by Dr. Alan Inglis

It’s bad enough that Big Pharma has brainwashed Americans into thinking they need a prescription drug every time they get sick – now the billion-dollar giants are going after healthy people, too.

A group of doctors from the American Society for Clinical Oncology and the American Urological Association are recommending that perfectly healthy men consider taking the prescription drug finasteride (also sold as Proscar) to prevent prostate cancer. Finasteride is already commonly used to treat enlarged prostates and urinary problems.

This recommendation is not only wrong… it’s downright foolhardy.

First, according to the research, 71 men would need to take the drug for seven years to prevent a single case of prostate cancer. That’s an enormous cost – and this "preventative medicating" will probably not be covered by insurance. Plus, that’s an awful lot of men who will have to suffer through finasteride’s side effects – which include loss of sexual desire – for absolutely no benefit.

What makes even less sense is that the authors are only recommending the drug be considered by men who are regularly getting PSA tests for prostate cancer. Why they’re limiting the recommendation to this group, I still don’t fully understand. But suffice to say, the PSA test is considered so flawed, that even many major cancer research groups don’t recommend it.

I was at a loss when I first saw these new recommendations published… but it didn’t take me long to figure it out. Turns out, some of the doctors who wrote the guidelines have consulted with Merck, which makes Proscar, and GlaxoSmithKline, which makes another drug being tested to see if it prevents prostate cancer.

Fortunately, there are some doctors speaking up and questioning whether these guidelines make much sense. Like me, they point out that prostate cancer is often so slow-growing, that most men who get it die of something else first. Aggressive treatment, such as surgery, typically doesn’t make much sense… and putting millions of men on a drug to prevent prostate cancer doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, either.

That’s just common sense… but unfortunately for Big Pharma, there’s no profit in that.

by Dr. Alan Inglis

What marketing genius ever tagged canned beverages as "soft drinks?" Somebody softheaded. Let’s face facts. These are hard drinks. They’re hard on your gut. They’re hard on your body. And they’re real tough on your blood sugar levels, leading you down the hard road to type 2 diabetes.

A long-term study sponsored by the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University showed that women who drank more sugar-sweetened drinks were at greater risk of developing diabetes.

Women who drank two or more soft drinks per day had a 24 percent increase in diabetes risk compared with women who drank less than one soft drink per month, based on questionnaires the subjects filled out and 10 years of follow-up. The increase was even greater — 31 percent — for those who had two or more sweetened fruit drinks a day.

This isn’t surprising. The average American consumes 100 grams of fructose a day, most of this from high-fructose corn syrup that’s been added to processed foods and beverages, like soft drinks. There are only 5 grams of fructose in an apple. Plus, the fructose in an apple comes to you in a whole food package, accompanied by the numerous synergistic co-nutrients that support and balance its proper assimilation and use by your body.

Some people think they’re gaining by drinking something with a juicy piece of healthy fruit on the label. Not necessarily so. Packaged fruit drinks can have as many calories as those hard soft drinks. And they carry the same link to type 2 diabetes.

Better to go with the real thing. Fruit fresh off the vine, bush or tree. That was the prescription of another new study, from England. It showed people with higher levels of vitamin C in the blood — which is a sign they eat more vegetables and fruit — showed a decreased risk of developing diabetes over the 12 years of follow-up in this study.

There are a couple of possibilities here. The fruit-and-vegetable effect might be a result of the overall diet keeping pounds off for those people, thereby decreasing their risk of diabetes. It also helps that eating fruits and vegetables leads to a greater intake of antioxidants, which can reduce the risk of developing diabetes.

To cut down on your soft drink consumption, try this: mix real fruit juice half-and-half with seltzer water; get used to that and that other junk will taste too sweet — you might lose your appetite for it.

by Dr. Alan Inglis

If the latest research is any indication, your next doctor visit should include a prescription for tomatoes.

A study has found that lycopene, an antioxidant, can cut the building up of plaque that leads to atherosclerosis. Lycopene is found in all of the healthy red-tinged fruits and vegetables. They include tomatoes, red peppers and red grapefruit.

The researchers divided animals into several groups and gave them varied diets. Two of the groups were given high-fat diets, with one group receiving a lycopene supplement and the other a statin.

Lycopene supplements were found to be superior to statins. The group that received the lycopene showed lower blood serum levels of total and LDL cholesterol.

This could be yet another reason why those who eat a Mediterranean diet stay so heart- healthy-it’s all of those recipes that include tomatoes.

So the next time your doctor takes a look at your cholesterol (you know it’s inevitable) and pushes a prescription for a statin your way, push back. Tell him about this finding and let him know you’re going to redden your plate for a natural way to manage your cholesterol.

by Dr. Alan Inglis

There are few more terrifying parts of aging than vision loss. It’s one thing to need a stronger prescription for eyeglasses every few years or so – but it’s quite another when your deteriorating vision starts to rob you of your independence.

Folks suffering from age-related macular degeneration can lose the ability to read, drive, and even recognize the faces of their friends and loved ones. It’s an agonizing condition, but new research shows that a simple vitamin regimen can help you prevent it.

A new study out of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston found that women who took a combination of B vitamins – specifically B-6, B-12 and folic acid, reduced their risk of macular degeneration by one-third compared to women who took a placebo.

The reduction didn’t happen overnight. The study charted the women over the course of seven years. It proves what I’ve been saying all along – one of the greatest benefits of vitamins and supplements is what they can do for you through long-term, repeated use.

The researchers think that B vitamins may help prevent macular degeneration because they lower homocysteine, a substance in your blood that’s been linked to heart disease. Lowering homocysteine may be particular important for the small, sensitive blood vessels of the eye.

If you’re concerned about vision loss – and if your worried about macular degeneration in particular – it makes sense to consider vitamin B supplements or a multi-vitamin with a full supply of vitamin B. Aside from helping your vision, B vitamins are important for metabolism, central nervous support and even for staving off depression.

These vitamins are inexpensive, widely available and safe – and their only side effect is overall good health.