They fill their guts with lousy food, and then at the first sign of heartburn or acid reflux, they carpet-bomb their bellies with dangerous drugs that not only won’t solve the problem… they can actually make it worse in the long run (while putting the rest of your body at risk to boot).

That’s no way to treat a friend!

Now, a leading consumer group is calling on the FDA to put black-box warnings on proton pump inhibitors such as Nexium, Prilosec and Prevacid because of all those risks — including the notorious “rebound” acid problems.

Public Citizen says people who take these meds often end up in a cycle of dependency: When they try to stop, that rebound kicks in — leaving them more miserable than ever. Eventually, what started as a short-term remedy becomes a lifelong addiction.

And even if the drugs manage to keep the reflux at bay for a little while, they’re slowly and silently doing far more damage in your gut than the drug industry will ever admit.

PPIs can destroy the delicate balance of stomach acid and gut bacteria, block the absorption of key vitamins and nutrients, and set you on a collision course for problems far worse than acid reflux.

Long-term use of these meds has been linked to severe and potentially deadly conditions such as magnesium deficiencies, heart problems, bone breaks, and infection.

PPIs can actually increase the risk of ulcers in hard-to-treat regions of the small intestine when taken with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

Despite all those risks, these are some of the nation’s best-selling meds. And the worst part? Most of the people who take them don’t even have the stomach conditions they’re prescribed for.

One recent study found that up to 70 percent of all PPI prescriptions are completely unnecessary. That number might sound high, but I’d say it’s more like 100 percent, because the fact is, you don’t need to turn to risky drugs to get your stomach under control.

Alternative medicine pioneer Dr. Jonathan Wright literally wrote the book on this. It’s called “Why Stomach Acid Is Good for You,” and the dozens of five-star reviews on Amazon.com should tell you everything you need to know about his advice.

Despite what you’ve heard, most people don’t have too much stomach acid — they have too little!

For more information, visit Dr. Wright’s website — and start treating your stomach like a friend again.

The FDA is forcing makers of metoclopramide, which is widely known as Reglan, to include a black box warning with the drug because it has been linked to muscle spasms. Not sometimes or rarely, but a shockingly high percentage of the time.

The study showed that the longer you take the drug, the higher your risk of developing these symptoms. And based on information gathered by the FDA, 20 percent of the patients on Reglan who develop this side effect take it for at least three months. Other recent studies suggest that metoclopramide is the leading cause of pharmaceutical-related movement disorders.

And that’s not even the worst news of all. No, the worst news is that once you get dyskinesia, it’s an unwanted gift that keeps on giving. Even if you stop taking the drug, the spasms will usually stay with you. Those spasms include uncontrollable movements of the limbs, face, and tongue. 

If you’re one of the 2 million Americans taking any form of this medication, talk to your doctor as soon as you can to find out if you can do without it. Stomach acid conditions are often overmedicated to begin with – in part because people want quick relief from something that can be incredibly uncomfortable.

Many times, that leads to medications that relieve symptoms without touching the underlying cause.

But as it turns out, a high percentage of stomach acid conditions aren’t caused by too much acid, but too little. An overproduction of stomach acid is actually quite unusual. So these drugs that keep your stomach from producing a healthy amount of acid are actually hurting you.

If you’d like to stop taking all those medications and live better and healthier at the same time, there’s a book I’d like to recommend that many of my friends have found life-changing. It’s called, Why Stomach Acid Is Good for You by Dr. Jonathan Wright and Dr. Lane Lenerd.

You may be used to thinking of stomach acid as your natural enemy, but once you read this book you’ll realize how important it is not just to your digestion, but overall health. And then instead of trying to neutralize or eliminate those acids, you’ll learn how to keep them functioning properly and in synch with the rest of your body.

Not only is it a great book, but it’s cheaper than a box of many popular heartburn medications. And once you read it, you might be able to do away with those drugs for good.

Don’t just mask your pain…
Reverse arthritis damage and start living pain-free today

If you’re like most folks, dealing with arthritis involves popping one…or maybe even several… prescription painkillers every day. I’ve known patients who spend their days watching the clock, waiting for six hours to pass so they can take their next pill. And these dangerous, addictive pills…which don’t do anything to actually cure your arthritis…are all that most mainstream doctors are trained to offer.

But I’ve learned something they haven’t. I’m going to show you an approach that I have used to help countless patients ease the pain and reverse the damage of arthritis. I’ve watched patients who followed these steps…the same steps I’m about to show you…straighten their fingers and walk without limps for the first time in years—their pain and stiffness gone.

And it’s all so much simpler than you might think. In fact, people are usually shocked when I tell them that their joint destruction is probably being caused by poor water retention. But once you understand what’s really causing your arthritis, it may be possible to…

Grow a new joint in 3 easy steps!

When you think of a “new joint,” the image of an artificial knee or hip may come to mind—the kind of stuff more appropriate with end state joint destruction. But I don’t see the sense of letting some surgeon hack into you, causing you months of pain and rehabilitation, when your body is perfectly capable of healing itself.

The key to avoiding—and yes, even reversing—joint degeneration isn’t always a surgeon’s scalpel…it’s as simple as getting your body to hold onto water.

You see, the cartilage in your joints is like a sponge. The younger you are, the more easily your body absorbs and retains the water your joint cartilage needs to let you move effortlessly and without pain.

As you get older, your body doesn’t hold onto water like it did in your younger years—and your joints begin to resemble a dried out, hardened sponge. After enough time goes by, the sponge (in this case, your joints) becomes cracked and brittle, and it begins to fall apart. You need to bring water back into your cartilage, which brings us to our first step for regrowing your joints:

Step 1: Activate the water magnet in your joints

You can’t give your joints the water they need by simply drinking more. You can chug water until it’s coming out of your ears, but most of it is just going to be flushed down the toilet.

The problem is, your joints have lost the electrical charge they need to hold onto water. When you’re young, your joints have a strong electrical charge, which attracts and holds water. But that charge begins to lessen as you age. Your joints are like a magnet losing its strength.

So before your joints can recover, they need to generate a sufficient electrical charge that draws water into the cartilage. You can get that electrical charge from a very simple molecule called sulfate—the best way to get sulfate is through methylsulfonylmethane, known more commonly as MSM.

MSM is an excellent source of sulfur that your body can easily transform into sulfate. Having an abundance of sulfate powerfully attracts water into your joints because it contains a strong electrical charge. It’s hard to get enough MSM through diet alone. Fortunately, it’s available in supplement form.

Step 2: Unleash the power of this joint-building duo

So you’ve taken your MSM and have all this sulfate…this powerful water magnet…running through your body. The key now is to keep the sulfate in your joints, where you need it. It needs to attach to something—and that “something” is glucosamine and galactosamine. You’ve probably heard a lot about glucosamine, and much less about galactosamine. They are both part sugar and part amino acid—and they basically string together and cross connect trillions of times in each of your joints, giving the negatively-charged sulfate something to stick to.

You typically don’t see galactosamine as a stand-alone ingredient in joint supplements. Instead, it’s usually delivered through chondroitin, which contains glucoasamine and galactosamine. But here’s what they don’t tell you—your body does not easily digest chondroitin. I’ve used a product called Knox NutraJoint Plus Glucosamine, Chondroitin & MSM, which partially digests the chondroitin, allowing the galactosamine to enter your system. It’s widely available online.

Step 3: Boost your levels of this key joint-repair hormone

With MSM, galactosamine and glucosamine, you have the building blocks you need to draw water back into your joints and eliminate arthritis pain. But how well these nutrients function in your body is regulated by a key hormone—and you need to make sure you have enough of it.

The body’s regenerative processes are driven by a hormone called IGF-1 (once known as sulfation factor), along with growth hormone, testosterone or DHEA, thyroid hormones, and vitamin A. But it’s IGF-1 that ultimately determines how much electrical charge attaches within your joints. Having enough IGF-1 is absolutely necessary to reversing the shriveling and drying effect that’s so common in your joints as you age.

Your doctor should check for your levels of IGF-1, as well as the other key repair hormones that its levels depend on, such as testosterone or DHEA, thyroid hormones, and growth hormone. Your IGF-1 levels can be low for a variety of reasons, and they can be brought back up through hormone therapy and regular exercise. (To learn more about hormone therapy, and the specific type of hormones I use with my patients, read, “Stop growing old gracefully.”)

Once you’ve achieved optimal IGF-1 levels, your body will be prepared to use MSM, glucosamine, and galactosamine to rebuild your joint cartilage. And that’s where the real magic begins. Fluid rushes into your joints, reinvigorating your cartilage and allowing you to move with a pain-free ease you haven’t felt in years.

There’s nothing more exciting to me than seeing patients who could barely walk into my office for their first appointment, come bounding up my steps a few months later, finally free from pain.

Dealing with painful rheumatoid arthritis? Stay tuned for next month when I’ll be revealing my breakthrough cure!

Follow this simple plan—and stop joint pain for good

1. Take MSM every day. This boosts your body’s sulfate content, which helps you attract water to your joints.

2. Supplement with glucosamine and galactosamine. The sulfate attaches to these building blocks so it can stay in your joints, where it belongs. The easiest way to get galactosamine is through partially digested chondroitin.

3. Have your doctor check to see if you have adequate levels of IGF-1. This important hormone is responsible for repairing damaged joints.

4. Have your doctor check your 24-hour urine for the hormones that determine your IGF-1 level (testosterone, DHEA, thyroid hormones, and Growth hormone).

5. Have your doctor replace these hormones in as safe a manner as possible.

Discover the safe, proven cure that can Knock out high blood pressure for good

If you suffer from high blood pressure, I’m willing to bet you’ve tried just about everything. Most of my patients have.

Maybe you started exercising more. You probably cut your sodium and worked on managing your stress, too. Then, a few months later you visit your doctor and—nothing.

You’ve probably said to yourself a hundred times, “I’m doing everything my doctor tells me to—so why isn’t anything working?” It’s a fair question—and you deserve an answer. So here’s the unvarnished truth…

Many doctors have no idea what causes high blood pressure

I’m not kidding. Even the American Heart Association admits it doesn’t know what causes high blood pressure 90 percent of the time. For these cases, instead of letting you know that they don’t know its cause, they call it essential hypertension.

Fortunately for you, my batting average is a lot better than theirs. I successfully treat high blood pressure all the time—without resorting to dangerous prescription drugs. That’s because I’ve learned something that most mainstream docs still haven’t— high blood pressure is often the result of a nutritional deficiency.

Many of my patients with high blood pressure suffer from a diminished ability to absorb certain vitamins and nutrients…and these deficiencies keep their blood pressure from normalizing. I simply correct the deficiencies and most of my patients who suffer from this form of high blood pressure are in the “normal” range within a few months.

I would love for this to happen for you, too, especially if you’ve been struggling with high blood pressure for years. But first you need to understand how your body regulates blood pressure, and how your nutritional deficiencies can disrupt this delicate system.

Your blood pressure: A precise balancing act

You might think of high blood pressure as a cardiovascular disease, but most of the time it really begins and ends with your adrenal glands. These little powerhouses sit on top of your kidneys and are responsible for how your body deals with stress. For starters, when your body is under stress, the inner adrenals (and I’ll talk about the outer adrenals in a future issue) release two hormones: epinephrine (adrenaline) and nor-epinephrine (nor-adrenaline). Your nerve endings also release nor-epinephrine during times of stress.

Although epinephrine causes constriction within most of your blood vessels, it actually opens up the blood supply to your heart, skeletal muscles, and liver. By contrast, nor-epinephrine constricts your blood vessels, clamping down on blood supply to everywhere but your brain. It’s this constriction that causes your blood pressure to rise.

On a continual basis, having too much nor-epinephrine in your system will result in high blood pressure. Ideally, your adrenals should be secreting 90 percent epinephrine and only 10 percent nor-epinephrine.

But that ratio can get disrupted fast. You see, your body actually makes epinephrine in a multi-step process. First, your body manufactures nor-epinephrine, and then it converts it to epinephrine. So, if your body lacks any of the key nutrients it needs to support this conversion process (and I’ll talk about those nutrients in a moment), you’re not going to have enough epinephrine. Now you’re in trouble.

Mainstream medicine has been achingly close to understanding this, but they’re not there yet. That’s because they’re too obsessed with a byproduct your body forms when it’s having trouble converting nor-epinephrine to epinephrine. In other words, they’re buying into…

The great homocysteine myth

Doctors have long understood that people with high blood pressure have elevated levels of an amino acid called homocysteine, which can damage blood vessels. But what they’ve failed to understand is that high homocysteine levels are just a symptom of a larger problem—a nutritional deficiency that’s affecting how well you convert nor-epinephrine to epinephrine.

You see, your body depends on a nutrient called SAMe to conduct this conversion process. And every time SAMe converts nor-epinephrine to epinephrine, it creates homocysteine as a byproduct. Your body does this at least one billion times a second, according to some authorities.

Now here’s where the nutritional deficiency comes into play—ideally, your body should convert the homocysteine back into SAMe. But it depends on several key nutrients to make that happen. Without those nutrients, you end up with too much homocysteine in your system. Even worse, your SAMe levels become depleted, and now you’re not making enough epinephrine (among other things I’ll discuss more in the future).

Now you’re left with blood vessel damage (from the homocysteine) and high blood pressure. That’s some double-whammy! And for the triple-whammy, your heart will not receive enough blood during times of exertion because its vessels are less able to dilate when you’re deficient in epinephrine.

To see if a nutritional deficiency may be causing your high blood pressure, have your doctor check your homocysteine levels when he conducts the standard complete blood count (CBC) test. If your homocysteine levels are high, you have a deficiency —simple as that.

Get the nutrients you need—and watch your blood pressure drop!

Your body depends on certain nutrients to manufacture nor-epinephrine and convert it to epinephrine. A basic building block of nor-epinephrine is the amino acid tyrosine. This can also be obtained from the amino acid phenylalanine, which is found in many protein-rich foods, like meat.

Having enough tyrosine (and most people do) is only one part of the story. To make nor-epinephrine, tyrosine needs to interact with adequate supplies of the following nutrients, many of which also support the conversion of nor-epinephrine to epinephrine:

• Vitamin C
• Vitamin B6
• Vitamin B12
• SAMe
• Tyrosine or Phenylalanine
• Tetrahydrobiopterin (made from folate)
• Methionine
• Trimethylglycine

I wish I could tell you that there was one supplement formula that contained every one of these nutrients…unfortunately, there isn’t. Source Naturals (www.sourcenaturals.com) probably comes the closest, with a product called Homocysteine Defense. It has trimethylglycine (TMG), vitamins B6, vitamin B12, and folic acid. Many of my patients see significant improvements just from using this product. In other cases, I’ll also have them supplement with some of the ingredients that are not in the formulation, such as SAMe.

One more thing…If you’re loading up on these nutrients and your homocysteine levels don’t drop, you may suffer from an inability to orally absorb certain B vitamins (For more on this, see “The blood pressure trigger no one’s talking about.”). If you fall into this category, your homocysteine levels will not decrease until you receive weekly vitamin B injections.

Either way, the basic principle is the same—correct your nutritional deficiencies, and watch your blood pressure drop. I’ve used this method to help patients achieve their first normal blood pressure readings in years. In a period of just weeks, they eliminated the headaches, nausea and other unpleasant symptoms of high blood pressure—and undoubtedly added years to their lives. Now you can do the same.

The blood pressure trigger no one’s talking about

Here’s one cause of high blood pressure you may have never heard about—abnormally large red blood cells.

Think about it—when your cells are too large, your heart has to pump harder (thus raising your blood pressure) to squeeze the cells through your tight capillaries. To see if this is the cause of your high blood pressure, have your mean corpuscular volume (MCV) reading checked when you get your CBC test. If the MCV levels are high, that could be exactly what’s causing your high blood pressure. The good news is that often times your red blood cells enlarge abnormally because of the same nutritional deficiencies leading to a rise in your homocysteine level.

I have found that patients with both elevated homocysteine and MCV levels may no longer be able to absorb B vitamins orally. I have had excellent results giving these patients weekly injections of B vitamins, in addition to having them ingest the nutrients I discuss.

Is your heartburn med causing your high blood pressure?

If you’re taking a proton pump inhibitor to treat heartburn, there’s a good chance it may be at least partially to blame for your high blood pressure.

You see, these medications basically shut down your stomach’s ability to manufacture acid, which leaves you less able to digest proteins. Here’s one problem with that: The phenylalanine you need to manufacture epinephrine is contained in protein-rich foods. Your body can’t make it.

For this reason, if you are taking a proton pump inhibitor or have any doubt about your digestion ability, you should be taking phenylalanine in supplement form. For more information on this topic, read Dr. Jonathan Wright’s book, Why Stomach Acid is Good for You. This is available at Amazon.com and other online booksellers.

Stop growing old “gracefully” and get ready to…
Look and feel younger next year!

You don’t need a magic potion or rocket science to turn back your body’s clock. Just a substance manufactured by your own body. When it starts to run low, that’s when you begin to look and feel old and worn out.

Don’t waste another day feeling or looking older than you are when you can unleash your body’s very own “fountain of youth”—and start enjoying the benefits of looking younger and feeling more vibrant—starting today.

The breakthrough therapy that turns back your body’s clock

You might not realize it, but most of us treat our cars better than we treat our bodies. Think about it—if your car ran out of oil or transmission fluid, you wouldn’t just throw your hands in the air and wait for it to break down. You’d replace these vital chemicals.

Well, your body needs this same type of regular maintenance. As you age, you produce less of the critical hormones you need to beat back the diseases of aging. In fact, guess what diminished memory, wrinkled skin, bone loss, joint destruction, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease all have in common? They’re all linked to low hormone levels!

I’m amazed by how many of my colleagues in the medical community fail to grasp this basic concept. And here’s why—they’re absolutely obsessed with genetics as the cause for aging. But, as I’m going to show you in a minute, having perfect genes won’t make a lick of difference if you aren’t producing the hormones you need to activate those genes.

That’s why I’ve had so much success using bioidentical hormone replacement therapy in healing the “diseases of old age.” When I first recommend bioidentical hormones to my patients, many of them haven’t heard too much about it—other than what they’ve picked up by watching celebrities like Suzanne Somers rave about it on TV.

But when these patients return a few months later looking and feeling years younger, they’re walking billboards for bioidentical hormones. And, by the end of this article, you’re going to be just as excited by this breakthrough therapy as they are. But first you need to understand the important role hormones play in your body, and why hormone deficiency is…

The single greatest reason our bodies fail as we age

You see, I didn’t always appreciate the importance of hormones in the aging process. Like most doctors, I had been schooled to believe in the luck of the draw—either you had good genes or you didn’t.

But I came to understand that this type of thinking is literally ruining my patients’ lives. Think about it—if you believe it all comes down to genetics, then you can’t truly heal anyone. You just manage symptoms. Someone has arthritis, and you prescribe a painkiller. When a patient develops diabetes, you prescribe insulin. Meanwhile, no one is ever really getting better.

Sounds familiar, right?

I spent the first part of my career practicing medicine this way, and I knew there was something fundamentally wrong with it. So I took a prolonged sabbatical from my medical practice and buried my nose in research—anything and everything I could find. It was a huge undertaking, but after a while, the pieces started coming together, and I had an epiphany:

It’s not your genes that fail you as you age—it’s your hormones

When you’re in the “prime of life,” you have optimal hormone levels, but production falls off as you get older. And here’s why that’s so important—hormones, as I’ll show you in a moment, initiate your body’s healing and repair processes. That’s why you can be on the go from sunrise to sunset when you’re 18 and feel great—but a five-minute walk makes you sore when you’re 70.

Your hormone levels are too low to keep up with the wear and tear you put on your body. And that’s when you start to show the signs of aging.

So where does that leave genetics?

It’s not that genes don’t play a role in the aging process—it’s just that most doctors and scientists aren’t seeing the whole picture yet. They’re technically right when they say that genes direct your body’s healing process. But they fail to appreciate that genes are like a light switch—they’re either in the on or off position.

And your genes will not be in the on position, directing your body’s important repair work, unless you’re making enough hormones.

The gene activation process may seem a little complicated, but it’s really not. Your glands release hormones, which flip your genes into the on position. Your genes, once activated, send a message to your cells to manufacture new proteins to replace the old, worn-out proteins in your body.

But with every decade that goes by, your hormones diminish. Your genes don’t activate, your cells don’t get the repair message, and you start to look and feel older.

Of course, you don’t notice this right away. It takes years, and that’s why so many doctors don’t realize it’s happening. But once you hit 50, the evidence that your body hasn’t been repairing itself is carved all over your body—wrinkles, age spots, achy joints, memory loss, lack of energy, you name it. You’d call them signs of old age. I’ve come to call them signs of diminishing hormones.

Unleash the power of hormones—and feel 10 years younger

So now you understand that maintaining optimal hormone levels is critical to reversing the aging process. But there are more than 100 hormones in your body, and you can’t possibly monitor them all.

The good news is, you don’t have to. You see, only a handful of hormones are responsible for turning your genes on and off. They include:

• Steroids, such as estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA, and cortisol
• Thyroid hormones
• Vitamin A

So your first step is to have a doctor measure your levels of these key hormones. Make sure he uses a 24-hour urine test, which measures hormone production over time and will give you a more accurate picture than a saliva test. I have found that many doctors are not experienced using and interpreting this test. The best resources nationally on 24-hour urine analysis are probably my clinic in Whitefish, Montana (visit www.thebodyheals.com and click on consultations) and Dr. Jonathan Wright’s clinic in Washington (www.tahoma-clinic.com).

You’ll find that many doctors who have been studying hormones for a while, like I have, can often guess at where you’ll be deficient just by looking at your gait, facial tone and expressions, and body contours and textures. Certain hormonal deficiencies will trigger these symptoms—for example, people with a DHEA deficiency may suffer from fatigue, memory problems, and joint pain.

Once your doctor has your hormone “report card,” he should also talk to you to see if other factors, such as stress or nutritional deficiency, may be contributing to your low hormone levels. That information is critical to helping you get the most out of hormone therapy.

The final step is to get you on a hormone replacement regimen that will help your body start healing at the basic, cellular level. This therapy should be individualized to you, based on your body’s needs. Some patients low in cortisol may need 15mg/day of supplementation, while others will need more.

Some doctors may try to put you on “patented” hormones, which are the new darlings of mainstream medicine. If that happens, here’s what you should do…

Don’t just ask for bioidentical hormones… insist on them

The science can be a little complicated, but let me say this as simply as I can: Patented hormones just don’t work as well. You see, when your hormones bind to specific genes, they create vibrations that carry the repair message to your cells. Patented hormones are abnormally shaped (they have to be in order to receive a patent in the first place), and this slight alteration changes the repair message. It’s like a piano that’s out of tune.

Bioidentical hormones are the same shape as the hormones your body makes naturally, so they trigger the correct repair message. And they work fast. My patients often feel 10 years younger in a matter of just a few months.

I’ll be honest—I lose a lot of patients this way. People who have been on bioidentical hormone therapy for a while find they don’t need to see me as often for diabetes, arthritis, and many of the other diseases of aging. They’re too busy enjoying their lives again.

It might be bad business, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

How to avoid the estrogen trap

As revolutionary as bioidentical hormone therapy is, there’s a common mistake that many practitioners make. Many doctors—both mainstream and alternative—frequently prescribe dangerously high estrogen dosages.

You can easily avoid these overdoses by starting with a foundation of precursor steroids (don’t worry…a bio-identical savvy doctor will know what they are). When your other steroid hormone levels are corrected first, you’d be amazed at how little estrogen you actually need.

Here’s the bottom line: Bioidentical hormones are one of the most powerful weapons in the fight against accelerated aging. But, as with anything, you don’t want to overdo it. Make sure they’re prescribed in the lowest effective dose, and that your levels are checked regularly.

SPECIAL EDITION

Drug-free in 90 days

You may feel like you’re sentenced to a lifetime of dependency on a pile of prescription meds, but think again. Just 90 days from today, you could be off your drugs for good.

If I’ve proven one thing in my years of practice, it’s that I can help my patients finally be well again—without resorting to a prescription pad.

And if your mainstream doc hasn’t devised a plan to get you off drugs, blame it on the company he’s keeping. A barrage of drug reps and a dogmatic medical association have convinced him (wore him down) into believing that drugs are the answer—the only answer.

Let’s start with cholesterol, hypertension and GERD. For each of these conditions, I am offering you here the general guidance that will help you to free yourself from medications that you don’t truly need. Keep in mind that some recommendations will overlap, because, as I frequently tell you, your body is a wondrous, interconnected creation. And that’s why mainstream medicine fails. It looks at you as a heart, a blood vessel, or—God forbid—just a number on one of those slippery, sliding scales that were created by drug company medicine.

The first thing you need to do is to have a conversation with your doctor. Tell him that you have a goal of being medication-free. He may look as if he has been struck, protest loudly, and may even say “Absolutely not!” Stick to your guns. Let him know that you’re not deserting him, but have come to enlist his help on your journey back to wellness.

If he tells you that it can’t work or that he won’t work with you, find a new doctor.

It can work. I’ve seen it work with my own patients. It might not work the way some doctors practice medicine, but I treat people—not their symptoms.

Once I have a handle on a patient’s lifestyle, family history and interests, I recommend a course of action to get them back in balance—and to wean them off drugs. And just as often, I’m greeted with an incredulous look as if I’d suggested something scandalous.

If getting people off drugs is considered scandalous, well then, I’m happy to be guilty as charged. I get to know my patients face-to-face, not chart-to-chart—and you deserve a doctor who does the same.

Get off cholesterol drugs before the kids get back to school

The biggest gun on the market is statins. If your doc put you on one, you probably thought, “That’s it. I’m now a statin-lifer!” At least, that’s what all the TV commercials and magazine ads would have you believing.

Cholesterol is the main building block for all of your sex and stress hormones. It also helps maintain the integrity and function of every cell in your body. For starters, it’s a repair molecule. If you get a rip in the inner lining of one of your coronary arteries, maybe due to damage caused by high blood pressure, cholesterol leaps into action to plug up the wound. Think of it as your body’s self-produced glue, manufactured by your liver. You need adequate amounts of cholesterol to run your body. So it flies in the face of common sense and good science to aggressively scrape your body clean of every drop of it. But mainstream medicine doesn’t let these pesky facts get in its way.

Statins are criminally overused—up to twice as much as they are needed, and to the tune of $22 billion per year. We’ve become a nation cuckoo over cholesterol.

If you don’t already have heart disease or multiple risk factors, including a parent or sibling with heart disease at a young age (under 60), the studies clearly show statin drugs are of minimal benefit.

Big Pharma and its M.D.s-for-hire have taken a complex issue and slapped an oversimplified (but profitable) drug “solution” on it based on very faulty science.

Cholesterol has become the most maligned and poorly understood element of the human body. High cholesterol has been targeted as the cause of heart disease—a misconception that shows a grotesque ignorance and distortion of the medical science. As I discuss in a moment, cholesterol particle size and type are much more important than cholesterol levels.

Skip a cure that’s worse than the disease

About half of all first heart attacks occur in folks with so-called “normal” cholesterol levels. That blows any idea of “normal” right out of the water! It’s just an arbitrary guideline. And yet, this guideline is what most docs still rely on to “treat” your cholesterol condition.

Statins lower levels of coenzyme Q10. This would make me laugh at the irony if the problem weren’t so deadly serious. CoQ10 is a key player in energy production, and your heart requires a ton of it. This is why so many patients on statins suffer from muscle weakness and breakdown and why —irony of ironies—there’s increasing concern over heart failure from these drugs.

Also, dropping your cholesterol levels too low and too fast can cause a host of problems, such as memory loss, erectile dysfunction (ED), and nerve damage, and may even increase the risk of cancer.

So the idea that you need a statin drug in order to be healthier just because your numbers are high is absurd. It’s a classic example of brilliant marketing combined with incomplete—and rigged—science.

Foundations first

You probably think that if you eat a plate of cholesterol-rich scrambled eggs, your cholesterol levels will go through the roof. Not so. If you’re like most people, the amount of dietary cholesterol you ingest has little impact on your body’s natural cholesterol levels. Your liver makes production adjustments up or down based on what you eat. However, that’s not a license to eat whatever is put in front of you. Practice moderation and smart selections to improve all aspects of your health—not just your heart health. To reach and maintain ideal cholesterol levels, reject America’s standard anti-food diet that includes fast-food hamburgers, ice cream, highly processed baked goods and sugar-laden sodas. Vegetables should cover half your plate, with protein and starches getting a quarter each.

Here’s a little more guidance to help you decide what to put on your plate:

• Keep your selections simple.
  
• Choose vegetables of all colors. Steam them lightly for optimal taste and nutrient retention.
  
• Satisfy your cravings for a sweet treat by eating moderate amounts of fruit. It’s plenty sweet enough to have as a dessert—your taste buds just need to be recalibrated.
  
• Stick to a moderate intake of protein, avoiding anything that has been shot full of hormones and antibiotics. Fish, free-range chicken (leave the skin on—you need some fat), and beef—preferably from organically raised cattle and from a local source. That’s the best way to ensure that you’re eating the healthiest steak and burgers possible.
  
• Eat eggs every day if you want to, cooked with butter or olive oil. The anti-egg propaganda is nothing more than an offshoot of the marketing of cholesterol as heart enemy #1.
  
• If you like soy, use only the fermented kinds (miso and tempeh). Skip those big globs of tofu, soy powders, bars and soy milk, which for the most part are nutrient-robbing anti-foods.
  
• For your starches, choose minimally processed whole grains and starchy vegetables like potatoes (I didn’t say french fries), sweet potatoes, and winter squash (in moderation).
  
• Don’t even think about eating anything promoted as “low-fat.” That’s just shorthand for “high-sugar.” And a low-fat diet may actually contribute to heart problems. Nothing promotes undesirable, risk-heightening, small and dense LDL particles more than highly refined and processed carbs (such as cookies, cakes, crackers, and chips) and anything else with wheat and high fructose corn syrup.
  
• You need fat, plain and simple. Natural fats are perfect, derived from such sources as fish, healthy meats, nuts and nut butters, avocados, real butter (no margarine), and olive oil. You can even include small amounts of full-fat cheese and yogurt if you like. Trans fats (aka hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated fats) found in solid margarines and packaged baked and frozen goods should not be eaten, period.
  

Get off your La-Z-Boy

Studies show that just as eating well can help to reduce blood-cholesterol levels, exercise can do so as well. Even the drugmakers say you need to increase your level of exercise and fix your diet. (Of course, that message gets trampled in the mad rush to sell pills.)

The best exercise is the one you’ll do. Get a pedometer, because people who use one tend to walk more. Build up to 10,000 steps per day. And if you’re really serious, add some strength training. Use weights, weight machines, elastic bands, or even your own body weight as resistance. (You might try yoga, for example.)

Keep in mind that I’m giving you 90 days to build up your activity level, so you don’t have to head out tomorrow and try to run a marathon. That’s not necessary—but getting more active is. Don’t wait for tomorrow—start today. Keep up the momentum, just as soon as you’re done reading this issue!

Other forms of exercise you can try include gardening, dancing, chopping wood, bicycling and swimming. Hike on a local trail. Turn on the radio and dance in your living room. Give your tennis arm some practice. Have fun—exercise isn’t supposed to be so deadly serious. In the process, you’ll live longer and happier while making a meaningful dent in your risk of heart disease.

A positive outlet will bring you a positive cholesterol level

Do you want to know what’ll kill you faster than bad food, a sedentary lifestyle and cigarettes combined? Stress. It will increase your cholesterol level: When your body perceives a threat, it uses up more cholesterol in order to support its stress response. More important, stress provokes inflammation and magnifies your risk of heart disease and an early death.

I’m not telling you to perform a miracle and have zero stress. As a rule, stress is one of those givens —like death and taxes (and the bumbling of the FDA). However, you need to deal with it by becoming its manager instead of its victim. Your foundation has already been laid with real food and regular physical activity, which will build physical hardiness. The emotional stuff’s a horse of a different color. If you focus on the negatives, guess what happens: It becomes your world. And so starts that vicious, disease-inducing cycle that will literally wring the life right out of you.

I can’t emphasize enough the health-promoting, stress-evaporating power of time spent in a worship group, in a social club, and with friends and family members. Proven practices like deep breathing, prayer, meditation, and biofeedback can also help you manage your stress reaction. I recommend a form of biofeedback called Heartmath, which is being used successfully all over the world. You can purchase what’s called an Em Wave (for about $200) at www.emwave.com. You’ll quickly learn relaxation techniques with this excellent tool.

Nutraceuticals for lower cholesterol

There are natural supplements you can take that, along with your positive eating plan, will promote all-around good health while getting your cholesterol levels back in balance:

• Multivitamin: It’s a must as a blanket insurance policy. I recommend a food-form multivitamin from New Chapter, Megafood, or Garden of Life, because your body can handle them better. Men, choose one without iron. Ladies, be sure to get some extra calcium and magnesium, and men—just extra magnesium. You can take just plain old calcium and magnesium citrate, 600 to 1,200 mg of calcium and 400 to 800 mg of magnesium daily.
  
• Fish oil: This potent anti-inflammatory can protect against sudden death from abnormal heart rhythms, bring down high triglyceride levels and promote the desirable large, buoyant LDL particles. It may also boost good HDL cholesterol. Take 2,000 mg total EPA and DHA (the active form of omega-3s, as spelled out on the label). If your triglyceride level is above 150 (the ideal is below 100), take up to 3,000 mg daily.
  
• Vitamin D: Another anti-inflammatory, vitamin D protects against heart disease. Take 1,000 to 2,000 IUs daily. Ask your doctor to check your vitamin D level. (The optimum blood level of 25-hydroxy vitamin D is between 50 and 60 ng/ml.)
  
• Probiotics: They will promote healthy bacteria in your gut, balance your immune system, and, most importantly, normalize your cholesterol level. Take 10 billion colony-forming units (CFUs) daily to keep your gut “colonized” with good bacteria.
  
• Red yeast rice: I’m talking about a natural statin, which is why I caution you to treat it pretty much like a drug. It’ll improve your cholesterol and reduce inflammation. Red yeast rice behaves in a more balanced way in the body and causes fewer side effects than prescription forms. More and more cardiologists are using it—especially for people who can’t tolerate or simply refuse to take prescription statin drugs. It contains monacolins, which are the active ingredient, and it’s chemically identical to one of the first classes of statins, lovastatin. I recommend 400 to 600 mg per day, with the approval of your doctor.
  
• Antioxidants: I recommend Zyflamend from New Chapter or Vitanox from Medi-Herb. If you take extra vitamin E, choose a mixed tocopherol form (preferably one that also includes the four tocotrienols). Gamma tocopherol, not alpha tocopherol, protects LDL cholesterol from harmful oxidation. Don’t take over 400 units per day, and let your doctor know what you’re taking, because vitamin E has mild blood-thinning effects.

Here are additional options to round out your tool kit, based on your individual need:

• Plant sterols: They reduce absorption of cholesterol, lower levels 5 to 15 percent, and may confer some anti-inflammatory benefits.
  
• Tocotrienols: Part of the vitamin E family, this powerful anti-oxidant lowers LDL cholesterol and may protect against stroke and cancer.
  
• Sytrinol: Derived from citrus fruits, it lowers LDL-cholesterol and triglyceride levels while promoting favorable large and fluffy LDL-particle size. Take 150 mg twice daily.
  
• Pantethine: It lowers LDL cholesterol, boosts HDL and brings down triglycerides. Take 300 mg three times per day with meals.
  
• Niacin: The RDA for this B-complex vitamin (B3) is 20 mg daily. But prescription doses of up to 2,000 mg per day are used to boost HDL and bring down triglycerides (a pattern typically found in people with, or at risk for, diabetes). It’s effective, but it causes unpleasant flushing. Regular old off-the-shelf niacin will do if it’s taken with meals. Start at 250 mg per day with dinner. That dose can then be increased by 250 mg per week. This needs professional supervision, as liver and blood sugar tests need to be followed.

A primo blood test

I’m assuming your doctor is looking at a basic blood-cholesterol test: total, LDL, HDL and triglycerides, and hopefully a C-reactive protein that measures inflammation and is a strong predictor, when high, of heart-disease risk. (Ideally you want it below 1.0). I recommend you ask for the VAP test from Atherotec or a similar test from Berkeley Heart Labs or Spectra Cell. They all supply similarly fine details that allow a more accurate assessment of risk.

Focus on these two numbers

If you’re numbers-oriented and want to reduce your heart-disease risk, work on boosting your HDL to over 50 and reducing your triglycerides (TG’s) to below 100. These lower heart-disease risk more than worrying about lowering your LDL. Low TG’s favor a desirable, large and fluffy LDL particle type. Statins don’t budge either of these very much.

Boost HDL by up to 50 percent and lower TG’s:

• Niacin (Up to 2,000 mg a day)
• High dose fish oil (3,000 mg EPA+DHA daily)
• Exercise
• Cut back on carbohydrates, and cut out entirely the highly-processed stuff

Lower your blood pressure without beta blockers

If you were diagnosed with high blood pressure, your doctor probably made a notation on your chart that you have essential hypertension. That’s what over 90 percent of cases are called, and it means “cause unknown.”

Nonsense. If you can normalize high blood pressure with real food, exercise, appropriate weight loss and good stress management, the causes are fake food, inactivity, overweight, and poor stress-handling skills. Plain and simple.

But the term essential hypertension is a cop-out that results in the overuse of drugs. And as it turns out, two common drugs used to treat high blood pressure, hydrochlorothiazide and beta blockers, hasten the onset of diabetes. Many doctors are unaware of this not-so-little secret. And many who do know about it hem and haw on the subject. After all, those drugs lower blood pressure! But why choose the lesser of two evils, when there are solutions that don’t involve putting you at risk for the devastation of diabetes.

Smart changes will bring you smart results

Salt gets a lot of blame for hypertension. And in some cases, it’s true. Excess salt intake in salt-sensitive individuals equals increased blood pressure. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. Excess salt causes the retention of fluid and actually triggers a mild surge of your stress hormones. If your blood pressure is creeping up, cut back on the salt. Also knock it off with buying those nasty processed foods—they’re overloaded with sodium.

If you must have salt, use the right kind. Plain old table salt is a processed chemical that’s foreign to your body. A bit of sea salt is okay, however, as it has a full complement of health-supporting trace minerals—like the sea water you’re made of. You can also fill your saltshaker with Mrs. Dash, a salt-free spice mix—or create your own. You may initially struggle with salt cravings, but they’ll disappear in about two weeks.

If you drink alcohol, cut back. More than a drink or two per day can increase your blood pressure and also lead to weight gain due to empty calories, which can be another factor in your escalating blood pressure.

Even if you’re 50 to 100 pounds overweight, losing just 10 to 20 pounds can make a difference. But don’t try to lose all that in just a week or two. More than two pounds per week will be mostly water, not fat, and won’t improve your health. Cutting 200 carbohydrate calories per day adds up to a 25-pound weight loss in a year. That’s about two light beers right there. That weight difference will help send your blood-pressure number south, where it belongs.

Clean up your stuff

The cornerstone of your blood-pressure-lowering campaign consists of real food, exercise and stress management. It’s what I call “cleaning up your stuff,” and this trio is many times more powerful —and ultimately a lot cheaper—than any pills you can take. And taking supplements can help move things along while you fix the underlying problem. Again, you have 90 days to make changes. I recommend the slow-and-steady approach, because that’s the one that will stick for the long haul.

• Fruits and vegetables: Bump up your intake. They’re rich in potassium and magnesium—minerals that relax your blood vessels and lower your blood pressure.
  
• Skip these: Heavily processed, salt-laden, alien-to-God’s-creation foods.
  
• Breathe: No, I’m not being a smart-aleck. While you may do it every day, there are a variety of ways to breathe. Check out RESPERATE (www.resperate.com), a clever device that will guide you toward a healthy breathing pattern and lower your blood pressure. It’s supported by solid research and is recommended by major institutions like the Mayo Clinic.

Get this key blood test

Ask your doctor to test your vitamin D status. Here’s why: Vitamin D performs a lot of key functions in your body. One task is regulating the action of your renin-angiotensin system, which is your hormone system responsible for regulating your blood pressure. If this system is inappropriately activated, your body will retain salt and fluid, increasing your blood pressure. This could be an important factor in your high blood pressure —as it is for many people. Vitamin D works at the fundamental level of the cell nucleus to regulate genes that influence plasma renin. Over half the population is deficient in vitamin D. Correcting this deficiency helps normalize blood pressure by normalizing renin activity, in addition to conferring a whole host of other important health benefits.

The renin-angiotensin system is the target of two types of drugs, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE inhibitors) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs). These drugs will no doubt drop your blood pressure, but they also carry side effects. Vitamin D3 works similarly, but safely at a more fundamental level.

In my own practice, I’ve found that correcting vitamin D deficiencies with 1,000 to 2,000 IUs daily is all that’s needed to normalize some patients’ blood pressure. It makes more sense to give the body what it’s missing before you start chasing after high blood pressure with a drug hammer. That’s good medicine. If your 25-hydroxy vitamin D level is too low (<30 nanograms/milliliter), get it up to the 50 to 60 range and see where your pressure goes—it just may solve the problem.

To a regimen of vitamin D, I recommend adding:

• 4 Fish oil: Omega-3 fats from fish oil loosen up your blood vessels and lower blood pressure, but over 90 percent of the population doesn’t get enough. Fish oil protects against heart disease, diabetes, dementia and cancer while supporting joint health and a healthy mood. The best natural sources are cold-water fish like salmon, mackerel, sardines and herring. If you opt for a supplement form, shoot for 2,000 milligrams total EPA plus DHA—the active forms.
  
• 4 Magnesium: Deficiencies of this key mineral are rampant thanks to the Standard American Diet, with over 50 percent of the population not getting enough. It has mild “calcium-channel-blocker” effects, which means it’ll help to relax tight, narrow blood vessels and reduce blood pressure. Magnesium is found in fruits, vegetables, nuts and whole grains. Add 400 to 600 mg from food-form vitamins or up to 1,200 mg of the widely available magnesium citrate capsules.

There are several well-designed blood-pressure remedies to consider that drop blood pressure and support general good health. I’ve seen great results with “Blood Pressure Take Care” from New Chapter, an innovative company in Bennington, Vermont. Its premium products are available at retail stores and on the Internet (www.newchapter.com). I have no financial ties with the company—I’ve just witnessed the positive effects its products have had on my own patients.

This particular formulation includes specific probiotics, grape-seed extract and hawthorn. These work safely in combination on multiple pathways to help reduce blood pressure. They also supply antioxidant support and help maintain healthy levels of HDL “good” cholesterol. Also, check out Vasotensin, a unique formulation that’s derived from bonito fish and is made by Metagenics (www.metagenics.com). It helps prevent blood vessels from narrowing.

Freedom from GERD medications in 90 days

Got heartburn? The drug companies salivate at the thought, and mainstream medicine has turned this very treatable problem into a chronic medical condition. It’s not. Most people get heartburn now and then. A regular occurrence could be a problem, but let’s separate fact from fiction before we jump on the purple-pill bandwagon.

A regular occurrence of heartburn is called gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), which occurs when stomach-acid backflow (reflux) erodes the lining of your esophagus. This can worsen to Barrett’s esophagus, which increases your risk of esophageal cancer. The reason why doctors worry over heartburn and tend to jump the gun is due to statistics: Nearly 16,000 people will be diagnosed with esophageal cancer this year, and 13,000 will die from it.

You can often get rid of heartburn by taking an acid-blocking drug—either an OTC H2 blocker like Pepsid, Zantac or Tagamet or a much more powerful proton-pump inhibitor like Medium, Proton, Propose or Prefaced. Indeed, you can use any of these drugs now and then to kill heartburn without risking a lot of damage to your health. They can also be used short-term to help you heal ulcers or esophageal erosions.

But it’s a very bad idea for you to take them long term and certainly not every single day. As you age, you make less stomach acid—but your need for it doesn’t decrease. Also, as you age, the protective mucosal lining of your stomach and your intestine may thin out. The regular use of NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen, naproxen and aspirin, or even inadequate nutrition, can cause this. Another big cause of a thinned-out lining is prolonged stress, which can occur if you’ve handled a lot of emotional or physical stress poorly over many years. Cortisol will actually gnaw away at this lining over time.

Reduced stomach acid with or without a thinned-out GI mucosal layer can cause the symptoms of GERD. In short, your digestive system just isn’t working as well as it should. It’s estimated that up to 90 percent of all cases of GERD may be due to either of these problems—not too much stomach acid, as the Nexium pushers want you to believe. So the regular use of any acid-blocking medication is less than ideal (read “bad medicine”).

Don’t settle for feeling better temporarily—we can fix the problem permanently. The following non-drug measures will control symptoms of GERD, because for the most part, with this condition, when you get rid of the symptoms, you get rid of the problem.

Here are the basics to start with:

• Drop five to 10 pounds: Losing just this small amount may make the difference—even if it doesn’t bring you back to your normal body weight. Excess weight around the middle only serves to push stomach acid back up into your esophagus.
  
• Avoid tight clothes and belts: Literally loosen up, or you’ll be helping to push acid back up into your esophagus.
  
• Eat smaller meals: Overeating causes stress on your system. Finish up three to four hours before bedtime. And what you do eat, chew thoroughly.
  
• Kick butts: Smoking aggravates heartburn problems. (Though if you keep smoking, heartburn may be the least of your worries.)
  
• Raise your bed: Lift the head of your bed four to six inches or sleep in a recliner to help get rid of symptoms. Obviously it won’t fix the underlying problem, but it’s another tool that will help provide relief.
  
• Watch for food triggers: Pay attention to and minimize likely food-type instigators. Caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, hot spices and peppers, tomatoes, mint, and peppermint are common culprits.
  
• Protect your GI mucosal lining: Clamp down on cortisol, or it’ll continue to wear down your lining. A stress-reduction program will maximize your chances of long-term healing. Talk therapy, prayer, meditation and long hikes are just some of the ways to release the steam from the cortisol pressure cooker.
  
• Cut out NSAID’s: It’s bad enough that they kill 15,000 people per year. There’s no point in taking a chance on thinning out the mucosal lining of your stomach and intestines. A highly effective and safe botanical anti-inflammatory is Zyflamend made by New Chapter (www.newchapter.com).

The next level

To improve your gut function, the following will help you pull out all the stops:

• Probiotics: They provide general gut support and anti-inflammatory protection. Take at least 10 billion colony-forming units daily. This usually amounts to two capsules twice daily, and preferably with food. If you don’t like to take a lot of supplements at once, feel free to take one in the morning and the other one before bedtime.
  
• Fish oil supplement: 2,000 milligrams total EPA and DHA daily to help tune up your gut function.
  
• Digestive enzymes: Take these before a meal as part of an overall treatment plan for improving your digestion and relieving symptoms. Jarrow-Zymes Plus by Jarrow Formulas is a quality, widely available product.
  
• The Heidelberg test: Ask your doctor to determine whether or not you have too little stomach acid by ordering this test. It involves your swallowing a small capsule and waiting for 40 minutes.
  
• Betaine hydrochloride: You can also diagnose and treat low stomach acid with betaine hydrochloride, which will promote higher stomach acid levels. Do this only under supervision of an experienced practitioner.
  
• Bitters: These stimulate the digestive juices (aka stomach acid), a fact well known for centuries. Folks used to drink bitter aperitif beverages before meals. Swedish bitters (without alcohol) are widely available in stores and on the Internet. (Just type “Swedish bitters” into www.google.com to locate sources.) Try it before your meals.

Pump up your GI mucosa

There are several things you can use to build a thinned-out GI mucosal layer, whatever the cause. Mallow root (marshmallow), deglycyrrhizinated licorice (DGL), aloe vera gel, zinc carnosine, the amino acid glutamate and mastic gum are all known for their gut-healing properties. There are a number of top-line supplement companies that combine all of these healing agents into one convenient formulation so you don’t have to swallow a hundred pills per day. One such product is GI Revive from Designs for Health. Another useful product is Seavive, a fish protein derivative that helps heal the GI tract. It’s made by Proper Nutrition (www.propernutrition.com). You may need to take these products for three to 12 months to build up your GI mucosa.

Mark your calendar…

By the end of this summer, you could be off your drugs for good. I want you to look back on 2008 as the year you made your personal turnaround in terms of wellness. And when this natural regimen works for you, think of how many people you can influence to get off of their own crippling drug prescriptions and onto a new way of actually feeling healthy for the first time in years.

Drugs can intensify GERD symptoms

According to the National Institutes of Health, the following drugs and drug categories are associated with GERD:

• Calcium-channel blockers for high blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythms (ex. Norvasc, Diltiazem and Procardia)
• Tricyclic antidepressants (ex. Elavil)
• Sedatives for insomnia and anxiety (ex. Ativan, Valium and Klonopin)
• Beta blockers
• Bronchodilators for asthma (ex. Albuterol)

A hidden cause of GERD

If you have developed a hiatal hernia (HH), that may explain your GERD. It’s caused by a weakness in the tight band of tissue, called the lower esophageal sphincter, between your esophagus and your stomach. A barium swallow test can diagnose it, as can an esphophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD)—a mouthful that basically means a slender tube with a camera is inserted down into the stomach. It’s a safe, well-tolerated procedure, and it’s done under sedation.

Some chiropractors can pop a HH back into place with brief finger pressure. This may hold for weeks or months. There are also several newer, minimally invasive procedures performed at larger medical centers that can correct the problem and get you off drugs (see www.mayoclinic.org/minimally-invasive-surgery).

Also, make the changes I’m recommending here for GERD relief without drugs.