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What if there were a significant identifiable risk factor for the cause of coronary heart disease, stroke and peripheral vascular disease (fatty deposits in peripheral arteries). Is this something that you would want to know about? More importantly would you want your doctor checking your status with regards to this risk factor during your check-ups?

By significant I mean that 40% of the 12.5 million deaths due to strokes that occur globally each year are a result of this risk factor. What about the estimated 16.7 million people who die each year (globally) from cardiovascular disease. Of those 16.7 million this risk factor increased their risk of heart attack by 50%. Of course we hear a lot about Alzheimer’s disease, but we don’t hear that our chances of developing this disease are increased by 150% by this very same risk factor.

When was the last time your doctor checked your levels of Homocysteine? You’re asking, “Homocysteine”? Well it happens to be a little amino acid in the blood that was discovered a few years ago. 1932 to be exact, but it wasn’t that long ago. Now in all fairness there wasn’t a link to human disease until 1962, so that should make you feel a lot better. However, during the last 15 years it has been a well established fact that elevated levels of homocysteine levels are a very strong risk for cardiovascular disease, stroke and peripheral vascular disease. Additionally, there are a number of studies that have found an association between high levels of this amino acid in the blood and impaired cognitive performance and dementia.

For those of you that have never heard of this minor fact you may be amazed to know that by some estimates there is a 15 (or more) year gap between research that is making significant discoveries and that research making it into your doctors office where they actually put it into practice. Now before we start beating up on our doctors, please keep in mind that these guys are being bombarded daily with information about the newest and latest drug that is coming out, trying to see as many patients as possible and then let’s not forget about those pesky malpractice suites that they have to deal with. What I am saying hear is that not all of it falls on their shoulders. With the insurance companies getting in the mix, the government and of course the big pharmaceutical companies it is amazing that any of the information that really matters ever makes it to where it will do us some good. Don’t despair. For those of your reading this you are well ahead of the game by taking some responsibility for your own health. In the end that is really all that we can do, because information is changing so rapidly with the advances in technology.

Back to our little-known friend, the Homocysteine amino acid. Homocysteine is produced in the body by the chemical conversion of methionine, which is a compound regularly consumed in our diet. One such food that is rich in methionine is fish. Once foods rich in methionine are consumed the methionine is taken into the blood and into cells where a methyl group is removed to produce homocysteine. The good news is that if the body then adds a different methyl group it creates a new chemical called S-adenosyl methionine (SAMe) which is a natural antidepressant. Additionally this new chemical is also helpful in fighting against arthritis and is excellent at lowering the homocysteine levels. Beyond this there is some very good news. It has been observed that as the levels of SAMe rise, the body’s best anti-aging agent, glutathione is produced from the homocysteine that is in your blood. Basically, the key to having a long healthy life is to keep the glutathione levels up and the homocysteine levels down.

You will be happy to know that the dietary nutrients with the greatest effect on breaking down homocysteine in the body are folic acid and vitamins B6 and B12. There have been a number of studies that show that high levels of B vitamins in the blood are related to lower levels of homocysteine. Unfortunately, due to the over processing of many of our foods there is a large portion of our population that has deficient levels of these important nutrients in their blood. Some of the foods that you can turn to in your battle against high levels of homocysteine in your body are: leafy green vegetables, grains, whole grain products, citrus fruits, tomatoes, and vegetables in general. For those of you that don’t know one of the best sources of leafy green vegetables that I use is a product called MetaGreens. One tablespoon of MetaGreens in my glass of orange juice in the mornings and I have had the equivalent of 5 large green salads for the day and I know that the nutrients have been preserved and the greens are all organic.

In case you want to have this tested next time you are in for a check-up it is my understanding that the following is a good guideline for the levels that you should be looking for.
Note: Homocysteine is test in micromoles per liter of blood (umol/L).

Above 14 – you are at major risk
Between 9 and 14 – you are getting into the high risk area.
Below 9 – is the range that you want to fall into. Basically, it has been determined that the lower the levels of homocysteine the lower your risk for developing coronary artery disease and suffering a fatal heart attack or stroke.

In short I have written this entry just to highlight one simple, but one I would hope you would agree, is a significant fact that I knew nothing of and had never heard from a doctor. They are busy just like the rest of us, so if we are going to expect to live a long healthy life we have to invest a little time educating ourselves on the latest research that is available concerning our health. Who knows you may even be able to educate your family doctor the next time you see him/her.

For those of you that would like to do some further research I am including some references below:

References:

1) Alzheimer’s Society UK (2005), Policy Positions – Demography

2) American Heart Association (2004), International Cardiovascular Disease Statistics fact sheet

3) American Heart Association (2004), Heart and stroke facts

4) American Heart Association (2005), Homocysteine, Folic Acid and Cardiovascular Disease

5) Delle Chiaie R, Pancheri P. and Scapicchio P. (2002) Efficacy and tolerability of oral and intramuscular S-adenosyl-L-methionine 1,4-butanedisulfonate (SAMe) in the treatment of major depression: comparison with imipramine in 2 multicenter studies. Am J Clin Nutr., 76(5).

6) Lieber CS. (2002) S-adenosyl-L-methionine: its role in the treatment of liver disorders. Am J Clin Nutr., 76(5).

7) Soeken KL et al. (2002) Safety and efficacy of S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe) for osteoarthritis. Journal of Family Practice, 51.

Vollset SE et al. (2000) Plasma total homocysteine, pregnancy complications, and adverse pregnancy outcomes; the Hordaland Homocysteine study. Am J Clin Nutr, 71(4).

9) Vollset SE, Refsum H, Tverdal A, Nygard O, Nordrehaug JE, Tell GS, Ueland PM. Plasma total homocysteine and cardiovascular and noncardiovascular mortality: the Hordaland Homocysteine Study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2001 Jul;74(1):130-6.

10) Yoshihiro Sato et al. (2005) Effect of Folate and Mecobalamin on Hip Fractures in Patients With Stroke. JAMA, 293.

Have you ever experienced the early morning stiffness in the ankles or knees that makes getting up and walking not so much fun? What about going up stairs and the knees just don’t really feel quite up to the task? Have you reached for something that is above your head or just a little higher so that you have to reach more than the norm and the shoulder just didn’t want to?

If you use to enjoy walking, but your joints just didn’t want to cooperate take heart. There is a new product on the market that is getting all kinds of praise and that product is RegeniCare. Touted as the “Ultimate Joint Care Formula” RegeniCare backs up that claim with state of the art science, enough testimonials to fill a book and double blind placebo controlled human clinical trials where they beat out the leading COX2 inhibitors that were available at the time. Interested?

Now you have a choice and the best choice is RegeniCare. There are a lot of joint care products on the market, many of which contain glucosamine, chondroitin, and numerous other elements that have been found to help with the maintenance and repair of your joints. The real difference here is the quality of the nutrients provided, the quantity of those nutrients and in what combinations, how those nutrients are delivered and how fast will they work once in your body. Basically if research has proven that you need 1500 milligrams of glucosamine you better make sure that you are getting 1500 milligrams and be able to absorb the glucosamine provided. What good do you think it would do if I provided you with a tablet with 1500 milligrams of glucosamine, but the tablet was packed so tight that it was through your digestive system before your body could break it down? Right – none at all. In this scenario you might as well be taking your money and burning it because you are getting no benefit from the products you are taking.

All of these issues and more have been addressed in the design and production of RegeniCare. First and most obvious is that RegeniCare is provided in packets that are typically mixed in water. My preference is to mix my RegeniCare in a coffee cup full of lukewarm water as it seems to mix better for me and it tastes great. Univera LifeSciences has again made use of their full scale genomics to search thousands of plants extracts for the right combination of plant extracts to reduce the inflammation typically associated with joint pain. What they found is that your body can have all of the right nutrients, but if they can not get to the problem area due to inflammation the repair process never gets started. As such they added their patented ingredient Protectin™ to address this issue thereby letting the other nutrients do the job they were meant to do. And, RegeniCare was proven to provide faster and more complete results than other natural products on the market.

Another important aspect of RegeniCare is that it provides all of the required nutrients for complete repair and regeneration of the connective tissues in your body: Glucosamine sulfate, MSM, Chondroitin sulfate, CMO, Protectin™, Vitamin C, and Maxcell™

While we have addressed the Protectin™ contained in RegeniCare many of you may be asking your self about Maxcell™. Maxcell™ is a patented product of Univera LifeSciences that improves the bioavailability of the nutrients contained in RegeniCare. In short Maxcell™ helps to get the nutrients into the blood stream, so they can go to work in the body, more specifically helping you rebuild the connective tissues of your joints.

While both Glucosamine and Chondroitin are naturally occurring in our bodies we begin to produce less and less of these vital nutrients as we begin to age. These nutrients are known as proteoglycans and help to strengthen and hydrate the tendons in our bodies. As we begin to age we have less and less in our system therefore the connective tissues in our bodies begin to dehydrate. Needless to say has these connective tissues begin to dehydrate movement becomes more painful, we are more susceptible to injury and we don’t heal as quickly as we might have at one time. With new research proving daily that exercise is one of the keys to a life filled with vital energy, quicker recovery times from surgery or illness wouldn’t it make sense to do whatever you can to keep moving.

MSM is another critically important nutrient found in healthy joint tissue and as luck would have it most people are not getting this important sulfur compound from their diets. Again, in our battle against Mother Nature, MSM begins to decrease as we age. As such it was important that RegeniCare provide the proper amount of MSM as part of this joint care product.

CMO was proven to improve range of motion in knees during a 2002 Clinical study that was published in the Journal of Rheumatology, just to mention one study. Even with it being a known as an aide to the improvement of joint range of motion, this is not a nutrient you will find in a lot of other joint care products.

While research has proven that exercise will help stimulate the body to produce new collagen and higher levels of the repair and rebuild proteoglycans we are still battling the age factor and RegeniCare is now available to help us win that battle. If you are planning to stay active and enjoy life, verses watching it go by, RegeniCare is a must have in your quest for healthy living. For most of us a single packet daily would be sufficient to help maintain our connective tissues at an optimal level of repair and rebuild. If you are suffering from some kind of an injury, have had a long battle with some connective tissue, or just aren’t seeing the results you expected there is nothing wrong with taking a packet of RegeniCare first thing in the morning and then again at night before bed. If possible it is best to take it on an empty stomach so that the RegeniCare is not competing with other nutrients for absorption, but the import part is to just get it into your system. Additionally for some nagging problems I have known a number of people that were taking the product for 6 to 8 weeks before noticing a significant difference. At the other end of the scale there are those that have experienced relief in a matter of hours, but the important thing to remember is that each of our bodies is unique and as such our results will vary. The one thing that you can, and should, count on is that this is the product to get you the relief that you have been looking for. Weather it is your knees, your back, your neck, your shoulder or any other area of your body that requires the functioning of connective tissue, RegeniCare can help. This is one product that I would put in the category of food and water. Basically I plan to stay active well into may aging years and RegeniCare will help me to ensure that I do so.

If you are Personal Trainer, Yoga Instructor, Massage Therapist, Physical or Occupational Therapist or a Chiropractor working with clients on range of motion and/or the rehabilitation of any joints you would be doing to your clients a huge disservice if you don’t take the time to check this product out.

Let me start by saying that this turned out to be a bit longer than I had anticipated. Going into this I expected that with the tremendous benefits afforded by AgelessXtra that it was going to be tough keeping things to something less than a book. However, with that said I will ask that you stick with me and you’ll have a much better understanding of why AgelessXtra is such a powerhouse when it comes to your overall health and battle against aging.

It is safe to say that AgelessXtra is the flagship product of Univera LifeSciences. While AgelessXtra out sells the product Ageless, AgelessXtra came about some time after the creation of Ageless. While both provide phenomenal results when it comes to your battle against aging there are a few differences. As such I want to address those differences at the start.

The most notable differences is the fact that AgelessXtra is provided in a liquid while the original Ageless is provided in a capsule format. Additionally Ageless is going to offer you some additional ginsengs that are not part of the AgelessXtra formula. By now you may be asking yourself what is the “Xtra” found in AgelessXtra. A very important benefit to the consumption of AgelessXtra vs. Ageless is fact that AgelessXtra is supplied in a delivery system of Active Aloe and a fruit blend of blueberry, cranberry, cherry and grape concentrates. The benefits of this phenomenal delivery system are the benefits gained from the consumption of Active Aloe (immune system and digestive support) and the antioxidant power from the berry concentrates. Stay tuned for a review of Aloe Gold and the benefits of this awesome product.

As many of you may already know many of the health challenges we face today start with our diet. For those that are trying to be health conscious, you’re already thinking that you try to eat pretty healthy. Great! That is only part of the battle.  There is the fact that the soil where many of our foods are grown have been depleted of the required nutrients, add the processing to this mix, many times our food is over cooked (especially vegetables) and at best a healthy adult may absorb a whopping 30% of the nutrients consumed.  All of this leads to a diet that is severely lacking in the antioxidants that we need to neutralize the free radicals we are battling daily. Daily the cells in our body are suffering billions of free radical hits and as a result our DNA is being damaged. Did you know that many of the cancers, and other health challenges that we face start as a result of the damage created by these free radicals? Enter a new bodyguard for the health of your cells and DNA – AgelessXtra. As a special note please keep in mind that AgelessXtra has been certified by the National Diabetes Resource Center as safe and beneficial for diabetics.

Take note that AgelessXtra has one, if not the highest, Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) rating of any nutritional supplement on the market today. By many experts the recommended daily intake of ORAC should be at a minimum 3000. A single once of AgelessXtra supplies an incredible ORAC value of 4500. For those of you who reach for the orange juice when you are starting to feel a bit under the weather, you can take comfort in the fact that a single once of orange juice provides 223 ORAC units. You do the math. That is a lot of orange juice to get the same antioxidant power of a single once of AgelessXtra. You’ll also want to know that the typical American diet at most is providing about 1800 ORAC units which is far short of what is actually required for us to combat against enormous number of free radicals that we should neutralize on a daily basis. If you are betting your money and health on any of the numerous exotic fruits such as mangosteen which was rated at 627 ORAC per once, again drink up. At this point we haven’t even touched the benefits afforded the brain through the consumption of blueberries – discovered by Tufts University.

While, I would like to go in-depth on each of the nutrients found in AgelessXtra and the benefits provided, I won’t. What I will attempt is to cover the key nutrients of AgelessXtra and why they are so important to the benefits afforded by the awesome products.

Let’s start with the B vitamins. Would you be surprised to know that due to the processing of our foods, more and more Americans have sub-optimal amounts of  the essential B vitamins in their diet.

Vitamin B3 (niacin, niacinamide) – Univera LifeSciences has provided B3 in both of these formats which is very beneficial to your overall health. This nutrient is responsible for thousands of biochemical functions in our bodies: aides in the function of the nervous system, maintenance of healthy skin, ensures proper circulation, and helps to reduce cholesterol – just to name a few.

Vitamin B6 – Has been provided in a very special form: the biologically active format of pyridoxal-5-phosphate or P5P. One result of a deficiency in B6 is the decrease in the uptake of amino acids by the muscle cells. This is of special importance to anyone trying to maintain a healthy life style through resistance training. Muscle mass has been proven to be one of the most significant key factors when it comes to longevity.

Ornithine Alpha-ketoglutarate (OKG) – OKG is a vital component to the creation of energy and helps to determine metabolic efficiency. Clinical studies have found that our bodies begin to create less and less of this vital nutrient as we get older. With it being so instrumental in the creation of energy Univera LifeSciences was thoughtful enough to provide us with this vital nutrient in AgelessXtra.

Cordyceps Sinensis – Often referred to as the “Athletes herb”, is a rare mushroom that is known to provide numerous benefits:
Rejuvenation of the immune system.
Speeds recovery from physical exertion.
Reduced fatigue
Increased respiratory capacity even in individuals with reduced capacity.
For more than 1,500 years Cordyceps has been treasured by the Chinese as a valued herb in support of the above listed benefits. Additionally Cordyceps has been highly valued healing agent for those recovering from illness or surgery.

Rhodiola – While not a stimulant this herb has proven in numerous tests to help reduce stress and enhance the production of energy.

Serenix – A proprietary natural extract from young corn leaves that helps reduce stress and maintain a healthy mood.

Protectin – Protectin is a patented natural compound made from Scutellaria baicalensis (root) and Acacia Catechu (bark). Protectin helps protect the body from the wear and tear associated with the aging process.

Green Tea extract – The green tea extract provides two very important nutrients: Polyphenols and Theanine. Polyphenols help support the immune system and provide very important antioxidants. There are a number of clinical trials that link the benefits of green tea with the prevention of degenerative diseases. Secondly Theanine is an amino acid that has been used in Japan for years to help people cope with stress.

As I mentioned at the start I could write a small book about the components in AgelessXtra, their benefits and why they will have such a profound effect on your battle against aging. At this point I would like to begin wrapping up by asking you to keep in mind that this product as been through an IRB certified double blind placebo controlled human clinical trial. This is the gold standard of testing and something you will not find being done by your typical natural products company. Additionally, this product was designed with the backing of the best science available. Univera LifeSciences uses full scale Genomics to ensure that their products are providing the benefits at the DNA level that you need to live a longer life filled with more vital energy, more mental clarity and improved joint comfort and flexibility. There are countless testimonials that are available as further proof that AgelessXtra is a must when it comes to our battle against aging.