5 Shocking Facts I Learned from Suzanne Somers

The March 10th topic "Suzanne Somers and the 5 Supplements You Need Now" set a record for number of views received for any post on the Swanson blog. I can't say I'm exactly shocked that you're as interested in anti-aging/bioidentical hormones as I am.  The content in Ms. Somers' book Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness has captivated my attention unlike any health book I've read recently. (And I read a lot of them!)

What health experts now know about how to prevent and even reverse aging, even when a person has already begun that menacingly inevitable descent downhill, is beyond exciting!  As soon as I finished the book, I started reading it again. Today I began reading it a third time while highlighting key points that I want to address with Dr. Khalid Mahmud, one of the anti-aging experts Suzanne interviewed in the book with whom I immediately booked an appointment. So I decided to keep the momentum going and share with you a few things I learned from this book--some good, some bad, all of them surprising, and a few downright shocking! 

1. Excitotoxins--Remember the meat tenderizer of the 60s and 70s called Accent? It seemed pretty harmless at the time, but the fact is, it's pure monosodium glutamate (MSG), and the only reason it's added to foods is to enhance flavor and stimulate our appetite for more. Health experts now know how it does that.They refer to it as an excitotoxin because MSG literally excites neurons to death. It stimulates them so much that they die. And when neurons die, there goes memory and brain health. These glutamates are everywhere--even in baby food! Another excitotoxin is aspartame, which is abundant in diet sodas. Absolutely disgusting--even criminal--that glutamates and aspartame even exist.  They're pure poison. Fortunately, methylcobalamin supplements (the active form of vitamin B12) may negate some of the bad effects of glutamates.

2. Chemotherapy Bonuses--Chemotheraphy does far more harm than good. Dr. Mahmud was head of oncology for 25 years at North Memorial Hospital in Minneapolis and became utterly disillusioned, not only with the failure of chemotherapy, but with the medical community's insistence on using it even when they knew it didn't help. Another person interviewed for the book explained why that is. Doctors get bonuses--sizeable ones--for recommending courses of chemotherapy. Cancer is big business and a genuine cure for it would be damaging to profits. Talk about discouraging! Still, this book emphasizes over and over again that we're in control of our health, which is largely determined by what we consume. (Didn't want to leave you hanging on such a depressing note.)

3. Far Infrared Saunas--OK, this was really cool...I mean hot. You know what I think about exercise. No one is letting me off the hook, but you'll know in a minute why this one caught my attention. Dr. Howard Liebowitz, who spent 15 years working the ER at Cedars Sinai and now has his own anti-aging practice at the Hall Center, discusses how far infrared saunas are superior to regular saunas, which cause you to sweat and get overheated too quickly. On the contrary, far infrared saunas are cooler (around 140 degrees) so you can stay in the heat longer, allowing it to penetrate the body and raise your core temperature. People are able to sit in this type of sauna for 30 to 40 minutes easily, and doing so has the same effect on your metabolism as 30 to 40 minutes of exercise! More importantly, you'll also flush stubborn chemical toxins like PCBs from fat cells.

4. Melatonin--Melatonin supplementation isn't as scary as some people would have you believe. Yes, it's a hormone (as opposed to...I don't know what...candy?), but more than a few of the doctors interviewed said it's crucial for healthy aging. Around the age of 40, we stop producing adequate amounts of this critical hormone, causing many of us to lose precious sleep. But melatonin helps us do far more than wind down for the night. Did you know that it also relaxes muscles, relieves tension, reduces stress and anxiety, and lowers blood pressure? I didn't! Besides that, it's a powerful antioxidant that protects the heart, arteries, pancreas and organs of the immune system. Wow! And it's cheap! (I ordered our dual release melatonin last Wednesday.)

5. Statins--They're evil. Pure and simple. They prevent the body from making cholesterol, yet the body needs cholesterol to make all the important hormones--pregnenolone, DHEA, melatonin, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, thyroid hormones, adrenal hormones...you know where I'm going with this. Why doesn't the medical profession know this?? They do, they just don't care. It's business. (Silly me!) So instead half of Americans are suffering and aging faster than necessary with dementia, nerve disfunction, muscle-wasting and loss of sex drive because they don't have the hormones they need to be healthy! And the really big kicker? Experts now know that cholesterol doesn't even have the negative effect on cardiovascular disease that they thought it did!

Yeah, I'm just getting started, yet I realize it's time to wrap it up. So next time I'll cover the connection between "the Big 10" and Big Pharma and why conventional medicine will never prescribe bioidentical hormones; how the sex hormones also positively impact our heart and immune system; why human growth hormone (HGH) has an undeserved reputation as "bad" and how it could be introduced into your health regimen; plus more. I'm just skimming the surface on each of these topics, and I promise you won't be disappointed by owning your own copy of Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness.