Day: March 18, 2023

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• KAATSU, also known as blood flow restriction (BFR) training, involves partially obstructing blood flow to your extremities while exercising

• The intermittent hypoxia generates an increase in anti-inflammatory myokines, the muscle version of cytokines, which in turn provides a whole host of beneficial hormonal responses

• Aside from dramatically improving muscle tone and preventing sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss), KAATSU is also a wonderful tool for post-surgical rehabilitation, allowing you to regain physical function in a fraction of the time that you would normally anticipate

• It will also improve your metabolic flexibility, as it increases the number of glucose transporters that absorb blood sugar in your cell membranes

• As a result, your insulin level won’t go up and you won’t develop insulin resistance which in turn lowers the risk for virtually every chronic degenerative disease

• KAATSU is a specific type of BFR therapy, as it uses a device that automatically inflates and deflates the cuffs you place around your extremities. “Conventional” BFR uses static pressure from elastic or inflatable bands, and while that can provide benefits when used correctly, KAATSU’s cycling mode is far superior and provides biochemical benefits you cannot get from static pressure

Blood flow restriction (BFR) training, which I perceive to be the greatest innovation in exercise training in the last century, was developed in Japan by Dr. Yoshiaki Sato in 1966. There, it’s known as KAATSU, which means “additional pressure.” KAATSU was brought to the U.S. just over a decade ago by Steven Munatones, after he completed a 13-year mentorship by Sato.

In summary, BFR involves partially obstructing blood flow to your extremities while exercising. This intermittent hypoxia generates an increase in anti-inflammatory myokines, the muscle version of cytokines, which in turn provides a whole host of beneficial hormonal responses.

Aside from dramatically improving muscle tone and preventing sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss), KAATSU is also a wonderful tool for post-surgical rehabilitation, allowing you to regain physical function in a fraction of the time that you would normally anticipate.

Importantly, it will also improve your metabolic flexibility, so that you can seamlessly transition between burning fat and glucose as your primary fuel. It does this by increasing the number of glucose transporters, which absorb and lower your blood sugar in your cell membranes. As a result, your insulin level won’t go up and you won’t develop insulin resistance.

“’Conventional’ BFR uses static pressure from elastic or inflatable bands, and while that can provide benefits when used correctly, KAATSU’s cycling mode is far superior and provides biochemical benefits you cannot get from static pressure.”

KAATSU is really a specific type of BFR therapy, as it uses a device that automatically inflates and deflates the cuffs you place around your extremities. “Conventional” BFR uses static pressure from elastic or inflatable bands, and while that can provide benefits when used correctly, KAATSU is far superior for several reasons, which we’ll review here.

One of the reasons I’m so excited about KAATSU is it’s ability to help build muscle mass and prevent sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is a progressive decline in muscle mass as you age, primarily due to the decrease in blood flow supply to muscle stem cells which are called satellite cells.

When your satellite cells don’t get the nourishment they require, it becomes very difficult to build muscle. Once you are over 50, this is always working against you, even if you’re doing hardcore resistance training. KAATSU solves this problem. It increases the blood supply to your satellite stem cells, which provides the necessary metabolic support needed to increase muscle protein synthesis and grow your muscles.

KAATSU has the added benefit of allowing older people, like me, to engage in relatively aggressive exercise with almost no risk of injury because you’re using very light weights, or if you’re frail and/or elderly, none at all. As explained by Munatones:

“KAATSU cycle is basically a very clever biohack that will allow the muscles to work and allow the vascular tissue to become more elastic. You don’t perceive the pain of heavy lifting, but your vascular tissue and muscle fibers are being worked out just as effectively, and you can do it for a longer period of time.

Putting the KAATSU bands on your legs and walking down to the beach, walking your dog or just walking around the neighborhood, standing, cleaning your windows of your house, folding your clothes, banging out emails, all of these things can be done with the KAATSU bands on your arms or legs. You’re getting the benefit of exercise.

Beta endorphins are being produced; hormones and metabolites are being produced as you’re doing simple things — and that is the way to get the older population in Japan, in the United States, around the world, to understand that you can stop sarcopenia, but you have to exercise. You don’t have to run a 10K, you don’t have to go down to Gold’s Gym. Just put on the KAATSU bands and live your life.”

As explained by Munatones, the KAATSU device inflates and deflates according to preset algorithms, creating pressure and releasing pressure at set intervals. In the standard KAATSU device, it’s 30 seconds of compression followed by five seconds of release, and each subsequent compression provides slightly more pressure.

This incremental increase in pressure is really where the magic lies, and it’s taken Sato more than 30 years of experimentation to find just the right “sweet spots” to trigger the greatest improvements.

“The second difference between standard BFR, as we know it in the physical therapy world, and KAATSU is the shape of the air bladder inside the band,” Munatones says. “With KAATSU, there is a narrow air bladder, and when it inflates, it inflates in an oval shape.

That oval shape means the pressure on the arterial flow is minimal, but the pressure on the Venus flow, from your limbs back to your torso, is much greater. That is the secret that Dr. Sato found. He wanted to engorge the vascular tissue of your limbs in blood. That’s the catalyst for all of these biochemical changes.”

This is why I no longer recommend using inexpensive BFR bands because conventional BFR will not produce benefits anywhere nearly as good. There’s risk of injury there, and you can’t get the same benefits. Unfortunately, many physical therapists still do not understand that BFR and KAATSU are really two different things. Munatones comments:

“The current state of the physical therapy market is more [focused on] muscle growth. Muscle hypertrophy is the goal of BFR. Sato and his team of cardiologists in Tokyo were also focused on muscle, but they were specifically focused on the vascular tissue. The key patent of Dr. Sato is the strengthening of the vascular tissue.

They knew that if they made our vascular tissue more elastic, basically antiaging, enabling our vascular tissue to be as elastic as it was when we were in our teens and our 20s, that would be a catalyst for hormonal production — everything from nitric oxide, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), brain derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) and hundreds of other beneficial myokines.

So, their focus was engorging the limb in blood to the point where your hands or feet get pink, rosy, and in some cases, if you’ve been doing it long enough, a dark red. We want the vascular tissue of our arms and legs to be very, very much engorged in blood …

Engorged in blood, you feel that lactate, you feel that metabolic waste build up very efficiently. That’s the real focus. We focus on the vascular tissue and the resultant hormonal response as opposed to muscular strength.”

Twice a week, Munatones provides free Q&A sessions during which you can ask questions about KAATSU (sign up for the KAATSU Q&A Zoom sessions here). I’ve attended a few of those and was surprised to find that most people don’t use KAATSU with any weight. They’re just wearing the bands while doing chores or activities of daily living, and that’s enough to see improvement.

“The non-athletes who start KAATSU doing average everyday things, once they see their increased strength, once they start looking in the mirror and seeing some definition in their arms, their core, their legs, they get motivationally excited to do more,” Munatones says.

“It’s really great to see this migration from a non-athlete, sedentary lifestyle, to a much more active one, and that drive is coming from inside themselves.

On the other side of the spectrum, you have the athletic population, that former college athlete, that former high school quarterback, or she might be a runner, a rower, a basketball player. Now they’re older and they know how to push themselves.

They typically are the exact opposite. They start lifting with heavy weights and say, ‘God, I can’t do much more than 10 minutes.’ I go, ‘Wait, wait, stop. Don’t be so aggressive. Be gentle, slow down. I’d rather you use the KAATSU cycle for 45 minutes than 10 minutes.’

And they go, ‘Oh, you mean I could still get the benefits of exercise, muscle building, stamina increase, if I slow down? If I don’t use heavy weights? If I’m not as intense?’ And I go, ‘Yes.’

So these former athletes start coming down the intensity scale. So it’s very interesting seeing the non-athletes sort of go up the intensity scale, and the former athletes or athletes come down the intensity scale. They all sort of meet in this happy median in the middle.”

An added boon is that you don’t need recovery days. You can use KAATSU every day if you want. I used to do conventional strength training twice a week and KAATSU five days a week. Now, I no longer do conventional strength training at all and I am able to train every day with KAATSU without the need for recovery days. At most, I use 30% of my one rep max, with KAATSU, which allows me to work out longer and more frequently.

“We call it ‘time under tension,'” Munatones says. “How much total time, let’s say, in a one-week period do you have the bands inflated on your arms? To do long-term sustained time under tension, you absolutely have to use the KAATSU cycle and you absolutely have to do it with non-intense, non-all-out vigorous movement.

Walking is great. Some people do Pilates, some people do yoga, some people actually just sit and watch Netflix. We have a lot of people who are older, they’re in retail, or they are in law enforcement. Let’s say they’re on their feet all day long and they come back home and they just want to be off their feet. They sit back on the couch, put the KAATSU bands on their legs and have a great recovery session.”

Anyone who’s familiar with exercise knows you start with a warmup, then you do the exercise itself, followed by a cool-down session. KAATSU can be beneficial during all of these phases. It is limb-specific, though. If you have the bands on your arms, it’s not going to warm up or help recovery in your legs. So place the bands on the limbs you’re working that day.

Never use arm bands and leg bands simultaneously. It’s either one or the other. Using it on arms and legs at the same time could cause a dangerous drop in blood pressure.

“Quite often, our elite athletes, our competitive athletes … use it before they get to the gym, before they get to the track, before they get to the pool, so when they start their traditional warmup, their vascular tissue is already ready to go.

And so, if we talk to our track athlete, they’ll say ‘I feel light on my feet.’ If we’re talking to a basketball player, volleyball player, they’ll say ‘I’m already jumping near my vertical leap max.’

So they’re using it before, they’re using it during, and very importantly, afterwards — after they’ve taken a shower, they could be hydrating, they could be talking with their friends. Whatever body part they focused on in that workout, they’re throwing the bands on, 30 seconds pressure on, five seconds pressure off.

During that five seconds, metabolic waste is being whooshed out and, therefore, they are ready for the next workout the next day. And that’s why, if you’re using KAATSU seven days a week, there really is no need for a rest day.”

On a side note, if you don’t want to use weights or a cable resistance machine, both of which can get pricey, loop resistance bands are an inexpensive alternative that work great. It’s like a giant rubber band and it comes in a variety of resistances, from 5 pounds of resistance all the way up to 300 pounds.

With KAATSU, all you need are two or three of the smallest bands, and you can do virtually every type of exercise with these bands that you can do on a cable resistance machine, which, in my view, is one of the best pieces of strength training equipment out there.

KAATSU also helps with the mind-muscle connection. Most bodybuilders will tell you that you have to focus on the muscle you’re working. Just mindlessly moving through a range of motion with weight will not suffice. Sato was well aware of this as well. When you slow down the movement and focus on contracting the muscle, you’ll feel the lactate build up.

The same principle applies when rehabilitating from a stroke or an injury that’s affecting one side of your body. In this case, place the KAATSU band on the injured side, say the right arm, and then perform a movement with that arm. For example, you could hold a toothbrush or hairbrush, and then go through the movement of brushing your teeth or hair while focusing on the muscle involved in the movement.

“Boy, when I saw the effect of that mind-muscle focus on able-bodied people and then people who were injured or disabled, it really opened my eyes to what KAATSU can do for people,” Munatones says.

I’m really excited about KAATSU because, to me, it’s the ideal form of exercise for the elderly and those who have been sedentary for a long time and will die prematurely if they don’t get some type of exercise intervention. And again, while constant-pressure BFR bands can give you some benefits, it’s the regular and consistent releasing of pressure that activates the anti-inflammatory myokines, which I exponentially lower when wearing static bands.

When wearing the KAATSU bands for 45 minutes, you’re cycling the pressure on and off twice per minute, so you’re getting a lot of activations. With that, you’re also getting a lot of hormonal cascades. With constant-pressure BFR, your muscles will grow, but over time they’ll get spastic. I experienced this first-hand. So now, I never use constant tension. I always use cycle mode. As noted by Munatones:

“You use less weight, less resistance for more muscle, you do less intensity for better results. On the face of it, on the macro level, it doesn’t make sense. But if you look at it at a micro level, what is actually happening within the body as you engorge limb in blood, KAATSU makes a whole lot of sense.”

KAATSU is also a superior choice for athletes. I’ve already mentioned how they use it for warmups and cool downs. Many professional athletes also use KAATSU during practice, but with different protocols. Munatones explains:

“For example, if we’re working with Olympic track athletes, they could be using their bands while working on their starts, or that first hurdle on the hurdles. They typically will do a KAATSU cycle to warm up. If they’re doing a very specific motion in the starting blocks, they’ll use it in constant mode there, and then release the bands.

This is very important for athletes. We found that the human growth hormone, and most of the hormones that are released, are released about 12 to 15 minutes after you take off the bands. So the maximal production of hormones isn’t when you have the bands on. There’s a time delay. So what does that mean?

Now, when we share that information with a professional athlete, let’s say an NBA player who’s in the NBA dunk contest. Well, they’ll KAATSU, ideally, 15 minutes before they get on the court to do their dunk. They want to maximize their physicality when their hormones, their adrenaline, their beta endorphins, et cetera are flowing. You want to perform at that point in time.

So, we basically backdate; we go back and say, OK, let’s say at 12 noon, you know that your race is going to start, so let’s finish the KAATSU session at 11:45. That gives you enough time to put on your jersey, get ready, et cetera. Same thing in between periods, in between halves. We have everybody from high schoolers, to college athletes, to pros, that are using the bands.

This actually came from the Japanese pitchers who are using the bands in between innings. So it’s a nine-inning game. Let’s say they pitched six innings, they were recovering in between the first and second and third and fourth inning.

We did a test with the equivalent of the NCAA baseball players in Japan, and found, for those who use KAATSU exclusively, their pitch count and their number of innings that they pitched increased over the whole season versus the control group that did not use KAATSU during that season …

At the Olympics, especially for 100-, 200- and 400-meter runners, you’ve got three races: the preliminary heats, the semi-final heats and the final heats within one 36-hour period. They’re doing KAATSU in between the pre-lims and semi-finals, and between the semi-finals and finals, simply to get that body back to 100% as quickly as possible.

We also have professional-level arm wrestlers. In a tournament, you might have as many as five, six or seven arm matches within a very short period of time. As soon as they’re finished, we want that metabolic waste whooshed out. So they throw on the KAATSU bands on both arms and do some KAATSU [in between matches.”

KAATSU is also being used by submariners, truck drivers and people in other sedentary professions.

“If you’re a submariner, you’re pretty confined for months on end. You’re living in a small space, obviously there’s some stress involved, just dog some simple bicep curls, hand clenches, tricep extensions and squats by your bunk,” Munatones says.

“These are all innovative ways we use KAATSU. For long distance haulers, truck drivers, this is an ideal way, in a confined space, that you can get a workout if you don’t have the luxury of going to the gym.

Or, you might be on a business trip. Maybe you’re at a convention and you’ve been on your feet all day. By the time you get back to your hotel room, you’re just exhausted. Throw it on there.

We’re in 49 countries around the world. It’s really a heartfelt labor of love that we’re doing. We hear so many stories that are really touching, and that drives us every single day. So if people are interested, they’re very welcome to attend our Tuesday and Thursday one-hour sessions.”

You can sign up for these free KAATSU Q&A Zoom sessions here. The next three sessions will be held March 21, 23 and 28 at 9 a.m. Pacific time. Whether you’re elderly, recovering from an injury, a professional athlete or someone in a sedentary profession, KAATSU can be a real game changer. To learn more, check out my previous article, “How to Stay Fit for Life,” in which I review the science behind KAATSU and explain in greater detail how to use it.

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• One in 4 Americans over the age of 45 is on a statin drug to lower their cholesterol

• While statins may decrease the frequency of mild heart attacks, they will not necessarily lower your risk of heart disease or death from a major heart attack because of the damage they cause to your muscles, including your heart muscle

• Statins lower your cholesterol, which is an important precursor for many of your steroid hormones, including progesterone, testosterone, aldosterone, cortisol and vitamin D

• Statin drugs deplete your body of CoQ10, vitamin K2, dolichol and selenium, and prevent the production of HMG co-enzyme A reductase (an enzyme your liver uses to make ketones)

• Exposure to glyphosate and electromagnetic fields from wireless technologies also harm your health, especially your heart

Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published January 28, 2018.

One in 4 Americans over the age of 45 is on a statin drug to lower their cholesterol. Are these drugs really as bad as some of the evidence suggests — or might they be even worse than suspected? Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., is a senior research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) whom I’ve interviewed on a number of occasions.

She’s an absolute treasure trove of valuable health information. Here, we discuss statin drugs, which are also featured in her fictional book, “Cindy and Erica’s Obsession to Solve the Healthcare Crisis in America,” for which I wrote the foreword. The story, while fictional, is based on Seneff’s own life and passion for science, and delves into autism, Alzheimer’s, statins, vaccines, glyphosate and more.

In this interview, we focus on another book, “The Dark Side of Statins: Plus, the Wonder of Cholesterol,”

the last one written by Dr. Duane Graveline, who himself was a victim of statin side effects and died from complications related to statin use. Seneff’s husband was also severely affected by statins, which triggered her scientific exploration into these popular drugs.

“He really changed my career by getting sick,” she says. “He was diagnosed with heart disease 10 years ago and put on a high-dose statin — four times the normal dosage. The doctor said, ‘You have to take this for the rest of your life. If you don’t, I will no longer be your doctor.’ And he immediately started suffering from side effects — muscle pains and weakness; even the road rage and behavioral changes.

I just knew this drug wasn’t working and I started researching statins … In fact, I started doing it as part of my work at MIT. I started analyzing statin side effects and finding all kinds of horrible things. He got off them after a year. He slowly tapered it down and I’m happy to say he’s statin free and doing great at this point, 10 years later. His doctors keep on reminding him [to go back on a statin] and he keeps on telling them no, politely.”

As noted by Seneff, it’s pretty easy to overestimate the benefits of statins by confusing people with absolute and relative risk. This is a statistical trick used quite frequently to demonstrate drug effectiveness. Seneff explains:

“They do a study in which the absolute risk is very rare. Let’s say 2 percent of the population is actually expected to have whatever it is they’re monitoring, like, say, a heart attack. They then look over a period of time and find that 2 percent of the control group has the occurrence [they’re looking for, in this case a heart attack] and the treatment group has, let’s say, 1.5 percent instead of 2 percent.

That’s a 0.5 percent decreased risk from [the individual’s] standpoint, but from their standpoint, it’s a 25 percent improved performance because it’s 0.5 out of 2 — one-quarter of the relative risk has been taken away. Therefore, it’s a 25 percent improvement, which sounds much better than 0.5 percent.”

Unfortunately, while statins may decrease the frequency of mild heart attacks, they will not necessarily lower your risk of heart disease or death from a major heart attack because of the damage they do to your muscles, including your heart muscle. On a side note, statins’ ability to lower the risk of minor heart attacks is likely related to their ability to lower C-reactive protein, far more so than the lowering of cholesterol.

However, according to Graveline, you only need one-tenth of the dosage, say 2 milligrams (mg) rather than 20 mg to get this anti-inflammatory benefit, and there are far safer and more effective ways to lower inflammation than taking a statin, even at a low dosage. As Seneff says, “You’re trading heart attack for heart failure, and I think a heart attack is preferred over heart failure.” There are three primary reasons why statins fail to decrease the rate of death from heart disease:

1. Statins lower your cholesterol, which is an important precursor for many of your steroid hormones, including progesterone, testosterone, aldosterone, cortisol and vitamin D. Cholesterol sulfate (produced when you expose your skin to the sun) enters cell membranes and helps build structured water that protects against oxidative damage. Cholesterol is also needed to create DHEA sulfate.

2. They also deplete your body of Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), which is needed for muscle health, and lowers your levels of vitamin K2 and HMG co-enzyme A reductase, the latter of which is an enzyme your liver uses to make ketones. So, if you’re on a statin drug, you have dramatically impaired ketone production, even if you’re fasting.

3. Statins also lower dolichol, which Graveline believed is just as important as CoQ10. Not only does dolichol play an important role in mitochondrial function, it is also responsible for the process of putting sugar chains on top of glycosylated proteins. This is important because these so-called glycosaminoglycans help maintain the barrier function in the cell and regulate the uptake of nutrients.

   In practical terms, this means that your muscle cells (including your heart cells), which require lots of energy, get heavily impacted by statins. One side effect from lack of dolichol is Type 2 diabetes, and statins have indeed been found to cause drug-induced diabetes. Dolichol also fixes DNA mistakes. CoQ10, a powerful antioxidant, also helps, and both of these DNA “repair masters” are depleted by statins.

Contrary to popular belief, high cholesterol is not a primary risk factor for heart disease. It’s actually a vital nutrient needed for health that shouldn’t be artificially and indiscriminately suppressed.

“That’s absolutely true,” Seneff says. “When my husband was prescribed a statin, I knew cholesterol was vitally important to the body and I knew there was high concentrations in the brain.

Two percent of the body’s weight and 25 percent of the body’s cholesterol in the brain. So, you don’t want to mess with losing cholesterol in your brain. Of course, statin side effects include a lot of cognitive issues and that was one of the things that faced Graveline.

He suffered something called transient global amnesia after taking statins for about three months. The doctors said, ‘No way the statin could be causing that,’ but he wanted to [stop taking] it anyway … A year later, the doctor said, ‘Well, the statin didn’t cause it, so you should go back on the statin because you still have high cholesterol.’

He went back on [the statin] and shortly thereafter he had another episode of transient global amnesia. From that point on, he stopped taking the statin.

Then he became obsessed and wrote several books on statins … [H]e died of an ALS-like condition, which he suspected the statins had contributed toward … [I]n the book he says, ‘Statins make you grow older faster.’ And I think that’s a very good way to describe them.

They give you all the things you get when you get older, faster. And since you never got old before, you don’t know how fast you’re supposed to get old, so you just think, ‘Well, I’m getting old. This is just the way it is.’ And it’s not. It should be much, much slower … So, everyone gets duped. Each person individually gets old fast and doesn’t realize that’s happening to them because of the statin.”

Two factors that can have a significant impact on your heart health and risk of heart disease are exposure to glyphosate-containing pesticides and electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Seneff touches on both of these issues in this interview, noting that each also has a tendency to worsen the effects of the other. “I think glyphosate messes up your natural electrical system, which makes you much more susceptible to EMFs,” she says.

Considering the evidence, I firmly believe excessive exposure to microwave radiation from cellphones and other wireless technologies are a hidden and completely ignored contributor to heart disease. While evaluating studies showing you can radically reduce biological microwave damage using calcium channel blockers, Martin Pall, Ph.D., discovered a previously unknown mechanism of biological harm from microwaves emitted by wireless technologies.

Embedded in your cell membranes are voltage gated calcium channels (VGCCs), which are activated by microwaves. When that happens, they open up, allowing a massive influx of intracellular calcium, which in turn stimulates the release of nitric oxide (NO).

Inside your cell and mitochondria, this NO combines with superoxide to form peroxynitrite. Not only do peroxynitrites cause oxidative damage, they also create hydroxyl free radicals, which are profoundly destructive and cause mitochondrial dysfunction.

One of the tissues with the highest density of VGCCs is the pacemaker in your heart. What the research tells us is that excessive microwave exposure can be a direct contributor to conditions such as cardiac arrhythmias.

According to Seneff, EMFs also contribute to arterial calcification (blocked arteries). So, if you care about your heart health, and/or already struggle with heart problems, you’ll want to make sure you:

• Avoid carrying your cellphone in a pocket near your heart

• Avoid using portable computers and tablets

• Turn off your cellphone at night, as even if you are not talking it can damage you up to 30 feet away unless it’s in airplane mode with Bluetooth and location services turned off

• Turn off your Wi-Fi at night (ideally in the day also)

• Most importantly, turn off the electricity to your bedroom at the circuit breaker each night. This typically works for most bedrooms unless you have a room or rooms adjacent to your bedroom, in which case you might need to shut that off too. This will radically lower electric and magnetic fields while you sleep. If you need a clock you can use a battery-operated one and even better a talking clock with no light that can be picked up on Amazon

Both glyphosate and EMF exposure have dramatically increased in recent decades. Between 1974 (the year glyphosate entered the U.S. market and just over two decades before GE crops were introduced) and 2014, glyphosate use in the U.S. increased more than 250-fold. Globally, glyphosate use rose nearly fifteenfold since 1996, two years after the first GE crops hit the market.

Recent research shows that while few individuals had detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine in 1993, by 2016, 70% of them had it.

Overall, the prevalence of human exposure to glyphosate increased by 500% during the study period (1993 to 2016), while actual levels of the chemical in people’s bodies increased by an astounding 1,208%.

Seneff has done a lot of research on glyphosate, teasing out a number of mechanisms by which it causes biological harm. Much of this was discussed in “Roundup Herbicide May Be Most Important Factor in Development of Chronic Disease.”

More recently, Seneff and her research partner, Anthony Samsel, a research scientist and environmental and public health consultant, have found a significant amount of circumstantial evidence suggesting the chemical takes the place of glycine (an amino acid) in proteins, thereby impairing trypsin’s function, which is to digest proteins.

This increases the proteins’ allergenic potential. Glyphosate also causes leaky gut, allowing undigested proteins access to your general blood circulation. The end result is autoimmune disease, as your immune cells go into overdrive. “We have an epidemic in all kinds of different autoimmune diseases and food allergies, and I think all of that traces back to glyphosate,” she says.

The “gly” in glyphosate actually stands for “glycine,” which is one of the most common and also the smallest amino acid. So, glyphosate is basically a glycine molecule with a side chain attached to the nitrogen atom, and even though it’s a modified glycine molecule, it’s still glycine. This is why it can replace the regular amino acid glycine in your system. Unfortunately, it’s now toxic. Seneff explains:

“Certain proteins have certain glycines that absolutely have to be glycine in order for them to work properly. A good example is myosin. Myosin in the muscles [allow for] muscle contraction. It’s a really important protein in the muscles for movement. It has a glycine at position 699 in the amino acid sequence. If you change that glycine into alanine, which is to say you add one extra methyl group, it ruins the protein.

It only has 1 percent capacity to contract. It loses 99 percent of its capacity to contract. Really amazing. So, if you put glyphosate instead of glycine, you’re going to have at least as bad an effect as you would with alanine, and probably worse. It will cripple the protein and maybe that’s how you get chronic fatigue syndrome.”

Collagen also contains large amounts of glycine, and we have an epidemic of joint pain, back pain, knee and hip pain. These too may well be the result of glyphosate exposure. Glyphosate also impairs health by causing imbalance in your gut microbiome, and by weakening your immune system. Seneff explains:

“The neutrophils are unable to do their job and then the tryptophan gets squirreled away inside the macrophages as kynurenine, [which] then gets taken over to the brain, causing all kinds of trouble in the brain.

So, there’s this whole complicated thing that’s going on between the brain and the gut — the gut-brain axis communication system — with the microbes being messed up by the glyphosate, the gut being leaky, and the leaky gut barrier introducing a leaky brain barrier.

So, the barriers are all leaky. The placental barrier is leaky too, so the placenta gets in trouble during pregnancy. All this stuff that’s happening because of glyphosate. It’s such a cascade.”

Glyphosate also depletes food of tryptophan by impairing the shikimate pathway in the plant. As a result, food is becoming increasingly tryptophan depleted, leading to widespread deficiency. Eventually, you can get into a situation where the tryptophan gets totally depleted, and when your liver doesn’t get enough, it cannot make enough N-arachidonoyl dopamine (NADA) — one of the most important signaling molecules in your body — because NADA depends on tryptophan.

Downstream, you may also end up with serotonin and melatonin deficiency in the brain, which can lead to sleep disorders, depression and violent or suicidal behavior. Aside from tryptophan, disruption of the shikimate pathway also decreases all of the other aromatic amino acids, including tyrosine and phenylalanine, along with all of their derivatives, which include dopamine and melanin and folate.

As mentioned, statin drugs deplete your body of a number of important nutrients. For this reason, Graveline recommends taking the following supplements if you’re on a statin drug:

• Ubiquinol, the reduced version of CoQ10.

• Folate — Avoid folic acid, the synthetic version of folate, as it is oxidized and will use up a lot of antioxidant capacity in your liver to turn it into folate. Moreover, if you have been exposed to glyphosate, your body’s ability to do this will be impaired. A good supplement form is 5-methyltetrahydrofolate (5-MTHF).

• Vitamin C — Your best bet here is to simply eat vitamin C-rich foods, and only take a vitamin C supplement if you’re feeling ill. The liposomal version of vitamin C is very effective. I typically recommend taking it every hour until you feel better. Liposomal vitamin C may also help abort an allergic reaction when taken in high amounts.

• Selenium — Statins wreak havoc with selenoproteins, so a selenium supplement is advisable. In fact, most people need to take supplemental selenium.

• Lecithin — I’m not a big fan of lecithin and I would suggest simply eating one whole organic, pastured egg per day instead. Lecithin is phosphatidylcholine, which eggs contain plenty of. If opting for a supplement, I recommend using a liposomal form. Also make sure it’s not made from genetically engineered soy. A safer alternative is organic sunflower lecithin.

• Animal-based omega-3 fats — Ideal sources include small fatty fish such as sardines and anchovies and salmon roe. Ideally, check your omega-3 index to make sure you’re in a healthy range.

• D-Ribose, as statins interfere with D-Ribose processing.

• Magnesium — Most people are deficient in magnesium, but if you’re on a statin, you may be at even greater risk. Having low magnesium also raises your risk of suffering adverse effects from EMF, as magnesium is a natural calcium channel blocker. When you take high enough doses of magnesium, you actually lower your risk for developing damage from EMFs.

• Alpha lipoic acid — This is a sulfur-containing molecule which may be part of its benefit.

• Vitamin K2 — Statins block the K2 pathway and impair vitamin K2 absorption, and K2 is important for the prevention of arterial calcification, as it helps shuttle calcium out of soft tissues into your teeth and bones, where it belongs.

• Pyrroloquinoline quinone, more commonly known as PQQ. Similar to CoQ10, PQQ helps improve mitochondrial function.

That statins have proliferated the way they have is a testimony to the power of marketing, corruption and corporate greed, because the odds are very high — greater than 100 to 1 — that if you’re taking a statin, you don’t really need it. The only subgroup of people I believe might benefit from it are those born with a genetic defect called familial hypercholesterolemia, as this makes them resistant to traditional measures of normalizing cholesterol.

Even more importantly, cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease. Heart disease is largely caused by inflammation, as several experts have explained in detail, including Dr. Ron Rosedale, Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, Dr. Stephen Sinatra and Stephanie Seneff. Increased cholesterol is your body’s natural response to inflammation. It is wrongly blamed because it’s found at the “scene of the crime,” but it’s not the criminal.

If your physician is urging you to check your total cholesterol, then you should know that this test will tell you virtually nothing about your risk of heart disease unless it is 330 or higher. HDL percentage is a far more potent indicator for heart disease risk. Here are the two ratios you should pay attention to:

• HDL/Total Cholesterol Ratio — Should ideally be above 24%. If below 10%, you have a significantly elevated risk for heart disease.

• Triglyceride/HDL Ratio — Should be below 2%.

Remember, your body needs cholesterol. It is important in the production of cell membranes, hormones, vitamin D and bile acids that help you to digest fat. Cholesterol also helps your brain form memories and is vital to your neurological function. There is also strong evidence that having too little cholesterol actually increases your risk for cancer, memory loss, Parkinson’s disease, hormonal imbalances, stroke, depression, suicide and violent behavior.

So, please, think long and hard before filling a prescription for a statin drug, and begin by implementing healthy lifestyle strategies instead. You can find a long list of articles detailing heart healthy strategies here.

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