I have taken Dave’s original recipe and added a few tweaks to further increase the nutritive value and benefit of this outstanding beverage.

Research has validated the numerous health benefits of coffee consumption. The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a 13 year observational study with over 400,000 people correlating the health benefits of coffee consumption and its role in longevity and disease prevention. Basically, those who consume coffee on a regular basis are less likely to die from several common health conditions, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and infection.

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Health Intervention with Biggest Return on Investment

04 March
Sunday, 04 March 2012 16:11 Written by admin 0 Comments

In the hustle and bustle world we live in, we’re always looking for the most bang for our buck. When it comes to our health, it is no different. We all want to know what we can do that will provide the most benefit for the least amount of effort/time/cost. There are so many recommendations and paths to follow out there that we’ll often just throw our hands up in the air and never make the little changes that are necessary to live our optimal life.

I recently discovered the attached video and was so impressed with its message that I thought you too would appreciate and benefit from this valuble information,

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Freezing Your Butt Off – An Alternative Way to Lose Weight

12 February
Sunday, 12 February 2012 23:56 Written by admin 0 Comments

Cultivating your good fat

In an effort to stay slim, burn calories and generally avoid weight gain, we’re all familiar with the basics. Eat right, exercise, sleep 7-8 hour/night, handle your stress, etc. I would like to add to this list an option that is not widely known or yet fully researched. This new method is a bio-hack (a short-cut to improve one’s biology) that can make a considerable difference for those brave enough to try it. You can consider yourself way ahead of the health and wellness curve on this one.

We all carry two types of fat, white and brown. White fat is the fat that is responsible for the obesity epidemic we currently face worldwide (beer bellies, muffin tops, bagel butts etc.). Brown fat is a metabolically active fat that basically tells our body to burn fat

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Cholesterol and Statins – The Good, the Bad, The TRUTH

04 February
Saturday, 04 February 2012 17:39 Written by admin 0 Comments

-It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows – Epictetus

Cholesterol – a substance that we are all familiar with as a major risk factor for heart disease, or not? The allegation of cholesterol as an evil villain has been preached to us on numerous occasions over the past 50 years. The evidence directly implicating cholesterol as a major cause of heart disease, when critically examined, does not stand up to scrutiny. This Lipid/Cholesterol hypothesis is a faulty dictum brought to us primarily by Ancel Keys, PhD., in the early 1950’s and has been propagated ever since. Many studies have demonstrated no statistically significant correlation

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Optimal Thyroid Treatment

16 December
Friday, 16 December 2011 00:20 Written by admin 0 Comments

I sat down to write a review of what I feel is appropriate thyroid (the gas pedal of your metabolism) treatment and was fortunate to find an excellent explanation of optimal thyroid treatment by one of my mentors, Dr. Neil Rouzier (copied and pasted below for you – link included).

Proper treatment, or I should say optimal treatment of the thyroid, currently resides under the category of what would be called controversial. The primary and currently most commonly used method to evaluate thyroid function, is to check the TSH level. Thyroid treatment is typically based on the result of this test, regardless of what a patient’s symptoms may be (many can identify with this). Most physicians regard the TSH as the marker of whether someone’s thyroid is functioning properly or not. As an aside, many veterinarians frequently don’t even bother with the TSH, as they consider it a useless test to evaluate thyroid function.

As outlined in Dr. Rouzier’s writings below, what really matters in the evaluation of thyroid function is

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Iodine – Protector of Everything

19 September
Monday, 19 September 2011 13:16 Written by admin 0 Comments

Iodine is a frequently overlooked mineral with a significant number of protective benefits and features. Iodine is most commonly found near the sea and is abundant in sea vegetables, seaweed and to some degree fish. The most common source of iodine in the American diet is iodized salt and recent studies of our salt supply demonstrate inadequate fortification. Since many of us shun salt or use sea salt, we often find ourselves deficient in this key nutrient. As a matter of fact, fully 96% of the American population (or at least the number of people who have taken a 24 hour urine iodine test) come up as deficient when it comes to iodine sufficiency.

Iodine deficiency is the most common cause of mental retardation in the world. Soil that is deficient in iodine (such as in the goiter belt of the Great Lakes) is a cause of many diseases. Hypothyroidism, fibrocystic breast disease, polycystic ovaries (just about any cystic disease for that matter) and breast cancer are all some of diseases that are frequently associated with iodine deficiency. Breast cancer is seen more frequently when one is in an iodine deficient state. This is why there is an association between

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Where are my Keys?

16 August
Tuesday, 16 August 2011 13:55 Written by admin 0 Comments

The second most feared disease in America (after cancer). One without a cure or an effective treatment. One that is touching more and more lives and is expected to continue to increase it’s cruel imprisonment as time passes. I am speaking of Alzheimer’s disease.

The increasing growth of this disorder and the limited treatment options available are enough to legitimately scare all of us. As with many of the chronic, degenerative disease of aging, the cure lies in prevention. There is not a simple test to determine who is going to get Alzheimer’s in the future and it is not easy to predict who will receive this horrible sentence.

I will not pretend to be an expert on this topic, so I have pulled together some useful, interesting articles that describe some of the current in and outs, opinions and thinking regarding Alzheimer’s disease.

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It all Changed Over Breakfast One Morning!

26 July
Tuesday, 26 July 2011 13:56 Written by admin 0 Comments

As we go through our lives, there are some things we never really question. Expect the worst, hope for the best and you won’t be disappointed is probably not a bad mantra to carry. As life becomes busier, the less time we spend paying attention to many things of importance in our lives.

Today’s newsletter carries a message that I am sure many of us don’t often give a second thought to. The status of the American food supply. As detailed in this TED talk, the past 15 years have not been good for the American diet. More and more chemicals, hormones and genetically modified organisms have made their way into the food we eat daily, mostly unbeknownst to us.

Robyn O’ Brien was just living her life with her family when one mornings events changed everything for her. As a result of this event, she dug deeper and learned more about what she ate and fed her family daily. What she found not only shocked and angered her but started her on a mission to address some of the changes that need to be made in our food supply. This brief talk give an excellent overview of what we are up against.

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North Carolina is #1

12 July
Tuesday, 12 July 2011 13:51 Written by admin 0 Comments

We all strive to be the best that we can be and upon investigation, I recently found that North Carolina is #1 in something. The more I read the less excited I became as I discovered that North Carolina is #1 in the country in the use of antibiotics in livestock feed. In fact North Carolina uses more antibiotics each year in livestock feed than is used for the treatment of human infection in the entire United States each year. That’s probably not a statistic that will be used in promotional material describing the advantages of living in The Old North State.

All joking aside, the excess use of antibiotics is a frequent and common method used in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO’s). Antibiotics are not used to treat any particular disease but are used to aid livestock growth by preventing the development of the many possible diseases which can occur as a result of the poor conditions in which the animals are raised (overcrowding, miserable sanitation, feed not consistent with the animals natural diet and genetics). Antibiotic administration leads to the development of antibiotic resistant organisms that down the line become difficult or nearly impossible to treat when they are transfered to the humans that ingest them. It has been estimated that 80% of the antibiotics used in the US are used on (not for) livestock.

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The (Failed) Lipid Hypothesis

08 July
Friday, 08 July 2011 13:50 Written by admin 0 Comments

Of course after putting out an email detailing the benefits of coconut oil (saturated fat), I have to follow up with a discussion of the lipid hypothesis. Not easily done in a brief summary but I’ll do my best.

The lipid hypotheses is a failed hypothesis that was propagated by Ancel Keys Ph.D. Dr. Keys is famous for the “Seven Countries Study” that linked heart disease with fat intake in seven countries. This study has become the foundation of American nutritional advice since the 50′s. The only problem with the “Seven Countries Study” was that when the data was truly evaluated, the study included 22 countries and seven were cherry picked to support the hypothesis. 60 years of nutritional advice based on this and we all see where that has gotten us. 70% of the population overweight and 35% of those obese. Every state at least 20% of the population obese, except Colorado (19.8% – hanging by a thread).

The bottom line is that it is not fat that makes you fat. Carbohydrates are the key factor in the obesity epidemic we now face. Carbohydrates spike insulin and insulin is a fat protecting/storing hormone. More carbs = more fat. All the low fat, no fat foods just replaced the fats with carbs and here we are, facing an ever worsening health crises in which we all suffer.

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