How to Keep Your Brain from Shrinking

Dr. Joseph Mercola reveals how to rejuvenate and regenerate your brain as you age.

Scientists have linked physical exercise to brain health for many years.

In fact, there’s compelling evidence that physical exercise helps build a brain that not only resists shrinkage but increases cognitive abilities1 by promoting neurogenesis, i.e. your brain’s ability to adapt and grow new brain cells.

In essence, physical activity produces biochemical changes that strengthen and renew not only your body but also your brain — particularly areas associated with memory and learning.

The converse is also true. Researchers have shown a sedentary lifestyle correlates to brain shrinkage, which increases your risk of memory loss and other cognitive problems.

As recently reported by Newsweek:2 Read more

Eating Chocolate Improves Brain Function

A new study has found that eating chocolate could help protect against normal age-related cognitive decline.

Cheering news for those with a sweet tooth – a recent study has found that regular chocolate consumption is associated with better cognitive function.

According to the study, published in the journal Appetite, chocolate consumption was found to be associated with cognitive performance “irrespective of other dietary habits.” Read more

Study Warns Against Consuming Splenda

The  consumer group The Center for Science in the Public Interest says there is nothing sweet about the artificial sweetener Splenda.

Findings of a study on the link between sucralose and cancer that caused uproar when they were presented at a cancer conference in 2013 have finally been published.

The food industry dismissed the results of the study when they were presented in London, but they are now available for the world to see in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health.

In response to the study, the consumer group The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is recommended that people avoid consuming sucralose, more popularly known as Splenda.

The study found that: Read more

An Easy Way to Maintain Healthy Blood Pressure

Probiotics may play a role in maintaining healthy blood pressure, says Emily Lunardo.

Probiotics are a common remedy for stomach troubles but it turns out, probiotics can work wonders on your blood pressure, too, according to new research. Treatment could be as simple as daily doses of foods you may already have on hand.

Australian researchers at Griffith University’s Health Institute and School of Medicine have found that eating foods rich in probiotics may help lower blood pressure. These findings were recently published in the journal Hypertension. Read more

Fat Is the Best Medicine for Your Heart

Cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotr explains why FAT is the best medicine for your heart and sugar is poison.

For decades, we were told that eating fat would lead us to early grave. Horror stories of clogged arteries and coronaries were the norm while foods such as pasta were seen as healthy.

But research is increasingly disproving this theory – and sugar is now public enemy number one.

In fact, fat is good for us and should be our medicine, claims cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who is based in Surrey.

He says a mounting slew of evidence suggests that far from contributing to heart problems, having full-fat dairy in your diet may actually protect you from heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Read more

The Beginner's Guide to Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting may help you live a longer and healthier life, says James Clear. Get started with his beginner's guide.

I have been intermittent fasting for over one year.

I skip breakfast each day and eat two meals, the first around 1pm and the second around 8pm. Then, I fast for 16 hours until I start eating again the next day at 1pm.

Surprisingly, since I’ve started intermittent fasting I’ve increased muscle mass (up 10 pounds from 205 to 215), decreased body fat (down 3% from 14% to 11%), increased explosiveness (set a personal best with a clean and jerk of 253 pounds a few months back), and decreased the amount of time I’ve spent training (down from 7.5 hours per week to 2.5 hours per week).

In other words, I’m stronger, leaner, and more explosive even though I go to the gym less and eat less. Read more

Chlorine Is Destroying Our Health

Chlorine is destroying our health, but you can neutralize it with vitamin C, says Sarah C. Corriher.

The consumption of chlorine changes HDL (“good”) cholesterol into LDL cholesterol, creates oxidative damage throughout a body, acts as an immunosuppressant, causes severe arterial damage, and it destroys fatty acids which are needed for heart health. Chlorine is even one of the main causes of respiratory illnesses in wintertime, for people use humidifiers, which release chlorine gas when they are used with chlorinated water. Showering in chlorinated water similarly releases the gas, and this is strongly tied to asthma. Nevertheless, chlorine remains the standard chemical that is used to sterilize water supplies throughout the world. It is toxic to every living thing. It is truly effective at killing the bacteria and microscopic parasites that live inside water, but it is likewise destructive to human health. Societies throughout the world have paid an incredible price in carnage for having chlorine-sterilized water. While the ‘purification’ of water by chlorine has prevented large-scale outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, it has also led to our current epidemics of heart disease and cancer, to name a couple. Read more