Did you know that roughly 10% of the American population suffers from depression? It isn’t exactly a coincidence, with the FDA approving a wide variety of damaging foods and drugs that many millions of Americans consume each day. The FDA isn’t helping the population with their approval of the dozens of antidepressant medications on the market – it in fact is doing the exact opposite.

The beneficial results of antidepressants have been under the spotlight for quite some time in the health world, and the validity of giving them out like candy to patients in need of a quick and easy solution is under question as well; just how useful is medication for depression? At best, the tangible results felt by patients are comparable to sugar pills. That is to say, the medication itself does virtually nothing to improve the mood of the patient directly. At worst, antidepressants cause decreased mental stability. Wanting to kill yourself or others around you are feelings which antidepressants have been shown to ignite.

There is even the possibility that while on these terrible drugs you can become even more vulnerable to more serious mental illnesses – all whilst other legitimate non-medication methods for treating depression are being tread underfoot by the FDA.

In more recent studies, there has been surfacing evidence that antidepressants cause arteries to thicken at a faster rate. One some cases, research specifically points to an increased thickness of the lining of the carotid artery by up to 5% in men, thereby increasing the risk of heart disease substantially by putting more pressure on the heart. This occurs when on both selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs, the primary form of antidepressants) and antidepressants that affect other chemicals in the brain. The evidence isn’t completely concrete, but it points towards the change of serotonin in the body caused by the medications.

Another study in women who have gone through menopause unveiled that women who take either variation of antidepressants were up to 45% more likely to suffer from life threatening brain damage from a stroke. This same study also found that women’s death rates rose 32% more whilst on the drugs.

Other side effects that are documented in both normal people and scientists are much more prominent, but certainly no less detrimental to your health. These include those suicidal/homicidal thoughts mentioned earlier, as well as an increased risk of diabetes, an increased possibility of stillbirth, lowered immune system support and reduced bone density -  resulting in a higher risk of fractures, primarily in the spinal column.

There are also a few long term risks with using these detrimental drugs: a conversion from unipolar depression to bipolar depression, and an overall cognitive decline in most users. If becoming bipolar unnecessarily does not steer you away from these, then the overall loss of your mental capacity should be enough to raise a warning flag.

Depression may be the worst emotional experience there is. The causes are many, and it often drives people to zig-zag past everything that matters and into a pill bottle of pharmaceutical ‘treatments’. But these solutions offered by the pharmaceutical industry are nothing but a sham, and their antidepressant products only make you more depressed and trigger suicidal thoughts. One study has also found that antidepressants cause your arteries to thicken 400% more than aging – a main factor in the thickening of the arteries.

Antidepressants Linked to Heart Disease and Stroke

A study conducted by the Emory University School of Medicine included over 500 middle-aged male twins, both who served in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. The researchers noted that among 59 pairs of twins where only one brother was on antidepressants, the one ingesting the drugs usually had higher carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) – the thickness of main arteries in the neck.

“One of the strongest and best-studied factors that thickens someone’s arteries is age, and that happens at around 10 microns per year…In our study, users of antidepressants see an average 40 micron increase in IMT, so their carotid arteries are in effect four years older,” says the first study author Amit Shah, MD.

The most commonly prescribed antidepressants are known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as Prozac. Researchers found that participants who used SSRIs, which were 60 percent of those taking antidepressants, had higher carotid IMT. This may be due to the effects antidepressants have on serotonin levels, which is a chemical in your body that helps some brain cells communicate.

These findings are just one more thing to add to the long list of why people shouldn’t be taking many harmful pharmaceuticals. More than 1 in 10 Americans are on these suicide-linked antidepressants even though they do not work and only make the problem worse. Instead of resorting to these pharmaceuticals, try supplementing with vitamin D, as it has been shown to defeat depression naturally. It is also key to de-stress the brain, as depression is always cultivated from stress-related aspects of your life.

The big lie pertains to unbalanced calcium supplementation. Calcium from raw whole foods is beneficial and necessary. But all those processed foods fortified with calcium or supplements high in elemental calcium are likely to do more harm than good. Elemental calcium is the calcium apart from the compound in which it normally appears. For example, if you remove the calcium from calcium carbonate, you are left with elemental calcium.

Bone Health and Calcium

Several trials and tests have determined that calcium supplementation makes bones denser, but weaker! The calcium for bone health paradigm used by mainstream medicine is an unfortunate oversimplification.

Other minerals, such as magnesium, are part of the bone health supplemental paradigm. Dr. Robert Thompson, author of The Calcium Lie, explains that there are a dozen minerals involved with building strong bones. He recommends using unprocessed sea salt to compliment the trace mineral needs that we don’t get because of aggravated agricultural depleted topsoil.

Dr. Thompson further explains how focusing on calcium supplementation without considering the complimentary minerals and vitamins K2 and D3 increases one’s risk of osteoporosis. Complimentary minerals include silica and magnesium. Silica is found in cucumbers and bell peppers. Magnesium is high in cacao and green leafy vegetables.

And of course, there are many types of magnesium supplements available. It’s important to research which is both easily assimilated and within budget. There are a few differently priced brands of topically applied magnesium oil, considered the best way to get magnesium. Fizzing powders are excellent, but pricey. Dr. Mark Sircus is big on proper magnesium supplementation, since this mineral is involved with 300 metabolic processes involving other minerals and vitamins. Many praise magnesium as the “master mineral.”

Plant derived calcium (organic of course), which is often balanced naturally with other minerals, is a good way to meet most calcium needs. Recent international studies that have associated calcium with prostate cancer, but diet was not taken into consideration along with other nutrients, such as magnesium and vitamins K2 and D3.

Calcium from bad sources that are not balanced with at least those three nutrients is common. Pasteurized toxic dead dairy is the only type of dairy medical science recognizes as food! It’s safe to assume that raw dairy produced milk from by grass eating cows is actually beneficial for calcium intake.

Vitamin K2, found in nato and other fermented foods including some cheeses, is worthy of supplementation since it carries calcium out of the blood stream and into bone matter. There are also vitamin K2 supplement capsules available now.

Otherwise, calcium collects in the blood stream and invades soft tissue instead of being absorbed in bone matter. What happens from there wreaks havoc on vital tissues, kidneys, arterial walls and heart muscle.

Exposing Calcium Lies and Kicking the Cholesterol Scare

Cholesterol is necessary for good health. It creates soft fatty tissue, much of which makes up brain matter. It’s not cholesterol that builds up in arteries to form plaque or harden the arteries. Cholesterol is a soft, pliable fatty tissue. It’s actually calcium that is the culprit. You may have found the term calcification appearing more frequently in health articles lately. It’s becoming a popularly accepted notion, and it’s an increased awareness of reality.

Calcification is the hardening of tissue matter, often from calcium or scar tissue that collects in soft tissues. That’s why vitamin K2 is important. K2 helps ensure increased calcium absorption along with Vitamin D3 supplementation to go into the skeleton instead of calcifying in cardiovascular zones or other soft tissues.

Calcium can easily get stockpiled and calcify in organs, which is what usually causes kidney stones. Calcification of brain matter can also lead to Alzheimer’s disease, and hardened arteries resulting from excess calcium leads to heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems. It’s easy to see how calcification of the prostate gland can also lead to cancer as well.

But it’s folly to make assumptions from testing or studies conducted on those who are consuming pasteurized dairy, elemental calcium supplements, very little greens or magnesium supplements, and no K2 foods or supplements as well as not taking in vitamin D3 by sunlight or supplement. They are targets for calcium’s calcification in soft tissues, the brain, and inner artery walls.

Another pernicious function of calcified areas is that they encase toxins, making it harder to eliminate toxins from that area. Additionally, these calcified areas in soft tissue create pockets for sneaky pathogenic bacteria or viruses to lodge, making them difficult to locate and treat.

This is why it’s important to focus on rich organic whole foods for calcium balanced with other minerals. Elemental calcium from supplements and enriched processed foods tends to be unrecognizable as a nutrient by the body. So it collects where it shouldn’t and there goes your health down the path of inflammatory diseases attributed to aging.

Sources:

NaturalNews

NaturalNews

Mercola

Vitamin D could probably be called the miracle vitamin of the last 5 or 10 years. Study after study has come out glorifying the benefits of vitamin D, and for good reason. The vitamin has been shown to be a powerful cancer fighter as well as 800% more effective in preventing the flu than vaccines. Vitamin D has also been shown to be better than fluoride at cavity prevention. Research has also pointed out that vitamin D can be an effective solution to lower blood pressure, promote vascular health by helping blood vessels, and contribute to healthy arteries.

Vitamin D Shown to Improve Vascular Health and Lower Blood Pressure

The study which shows a lack of vitamin d leads to impaired vascular health involved 554 participants with an average age of 47 and were generally healthy. After blood tests were taken, the average level of vitamin D in the participants was 31.8 nanograms per milliliter. Out of the 554 participants, 14 percent were deficient in 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels (a stable form of the vitamin which reflects both diet and production in the skin), which is less than 20 nanograms per milliliter. 33 percent of the participants had level considered insufficient at less than 30 nanograms per milliliter.

It is important to note that these researchers are using vitamin D level ranges that are not optimal. Here are more current optimal levels. Every single expert will not agree on this.

• Deficient – <50 nanograms/milliliter
• Optimal – 50-70 nanograms/milliliter
• Treat Cancer and Heart Disease – 70-100 nanograms/milliliter
• Excess –  >100 nanograms/milliliter

The researchers also ran tests to measure vascular health and the health of arteries, but even after controlling factors like age, weight, and cholesterol, a lack of vitamin D was found in people who had stiffer arteries and impaired vascular function. What’s more, participants who raised their vitamin D levels over the next 6 months experienced improved vascular health and had lower blood pressure

If you want to lower blood pressure, contrite to the health of your arteries, and improve vascular health through helping blood vessels, look no further than vitamin D. Vitamin D beats the pharmaceuticals, and doesn’t come with any harsh or nasty side-effects. It is also extremely easy to attain through combining sunlight exposure with diet. When on a mission to experience the incredible benefits of vitamin D by escalating vitamin D levels, remember to supplement with vitamin D3 instead of vitamin D2, as vitamin D2 is a synthetic form and has been shown to be toxic.

A new study has found that consuming fruit with a white interior, such as apples and pears, can protect your body against strokes — adding to the pile of research that suggests fruit consumption can help slash your risk of disease. Fruit with a white interior contain both fiber and flavonoids, two potent nutrients that researchers say is why these foods are so protective against stroke.

CBS News reports:

“Two nutrients in particular,” Phillips said. “The first is fiber. Fiber has been shown to lower your blood pressure, probably the most important factor for reducing stroke risk. Another is a flavonoid that prevents plaque building up in the arteries, which also prevents heart disease.

“Both apples and pears, in particular, are high in those nutrients. Cauliflower, cucumbers, bananas — all of those things are high in those nutrients that prevent stroke.”

“The most important risk factors (for stroke), Phillips pointed out, “are high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Outside of that, if you cut out the smoking, you’re cutting your risk dramatically. Diabetes is a risk factor, and a previous history of heart disease or a family history of stroke, they matter also.

Overweight and obese people looking to drop some pounds and considering one of the popular low-carbohydrate diets, along with moderate exercise, need not worry that the higher proportion of fat in such a program compared to a low-fat, high-carb diet may harm their arteries, suggests a pair of new studies by heart and vascular researchers at Johns Hopkins.

“Overweight and obese people appear to really have options when choosing a weight-loss program, including a low-carb diet, and even if it means eating more fat,” says the studies’ lead investigator exercise physiologist Kerry Stewart, Ed.D.

Stewart, a professor of medicine and director of clinical and research exercise physiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart and Vascular Institute, says his team’s latest analysis is believed to be the first direct comparison of either kind of diet on the effects to vascular health, using the real-life context of 46 people trying to lose weight through diet and moderate exercise. The research was prompted by concerns from people who wanted to include one of the low-carb, high-fat diets, such as Atkins, South Beach and Zone, as part of their weight-loss program, but were wary of the diets’ higher fat content.

In the first study, scheduled to be presented June 3 at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Denver, the Hopkins team studied 23 men and women, weighing on average 218 pounds and participating in a six-month weight-loss program that consisted of moderate aerobic exercise and lifting weights, plus a diet made up of no more than 30 percent of calories from carbs, such as pastas, breads and sugary fruits. As much as 40 percent of their diet was made up of fats coming from meat, dairy products and nuts. This low-carb group showed no change after shedding 10 pounds in two key measures of vascular health: finger tip tests of how fast the inner vessel lining in the arteries in the lower arm relaxes after blood flow has been constrained and restored in the upper arm (the so-called reactive hyperemia index of endothelial function), and the augmentation index, a pulse-wave analysis of arterial stiffness.

Low-carb dieters showed no harmful vascular changes, but also on average dropped 10 pounds in 45 days, compared to an equal number of study participants randomly assigned to a low-fat diet. The low-fat group, whose diets consisted of no more than 30 percent from fat and 55 percent from carbs, took on average nearly a month longer, or 70 days, to lose the same amount of weight.

“Our study should help allay the concerns that many people who need to lose weight have about choosing a low-carb diet instead of a low-fat one, and provide re-assurance that both types of diet are effective at weight loss and that a low-carb approach does not seem to pose any immediate risk to vascular health,” says Stewart. “More people should be considering a low-carb diet as a good option,” he adds.

Because the study findings were obtained within three months, Stewart says the effects of eating low-carb, higher-fat diets versus low-fat, high-carb options over a longer period of time remain unknown.

However, Stewart does contend that an over-emphasis on low-fat diets has likely contributed to the obesity epidemic in the United States by encouraging an over-consumption of foods high in carbohydrates. He says high-carb foods are, in general, less filling, and people tend to get carried away with how much low-fat food they can eat. More than half of all American adults are estimated to be overweight, with a body mass index, or BMI, of 26 or higher; a third are considered to be obese, with a BMI of 30 or higher.

Stewart says the key to maintaining healthy blood vessels and vascular function seems — in particular, when moderate exercise is included — less about the type of diet and more about maintaining a healthy body weight without an excessive amount of body fat.

Among the researchers’ other key study findings, to be presented separately at the conference, was that consuming an extremely high-fat McDonald’s breakfast meal, consisting of two English muffin sandwiches, one with egg and another with sausage, along with hash browns and a decaffeinated beverage, had no immediate or short-term impact on vascular health. Study participants’ blood vessels were actually less stiff when tested four hours after the meal, while endothelial or blood vessel lining function remained normal.

Researchers added the McDonald’s meal challenge immediately before the start of the six-month investigation to separate any immediate vascular effects from those to be observed in the longer study. They also wanted to see what happened when people ate a higher amount of fat in a single meal than recommended in national guidelines. Previous research had suggested that such a meal was harmful, but its negative findings could not be confirmed in the Johns Hopkins’ analysis. The same meal challenge will be repeated at the end of the study, when it is expected that its participants will still have lost considerable weight, despite having eaten more than the recommended amount of fat.

“Even consuming a high-fat meal now and then does not seem to cause any immediate harm to the blood vessels,” says Stewart. However, he strongly cautions against eating too many such meals because of their high salt and caloric content. He says this single meal — at over 900 calories and 50 grams of fat — is at least half the maximum daily fat intake recommended by the American Heart Association and nearly half the recommended average daily intake of about 2,000 calories for most adults.

All study participants were between the age of 30 and 65, and healthy, aside from being overweight or obese. Researchers say that in the first study, because people were monitored for the period they lost the same amount of weight, any observed vascular differences would be due to what they ate.

Funding for the study was provided by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with additional assistance from the Johns Hopkins Bayview Institute for Clinical Translational Research, also funded by the NIH. Besides Stewart, other Johns Hopkins researchers who took part in the studies were Sameer Chaudri, M.D.; Devon Dobrosielski, Ph.D.; Harry Silber, M.D., Ph.D.; Sammy Zakaria, M.D., M.P.H.; Edward Shapiro, M.D.; and Pamela Ouyang, M.B.B.S.