Microwave oven health risk

In intervals of two to five days, the volunteers in the study received one of the following food variants on an empty stomach: (1) raw milk; (2) the same milk conventionally cooked; (3) pasteurized milk; (4) the same raw milks cooked in a microwave oven; (5) raw vegetables from an organic farm; (6) the same vegetables cooked conventionally; (7) the same vegetables frozen and defrosted in a microwave oven; and (8) the same vegetables cooked in the microwave oven. Once the volunteers were isolated, blood samples were taken from every volunteer immediately before eating. Then, blood samples were taken at defined intervals after eating from the above milk or vegetable preparations.

Leukocytes are often signs of pathogenic effects on the living system, such as poisoning and cell damage. The increase of leukocytes with the microwaved foods were more pronounced than with all the other variants. It appears that these marked increases were caused entirely by ingesting the microwaved substances.

  • Microwaving prepared meats sufficiently to insure sanitary ingestion caused formation of d-Nitrosodienthanolamines, a well-known carcinogen.
  • Microwaving milk and cereal grains converted some of their amino acids into carcinogens.
  • Thawing frozen fruits converted their glucoside and galactoside containing fractions into carcinogenic substances.
  • Extremely short exposure of raw, cooked or frozen vegetables converted their plant alkaloids into carcinogens.
  • Carcinogenic free radicals were formed in microwaved plants, especially root vegetables.
  • Decrease in nutritional value

So the first set of studies suggests that the microwave oven creates new substances that our immune system needs to fight against. It sufficiently changes food from something our body is familiar with to something that’s a threat. Chronic inflammation taxes our body and is linked to heart disease, cancer, and a variety of other diseases.
The second set of studies are self-explanatory, detailing some of the changes that take place and how microwaves transform foods into carcinogens.

What Your Nails Say About Your Health Summary:  Very white nails could mean Anemia Congestive heart failure Liver disease Malnutrition Yellow nails: fungal infection Bluish nails - not enough oxygen - could signal a lung problem or diabetes Rippled nails-inflammation or psoriasis Cracked or split nails-thyroid problems. Puffy nail fold - lupus - or  another connective tissue disorder Dark lines beneath a nail - could be skin cancer Overly bitten nails- OCD
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What Your Nails Say About Your Health

Summary: 

Very white nails could mean

  • Anemia
  • Congestive heart failure
  • Liver disease
  • Malnutrition

Yellow nails: fungal infection

Bluish nails - not enough oxygen - could signal a lung problem or diabetes

Rippled nails-inflammation or psoriasis

Cracked or split nails-thyroid problems.

Puffy nail fold - lupus - or  another connective tissue disorder

Dark lines beneath a nail - could be skin cancer

Overly bitten nails- OCD

Vitamin K2 revisited

The big idea with K2 is that it’s important in having your calcium get deposited in the right places (bones/teeth) and not the wrong places (blood vessels etc.) It also helps with other types of mineral deposition.

K2 is found in low concentration in meats and eggs : 

FOODVITAMIN K2(MCG/100G)

Egg Yolk (United States)15.5(100% MK-4)Ground Beef (Medium Fat)8.1(100% MK-4)Calf Liver5.0(100% MK-4)Salmon0.5(100% MK-4)Mackerel0.4(100% MK-4)Egg White0.4(100% MK-4)

Here is a more complete table. It’s also found in dairy products and chicken. Note that 1 egg yolk is 17 grams, so you’d need to eat about 6 egg yolks to get the amount listed above. K2 is found in higher concentrations in organ meats

The brain contains one of the highest concentrations of vitamin K2 in the body; only the pancreas, salivary glands, and the cartilaginous tissue of the sternum contain more.

It’s interesting to note that K2 is found in cartilage.

Some theorize that vitamin k2 is one of many quinones that perform important functions but are not well studied,

As this site says:

Vitamin K2 is further sub-divided into several forms but the most understood are menaquinone-4 (menatretrenone-MK4)

The MK-4 version of K2 is exclusively made by animal tissues and is found in foods like butter, cheeses, liver and liver pate [especially so if those animals are mostly pastured/grass fed and not fed loads of soy/corn]. MK-7 on the other hand is made by our intestinal bacteria (about 10% of total dietary K1 is converted in this manner, although most experts agree that it contributes minimally to vitamin K2 status in humans due to the minimal amount of absorption that occurs), and fermented foods such as natto [photo in the top, left hand corner] and sauerkraut.

vitamin K2 activates a type of protein called matrix gla protein (MGP) where it helps to keep calcium out of the blood vessels. Calcification of arteries is a strong (some argue the best) predictor heart disease. In a large epidemiological study, those with higher intakes of vitamin K2 were found to be 52 per cent less likely to have vascular calcification, 41 per cent less likely to develop heart disease and 57 per cent less like to die from it.

K2 has been found to improved dental health as the salivary glands excrete vitamin K2 provided there is an adequate dietary supply. In fact the salivary glands have the second highest concentration of K2, second only to the pancreas.

I view this as an additional argument that one should eat grass fed meat in addition to fish.

Heart Disease and Chlorine

Interesting article on the link between the two.

For me, this is obvious. I avoid municipal water when possible, because it often has chlorine in it. Even for showers, a shower filter can make sense to reduce the amount of chlorine absorbed through your skin.

The difference between Arteriosclerosis and Atherosclerosis is: Arteriosclerosis has a higher level of calcium than cholesterol. Atherosclerosis has a higher level of cholesterol than calcium.

Heart Disease

Ha, they are easily confused.

Maybe one way to remember might be that calcium has and “i” like “arterio” and cholesterol has an “h” like “athero.” The only letters not present in one word that present in the other are “i” and “h.”

Statins Actually Harm Heart Function

this study in Clinical Cardiology found that heart muscle function was “significantly better” in the control group than in those taking statin drugs

 it’s widely known that statins lower your CoQ10 levels by blocking the pathway involved in cholesterol production — the same pathway by which Q10 is produced. Statins also reduce the blood cholesterol that transports CoQ10 and other fat-soluble antioxidants.


The loss of CoQ10 leads to loss of cell energy and increased free radicals which, in turn, can further damage your mitochondrial DNA, effectively setting into motion an evil circle of increasing free radicals and mitochondrial damage.

There are actually over 900 studies showing the risks of statin drugs, which include:

Cognitive loss Neuropathy Anemia

Acidosis Frequent fevers Cataracts

Sexual dysfunction An increase in cancer risk Pancreatic dysfunction

Immune system suppression Serious degenerative muscle tissue condition (rhabdomyolysis) Hepatic dysfunction. (Due to the potential increase in liver enzymes, patients must be monitored for normal liver function)


Weightlifting is GOOD for your heart IF you don’t take steriods

It’s unfortunate that weightlifting gets a bad reputation because of steroid users. Source here.

If you care about lowering your cholesterol, steaming these vegetables is better than eating them raw....

The cholesterol-lowering ability of steamed mustard greens is second only to steamed collard greens and steamed kale in a recent study of cruciferous vegetables and their ability to bind bile acids in the digestive tract. When bile acid binding takes place, it is easier for the bile acids to be excreted from the body. Since bile acids are made from cholesterol, the net impact of this bile acid binding is a lowering of the body’s cholesterol level. It’s worth noting that steamed mustard greens (and all steamed forms of the cruciferous vegetables) show much greater bile acid binding ability than raw mustard greens.

Marathons can hurt you more than they help you...

regular exercise reduces cardiovascular risk by a factor of two or three. But the extended vigorous exercise performed during a marathon raises cardiac risk by seven-fold!

it puts an extraordinary stress on your heart, one that your body was not designed for.

A related article talks about how older marathoners develop scar tissue in their hearts.

But half of the older lifelong athletes showed some heart muscle scarring [fibrosis]. The affected men were, in each case, those who’d trained the longest and hardest. Spending more years exercising strenuously or completing more marathon or ultramarathon races was, in this study, associated with a greater likelihood of heart damage.

I believe that marathons are not the healthiest thing in the world, and I believe in doing traditional aerobic exercise and high intensity training as I posted about here.

Aging and Longevity – Methylation

Methylation enables the body to:

  • Detoxify toxins within the cell
  • Repair damaged DNA
  • Create new cells

If the cycle of methylation is not working well a dangerous substance called homocysteine accumulates in the blood. High homocysteine levels cause serious damage to the cells and the DNA. This leads to premature aging – and premature death.

High homocysteine is closely involved in:

  • Heart and artery disease
  • Diabetes
  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • Various types of cancer
  • Depression
  • Parkinson’s disease
  • Low thyroid function
  • IBS (inflammatory bowel syndrome)
  • ME (Myalgic encephalitis)

and other serious degenerative diseases.

For example a raised homocysteine level can easily double or even quadruple the chances of atherosclerosis and other artery problems, leading to serious illness or death.

To improve methylation and thus reduce homocysteine there are two approaches:

To increase the elements in the blood, which supply the necessary methyl groups – primarily TMG (trimethylglycine) and SAM-e (S-adenosyl-methionine), and:

To make sure the nutrients, which enable methylation to take place all present in sufficient quantities – these are primarily vitamin B12, folic acid and zinc.

The target level of homocysteine in the blood is 6.3 µmol per liter of blood or less. If as high as 15 µmol per liter – and this level is not rare – the risk of coronary artery disease is quadrupled. A simple blood test will show the level of homocysteine present.

I’ve always taken very few vitamins, together with a multi-mineral - but never supplements. I currently take vitamin D, dessicated liver for b12, and then calcium (because I don’t feel like gnawing on bones or grinding egg shells - although perhaps they might be better sources) and a multi-mineral (to be safe). I get tons of folic acid from the food I eat. Zinc? Well that’s a reason to eat more oysters. Dunno. Somewhat skeptical of supplements. Beef liver actually contains folate as well - even though it’s not listed on my supplement data, so I’m not sure about the extent to which  it survives in pill form. Anyway, this to me is a very interesting angle on eating healthily.

Tropical Blueberries Are Even Healthier Than US/Canadian Blueberries

blueberries that grow wild in Mexico, Central and South America … have even more healthful antioxidants than the blueberries — already renowned as “super fruits” — sold throughout the United States. These extreme super fruits could provide even more protection against heart disease, cancer and other conditions

Too bad you can’t buy ‘em here yet. I hope some good company starts importing them.

Red Palm Oil - getting a good source and health benefits

So I’ve bought this product before. This red palm oil is made is way that as I see it it would be hard for lots of nutrients to escape or toxins to enter. You can typically get it at Whole Foods.

There are a lot of claims of health benefits which is not surprising given the high levels I’ve seen for vitamins and anti-oxidants, including beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, vitamin-E, lycopene and other carotenoids. 

It’s more saturated than olive oil, so it’s more stable for cooking.

It’s heart healthy, based on the studies I’ve seen.

So it’s another thing to consider in lieu of olive oil.

Your Body Shape and Heart Disease

A major new analysis challenges the long-held idea that obese people who carry their extra weight mainly around the middle — those with an “apple” shape — are at greater risk for heart disease than “pears,” whose fat tends to cluster on their thighs and buttocks.

The new report, published online on March 11 in The Lancet, pooled data from 58 studies about more than 220,000 people,mean age of 58. During the time they were followed, more than 14,000 suffered a heart attack or stroke. Conventional risk factors like blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes and smoking were accurate predictors of a heart attack or stroke, but additional information about weight or body shape (ascertained by measuring waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio) did not improve the ability to predict risk.

What is being said here, in my opinion, is that there are some people who are pear shaped or fat - and for whatever reason they are actually quite healthy  - and don’t have any of the above risk factors for heart disease. So despite being fat or pear shaped, they have low blood pressure, cholesterol, no diabetes, etc.

It’s an interesting exception. 

Lamb - how grass fed is it?

So lamb has won praise because lambs can’t eat grains, so for those who like grass fed beef, lamb is one place where you can be reasonably sure you’re not getting a grain fed product (which produces lots of health problems). However, it turns out there is good lamb and even better lamb. Even better lamb is pastured.

In our own nutritional profile of lamb, we use a conservative average estimate of 40 milligrams of omega-3s per ounce of roasted lamb loin. That’s 50% of the omega-3s in an ounce of baked cod fish or broiled tuna, and 67% of the amount in an ounce of sesame seeds.

In research comparing indoor feeding on hay and nutrient concentrates with outdoor pasture feeding, pasture-fed lamb was found to contain significantly lower levels of trans fatty acids with the exception of a single trans fatty acid called vaccenic acid. Trans fats are a type of dietary fat that we want to avoid in large amounts due to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but vaccenic acid is one specific type of trans fat that we do not want to avoid since it’s the building block for a cardioprotective fatty acid called CLA (conjugated linoleic acid).

This is important because some might think it’s easy to be less selective about lamb since lamb is not always grass fed, so pay up for the good stuff if you can afford it and it’s available.

Dietary Choline & Heart Disease? Studies can be misleading.

There is some misinformation out there about choline. This helps clear it up:

Short version:

The authors[of a recent paper] argue that dietary choline, found mostly as phosphatidylcholine, enters the intestine where our gut bacteria convert it to free choline and then to trimethylamine, a gas that smells like rotting fish.  Then our livers detoxify the trimethylamine to an odorless product called trimethylamine oxide (TMAO).  While this prevents us from walking around smelling like we’ve been swimming in a barrel full of fermenting cod livers, the authors argue that TMAO fills our arteries with plaque.

They also showed that feeding mice phosphatidylcholine did in fact produce TMAO

There’s just one major problem with this hypothesis.  Studies in humans have shown that neither phosphatidylcholine nor choline-rich foods produce detectable increases in trimethylamine.

Everything I’ve seen suggests choline is really good for you and your heart, and it’s kind of baffling to see studies that overlook basic facts - especially when they’re picked up by so called leading alternative health sites.