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The US Senate is at its typical deceitful antics again. Senators are once again debating more repressive legislation, this time in the form of the Food Safety Accountability Act of 2010. This legislation is designed in part to silence those who cite research on foods and supplements that have beneficial effects to health. The main sponsor of the legislation, Senator Patrick Leahy (Democrat from Vermont), claims he’s trying to protect Americans from unsafe contaminants in foods and supplements. But the legislation is so defective that, if passed, it will almost certainly be used by the FDA to continue to attack, persecute, and shut down companies and organizations that publish citations of scientific research that shows their food and supplement products are beneficial.

If after reading this article you are persuaded that this new legislation has some problems and should not pass in its present form, please take action by contacting your Senators to oppose the bill. It takes just a couple of minutes to do this.

FDA Happy to Sacrifice Your Health, Life, and Freedom for Its Money and Power

Why does the FDA want to silence these people? Simple, they are a threat to its income and influence.

Innovative food and supplement companies sell a wide variety of highly beneficial products that often out-perform expensive and side-effect laden drugs at a fraction of the cost. The FDA would rather have you buying the latest and greatest statin drug to lower your LDL cholesterol, not eating healthy foods and taking cheap and effective supplements like niacin, plant sterols, red yeast rice, and fiber supplements that all have scientific backing for lowering LDL cholesterol without the dangerous side effects of statins.

Why does the FDA prefer statins? Again, follow the money. Statin makers are big pharmaceutical companies. They pay billions in fees to the FDA to approve these drugs. The FDA is addicted to these fees. While the drug companies “complain” about the high fees, they are actually very happy to participate in this plot because it enables them to introduce pricey new products every year, many of which work not much differently from the dozens of similar products already on the market, and keep smaller competitors from cutting into their markets. The FDA is a very good business partner in that it helps create drug monopolies and destroy any competition that may arrive before it can take too big a cut out of big pharma and FDA profits.

Small companies can’t afford $1 billion plus drug approval processes that take several years, even more than a decade, to get a drug approved. So many small companies that want to offer consumers products to help solve their health problems have turned to foods and supplements as the only route available to them.
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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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Most adults who are getting regular preventive healthcare are familiar with the lipid panel performed as a routine check for cholesterol levels. What they may not know is that the standard lipid panel can only identify about 40% of the people who are at high risk for heart disease. The result of this is that many adults mistakenly believe they have reduced their heart attack risk when they are actually carrying around ticking time bombs that could be defused with improved treatment.

While the exact treatment for blood lipid problems varies, doctors seldom consider any such treatments without the test data to justify them. You could argue that the conventional cholesterol test actually increases the risk for heart attacks by leaving people unwisely complacent because of incomplete and inaccurate information about the nature of the fats in their blood. For instance, the LDL cholesterol number for “bad” cholesterol in the conventional tests is just a calculated estimate, not a direct measurement. It could be off significantly.

The VAP Cholesterol Test

A newer procedure called the VAP™ Blood Test (for Vertical Auto Profile) helps improve the ability to identify blood lipid patterns associated with heart attacks and cardiovascular disease. Atherotech, the company providing the test, estimates that it can identify twice as many patients at high risk for heart attacks than regular cholesterol lipid panel tests and also identify patients likely to develop type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease that may not lead to heart attacks.
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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.

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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A recent study by the National Institutes of Health explored the connection between telomere lengths in the human immune cells known as leukocytes (white blood cells) and the use of multivitamins. The data used came from 586 participants in the Sister Study of healthy sisters of breast cancer patients. The women’s ages ranged from 35 to 74 years. Women who used multivitamins on a daily basis had leukocyte telomeres on average 5.1% longer than those who did not use multivitamins.
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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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Statins are a now famous (or infamous, depending upon your viewpoint) class of medicine used widely in American medicine. While studies do show they help reduce total and LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein) cholesterol and triglyceride levels, there are serious side effects to these medicines. They can lead to lethargy, headaches, muscle weakness, confusion, memory loss, and other side effects. More ominously, a recent study of Crestor (a statin drug) showed an increase in type 2 diabetes rates for those using the drug versus the control group using a placebo.

High Cholesterol Just Small Part of Cardiovascular Health Risks

Many people have the mistaken impression that high cholesterol is the biggest risk to your cardiovascular health. This isn’t likely true. There are a large variety of risks that are likely to be even more significant than high cholesterol levels. Many of them are not commonly tested for by doctors. Too many in the medical establishment have bought into “big pharma” pushing of statin drugs as the ultimate solution as they inaccurately believe high total and LDL cholesterol are the exclusive risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. As cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Michael Ozner points out in his book The Great American Heart Hoax: Lifesaving Advice Your Doctor Should Tell You About Heart Disease Prevention (But Probably Never Will), many of the therapies and surgeries for cardiovascular disease that are common in the United States are probably unnecessary, raise health care expenses, and don’t really improve overall outcomes. Much better than surgeries would be to prevent cardiovascular disease in the first place. But there are many risks that must be managed.
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