How Whole Body Vibration Exercises Can Help Improve Fitness in the Elderly

By Dr. Mercola

Exercise is a critical part of a healthy lifestyle, and it can be a part of your life no matter what your age. In fact, staying active becomes increasingly important as you get older.

Even frail seniors of advanced age can improve muscle strength and agility with exercise, which is important for preventing falls and injuries.

For seniors who have a hard time performing aerobic exercise, using a Whole Body Vibration (WBV) platform (such as The Power Plate) can help them improve performance, allowing them to become stronger, faster and more agile, according to recent research¹.

As explained by Dr. Keith DeOrio, M.D²., WBV stimulation affects your entire body musculature, as well as your internal organs and glands. 

Your muscle spindles fire secondary to the mechanical stimulation produced by the vibrating plate, and this rapid firing of the muscle spindle causes a neuromuscular response that leads to physiological changes in your brain as well as your entire body.  

How Whole Body Vibration Can Improve Fitness in Those Over 65

Surprising Health Hazards Associated with All-Fruit Diet

By Dr. Mercola

Fruits are loaded with healthy antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, which is why eating them in moderation is fine for healthy people. However, many benefit by restricting their fruit intake.

Fructose, a simple sugar found in fruit, is preferentially metabolized to fat in your liver, and eating large amounts has been linked to negative metabolic and endocrine effects. So eating very large amounts – or worse, nothing but fruit – can logically increase your risk of a number of health conditions, from insulin and leptin resistance to cancer.

For example, research has shown that pancreatic tumor cells use fructose, specifically, to divide and proliferate, thus speeding up the growth and spread of the cancer.

As a general health rule, I recommend limiting your total fructose consumption to about 25 grams per day on average, and that includes fructose from fruit. However, if you have insulin resistance, heart disease, cancer or high blood pressure, you may want to cut it down to 15 grams or less.

Kutcher Lands in Hospital After Adopting All-Fruit Diet

Actor Ashton Kutcher recently disclosed health issues brought on by following an all-fruit diet,¹ adopted in preparation to play the character of Steve Jobs in the upcoming film “Jobs,” due out April 19.

Jobs had adopted an all-fruit diet in his younger days, and even the brand he co-founded – Apple – was a nod to his dietary obsession. Kutcher recently told USA Today:²

"First of all, the fruitarian diet can lead to like severe issues. I went to the hospital like two days before we started shooting the movie. I was like doubled over in pain. My pancreas levels were completely out of whack. It was really terrifying ... considering everything."

The “everything” is likely a reference to pancreatic cancer – the disease that killedSteve Jobs on October 5, 2011, at the age of 56. Even though Jobs consumed a fruitarian diet years before he contracted his pancreatic cancer, there could be some relationship.

Why Large Amounts of Fruit May Not Be Healthy

Richard III, scoliosis and me

Seeing Richard III's skeleton, I felt a shiver of empathic pain. Scoliosis twisted both our spines

By Julie Myerson

The remains of King Richard III, found beneath a Leicester car park. Photograph: University of Leicester/Corbis

The discovery of the bones of Richard III, lying quietly under a Leicester city council car park for 500-odd years, is historically fascinating and imaginatively compelling. But, inspecting the newspaper photograph of those meticulously laid-out, gingery and desiccated human remains, I am startled by another sensation: that of raw, physical connection. Because Richard and I share not only our height – a surprisingly tall five foot eight – but also our skeletal deformity: scoliosis. Though his was far more pronounced (and therefore disabling) than mine, still, just like him, my adult life has been dogged by an "S" curvature of the spine.

I was in my late teens, an energetic ballet and swimming type, when one day without warning my back went into spasm and I found myself crunched over in agony. I think I saw a chiropractor and that was that. Except that over the next few years, it only took one wrong move – sneezing, laughing, reaching for a drink of water – and I'd be suddenly skewed, immobile and in pain for days.

Prevent Back Pain and Other Common Problems by Sitting Correctly

By Dr. Mercola

From smart phones to computers to iPads, our beloved electronic devices are crippling our posture and contributing to weight gain, back pain, and joint problems like carpal tunnel syndrome.

Fortunately, there are a few strategies and exercises – such as changing your position often and “reorganizing” your torso – that can address a lot of these potential problems and help keep you more fit and properly aligned.

As miserable as back pain is, that may be the least of your worries if you spend a significant portion of your time on your duff. Sitting may actually cut years off your life. Lack of exercise is sitting’s evil accomplice. The more you sit, the less your body wants to move.

According to a study in the British Medical Journal,¹ reducing the average time you spend sitting to less than three hours per day could increase your life expectancy by two years, which is a significant decrease from the 4.5 to 5 hours per day the average American now spends on a chair or sofa.

An analysis of 18 studies showed that people who sat for the longest periods of time were twice as likely to have diabetes or heart disease, compared to those who sat the least.² Sitting has actually joined smoking and obesity as an important risk factor for chronic disease.

7 Signs You’re Exercising Too Much

When it comes to healthy habits, too much of a good thing can backfire, and that applies to exercise as well. While most people suffer from lack of exercise, once you get going, it can be addictive and some people do end up exercising too much — either by exercising too intensely, and/or too frequently.

However, a really important part of creating optimal fitness is recovery. An equation to keep in mind is that as intensity increases, frequency can be diminished.

For example, as a weak beginner, you can do high intensity exercise three times a week and not put much stress on your system. But once your strength and endurance improves, each exercise session is placing an increasingly greater amount of stress on your body (as long as you keep pushing yourself to the max).

At that point, it’s actually wise to reduce the frequency of your sessions to give your body enough time to recover in between. In fact, you need to allow your body to fully recuperate in between sessions in order for the exercise to remain productive.

Seven Signs You May Be Overdoing it

The featured article by personal trainer Jennipher Walters addresses signs of overtraining that are commonly overlooked or misdiagnosed. The following seven symptoms may signal that you need to cut back a bit and allow your body to recover between sessions:

1. Exercise leaves you exhausted instead of energized.
2. You get sick easily (or it takes forever to get over a cold)
3. You have the blues
4. You're unable to sleep or you can't seem to get enough sleep
5. You have ''heavy'' legs
6. You have a short fuse
7. You're regularly sore for days at a time

Five amazing ways probiotics can protect you this flu season

(NaturalNews) Right on time; flu season is once again upon us, and no doubt you're already getting bombarded with calls to get your "flu shot" so you can be "protected" from this year's strain of influenza.

Well, you can do that if you choose, or you can take a more proactive approach to warding off the bugs and viruses this year by employing probiotics to help defend you.

What are probiotics? Simply put, it is the good bacteria that resides in your gut and battles infection caused by viruses, yeast, fungi and parasites. And it, like bad bacteria, is killed off with antibiotics, often leaving you more vulnerable for the next bug that comes along.

Importance of Magnesium is Far Greater than Previously Imagined

By Dr. Mercola

You don't hear much about magnesium, yet an estimated 80 percent of Americans are deficient in this important mineral and the health consequences of deficiency are significant. One reason could be because magnesium, like vitamin D, serves so many functions it's hard to corral.

As reported by GreenMedInfo¹, researchers have now detected 3,751 magnesium binding sites on human proteins, indicating that its role in human health and disease may have been vastly underestimated.

Magnesium is also found in more than 300 different enzymes in your body, which are responsible for:

Creation of ATP (adenosine triphospate), the energy molecules of your body	Proper formation of bones and teeth	Relaxation of blood vessels
Action of your heart muscle	Promotion of proper bowel function	Regulation of blood sugar levels

The Health Benefits of Magnesium have Been Vastly Underestimated

A number of studies have previously shown magnesium can benefit your blood pressure and help prevent sudden cardiac arrest, heart attack, and stroke. For example, one meta-analysis published earlier this year in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition² looked at a total of seven studies collectively covering more than 240,000 participants. The results showed that dietary magnesium intake is inversely associated with risk of ischemic stroke.

What You Need to Know About Vitamin K2, D and Calcium

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By Dr. Mercola

Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin most well known for the important role it plays in blood clotting. However, many do not realize that there are different kinds of vitamin K, and they are completely different.

The health benefits of vitamin K2 go far beyond blood clotting, which is done by vitamin K1, and vitamin K2 also works synergistically with a number of other nutrients, including calcium and vitamin D.

Dr. Kate Rheaume-Bleue, a naturopathic physician with a keen interest in nutrition, has authored what I believe is one of the most comprehensive books on this important topic, titled: Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox: How a Little Known Vitamin Could Save Your Life

"I tuned in to the emerging research about K2 early in 2007," she says. "Not long before, I had read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price. When I learned about vitamin K2, I thought:

"Hey, you know what? I'm sure Price talked all about this in his book." I went to the book, looked through it, and didn't find any reference to vitamin K2. I was really stumped.

A little bit later in 2007, I read a brilliant article by Chris Masterjohn that links vitamin K2 to Prices' work on Activator X.

Once I realized that link, the light bulb went on about how important this nutrient is, and how overlooked it's been for so long. It really provides the missing piece to the puzzle of so many health conditions, and yet it was being completely overlooked, despite the overwhelming amounts of modern-day research."

Artificial Sweeteners Cause Greater Weight Gain than Sugar, Yet Another Study Reveals

By Dr. Mercola

Are you using artificial sweeteners and opting for low-cal "diet" foods in an effort to control of your weight?

If so, you may be surprised to learn that research has repeatedly shown that artificial no- or low-calorie sweeteners are anything but good news for weight loss... Contrary to popular belief, studies have found that artificial sweeteners such as aspartame can:

• Stimulate your appetite
• Increase carbohydrate cravings
• Stimulate fat storage and weight gain

Now, yet another study¹ has been published showing that saccharin andaspartame cause greater weight gain than sugar.

The belief that artificially sweetened foods and beverages will help you lose weight is a carefully orchestrated deception. So if you are still opting for "diet" choices for this reason, you are being sorely misled. Ditto for diabetics, as recent research has shown aspartame also worsens insulin sensitivity.

The fact that these are still being promoted as "diet" flies in the face of any rational behavior. One wonders why the FTC doesn't come down like a ton of bricks on these companies for massively fraudulent marketing.

New Study Negates Weight Management Claims of Artificial Sweeteners

The featured study, published in the January 2013 issue of the journal Appetite², was done by a Brazilian research team with the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University do Rio Grande do Sul. Rats were fed plain yogurt sweetened with either aspartame, saccharin, or sugar, plus their regular rat chow, for 12 weeks.

"Results showed that addition of either saccharin or aspartame to yogurt resulted in increased weight gain compared to addition of sucrose, however total caloric intake was similar among groups," the researchers write.³

The reason for the similar calorie consumption between the groups was due to increased chow consumption by the rats given artificially sweetened yoghurt. This type of compensation has been found in previous studies⁴ as well, indicating that when your body gets a hit of sweet taste without the calories to go with it, it adversely affects your appetite control mechanisms, causing increased food cravings. The authors concluded that:

"Greater weight gain was promoted by the use of saccharin or aspartame, compared with sucrose, and this weight gain was unrelated to caloric intake. We speculate that a decrease in energy expenditure or increase in fluid retention might be involved."