I’ve heard of everything from lemon juice, syrup and cayenne pepper to the “all coffee” diet.  Some of these diets involved taking unregulated supplements and one over the counter pill promised diarrhea if one ate too much fat in one serving.

Are any of my readers disgusted?  Maybe.  Are any of you surprised?  Probably not.  Right on par with “get rich quick” schemes, people are highly susceptible of “lose weight quick” promises.  I’m all for the easy route but denying the body vital fuel (food) simply isn’t the way.

So many diet claims are that you will lose weight quickly, some can guarantee 5-10 pounds per week.   Oftentimes, these same diets deliver on their promise, at least initially.  The first two weeks of any extreme diet usually involve several pounds of weight loss on the scale, depending on one’s starting weight.

This is for a couple of reasons.  First, radical diets generally involve extreme caloric restriction and sometimes even fasting.  This is misnomer; however, that one is actually losing weight in the form of fat.  Muscle tissue needs nutrients from food in order to stay healthy. 

To actually lose muscle weight is much more likely with an extreme diet because the body wants to go into “protection” mode.  Fat will try to remain behind to protect and insulate this suddenly compromised body.

Additionally, many of these same diets allow for only bland, unseasoned food, if it does indeed offer food.  For many who want to lose weight, their current diets, in addition to being high in fat, are also high in sodium.

Once the restrictive diet is started, fluids are shed but the fat remains.  This offers no long term weight loss solution.  In fact, many who start and stop extreme diets actually gain even more weight than before the diet.

In fact, while there are many diets which come and go, the food pyramid is, in the end, the most reliable way to safely lose and maintain a healthy weight.    7-8 servings of whole grains, 4-5 servings of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and dry beans is recommended.

Limit lean meats to 2-3 servings per week in addition to limiting sweets fats and oils.  As you guessed, this is a change to eating which should be a permanent change, not a diet.

In order for the body to function properly, it needs the proper amount of food to efficiently fuel it.  If you want to burn more calories than you are taking in, you need to make an impact on how that fuel is utilized. 

Daily exercise is of course one method.  I also highly recommend my Weight Loss Breeze program.  This is one occasion where a simple change can lead to a permanent weight loss solution.  My program is all natural and guaranteed!

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In addition to this we most often told to change our exercise and eating habits.  For many, this means adopting some sort of exercise routine after years of inactivity.

All of this we do without question, for the most part, rightfully so.  If blood pressure and cholesterol are high, medication often works.  Diet and exercise tend to be improved but often, a new habit, even if healthy is not one that is easily adopted.

Medication is easier, because it involves very little investment.  Pick up the prescription(s) and take it every day.  It’s not until other side effects of the medication appear that we even question why we need to take it.

Let’s go back to the basics.  Why is it important to get control of high blood pressure, or hypertension?  High blood pressure can eventually lead to tissue damage which includes the heart, kidneys and eyes.  This, in turn, can lead to heart attack, stroke, blindness and other adverse health effects if left untreated.

High blood pressure is defined as a systolic reading of 140 or higher and diastolic pressure of 90 or higher.  High blood pressure generally presents with no symptoms, hence, the “silent killer” title. 

Cholesterol is a fatty or waxy substance that is found in cell walls and tissues all over the body including the heart, liver, brain, skin, nerves and intestines.  Cholesterol is needed by the body in order to produce certain needed hormones, process vitamin D and bile needed to break down fats.

Only a very small amount of cholesterol is needed to do this, however.  Too much cholesterol in the body can lead to deposits and buildup in the arteries.  One area this causes concern is in the coronary arteries.  This can lead to coronary heart disease (CHD). 

Left untreated, this can cause a narrowing of the artery walls, thus limiting the amount of blood (and with it vital oxygen) that passes to the heart muscle.  This can in turn, lead to angina (chest pain) and eventually heart attack.

High cholesterol can be discovered with simple blood tests.  Low-density lipoprotein or LDL (bad cholesterol), high- density lipoprotein, or HDL (good cholesterol) and triglycerides (other fatty substances in the blood) are measured.

Several studies have shown that diets high in saturated fats (fats which come from animal products and some oils) can lead to high cholesterol.  Other factors include heredity (history of high cholesterol in one’s family), obesity, age (cholesterol increases with age), sex (men under 55 typically have higher cholesterol rates than women under 55), stress levels and alcohol use.
 
While moderate drinking actually shows an increase in HDL levels, it doesn’t lower LDL levels and excessive drinking can lead to liver disease and high blood pressure.

While high blood pressure does not lead to high cholesterol, studies tell us that they are two of the leading controllable risk factors for heart disease, the number one killer in developed countries.  These same studies tell us that the chances of someone with high blood pressure and low cholesterol (and vice-versa) are less than 10 percent.
 
This shouldn’t be surprising as they share many of the same risk factors (age, weight, diet).  Added to this, it takes different drugs to treat each condition.  This often leads to multiple medications and a greatly increased chance for dangers of drug interactions.

What can you do to lower your cholesterol?  I highly encourage you to try my Beat Cholesterol in Thirty Days program.  It is an all natural, easy to follow program.  If high blood pressure is also your concern, my High Blood Pressure program has helped thousands of people find relief.  I highly encourage you to try it today!

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Along with that, of course, are personal stories, telling me just how much one or more health issues can affect one’s well being. That means both physical and mental well being.

I recently came across an email from a woman telling me that she tried my Stop Snoring program as a last result before divorce. Eh? She had been suffering from sleep apnea with snoring as a side effect for years.

During sleep apnea, the airway is obstructed and one literally stops breathing several times per night. Some people with serious sleep apnea actually stop breathing over 100 times per night.

She had purchased several over the counter remedies, only to be disappointed. It wasn’t until a yearly physical that her high blood pressure, likely as a result of years of sleep apnea and snoring, was diagnosed.

Added to that was an unsympathetic husband who shared her bed and was routinely awoken by the sound of her either snoring loud enough to hear her from the next room or of her gasping for breath after not breathing for several seconds (another side effect of sleep apnea).

Of course one can be sympathetic to this husband who’s mental and physical health were likely affected, as he wasn’t getting a full night’s sleep each night.

His final solution was to tape her as she slept, snored and gasped and then to play the tape suddenly, unannounced while they were entertaining guests one night. Quite understandably, she was mortified. Quite understandably as well, she was depressed.

Of course the depression had started years before. Along with snoring and high blood pressure, weight gain was an added side effect. When one doesn’t get enough sleep, the body will get its energy anywhere it can, and that usually means food.

What this client didn’t realize is that along with snoring, high blood pressure, insomnia and weight gain, depression and personality changes are also side effects of sleep apnea.

So there were two people sharing a marriage and a bed who for different reasons, weren’t sleeping well at night and whos personalities and moods were definitely the result. My client with her depression and her husband with his passive aggressive disorder.

I suppose her obvious solution was to control the one thing she could – a bad marriage. Before she did this, however, she purchased my program and was pleasantly surprised to see immediate, positive results.

Eventually, her snoring, high blood pressure, weight gain and sleep apnea all disappeared. This, along with recent positive feedback and support from her husband helped her through her depression and spurred her to write to me.

I highly recommend that anyone suffering from mild sleep apnea or snoring try my Stop Snoring program. The program is all natural and best yet, it works!

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While I didn’t understand the disease at all, I can remember being confused and a little frightened about a medical condition that could hurt so much.

Known as a “rich man’s disease,” gout is a form of arthritis whose symptoms tend to present suddenly and without warning, the first attack typically being the joint below the big toe.

Symptoms include red, tender, swollen and hot joints, ligaments and tendons of the toes, feet, hands, ankles and knees. The attack of gout is generally most painful for several hours up to 24 hours after onset.

Typically, people are in discomfort from a gout attack for several days to several weeks after the attack. After the initial attack, following attacks are typically seen more frequently, with more intense pain and involving more joints than the first.

Gout is a result of having too much uric acid in the blood. Sharp crystals build up in the joints, ligaments and/or tendons, which result in the above mentioned symptoms. In some cases, too little uric acid can cause the same symptoms.

Men typically report symptoms of gout more often than women and tend to suffer attacks of gout at a younger age. Women tend to report the condition with much greater frequency after menopause.

What puts one at risk for gout? Sometimes (less than 15%) of cases are due to lifestyle. Alcohol consumption can impair the kidney’s ability to remove excess uric acid. Additionally, eating organ meat (especially red meat) and seafood can contribute to higher levels of uric acid.

Gout can also be brought on by other medical conditions, the main one being high blood pressure, or hypertension. Atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries) and hyperlipidemia (high amounts of fat and cholesterol in the blood) and diabetes can also contribute to gout.

Obesity and a sedentary lifestyle are also contributors to gout. As you may have guessed, they are also contributors to hypertension and adult diabetes.

Medications are generally prescribed for the first attack and may be necessary to prevent follow-up attacks. Health and lifestyle changes are generally recommended, especially if one is to try to forgo medicine and its accompanying side effects.

Whether to prevent a recurrence of gout and to improve your overall health, it’s important that you not let your high blood pressure go untreated. I highly recommend my High Blood Pressure program. It’s all natural and results are incredible! If weight loss is your goal in staying gout free, I also recommend my Weight Loss Breeze program!

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I can’t imagine having those symptoms, oftentimes once or more per month, for such a long period of time.  Of course, I guess, I can.  But that is all it is – imagining having to arrange my life to suit this unwelcome visitor.  Having to avoid people and places because one never knows exactly when vertigo is going to rear its ugly head.

Just imagining the above puts me in a depressive state.   That is why it is so exciting to receive positive feedback. 

Many of my clients say they purchased my program after having extensive testing performed to rule out other causes of dizziness, only to be put on prescription medicines with side effects that didn’t seem to be worth the cure.

Many of my clients who responded fell into two groups:  The first being those who suffered vertigo as a result of a disorder of the peripheral vestibular system (structures of the inner ear), and those who suffered vertigo as a result of a disorder of the central vestibular system (vestibular nerve, brainstem, and cerebellum).

There were many who fell into the group of “No one knows what is causing this.”  Several of my clients, however, wrote to tell me that they’d been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and vertigo was determined to be a side effect.

Other side effects commonly reported were panic attacks, whose own symptoms include perspiration, shortness of breath, rapid or fluctuating heart beat and chest pain. 

Some anxiety disorders include phobias (irrational fear of simple things or social occasions) and others include Obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD (obsessive thoughts and compulsive actions including hoarding, listing, checking and counting).  In fact, in several studies, researchers have found that almost 50 percent of those diagnosed with anxiety disorder report vertigo as a symptom.

As if this weren’t bad enough, many also reported anxiety over experiencing dizziness.  This could lead to a panic attack which could lead to, you guessed it, more dizziness.

While some did find relief with anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medicines, these prescription medicines all have side effects which include dizziness and nausea.  Some clients who wrote told me that they never experienced vertigo before taking anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety medications but said that they needed these medicines and were looking for a way to combat the dizziness.

Regardless of your reason for vertigo or dizziness, I highly encourage you to try my Dizziness and Vertigo program.  The program is all natural and the results are guaranteed!

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As the title indicates, I’ve received several emails from people who’ve tried both my High Blood Pressure program and my Weight Loss Breeze program.  They have written me to tell me that in addition to lowering blood pressure or losing weight, the programs helped improve their poor circulation.

I am then asked if I think the two conditions could be related.  The answer is “yes,” undoubtedly.

Poor circulation means limited blood flow throughout the body.  What typically presents first is numbness and/or cramping, generally in the hands legs and feet.

Over time, however, symptoms also present as coldness in the limbs, extreme tiredness in the legs or even all over, pain in the limbs, redness and swelling, water retention, headache, sleep interruption, skin ulcers, loss of libido and even loss of mental acuity.

These symptoms are logical when one considers what is happening to the body when blood flow is diminished.  Blood needs to travel appropriately to all of the organs and tissues in order to deliver its much needed oxygen supply.  Since the blood is still being delivered but not in an optimized fashion, proper oxygen supply is missing and the above symptoms appear.

Over time, poor circulation can lead to high blood pressure which can then lead to organ damage (including the heart, kidneys and eyes) which can then lead to stroke, heart attack and blindness.  Additionally, blood clots can form which can lead to stroke.

So, what causes poor circulation?  The most common causes are atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries), obesity, inactivity (oftentimes goes hand in hand with obesity), diabetes, varicose veins and deep vein thrombosis.

Atherosclerosis can lead to high blood pressure but high blood pressure can also cause atherosclerosis so it can be a “chicken or the egg” effect.  This is why in the end, high blood pressure can both cause and be a side effect of poor circulation.

Diabetes has its own complications because its side effects include both small blood vessel damage (this is why amputation is so often a result of untreated diabetes) and water retention.  Both of these have been proven to lead to high blood pressure.

If your doctor has told you that you need to lower your blood pressure or lose weight in order to correct your poor circulation, I highly encourage you to try both my High Blood Pressure program and/or my Weight Loss Breeze program.  They are all natural and guaranteed to work!

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This sort of got me to thinking. I can recall when I first heard of Monosodium glutamate (MSG). At the time, it was the latest and greatest thing. These days, everyone seems to be scrambling to avoid it.

I avoid it as well but I wondered just how many people avoid it for their health without actually knowing what it is and what ill side effects are associated with MSG.

MSG is a chemically created flavor enhancer. It has been used since the early 1900s when the Japanese “discovered” it.

It is used in many types of foods including soups, any ready-to-eat meal, processed foods like, canned meat, vegetables, fish and condiments. Basically, you’d have to look to avoid it.

MSG is also hidden by certain word substitutes on the labels. Look for “natural flavorings” or “hydrolyzed sodium.”

OK, so what’s the big deal? I don’t mind a little flavor enhancer if it makes my food better and I don’t suffer as a result.

The problem is that for many, there are side effects of MSG and not all of them are minor. MSG is actually an excitotoxin. This means that its chemical makeup does actually “excite” the brain’s neurons (brain cells) and can in some cases, cause them to die.

Side effects can include rashes, headaches and symptoms of allergies such as sneezing, wheezing and nasal discharge.

As this chemical additive affects the brain, it can for many, exacerbate an already existing neurological disorder such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s.

Serious and potentially life-threatening side effects credited back to MSG include asthma attacks, brain cell death, seizures and even tumors.

Yes, taste is great but so is our health. In the end, natural is best so in order to ensure optimal brain activity and health, I avoid MSG and would encourage others to do so.

I also highly recommend my Dementia program for anyone suffering from dementia or mild Alzheimer’s. The exercises are all natural and results are guaranteed!

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He absorbs information at a decent rate but what gets me most is his sincere devotion to understanding the world around him.

As I tried to come up with situations where he could relate because he knew exactly what the person had gone though versus situations where he felt badly but had never personally suffered the same experience, he said, “Before this morning, I would have had sympathy for someone with neck pain but no empathy.”

He went on to explain that he’d slept with his head in a bad position the night before and now had pain. This prompted a neck pain empathy story from me (having suffered a neck trauma before) and finished with another guest relaying her story of cervical vertigo.

She had been in a car accident two years previously and actually lost consciousness for several minutes. While recovering in the hospital she suffered excruciating pain in her neck as a result of severe whiplash.

While still in the hospital, she was diagnosed as having BPPV (Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo), which is not uncommon given her injury.

Her symptoms included: nystagmus (shaking of the eye), nausea, vomiting, sweating and auditory issues including pain and tinnitus (ringing in the ear). All terrible symptoms on their own, let alone combined; however she said the worst to her was the near constant dizziness and pain, in that order.

Physical therapy did help with the majority of the symptoms but to this day, her neck pain and dizziness remain. Added to that, it took over a year for her to even be diagnosed with cervical vertigo. This is because other causes of vertigo including inner ear disease have to be ruled out first.

At this point, knowing what her condition was didn’t help much as far as the pain and dizziness was concerned. Pain medications alleviated some symptoms but created their own nasty effects. Physical therapy provided the most relief but the exercises didn’t seem to be specific enough.

Before following up on another friend’s advice to see a chiropractor, she did some research and learned that manual manipulation of the neck and spine could actually make the condition worse.

Now, things were “OK,” as she put it, with the only problem now being that when she would turn her head suddenly, at a certain angle, dizziness and pain would ensue – sometimes for hours.

Having heard this story, both my friend’s son and I sat with our jaws dropped. I, because I have programs I was sure could help, having gone through neck pain due to injury and my young friend because he had a sore neck for a day.

He decided that no, he did not, in fact have that level of neck pain empathy but that was OK. Sympathy would suffice.

I also urged my new friend to try both my Dizziness and Vertigo program and my Neck Pain program. I’m excited to see how they will help her and I’m excited to see how they can help you as well!

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I am also very interested in knowing what I have control over (diet, exercise, etc.) and what I don’t have control over (genetics, mass pollution, etc) where my health is concerned.

On a regular basis, I perform research on health topics that are important to me and my clients. As a result of this research I recently came across a lot of information on cytomegalovirus, or CMV and its recent link to high blood pressure.

Like so many viruses, CMV takes its name from Greek - cyto (cell) plus megalo (large). This virus is actually part of a larger herpes virus family. It is part of the same virus family of which mononucleosis is a member.

Between 60-99 percent of the population has the CMV virus. It is found in all countries and socioeconomic communities, although percentages of infection are higher in developing countries. It can be passed via close contact with bodily fluids such as saliva, urine and semen.

I found this number to be of concern for two reasons. First, even 60 percent of the population is an extremely large number to be affected by a virus I previously knew nothing about. Second, I found a 39 percent gap in infection rate reports to be inconsistent.

Not being a doctor, I asked a good friend who is a doctor about this. He told me that this virus is indeed widespread (basically everyone age 40 or older is at least a carrier of the virus). What?!?

My friend went on to explain that the virus doesn’t generally produce symptoms in children or adults unless the patient is has an immune compromised system already (HIV infected, organ transplant recipients and elderly patients).

While rare, the condition can be life-threatening but generally only for the above mentioned group and in about one percent of babies it can result in certain birth defects.

OK, I can live with that (no pun intended).

Recent studies however have shown that there is indeed a link between CMV virus and atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). This in turn can lead to high blood pressure on its own but is even more likely when combined with a high cholesterol diet.

This is most common in patients over the age of 80 but even though less common, can affect younger patients as well. Left untreated, high blood pressure (HBP) can affect all of the major organs and can cause heart attack, stroke and blindness.

This opens new doors as far as preventative medicine is concerned. New research has lead many experts to consider vaccines as an option when looking at high blood pressure patients.

So what can I do today to protect myself for tomorrow? Diet and exercise are chief ways to reduce or eliminate HBP. Prescription medicine is also an option but at the risk of sounding like a broken record…ALL of these medicines have side effects, many of them serious.

I recommend my all natural High Blood Pressure program. The relaxation and breathing exercises are easy to do and the results are amazing, both short and long term!

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To look at her I sort of had to agree.  What had happened to that “glow” pregnant women are supposed to have?  It had been replaced by a puffy nose and dark circles under her eyes.

She explained that as soon as she hit her third trimester, she started having chronic neck pain.  This was not just a problem during daylight hours.  She also found that she had trouble sleeping, which actually seemed to make the neck pain worse.

Neck pain is one of the most reported discomforts of pregnant women.  In fact, over eighty percent of pregnant women have complained of neck pain, back pain or a combination of both.

There are a few reasons for back and especially neck pain during pregnancy.  First, the weight gained during pregnancy is sudden and typically specific to one area – the uterus.  This, in turn pushes forward the woman’s center of balance and the body has to quickly try to adjust to changes in weight and body size on an almost daily basis.

Even if a woman gain’s weight all over, this offers not a lot of relief as the weight gain itself can cause neck and back pain.  In fact, neck and back pain is commonly reported as a concern for obese men and women.

Another reason for pain during pregnancy is due to hormones which can affect ligaments and joints, causing them to become more loose and pliable. 

While a great concept in relaxing the pelvis to allow for childbirth.  Due to this “relaxing” effect, the joints and ligaments in the back and especially neck are compromised as far as support is concerned.

Typical remedies include specifically designed cervical pillows in order to align the neck and spine, applying ice to the affected area and head and neck exercises.

In fact, a client of mine has stated that for each of her two previous pregnancies, she experienced excruciating neck pain.

She had tried neck pillows and ice treatments during her pregnancy but with limited success.  It wasn’t until she had completely recovered from her pregnancy that she noticed improvement.

Her doctor suggested she look into specific exercises for the neck and to take a preventative approach, meaning, start the exercises before the pain started.  I’m happy to report that she is delighted with my Neck Pain program!

I highly encourage you to try my Neck Pain program, regardless of your reason for neck pain.  The program is all natural and the results are guaranteed!

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