Is This Why the Europeans Don't Get Sick Like Americans Do?

Story at-a-glance

• Despite spending twice the amount per capita on health care, the United States ranks last in health and mortality analysis of 17 developed nations
• Americans are near the bottom in nine key areas of health, including low birth weight; injuries and homicides; teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections; HIV and AIDS; drug-related deaths; obesity and diabetes; heart disease; chronic lung disease; and general disability
• At 75.6 years, American men have the lowest life expectancy among the countries reviewed, and American women ranked second-to-last at 80.7 years. The infant mortality rate in the US is equally abysmal, with 32.7 deaths per 100,000, while most others range between 15 and 25 deaths per 100,000
• The authors of the report "GMO Myths and Truths" took a science-based approach to evaluating the available research, arriving at the conclusion that most of the scientific evidence regarding safety and increased yield potential do not at all support the claims. The evidence demonstrates the claims for genetically engineered foods are not just wildly overblown – they simply aren't true. GE foods have been shown to be less nutritious than non-GE foods, and pose distinct health risks and are inadequately regulated
• While failing to pin-point the source(s) of Americans’ failure to thrive, the answers are not hard to deduce: adhering to government-sponsored health- and dietary guidance has led Americans astray

By Dr. Mercola

According to a new health analysis bearing the revealing title: US Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health¹, Americans come in dead last in a comparison of 17 affluent nations.

The research was unable to uncover any single cause or “rallying point for action.” Instead, it calls for more research to “ferret out the effects of our current policies.”

C’mon! You’ve got to be kidding me.

Considering the fact that human health tends to be primarily affected by a) nutrition, b) exercise, and c) toxic exposures, do they seriously believe that we can improve public health while ignoring these three basic areas?

What Does the Human Body Require to Be Healthy?

A staggering two-thirds of American adults are overweight, and more than one-quarter of adults fall into the obese category. One in four Americans is pre-diabetic or diabetic. It should be obvious that diet and exercise are critical factors here. The National Institutes of Health even states that four of the six leading causes of death in the United States are linked to unhealthy diets.

The question is why are so many people unable to regulate their weight and insulin sensitivity? The following points are well worthy of careful consideration when pondering this issue:

• One of the first five ingredients in most prepackaged, processed foods (which account for about 90 percent of most people’s food bill²) is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which has repeatedly been shown to be a driving factor behind being overweight and having poor health outcomes. HFCS is pervasive and in many processed food items some individuals would never expect, including so called diet foods and 'enhanced' water products. Even most infant formulas contain the sugar equivalent of one can of Coca-Cola.

  Furthermore, soy is another common ingredient on all processed foods and soybeans can be severely and systemically contaminated with high amounts of the potent herbicide glyphosate. Additionally, over 85 percent of all corn grown in the US is genetically engineered (GE)³, which further increases the risk of high glyphosate contamination.The safety of either of these items has never been proven. According to a recent report by the Environmental Working Group (EWG)⁴, Americans are eating their weight and more in GE foods each and every year.

• Thirty-three percent of American adults are also completely sedentary, and more than half of adults over the age of 18 never engage in any vigorous leisure-time physical activity lasting 10 minutes or more per week.
• According to a study by the EWG⁵, blood samples from newborns contained an average of 287 toxins, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides, and chemicals from non stick products. Of the 287 chemicals EWG detected in umbilical cord blood, it’s known that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals; 217 are toxic to your brain and nervous system; and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests. Clearly, when babies are born loaded with toxic chemicals, it’s a sign that toxic exposure is too high.
• While there are many types and routes of toxic exposure, one would be remiss to overlook Americans use of pharmaceutical drugs, as drugs have, on average, 70 different potential side effects, and are responsible for the premature death of at least 106,000 Americans per year, when taken as prescribed. Americans pop the most pills of any other nation, and that includes children. Americans also receive the most amount of vaccinations.

So.... let’s think... What could possibly be the root of Americans’ failure to thrive? The Atlantic⁶, reporting on the findings writes:

“In presenting their findings... the authors seemed to be urging the U.S. to do some soul searching. Our culture 'cherishes independence' and 'wants to limit the intrusion of government in our personal lives,' said Steven Woolf, director of the Center for Human Needs at Virginia Commonwealth University, the panel chairman.
While those values serve us in some ways, he said, our resistance to regulation 'may work against our ability to achieve optimal health outcomes.'"

Aha! So it’s Americans’ striving for independence and freedom of choice that is to blame for such poor dietary choices and health outcomes?! They mean to tell us that we’re all so inept at making healthy choices, we need to abandon our independent spirits and embrace more nanny state regulations that might finally whip us into shape. Honestly, I feel like I’m reading something out of The Onion... It’s all so backwards.

Why Do Americans Consume Such a Bad Diet?

For the sake of brevity, I will limit my comments to the issue of diet here. But first, let’s consider a few of the questions we need to ask:

• Do Americans purposefully consume excessive amounts of fat-promoting, health-harming HFCS because they love it and refuse to eat foods that don’t contain it, or are there other reasons why Americans can’t seem to control their waistlines?

  And do they really intentionally consume far too many carbohydrates, sugar and processed foods in place of healthy fats like avocados, olives, coconut oil, butter, nuts, eggs and olive oil, which cause them to be adapted to burning carbs as their primary fuel rather than fat, or is this type of diet a more or less inevitable side effect of NOT thinking independently and seeking out real nutritional facts, but rather mindlessly buying what’s available in the store and advertised as healthy on TV?

• Do Americans really want to consume more genetically engineered foods than any other country?
• Do freedom-loving Americans who “cherish independence” seek to buy more or less whole, unadulterated, unprocessed foods that might help improve their health and, at the very least, reduce toxic exposure?

I propose considering the following facts before blaming America’s failing health on the average shopper’s pesky determination to make independent, foolhardy choices:

• The US government subsidizes the very crops identified as being the most harmful to human health and the environment; the top three being corn, wheat, and soybeans. And nearly all of the corn and soybeans grown are genetically engineered varieties.

  By subsidizing these, the US government is actively supporting a diet that consists of these grains in their processed form, namely high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), hydrogenated soybean oil, and meats loaded with antibiotics – all of which are now well-known contributors to obesity and chronic disease. These junk-food subsidies make it much cheaper to buy a burger, fries and soda from a fast-food restaurant than it is to buy grass-fed beef and veggies. It's not that these foods necessarily cost more to grow or produce; rather the prices for the junk foods are being artificially reduced by the government.

• The US further promotes use of HFCS in food manufacturing by imposing import tariffs on foreign sugar, raising the price of sucrose above those in other countries.
• When the dangers of HFCS finally began to seep into the American consciousness, consumer demand forced many companies to reformulate their processed foods using other types of sweeteners, or ditching sweetening agents altogether. Today, you can find a number of food products marked “No HFCS” and government intervention had nothing to do with this beneficial change.
• The US government has repeatedly refused to take any action to label genetically engineered foods, despite overwhelming public support and demand for labeling.
• The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has repeatedly harassed, raided, and shut down small farms producing healthful organic and raw foods, such as raw dairy and cheese, along with private co-ops procuring and delivering such foods to health-conscious customers.

Americans Die Earlier and Live in Poorer Health

These are examples of Big Government making health decisions for you. How have they been working out so far? The proof is in the pudding, and the featured report⁷ tells us that what we’ve been doing so far is NOT working.

According to the report, Americans die earlier and live in poorer health than people in other developed nations, which included Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the U.K.

Of these 17 affluent countries, the US ranks last overall, and near the bottom in nine key areas of health, including low birth weight; injuries and homicides; teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections; HIV and AIDS; drug-related deaths; obesity and diabetes; heart disease; chronic lung disease; and general disability. At 75.6 years, American men have the lowest life expectancy among the countries reviewed, and American women ranked second-to-last at 80.7 years. The infant mortality rate in the US is equally abysmal, with 32.7 deaths per 100,000, while most others range between 15 and 25 deaths per 100,000.

Interestingly, the US lags behind all these nations even though smoking rates in the US are far lower than many of the other nations, indicating that, apparently, there’s more to good health than quitting smoking. Or, alternatively, that even smokers can enjoy a modicum of health IF they’re able to compensate with other healthy lifestyle strategies. So, again, how are more nanny state regulations going to improve the situation when they clearly are not willing to accept the sources of the problem in the first place?

The truth is, in order to regulate away this problem, the US government would have to cut all ties with industry and eliminate its conflicts of interest and massive revolving doors with the very industry it is mandated to regulate.

The likelihood of that happening appears slim to none, considering that Big Ag and Big Pharma are two of the biggest and strongest lobbying groups of all business sectors vying for favors from our legislators⁸. And they’re getting them—which is how we got into this abhorrent mess in the first place, where what is good is portrayed as bad, and that which is bad is ignored. The answer is to promote more independence of choice, and limiting the intrusion of government in our food choices—the very things these reviewers claim are part of the problem... The report also found that Americans:

• Have a long-standing pattern of poorer health that is strikingly consistent and pervasive over the course of their lifetimes. Overall, Americans die and suffer from illness and injury at rates that are unnecessary
• Even affluent Americans with higher education and insurance who engage in healthy behaviors (such as not smoking and maintaining a healthy weight) are in worse health than similar people in other nations
• Consume the most calories among peer countries
• Have more alcohol-related accidents
• Spend more than $8,600 per person per year on health care, which is more than twice the amount spent by the UK, France, and Sweden

How Can the Wealthiest Industrialized Nation be the Sickest?

Since the mid-1990s, the number of Americans suffering from at least three chronic illnesses nearly doubled. Life expectancy has decreased and infant mortality has increased. Illnesses once rare are now common, with some approaching epidemic levels. For example:

• Autism now affects one in 88 children (CDC), compared to one in 25,000 in the mid-1970s
• Type 2 diabetes rates in the U.S. increased by 176 percent between 1980 and 2010
• Celiac disease is four times more common now than 60 years ago
• Alzheimer's disease is rising at alarming rates. It's estimated that 5.4 million Americans (one in eight older Americans) now has Alzheimer's disease, and nearly half of those age 85 and older have it; AD rates have doubled since 1980
• New infectious diseases are increasing in number, according to a 2008 study

In his documentary, Jeffrey Smith makes a convincing argument that one of the primary forces driving these illnesses is America's changing food supply. And one of the most profound changes is genetically engineered food. Proving GE food is causing Americans to be sick is a tall order, but the evidence presented in this film is very compelling and should not be ignored.

GMO Report Disproves FDA's Safety Claims

There is a significant compilation of scientific evidence that casts serious doubt on the claims made by industry and government officials about the safety of GE foods. Consider this report by The Atlantic⁹ The authors of the report "GMO Myths and Truths"¹⁰ took a science-based approach to evaluating the available research, arriving at the conclusion that most of the scientific evidence regarding safety and increased yield potential do not at all support the claims.

In fact, the evidence demonstrates the claims for genetically engineered foods are not just wildly overblown – they simply aren't true. Not only are GE foods less nutritious than non-GE foods, they pose distinct health risks, are inadequately regulated, harm the environment and farmers, and are a poor solution to world hunger.

The authors of this critical report include Michael Antoniou, PhD, who heads the Gene Expression and Therapy Group at King's College at London School of Medicine in the UK. He's a 28-year veteran of genetic engineering technology who has himself invented a number of gene expression biotechnologies; and John Fagan, PhD, a leading authority on food sustainability, biosafety, and GE testing. If you want to get a comprehensive understanding of genetically engineered foods, I strongly recommend reading this report.

11 Basic Guidelines for General Health and Longevity

Leading a common sense, healthy lifestyle is your best bet to produce a healthy body and mind, and increase your longevity. Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical industry, the food industry, and even government itself sure won't make it easy for you to avoid the garbage that ruins your health. The following guidelines form the basic tenets of optimal health and healthy weight—foundational strategies that will not change, regardless of what marvels modern science comes up with next. For more comprehensive guidance, please see my fully updated nutritional plan, which takes you from beginner’s stage to advanced:

1. Eat a healthy diet, paying very careful attention to keeping your insulin levels down (my free nutritional plan will help guide you through your dietary changes with minimal effort)
2. Replace sweetened drinks (whether they’re sweetened with sugar, HFCS, or artificial sweeteners) with plenty of pure, clean water
3. Avoid all genetically engineered foods. There are nine primary GE food crops, but their derivatives are in over 70 percent of supermarket foods, particularly processed foods. GE ingredients can hide. For example, every can of soda containing high fructose corn syrup most likely contains GE corn. Make sure none of the following are on your grocery list, unless they are USDA certified organic:

   Soy
   Cottonseed
   Corn

   Canola Oil
   Hawaiian papaya
   Alfalfa

   Sugar from sugar beets
   Some varieties of zucchini
   Crookneck squash

   Avoid any product containing aspartame, which is derived from a GE organism. And avoid any milk products that may have rBGH. I recommend consuming only raw, organic milk products you've obtained from a trustworthy local dairy farmer. The Institute for Responsible Technology has put together a helpful Non-GMO Shopping Guide you can download and print. They even have an iPhone app.

4. Optimize your gut flora with fermented foods, such as fermented vegetables, which you can easily and inexpensively make at home
5. Consume healthy fats, like butter, eggs, avocados, coconut oil, olive oil, and nuts, especially macadamia nuts which are higher in fat and lower in protein
6. Eat plenty of raw food
7. Exercise regularly. Make sure to incorporate high intensity interval training at least once or twice a week
8. Get an appropriate amount of sunlight to optimize your vitamin D levels
9. Limit toxin exposure
10. Get plenty of sleep
11. Manage your stress

Let’s face it, government health recommendations and regulations relating to diet and health have failed miserably, and the featured report delivers the somber statistics of where we’re at on the global scene. While spending twice as much on health care per capita, we’re not getting results. I believe we’ll keep seeing more of the same until or unless we change our stance on what a healthy diet is, and what constitutes a healthy lifestyle. We need to move away from the idea that being on a dozen medications means you’re doing something right for your health... This is NOT health care. This is disease management, and it comes at a very steep price, namely your longevity.

Until or unless the US government takes industry to task, our regulators and legislators cannot be trusted to usher Americans toward better health. In the meantime, it is up to YOU to take control of your health, and do what is right for you, to live a healthier, longer, drug- and disease-free life. Proper nutrition, exercise, and avoidance of toxins are three critical factors to address in this process, and this website contains literally tens of thousands of freely available articles to help you do just that.

By buying organic, you will dramatically reduce your exposure to pesticides, hormones and antibiotics, as those are used on nearly all GE crops. When shopping locally, know your local farmers. Many are too small to afford official certification, but many still adhere to organic, sustainable practices. The only way to determine how your food is raised is to check them out, meeting the farmer face to face if possible. Yes, it does take time but is worth it if you are really concerned about your family's health.

Technorati Tags: GMO,GMO Food sources,FDA,healthy diet,Dr. Mercola

15 Shocking Exercise Facts

What do dark chocolate, casual Fridays, and graduating from high school have in common? According to research, they all improve your workout. Anneli Rufus on the secrets to good exercise.

1. People who exercise as little as 15 minutes a day have a 14 percent lower mortality risk than people who don't exercise at all.
That statistic covers all causes of death, which translates at age 30 to a three-year increase in life expectancy. When it comes to cancer, those who work out 15 minutes daily are 10 percent less likely to die of it than those who don't exercise at all. Every additional 15 minutes of daily exercise reduces the all-cause mortality risk by another 4 percent and the cancer mortality risk by another 1 percent. "The best thing to do is to not get obese in the first place,"Biggest Loser contestant Phil Parham, who co-authored The 90-Day Fitness Challenge with his wife and co-contestant, Amy Parham, tells The Daily Beast. "Once you've been big and you lose weight, your body always wants to regain that weight, so you're continuing to fight all your life."

C. P. Wen et al., "Minimum Amount of Physical Activity for Reduced Mortality and Extended Life Expectancy." The Lancet, 2011, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60749-6.

2. Exercisers can improve their performance by as much as 50 percent if they eat dark chocolate regularly.
At least they can if they're mice. Researchers fed mice the flavonol epicatechin, a key ingredient in dark chocolate, then put them through two weeks of treadmill tests and observed "an integrated response that includes structural and metabolic changes in skeletal and cardiac muscles resulting in greater endurance capacity."

Leonardo Nogueira et al., "Epicatechin Enhances Fatigue Resistance and Oxidative Capacity in Mouse Muscle." Journal of Physiology, 2011, doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2011.20992.

3. Men who exercise vigorously are only one third as likely to experience erectile dysfunction as men who exercise very little or not at all.
According to the study that yielded this stat, men whose workout routines are the equivalent of running at least three hours a week or playing singles tennis at least five hours a week have a 30 percent lower ED risk than men who exercise very little or not at all. Ready, set, go.

Constance G. Bacon et al., "Sexual Function in Men Older Than 50 Years of Age." Annals of Internal Medicine, 2003, 139 (3), 161-168.

4. Depressed people can alleviate their symptoms by as much as 47 percent with regular aerobic exercise.
In one study, a group of depressed people who performed moderately intense aerobic exercises at least three times a week "experienced a decline in depressive symptoms by an average of 47 percent after 12 weeks." Another group of depressed people performed low-intensity aerobics at least three times weekly; their symptoms improved by 30 percent. "Exercise isn't just about working off energy. It's about turning on the brain," says Harvard psychiatry professor John Ratey, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. With regular exercise, "people become much more emotionally regulated, and their cognitive abilities are much better."

Andrea Dunn et al., "Exercise Treatment for Depression." American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2005, 28 (1), 1-8.

5. Three times as many college graduates as high-school dropouts exercise regularly.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 39 percent of adults with bachelor's degrees or higher engage in vigorous leisure-time physical activity three or more times a week, compared with 13 percent of adults with less than a high-school diploma. According to the same survey, 79 percent of high-school dropouts never engage in periods of vigorous leisure-time physical activity, compared with 41 percent of college grads.

J. R. Pleis et al., "Summary Health Statistics for US Adults: National Health Interview Survey, 2009." Conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/National Center for Health Statistics, 2010, 10 (249).

Ben Welsh / Corbis

6. Exercisers can improve their performance by as much as 15 percent if they listen to music while working out.
In one study, treadmill walkers moving in time with music felt 15 percent more energetic—and less eager to get off the machine—than treadmill walkers who were not listening to music. According to the sports psychologists who produced this stat, "Music listening can be an effective dissociation strategy, reducing perceptions of effort and fatigue by up to 12 percent." Dancing makes moving in time with music into more of a party and less of a chore. "In some ways, dancing is the best exercise—it's really aerobic," Ratey says.

7. Waiters and waitresses walk twice as much as lawyers and police officers do on an average working day.
But servers walk only about half as much on an average working day as mail carriers, and about 75 percent as much as janitors. According to researchers with the American Council on Exercise, who highly recommend the use of pedometers, mail carriers walk about eight miles per day, janitors walk just over five, restaurant servers walk four, and cops and lawyers walk about two. According to the ACE study, secretaries walk the least, at 1.7 miles.

John Porcari and Reem Ekhwan, "Do You Do 10K a Day?" American Council on Exercise, Fitness Matters, 2007, 12 (4).

8. Six percent more men than women exercise regularly.
And women are bigger couch potatoes than men. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 60 percent of women in the United States "never engage in periods of vigorous leisure-time physical activity lasting ten minutes or more per week." For men, that figure is 50 percent. Who in the United States does engage in at least 10 minutes of vigorous leisure-time activity per week? Only 31 percent of men and 25 percent of women.

J. R. Pleis et al., "Summary Health Statistics for US Adults: National Health Interview Survey, 2009." Conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/National Center for Health Statistics, 2010, 10 (249).

9. Workers increase their physical activity by 8 percent and burn 25 more calories on casual-clothing workdays than on workdays when they wear regular office attire.
Who needs suits? "Wearing casual clothing every day for 50 weeks of work would translate into burning an additional 125 calories per week or 6,250 calories per year—the equivalent of almost two pounds," write the authors of the study that yielded this stat.

John Porcari and Reem Ekhwan, "Do You Do 10K a Day?" American Council on Exercise, Fitness Matters, 2007, 12 (4).

10. People who want to quit smoking are twice as likely to succeed in quitting if they lift weights than if they don't lift weights.
In the study that yielded this stat, one group of struggling-to-stop smokers engaged in two hours of weight training per week. Another group didn't exercise, but watched health-related videos instead. Twelve weeks later, 16 percent of the weightlifters had quit smoking. They had also lost weight. Only 8 percent of the nonlifters had quit smoking, and all 8 percent had gained weight. Resistance training is key, says Parham: "Strength training builds muscle, which burns calories and knocks the weight off. Whatever you're doing, do it more."

Joseph Ciccolo et al., "Resistance Training as an Aid to Standard Smoking Cessation Treatment: A Pilot Study." Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 2011, 13 (8), 756-760.

11. Avid swimmers have a 50 percent lower mortality rate than runners, walkers, and people who don't exercise at all.
Researchers at the University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health evaluated data spanning 32 years and involving more than 80,000 participants in the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study. They found that swimming lowers the mortality rate—in men, at least—by about 50 percent. The fact that the nonprofit National Swimming Pool Foundation partly funded this project may or may not be irrelevant.

Steven Blair et al., "Does Regular Swimming Reduce Your Risk of Dying?" Paper presented at the 2008 World Aquatic Conference in Colorado Springs, Colo.

12. Astronauts lost 15 percent of muscle mass and 30 percent of muscle performance during six months at the International Space Station, despite their aerobics-focused exercise regimen.
This striking decrease in fitness—along with 30 percent bone-strength loss in some astronauts—is spurring NASA to boost resistance training in space-station workout routines. "While on the ISS, crewmembers had access to a running treadmill, cycle ergometer, and resistance exercise device," write the authors of this study. "Future long-duration space missions should modify the current ISS exercise prescription and/or hardware to better preserve human skeletal muscle mass and function, thereby reducing the risk imposed to crewmembers."

Scott Trappe et al., "Exercise in Space: Human Skeletal Muscle After Six Months Aboard the International Space Station." Journal of Applied Physiology, 2009, 106 (4), 1159-68.

13. Teens who exercise are 36 percent less likely to develop brain tumors than teens who don't.
Cancer researchers investigating the type of brain tumor known as the glioma found that the risk of developing these is 36 percent lower among people who were physically active during ages 15 to 18 than among people who were physically inactive during those years. The same study found that people who are obese at age 18 are four times as likely to develop gliomas as people who are not obese at 18.

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Steven C. Moore et al., "Height, Body Mass Index, and Physical Activity in Relation to Glioma Risk." Cancer Research, 2009, 69 (21), 8349-55.

14. White Americans exercise 16 percent more than Hispanic Americans and 10 percent more than African-Americans.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "51 percent of non-Hispanic white adults never engage in periods of vigorous leisure-time physical activity, compared with 61 percent of non-Hispanic black adults and 67 percent of Hispanic adults."

J. R. Pleis et al., "Summary Health Statistics for US Adults: National Health Interview Survey, 2009." Conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/National Center for Health Statistics, 2010, 10 (249).

15. Runners who stretch before running burn 5 percent fewer calories than runners who don't stretch.
Contrary to what trainers have told us for decades, pre-run stretching isn't helpful, according to one recent study, which also found that nonstretchers ran 3.4 percent farther than stretchers. "Stretching appears to acutely decrease muscle-force production capacity," its authors write, citing decreased leg-press performance, vertical jumping height, knee-extensor concentric torque, and maximum plantar flexion torque, which "remained depressed even 60 minutes after the stretching routine."

Jacob M. Wilson et al., "Effects of Static Stretching on Energy Cost and Running Endurance Performance." Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2010, 24 (9), 2274-2279.

Source:  The Daily Beast

Anneli Rufus is the author of many books, including Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto and the Nautilus Award-winning Stuck: Why We Don't (or Won't) Move On, and the coauthor of still more, including Weird Europe and The Scavengers' Manifesto. Her books have been translated into numerous languages, including Chinese and Latvian.

In 2006, she won a Society of Professional Journalists award for criticism.

Oxidative Stress

Even though the average life expectancy in the United States has increased dramatically during this past century, our quality of life due to chronic degenerative disease has taken a major hit. We are essentially "living too short and dying too long". Most of us can simply look forward to suffering and dying from heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer’s dementia, Parkinson’s disease, arthritis, macular degeneration, and the list goes on and on, unless we literally attack the underlying cause of all of these diseases—oxidative stress.

How long do you expect to live? Now envision what your last twenty years will look like. I can assure you my patients today are not as concerned with the number of years in their lives as they are the quality of life in those years. Who wants to live to a ripe old age if he or she cannot even recognize close family members because of Alzheimer’s dementia? Who looks forward to a decade or two of suffering severe joint or back pain due to degenerative arthritis?

One of my close friends told me recently that he simply wants to live until he dies. Is this your desire? It certainly is mine. That is why I recommend preventative rather than post-problem medicine--empowering people to avoid getting major diseases in the first place. Over the past seven years, I have changed my approach. I now strongly encourage and support my patients in taking a three-fold approach to health: eating well, practicing a consistent exercise program, and daily consuming high-quality nutritional supplements. I now use medication as a last resort—not as my first choice.

Do you fear growing old? Have you accepted chronic disease or pain as a given in your future? Are you willing to make necessary life changes to ensure your health? I believe a full and abundant physical life does not need to start slipping away at age forty. Each year of your life can be your very best. But first you must understand the war that is waging within every one of our bodies.

Oxygen is essential for life itself. But did you know it is also inherently dangerous to our existence? I call this the "dark-side" of oxygen. And as a result, we are essentially rusting both inside and out. The same process that causes a cut apple to turn brown or iron to rust is the cause of all the chronic degenerative diseases we fear and even the aging process itself.

Consider the aging of our skin. Oxidative stress is the cause of wrinkles, sagging skin, and age spots. The next time you are with a large gathering of people of different ages, observe closely the change you see in people’s skin. Aging is a process we all take for granted, but when you look more closely, and compare a baby’s face, to that of a grandparent’s, the effects of our largest organ being exposed to all the pollutants in the air, sunlight, and cigarette smoke is baffling. This aging of the skin is an outward manifestation of "oxidative stress," which is occurring within every cell in your body.

Over the past 7 years, I have reviewed well over 2,000 medical and scientific studies in regards to nutritional supplements and their affect on your health. These studies appearing in medical journals like the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, British Lancet, and Annuals of Internal Medicine report that beyond any doubt the "root" cause of well over 70 chronic degenerative diseases is "oxidative stress." These are the "who’s who" of diseases we all fear and want to avoid; diseases like heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s dementia, macular degeneration, lupus, MS, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue. "So what," you may be wondering, "is ‘oxidative stress’?"

Within every cell of the body is a furnace called the mitochondria. As oxygen is utilized within the furnace of the cell to create energy and life itself, occasionally a charged oxygen molecule is created, called a "free radical." This free radical has at least one unpaired electron in its outer orbit essentially giving it an electrical charge. If this free radical is not readily neutralized by an antioxidant it can go on to create more volatile free radicals, damage the cell wall, vessel wall, proteins, fats, and even the DNA nucleus of our cells. Chemically this reaction has been shown to be so volatile that it actually causes bursts of light within our bodies!

Imagine yourself in front of a crackling fireplace and I’ll give you the best illustration I have to explain the process of oxidation. The fire burns safely and beautifully most of the time, but on occasion out pops a hot cinder that lands on your carpet and burns a little hole in it. One cinder by itself doesn’t pose much of a threat; but if this sparking and popping continues month after month, year after year, you will have a pretty "ratty" carpet in front of your fireplace.

The fireplace represents the furnace of the cell (the mitochondria), the cinder is the charged "free radical," and the carpet is your body. Whichever part of your body receives the most free radical damage will be the first to wear out and potentially cause one of these degenerative diseases. If it’s your arteries, you could develop a heart attack or stroke. If it is your brain, you could develop Alzheimer’s dementia or Parkinson’s disease. If it’s your joints, you could develop arthritis.

Through biochemical research we’re learning that we are not defenseless against this attack on our body by free radicals. Antioxidants are like the glass doors or fine-wire mesh we place in front of our fireplace. The sparks are still going to fly but our carpet will then be protected. As you begin to imagine the war that is taking place within every cell in your body, you can envision the two opposing forces: the enemy--free radicals; and your allies--antioxidants and their supporting nutrients.

Living a healthy life becomes a matter of balance. You must have enough antioxidants available to readily neutralize the number of free radicals your body produces. If you don’t, "oxidative stress" will occur. When this oxidative stress is allowed to persist over a prolonged period of time, you will most likely develop a serious chronic degenerative disease.

Each of us must ask, "Am I getting enough antioxidants from my diet to protect myself from this onslaught of free radicals or do I need to be taking nutritional supplements?" This is the question that I’ve had to ask myself as I have spent countless hours researching medical literature. You see I was taught in medical school that you don’t need supplements—that you can get everything you need from a good, healthy diet. And this is what I told my patients for years. I was wrong.

Since balance is the key, we need to look closely at the individual players that are at war within. The number of free radicals you produce each and every day is never the same. All the pollutants in our air, food, and water dramatically increase the number of free radicals we produce. Enormous stress, excessive exercise, cigarette smoke, sunlight, radiation, and every drug prescribed greatly increases the number of free radicals produced in the body. In fact, there has never been a generation on this planet subjected to more oxidative stress than this present one. We are literally under attack from our polluted environment, stressful lifestyles, and over-medicated society.

This ongoing attack is depriving us of our most precious gift—our health. But God did not leave us defenseless against this onslaught by free radicals. In fact, we actually have our own army of antioxidants, which are able to neutralize free radicals and render them harmless. In generations past, these defense systems were sufficient. Unfortunately this is no longer the case. Our bodies’ defense systems need additional allies.

Most antioxidants come from vegetables and fruit. This creates a gap in our protection, because our foods have become significantly depleted in their content of antioxidants and supporting minerals as a result of mineral depletion in our soils, green harvesting, cold storage, foods that are highly processed, our poor food choices and food preparation.

At a time when we are under the heaviest attack from the environment around us, our natural defense systems are becoming overwhelmed and depleted. We must do all we can to rebuild our antioxidant systems with a healthy diet, but too you need to learn how complete and balanced nutritional supplementation with high quality supplements (cellular nutrition) is our best hope in winning this war within and protecting our health.

Source: Dr. Ray Strand