Health & Fitness

Today, we continue our discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic and its origin with a fascinating guest who has been a leader exposing the corruption and fraud with respect to the origin of the virus. Li-Meng Yan is both an M.D. and Ph.D., with specific training in coronaviruses. She escaped from China's influence while in Hong Kong to the United States to warn us of what she believes is a massive cover-up.

Yan went to medical school, followed by a Ph.D. program in ophthalmology. The school where she got her Ph.D. was originally a military medical university, which helps explain some of her personal network. She has contacts in both civilian and military research laboratories and hospitals in mainland China.

After finishing her studies, she decided to pursue research. For two years, she worked in an ophthalmology lab in the University of Hong Kong, where she researched stem cells, drugs and artificial tissue development. She was then invited to join the lab of professor Malik Peiris.

Yan's husband had worked with him and Peiris was impressed with Yan's skillset. She jumped at the chance to learn more about emerging infectious diseases. She worked with Peiris for five years, until she escaped to the U.S. in April 2020.

"I worked on the influenza virus, universal influenza vaccine development, and then focused on the SARS-CoV-2 after the outbreak," she says.

SARS-CoV-2 Was Made in a Chinese Military Lab

At the end of December 2019, Yan's supervisor, Dr. Leo Poon, who is also an emerging infectious disease expert with the World Health Organization, assigned her to conduct a confidential investigation into a mysterious new pneumonia-like infection.

Colleagues and friends at universities and hospitals around China gave her information, which she forwarded to Peiris and Poon. They did not follow up on it, however, which she says "shows that they want [to] help China to cover it up."

In January 2020, Poon asked her to look into whether the raccoon dog, a civet cat-like animal, which was a host for the original SARS virus, might also be an intermediary host for SARS-CoV-2. Yan's research, however, was indicating that the virus did not come from nature. Poon warned her to keep silent or "you will be disappeared."

According to Yan, SARS-CoV-2 was made in a Chinese military lab. The Third Military Medical University in Chongqing, China, and the Research Institute for Medicine of Nanjing Command in Nanjing, had discovered a bat coronavirus called ZC45. The discovery of ZC45 was published in early 2018.

"If you compare this virus genome and the SARS-CoV-2 virus genome, you will realize [this is the] smoking gun," Yan says. She's convinced that ZC45 was used as a template and/or backbone to create SARS-CoV-2.

In mid-May 2020, shortly after she'd left Hong Kong, the journal Nature published a paper¹ Yan had co-written, detailing the pathogenesis and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in golden hamsters. This experiment showed SARS-CoV-2 primarily spreads via aerosol.

In mid-September 2020, Yan published an open access paper² on Zenodo, in which she and her two co-authors laid out the evidence and their theory for SARS-CoV-2 being manmade.

Almost immediately, four "reviewers" of her work denounced it as being an "opinion" piece that was "flawed" and not scientifically in line with currently accepted knowledge of the origin of the virus. One reviewer³ said, "The manuscript attempts to refute our current understanding of the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Briefly, the consensus is that SARS-CoV-2 is a zoonosis and originated in bats with perhaps an intermediate host before spilling over into humans."

A year later, in 2021, numerous indicators^4,5 show that dismissing the lab leak hypothesis was premature and there is no "consensus" of a zoonosis origin.

Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by The Intercept⁶ also point directly to a lab origin, so much so that the WHO's director general, Tedros Ghebreyesus, called for a new investigation into it, writing in the October 13, 2021, edition of the journal Science,⁷ "A lab accident cannot be ruled out until there is sufficient evidence to do so and those results are openly shared."

The Escape From China

Initially, Yan had released information via an American YouTube blogger that was very popular in China. By the end of April 2020, a colleague warned Yan she was at risk of being "disappeared." That's when she decided to flee to the U.S. Luckily, she already had a valid visa. Her husband was deeply opposed to her leaving, as you might imagine. She explains:

"I didn't know it would happen like [it did]. From January to April [2020], I didn't tell him what I had done. I tried to protect him, because at that time, in Hong Kong, there were a lot of people fighting against government for democracy and freedom. They can get disappeared easily.

But if their family don't know what they have done, it's kind of safe for the family. That's why I tried to protect him. But when I heard that I need leave, I tried to bring him with me. He's not Chinese. He's from Sri Lanka. When I told him, he was outraged, which was really not like him. He warned me, saying 'We can go nowhere. They are everywhere. We can do nothing.'"

Her husband even threatened to have her killed if she left. The next two weeks were a dangerous time for Yan. Her husband kept her under surveillance, and she developed a sudden heart problem. The day before she left, she went for a checkup. She had a resting heart rate of 130, which is a sign of sinus tachycardia.

Yan suspects foul play, saying the Chinese government prefers to "disappear" people by making it look like a natural death. "Like this virus," she says. According to Yan, infections and heart attacks are common strategies used to get rid of dissenters. Yan also suspects her husband may have been helping them.

Fortunately, since entering the U.S., the attacks have been relegated to discrediting her and ruining her reputation. "For example, they created thousands of fake accounts on social media, using at least seven languages, to spread [lies about me] and attacks to discredit me," she says.

According to Yan, this has been verified by FireEye, a cybersecurity company that also does work for American intelligence agencies. Her family, who are in mainland China, friends and even alumni are also under strict surveillance by the Chinese government, she says.

Vindication

While the whole world denied the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was manmade for over a year, in recent months, the truth has finally entered the mainstream. A number of reporters have wrestled with excuses, trying to justify or explain away their long-held denials.

"Last year in July, when I was first on Fox News, I told them the WHO and the CCP are corrupted and are in the cover-up together," Yan says. "At that time, it was a bombshell. Now, most people realize [the virus] is not from nature. That is a very good turning, and I keep helping other people to realize the evidence.

I explain to them the CCP's style and the evidence. Now, I see that even some mainstream media are starting to talk about the possibility of [it being a] bioweapon. I think it is very encouraging. Because people need to realize that China is using this virus together with their misinformation campaign and propaganda to attack all over the world."

Who's Running the Show?

While the Chinese military may be responsible for the physical creation of the virus, there's ample evidence showing the U.S. funded at least some of the research that resulted in this pandemic.

The flow of money from Dr. Anthony Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the EcoHealth Alliance run by Peter Daszak and the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is well-documented. Ralph Baric, Ph.D., at the University of North Carolina has also conducted research that appears to have been applied to SARS-CoV-2.

The sequence of events is confusing, however, and it's unclear just who is the real string-puller in all of this. When asked what her take is, and who she believes might be running the show, Yan replies that even without American funding, China certainly would still have managed to create this virus.

"The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) … they are a giant octopus and they have tentacles. The brain is the CCP. Those scientists, especially the military scientists and coronavirus experts [such as] my previous supervisor, Dr. Malik Pieris, they are the ones that had the real evil ideas.

They enjoy it, and they want to command this knowledge ... Even China cannot use their tentacles … if they cannot use infiltration to get your money, they will still manage to get your technology and do it in China. That's the key point. The money from American taxpayers, it looks a lot. Yes, it's millions [of dollars]. However, compared to the money donated by the Chinese government, it's just a very small piece …

They developed this virus and other things in their unrestricted bioweapons program. They want to destroy Americans' economic and social order, destroy your civilization. [While the virus has attacked worldwide], they always list America as a primary enemy and the biggest problem.

So, when they show you this kind of propaganda, through TikTok and other social media [where Chinese citizens] tell you, 'Oh, in China we control the outcome and it's good, and we love our government.' American people will feel, 'Yeah, maybe we should give up our democracy and turn to try communism.' That's all they want to do."

Chinese Data Collection

Since the start of the pandemic, it's been near-impossible to determine how many Chinese have actually been affected. According to Yan, the CCP will only release data that benefits itself.

"Chinese people all know not to trust any data that comes from our government," she says. "They don't do statistics. They just sit there. Whatever data they want, they write it down. That's how they [produce] data."

According to Yan, the CCP has been using the converse strategy used in the U.S. and elsewhere. Rather than inflate case numbers, they've been suppressing them. One way they've been doing this is by delaying diagnosis, so deaths are not listed as COVID-19 deaths.

"It's totally opposite," she says. "For example, in America, once a person has been diagnosed with COVID, even if they later died of some other problem, they still will be [counted] as a COVID case.

But in China, they can use a ventilator to make the patient survive until the test comes out negative. They have thousands of ways to handle it. Importantly, they also gave early treatment, including hydroxychloroquine and other drugs."

According to Yan, military scientists in China have also filed a patent to use hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. "That made them earn the top anti-COVID award by Chairman Xi last year," she says. Hydroxychloroquine is also sold over the counter in China, so it's easy to get a hold of. She believes part of the reason why the death toll in the U.S. has been so high is because hydroxychloroquine was suppressed and censored.

Is There a Connection Between the COVID Shots and the CCP?

The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly been capitalized upon by greedy drug companies, and the suppression of early treatment drugs appears to have been an intentional strategy to make the COVID shot — which is turning out to be extraordinarily hazardous to your health — the only alternative. How does the COVID "vaccine" tie into the theory that SARS-CoV-2 is a CCP bioweapon? Yan says:

"Definitely there is a clear connection between the vaccine and the CCP's strategies … Some people … try to explain that the vaccine will kill people, and therefore it is another bioweapon. But this is not an accurate reason. First China released the virus they developed in the military labs. This virus doesn't have a high death rate ... That's why I called it an unrestricted bioweapon. It looks like it's natural occurring.

Once you realize something is wrong, they use misinformation and denial to confuse you. So, when China released it — and China controls the scientific community to spread misinformation, and censored [information] to let people believe it's come from nature — what will people do?

They will think about drugs, the drugs they already have. The other way is a vaccine, because people are educated to accept a vaccine can end a pandemic.

In this case, useful drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are so cheap. How could they use this to earn huge profits? The CCP also had a lot of stock shares from Pfizer, Moderna and other big pharmaceutical companies. Check the money they put in … And then big pharmaceutical companies, they all say, 'OK, now we can use this chance to make money.'"

Clearly, many who support and push the COVID shot know full well that they're bound to cause health problems. Yan herself was asked to work on a COVID vaccine but she declined after looking into the available science. No coronavirus vaccine has ever been released, despite scientists working on it for two decades.

The reason? The vaccines cause too many injuries. They're lethal. Yan did not believe these problems could be overcome for SARS-CoV-2. Peiris himself discovered antibody-dependent enhancement during efforts to develop a vaccine against the original SARS virus. Still, when money is being thrown at scientists, they're usually not going to turn it down.

Vaccine Passports Will Usher in a Social Credit System

Of course, the COVID shots and the vaccine passports also fit into the CCP agenda by making the whole world accept and adopt the CCP's social control system. The vaccine passports are clearly designed to usher in a social credit system like they have in China. And with that, you get 24/7 digital surveillance and an unbelievable amount of control over every single person.

As explained by Yan, in China, the digital surveillance system is so advanced, if your phone GPS shows you were near an infected person, you are automatically ordered into isolation.

What's more, if parents or grandparents fail to get the COVID shot, the family's children are barred from school, even if they got the shot. Every aspect of life is linked together through this system, so a poor social credit score will also have financial ramifications, and will dictate if, where and how you're allowed to travel.

Yan points out that Americans, being unaware of the Chinese surveillance system, don't understand that by agreeing with vaccine mandates and passports, they are saying yes to a total surveillance system that will dictate their entire lives. They're also saying yes to being guinea pigs for an endless stream of questionable vaccines.

"Once you support mandate for two doses, then you have to support for the booster, and then support 60 boosters, 199 boosters. It [will be] endless," she says. "And you'll be tied into this [social] credit system you built."

China Wants World Dominance by 2035

According to Yan, China's goal is to achieve world dominance by 2035. With that aim in mind, they've spent decades developing unrestricted bioweapons. With COVID-19, they're well on their way.

"They want to use all this to overcome the world, and America is their primary enemy," Yan says. "So we have to stand up for the future, for our next generations. We cannot keep silent. This will be the last chance we have to fight against such communist evil plans, and to save all of us. And, most importantly, we have to all work together to stop the next pandemic or attack that comes out of China …

[Just look at] what's happening in Hong Kong now. In two years, from 2019 until now, China destroyed the systems of law, democracy and freedom in Hong Kong. They also enacted national security laws. Basically, they own your privacy. They own your freedom, and you are forced to listen to them.

There is no reason they can't do whatever [they want] to you. Basically, you are a slave living in a modern society. No doubt, once China overcomes America, it will be the same here, and maybe worse because they will have other technology at that time."

When asked what actions Yan believes we need to take to resist and derail this plan, she says:

"I want Americans to know that, first, adults should realize the evilness of Communism, Maoism, Marxism, no matter what name it changes to … And once you realize that, speak out about it, because they are using propaganda to brainwash people, to brainwash the kids.

Also, you must let your policymakers, legislators, know this. I'm a foreigner, but you are an American citizen. You can vote, so you must let them understand the importance and push them to do something. Don't believe the Chinese government and don't give any mercy to the CCP.

Also, you have to update your own system. Study the weakness in your whole system, [the weakness that allows them] to divide America. Once you do all these things, hold them accountable and don't let them do more. That's the end of the pandemic."

You can follow Yan on Twitter for frequent updates and breaking information. Her only authentic Twitter account is @Dr.LiMengYan1.

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This article was previously published January 31, 2021, and has been updated with new information.

Over the years, I've done several interviews with Dave Asprey, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, founder and CEO of bulletproof.com, including one in which we discuss how ketones may be useful against COVID-19. Here, we discuss his latest book, "Fast This Way: Burn Fat, Heal Inflammation, and Eat Like the High-Performing Human You Were Meant to Be."

As the name implies, the book is about fasting and all the magnificent health benefits it provides. Is it for everyone? No, and he will be the first to admit that. But it can benefit most of us, certainly, those of us who are either overweight or obese. In his book, Asprey tells his own journey into fasting and what he's learned along the way.

"The word fasting is associated with pain, and I wanted to teach people some hacks for fasting," Asprey says. "I also put a whole chapter in for women, because fasting doesn't work for everyone and there is no one best kind of fasting. The evidence seems pretty clear that fasting the same way every day or every week is probably also not the best strategy.

So, how do you make it so you can fast without pain when you have stuff to do? And how do you make it so you fast with all of the emotions of fasting when you want to really dig deep and do the meditation, personal development side of fasting? Sorting through all that hasn't been done in a book, so that's why I wrote it."

Breaking the Starvation Myth

As noted by Asprey, a common concern is that fasting will put your body into starvation mode, thereby actually preventing fat loss. This is a persistent belief, but it's not true. That said, some strategies will indeed activate starvation mode, such as when you're eating a low-calorie diet for months on end. Asprey tells a personal story that encapsulates this dilemma:

"On my journey of losing 100 pounds, I was doing what everyone said would work. I went to the gym an hour and a half a day, six days a week, halfway tough cardio until I could max out all but two machines, and I would do 45 minutes on the treadmill at a 15-degree angle wearing a backpack — really just pushing it.

And, I went on a low-fat, low-calorie diet. At the end of 18 months, I'm sitting at a Carl's Jr. with friends. I'm eating the chicken salad with no chicken and no dressing and my friends are eating double western bacon cheeseburgers. I looked around and I'm like, 'I exercise more than all my friends and I eat less than all my friends, even though I'm taller than they are. Maybe I'm just eating too much lettuce.'

To have a 46-inch waist after that much exercise, low-calorie dieting and all the suffering and intense hunger … My god, the sense of personal failure that comes with that, it's one thing that holds people back and makes us stay heavy.

What's going on there is there is a hunger set point that is caused by ghrelin, one of the hunger hormones. It's a precursor to leptin. Research has shown that when you lose weight using a low-calorie diet or excessive exercise — and I was doing both — your hunger set point will remain your fat set point, and it will always do that.

The thing that turns your set point for hunger to your actual weight instead of to your fat weight is ketones. So, if you were to fast for a couple days or use the fasting hacks that I talk about in the book — there are three fasting hacks to turn off hunger, and two of them are going to help get your ketones up — even just one dose will reset your hunger levels."

As explained by Asprey, yo-yo weight loss and weight gain occurs because you're on the wrong diet. Key dietary principles for losing the excess weight and keeping it off include:

• Getting at least half or more of your daily calories from healthy fats
• Eating the right type and amount of protein
• Avoiding inflammatory foods, including inflammatory vegetables (culprits include lectins and oxalic acid, for example)
• Having periods of time when you fast (abstain from food)

Key Benefits of Fasting

So, what are the main benefits of fasting? Is it just the ease of weight loss? As explained by Asprey, there are many other health benefits to fasting beside the fact that stubborn weight will fall off. Importantly, the primary benefit of fasting is that it makes your body better at making energy.

This in turn has several benefits, one of which is improved blood sugar regulation, which will allow you to stave off insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction and all the diseases of aging associated with that. As noted by Asprey, if you can avoid cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, you're probably going to live longer, as these are the primary killers.

Fasting is also antiaging because it improves autophagy in your mitochondria and cells. Autophagy is a natural process that cleanses and detoxifies your mitochondria and cells. By breaking down old, damaged organelles, fresh, new ones can be made to replace them. And, with healthy, new mitochondria, your body can make more energy, more efficiently.

"That's an unappreciated side of fasting," Asprey says. "High-intensity interval training will do something similar, but when you combine that with fasting, your body is like, 'Get rid of that old stuff.' It's kind of like a snake shedding its skin. It's that autophagy process that is a really big deal."

The Most Important Fat to Avoid

As mentioned, about half or more of your daily calories should come from fats, but it's crucial to avoid certain types of fats. I'm currently writing a book on what I believe might be the primary disease-maker in the Western diet, namely omega-6 linoleic acid (LA).

LA makes up the bulk — about 90% — of the omega-6 consumed and is the primary contributor to nearly all chronic diseases. While an essential fat, when consumed in excessive amounts, LA acts as a metabolic poison.

The reason for this is because polyunsaturated fats such as LA are highly susceptible to oxidation. As the fat oxidizes, it breaks down into harmful sub-components such as advanced lipid oxidation end products (ALES) and oxidized LA metabolites (OXLAMS). These ALES and OXLAMS are actually what cause the damage.

One type of advanced lipid oxidation end product (ALE) is 4HNE, a mutagen known to cause DNA damage. Studies have shown there's a definite correlation between elevated levels of 4HNE and heart failure. LA breaks down into 4HNE even faster when the oil is heated, which is why cardiologists recommend avoiding fried foods. LA intake and the subsequent ALES and OXLAMS produced also play a significant role in cancer.

HNE and other ALES are extraordinarily harmful even in exceedingly small quantities. While excess sugar is certainly bad for your health and should typically be limited to 25 grams per day or less, it doesn't cause a fraction of the oxidative damage that LA does.

Processed vegetable oils are a primary source of LA, but even food sources hailed for their health benefits contain it, and can be a problem if consumed in excess. Cases in point: olive oil and conventionally raised chicken, which are fed LA-rich grains.

Many now understand that your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is very important, and should be about 1-to-1 or possibly up to 4-to-1, but simply increasing your omega-3 intake won't counteract the damage done by excessive LA. You really need to minimize the omega-6 to prevent damage from taking place.

Simple Hacks That Make Fasting Easier

Contrary to popular belief, fasting doesn't have to be difficult or painful. Asprey details three fasting hacks in "Fast This Way." The first one is to increase your ketone level. As explained by Asprey, hunger hormones start shifting when your ketone level hits slightly below 0.5, which is not yet the level at which you enter nutritional ketosis. He explains:

"Ghrelin will drop at 0.38, so almost no ketones. The hunger that comes with the ghrelin turns off. But there's also a satiety hormone, the one that makes you feel full, which is called CCK or cholecystokinin. CCK, when you hit levels of 0.48, CCK makes you feel full. So, if you can get your ketones up to that level in the morning, then you will not pay attention to food.

The first step to get your levels up is mycotoxin-free black coffee — the Bulletproof beans are that. I did the original research about this. Anything that causes inflammation is going to make you hungry because inflammation just means the electrons that should be powering your thoughts are going to create inflammation in the body. They must go somewhere.

These toxins are present in very small amounts. Coffee that has more than five parts per million is illegal to sell in China, Japan and Europe, but it gets sent to the U.S., and we wonder why we get really hungry two hours after we have coffee and why we want sugar in our coffee.

It has to do with toxins, not coffee itself. A study at UC San Diego is really interesting. They found that the amount of caffeine present in two small cups of black coffee will double ketone production.

The second way is to make the coffee 'bulletproof.' And what that means is, you take your mycotoxin-free beans and you add some MCT oil. The 8-carbon chain (C8) MCT is the correct one. C8 MCT raises ketones four times more than coconut oil. [Then] you [add] butter and blend it or really shake it."

Asprey funded research at the University of Washington with Dr. Gerald Pollack, who determined that when water is mixed with grass fed butter or MCT oil, it creates a very large exclusion zone (EZ) in the water, and this EZ is important during fasting.

When you drink regular water, your body takes the water and puts it near your cell membranes, which are made of tiny droplets of fat. Body heat warms the water, converting it from bulk water into EZ water, which your body requires for ATP production and other biological processes, including autophagy and protein folding.

"When you put that tiny bit of butter and the MCT oil and you blend it in the morning, the MCT is going to raise your ketone levels very meaningfully. I can always get to 0.5 with just a Bulletproof coffee. But you're also getting this water in the form of the coffee that is already primed for your body to use it to start burning fat, to start making energy," Asprey explains.

"This is why taking a bite of butter and drinking a cup of coffee isn't going to do it for you. It's a different process. And I have noticed profound differences from doing that … I have found that for women, in particular, starting out with this really helps, especially if you're over 40."

The Importance of Prebiotic Fiber

A third fasting hack is to make sure you're getting enough prebiotic fiber. According to Asprey, long-term fasting and/or eating a carnivore-like, zero-carb diet for extended periods of time without cycling healthy carbs back in can alter your gut microbiota, which in turn can cause sleep disruptions.

When you feed your gut bacteria with prebiotics, they convert the prebiotics into propionic acid and butyric acid (butyrate), and butyrate is very pro-ketogenic.

"In fact, you can get into a state of ketosis by taking a handful of butyrate capsules," Asprey says. "You want more butyric acid if you want to live a long time and have a healthy metabolism, and studies show massive hunger suppression when you do this.

So, if you put prebiotic fiber, which has essentially no flavor, in your coffee in the morning … you'll also find that you care nothing about food. I was able to quadruple the number of species of [beneficial bacteria] in my gut using this. It's totally compatible with fasting and it turns off hunger like no one's business.

So now you're saying, 'Wait, a minute. I could have the coffee I was going to have anyway. I don't put the sugar and artificial crap in it. I get the mold-free coffee and then I have a choice of drinking a black, of adding butter and MCT, and/or adding prebiotic fiber.'

What you do then is you drink this and you just stop caring about food, you go into the zone and you have the best morning you've ever had. Then the next morning, maybe you only have black coffee or maybe you have tea or maybe you have nothing at all, but it's OK and it's even preferable to mix up your length and style of fasting."

Cyclical Keto and Fasting Are the Safest Approaches

In the interview, Asprey discusses several of the diet traps that people get themselves into. As a general guidance, Asprey and I both agree that the best strategy to stay out of trouble is to cycle in and out of whatever routine you're doing, be it low-carb keto or fasting.

While you may need to be very strict in the beginning, once you're metabolically flexible, mix things up once or twice a week. Eat three meals instead of one and/or spread them out. Add in more carbs.

"The idea is to be flexible about your fasting regimen," Asprey says. "I don't even like the word regimen. It's just a practice that we do and it's a practice that makes us feel good, it makes us perform better. And it makes us age less, but doing it too much is a real danger.

If you're going to do something like a four-day fast, after about 48 hours, there's all sorts of additional forms of autophagy that turn on. Once every three or six months, doing a 48-hour fast is really well-advised. But man, as a weekly practice, that'll mess you up …

Women will hit the wall before men do. I think there are evolutionary reasons for this. But it's a big problem and I oftentimes see thyroid problems manifest and autoimmunity. There are good studies that show chronic stressors trigger autoimmunity, and over-fasting is a chronic stressor almost by definition."

How Activated Charcoal Can Help

One reason why fasting is a stressor is because it releases toxins from your fat cells. A simple intervention to address this is the use of activated charcoal when you're fasting. This is particularly beneficial if you're also doing saunas.

"The universal thing that will happen is you will experience massive brain fog. You'll feel like a zombie. This was a big thing for me because I had toxic mold exposure [and] I had heavy metals. You have these very interesting things in your gut, these gut bacteria that make lipopolysaccharides (LPS).

LPS's can cross the gut barrier and then they cause inflammation in the body and trigger cravings in the brain. So, when the bad bacteria in your gut are going, 'I didn't get my sugar. I didn't get any food. Oh, my god, it's a mortal threat. If there's a threat, I should release toxins.'

So, they ramp up their LPS production and then you'll feel like garbage. Then you have to use even more willpower to get through your fast — or you could take activated charcoal that binds directly to LPS. Then you don't feel the hunger and you don't have to take the biological hit of all the toxins you're releasing from your fat, and that really makes a big difference."

Tripling Down on mTOR

In his book, Asprey also discusses how to integrate exercise into your fasting regimen. The best time to exercise is at the end of your fast. He explains:

"There's something in the body called mTOR, which drives growth. mTOR will drive muscle [growth]. So, if you want to get a bicep, then you need some mTOR. But if your mTOR is chronically elevated, your risk of cancer and the diseases of aging go up. If you eat too much protein, especially certain amino acids, your [mTOR] level goes up and stays up, and that's not good for you.

It's not enough to trigger muscle growth, but it's just enough to trigger inflammation. The way mTOR works is you suppress mTOR and then when you stop suppressing it, it surges forth and you get a big spike, which is what causes the benefits.

There's three things that suppress mTOR and I call the strategy 'tripling down on mTOR.' The first thing that is shown to increase mTOR is fasting. The longer you fast, the lower your mTOR goes, which is good for triggering autophagy and things like that.

Other things that lowers mTOR are coffee and exercise. So, by having coffee during the fast, you keep cranking down on it, and then you exercise and it's really low.

Then when you eat, which releases mTOR, and you have adequate protein in that meal, the body is like, 'Woo-hoo, I've got a huge surge of mTOR and I've got protein present. Now, I'm going to go to work and I'm going to fix everything. I'm going to replace all the cells I got rid of during autophagy. I'm going to grow the new mitochondria.'"

This is why you get more out of exercise when you do it at the end of a fast. I'm convinced this strategy has helped me radically build my muscles and improve my strength. One small tweak that may be helpful if you're doing very heavy exercise is to eat a small amount of food about 30 to 60 minutes before you start, essentially breaking your fast right before your exercise.

"There's great logic in that advice," Asprey says. "You fasted and then you broke the fast right before the exercise, because by the time those calories are digested and hit the blood sugar, you will be done with your workout. It's going to be a good half hour before that stuff really hits the bloodstream.

So, I would totally support that unless you're doing the kind of high-intensity workouts that I'm a fan of, the ones where if I tried to do it with a full stomach, I think I might throw up. They're very short but they're very intense."

More Information

Asprey discusses a number of other antiaging strategies in this interview as well — things like hormone regulation and the use of testosterone, and how fasting affects these levels — so for those details, be sure to listen to the whole interview.

He also goes into some of the problems that can occur when you're on a plant-based diet, and/or if your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio is off-kilter, as well as how your diet and exposure to sunlight influence your circadian rhythm, and which supplements are helpful when fasting and which should be avoided.

Naturally, you'll also want to pick up a copy of his book, "Fast This Way: Burn Fat, Heal Inflammation, and Eat Like the High-Performing Human You Were Meant to Be," where he covers everything in greater depth. In addition to everything already mentioned, his book also includes information about intermittent hypoxic training and breathing exercises.

"What we know now, and what is in 'Fast This Way,' is that when you show your body that it will be required to regularly go without something it thinks it needs, you walk away from that as a stronger person.

Your willpower is stronger, but more importantly, your cells are stronger, and then they will give you more energy all the time. And, going from a 300-pound tired, fat, uncomfortable guy to where I am now, even though I'm 48, if I could do it, I think anyone could do it," Asprey says.

Sign Up for a Guided Fast

To help you on your way, Asprey also provides a two-week program where he guides you through a 24- or 48-hour fast and answers questions on a daily basis. All you need to do is order "Fast This Way," and then send a copy of your receipt to FastThisWay.com and sign up for the program. There's an upload form on the website.

"I'll teach you the fasting hacks. We'll do some intermittent fasting together in a community, and then towards the end of this, we will actually do a 24-hour or 48-hour fast. I'm going to lead you through it," he says.

"We also [cover] mediation and the gratitude side of this. I just want to teach you this book because I spent thousands of hours writing it and I want you to get it … So, if you want to ask me questions, I'm going to be there for you."

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In this interview, we continue the COVID-19 discussion with a medical expert from Argentina, Dr. Hector Carvallo, whose focus since early 2020 has been the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.

Carvallo graduated from medical school in 1981 — the same year AIDS emerged as a global pandemic. In the first two years, AIDS killed 2 million people. Since 1981, it has claimed the lives of 35 million. While officially retired for a couple of years, the 2020 COVID pandemic brought him out of retirement.

“My first fire baptism was with AIDS,” he says. “I have dedicated my professional time to teaching and assisting. I graduated as a professor in 1996, and worked as a professor for the School of Medicine in Buenos Aires, which is public. Later, I was an associate professor of internal medicine for two private schools of medicine until I retired a couple of years ago.”

Ivermectin Is a Potent Antiviral

Interestingly, Carvallo had experience with ivermectin as an antiviral before the COVID outbreak. Argentinian doctors were using it against dengue fever, which is endemic in Argentina. So, when SARS-CoV-2 emerged, they decided to take another look at the drug to see if it might be useful.

“We came across some studies that were being conducted in Australia at the Monash University by people like Dr. Kylie Wagstaff,” Carvallo says. “We supposed that it would be very useful because the virology in effect already proved that, and we decided — even before they published their first findings — to replicate what they were doing, but in vivo. That is, not in the laboratory but in human beings.”

In early April 2020, Carvallo and his team developed two trials submitted to the National Library of Medicine in the United States. One was for preexposure¹ (prevention) and the other for treatment. In both cases, ivermectin was used as an adjunct to other compounds, as they didn’t believe it was a silver bullet by itself.

For preventive purposes, they used ivermectin together with carrageenan, a food emulsifier and thickener that has a long history of use in both food and medicine. According to Carvallo, carrageenan has antiviral effects too, so the ivermectin was used in combination with topical carrageenan, administered through the nose and mucus membranes of the mouth.

In the treatment trial, ivermectin was combined with aspirin for mild cases, aspirin and corticosteroids for moderately severe cases, and enoxaparin (an anticoagulant drug) for severe cases.

These drug combinations were selected based on what was known about other viruses that cause similar health effects as SARS-CoV-2, such as the rhabdovirus’ effect on neurology, the paramyxovirus, which causes hyperinflammation in the lungs, and the dengue virus, which overamplifies the immune system.

Early Treatment Is Crucial

Like so many other doctors, Carvallo knew right from the start that early treatment would be crucial and that telling patients to just wait it out at home until they couldn’t breathe would be a death sentence.

“We knew from the very first day we entered the school of medicine that the sooner you treat any illness, the more chances you will have to be successful in the treatment,” he says. “You have to treat quickly, and strongly. This is natural thinking. Nobody has to be a genius to know that. In this case, inexplicably, many doctors have been told to do nothing.

To keep the patients in their homes on their own with just a few pills of Tylenol — which we know it's good for nothing — until they cannot breathe properly. Then they have to be referred to the hospital. That is patient abandonment under any law in any country …

If you walk around a corner and you see your neighbor’s house on fire, you may call 911. You may play hero and enter the house and try to save them. You may cry out for help. The only thing you must not do is nothing.

I believe in any attempt to keep a mild patient, mild. What I cannot accept as a medical doctor — because it is against our oath — is to remain with arms folded until that person gets worse. That's criminal … There's only one reason for all this. The reason is summarized in one word, greed.”

Aspirin was chosen for its anticoagulant effects. Another option recommended by American doctors is NAC, an over-the-counter supplement that both prevents blood clots and breaks up existing ones. NAC also has other benefits that makes it useful against COVID-19. Argentina does not allow the sale of supplements without prescription, so no dietary supplements were used in these particular trials.

“That doesn't mean we say they are not good,” Carvallo says. “We simply adjusted ourselves to what was there. We believe in the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine. We believe in the effectiveness of azithromycin. Vitamin D, zinc, doxycycline. We believe in those compounds too. But we have not tried them.”

Situational Update in Argentina

So far, only five of the 24 provinces in Argentina have authorized these ivermectin-based protocols for prevention and early treatment, but at least that’s better than the U.S., where ivermectin is rejected outright. In many U.S. hospitals, doctors who dare prescribe it face being fired.

As you’d expect with something that actually works, those five provinces are indeed faring better in terms of infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths. In one province, the death rate was reduced to one-third in less than a month, in the middle of the outbreak, when no vaccines were available.

Argentina didn’t start rolling out their COVID shots until March 2021, and the vaccination campaign has been slow. Carvallo estimates no more than 40% of the population has received two doses so far.

He believes the slow vaccine uptake is partly due to logistical challenges, and partly due to safety concerns. “Many people have preferred to use alternative methods instead of vaccines,” he says. Argentina may still move to make the injections mandatory, though.

“You know what? Making an experiment mandatory and using the media to convince everybody to use it is not new,” Carvallo says. “It was done during the second World War. Josef Mengele and Joseph Goebbels did that.

One made any experiment he wanted on people that were hopeless and at the camps. The other one was a minister of propaganda who convinced everybody that everything was OK … That's what we are seeing. Let's forget about science — common sense has been disregarded.”

Carvallo himself ended up taking the Chinese COVID shot, as proof of vaccination was required for him to travel to Europe. In an effort to counter any potential side effects, he continues to take aspirin to prevent blood clots, and ivermectin. “I keep on using Ivermectin,” he says, “I've been using it for over a year.”

Recommended Dosing Schedule

In the U.S., ivermectin has been mocked and misrepresented as a veterinary drug. In reality, it’s been approved for human use for decades, and won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1995, at which time it was considered a miracle drug.

“Even people from the CDC have said, ‘You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Why should you use Ivermectin?’” Carvallo says. “I would answer them, if they consider ivermectin is only for veterinary use, they are neither horses nor cows, they are asses. The fact is, we use ivermectin on a weekly basis for preexposure, that's for prevention. The dose is 0.2 mg per kilo [of bodyweight. To calculate pounds into kilos, divide your weight in pounds by 2.2].

We adjust the dose to the patient's weight. One of the worst comorbidities for somebody contracting the virus is obesity. You cannot give the same dose to a skinny person and to an obese or morbid obese person. So, we adjust for that.

We use it once a week. Now that Delta is appearing in South America, we are considering reducing it to three or four days between doses. Do you know why we use it on a weekly basis? Because ivermectin will work for 3.5 days. For the other three days, you will be exposed.

You may contract the virus, but even before the virus can replicate enough to pass from the incubation period to the invasion period, you will take ivermectin again. So, you won't know it exists. You won't even realize you have contracted the disease. Your immune system will have [encountered] the virus and will start creating immunity …

We keep on using that four months. We'll stop for a couple of months because ivermectin will accumulate in the fat tissue. After two months of not using it, we start again.”

Carvallo also points out that natural immunity is far stronger than artificial immunity created by the COVID shots. This is no surprise, because that’s how it’s always been with all other viruses. The key is to prevent the infection from getting a strong foothold. With early treatment, you’ll get through the infection just fine, and have robust and likely lifelong immunity.

Addressing Toxicity Concerns

As for the safety of ivermectin, studies in Africa have used doses that were 10 times higher than the 0.2 mg/kg recommended for COVID, without toxic effects. Hydroxychloroquine, on the other hand, has a far narrower safety margin. This is well-known, and was clearly used to discredit the drug. As explained by Carvallo:

“What they did with hydroxychloroquine in order to discredit it was easy. Hydroxychloroquine is also very useful against COVID. But the safety margin is narrow. What they did was to use three times the dose in order to cause toxicity. There were 200 studies in favor of hydroxychloroquine.

There was one study talking about the toxicity, and all the scientific community in the world latched on to that one. That's crazy. In the case of ivermectin, it was so wide a gap between safety and toxicity that they couldn't do that. So, they just disregarded it.”

Now, there are veterinary formulations of ivermectin. Do not use these, as they typically contain polyethylene glycol (PEG), which is toxic to humans. Ironically, the COVID shots actually contain PEG. Many are allergic to this substance, which is why anaphylaxis is such a common acute side effect of the jabs.

Why Are COVID Jabs Still Recommended?

As of September 24, 2021, the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) had received 15,937 reports of deaths following the COVID shot, 71,036 hospitalizations and more than 752,800 adverse events in total.²

Calculations by Steve Kirsch, executive director of the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund, based on VAERS data suggests the actual death toll may be around 212,000.³ He estimates side effects and deaths are under-reported by a factor of 41 or more, so the total number of injuries is likely between 2 million and 5 million.

Even if we were to accept the official VAERS numbers, the death toll is astronomical. Under normal circumstances, a pandemic vaccine would be pulled after about 50 deaths. No explanation has ever been given for why the COVID shots are still being universally recommended after nearly 16,000 reported deaths.

What we’re living is really a classic imitation of George Orwell's book “1984.” Almost everything government and health officials say is the exact opposite of the truth. Right is left. Up is down. Black is white. For those who know the facts, it’s a surreal experience. Double standards have also become the norm. As noted by Carvallo:

“The vaccine is almost sacred. It's like a Bible. Whatever we say in favor of other treatments is a sin. Nobel Prize [winners] of medicine, like Luc Montagnier and Satoshi Omura, have been censored on the media. It's crazy.”

What’s more, we already have evidence showing the shots don’t work as advertised. They lose effectiveness very rapidly. The answer we’re given is booster shots. Israel is already talking about a fourth dose, and the injections have not even been out for a full year yet.

“If you give a medicine and don't get a positive result in a few days, you reconsider either your diagnosis or your treatment,” Carvallo says. “You don't insist on the same thing because it's insane to insist on the same thing trying to get different results.”

The reason we keep getting more variants is because the vaccine is “leaky.” It doesn’t prevent you from getting infected, so the virus starts to mutate to evade the vaccine-induced antibody. Carvallo agrees, adding that it’s equally insane that the shots are designed to produce antibodies against just one portion of the virus, the spike protein, rather than act against the pathogenesis of the virus.

When you recover from a natural infection, you have both humoral and cellular immunity, and even though humoral immunity (antibodies) will decrease within a few months, you still have latent cellular immunity that will spring into action when needed.

The COVID shots do not provide any cellular immunity, which is why they cannot achieve herd immunity, even if 100% of a population is injected. Carvallo also points out that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is now the weakest it’s ever been. The real enemy at this point is the propaganda that keeps fear alive.

Now’s the Time to Take Control of Your Health

Carvallo is one of those rare individuals who has been able to perform research others cannot at this time. He’s retired, so he has no funding or career to lose. He hopes that, eventually, more doctors will go back to thinking for themselves and return to their oath to do no harm, and to focus on what’s best for their patients rather than the bureaucracy currently dictating what they can and cannot do.

According to projections, we could potentially see billions of people die or be permanently disabled from these experimental injections. How are we going to take care of them all? Who’s going to pay for their care? Already, U.S. entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — are nearing bankruptcy.

According to David Martin, Ph.D.,⁴ pension programs and entitlement programs will all run out by 2028, and as they run out of money, the drug industry will collapse as well, as they are the primary beneficiaries of these programs. Medicare and Medicaid pay for the bulk of the drug dependency in America.

So, in just a few years’ time, we’ll be facing a convergence of collapses on multiple fronts, and at the same time, large portions of the population may be severely ill and wholly dependent on these systems for their survival.

Society also requires all sorts of infrastructure, and if large portions of society are crippled or dead, society will collapse from lack of qualified workers alone. So, the COVID shot mandates are clearly making an already precarious situation far worse, as the financial system would be collapsing anyway.

The best thing anyone can do right now to prepare for this convergence of collapses is to focus on your health. Make sure you’re as healthy as you can be. Be sure to optimize your vitamin D level, for example, and avoid toxins of all kinds. Getting used to growing some of your own food would also be a good idea, as would looking into ways to protect your retirement assets.

More Information

To learn more about ivermectin, you can download a free ebook created by Carvallo and his team. It contains not only their Argentinian studies but also other peer-reviewed scientific articles detailing the benefits of ivermectin in the fight against COVID-19. You can find the bilingual (English and Spanish) book, “Ivermectin in COVID-19: Prophylaxis and Treatment,” on iniciatherapeutics.com.

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An international research team investigated whether continued magnetic seizure therapy might effectively prevent the relapse of treatment-resistant depression, compared to what is known about electroconvulsive therapy, the current standard of care.

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Depression and anxiety in pregnant women may be connected to the type of delivery they have, new research suggests.

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A new deep learning algorithm can pick up the molecular pathways and development of key mutations causing colorectal cancer more accurately than existing methods, meaning patients could benefit from targeted therapies with quicker turnaround times and at a lower cost.

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People at risk from strokes and heart attacks could benefit from personalized clotting profiles to help clinicians prescribe more precise treatments, thanks to new research.

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Fibromyalgia, characterized by chronic, widespread pain is an often-debilitating condition that primarily affects women. While as many as 10 million Americans have fibromyalgia, its cause remains a mystery.

Brain scans of fibromyalgia patients have offered hard evidence that the pain they experience is indeed real — mainly because their threshold for tolerating pain impulses is substantially lower than that of most individuals. But the mechanism causing this lowered pain threshold is still unknown.

Some experts, such as Dr. Frederick Wolfe, the director of the National Databank for Rheumatic Diseases and the lead author of the 1990 paper that first defined fibromyalgia's diagnostic guidelines, believe fibromyalgia is mainly a physical response to mental and emotional stress.

But while stress and emotions may indeed play an important role, more recent research shows fibromyalgia patients tend to have severe inflammation in their body, including their nervous system and brain.

Signs and Symptoms of Fibromyalgia

Diagnosis can be a challenge, but the updated case definitions of fibromyalgia, issued in 2010 and later simplified in 2012, claim to correctly diagnose about 83 percent of cases.¹ Originally, the condition was thought to be a peripheral musculoskeletal disease. Today, fibromyalgia has become increasingly recognized as a neurobiological problem causing central pain sensitization.

Unfortunately, there are currently no laboratory tests available for diagnosing fibromyalgia, so physicians primarily depend on patient histories, reported symptoms and physical exam findings. Classic symptoms of this condition include:

Conventional treatment typically involves some form of pain medication, and perhaps psychotropic drugs like antidepressants. I don't recommend either as they fail to address the cause of your problem. Many fibromyalgia sufferers also do not respond to conventional painkillers, which can set in motion a vicious circle of overmedicating on these dangerous drugs.

Brain Inflammation — Another Hallmark of Fibromyalgia

Using PET imaging, a recent investigation² by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden revealed the presence of widespread brain inflammation in patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia.^3,4

Earlier research⁵ conducted at Karolinska Institutet also discovered high concentrations of cytokines (inflammatory proteins) in the cerebrospinal fluid, suggesting fibromyalgia patients have inflammation in their nervous system as well.⁶

The team at Massachusetts General Hospital, meanwhile, has previously shown that neural inflammation, and glial cell (immune cells) activation specifically, plays a role in chronic back pain. Animal studies have also offered evidence for the hypothesis that glial cell activation can be a cause of chronic pain in general.⁷

Here, they found that when glial cells in the cerebral cortex were activated, the more aggressive the activation, the greater the fatigue experienced by the patient. As reported by Medical Life Sciences:⁸

"The current study first assessed fibromyalgia symptoms in patients using a questionnaire. A PET tracer was then used, that is, a radioactive marker which binds a specific protein called translocator protein (TSPO) that is expressed at levels much above the normal in activated glial cells, namely, astrocytes and microglia …

[G]lial activation was found to be present at significantly higher levels in multiple brain areas in patients who had fibromyalgia than in controls. Glial cell activation causes inflammatory chemicals to be released, which cause the pain pathways to be more sensitive to pain, and promote fatigue …

One area showing higher TSPO binding in direct proportion to the self-reported level of fatigue was the cingulate gyrus, an area of the brain linked to emotional processing. Previous research has reported that this area is inflamed in chronic fatigue syndrome."

Brain Inflammation Linked to Loss of Brain Cells

In related news, German researchers investigating inflammation mechanisms in the brain have found that as mice get older and regulation of inflammatory responses become increasingly impaired, they start losing brain cells.⁹

Interestingly, the cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1), which produces the "high" in response to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in marijuana, also helps regulate inflammatory reactions in your brain. In short, chronic brain inflammation is in part driven by the CB1 receptors' failure to respond. To understand how this works, you need to know a little bit about how microglial cells work.

Microglial cells are specialized immune cells found in your central nervous system, including your spinal cord and brain. These immune cells respond to bacteria and are responsible for clearing out malfunctioning nerve cells. They also signal and recruit other immune cells when needed and trigger the inflammatory response when necessary.

Problems arise when the inflammatory response becomes dysregulated and overactive. In the brain, the inflammation can easily damage healthy brain tissue. The "brake signal" that instructs glial cells to stop their inflammatory activity is endocannabinoids, and the endocannabinoids work by binding to certain receptors, including CB1 and cannabinoid receptor type 2 (CB2).

Immune Cells Communicate and Influence Inflammatory Response Using Endocannabinoids

Curiously, microglial cells have virtually no CB1 and very few CB2 receptors, yet they still react to endocannabinoids. The present study was designed to investigate this puzzling riddle. As it turns out, there's a type of neuron that does contain a large number of CB1 receptors, and it appears that it is the CB1 receptors on these specific neurons that control microglial cell activity.

In other words, it appears microglial cells do not communicate with nerve cells directly; rather, they release endocannabinoids, which then bind to CB1 receptors found in nearby neurons. These neurons in turn communicate directly with other nerve cells. So, the brain's immune response is regulated in an indirect manner rather than a direct one.

Now, what happens with age is that your natural production of endocannabinoids decreases, which then leads to impaired immune response regulation and chronic inflammation. As noted by coauthor Dr. Andras Bilkei-Gorzo:¹⁰

"Since the neuronal CB1 receptors are no longer sufficiently activated, the glial cells are almost constantly in inflammatory mode. More regulatory neurons die as a result, so the immune response is less regulated and may become free-running."

Earlier research¹¹ by this same team found that THC can help restore cognitive function in older brains, and the current study also hints at THC-containing cannabis may have valuable neuroprotective benefits in older people by quelling brain inflammation and preventing loss of brain cells. As the study was done on mice, further research is needed to confirm that the same mechanisms apply to humans, but it's compelling nonetheless.

Are You Living an Inflammatory Lifestyle?

Your diet can either promote or decrease inflammation. For example, foods that increase the inflammatory response in your body include:

• Sugar, especially processed corn syrup
• Synthetically produced trans fats
• Processed vegetable and seed oils, high in oxidized omega-6 fat
• Processed meats
• Refined carbohydrates

Meanwhile, marine-based omega-3 fats have powerful anti-inflammatory effects, and are crucial for healthy brain function in general. Antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables are also important for controlling inflammation, as is optimizing your vitamin D to a level of 60 to 80 ng/mL, ideally through sensible sun exposure.

In addition to anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting properties, vitamin D receptors appear in a wide variety of brain tissue, and researchers believe optimal vitamin D levels may enhance important chemicals in your brain and protect brain cells by increasing the effectiveness of glial cells that help nurse damaged neurons back to health.

A number of ubiquitous chemicals have also been implicated in inflammation, so if you struggle with fibromyalgia you'd be wise to take a close look at your choice of foods, household and personal care products. As mentioned earlier, getting enough high-quality sleep is another key treatment component for fibromyalgia.

Ketogenic Diet Massively Decreases Brain Inflammation

Research¹² published last year suggests ketogenic diets — which are high in healthy fats and low in net carbs — are a particularly powerful ally for suppressing brain inflammation, as ketones are powerful HDAC (histone deacetylase inhibitors) that suppress the primary NF-κB inflammatory pathway.

As explained by Medical Xpress,¹³ the defining moment of the study¹⁴ came when the team "identified a pivotal protein that links the diet to inflammatory genes, which, if blocked, could mirror the anti-inflammatory effects of ketogenic diets."

A ketogenic diet changes the way your body uses energy, converting your body from burning carbohydrates for energy to burning fat as your primary source of fuel. When your body is able to burn fat, your liver creates ketones, which burn more efficiently than carbs, thus creating far less reactive oxygen species and secondary free radicals that can damage your cellular and mitochondrial cell membranes, proteins and DNA.

Animals (rats) used in this study were found to have reduced inflammation when the researchers used a molecule called 2-deoxyglucose (2DG) to block glucose metabolism and induce a ketogenic state, similar to what would occur if you followed a ketogenic diet. By doing this, inflammation was brought down to levels near those found in controls.

Suppressing Inflammation Improves Pain

Senior study author Dr. Raymond Swanson, a professor of neurology at UCSF and chief of the neurology service at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, commented on the results, saying:

"I was most surprised by the magnitude of this effect, because I thought ketogenic diets might help just a little bit. But when we got these big effects with 2DG, I thought wow, there's really something here.

The team further found that reduced glucose metabolism lowered a key barometer of energy metabolism — the NADH/NAD+ ratio — which in turn activated a protein called CtBP that acts to suppress activity of inflammatory genes."

The study also pointed out that a ketogenic diet may relieve pain via several mechanisms, similar to the ways it's known to help epilepsy.

"Like seizures, chronic pain is thought to involve increased excitability of neurons; for pain, this can involve peripheral and/or central neurons. Thus, there is some similarity of the underlying biology," the authors stated, adding:

"A major research focus should be on how metabolic interventions such as a ketogenic diet can ameliorate common, comorbid and difficult-to-treat conditions such as pain and inflammation."¹⁵

Cyclical Ketosis for Optimal Health

Eating a ketogenic diet doesn't have to be complicated or painful. My book "Fat for Fuel" presents a complete Mitochondrial Metabolic Therapy (MMT) program, complemented by an online course created in collaboration with nutritionist Miriam Kalamian, who specializes in nutritional ketosis.

The course, which consists of seven comprehensive lessons, teaches you the keys to fighting chronic disease and optimizing your health and longevity. In summary, the MMT diet is a cyclical ketogenic diet, high in healthy fats and fiber, low in net carbs with a moderate amount of protein.

The cyclical component is important, as long-term continuous ketosis has drawbacks that may actually undermine your health and longevity. One of the primary reasons to cycle in and out of ketosis is because the "metabolic magic" in the mitochondria actually occurs during the refeeding phase, not during the starvation phase.

Ideally, once you have established ketosis you cycle healthy carbs back in to about 100 to 150 grams on days when you do strength training. MMT has a number of really important health benefits, and may just be the U-turn you've been searching for if you're struggling with a chronic health condition. You can learn more by following the hyperlinks provided in the text above.

Address Emotional Contributors

Since fibromyalgia is a chronic condition, it becomes emotionally challenging in addition to the physical challenges it imposes on your life. Having a game plan to deal with your emotional well-being is especially important if you suffer from any chronic disease.

If you have fibromyalgia, you might be able to trace it back to a triggering event, or you might not. Any traumatic experience has the potential to linger in your mind for a lifetime. You can have the perfect diet, the perfect exercise routine, and an ideal life; but if you have lingering unresolved emotional issues, you can still become very sick.

A tool that can help release this emotional sludge is the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). If you are a regular reader of my newsletter, this won't be an unfamiliar term to you. EFT is a form of bioenergetic normalization. If you have fibromyalgia, this is something that is going to be extremely helpful. You can do this yourself, at home, and it takes just a few minutes to learn. For a demonstration, see the video above.

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Chronic pain is a pervasive issue and fibromyalgia is a very common form. It is a chronic condition whose symptoms include muscle and tissue pain, fatigue, depression, and sleep disturbances.

Recent data suggests that central sensitization, in which neurons in your spinal cord become sensitized by inflammation or cell damage, may be involved in the way fibromyalgia sufferers process pain.

Certain chemicals in the foods you eat may trigger the release of neurotransmitters that heighten this sensitivity.

Although there have been only a handful of studies on diet and fibromyalgia, the following eating rules can’t hurt, and may help, when dealing with chronic pain.

Limit Sugar as Much as Possible. Increased insulin levels will typically dramatically worsen pain. So you will want to limit all sugars and this would typically include fresh fruit juices. Whole fresh fruit is the preferred method for consuming fruit products.

If you are overweight, have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, you will also want to limit grains as much as possible as they are metabolized very similarly to sugars. This would also include organic unprocessed grains. Wheat and gluten grains are the top ones to avoid.

Eat fresh foods. Eating a diet of fresh foods, devoid of preservatives and additives, may ease symptoms triggered by coexisting conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

It’s also a good idea to buy organic food when possible, as it’s best to avoid pesticides and chemicals. However, fresh is best. So if you have to choose between local, fresh, non-organic and organic but wilting – go with fresh, and clean properly.

Avoid caffeine. Fibromyalgia is believed to be linked to an imbalance of brain chemicals that control mood, and it is often linked with inadequate sleep and fatigue. The temptation is to artificially and temporarily eliminate feelings of fatigue with stimulants like caffeine, but this approach does more harm than good in the long run. Though caffeine provides an initial boost of energy, it is no substitute for sleep, and is likely to keep you awake.

Try avoiding nightshade vegetables. Nightshade vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplant may trigger arthritis and pain conditions in some people.

Be Careful with Your Fats. Animal based omega-3 fats like DHA and EPA have been touted as a heart-healthy food, and they may help with pain, as well. They can help reduce inflammation and improve brain function. At the same time, you want to eliminate all trans fat and fried foods, as these will promote inflammation.

Use yeast sparingly. Consuming yeast may also contribute to the growth of yeast fungus, which can contribute to pain.

Avoid pasteurized dairy. Many fibromyalgia sufferers have trouble digesting milk and dairy products. However, many find that raw dairy products, especially from grass fed organic sources, are well tolerated.

Cut down on carbs. About 90 percent of fibromyalgia patients have low adrenal functioning, which affects metabolism of carbohydrates and may lead to hypoglycemia.

Avoid aspartame. The artificial sweetener found in some diet sodas and many sugar-free sweets is part of a chemical group called excitotoxins, which activate neurons that can increase your sensitivity to pain.

Avoid additives. Food additives such as monosodium glutamate (MSG) often cause trouble for pain patients. MSG is an excitatory neurotransmitter that may stimulate pain receptors; glutamate levels in spinal fluid have been shown to correlate with pain levels in fibromyalgia patients.

Stay away from junk food. Limit or eliminate fast food, candy, and vending-machine products. In addition to contributing to weight gain and the development of unhealthy eating habits, these diet-wreckers may also irritate your muscles, disrupt your sleep, and compromise your immune system.

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How and what you eat has radically changed over the past few decades with the all-consuming rise of the supermarket. But what price are you paying for this homogenized, cheap and convenient food? This video investigates how supermarkets have affected the food on your plate, and reveals the telltale signs that the food you buy may not have been grown in the way you think.

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Researchers have detected abnormalities in the brains of people with fibromyalgia, a chronic condition whose symptoms include muscle pain and fatigue.

Some researchers have suggested that the pain of fibromyalgia is the result of depression, but the new study suggests otherwise. The abnormalities were independent of anxiety and depression levels.

Researchers evaluated 20 women diagnosed with fibromyalgia and 10 healthy women without the condition who served as a control group. The researchers performed brain imaging called single photon emission computed tomography, or SPECT.

The imaging showed that women with the syndrome had "brain perfusion" -- blood flow abnormalities in their brains. The abnormalities were directly correlated with the severity of disease symptoms.

An increase in blood flow was found in the brain region known to discriminate pain intensity.

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Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Syndrome (EHS) is a condition in which people are highly sensitive to electromagnetic fields. In an area such as a wireless hotspot, they experience pain or other symptoms.

People with EHS experience a variety of symptoms including headache, fatigue, nausea, burning and itchy skin, and muscle aches. These symptoms are subjective and vary between individuals, which makes the condition difficult to study, and has left experts divided about the validity of such claims.

More than 30 studies have been conducted to determine what link the condition has to exposure to electromagnetic fields from sources such as radar dishes, mobile phone signals and, Wi-Fi hotspots.

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Researchers uncovered that reducing levels of the protein tau, which is known for its role in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions, changes excitatory and inhibitory cells in ways that make it harder for the brain to burst with overexcitation.

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By Dr. Mercola

In its latest move against small farmers who dare to operate outside the umbrella of CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) and Monsanto-dominated crops, the U.S. government has seized $70,000 from a small dairy farmer in Maryland. The feds did this under the "Bank Secrecy Act," which requires that paperwork be filled out for any cash deposit in excess of $10,000.

The farmers, Randy Sowers and his wife Karen, made deposits totaling more than $295,000 from May 2011 to February 2012, but each transaction was less than $10,000.

Now they are being accused of "structuring," a violation of federal currency reporting requirements, as the feds are accusing them of deliberately depositing money in increments of less than $10,000 in an attempt to evade Currency Transaction Reporting requirements.

Government Seizes $70,000 On What Grounds?

The dairy farmer's "crime" stems from his weekly sales at local farmers' markets. The sales averaged about the same amount each week and, dutifully, the Sowers deposited them. They'd reportedly never even heard of the Bank Secrecy Act or "structuring," but that was of no interest to the feds—the consistency of the amount the Sowers deposited, always less than $10,000, raised red flags to the feds, who claimed that this was indicative of a crime.

The government promptly seized about $70,000 from the bank account, then issued a warrant for the seizures. As reported by Food Freedom News:¹

"The Dept. of Justice has since sued to keep $63,000 of the Sowers' money, though they committed no crime other than maintaining their privacy. Without funds, they will be unable to make purchases for the spring planting. When a similar action was taken against Taylor's Produce Stand last year, the feds seized $90,000, dropped the charges, and kept $45,000 of Taylor's money.

Knowing that most farms operate on a very thin margin, such abuse of power wipes out a family's income, and for a bonus, the feds enhance the monopoly power of Monsanto, Big Dairy and their supply chain.… Former Maryland assistant U.S. attorney Steven Levin told the paper [City Paper], "The emphasis is on basically seizing money, whether it is legally or illegally earned. It can lead to financial ruin for business owners, and there's a potential for abuse here by the government.""

The raid on the Sowers was conducted by an agency created in 2009 to go after money-laundering criminals. The agency started out with a bang by seizing $1.2 billion from a real money launderer, but it appears that what it's interested in now is making criminals out of small business persons, including small farmers.

Why Are Family Farms Under Attack?

If they're not seizing bank accounts, it seems the government will find other ways to attack small farmers. A family farm in rural Michigan—and possibly others—may be shut down by a new state law that designates certain breeds of hogs as a threat to neighboring hog breeders and croplands.

Basically, the fight is over the definition of feral hogs vs. domestic hogs. The dictionary definition of "feral" refers to an animal running wild. But Michigan authorities have taken it a step further and extended the definition to include enclosed private hunting preserves and small farms that house what authorities call an "invasive species" of hogs.

There is no genetic test to determine whether the species on these farms are truly invasive, so authorities are basing their cases against these farmers solely on visual observations. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) uses this vague description to describe the prohibited hogs, and makes it clear that this does not apply to the domestic hogs raised on CAFOs:²

"Wild boar, wild hog, wild swine, feral pig, feral hog, feral swine, Old world swine, razorback, eurasian wild boar, Russian wild boar (Sus scrofa Linnaeus). This subsection does not and is not intended to affect sus domestica involved in domestic hog production."

Other descriptions supplied by the MDNR include such a wide variety of characteristics that virtually any pig other than the familiar pink domestic breed raised on CAFOs could potentially be deemed "feral":

• Erect or folded/floppy ear structure
• Straight or curly tail
• Solid black, wild/grizzled, solid red/brown, black and white spotted, or black and red/brown spotted coat colorations
• "Other characteristics" not currently known to the MDNR

Interestingly, the Big Pork industry has been planning this anti-feral pig campaign for years, and even bragged about it in a 2010 newsletter.³ It was the same newsletter where they declared a win against the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in Ohio, where HSUS was seeking legislation to end the practice of sow gestation stalls (cages so small the sow can't turn around or move).

What this means for residents of Michigan is that soon they will be unable to purchase sustainably and humanely grown meat from the Mangalitsa "wooly" hogs raised on Baker's Green Acres farm. This particular breed is being raised by only a handful of small farms across the country; whereas more than 2 million pigs are slaughtered each week in the United States, only about 50 of them are Mangalitsas (which have been called the "it" pig by the New York Times, as several high-end restaurants and specialty markets have featured the rich, naturally raised meat⁴).

But, of course, this issue is about much more than pasture-raised pork from a heritage breed ... it's about your ability, your right, to purchase and consume pure, unadulterated food – a right that continues to be threated for those living in the United States.

FDA Also Threatens Your Right to Food Choice …

Another glaring example of government going out of its way to prohibit your access to pure, unprocessed food is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) war against raw milk. When the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) filed a lawsuit against the FDA over their raw milk ban, stating that banning raw milk in interstate commerce is unconstitutional, the FDA rebutted with the following extremely concerning and outrageous statements:

• "There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food."
• "There is no 'deeply rooted' historical tradition of unfettered access to foods of all kinds."
• "Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families' is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish."
• FDA's brief goes on to state that "even if such a right did exist, it would not render FDA's regulations unconstitutional because prohibiting the interstate sale and distribution of unpasteurized milk promotes bodily and physical health."
• "There is no fundamental right to freedom of contract."

Since when did the FDA have authority to tell you what you can and cannot eat and feed your children? Apparently they believe they've had it all along. If you go by these assertions, it means the FDA has the authority to prohibit any food of their choosing and make it a crime for you to seek it out. If, one day, the FDA deems tomatoes, broccoli or cashews capable of causing you harm (which is just as ludicrous as their assertions that raw milk is harmful), they could therefore enact such a ban and legally enforce it.

What this means is that freedom of food choice is a myth if you live in the United States, and this simply is not acceptable. No one, and certainly not any government agency, should be able to restrict your access to pure, unadulterated food, but the dairy industry and other industrial farmers that depend on CAFOs employ powerful lobbyists will stop at nothing to persuade government to remove the small farmers from the market entirely. The truth is, if enough people start demanding naturally, sustainably and humanely raised meat, dairy and produce, the giant farming monopolies that currently dominate the market would not be able to compete.

Their businesses depend on pesticides, CAFOs, genetically modified seeds, growth hormones and the like … so when they see all-natural creameries like the one operated by Randy Sowers and his wife Karen, or natural farms like Bakers Green Acres gaining loyal and growing customer bases, they get nervous – and they get the government involved in any way they can.

Please Support Your Local Small Farms

The healthiest food choices are nearly always those that come from responsible, high-quality, sustainable sources.

This is why I encourage you to support the small family farms in your area. This includes not only visiting the farm directly, if you have one nearby, but also taking part in farmer's markets and community-supported agriculture programs. Now that summer is almost here in the United States, fresh produce and other wonderful whole foods are available in abundance. Not only is the food so much tastier and healthier when you get it from sustainable, non-CAFO sources, but there is something about shopping for fresh foods in an open-air, social environment that just feels right. An artificially lit, dreary supermarket -- home to virtually every CAFO food made -- just can't compete.

If you want to experience some of these benefits first-hand, here are some great resources to obtain wholesome food that supports not only you but also the environment:

1. Alternative Farming Systems Information Center, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
2. Farmers' Markets -- A national listing of farmers' markets
3. Local Harvest -- This Web site will help you find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies.
4. Eat Well Guide: Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals -- The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, inns, and hotels, and online outlets in the United States and Canada.
5. Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) -- CISA is dedicated to sustaining agriculture and promoting the products of small farms.
6. FoodRoutes -- The FoodRoutes "Find Good Food" map can help you connect with local farmers to find the freshest, tastiest food possible. On their interactive map, you can find a listing for local farmers, CSA's, and markets near you.

Finally, for more information on the ongoing attacks against small family farms in the United States consider watching Farmageddon: The Unseen War on American Family Farms, a documentary by Kristin Canty. But I warn you … the injustices it contains may just make your blood boil.

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