oxygen Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Eat to Beat Disease: How to Eat for Optimal Health

AHA Publisher — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 08:00:04 +0000

Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DMN, CNS – It’s no secret that what you eat has immense effect on your health, and it turns out you can actually eat to beat disease. No one know this better than Dr. William Li, MD, author of the book “Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Health Itself.” Li has been featured on numerous media outlets, and he’s also the author of over 100 scientific publications, including research published in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet. He’s also served on faculty at Harvard Medical School and has spent decades practicing medicine. I was lucky enough to talk with Dr. Li on my podcast, where he shared insights on how to combat cancer and other diseases through diet by activating the body’s five health defense systems. Here are his insights on how to eat to beat disease. The Study of Food One of the biggest breakthroughs for Dr. Li during his career was the realization that while the practice of medicine is vital and life-changing, a lot of his formal training focused on treating diseases and little on prevention. “When I went to medical school, I was really taught about health for maybe a few courses, and then everything else was about disease and what we should do to stamp it out, treat it, cut it burn it, give chemotherapy or antibiotics. That’s really how I entered the world of medical practice,” he says. “It is really just waiting for the horse to come out of the barn, which is illness, and then throwing the kitchen sink, ideally, smartly at it. “… I started to realize after many years of practice that the science was advancing so rapidly for treating disease and yet it didn’t seem like it was being applied to actually preventing disease, and you know prevention is really the mirror image of treatment.” Li realized that you can’t really use drugs as a prevention method so in order to focus on disease prevention, he shifted his attention to food. That led him to start researching the effects of food on health in the same manner medical researchers studied drugs, utilizing the same tools and methods to understand just how powerful food can be — and how to eat to beat disease. “I grew up uh eating traditional Asian cuisines and Mediterranean cuisines, whole foods freshly cooked not too much, designed to be really tasty. So I always felt that food was something that sustained me and sustained my well-being,” says Li. “… As an adult on my own eating in the cafeteria or hospital food, traveling around and going to restaurants, I started to realize we’ve actually lost touch with what our own history and cultures actually have given us, which is something pretty elemental that speaks to the body.” The focus for many today is on dieting, which can cause its own issues. Most diets are strict and exclusionary, and that can make them difficult for people to follow and sustain. “I just felt like there’s got to be a better way to do this, and what I discovered is when it comes to food and health, in fact it’s not just about the food — it’s about how our body responds to what we put inside it,” Li says. “You have to understand first before you choose any diet and any food combination how your body responds to keeping your health intact.” What Li found working for more than 30 years with Dr. Judah Folkman, a pioneer in the medical field, is that health is critically dependent on circulation. When circulation is excessive, it can feed diseases like cancer, while lack of circulation can cut off oxygen and nutrients to tissues so they die off — which in turn can promote disease. “Lab research has shown when a cancer that doesn’t have a blood supply suddenly gets one, that tiny little tumor can grow 16,000 times in only a couple of weeks. That’s enough to kill somebody. That’s led to the development of more than 18 medicines that cancer doctors use to cut off the blood supply to cancers,” Li says. “Using the same tools to discover medicines that can interfere to cut off a blood supply to starve a cancer, I’ve actually been able to test food, and when you test food in those systems, you can test them head-to-head, side-by-side, you wind up seeing that green tea, soy, lavender, citrus fruits, broccoli — they can stand up right next to cancer drugs.” The 5 Health Defense Systems The body is designed to protect health, while environmental factors all around are trying to get in. “Think of our body as a fortress. If you remember a medieval castle, you got the moat, you got the tall, sloping walls, you’ve got the little slits in the walls where people could shoot arrows out, you’ve got the little tiger traps, little holes with spikes in middle it, you got the winding staircases — all these things. A fortress is designed to protect itself from invaders,” says Li. “That is exactly our body except that rather than stone structures or spears, it’s actually biology.” There are five main health defense systems, according to Li: Blood or circulation/angiogenesis — The body grows blood vessels that feed every cell in the body. Stem cells in bone marrow — Help us heal from the inside out and regenerate our organs as we age or when we’re injured. Microbiome — This is the healthy gut bacteria, and humans have almost 40 trillion gut bacteria. “You know how a pregnant mom says, ‘I’m eating for two?’ We’re eating for 40 trillion, and that’s leading to a whole new insight into what we eat and how it impacts our gut defense,” says Li. DNA — Our DNA is hardwired to protect us against the assaults from the environment. Immune system — “It is more powerful than we ever thought because we now know that even an elderly person in their 80s, their immune system is so powerful that it can not only help resist infection, but it can help resist cancer as well.” “These five health defense systems are at play all the time, and when we sit down to eat something we are either building up and fortifying and boosting these defense systems or we’re taking it down and destroying it, ” says Li. “Everybody who thinks about food and health according to the traditional ways that have been everywhere for the last few decades, it’s about what program should I get into and what things should I cut out and what do I need to eat every single day. Here’s the news flash, which is good news: There’s no one size fits all. It’s about our individual preference, what our bodies seek, what we enjoy — and by the way, the enjoyment’s really important because if you can pick something that’s healthy that you enjoy, then you are already ahead of the game.” How to Eat to Beat Disease In “Eat to Beat Disease,” Dr. Li touches on 200 foods that can help boost immunity and activate the health defense systems. Here are some of the top foods to eat to beat disease: 1. Soy “There’s a belief out there that soy is actually dangerous for your health because it can cause breast cancer, and we believe this because there’s a plant estrogen in soy that we know is there, and we know that some types of human breast cancers can be activated by human estrogen. However, if you look at soy plant estrogen vs. human estrogen, they don’t look anything alike, and it turns out the science shows us that plant estrogens actually counter the effects of human estrogens so they actually block human estrogens almost like a drug does,” says Li. “There’s a study of 500 women who already have breast cancer, and it was studied that those women with breast cancer who actually ate more soy had better survival — they had about a 30 percent reduced risk of dying from breast cancer — and those who ate more soy were able to decrease the risk of having the cancer come back.” A note is to be wary of highly processed foods, including in soy products. A lot of soy milk is overly processed and contains unnecessary and sometimes harmful additives. That’s why I’m a proponent of natto, a fermented soy. It’s also why I’m in favor of fresh foods instead of buying juiced foods. Eating blueberries or an apple vs. buying blueberry juice or apple juice — it’s better to eat the whole, fresh fruit that hasn’t been processed or had any unhealthy ingredients added. Flaxseeds have a similar compound as soy that can protect against disease, along with lavender, vitex, clary sage. They can actually balance estrogen. 2. Tomatoes “There’s a lot of people out there saying tomatoes are harmful because they’re related to the nightshade plant,” says Li. “In fact, tomatoes don’t have any of the poisons of nightshade, and in fact there is a really important natural chemical called lycopene which is present in tomato. “Lycopene in tomato has been studied. There’s a study of 35,000 men, and they looked at their intake of tomatoes, cooked tomatoes, and found that those men who ate two to three servings of cooked tomatoes actually had up to a 30 percent lowered risk of developing prostate cancer. “In those men who did develop prostate cancer, the more tomatoes they ate, the less aggressive their prostate cancer because lycopene is anti-andorgenic, which means it cuts off the blood supply feeding cancers. It starves cancer in this really remarkable way.” 3. Green Tea Drink two-plus cups of green tea a day. It floods the system with natural bioactive chemicals that come from the tea plant that can actually cut off the blood supply to tumors, actually even kill cancer stem cells. It also protects blood vessels. 4. Tree Nuts Pistachios, almonds, cashews, macadamias and walnuts are some of the best options. “A major study of over 700 people from the American Society of Clinical Oncology showed that people who ate a couple handfuls of walnuts a day, about 15, a week actually had up to a 50 percent reduction in death if they had stage 3 colon cancer, and if they had their cancer successfully treated, it also markedly decreased the risk fo their cancer coming back,” shares Li. “A couple handfuls of nuts as a snack is a really great way to reduce your risk of cancer. “It turns out nuts not only have healthy omega-3 fatty acids that can cut off the blood supply feeding cancer cells, but they also have insoluble fiber. They’re a great source of fiber. “This insoluble fiber feeds our microbiome and activates our immune system. It lowers inflammation, which lowers cancer risk.” What Does Dr. Li Eat to Beat Disease? First and foremost, Dr. Li stresses “there’s no single food you need to eat all the time. It’s eating diversity, mostly plant-based foods, minimal processing like ultra-processed foods and cutting down on your meat also reduces your risk of cancer as well.” Instead, he says to focus on dietary patterns, such as the Mediterranean dietand traditional Asian diets. In addition, he likes to focus on plant-based foods and tries to build his meals around a vegetable. So what does Dr. Li typically eat to beat disease each day? Breakfast “When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is reach for either green tea or coffee,” Li says. “Coffee contains caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid, all these natural bioactives that are amazingly healthy for you. They increase your telomeres, which slows down cellular aging. They’re anti-androgenic so they cut off the blood supply feeding cancers, and they make our blood vessels actually healthier. Many lower the risk of dementia. “… I’ll have tea or coffee every day. Every day...

The post Eat to Beat Disease: How to Eat for Optimal Health appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Can “Light Waves” Help Alzheimer’s Disease?

AHA Publisher — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 07:00:13 +0000

Al Sears, MD, CNS – Recently, the drug company Biogen pulled out of two clinical trials for potential Alzheimer’s drugs. In total, that’s more than 200 failed attempts [at finding a workable treatment]. Without drugs to prescribe, doctors feel helpless. But what if a simple, non-drug therapy could ease the symptoms of Alzheimer’s? Today, I’ll show you how a unique “light wave” therapy shows promise for Alzheimer’s disease. The 3 Hallmarks of Alzheimer’s Scientists have known for years that beta-amyloid deposits are abundant in the brains of those with Alzheimer’s disease. These deposits build up over time, blocking communication between nerve cells, eventually gumming them up, causing more confusion and memory loss. Recently, MIT researchers examined the brain waves of normal mice and mice with Alzheimer’s. The brains of mice with Alzheimer’s had irregular or “disrupted” gamma waves and acted differently than mice with normal gamma waves.1 Gamma waves are the fastest of the brain waves and used by the neurons to pass information quickly and easily. This is what helps us to quickly recall old memories while making new ones. The mice with disrupted gamma waves had clear signs of beta-amyloid deposit buildup due to their slow movement and responsiveness. After observing the differences between the two groups, the researchers came up with an idea… What if they could restore the disrupted gamma waves? Researchers experimented by using a flickering light that mimicked the gamma wave frequency. “It’s a pretty striking result…” the lead researcher said “…they were able to reduce, in the mouse at least, all three hallmarks of Alzheimer’s pathology.”2 The light therapy restored normal gamma waves and reduced beta-amyloid deposits. While most doctors aren’t using this technology yet, I will keep you posted in future Doctor’s House Calls as this story unfolds. In the meantime, you have other options. How to Keep Your Brain Sharp and Snappy as You Age Increase your memory and concentration abilities by 800% with oxygen: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) is known to help awaken the “sleeping brains” of Alzheimer’s patients. My colleague Dr. Harch presented his work with dementia patients at my conference last year. Each session takes about 80 minutes and most patients listen to music or watch TV. And there are no known side effects — because you’re not putting anything unnatural in your body. Just pure oxygen… the very source of life. You can find more info at Hyperbaric Medicine International’s website. View their directory to help you find a clinic in your local area. Increase your vitamin B12: Supplementing with vitamin B12 can slow brain shrinkage by as much as seven-fold in areas of the brain known to be most impacted by memory loss.3 Your best food sources for vitamin B12 are grass-fed beef liver, clams, pastured eggs and wild-caught trout, tuna and salmon. But it’s hard to get what you need from today’s food. I recommend supplementing with at least 1,000 mcg of B12 a day. But avoid taking pills or capsules. Only a small fraction gets absorbed through your gut. Sprays are much more effective at getting the nutrient into your blood and circulatory system. To Your Good Health, Al Sears, MD, CNS References 1. Iaccarino HF, et al. “Gamma frequency entrainment attenuates amyloid load and modifies microglia.” Nature. 2016;540(7632):230-235. 2. Taylor AP. “Toward treating Alzheimer’s disease with brain waves.” The Scientist. December 7, 2016. 3. Douaud G. “Preventing Alzheimer’s disease-related gray matter atrophy by B-vitamin treatment.” Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013;110(23):9523-9528. This article has been modified. To read the original article click here. For more articles from Al Sears, MD click here.

The post Can “Light Waves” Help Alzheimer’s Disease? appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Urgent Warning About Ventilator Use on Coronavirus Patients, New Research Study

AHA Publisher — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 07:00:59 +0000

Sara Middleton via NaturalHealth365 – In the United States alone, over 105,000 people have died with a COVID-19 infection since the pandemic began in December 2019. And, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledges that some of these deaths have been “misclassified” – perhaps more than many people realize – it’s certain that many people are getting sick and suffering from this viral infection. Yet, the main “treatment” of this illness – the use of a ventilator – is being seriously questioned. No doubt, there are many healthcare providers working tirelessly to discover the best way to treat COVID-19, as well as what the ideal “medical management” of patients should be. But as more research and data comes out, many medical experts now worry that the use of a ventilator could cause more harm than good. A new analysis sheds some important light on this controversial issue. New Study Suggests Many COVID-19 Deaths May Have Been Hastened or Brought on by Inappropriate Mechanical Ventilation In April, the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene published a paper summarizing the best available evidence for respiratory care in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. That data reveals doctors and physicians should re-evaluate their reliance on mechanical ventilation for this population, and stop being so quick to intubate people. The reason: it appears mechanical ventilation can damage the lungs of very ill (and especially elderly) COVID-19 patients – in other words, it can cause more harm than good. This is likely due to an as-yet poorly understood function of the new disease, which seems to behave differently than other respiratory illnesses. Possible theories include: Lungs of severely ill COVID-19 patients are often covered with a thick mucous, preventing the lungs from being able to uptake any oxygen (even if it’s being forced into the lungs via a vent). Healthy lung tissue sitting nearby damaged tissue is elastic, making it susceptible to inflammation, tissue damage and other types of “ventilator-induced injury” when exposed to high pressure forced oxygen-enriched air (imagine filling a balloon with an air hose used for car tires) It’s a bit ironic, of course, to see medical professionals voicing their concerns over the excessive use of ventilators just weeks after the media was in a fury over ventilator “shortages” and lambasting state officials for failing to procure enough machines for their hospitals. Bottom Line: Mechanical Ventilation are Likely to Be Overprescribed as Doctors Scramble to Figure Out Other Medical Options To be clear, there are some COVID-19 patients for whom mechanical ventilation seems appropriate – for example, people who are deteriorating quickly and experiencing severe respiratory failure, despite being given excessive noninvasive respiratory support first (such as high flow oxygen via a nasal cannulus). But this new research indicates that intubating someone simply because their blood oxygen levels are low, for example, is unwarranted and “jumping the gun,” to say the least. We are now hearing reports from doctors around the world who are left awestruck by their hospitalized coronavirus patients who seem to be tolerating extremely low levels of oxygen. Many point out that because seriously ill patients are the ones that should be put on ventilators, this could at least partly explain why 50 percent or more of COVID-19 patients who end up on ventilators die. That is, their critical illness coupled with underlying health conditions would likely have led to their demise anyway, with or without mechanical ventilation. But sadly, this correlation may not explain away all the ventilated COVID-19 deaths. Many doctors now suspect that too many COVID-19 patients have been put on ventilators even when it wasn’t medically indicated. It may be some time before we learn the true impact of this tragic medical misstep. Sources for this article include: WebMD.com, AJTMH.org, Statnews.com, Worldometers.info, CDC.gov, NIH.gov, Lung.org, MassGeneral.org To read the original article click here.

The post Urgent Warning About Ventilator Use on Coronavirus Patients, New Research Study appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Huge WHO Trial of COVID-19 Therapies Begins

AHA Publisher — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 07:00:21 +0000

Dr. Liji Thomas, MD via News-Medical Net – As the world reels from the devastating impact and the looming threat of the novel coronavirus COVID-19, researchers around the globe are racing to find a cure that will reduce symptom severity and reverse the course of the disease, freeing up more hospital space and making it possible to treat more of the severely affected cases. A large trial In tune with this, the World Health Organization (WHO) has commenced a large trial of four treatments that hold the most significant promise of controlling the coronavirus. This is a trial without precedent, with researchers from multiple locations working in unison to collate as much data on the efficacy of these treatments, even while the pandemic is raging. The study is designed with the greatest simplicity, to include thousands of patients in dozens of countries. It is an intentional plan to enable the most overwhelmed hospitals to take part in the trial to collect the most results possible within the shortest time frame. Recycling Drugs The shortest route to developing effective treatments for the virus is to look at existing drugs, either those that are already approved for other diseases, as well as those that are not yet approved but have been shown to help relieve the disease in animal models of the two previous coronavirus epidemics, namely, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). The hope is to find that one or more of these drugs will slow down or kill the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This would play a significant role in saving many critically ill patients, but would also protect thousands upon thousands of healthcare professionals and other associated workers who put their lives at risk each moment they are in their workplace. Also, effective treatments could also push down the time spent by patients in intensive care, making more beds available for those who need it. The Trial The participants in the trial, called SOLIDARITY, will be any patient who is confirmed to have COVID-19 and fulfills the eligibility criteria as decided by the treating physician. After informed consent procedures are completed, the patient’s details are then entered into a website set up specifically for the trial by the WHO. The physician lists the hospital’s available drugs from the four being studied in the trial, and the website randomizes the patient to either one of these drugs or the local standard care being offered for the infection. This completes the enrolment procedure for the trial. The only remaining details, according to one of WHO’s medical officers, Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo, are the day the patient is hospitalized, the date of discharge, leaving or death, the duration of hospitalization, and the need for oxygen or ventilation during the patient’s stay. Design of the trial The design of the trial is not double-blinded, in that the patients know if they are receiving one of the trialed drugs, and may, therefore, show benefit due to the placebo effect. On the other hand, in this particular situation, the WHO is less concerned about conforming to the highest scientific standards and less about optimizing the efficiency of the process to get results as fast as possible. The trial itself was conceived less than a couple of weeks ago, and the agency is hustling to get the required documents and data management facilities up and running within one more week – which is ‘record time,’ according to Henao-Restrepo. The Advantages The simplicity of the trial design has won the approval of many researchers, who feel that more details about the course of the disease aren’t relevant at this stage of knowledge. Virologist Christian Drosten from Berlin says, for instance, “We don’t really know enough about this disease to be sure what it means when the viral load decreases in the throat.” Meanwhile, others are following WHO’s cue. France, for example, is starting an add-on trial in Europe called Discovery, including 3,200 patients from 7 or more countries, testing the same drugs except for chloroquine. Others could also do the same while modifying the requirements to suit their own research goals as well. For instance, they could add on virology tests, do blood chemistry, or imaging of the lungs. Yet, Henao-Restrepo points out, these are not ‘core requirements’ at this stage, though they might well be of great value in the future. The Candidates The drugs to be tested were shortlisted based on: The chances of success The safest drugs The drugs most likely to be available in sufficient numbers to treat a large number of people if found effective These include: Remdesivir This drug inhibits an important viral enzyme called the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, which is required for viral replication inside the host cell. First developed to fight viruses such as Ebola, it failed to prove effective when tested in the 2019 Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, laboratory studies in test tubes and animals show it might be effective in fighting coronaviruses, and anecdotal evidence supports this possibility, with at least two patients who were in a critical state being reported to have turned the corner when given the drug. The drawback is that it has to be given intravenously, it is expensive, and is required in only 15% of patients. Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine These antimalarials are included chiefly because of the need to decide whether they are useful or not, based on the interest shown in their use in many countries. They reduce the acidity level within endosomes, which are intracellular compartments that receive material from outside the cell. These can be hijacked by viruses to achieve the same aim, namely, to enter the cell. However, the virus that causes COVID-19 enters via a spike receptor on the cell surface rather than endosomes. While cell culture studies indicate some antiviral activity, high doses are required, carrying the potential for toxicity. Animal studies have not shown benefit either. However, over 20 Chinese studies reporting evidence of benefit with chloroquine in COVID-19 patients have been published – all without supporting data. This makes it difficult to evaluate the claims of efficacy. According to the WHO, “WHO is engaging with Chinese colleagues at the mission in Geneva and have received assurances of improved collaboration; however, no data has been shared regarding the chloroquine studies.” A French study was similarly confusing. Moreover, the diversion of these drugs to treat COVID-19 could lead to a deficit for people who use it for well-established indications like malaria or rheumatoid arthritis. The toxicity of hydroxychloroquine, in particular, is disturbing, because it can, though rarely, cause cardiac injury – a concern when people with heart disease are already at risk for severe COVID-19 symptoms. The guideline issued by the U.S. Society of Critical Care Medicine states that “there is insufficient evidence to issue a recommendation on the use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine in critically ill adults with COVID-19.” Ritonavir/lopinavir This antiviral combination was first approved for the treatment of HIV and consists of a pair of protease inhibitors. However, it also works with other proteases, including coronaviruses, such as in animal models of the MERS, as well as in human SARS and MERS patients. The results in the latter were not encouraging, and neither was the first human trial studying the effect of this combination in COVID-19. Ritonavir/lopinavir with Interferon-Beta The trial will also look at how the two protease inhibitors act together with the inflammation-regulating interferon-beta, now being tested for the first time in human patients with MERS in Saudi Arabia in a randomized controlled design. The use of interferon-beta in severe COVID-19 could well backfire, feel some experts. Drugs tested in the trial The drugs tested in the trial may soon change based on interim results of lack of efficacy, or evidence of harmful effects. The aim, according to Henao-Restrapo, is simple: “It will be important to get answers quickly, to try to find out what works This article has been modified. To read the original article click here.

The post Huge WHO Trial of COVID-19 Therapies Begins appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.