HealthBeat News

Category: Nutrition and Health

  • Miracle Tea lowers cholesterol, blocks cancer, fights heart disease, and more!

    A nice cup of Oriental Green Tea can be a delicious, relaxing, soothing break in your day. But more than that, recent research is pointing out other benefits as well.

    A recent article in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that enriched green tea extract may be effective in reducing low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). Subjects in a treatment study group showed decreases of 6.7% in total cholesterol and 9.6% in LDL-C after only 4 weeks of supplementation, and reductions of 11.3% and 16.4% after 12 weeks!

    Another study, done at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University and reported in the journal Carcinogenesis showed that green tea may be useful in the prevention of intestinal (colon) cancer in humans.

    Yet other studies show it useful in the prevention of heart disease, and there are studies suggesting it may be a potent antiviral, effective in combating HIV. It is further thought to have antimicrobial powers.

    What is so special about green tea? It is a rich source of catechins – flavinoid phytochemical compounds and polyphenols. Both are potent antioxidants, helping to prevent the damaging effects of free radicals.

    Nurse Mark comments: Both Dr. Dana and I make green tea a part of our day. Traditional flavors are fine, and newer flavors such as fruit or spice offer a nice change. It is a great pick-me-up, and green tea is thought to have thermogenic properties, helping us to burn fat. There really is no down side, unless you just don’t like the taste of it, in which case you can obtain the benefits of green tea in capsule form as green tea extract capsules from the Wellness Club.

    Either way, you really owe it to yourself to make this simple, relaxing, and delicious addition to your daily wellness protocol.

    Learn more about the benefits of green tea at our fully referenced web-page..

  • Allergic To “Acid Blockers”? What To Do – Try Yet Another Drug?

    Digestive health and drug questions are two ever-popular topics in letters to Dr. Myatt and nurse Mark. Here is an example of both questions in one letter:

    “K” writes to ask:

    Have you ever heard of this? When I take Prevacid, Nexium, Zantac, I beging to burn in the vaginal area within an hour, also ears burn and tongue. Would you call this an allergic reaction? I am going to start carafate and hope it does not do the same thing. I was diagnosed with erosive gastritis.

    And Dr. Myatt replies:

    Hi K

    NO ONE suffers from a Prevacid or Nexium “deficiency.” Regardless of the cause of your “reaction,” you should be “fixing” your GI problems instead of switching to an “alternative band-aid.”

    If you haven’t read this, get on board fast – read: http://www.healthbeatnews.com/GastricAcid.htm

    In Health,
    Dr. Myatt

    Nurse Mark comments:

    Hmmm… yep, I might call that an “allergic reaction”, or I might use the more “politically correct” terminology of the FDA and Big Pharma and say it was “an adverse event”…

    K, if you ever want to give yourself a good scare, read through the sheet called “Prescribing Information” that is supposed to accompany these, or any drug – that is the sheet of tiny print that tells you and your doctor more than you ever wanted to know about the drug. Most people throw these sheets away, but I find them to be entertaining reading…

    Healthy, strong gastric acid is so essential to proper digestion and assimilation of nutrients that I cannot understand why any self-respecting doctor would prescribe a drug that is designed to shut down the body’s production of stomach acid! Except maybe for the fact that these “stomach acid blockers” are among the most profitable drugs of our time… Oh, yeah, how could I forget that important fact?!?

  • How Much Flax Seed for Good Health?

    Many folks liked the article comparing flaxseed to the “hot” new/old fiber supplement salba that we published last December – you can read that article here.

    We’ve had a few questions – like the following from Mary Beth:

    I found your website in a search for information salba vs flaxseed…. Your info is great… however, could you please tell me how much ground flaxseed one needs daily?
    Thank you so much for your help!
    Mary Beth

    To which Dr. Myatt replies:

    2 TBS. contains enough lignans to have solid anti-cancer effects and other benefits.

    In Health,
    Dr. Myatt

    Short, and to the point! Read more about the benefits of flax here. 

  • What About Soy Milk For Babies?

    It is great to know that people are reading our posts, and we get some interesting questions and comments as a result.

    Gary commented on our soy article to ask: “What about soy milk for babys” ?

     To which we respond:

    Yikes! Soy milk for babies? I don’t think so!

    Neither Dr. Myatt nor I would advocate feeding soy milk to a baby as a substitute for mothers milk for several reasons, all of which were mentioned in the article.

    First, soy is estrogenic. Babies are generally pretty perfectly hormonally balanced little creatures and they are also fragile little creatures; very sensitive to hormonal imbalances in their critical growing time. Would we really want to give a baby something that could alter those delicately balanced hormones?

    Next, soy can be goitrogenic, meaning it can suppress the function of the thyroid gland. As you might imagine, this is definitely not a good thing for adults, and it could be disastrous for a baby – thyroid suppression in a baby is called “Cretinism”!

    Finally, soy is a challenging protein to digest at the very best of times – many adults, with their better-developed digestive systems have trouble digesting it properly and experience gas and diarrhea – in a baby this would be described as “Colic” but it is actually much more serious than that as it can result in malabsorption and serious allergy and even auto-immune problems.

    There is ample evidence in medical literature that the very best nutrition for a baby comes from mothers milk – the kind that comes from mothers breast. Improved brain and intellectual development, and improved immune system function are well-documented in babies fed breast milk over those fed dairy or soy or synthetic products.

    So, what about babies who cannot tolerate dairy (cows milk) based formulas? Certainly there are babies who are “allergic” to cows milk – I remember seeing those poor little souls when I worked as a floor nurse in a pediatric ward. They would come in sick, fussing, gassy, cramping, and miserable with mom complaining that “none of the baby formulas I’ve tried seem to make him happy…” (even though she had not tried the “original formula” – the milk from her own breast!) The poor little tyke would be “diagnosed” as having “a milk allergy” and then put on a soy substitute. Often things would improve briefly, as the tiny gut was no longer being assaulted by proteins that it was not really designed to have to deal with, but then things would go downhill again, as that tiny digestive system rebelled against yet another foreign protein.

    I can hear the question now: “What about goat milk or sheep’s milk?” Well, many babies who are sensitive to the proteins in cows milk are cross-sensitive to the proteins in goat and sheep’s milk. Further, cows milk, goat milk, and sheep’s milk are likely to contain hormones and antibiotics, and most certainly will have been pasteurized which is very destructive to the proteins and natural enzymes of the milk.

    How many kids out there have been unfairly labeled as being “allergic to everything” or “just a sickly kid” or “a failure to thrive” when they could have been healthy, robust little bundles of joy if they had been breast fed?

    Nothing beats Mothers Milk for a baby!

  • Low Stomach Acid And Vitiligo: One Reader “Takes Us To Task”…

    Sometimes our readers will “take us to task” for something we have written; sometimes they even get a little “testy” with us (no, no, say it isn’t so..!)

    This gentleman feels that we have made claims without providing reference to our research – here is his note and my reply to him:

    Ali Says:

    Thank you for very usefull info.I read all above conditions for which you say that these are associated with Low Stomach acid.
    In which you mention vitiligo. this is the first tyme i read the cause of vitiligo. there are many resources on the net regarding causes of such conditions such as:
    http://www.antivitiligo.com
    http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/65881.php
    These and other such sites provided the search base knowledge. you too should provide some of your research regarding your claim.

    Nurse Mark Replies:

    Hi Ali,

    Our regular readers know that when we make claims such as this they are ALWAYS backed up – not just by “research”, but by by solid, scientific, peer-reviewed research published in respected journals. Such is the case here – had you followed the link in the brief blog article above to our previous newsletter article http://www.healthbeatnews.com/GastricAcid.htm and then read through to the bottom you would have seen a header called “References: Roll Over To View”. Our list of references for this article is some 59 citations long, and the reference you are asking about is: 59.) Francis HW. Achlorhydria as an etiological factor in vitiligo, with report of four cases. Nebraska State Med J 1931;16(1):25–6.

    Hope this helps!
    Cheers,
    Nurse Mark

    As Ali will find when he reviews this article fully, we are very diligent in providing solid scientific, peer-reviewed references to anything we state as fact, and even things we state as opinion are backed up by solid science. We are under constant scrutiny by organizations like the FTC and the FDA who would dearly love to be able to accuse us of being “unscientific” – so our best defense is to use research that even they cannot refute or dismiss.

    One of the problems that we see over and over again as we talk with patients and readers is that many people are simply not trained to be able to critically examine “research” to separate the “one-time, basement lab, 3-rat study” from a fully (and properly) funded, scientifically designed, controlled and conducted, double-blind, peer-reviewed study published in a respected journal. That is where we do the “grunt-work” for our patients and readers, sifting through these mountains of often mind-numbing “research” to find the few pearls of material that will be of benefit. Another problem that we see constantly is that many folks consider news articles and sales copy and testimonials to be “research”, or they see that same “one-time, basement lab, 3-rat study” or some study funded and conducted by the same company that just happens to be selling the substance that was “tested” when they search the internet and find it repeated or referred to dozens, even hundreds of times in forums and chat boards, which gives it an air of importance it doesn’t deserve.

    Here is an example: Ali provided me with two links which he says provide “search base knowledge” (and I’m not quite sure what that means…). The first leads to a website that sells a liquid preparation claimed to “cure” vitiligo. Unfortunately, after spending some time going round and round this website, I was unable to find any scientific references or citations of any sort – but maybe I just didn’t see them, right? What I did find were plenty of “before and after” pictures, and page after page after page of glowing “testimonials” that cannot be verified. Well folks, testimonials are nice – but they are not proof and they are not scientific – and to us they fall into the category of “my brother’s mother-in-law’s second cousin’s first husband took that every day ’till he died, and it really worked for him” sort of “proof of effectiveness” – nice, but nothing that we would want to make a medical recommendation based on! Testimonials are not research – they are a sales technique intended to build trust.

    Next there is the problem of the “news-articles-as-reference”: Ali provides a second link that leads to a news article that describes research into a possible genetic component for vitiligo and other auto-immune conditions. While interesting, and referring to scholarly research conducted by some respected scientists, there are a couple of problems with this article from our standpoint. First, while this is fine, cutting edge research, it has little practical application – rather like the wonderful photographs from Mars; fascinating and pretty, but with little practical application to you and me. Next, this research offers no treatment, just a hope of future miracles.  The most telling quote in the news article is this: “…This finding may also open up new approaches to treatment, possibly for many different autoimmune diseases.” says the lead researcher. This translates roughly to: “This is something that we hope will interest the Big Pharmaceutical Companies enough that they will want to pay us to do more research in the hope of developing profitable new drugs and treatments…” News articles are interesting information that sometimes lead us to scientific research and references, but they are not what we would consider to be a scientific citation on their own.

    So, Ali, thanks for the interesting links, but I find nothing in either of them that would constitute a scientific reference the likes of which can be found at the end of the article http://www.healthbeatnews.com/GastricAcid.htm where the snippet about vitiligo and it’s relationship to low stomach acid was taken.

    HealthBeat News readers can always be sure that they are receiving the hippest, hottest, most up-to-date, most accurate information possible – we sift through the mountains of information, good and bad, to give you the pearls. That’s our job, and we love it!