Today, the World Health Organization recognizes depression as one of the top four disabling diseases in the world! Clinical depression is much more than a case of the blues. Depression is both a mental and emotional state, a feeling of being in a box that you can’t escape. It’s closely tied to illness; over 80% of terminal cancer patients have a history of chronic depression.

That it's good for your heart isn't anything shocking. But just HOW good green tea can be for your ticker—that's big news.

Because a new study in Japan, appearing in the Annals of Epidemiology, has shown that drinking 7 cups of green tea a day could cut heart disease risk death by a massive 75%.

I’d like to tell you about something that just might help protect women from some of the side effects of radiation treatments.

And it’s something many people enjoy already, whether they have cancer or not: red wine.

Does eating a whole bag of a salty snack make you feel better?  If it does, you may not be alone.  A recent study at the University of Iowa concluded that salt may be “nature’s anti-depressant.”  The study found rats did not participate in activities they normally enjoy when deficient in sodium chloride (common table salt).  Since they didn’t act with their usual zest, the researchers concluded they were depressed. 

Here’s my beef with the flu vaccine: It makes people sick.

Too many patients get sick after they get the vaccine. I also read the studies which show the vaccine has made no difference in the rate of flu-related deaths and offers a slim chance at best of preventing the flu. But I’m going to give you five safe and effective tips for preventing the flu—and five things you should do to get yourself healthy if you come down with this nasty affliction.

Now that we know our food is “filled with nutritional holes” let’s evaluate the next point. Our food is “… covered in poisons”.

If a person buys 100% organic foods and eats only at organic restaurants, then their food isn’t really covered with poisons.  With that said you are still exposed to a certain amount of pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, etc because you are alive and breathing.

In India, Alzheimer's disease is relatively uncommon. People over the age of 65 living in certain rural areas of India have a less than 1 percent (0.84%) chance of developing the disease. In the larger cities and rural areas of India, the risk is just 2.4 percent. [1,2]

Compare these findings to people over the age of 65 living in the United States. Again, depending on where we are living, our chances of developing Alzheimer's disease range from a little under 5 percent to an astonishing 17 percent. [3,4]

If I read the tea leaves correctly, soda taxes are on their way.  Kelly Brownell and Tom Friedan broached the idea earlier this year.  York state tried and failed to implement them.

Since then, as we learn more about the role of sugary drinks as a factor in obesity, public health support for the idea is growing.  Last week, Jim Knickman, President of NYSHealth wrote an op-ed in the New York Post in favor of the taxes.  Now the New England Journal of Medicine – as prestigious a journal as they come – is publishing another article from Brownell, Frieden, et al on the public health and economic benefits of taxing sugary soft drinks.

Last week, I explained how preventing heart disease has very little to do with simply lowering cholesterol with statin drugs. Our current thinking about how to treat and prevent heart disease is at best misguided, and at worst harmful. We believe we are treating the causes of heart disease by lowering cholesterol, lowering blood pressure, lowering blood sugar with medication. But the real question is what causes high cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood sugar in the first place.[i] It is certainly not a medication deficiency!

Every nutrition consultant has their list.  So, here is mine.  They are in no special order.  They are all healthy foods that I recommend you eat on a regular basis, unless you are allergic.  These foods emphasize what lacks in many American diets – fruits and vegetables for vitamins and antioxidants, minerals to fuel our metabolism, and healthy fats that are sources of Omega 3’s and vitamins A, D, and K.