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Eliminating Heart Disease Naturally Thru Nitric Oxide Therapy

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Advanced Glycation End Products Cause You to AGE

Posted by Dan Hammer //

06/08/2021

Advanced Glycation End Products Cause You To Age

In the battle to slow the aging process you need to take aim at Advanced Glycation End products commonly referred to in the scientific community as AGEs.

There are two components involved in this process.

Proteins and Sugar.

Proteins are formed from amino acids. They are essential for life because they serve two critical roles.

First they provide structure for the body. One such structural protein is collagen, which accounts for approximately one third of your body’s total protein. It’s found in skin, muscles, organs, and vascular structures. Collagen provides elasticity and cohesion.

Second, proteins provide function in the form of enzymes that enable all life-sustaining chemical reactions to occur within your body.

Sugar is a simple carbohydrate. It provides needed energy for your cells. When properly controlled, proteins and sugars can interact without causing damage to the body.

However, as you age your structural proteins are damaged by a process known as glycation.

This process is an uncontrolled, non-enzymatic reaction between proteins and sugars. It significantly alters the structure and function of proteins.

A sugar molecule attaches itself to a protein molecule resulting in the formation of a non-functioning glycated protein called Advanced Glycation End products or AGEs. Research has implicated AGEs in most of the diseases associated with aging like:

Alzheimer’s Disease
Cancer
Heart Disease
Type II Diabetes
Kidney Disorders
Atherosclerosis
High Blood Pressure
Stroke
Visual Impairment
Skin Disorders

(If you would prefer to view this information in a video format, then please click on my YouTube video below:)

Health Benefits of Onions

Posted by Dan Hammer //

10/01/2020

Today we’re going to look at the health benefits of onions. Just as there are multiple layers to this vegetable, with multiple ways you can cook it, there are also multiple health benefits of onions.

Onions belong to the allium family of vegetables, which include garlic, shallots, chives, and leeks. This means they are a good source of sulfur, which help in both detoxification and protein formation. But they also have important antibacterial and immune-boosting properties.

And while modern day medicine is beginning to acknowledge these health benefits, onions have been used since the beginning of recorded history as key to treating a wide range of health concerns.

Nutrient Dense

A medium onion is only 44 calories but packed with key vitamins and minerals. It is high in vitamin C, which is a key nutrient in helping to regulate your immune system. And as a powerful antioxidant, it helps to protect you from free radical damage. This means that it can aid in reducing cellular membrane damage and inflammation.

Onions are also a good source of both B6 and B9, which aid in regulating your immune system. Plus these two B vitamins play a key role in metabolism, nerve function, and the production of red blood cells.

And like bananas, they are a good source of potassium, which is key for proper muscle relaxation.

Heart Health

As already noted onions help to fight inflammation. Inflammation is at the heart of almost all cardiovascular health issues.

A key antioxidant found in onions is the flavonoid quercetin, which has been shown to be a powerful anti-inflammatory ingredient that helps to reduce heart disease risk factors. One of which is helping to reduce cholesterol levels.

Antioxidant Powerhouse

As I’ve shared many times in my health articles, antioxidants protect you from free radical damage. Plus they inhibit oxidation. It is oxidized LDL cholesterol that typically starts plaque formation in the vascular system.

Onions contain over 25 different flavonoid compounds, which all act as excellent sources of antioxidants.

Particular to red onions is the flavonoid called anthocyanins. There are multiple population studies that show how a diet rich in anthocyanins can lower the risk of a heart attack in men by 14% and for women by 32%. 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 →

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 →

5 Real Health Benefits of Cherries

Posted by Dan Hammer //

08/01/2019

There is a summertime fruit that is both abundant and has real health benefits. That fruit is cherries. Especially Bing cherries from Michigan.

I’ve always enjoyed the taste of cherries. And when my daughter brought some home from the grocery store, I was reminded on how much I enjoy their taste.

So much that I’m now making them a daily part of my diet.

Because of this I decided to do some research on the health benefits of cherries. And while I wasn’t surprised, I was definitely pleased at how nutritious this fruit is.

I’ve been eating cherries each day as an afternoon snack.

Instead of reaching for a bag of potato chips I’m filling a cup with Bing cherries. Here is the overall nutritional value for one cup:

97 Calories

2 grams of Protein

25 grams of Carbohydrates

3 grams of Fiber

18% of my daily need for Vitamin C

10% of my daily need for Potassium

5% of my daily need for Copper

5% of my daily need for Manganese

And while this nutritional profile is good, what’s even better are the polyphenols and antioxidants that make the health benefits of cherries real. Read More →

Advanced Glycation End Products Cause You to AGE!

Posted by Dan Hammer //

06/15/2019

In the battle to slow the aging process you need to take aim at Advanced Glycation End products commonly referred to in the scientific community as AGEs. This article will help you understand how AGEs are formed , what impact they have on aging, and how they contribute to degenerative diseases. To start we need to focus on proteins and sugar.

Proteins are formed from amino acids and are essential for life. They serve two critical roles.

First, they provide structure for the body. One such structural protein is collagen, which accounts for approximately one third of your body’s total protein. It’s found in skin, muscles, organs and vascular structures. And it provides elasticity and cohesion to these structures.

Second, proteins provide function in the form of enzymes that enable all life-sustaining biochemical reactions to occur within your body.

Sugar is a simple carbohydrate. It provides energy for your cells.

When properly controlled, proteins and sugars can interact without causing any damage to the body.

What are Advanced Glycation End Products?

As you age your structural proteins are damaged by a process known as glycation. This process is an uncontrolled, non-enzymatic reaction between proteins and sugars to significantly alter the structure and function of proteins.

In this process a sugar molecule attaches itself to a protein molecule resulting in the formation of a non-functioning glycated protein called Advanced Glycation End products or AGEs. Research over the last 30 years has implicated AGEs in most of the diseases associated with aging like: Read More →

Are Dark Cola Drinks Bad For You?

Posted by Dan Hammer //

05/08/2019

It’s a simple question: Are Dark Cola Drinks Bad For You?

Depending on who you read you will get answers ranging from “No” to “Yes” to “Not in moderation!”

I’ll tell you upfront that I am not a fan of dark cola drinks. I personally believe that all dark cola drinks are a contributing factor to the health crisis in America. A health crisis that has seen a significant increase in diabetes and overweight/obesity issues.

And the reason for my belief has to do with the ingredients found in dark cola drinks.

As you can see by the image for this article I’m going to use a can of Coke to represent dark cola drinks. Here is the list as they appear on the can:

Water
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Caramel Color
Phosphoric Acid
Natural Flavors
Caffeine

Ingredients are listed in the order of greatest volume or greatest percentage of that ingredient in relationship to the overall product. Water is a good thing. Since it’s listed first that means it is in greatest volume. We’ll talk about water and its importance at the end of this article. For now, let’s focus on the next ingredient.

High Fructose Corn Syrup in Dark Cola Drinks

The process for making high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) out of corn was developed in the 1970s. It is a complicated chemical and enzymatic process that converts corn starch into HFCS.

HFCS has a final concentration of about 55% fructose and 45% glucose with the exact same sweetness and taste as sucrose.

Since consumers see the word “Fructose” on the dark cola can they associate it with fruit and assume that it’s healthier than sugar.

Dr. Meira Field and a team of investigators from the USDA decided to find out if this assumption was true. They fed rats a high amount of sucrose, which is composed of glucose and fructose. These rats developed multiple health problems especially when they were deficient in certain nutrients such as copper.

The big question was whether the health problems were caused by the glucose component or the fructose component.

They repeated their study with two new groups of rats. One group received high amounts of glucose and the other group received high amounts of fructose. The glucose group was unaffected.

The fructose group had severe, life threatening results!

The male rats developed anemia, high cholesterol and heart hypertrophy. Additionally, the male rats had delayed testicular development. The female rats were not as severely affected, but they were unable to produce live young. From this research, Dr. Field made the following statement:

“The medical profession thinks fructose is better for diabetics than sugar, but every cell in the body can metabolize glucose. However, all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of the rats on the high fructose diet looked like the livers of alcoholics, plugged with fat and cirrhotic.”

One additional note on the High Fructose Corn Syrup in dark cola drinks. As you can see by the nutrition facts there are 39 grams of sugar per 12 ounces of Coke. One teaspoon of sugar is equal to 4 grams. This means that there are almost 10 teaspoons of sugar per a 12 ounce can of Coke.

Would you knowingly put 10 teaspoons of sugar in anything that you eat or drink?

Caramel Color in Dark Cola Drinks

The process for making caramel color is pretty straight forward. It is obtained by heating sugar until a brown color and characteristic flavor develops. Sounds pretty safe.

However, according the the Center for Science in the Public Interest, caramel color is a potential carcinogen. This ingredient is actually regulated in the State of California. California does not allow more than 4 micrograms of this ingredient to be included in any product sold in their state.

Dark cola drinks have less then 4 mcg per serving. But if you’re drinking more than one serving per day, then you increase the cancer risk tied to this ingredient.

Phosphoric Acid in Dark Cola Drinks

This ingredient is used because it creates an acidic medium which enhances the absorption of carbon dioxide to give your dark cola drink more fizz. Fizz in your cola drink might be nice but what affect does phosphoric acid have on your body.

To start we need to look at the pH level of Coke caused by the phosphoric acid.

Coca-Cola is considered a “Super Acidifying Food” with a pH of 2.53

To understand this we need talk about pH. The pH scale measures the degree of acidity or alkalinity of a substance and ranges from 0 to 14:

0 is complete acid
0 to 6.99 is acidic
7 is neutral or the perfect balance between acid and alkaline
7.01 to 13.99 is alkaline
14 is complete alkaline

The lower on the scale below 7 the more acidic something is and the higher on the scale above 7 the more alkaline something is.

The pH scale is not arithmetical but logarithmic.

Logarithmic means that the values separating each unit are not of equal value along the scale but increases in proportion to their distance from a pH of 7.

For example, a pH reading of 6 is 10 times more acidic than 7, but a pH of 5 is not 20 times more acidic but 100 times more acidic.

If you’re catching on, then a pH reading of 4 is 1000 times more acidic than a pH of 7.

Given this fact, what would seem like a small change in pH and be no big deal is, in reality, a big deal to your body.

Although some organs and organ fluids (like the gastric region) have a higher or lower pH than what is normal for the body, your body functions best when the pH of the internal biochemical environment (blood, lymph and intracellular fluids) is between 7.365 and 7.390.

If you understand the pH scale above, then you can see that the body likes to keep itself slightly alkaline and in a very narrow range. Anything outside this range causes stress on the body. The farther outside this range, then the stress on the body goes up exponentially.

Since Coke has a pH of 2.53 it is almost 100,000 times more acidic than a pH of 7.

This has a huge impact on your system. Your body will use its alkaline minerals such as sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium to neutralize the acid to return your internal biochemical environment back to normal.

Compounding this acidic problem, your body also maintains a balanced concentration of phosphorus, calcium, and potassium in the bloodstream. This provides the right combination for building new bones and maintaining old ones. The shock of incoming phosphorus with zero calcium causes the calcium levels in the blood to decline. This triggers your body to dissolve calcium from the bones to restore this balance.

This reaction, continued over time, can be a contributing factor for osteoporosis.

Natural Flavors in Dark Cola Drinks

Technically, natural flavors are chemicals or a set of chemicals extracted from a natural substance, usually a plant or animal, without any chemical modifications. Cola companies are not required to disclose what those chemicals are or the procedure that they use to create the “Natural Flavors.”

Caffeine in Dark Cola Drinks

This ingredient has the ability to stimulate mental alertness, overcome fatigue, and enhance endurance. Sounds great!

But, it’s an addictive chemical that comes with a cost to your body.

As a stimulant it can be accompanied by constriction of the cerebral arteries, rapid heartbeat, and high blood pressure. Caffeine also causes the release of adrenaline which increases blood sugar. The pancreas reacts by secreting insulin to stabilize your blood sugar by driving the sugar into the cells for oxidation and energy production. However, excess blood sugar in the cells will be stored as fat.

People who consistently consume cola drinks high in sugar with caffeine constantly create an unbalanced cycling process. This puts undue stress on both the adrenal glands and the pancreas. Over time this has an impact on their ability to function properly resulting in arthritis and diabetes.

Water in Dark Cola Drinks

This is the number one ingredient in all cola drinks. Thus, you might think that this is a good thing.

Given the consumption of soda in the United States, it’s interesting that experts estimate that 75% of Americans have mild, chronic dehydration. WHY?

Because most of the contents of a dark cola drink must be processed by the liver! All chemicals, artificial sweeteners, and most sugars especially fructose need to be metabolized by the liver. Most of the water in the dark cola drink goes to help the liver detoxify the body. This means that very little of the water actually ends up in the cells to help them function properly.

GMOs in Dark Cola Drinks

For the first time in looking at the ingredient list for Coke I noticed that they disclose the use of GMO for sourcing their ingredients. Most likely the corn used for the creation of High Fructose Corn Syrup.

There is a big debate on the use of GMO sources and how they effect the health of people. This by itself is a long topic of discussion. If you want to know more about the use of GMO in Coke, then please click here for a statement by the company regarding its use.

Now, I’m not saying that the cola industry is the primary cause of all health issues.

What I am saying is that many of the ingredients in dark cola drinks can be a contributing factor to a wide range of health concerns.

I find it interesting that as soda consumption has increased, along with an increase in processed foods that contain many of the same ingredients, there has been a correlating increase in obesity and metabolic health issues.

Blessing Lives Through Nitric Oxide Therapy!

Dan Hammer

The Real Cause of Heart Disease

Posted by Dan Hammer //

09/01/2018

Currently there is a lot of confusing information about the real cause of heart disease. If you do a Google search for “the real cause of heart disease” you will find the following two culprits:

Dietary Saturated Fats
Cholesterol

And a lot of other potential players involved in this devastating disease like salt, stress, alcohol, high blood pressure, diabetes, a family history of heart disease, smoking, and triglycerides.

But are any of them the real cause of heart disease?

Take dietary saturated fats. This lead to a revamping of the American diet to consume less fat and more carbohydrates. With this change in diet there has been an epidemic increase in type 2 diabetes and an explosion in people being overweight and obese.

And heart disease is still the number one cause of death for both men and women worldwide.

Cholesterol also became the target. Statin drugs were introduced to address this cause of heart disease. Yet statistically 70 to 75% of Americans who have a heart attack have normal cholesterol levels.

Which bring us to the main question of this blog post. Read More →

Nutritional Value of Halloween Candy

Posted by Dan Hammer //

10/22/2017

Halloween is quickly approaching and treats are a part of this annual tradition. So I was wondering what is the nutritional value of Halloween Candy.

If you have kids, then you’re in the process of beginning to prepare their costumes. My children are grown up but they have kids. My grandson is going as Spider-Man. My granddaughter is going as Ariel. Most of their outfits are ready. And if the weather is good they’ll be spending a lot of time going from door to door collecting Halloween Candy.

Now unless you have a neighbor that is buying the large candy bars, almost all of the Halloween candy is packaged in “bite-sized” wrappers. And most likely the homes you’re stopping at aren’t giving you “Nutrition Fact Sheets” for the candy they’re dolling out.

I thought it would be kind of fun (yes I know it’s a geeky type of fun) to know the nutritional value of Halloween candy. This way you can control the amount of sugar you put into your kid’s system. Read More →