Health Articles

Details: Ben Fuchs

Pregnenolone, anonymous and unheralded as it may be, is the Mother of all steroid hormones. It is derived from cholesterol. From there it’s converted into testosterone, progesterone, estrogen and cortisol, among other important biochemicals. Even vitamin D, the body’s homemade essential nutrient, is a derivative of the under-appreciated biochemical.

Pregnenolone itself, in its raw unconverted form, can be considered the quintessential biochemical of youth. Kids and teenagers make loads of it. While pregnenolone on its own may not have many hormone properties, it is able to improve the activity of and stabilize the effects of other hormones, including cortisol, testosterone and estrogen. As we get older, our pregnenolone levels tend to decrease. This is one of the reasons for the ever increasing degenerative impact of stress associated with aging.

Details: Ben Fuchs

There is nothing like the taste of melted butter on lobster or likewise on sweet corn and, for that matter, on broccoli or cauliflower or toasted raisin bread or an English Muffin. In fact, there not many foods whose taste can’t be improved by a slab of warm butter!

On top of its tastiness, butter is packed with nutritional value, containing important minerals like selenium, iodine, zinc, as well as Vitamin K, Vitamin A, D and Vitamin E. It’s also a source of a couple special hard-to-find fats. One called CLA, which can be helpful for weight loss and building muscle, and another called butyric acid (that’s where the name butter comes from) that is important for the digestive tract and mental health. Butyric acid is also an appetite suppressant, so a few slabs of butter on your broccoli or cauliflower is not just nutritionally valuable and delicious, it’s also incredibly satisfying.

Butter from grass fed cattle is also a source of a phytonutrient called “The Wulzen Anti-Stiffness Factor”, which is a fatty, plant steroid-like substance that is protective against arthritis, although since the Wulzen factor is destroyed by heat, you have to make sure you’re not using pasteurized butter. I remember my grandmother using butter to massage her arthritic feet and legs before she went to bed and first thing in the morning. Even though she probably didn’t know about the Wulzen anti-stiffness factor, she wouldn’t go a day without her butter foot massage.

The Wulzen anti-stiffness factor is technically a phytosterols called stigmasterol, a plant substance that’s similar to human steroids. Drug companies use stigmasterol as a precursor to making progesterone and cortisone. It’s possible that the phytonutrient may help support our own natural steroids. Stigmasterol is a member of the same family as human steroids and that’s why it’s so easy to transform into valuable human steroid hormones. As a bonus, stigmasterol also helps lower blood cholesterol and may have anti-cancer properties too! You can also get stigmasterol in nuts, dark chocolate, seeds and legumes. There’s probably a bit in avocados too.

Butter is also a good source of carotenoids, particularly beta carotene. That’s what gives it its characteristic yellow color. Butter makers are sure proud of that yellow color. When margarine was first invented, the butter producers made the margarine producers dye their product orange, so no one would ever think that margarine was butter.

People have been enjoying butter for a long time. It’s one of the oldest processed foods human beings have eaten, historical references go back nearly 5000 years. Ancient Egyptians used it to heal the eyes. Even though they didn’t know about vitamin A, they knew it worked. They also used butter to treat burns. They also used it for skin rashes and as a skin beautifier too, probably leveraging the Vitamin A and perhaps the Vitamin D content of butter. The Ancient Celts valued butter so much, when they were wealthy enough, they would be buried with barrels of it.

Here’s another little trick for you: Always mix salt with your butter. Butter is a fat and all fats are basically storage forms of electrical energy, electrons specifically. Well it turns out if you mix some Celtic or Himalayan salt and oil together, the sodium, chloride and other mineral ions make great conductors of electrical energy. In combination they can really activate the taste buds, making foods super delicious! If you heat the salt butter compound a little, the flavors will be amped up even more! And of course in addition to all the wonderful nutrients in the butter, you’ll be getting the benefit of the salt, which itself is a nutritional powerhouse packed with power of potassium, sodium, magnesium, as well as 79 other essential minerals.

When you go to your local grocery store, you’ll see two different types of butter. Sweet cream butter is made from pasteurized milk or cream (or sometimes both). While cultured butter is made from fermented cream, basically sour cream. Personally I like cultured butter, it’s tangier and it’s got some probiotic value too, as long as it’s not pasteurized. For do-it-yourselfers, it’s pretty easy to make your own cultured butter just by whipping up sour cream. Or you can use regular cream, with some yogurt (make sure it contains live bacterial cultures). Whip it up for a few minutes until the cream achieves a good buttery consistency, although you may have to rinse out any remaining liquid. Salt to taste, add some spices or herbs, and you’ll have yourself some tasty homemade probiotic rich butter!

Did you know?

The American dairy industry cranks out over 852,000 tons of butter a year. While that may sound like a lot, it pales when compared to India, the world largest butter producer, which produced nearly 4.8 million tons of the stuff in 2013!

The USDA maintains quality control over butter quality standards and classifies the product into 3 grades:

U.S. Grade AA Butter:
• Sweet flavor, with a fine highly pleasing aroma;
• made from high-quality fresh sweet cream;
• smooth, creamy texture, readily spreadable;
• if salted, salt must be completely dissolved and blended.

U.S. Grade A Butter:
• pleasing but stronger flavor than AA grade;
• made from fresh sweet cream;
• coarser texture than AA grade;

U.S. Grade B Butter:
• possesses “fairly pleasing”, malty or musty butter flavor
• is often made from sour cream
• usually used for cooking only.

Details: Ben Fuchs

Nothing happens in the body or a cell without the action of a hormone. Hormones initiate activity and all cells respond to them. Bone cells make bone, muscle cells contract, digestive cells secrete their juices, liver cells detoxify, and countless other chemical reactions occur in response to and ONLY in response to the initiating action of a hormone.

Like other cells, skin cells respond to hormones, but recently it’s been discovered that skin cells also make hormones, and many of these hormones are associated with stresses and the defensive response. Their external location, on the outside of the body, exposes them to a plethora of various stimuli including trauma, solar radiation, environmental toxins and chemicals in moisturizers, makeups and other intentionally applied topical products. Via the activity of hormones, the bites and breaks, burns and wounds that skin cells are subjected to, into various physiologic responses including changes in blood flow (as in the response to heat or cold), pigmentation (the tanning response caused UV radiation) and growth and repair (initiated by wounding, exfoliation and laser treatments, and topical nutrients).

The skin’s innate hormonal response can also cause skin problems. For example, dry climate, the sun, topical irritants and blood borne food allergens from the digestive tract are all likely suspects when it comes to stimulating a defensive secretion of defensive chemicals from skin cells. Even emotional and mental stressors can act as triggers for turning on the skin cell's hormonal stress response. This is why many people will notice increases in skin conditions including eczema, acne, and dermatitis in association with changes in weather, poor food choices, digestive conditions or psychological turmoil. Chronic stress hormone (cortisol) secretion can also affect broken skin and wounds, delaying and impairing the healing process. In addition, cortisol secretion following external or internal triggers can create changes in circulation. It can cause the dilation of blood vessels that are characteristic of rosacea, increase the rate of division of skin cells leading to the plaques of psoriasis, as well as the excessive secretion of skin oils evidenced in a condition called seborrhea.

One of the most important ways we amplify this inflammatory response is by eating the wrong kinds of fats. Pro-inflammatory fatty foods including chips, French fries and many vegetable oils (particularly Omega-6 rich ones like sunflower oil, safflower oil, corn oil, and soy oil) can be a major source of hormonally-based skin distress. Likewise, deficiencies in omega 6s, and Omega 3s, as well as deficiencies in fatty vitamins including E and A can initiate or exacerbate inflammation. Because nutrient deficit can cause skin to become much more likely to turn into dermatitis, eczema and psoriasis, deficiencies in the essential (must-have) nutritional fats are an inflammatory response waiting to happen.

Another important way skin cell hormones can be affected is by the actions of food allergens or foods processed incompletely, that seep into the blood through a broken down digestive tract. That’s called Leaky Gut Syndrome, and once these elements get into the blood, they can stimulate the production of inflammatory factors within the circulatory fluids. Once those factors contact skin cells, they can act as a trigger for the production of their inflammatory hormones. Even worse, the deteriorating digestive tract will be less able to absorb nutrients, accelerating the degenerative process. Thus, it's important to have strategies that strengthen the organs of digestion. Taking a tablespoonful of apple cider vinegar and some digestive enzymes can facilitate the work of the stomach. Algae and sea vegetables, aloe, noni and wheat grass can have a soothing and coating effect on surface of the small intestine. Probiotics and fermented food can help restore the health of the large intestine environment. Gelatin, cartilage containing products as well as building blocks like hyaluronic acid, glucosamine (particularly in its N-acetyl glucosamine or “NAG” form), and chondroitin along with vitamin C can help restore the integrity of intestine’s connective tissue.

Keep The Skin and Skin Cells Healthy with These 7 Nutrients

Essential Fatty Acids – Both Omega 6’s and omega 3 are important for skin health and function as hormone substance raw materials.
Zinc – the skin’s favorite mineral, use 50mg of the picolinate form
Vitamin A – one of the skin’s favorite 2 vitamins. 10,000-20,000 iu a day is way over the RDA but the higher dose can provide important benefits that lower doses cannot.
Vitamin C – the skin's other favorite vitamin. Its protective befits are renowned, but less recognized is its importance for the production of healthy skin fats.
Vitamin D – Sun exposure is the best way to get this skin immune-boosting vitamin. Organ meats, especially liver and fish oil, are good sources too. Vegans can get Vitamin D from mushrooms.
Vitamin B3 – All the B’s help fuel the growth of cells like the ones on the skin, but B3 has been shown to have especially significant skin health benefits
Probiotics – All heath begins in the gut, and probiotics (good bacteria) are the most important digestive supplement for everyone, especially for those dealing with a skin health issue. Look for multiple strains of bacteria, and use at least 20 billion units a day. Fermented foods are also a good source of good bacteria .