Slam The Brakes On Aging Part 2

Dr. Frank Shallenberger’s

Vol. 7, No. 4

April 2008

Slam the Brakes on Aging, Part 2 In last month’s issue, I showed you how decreased cellular energy production is the cause of all aging and degenerative diseases. I told you about an innovative test that measures your biological age by measuring how well the cells of your body produce energy. And I told you about all the things that can damage your cells’ mitochondria, affecting your energy production and causing you to age. One of the things we talked about last month is the effect of free radicals. As you know, free radicals are highly reactive molecules that can damage the cells. Because of

In this Issue Q

How men can dramatically decrease their risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and memory loss ........ p. 4

Q

A powerful extract that can stop diabetes and cancer — and when you should never take it ............ p. 6

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If you have shoulder pain, here’s how to stop the inflammation and reduce your pain ................ p. 8

Coming Next Month • Suffering from stomach pains, gas,

bloating, or any other digestion problem? I’ll show you how to get permanent relief once and for all.

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If dust, mold, or a number of other irritants bother your eyes, you have to avoid this drug. Instead, try this simple, over-thecounter remedy.

this, many doctors believe that free radical molecules cause aging. Well, I’d like to take it a step further. Yes, free radicals can cause cell damage. And yes, this cell damage can cause your cells to produce less energy. But here’s something even more important: lower cell energy causes free radicals! When your mitochondria work efficiently, they don’t produce very many free radicals. But when the mitochondria are damaged, they produce a lot of free radicals. It’s very similar to a car engine. As the car engine works less efficiently, you get more pollution coming from the exhaust. So when you have mitochondrial damage you get more free radicals … which cause more mitochondrial damage … which causes still more free radicals. It’s a vicious circle.

How to Stop Free Radicals in Their Tracks For years, you’ve been told that the best way to quench free radicals is by taking antioxidants like selenium, vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, and alpha lipoic acid. It’s good advice, except for one problem: antioxidants don’t stop the aging process! In fact, dozens of animal studies have been done on antioxidants. And not one single study has ever found that taking them can stop or even slow down aging. Why? Because antioxidants don’t directly attack free radicals; antioxidant enzymes do. These enzymes include catylase, glu-

tathione peroxidase, and SOD (superoxide dismutase). When these antioxidant enzymes come into contact with a free radical molecule, they neutralize it so that it doesn’t cause damage to your cells. Unfortunately, every time an antioxidant enzyme comes in touch with a free radical, it becomes weakened or even de-activated. That means it can’t quench another free radical until something re-activates it. And that something is the antioxidant nutrients. These include antioxidants like vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, selenium, and lipoic acid. The bottom line: taking antioxidants is not enough. You also have to increase the level of antioxidant enzymes. Now here’s the problem: Antioxidant enzymes are produced by the mitochondria. So when your mitochondria are not working efficiently, they make fewer antioxidant enzymes. At the same time, they’re making more free radicals. Thus, decreased energy production leads to a deadly combination – increased free radical formation with decreased antioxidant enzyme production. So the answer to the problem is to increase energy production. The answer once again is energy. The more energy your mitochondria produce, the more antioxidant enzymes your body makes! It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. Your cells make more energy …which creates fewer free radicals and more antioxidant enzymes … this protects you from the long-term effects of free radical damage, which leads to youthful energy production even as you grow much older … and so on. Real Cures (ISSN 1062-4163) is published monthly by Soundview Publishing, LLC. Publisher: Wallis W. Wood; Editor: Frank Shallenberger, MD. Subscriptions $49 per year; foreign addresses add $13 U.S. per year. Send new subscriptions or changes of address to our Business Office: P.O. Box 467939, Atlanta, GA 31146-7939, 800-728-2288 or 770-399-5617. Real Cures is a newsletter containing general comments on health, nutrition, and medicine. Readers are advised to consult with their own physician before implementing any health idea they read about, whether here or in any other publication. Copyright © 2008 by Soundview Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction of this newsletter or its contents by xerography, facsimile, or any other means is illegal.

But that still doesn’t answer the big question, which is: How can we make more energy? The answer is:

Fuel (carbs and/or fats) + Oxygen = Energy We’ll talk about fats and carbs in a moment, but let’s talk about oxygen first. Why? Because you can have the best nutrition in the world, and you’ll still age if your body isn’t processing oxygen properly. In fact, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that the biggest difference between a 25-year-old and a 75-yearold is in how their bodies use oxygen.

So How Do You Get the Cells Oxygenated? One way to get more oxygen into your cells is through oxygen therapies, like ozone therapy or intravenous hydrogen peroxide. But the cheapest, easiest, and most practical way is through moderate aerobic exercise. I’ve showed you in past issues how many people don’t get enough exercise and how others get too much exercise. Both cases will have a negative effect on your ability to produce energy. This is why some people who exercise a lot are tired all the time. And it’s also why people who don’t exercise feel sluggish. They simply don’t produce enough energy. However, if you can get the right amount of exercise, you will greatly optimize your energy production. And greater energy production results in less aging. In fact, hundreds of studies show that exercise can slow or even stop most diseases. People who exercise properly have lower rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, you name it. So how do you know how much exercise to get? I gave you all the details in my article, but let me briefly sum it up for you. It’s all about interval training. Interval training means that you exercise at different levels for different rates of time. The program I tell my patients to follow is very simple. The first level is simply

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exercising at a low level for three to five minutes. The level of exertion should be low enough that you could easily have a conversation without having to hesitate from breathlessness. Then exercise for one to two minutes at the point where you’re on the verge of being out of breath. (This is called the aerobic zone.) After you’ve gone for one or two minutes at this rate, then go for 30 seconds as hard as you can. (This is called the anaerobic zone.) After 30 seconds, go back to the low level for three to five minutes. This is the recovery zone. It can be a simple walking pace or, maybe, a little faster. Then repeat this cycle as many times as you like, up to 40 minutes. That’s all there is to it. Any harder or longer and you begin to negatively affect your energy production.

The Rest of the Plan Moderate exercise is the best anti-aging treatment available. But it’s not the only thing you can do to stop the aging process and avoid disease. There are three other areas you need to look at in order to achieve your optimum energy production. They are: diet, supplements, and stress management. Let’s talk about each of these… Diet: I’ve told you in other articles about the importance of having a metabolism that burns fat, not glucose. Burning fat is the cleanest, most efficient way for your body to make energy. The best way to have a fat-burning metabolism is to avoid carbohydrates, especially grains and sugars. There’s no secret formula to follow. No tricky diet plan. Just stop eating the high-carb foods, especially refined carbs! What should you eat? As far as I’m concerned, you can eat as much good meat (i.e., grass-fed beef, fish, free-range chicken, etc.) and organic vegetables as you want. You should make the bulk of your diet consist of the non-starchy vegetables and legumes. You can also eat a minimal amount

of fruit (especially berries), as long as you don’t overdo it. In general, I tell patients to avoid fruits altogether for the first three weeks on the plan. After that they can have as many berries as they want, and one or two pieces of whole fruit per week. Be sure to avoid fruit juice — it is way too high in sugar. Stress Management: Believe it or not, you can have a great exercise and diet program and still kill your energy production by living a stressful life. I have a patient who’s a great illustration of this. She’s 63 years old, and for several years she had the biological age of a 42year-old. Then, one day she came into my clinic and her Bio-Energy scores had dropped by 40%! We were shocked. I asked her about her diet and exercise. Everything was perfect. Then I asked her if she had made any changes in her life. She told me her mother was dying of Alzheimer’s and had moved in with her. The stress of caring for her mom was affecting her ability to produce energy in a negative way. It was wearing her out and ultimately aging her. Situations like this are almost impossible to avoid. So you have to develop stress management techniques, such as making sure you get enough sleep, proper exercise, and limiting your intake of coffee and alcohol. You also have to develop other ways to handle stress, which I outlined in detail the October 2007 issue. I urge you to read that issue. Supplements: By supplements, I’m referring to vitamins, minerals, amino acids, herbs, and other nutrients. But I’m also referring to certain hormones. You see, one of the things that happens as you age is that your glands don’t produce as many hormones as they used to. These can be sex hormones, like testosterone or estrogen. Or they could be other hormones like cortisol, thyroid hormone, melatonin, or DHEA. The only way to know for sure if you’re deficient in any of these is to be evaluated

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One Test Every Man Must Get to Help Prevent Cancer, Heart Disease, and Diabetes I’ve written about metabolic syndrome for years. And yet, many people still don’t know how dangerous it is. Metabolic syndrome destroys more lives than any other single imbalance. It causes diabetes, cancer, heart disease, senility, weakness, and hypertension. The easiest way to diagnose metabolic syndrome is to stand in front of the mirror. If you have metabolic syndrome, you’ll have fat gain that’s limited to the abdominal area. People with this problem typically have minimal fat accumulation in other areas. Any man who is overweight either has metabolic syndrome or is on the way to getting it. The same is true for 70% of overweight women. In most cases, simply losing the excess weight by exercising regularly and limiting car-

by a doctor who is familiar with anti-aging medicine and natural hormone replacement therapy. You can find one near you by going to www.acam.org. Apart from hormones and vitamins, I suggest you take a good full-spectrum multivitamin/mineral. My favorite is a product I developed myself called QuickStart. QuickStart contains 11 vitamins and 11 minerals … plus green superfoods, highquality whey protein, concentrated fiber, and several herbs that support detoxification and a strong immune system. In fact, one scoop of QuickStart powder provides as many nutrients as you would find in 30 large tablets! But you don’t have to choke down any tablets; all you have to do is mix a scoop into a glass of water and drink it. I take QuickStart every morning, and so do most of my patients. And they rave about it. (If you’re interested in trying QuickStart, call 1-800-728-2288.)

bohydrate intake will eliminate this terrible problem. But what if you’re not overweight? In this case the mirror doesn’t help, and the only way to identify it is by examining laboratory tests, such as fasting insulin, glucose, and blood fat levels. So how can you prevent metabolic syndrome from occurring in a man who is not overweight? In this case, weight loss is not an option. Recent research is helping solve this problem. In a recent study researchers followed 950 men who did not have metabolic syndrome. They took blood tests to determine the participants’ SHBG (sex hormone binding globulin) and testosterone (male sex hormone) levels. They also questioned the patients regarding signs of decreased testosterone. This might include depression, decreased sex drive, forgetfulness, and musculo-skeletal aches. They then followed these men over the next 20 years to see

Does It Really Work? So there you have it — the greatest strategy for stopping the aging and disease process. It can help you add years to your life. But, more importantly, it can help you live those years with vibrancy. I told you earlier how well it worked for me. But I’m not alone. Thousands of my patients have gone through the protocol. We give them a Bio-Energy test, put them on the protocol, and then test them again six months later. And time after time, those people who follow the protocol see an improvement. Their bodies actually grow younger.

Will It Work for You? The answer is yes. Obviously, not everyone will respond in the same way. We’ve seen the numbers vary from patient to patient. Much of it depends on your genetics. I’ve had patients with great genes who increase their mitochondrial efficiency by 100% in just three months. I’ve also had

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whether or not they developed metabolic syndrome. They found that the lower the participant’s level of SHBG and testosterone, the greater their likelihood for developing metabolic syndrome. This was definitely true for overweight men, but it was even truer for non-obese men. The lower the levels of SHBG and testosterone, and the higher the occurrence of low testosterone symptoms, the more likely a man is to develop metabolic syndrome. More importantly, the researchers concluded, “Low SHBG and/or AD [androgen deficiency = symptoms of decreased testosterone levels] may provide early warning signs for cardiovascular risk and an opportunity for early intervention in non-obese men.” So men, do yourself a favor. Here’s what you need to do even if you’re not overweight: Instead of just looking at your cholesterol each year, have your doctor also check your fasting insulin levels, SHBG, and testosterone levels. If

your insulin levels are over 10 mU/I, you are on your way to metabolic syndrome. The same is true if your SHBG and/or testosterone levels are in the bottom 25% of the normal range. Even if you’re not in this bottom range, any of the symptoms of testosterone deficiency, such as depression, decreased sex drive, forgetfulness, and musculoskeletal aches, could mean you’re on your way to metabolic syndrome. By preventing metabolic syndrome, you will dramatically decrease your risk for every disease of aging, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, weakness, and senility. If you are headed toward metabolic syndrome and you’re not obese, make sure you’re getting plenty of exercise and eating lots of vegetables and proteins. Reference: Kupelian V., S.T. Page, et al. “Low sex hormone-binding globulin, total testosterone, and symptomatic androgen deficiency are associated with development of the metabolic syndrome in nonobese men.” J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2006 March;91(3):843-50.

people with terrible genetics who see increases of 10%, 20%, or 30% in that same three-month period. Chronological age also comes into play. If you start the program before age 50, like I did, you can see a dramatic turnaround. But if you start after the age of 70, you may already have some permanent damage to organs and tissues that cannot be fixed. But even then, you will most likely see some improvement.

So regardless of your condition, get started now. You can find doctors trained in Bio-Energy Testing by visiting my website (www.bioenergytesting.com) or by calling 866-376-0610. Q References: Speakman JR, Talbot DA, et al. “Uncoupled and surviving: individual mice with high metabolism have greater mitochondrial uncoupling and live longer.” Aging Cell. 2004 Jun;3(3):87-95. Trifunovic A, Wredenberg A, et al. “Premature aging in mice expressing defective mitochondrial DNA polymerase.” Nature. 2004 May 27;429(6990):417.

This Powerful Extract Lowers Blood Sugar and Fights Cancer In the past, I’ve told you the best way to avoid getting cancer – make sure that your cells are burning fat for energy instead of carbohydrates (sugar/glucose). Although all cells can burn either fat or carbohydrates for energy, healthy cells prefer to burn fat.

Cancer cells, on the other hand, burn sugar. This is a major reason cancer is such a problem today – everyone eats too many carbohydrates and sugars. The best way to prevent cancer or to stop cancer from growing is to greatly

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reduce your carbohydrate intake, eliminate your sugar intake, exercise properly, get plenty of sleep, take the right supplements and hormones, and don’t stress out. All of these activities force your cells – even cancer cells – to burn fat instead of glucose. But that’s not all you can do. One of the most intriguing, new ways to shift the body into a fat-burning mode comes from one of my favorite foods. Way back in 1995, researchers from the Department of Biochemistry at Oxford University in Britain discovered the cancerfighting abilities of the avocado. First, they added an extract from the avocado plant (Persea americana) to tumor cells in a test tube. They found that the extract inhibited the tumors cells’ ability to burn carbohydrates by as much as 75%. This forced the

Mark These Dates: Fighting Disease and Pain in Reno

Dr. Shallenberger will be presenting his seminar for doctors and interested scientists and lay people on the use of ozone in medicine on April 11-13, in Reno, NV. He will be teaching doctors how to use ozone therapy to combat chronic disease, and will also be offering a full day's training on how to use Prolozone Therapy®. Prolozone Therapy® is a revolutionary new way to cure chronic back, neck, shoulder, and joint diseases that Dr. Shallenberger has invented and pioneered. You can learn more about this course at www.ozonecourse.com. Fighting Aging In Orlando

Dr. Shallenberger has been invited to be a guest speaker at the 16th Annual American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine International Congress in Orlando, FL on April 25-27, 2008. Dr. Shallenberger will be reporting on his research using a method he has developed to evaluate mitochondrial function in his patients, and to determine their biological age. The title of his talk is, “Mitochondrial Functional Analysis — A New Method For Assessing Anti-Aging Strategies.”

cancer cells into a fat-burning mode. The result? As expected, the avocado extract stopped the growth rate of the cancer cells. Next, the researchers gave the same extract to lab animals with cancer. They used a dose of 1.7 mg of extract for every gram of body weight, and they gave it to the animals for only five days. To their delight, they found that the growth rate of the tumors was reduced by at least 65%, and as much as 79%. This is a truly remarkable finding! The purified extract that they used contained a substance found in high levels in the avocado called d-mannoheptulose. Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles tried using dmannoheptulose on a line of prostate cancer cells. These cancer cells were “androgenindependent.” That means that they grow independently of whether or not they are exposed to the hormone testosterone. These are the most difficult kind of prostate cancers to treat. The researchers found that the avocado extract caused the cancer cells to stop growing. Based on these studies, there’s good reason to believe that regularly taking avocado extract is a great way to prevent cancer. It can help prevent the shift from fat to carbohydrate metabolism. And it works even better is you use it with the other treatments I mentioned earlier. But there’s more….

It’s Not Just a Preventive As Good As It Is, Never Take It When… It also looks like taking the extract is an excellent idea for people who have had cancer in the past or are currently battling cancer. However, this comes with one caveat: Don’t take this extract if you’re getting chemotherapy! Ironically, arresting the growth of cancer cells is about the last thing you want to do if you’re on chemo. With chemo you want the cancer cells’ growth rate to

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increase, not decrease. Let me explain. All cells including cancer cells go through a life cycle. The final part of this cycle, which we call mitosis, is where the cell divides into two daughter cells. And the only time the cancer cell is vulnerable to chemotherapy is during mitosis — when the cell is actually dividing. So to make the tumor most vulnerable to the chemo, you need to have as many cells dividing at the time of the treatment. Anything that slows down the cells’ cycle (decreasing the growth rate of the cancer) will cause a lower percentage of the cells to be in this vulnerable stage.

same is also true for people getting radiation therapy.

Helps Control Blood Sugar Too

One other potential problem to consider is that since d-mannoheptulose alters carbohydrate metabolism, it might also alter blood sugar levels in diabetics. So anyone with diabetes should be sure to let their physician know that they intend to They found that the take the supplement. They extract inhibited the may very likely find that tumors cells’ ability their need for medication to burn carbohydrates will decrease – a good probby as much as 75%. lem to have.

This forced the cancer cells into a fat-burning mode. The result? As expected, the avocado extract stopped the growth rate of the cancer cells.

Currently, d-mannoheptulose is available in two different products. You can easily find it in supplements. However, these often will contain other nutrients that are designed for fat loss. This makes complete sense. Since the effect of d-mannoheptulose is to increase fat metabolism, this is great for those who need to drop some weight.

That’s why taking a substance like avocado extract, which slows down cell growth, will make a cancer more resistant to chemotherapy and radiation. So be sure not to take anything that slows down cancer growth while you’re actively getting cancer treatment. It will interfere with it.

Of course, once the course of treatment is over, then it makes complete sense to take d-mannopheptulose both as a preventive, and just in case some cancer remains. It just might slow the growth rate down to the point that it stops growing altogether. One final note on chemotherapy treatments: While the avocado extract will slow down tumor growth, there is an easy way to make a tumor grow. All you need to do is take antioxidants. They speed up the growth rate of cancers. And by doing this, they make them much more sensitive to the killing effects of chemotherapy. So patients who are getting chemotherapy are well advised to take a healthy dose of antioxidants during their treatment. The

If you don’t need to lose weight, look for an avocado extract powder. These products will work for most people. My only complaint with them is that they don’t always list exactly how much d-mannoheptulose is contained in the powder. If you buy some that doesn’t have the amount listed, contact the manufacturer and ask. You should be able to find their contact information on the Internet. Q References: Board, Mary, Alison Colquhoun and Eric A. Newsholme, “High Km Glucose-phosphorylating (Glucokinase) Activities in a Range of Tumor Cell Lines and Inhibition of Rates of Tumor Growth by the Specific Enzyme Inhibitor Mannoheptulose.” Cancer Research, 55, 3278-3285, August 1, 1995. Lu, Q.Y., et al. “Inhibition of prostate cancer cell growth by an avocado extract: role of lipid-soluble bioactive substances.” Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, 2005;16(1):23-30.

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LETTERS

TO THE

Q. I have heard about the success of

EDITOR

called benfotiamine. You can buy it a www.benfotiamine.net. I recommend you take 150 mg every eight hours.

Goji Juice. What is your opinion? — Wes V.K., via e-mail

Dear Wes, Gogi juice is another one of the “Super Juices” that are so widely promoted these days by multi-level marketing companies. I would like to believe that these juices were more than just a very nutritional form of snake oil. But, unfortunately, they have no nutritional value over just eating healthy foods. And they’re much more expensive. Additionally, there are no reputable clinical trials proving that they do what the sellers say they can do. That being said, I will tell you what I tell all my patients when asked this sort of question. Try it out, and let me know what happens. If it works, email me and let me know. So far I have not had one patient get back to me.

Q. I have a slight neuropathy in my feet from too much sugar. I’m controlling the sugar content in my diet. What supplements are good for helping the sugar levels in my blood? What can help to regenerate the nerves to reverse the neuropathy? — Dave W., via e-mail Dear Dave, The one nutrient that immediately comes to my mind is alpha lipoic acid (ALA). ALA is very effective at controlling blood sugar, as well as preventing and even reversing neuropathy. Make sure that your glycohemoglobin (also known as hemoglobin-A1c) is below 5.8%. To do this, make sure your diet is perfect, and take 300 mg of ALA every eight hours. Please read my book, The Type 2 Diabetes Breakthrough, which you can buy at all the major bookstores. Everything you need to know about controlling blood sugar naturally is in that book. Finally, you should consider taking the synthetic, fat-soluble form of vitamin B1

Q. I recently fell on my shoulder and

it continues to hurt. I would appreciate your thoughts on how to overcome the inflammation that just does not end. — Greg O., via e-mail Dear Greg, The best way to treat these problems is to have the shoulder joint and/or the inflamed ligaments or tendons injected with a combination of vitamin B12, folic acid, procaine, a homeopathic mixture called Traumeel, and ozone. You can find a list of doctors I have trained to do this at www.oxygenhealingtherapies.com. If your doctor is interested in learning this marvelous technique, have him/her check out my next course at www.ozonecourse.com. Other than that, the best thing you can do on your own besides rest and physical therapy is to try taking an extract of the herb boswellia. Boswellia reduces inflammation in both osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and other autoimmune conditions. It does this by blocking the pro-inflammatory enzyme 5lipoxygenase, also known as 5-LOX. It's similar to some anti-inflammatory drugs in this way, although it has none of the side effects. Start off with 200 mg every eight hours. Then increase your dosage up to a maximum of 400 mg as needed.

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Got a Question? Do you have a question for Dr. Shallenberger? If so, please send it (typed only) to him c/o Soundview Publications, P.O. Box 467939, Atlanta, GA 31146-7939 or [email protected]. While he won’t be able to respond personally, he’ll try to answer as many questions as he can in these pages.