Nutritional Nuggets from Dr. West's Health Alert

One of my favorite nutrition publications I get is Health Alert by Dr. Bruce West. Each month I look forward to the latest edition. The official title is Health Alert: When All Other Treatments Fail. I think you get the picture. Dr. West is a Chiropractor and a big fan of Standard Process products. He is also a big fan of the truth. February’s issue was full of juicy nuggets that I’d like to share.

Nugget #1: Almost all treatment for heart disease is unnecessary! Dr. West states that most of the cardiac procedures are all band-aids as they ignore the underlying issue and are unnecessary for 70% of patients. He also cites a study showing five behaviors in men cause 86% of all heart attacks. I’m sure you can pretty much guess what they are: smoking, eating too much, drinking too much, a big stomach (as a result of eating and drinking too much), and being inactive. His conclusion – it’s about lifestyle!

Nugget #2: Artificial sweeteners cause diabetes! A study of mice showed that consuming artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, sucralose (Splenda), and aspartame (Equal, Sweet n low) cause glucose intolerance or type 2 diabetes. In the study one group of mice was fed the artificial sweeteners and another group fed sugar. The ones fed sugar did not develop diabetes, just the artificial sweetener group. This was replicated in a small group of healthy human subjects who were placed on a diet containing artificial sweeteners. Within just one week over 50% of the humans developed glucose intolerance! 

How does this happen? The artificial sweeteners alter our gut flora in the large intestines which changes our metabolism to favor glucose intolerance. This was proven by transplanting feces from the two groups of mice into germ-free mice. The mice that got the feces from the artificial sweetener fed mice developed diabetes. Not so with the mice getting feces from the sugar fed mice. This proves the artificial sweeteners affected the gut flora and led to glucose intolerance!

Nugget #3: Heart attacks are not caused by clogged arteries! Coronary artery blockages rarely cause heart attacks because of the body’s ability to create its own natural bypass system. Go to the website www.heartattacknew.com and see for yourself what the body does on its own! What really causes heart attacks are imbalances in the autonomic nervous system and nutrient deficiencies (particularly B-complex deficiencies – see my article on Vitamin B4 – click here: http://brwellness.com/nutrition-news/?p=38.

Nugget #4: Multiple sclerosis is directly linked to poor gut flora! MS is an autoimmune disease and 80% of your immune system is in our gut and its flora. It turns out that the gut microbes in people with MS are different than those without it! The gut flora of MS patients have bacteria that cause inflammation and other MS symptoms and they lack the bacteria that help control inflammation! Once again we see the importance of the health of our gut flora. Remember we have 20,000 genes. The bacteria in our gut has 1,000,000 genes!