Friday 13 October 2017

Benefits of Honey



It's happening in small, private clinics...

And it's happening in the largest, most respected hospitals in the world...

A rising tide of doctors and health care providers are now urging their patients eat this "life-giving" sugar every single day.

They're not just recommending it to give a "slightly better alternative" to other sweeteners either. They're prescribing it to treat life-threatening diseases, heal chronic conditions, and keep people looking and feeling their very best.


What is this sugar?


If you guessed honey, then you're absolutely right. For we've all heard about how honey is a remarkable substance. We've heard about how it "doesn't go bad". Or about how archaeologists found unspoiled, 2000-year-old honey in an Egyptian tomb.

but what you may not know is

Honey contains a concentrated dose of vitamins, minerals and nutrients that nourish and re-vitalize your body. And it possesses unique antimicrobial properties that help you fight off infections.


Throughout history, honey has been used to treat...

Coughs
Wounds
Indigestion
Skin infections
Fatigue
Flu's
Burns
And more!

For example, honey was the most popular ancient Egyptian healing remedy (and was mentioned over 500 times in 900 remedies.)

Hippocrates (the father of modern medicine) used honey as a treatment for pain, dehydration, and fever. And this isn't just some "folk remedy" discredited by modern science either. Researchers (in thousands of peer-reviewed papers) continue to uncover just how healing honey can be.

In fact...

I personally prescribe this healing super food. This often surprises people though.

I still remember how one patient, Rachel, just stood there, staring at me with her mouth open.

"Hold on. Let me get this straight." she said. "Did I really just hear my doctor tell me to give my seven-year-old son honey?!?"



I nodded. "Just a spoonful before he goes to bed. The cough will clear up in no time."

Her son, Kevin, had just recovered from the flu. And while the fever and nausea had faded, his cough hadn't.

Overcome by a fit of coughing every five minutes, he couldn't sleep at night (which made him cranky and miserable all day.)

Rachel was at her wit's end. The sleepless nights left her exhausted. And she'd done everything she could think of to help her son... Lots of water... Cough syrup... Even antibiotics.

And here I was, a physician, prescribing something you'd normally drizzle over oatmeal or spread on toast.

Truth be told though, I could sympathize with her skepticism. For when I first heard about honey's life-giving properties...

I Didn't Believe the Science

See, I'm a naturopathic physician. What that means is that I treat real patients for real illnesses. I'm responsible for helping them get better.

I don't take that responsibility lightly.


That makes me a fierce skeptic when it comes to "miracle cures". If you're going to trust me as their doctor, I intend full-well to repay that trust and prescribe treatments that will work.

I demand to see peer-reviewed studies.

I go out of my way to talk to leading doctors and health experts.

In fact, my strict standards for evidence are a key reason why I have the respect of not just the alternative health world, but the traditional western medical community as well.

Take, for example, the endorsement of Yale University (a leading, Ivy League medical institution.) I teach classes there. And I help them develop their curriculum.

In addition, I am also...  Dr. Joshua a doctor for doctors. Many of my current patients are doctors and nurses.

After seeing the results I get for their patients (I tend to get referred "problem" cases that traditional medicine can't solve), doctors often come to me and say, "Whatever you did to that guy, I want you to do it to me too."

All this is to say...

I'm very serious when it comes to medicine.

And when I first heard the claims people were making about honey's healing abilities, I was rightly skeptical.

After all...

Aren't sweets bad for you. We've all heard about how sugar causes obesity, diabetes, and a bunch of other chronic diseases. Sugar in spoon....
We've also heard how it costs the United States over $150 billion dollars each year in medical expenses.

Or how leading health figures like the Dutch health minister, Paul Van der Velpen, proclaim sugar to be worse than alcohol, tobacco, and cocaine combined.

It's all true.....

Sugar can be extremely hazardous to your health.

But this depends on two critical factors...

1. How much sugar you consume.

2. What kind of sugar you eat.

Your body needs sugar to survive. Consumed in moderation, sugar is a helpful source of energy. That is... provided you get it from the right sources.

We humans evolved to get our sugar by eating whole foods like fruits, vegetables, and yes, even honey. Your body knows how to extract the maximum benefit from these whole foods.

Honey, in particular, has three critical healing effects... First, honey supports your immune system and fights off harmful bacteria.

As you know, your body is under constant assault by numerous viruses and bacteria that threaten to tire you out, make you sick, and even kill you.

Fighting off this threat is key to staying healthy.

One of the vital components in honey is an enzyme called glucose oxidase. This enzyme, when exposed to oxygen, produces hydrogen peroxide -- a strong acid that dissolves the cell walls of bacteria. (Most human cells have thicker cell walls and can resist the low amounts of acid honey produces.)

This makes honey a powerful tool for fighting skin infections, healing wounds, and otherwise supporting your immune system. (And its why honey is able to last for so long in your cupboard without going bad.)

Second, it supplies the "building blocks" for healthy cells.

In addition to giving you sugars, honey equips your body with a complex array of proteins, enzymes, minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, and other nutrients. The second these nutrients hit your body, they go to work...

Tuning up your heart, lungs, stomach, brain, eyes, and skin...
Controlling cancer-causing free-radicals and stopping cell damage in its tracks...
Detoxifying your body of harmful pollutants and other toxins.
this is all good news
However, honey still has a very high sugar content (70%-85% depending on the type of honey you get.) And as just about any health official will tell you, sugar is a major cause of obesity, diabetes, and all the other chronic illnesses we see in abundance today.



So shouldn't we avoid honey despite its antimicrobial and nutritional properties?

Well, that brings me to the third healing effect of honey. It turns out...

honey burns differently in your body than other sugar
You've probably experienced just how rapidly most sugar burns in your body -- how it gives you a sudden surge of energy followed shortly by a complete crash.


Yet when you eat honey, you don't get that same "flare effect". Instead you get a slow, even burn of energy -- which you can put to use for things like working, playing sports, or spending time with your family.

That's because all the extra enzymes and nutrients in honey not only help the body rebuild itself -- they also regulate how the body uses the sugar.

It's kind of like the flame on your stove.

Contained and controlled by the burner, valves, and the rest of the stove, you can safely use the fire for cooking.

But take that flame out of context -- by putting it on your living room floor for example -- it can quickly burn out of control and cause all kinds of damage.

In the same way, sugars eaten outside their normal context of whole, complete foods run riot in our bodies -- leaving us exhausted, overweight, and sick.

Unfortunately, as you know...

99 percent of sweeteners are dangerously from real foods
The sugar you find in grocery stores, processed foods, and packaged desserts is made in large scale, industrial refineries using cheap, mass-farmed crops like sugar beets.

Food manufacturers extract the sugary pulp from the rest of the plant.

They strip away all trace of healthy minerals and nutrients.

And they leave you with a hyper-concentrated dose of empty calories that cause all kinds of chaos in your body.

Without the "burn-control" you normally get when you eat sugar that's part of a whole food, the body can't control the fire. And so we end up with...

disease
Heart disease
Weight gain
Chronic fatigue
Weak immune systems
Gut problems
Cancer
And more...

It's not just white sugar either. Many so-called "natural sweeteners" like raw sugar, corn syrup, and agave nectar are all highly refined. One study done at Princeton found these alternatives cause just as much (if not far more) damage to your body than white sugar.

The body just doesn't know how to properly use these concentrated, "unnatural" sugars.

So why do we even bother with these harmful sweeteners in the first place? Why don't we all just use honey?

The short answer: Profit.




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