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In the Middle Ages in Europe, what we know as GLA was nicknamed the “king’s cure-all”. Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are polyunsaturated fats, and widely are considered helpful in reducing inflammation and in suppressing a number of diseases. Gamma Linolenic Acid (GLA) is “healthy” fat found particularly in seed and nut oils. GLA is popularly used for treating arthritis, diabetic nerve damage, and high blood pressure. GLA has been extensively studied in treatment of cancer as well.

Some studies:
At the Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Research Institute, a study showed the presence of GLA significantly lowered a cancer growth promoting protein (HER-2). HER-2 is an oncogene, meaning it turns normal cells into cancerous cells. The South African Medical Journal started a study with the observation that cancer cells universally lack the ability to produce prostaglandin E1 (PGE1), because it lacks an enzyme that converts linolenic acid to GLA, which is in turn needed to make PGE1. In their study, they provided cancer cells with GLA directly, allowing them to produce PGE1. This caused them to grow much more slowly, acting more like normal cells. At the Enamel Research Institute in Canada, human cancer cells and normal cells were cultured together without polyunsaturated fatty acids, and the cancer cells grew at a faster rate than the normal cells. But the addition of GLA reversed this, so that the normal cells outgrew the cancerous cells.

These studies all take GLA, which is known to reduce the body’s need for inflammation, and see that it also has an inhibiting effect on cancer.

What this shows:
Cells react to the environment around them, and if the environment is right, cells have no need to become malignant. Already cancerous cells may even revert to normal behavior in the presence of the ideal environment. GLA is a vital part of that environment.

Consider this: the body inflames because of the environment. It is built in to the logic that is designed into the body. An environment that reduces inflammation is a safe environment for cells, and cancer cells are at a disadvantage in that environment. Studies are showing GLA inhibits cancer due to various pathways which cause normal cells to thrive.

Healthy Fats
GLA is found in raw hemp seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds, and also in some nuts. A balance of omega-3, omega-6, and omega-9 from uncooked sources are particularly beneficial to all the cells in your body. Omega-3 can be obtained from flax, hemp, chia seeds and walnuts through a conversion process of the alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) they contain. Omega-9 fats are especially prevalent in olives, almonds, and avocados. A good balance of omega-3, omega-6, and omega-9 provides the best environment for the body.

Sprout First
Raw plant seeds and nuts that have not been modified by heat are coated with special enzyme inhibitors while growing on the plants that prevent them from sprouting the first time rain hits them — before they are ready to germinate. Soaking seeds and discarding the water flushes away these inhibitors and starts the germination process. Left long enough, the seeds would visibly sprout, if the water is frequently refreshed. So soak your raw seeds for several hours for the greatest benefit.

Dr. Nemec’s Comments:
Its not about genes but the environment that turns on the genes. You can have positive HER-2 gene and never have a problem in your life because you have made an anti-inflammatory environment at a cellular level. This is what we have been helping patients achieve for the last 35 years. The take away message in this research from Northwestern is that plant fats are extremely anti-inflammatory, and especially if they are not altered with heat. Fats from plant sources help your cells function at their highest level. Start consuming flax and hemp seeds because they are the most anti-inflammatory of all the seeds and nuts.

You may have heard of the benefits of occasional fasting. Fasting has been considered a healthful practice for centuries. It may not be something that you intentionally practice. But did you realize that you do some fasting regularly? When you sleep, you are not eating! To gain noticeable benefit from this fasting period, it needs to be long enough for your body to exhaust the “easy calories” and start accessing its reserves. Fasting may be difficult when you feel pangs of hunger through the day, but if you sleep much of your fasting time, fasting becomes quite easy — with a little practice.

Different versions of intermittent fasting have become popular for weight loss and general health. The American Medical Association tested “alternate-day fasting”, where participants ate only 25% of their usual calories one day, then 125% the other. This study showed weight loss similar to those who just cut calories every day, but the study drop-out rate was 38%. This was a helpful but difficult form of fasting. Let’s look at an easier option.

Daily Cycles
When you eat, food breaks down into sugars that your body then uses for energy. Insulin drives and controls this process. If you eat from the moment that you arise to bedtime, insulin has been active much of that time because your pancreas frequently secretes it to drive the sugar to the cells and bring the blood sugar level back into proper range. Excess sugar is stored in body fat, because your body tries to use the sugar and it tries desperately to keep the blood sugar level correct.

When your sugar levels drop too low, your pancreas secretes glucagon instead. This hormone is the opposite of insulin, driving the blood sugar levels back up, and this should happen when you are not getting your supply of sugars from food. The alternation of hormones provides “homeostasis”, which means that you have a relatively constant supply of energy all the time.

If you are spending the majority of your 24 hours of the day producing insulin, you are overusing that hormone. Continued overburdening of this metabolic pathway leads to a reduction of its effectiveness. Your body senses that the insulin is not succeeding in lowering your blood sugar to safe levels, and produces even more insulin to compensate. This works until your cells are even more resistant to the insulin, and eventually you reach the point where your pancreas can’t produce enough to keep up, or it burns out from the effort. At that point, you have diabetes.

Switching over to the glucagon pathway gives your body a rest from the insulin. That switch is vital to restoring insulin effectiveness and resting the pancreas, just as rest is a vital part of exercise to rebuild muscle.

Your body naturally cycles between these two pathways daily.

Fasting Made Easy
When you eat a good meal, you should not feel hungry for a few hours. Take advantage of that time, and add it to the period you sleep, to come up with a longer window of time that you are fasting. Then don’t rush to eat in the morning. Push those borders out and get used to them, and you can regularly achieve a 14-hour fast. Your body adjusts as you practice. Halting your food intake completely after dinner at 5 or 6 PM, combined with a perfect 9.5 hours of sleep would easily get you there. This is called the “10-hour window”. Easing into this window and making it habitual makes this rather easy to do. Some may use an 8-hour window for even greater results.

Now, there are times you should not push fasting. If you are pregnant for instance, or have certain illnesses, this may not be for you in this season. But most people will benefit from the 10-hour window form of intermittent fasting.

Studies Show…
The University of Alabama studied a group of overweight people, divided into two groups. One group ate only over an 8-hour window, while the other group ate during a 12-hour window. Only the eating period was restricted, not the amount that they ate for the day. The 8-hour group had much lower insulin levels, improved insulin sensitivity, and lower blood pressure after five weeks compared to the 12-hour group. And the 8-hour group’s appetite was reduced: without starving, they simply didn’t want as much food. The Salk Institute studied the 10-hour window and participants reduced blood pressure and total cholesterol, reducing cardiac risk, plus lowered blood sugar and insulin levels, reducing diabetes risk.

This form of fasting, by reinforcing the daily rhythm, was highly effective and easily maintained. The most natural pattern we have is the daily cycle, and reinforcing it produces major benefits.

Dr. Nemec’s Comments:
Fasting is a natural part of how your body sustains health. So all you have to do to start on a fasting path is first and foremost fast from the standard American diet. Start eating more raw and living plants, vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts, and stop eating as much bread, pasta, carbs and cooked animal proteins. This becomes denatured in the cooking process and produces inflammation in the body. This is the first fast you should get started on. You can call it a more permanent Daniel fast. From there you can progress to time restriction fasting where you do not eat in between meals, and you never eat after dinner until breakfast. Everyone should be able to do a 12 hour fast every night. The more you rest your insulin secretion, and the more you rest your digestive system, the healthier you will become.

You know that exercise is beneficial, but does it daunt you? Are you thinking that you must spend the time and dredge up the energy for running or going to the gym? Are you doing no exercise because you figure just a little is worthless? Well, it’s not worthless, and a little goes a long way. How about ten minutes of mild exertion — do you have enough time and energy for that?

One study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, determined that after only ten minutes of exercise showed immediate results on detailed memory and thought processing. This is great news especially for the elderly.

A New Perspective
What if you knew that just doing something to get your heart pumping faster for a short while would help you think, work, and remember better — would that make the difference?

You were made to move. Our society is making it increasingly normal to take the easy path: rather than go to the mall and walk significant distances to shop, you can instead get whatever you want delivered to your doorstep. You can get a riding tractor to turn your hour of pushing a hand mower into a few moments of sitting. But what if you consider those moments of exertion as friends? They are exactly that, because they will help you do the moving you were designed for, and in the process improve both your body and your mind.

Work Better
At McMaster University, a study found significant but similar reductions in insulin sensitivity between those who did 45 minute moderate workout routines three times per week, and those who did 10 minute moderate routines with short bursts of high intensity, also three times a week. During the day, you may have tired moments when you just can’t think clearly and time seems to be dragging. If you are sedentary, it’s very likely your insulin sensitivity is poor. That will directly impact your thinking and memory, making the work day that much harder. Can you take a break at work, perhaps to just walk around and then take some trips up and down the stairs? Or perhaps you have some other creative way to move and get moments of exertion.

What is good for your heart is good for your brain. If you spend enough time exercising to break a sweat, you’ve had an impact on both. Once you have warmed up, perhaps you will feel like doing even more. Here’s a secret: activity is addicting. You might find yourself spending more time than you planned in exercise, especially if your activity is interesting.

Brain Benefits of Exercise

• Balance hormones. Hormones directly impact the brain and how you feel generally. If you need focus, you need your hormones in balance. Exercise starts balancing them from the moment you get moving.
• Increase oxygen supply. Well after you’ve exercised, your brain is still receiving increased oxygen due to increased metabolism.
• Disease resistance. You may be dragging some days because your body is working to fend off an infection. Exercise improves your immune system to fight the infection earlier and faster, so you may not even slow down.
• New brain cells. Even with age, there is evidence that you develop new brain cells — this is called neurogenesis. Increased metabolism aids the process.
• Preserve existing cells. Cells sometimes die prematurely, due to lack of nutrients, oxygen, or removal of waste. Exercise gives your brain cells a better environment in which they can thrive.
• Mood. Exercise often improves your emotional outlook, which affects your mind.
• Control inflammation. Exercise tends to reduce inflammation, aiding your body and your mind.

The University of British Columbia researched the effect of regular aerobic exercise on the prefrontal cortex (the thinking control region) and the medial temporal cortex (memory). Both regions showed greater function in participants who spent 120 minutes per week in moderate intensity exercise. Any exercise has benefit, both immediately and long after. A pattern of exercise will have continual benefits. A habit of exercise will alert you, when you get too busy, that you’ve missed your activity and are too sedentary.

Your mind works through your brain and your brain is part of your body. Your mind uses approximately 20% of your body’s total energy. You know exercise helps your body, and perhaps that isn’t enough motivation. Would the promise of a sharper mind make it worth your effort? Even if physically you feel tired after the exercise, your mind will be refreshed right away. Immediate payback — try it!

Dr. Nemec’s Comments:
Life is motion. These studies just confirm the power of exercise. Every cell in your body needs the movement of blood which carries oxygen and food to all the cells, including your brain. If your brain is starved of oxygen or food or stagnated in waste products because of your “lack of motion”, then can you imagine what happens when you go up and down the stairs ten times? Blood movement to your brain and everywhere else in your body! So get up and move and if you can think of nothing else just go up and down the stairs repeatedly. What is the difference between high intensity and low intensity? High intensity is required to sufficiently pump the blood through your heart to your brain. Going for a stroll in the park is good movement, but not as good for the movement of oxygen to the brain. So do them both. The more variety the better.

Popular trends are not always good — this is a good trend: American avocado consumption has multiplied 7 times over the last three decades. Its sales growth has been faster than that of any other fruit. There is an excellent reason for this: avocados are a phenomenal food. Using the Daily Value (DV) measure, a 3.5 ounce serving provides 14% potassium, 17% vitamin C, 20% folate, 10% vitamin E, and a whopping 26% vitamin K, plus up to 14% of B vitamins and 27% fiber. That’s more potassium than a banana, and only 160 calories. The fat is monounsaturated oleic acid, the same healthful fat that makes up 55% – 80% of olive oil.

Avocados are a “satisfying” food — those eating avocados feel satisfied longer than after eating many other foods. This can be helpful in weight reduction. Reducing calories while maintaining high nutrient intake is ideal for weight loss. The fat in avocado assists in the absorption of carotenoids, which are vital antioxidants, making it a great companion to other foods as well. Fresh green salad with avocado mixed in is a potent combination!

With so much value, avocados deserve the title of “superfood”.

Claimed Benefits
Claims vary, but these benefits are almost unanimously attributed to avocado:

– Lowers cholesterol and triglycerides
– Reduces cancer risk
– Reduces risk of heart disease
– Boosts brain function and memory
– Lowers risk of depression
– Increases eye health
– Protects against periodontal (gum) disease
– Eases osteoarthritis
– Lowers high blood sugar
– Protects the liver
– Shows low pesticide levels (non-organic avocados still test 99% pesticide free)
– Prevents or slows progression of some neurodegenerative diseases
– Great during pregnancy, providing many particularly needed nutrients
– Improves healthy gut flora by acting as a prebiotic
– Anti-fungal
– Anti-inflammatory

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey showed a 50% reduction in the odds ratio for metabolic syndrome in avocado consumers and an overall increase in nutrient intake. Tufts University showed a single avocado a day promoted a gradual increase in the lutein level in the eyes of participants, as well as better memory and attention levels, as compared with the control group which did not eat avocados. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a study showing 1 to 3 avocados a day simultaneously decreased LDL levels and increased HDL by 2-3% and dropped triglycerides by 24%. HDL (the “good” cholesterol) sweeps up excess LDL and carries it to the liver which breaks it down, so the combined impact of avocados on cholesterol is huge. A Journal of Periodontology study found that avocado aids dental health by promoting Transforming Growth Factor-beta, which aids tissue regeneration in gums. A Mashhad University of Medical Sciences confirmed daily consumption of avocados improves blood sugar, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and lowers obesity — factors that make up the “metabolic syndrome”. The Physician and Sportsmedicine journal found evidence that avocados improve joint mobility in patients with osteoarthritis. There are many other studies that show specific avocado benefits!

Shopping
Successful shopping for the proper ripeness and quality takes some practice. It is best to buy them green and hard. They will ripen over the next 2 to 4 days. Once the avocados have some give to them and they’re no longer hard then they may be eaten, or they may be stored in the refrigerator for up to a week.

The cut avocado flesh oxidizes quickly. This can be slowed by coating the open surfaces with lemon juice. Only the portions that retain the soft green color are worth eating.

The most common form is the Haas avocado, but there are other varieties that are sometimes available, and over 50 varieties exist. The “Florida” or “Dominican” avocado is much larger, and contains much less good fat and does not tend to fill you up as the Haas variety does. The key is you want to eat avocados that have a significant fat content so that you get filled up. The Haas type does this quite well.

Dr. Nemec’s comments
Avocados are one of the perfect foods — a unique combination, being an oily fat and a fruit means they help curb carbohydrate cravings and are easy on the digestive tract. Since they are filling they also decrease over-eating of protein. They are truly an energy food having twice as many energy units as carbohydrates or proteins. Avocados have been an important part of our diet recommendation for the last 35 years. Everyone should be eating avocados.

Dr. Keith Nemec
Clinic Director
Total Health Institute

What do you feel most like doing when under the weather? Sleeping! Your body knows the value of sleep, and when you are dealing with an infection, it screams for sleep. Because sleep improves the ability of certain white blood cells to grab their targets, it is beneficial when sick, but also in preventing getting sick in the first place.

We are always fending off attacks from our environment, so we need the white blood cells to be working well all the time. Getting good sleep regularly is a key to good health. And the opposite – sleep disorders and high chronic stress – suppresses the effectiveness of the immune system. How do we know? Studies have looked at immune responses with sleep deprivation and with normal sleep during periods of high infection.

Study Findings
The Journal of the American Medical Association Published a study on the impact of sleep and lack of sleep was compared after a toxin was injected. Shortly after the injection, sleep deprivation hampered the antibody response while good sleep significantly improved the response. A few weeks later, after the immune system was no longer challenged, the effects diminished. A German study in the Journal of Experimental Medicine showed that certain “sticky” proteins activated by white blood cells to let them stick to their targets are suppressed by adrenaline and prostaglandin, which are high during stress and lowered during sleep. In other words, the immune system works better during sleep and is challenged during stress. When fighting infection, sleep as much as you can.

A Good Cycle
Sleep and stress are two sides of the same coin. It is the sleep side that we often sacrifice. If we are doing poorly with sleep habitually, we are leaving ourselves open to disease development. The body is constantly cycling. Certain hormones rise to get us going in the morning, and fall as we slow down at the end of the day and then sleep. The immune system requires energy that is diverted when stress tells the body we have an emergency that needs the body’s resources elsewhere. When we sleep, energy goes to healing and the immune system is more effective.

Better Sleep
The first step to better sleep is regularity. Our natural rhythm is to slow down when the sun goes down, and get moving when the light level gradually rises. Second, the stress you experience during the day produces hormones which don’t simply disappear when you go to bed – they take time to drop off. Getting the most important priorities done early in the day may be helpful: get moving in the morning and tackle your big challenges early if you can. These are good first steps.

Dr. Nemec’s Comments:
Sleep is one of our 7 Basic Steps to Total Health foundational teaching that we have used to help thousands of people heal over the last 35 years. Always remember: the earlier you get to bed and the earlier you arise, the healthier your immune system will be. Your body clock or biorhythm matches the sun. When the sun rises you rise, when the sun sets you sleep. The closer you follow this pattern the stronger your immune system will be. How can I get to bed by 8pm you ask? It starts by getting up earlier so your body gets tired by 8pm. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

Dr. Keith Nemec
Clinic Director
Total Health Institute

An Ancient Remedy
Garlic is hardly a new discovery: for centuries it has been used medicinally when the only “drugs” were plants. The sulfur-based compounds from garlic are considered anti-inflammatory, anti-high cholesterol, anti-diabetes, anti-bacterial, anti-parasite, anti-cancer, and anti-fungal. The characteristic odor of garlic comes from the breakdown of allicin, which is part of the garlic plant’s defense system. When the plant is physically damaged or crushed, it releases allicin, which then releases the sulfur compounds over time. Raw garlic can be consumed and also crushed and used topically. Raw garlic applied on the skin kills acne-causing bacteria, so it is even anti-pimple. Be careful about liberal use though – it is potent and can cause a burning reaction.

Research Proves the Power of Garlic 
As published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, Washington State University researchers found that a garlic compound is 100 times more effective in controlling a major food poisoning bacteria than either erythromycin or ciprofloxacin – two often used antibiotics. The American Family Physician reports that regular garlic use may reduce the frequency of the common cold, where antibiotics are not effective. The Iowa Women’s Health Study showed the combined effect of a routine diet of fruits and vegetables combined with garlic showed a 35 percent lowering of cancer risk apart from drugs. A study published in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine showed garlic results similar to praziquantel in reducing parasites without the drug’s side effects. On balance, garlic wins!

Garlic Reduces Inflammation, Increases Glutathione and is High in Vitamins and Minerals
Garlic causes reduction in liver cell damage and pro-inflammatory cytokines. Garlic and allicin mode of action activates and modulates the immune system along with triggering an anti-inflammatory cascade. Garlic is rich in sulfur which is very necessary to produce glutathione in the body, which is one of the strongest antioxidants your body makes to put out free radical fires.
100 grams of garlic has up to 6.36 grams of protein, and contains vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, folate, vitamin C, calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and zinc.

Grow Your Own 
Garlic is easy to grow, although rather slow. It looks like grass as it grows until it reaches full height in mid-summer when it then forms a globe-like flower full of tiny bulblets, which can be used to grow more garlic plants if you are patient. It is great in a home garden, and quite resistant to frost. The garlic cloves are bulbs which can usually survive the winter and start growing again in the spring. One mature clove will become the hard center for a ring of new cloves surrounding it. That ring of cloves matures in mid-summer, and after flowering the plant appears to die off. You can easily harvest cloves at this time, but if you don’t, a new growth cycle begins in the fall. Early in the growth cycle there is little clove material available, but you can still harvest low stems to get some garlic flavor and benefit. You don’t have to be a great gardener to grow garlic – just some sun and weeding. The convenience and fun of having your own garlic supply may make you more of a garlic consumer!

Dr. Nemec’s Comments:
All regions of the world for centuries have used powerful plant herbs and foods to help them heal from a variety of maladies. Garlic is one of the most powerful medicinal foods in the world and has been for ages. How can you improve on a substance that helps you get rid of bacteria, viruses, parasites, boosts your system’s defense to fight off cancer and other pathogens? It also has normalized blood pressure and cholesterol, all with no harmful side effects besides sometimes keeping sick people away from you. Another key component in garlic is sulfur which is key in many cellular reactions including glutathione (the king antioxidant) production to protect your cells from early cell death. Remember it only works when you eat it raw and eat it immediately upon mixing in your favorite plant fat before the enzymes denature. Start with one clove and progressively increase to tolerance.

Dr. Keith Nemec
Clinic Director
Total Health Institute

For a food to be labelled organic, it must be produced:

• Without using chemical pesticides
• Without using synthetic fertilizers
• With no genetically modified organisms

“Does eating organic reduce cancer risk” isn’t a simple question. Let’s break this down:

Pesticides
By nature, pesticides are killers. They are meant to kill insects, which are obviously different than humans, but to expect that something deadly to some life has zero impact on other life is a stretch. When the World Health Organization publishes warnings about pesticides, as it’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) did, we have mainstream agreement about the dangers of pesticides. Some pesticides have been widely banned. The IARC listed two pesticides still in use, Malathion and Diazinon, as “probably carcinogenic to humans”. A number of others it listed as “possibly carcinogenic”. The use of pesticides is clearly a risk, and your risk increases as your exposure increases. Since organic food avoids all these chemical pesticides, right there we can say that eating organic improves your chances of avoiding cancer. What else?

Fertilizers
The first problem with chemical fertilizers is that they supply a limited set of nutrients to the soil (nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium) — hardly the full range of minerals the plants need to give you a full range of nutrients. Over time, the soil, replenished only with the major nutrients, give you less and less of the secondary ones. Thus, the food grows and appears just as good as organic, but the subtle lack of nutrients robs you. Many find the extra nutrient content of organic food just tastes better. When you consider that your body needs the full set of nutrients to keep cancer at bay, not having them is increasing your risk of cancer.

At worst, though, the chemicals used to make artificial fertilizer have a direct link to cancer. The University of Wisconsin linked nitrate fertilizer to damage to the immune, endocrine, and nervous systems of young children. More recent studies show other hidden dangers. Organic food relies on naturally recycled “fertilizer”, which replicates the natural process of plants breaking down and returning their nutrients to the soil. This is a double win: avoid the artificial chemicals and provide all the nutrients.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
Genetic modification is a marvel of modern gene manipulation. Plants can be “taught” to produce pesticides as part of their life cycle. They can be given characteristics of other plants or even animals. They literally become something else. The worst news about modified genes is that they pollinate with others and spread those new genes across the globe. It’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle. So while the effects of these new creations are unknown, massive efforts are being made to retain seeds that have the original genetics before they are lost forever.

The effects of GMOs are hard to pin down, because there are so many versions out there having lots of different effects. But much of Europe has severely restricted their spread due to concerns about their impact. Avoiding them by eating organic seems sensible.

Organics avoid risks across the spectrum, but they are generally more expensive. As they become more popular though, the cost has dropped. Most grocery stores devote at least some aisle space to organic produce and products. Many people say that organics just taste better, and the higher quality has made them more popular.

Direct Evidence
With all the evidence that aspects of conventional foods increase cancer risk, how about studies directly showing that a high intake of organic food reduces cancer risk? The JAMA Internal Medicine journal has concluded a recent study which shows an overall 25% reduction in cancer risk for those who primarily eat organic, with huge decreases in risk of lymphoma and certain other cancers. This is a very prestigious journal confirming with direct evidence.

Less Bad, More Good
Organic farming returns the production of food to the way it used to be, in a sustainable manner which avoids adding harmful chemicals and gives the plants back even the rare nutrients. Organic food is generally given more time to mature, and this also improves quality. Organics avoid risks, both known and suspected, while improving your intake of resources that your body needs to keep cancer from gaining a foothold. If you juice or dehydrate food, you concentrate whatever is in the food, making organics shine even more.

We all have garbage that assails our bodies daily. Some we cannot control, but we can maximize what is good. The overall mix of good and bad our bodies deal with determine our cancer risk. Let’s tilt the odds in our favor!

Dr. Nemec’s Comments:
Obviously the more we move from naturally growing food, as it was meant to be consumed from the beginning, add chemicals to our food, and alter genes, the more stress we are going to put on our systems when this food is digested and absorbed. Chemicals and gene-altering increases the risk of all disease, including cancer. Even the Journal of the American Medical Association has concluded this — so what do you do? Grow you own produce when you can, and when you cannot, remember greens are most important to be organic. But as I have told patients for years: anything you eat from a plant source, even non-organic, is far superior than not eating it at all. Bottom line: buy organic when ever you can, but if you cannot, do not worry because animal products concentrate chemicals and toxins to a much higher degree in their tissues.

That is all for now.

Does physical activity reduce your risk of cancer? Spoiler alert: yes it does! Studies in Cancer Research UK, the American Cancer Society, the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, the European Journal of Epidemiology, and others have observed reduction in risk for those who have even a moderate level of regular aerobic exercise. Recently JAMA Internal Medicine joined the chorus with a massive and detailed study across 13 specific types of cancer showing as much as 42% reduction in risk. When you consider how exercise affects the body, such lowered risk makes perfect sense.

How Exercise Impacts Cancer Risk Factors
Let’s consider just some of the areas where cancer may develop, and what exercise does:

– Lungs: Breathe more, and you increase oxygen, challenge lung function to develop further, and if you exercise outdoors you are reducing the concentration of indoor air pollutants you bring in.
– Colon: As you exercise, you increase the movement of food through the digestive tract. The increased movement tends to reduce inflammation. As we move food waste out of the body, we reduce the irritation and inflammation it can cause.
– Breast: Estrogen, which causes the cells in the breast to divide more often, tends to reduce with exercise. Insulin is also controlled with exercise. As these hormones cause more rapid cell division, the risk of a misfire of the genetic code division is multiplied by the amount of extra division occurring.
– Blood: As you increase circulation, you also improve the oxygen flow to all parts of your body. Good oxygen supply promotes healthy cell development, not cancer.

Basically, aerobic exercise affects every part of our bodies. We are built to move.

Just How Much is Cancer Risk Reduced?
The JAMA study is capturing the medical news because of its size: 1.4 million people were in the study group. Here are some of the risk reductions they determined:

• Esophageal cancer: 42% decrease.
• Myeloma, bladder, colon, neck, or rectal cancer: up to 17% decrease.
• Liver cancer: 27% decrease.
• Lung, stomach, or kidney cancer: up to 26% decrease.

ASCO, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, considers the risk reduction to be 40% to 50% for colon cancer, and 30% to 40% lower for breast cancer. Bottom line: you have a lot less risk of developing cancer with regular aerobic exercise!

Types of Exercise
These studies considered walking, running, swimming, and cycling as good sources of moderate exercise. More than 3 hours a week, or 30 minutes a day of these activities are sufficient. Sports are fantastic, but just taking half of a lunch hour to walk briskly can be enough. We already know how some activity each day improves your mental clarity, makes your joints more limber, and cuts down the insulin and cortisol levels — isn’t it interesting that the same activities would lower cancer risk? Again, it makes perfect sense. Overall, regular exercise is expected to increase longevity by seven years.

Exercise Aids
Weather can make outdoor exercise a challenge at times. Treadmills and indoor cycles are helpful, but also can be rather boring and can be hard on joints. Here’s something else that can help: a Rebounder. This is a specialized type mini trampoline which is tuned to provide a special bounce that is remarkably effective in strengthening each cell with mild or vigorous use. You may want to consider this amazing little device. Consider the Total Health Institute Rebounder.

Dr. Nemec’s Comments:
Exercise is critical and crucial to life and health of every cell in your body. Without the movement of blood and lymph your body would cease to be. When the Journal of the American Medical Association publishes research of over one million people, this is very big. The results speak for themselves. Those that want to overcome any disease including cancer or just stay healthy absolutely must exercise. This includes walking, and any more intense cardiovascular exercise you like from going up and down stairs to swimming. The exercise that people do not do enough of is called lymphatic exercise which is done on a rebounder. Just 5 minutes per hour when you’re home triples your white blood movement for one hour. Very powerful and very simple. Just get on the rebounder and vibrate up and down. Your feet do not have to come off the mat. So start rebounding, walking and going up and down those stairs today.

Dr. Keith Nemec
Clinic Director
Total Health Institute

So many studies show the benefits of probiotics in the digestive tract that their value has become common knowledge. They aid digestion, ease bloating, diarrhea, and gas, and help nutrient absorption. But studies are also showing benefits to the brain and clear thinking. UCLA scientists, Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, and the Max-Delbrueck-Centre for Molecular Medicine have concluded direct connections between probiotic consumption and higher brain function.

Executive Function
The portion of the brain responsible for high-level thinking is the pre-frontal cortex. Reasoning, judgement, and self-control all happen there, helping you to stay calm and think clearly. The brain is living, just like the rest of the body, and the pre-frontal cortex performs better in the right environment. Tests show direct correlation between high beneficial bacteria levels and activity in the pre-frontal cortex. Who doesn’t need clearer thinking and better reasoning capacity, or a calmer attitude?

Research
UCLA researchers found that probiotics did not change emotions, but improved their ability to think and respond. Other researchers ran a direct test on sixty elderly patients with advanced memory loss, giving some a placebo and some probiotics with L. acidophilus and B. Bifidum. Those taking probiotics scored much better in memory testing. Yet another study reversed the tests by wiping out good bacteria in mice with antibiotics – the reverse of probiotic action. The mice almost immediately showed memory loss, and brain cell growth halted. Then, giving the mice probiotics, the researchers saw that their memory and recall improved and their brain cell growth resumed.

Vital Strains
There are about 1,000 species of good bacteria that have been identified to aid the human digestive system, but there are just two primary families that are considered as “key”:

– Lactobacilli, which work in the small intestine.
– Bifidobacteria, which support the colon and lower digestive tract. It has been shown to improve memory and ability to learn in animal studies.

Probiotic bacteria strains are most effective when in balance, and this simply makes sense because they work in different areas and have different benefits.

Benefits of a Clear Mind
If your work requires you think, if your home requires calmness and control, if life requires good judgement and memory — get your gut flora right. Introduce the good bacteria with probiotics, and feed them with a great diet. Then they can improve your body’s environment, which will help give your brain what it needs to flourish. With clear thinking, you can live life fully, rest better, and enjoy more. Your thoughts affect everything you do!

Dr. Nemec’s Comment:
Over the last 35 years we have treated people across the world with most every type of health challenge from advanced cancer to all types of autoimmune disease to every chronic disease of aging, including neurological and mental/emotional. Universally we have found that if you do not restore gut flora and reverse gastrointestinal dysfunction aka “Leaky Gut Syndrome” you do not heal your brain or your body. In the researched publications Leaky Gut always makes a “Leaky Brain” which is inflammatory molecules entering the blood brain barrier cause cognitive dysfunction and mental and emotional imbalance. Everyone we treat is on our probiotic that we have used for many years and have had excellent results with. Remember with disease onset where you have the disease is usually not where the cause is coming from it just the effect of accumulated inflammation.

An Excellent Choice
The Total Health Institute offers a probiotic with the right mix of probiotic organisms to support microflora balance. Your digestive tract is the starting point of nutrition to keep all of your body healthy. The Total Health Probiotic is a great first step towards better health AND clearer thinking!

That is all for now.

Dr. Keith Nemec

Clinic Director

Total Health Institute

P.S. If you are seeking treatment at Total Health Institute you can call to schedule a complimentary phone consultation with one of our health associates to get your questions answered.

You can reach us at 630.871.0000

Over the last 33 years we have had people from around the world come to Total Health Institute to seek healing for their health challenges. People ask us can you heal me from stage 4 cancer? Our response is the same every time. No one can heal you but YOU. We at Total Health Institute make and environment where that healing can occur but it is what you do every day physically and what you think on mentally and emotionally that makes the difference of who is going to heal and …who is not. Do not seek the magic bullet, the cure for cancer, the clinic that can heal cancer, the doctor that can do it for you.

As the Word of God says “Seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well”. Where IS His Kingdom found? In your Holy Spirit filled heart. You have all the answers within you and all the power within you to heal from any disease but you will not access this if you live from your fear and doubt filled mind instead of your Truth filled heart. Everyone who was ever healed by Jesus came to Him in faith meaning they trusted what He said was True. You cannot be double minded meaning half in your mind and half in your heart when it comes to healing. This is lukewarm and nothing will come from this. At Total Health Institute, we address the whole person. We first do physical treatments to balance the systems of the body. Next, we address the mental and emotional blockages because those impact health even more than the physical blockages. If the physical body is balanced and the mind, will and emotions are balanced then the Spirit can flow freely and give life your body. This is called healing or wholeness.

Now we will ask you a question. Can YOU heal from stage 4 cancer? Barbara did and so can you if you follow the steps we outlined above. Listen to her testimony go to https://www.totalhealthinstitute.com/testimo…/barbara-mcneil/

Researchers at the University of Warwick found that the protein, called Nrf2, continually moves in and out of the nuclei of human cells to sense the cell’s health and vitality. When Nrf2 is exposed to threats to the cell’s health it oscillates faster and activates an increase in the cell’s defense mechanism, including raising the levels of antioxidants.

The researchers, from the University’s Warwick Medical School, successfully increased the speed of Nrf2’s movement by introducing health beneficial substances comprised from broccoli-derived sulforaphane and quercetin, which is found in high-levels in onions.

The research team is the first to record the continual movement cycle of Nrf2, which sees the protein oscillate in and out of the cell nucleus once every 129 minutes. When stimulated by health beneficial vegetable-derived substances of broccoli and onion, Nrf2’s cycle sped up to 80 minutes.

Lead researcher says, “The way Nrf2 works is very similar to sensors in electronic devices that rely on continual reassessment of their surroundings to provide an appropriate response. The health benefit of Nrf2 oscillating at a fast speed is that surveillance of cell health is increased when most needed, that is, when cells are under threat.

–Antioxidants and Redox Signaling

Comments by Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec on “Superfoods that act as computer scanners to monitor cell health”:

What this research demonstrated is that God’s natural food stimulates the cells to function at the optimally designed level. The Nrf2 protein acts like a computer going in and out of the cell looking for any abnormality in the cell structure or function. At the first sign of any cell duress it activates antioxidant activity that aids in repair and maintenance. The amazing thing is when you eat broccoli and onions the Nrf2 protein’s activity almost doubles. This is huge when maintaining cellular health because cells are constantly being broken down and damaged with free radicals coming in from the environment and those being generated by normal cellular metabolism.

What foods like broccoli and onions do is to simply see the damage quicker and set off the repair order quicker. This can be analogous to a person who has a hole in the bottom of their boat and the water is running in fast. If you take twice as long to stop that leak it might be too late. The boat will either sink or have severe internal damage. When your cells get a hole in their cell membrane they begin to leak fluid from the outside (extracellular) environment into the controlled inside (intracellular) environment. If too much fluid leaks in then the cell membrane ruptures causing the cell to die. With cell health time is always of the essence so why not just speed up the surveillance and repair process by eating some broccoli and onion each day. To this we would add another vegetable that is equally if not more powerful in overall health- garlic.

Not only does raw garlic cause cancer cells, bacteria, viruses and parasites to die it also acts as a prebiotic and a probiotic at the same time and most amazingly it perform the smart bomb function by killing the bad bacteria and yeast in the intestinal tract but growing the good bacteria. Only God’s food could know what to kill and what to grow.

To sum it up:

1. Eat as much living/raw plant food as possible it has health benefits that are so numerous they have not even started to discover. Make sure you eat some broccoli or even better (50 times better) eat broccoli sprouts. To that add either green or red onions and finally eat as much raw garlic as you can. This can all be put into a salad daily.
2. The cells have a God given wisdom to remain healthy. If you get back to simple pure food, pure water, good sleep, regular exercise and living fully in each moment then the body will do what it was designed to do which is to always heal and maintain longevity.

Sometimes in our search for health we forget that basics are always best. Just get back to basics and your life and health will work much better.

 

New research supports the view that eating large amounts of saturated fat is unhealthy. The Department of Medicine at Imperial College London conducted a study on mice that have an unusually high level of saturated fat circulating in their blood. Results showed that the presence of saturated fat in the blood caused monocytes (a type of white blood cell) to migrate into the tissues of vital organs. Once in the organs, the migrated monocytes are turned into macrophages, some of which went on to absorb fat and transform into ‘foam cells’. Both the foam cells and macrophages then trigger the production of a signaling molecule called CCL4, which attracts more monocytes into the tissue.

This process continues until the level of saturated fats in the blood return to normal. It is thought that this mechanism has evolved to remove fat from the blood. However, the researchers believe that there is a downside to this mechanism, in that the migrating monocytes may worsen tissue damage because they exacerbate ongoing or underlying inflammation. This is not of great concern if blood levels of saturated fats are only elevated very occasionally, but having permanently elevated saturated levels could mean that the migration of monocytes is happening on a routine basis. Modern lifestyles seem to go hand-in-hand with high levels of fat in the blood. This fat comes from the food and drink that we consume.

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s comments on “Saturated Fats Produce Inflammation and Immune Imbalance”

What this research is concluding is this: when you eat saturated fat regularly (which most all Americans do because saturated fats are high in all animal products- meat, chicken, fish, eggs, cheese, milk and is used in processed fats and oils) this fat must be cleared so it does this by sending white blood cells to attack and digest it just the same as if it were a cancer cell and in this process they produce inflammatory molecules that can damage cells, tissues, glands and organs. This causes immune suppression because you are sending too many white blood cells into battle to eat the excessive saturated fat that is floating in your blood that does not leave enough white blood cell warriors to kill and eat the bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites and cancer cells that routinely are found in the body. So be eating too much saturated fat you are causing inflammation to increase and inflammation is the root of all disease. Also you are opening the door to cancer and a host of other diseases.

What can you do?

Eat more plant products and less animal products. Eat more salads, vegetables, seeds, nuts, avocados, low glycemic index fruit and sea vegetables. Eat as little animal products as you need to. The other negative factor of saturated fats is that they clog up cell membranes and that is the life of your cell. Nutrients cannot enter the cell nor can waste products exit a cell efficiently that have too much saturated fats and cholesterol in their membranes.

Remember God’s first plan is always His best:

Gen 1:29-30

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.  And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground — everything that has the breath of life in it — I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. NIV

Scientists have cracked the secret of why some people live a healthy and physically independent life over the age of 100. For the first time, a team of experts from Newcastle University’s Institute for Ageing and Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, explored which biological and pathological processes may be the most important for successful ageing after 100 years of age.

They identified that to live past the age of 100 you must keep inflammation down in the body and telomeres long – which are the part of human cells that affect how our cells age.

Severe inflammation is part of many diseases in the old, such as diabetes or diseases attacking the bones or the body’s joints, and chronic inflammation can develop from any of them.

The lead researcher said: “Centenarians and supercentenarians are different – put simply, they age slower. They can ward off diseases for much longer than the general population.

In groups of people aged 105 and over (semi-supercentenarians), those 100 to 104 (centenarians), those nearly 100 and their offspring, the team measured a number of health markers which they believe contribute towards successful ageing, including blood cell numbers, metabolism, liver and kidney function, inflammation and telomere length.

Scientists expected to see a continuous shortening of telomeres with age, however what they found was that the children of centenarians, who have a good chance of becoming centenarians themselves, maintained their telomeres at a ‘youthful’ level corresponding to about 60 years of age even when they became 80 or older.

The data reveals that once you’re really old, telomere length does not predict further successful ageing. However, it does show that those who have a good chance to become centenarians and those older than 100 maintain their telomeres better than the general population, which suggests that keeping telomeres long may be necessary or at least helpful to reach extreme old age.

Centenarian offspring maintained lower levels of markers for chronic inflammation. These levels increased in everybody with age including centenarians and older, but those who were successful in keeping them low had the best chance to maintain good cognition, independence and stay alive for longer.

It has long been known that chronic inflammation is associated with the ageing process in younger, more ‘normal’ populations, but it’s only very recently we could mechanistically prove that inflammation actually causes accelerated ageing in mice.

This study, showing for the first time that inflammation levels predict successful ageing even in the extreme old, makes a strong case to assume that chronic inflammation drives human ageing too.

This study showed that over a wide age range, including unprecedentedly large numbers of the extremely old, inflammation is an important driver of ageing that might be something we can develop a pharmacological treatment for.

It is hoped that understanding the factors determining extreme longevity may help to achieve extended healthy lifespan for the wider population and to close the gap between the fastest and the slowest ageing population groups.

The results suggest that suppression of chronic inflammation might help people to age more slowly. However, presently available potent anti-inflammatories are not suited for long-term treatment of chronic inflammation because of their strong side-effects. Safer alternatives could make a large difference for the quality of life of older people.

-EBioMedicine

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s comments on “Healthy at 100- Low Levels of Inflammation is the Key”

This article confirms what we have taught at Total Health Institute for the last 32 years. Inflammation is the root of disease. As this study on centenarians showed that those that have the lowest levels of inflammation lived the longest. Very interestingly this study found inflammation levels more important in successful aging than telomere length. Telomeres are the caps at the end of each strand of DNA that protect your chromosomes, like the plastic tips at the end of shoelaces. So what this research is actually saying is that inflammation level is more important that your genes for successful aging.

So the researcher discover a great finding that inflammation is the cause but drop back into the old medical model of trying to make new drugs that decrease inflammation without too many side effects.

Medication has anywhere between 7-500 possible side effects. This means 7-500 other systems or functions of the body that are negatively affected by the medication. This is not logical unless you are in a life threatening emergency!

So the researchers have found the correct cause but their solution is incorrect. The correct answer to decrease inflammation in the body is as simple as 7 Basic Steps to Total Health

Besides the basics of drinking more water, eating more living/raw plant food, getting more premidnight sleep, getting more exercise. The two most important steps are:

1. Fasting from standard American food and from standard American lifestyle habits. This will include what we promote at Total Health Institute- Living a permanent Daniel Fast and also separating yourself from other habits that feed the flesh and not the Spirit. This might include TV, internet, sports, shopping, social engagements or whatever else you feel you are addicted to meaning you must have them. You should only have one addiction in this life and that is to the ONE who created you and sustains you.
2. Developing a strong prayer life is learning how to hear the voice of God spoken into your heart and knowing how to meditate on His Word. Without this all houses are built on sinking sand and when the storms of life come they will crash. Your house must be built on the Rock of God’s unconditional Love and the Grace and Truth that Christ Jesus gives you when you are IN HIM. This all manifests in this realm through the power of the Holy Spirit that lives inside of you but you will have no power of the Spirit if you keep listening to the flesh-filled mind and keep feeding it with these American addictions. The answer is found in Truth. Plant Truth in your heart and you will have a hundred fold harvest in every area of your life.

 

 

 

Reacting positively to stressful situations may play a key role in long-term health, according to researchers.

In a study measuring adults’ reactions to stress and how it affects their bodies, researchers found that adults who fail to maintain positive moods such as cheerfulness or calm when faced with the minor stressors of everyday life appear to have elevated levels of inflammation. Furthermore, women can be at heightened risk.

Inflammatory responses are part of the body’s ability to protect itself via the immune system. However, chronic — long-term — inflammation can undermine health, and appears to play a role in obesity, heart disease and cancer.

These findings add to growing body of evidence regarding the health implications of affective reactivity — emotional response — to daily stressors.

The frequency of daily stressors, in and of itself, was less consequential for inflammation than how an individual reacted to those stressors. Positive emotions, and how they can help people in the event of stress, have really been overlooked.

In the short-term, with illness or exercise, the body experiences a high immune response to help repair itself. However, in the long term, heightened inflammatory immune responses may not be healthy. Individuals who have trouble regulating their responses may be at risk for certain age-related conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline and cancer.

A cross-sectional sample of 872 adults from the National Study of Daily Experiences reported daily stressors and emotional reactions for eight consecutive days. Blood samples of participants were obtained during a separate clinic visit and assayed for inflammatory markers.

Subjects were interviewed by phone every day for eight consecutive days. They were asked to rate their positive and negative emotions, as well as whether or not they encountered stressors. This enabled researchers to evaluate a person’s emotional response on days when they experience stressors, and compare it to days when they do not.

-Health Psychology.

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s comments on “Your reaction to everyday minor stressors will determine your level of inflammation and your development of disease”:

Inflammation is the root of all disease and what this study showed is that inflammation is increased simply by you having the wrong attitude to minor daily stressors. It is not just the big traumatic shock stressors or the long term chronic stress that produces disease. This study demonstrated it was how you handle the little stresses, the minor stresses that determine your level of inflammation and thus your level of health or disease.

Simply put, how you see things is how they become. If you let the minor, little things in life weigh you down then you are producing inflammation and potential disease. On the other hand if you keep your eyes fixed on HIM, your journey and keep going forward, keeping the big picture in mind and not focusing on the little things that wont matter 5 years from now then you will remain in health and become disease protective.

Always ask yourself this question with every stress that comes into your life:

• Is this really worth my energy and effort to focus on this or should I be focused on the solution rather that the problem?
• How can I grow from this so it no longer is a stress?
• Will this matter 5 or 10 years from now?
• Does this have eternal or temporal significance?

You should always be eternally focused not focused on things that are passing away.

Matt 6:33

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. NIV

One way many cancers grow is by oxygen starvation, the tumor gains a sort of cloaking device that protects it from the toxic effects of chemotherapy drugs and radiation, which are designed to seek out well-oxygenated tissue.

Researchers have long tested various approaches to improving blood flow to the tumor in the hopes of restoring potency to treatments. Not much has shown promise.

Until researchers investigated exercise.

Researchers led by Duke Cancer Institute (DCI) scientists studied the impact of exercise in models of breast cancer in mice. They found that exercise stimulated significant improvements in the number and function of blood vessels around the tumors, improving oxygen flow to the cancer site. When treated with chemotherapy, the tumors shrank markedly better than they did in sedentary animals.

The researchers used two different models of breast cancer cells and implanted them in mice, then randomly assigned the animals to either exercise (running on a wheel), remaining sedentary.

Among the animals that exercised, tumor growth was significantly slower than growth in the sedentary mice, and tumor cell death was 1.5 times higher. The density of small blood vessels was approximately 60 percent higher in exercised mice compared to the controls, and oxygen transport improved, leading to less oxygen starvation of the cancer tissue. The vasculature in the tumors also looked and behaved more normally.

Based on the observed effects of exercise on tumor physiology, the researchers next tested whether exercise would improve the efficacy of the chemotherapy drug cyclophosphamide.

Animals were randomized to one of four groups:

1. sedentary,
2. exercise alone,
3. cyclophosphamide alone,
4. or exercise in combination with cyclophosphamide.

The rate of tumor growth was significantly slower in mice treated with exercise and cyclophosphamide compared to all other groups. Tumor growth was also delayed in both the exercise alone and cyclophosphamide alone groups, but there was no difference in tumor growth rate between those two groups, suggesting that exercise showed similar effect as chemotherapy in this experiment.

-JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2015

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s comments on “Exercise equal to chemotherapy in breast cancer”:

Let us state CLEARLY what this research found: Exercise showed similar effects in decreasing tumor growth as compared to chemotherapy!

Let us restate this just incase you still need clarification: You have two choices to get the similar results in stopping cancer?  Door number one is you exercise multiple times per day. Door number two is you go for chemotherapy treatments. Which door do you choose?

Remember God designed the body to stay healthy when you live 7 Basic Steps to Total Health each and every day of your life.

What type of exercise should you be doing multiple times per day?

1. Celllular exercise which moves lymphatic fluid. This is done on a rebounder 5 minutes of light health bounce done each hour.
2. Cardiovascular exercise which moves blood. This can be as simple as going up and down the stair for one minute 1-3 times per day.

Life is motion and this motion helps get oxygen to cells to inhibit cancer growth. Do not wait until you get cancer. Start exercising today and for the rest of your life.

 

Cancer stem cells are what drive cancer growth and spread. To heal cancer you must cause the cancer stem cells to differentiate back into normal cells. This can only be accomplished if the proper internal cellular environment is created.  This environment is affected by both physical and mental/emotional factors.  When chemicals are introduced into the body, this makes cancer stem cells produce non-stem cancer cells rapidly. Only when health promoting environment is produced will the cancer stem cells revert back to normal healthy cells.

The key to heal cancer is found in the cancer stem cell. A cancer stem cell is the cell that produces all the other cancer cells that give a malignant tumor it bulk. The majority of these cancer cells are called non-stem cancer cells. Cancer can be analogous to a bee hive. In the hive the queen is responsible for the growth of the hive. If you killed all the bees but left the queen, she would lay more eggs so that more bees would be produced. The queen represents the cancer stem cell and the rest of the bees in the hive would be the non-stem cancer cells.  You will never get rid of the hive until you get rid of the queen. So it is with cancer. Unless you cause the cancer stem cell to differentiate back into a normal cell, no matter how much chemotherapy or radiation you do, no matter how much tumor shrinkage or cancer reduction you achieve, the cancer will return and be even more aggressive, growing faster.

What causes a normal cell to transform into a cancer stem cell? When the chemical or toxin load builds up to a peak level or oxygen levels drop very low, this triggers a survival mechanism in the cells. The toxicology disease model demonstrates that cancer forms when toxicity builds up to the point that it spills over from the blood to the space between the blood and the cells called the extracellular matrix and then finally spills over into the cell itself and enters the nucleus of the cell where the DNA and genetic material are made. When toxins enter into the nucleus the cell has one final attempt to survive, it dedifferentiates into a stem cell to try to adapt to a toxic environment.

Chemotherapy does not kill cancer stem cells only the outer layers of the tumor made up of non-stem cell cancer cells. Normal cells have a survival mechanism to transform into cancer stem cells to adapt to a toxic environment.  When a person does chemotherapy it will cause more cancer cells to be produced in order to survive an even more toxic environment.  The only logical answer to heal cancer would be to decrease the toxic load and naturally support the function of all systems, glands and organs.

Cancer cells should not be seen as a foreign invader that needs to be destroyed. They are your cells that have adapted to survive. To get them to change back into normal cells calls for a change in the internal environment. Cancer cells grow rapidly in high toxins, low oxygen, high sugar and an acidic environment along with certain mental/emotional traumas or shocks. Cancer cells would have no reason reproduce rapidly and spread if this environment was reversed. If you change the environment you can cause the cancer stem cells to revert back into normal cells. This is the first step in healing cancer. Any alternative cancer treatment must understand this basic premise in order to be successful.

 

The gut microbiome – comprised of several trillion bacteria living in the digestive tract, is gaining recognition as a contributing factor to diseases not only of the GI system, but cardiovascular, immune, and neurological.  Researcher from the Foundation for Integrated Medicine reports on the relationship between the proteins produced by intestinal bacteria and the human central nervous system.  There are various mechanisms through which the microbiome can influence the brain: by stimulating and over-stimulating the immune system, producing neurotoxic agents, releasing hormones or neurotransmitters identical to those made by the human body, or through direct neuronal stimulation that sends signals to the brain. “Through these varied mechanisms, gut microbes shape the architecture of sleep and stress reactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. They influence memory, mood, and cognition and are clinically and therapeutically relevant to a range of disorders, including alcoholism, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and restless legs syndrome. Their role in multiple sclerosis and the neurologic manifestations of celiac disease is being studied. “Nutritional tools for altering the gut microbiome therapeutically include changes in diet, and probiotics.”

-Journal of Medicinal Food.

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s comments on “The Intestine – Brain Connection”:

You have 10 times as many organisms living in your gut compared to cells in your entire body. To say it another way- you are outnumbered 10:1. That is not a problem if the 10 are beneficial health producing bacteria or flora in the intestinal tract but if the 10 are pathogenic bacteria then ill health will always follow. In this research it was found that the intestinal issues affect the brain tissue directly. The primary way the pathogenic bacteria negatively impact your brain and nervous system is through INFLAMMATION. This is why it is critical to have a healthy digestive tract if you want to have a healthy brain, mind, cognitive function, memory and proper balanced emotional responses.

What can you do to balance your digestive tract and thus balance your brain?

1. Eat more living and raw plant foods like seeds, nuts, avocados, olives and olive oil along with all raw vegetables and fruits to include the most important is the avocado but also you can enjoy tomato (yes it is a fruit), lemons and limes. Make sure you avoid sweet fruit because the sugar will cause an overgrowth of candida in the digestive tract and cause not only a weakened immune system but and inflammatory nervous system and brain.
2. Take probiotics daily- we recommend 1-3 caps three times per day. This is the beneficial bacteria that you are “planting” into the soil of your gut.
3. Eat raw garlic- this is God’s food which is medicine. Raw garlic (start with 1 clove and work your way up) not only kills pathogenic bacteria, viruses, parasites, candida and cancer cells but it grows the good bacteria. This is a smart bomb designed by God.
4. Take digestive enzymes with each and every meal- enzymes help you fully digest the food so it does not set off an immune reaction which will then set off and inflammatory cascade that ends with either autoimmune disease or eventual cancer. This is easy just take 3-6 digestive enzymes with each meal and you are covered.

 

An abundant source of antioxidants, walnuts are a good source of protein, fiber, and alpha linoleic acid – a  plant-based omega-3 fatty acid. Researchers from the University of California Davis (California, USA), fed mice either whole walnuts (equivalent of 2.6 ounces for humans), walnut oil or a walnut-like fat for 18 weeks. Both the walnuts and walnut oil slowed prostate cancer growth in mice.  Notably, walnuts and walnut oil increased MSMB mRNA a tumor suppressor and decreased COX-2 mRNA, both reported to inhibit prostate tumor growth.  In addition, both walnuts and walnut oil reduced cholesterol and increased insulin sensitivity.

Researchers at UC Davis and other institutions have found that diets rich in whole walnuts or walnut oil slowed prostate cancer growth in mice. In addition, both walnuts and walnut oil reduced cholesterol and increased insulin sensitivity. The walnut diet also reduced levels of the hormone IGF-1, which had been previously implicated in both prostate and breast cancer.

“For years, the United States government has been on a crusade against fat, and I think it’s been to our detriment,” said lead scientist and research nutritionist. “Walnuts are a perfect example. While they are high in fat, their fat does not drive prostate cancer growth. In fact, walnuts do just the opposite when fed to mice.”

Researchers have been investigating the impact of walnuts on health for some time. A previous study found that walnuts reduced prostate tumor size in mice; however, there were questions about which parts of the nuts generated these benefits. Was it the meat, the oil or the omega-3 fatty acids? If it was the omega-3 fats, the benefit might not be unique to walnuts. Since the fatty acid profile for the soybean oil used as a control was similar, but not identical, to walnuts, more work had to be done.

In the current study, researchers used a mixture of fats with virtually the same fatty acid content as walnuts as their control diet. The mice were fed whole walnuts, walnut oil or the walnut-like fat for 18 weeks. The results replicated those from the previous study. While the walnuts and walnut oil reduced cholesterol and slowed prostate cancer growth, in contrast, the walnut-like fat did not have these effects, confirming that other nut components caused the improvements – not the omega-3s.

“We showed that it’s not the omega-3s by themselves, though, it could be a combination of the omega-3s with whatever else is in the walnut oil,” “It’s becoming increasingly clear in nutrition that it’s never going to be just one thing; it’s always a combination.”

“The energy effects from decreasing IGF-1 seem to muck up the works so the cancer can’t grow as fast as it normally would,” “Also, reducing cholesterol means cancer cells may not get enough of it to allow these cells to grow quickly.”

In addition, the research showed increases in both adiponectin and the tumor suppressor PSP94, as well as reduced levels of COX-2, all markers for reduced prostate cancer risk.

“In our study the mice were eating the equivalent of 2.6 ounces of walnuts,” he said. “You need to realize that 2.6 ounces of walnuts is about 482 calories. That’s not insignificant, but it’s better than eating a serving of supersized fries, which has 610 calories. In addition to the cancer benefit, we think you also get cardiovascular benefits that other walnut research has demonstrated.

Journal of Medicinal Food

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s comments on “Walnuts Stop Cancer and Reduce Cholesterol”

As Hippocrates said “Let your food be your medicine”. Research like this excites us knowing that God put what we needed to stay healthy in the food we eat if we would only eat enough of it and and in the right form. What form is that? Living or raw! Do not cook or you kill the enzymes and denature the proteins and oxidize the fats and make a very healthy food become a very unhealthy one.

What is eye opening about this study is that it was not the omega 3 fatty acids that stopped the cancer but something else in the walnut or a combination of various phytochemicals unique to walnuts that did the job. What does this mean to you? Eat real food! You can take supplements but not at the expense of thinking your okay not to eat the real food also.

Over the last 30 years of seeing patients from time to time a patient would ask be about dry roasted nuts. These are cooked, killed, denatured and not even in the category of a health promoting nut. Once you apply heat you not only destroy all the health benefits but now it becomes a toxin to the body. This is the same principle with glycemic index and food. A raw white potato has a glycemic index of about 25 whereas a cooked potato jumps to100 which is inflammation producing. The raw potatoe has enzymes and phytochemicals that are destroyed with the cooking process and leaves too much sugar as a byproduct.

Take home message is that raw seeds and nuts have many health benefits besides their listed vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acid content. The “secret sauce” is usually found in the unique phytochemicals produced by that plant. These health benefits are only available when the food is uncooked.

One of the greatest risk factors for autoimmunity may be associated with exposure to mercury such as through seafood, a new University of Michigan study says.

The findings found that mercury — even at low levels generally considered safe — was associated with autoimmunity. Autoimmune disorders, which cause the body’s immune system to attack healthy cells by mistake, affects nearly 50 million Americans and predominately women.

“We don’t have a very good sense of why people develop autoimmune disorders,” says lead author the associate professor in the departments of Internal Medicine in the division of Rheumatology, Environmental Health Sciences, and Obstetrics & Gynecology at the U-M Medical and Public Health Schools.

“A large number of cases are not explained by genetics, so we believe studying environmental factors will help us understand why autoimmunity happens and how we may be able to intervene to improve health outcomes. In our study, exposure to mercury stood out as the main risk factor for autoimmunity.”

Autoimmune disease — which can include such conditions as inflammatory bowel disease, lupus, Sjögren’s syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis — is among the 10 leading causes of death among women.

Researchers analyzed data among women ages 16-49 from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Greater exposure to mercury was associated with a higher rate of autoantibodies, a precursor to autoimmune disease. Most autoimmune diseases are characterized by autoantibodies, proteins made by a person’s immune system when it fails to distinguish between its own tissues and potentially harmful cells.

Many fish consumption recommendations are aimed at pregnant women, those who may become pregnant, nursing moms and young children. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) say pregnant women can safely eat up to 12 ounces (340 grams) of seafood a week. This recommendation was before the data from this study was compiled.

The presence of autoantibodies doesn’t necessarily mean they will lead to an autoimmune disease, however, we know that autoantibodies are significant predictors of future autoimmune disease, and may predate the symptoms and diagnosis of an autoimmune disease by years.

 -Environmental Health Perspectives

 

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s comments on “Mercury, seafood and autoimmune disease”

Simply put an autoimmune disease is your immune system is so revved up that it starts attacking your own cells, tissues, glands and organs. This happens when some chemical, toxin or antigen enters the body and starts an immune reaction. If this chemical, toxin or antigen continually enters the body they the immune system gets hypersensitized to it and this is where the problem begins.

Autoimmune disease is a last stage adaptation to an over active immune response. When the immune system is over stimulated in the initial stages can or cannot manifest with allergies. If the root source of these allergies are not found and corrected (this is NOT with allergy shots or medications), then the allergies will eventually become chronic immune overstimulation and can transform into autoimmune disease. Some people skip the symptomatic allergy phase and go right to the autoimmune disease.

Autoimmune diseases and where they originate from:

• Multiple Sclerosis-nervous system
• Rheumatoid Arthritis-joints
• Crohn’s Colitis-bowel
• Diabetes-pancreas
• Hasimoto’s/Graves-thyroid
• Addison’s-adrenal
• Hepatitis-liver
• Nephritis-kidney
• Lupus- systemic, whole body
• Scleroderma-skin
• Vitiligo-skin
• Alopecia-skin
• Meniere’s-ear

The message of this research is that chemicals and toxins at levels that the EPA thought were safe are not. So cut out the fish and anything else that has chemicals, toxins or heavy metals.

 

Mercury exposure comes from coal burning factories (China is the highest) which allows the mercury to circulate worldwide. Once the mercury is in the air it eventually will end up in the water or the land near water and then certain microorganisms can change it into methylmercury that builds up in fish, shellfish, and those that consume the fishes. Methylmercury is a highly toxic form of mercury and a main source of exposure to humans. Other sources of mercury include dental amalgams.

What should you do?

Stop the fish and start getting the mercury out of your system. We use the following protocol at THI:

Detoxification Protocol

1. Toxin Chelation– 3 caps twice a day on empty stomach
2. Spirulina/Chlorella– 2 tablespoons twice a day with food
3. Liver Maintenance– 6 caps twice a day with food or 4 caps three times a day with food
4. Liver Detox Tea– 3 cups a day

Taking in such beautiful wonders as the Grand Canyon, Sistine Chapel ceiling may give a boost to the body’s defense system, according to new research from UC Berkeley.

Researchers have linked positive emotions — especially the awe we feel when touched by the beauty of nature, art and spirituality — with lower levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are proteins that signal the immune system to work harder.

“Our findings demonstrate that positive emotions are associated with the markers of good health,” said researcher at the University of Toronto and lead author of the study, which she conducted while at UC Berkeley.

While cytokines are necessary for herding cells to the body’s battlegrounds to fight infection, disease and trauma, sustained high levels of cytokines are associated with poorer health and such disorders as type-2 diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and even Alzheimer’s disease and clinical depression.

It has long been established that a healthy diet and lots of sleep and exercise bolster the body’s defenses against physical and mental illnesses. But the Berkeley study is one of the first to look at the role of positive emotions in that arsenal.

“That awe, wonder and beauty promote healthier levels of cytokines suggests that the things we do to experience these emotions — a walk in nature, losing oneself in music, beholding art — has a direct influence upon health and life expectancy,” said UC Berkeley researcher.

In two separate experiments, more than 200 young adults reported on a given day the extent to which they had experienced such positive emotions as amusement, awe, compassion, contentment, joy, and love. Samples of tissue, known as oral mucosal transudate, taken that same day showed that those who experienced more of these positive emotions, especially awe, wonder and amazement, had the lowest levels of the cytokine, Interleukin 6, a marker of inflammation.

In addition to autoimmune diseases, elevated cytokines have been tied to depression. One recent study found that depressed patients had higher levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine known as TNF-alpha than their non-depressed counterparts. It is believed that by signaling the brain to produce inflammatory molecules, cytokines can block key hormones and neurotransmitters — such as serotonin and dopamine — that control moods, appetite, sleep and memory.

-Emotion

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s comments on “Nature, Religion and Art”

The key words in this research are “awe and wonder”.

What does nature remind us of?

Why does the Grand Canyon cause awe when we see it?

What do the paintings on the Sistine Chapel bring remembrance of?

When a baby is born and we see the awesome wonder of life what does this baby remind us of?

Rom 1:20

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. NIV

The answer is GOD! So what this research is basically saying in the translated form is that when we see things or think on things that remind us of God our Father in Heaven who created and sustains all things this boosts your immune system and reduces inflammation in your body.

Phil 4:8

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.NIV

Heb 12:2

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…NIV

So lets take this one step further. If looking at the Grand Canyon reminds us of the awesomeness of God and that increases immunity and decreases inflammation then it goes without saying that thanking God for who He IS and praising Him for what He has DONE for you would even boost your immune system more and decrease more inflammation.

This is called prayer. Prayer is not about you it is about HIM! It is not about your needs, but about His kingdom come His will being done hear and now on earth as it is in Heaven.

If you could always remember this one simple Truth it would transform your prayer life. IT IS ALWAYS ABOUT HIM NEVER ABOUT YOU!

Now you might say what about me? Remember it says the God knows what you need before you even ask. He is always looking out for you but you have to be in His presence to hear His Holy Spirit speaking to your heart and that comes when you are in a constant state of thanksgiving and praise.

Eccl 5:7

Therefore stand in awe of God. NIV

Luke 5:24-26

He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.” NIV

Luke 7:14-16

Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. They were all filled with awe and praised God.NIV

Acts 2:42-47

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.  All the believers were together and had everything in common.  Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,  praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.NIV

Ps 47:2

How awesome is the Lord Most High,the great King over all the earth! NIV

Ps 68:35

You are awesome, O God. NIV

Acts 3:6-10

Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. NIV

Isa 9:6

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. NIV

1 Peter 2:9-10

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. NIV

Ps 145:5-6

They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works. They will tell of the power of your awesome works, and I will proclaim your great deeds. NIV