Blog - Page 2 of 20 - Dan Hammer Health LTD

Posted by Dan Hammer //

01/08/2020

Do you need to boost your immune system? Do you suffer from frequent colds and flu symptoms? Then you need to read this article on 2 natural ways to boost your immune system.

In fact, the information in this article may help you avoid that flu shot or a round of antibiotics.

I’ve written a previous article titled “Immune System Power Foods” which describes in detail 7 power foods that you can use to boost your immune system.

Today I want to provide you with 2 supplements that are amazing in helping your immune system do its job. There are:

Beta Glucans
Squalamine

Let’s examine each of them and how they help boost your immune system.

Boost Your Immune System – Beta Glucans Read More →

7 Health Benefits of Coffee

Posted by Dan Hammer //

01/01/2020

While I’m not a coffee drinker, approximately 64 percent of American adults are. So it’s time to quantify the health benefits of coffee.

As the percentage above indicates a lot of Americans start their day with a steaming cup of coffee. They are usually looking for caffeine to wake them up. Now it is nice to know there are additional health benefits to this morning ritual.

According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest a typical cup of home-brewed coffee has about 95 mg of caffeine. For those that want more, a 20 ounce specialty coffee from a franchise can have as much as 475 mg of caffeine.

But coffee is more than just caffeine. It also contains powerful polyphenols and other natural ingredients that can significantly impact your health in a positive way.

7 Health Benefits of Coffee

In researching this article I came across more than 7 health benefits of coffee. But I believe these are the 7 most important ones. Read More →

Bergamot Extract Lowers Cholesterol

Posted by Dan Hammer //

12/08/2019

Today I want to introduce you to a natural way to address cholesterol concerns by highlighting how bergamot extract lowers cholesterol. And without side effects.

In most cases the medical community will recommend taking a statin drug to lower a person’s cholesterol. And while statin drugs are very effective in doing this, they can have some significant side effects such as:

Statins reduce CoQ10, which is needed for energy production in every cell, especially the heart. There is a direct link to an increase in congestive heart failure with the increase use of statins.
Statins reduce vitamin K2, which your body uses to regulate calcium levels in the vascular system. As vitamin K2 decreases the potential for vascular calcification increases.
Statins reduce ketone production, which can then accelerate the aging process.
Increased risk for cancer: Breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men.
Increased risk for diabetes.
Muscular issues like pain and muscle wasting.
Increased risk for cataracts.

In today’s medical world cholesterol has become the enemy. Yet healthy cholesterol levels are key to good health.

Why?

Because cholesterol is need for proper cell membrane integrity. In fact, without cholesterol you would just be a pool of living matter, instead of an upright thinking human being.

Cholesterol is also essential for your brain, which contains about 25 percent of the cholesterol in your body. It’s critical for synapse formation, i.e. the connections between your neurons, which allow you to think, learn new things, and form memories. So perhaps it’s not surprising that memory loss is widely reported in association with statin use. Read More →

Vitamin K Improves Glucose Metabolism

Posted by Dan Hammer //

12/01/2019

As I was searching for my next health article the title Vitamin K Improves Glucose Metabolism caught my attention. And as I researched this topic I discovered that both forms of vitamin K improves glucose metabolism.

Yes, there are two main forms of this vitamin. Each form has a different overall function in your body.

Vitamin K1 (phylloquinone) helps to keep blood platelet cells from sticking together. Because of this, if you are on blood thinning medication, then your physicians will usually caution you about limiting your intake of this vitamin.

Vitamin K1 is found in green leafy vegetables like kale, spinach, collards, Swiss chard, turnip greens, mustard greens, parsley, romaine, and green leaf lettuce. You will also find this vitamin in Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage.

Vitamin K2 (menaquinone) is used by your body to regulate calcium levels in the blood stream. This vitamin helps to keep calcium in the bones where it belongs. And prevents the calcification of your soft tissues like your arteries, heart, lungs, and kidneys.

Vitamin K2 comes from animal and protein sources like natto, fermented soy, liver, cheese, egg yolks, dark chicken meat, grass feed beef, and butter.

In summary, vitamin K plays an important role in proper blood clotting, maintaining bone density, and preventing vascular calcification.

Certain drugs like statins actually lower vitamin K levels in your system. Which now makes sense to me since one of the side effects of statin drug usage is an increased risk of diabetes. Read More →

To Stent Or Not To Stent

Posted by Dan Hammer //

11/22/2019

To stent or not to stent has recently become public news with the release of the ISCHEMIA study. This study has create headlines like this one from The Washington Post:

“Stents and bypass surgery are no more effective than drugs for stable heart disease, highly anticipated trial results show”

or this headline from CBS News:

“Medication and lifestyle changes could be as effective as surgery for heart disease, trail finds”

This newly released trial was led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Stanford University. They looked at over 5,000 patients who had heart blockages but were stable. And what they found can be summarized as follows:

Placing a stent in a patient with stable blockages could improve a patient’s quality of life by reducing their symptoms like chest pain.
But when compared to taking medications or implementing lifestyle changes, stenting didn’t lower their risk of a heart attack or stroke.

Needless to say this study has caused a significant reaction in the medical community. According to Harvard Medical School “about 600,000 people in the United States undergo an angioplasty to widen a narrowed coronary artery, nearly always with a tiny wire mesh tube (stent) left inside the artery to keep it open.”

This is not an inexpensive procedure.

To Stent or Not To Stent – The Numbers

The average cost for this procedure (angioplasty with the placement of a stent) is around $29,000.

This means that this medical procedure is a 17.4 billion dollar industry. It’s a major income stream for both interventional cardiologist and hospitals.

In response to the release of this study Elliot Antman, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital made the following statement:

“The ISCHEMIA trial shows that an early invasive approach does not protect patients against death or the overall chance of a heart attack, but does effectively relieve chest pain – the more chest pain a patient has, the more likely they are to benefit.”

Now before we demonize interventional cardiologist and hospitals it’s important to note the following key words that apply to this trial:

“. . .who had heart blockages but were stable.”

Stable heart blockages is the key piece of information.

Going back to the Harvard Medical School they estimate that approximately “two-thirds of these procedures are done in people experiencing a potentially life-threatening event – a heart attack or unstable angina, defined as severe, worsening chest pain during exertion or stress, or chest pain that happens at rest.”

One-third of 600,000 is 198,000 people who might find other alternatives like medications and lifestyle changes to be as effective as stenting in keeping themselves alive. That could be a 5.7 billion dollar savings per year.

To Sent or Not To Sent – What is Stable Heart Blockages

Most vascular blockages are due to a process called atherosclerosis. This usually starts with very low density lipoprotein (bad cholesterol) being oxidized by free radicals. This creates inflammation and damage to the endothelium resulting in plaque formation. Over time this plaque continues to grow, which narrows the inside of the artery.

There is usually a fibrous cap to this plaque. This fibrous cap provides structure to the plaque.

However, unstable plaque or vulnerable plaque has a thin fibrous cap usually formed from a collection of white blood cells and lipids like bad cholesterol. And if free radical damage is continuing to occur, then the resulting inflammation makes this cap even more vulnerable for a rupture.

This rupture can then form a blood clot, or release cellular debris, that can then lead to a blockage resulting in a heart attack or stroke. If you remember Tim Russert from Meet The Press, then his heart attack and death would be a good example of this process.

There are certain biomarkers that can help you and your physician determine the increased probability of plaque being unstable. They are:

c-Reactive Protein

Oxidized LDL

Both of these are due to inflammation. Oxidized LDL is usually due to free radical damage.

Which gives a strong clue to lifestyle changes that can address this. One lifestyle change would be to significantly increase your intake of fruits, vegetables, and herbal extracts that are powerful antioxidants.

As well as eliminating as many omega 6 fatty acids from your diet and replacing them with omega 3 fatty acids.

Sugar and highly processed foods also contribute to vascular inflammation.

These 3 lifestyle changes can significantly improve your health while reducing the potential for oxidized LDL and vascular inflammation. All of which can help to stabilize any plaque in the vascular system.

And as I’ve share multiple times in previous articles, nitric oxide therapy can help to vasodilate the vascular system for improved blood flow. This would then help those who are experiencing chest pain and angina.

Blessing Lives Through Nitric Oxide Therapy!

Dan Hammer

Can Apigenin Prevent and Reverse Cancer

Posted by Dan Hammer //

11/15/2019

This article is going to explore the question: can apigenin prevent and reverse cancer? Apigenin is a natural flavonoid found in a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Later in this article I’ll provide you with a table to help you choose the best sourcing if your decide to incorporate this ingredient into your lifestyle.

As a cancer survivor I’m always looking for ways to reduce my risk.

Recently, I’ve had several friends either directly suffer from cancer or have family members dealing with cancer issues. In 2016 there were approximately 1.6 million new cancer cases and almost 600,000 deaths in the United States. Hopefully this information will be beneficial to the millions of people who have cancer or have family and friends who have cancer.

In the image I used for this article on can apigenin prevent and reverse cancer you can see that this natural ingredient can provide the following benefits:

Anti-Cancer
Anti-Inflammatory
Antibacterial
Antiviral
Antioxidant
Blood Pressure Reduction

That’s a significant number of benefits but for this article we’re only going to focus on the anti-cancer component. Read More →

Avocados Lower Bad Cholesterol

Posted by Dan Hammer //

11/08/2019

The recent headline about how avocados lower bad cholesterol caught my attention. And the reason why is that the key to vascular health is addressing inflammation.

Vascular inflammation typically leads to plaque formation. This can significantly increase your potential for a heart attack or stroke.

Anything you can do to prevent vascular inflammation can help to reduce your risk for strokes and heart attacks.

One of the key contributors to vascular inflammation is bad cholesterol, which the medical community labels as LDL or Low Density Lipoprotein.

But the real cause of vascular inflammation is not LDL but oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and small, dense LDL particles.

By itself LDL does not damage the lining of your vascular system. What is call the endothelium.

Unfortunately, dietary choices create the environment for what are called free radicals. These are unstable molecules that are missing an electron in their outer orbit. To stabilize themselves they steal an electron from another molecule.

This process than creates another free radical, which continues this process until eventually damage is done to your cellular tissues. The result is inflammation.

In a recent 2015 study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the participants who ate one avocado per day, while following a moderate-fat diet, had an average 13.5 mg/dl drop in bad or LDL cholesterol.

Avocados Lower Bad Cholesterol

Penn State University just released information to support how avocados lower bad cholesterol. Read More →

Can Drinking Water Lower Your A1C

Posted by Dan Hammer //

11/01/2019

One of my clients prompted me to research this question: Can drinking water lower your A1C?

Now before I let you know what I found let’s set the stage by defining the term “A1C.”

Your A1C is determined by a blood test that provides an estimated average of what your blood sugar level has been over the past 2-3 months. In the medical community this term A1C is also referred to has Hemoglobin A1C, HbA1C, or glycated hemoglobin.

Hemoglobin is the protein in your red blood cell that carries oxygen.

Glycated means that sugar in your blood stream has attached itself to the hemoglobin of your red blood cell.

This means that your A1C measures how much of your red blood cells have sugar attached to them. If your A1C test result is 7%, then 7% of your red blood cells have sugar attached to them.

And this score become a baseline measurement in helping to determine if you have diabetes, which is having too much sugar in your blood stream.

There are other blood tests and methods to determine if your blood sugar levels are too high. The following chart provides context to these measurements and methods and how they are reflected in determining if you have diabetes:

As you can see by the above chart you would want your A1C score to be as close to 5 as possible. Once you’re above 6 you’re considered to be prediabetic and 6.5 or higher diabetic.

Which now brings us back to my client’s question: Can Drinking Water Lower Your A1C? Read More →

Proluxan for Prostate Health

Posted by Dan Hammer //

10/22/2019

I don’t often do a product review but today I’m going to do one on Proluxan for prostate health.

I found this product as I was searching for information on prostate health. In fact, the ingredients in this product became the basis for my article “6 Key Ingredients for Prostate Health.”

The 6 key ingredients that I focused on were:

Saw Palmetto Berry Extract at 120 mg per day
Stinging Nettle Root or Urtica Diocia at 200 mg per day
Pygeum Africanum Extract at 100 mg per day
Green Tree Leaf Extract Yielding 70% EGCG at 600 mg per day
Lycopene at a minimum of 15 mg per day
Humulus Lupulus Hops Extract at 500 mg per day

As I researched these ingredients I found excellent supporting studies for all of them except the last one, which is the Humulus Lupulus Hops Extract. It’s new to prostate health.

Of the first five ingredients listed above I found two products that interested me. They were:

Ultra Prostate Formula by LifeExtension – click here for more information on this product.

Now Prostate Health Clinical Strength – click here for more information on this product.

But none of them had the one ingredient that caught my attention, which again is the Humulus Lupulus Hops Extract. So I decided to try Proluxan for prostate health.

Before and After with Proluxan for Prostate Health Read More →

2 Natural Ingredients for Joint Pain

Posted by Dan Hammer //

10/15/2019

One of my clients asked me if there were any natural ingredients for joint pain. This person was concerned about the negative effects of certain pain relieving drugs like:

Acetaminophen or Tylenol – Click here for a review of health concerns.

Ibuprofen or Motrin – Click here for a comparison between ibuprofen and acetaminophen.

And since this person is over the age of 45, they have been dealing with joint pain for awhile.

If you’re like most people over the age of 45, then you are dealing with some level of joint pain. It’s estimated that in the United States about 29% of the adult population has arthritis. And if you’re 65 or older, then it’s about 50% of the population that suffers from arthritis.

For me personally, I experience joint pain in my left knee daily. Some days are worse than others depending on my activities during the previous day. I typically use 600 mg of ibuprofen when the pain gets to be too much. For me it addresses the pain and inflammation.

This made my client’s request for natural ingredients for joint pain timely and personal. And here is what I found. Read More →