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.
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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