Trans fatty acid, also known as trans fat, is an artery-clogging fat formed when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil, a process called hydrogenation. Many manufacturers use this process of hydrogenation because it reduces cost and increases the shelf life and flavor stability of their food.

Hundreds of household food items such as commercially prepared baked goods and margarine, and commercially prepared fried foods like onion rings, contain significant amounts of trans fatty acids. Astoundingly, typical French fries contain about 40% trans fatty acids, many popular cookies and crackers have from 30 to 50%, and doughnuts include some 35 to 40% trans fat.
Dangers of Trans Fat

Trans fat poses various serious health risks. It raises your body’s level of bad cholesterol (LDL) while scrubbing away the good cholesterol (HDL) that keeps your arteries clean. Your arteries can become clogged, making them inflexible, which can lead to strokes and heart attacks.

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Asking a meat lover to give up burgers and steaks is likely to evoke some powerful opposition, just as asking a vegetarian to sit down to a plate of meatballs would. Yet, increasing evidence appears to be confirming that eating a meat heavy diet may, indeed, be bad for your health.

This is certainly not what a largely meat-loving nation like the United States wants to hear. According to the Agriculture Department, Americans eat over 110 pounds of red meat each year, which amounts to slightly under two pounds a week, along with 106 pounds of poultry.

What does the evidence really say about meat and your health, and is there possibly more to the scenario than meets the eye?

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Chlorine bleach household cleaners are often the most toxic chemicals found in homes yet most popular in America. Bleach is added to everything from toilet bowl cleaners and counter sprays to dishwashing liquid and laundry detergent. Of course, it’s also often used straight out of the bottle for an endless array of cleaning purposes.

The benefit to chlorine bleach is that it’s very effective in killing germs like viruses, bacteria and fungi. But the benefit does not come without a price. It resides as residue on all surfaces you use it to clean, it goes into your home’s air that you breathe, affecting your lungs, and it’s absorbed very quickly into your skin and your family members’ skin by everything you touch that was cleaned.

Chlorine is extremely poisonous and was actually used during World War I as a choking agent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Chlorine gas is what gives bleach its pungent odor, and it can be pressurized and cooled to change it into a liquid form, which is used to make countless industrial and household products including bleach (both household chlorine bleach and bleach used in the manufacture of paper and cloth).

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Every year 48,000 Americans die from a hospital-acquired infection (HAI) — an infection they DID NOT have when they entered. Increasingly, people are finding that hospitals are some of the worst places to be, as they are literally crawling with germs, some of them “superbugs” that are resistant to antibiotics and other treatments.

In the largest nationally representative study to date, researchers revealed that both sepsis and pneumonia, two infections commonly acquired while in the hospital, are costing U.S. patients a staggering amount in increased health care costs and some are paying with their very lives.

Close to 20 percent of people, who developed sepsis after surgery, died — a number made all the more tragic as sepsis is a bloodstream infection that is often preventable. It often occurs because medical equipment is not properly sterilized during surgery.

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 More than 55 percent of high school students participate in athletics, activities that can lend invaluable experiences in teamwork and dedication along with boosting self-esteem and physical fitness levels.

Among them, football is ranked the most popular sport for high school boys, with over 1.1 million high-school-aged participants across the country, according to the 2008-09 High School Athletics Participation Survey conducted by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).

Unfortunately, football also results in more direct catastrophic injuries than any other sport tracked by the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, and appears to be much more dangerous at the high school level than the college level.

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For decades I have told my patients coming to me for help with chronic health problems to stop eating sugar for four months to see if it makes them feel better. Patients are often startled at the benefits. Usually the sugar cravings go away within two weeks of stopping sugar, and benefits to their health quickly ensues.

I also remember my medical colleagues berating me for giving such “foolish” advice to my patients.

Now all this has changed!

I am delighted to see that the World Health Organization has issued draft guidelines calling for a 50% reduction of daily sugar intake to be limited to no more than 5% of total daily calories. In addition, a major article has just appeared in the prestigious JAMA Internal Medicine showing the relationship of sugar to cardiovascular disease. They are finally recognizing that public health problems including obesity, diabetes,cardiovascular disease, and tooth decay are all connected with our addiction to sugar.

All the news services from Time Magazine to CNN have been blasting this news on their front pages, as well.

Here is a most informative video on CNN’s site about sugar. (sorry for the commercial)

Here is Dr Lustig’s famous lecture on sugar with over 4 million hits on YouTube:

The World Health Organization (WHO) says they are concerned that the consumption of “free” sugars can cause people to eat fewer foods that contain nutritionally adequate calories. This would thereby increase their total daily calorie intake leading to the epidemic that we have of obesity now. Free sugars include fructose, glucose, and sucrose as well as honey and fruit concentrates.

Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) shows that 50% of the American population consume sugary drinks on any given day.

Recent information from Medical News Today has reported a study showing that individuals who consume high amounts of sugar may be at increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease. Other research has shown that the link between elevated sugar consumption and type II diabetes.

Specifically this study showed that those who consumed more than 21% of daily calories from added sugar had double the risk of cardiovascular disease mortality. Even just seven servings of sugar sweetened drinks per week, is linked with increased risk of cardiovascular disease mortality.

The authors of this study are quoted as saying “Our findings indicate that most US adults consume more added sugar than is recommended for a healthy diet. A higher percentage of calories from added sugars associated with significantly increased risk of CVD mortality. In addition, regular consumption of sugar sweetened beverages is associated with elevated CVD mortality.”

I print in total the Editorial on this subject from JAMA Internal Medicine

“We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in research on the health effects of sugar, one fueled by extremely high rates of added sugar overconsumption in the American public. By “added sugar overconsumption,” we refer to a total daily consumption of sugars added to products during manufacturing (ie, not naturally occurring sugars, as in fresh fruit) in excess of dietary limits recommended by expert panels. Past concerns revolved around obesity and dental caries as the main health hazards. Overconsumption of added sugars has long been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD).1 However, under the old paradigm, it was assumed to be a marker for unhealthy diet or obesity.2 The new paradigm views sugar overconsumption as an independent risk factor in CVD as well as many other chronic diseases, including diabetes mellitus, liver cirrhosis, and dementia—all linked to metabolic perturbations involving dyslipidemia, hypertension, and insulin resistance.3 The new paradigm hypothesizes that sugar has adverse health effects above any purported role as “empty calories” promoting obesity. Too much sugar does not just make us fat; it can also make us sick.”

It is about time that my conventional colleagues wake up and smell the roses, on the truth that they have been denying for so many decades.

If you have a member of your family with diabetes, heart disease,obesity, talk to them about their sugar intake!

Original Article in JAMA Internal Medicine

Added Sugar in the Diet from Harvard

American Heart Association On Sugar

WHO Paper on Diet and Prevention of Chronic Disease

How Much Sugar is in Food

Your body is always in a state of change; you are either improving or declining your current state of health … and what you do and eat on a “daily basis” greatly influences your decline or improved health plus what quality of life you will have in the future.

Many doctors and health gurus have shown that you can be in good shape well into your later years – if you are committed to living well (like Jack Lalanne, Dr. Rober Cassar, etc.). We are seeing more and more people in their 50s, 60s and 70s by example showing us how attention to a healthful lifestyle can change your body and your life.

What exactly does that entail? Dr. Robert Cassar, a former body builder, chiropractor, naturalist, and raw foodist who has seemingly defied the hands of time while in his early 50s just years after an accident that broke his back —  shared some of his secrets, which include …
Raw Food Advocates

Most everyone eats some amount of raw foods nearly every day in salads, fuits and or nuts plus various raw sea foods, sushi, vegetable munchies, etc.

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Oxidative stress is now recognized as a leading cause of chronic disease and aging. It occurs when free radicals — toxic oxygen molecules produced by normal body processes but also via external sources like stress and pollution — spiral out of control.

Even the healthiest among us have free radicals in our systems. However, free radicals are normally kept under wraps where they cannot cause great harm to the body. When free radicals exist in your body in excess, the harmful condition known as oxidative stress occurs.

“There is evidence that free radicals are a predominant factor in the etiology of a wide range of diseases and conditions such as cancer, diabetes, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis,” says free radical and antioxidant expert Li Li Ji, Ph.D. of the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

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Most Americans know that kissing is off limits when they’re sick if they want to avoid spreading the germ to others, but most do not think twice about shaking hands. This seemingly innocent gesture is actually a key way that germs are spread … and is actually a greater risk to passing on an infection than sharing a kiss!

With cold and flu season upon us, and superbugs like MRSA and C.diff on the rise, it’s imperative that you know how to lessen your risks of the “killing touch” — and how it can lead to disease and illness.

We’re All Potential Disease Carriers

Your hands may look clean but lingering on their surface are countless organisms, many of which can make you sick. How do these organisms get there? Many are picked up throughout your day as you open doors, use pens, type at your computer, or use an ATM or even a shopping cart.

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As you get older and find yourself misplacing your glasses, forgetting the phone number of a good friend or experiencing a hazy recall of what you did the past weekend, you get those pangs of sudden panic. Is it normal forgetfulness or a sign of something more?

Fortunately, these signs of short-term memory loss are a part of the normal aging process and shouldn’t raise flags that your mind is in deterioration mode. Your brain is one of the most complex and powerful organs in your body and has the ability to grow new brain cells in the hippocampus (the area of the brain responsible for the forming, sorting and storing memories) each day throughout your lifetime.

There are many factors other than the normal aging process that contribute to short-term memory loss, however. Below are seven common and sometimes overlooked causes of short-term memory loss followed by 10 tips to protect your brain and even help induce the growth of new brain cells.

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