Yes, our health is in danger. I realize this is a shocking statement, but after you're finished reading, you'll understand why I chose it. In the next few pages, I'd like to share with you some startling research from the cutting edge of health and science. I'll also be sharing some little known health secrets. This valuable information just might add several years of healthy living to your life.

So, who am I to be sharing this information with you?

My name is Robert Allen. No, I'm not a doctor. I'm actually a best-selling author. Two of my books, Nothing Down and Creating Wealth were #1 best sellers. Together, they are two of the largest selling financial books of all time I'm very proud of those books but nothing in them is as important as what I am about to share with you now.

Frankly, 4 years ago, I knew almost nothing about health. I was a 46-year-old, over-weight, over-stressed baby boomer. I was so busy I had to hire someone to do my jogging for me. I was on my way to an early death from one of the 7 deadly diseases. At that time, one of my wife's best friends, Collette, got involved with a company marketing some nutritional products and kept telling us that we ought to be taking better care of ourselves and our kids. I wasn't taking any vitamin or mineral supplements. I didn't think I needed any But she had piqued my curiosity. After all, I was getting older. I was one of those 77 million baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964. The earliest of the boomers was just turning 50. And in a couple of years, I'd be 50!

So, I started to do some of my own research. Now I may not be a doctor, but I can read what doctors and scientists have written lately about the state of our health. After reading dozens of books and conversing with dozens of people, I concluded that health is like religion or politics. Everybody has strong opinions. But, as I also discovered, opinions can be wrong. Dead wrong.

So, I must warn you. Some of what you're about to read may challenge some of your opinions. They did mine. That's why every important statement, graph and chart in this report has been thoroughly researched and documented including footnotes and references.

Now, why would we want you to have this information?

Well, suppose you became aware that a flash flood had, only seconds earlier, washed out a vital bridge in your city and you suddenly spotted a car full of your friends driving on the road towards the bridge unaware that the bridge was gone. Wouldn't you do everything in your power to warn them? Well, when it comes to our health ... the bridge is out... and millions of people are driving towards it unaware. Perhaps this booklet can be your warning...

Something has gone terribly wrong.

I used to think that the definition of aging was to get one of the seven deadly diseases and then to die. Imagine my surprise when I learned that heart disease, our number one killer, is a relatively new disease. The first modern cases of it were reported in 1912, and even then it was extremely rare. How did it go from almost non-existent to the number one spot? What about cancer? Only 3% of us died of cancer a hundred years ago. Today, almost 30% of us succumb to it. Same with stroke, which killed very few a hundred years ago. Today, it's the number three killer. Alzheimer's wasn't even diagnosed until 1907. Today, 40% of those over 85 are suffering from it. And diabetes has increased 600% in just the last generation.

Obviously, something has gone terribly wrong - in our lifetime. But, we're acting as if all of these diseases are just a part of the normal aging process. Not so! There is nothing normal about degenerative disease. Many of these deaths are totally unnecessary. And that's the tragedy. When a plane crashes and a few hundred people die, it makes the front page news for days. But when a million people die of heart disease or a half a million die of cancer, you'd think there'd be more of an outcry. It's the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of people crashing every single hour of every single day of every single month for an entire year. Year after year.

Now, let me ask you: How long do you plan on living? To what age? 70? 80? 90? 100+?

Now, take that figure and add 10 extra healthy years to it. What if you could live to 100 and beyond without the pain and disease that most people think comes with old age? Is this possible? Well, a hundred years ago it wasn't. In the year 1900, the average person lived to the ripe old age of only 47 years. Today the average person lives to about 76. That's 79 for women and 72 for men.

The Danger Zone!

Today, the risk of dying of any thing before you are 40 is really very small. But starting at 40, you enter the zone of the 7 deadly diseases. How deadly are they? They kill more than 80% of us. Can you guess what they are?

Heart Disease
Cancer
Stroke
Diabetes
Arthritis
Osteoporosis
Alzheimer's

The 7 deadly diseases will send millions of people to an early grave this year. Not thousands, but millions!

Here's the good news.

None of these diseases is inevitable. All of them can possibly be avoided or at least delayed - and in some cases even reversed - by following a few simple steps that I'll share with you before we're done. Because of this, more and more of us will be living healthy lives all the way to one hundred and beyond.

How about you? Do you want to live to 100? With the way trends are going, you may reach 100 whether you want to or not. And that scares some people. We tend to think of old people as frail and sickly but research on those who live to one hundred finds them 'amazingly frisky" 84% function well, and 73% rate their health as good to excellent. So what is their secret? As a group, they like to walk, they are rarely overweight, and 5200 take extra vitamins and minerals daily. If you want to join them, you'll have to adopt many of the same habits. And one of your first goals is to avoid the deadly seven for as long as possible.

Know thy enemy!

There is an adage in war. Know thy enemy. Each of us is being stalked by 7 mortal diseases. If we don't want to be cut down early, we need to find out more about these diseases so we'll better understand how to conquer them.


Public Enemy #1: Heart Disease
Heart disease kills a million people a year in North America alone, and millions more worldwide. It's an epidemic. It's the equivalent of wiping out entire cities of people like San Diego or Sydney or Vancouver every year. Year after year. Or to say it another way. .Somebody dies at least every 32 seconds from heart disease. Six million North Americans have it right now - one in every three adults - according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Heart disease is deadly. But just what is it? It's not a disease you catch like a cold. It's a disease you eat. Improper diet causes a sludge called plaque to slowly clog up your arteries, stopping the flow of vital oxygen and nutrients to your heart muscles. When your arteries finally plug up, you have a heart attack. This happens to over 1.5 million people a year. For most of them, it's a total surprise. They had no idea their arteries were clogged. 1/3 of them will die on the way to the hospital, with no second chance, no time to say goodbye. Those who do survive suffer through expensive and painful therapies. These days, a coronary bypass surgery costs about $25,000.

And all of this expense and pain and death may be unnecessary. So how can you decrease the risk of heart disease?

Odds are, you probably already have some degree of heart disease. Heart disease starts early. By age 16, young Americans already have some degree of blockage in the crucial arteries that supply the heart with blood. But, here's the good news. We have made significant progress in the war on heart disease. Since 1950, we've cut the death rate in half.

As Dr. Michael Colgan, world famous expert on nutrition, has said: "Do not fear cardiovascular disease. It's the easiest of all man-made diseases to prevent, and even to reverse, if only you follow the right nutrition, plus a little easy exercise to blow away the cobwebs."


Public Enemy #2: Cancer
Cancer is the most feared and most expensive of all diseases. And for good reason. At least a million North Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year. 50% of those will die within five years. That amounts to 1,500 people a day or one every minute of every day in America and one every 3 or 4 seconds somewhere in the world.

We've spent billions trying to cure it. Far from being conquered, the incidence of cancer has increased 44% since 1950. Breast cancer is up 6000. Prostate cancer is up 100%. At this rate, cancer will soon pass heart disease as the number one cause of death in America. Recently, the news on the cancer front in the U.S. has shown some improvement. After decades of steady increase, the rate of cancer death seems to have peaked and is dropping about 1/2% per year That's good news for about 2,750 people this year. But little comfort to the other 547,250 who won't make it.

What are your odds of developing cancer?

The National Cancer Institute says: "One American in every three living today will get cancer, and one in four will die from it."

For women, the most feared cancer is breast cancer. In 1950,only one in twenty women got it. Today it's about one in eight. Only 18% of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer will survive it for at least five years.18 About 45,000 women will die from it this year. According to Patrick Quillin in his book, Beating Cancer with Nutrition, even women who are lucky and beat it still lose an average of 19 years of lifespan.

For men, the most feared cancer is prostate cancer. Just about every man over 50 has an enlarged prostate. Doctors estimate that 30% of American men 60 years and older have prostatic cancer. Among men who live to 75, the number is over 50%. That's one in two! And the older you get, the higher the risk. But don't panic! Prostate cancer usually grows very slowly and can be treated with great success. The ten-year survival rate from prostate cancer is over 86%.

If cancer is the most feared disease, it is also the least understood. Most of us think that cancer is something in your genes: some families get it, others don't. This is not necessarily so. Only 20% of cancer is attributable to heredity 80% is in your control.

According to Dr. Virginia Livingston-Wheeler, who at her clinic in San Diego treated hundreds of cancer patients with amazing success, "We all have cancer in our bodies - it's just that our immune system is keeping it in check it's the breakdown of our immune system that allows cancer to grow if you maintain a strong and healthy immune system, your chances of ever getting cancer are virtually nil."

According to Dr. Patrick Quillin, another cancer expert, "Scientists agree that nearly all individuals develop undetectable cancer about 6 times in a 70 year life span. Yet only one of three people actually develops overgrown and detectable cancer. The body is equipped to deal with cancer, but this process relies heavily on nutrition. Proper nutrition could prevent from 50-90% of all cancer." So there is hope!

The development of cancer is not always a short, lightning strike event that's out of your control. It maybe a long process in the case of lung cancer 20-25 years. If you strengthen your immune system now, you can take back control and possibly keep cancer in check. This report will show you how to do that.


Public Enemy #3: Stroke
Most of us are petrified of cancer without realizing that stroke kills more women than breast cancer, and more men than prostate cancer.

What is a stroke? Most strokes are caused by the same problem that causes a heart attack. The arteries of the brain harden and plug up, eventually shutting off the flow of blood to vital parts of the brain causing, in essence, a "brain attack." Researchers at the University of Cincinnati recently found to their alarm that approximately 730,000 strokes occur in the USA each year, almost ONE THIRD higher than the previous estimate of 550,000. Of those victims of stroke, at least 150,000 will die. And many of the rest of them may wish they had died. Strokes are the number one cause of disabilities. There are 4,000,000 North American survivors of stroke alive today Half of them have significant disabilities including paralysis, speech 1055, impaired vision, and memory.

You don't want to be a stroke victim and you may not have to be.


Public Enemy #4: Diabetes
Over sixteen million North Americans suffer from diabetes, with millions more worldwide. And it's on the rise. The incidence of diabetes has risen over 600% in little more than one generation. One in twenty of us will eventually get it. It's a major threat to our health. The longer you live, the greater the chance that you'll eventually develop diabetes. 40% to 60% of eighty-year-olds have it. Every year, it kills 300,000 people. You don't want to come within a mile of diabetes. In this report, I'll tell you about an amazing nutrient that may help you in your fight against the curse of diabetes.


Public Enemy #5: Arthritis
Thirty million of us have arthritis. You might think it only happens to old people, but the average age at which arthritis strikes is 47 - hardly over the hill. And 80% of Americans develop some degree of arthritis by the age of 60. If you hate pain, then you can take a few simple, inexpensive steps that might lower your chances of arthritis.


Public Enemy #6: Osteoporosis
Twenty-five million of us suffer from osteoporosis, or brittle bone disease. 80% of these are women over the age of 50. You've heard about older people falling and breaking their hips. In many cases, it's just the reverse. She was walking down the mall, and her hip spontaneously broke and then she fell. Her bones were so brittle that just walking caused them to snap. And it all started in her thirties. After age 35, your bones lose bone mass at the rate of about 1% per year. Menopause accelerates the bone loss so that by age seventy-five, 90% of women have osteoporosis.

What does this mean to you?

A third of the women over 65 suffer fractured vertebrae or fractured hips. And not to leave the men out, by age 80, a sixth of the men also break a hip. What's so bad about a few broken hones? Well, for 50,000 seniors last year, these fractures were a death sentence. Unable to walk and to be active, they were confined to bed. A quarter of them died within 6 months. That's one death every twenty minutes. However, osteoporosis is not just about broken bones. Have you ever wondered why some older people seem to wrinkle more than others? Osteoporosis actually causes your skull to shrink, too! According to one plastic surgeon, "The result of... such bone loss... is skin that sags, like a dress that's a size too big."

If you plan on living a long, full life, you'll have to reckon with osteoporosis. The good news is that prevention is simple, costs little, and is available to everyone. And you'll learn what that simple solution is shortly.


Public Enemy #7: Alzheimer's
Although it was identified in 1907, it wasn't until ex-president Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with it that the public took notice. Now; experts predict that the longer you live, the more likely it is you'll get Alzheimer's. 10% of people over 65 have it. 20% of people over 75 have it. 40% of people over 85 have it. That amounts to about four million of us. The symptoms are loss of memory, mental capacity and disorientation. Death follows diagnosis in seven to ten years. It kills 100,000 people each year - but only after reducing its victims to human vegetables.

You don't want to come within one hundred miles of this disease.

The good news is that 20-30% of those diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia don't actually have the disease at all. They have, instead, a deficiency of a single, specific vitamin. When given a tiny amount of this inexpensive vitamin supplement daily they recover their mental capacities and return from the living dead.

Have you ever known an older person who was senile? Could it be that they just hadn't taken enough vitamins? According to Dr. Irwin H. Rosenberg of the US Department of Agriculture's Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University, "Much mental deterioration associated with aging can be prevented or reversed by vitamins."

In this report. I'll share with you which specific vitamin to take to reduce the risk of you or someone you love from being misdiagnosed with Alzheimer's and how to reduce your risk of the real thing.

One major cause and one major solution for the deadly seven!

Well, that's quite a list! You would think that such completely different diseases would have completely different causes. But pioneering research in the last few decades has shown that all of these diseases may be linked to one common cause - free radicals in the body. You're going to hear a lot about free radicals for the rest of your life... so let me explain it this way:

Compare it to the engine in your car. It burns gasoline for fuel and emits exhaust or pollution into the air. Every cell in your body is like a tiny engine of energy. One of its fuels is oxygen. To power your body about a trillion molecules of oxygen pass through each of your 60 trillion cells each day As this oxygen is burned for fuel, it creates a sort of cellular "exhaust" called free radicals. Huge numbers of these free radical oxidants ricochet around your cells, punching tiny holes in cell walls and damaging the internal machinery.

Nasty stuff
Now, nature has a solution for this. Your immune system automatically creates natural substances called ANTI-oxidants with strange names like glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase. Think of them as cellular PAC-men gobbling up these free radical terrorists. In addition, many foods you eat also contain antioxidants, like vitamin C and vitamin E. When you eat foods high in antioxidants, you help your cells to neutralize free radical activity your body.

Have you ever cut an apple in half and left it exposed for a few hours? It turns brown, doesn't it? What caused the browning? It was the free radical oxygen molecules attacking the molecules of the exposed fruit. How can you stop this? Simply squeeze some lemon on the fruit just after you cut it. The exposed apple remains white and fresh for hours. Why? The lemon contains Vitamin C ... a powerful antioxidant ... that neutralizes oxygen free radicals and protects the apple. That's exactly what happens inside your body. If you don't have enough antioxidants, your cells become damaged. And this can lead to deadly consequences.

In a perfect world, the combination of body antioxidants and food antioxidants would be enough protection. But we don't live in a perfect world. We live in a polluted world, and guess what pollution is loaded with? You guessed it - free radicals. Every time you breathe, you take in millions of free radical molecules created by cigarette smoke, radiation, and automobile emissions. Every time you eat, you consume free radicals in the form of pesticides and preservatives. Alcohol is loaded with free radicals. Even exercise creates excess free radicals. All of these activities can overwhelm and damage the cells of your body.

According to geneticist Bruce Ames of the University of California at Berkeley each of your cells endures about one hundred thousand free radical hits or wounds each day. Most of this damage is repaired, but about a thousand new wounds every day go unrepaired, and this damage accumulates relentlessly. Some of these "hits" damage your cell DNA, and if these hits go unrepaired, cancer can be the result.

"So," says Ames, "by the time you're old, we find a few million oxygen lesions (wounds) per cell. It is this accumulation of cellular damage...that fuels the aging process, pushing up your odds of disease and death."

To compound the problem, as you get older your natural body antioxidant system diminishes. Your white blood cells are not as potent against the seven deadly invaders. More than ever, your body needs reinforcements in the battle against these cellular terrorists.

According to Dr. Robert D. Willix in his excellent book, Healthy at 100, "The most important medical discovery of the last half century concerns two substances called free radicals" and "antioxidants". Free radicals have been linked to (at last count) about 60 diseases. And we now have evidence that antioxidants can protect against stop, and (in some instances) even reverse the damage done by free radicals.

These discoveries make clear that the most important single thing you can do if you want to live long enough to dance the polka at your great-great-grandson's wedding is to start an immediate regimen to make sure you get all the antioxidants you need - both through diet and through the use of nutrients and dietary supplements I urge you... to start taking antioxidant supplements now You will see almost immediate; visible; tangible evidence that these substances are working to protect you from free radical damage. Patients who take this advice report increased energy, positive changes in skin texture; and even loss of wrinkles - within a few weeks." Having a strong immune system is the key!

Your immune system is like David waging a daily battle with 7 deadly Goliaths. If you have a strong immune system, you give your cells a fighting chance. Many of us already have cancer cells growing in us, but a strong immune system keeps these cancer cells in check. So the goal is to do anything to strengthen this system and to avoid anything that weakens it.

Play It S.A.F.E.
The Formula for Longevity

So let me ask you again: Do you really want safe passage through the danger zone? Do you really want the potential to add several years of healthy living to your life? There is a formula for longevity that I'd like to share with you. To help you remember this formula, I've used the word S.A.F.E. to represent these 4 steps.

The S.A.F.E. Formula

* S means to Supplement your diet with extra vitamins, minerals and fiber.
* A means to Avoid alcohol, tobacco smoke and excess weight.
* F means to Feast on Five Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Frequently
* E means to Exercise at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes a session.

In this report, I will only have space to address the first of the four elements of the S.A.F.E. formula. But before I launch into the power of nutritional supplements, I'd like you to see some startling facts which emphasize the importance of the other 3 parts of the S.A.F.E. formula.

* People who abuse alcohol live FIFTEEN years shorter than those who don't drink at all.

* The average smoker dies 18 years earlier than the average non-smoker.

* Eating a balanced diet of fresh foods can add about 10 years to your life. Yet only 9% of us eat properly.

* A moderate exercise program can add at least 5 years to your life. Yet only 8% of adults exercise regularly.

The first letter in the word S.A.E.E. is the letter S. It stands for Supplementation.

You and I should supplement our daily diet with powerful disease fighting antioxidants and other nutrient supplements. There are a lot of misconceptions floating around about vitamin, mineral and antioxidant supplements. Here are five of the most common and dangerous myths.


Myth #1. Nutritional supplements are not necessary.

I get all the nutrition I need from food.

I used to believe, like millions of others, that I didn't need vitamins. I assumed I got all the nutrition I needed from my food. But, as I soon learned, eating healthy in this modern world is almost impossible. I know that sounds 6 like a strong statement. Let me explain it this way

Your body needs a precise mix of 59 nutrients daily including 13 vitamins and 22 minerals.

The USDA conducted a landmark study to find out just how many of us actually eat all of these essential ingredients every day They surveyed 22,000 Americans and discovered that only 3% actually ate healthy balanced diets daily Only 3%! But that's not the real story Of the 22,000 people in this survey not a single person received all of the 10 most important vitamins and minerals on a daily basis. Not one person! And yet I hear people say almost every day, "I don't need vitamins. I'll just eat healthy".
Now you know the truth. Almost none of us gets enough of the essential nutrients daily And that includes you. Why is this? Almost nobody eats healthy anymore. Only 9% of us actually eat the five daily servings of fresh fruits and vegetables recommended by the National Cancer Institute.

According to Dr. Michael Colgan: "Until the 1940's, farmers returned essential nutrients to the soil by mulching, manuring and crop rotation. At the end of World War II drug conglomerates making nitrates and phosphates for weapons were left with few buyers for their stockpiles of chemicals. They had to find new markets for their products. Earlier experiments had shown that many plants will grow on a mixture of just three minerals; nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). Armed with this knowledge, war chemical manufacturers began selling NPK fertilizers to farmers at attractive prices that made traditional soil enrichment methods uneconomical.

"By the 60's, in order to compete in the food market, almost all American farms had become totally dependent on NPK products in order to make a living. Mixtures of NPK, provide three of the main minerals essential for plant health. They grow fine-looking crops with abundant yields. But your body is not a vegetable. Humans need more than nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. They need selenium, chromium, calcium, magnesium, iron, copper iodine, molybdenum, zinc, cobalt, boron and vanadium. NPK fertilizers.. do not contain the minerals essential for human health, because they were never designed for human nutrition. As each succeeding crop grown on NPK products has depleted the soil of other essential minerals; and these minerals are no longer replaced, most produce and food animals now grown in America, have become mineral deficien." So at best, 91% of us are not eating properly. for whatever reason.

"And if this isn't had enough, most of the fresh foods we do eat are just empty shells of the nutrient hearers that nature intended them to he. A century ago, food was much more nutritious than it is today. Back then, 97% of us were farmers. We grew our own food just a few feet from our tables. But today only 3% of us grow our own food. Farming is run by huge farming conglomerates. And in this shift from family farms to corporate farms, three harmful things happened to our food supply: chemical fertilizers, toxic pesticides, and destructive food storage and processing techniques. For example, in 1948, a bowl of spinach used to contain about 150 milligrams of iron. But today that same bowl of spinach contains only about 2 milligrams! You'd have to eat 75 howls of spinach today to get the same mineral content of only 50 years ago."

When I first read this, I was stunned! I just assumed that spinach was spinach. I had no idea that our food supply had become so seriously degraded. Did you?

Processing destroys our food!

Now, if that's not bad enough, before this deficient food even gets to your table, much of it is detoured through factories and processing plants, making it nutritionally empty. For example, let's take peas. Peas cooked garden-fresh lose 56% of their vitamins by serving time; but frozen peas lose 83%, and canned peas lose 94%. How about that delicious white bread? In order to make flour that can sit on store shelves without spoiling, processors remove the precious and nutritious outer layers of the wheat. In doing so, they remove most of the 22 vitamins and minerals. Then, they add back 6 vitamins and minerals in smaller amounts than they removed and call the final product "enriched".

However, they don't tell you about the vital zinc that was removed, or the chromium, or the magnesium. When it comes to our food, you and I have been lied to. Many of our foods are nutritionally bankrupt.

And it only gets worse as we grow older.

Tuft's researcher on aging, Dr. Robert Russell, notes that "almost no one ages 65 to 75 meets the RDA requirements, poor as they are... Half of all Americans past 60 are deficient even by minimum standards in vitamin E, vitamin C and vitamin A or beta carotene."

Now, I'm going to make a statement that may seem preposterous in our overweight, overfed modern world. But here goes...You and I are literally starving to death!

Not starving for food...but starving for nutrients that are supposed to be in the foods. Now. before you think I've gone off the deep end, go back with me in time a few hundred years, when thou sands of supposedly' "well-fed" sailors also starved to death of a disease called scurvy. What caused this disease? An infection? No. It was caused by a simple deficiency of vitamin C. When given vitamin C in limes and lemons, they recovered quickly.

What is the scurvy of today? It's heart disease and cancer and the other deadly seven. Our immune systems, weakened because of deficiencies of vitamins and minerals in our food supply, are less likely to protect us. Although we are fatter as a nation than we have ever been, we are starving ourselves to death. As someone said, "We are overfed and undernourished." Another expert called it "abundance malnutrition." Do you suffer from abundance malnutrition?

Seventy-eight percent of Americans now believe that taking supplements will help maintain their health. But belief and action are two different things. Surveys also show that only about a third of us take supplements on a daily basis. Obviously we need vitamins and mineral supplements now, more than ever. Still, there are dangerous and even deadly rumors floating around, like this next one.


Myth #2. Nutritional supplements in pill form don't work.
Eminent researcher Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard is quoted as saying: "Until quite recently it was taught that everyone in this country gets enough vitamins through their diet and that taking supplements just creates expensive urine. I think we now have proof that this isn't true."

Still, people repeat ancient myths about vitamins they learned from the TV years ago.

For example: Dr. Art Ulene, the famous TV medical reporter in his recent book, The Vitamin Strategy, confesses, and I quote:

"I was wrong about vitamins. Twenty years ago, I told my television viewers that most people didn't need vitamin supplements, If you were eating well, I said, buying and consuming vitamin pills was a waste of money. I certainly wasn't alone in this belief. At the time; few people in the medical community supported vitamin supplementation. Even today most physicians; and perhaps most registered dietitians and nutritionists; insist that people in the United States get all the vitamins they need from their diet alone. It's not surprising that health professionals feel this way After all, that's what we were taught in school ... I now know that many of the pronouncements I heard about the uselessness of vitamins simply aren't true. No matter what your age; no matter what your health status; according to new research, optimal doses of vitamins and minerals can improve the state of your health and reduce your chance of developing many diseases and disorders once considered to be almost unavoidable."

Again, according to Dr. Michael Colgan: "The last, five years have seen the most profound change in medical attitudes towards nutrition.

On 19 August 1992, for the first time in its history the ultra-conservative Journal of the American Medical Association recommended vitamin supplements as a way to prevent atherosclerosis and heart disease. Then, in May 1993, the highly respected New England Journal of Medicine published two large population studies; involving 130,000 health workers showing that high doses of vitamin E significantly reduce risks of heart attacks and strokes in both men and women. The researchers showed that it was next to impossible to get sufficient vitamin E, from our food and... made a clear recommendation for vitamin E supplementation...

Then, the scholarly journal, Nutrition Review, the bible of nutrition science.. showed unequivocally that it is impossible to get sufficient vitamins from our degraded food supply and criticized the FDA for failing to permit companies to tell the public how vitamins prevent cancer."

In the face of all this new scientific research, I still hear people say silly things like this, "Well, let me try your vitamin for a few weeks and see if I feel any different." It's true, some vitamins can actually make you feel better. But "feeling better" is the least important reason to take vitamins.

You take vitamins as part of your protection program against the deadly seven.

* You don't feel heart disease. It slowly clogs your arteries until, POW! ... and your heart stops.

* You don't feel cancer. It may grow slowly for decades undetected and then, BOOM !... it explodes.

* Stroke is called the silent killer, because it goes completely unnoticed until, BAM! ... and you maybe disabled for life.

* You don't feel the onset of osteoporosis leaching your bones until, SNAP! ... you break a hip and the damage is done.

* You don't feel Alzheimer's. It silently destroys your brain cells a few at a time until you don't even know your own name.


Research on vitamins, minerals and antioxidants shows that:

* They can help to lower your cholesterol.

* They may help lower your blood pressure.

* They may help protect you from heart disease.

* According to a 1994 study at Johns Hopkins University; "Just regularly taking vitamin supplements in general, but particularly vitamins A, C and E, slashed the risk of...skin cancer by an astonishing 70%.

* They may also protect against Parkinson's disease.

* They can make your children smarter. Studies show that children taking supplements become smarter than those not taking supplements.

* There are even supplements that may help improve your memory.

* There is a mountain of evidence no, a mountain range of evidence - that supplements can be beneficial to our health.

Again, Dr. Michael Colgan reports: "The evidence is now irrefutable that the right use of the right antioxidants can prevent and even reverse many forms of cancer heart disease, atherosclerosis; adult-onset diabetes, and a host of other diseases whose primary cause is excess (free radical) oxidation, including cataracts, lung disorders, liver disorders and degenerative diseases of the brain."


Myth #3. Vitamins can be dangerous in large doses.
Just how safe are supplements? As compared to what? Let's compare vitamins to prescription drugs. Guess how many people die each year as a result of doctor-prescribed prescription drugs. According to the FDA, 150,000 people die each year! You are reading correctly. Now, guess how many people die each year taking vitamins. In the last ten years, one person - from an overdose of niacin. According to Dr. Michael Colgan: "Used in any sensible amounts; vitamins and minerals are about as toxic as apple pie.

Of course, if you're currently being treated with prescription drugs or under a doctor's care, you should always check with your physician to see how your treatment may react with your supplements. But for the vast majority of us, vitamins are extremely safe.... but taking all those pills is such a hassle.

Some people are not worried so much about safety. They just think that taking vitamins is a plain nuisance. They say things like, "They're such a hassle ... so many pills and bottles. I just can't remember to take them all," or "I can't swallow them. They're too big," or "They taste nasty or they upset my stomach or they give me diarrhea." When I hear this, I just look at them, chuckle and say "If you think you've got diarrhea now; wait until you're on chemotherapy". Or, "If you think taking pills is a hassle, try; quadruple bypass surgery." I've read what the research says, and I'm not going a single day without my vitamins and minerals. I don't care what I have to do... crush them up and drink them with my orange juice, set the alarm on my wrist watch to remind me... whatever it takes. I don't miss a single day. After what I've read, I believe my life depends on it.


Myth #4. All nutritional supplements are the same.
When I began my research, I had no idea that there was such a vast difference between brands of nutritional supplements. Actually, vitamin supplements can he divided into two major camps: cheap grocery store brands, which are patterned after Government Recommended Dietary Allowances (or RDA), and the second group of vitamin supplements, which contain many times the amount of the RDA of each nutrient. These more advanced vitamin supplements are based upon the latest research, which proves that much higher dosages of vitamins and minerals may be necessary; to protect us from the deadly seven.

According to Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the creator of the jogging craze in the seventies, from his recent book, The Antioxidant Revolution: "There was a time when I joined most other mainstream physicians who opposed taking vitamin supplements in any amounts, much less in relatively large doses. Along with the majority of the medical establishment I believed that you could get all the vitamins and minerals you needed through your daily diet. But my research into freer radicals and antioxidants has forced me to change my thinking - as well as my personal health habits.

Today I take a daily "antioxidant cocktail", a minimum multivitamin combination of 400 IU of vitamin B, 1000 mg of vitamin C, and 25,000 IU of beta carotene. Furthermore when I am scheduled for a heavy physical workout or for some other situation that I know will produce oxidative stress, I increase those amounts accordingly. The latest research shows that to build strong protection against free radicals, you need to take in far larger amounts of antioxidants than the official Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) provides. If you regularly consume five to nine ample servings of fresh fruits and vegetables each day you may begetting enough vitamin C and beta carotene. But you simply cannot get enough vitamin E from the foods you eat."

Now, let's look at a bottle of Centrum - the most advertised brand of vitamins on TV in the U.S. The label says that it contains the "Complete Antioxidant Group." What's that supposed to make you think? That Centrum meets your complete needs, right? Now, let's compare what's in Centrum to the optimum amounts that Dr. Cooper feels are necessary:

Vitamin C 60 mg 1,000 mg - 16 times more than Centrum!

Vitamin E 30 IU 400 IU - 13 times more than Centrum!

Beta Carotene 2,500 IU 25,000 IU -
10 times more than Centrum!

I'm not trying to single out Centrum. It's the same with almost every brand on your supermarket shelves, no matter what country you live in. Almost all of them pattern their formulas based upon the RDA. What is the RDA again? It is the MINIMUM amount the government feels is necessary to avoid deficiency diseases like scurvy, rickets, pellagra and beriberi.

When someone tells me they're taking one of those cheap grocery store vitamins, I say "Good for you. Now we know you aren't going to die of scurvy." Do you know of anyone who has died of scurvy lately? As for me, I'm not trying to avoid scurvy I'm trying to avoid cancer and heart disease. Does your vitamin supplement really work? Is it adequate to help protect you from the deadly seven? Are you sure? Are you willing to bet your life on it? Examine the fine print on the side of the bottle. Does it contain all of the most powerful vitamins, minerals and antioxidants in the proper amounts?

Let me give you two examples:

Liquid colloidal minerals and Blue/Green Algae. They're both touted as miracle products, and I'm sure they have some value.. but how do they rate as general nutritional supplements in your fight against the deadly seven?

First, colloidal minerals that are marketed in a liquid solution. The selling point? Easy to drink and highly absorbable. According to the hype, 98% of the minerals are absorbed right into your cells. Sounds exciting. But wait...What about the amounts? Let's look at just one ingredient - calcium. The MINIMUM Recommended Daily Allowance of calcium is 800-1,200 mg per day Yet, the label states that the daily serving of colloidal minerals contains only 44 mg. That's 18 to 27 times LESS than the government recommends in order to protect yourself from osteoporosis. That means you would have to drink almost an entire bottle of the stuff a day to get enough of your essential calcium. The same is true for many of the other minerals in the colloidal bottle. As a general supplement, colloidal minerals are much worse than Centrum or One-A-Day, and much more expensive. I hope you get my point. Colloidal minerals aren't the answer.

Let's now examine another nutritional product - Blue/Green Algae. According to the hype, it's nature's perfect food. Perfect as compared to what? It does contain some exotic ingredients, but as to the 13 vitamins and 22 minerals that your body NEEDS to fight deadly disease every day; it contains far less than the RDA amounts, except in two areas: vitamin B12 and the mineral boron. It may be nature's perfect food - if you're a fish - but we humans need much more powerful supplements in our fight against the deadly seven.

I bring these two examples to your attention to highlight the confusion that exists in the nutritional supplement world. There are thousands of "miracle" nutritional products on the market, but when you look at the fine print on the labels, they rarely contain the right ingredients in the right amounts.

Now it's not just the quantities that separate one vitamin brand from another. In order to compete on price, many of the supplement makers use the cheapest qualities of ingredients possible, without regard to whether or not these ingredients are actually being absorbed by the body. You might swallow the pills, but are the ingredients actually being absorbed into your blood stream, and from there into your cells? If not, then your health and your money go right into the toilet.

Let me give you one specific example.

Getting enough of the mineral chromium is absolutely essential to your life. Deficiencies of chromium can eventually lead to diabetes and heart disease. Yet many inexpensive supplements use a cheap and poorly-absorbable form of chromium called chromium chloride. One researcher, Dr. John MacDonald, says that you get about as much chromium from some cheap vitamin brands as you would by licking the bumper on your car. But research has shown that when chromium is chelated into the patented form called Chromium Picolinate, it is 3 to 10 times more bioavailable. The extra cost is well worth it. That's why you can't buy vitamins on price alone. This brings us to the final major myth about vitamins.


Myth #5. Nutritional supplements are too expensive!
Do you really want optimum health? Do you really want maximum protection? It will require that you take more than just one pill a day - and this may cost you more than the ten cents a day you're used to paying for inexpensive and ineffective store-bought vitamins. In order to get the proper amounts, you may need to spend a dollar or two a day for this kind of protection.

When some people hear this, they complain, 'Two dollars a day!? Just for vitamins? That's too expensive!" But I respond, "Inexpensive, as compared to what? Quadruple bypass surgery? Radiation therapy? Death by diabetes?" Compared to that, nutritional supplements are a bargain. People who say silly things like "vitamins are too expensive" are obviously not aware of the danger they are in. Believe me, cheaper is not better! As for me, I don't want to put the cheapest stuff I can find into my body and hope that I won't get heart disease. How far do you want to miss heart disease? By an inch or by a million miles? Your body is priceless. Don't turn it over to the lowest bidder or the latest fad.

Let's look closer at which specific nutrient supplements have been proven to be effective.

Beta Carotene
Here's how the right amount of beta carotene can help protect you from heart disease. In one Harvard study of a group of male physicians with signs of heart disease, it was found that those who took beta carotene supplements daily had only HALF as many heart attacks, strokes, bypass surgeries and cardiac deaths as the doctors taking dummy pills. But it took two years for these positive effects to kick in. That's why you can't just try a vitamin for a couple of weeks. If you want to lower your risk of heart disease, stroke and even cancer you need to take your beta carotene every day.

Vitamin C
Research shows that Vitamin C can protect you from heart disease. According to Dr. Linus Pauling, double Nobel laureate, the primary cause of cardiovascular disease is a deficiency of vitamin C in the blood. He states, "I believe that cardiovascular illness (heart attack, stroke, circulatory disease) can be nearly completely prevented by the proper intake of vitamin C."

And to prove his point, a recent government survey found that Americans who regularly took vitamin C supplements (even in small amounts) had 37 percent fewer fatal heart attacks. And if you're trying to lower your cholesterol or your blood pressure, vitamin C supplements can definitely help.

But the real power of vitamin C is in protecting you from "The Big C" - cancer. There are literally dozens of recent studies that overwhelmingly show that vitamin C may reduce the risk of cancer. In fact, some studies show that people who eat the most vitamin C have half the risk of getting cancer.

According again to Linus Pauling, "The more vitamin C one ingests, the less chance there is of developing breast cancer; the less vitamin C one ingests, the more chance there is of developing breast cancer. "

Not only does vitamin C help protect you from heart disease and cancer, it helps you live longer. Dr. Pauling believed that we could add an extra 12 to 18 years to our lives by taking mega-doses of vitamin C... and he proved it by living to age 93 himself. Again, the research backs him up. In one California study of people aged 50 or older, it was found that those "with a higher intake of vitamin C were found to have a total death rate only 40% of that for those with the lower intake of C... This decrease in the death rate corresponds to an increase by eleven years in the length of life."

Of course, taking vitamin C doesn't mean you won't get cancer. After all, Dr. Pauling himself succumbed to prostate cancer. But he was born at a time when the average life expectancy was only 47 years. And he lived to 93. He was right. He added at least 18 years to his lifespan.

Even small doses of vitamin C can help. According to one UCLA study only 300 milligrams a day can add 6 years to a man's life and two years to a woman's life. According to Jean Carper in her excellent book, Stop Aging Now!, "The study showed that vitamin C takers lived longer despite smoking, overweight, lack of exercise and even poor diets."

Is there any doubt that you need to protect yourself daily with extra vitamin C? If you want to add from 2 to 18 years to your life, vitamin C will be part of the answer.

Vitamin E can help you live longer!

Studies have shown that people who have taken 400 IU of vitamin E a day for at least ten years lowered their risk of heart disease by 90%. It also lowered the rate of death from heart disease by 78% and lowered the rate of death by heart attack by 58%.

Conclusion: if you want to reduce your risk of heart disease, you'd better take your E

The most vitamin E you can expect from your diet is 10 to 25 IU a day but the research shows that it takes 100-400 IU to provide the protection we need. To get that much vitamin E from food, you'd have to eat 28 cups of peanuts, 400 apricots or 650 prunes A DAY! Obviously vitamin E supplements are the simplest way to get your vitamin E.

How about vitamin E and cancer? High vitamin E intake has been shown to reduce colon cancer by 68% in women. Low vitamin E intake increases your risk of all kinds of cancer by 50%.

In addition, low vitamin E intake has been linked to weak immune systems, Alzheimer's disease and even PMS. Smart people take vitamin E every day. And if you live in a polluted big city environment, taking vitamin E is Essential.


The Power Triad of Beta Carotene, Vitamin C and Vitamin E
Vitamin E alone is not enough The best results come from using several antioxidants at once. Harvard researchers discovered that women getting lots of vitamin E had a drop in cardiovascular disease of 34%. Those who got a lot of beta carotene cut heart disease by 22%. And those who took a lot of vitamin C cut it by 20%. But when all three antioxidants were combined, heart disease was slashed by nearly 50%! The same was true for strokes. High intake of all three antioxidants reduced the risk of strokes by a startling 54%.

The same was true for cataracts. You might not be worried about cataracts now. But if you're planning on living to age 75, you should know that almost half of North Americans over age 75 have cataracts. What causes cataracts? Free radicals. Studies show that people who took vitamin E supplements had 56% fewer cataracts. People who took vitamin C supplements showed a 70% reduction. But people taking at least 400 IU of vitamin E and 300 mg of vitamin C supplements daily were largely free of cataracts.

Even arthritis has been shown to improve with large daily doses of vitamins A, C and E and the mineral selenium.

Selenium
If you're a woman, selenium can help protect you against breast cancer. According to Dr. Richard Passwater in his powerful book, The New Super Nutrition: "This year 115,000 women will learn they have breast cancer. Yet the evidence indicates that breast cancer can be reduced more dramatically than any other cancer thanks to antioxidant"

One expert, Dr. Gerhard Schrauzer of the University of California at San Diego, stated, "If every woman in America started taking selenium supplements or had a high-selenium diet, then within a few years the breast cancer rate in this country would drastically decline." Finally the first really impressive, double-blind, placebo-controlled, gold-standard research project on selenium was just released, giving us the first real proof of the power of selenium to help prevent cancer. According to a study by Dr. Larry Clark of the University of Arizona, 200 micrograms (mcg.) daily of selenium cut the rate of:

* Prostate cancer by 69%
* Colorectal cancer by 64%
* Lung cancer by 34%.

Are you taking at least 200 mcg. of selenium daily? Not if you're taking the U.S. brand One-A-Day vitamins. To get 200 mcg. of selenium, you'd need to take TWENTY One-A-Day tablets daily!

Chromium
Chromium? Until a few months ago, I had no idea I even needed chromium. I also didn't know that because of over-processed foods, 90% of us don't get enough chromium in our diets. If you don't get at least 200 micrograms of chromium daily, your insulin levels soar and can cause a whole series of problems, including diabetes, weight gain, heart disease, and even cancer. One-A-Day vitamins contain only 10 micrograms of chromium. Are you getting enough chromium in your diet?

Zinc
90% of older Americans do not even consume the RDA for zinc. Yet zinc is an important nutrient that can strengthen and fortify your immune system. Dr. Ananda S. Prasad, M.D., Professor of Medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine and an authority on zinc... "has demonstrated that a dime's worth of zinc a day may prevent a fortune in health care and suffering... Subjects, ages fifty to eighty who took 30 mg of zinc gluconate every day for 6 months, saw their immune functioning come dramatically alive...

And men, don't forget the power of zinc to help you maintain a healthy normal prostate gland. Studies show that 85% of men with enlarged prostates can find relief with adequate intakes of zinc. Deficiencies of zinc can also cause infertility and decreased sex drive.

Folic Acid
Recent newspaper headlines have been touting the power of folic acid to help prevent heart attacks and birth defects. Folic acid is also essential in maintaining proper cell repair. Each of your cells is under bombardment from "free radicals" every second of every day. If the cell DNA is not repaired properly cancer can result. A deficiency of folic acid increases the likelihood that cancer will spread. Did you get your folic acid today?

Vitamin B12
Even a little deficiency can be deadly According to Dr. Michael Colgan:
"You require only a few micrograms (millionths of a gram) of Bl2 each day. The RDA is only 2 micrograms. Your blood contains only about 5 nanograms (billionths of a gram) per liter less than a speck of dust. You couldn't see that amount even under a microscope ... Yet if you lack that infinitesimal speck, your whole body declines into the serious disease of pernicious anemia, which gradually destroys the myelin sheaths protecting your nerves; leading to blindness; insanity and death .... The same applies to other micro-nutrients. It is still a mystery to science why such a minute amount of these substances can hold the keys to health, to sanity even to life itself. But they do, and if they are deficient in your food, you are asking for disease."

But our ability to get enough B12 from our food decreases as we get older. Up to 50% of all Americans after age 60 lose the ability to absorb vitamin B12 from food. This makes supplementation necessary. How necessary? Remember our discussion about Alzheimer's disease? I said that 20-30% of those diagnosed with Alzheimer's and dementia actually had a deficiency of one specific vitamin. That vitamin is B12. When given simple B12 supplements, the symptoms of Alzheimer's and dementia disappeared.
What's the message?

Take your nutritional supplements every day! Your fellow baby boomers who refuse to heed this advice may very well spend their future and their life savings on endless visits to doctors and hospital.

(Robert G. Allen endorses USANA.)