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On July 29, 2010, the British Medical Journal published a flawed study of the usage of calcium supplements and associated risk of heart attack. The study misleadingly concluded that use of calcium supplements increases the risk of heart attacks by 27% and has no significant effect on overall mortality. The authors advise that the use of calcium supplements in treating or preventing osteoporosis should be reconsidered. Some in the media are broadcasting this study as a reason to stop using calcium supplements.

Please don’t stop your calcium supplements before reading more about the serious flaws in this study!

A major problem with this study is that it excluded people taking vitamin D, magnesium, and other common ingredients in bone protection products. As a result, the study participants generally had low levels of nutrients that are associated with lower risk of diseases such as atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease and are directly tied how calcium is used in the body. These nutrients all work together to keep calcium in the bones where it belongs, rather than building up calcium deposits in the vascular system and heart that can contribute to cardiovascular disease and heart attacks.
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Nursing infants should be able to spend quality time, including overnights, with their fathers. Yet some mothers try to use nursing as an excuse to block contact between infants and their dads. Courts should be fully aware that there are plentiful means to ensure a good supply of breast milk for use by fathers caring for infants.

Robert Franklin of Fathers & Families recently penned the posting Expert: No Conflict Between Breastfeeding and Shared Parenting about an article from a breastfeeding advocate who claims fathers are trying to assert in court that breastfeeding is inappropriate behavior:

(Breastfeeding Court Letter, by Katherine A Dettwyler, Ph.D., Anthropology)

In addition, my research has been used to counter charges of child abuse and “inappropriate parenting behaviors” in many court cases, especially involving divorce and custody disputes, where fathers may accuse the mother of “inappropriate parenting by virtue of extended breastfeeding” as a strategy to gain custody of children, or may simply claim that ‘continued breastfeeding’ is not relevant to shared custody arrangements.

At this point (2005), all of the research that has been conducted on the health and cognitive consequences of different lengths of breastfeeding shows steadily increasing benefits the longer a child is breastfed up to the age of 2 years, and no negative consequences. No research has been conducted on the physical, emotional, or psychological health of children breastfed longer than 2 years. Thus, while there is no research-based proof that breastfeeding a child for 3 years provides statistically significant health or cognitive benefits compared to breastfeeding a child for only two years, there is no research to show that breastfeeding a child for 3 years (or 4-5-6-7-8-9 years) causes any sort of physical, psychological or emotional harm to the child. This has recently been confirmed in the 2005 American Academy of Pediatrics “Recommendations for breastfeeding the healthy term infant” (see below).

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I’m a typical middle aged American guy with a weight problem. I’d like to share some of the useful experiences I’ve had without blushing, and also want to share some of my personal medical data with readers, too. So I’m writing this under the pseudonym “Lester Waite” because one of my goals, and I’m sure that of many others, is “less weight.”

Human health is complicated and there can be many different causes behind similar symptoms. It would be nice if there was a “magic bullet” fix for weight gain that will work for everyone, but from my experiences and reading I don’t believe this is likely to ever happen. Having tried a lot of recommendations that worked for others that didn’t work for me, I’ve seen firsthand how weight loss ideas seem very hit-or-miss and for me, unfortunately, mostly miss.

I did, however, finally discover the means to lose some significant weight. But it has some big “gotchas” that really need to be addressed to make it workable for more people. In this article, I’ll explain what I found that has worked for me as it might work for you, too.

Want to Lose Weight?

I wanted to lose weight. Over the years, I tried lots of ideas, ranging from reducing portions to increasing exercise to various weight loss supplements designed to crank up the metabolism. Nothing worked much. Even when I found supplements that helped reduced my appetite and food intake, the weight didn’t come off.
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Life Extension founder William Faloon has written a detailed 12 page article on what to do if you get a respiratory illness such as a cold or flu. The article, What To Do If You Contract Influenza — Including H1N1 (Swine) Flu or the Common Cold is to appear in the upcoming January 2010 edition of Life Extension Magazine.
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Last week, I posted an article on N-acetylcysteine (NAC) that mentioned a number of health conditions for which it is believed to be helpful. I also discussed my experience with the supplement and how and why I’ve used it. As is usual with articles, some of the feedback I got was along the lines of “so does it work?” That’s a good question.
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Life Extension’s Mega EPA/DHA fish oil is on sale through September 14, 2009, at 65% off regular price. It is a very good quality fish oil supplement and also very well priced at $6.98 per bottle of 120 softgels. It is a double strength formulation with reduced cholesterol, meaning that it is equivalent of 240 typical fish oil softgels. As you may know, fish oil is well-reputed for managing blood lipid levels, particularly helping to lower LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. What you may not know is that many common brands of fish oil supplements contain a considerable amount of cholesterol in each softgel. Mega EPA/DHA has twice the EPA and DHA (the primary beneficial Omega-3 fish oil compounds), half the calories, and 80% less cholesterol per softgel versus Costco’s Kirkland Signature Fish Oil Concentrate that is regularly priced at $9.69 (plus tax) for 400 regular strength softgels.

Life Extension Mega EPA/DHA Fish Oil is useful for improving your health in many ways. In addition to helping cut down unhealthy blood lipid levels (LDL cholesterol and triglycerides), it is also helpful for reducing the risk of depression, blood clots, inflammation disorders, heart attacks, and strokes. Fish oils containing significant quantities of DHA in particular are believed to improve brain and nervous system health.

As we’ve previously explained, research in recent years is showing that vitamin D deficiency appears to be a widespread health problem affecting much or most of the population of nations such as the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. It’s likely a global phenomenon, ironically affecting developed nations more severely as their residents spend far less time outside in the sun and tend to use sunscreens to prevent skin cancer.

The vitamin D deficiency crisis may be causing elevated rates of depression, autism, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and a variety of other chronic health problems in developed nations. Vitamin D3 supplements are now recommended for most people as few get enough vitamin D from diet and sun exposure. Suggestions that adults be taking 2000 IU to 5000 IU per day are now commonplace. Recent recommendations are running up to 10,000 IU per day as a daily adult upper intake limit in some studies. Recommended intake for children is increasing, also, but depends upon the age and size of the child. With vitamin D3 recommended doses growing for both adults and children, it is good to see improved vitamin D3 products such as softgels, gummy vitamins, and liquid vitamin drinks for conveniently getting necessary vitamin D at costs as low as a penny or two per day.
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Vince Guiliano is a prolific writer nearing 80 years old who has assembled a fascinating collection of information on human aging and how to slow it by using dietary supplements. Among his efforts to date are the Anti-Aging Firewalls blog and extensive overviews of the anti-aging properties of many dietary supplements.
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Autism is a set of child developmental delays and disabilities. It includes impaired social interaction and communications, delayed and impaired verbal and language skills, and focus on repetitive activities. Autism is just one of several related disorders in the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) classification. Asperger’s Syndrome is the second most common ASD illness after autism and generally differs from autism because language development is not affected as severely.

The incidence of autism has been rapidly increasing in many places. Although there appears to be no single cause for this, nutritional modifications both for pregnant women and children have been found to exert significant improvements on outcomes both in terms of lowering rates of autism and helping children overcome some of the developmental and behavioral problems it causes.
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As you may be aware, the latest Life Extension Overstock Sale ends on June 8, 2009. We’d like to call your attention to two of the overstock sale products that are a particularly good deal and would be useful for a lot of people trying to lower their cholesterol and blood lipid (fat) levels.

Life Extension Mega EPA/DHA Fish Oil is useful for improving your health in many ways. In addition to helping cut down unhealthy blood lipid levels (LDL cholesterol and triglycerides), it is also helpful for reducing depression, reducing the risk of blood clots and general inflammation, and improving brain and nervous system health.

The second product we’ll discuss at the end of this article is Life Extension Vitamin B3 Niacin. It’s good for lowering LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and reducing stroke and heart attack risk. It can also increase beneficial HDL cholesterol and improve blood flow. However, you should discuss using it with your doctor to be on the safe side as people with liver disorders may not be able to safely use it.
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