Dear Friends,

Yes, you have read about sugar before, and we all know how bad it is for our health. But it is all around us, and global habits are tough to change. So read on! And then plug into our Energy Sustain, you’ll find it below in our Clinical Notes. Tune in to this unique product. Lets roll-up our sleeves now and talk about sugar!

It is very clear, the diseases of the world today are chronic degenerative in nature with etiologies that can be distilled down to pollution, pathogens, stress and life style choices. We live in a global world where China’s pollution is our pollution, Africa’s pathogens are our pathogens, and our fast food franchises and big box processed food chains are the world’s health problems. In today’s email I want to talk about one shining factor in processed foods and fast food restaurants that is clearly driving the diseases of obesity, hearts disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and many cancers—added sugar.

America is the fattest nation on earth. Nearly 80 million Americans over 20 are obese, and another 12.5 million children and adolscents are obese (CDC 2012). What makes us Americans so special? Do we have less will power than the rest of the world in terms of our personal management of life style practices, i.e. in the way we eat and exercise? Not at all! In fact the rest of the world is rapidly catching up with us. So, what’s the problem?

The short answer is to watch this video: Sugar: The Bitter Truth. Its presenter is Robert Lustig, MD., a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco. He is a crusader against simple sugars being added to our foods. He maintains that they are poisons to our bodies and the prime causes for the pandemic of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, metabolic sydrome and many cancers. They must to be regulated like alcohol, drugs and cigarettes.

The following, for your convenience, is a summary of a few of the points from his talk:

• Dr. Lustig is not talking about the carbohydrates inherant in natural whole foods. They are our source of glucose—the energy of life. The problem is the addition into our highly processed foods and drinks of sugars: sucrose and fructose (with an emphasis on fructose).
• In nature, fructose, sucrose and other simple sugars are mixed in with fibers and when consumed are thereby digested in a modulated fashion. That’s as nature intended it and is good and necessary for our health.
• The problem is with our commercial food industry where they have put added sugar in every processed food one can image. All are laced with sugar.
• Americans now consume 150lb/year per person of sugar. That is one-third of a pound per day.
• The liver gets overloaded with fructose and converts some of it into fat, causing fatty liver and obesity. Some of that fat ends up in the blood stream and helps generate dangerous small density LDLs (VLDLs). These molecules can load within the blood vessel walls and form plaques and are causative with heart attacks.
• Sugar activates the brain like cocaine and people build up a tolerance like they do with drugs and the more you eat the less you feel the reward. The result is you eat more than ever.
• Fructose does not inhibit ghrelin, the hormone from the stomach that says to your brain, I’m hungry. Fructose also doesn’t stimulate leptin the hormone that tells your brain, I’m full. So we binge on sugar.
• Men should consume no more than 150 calories per day of added sugars (remember we are talking about added sugars here not the normal carbohydrates that are natural in whole foods). And women just 100 calories. that is less than the amount that is in one can of soda.
• The answer is to get the added sugar out of our foods.

In summary Dr. Lustig says it is a battle we must all fight. The problem is that what has been good economically for the food industry, adding cheap sugar, is bad for us. There is no middle ground. If one looks at the S&P 500 during these economically stressed times, corporations such as General Mills, Kraft, Proctor and Gamble, Conagra are all doing well. But why? Because food taste good with sugar and it’s cheap, it is that simple. We need to take responsibility for a global change, in our minds first, and then in the way we eat (especially when we go out), and then in the way we teach others about food and sugar. These companies, amongst many others, are the creators of sugar in our foods and the dealers of these foods around the world. 25% of our US exports are in these foods. It is as bad as drug dealing. What to do? A global policy to reduce sugar consumption?
Sincerely yours,

Seann Bardell

BioImmersion.com

Clinical Note:

Our Energy Sustain Complex is a global blend of indigenous organic seeds and grain. whose importance as a staple food can be traced back 8,000 years ago- enabling the emergence of the Neolithic Revolution. Its plant based materials come from USA organically grown amaranth, buckwheat, chia, quinoa and millet. Energy sustain is gluten free, and processed in a way that cooks the seeds and grain without destroying nutrient values, while at the same time liberating their nutrient and soluble fiber for maximum digestibility. Each 30 gram scoop provides 4.6g of protein, 21.1g of carbs, 1.52g of fat and 7.6g of fiber.

The Last Quiz Answer:

Chameleons are a distinct and highly specialized clade of lizards. What’s a clade? It’s a group consisting of species, past and present, that represent a branch in the Tree of Life. There are approximately 160 species of chameleons in the world, ranging from Africa to Spain, from south Asia to Indian, from Hawaii to California and Florida. Many keep them as household pets. Of course, as their name implies many can change their color to match their environment. Here is an amazing You Tube video of such a changling-The multi-colored chameleon.

On July 17th Annie Leonard and her team at The Story of Stuff Project are coming our with their newest movie (video): The Story of Change. Check out this trainer. The Story of Change urges viewers to put down their credit cards and start exercising their citizen muscles to build a more sustainable, just and fulfilling world..

Dear Friends,

In last week’s email I took you on travels into Southeast Asia and North Africa. This week we will start a virtual journey into our brain! Do you remember the one supplemental product that is a must to take as we travel this summer? The answer was the magnificent broad spectrum natural antimicrobial, freeze-dried organic garlic. I’ll add one more must have product to travel with, the Supernatant Synbiotic Formula, which contains seven probiotic organisms that have proven success against traveler’s diarrhea and the like.

Let’s continue with our virtual travel theme and their companion supplemental products. The journey of aging brings to mind our brain, and its aging process. Certainly the Baby Boomer Generation can relate to this. Many of your patients are of the boomer generation. It is a great demographic to have your medical skills honed for. So, like last week I’ll ask you this question. As you approach your mid 60s what is the one whole food supplement that should be regularly on board? Our answer is…Blueberry! Why?

In 2004 Dohrea and I founded BioImmersion Inc. to produce the Therapeutic Foods Line. The first product we produced was the Organic Freeze -Dried Garlic. The second was the Wild Blueberry Extract. And, the third was a probiotic, our Original Synbiotic Formula which would be great to take on your travels as well, even though it is in a powder form, (the Supernatant is in a capsule form), since it also has fiber and we all know how important it is for our daily constitution, let alone when we travel. Hence, both are excellent. The Supernatant for travel ease and the Original for our constitution.

At any rate, why blueberry and aging? Another question: what’s one body organ that you want to protect more that any other? Our vote would be the brain. As our brain goes so does our life. Keeping ones brain sharp in old age and fully functioning is enhanced greatly by the consumption of the blueberry. It does much more than that, relative to diseases associated with aging, but we’ll focus on the cognitive function for a moment.

In 2002 James Joseph PhD along with Daniel Nadeau MD and Anne Underwood authored the book, The Color Code: A Revolutionary Eating Plan for Optimum Health. In a very readable way, Dr. Joseph discussed his research, as Chief Neural Scientist for the USDA’s Anti-Aging Center at Tufts University, looking at the health benefits of fresh fruits and vegetables. Their research became the backbone for the USDA’s 5 to 9 A Day fresh fruits and vegetables program for America.

When Dr. Joseph came to the section in his book dealing with blue to purple pigmented fruits and vegetables, the blueberry clearly stood out for its ability to protect the brain, and to even reverse cognitive dysfunction. Their research on the restoration of memory and cognitive flexibility in senile aging rats, restoring their cognitive ability to that of a much younger animals, plus his work on reversing Alzheimer’s induced syndrome to normal brain functioning, trilled us. I called Dr. Joseph, asking him how much blueberry extract a Human being would need to take to get results, and he surmised around 150mg a day over a period of four to six months. After much additional consultation with our worldwide team of scientists and food manufacturing experts, we produced our Wild Blueberry Extract, Daily, and now the famous Phyto Power. All have at least 100-150mg of the blueberry and extract (the purple pigment from the skin). We considered the Phyto Power to be our total prevention product as it has other red and purple berries plus four species of dandelion. We also created what we thought would be a stronger therapeutic version by filling a 500mg capsule with purely the extract. This requires the use of 1 1/4 cups of blueberry per capsule. The ORAC score per capsule is 4000. ORAC stands for Oxygen Radical Adsorbent Capacity.

Back in 2006 I asked Dr. Joseph what was the molecule or molecules that could cross the blood-brain barrier and cause a healing of the brain, manifesting as improved cognitive functioning. He said he had some candidates but needed to do more research. At the time we talked about chlorogenic acid from the blueberry being able to cross over and then once in the brain changing to caffeic acid which has extremely high antioxidant ability. Which would then aggressively reduce the oxidation of the brain. He characterized the brains of senile old animals (including us humans) as being hotbeds of free radical activity.

Well time marches on, and we’ve had wonderful feedback from you regarding these products, the Wild Blueberry and Phyto Power. I want to continue our discussion next week on the specific phytochemicals within the blueberry that are responsible for brain health and the overall support our bodies need for protection from the collective diseases of ageing . Next week I’ll share with you a couple of new products that we will be bringing to market in July. Products that will add to your arsenal of top line supplements for my generation.
Sincerely yours,

Seann Bardell

BioImmersion.com

Clinical Note:

Most recently we brought in a new blueberry product that also contains rosehip and dandelion. We call it Phyto Power. These two berries and herb come from the wilds of Alaska (wildcrafted) and are busting with phyto-nutrient power. The blueberry for the brain, the rosehip for the heart and immune system with its antimicrobial power (ellagic acid), and the dandelion for the liver, kidneys, Gi tract, and vision support. Perfect for the baby boomers! Take two capsules daily.

The Last Quiz Answer:

Talking about going to far off places, the Lesser Sunda Islands fill the bill. Home to the Komodo dragons. These dragons were unknown to us until about 100 years ago. Ten feet in length, weighing more than 300 pounds, they are the top predator on a handful of indonesian islands in the neighborhood of Bali. Their diet: carrion, deer, pigs, smaller dragons, and even large water buffalo and humans. They are really quite fightening creatures! They are not only big, strong and fast, but if they just break the skin of their prey with a small bite and the potential victim gets away, it’s not for long. The 50+ toxic bacteria in the dragon’s mouth will cause septicemia in their prey, and it will eventually die of blood poisening. The Komodo will simply wait around patiently following the prey through their excellent sence of smell, eventually in a day or two will get their meal. Komodos in the wild usually live to a ripe old age of 30. There is a stable population of about 3000 to 5000 dragons on the islands of Komodo, GilaMotang, Rinca and Flores. I would love to go there though, wouldn’t you?

American blues musician Joe Conte from San Francisco joins with the most well-known of Mali musicians to make African blues for peace. A repeat performance from last week. Enjoy: The World for Peace.

Dear Friends,

Well, my good friends, we’re about a week from it being officially summer and we are still officially waiting for a real nice sunny day here in Seattle! In the spirit of positive thinking and knowing that it will happen and that we will all be outside enjoying the sun, I am going to liven up my summer’s Forward Thinking Newsletters to talk about fun, summery topics. Today we will focus on travel and one product to take with you! Which product will that be? Guess! Make sure you go all the way to Green Facts at the bottom to hear and see the incredible: Le Monde pour la Paix – by JeConte & The Mali Allstars – The featured track off the coming 2012 release ‘Mali Blues for Peace’ or ‘Mali Blues pour la Paix.’

Today, Saturday, as I was driving around, I listened to Rick Steve’s show on travel tips. You know Rick I am sure, his shows are usually about European travel. Well, today’s show was about travels in Asia. For those of us who love to travel to foreign cultures it was very encouraging information . Do you know where the hot places (I mean hot in a good way) are to go now in Asia? Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma is now finally opening up. All of them sounded very safe to travel in, and his guest host particularly loved Vietnam, as he said it is a magical place. Check out his Saturday June 9th show.

So I have a question for you. If you had just one supplemental health type product that you can take with you on your travels into foreign countries, such as Asia and Africa, what would it be?

Mine without a question would be garlic. Why garlic? And, what kind of garlic?

Wouldn’t you agree that some form of intestinal distress is the malady one most likely might encounter—traveler’s diarrhea, parasites, flues, protozoa, bad bacteria ,etc?

Garlic is such a wonderful broad spectrum killer of such bugs. In fact, its very origin of use as a therapeutic food comes from the Asian/African region, recorded as far back as our written medical history goes. Garlic has been used by more cultures over the millennia for medical purposes than any other herb!

The ancient Pharaohs dating back to 3,200 BC used garlic medically. The Egyptian Ebers, the oldest preserved medial document dating back to 1552 B.C., mentions 22 different medical formulations that included garlic. The therapies covered by garlic were intestinal disease, circulatory disorders, malaise, insect and parasite infestations just to mention a relevant few.

Garlic also has a long history associated with giving one strength (we certainly need our strength when traveling or for day to day activities). The Egyptian pyramid builders used garlic to give themselves strength. The Greeks used garlic to bring strength to their athletes at the Olympic games. The Romans used garlic for strength building and endurance for the long marches and battles.

Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, used garlic to treat abdominal conditions. The amazing medical mystic German nun, St. Hildegard of Bingen, used raw garlic to heal the sick. Albert Schweizer used garlic in Africa to cure typhoid fever and cholera. It was called the Russian penicillin in WWI. Is there really any question as to why not make garlic the protective agent of choice for one’s Asian/African trip?

For the what kind of garlic, see Clinical Notes below.
Sincerely yours,

Seann Bardell

BioImmersion.com

Clinical Note:

Here’s the short version, for your travels and day to day useage, especially when going out to eat: One bottle of the Therapeutic Foods Garlic, Organic Freeze Dried, has 90 capsules. When you travel: Take two capsules a day with your biggest meal or one capsule with each of your two largest meals. When you are at home, take it when you go out to eat, or at night with dinner every so often, to keep your strenght and clean up the GI milieu, purify the blood and more. The buffering power of the food in the stomach will maximize the delivery of freshly created allicin from the dissolving garlic powder filled vegetarian capsule. Allicin kills salmonella (number one food poisoning organism), E. coli (one of the common bacteria that causes Travelers’ diarrhea), Candida (invasive yeast), Cryptosporidium (common infectious protozoa/nasty diarrhea), and many more. And, the coup de grâce–unlike antibiotics, garlic doesn’t harm the good gut probiotic bacteria.

For a more thorough version, rather than duplicating what I have already crafted for you in previous newsletters, I am linking you to those essays here: May 20th, May 26st – and June 2nd, 2010. They give a full discussion the features and benefits of our organic freeze dried garlic–comparing it to other forms of supplemental garlic in the market, discussing the various actives in garlic, going over appropriate dosing amounts and strategies. These articles will arm you with the real scientific facts about garlics usage in medicine.

The Last Quiz Answer:

This beautiful creature is a giant fruit bat. Bats in general are amongst the most diverse of mammal species. They are the only mammals to achieve true flight. The giant varieties live up to 15 to 20 years. The Golden-crowned fruit bat (also called the flying fox) weighs up to 2 1/2 pounds and has a wingspan of 6 feet. They have eyes just like humans and can see in the dark. Also like dolphins and whales bats produce pulses of high-pitched sound and navigate by listening for echoes. The wings of the bat are more like a human hand than a bird’s wing. They have four elongated fingers and a thumb with webbing inbetween. Isn’t that fascinating. Live is amazing!

Not many of us think of traveling to Mali or even dare go to today as it is a country in west Africa falling into strife. However, not so for American blues musician Joe Conte from San Francisco. Mali is known for it amazing musicians and Conte has gone to Mali, formed a band with some of the most well-known of Mali musicians, and created blues-African fusion music for peace. They sing, “for all our ancestors to come together for peace…for a better world…for hope in Mali.” Have a listen, it’s very very good: The World for Peace.

Dear Friends,

Last week we looked at the shear magnitude of life on earth.  It’s breathtaking—roughly ten million visible species and perhaps as many as a billion microbial ones, filling every cranny of land, sea, and air. Yet, the mystery of how life began some 3.5 billion years ago within the oceans that covered Mother Earth remains a mystery, one that we bridge with our various beliefs.

How about you, what do you believe?

As for me, I’ve embraced a number of beliefs over the years.  As a teanagers I was raised within the Unity Church, as a university zoological major I embraced whole-heartedly evolutionary theory and became an athiest.  As life experiences unfolded I became a Buddhist, a Sik, a Yogi, a Scientologist, a humanistic transcendental psychologist, a Taoist, a Christian (Presbyterian) with a Jewish twist, who believes fully in evolutionary theory. Most of all,  I love the beauty of all beliefs when practiced with love towards humanity and our earth.

I would like to share one of the iterations of how earth was form:  it is a theistic evolution, the version spelled out by Dr. Francis Collins in his book, The Language of God.  It rests on the following premises:

• The universe came into being out of nothingness, approximately 14 billion years ago.
• Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life.
• While the precise mechanism of the origin of life on earth remains unknown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity over very long periods of time.
• Once evolution got under way, no special supernatural intervention was required.
• Humans are part of this process, sharing a common ancestor with the great apes.
• But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature.  This includes the existence of the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout history.

For those of us who enjoy reading from old documents, just a couple thoughts from the Old Testament, notice the similarities to Collins’ “nothingness”:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2)

The above quote from Genesis 1 comes from the New American Standard Bible’s translation of the Torah (the Hebrew Bible).  Dohrea informs me that another translation of the hebrew into english, as she reads hebrew directly from the Torah the spirit of God is gliding, hovering, immersing, and uniting with the formless, limitless, yet organic and whole universe. When Dohrea explains this part, the beauty and wholeness of this strange place (to us), not formed, not in our realm, and not found, sounds other-worldly awesome.

There are many serious evolutionary biologists who are also serious believers in theistic evolution. The list includes the 19th century Harvard Botanist Asa Gray, who was Darwin’s chief advocate in America; Theodosius Dobzhansky, the 20th century architect of evolutionary thinking; and for the 21st century, Francis Collins himself, the lead scientist and director of the Human Genome Project, the group credited for completing the mapping of the human genome.  Francis Collins  is now the director of the National Institute of Health.

Eric Chivian MD and Aaron Bernstein MD (Founders of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School) begin their magnificent, beautiful book, Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity, with quotes from Genesis 9:16, the Koran 6:38, the Bhagavad Gita VII:7-9 and the Gradual Sayings of the Buddha. I love the Bhagavad Gita quote,

All this world is strung on me like jewels on a string. I am the taste in the waters, the radiance in the sun and moon, the sacred syllable Om that reverberates in space, the manliness in men. I am the pleasant fragrance in earth, the glowing brightness in fire, the life in all beings.

How fortunate we are to be free to contemplate and share such things.

Sincerely yours,

Seann Bardell

BioImmersion.com

Clinical Note:

Single mineral supplementations can provide very powerful therapeutic results.  For example, we brought into our Therapeutic Foods Line our Fructoborate Complex back in 2006, based on the research of our collaborating Yugoslovian team of scientists, who have the worldwide patent on calcium-fructoborate.  Each capsule of our product contains 240mg of fructoborate and 260mg of calcium ascorbate.  The success that we have had with your patients  consistently confirms the research results recorded in the European trials.  These are:  improvement in bone density, reduction in osteoarthritis, selective increases in steroid hormone blood levels (testosterone, DHEA, and Vitamin D3) while at the same time lowering level of CRP.

A recently completed (2012) U.S. pilot clinical study (double-blinded placebo-controlled), using 108mg of calcium frutctoborate BID with osteoarthritic patients suffering from minor knee arthritis, achieved the following results:  WOMAC and McGill results indicated that subjects in the fructoborate group experienced by day fourteen a score improvement of 29% and 14% respectively.  Testing on CRP and 1,25(OH) Vitamin D also revelaed exceptional results.  CRP was reduced by up to 37% compared to baseline levels (established prior to treatment). Blood levels of endogenous D3 increased more than 19% on average compared to baseline.

We recommend starting low, one capsule a day and after a couple weeks if no results then increase it to 2 a day.  Sometimes it take a month or two to kick in.

The Last Quiz Answer:

I love these creatures of the night. A couple of weeks ago we called the mystical Lynx the Spirit of the Boreal (the magical forests of the North), and I think of the hyena as the Spirit of the African Night. Often disappearing in aardvark holes to sleep during the heat of the day, they emerge again in the cool of the evening to hunt. They seem so relentess, so bloodthirsty, but are they really? There is another side that is so precious—check out this You Tube video: Naabi, a hyena princess (2009). It’s worth watching the whole things. Hyenas have a different hunting strategy than lions. They work the crowds by ambling along, meandering amongst the wildebeast appearing disinterested, which relaxes their prey. Yet all the time looking for the opportunity.  They are a wild animal that can bond with humans beings.

I remember hearing, about three years ago, Dr. Eric Holt-Gimenez (executive director for Food First) speak at the University of Washington regarding his new book, Food Rebellions:  Crisis and the Hunger for Justice.  He urged us that if we really want to do something effective toward changing our food system, we must keep track of how the farm bill legislation is being crafted and voted on each year within the US Congress. Well, the tracking is being done for us and we have an opportunity to add our voice of support for a corrective ammendment to the current 100 billion dollar farm bill allotment that is being pushed through Congress as we speak.  Click here so you can add your voice to get the Farm Bill rightly conceived.