Yet another study recently emerged showing new promise for grape seed extract. With nearly 12,000 people dying  of head and neck cancer in the United States each year and with worldwide cases exceeding half a million, the good news is that grape seed extract can turn the tide.
Grape Seed Extract kills cancerous cells of the head and neck

A study published  in the journal Carcinogenesis shows that in both cell lines and mouse models, grape seed extract (GSE) kills head and neck squamous cell carcinoma cells, while leaving healthy cells unharmed.
“It’s a rather dramatic effect,” says Rajesh Agarwal, PhD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and professor at the Skaggs School of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
It depends in large part, says Agarwal, on ahealthy cell’s ability to wait out damage.
“Cancer cells are fast-growing cells,” Agarwal says. “Not only that, but they are necessarily fast growing. When conditions exist in which they can’t grow, they die.”
Grape seed extract creates these conditions that are unfavorable to growth. Specifically, the paper shows that grape seed extract both damages cancer cells’ DNA (via increased reactive oxygen species) and stops the pathways that allow repair (as seen by decreased levels of the DNA repair molecules Brca1 and Rad51 and DNA repair foci).
“Yet we saw absolutely no toxicity to the mice, themselves,” Agarwal says.
“I think the whole point is that cancer cells have a lot of defective pathways and they are very vulnerable if you target those pathways. The same is not true of healthy cells,” Agarwal says.

The Agarwal Lab hopes to move in the direction of clinical trials of grape seed extract, potentially as an addition to second-line therapies that target head and neck squamous cell carcinoma that has failed a first treatment.

If you don’t know what goes on in the olive oil industry, chances are you maybe eating olive oil that’s not really olive oil.

Massive fraud
The olive oil industry is riddled with fraudulent practices. Most olive oil is a low-grade mixture of olive oil and canola oil that has been deodorized and artificially colored — even if the label states “extra virgin, cold pressed.” Even if (and most likely) the label states that it was made in Italy.

Restaurant “olive oil” isn’t
Restaurants the world over are offering their patrons a brand of olive oil that is sold as “grocery store olive oil” — it’s cheap and adulterated. Worse, many restaurants cut their olive oil with canola oil.

Health benefits
Olive oil in its pure and unadulterated form is a great food. It’s one of the pillars of the much-heralded Mediterranean Diet that holds the greatest potential for the lowest disease rates (especially heart disease) and the greatest states of health. Of course, when the olive oil is tainted, there goes the neighborhood.

Polyphenols protect your health
Olive oil is a wonderful source of polyphenols. Research shows that these lower cholesterol* and yield other benefits. Polyphenols are antioxidants that protect the cells from the oxidative damage by oxygen “free radicals” that continually circulate throughout the body.

A Portuguese study of the major antioxidants in olive oil showed that one in particular, DHPEA-EDA, protects red blood cells from damage more than any other constituent in olive oil. This compound is the major health benefit associated with virgin olive oils, which contain increased levels of DHPEA-EDA compared to other oils. In virgin olive oils, DHPEA-EDA may make up as much as half the total antioxidant component of the oil.**

But if your olive oil isn’t really olive oil, then you’re not only lacking the important constituents of the food, but you’re actually injuring yourself by eating bad oil. Bad (and altered) oils harm the body, while good oils build the health. And contrary to popular belief, good fats actually protect the body from heart (and other) disease. They also support the nervous system, hormonal system, vascular system, eyes, brain and skin.

Olive oil is  a great source of good fats and vitamin E and is rich vitamins A, B-1, B-2, C, D, E and K and in iron. For thousands of years olive oil has been used by native Mediterranean cultures to as a curative food as well as a topically-applied salve.

Uninformed public can’t recognize good oil
Good olive oil gives off a slight burning sensation in the back of the throat. It’s a sign of high polyphenol count. Unfortunately, because we are so out of touch with the growing, harvesting, tasting and creation of real food these days, few people understand how good oil is supposed to taste.

How do you know which olive oil to buy?
First, I highly recommend that you read the book Extra Virginity by Tom Mueller to understand the length and breadth of this problem. Then you can go online and read about the industry fraud. The more educated you are the better chance you’ll find the real and be eating for health.

Olive growers who do things right
Go to the website of the California Olive Oil Counsel and you’ll find some reliable olive oil sources.
One such grower and producer is KATZ.

Albert Katz, whose family produces olive oil in the Suisun Valley (eastern neighbor to the Napa Valley), California, and has won twenty-four gold medals over the last ten years told me, “I was a chef for the first half of my working life and I fell in love with olive oil in the 80′s. After a trip to Italy in 1990, I became addicted to the green elixir and vowed that I would come back to California and figure out how to produce it. It has been over 20 years since that trip, but I think I finally have attained that dream.”

Regarding the integrity of olive oil on the market today, Katz explained, “Americans in general do not really understand that ‘extra virgin’ as used by most of the industrial brands found in supermarkets throughout the US means absolutely nothing and is not policed by any federal agency. As you might know most oils labeled with this designation are not actually EVO even measured against commonly accepted world standards. In fact, studies have shown that close to 80% of those industrial brands are not even made with olives! We have seen a dramatic increase in consumer awareness and education over the last 5-10 years and the proof is in the pudding…so to speak…as we sell out every drop of oil we can produce from our trees every year. So we know many ‘enlightened’ consumers actually get it!”

Eat olive oil as if your health depended on it, because it does.

* Ann Intern Med. 2006 Sep 5;145(5):333-41.
The effect of polyphenols in olive oil on heart disease risk factors: a randomized trial.
Covas MI, Nyyssönen K, Poulsen HE, Kaikkonen J, Zunft HJ, Kiesewetter H, Gaddi A, de la Torre R, Mursu J, Bäumler H,Nascetti S, Salonen JT, Fitó M, Virtanen J, Marrugat J; EUROLIVE Study Group.

** Wiley-Blackwell (2009, April 1). Source Of Major Health Benefits In Olive Oil Revealed.

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by Vic Shayne, PhD

Professor Maurice Bennink, Food Science and Human Nutrition, Michigan State University, says eating beans can reduce malnutrition and chronic diseases.

Bennink says, “Chronic diseases (certain types of cancer, Type II diabetes, heart disease, and other diseases of the blood system) typically take many years (10 to 30 years) to develop. Chronic diseases are the most common causes of death in industrialized countries and they significantly lower the quality of life for millions.”

But hold on a minute! Aren’t beans known to have lots of carbs?

Yes, beans have carbohydrates, but they are also a great source of protein. Plus, their carbohydrate content is not to be confused with bad carbs such as table sugar, cookies or white bread. Such foods have been linked to obesity, heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases.

Elevated glucose (blood sugar) and chronic low blood sugar are two major problems that result from poor diets. Beans can help.

Beans are low on the glycemic index

High glycemic foods cause a more rapid and greater rise in blood glucose and insulin than foods with a low glycemic index even though the amount of carbohydrate consumed is equal. Not all carb foods are the same. Compared to other carbohydrate sources, beans have a low glycemic index. This means they do not cause stress on your pancreas or the ups and downs in blood sugar levels that are unhealthy.

High glycemic index foods are known to cause rapid elevations in blood glucose and insulin following a meal.

Beans are also high in fiber, which is good for lowering cholesterol, keeping the bowels working and regulating blood sugar.

What’s wrong with being overweight?

Bennink reports, “Excess body fat increases the risk of developing heart disease, strokes, Type II diabetes mellitus, and some types of cancer. There has been a steady increase in the percentage of overweight and obese individuals in North America and Western Europe. The increase in obesity is considered to be of epidemic proportions in the U.S. and in most developed countries. For example, on a worldwide basis, more than one billion adults are overweight and more than 300 million are obese . In the U.S. more than 60% of the adult population is overweight or obese. Obesity and overweight account for approximately 300,000 deaths per year in North America and the cost associated with excess fatness is estimated to be greater than 117 billion dollars per year.”

A good food

In the 1960s I remember watching President Kennedy making an appeal to the American public on television. He was bemoaning the fact that so many underprivileged children were eating beans instead of meat and he hoped we could change that picture. While the president was well-meaning, now that we know more about the nutritional value of beans, it’s clear that his administration could have made more of a push to wipe out the wave of refined and processed foods that were about to swamp the nation and cause the most harm.

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by Vic Shayne

Does an apple a day do what they say? University of Wisconsin scientists say apples are a source of soluble and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber such as pectin actually helps to prevent cholesterol buildup in the lining of blood vessel walls, reducing the risk of atherosclerosis and heart disease. The insoluble fiber provides bulk in the intestinal tract, holding water to cleanse and move food quickly through the digestive system.

It is a good idea to eat apples with their skin. Almost half of the vitamin C content is just underneath the skin. Eating the skin also increases insoluble fiber content.
Make sure your apples are organic

But eat organic apples, otherwise the skin is source of poisons. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) placed non organic apples at the top of their chart of foods with the most pesticides. Apples are the first on the EWG’s “dirty dozen” list, followed by celery, strawberries, peaches, spinach and nectarines.

The historical apple travels across the world

The apple tree is one of the earliest trees to be cultivated and its fruits have been improved through selection over thousands of years. Alexander the Great (or one of his flunkies) has been credited with finding dwarfed apples in Kazakhstan and Asia in 328 BCE. He brought the fruit back home to his native Macedonia. Apples were brought to North America by colonists in the 17th century and the first apple orchard on the North American continent was near Boston in 1625. In the 20th century, irrigation projects in Washington state began and allowed the development of the multibillion dollar fruit industry, of which the apple is the leading species.1

1. “Origin, History of cultivation”. University of Georgia. Archived from the original on 21 January 2008. Retrieved 22 January 2008.

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A man sits down in a restaurant and asks the waiter: “Do you have frogs legs?” to which the waiter replied, “No, I just walk this way.”

Okay, so the joke doesn’t have much to do with this email other than the topic of legs, and specifically legs that have varicose veins.

Varicose veins plague the elderly. But they aren’t the only ones to suffer from painful, bulging veins. With faulty diets, more and more people are having problems with them.

They’re caused by pooling blood due to structural weaknesses
The University of Maryland Medical Center reports: “Veins move blood from your body to your heart. When the one-way valves in your veins weaken, they may allow blood to flow backward and pool in your veins. Your veins then become enlarged. Varicose veins usually show up in the legs and feet, because standing and walking increases the pressure on these veins. They look like bulging, bluish cords beneath the surface of your skin. Spider veins are similar to varicose veins, but they are smaller and closer to the surface of your skin.”

Flavonoids and carotenoids to the rescue
When veins cause pains, think flavonoids and carotenoids. These are two ingredients found within nature’s whole foods that work to support and build blood vessels, from your heart to your toes to your eyes to your nose.

Food nutrients make a difference. Vitamins miss the point.
You cannot address problems with blood vessels with vitamin pills. Why? Because vitamin pills do not contain the natural bioflavonoids and carotenoids that are in whole foods such as fruits, berries and vegetables.

Two important flavnoids: rutin and proanthocyandins
While flavonoids and carotenoids are important in building and repairing blood vessels, two in particular stand out: rutin and proanthocyandins. You can get these in wild pansy, buckwheat and grape seed extract.

These are contained in NutriPlex’s formulas: SuperGreens (grape seed extract and more), FlavoC (rutin and more) and CaroC (lots of carotenoids) on our website.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Helga Weber

In a Dutch study published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, researchers found that eating a lot of fruits and vegetables with white flesh may protect against stroke.

Fruits and vegetables in the study were classified in four color groups:

• Green, including dark leafy vegetables, cabbages and lettuces
• Orange/Yellow, which were mostly citrus fruits
• Red/Purple, which were mostly red vegetables
• White, of which 55 percent were apples and pears

It was the white category that showed the most promise for avoiding stroke.

Linda M. Oude Griep, M.Sc., lead author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow in human nutrition at Wageningen Uninversity in the Netherlands, stated, “For example, eating one apple a day is an easy way to increase white fruits and vegetable intake. However, other fruits and vegetable color groups may protect against other chronic diseases. Therefore, it remains of importance to consume a lot of fruits and vegetables.”

The color of the edible portion of fruits and vegetables reflects the presence of beneficial phytochemicals such as carotenoids and flavonoids. Examples are the red in beets, the orange in carrots and the blues in bilberries.

There are more than 500 known carotenoids in existence, but most people these days do not get enough fruits or vegetables in their diets.

If you’re not eating enough, then ramp up your intake of a variety of fruits and vegetables. At the same time you can be taking these two whole food products that contain a great assortment of carotenoids and flavonoids: CaroC and FlavoC.

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by Vic Shayne, PhD

Before you ever read and believe an article in a popular magazine, first skim through the pages and see who the advertisers are. When you see ads by drug companies and major processed food companies, you can bet that their propaganda influences the writing. Some examples: Self, Health, More, etc.

It makes it easier to sell drugs and low-fat cereal when you can convince people that eating saturated fats and meat is bad for you, which it isn’t. Show me a person who never ate saturated fats and I’ll show you a person who has severe nervous system problems.

Low fat diets, low fat foods and cholesterol drugs represent a multibillion-dollar industry. If you believe eating saturated fats and meat is bad, then you may be deluded into believing their unscientific claims, and be on your way to taking statin drugs.

Saturated fats are absolutely necessary

Saturated fats are found in cheese, butter, cream fatty meats and coconut butter, to name a few sources.

We cannot live without good fats. So many of our bodily systems depend on them for health and functionality.

Fats feed the nerves, the brain, impulses to the heart, arteries, skin, internal organs and more. They fight inflammation, enable joints to work and support mental and thought processes.

The saturated fat scare is crazy nonsense that’s good for selling drugs

Fat guru (and I mean this in the nice way) Mary G. Enig, PhD, writes: “Today heart disease causes at least 40% of all US deaths. If, as we have been told, heart disease results from the consumption of saturated fats, one would expect to find a corresponding increase in animal fat in the American diet. Actually, the reverse is true. During the sixty-year period from 1910 to 1970, the proportion of traditional animal fat in the American diet declined from 83% to 62%, and butter consumption plummeted from eighteen pounds per person per year to four. During the past eighty years, dietary cholesterol intake has increased only 1%. During the same period the percentage of dietary vegetable oils in the form of margarine, shortening and refined oils increased about 400% while the consumption of sugar and processed foods increased about 60%.”

Dr. Enig states: “Most people would be surprised to learn that there is, in fact, very little evidence to support the contention that a diet low in cholesterol and saturated fat actually reduces death from heart disease or in any way increases one’s life span.”

Buy some Coconut Butter and have a good time

One of the best sources of saturated fats, and a great brain food is organic Coconut Butter. Use it for cooking, spreading on toast with or without butter and throwing it into your smoothies. Click here.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Helga Weber

by Vic Shayne, PhD

There’s a common denominator in natural health care that underlies the addressing of most illnesses.

By following certain steps you give your body the utmost chance for success to combat and overcome diseases and symptoms. I’ve tried to elucidate these basics over the years on our website because people aren’t sure where to start.

Essentially, there are four components to health, healing and prevention:

1. feed your body with pure, organic, whole food nutrients
2. detoxify your body
3. live a healthful lifestyle
4. recognize and nourish the mind-body connection

A brief introduction to the four components

Your nutrients:

Since most people in the western world eat poorly, they are not taking in enough natural, important nutrients to allow their bodies to function optimally. As a result, illness and symptoms follow. This is because we have a complex biochemical system that works inside of us and to fuel and protect this system, there is only one type of substance that our bodies accept, recognize and know how to use: whole, pure foods.

To eat for health and supply your body what it needs to overcome health problems, you must see your food choices as working toward your health goals. This means you avoid bad foods while nourishing yourself with the good ones. Every day, or twice a day, an organic vegetable juice with added apple and a citrus juice is recommended. A variety of vegetables is the goal to provide the most nourishment.

When you eat, most of your diet should be organic vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, with a little meat.

Your detoxification:

A sick body needs to be detoxified.

There are two main ways toxins are created: exogenously and endogenously. That is, with endogenous (inside) metabolism, our normal processes going on inside our bodies create wastes. Exogenous (outside) toxins also affect our health. These come from pollution, poisons entering your skin, poisons coming in from your diet (artificial ingredients, bad fats, etc.), and poisons you consume in the way of drugs.

To get these poisons out, there are various methods that can be used. These include enemas, juicing, fasting, eating certain detoxifying foods exercise, and more.

Your healthful lifestyle:

Living for your health is the goal. You already know what injures your health, so you have to make changes in this department. Stop smoking, drinking alcohol, taking drugs, under-exercising, over-exercising, inhaling paint fumes, etc.

Few people overdo exercise, though, so your body requires that you workout, run, bike, hike, wrestle, swim or play, get out, increase your heart rate, and move and breathe heavily every day.

Your mind and your body:

The mind and body are connected. They are not separate units. We now know via advances in psychology that memories, trauma and emotions are stored in the body as well as the mind. If your mind and body are regarded as integrated, then you can begin to use your thoughts to improve your health. Think positively, meditate, enjoy nature, enjoy the company of friends, laugh, play and de-stress.

Your supplements:

Even the supplements you take should be whole, natural and uplifting. Most supplements are chemicals. There’s no other way to say this.

A vitamin that is no longer contained within its original food is, to the scientist, merely a chemical. We already have too many chemicals in our lives, which is why we are all about the whole foods. Our NutriPlex whole food formulas are foods that are made into tablets and powders. These are far superior to vitamins, minerals, mineral toddies, high potency supplements and herbal compounds. Your body recognizes foods, but regards isolated food particles as foreign invaders.

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by Vic Shayne, PhD

Sometimes you fall out of good habits. I used to juice a lot then stopped, then started again then juiced sporadically. Now I’ve been inspired to start anew.

It’s all a matter of perspective. How do you think of foods? Since getting into the Natural Health field more than twenty years ago, I started looking at food as vehicles to feed every cell in my body. We cleaned out our kitchen pantry and replaced every single item with organics. That’s when we started juicing as well.

So here we are, decades later, and I’m a juicing maven once again. I was inspired by some of the people on Facebook, including the vegan Mimi Kirk, a lovely woman who’s past 70 but looks 50. She said she starts every day of her life with a vegetable juice. Now I do the same thing.

Here’s what’s in my juice

My particular morning juice isn’t always the same. But to give you an example of what goes into my concoction, here’s a recipe (All organic only):

• beets
• broccoli stalks
• broccoli sprouts
• chard
• lime
• apple
• celery parsley

Nutrient-dense ingredients

Those who know me and my work understand that I’m all about the whole food. Our supplements aren’t made of isolated vitamins or parts of foods. When you begin to realize that foods contain whole “complexes” of nutrients, then vitamin pills and most of the other supplements on the market just don’t measure up to what nature has to offer.

The juices I make have these nutrients in them: vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, amino acids, chlorophyll, bioflavonoids, fiber, carotenoids, enzymes and more.

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University of Western Ontario researchers say they’ve stumbled onto something big. It’s a substance inside tangerines that prevents obesity and offers protection against type 2 diabetes, and even atherosclerosis, the underlying disease responsible for most heart attacks and strokes.

Murray Huff, PhD, a vascular biology scientist at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, along with Erin Mulvihill, a PhD student, studied the effects of a flavonoid in tangerines called nobiletin. Their research is published in the journal Diabetes.

Nobiletin prevents fat build-up in the liver

Nobiletin was shown to prevent the buildup of fat in the liver by stimulating the expression of genes involved in burning excess fat, and inhibiting the genes responsible for manufacturing fat.

Researchers report that, in longer-term studies, Nobiletin  protected test animals from atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque in arteries, which can lead to a heart attack or stroke.

Grapefruits are great too

Two years ago, Huff discovered that the flavonoid in grapefruit called naringenin offered similar protection against obesity and other signs of metabolic syndrome.

Huff said, “What’s really interesting to us is that nobiletin is ten times more potent in its protective effects compared to naringenin, and this time, we’ve also shown that nobiletin has the ability to protect against atherosclerosis.”