Each month, we share the top 3 things Janine is thinking about in the world of health, wellness and becoming your best self — her top-of-mind musings to boost your health. Topics run the full spectrum, so stay tuned each month to get her thoughts on the latest research and keys to great health. It’s free just for subscribing to Nature’s Balance. Sign up now.
This month, we talk about how vibrant health takes more than a single magic bullet, how adding a healthy mineral cocktail to your morning routine can reap benefits, and why we should be concerned about counteracting the effects of glyphosate (Roundup) in our food supply. Read on!
HealthBOOST #1: Hair care, as in health, takes more than ‘just one thing’
I recently overheard a colleague telling a patient how much effort she puts in to getting her hair to look exactly the way she wants it to. From all the products (2 different types of conditioners that she alternates between, a comb, 2 different types of brushes, a dryer, a curling iron, a flat iron, mousse and hair spray), to all the time she spends on washing, drying and styling it. It was clearly a lot time and money spent just on having the hair she desired, and she did it every day!
But why would she would be telling a patient about her hair? Her point was that it takes more than just one thing, along with time and money, to get her hair the way she wants it — just like it takes more than one thing to regain and maintain your health.
When we go to a physician and are prescribed one medication with one active ingredient to alleviate our symptoms, we forget that the medication does not fix the underlying root cause of the problem; it merely masks the symptoms. In most instances, you stop the medication and the symptoms return.
We can all relate to the story above because we all know someone who primps and preens with an arsenal of hair products, or perhaps cares for their car or their home better than they take care of themselves. So I’d ask you this:
Think about why we are willing to spend so many resources and so much effort, every day, on our hair, or our car or our house, but we don’t think regaining or maintaining our health will require more than 1 thing, 1 type of treatment, 1 type of supplement, 1 type of herb, 1 type of food, etc….? Maybe we just don’t think our body and our health deserves it.
HealthBOOST #2: Adding a mineral cocktail to your healthy morning ritual
If you’ve been following my monthly tips and blog, you may have noticed a theme….I’m a big fan of morning rituals; they set the tone for the day. Last month we talked about mobility and movement. This month, let’s talk about the first of my morning rituals: WATER.
60% of the average adult human body is made up of water. About the same percentage of Earth’s surface is covered by water. Overnight we can lose over a pound of water. (I’ll bet you thought/hoped you were losing fat!) Shawn Stevenson, a sleep expert, calls the first glass of water in the morning “a cool bath for your organs.” Aubrey Marcus, Founder and CEO of Onnit, a company committed to Total Human Optimization and author of the book, Own the Day, Own Your Life, recommends first-thing-in-the-morning to have what he calls a “morning mineral cocktail.”
The cocktail is simple: 12 oz filtered water, 3 grams (about ½ tsp) salt and ¼ squeezed lemon. Make sure the water is clean, filtered water. If you don’t filter at home, make sure to purchase water in a glass bottle, not plastic. (We don’t want to coat our organs with plastic!) The salt is important, too. No table salt, but mineral-rich sea salt, such as Celtic Sea Salt. Celtic Sea Salt contains upward of sixty trace minerals above and beyond the sodium, chloride and iodine in regular table salt, including phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, potassium, bromine, boron, zinc, iron, manganese and copper. Lack of trace minerals are often a key component in the health issues we see people experience these days, and can manifest as fatigue, muscle cramps, feeling cold, breathing difficulties, weight gain, hair loss and much, much more.
Unfortunately, salt has gotten a bad reputation and people with heart disease have been told to avoid it. Studies recommending salt restriction have historically been based on use of table salt, not minerally-dense sea salt varieties. In fact, two recent epidemiological studies have shown there is no conclusive benefit to sodium restriction when it comes to preventing heart disease or death. Sure, you can overdo anything but a glass of mineral rich water is more likely to have a positive impact on your health than a negative one.
A tidbit of history here: Roman soldiers were once “paid” with an allotment of salt. Salt and salary are derived from the same Latin root word: sal. When we describe someone, we often say they are, “worth their salt.” If it was good enough for Roman soldiers who were claiming empires every day, then it is certainly good enough for us to start our day out with.
HealthBOOST #3: Counterating the harmful effects of Glyphosate (AKA: Roundup) in our food supply
Just last week, it was made public that the FDA has been testing food samples for traces of glyphosate (AKA: Roundup) for two years. What they found is alarming. The weed killer is found in nearly everything; from granola, crackers, and oatmeal to honey and a myriad of other foods. In fact, the internal documents obtained by The Guardian show the FDA has had trouble finding any food that does not carry traces of the pesticide.
More than 200 million pounds are used annually by US farmers on their fields. The weed killer is sprayed directly over some crops, including corn, soybeans, wheat and oats. Many farmers also use it on fields before the growing season, including spinach growers and almond producers. Wheat farmers found that by spraying it in the fall, they can harvest sooner than if they just let the plant run its nature life cycle.
What is so dangerous about this shocking discovery? Glyphosate kills anything it touches and has a potential link to cancer. In fact, more than 400 lawsuits are currently pending against Monsanto by people alleging that exposure to Roundup caused them or their loved ones to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
According to Dr. Zach Bush, a triple board-certified physician with extensive expertise in gut health and the human microbiome, there is a bigger risk. Glyphosate is a water-soluble toxin, which means it gets into our waterways. When that happens, it can evaporate into our clouds. 75% of the rainfall in the southern United States is contaminated with this compound.
By weakening the tight junctions in the mucosal tissue that line everything from our nose to our rectum, including where our immune system lives, glyphosate compromises everything in our gut-brain barrier and leads to chronic inflammation, autoimmunity and possibly even cancer.
Everyone, of course, is impacted by this. But if you live out in farm country like I do, you need to protect yourself even more. That is why I take Dr. Bush’s amazing formula, “Restore” every day. It helps counteract the negative effects of glyphosate by restoring and promoting strong membrane integrity. It also restores bowel ecology with “good” bacteria.
The tight junctions of the gut lining and the balance of good bacteria are widely recognized as constituting a major portion of the human immune system so it pays to take care of them in the pursuit of optimal health. There are a number of peer-reviewed studies to check out to decide if Restore should be part of your daily regimen. Ask us about it at Nature’s Balance.
HealthBOOST #1: Hair care, as in health, takes more than ‘just one thing’
I recently overheard a colleague telling a patient how much effort she puts in to getting her hair to look exactly the way she wants it to. From all the products (2 different types of conditioners that she alternates between, a comb, 2 different types of brushes, a dryer, a curling iron, a flat iron, mousse and hair spray), to all the time she spends on washing, drying and styling it. It was clearly a lot time and money spent just on having the hair she desired, and she did it every day!
But why would she would be telling a patient about her hair? Her point was that it takes more than just one thing, along with time and money, to get her hair the way she wants it — just like it takes more than one thing to regain and maintain your health.
When we go to a physician and are prescribed one medication with one active ingredient to alleviate our symptoms, we forget that the medication does not fix the underlying root cause of the problem; it merely masks the symptoms. In most instances, you stop the medication and the symptoms return.
We can all relate to the story above because we all know someone who primps and preens with an arsenal of hair products, or perhaps cares for their car or their home better than they take care of themselves. So I’d ask you this:
Think about why we are willing to spend so many resources and so much effort, every day, on our hair, or our car or our house, but we don’t think regaining or maintaining our health will require more than 1 thing, 1 type of treatment, 1 type of supplement, 1 type of herb, 1 type of food, etc….? Maybe we just don’t think our body and our health deserves it.
HealthBOOST #2: Adding a mineral cocktail to your healthy morning ritual
If you’ve been following my monthly tips and blog, you may have noticed a theme….I’m a big fan of morning rituals; they set the tone for the day. Last month we talked about mobility and movement. This month, let’s talk about the first of my morning rituals: WATER.
60% of the average adult human body is made up of water. About the same percentage of Earth’s surface is covered by water. Overnight we can lose over a pound of water. (I’ll bet you thought/hoped you were losing fat!) Shawn Stevenson, a sleep expert, calls the first glass of water in the morning “a cool bath for your organs.” Aubrey Marcus, Founder and CEO of Onnit, a company committed to Total Human Optimization and author of the book, Own the Day, Own Your Life, recommends first-thing-in-the-morning to have what he calls a “morning mineral cocktail.”
The cocktail is simple: 12 oz filtered water, 3 grams (about ½ tsp) salt and ¼ squeezed lemon. Make sure the water is clean, filtered water. If you don’t filter at home, make sure to purchase water in a glass bottle, not plastic. (We don’t want to coat our organs with plastic!) The salt is important, too. No table salt, but mineral-rich sea salt, such as Celtic Sea Salt. Celtic Sea Salt contains upward of sixty trace minerals above and beyond the sodium, chloride and iodine in regular table salt, including phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, potassium, bromine, boron, zinc, iron, manganese and copper. Lack of trace minerals are often a key component in the health issues we see people experience these days, and can manifest as fatigue, muscle cramps, feeling cold, breathing difficulties, weight gain, hair loss and much, much more.
Unfortunately, salt has gotten a bad reputation and people with heart disease have been told to avoid it. Studies recommending salt restriction have historically been based on use of table salt, not minerally-dense sea salt varieties. In fact, two recent epidemiological studies have shown there is no conclusive benefit to sodium restriction when it comes to preventing heart disease or death. Sure, you can overdo anything but a glass of mineral rich water is more likely to have a positive impact on your health than a negative one.
A tidbit of history here: Roman soldiers were once “paid” with an allotment of salt. Salt and salary are derived from the same Latin root word: sal. When we describe someone, we often say they are, “worth their salt.” If it was good enough for Roman soldiers who were claiming empires every day, then it is certainly good enough for us to start our day out with.
HealthBOOST #3: Counterating the harmful effects of Glyphosate (AKA: Roundup) in our food supply
Just last week, it was made public that the FDA has been testing food samples for traces of glyphosate (AKA: Roundup) for two years. What they found is alarming. The weed killer is found in nearly everything; from granola, crackers, and oatmeal to honey and a myriad of other foods. In fact, the internal documents obtained by The Guardian show the FDA has had trouble finding any food that does not carry traces of the pesticide.
More than 200 million pounds are used annually by US farmers on their fields. The weed killer is sprayed directly over some crops, including corn, soybeans, wheat and oats. Many farmers also use it on fields before the growing season, including spinach growers and almond producers. Wheat farmers found that by spraying it in the fall, they can harvest sooner than if they just let the plant run its nature life cycle.
What is so dangerous about this shocking discovery? Glyphosate kills anything it touches and has a potential link to cancer. In fact, more than 400 lawsuits are currently pending against Monsanto by people alleging that exposure to Roundup caused them or their loved ones to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
According to Dr. Zach Bush, a triple board-certified physician with extensive expertise in gut health and the human microbiome, there is a bigger risk. Glyphosate is a water-soluble toxin, which means it gets into our waterways. When that happens, it can evaporate into our clouds. 75% of the rainfall in the southern United States is contaminated with this compound.
By weakening the tight junctions in the mucosal tissue that line everything from our nose to our rectum, including where our immune system lives, glyphosate compromises everything in our gut-brain barrier and leads to chronic inflammation, autoimmunity and possibly even cancer.
Everyone, of course, is impacted by this. But if you live out in farm country like I do, you need to protect yourself even more. That is why I take Dr. Bush’s amazing formula, “Restore” every day. It helps counteract the negative effects of glyphosate by restoring and promoting strong membrane integrity. It also restores bowel ecology with “good” bacteria.
The tight junctions of the gut lining and the balance of good bacteria are widely recognized as constituting a major portion of the human immune system so it pays to take care of them in the pursuit of optimal health. There are a number of peer-reviewed studies to check out to decide if Restore should be part of your daily regimen. Ask us about it at Nature’s Balance.