Magnesium

Bone Soup: Miracle Food

By Ben Fuchs | Pharmacist Ben

It’s no secret that most people don’t get adequate nutrition through their daily food consumption. I spend much of my time educating folks about the nutritional supplementation we need to add to our diets to achieve longevity and vitality. There are a few foods, however, which stand out for their nutritional value, that I consider to be “superfoods”, and that can be included generously in the diet to great effect. One of my favorites is Bone Soup.

Bone Soup

Chinese Pork Bone Soup (Gar Dook Mu On Tom Made Bur).

Bone Soup, made from chicken, beef, lamb or turkey, is a traditional food found in many cultures with a long history as a source of nourishment. While it is most commonly known as “Jewish Penicillin,” because of its powerful cold and flu-fighting powers, there are numerous health benefits received by consuming bone soup that make me wonder why people don’t drink it every day.

Bone Soup contains vitamins and minerals that have been shown to give the immune system a significant boost. In addition, long-chain saccharides, the healthful kind of sugars, within the soup are perfect to ease all ailments of the joints and muscles. This makes bone soup especially helpful when healing from surgery or broken bones, and a perfect recovery food for athletes, and everyone else who ever has muscle aches. Bone stock also contains healing substances that soothe, coat and rebuild the digestive tract, which is perfect for treating ulcers and intestinal problems. Finally, the broth contains skin-friendly amino acids and moisture factors that reduce wrinkle formation and keep skin soft and hydrated from within.

Basically, Bone Soup is a liquid food derived from the dissolution of animal bone, tendon and meat components in water. Prolonged simmering, known by culinary experts as “reducing,” allows cartilaginous factors of the animal parts to solubilize in the broth. In this process, long chain sugars co-mingle with protein-sulfur components to create glucoseaminoglycans, and form a gel matrix within the water. This process traps the minerals released from the bone, which include calcium, magnesium, and potassium, into a type of suspension called a colloid. This colloidal gel system has an electrical nature that vivifies the liquid and enhances the biological value of the nutrients carried within it.

Bone soup is easy to make. To get the maximum benefit from bone soup, it’s best to prepare the soup with oils, spices, and vinegar. One way to start the soup is to place your favorite spices and some oil or butter in the bottom of a large soup or spaghetti pot. Apply very slight heat until the spices dissolve within the oil. This allows active components in the spices to release into the oils, enhancing the medicinal properties of the oil.

Drop your bones into the pot and top them off with water. You can use just bones or a whole cooked chicken or turkey if you want to add more protein. Add a splash of vinegar, or lemon or lime juice, to help release the nutrients from bones. Cover and simmer for several hours. Fish requires only a few hours of simmering, while chicken bones can be stewed up to 12 hours and thicker bones of the beef shank may be rendered for 24 hours. If you use a pressure cooker you can save time.

Next, strain the soup to discard the bones and parts you don’t want to consume and salvage the broth. Next, you may add vegetables or more spices, and that’s it. If you make extra broth, it can easily be frozen and saved for later.

Bone soup is as much a nutritional supplement as delicious food. It’s a considerable source of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, proteins, and anti-cancer compounds, all in a bio-electrically active, easy to absorb form. All told it’s nutritionally packed, inexpensive, easy to make and a valuable, tasty part of a healthy lifestyle.

Posted by Ben Fuchs in Nutrition

Bone and Tissue Building Nutrients

By Ben Fuchs | Pharmacist Ben

After breaking a bone, or being involved in any surgical procedure, making sure there are enough anabolic (building) nutrients present in the body, can be an important strategy for accelerating the healing process.  The same is true for anabolic requirements arising from exercise or simply to slow down the aging process.  The following are some important nutrients that can help speed up healing, improve tissue building associated with exercise and help stave off some of the breakdown affects associated with aging.

Bone & Tissue

  • SILICA POWDER – 100 to 150 mg a day

Silica is essential to skeletal development and aids in mineralization of bone.  Essential for both bone hardness and flexibility.  Improves collagen production.

  • MSM – 3-5 gm a day

Contains digestible, non-toxic sulfur a major requirement for bone, cartilage, and collagen building. Sulfur is also a critical component of detoxification enzymes.

  • CALCIUM/MAGNESIUM – 2gm/1gm a day

Primary mineral components of bone.  Involved in growth enzymes.

  • ZINC PICOLINATE – 50mg /day

Mineral component of bone.  Mineral component of protein-inducing enzymes involved in growth. Stimulates healing and healthy testosterone synthesis.

  • WHEY PROTEIN- 30gm/ 2-5 times a day

Stimulates growth of new tissue.  Stimulates bone growth.

  • EFAs –  3-9 Capsules/day

Initiates tissue growth activity.  Maintains circulatory fluidity.

  • BROMELAIN/PAPAIN- 1-2 gm/day

Helps dissolves scar tissue.  Accelerate healing, reduces swelling, bruising and pain associated with inflammation

  • VITAMIN K2 100mcg/day

Aids in bone remineralization.

  • SUNLIGHT (for VITAMIN D) – lots but don’t burn

Aids calcium deposition in bones.

  • VITAMIN D3 – 2500-5000 i.u./day

Aids calcium deposition in bones.

  • B-COMPLEX (especially FOLIC ACID) 1/8 teaspoonful /3 times a day Stimulates tissue growth processes.  Important in assimilation of dietary nutrients.
  • VITAMIN E- 400iu/day

Accelerates healing and tissue regenerative processes.

  • VITAMIN C – 1000mg/3 times day

Accelerates collagen production. Facilitates tissue development, healing processes.

  • SPIRULINA/KELP POWDER – 2-3 teaspoonsful/day

Important source of digestible, absorbable minerals.

  • BOVINE CARTILAGE – 1-2 gm/day

Accelerates healing, tissue growth.

  • GLUCOSAMINE/CHONDROITAN – -2 gm/day
  • VITAMIN A – 20,000 iu/day
  • COLLOIDAL MINERALS – 2 oz/day

Important source of absorbable minerals for bone/tissue growth, enzyme systems.

  • BONE SOUP –  as much as possible beef/chicken/fish bones soaked in water with veggies
  • HYALURONIC ACID 200-400mg/day

Important for anabolic support and connective tissue (collagen)  building.

Posted by Ben Fuchs in Nutrition

Top 12 Heart Nutrients Part 1

By Ben Fuchs | Pharmacist Ben

Last post we defined some of the common terms associated with heart disease. Now, for some of the important nutrients you can take to protect your heart and avoid the cardiologist’s office or even worse, his knife! And, to keep you off the especially dangerous drugs. Cardiac and circulatory drugs are among the most toxic and deadliest of the entire prescription pharmacopeia. If you’re on medication now, you can ask you can ask (or even better insist!) that your physician wean you off your meds and get you on some non-toxic, good nutrition. And if you’re not on meds, there is nothing like a good diet and supplement strategy to keep you far away from the pharmacy for heart meds or anything else.

Heart Nutrients

By Rahul Sharma (Annayu) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

In no particular order, here’s the first 6:

Vitamin C– this powerful nutrient sometimes gets overlooked when it comes to
cardiovascular health. Animals (except for humans, some other primates and guinea pigs) all make their own Vitamin C and animals (except for humans, some other primates and guinea pigs) don’t get heart attacks!

Magnesium – keeping blood from becoming sticky and blood sugar control are just two of
the mechanisms associated with this under-appreciated and often time deficient
mineral protects the heart. Some scientists believe that the cardiovascular benefits attributed to aspirin should have be credited to the magnesium found in the “Bufferin” that was used in the original studies.

Selenium– Known as the heart mineral, selenium deficiencies are also somewhat common
and numerous studies show that supplementation can deliver many cardiovascular
benefits. It’s especially helpful in protecting the heart form low levels of oxygen and it’s protective against heavy metal poisoning of heart cells. Deficienciesare associated with Keshan Disease, a particular fatal form of cardiomyopathy.

Arginine –protects the cardiovascular health in so many ways, it’s a must-have for anyone concerned about heart disease. Lowers blood cholesterol very effectively, especially in high doses (10 to 15 grams a day), improves coronary , as well as general circulation and lowers high blood pressure. Helps prevent blood clots and helps strengthen heart muscle. Very important for angina suffererers. In Europe and Japan it is injected directly by cardiologists to reopen blocked circulation.

Vitamin K – helps maintain clotting balance, especially when using Vitamin E. Protective against hardening of the arteries and calcium regulation function helps maintain heart rhythm and
contractility. Use with medical guidance when taking blood thinning medication like Plavix or warfarin.

Taurine – Helps lower blood pressure and improves the excretion of excess fluid which
takes pressure off of blood vessels. Strengthens heart muscle and helps maintain calcium balance in heart cells. Critical in maintaining heart muscle
contraction.

Posted by Ben Fuchs in Nutrition

Mental Health, Sugar and Insulin

Mental Health, Sugar and Insulin

Photo by Matthew Henry from Burst

By Ben Fuchs | Pharmacist Ben

One of the most important mental health references in my library is called “Insulin Treatment in Psychiatry”. It was published in the 1950s and it provides ample evidence of how critical changes in blood sugar chemistry are for mental and emotional well-being. There are chapters with titles like “Biochemical Changes in the Brain Occurring During Insulin Hypoglycemia” , “Insulin Therapy in Schizophrenia” and “Trends in Insulin Treatment in Psychiatry” that provide proof positive that manipulations of blood sugar can play a crucial, non-pharmacological role in improving mental health.

Insulin is an anabolic (growth) hormone with many properties, the most striking of which is its ability to encourage fat cells to absorb sugar (glucose) and store it as fat. But what was recognized by old-time medical researchers, many decades ago, was the fact that this same hormone, as well-known as it was for its role in blood sugar control, was also a potential tool for psychiatrists treating various mental disorders.

Why is this so important? Well, the average American is ingesting over 140 pounds a year of sugar and another 60 pounds or so a year of high fructose corn syrup. In 1960 the amount Americans consumed was less than 100 pounds a year of sugar and zero pounds of high fructose corn syrup. If it is indeed true that there is an insulin connection to mental illness, considering the seeming epidemic in mental disorders 21st century Americans are confronting, one is forced to question how much is related to insulin and associated issues with blood sugar.

This question becomes especially significant in the case of children who are the most obvious and notorious consumers of the sweet stuff. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at any given time, one out of five American children is suffering from some kind of mental illness. That’s anywhere from 7.7 to 12.8 million kids! 30 to 40 percent have ADHD, 10% suffer from an anxiety disorder, and at any given time, 1 out of thirty-three will be clinically depressed and 3 out of 1000 will be diagnosed as schizophrenic.

The statistics for adults are no less alarming. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, nearly one in four Americans over the age of 18 suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder.

If you go to a physician or psychiatrist and leave with diagnosis of depression, anxiety, ADD/ADHD or some other mental health issue, it’s unlikely anyone will be questioning your diet or suggesting nutritional supplements. In fact, the odds are pretty good that you’re going to get a prescription (or two or three) for a psychotropic drug. In a one year survey period from 2006 to 2007, there were 472 million mental health prescriptions written. That’s almost 10 percent of the total annual number of prescriptions written in the U.S. There are over 170 prescription drugs used for mental health and there are more on the way. According to the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, there are 313 new drugs in research and development that are designed specifically to treat a variety of mental health concerns.

If you are suffering from some kind of mental illness, or you or your children are on a prescription drug that you want to get off of, or if you are being pressured by a well-meaning physician or loved one to start taking a prescription drug, please understand that you have options. And one of the most important ones involves (surprise, surprise) blood sugar and insulin.


Insulin Treatment In Psychiatry Insulin Treatment In Psychiatry

Contributing Authors Include Hans Hoff, Joseph Wortis, Ivan Bennett, And Many Others. Proceedings Of The International Conference On The Insulin Treatment In Psychiatry Held At The New York Academy Of Medicine, October 24-25, 1958.

Insulin Treatment In Psychiatry


Laying off the sugar and refined carbohydrates is the obvious first step. But “just say no” doesn’t usually work. Will-power is relatively useless when it comes to resisting sugar. The best way to wean yourself blood sugar and insulin spiking foods is to increase intake protein and essential fatty acids. It’s probably a good idea to start off all meals with a protein powder drink and 3 to 9 Omega6/Omega 3 capsules or a couple of teaspoonful of a good EFA liquid-like Udo’s Choice. Then make sure you’re getting all the nutrients that help the body process sugar. The B-vitamins in liquid form are very important. Vitamins B1 and B3 have specific sugar-metabolizing properties. (Interestingly, Dr. Abram Hoffer used to use these two nutrients as medications in his protocol for treating schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.). Taking 50mg a day of Zinc picolinate and 2000 mg of chelated Magnesium would probably be wise. And, the minerals Chromium and Vanadium are well known for improving insulin response and blood sugar levels. There are many more supplements available for stabilizing blood sugar, and ultimately improving and helping maintain mental health. We’ll be getting to those in future posts.

Posted by Ben Fuchs in Health