I was chewing over the recent study that suggests that older women who take certain supplements have a higher risk of death than those who do not use supplements. This information contradicts literally thousands of other studies that show the benefits of supplements for nearly everyone.

I guess I was trying to find a polite way to say this is a bunch of bunk. Then this statement from Dr. Susan Lark, a physician I’ve long admired, crossed my desk. It says it all:

“Vitamins and Women’s Mortality–Don’t Believe the Negative Reports!!
Posted: 11 Oct 2011 09:31 AM PDT
“Yesterday, you may have seen some media reports about a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine that concluded that the use of multivitamins and some dietary supplements (vitamin B6, folic acid, iron, magnesium, zinc, and copper) increased the risk of death in older women.

“I was extremely disappointed to hear about this study and find it to be another unwarranted attack on the supplement industry. The fact of the matter is, our diets, no matter how good and well-balanced, simply do not meet our bodies’ nutritional needs. Conventional farming practices leave our fruits and vegetables lacking in nutrients, and thanks to our on-the-go lifestyles, processed and fast foods dominate many American women’s diets.

“Furthermore, this one study contradicts the literally THOUSANDS of earlier studies that have consistently shown the countless benefits of supplements for the reduction of breast cancer, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, and other health problems that plague women. It also contradicts years of years of clinical findings by physicians like myself, who have seen great positive results in patients by prescribing nutritional supplement regimens to prevent and treat illness and disease.

“Of course, this one negative study comes on the heels of increasing attempts by the FDA to regulate the supplements that so many of us take every day to maintain our health and well-being. The timing of this study’s release is very suspicious!

“I, for one, will continue taking my multivitamin and other supplements with extreme confidence, and I suggest that you do the same. ”

I’m with you, Dr. Lark!

By Kathleen Barnes

Oh, my aching back! Ninety percent of all Americans suffer backaches at some time in their lives – and doctors say women are at high risk since periods, pregnancy, carrying groceries and kids, housework and high heels can all cause pain-triggering muscle and joint injuries. Two out of five women have suffered back pain in the last year and for 80% of sufferers, the pain is long-lasting— starting more than a year ago.

Doctors often recommend bed rest, prescription medication or even surgery to deal with the nagging pain. “More and more research is showing that natural is the way to go for better relief in the long and short term, fewer side effects and more side benefits,” say Brattleboro, VT herb researchers Thomas Newmark and Paul Schulick, master herbalist, authors of Beyond Aspirin. In fact, groundbreaking new research shows natural supplements can stop even the worst back pain – and speed healing for the pain stays gone for good!

Try these for relief:

Willow bark extract: This herb contains salicin, a pain-relieving anti-inflammatory compound similar to acetylsalicylic acid in aspirin that puts the brakes on your body’s production of pain-producing prostaglandins. Recent Israeli research shows that a 240-milligram dose daily got complete relief from back pain in 40% of sufferers in just four weeks. German researchers looking into willow bark say it works better than aspirin for long-term pain relief because it helps prevent cartilage destruction and has a lower risk of side effects.

“Like aspirin, willow bark can be irritating to the stomach, so it’s a good idea to combine it with something that would prevent those effects, like ginger, itself a powerful anti-inflammatory which soothes the stomach lining,” say Newmark and Schulick.

Find relief with: Willow bark capsules or extract containing 40 mg of salicin three times a day until the pain is gone.

MSM: An estimated 30 million people worldwide are taking this sulfur-compound derivative, with results that are nothing short of miraculous, according to Stanley Jacob, MD, professor of surgery at Portland’s Oregon Health Sciences University and author of The Miracle of MSM. And for good reason: Jacob’s research showed it cuts pain in half for most sufferers within four weeks or less. Some patients find their pain eases within days, but complete relief may take a month or even two.

Jacob, who personally treated more 18,000 people with MSM (methylsufonylmethane) for chronic pain, said, “Seventy percent of them got complete relief—even those who had no peace from any other type of treatment. I know it works and it works better than any other treatment available.”

Jacob and his colleagues at Oregon Health Sciences University learned that MSM relieves pain by working as an anti-inflammatory and it also softens scar tissues. But Jacob theorized that MSM is far more than a pain reliever: It promotes your body’s own natural healing power by dilating blood vessels and improving blood supply to injured areas. It also helps reduce muscle spasm.

Find relief with: Up to 8 grams a day in capsules or a powdered form, which is less expensive and have a bitter taste and should be dissolved in juice or water. Jacob’s suggested dosage: Start with 2 grams a day (about half a teaspoon) and slowly work up to as much as 8 grams until you get relief. If you get diarrhea, go back a notch.

Capsaicin: Derived from hot chili peppers, this heat-producing compound is used in creams like Zostrix literally blocks the pain where you need it most. British research has shown capsaicin, when applied directly to the painful spot, depletes a neurotransmitter called substance P, literally stopping pain signals to your brain! And German scientists found that nearly two-thirds of long-time back pain sufferers reduced the pain by at least 30% in just three weeks by using capsaicin cream. . You may feel a sensation of heat when you apply the cream, and that means it’s working, says Mark Blumenthal, executive director of the American Botanical Council in Austin.

Find relief with: Creams containing .025% up to 1% capsaicin. Apply several times a day until the pain disappears.

Turmeric: Michigan State University scientists say it’s three times more effective in cutting pain and inflammation that aspirin, ibuprofen or naproxen. Look for formulas like Gaia Herbs or New Chapter that contain no more than 20% curcumins and take up to 800 mg a day.

Ginger: An herbal powerhouse that contains no less than 477 active ingredients that inhibit prostaglandin production and bring a gentle internal warmth just where you need it. Take ½ tsp or 100 mg in capsules twice a day.

Holy basil: A cousin of our favorite kitchen spice, Michigan State researchers found it has at least six of the same compounds found in NSAIDS, including the powerful anti-inflammatory ursolic acid. Take one or two 400 mg capsules a day.

by Kathleen Barnes

I’m frequently asked what supplements I take and which ones I think everyone should every day.

Of course, there are physiological differences and many of us have health problems. but these are my recommendations for a person who is generally in good health and wants to stay that way:

1. Multivitamin
2. Fish oil
3. Vitamin D
4. Trace mineral supplement
5. Coenzyme Q10

I’ll flesh these out just a little bit:

1. Multivitamins: Way back in 1936, the U.S. Senate warned is that our soil was seriously nutrient depleted, based on research from several prestigious academic institutions. The situation certainly hasn’t improved in the intervening 75 years.

Everyone should be taking a good quality multivitamin every day. No matter how good your diet is, you are simply not getting the nutrients you need for optimum health.

Price isn’t always a good benchmark for supplements, but if you’re only paying $10 for a month’s supply at your local drug store, you’re wasting your money.

See this newsletter entry from October 2007 about what you should look for in a high quality multivitamin.

2. Fish oil: This is probably the most important supplements you can take for your brain, heart and joint health, not to speak of blood sugar metabolism. I’ve often said if I could only take one supplement, it would be fish oil, hands down. You get the nutritional powerhouse Omega-3 fatty acids for fatty fish: salmon, tuna, mackerel and halibut.

With so many environmental toxins in the flesh of these fish combined with the prevalence on the markets of farmed fish that are raised in toxic soups, I prefer a high quality fish oil from a reputable manufacturer that I know has been filtered to remove toxins.

3. Vitamin D: Almost all of us are deficeint in vitamin D, expecially in the winter months. A growing body of research shows that optimal vitamin D levels can:
• Prevent at least 16 kinds of cancer
• Protect your heart and lower blood pressure
• Keep blood sugars steady and prevent diabetes
• Alleviate depression
• Prevent obesity
• Keep bones and joints strong
• Prevent kidney disease
• Improve digestive health
• Relieve menopausal symptoms
• Prevent autoimmune diseases
• Lengthen your life span

We all need vitamin D and lots of it, much more than most of us get. Experts recommend 2,000 IU or more of a good quality vitamin D supplement a day in the winter and the same in the summer if you don’t get 20 minutes of unprotected sun exposure to your face, arms, back and legs three times a week in summer. You won’t burn, I promise! Even my Celtic skin doesn’t burn in 20 minutes.

This is the subject of a new serialized book I’m writing with Dr. Tranquility Lydia Belton. You can get the complimentary introductory chapter here and on Dr. Tranquility’s website.

4. Trace mineral supplements: Your doctor has probably insistent that you need to take calcium for strong bones. Actually, nothing could be farther from the truth. Your bones are made of a dozen or more minerals and calcium is only one of them, Unbalancing those minerals can cause of cascade of health problems including hardening of the arteries, hypothyroidism, hypertension, diabetes, birth defects and more.

I won’t go into excruciating detail, but this is the subject of an entire book I wrote with Dr. Robert Thompson called The Calcium Lie: What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know Could Kill You.

Trace mineral supplements are definitely the way to go for strong bones and dozens more health benefits. I take a liquid one that tastes yucky, but I get it over with quickly.

5. CoEnzyme Q10: Better known as CoQ10, improves energy production in the cells, especially those that optimize heart function. CoQ10 is essential to the survival of people who take statin drugs to lower cholesterol since they deplete the body’s natural stores. Sadly, most doctors don’t know this.

Many studies have shown CoQ10′s abilities to slow the ravages of aging, reduce cholesterol, prevent obesity, optimize blood sugar levels, prevent macular degeneration and much more.

Most experts recommend 1 mg. of CoQ10 per pound of body weight per day, so if you weigh 150 pounds, you would need 150 mg.

By Kathleen Barnes

If you’ve followed my posts, you’ll know that I think we grossly overconsume calcium at the risk of our health and I am a huge proponent of increased intake of vitamin D or almost everyone.

Now I’m adding a new element to the mix: Vitamin K.

Dr. Robert Thompson and I wrote extensively about calcium and the problems with current medical advice encouraging high consumption in The Calcium Lie: What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know Could Kill You (InTruth Press, 2008).

And since we are in the middle of winter, I am willing to bet almost all of us are deficient in vitamin D, which is less a vitamin than a hormone manufactured when skin is exposed to direct sunlight. Dr. Lydia Belton (Dr. Tranquility) and I are writing about this in our soon-to-be-serialized book, Let the Sun Shine In: The Miracle of Vitamin D.

Now enter vitamin K.

If you think of vitamin K as the anti-clottiing vitamin present in spinach and other dark green veggies, you’d be right. But there is so much more to this little vitamin that is only now beginning to unfold.

Dr. Cees Vermeer, a Dutchman who has conducted pivotal research on vitamin K, says most of us may be getting just enough vitamin K to maintain proper blood clotting, we’re not getting enough of this essential vitamin to take advantage of its protective properties against:

• Osteoporosis
• Cognitive dysfunction (including dementia)
• Hardening of the arteries and other forms of cardiovascular disease
• Several types of cancer, including prostate, lung liver and leukemia
• Infectious diseases, including pneumonia

Here’s just a fraction of latest vitamin K research on heart disease:

• A 2004 Dutch study showed that people with the highest K2 levels cut their risk of death from heart disease in half over those with the lowest K2 intake.
• In a 10-year 16,000-person study known as the Prospect study, researchers found that every additional 10 mcg of K2 in subjects’ diets reduced their risk of cardiac events by 9 percent.
• Animal studies have shown that K2 prevents arterial calcification and can actually reverse the condition, even in advanced states.

We get vitamin K from dark green vegetables. Kale, collard greens and spinach contain by far the highest levels of vitamin K, followed by other types of greens, broccoli, onions, parsley and cilantro. Strangely enough, for the vitamin K in greens to be biologically available to your body, your greens should be boiled so the cell walls are broken down. For example, boiled spinach has seven times the vitamin K as raw spinach.

Vitamin K is fat soluble, meaning it’s a good idea to put a little oil in your boiled greens. (I won’t recommend bacon, although it certainly is tempting!)
A second type of vitamin K, known as K2 and sometimes as MK-7 is present is large quantities in the bacteria found in the human digestive tract.
Recent research shows that K2, the type used in most supplements, actually directs calcium to your bones rather than depositing it where you don’t want it: arteries, organs and joint spaces.

K2, the kind found in most supplements, is found in a fermented Japanese soy product called natto. If you can’t take the slimy smelly nature of natto. Just get it in a K2 capsule.

Don’t use K3, which is a synthetic and may be harmful.

Natural health guru Dr. Joe Mercola calls vitamin D the “gatekeeper” in terms of getting proper nutrients to your bones and he calls vitamin K “the traffic copdir4evting traffic to where it needs to go.”

“Lots of traffic, but no traffic cop, means clogging, crowding and chaos everywhere!” says Mercola.

It’s nor surprising that most of us don’t get enough of the right kind of vitamin D for optimal health, vitamin K2.

Modern medicine will tell us that very few people are deficient in vitamin K, but that is patently untrue. As Dr. Vermeer says, we may be getting the minimal amount necessary to keep blood clotting at proper levels, but not enough to prevent the serious diseases mentioned above.

The government recommends 120 micrograms a day for men and 90 mcg for women. Dr. Vermeer recommends 185 mcg daily for adults for optimal vitamin K levels.

March 23, 2010

By Kathleen Barnes

If you’ve ever thought that your voice isn’t heard, it’s just not true. I am a strong proponent of letting my elected officials know what I think. I do so often and as politely as possible.

Now I can salute Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for withdrawing support for his own legislation – a bill that would severely curtail Americans’ ability to choose the vitamin supplements we want to take. It’s rare to hear a politician admitting an error and it’s refreshing.

The power of grass roots pressure

On Feb. 4, McCain introduced the Dietary Supplement Safety Act, legislation that would give the pharmaceutical industry-controlled and funded corrupt Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over vitamin supplements. After a massive grass roots campaign against the measure, McCain withdrew his support for the bill in early March.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) also played a pivotal role in persuading McCain that increased government regulation of dietary supplements is misguided. Sen. Hatch was a major sponsor of the supplement-industry friendly 1994 DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act) and received major campaign contributions from the supplement industry.

McCain’s apparent intention was to regulate the use of steroids by professional athletes with his bill, but he seemed to be unaware that the bill had more far-reaching ramifications.

The bill would have made most dietary supplements available by prescription only.

I’m very aware that the supplement industry occasionally runs riot and that unquestionably there are unscrupulous supplement manufacturers.

Who is making money here?

At the same time, when I look at an issue like the McCain bill, I like to look at the bottom line: Who will benefit the most from the legislation?

The answer is obvious: The pharmaceutical industry.

There is no end to the greed of this industry, which already makes billions on drugs, some of which have been proven unsafe. Now the industry gets a windfall from the 32 million more people who will have health insurance and become consumers of pharmaceuticals. But still, they want a big piece of the action from the millions of Americans who choose preventive care and natural treatment through dietary supplements. This is one if the few times the smaller supplement manufacturers who donate to Sen. Hatch’s campaigns have come out on the upside.

However, I’ve never known the pharmaceutical industry to stay down for long. We all need to stay on the lookout for another bill or an end run around this one.

Did anyone else notice that drug company and hospital stock soared the day after the health care reform bill was passed?

Feb. 19, 2010

If Sen. John McCain has his way, Americans’ access to herbs, minerals and dietary supplements will be severely curtailed.

McCain’s newly introduced bill the Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA) will give the FDA complete control over all dietary supplements.

The DSSA will repeal parts of the DSHEA (Dietary Supplement and Education Act).

I know this sounds like a bureaucratic an alphabet soup and it is. It also has the potential to turn into a health care nightmare.

Bureaucractic alphabet soup

DSHEA, enacted in 1994, protects two types of supplements: 1. supplements that have been in the food supply and are not chemically altered and 2. supplements that were sold before 1994.

DSHEA as it exists today is far from perfect, largely because it gives the FDA control over new supplements and discourages the development of new products. However, DSHEA does prevent the FDA from arbitrarily banning or reclassifying supplements.

The McCain bill, if passed, gives the very much flawed FDA the power to create a list of approved supplements that can remain on the market and to ban all others.

Switching the focus

I’ll return to the flaws of the FDA in a moment, but it’s important to understand that Sen. McCain apparently has the intention with this bill of protecting us against steroid use by professional athletes. The DSSA is supported by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which is funded by major league baseball, football and other sports teams.

It appears that major league sports is attempting to shift the focus away from its shameless drug use by claiming some players were unknowingly exposed to steroids through supplements.

While that is preposterous and I, for the life of me, cannot understand why legislators need to interrogate athletes about illegal drug use when we’ve got two wars, economic disaster and a health care crisis to deal with, the upshot of the McCain bill is to dismantle the dietary supplements industry as we know it.

Who is the beneficiary?

Who would benefit from the dismantling of the dietary supplements industry? Not you and me, my friends. Plain and simple: The pharmaceutical industry will be the only beneficiaries of the McCain bill.

The FDA receives substantial funding from the pharmaceutical industry, so its interests are in protecting the funding source—pharmaceutical industry, not the American people.

The pharmaceutical industry is hostile to supplement companies because natural supplements can prevent diseases that are treated by drugs sold at enormous profits by these very same drug companies.

It’s not a very big leap of logic to the certainty that under the McCain bill, the FDA will be hostile to supplement companies and our access to dietary supplements, minerals and herbs will be severely curtailed.

Here’s where you can read the entire bill.

Contact Sen. McCain and say “NO”

I am very careful not to engage in political partisanship in these pages. However, I feel compelled to engage in political advocacy here for the benefit of every American.

Sen. McCain’s bill, if passed, will have far-reaching and potentially disastrous effects on preventive h ealth care and on eevery single one of us. All of us need to tell Mr. McCain right now that this bill is very misguided.

Contact Sen. McCain by e-mail or by calling (202) 224-2235.

Please contact him now and often until we are absolutely certain this bill is dead and buried.

Unprecedented shortages of dessicated or natural thyroid hormones like Armour thyroid and Nature-Throid are causing serious problems for patients with hypothyroidism.

Shortages of Armour thyroid have become fairly common in recent years, but the recent shortage of Nature-Throid indicates the pressure to take patients off the natural hormones that have been available for 100 years and force them onto synthetic thyroid hormones.

Minimum 90-day back order

Both Armour and RLC Labs, manufacturer of Nature-Throid and a similar formula called Westbrook, have announced that the most commonly used strengths of their products are on back order for at least 90 days and quite possibly considerably longer.

Is FDA forcing naturals off the market?

Thyroid patient advocate Mary Shoman has written on About.com that the FDA is attempting to force the manufacturers to go through a new drug application, a process that typically takes years and is patently absurd for a medication that has been in safe use for more than a century.

Dr. Hyla Cass, who works with many patients with hypothyoidism, suggests that patients shop around. She also suggests they consider taking a natural compounded T3/T4 formula.

Steve Metcalf, R.Ph., owner of my little compounding pharmacy in Brevard, NC, says he is unable to get dessicated thyroid in any form . He is currently using up the last of his supplies of tiny 1/4 grain tablets.

“We don’t know where this is going, but if you can find it anywhere, I suggest you buy a year’s supply or more,” he said.

Shomon writes, “Bottom line: at some point in the next several months, some patients will likely face a complete unavailability of all desiccated thyroid drugs, manufactured and compounded.”

Dessicated thyroid hormones are made from pork thyroids. Shomon reports that the raw materials supply has been interrupted and suggests that manufacturers may be abandoning their efforts to produce the hormones.

If you’re among the millions of Americans diagnosed with hypothyroidism, you know how difficult it is to get diagnosed and to find a hormone that works for you. To have the rug yanked out form under us is simply unacceptable.

Take action

You can make your feelings known to the FDA through its website, or by phone at: 1-888-INFO-FDA (1-888-463-6332):

–Kathleen Barnes

Aug. 3, 2009

More and more studies are verifying the benefits of vitamin D for everyone at all stages of life and underscoring the premise that the majority of us are “D” deficient.

Recent contributions at both ends of life include a London School of Medicine study that adds to the evidence that higher vitamin D blood levels from supplements slow the aging process and the progress of age-related diseases.

There are several new studies on vitamin D and children. One of the most interesting shows that vitamin D deficiency appears to contribute to insulin resistance in obese African-American teenage girls. What’s more, increasing vitamin D levels can improve glucose tolerance, say researchers at the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

And according to a new Boston University study, vitamin D deficiency itself may be a contributor to the obesity epidemic among teenagers.

Mounting evidence for Vitamin D

There seems to be absolutely no question that most of us need more vitamin D and that getting sufficient amounts of the sunshine vitamin will provide protection against a host of deadly disease, perhaps even prolong your life.

I’ll be going into this information in greater detail in coming weeks as I prepare to publish a new book on the sunshine vitamin that is being kept in the dark. I promise you’ll learn everything about how vitamin D contributes to everything from healthy bones to a strong immune system to blood sugar balance and long life.

Get more sunshine

The message I want to convey today, here in the middle of summer, is how important sun exposure is to you vitamin D status.

The human body cannot manufacture vitamin D. It must get D from outside sources, and the sun is the best source. Best of all, it’s free!

You can get vitamin D from some foods and many foods, including dairy products, now have vitamin D added.

But why not get it from the sun when it’s so easy?

Ditch the sunscreen—for short exposures

The skin cancer scare has become a double-edged sward. While most light-skinned people need protection from long exposure to the sun, brief unprotected exposures will give you the vitamin D your body so desperately needs.

You don’t need a lot: Just go out for a 15-minute walk three times a week sans sunscreen. Be sure at least your face and arms are exposed and better yet, your legs, too.

Even if you’re very light-skinned, you won’t get burned in those brief exposures, but you will drink in that life-giving vitamin D.

Your body can store vitamin D or a certain period of time, so now in August you can store up your vitamin D against the winter when you’re not very enthusiastic about walking around coat-less and the sun’s rays are much weaker anyway.

Even if you’re really bulked up on your D levels, you’ll be running low by January or February. Low vitamin D levels have been shown to negatively affect mood, and that’s why many of us get the mid-winter blues. That’s nothing a week at the beach won’t cure, but if that’s not in your budget or work schedule, try some supplements.

Vitamin D supplements

All vitamin D supplements are not created equal. The natural form is vitamin D3 (cholecaliciferol), the type your body makes with sun exposure.

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition says that vitamin D3 is the most powerful and most effective form of he vitamin, but, sadly, admits that most doctors prescribe formulations of vitamin D2 (ergocaliciferol), which has fewer beneficial effects and a shorter shelf life.

You’ll need to have your blood levels of vitamin D tested to determine if and how much of a supplement you should take. If you do, insist on a D3 formulation.

Better yet, get out there in the sun whenever you can.

–Kathleen Barnes

Turn Back Your Body’s Clock

by Kathleen Barnes

Imagine having all the energy you need to get through your busiest day – and then some. Imagine slipping into a form-fitting dress for a party and not having to worry about lumps and bulges. Imagine waking up in the morning feeling refreshed, alert, pain-free and happy to greet a new day and actually seeing a younger, brighter face in the mirror.

If it’s been years or even decades since you felt or looked that way, you’re not alone. But now animal studies presented to the National Academy of Sciences suggest a supplement combination can bring it all back, giving you the skin, the brain metabolism and the energy you haven’t enjoyed since your youth.

Speed weight loss and more

The supplements are acetyl l-carnitine (also known as Alcar) and alpha lipoic acid or ALA. They’re already well-known in the nutritional health community and they’ve been the subject of extensive human research that shows Alcar speeds weight loss and boosts the body’s ability to burn fat for energy and ALA is one of the most potent anti-oxidants and disease-fighters ever discovered.

But put them together, experts say, and they may literally turn back the hands of time by rejuvenating the mitochondria, the tiny “furnaces” inside of every cell in your body. Mitochondria provides 99% of the energy that keeps us alive and healthy, but over time, the little furnaces get damaged and burn fuel less efficiently, releasing free radicals, making us more likely to show signs of aging, disease and deterioration.

Boost energy

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley tried out the Fountain of Youth combo on aging rats: “With the two supplements together, these old rats got up and did the Macarena,” says UC cell biologist Bruce Ames, Ph.D., one of the nation’s most eminent scientists and chief researcher on the ALA/Alcar combo. “The brain looks better, they are full of energy. Everything we looked at looks like a young animal.”

Dr. Ames and his colleagues are in the early stages of human studies on the combo, but they say the signs are good that what works in animals also works on humans.

Try ALA and carnitine to:

Keep you going and going and going:

Dr. Ames’ conducted one small human study that showed half the older men who took the combo for just five weeks reported feeling better, with more vigor and a greater felling of well-being. His animal research shows that mammals lose approximately half of their mitochondrial function as they age, but taking the miracle combo for just a month boosted the mitochondrial activity by about 50%, increasing the distance they were able to walk and their speed of movement dramatically. He also found that old rats only moved about one-third as often as young ones, not because of pain or inability to move, but simply because their metabolisms had slowed down.

Again, the miracle combo to the rescue: In just a month, the animals doubled their activity levels. What’s happening, Dr. Ames theorizes, is a dramatic reduction in the mitochondria’s ability to produce free radicals, which cause the aging process and a host of age-related diseases including heart disease, cancer, arthritis and diabetes.

While Dr. Ames doesn’t claim to have discovered the Fountain of Youth, it may be the Fountain of Middle Age, he laughs. His animal studies were “the equivalent of making a 75- to 80-year-old person look and act middle-aged,” he says.

Sharpen your memory

Alcar has been proven to promote overall brain wellness and slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease because of its powerhouse effects on the mitochondria. Now Dr. Ames’ animal research proves the miracle combo reduced the time required to do simple memory task by more than half and put the young rats and old rats on an almost equal mental level. Human studies are needed, says Dr. Ames, but these results suggest the aging process can actually be reversed.

Erase the signs of aging

ALA alone is considered one of the most effective skin smoothers you can take, says dermatologist Nicholas Perricone, M.D., author of The Wrinkle Cure, who calls ALA “the universal antioxidant.”

Research shows it helps pump up collagen, prevents sun damage and actually repairs the skin damage you’ve already sustained. Dr. Perricone’s research shows that ALA creams erased puffiness in just a day or two, shrank enlarged pores in as little as two weeks, almost completely erased fine lines around the eyes within as little as four weeks and decreased the depth of deep facial lines in as little as eight weeks.

While no research has been conducted on the effects of the ALA/Alcar combo on skin, researchers say each of the ingredients enhances the other for a “synergistic effect, so it stands to reason that this would work at least as well, or even better than either one of the ingredients alone.”

Improve fat-burning

Chinese research shows that l-carnitine promotes fat burning in a dramatic way: overweight young women who took one gram of carnitine a day for 12 weeks lost a whopping 11 pounds, compared those who simply ate a healthy diet and got moderate exercise!

“Carnitine is the forklift that takes fat to the fat incinerators in our cells called the mitochondria, where it’s magically transformed into energy,” says Boulder, CO carnitine researcher and nutritionist Robert Crayhon, M.S., author of The Carnitine Miracle. Alcar is an enhanced form (more biologically active) of l-carnitine, and, again, thought the combination has not yet been studied, researchers says the ALA helps burn glucose and Alcar helps burn fat, so the two together have extra impetus to help you lose weight.

What to take

You can buy ALA and Alcar separately at any health food store. Dr. Ames recommends going for a high quality supplement and taking 500 mg of Alcar and 200 mg of ALA twice a day.

Be sure you’re getting acetyl l-carnitine for the maximum benefits.

April 14, 2009

Americans are using more supplements and paying more careful attention to their health in this difficult economic climate, according to the April 20 issue of Time magazine.

Time surmises that the economic climate and fear of illness is driving sales of vitamins and other supplements that have risen 8 percent in the past year. The Vitamin Shoppe chain reports a 20% increase in sales.

All of us need to take supplements all of the time since our soils are so nutrient depleted that it is virtually impossible to get all the nutrients we need for optimum health. For several years now, the staid American Medical Association has recommended a multi-vitamin for every man, woman and child.

Supplementation should be a part of everyone’s wellness strategy.

Two facts explain the sorry state of our collective health:
* Most of us haven’t paid that close attention to our nutrient intakes;
* Three-quarters of us do not eat the minimum five servings of fruits and vegetables a day

If the loss of health insurance and the fear of illness in a declining economy are prompting more of us to take supplements to prevent illness, it is one positive sign during hard times that I can only hope will have lasting positive effects.

–Kathleen Barnes