9 Ways To Add Plantains To Your Diet. RHR: How to Recover from Long-Term Use of Birth Control Pills. RHR: Which Lab Tests are Essential? 7 Tips for Preventing (and Shortening) Colds and Flus. RHR: Vegetables—How Many to Eat and What Kinds (18:23 to 30:45) Is Depression a Disease—or a Symptom of Inflammation? How (and Why) To Lower Your Blood Pressure Naturally. High blood pressure, or hypertension, is the most important risk factor for premature death, accounting for half of all deaths caused by cardiovascular disease and 13.5 percent of all deaths each year.
It affects 26 percent of the population worldwide, and one-third of the population in the U.S. Nine in ten Americans are expected to develop high blood pressure by the age of sixty-five. What Everyone (Especially Vegetarians) Should Know About B12 Deficiency. In May of 2011, I wrote an article called B12 Deficiency: A Silent Epidemic With Serious Consequences.
I argued that B12 deficiency is much more common than statistics indicate, with potentially devastating consequences. B12 deficiency can cause or is associated with: Premature agingNeurological disorders similar in presentation to multiple sclerosisBrain fog, memory problems and cognitive declineStroke, heart disease and other vascular problems (due to elevated homocysteine)Developmental or learning disabilities in childrenImpaired immune function, autoimmune disease and cancerMale and female infertilityNumerous other symptoms… Are supplements really necessary? In a perfect world, the answer to this question would be “no”.
In the world most of us inhabit, I believe the answer is often “yes”. This might seem inconsistent with the Paleo approach. Calcium Supplements: Why You Should Think Twice. I’ve made the argument before that some supplements may be necessary even within the context of a nutrient-dense, whole-foods diet.
Some nutrients are challenging to get through food alone, especially if you’re not digesting food optimally or you’re struggling with a disease that increases your need for particular nutrients. I routinely recommend supplements to many of my patients, and have seen the benefits of proper supplementation in my own life as well. That said, there are several supplements that are commonly recommended by conventional doctors and healthcare practitioners that are unnecessary at best, and potentially harmful at worst.
Perhaps the best example of this is calcium. How to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Naturally. This is the final article in the Diet-Heart Myth series I’ve been writing over the past several weeks.
If you missed the previous articles, you can find them on the special report page for heart disease. Ben Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Statins Don't Save Lives in People Without Heart Disease. To read more about heart disease and cholesterol, check out the special report page.
Cardiovascular disease is one of the most misdiagnosed and mistreated conditions in medicine. In the first article in this series, I explained the evidence suggesting that eating cholesterol and saturated fat does not increase the risk of heart disease. In the second article, I explained it’s not the amount of cholesterol in your blood that drives heart disease risk, but the number of LDL particles. 5 Uncommon Uses For Probiotics. Soon after the advent of the ‘germ theory of disease’ in the nineteenth century, the idea of voluntarily swallowing a pill full of bacteria would’ve sounded a little crazy.
But as we learned more about the importance of the community of bacteria and other microorganisms occupying our intestines, eating probiotics has become the acceptable way to help re-populate our guts after courses of antibiotics or other stressors. As we’ve continued to learn, it appears that our gut bugs influence far more than our digestive function and our ability to stay ‘regular.’
In fact, probiotics often aren’t that effective at re-populating the gut flora anyway. (Prebiotics tend to work better.) How to Prevent Kidney Stones Naturally. This is a guest post by Laura Schoenfeld, a Registered Dietitian with a Master’s degree in Public Health, and staff nutritionist and content manager for ChrisKresser.com.
You can learn more about Laura by checking out her blog or visiting her on Facebook. Anyone who’s had a kidney stone will tell you that they’re one of the worst medical problems you can ever experience. Kidney stones are a common and painful chronic condition seen in otherwise “healthy” patients, and one of the most common disorders of the urinary tract. About a million people in the United States are treated for kidney stones each year, and the prevalence in adult men is almost 12% and around 6% in adult women. (1) 3 Reasons Why You Should Be Skeptical of the New Cholesterol Guidelines. I’m sure you’ve heard by now that the leading heart organizations in the U.S. have released updated treatment guidelines for cholesterol-lowering drugs (statins).
The changes include discarding the specific numerical targets that have been used to monitor treatment for decades and recommending a statin for everyone with a 10-year risk of heart attack or stroke of 7.5% or higher, as determined by a new risk calculator. The new guidelines have received a lot of media attention of the past several days, including criticism from no less than the former president of the American College of Cardiology. I’m happy to see this, because as I will argue in this article, the new guidelines are problematic and would put millions at risk due to unnecessary and prolonged treatment with statin drugs.
Here are 3 reasons why you should be skeptical of the new cholesterol and statin guidelines. Should you be taking a statin under new cholesterol treatment guidelines? Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Stress - A New Frontier for Treatment? This is a guest post written by staff nutritionist Kelsey Marksteiner, RD.
Click here to read her blog or join her newsletter! If you or someone you know suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), you know how devastating this condition can be. While some may function well, others can have their lives practically ripped out from under them – unable to work, go to school, or engage in many of their favorite activities. If You Need To Take Antibiotics. I wrote this a while back when I had more time, thinking it might come in handy during the book tour.
I was right! A few years ago, I wrote an article about the often devastating effects that antibiotics can have on the gut flora. Are Legumes “Paleo”? And Does It Really Matter? 5 Thyroid Patterns That Won't Show Up On Standard Lab Tests. This article is part of a special report on Thyroid Disorders. To see the other articles in this series, click here. In medicine, the key to choosing the best treatment is an accurate diagnosis. If the diagnosis isn’t correct, the treatment will be ineffective – or even cause harm. Unfortunately misdiagnosis is common in the management of hypothyroidism. If you go to a doctor with hypothyroid symptoms, you’ll simply be given replacement hormones without any further inquiry into the cause of your condition.