Sign Up For Our Email Newsletter

Like what you see here? Want to stay up-to-date on what’s happening at our office? Then take a few seconds to sign up for our twice-monthly newsletter. Its full of helpful healthy tips, info on supplements, and special news.

Sign up here!

It Starts With The Core

The core is the center of the body, where all movement begins. When you lift a heavy grocery bag, reach for a suitcase, pick up one of your children, move a bookcase or throw a ball, the core muscles should activate even before your limbs are in motion. Healthy core muscles will provide your body with the structural integrity and support to your spine for everything from walking and running to lifting to standing to sitting. Let’s review five of the more effective core exercises:

Traditional Ab Curl: Lie on your back with your hands behind the low back. Don’t flatten the back to the floor. Keep one knee bent and the other knee straight. Tighten the abs and slowly crunch up from the sternum (that T-shaped bone in the center of your lower chest, also known as the breast bone), bringing your shoulder blades off the ground. Don’t forget to breath in and out. 12-15 repetitions, 1 set.

Calcium and vitamin D supplementation reduces fracture risk regardless of age, gender

Reprinted with permission of Life Extension

The January 16, 2010 issue of the British Medical Journal, which features a cover emblazoned with the words “Vitamin D deficiency,” reports the results of a review of seven clinical trials which found that supplementing daily with both calcium and vitamin D helps prevent bone fractures among men and women of all ages, with or without a history of fracture.

An international team of scientists led by researchers at Copenhagen University in Denmark pooled data from 68,517 participants aged 47 to 107 for their analysis of randomized trials involving vitamin D supplementation. Included in the analysis was Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) trial data published in 2006.

Age, female gender, and previous fracture were all associated with increased fracture risk. The combination vitamin D with calcium reduced overall fracture risk by 8 percent, and hip fracture by 16 percent compared to the risk experienced by those who did not receive the nutrients. Vitamin D supplementation alone in daily doses of 10 or 20 micrograms (equal to 400 and 800 international units) was not associated with significant benefits. Fracture history, age, gender or the use of hormone replacement therapy did not appear to affect vitamin D and calcium’s effects.

“What is important about this very large study is that it goes a long way toward resolving conflicting evidence about the role of vitamin D, either alone or in combination with calcium, in reducing fractures,” noted coauthor John Robbins, who is a professor of internal medicine at the University of California, Davis. “Our WHI research in Sacramento included more than 1,000 healthy, postmenopausal women and concluded that taking calcium and vitamin D together helped them preserve bone health and prevent fractures. This latest analysis, because it incorporates so many more people, really confirms our earlier conclusions.”

“This study supports a growing consensus that combined calcium and vitamin D is more effective than vitamin D alone in reducing a variety of fractures,” Dr Robbins added. “Interestingly, this combination of supplements benefits both women and men of all ages, which is not something we fully expected to find. We now need to investigate the best dosage, duration and optimal way for people to take it.”

Supercharge Your Immune System

20 Ways to Supercharge Your Immune System and Prevent Colds and Flu

from Prescription Alternatives by Dr. Earl Mindell

1. Stretching helps your lymphatic system do its job of removing toxins from your body. Be sure to stretch your neck muscles and your torso, and to stretch your arms over your head.

2. Get an extra hour of sleep, or go to bed early with a cuup of chamomile tea and an uplifting book.

3. Zinc lozenges are powerful weapons in the fight against winter colds. Try the variaties with propolis and vitamin C added.

4. The homeopathic remedy Oscillococcinum will quickly knock out many kinds of flu. The only way to find out if it will work for what you’ve got is to try it.

5. Reduce the stress in your life through meditation and exercise. Chronic stress depletes your adrenals, which play a vital role in immunity.

6. Stock up on the vitamin C and bioflavoniods. If you feel something coming on, take 1,000mg of vitamin C and a bioflavoniod such as grapeseed, green tea extract, or quercetin every hour.

7. Drink plenty of clean water, which will help your body keep itself detoxified.

8. Eat plenty of fiber to keep things moving through the digestive system.

9. Eat yogurt once a day for the calcium and beneficial intestinal flora. The friendly bacteria in your intestines are your best weapon against unfriendly bacteria.

10. Skip the candy and soda pop. Try a peice of fruit or some nuts instead.

11. Keep alcohol consumption low. A glass of wine with dinner is fine. More than that and your liver may be diverted from protecting you from illness.

12. Eat your vegetables — fresh and preferably organic.

13. Are you allergic to dairy products? Wheat? Corn? Chronic food allergies can weaken your immune system.

14. Eat more complex carbohydrates and less refined white flour, which causes blood sugar jumps and constipation.

15. Try shiitake or reishi mushrooms with your veggies — the Chinese use them to bolster the immune system.

16. Take extra care of yourself when you’re under extra stress.

17. If you have a late night or stressful day, balance things out by getting extra rest.

18. If you’re going to be traveling on a plane, take plenty of vitamin C and other cold and flu preventatives for a few days ahead of time.

19. Seek out the company of loved ones or volunteer for someone less fortunate than you.

20. Exercise keeps everything in the body ship-shape, but if you feel weak or tired, don’t push it too hard.

Chlorophyllin-chemo cocktail proposed

Reprinted with permission of Life Extension

A report published in the November, 2009 issue of the International Journal of Cancer describes research conducted at Oregon State University’s Linus Pauling Institute that reveals a potential role in cancer therapy for chlorophyllin, a water-soluble derivative of chlorophyll, the green pigment that gives plants their color. The compound has been investigated for cancer prevention as well as treatment.

Higher vitamin B6 levels correlated with lower heart attack risk in women

Reprinted with permission of Life Extension

In an article published online on August 10, 2009 in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, Harvard researchers report an association between higher plasma levels of vitamin B6 and a reduction in the risk of myocardial infarction (heart attack) in women.

The study included 144 participants in the ongoing Nurses’ Health Study who were diagnosed with myocardial infarction. The women were each matched for age, smoking status and other factors with two participants in the same study who did not have a history of heart attack at the time of the heart attack cases’ diagnoses. Stored fasting blood samples were analyzed for plasma pyridoxal 5′ phosphate (PLP), which is the predominant form of vitamin B6 that exists in circulation, and homocysteine, an amino acid which, when elevated, has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Higher levels of PLP were correlated with greater dietary intake of vitamin B6, lower body mass index and lower levels of homocysteine. The researchers uncovered a significant association between plasma PLP levels and reduced heart attack risk. Women whose PLP levels were among the top one-fourth of participants at greater than 70 picomoles per milliliter had a 78 percent lower adjusted risk of undergoing a heart attack compared to those whose levels were lowest at less than 27.9 pmol/mL. When the women were analyzed according to age, those aged 60 and older whose PLP levels were among the top quarter were found to have a 64 percent lower risk than those in the lowest quarter, while those who were under 60 in the top fourth of PLP had a 95 percent lower risk.

The authors remark that the study’s findings are consistent with the role of vitamin B6 as a cofactor in the conversion of homocysteine to cysteine. The vitamin also plays a role in the transport of important minerals such as magnesium across cell membranes. The authors observe that the results of some research suggest that factors other than diet that control vitamin B6 levels could eventually be found to be more important in reducing heart attack risk.

The current prospective study is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to examine the relationship of vitamin B6 levels with heart attack in postmenopausal women. “Our investigation revealed that a lower fasting concentration of PLP is significantly associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction in predominantly postmenopausal women, a relationship that may be causal,” they write. “Future studies are needed to better understand both dietary and nondietary determinants of plasma and tissue vitamin B6 status and their role in the prevention of myocardial infarction and other chronic diseases.”

Majority of American children have insufficient vitamin D levels

Reprinted with Permission of Life Extension

The results of a study conducted by researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, published online on August 1, 2009 in the journal Pediatrics, reveal a disturbing presence of low levels of vitamin D among children in the U.S. “We expected the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency would be high, but the magnitude of the problem nationwide was shocking,” stated lead author Juhi Kumar, MD, MPH, who is a fellow in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital and Academic Medical Center for Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

The researchers, led by Einstein assistant professor medicine Michal L. Melamed, MD, evaluated data from over 6,000 children aged 1 to 21 who participated in the National Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2001-2004. “Several small studies had found a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in specific populations of children, but no one had examined this issue nationwide,” Dr Melamed observed.

Insufficient levels of vitamin D were defined as 15 to 29 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL), and deficient levels as less than 15 ng/mL.Vitamin D insufficiency was revealed in 61 percent of the participants, a percentage which, if applied to the U.S. population, is equivalent to 50.8 million children. Deficiency was found in 9 percent of the subjects, equal to 7.6 million children. Although participants who consumed 400 international units of vitamin D per day were less likely to experience a deficiency, just 4 percent of the children used vitamin D supplements.

“The message for pediatricians is that vitamin D deficiency is a real problem with consequences not only for bone health but also potentially for long-term cardiovascular health.” Dr Kumar concluded. “Pediatricians should be screening children for vitamin D levels, especially in the high-risk populations.”

—D Dye

Bioflavonoid prevents metabolic syndrome and obesity in mice

Reprinted with permission of Life Extension

In an article published online on July 10, 2009 in the journal Diabetes, researchers in Ontario, Canada report that naringenin, a flavonoid present in citrus fruit, prevents weight gain and components of metabolic syndrome, a precursor to diabetes, in a rodent model.

For their study, Murray W. Huff of the Robarts Research Institute at the University of Western Ontario and his associates used low density lipoprotein receptor null mice that exhibit disordered lipids, insulin resistance, glucose intolerance and obesity when fed a high fat “Western” diet. The animals were divided to receive regular chow, a high fat diet, or high fat (42 percent of calories) diets containing 1 or 3 percent naringenin for four weeks, after which plasma cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose and insulin levels were measured, and other factors, including glucose and insulin tolerance, were assessed.

At the end of the treatment period, mice that received naringenin had lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels than with those that received the high fat diet without naringenin. Insulin resistance was prevented

Calorie Restriction

Reprinted with permission of Life Extension

How long we live may not be determined by what we eat so much as how much we eat. Of all the potential antiaging approaches, none have so far shown the promise of caloric restriction. Over the past 75 years, many studies have shown that caloric restriction extends life span in a wide variety of species, from invertebrates to rodents, to mammals.

Stop Doing Sit-Ups: Why Crunches Don’t Work

Everyone knows that the road to flat, tight abs is paved with crunches. Lots and lots and lots of excruciating crunches. Or is it?

As it turns out, the exercises synonymous with strong, attractive abs may not be the best way to train your core—and may be doing damage to your back.

‘Cell Phone Elbow’ — A New Ill for the Wired Age

Published in HealthDay

First came Nintendo thumb. Then, Guitar Hero wrist. Now, for the latest affliction of the wired age, it’s cell phone elbow.

Medically known as cubital tunnel syndrome, cell phone elbow is numbness, tingling and pain in the forearm and hand caused by compression of the ulnar nerve, which passes along the bony bump on the inside of the elbow.

One of the causes of pressure on the ulnar nerve? Too much gabbing, often brought on by those cell phone plans with unlimited minutes, experts say.