Stress and your health

Most of us feel some kind of stress every day.

The dictionary defines stress as physical, mental, or emotional strain or tension. Everyday 87% of the population lives under this type of stress. We worry about money, children, jobs, our spouse or significant other and hundreds of other things on a daily basis.

Just driving to the corner store can cause tension as you dodge that crazy driver or see the price of gas at the pump.

Some people are very aware of the strain and tension in their life, but many of us live with stress that we don't see or are unwilling to admit we have. We just go about our daily life thinking this is the way it is supposed to be, the norm. We build our lives and behaviors around stress.

Dealing with stress is something we can manage. There are things we can do to counteract the negative effects stress has on our bodies.

First and foremost, the best way to alleviate the problems associated with stress is to get rid of the stress in our lives.

Some things we can do include learning relaxation techniques and ridding yourself of stressful habits.

We are all different and we deal with everyday situations in different ways, but we can all learn to reduce the stress in our life.

Second, because it is impossible to get rid of all stress, we need to give our bodies the things it needs to be healthy and overcome the ill effects that stress creates.

The top 3 things you can do are:

1. Provide you body with the nutrients it needs.

When your body is under stress , the stomach shuts down so even if you are eating a good diet, your body isn't getting what it needs.

Most people believe that by adding supplements to your diet you can provide your body the nutrients it isn't getting from the foods you don't digest.

This would be true if your body could absorb these concentrated nutrients, but remember your stomach has shut down so the supplements you take just pass on though on a nice little siteseeing tour of your digestive tract.

However, there is one company that makes vitamins and supplements that can be absorbed by the body when it is under stress.

They have created a vitamin pack that provides your body with over 80 bionutrients. It has 14 patents on its delivery system. This means it is guaranteed to get the nutrients to your cells where they are needed and not just take them on a nice ride through your digestive tract.

2. Boost your immune system.

Stress makes our bodies more susceptible to disease. It lowers your overall immunity and it creates a situation where a majority of you immune system is battling disease in your colon.

Interferon was discovered over 50 years ago by a Japanese researcher, Dr. Kojima. It is a natural part of your body and it helps keep your immune system working at its top level.

Dr. Kojima spent a good portion of his life learning how interferon works with our immune system and helps our bodies defend themselves against disease. He learned how to put it into a form that we can take to boost our immunity by increasing our own natural production of interferon. It is a patented process and it can give you a supercharged immune system.

Again, there is only one company that has this patented product.

3. Get more protein.

Most people don't get enough protein. Stress causes the body to need more of it and so your body raids the muscles to get what it needs. When there is nothing to replace the muscle protein it gets replaced with fat. We slowly lose our shape and definition as we lose muscle.

Look at most people as they age, they lose their shape as the body slowly replaces their muscle with fat. But it is possible to give your body the protein it needs.

Adding more meat to our diet is not the best solution. Today, almost all commercial meat is contaminated in some way. The beef, pork and chicken you buy from the supermarket is pumped full of antibiotics.

A better solution is soy protein. This is a plant protein that has all the amino acids a human body needs. There is one company that has developed a way to get the protein out of the plant without damaging any of the amino acids. They also extract critical enzymes from the plant that allows our bodies to absorb the protein and use it to rebuild muscle. Without the enzymes, the cells can't use the protein properly.

So even though it might be impossible to live a life completely free from stress, it is possible to keep our bodies healthy by giving them the nutrients they need.

Our bodies are amazing machines, if you give them what they need, our bodies will maintain their health and even repair themselves.

Why:
When Roger Barnett purchased Shaklee in 2004, he repeatedly heard from Shaklee people first, how our products were the best and secondly, phenomenal health testimonies from allergies to arthritis, from acne to warts, from cancer to heart disease, with diabetes, Crohn's Disease and asthma thrown in for good measure. This was all well and good, but there had to be proof or the statements were only hearsay.

What:
Roger decided to pay for a comprehensive study comparing long term Shaklee supplement users to everyone else. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) had extensive data from a previously completed study on non-supplement users vs. supplement users, but not Shaklee. Roger wanted to add a third arm to the NHANES study, so there would be three groups compared:

1. Non Supplement Users
2. Other Brand Supplement Users
3. Shaklee Supplement Users for 20 years or longer

Who:
The premier research institution that had experience with the NHANES study was the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Gladys Block is considered one of the top epidemiologists in the country. The NHANES study is considered the most reputable study of its kind ever done.

How:
Dr. Block and her team at the UC-Berkeley required full control over:

1. How the study was conducted
2. Writing the results of the study
3. Publishing the study, even if the results were not beneficial for Shaklee.

UC-Berkeley ran all the statistics, analyzed all the blood draws and wrote the study. They had 100% control over the outcome, good or bad; and Shaklee had to pay either way.

Where:
Once the study was completed, UC-Berkeley had to contact a publisher. Shaklee wanted a peer reviewed publication, which means that other 3rd party scientists review everything that UC-Berkeley did to punch holes in the data. The importance of doing "peer review" studies is that these are the Gold standard for clinical trials, because you have an independent scientific panel of experts scrutinizing the data to make sure that it is absolutely accurate.

And What Does This Mean:
"I guarantee any other company would NOT have done this study, because they would be concerned about the possible outcome. We believed in our products and gave UC-Berkeley full control. You should be extremely proud of the results and because it will be'peer reviewed' nobody should argue with you regarding the merits of the data." Cindy Latham, Senior VP of Marketing, Shaklee Corporation.

Landmark Supplement Study Results

The three study groups are
1. Non Supplement Users
2. Users of Other Brands
3. Shaklee Supplement Users of Supplements for 20 years or longer

Incidents of Disease - percent of population

Heart Attack -----------------(1)7.4% (2)9.1% (3)2.5%
Congestive Heart Failure --(1)5.2% (2)5.1% (3)1.4%
Type 2 Diabetes --------------(1)11.6% (2)13.1% (3)2.9%

Key Biomarkers
HDL Cholesterol (mg/dL) - higher is better (1)50.9 (2)53.3 (3)57.5

Total Cholesterol (mg/dL) - below 200 is optimal (1)211.5 (2)212.1 (3)203.1

Triglycerides (mg/dL) - below 150 is optimal (1)180.1 (2)145.3 (3)121.0

C-Reactive Protein (mg/L) - below 3.0 is optimal (1)4.6 (2)3.2 (3)1.9

Homocysteine (mg/L) - below 10 is optimal (1)9.6 (2)9.1 (3)6.1

Vitamin C - higher is better (1)0.66 (2)0.94 (3)1.62

Vitamin E - higher is better (1)1.1 (2)1.4 (3)2.9

Total Iron Levels -

Men: below 200 is better (1)198.2 (2)205.2 (3)117.6

Women: over 100 is better (1)101.7 (2)74.9 (3)117.4

The average number of different drug Medicare patient prescriptions a person fills annually; including those filled once and those taken continuously

Non Supplement Users Over the age of 65: 19.1

Other Supplement Users Under the age of 65: 7.9

Shaklee person over 65: 0.6

(From the American Pharmacy Association)

Shaklee has raised the bar for the entire supplement industry.

What this means for you:

- The guessing is over; the people in the study listed the supplements they took daily and the top 8 are in Shaklee's Vitalizer.

- By taking Vitalizer, you can have a phenomenal edge on a healthy, vibrant, energized life.

- You will be taking the very best; no other company has products with these results.