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Showing posts from May, 2020

Vitamin D Supplements for Increasing Aging Muscle Strength

We have known for more than 400 years that muscle weakness is a common presenting symptom of vitamin D deficiency. Bones aren’t the only organs that respond to vitamin D—muscles do , too. However, as we age, our muscles lose vitamin D receptors, perhaps helping to explain the loss in muscle strength as we age. Indeed, vitamin D status does appear to predict the decline in physical performance as we get older, with lower vitamin D levels linked to poorer performance. As I discuss in my video in my video Should Vitamin D Supplements Be Taken to Prevent Falls in the Elderly? , maybe the low vitamin D doesn’t lead to weakness. Rather, maybe the weakness leads to low vitamin D. Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin, so being too weak to run around outside could explain the correlation with lower levels. To see if it’s cause and effect, you have to put it to the test. As you can see at 1:01 in my video , about a dozen randomized controlled trials have tested vitamin D supplements versus suga...
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My new book, How to Survive a Pandemic, is out now!

How to Survive a Pandemic  is now out! Note: if you checked on Amazon and noticed the Kindle and paperback versions were not available before, they are now ! Join my email list to receive the preface of the book for free.  I have a feeling many think  How Not to Die  is my first book, but it’s actually my 4th. Before I started NutritionFacts.org and switched to working on chronic disease, I had a career as Public Health Director at HSUS in Washington, DC specializing in emerging infectious disease. It was in that role that I was invited to defend Oprah, appeared on the Colbert Report, lectured at NIH and the Conference on World Affairs, and got to testify before Congress. With my  How Not to Diet  book tour suspended, the COVID-19 crisis allowed me an opportunity to draw on my past expertise to fast-track this new book.  If you haven’t seen it yet, we’ve put up a resource page all about COVID-19 with videos, links to my pandemic blog post and speci...
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Nicusia Stunning in our Facetime Series Photoshoot

We’re excited to have Nicusia (Niki) back shooting with Fitness Gurls Magazine. This shoot is of our favorite Facetime Series photoshoots. Niki really brought out her fashion sense and really elevated the shoot. We absolutely love Niki’s physique, one of the most beautiful bodies in fitness. This photoshoot again was taken on a phone by […] The post Nicusia Stunning in our Facetime Series Photoshoot appeared first on Fitness Gurls Magazine . from Fitness Gurls Magazine https://ift.tt/2toV7qm
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50 Proven Ways to Lose Fat

FitnessRx for Women presents 50 simple ideas that will place you among the small percentage of women who lose weight successfully and keep it off. Combining a few of these simple techniques will make weight loss easier than you thought possible. The secret of losing weight is not a magic pill or radical techniques that shock your body. Rather, it’s a combination of small, painless changes that help you eat less food and burn more calories. The weight-loss solution is easier than you think. By themselves, none are miracle cures for losing fat or building a fitness model body. Taken together, they are powerful tools that will help you lose weight and keep it off for the rest of your life. Get Motivated 1. Weigh every day.  The scale holds you accountable. Women who weigh themselves daily lose more weight and maintain lost weight better than women who weigh only occasionally. 2. Make a public announcement about your weight-loss plans.  Tell people that you are on a diet and ...
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Mad Cow Disease and Cosmetics

As I discuss in my video Which Intestines for Food and Cosmetics? , the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently reopened comments about its policy of allowing some intestines, but not others, into the U.S. food supply. When the first few cases of mad cow disease started popping up, the FDA’s gut reaction was to ban all guts from food and personal care products. Then, in 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and FDA amended their draft rule to “permit the use of the entire small intestine for human food” if the last 80 uncoiled inches going to the colon is removed. Since then, however, studies have shown that infectious mad cow prions can be found throughout all parts of the intestine, from the stomach down to the cow’s colon, raising the question of whether all entrails should be removed once again from the food supply. The North American Meat Association said no , wanting to keep cattle insides inside the food supply. Similarly, the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Associati...
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Fitness Facts and Falsehoods

Are you a Fitness Phenom or a Fledgling Fitness Fanatic? Take the test and see! Following is a list of fitness facts and falsehoods. Can you tell which statements are true and which ones are false? See below for answers.   In addition to building strong bones, calcium also helps burn fat.   Intense exercise increases the appetite while moderate exercise decreases the urge to eat.   A basic principle of weight training is to work small muscle groups first, then move up to large muscle groups.   Weight training burns calories during and after exercise.   A common side effect of weight training is chubby calves.   A diet including whole grain foods promotes fat storage that will make you look bloated.   One benefit of Pilates is improved posture.   To maintain weight loss, the USDA recommends 60 to 90 minutes of exercise daily.   The Answers   True. Calcium fights fat . Diets high in calcium will tr...
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Medical Meat Bias

When famed surgeon Michael DeBakey was asked why his studies published back in the 1930s linking smoking and lung cancer were ignored, he had to remind people about what it was like back then. We were a smoking society. Smoking was in the movies, on airplanes. Medical meetings were held in “a heavy haze of smoke.” Smoking was, in a word, normal. Even the congressional debates over cigarettes and lung cancer took place in literal smoke-filled rooms. (This makes me wonder what’s being served at the breakfast buffets of the Dietary Guidelines Committee meetings these days.) I’ve previously talked about a famous statistician by the name of Ronald Fisher, who railed against what he called “propaganda…to convince the public that cigarette smoking is dangerous.” “Although Fisher made invaluable contributions to the field of statistics, his analysis of the causal association between lung cancer and smoking was flawed by an unwillingness to examine the entire body of data available…” His s...
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What to Take for Menstrual Cramps

In my video Ginger for Migraines , I described how ginger works as well as the leading “drug” in the treatment of migraines, “one of the most common causes of pain syndromes,” affecting as much as 12 percent of the population. Twelve percent is “common”? How about menstrual cramps, which plague up to 90 percent of younger women? You can tell this study was written by a guy because he emphasizes the absenteeism and all the “lost productivity” for our nation. Menstrual cramps also just really hurt. Can ginger help? As I discuss in my video Benefits of Ginger for Menstrual Cramps , women took a quarter teaspoon of ground ginger powder three times a day during the first three days of menstruation, and pain dropped from seven on a scale of one to ten down to a five, whereas there was no significant change in the placebo group, as you can see at 0:56 in my video . Most women in the placebo group said their symptoms stayed the same, whereas those unknowingly in the ginger group said the...
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What Meat and Eggs Do to Our Microbiome

As I’ve explored before, whether young or old, male or female, smoker or non-smoker, with high blood pressure or low blood pressure, high cholesterol or low, having high levels of a toxic compound called TMAO—trimethylamine oxide—in the bloodstream is associated with a significantly higher risk of having a heart attack, stroke, or dying over a three-year period. Where does TMAO come from? As I investigate in my video How to Develop a Healthy Gut Ecosystem , the choline in foods like eggs can be turned by gut bacteria into TMAO, which is then absorbed back into our system. And, the more eggs we eat , the higher the levels climb, as you can see at 0:41 in my video . Given the similarity in structure between carnitine and choline, Cleveland Clinic researchers wondered if carnitine found in red meat, energy drinks, and supplements might also lead to TMAO production and put it to the test. As you can see at 1:00 in my video , if you feed omnivores, those who regularly eat meat, a steak...
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WATCH: NXT’s Chelsea Green’s Hot Bikini Haul Video

One of our favorite NXT superstars in Chelsea Green. She”s hot, shes’s smart, she’s beautiful and she has a little edge to her. There’s still a little Hot Mess in her. But beyond that, we feel like, “The Face of the Women’s Division” also has the Body of the Women’s Division too. She ranked in […] The post WATCH: NXT’s Chelsea Green’s Hot Bikini Haul Video appeared first on Fitness Gurls Magazine . from Fitness Gurls Magazine https://ift.tt/2toV7qm
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Get Results by Being Consistent

One thing that I have always disliked about the fitness industry is its susceptibility to trends and fads. So many fall victim to looking for the next new thing as a miracle that’s somehow going to be the magical technique that will give them the edge, or shape their body into their dream physique, or give them chiseled abdominal muscles, or make dieting easy, and so on … The rapid-fire diet fads and exercise trends that now seem to be a yearly occurrence come and go fairly quickly. While many techniques of exercise and diet may be effective when applied, far too many people are mixing and matching elements from different philosophies, plotting a course that is often counteractive to the desired goals that they may be seeking to achieve. If they would just select one method of training and one method of diet, and stay the course with both, many would surprise themselves with the amazing RESULTS that they would attain. Clients frequently ask me my opinion on a new exercise trend. As ...
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