In 1990, my body came down with a very heavy fatigue. In order to fully understand what it was like, imagine the fatigue you felt during your worst flu. Then magnify it times ten. Now imagine living like this, day after day, for over a decade. This is what is known as chronic fatigue syndrome and it affects millions of people around the world.
The brain occupies only five percent of our total body mass, but it needs at least 25 percent of our body’s energy supply to meet its considerable metabolic demands. Despite what many people think, the brain does not require glucose for its energy needs. Instead, it prefers the energy units that are found in fat known as ketones.
The most common food sensitivity associated with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is gluten. Some research has shown that up to 80 percent of all people with ADHD are gluten sensitive, with many of them having celiac disease.
Approximately 4 billion years ago, before the earth contained an oxygen-based atmosphere, the very first forms of life on earth fed on just two nutrients: sugar and protein. Stored within the DNA of every living organism today lies the memory of this biological fact. The very fist living cells lacked a nucleus (prokaryotic cells) and fed anaerobically on sugars and proteins.
Recent studies have shown that Vitamin D lowers the risk of cancer (including skin cancer) up to 60 percent in men and up to 77 percent in women. It has also been shown to prevent type 1 and type 2 diabetes, reduce inflammation, prevent seasonal affective disorders, help prevent Parkinson’s disease, help prevent cardiovascular disease, help prevent autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, as well as help support brain health. Al Sears, M.D., in his book, “Your Best Health Under the Sun,” said that “we are designed, cell by cell, as creatures of the sun….[vitamin D] may be the single most important organic nutrient for your over all health.”
The human body consists of over fifty thousand different proteins. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein and are essential, meaning that they must be derived from the diet and cannot be recycled by the body. These essential aminos are: L-tryptophan, threonine, lysine, methionine, isoleucine, leucine, valine, and phenylalanine. Without the intake of a complete protein from the diet, a healthy protein synthesis is simply not possible.
By 2020, major depression is expected to be the second-leading cause of disability (the first is ischemic heart disease), according to the Institute of Functional Medicine. Anxiety frequently accompanies depression which are the two most common psychological disorders in the world.
Since the advent of antibiotics nearly a century ago, we’ve been injecting them into our bodies to kill off bacterial infections. Alongside this increased use of antibiotics, American consumers have increased their sugar intake from 20 pounds of sugar per year to about 140 pounds of sugar per year — mainly due to the exponential rise of process foods containing HFCS (high fructose corn syrup). It has been the combination of these two trends that has been the cause for what is known as the “Candida Yeast Syndrome.”
We have been given incorrect knowledge regarding dietary fats by the Food and Drug Administration. Saturated fat has been a huge part of the diet of the homo sapiens species for the last 25,000 years. It’s only been in the last 1/10 of 1% (5000 years) where agriculture has gradually replaced fats with sugars (from complex carbohydrates), that our source of fuel for the body has dramatically shifted.
The average American is over ten times more likely to contract diabetes today compared to fifty years ago. Heart disease, cancer, and stroke continue to increase in epidemic proportions. In 2006, the United States was number 1 in terms of health care spending per capita but ranked 39th for infant mortality, 43rd for adult female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortality, and 36th for life expectancy. So why do we spend so much and get so little in return?
