At first glace 10% compared to 15% doesn’t look like a huge number.  But, it’s a five percent difference. Multiply it out across the huge numbers of senior citizens facing this life-threatening problem and you begin to see a huge difference.  There’s a 5% difference between the group that did take the calcium and those that didn’t.  That’s 5 out of every 100 seniors, 50,000 out of every million.  That’s a lot of people.  It’s a lot of money – when you think in terms of hospitalization and nursing home care, the explosion of baby boomers entering the senior’s realm.  Most of all, it’s a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering.  There is a direct link between bone fractures and death in the senior community.  Some of it is linked directly to nursing home care and nursing homes are where seniors go when they have fractured hips or thighs.
 
Something that doesn’t seem to have been factored into this equation is exercise.  Bones respond to weighted exercise by getting thicker and stronger.  By taking up more calcium.  Walking for 15 minutes a day, with two-pound hand weights in each hand or even heavy shoes can make a huge difference to your long-term health.  Waling in the morning is best because it helps clean out your lymphatic system and set your metabolism for the day.  Don’t stroll – push your pace.

The Awards began last year and were designed to highlight the overly aggressive marketing of medicines and pharmaceutical products.
“Drug ads expand the market for newer drugs far beyond those patients that actually need them, interfere with the doctor-patient relationship, and perpetuate the myth that ‘there’s a pill for every ill’ and that ‘newer is better,’” said a statement released by PAL, which is a coalition of 118 local, state and national consumer health advocacy groups.

The five award winners were Lunesta, a sleeping pill made by Sepracor Inc.; Lipitor, Pfizer Inc.’s treatment designed to lower cholesterol; Ambien, a sleeping tablet made by Sanofi-Aventis; Strattera, an ADHD treatment manufactured by Eli Lilly and Co.; and Crestor, a cholesterol drug made by AstraZeneca Plc.

I don’t watch a great deal of television, so when I do it’s a complete shock to me to see the number of drug ads.  When I was growing up, drugs used to be limited to hemmerhoid creams, analgesics and anti-histamines.  Now, for some program, prescription drugs occupy 90% of the advertising slots.  Many times the ads don’t even tell you what the drug is supposed to do, just that it will make you better.  And then there’s the rush of complications – headaches, diarrhea, insomnia.  I’m particularly amused by the four hour erection – I can’t imagine someone presenting themselves at an emergency room complaining of an unstoppable erection.  There have been recent reports that parents have been giving some of these prescription drugs to children – without their doctor’s advice or approval, and with some very bad results.  I would personally like to see prescription drugs put back into the realm of a discussion between a doctor and his/her patient and banned – like cigarettes – from television.

Low fat dies actually have contributed to the explosion of weight gain in America - not to mention Type II Diabetes - by substituting massive amounts of sugar in low-fat products and giving dieters the illusion that if products, like cookies, don’t have fat in them then you can eat them by the box.

I think I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, but there are good fats and bad fats.  Bad fats (any fat labeled hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated) should be limited, good fats, particularly omega 3 which is almost totally missing from the American diet, should be increased.  Processed foods that contain hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated fats should be avoided like the plague.  There are essential fats - essential for life that must be.  Omega3 and Omega 6 are called essential fatty acids because your body can’t make them and it absolutely needs them.  Omega 3 actually helps you body burn unhealthy fat. 

Low fat diets have a severe impact on the brain, which is 67% fat.  Clinical depression has resulted in many low fat dieters, along with a significant loss of energy.  So, before you believe what the news says, it’s a good idea to check on the facts of the study and see if was even thinking about healthy oils, foods or supplements when it made an evaluation.  For adults, three tablespoons of Golden Omega Oil, or flaxseed oil  should be ingested during the day: one at each major meal.  Simply substitute it for virgin olive oil in your salad dressing.

Thomas Smith of Healingmatters.com reversed his Type II Diabetes using essential fats as a substitute for hydrogenated oils found in many baked goods, salad dressings and other processed foods, and a full battery of mineral supplements including chromium, zinc and potassium.  Hydrogenated oils are to be avoided by anyone interested in health and a full battery of minerals, including chromium, zinc and potassium.

Fat blockers, like low fat diets, are thought to be helpful in lessening the number of calories that the overweight ingest.  But there are a few fats that are essential for long-term health.  I don’t mean that these fats are “somewhat” helpful for long-term health; they are absolutely required for long-term health. 

Essential fats (that we must get from our foods) are: Omega 3 and Omega 6 essential fatty acids.  Your cells are made from the fats and oils you eat.  This is particularly important when it comes to brain cells.  67% of the brain is fat that must be replaced on a daily basis.  Blocking fats affects the dieter’s propensity for severe depression.  It also impacts the dieter’s level of energy. 

Fat-soluble vitamins are also essential for long-term health.  They include beta-carotene and Vitamin A (the vitamins that are important to good vision), Vitamin D (considered so essential that it was added to milk so that children in particular would get their daily dosage), Vitamin E a potent antioxidant, which because antioxidents work as a team, makes other antioxidants work and an important addition to the diabetes regimen, Vitamin K required for blood clotting and bone formation and Co-Enzyme Q 10 which is another vital antioxidant.  Antioxidants remove free radicals from the blood preventing cell damage throughout the body.)

It’s bad enough that doctors are offering fat blockers to their clients.  To allow the overweight public - desperate for a quick weight loss fix that doesn’t include eating properly and exercising regularly - to self-medicate with these health-compromising medications is nothing short of a crime.

I agree.  Writing down every snack makes what you eat real.  It is so easy to have a little extra here a small bite there and when you add it up it makes a huge difference in your weight loss.  In addition, what you choose to snack on makes a huge difference.  If you choose to have a sugary treat, for example, that treat will keep your body from burning fat for up to four hours as the insulin released to deal with it circulates through the blood stream.  The rule with insulin is that as long as it is circulating you store fat.

Getting in the habit of writing down every morsel you eat and reviewing your intake at the end of the day is an excellent idea regardless of what weight loss program you choose.

One of my hypnotists dropped an article on my desk that was truly frightening.  It was about some of the more toxic effects of Aspartame – commonly known as “NutraSweet,” “Equal,” and “Spoonful.”

Aspartame is temperature sensitive.  At 86 degrees F. (think how hot warehouses get in summer time), the wood alcohol in Aspartame converts to Formaldehyde and then to formic acid.  (Formic acid is the poison found in the sting of fire ants.)

The result of this conversion causes methanol toxicity, which mimics the signs and symptoms of multiple sclerosis.  Many people who have been diagnosed with MS actually suffer from methanol toxicity.  The problem is that while MS is not fatal, methanol toxicity is.

Systemic lupus is particularly rampant in Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi drinkers.  If they continue to drink the diet sodas the lupus becomes irritated to a point where it becomes life threatening.  In many cases the symptoms completely disappear when the patient stops drinking diet soda.

Aspartame Disease

Here are some of the conditions that are caused by aspartame sometimes called “Aspartame Disease”.  These conditions often respond favorably when people stop using aspartame:

• Fibromyalgia symptoms
• Spasms
• Shooting pains
• Numbness in legs
• Cramps
• Vertigo
• Dizziness
• Headaches
• Tinnitus (ringing in the ears
• Joint pain
• Depression
• Anxiety attacks
• Slurred speech
• Blurred vision
• Memory loss.

There are two ways to help these problems.  First stop drinking diet soda.  Second read labels and be on the lookout for products that use aspartame.

Aspartame is not a Diet Product

According to the Congressional Record, Aspartame makes you crave carbohydrates and makes fat adhere to your cells.  The formaldehyde is stored in the fat cells.  People have been known to lose up to 27 pounds in a year simply because they stopped drinking diet soda.

Aspartame is particularly hazardous for diabetics

Aspartame drives blood sugar out of control.  It also causes symptoms of retinopathy.  Because it passes the blood brain barrier, it deteriorates the neurons of the brain resulting in:

• Brain damage
• Seizures
• Depression
• Manic Depression
• Panic Attacks
• Rage
• Violence

Aspartame can cause birth defects.

Mental retardation has been linked to diet coda use at conception and in early pregnancy.  It is VERY bad for infants and children.

What is a credible non-sugar substitute?

Steviva is the best non-sugar substitute.  The FDA has recently approved Stevia as a sugar substitute.  Because of the FDA’s connection to Monsanto (inventors of Aspartame) the FDA outlawed Steviva. 

A good source for Steviva

For more information about weight loss check out my interview with Ann Louise Gittleman on my site www.suzyprudden.com

The Leading Diseases in America are Diseases of Malnutrition

Think of malnutrition in the exact terms of the origin of the word.  Normally we think of malnutrition as starvation, but that’s not what the word really means.  The word really means BAD nutrition.  Unhealthy nutrition.  Obese people are every bit as malnourished as any starving African child with a skeletal frame and protruding tummy.  You don’t have to starve to be malnourished.  Living on the chemical diets of sodas, toxic oils and industrially prepared foods can lead to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, fibromialgia, arthritis, certain cancers and Alzheimers, to name a few of the diseases that are associated with malnutrition. 

One of the things that I have learned in my Positive Changes Hypnosis practice is that most people who need to lose weight haven’t a clue how to eat for losing weight and for health;  not even half a clue.  AND they are not going to learn how to eat to keep the weight off by taking a pill, so while they may lose weight on diet pills, they won’t keep it off, or they will yo-yo.  If you are the kind of person who has been on every diet under the sun, who has taken weight off and put it back on countless times, then learning to eat the foods that support weight loss and weight maintenance is something you need to do.

You might also access hypnosis to help you lose weight, but that’s a different article.  Here’s what to do to eat right for weight loss.

Drink Water

At Positive Changes Hypnosis the first thing we teach our clients is to drink 8-10 glasses of water a day (that’s 8-ounce glasses not Dixie Cups).  The justifications for that are numerous but the first one might interest you.  It has to do with replacing soda with water.  If you drink one glass of soda a day, you will probably gain 27 pounds in a year.  Diet soda doesn’t add to your calorie count, but it does contribute to problems with your hormones.  The hormone Insulin will be released when you have a sweetened drink even if it doesn’t contain sugar, so for four hours after a diet soda your body will be unable to burn fat because that’s one of the things that insulin does.  Indeed your body will be storing fat.  If you have a diet soda before breakfast, a diet soda at lunch and a diet soda at dinner you will be storing fat for 12 hours out of your day.  If you have one in the evening, that’s 16 hours out of the day in which you will not be burning fat.  Drinking water is the fastest way to change that.  Instead of a soda, a lemonade, iced tea or any sweetened drink, have a glass of water.  You can’t drink too much water.

Additionally, if you feel hungry, you might actually be thirsty.  The body isn’t all that great at sending out signals from your digestive tract.  So, when you feel hungry, drink a glass of water and see what happens.  The hunger may go away.

And finally, you never want to sit down at a meal when you feel ravenous because you will eat fast and probably overeat before your body has figured out that it has had enough.  To reduce your hunger before you eat, drink a glass of water.  Then wait a few minutes. 

Eat Enough Protein

Protein is hugely important in losing weight because most diets deprive your body of sufficient amounts of protein so the body supplies its protein needs (for repair of vital organs) by cannibalizing it’s own muscles.  Since muscles burn fat, losing muscle makes losing weight more difficult, and gaining weight easier.  With every fad diet you have gone on, you have probably lost muscle mass.  Not body mass.  Muscle mass.  Even if you go on a pill, you need to eat 23 grams of protein (three eggs) for breakfast, 28 grams of protein for lunch and dinner.  28 grams of protein is the equivalent of a pack of playing cards.

Eat Healthy Fats

Next to protein, the kind of fat you eat is second in importance.  To figure this out you have to start reading labels.  Here’s the rule.  NOTHING hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated.  That means no margarine, no mayonnaise, no supermarket fats like corn oil or safflower oil.  ONLY use virgin olive oil or flax oil.  If you do use them, don’t cook with them.  Cook with butter.  Use butter.  Your cell walls are made from the oils you eat and when you eat hydrogenated oils instead of being pliable and semi-permeable, your cell walls become rigid and develop holes.  This is particularly important when it comes to brain cells which are 67% fat.  Flax seed is high in Omega 3 essential fatty acid (which is almost non-existent in the American diet) – notice it is called essential because ultimately you will develop disease without it.  Freshly ground flax seed is the best source for this oil.  If you add it to a vegetable juice, that’s a good way to have it at every meal.  There are two sources of omega 3 and 6 essential fatty acids.  One us galled Golden Omega Omega and it is available on my website.  The other is called Udo’s Perfected Blend which is available in good health food stores like Whole Foods.  Do not buy it at places like Trader Joes because they don’t refrigerate it and it can go rancid fairly quickly without refrigeration.  1 tablespoon of freshly ground flax seed at every meal is GREAT.

Eat Fiber

It took me ages to get this down.  It’s not a low carb or a high carb diet.  It’s a low starch, high fiber diet.  Fully 40% of what you eat should be high fiber.  Colored  vegetables either raw or slightly steamed.  Served with a home made salad dressing (they use toxic oils and sugar in commercial dressings so avoid them).  Top with butter or sour cream or cheese (unless it’s hydrogenated).  It’s amazing what you can eat and what you can’t.  Avoid anything white except onion and cauliflower.  If you want an excellent mashed potato substitute, mash cauliflower and top it with butter.

Ground flax seed is a wonderful source of fiber.  Sprinkle it over salad and steamed vegetables or stir it into a smoothie or a glass of vegetable juice and you will be amazed at the results.  The first thing you will notice is how smooth you skin becomes.  Since the cells of your skin are the last thing to get oiled, when your skin is smooth and well oiled you will know that your vital organs are getting well oiled. 

That’s it.  Or course you can make it more complicated, but if you start shopping for fresh (unprocessed) foods, change your oils,  make sure you get enough protein and above all drink 8-10 glasses of water a day, you won’t need diet pills.

On Thursday, May 19, 2005 I will be interviewing Hyla Cass, M.D., author of “8 Weeks to  Vibrant Health.  To listen go to www.suzyprudden.com and sign up for the teleseminar.  You can also download past seminars.

There are hundreds of different vitamin and mineral supplements on the market. Some of them are good; many of them are less good.  The following are five ways to tell good vitamin-mineral supplements from bad.

1. Unless it is a horse pill, there is no one multi-vitamin that can meet your vitamin and mineral needs in a day.

2. The quality of Vitamin E is a giveaway to whether vitamin production is too cheap to produce a quality product.   If the scientific name of the Vitamin E is “dl-alpha-tocopheryl” the vitamin E is cheap and the amount is half what the company claims it has added.  The problem is with the “dl”.  D and L are mirror images of the same thing, which makes it very expensive to separate them. The body needs “d” and can’t use “l”.  Good vitamins have only the “d” in them.  The inclusion of the “l” is a giveaway to the quality of all the other vitamins and minerals in the vitamin because if they have skimped on the separation of “d” and “l” they have probably skimped on the rest of the vitamins.  As a rule, any vitamin with “dl” in the scientific name of Vitamin E should be avoided.

3. The packaging of vitamins is another giveaway, particularly with oil-based vitamins like Vitamin E or Vitamin A.  The potency of oil-based vitamins is destroyed by light.  If the bottle the vitamin comes in is clear, the oil in the vitamin has been turned rancid by light and it will not only fail to achieve what you are taking it for, it will potentially harm you.  Clear bottles for multivitamins do the same thing, since they contain E and A – both oil-based vitamins.  Make certain that the bottles your vitamins come in are dark plastic or, if they are glass, they come in dark green, blue or brown.

4. Now look at the Chromium in the mineral section of the label.  There are three kinds of chromium.  Cheap vitamins use chromium chloride.  If the label reads chromium chloride don’t buy the vitamin.  If it reads chromium picolinate or chromium poly… the vitamin company has not reduced production cost at the expense of your vital chromium.  Since most diabetics are chromium deficient, this is a very important mineral to have in your supplements.  Fir it to do any good, it must be in the right form.

5. The ratio of calcium to magnesium is another giveaway of bad vitamin-mineral supplements.  The ratio should be 2:1 or 1:1 calcium to magnesium.  That means it should be 100mg:50mg or 100mg:100mg.  In the cheap vitamin-mineral brands the ratio is as bad as 100mg:20mg.  If the magnesium content is too low, the calcium will not metabolise.  If the calcium and magnesium aren’t in the right ratio, don’t buy the vitamins.

A company I like very much, which has excellent vitamins, minerals and supplements is New Spirit Naturals.

Suzy Prudden is President of Positive Changes Hypnosis of Beverly Hills and can be found at http://www.suzyprudden.com/

Vitamin E is an oil-based vitamin that is wonderful for your health, and like all vitamins it is not designed to be used alone.  Vitamins and minerals are team players.  I recently read of a study in which the placebo did better than vitamin E when used by itself.  Missing vitamins and minerals actually lessen the effectiveness of other vitamins and minerals, so getting the dosages right is very important.  It’s vital to take a full vitamin and mineral complex and not megadose vitamins or minerals without balancing them with other vitamins and minerals.  The exception to that being Vitamin C - which is a water based vitamin and seems to do miraculous things in mega doses.

The makers of really good multiple vitamins (and I don’t include any of the major brands in that definition) know the exact amounts of vitamins and minerals to include in a daily regimen.  They also know that all vitamins and minerals should be included in their mixtures so that the team can function completely.

I hope that answers the question of “What about Vitamin E?”  It’s great and should be taken as part of a daily multi-vitamin and multi-mineral combination.

As a side note, “Why should I take vitamins?” is another question I hear quite frequently.  The answer is, because the nutritional value of the foods we eat today are down 1000% since 1900.  You are simply not getting the nutrition your body needs from the food you eat even if you eat exclusively organic.

By the way, I highly recommend the products from New Spirit Naturals, a very reputable company in San Demas California, that is dedicated to high quality products.

If you want to know more about my One Day Weight Loss Workshops please email me at suzy@suzyprudden.com or check out my website at www.suzyprudden.com