For many of us, our digestive system is the bane of our existence, but when you think about it, it shouldn't be a surprise. I always say, and it's a bit of an exaggeration, but I always say even if you eat the healthiest diet in the world, the most toxic thing, and even if you're the healthiest person in the world, the most toxic thing we do every day is eat. And you probably think, "How can you say that if I eat really healthy fruits and vegetables and things, how can that be toxic?" Just think about it. We're an organism. In order to survive on a daily basis, we have to take other organisms and we have to basically shove them in our mouth and we have to chew them up and eat them, break them down and digest them, extract what we need from them, and then get rid of them before they poison us, essentially. We basically have to take this foreign matter, whether it's animals or plants, we have to eat them. We have to figure out how to break them down. And it's one thing to break something down in a laboratory with extremes of temperature and extreme chemicals. It's another thing to break down these animals and plants that we eat and figure out how to extract the important nutrients that they contain, do that in our own best interest, keep what we need, get rid of what we don't need as quickly as possible, which is why fiber intake and regularity is so important because fiber intake is critical for the rapid intestinal transit time that's associated with good health. Also, fiber acts to kind of control, deactivate, and capture a lot of the damaging molecules and free radicals and damaging components in the food we eat. But digestion - so I hope you understand now, well, we shouldn't feel badly about our digestive system because it's a universal human truth that we will, from time to time or in many people all the time, struggle with our digestion. It's this system that passes through the middle of us and we must keep it full on a daily basis, delivering the raw materials our body requires, and doing so in a world that is stressful, in a world that is difficult, and we all know that plays a role in how our digestive system functions in our perceived digestive health. We're also taking a whole range of drugs for different reasons. Many of those drugs not intended to affect our digestive system but, of course, it does undermine the health and function of our digestive system. So again, it should be expected that we have problems with our digestive system. That is one harsh chemical laboratory that we ask to do the dirtiest chemical work all the time and then to get rid of all that dirty work before it's toxic to us.

Statin drugs. Who would have thought that I would need to talk about those? 20 years ago, over 20 years ago now, when they first were being developed, statin drugs were something that was being recommended to lower cholesterol. We since have seen them become the number one selling drugs in the world, as a class of drugs, literally tens of billions of dollars a year in sales. Statin drugs, obviously, lower cholesterol for those of you who might be taking them or have them recommended to you. Statin drugs are something that also have an extremely long list of side effects. They affect the way we feel. They affect our behavior, in some cases. In the past they've actually resulted in death, something called rhabdomyolysis. That's why if you take statin drugs and you have muscle tenderness or soreness make sure you see your doctor. Statin drugs work by a rather interesting mechanism and statin drugs are incredibly effective at lowering cholesterol. Not always having been established at lowering the risk of heart disease but they do effectively lower cholesterol. We often have to separate those two things, cholesterol level and risk of heart disease. I've talked about that on a separate video when I talk about our CholestaCare and our ChocoNuvo and our Ultimate Oatmeal which have a plant-based ingredient that lowers cholesterol by the same way a healthy diet lowers cholesterol. But when we're talking about statin drugs, and it's something I thought is really important to touch on, is that if you have to take a statin drug, the goal to using a statin drug should be finding the optimum dose at which you get the reduction you seek but also avoid side effects because the side effects can actually affect neurological function, brain function, cause fatigue. It's just a long list of effects which are not associated with having a quality life. So we obviously want to have the best quality life we can. So one thing in particular that the scientific research, the medical research on statin drugs have shown is that if you found a level that delivers the reduction that you seek, generally, especially if you're taking, and you could talk to your doctor about this, one of the longer half-life. Meaning one of the statin drugs that stays in your body a little bit longer has an effective dose for a longer period of time. Something like rosuvastatin, which I believe is Crestor, that statin drug, once you establish your dose, which will be a lower dose if you were taking say ten milligrams a day of that, if you went to ten milligrams every other day, your reduction wouldn't change. Meaning you get the same benefit and you'd be taking half as much of that drug which you would lower your risk of side effects by more than half. So that's something very important. There's all sorts of great research that with halving your dose or turning your dose to every other day or even doing both won't significantly change the reduction. If someone was at 250 and say they're at 150 after taking ten milligrams of whatever it might be, Crestor, every day, that if they went to five milligrams every other day, meaning that they're taking 1/4 the dose, reduced it by 75%, instead of their reduction being to 150, it might just be to 165 or 168. In other words, a relatively insignificant increase in cholesterol for a 75% reduction in the drug they're taking. So these are the sorts of things that anyone can do with their doctor, frankly. Just the sorts of things that everyone should do with their doctor that we should all take a very active role in trying to achieve the best results with our doctors, with our medications and in so doing, reduce the side effects, reduce our dependency. Also, obviously, 75% less of a drug means you're spending 75% less on that drug. Also, say if you added, happened to add CholestaCare or ChocoNuvo or Ultimate Oatmeal, the worst reduction you could expect with that is about a 10 or 15 percent reduction. So even if you lowered your statin by 75% and it went up 10% you could get back that 10%, more than that 10%, just by adding a natural plant based ingredient without side-effects. That seems like some really exciting math. Also something else everyone should know about and when it comes to, be aware of when it comes to, cholesterol-lowering drugs, there's another drug called Zetia. It's another very effective drug. It works differently than statin drugs. Statin drugs, I was mentioning before, they work by inhibiting cholesterol synthesis in our body. They also inhibit CoQ10 synthesis. That's why it's so important to supplement CoQ10 if you're taking statin drugs. But when you inhibit the cholesterol synthesis, obviously, your cholesterol levels go down. As do your CoQ10 levels, that's again why you must supplement CoQ10. But Zetia works differently. Zetia works by affecting the actual metabolism of CoQ10 within, not CoQ10, of cholesterol within your body. The standard dose within your digestive system, the standard dose of Zetia is 10 milligrams. I've read a few studies that said that you get basically the exact same reduction with five milligrams as you get with 10 milligrams. In other words, if you're taking 10 milligrams of Zetia, why not talk to your doctor and mention to him or her that there's a study out there that says five milligrams delivers the same benefits as 10? And obviously five milligrams will result in a reduction in side-effects, will reduce the potential for side-effects substantially, significantly. So just a couple of pointers. And again, when you modify your doses of the medications you take, you can also modify them based upon changes you might make in your diet. As you increase fiber intake, you're going to reduce your total and LDL cholesterol level. It varies by individual. As you reduce your intake of saturated fat and cholesterol, you're going to reduce your cholesterol level as well. As you increase your intake of the plant sterols or plant sterol esters in ChocoNuvo, my chocolate product or best tasting chocolate in the world, or our CholestaCare or our Ultimate Oatmeal and Oat Bran, as you incorporate those, it further lowers your total cholesterol. It enables you to lower the dosage of the drugs you might be taking to achieve your desired level. So it should be all part of a comprehensive plan. The goal of which is to reduce our dependency on drugs and to achieve the healthiest state without the consequences and side effects that come from drugs because, remember, every drug has side effects. No matter how much the drug companies like to promote their products on TV with the best-looking people, with the prettiest images, it's just, they're such lovely commercials, unless you listen to the language all with all the risks associated with their drugs which they do a brilliant job of avoiding our hearing that. But again, our goal should be. The only thing I take is an occasional ibuprofen and I consider myself blessed to be doing that. And I think to the extent that so many of us can take steps in terms of our diet, in terms of our lifestyle, in terms of an intelligent dietary supplementation, we can also reduce our dependence on these drugs and only improve our health.

Common questions I'm asked: Is there anything, especially with type 2 diabetes becoming an epidemic in our society, is there anything that you could do naturally to help your blood sugar control, your blood sugar and insulin metabolism? And, of course, the answer to that is a resounding "Yes!"

The first thing we can all do is manage our weight better. In this country, I think right now we're at about 75% overweight and obese. In some states in America, literally 40% of Americans are obese, and so it's really a huge problem. And as we have watched that problem escalate, we watch issues like type 2 diabetes, issues with blood sugar management, also issues like blood pressure, cardiovascular disease. They're just as epidemic, unfortunately, as overweight and obesity. So the first thing we could all do is do our very best to manage our weight. And managing our weight is really as simple as just managing what we put in our body. It sounds simple, but actually as I know, it's not simple at all.

But in terms of supplementation, is there anything that you can do that can help to support you and your doctor's efforts at managing your blood sugar? In terms of blood pressure, there's a lot of different supplements that we could say can help support your blood pressure, whether it's CoQ-10 or Omega-3s. But when it comes to blood sugar, there are a couple of supplements now that if you'd asked me this question five years ago, I wouldn't have given you the same affirmative answer. But there are a couple of supplements now that I can say with absolute, extremely strong conviction, will help support and help promote your efforts at blood sugar balance, blood sugar metabolism, and insulin metabolism. Finally I could answer that question affirmatively that you have a tool that you could bring to your doctor that you can engage that's going to help you in those efforts to keep those numbers in the normal range.

The first I'll talk about is cinnamon extract. And cinnamon extract is something that, probably go back about 10 or 15 years, where I started seeing the inklings of positive research or a positive conversation in that regard among the experts. In the last five years, that research has become compelling. And if you look at the reviews on this product, the reviews on this product are equally compelling. In fact, my own personal experience, my blood sugar level is very good. My A1C, which is the most important thing to track because your blood sugar level is like a snapshot of something in a particular moment. When you look at your blood sugar level, it's generally done fasting and when your doctor does a blood draw it will be done fasting and you'll see your blood sugar at that moment in time when they drew that blood and hopefully it's under a hundred. Hopefully it's around ninety or even better.

The real number that we want to see is your A1C. That A1C number, that number is really giving you a snapshot, not a snapshot, but almost like a videotape. It's letting you know what your blood sugar levels have likely been for the past couple of months. So that is really an insightful number and that's the number we want to know and we want to manage down, keep it down into the fives. That would be great if we could all do that. So that's something we want to pay attention to. I'm sure our doctors are paying attention to. But it's something we need to know as well.

Of course we want to modify our diet to make sure we're consuming less sugars and things like that, which we eat far too much sugar and complex carbs, which simply get converted into sugar in our body as we metabolize them. So we want to pay attention to our diet. But the greatest excitement for me is finally having a couple of natural ingredients that just give you another tool beyond dietary modification, beyond lifestyle modification, beyond all the things you're going to do with your doctor.

And our cinnamon extract is specifically standardized for the Type A polymers, the most important components from cinnamon bark extract in terms of balancing and maintaining that healthy blood sugar metabolism, healthy insulin metabolism. I know you'll be thrilled with the product. As I was beginning to say before, even my levels that are good levels, when I experiment and go on and off cinnamon, I watch the cinnamon lowering another approximately 10% my A1C, so it has a really significant impact on my A1C, roughly 7-10%, so that would be a wonderful thing if everyone could experience something like that and bring that tool to the table to work with their doctors in addition to the dietary and lifestyle modifications as well.

Another ingredient I'll mention briefly is berberine. Our cinnamon extract, you take one or two capsules daily. I just take one capsule daily, take one or two capsules daily. Our berberine extract, it's a cool product in that it's a bright yellow, like turmeric which is bright orange, those are from natural plants. And these natural plants, these natural roots, they were used not just as parts of Ayurvedic medicine in India as traditional medicines and traditional remedies, they're also such a beautiful bright rich color they were used to create the bright rich colors that you could see in Indian garments even if you went back five hundred or eight hundred years. So it's a really beautiful berberine in a really beautiful bright yellow color.

But that berberine has been the subject of just incredible research of late in terms of not just its benefits in support of healthy blood sugar metabolism, healthy blood sugar numbers, insulin metabolism but also lipid numbers. So it could also help us support and promote those numbers in terms of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, helping to keep those in the normal range as well. That's a product, to get the benefits, you'll want to be taking it with each meal and also because it's a little, potentially, for most people not, but for some people berberine can be a little bit gastrically irritating. You always want to take it with your largest meals of the day. You want to take it with a meal, not with a snack and not on an empty stomach. So that's three capsules daily when used properly.

The cinnamon is just one or two capsules you can take it anytime. You can even take it away from a meal. You could sprinkle cinnamon on your, as I do at home all the time, Muriel the same, I sprinkle it on my oat bran. She sprinkles it on her oatmeal. When she makes her little espresso in the morning, she sprinkles the cinnamon on there. So you could freely do that. But these are two wonderful, natural tools that can make an enormous difference in all of the things we're bringing to bear in terms of our blood sugar metabolism.

There's all sorts of medications out there. Lord knows I think the blood sugar metabolism, the blood sugar medications have now exceeded the sales of the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. So there's a wonderful selection of those drugs out there, but to the extent we could do things with our diet, with our lifestyle, with supplementation that gives us enough tools to maybe reduce or eliminate our dependency on those medications, that would be a wonderful goal for you to achieve with your doctor and I'm sure your doctor would agree.

A frequent question I'm asked pertains to healthy circulation. Where we tend to notice the greatest challenges to our circulation is in our lower extremities: our legs, our feet, our ankles, or calves. As many people say, the human body is a work in progress, and as we go through life it progresses mostly in the wrong direction. Gravity starts pulling things down. Among the things it pulls down is it holds our circulation down, so as we go through life standing upright, our heart is of course pumping blood and oxygen and nutrients down to our lower extremities. As I often say, we don't have any pumps in our feet, our ankles, or calves, so that fluid tends to build up. Gravity wants to hold it there. As I say, it's pulling everything down. It's the basic law, so unfortunately, the fluid our body is pumping down there that's rich in nutrients and rich in oxygen, it needs to get back away from those extremities when it's no longer rich in nutrients, instead rich in waste products, and also rich in CO2. So the way our body deals with that, our body is actually pumping even more blood and fluid behind. So it tends to essentially inflate those tissues in our lower extremities. That's both unattractive from the standpoint of our veins and our legs not looking particularly good as we get older. It's also uncomfortable in terms of those tissues over time naturally swelling, naturally becoming enlarged and looking nothing like they did perhaps 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago at all. Most of us think, "Nothing you can do about it. It's just the passage of time. It's just the aging process," and might be worse because someone might be overweight or obese but there's "nothing you can do." The fact is, there's absolutely, positively something you could do and something you could do that has a significant impact on not just the appearance of those tissues but how they feel. And if you want to read one of our most unanimously and astoundingly positively reviewed products, you should read the reviews of our Circulation & Vein Support for Healthy Legs: 95 percent positive reviews, 80 plus percent five-star reviews for a product that comes with a significant promise about making a visible difference and a difference that you cannot just see but also feel. This product performs and delivers on that promise. What I'm often asked, the prime ingredient in this product is a polyphenol, a naturally occurring polyphenol called diosmin. Many people say, "Is that a drug?" No. It's not. "Can I take it every day?" Yes, you can. "So I have to stop taking it after a few months?" No, you don't have to. I've been taking Circulation & Vein Support non-stop for a little over 20 years. If you're in Europe, you would be able to get Circulation & Vein Support. You'd be able to get the ingredient, the diosmin, if you went to a doctor and you'd get a prescription for diosmin from that doctor and it would be much more expensive than it is here in the United States. For over 50 years, that natural ingredient has been recommended by doctors in Europe and throughout France for their patients' healthy circulation, their legs, also for the healthy circulation somewhere in their body, a little less discreet place to mention than the circulation in our legs. But when it comes to things like hemorrhoids, healthy circulation in that part of our body helps us resist the tendency toward the weakening that occurs when we're going to be having a hemorrhoid. So also recommended in Europe for decades to support the healthy circulation in that part of our body to avoid the potential for hemorrhoids. But again, if we're simply looking at the issue that we all have as we get older, certainly as we go through our days if we spend too much time standing or as I've been doing here sitting here doing these videos, that is not in the best interests of our healthy circulation, to spend so much time in one position whether it be standing or whether it be sitting. So the Circulation & Vein Support for Healthy Legs, it's a product that we introduced about 20 years ago. It's about 20 percent higher potency in diosmin than it was originally. We've also added hesperidin root and two other ingredients that have been used in the clinical research and the clinical studies in Europe. We've also since added butcher's broom extract which is almost as impressive as diosmin in terms of these same benefits. We've also added grape seed extract and pine bark extract, standardized extracts of both to just create the most effective, natural product possible for a problem that basically plagues humanity. Because, as human beings, we're either standing too much or sitting too much. It's one or the other and with those two options come outcomes that are not all that pleasant as we age. Our legs don't look particularly good. Our circulation and our legs don't look and don't feel particularly good. So this is a product that makes a profound, tangible, visible difference that you can feel and it's a product that, as I've been often asked and I alluded to before, is not a drug. It's not a medicine so it's not something you just take for a limited period of time and then you have to stop for a while. You could take it if you like every day for the rest of your life and it's not a high potency, high dose product meaning that you only have to take two capsules daily. That's it and it's an exceedingly affordable product. It's more affordable than it would be if you were getting these ingredients in Europe. And when you look at what's in this product between the diosmin, hesperidin, the rutin, you're also getting a little bit of vitamin C. You're also getting, as I said before, the grape seed extract, the butcher's broom extract. You're getting all of these ingredients. The pine bark extract. So when you break it all down, because there's no additives in this small easy to swallow capsule, when you break it all down, it's just an incredible value and the most surprising thing about it is that it actually works. That it actually delivers benefits in an area that none of us think benefits are possible. I think we're so conditioned to the fact that the only way we're going to feel something profound in our life is if we take a drug. That's not the case. If we eat healthy, profound lifelong benefits. If we have a healthy lifestyle, profound lifelong benefits. If we take an intelligent supplement, profound lifelong benefits.

When it comes to questions about parts of our body, perhaps the most frequent are joint issues, joint complaints, joint problems, osteoarthritis. Arthritis is pretty much a defining characteristic of the human condition. Obviously none of my products or supplements are designed to treat any disease of any kind including any disease of our joints. But given that the human condition basically is a gradual, if we'd like to live long enough, it's a gradual degradation of the functioning of virtually every tissue in our body. You have to recognize, when you make a dietary supplement, you're dealing with those normal age-related changes in our joints. As a result, it would make sense to deliver the materials that our body needs to repair those tissues in our joints or to deliver an ingredient that can help soothe the tissues of our joints.

So when I talk about our joints right now, I'm basically going to talk about three different approaches. The first is going to be Glucosamine and Chondroitin. We'll talk about how we do that intelligently and appropriately and following the science. And Glucosamine and Chondroitin, they're building blocks so that's a very straightforward approach for how we deliver the building blocks, the components to repair the structure of our joints so we repair and maintain the adequate functioning of our joints. The next product we'll talk about will be Marine Collagen Peptides. Marine Collagen Peptides, for our joints throughout our body, the most predominant protein in our body is collagen protein. So in terms of collagen protein we deliver an ingredient that's an integrating protein in those joint tissues because as much as Glucosamine and Chondroitin are mucopolysaccharides that are glycosaminoglycans, the general class of what they are that are critical for the unique structure of our joints, the integrating protein that integrates to those mucopolysaccharides is collagen peptides, collagen protein. So we'll talk about that next.

Last in terms of soothing our joints for all the overuse, abuse and all the things we do, just the general aging process, we'll talk about Turmeric Extract. So those are the three ingredients. Let's start first with Glucosamine and Chondroitin. And I'm going to try to do this, I could obviously talk for over several hours on each of these, I'm trying to be respectful of your time and give a quick thumbnail on the ingredients and give you a sense of why our products are so neat.

First of all, with Glucosamine and Chondroitin, the majority of products on the market take advantage of the fact that when it comes to us as consumers we look for Glucosamine and Chondroitin. We don't think beyond that. We don't realize that the most common form of Glucosamine on the market is Glucosamine HCL. That HCL stands for hydrochloride. That Glucosamine hydrochloride doesn't share the benefits of glucosamine sulfate. There's actual research science, clinical studies that talk about the fact that if you want the benefits of glucosamine avoid glucosamine hydrochloride. That you need to have the glucosamine sulfate. That sulfate group plays a critical role in the benefits associated with glucosamine.

So the first thing you must do with a glucosamine product is make sure you're following the research so it must be the sulfate form of both glucosamine and chondroitin. Also, typical glucosamine and chondroitin products, they use the sodium salt of chondroitin sulfate. Sodium is something that many of us are trying to avoid taking in additional sodium unnecessarily. I'd rather say avoid the sodium. If you need to have sodium, enjoy it on some food you're having. Don't get additional sodium with your joint product. So, of course, our products deliver only the calcium and potassium salts of these ingredients. They are 100 percent sodium free. There's no sodium in there at all.

Also, important with glucosamine and chondroitin, these products are typically found in large tablets that are unpleasant to use at their proper levels so people end up taking less than they're supposed to and, when they do take them, there's some question as to whether they're fully bioavailable because of the binders and the chemical forms of those ingredients. Our Glucosamine & Chondroitin is only found in a small capsule, a soft capsule, an easy to swallow capsule, in an ultrafine powder that's like dust that's immediately available, soluble so it delivers the benefits. So again, Glucosamine & Chondroitin have an abundance of literature and how they are absolutely structurally required for the repair and maintenance of our joints. But all that science is worthless unless the supplement follows, unless the supplement is in the proper sulfate form and in a physical form that's easy to swallow, that's easy to dissolve, that's bioavailable and delivers its ingredients to the joints where the targeted benefits can be experienced.

So that's a quick thumbnail sketch. What you need to be taking is 1,500 milligrams of glucosamine in the form of 2,000 milligrams of glucosamine sulfate. A lot of companies take shortcuts, deliver 1,500 milligrams of glucosamine sulfate which is actually 1,200 milligrams, approximately 1,200 milligrams of glucosamine. We make sure it's 1,500 of glucosamine has 2,000 milligrams of glucosamine sulfate. When it comes to chondroitin, it's actually not measured as the full molecule 1,200 milligrams of chondroitin sulfate. Again, that's an idiosyncrasy of the research and we follow the research. We follow the science.

When it comes to the next ingredient, Marine Collagen Peptides, again we follow the research and science. There are lots of different collagen peptides out on the market that come from cattle, bovine, have come from pig, porcine, and come from other animals. The only choice when it comes to the science and the research are the Marine Collagen Peptides in my mind. And not only do we follow the research in terms of the form and type of Marine Collagen Peptides, we get them from the original source of those Marine Collagen Peptides that did the original research over the last several decades in Japan. They've been way ahead of the curve when it comes to the benefits of Marine Collagen Peptides and not only is this product beneficial for your joints but it's also beneficial for your skin because, again, when we talk about it the most important integrating protein complex in protein in your body is collagen peptides, collagen protein. It's the most predominant protein in our body. So when you look at our joints, it plays a critical, integrating role in our joints. It also does the same in our skin.

So a side benefit of this product are the elasticity benefits to our skin, elasticity benefits to our arteries and veins, and elasticity benefits to our joints. And, as I was talking about, with Glucosamine & Chondroitin, we all want to deliver the structural molecules necessary for the function of our joints but, interestingly enough, other elastic tissues, flexible tissues in our body share the important, those same important molecules like our arteries and veins, like our skin, like our joints. And, oddly enough, if you ask people what are the most important barometers of aging or even if you ask doctors, maybe if I'd ask a dermatologist, that dermatologist will tell you that it's your skin, as you lose the elasticity of your skin. That's a measure of someone's aging. If you maybe spoke to a cardiologist, they'll say no, it's as you observe the elasticity and the changes in the arteries and the blood vessels in the body that's really the most accurate barometer of aging. Maybe if you speak to an orthopedist, he'll tell you that when you notice the changes in the elasticity the flexibility in our joints, the tendons and ligaments in our joints, that really is an accurate indicator of the aging process.

Regardless, what do they all share? They're all telling you that tissues that are losing their elasticity and flexibility are losing their youthful properties. Glucosamine & Chondroitin, a critical part of those elastic youthful properties. Marine Collagen Peptides, or collagen peptides, a critical part of the flexibility, elasticity, resiliency, vibrancy of those tissues. So whether we're talking about our vascular tissue or arteries and veins, or whether we're talking about our connective tissue, our ligaments, tendons, the cartilage in our joints, or whether we're talking about the resiliency, the flexibility, the plumpness of our skin, the wrinkles around our eyes, they all share similar or identical biochemical roots.

So Marine Collagen Peptides, critical integrating protein. Typically collagen protein, when I was looking at it a couple of decades ago because remember I've been making vitamins for 38 years, the first time I encountered Marine Collagen Peptides was probably about 30 years ago. The biggest issue was they were inherently not absorbable. They are what's called a resistant protein. It's like fiber. Fiber can't be digested, can't be absorbed. Resistant proteins can't be digested, can't be absorbed. But the modifications that were done, the pre-digestion effectively that was done to these Marine Collagen Peptides to keep them in their amino acid, keep them as dipeptides, tripeptides in these small oligopeptides such that they can be absorbed and function as a signaling protein for collagen synthesis. What that means is not only do these collagen peptides serve as a raw material to be integrated in our bodies as our future collagen but also they serve a role, a signaling role. And perhaps when we were younger, we have a greater abundance of these signaling collagen peptide molecules or these collagen peptides. So when we're younger, we're stimulating the synthesis of collagen peptides by having these signaling proteins around and that is what Marine Collagen Peptides do. They provide that signaling benefit. They provide that raw material benefit. They provide both and even in the clinical research and studies they radioisotopically label. What that means is they put a little radioactive marker on the Marine Collagen Peptides and they actually observe its integration and stimulus of the collagen peptide process of the collagen peptide based tissues in our body.

So whether it's your joints, whether it's your circulatory tissue, whether it's the beauty of your skin, Marine Collagen Peptides are the first and best choice for collagen peptides. I believe far better than bovine or porcine for any number of reasons.

And lastly, when we're talking about our joints, Turmeric, in terms of a botanical that offers the soothing effects that so many of us seek without all the other consequences. That might be upset stomachs and gastric distress that might be associated with other means of soothing our joints. And again, Turmeric is not a drug. It's not a medicine. When you're taking it for its soothing benefits to our joints, you're also getting all sorts of benefits in terms of support of regenerative benefits for our liver, protective benefits for our brain, so a long list, for our digestive system.

So Turmeric is something that not only is the first botanical to reach for in terms, and we've been using it in our joint products for probably going on 30 years, so this is not something that's brand new research or science. It's something that's been around for, actually for, centuries in Ayurvedic medicine but we now recognize the scientific validity of that approach today. So Turmeric, the curcuminoids in turmeric are the beneficial compounds that are associated with those soothing benefits but, most importantly, with Turmeric, it needs to be bioavailable. It needs to be able to be absorbed because Turmeric, even the best standardized Turmeric at 95 percent curcuminoids, is not going to be bioavailable or bioactive unless something is done to overcome that inherent obstacle or limitation.

What we do is, we complex it with fat. We happen to complex it with a perfect fat for bioavailability, phosphatidylcholine, because it is the predominant phospholipid in our brain and the predominant phospholipid in our liver to areas where Turmeric also goes to work. But, most importantly, by complexing it with phosphatidylcholine, we make it available to be absorbed and to deliver those benefits to your joints and other tissues in your body. So Turmeric is a great example of a botanical that is now recognized as delivering significant benefits but it needs to follow the science otherwise you're taking Turmeric and taking curcuminoids but you're not getting the benefits of the science because you have to follow the science not just in terms of the ingredient but in terms of the form of the ingredient to be absorbed to be available to your body.

For many of us, our digestive system is the bane of our existence. It plagues us. But when you think about it, it shouldn't be a surprise. I always say, and it's a bit of an exaggeration, but I always say even if you eat the healthiest diet in the world, and even if you're the healthiest person in the world, the most toxic thing we do every day is eat. You probably think, "How can you say that if I eat really healthy fruits and vegetables and things? How can that be toxic?" Just think about it. We're an organism and in order to survive on a daily basis, we have to take other organisms and we have to basically shove them in our mouth and we have to chew them up and eat them, break them down and digest them, extract what we need from them, and then get rid of them before they poison us, essentially. We basically have to take this foreign matter, whether it's animals or plant, we have to eat them, we have to figure out how to break them down. And it's one thing to break something down in a laboratory with extremes of temperature and extreme chemicals. It's another thing to break down these animals and plants that we eat and figure out how to extract the important nutrients that they contain, do that in our own best interests, keep what we need, get rid of what we don't need as quickly as possible, which is why fiber intake and regularity is so important because fiber intake is critical for the rapid intestinal transit time that's associated with good health. Also, fiber acts to kind of control, deactivate and capture a lot of the damaging molecules and free radicals and damaging components in the food we eat.

But digestion. So I hope you understand now, we shouldn't feel badly about our digestive system because it's a universal human truth that we will, from time to time or in many people all the time, struggle with our digestion. It's this system that passes through the middle of us and we must keep it full on a daily basis delivering the raw materials our body requires and doing so in a world that is stressful, in a world that is difficult and we all know that plays a role in how our digestive system functions and our perceived digestive health. We're also taking a whole range of drugs for different reasons. Many of those drugs not intended to affect our digestive system but of course it does undermine the health and function of our digestive system. So again, it should be expected that we have problems with our digestive system. That is one harsh chemical laboratory that we ask to do the dirtiest chemical work all the time and then to get rid of all that dirty work before it's toxic to us.

Hi there, Andrew Lessman here. This one we're talking about weight loss, and earlier this month we did a meal replacement. But in terms of weight loss, there's just so many different things to focus upon. And for me, the most important thing is what we eat. As great as our meal replacement is, and the science on meal replacement is that meal replacements are the most effective tool we could all reach for and try to find in terms of weight loss. So if it's not mine, try to find some ones that might work for you. But the most important thing in terms of weight loss is what we're going to eat, and that's what meal replacements work because they relate to what we eat.

But when we're not having a meal replacement, we have to make healthy decisions in terms of what we put in our body. And I know I always try this time of year - it's a time of year where all of us are more receptive to change and we tend to have resolutions most frequently about weight loss. As a country, we're more overweight than ever, even though for decades I've heard the experts say, "Well, it's gotten so bad it can't get any worse." And I've heard that for decades, and it's only continued to get worse. About 40% of Americans are now obese, and then when you add those Americans that are overweight, we start approaching 75% of the American population that's overweight or obese, which is a frightening number beyond the impact it has on our individual lives.

The collective impact it has on our society, on our economy, on health care - because the lion's share of our health care budget is going to be dealing with all of us aging and being overweight or obese. So I say the most patriotic decision we could make in this country is to achieve our ideal weight. It would dramatically reduce the trillions of dollars we spend on health care. It would probably eliminate one of those trillions of dollars that I think we spend - probably about three trillion dollars on health care in this country. That's not three billion, that's three trillion. That's three thousand million or three million million. It's just a staggering number that we spend on health care, on drugs, on medical care, on surgeries and procedures.

And even things - whether we realize it or not - even one of the most significant risk factors for cancer... Of course we know about lung cancer and smoking and things like that, but one of the significant risk factors for just cancer in general is overweight and obesity. So there's so much. And obviously we know overweight and obesity is probably the principal risk of heart disease. It contributes to type 2 diabetes. It contributes to hypertension, high blood pressure. Go down the list - it's a major contributing factor to joint replacement and things like that.

So to the extent we can - and this wasn't designed to be an alarmist video - it's maybe to try to underscore all the benefits that are to be derived, and those benefits are longer, healthier, happier lives. So whatever we can do, it's important to make that effort both on an individual basis and in terms of the benefits to our society. We all hear talk about health care and all the things that have been going on in this country in terms of health care and health insurance and whatnot. But the most economical steps we could all take as a country and as individuals is to just find ourselves at our ideal weight.

We obviously know that not smoking is a good idea and not drinking to excess is a good idea. But simply being at our ideal weight is just a dramatic benefit that we could all embrace, and it just results in hundreds of billions of dollars - absolutely, I believe trillion, a trillion dollars or more in savings annually if our country could achieve the body composition that we had just when I was a little kid. It probably would save a trillion dollars a year, which is a staggering amount of money. Health care for the entire country when I was a little kid wasn't even a fraction of that number that we would save. So it's great opportunities for all of us. Hopefully we take advantage of them.

What I wanted to talk about are the cookbooks that Muriel and I have done, and the most important cookbooks - certainly our Secure Meal Replacement is great if you're looking for a structured meal replacement. But if you're looking for an opportunity to have some recipes that you could fall in love with that provide healthy eating structure, then we have our soup cookbook - our Healthy Soup Cookbook. We have our Veggie Cookbook. We have our Everyday Eating Cookbook. And this is how we eat.

I happen to be someone who - I love food and I eat a lot of food. But because I'm active and because the foods that I eat a lot of are not all that calorically dense, I'm someone who never - I'll eat anything other than eating fast food. And I've been that way for probably over 40 years. I think unfortunately that a lot of people in our country - unfortunately that's a staple of their diet, whether it's going to be things like Big Macs and Quarter Pounders and fried chicken and things like that and french fries. I think the most - none - I think the most popular vegetable, and it's not even a vegetable in our country, is the french fry.

We've got to rediscover things like asparagus. And you read the research on asparagus and health and the association of foods like asparagus or broccoli or cauliflower and kale with disease risk reduction, and you would only want to eat these foods and incorporate them in your diet as frequently as possible. That's what Muriel has done in her cookbooks.

I'm someone who I only like food that tastes good. I don't care if it's healthy - it has to be healthy and taste good for me to enjoy eating it. So then I'm happy that it's healthy, but it needs to taste good. And whether it's the soups, whether it's the salads and things in the Veggie Cookbook, or whether it's the everyday eating - that is everything from the chicken we have at home, the fish, to the soups and veggies and things like that that we frequently consume - those are really the keys to the kingdom. If you just can pick up a few recipes there...

And we now - we give away these books. The price of these books is now less than we used to charge for their shipping when we introduced these books a few years ago. So it's an opportunity to get these books really affordably. And again, if you are overweight, if you are obese, it's not your fault. First of all, we like to blame our parents for lots of things, but we can blame our parents and our ancestors for our being overweight and obese. And you could have the absolute weight of all the science on your side when you do that, because the fact that we arrived here today - we arrived here today the way we are because of our ancestors.

We were designed to thrive and to survive - really survive - in a world of scarcity, in a world where starvation was our number one risk. So if you went back to, say, World War I, a hundred years ago, virtually no one was obese and very few people were overweight. But if you now look at the world we live in today, because we live in a world of abundance - an abundance not just of food everywhere, but foods that have been designed to appeal to our lower senses, foods that are fatty and sweet and just unfortunately not a nutritious combination but a calorically dense combination.

So again, we were designed to thrive in a world of scarcity. So our taste buds, our palate, our behaviors, our neurology - we seek an abundance of those rich calories. We seek salty foods too. So we seek things that are not in our best interests because starvation was the greatest risk. So if starvation is the greatest risk, then guess what? Your taste buds are designed to identify the richest source of calories. And not only would you eat what you need, you'd eat more than you need it because you never know when you get to eat again. So that's the blueprint that in this day of abundance we all still possess.

My mobile phone is right next to me. My mobile phone - not only could I make a phone call as we always could for the last decade or so to get food delivered, I could go to thousands of websites and just with a few clicks have food delivered. So it's no effort to have the least healthy things delivered to us, and unfortunately the most available are often the least healthy. So we have to overcome what has become the status quo.

We know what our genetics are. I mean, our meal replacement was designed - oddly enough - designed to taste like a high-calorie milkshake because that's what our taste buds, that's what our palates, our neurology needs to feel satisfied. But these cookbooks were designed to deliver delicious, rich, healthy foods.

And just as they say it takes a couple of two or three weeks for a habit of exercise to become part of you such that you really don't need to think about it, after a while the same thing applies to exercise. The same thing applies to a healthy diet, and that your palate changes, your taste buds change, and they become more receptive to foods that are not - that are much more subtle.

So the way Muriel has arranged this cookbook - it's rich, it's delicious, it caters to or panders to my need for a rich, tasty food, but it's healthy and it's low-calorie. Just the soups - at any one time in our refrigerator we probably have two dozen little eight-ounce glass bowls of our asparagus soup, the split pea soup, and the sweet pea soup. And those are my snacks throughout the day. This time of year especially, our turkey chili - or sometimes we make the chili without turkey. It's so rich with all the beans and legumes, it's delicious. And just those soups alone are my secret to weight loss.

So there are all sorts of opportunities available to us to make better decisions. Hopefully these books - they're literally a shipping charge to get them to you. They're free shipping and handling obviously, so it's an opportunity to make a profound difference. Knowledge is - knowledge is the key. Knowledge is king. That's our opportunity to make a difference.

And if you could find just in the Veggie Cookbook, the Soup Cookbook, the Everyday Eating Cookbook - if you could just find a few recipes - that could be the difference between you weighing the same in July as you weigh today, or you could weigh 25, 30 pounds less. That's an opportunity that we all have in front of us. And it's not about going crazy with exercise, it's not about going crazy with a diet. It's just about making the small modifications that gives our body a chance to start getting some traction and some positive momentum. And once that starts, those habits become behaviors. And then just as it's hard to change bad behaviors, it becomes hard to change the positive behaviors.

So hopefully that's what things like our Secure Meal Replacement or Energy and Fat Metabolism Factors or Essential L-Carnitine - these are the tools on a molecular, on a cellular level that can assist you. But their real power when it comes to weight loss - the real power is you. It's making that decision, deciding that your health, your well-being, the people you love - that you're all important enough to enjoy this benefit. And it's something that has to be with you every moment of the day because it's a decision that needs to be made and remade constantly through the day.

And so we're there for you. We have an 800 number. You could always call us, and just as we can inform you about our products, we're just as happy to inform you about healthy eating decisions and things like that. And if they can't give you an answer in my call center or my company, then I'll be sure to do so. You just call us at...

...the protein content, the nutrient content. You need to know what you're eating if you're going to be an informed consumer and if you're going to be effective and successful at weight loss and good health. And that's what all our cookbooks provide - is more information than you'd even get on a food label, which no other cookbook that I've seen does that, because we really want you to succeed.

So from Muriel and for me to you, we make these books ridiculously affordable because they're the most important thing anyone can do in terms of their good health. I make the best vitamins in the world - they don't come close to the importance of what you eat on a daily basis. So to the extent we can help you eat better, then that is far more important than any supplement I can ever make.

So I encourage you to take advantage of these books and to take advantage of making good decisions on your part, because you hold the keys to the kingdom. As they say, God takes care of those who take care of themselves. This is an opportunity for all of us to take care of ourselves.

The first thing that makes our Omega-3s different is the specific form that they're in. A typical Omega-3 found in fish is found in the triglyceride form. The typical Omega-3 found in a typical supplement is in the ethyl ester form - not as easily absorbed, not as active, not as mild on your stomach as well. It isn't the natural form. Also, when your body metabolizes an ethyl ester, it generates trace amounts of ethanol. Ethanol - that's alcohol. That's not something... If I want alcohol, I'll drink a nice glass of wine. I won't consume my Omega-3s for that.

Then when you look at what makes an Omega-3 product an Omega-3 product, it's the two principal Omega-3s from fish oil, which is DHA and EPA. Typical industrially produced Omega-3 products have high levels of EPA, lower levels of DHA. Our Omega-3 product has higher levels of DHA, lower levels of EPA. You might say, "Well, so what? Aren't they both important?" Yes, they both are important, but DHA has far, far more research in terms of its benefit and in terms of its essential nature.

Our brain is 65 percent by weight fat, phospholipids. 65 percent of that weight, and by the way, that's DHA. So again, our brain is two-thirds, approximately, fatty acids by weight. Of those, the majority are DHA. That's why DHA is so important. And as if that wasn't sufficient, if we look at our eye, the macular region of our retina where lutein and zeaxanthin are concentrated, it is essentially an entirely fatty structure. The macular region of our retina - the principal fatty acid present is DHA.

So again, DHA is the most important of the two between DHA and EPA. Also, DHA can easily be converted into EPA. EPA into DHA? Not so easy. So DHA is the most flexible and the most versatile of the two. That is why we focus on DHA. That is why ours is in the natural triglyceride form, which the industrially produced Omega-3 fatty acids that represent 99% of the markets out there - they focus on EPA. They're not in the natural triglyceride form. They're also difficult on your stomach, have a fishy aftertaste, a whole long list of problems.

Also, to get a typical 500 milligram dose, you're going to have to swallow at least two large capsules. My product, because ours are more highly concentrated fish oils - one small capsule. Also, our Omega-3s, when we're making these Omega-3s and so many Americans are taking them, they affect our oceans. So our Omega-3s are responsibly harvested. They are independently third-party certified as being environmentally harvested. We only do it once a year.

So again, whether you're concerned about your own health and contaminants in the fish oil, ours are 100 percent contaminant-free. We've been testing them to be such for over 30 years because I've always been aware of that potential risk. In addition to that, ours are in their proper form, their natural form - no fishy aftertaste, won't upset your stomach. There's no Omega-3 product like it on the market. You get more in our tiny capsule than you get in their enormous horse capsule.

So that's, in about three minutes or so, that's the quick thumbnail sketch on the most impressive, the most unique Omega-3 product in the world. And what should also give some credence to the fact that our products are as uniquely superior as they are - as I've been doing this for 35 years, we've been making Omega-3 products since long before any other company even contemplated doing so, so we have the experience necessary to do it right.

I'm often asked questions about toxicity of vitamins and the only area really worthy of discussion, in that regard, is Vitamin A. Absolutely not an issue with any of my products because we don't use any preformed Vitamin A in any of our products. That's just not something we do. Actually, truth be told, in our prenatal vitamin there is a small amount of preformed Vitamin A because that's the one time when it would warrant being consumed. Otherwise, preformed Vitamin A is actually not beneficial for our health. The only way to consume vitamin A is in its carotenoid form, meaning as beta-carotene or alpha carotene. That's the way to consume Vitamin A. Otherwise, Vitamin A preformed, you might see it on the label of say typical multivitamins out in the marketplace as Vitamin A acetate or palmitate, things like that. These are not ingredients that we use, just not something that should be really in any multivitamin, multi-mineral supplement of any kind except for a prenatal vitamin. That would be the only place that could be appropriate, otherwise should not be there. It should just be in the form of carotenoids and it's most important that those carotenoids be in their natural form, natural beta-carotene natural alpha carotene. It has to be the natural form. The synthetic form is not beneficial. In fact, I think it's actually unhealthy. So you don't want to be consuming synthetic carotenoids. I often talk about this during my shows that ingredients really need to be bioidentical because ingredients, chemicals as they are in our body, the molecules in our body, they exist in a world as we do, in a world that's three dimensions. And one of the simplest analogies I give is if I tried to put my right-handed glove on my left hand, it won't work even though my hands are identical, they're mirror images of one another. The same in a biochemical environment. You need to make sure that the molecule is the right-handed molecule for a right-handed chemical reaction, the left-handed molecule for a left-handed chemical reaction. And you could have the other isomer, say in terms of carnitine and things, and the other isomer is not just, not beneficial or not bioactive, but it could actually be harmful. So you want to make sure that your supplements are bioavailable. I digressed a little bit from Vitamin A but vitamin A is not something that we need to be taking separately at all. In fact, we should not be taking separately at all. We should simply be getting our Vitamin A in terms of a supplement in the form of a natural based carotenoid.

I'm often asked about the term organic, and organic in terms of purchasing food and the like. But when I think about organic, it's not the fact that when I'm eating a plant, when I'm eating some strawberries that are grown organic or whatever it might be, some soy that was grown organically, I'm not eating that because I'm somehow trying to avoid the pesticides or herbicides or fungicides that were on that plant. Yes, that is a benefit of that, but what I'm more conscious about is really supporting a type of farming, a type of agriculture, that is in the best interest of our planet, of our society, of all of us.

I would imagine if someone actually did the calculations for every milligram of residue of a pesticide, herbicide or fungicide that might be left on a plant that we eat at home after we've cleaned it, or something like that, for every milligram that's left there's probably hundreds or thousands of milligrams that were deposited in that field that are then going into other parts of our food supply, that might be going into rivers and streams - not might be, that will be going to rivers and streams and the soil. And our soil is basically slowly dying. I think one of the greatest problems we have in this country is the gradual dying and loss of the vibrancy of the soil. And that soil is our ability to grow crops. And the only way we grow crops nowadays, it seems, is going further and further over to a chemicalized type of agriculture. And a natural agriculture is just as robust. It's not as though we need this chemicalized agriculture to feed ourselves.

So when it comes to organic, yes, the produce we get at home we try to purchase organic whenever we can and the real reason we do is it's to support a kind of agriculture that I think is very important to the future of our society and the future of our children and our grandchildren. So organic, if you can, it's a great way to go and the more we support organic the more inexpensive those organic foods become because they're going to become the standard so it's something that we should all seek to do. And many regular supermarkets, you don't have to go to a specialized supermarket anymore, they now have frozen vegetables that are organic, frozen fruits that are organic. And, by the way, frozen fruits and vegetables, just as rich in nutrition as the ones you're buying in the produce aisle and a lot more practical. They don't go bad as frequently so you get better use out of them and that can be very, very affordable.

So again, organic is something we should aspire to not because, personally as an individual we want to diminish our burden of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, but the fact that we want to reduce the burden to our planet which is killing our planet and our ability to produce healthy foods. That's the most important reason to be consuming things organic.