By now you have probably heard about the health benefits of turmeric. Cooks know it as an ingredient in curry powder, the most important spice in Indian cuisine. Integrative health practitioners know it for its ability to reduce inflammation. It’s been in the news as the latest and greatest solution to osteoarthritis and other inflammatory conditions. But as good as it is, it has suddenly gotten better.

Turmeric’s active ingredients come from a group of substances found in its oil called curcuminoids. You know one of them as curcumin. Curcumin is an effective natural antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, but it has its limitations. When you take it orally, your body doesn’t absorb it well. It breaks down quickly and doesn’t last very long.

Scientists at Indena, an Italian company, have solved curcumin’s poor absorption problem. They bound it to soy phosphatidyl choline, which is well absorbed.

This simple modification super-charged curcumin by greatly increasing its bioavailability. The result is a curcumin product that’s substantially stronger than turmeric or curcumin alone! This patented substance is called Meriva®.

Just how much better is Meriva? In a randomized, double blind, crossover study — the gold standard of tests — researchers gave participants either Meriva or a mixture of curcuminoids. Meriva had an overall absorption 29 times better than the curcumin mixture and 50 to 60 times stronger than two of its individual curcuminoids.

There’s simply no form of turmeric that comes close to being as strong and bioavailable as Meriva. I would use it for any inflammatory condition from gum disease to cancer, bursitis to pain from over-exercising or gardening. And, of course, I’d use it to treat arthritis.

Curcumin and osteoarthritis

My mother suffered from painful osteoarthritis in her spine and fingers much of her life. I saw from an early age just how devastating it is to be in constant pain. Mother was ahead of her time when it came to seeking out solutions to her health problems. More than 50 years ago, she tried everything she could think of including chiropractic adjustments, heat, cold, diathermy, and injections of gold, but nothing worked.

So I was interested to read about an eight-month study using Meriva for arthritis pain. In it, researchers gave 100 patients with painful osteoarthritis in their knees the “best available treatment,” as determined by their doctors. They gave this treatment either by itself or with Meriva.

The amount of Meriva they gave to the participants was comparable to 200 mg of curcumin daily. The patients taking Meriva had significantly less pain and stiffness than the control group. They were able to walk more than twice as far without pain. They had nearly four times greater improvement in physical function than the control group. And they had much less inflammation.

But that’s not all. The Meriva group needed much fewer painkillers and had less gastrointestinal complications and edema. Their medical costs were a fraction of those of the control group. And many study participants reported an increased feeling of well-being. If only Meriva had been available to my mother, her quality of life would have improved dramatically.

The future of turmeric

Thorne Research was the first supplement company to recognize the benefits of Meriva over other curcumin extracts. They added a time-released process for slower absorption to their supplement line Meriva-SR. The slower absorption keeps curcumin blood levels consistent throughout the day. You can find their product on the Internet at www.thorne.com.

A number of other supplement companies have switched over to using Meriva as their source of turmeric. It’s no longer hard to find. There are dozens of different Meriva supplements on the Internet. Some are available in health food stores. Just remember: Meriva is Meriva. If you’re buying a single-nutrient Meriva supplement, shop for the best price.

There’s another option that may be even more effective than Meriva alone. It’s Reduloxin, the anti-inflammatory supplement I helped formulate for Advanced Bionutritionals (800-791-3395).

Reduloxin is the only supplement I know of that contains both Meriva and other plant-based extracts proven to reduce inflammation and pain. This gives it a broad spectrum of anti-inflammatories, unlike any single-nutrient. I’ve been using it for all inflammatory conditions with a great deal of success.

In the past, Reduloxin contained a turmeric extract. Now Advanced Bionutritionals has replaced this extract with Meriva. I expect to hear even more satisfaction from my patients who have either chronic inflammation or acute inflammation from over-exercising or pain from bruises and falls.

Whichever supplement you take with Meriva is a huge improvement over the outdated turmeric or curcumin extracts. If you switch over to this new ingredient, let me know your results. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Belcaro, G., et al. “Efficacy and safety of Meriva, a curcumin-phosphatidylcholine complex, during extended administration in osteoarthritis patients,” Alt Med Review, vol 15, no 4, 2010.

Two Easy Steps to Protect Your Brain and Prevent Dementia

One day when I was in my 30s, I took a friend with me to hear another friend perform. The friend who accompanied me was a popular singer who had gold records hung around one room of her house. The performing friend was a concert pianist who was a renowned solo artist. While these two friends had heard about one another, they had never met.

We stood outside the concert hall after the performance and suddenly my mind went blank. I couldn’t remember either of their names! I remember laughing about it at the time. The incident was embarrassing, but it didn’t worry me. I knew that stress and excitement can affect memory and people’s names had escaped me before.

However, this same scenario has a different meaning after the age of 50, when one forgetful incident often follows another. And the older we get, the more we forget little things like the names of people or places or appointments.

Occasional memory lapses are a natural consequence of aging, not necessarily a sign of dementia. We tend to interpret little lapses like “where did I put my keys?” or “what in the world is her name?” as possible signs of a deteriorating brain that will get worse over time. “Is this the beginning of dementia?” we ask ourselves. “Am I getting Alzheimer’s disease?”

Dementia is a loss of memory and mental skills that often deteriorates over time. It affects our ability to think and plan. Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia. We fear it because it’s degenerative and incurable. No one knows for certain how to delay or stop its progression.

But I’ve found some steps you can take that neurologists aren’t looking at. And they seem to be working for people who have early stage memory decline. In Alzheimer’s, brain cells degenerate and die, so the idea is to begin any treatment as early as possible.

Eat enough of the right fats

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have found that certain fats can decrease mild cognitive impairment. This is a condition that often progresses to Alzheimer’s disease. So the worst dietary decision you can make is to go on a fat-free diet. I’ve told you this for years.

Whether it’s for heart health, boosting immunity, weight loss, or a healthy brain, eating plenty of the right kind of fats is vital. And according to the Mayo Clinic study, the right fats to improve cognition are either monounsaturated or polyunsaturated.

Monounsaturated fats are the ones you find in olive oil and canola (rapeseed) oil. I use extra virgin olive oil for cooking, in salad dressings, and over steamed vegetables. You’ll find polyunsaturated fats in fish, nuts, and seeds — foods I eat every day. The idea is to increase your intake of these fatty acids and decrease the consumption of animal fats, including dairy. But the right fats aren’t all you need to consider.

The right conditions are important too

There’s a common healthful beverage that can protect against Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia. You may be drinking it already, but this doesn’t mean it’s working. Its effectiveness depends on the condition of your digestion.

Green tea protects against Alzheimer’s, says Dr. Ed Okello and his team of researchers at Newcastle University, UK. They knew that a cup of green tea possessed anti-cancer compounds. What they didn’t know was if the compounds were present after you digest the tea. They wanted to know how digestion affects green tea’s ability to stop Alzheimer’s. No one had ever looked at this. In fact, until recently it wasn’t even possible to stimulate the human digestive system.

Now it is.

A Scottish researcher, Dr. Gordon McDougall, developed technology that did just that. With Okello’s team, the British researchers found that when enzymes in the gut digested green tea, the polyphenol chemicals it produced were more effective against Alzheimer’s than the undigested form of tea. These beneficial chemicals protected brain cells, preventing harmful toxins from destroying them.

By the way, this action also applied to its anti-cancer properties. The digested chemicals also dramatically slowed down the growth of cancer cells.

This is important information, because as we age so does our digestive system. We produce less hydrochloric acid (HCl), digestive enzymes, and bile to break down our foods – and beverages. We may be eating a nutrient-dense diet packed with all the right foods, but that doesn’t mean these nutrients are getting into our bodies.

As Okello says, “There are certain chemicals we know to be beneficial and we can identify foods which are rich in them. But what happens during the digestion process is crucial to whether these foods are actually doing us any good.”

If you know you have digestive problems like gas, constipation, or diarrhea, work with a health practitioner to improve your body’s ability to utilize beneficial nutrients. Or try a formula designed to repair your digestive tract. I prefer a formula based on Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, such as Integrative Digestive Formula from Advanced Bionutritionals (800-791-3395).

If you really want to protect yourself from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, you need to be able to both get and utilize beneficial fats and the polyphenols in green tea. The first step to prevent this and other illnesses is a well-functioning digestive system.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/212925.php.

Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, September 2011.

This Healthful Fish Can Give You Cancer

All fish are high in healthful omega-3 fats. As you may know, these anti-inflammatory fats are particularly beneficial to the heart and brain. This makes fish an ideal source of protein. Except for one well-known problem: mercury. Unfortunately, mercury is no longer the only poison you have to worry about in your fish. Some fish — including one that most people consider safe and healthy — contain other toxins that can lead to cancer.

Since most health experts focus on mercury, they advise us to eat smaller fish. This makes sense, as smaller fish naturally contain less mercury, so we
have a lower exposure to the toxin when we eat them.

Smaller oily fish, such as sardines, mackerel, herring, and salmon, also contain more omega-3 fats. So they are the most healthful fish you can eat. As a result, I’ve included salmon as a staple in my diet.

I’ve always been careful about buying the right kind of salmon. Of course, I pay particular attention to where the salmon you eat comes from. Is it farm raised or caught in the wild? If you like to eat salmon in a restaurant, chances are it’s farmed, not wild.

One problem with farmed salmon is that they raise them in cramped pens. When you raise animals and fish in cramped quarters, you risk exposure to pathogenic bacteria. This is what happens when you crowd salmon. The antidote, of course, is to give the fish antibiotics. So if you’re eating farmed salmon, you could be eating sick fish or fish laced with antibiotics. This can lead to antibiotic resistance in both the fish you eat and you.

Not all farm-raised fish is bad. Whole Foods, for instance, sells antibiotic-free, not crowded, etc. And good farms give their fish astaxanthin to give the color. This is proving to be a good antioxidant.

But that’s the exception, not the rule. Plus, more evidence has come to light
that most farm-raised salmon is down-right dangerous!

What I didn’t know until recently was that this “safe” fish could increase my risk for cancer. That’s because some salmon contain toxins other than mercury. And these toxins cause cancer.

The water in salmon farms often contains contaminates like PCBs, dioxins, and pesticides. These contaminants, which can contribute to cancers and other diseases, are stored in salmon fat. So the one factor that makes salmon a healthful food (its fat) turns it into a dangerous food if the fish are raised in toxic water.

In a study conducted by the prestigious Pew Foundation, the average level of dioxins in farmed salmon is 11 times higher than in wild salmon. PCB levels in farmed salmon were 36.6 ppb compared with 4.75 ppb in the wild fish. While farmed salmon has more omega-3 fats than their wild cousins, they also contain about 10 times the amount of toxins!

Where it comes from matters

As you can imagine, not all farmed salmon are equally toxic. Their toxicity depends on how careful the farm is in caring for the fish. According to the Pew study, farmed salmon from Europe had higher levels of contaminants than farmed salmon from North American waters. The most contaminated fish came from Scotland and the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic. Those from Washington State and Chile had the fewest contaminates.

Still, no amount of toxins is safe. Especially toxins like these. Your fat cells store these toxins, making them extremely difficult to eliminate.

How can you know whether or not any salmon is wild or farmed? It’s simple. Farmed salmon is always from the Atlantic. But Alaskan salmon is wild. Most restaurants serve the cheaper Atlantic salmon. You can expect to pay more if you can find a restaurant that has wild Alaskan salmon. But it’s worth the price.

How much is safe to eat?

Based on the results of their study, researchers at the Pew Foundation suggest we eat no more than one-half to one meal per month of farmed salmon. In fact, their levels were so high that researchers of this study caution against eating more than one serving of farmed salmon from Europe every five months!

You can safely eat more wild salmon. They recommend: wild chum salmon, once a week; Sockeye, Coho, and pink salmon, twice a month; or Chinook, less than once a month.

Wild salmon becomes safer still if you remove any mercury and other toxins that you have accumulated with a tested and effective oral chelator.

PectaSol Chelation Complex (PCC) from Advanced Bionutritionals (800-791-3395) combines a patented form of modified citrus pectin with sodium alginate. They bind to and remove these toxins from the bloodstream.

I suggest you do what I do and take two capsules of this formula twice a day for three months, and then take a maintenance dose of one capsule twice a day. This way you can eat wild salmon — and other contaminated food — more frequently and get more healthful omega-3 fats. And you’ll know the toxins won’t stay in your body.

Another source of omega-3 fats

If you’re looking for the health benefits in omega-3 fats and can’t or don’t want to eat a lot of fish, add a fish oil supplement to your daily regime. The best fish oil supplements don’t contain any mercury, dioxins, or pesticides. Daily Omega from Advanced Bionutritionals (800-791-3395) is one such supplement. It has the added advantage of being “burpless” — it doesn’t cause the unpleasant fish-tasting burps so many concentrated fish products cause.

If you’re taking a fish oil supplement, I urge you to contact the supplement company and make sure they have purified it so it contains no contaminants. Don’t assume it’s safe, especially if it’s low cost. And if fish is a staple in your diet, be sure to take a proven chelator on a regular basis. It can make the difference between a healthful or harmful meal.

Foran, J.A., et al. “Quantitative Analysis of the Benefits and Risks of Consuming Farmed and Wild Salmon.” J. Nutr, 2005 135:2639-2643.

NUTRITION DETECTIVE

How You Can Eat Eggs Every Day Without Increasing Your Cholesterol

It’s confusing. Many consider eggs to be the perfect food, but they also recommended that you eat them in limited amounts. One day you hear that eggs are dangerous because they increase cholesterol and that you shouldn’t eat them more than once or twice a week. The next day you hear they’re not only safe, they’re good for you and you can eat them daily with safety. Well, which is it? The answer may surprise you.

An Israeli researcher, Dr. Niva Shapira at Tel Aviv University, found that some eggs are healthful while others can contribute to heart disease. It all depends on what the chickens have eaten.

Here’s why.

The seeds and grains that chicken feed contains are rich in oils. But the composition of the oil can vary considerably. Most of the oils in commercial feed are high in omega-6 fatty acids. This is because the seeds and grains are less expensive. The problem is that these fats contribute to oxidized cholesterol — the most dangerous kind of cholesterol that forms plaque in our arteries. But some chickens eat a diet low in omega-6 and higher in omega-3 fats. While their feed is more expensive, their eggs contain less of the harmful cholesterol.

In Dr. Shapira’s study, young hens that did not have exposure to a diet high in omega-6 fats ate a diet low in omega-6 fats and high in antioxidants. Dr. Shapira’s research team then compared their eggs to commercial eggs. Shapira found that eating two eggs a day high in omega-3 fats was similar to eating two to four commercial eggs per week! In fact, these commercial eggs — the very ones most people have for breakfast — resulted in 40% more oxidized cholesterol.

So if you want to eat more of this perfect food, choose eggs high in protein and beneficial fats — if you can. Choose eggs marked “High in Omega 3” or “Organic.” In both cases, the chickens have not eaten commercial feed. You’ll have more luck finding them in health food stores than in commercial supermarkets. They’re a little more expensive than commercial eggs. But they’re much healthier.

American Friends of Tel Aviv University (2011, August 2). “Can eggs be a healthy breakfast choice?” ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 16, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110802162807.htm.

LETTERS

Q: I have read that strontium helps the Dexa scans improve, but not help bones get stronger. Is this true? I’ve been taking Ultimate Bone Support, which contains strontium and want strong bones. — L.H., e-mail

A: No, it’s not true. Studies show that strontium reduces fractures even when it’s first given to women over the age of 80! Beginning in 1959 with a Mayo Clinic study, science has found that strontium builds healthier bones than calcium alone or calcium with vitamin D. That’s why I formulated Ultimate Bone Support with strontium. It’s essential for good bone health.

Remember that strontium competes with calcium and magnesium; so don’t take all of your bone-protective supplements at the same time. A simple approach is to take calcium and magnesium with meals, and strontium or Ultimate Bone Support with strontium, before bed or first thing in the morning.

Q: I heard that Dr. Oz recommends taking calcium and magnesium individually and not included in multivitamins. Do you agree? I’m taking your Healthy Resolve and both are included in it. — J.G., e-mail

A: I went online to find out exactly what Dr. Oz said. And that’s not what he said. He did say that he takes a one-a-day multi plus a tablet with additional vitamin D, calcium, and magnesium.

This makes sense because calcium and magnesium take up a lot of space in
a tablet or capsule, which limits the amount in a single tablet. He also advises taking more vitamin D than most multis contain.

I agree that multis don’t have enough vitamin D. And if a one-a-day tablet contained 500-1,000 mg of calcium and magnesium, it would be too large to swallow. One-a-day multis don’t have enough of any of these nutrients.

Dr. Oz also said that he buys his vitamins from large companies because they tend to be more honest in having the amount of nutrients in their products match the amount on their labels. I disagree. Discrepancies exist in both large and small companies. You can get accurate information on the quality of specific supplements at Tod Cooperman’s website, www.consumerlab.com.

Many people believe that you should take particular nutrients separate from one another. This may be true with cheap supplements, which are made from petroleum by-products. But not with high-quality supplements like the products I mention. All of the supplements I recommend come from natural sources, not petroleum or other chemical sources. In addition, the manufacturers design them to release their nutrients at specific optimal times so that they don’t interfere with one another.

I do suggest that you avoid taking strontium at the same time as calcium
and magnesium either in supplements or foods. Strontium reduces their absorption. But that’s the only separation I’ve found necessary.